progressive agenda

America Cowed: Are We Too Frightened to Forge Our Future?

Robert Borosage — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:57:15 -0400

Americans have grown fearful. Most believe, not surprisingly, that the country is headed in the wrong direction. For the first time ever, most Americans believe their children may not fare as well as they have. We spend nearly as much as the rest of the world combined on our military, chasing phantoms across the world. Conservatives in both parties rail about debt and deficits. They line up to support adding another $33 billion in emergency spending for the misbegotten war in Afghanistan, while blocking the $23 billion needed to forestall the layoff of a staggering 275,000 teachers across the country.

Washington is crazed about debt and deficits, but the real deficit is in fortitude, not finances. Consider the contrast between this country emerging from the Great Depression and World War II and now.

Then our debt was a far greater burden than now—over 120 percent of gross domestic product. The country had suffered a decade long Great Depression and a global war. The troops were coming home, but the entire economy was mobilized for war. Europe and Japan were devastated. And America was led by Harry S. Truman, a former haberdasher, product of the corrupt Pendergast machine in Kansas City.

But, having won the War, America had the confidence to face its future. Despite the massive debt, Congress passed the GI Bill, educating a generation of veterans. We financed the transformation of military factories to civilian production, investing in the industries—from aerospace to automobiles—that would transform the country. Congress passed subsidies to aid the purchase of homes, stimulating the growth of the suburbs. We passed the Marshall Plan to spur the rebuilding of Europe. A Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a hero of the war, put a lid on military spending, while building the Interstate Highway System.

With rare exceptions the country continued to run annual deficits and the accumulated debt continued to rise. But the country grew faster, the broad middle class—the triumph of American democracy—was forged, and the debt as a percentage of GDP declined steadily down to less than 32 percent when Ronald Reagan took office.

None of this was easy or smooth. There were strikes and upheavals. Inflation and unemployment plagued the post-war transition. The Korean War divided the country. Conservatives at the time were as timorous and noisome as they are now. Led by Ohio Senator Bob Taft, they opposed the creation of NATO. They railed about deficit spending. They waged war on labor unions. They hunted communists at home and abroad, trampling basic liberties in the process. They conjured up preposterous conspiracy theories about treachery within. American politics were even more poisonous than now. And black GIs returning from the war found that their service did not exempt them from the legalized apartheid that still scarred the country.

But a confident America didn't let the frightened and the crazed get in the way of doing what was necessary to forge a prosperous future. Eisenhower reaffirmed the New Deal reforms. Social Security was preserved; finance remained shackled; top end tax rates stayed at 90 percent; labor's right to organize was weakened but not gutted. A confident and broad middle class replaced the extreme inequality that contributed to the Great Depression. We all grew together.

The contrast with the present day is stark. Now as we remain mired in two costly and endless wars, and emerge from the Great Recession, the timorous have taken control. Our national debt—about 90% of GDP—is far lower a burden than it was after World War II, but our deficit in confidence is far higher.

Instead of forging the new economy needed to revive a broad and prosperous middle class, we are focused on balancing our accounts. With states and localities facing crippling budget crises, with school districts shutting down summer school, eliminating after school programs from athletics to tutorials, laying off teachers and increasing class size, the Congress blocks vitally needed bills to provide aid to states, and to put people to work. The president acknowledges a staggering public investment deficit in the foundations of a new economy —in education and training, modern infrastructure, research and development—and then calls for a three-year hard freeze on domestic spending, while the military budget continues to rise. Republicans and conservative Democrats join with the banking lobby to weaken financial reform, with Big Oil to frustrate the transition to new energy, with the insurance and drug companies to sustain an unaffordable health care system.

Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson enlists major foundations to rouse fears about debt, with "entitlements"— meaning Social Security and Medicare—as his major targets. The president sets up a deficit commission tasked with balancing the budget, not with defining the foundations of a new economy that would enable us to grow our way out of debt and rebuild a prosperous middle class.

President Obama is far better prepared for this moment than Harry S. Truman was. He has been clear about the need to build a new economy out of the ruins of the old. He has detailed core elements of that task—public investments in areas vital to our future, making the transition to new energy, balancing our trade and making things in America once more, shrinking finance and curbing the casino, empowering workers to gain a fair share of the profits and productivity they help produce, fixing our broken health care system -- the source of those terrifying long-term deficits that Peterson brandishes and distorts.

But the president is now in retreat. His call to action has been muddled by pollsters and positioning. Conservatives peddle fear and conspiracies as they did after World War II, but this time America's leaders are cowed, letting the frightened block the bold measures needed to forge our future.

Needless to say, our current circumstances are far different than those at the end of World War II. Then we were victorious; now we are losing in Afghanistan. Then we were unified; the entire nation had sacrificed in the Depression and the war. Now we are divided, more unequal than ever; and the wars are fought by professionals out of the public consciousness. Then we had pent-up private savings from years of wartime rationing; now household debt remains near record levels. Then the rest of the world was devastated; now America faces a surging and mercantilist Asia, and an export-addicted Germany.

But these are circumstances, not fate. The real contrast is in our confidence. Americans have grown fearful. We doubt our ability to pursue a common purpose. For good reason, we lack faith in our institutions—whether government or business or the banks. But instead of steeling our spine, we are daunted by the obstacles. Bluster substitutes for courage. We focus on balancing our accounts, not forging our future. That is a recipe for decline.

Progressive Challenge For 2010

Isaiah J. Poole — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:50:53 -0500

Co-directors Robert Borosage and Roger Hickey look back at the progressive movement in 2009 and discuss what it will take to win the political challenges of 2010. They argue that the past year has shown the necessity of an independent progressive movement to hold President Obama to his promises and to hold Congress accountable to the people. The political agenda they lay out for 2010 includes strengthening health care reform, keeping the economic recovery and job production on track, financial reform and protecting the social safety net.

To Obama From A Dying Friend

Paul Loeb — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:20:54 -0400

My friend Robert Ellis Gordon is dying of lupus, with months left to live. He’s spent more than a decade teaching writing to prison inmates, written a terrific book called The Fun House Mirror from those experiences and crafted a rave-reviewed novel, When Bobby Kennedy was a Moving Man, on Kennedy being sent back to earth to determine whether he deserved Heaven or Hell.

I often quote something Robert said to a group of fellow prison teachers, which seems an apt metaphor for any effort at change: “Some of the people we work with will already have redeemed their lives. Others, no matter what we do, will be back in here again. And for some, our efforts will make all the difference. We will never know which group is which, but that should not serve as a deterrent to our efforts.”

Robert just wrote this open letter to Obama, challenging him to reach for his deepest levels of courage in being honest about what we face after decades of pillaging our economy. I’ll miss his wise voice.

Dear Mr. President:

I am one, among millions, who recently received an email regarding your health care plan. Mr. Plouffe’s email requested personal stories.

As a fifty-five year old man who has lived with a rare and serious illness since 1989, and who was recently referred to hospice, I am, I suppose, no less qualified than others to write about the challenges and unlooked-for blessings that accompany a fatal disease.

Upon reflection, however, I realized my story would be less compelling than others. For I come from a generous family. True, we were raised to make our way in the world and I started to work at age fourteen. Some forty years later, however, when it became evident that I could no longer hold down a job, my family cut back on their expenses so that my basic needs would be met. Hence I will not die, as thousands of my counterparts do, alone and anonymous in a hospital room or in the streets.

So? I deleted Mr. Plouffe’s email and returned to the task at hand. But deleted or not I was distracted by the email, so much so that I left the computer and took my dog for a walk. At the park, as I tossed the squeaky ball to Rose, I asked myself a question: if given the opportunity to write a letter to the President -- a letter in which illness and impending death served a larger agenda-- what would I say to him?

The answer was immediate and impassioned: “Please level with the people. Now.”

What do I mean by level? And why this sense of urgency?

The urgency stems from the peril I see in an unbalanced presentation of your economic scenario. I do not mean to suggest that you speak only of the most dire predictions. We need a substantive message of hope. It’s been a long forty years since we heard one. But authentic hope, as you know better than most, is founded upon truth. You had the courage to speak it throughout your campaign, and the magnitude of your victory revealed a public yearning to hear it.

In order to sustain the trust of the people, it is imperative that you continue to feed this yearning. That you do as you did in your speech on race: speak to us as adults. Speak even more deeply from the heart as well as the head. Above all, speak in the spirit of Judge Learned Hand: “The spirit of liberty is the spirit of not being too sure.”

So even as you speak words of hope and quell our fears with your steady presence, let us know that you proceed in the spirit of not being too sure because you cannot be; because no one can be; because a global economic meltdown is unprecedented in scope and nature.

Tell the people, as FDR did, in a style that is true to yourself, that there’s no panacea for this catastrophe. A catastrophe that was decades in the making and is not yet fully understood. And that your approach, therefore, must be a flexible one that allows for a sliding scale of eventualities, among which is the possibility—remote or not-- that this economic Katrina may outrace your best efforts to both remedy the cause and mitigate the effects.

What is to be gained by leveling with the people now? And what are the consequences if you do not do so?

Your most precious resource, Mr. President, is neither your brilliance nor the elegance with which you wield the language. Your most precious resource is your credibility.

The consequences of an unbalanced presentation, one that tilts too heavily toward the rosy?

No adverse consequences if that scenario unfolds.

But if worse continues to lead to worse as numerous economists predict, and you deny yourself political cover by not allowing for that eventuality?

Your popularity will prove thin and short-lived. You will lose your credibility. Quickly. And once relinquished, it can’t be restored.

Should you lose your credibility the people will, at the least, dismiss you as yet another president in a long line of presidents who opted to not be statesmen. As for your ability to summon our better angels? That remarkable gift will be squandered.

And that’s the best case scenario, Mr. President.

The worst?

If , in the absence of a credible President, tens of millions—millions who are ill-prepared for adversity—find themselves living in a state of deprivation and want? And if fear of the unknown starts feeding upon itself?

The people may, as they have in the past, turn to a leader who uses the energy of ignorance and fear to summon our darkest impulses. We don’t have to travel back to the Trail of Tears to recognize our capacity for looking the other way while our government pursues a policy of genocide.

We don’t have to travel back to the torture and murder of Emmett Till to recognize our capacity for denying the humanity of a child.

Joe McCarthy’s sheet of paper?

Ancient history.

A mere nine months ago John McCain chose a running mate who proved masterful at inciting fear and hatred of “the other.” And if worse continues to lead to worse in the absence of a credible president, the hatred we saw on the periphery of her crowds could move to the center and burst into flames that consume our better angels as they fan out.

On June 2nd the headline for the New York Times lead story ran beneath this headline: “Obama Is Upbeat For G.M. Future On A Day Of Pain.”

Upbeat on a day when the lives of 21,000 autoworkers and their families were shattered.

Upbeat on a day in which the closing of seven plants will translate into tens of thousands of shattered lives in other sectors of the auto industry.

Upbeat on a day when the Times ran an editorial devoted to yet a new wave of home foreclosures.

There’s a dissonance here, Mr. President. And even from the standpoint of political calculation— of the coldest Machiavellian calculation—this dissonance does not have to be. Last November the people rejected the politics of fear, rigidity, half-truths and lies, and embraced the politics of unity and truth. This was a tribute to our ability to discern and to the authentic nature of your message. A message of hope to be sure, but one that calls not for ease but sacrifice. And perhaps above all we came to appreciate a creative and compassionate vision that is tempered, at long last, by reality. Your vision represents the best and perhaps last hope for our children and for theirs.

You forged a bond with the people, Mr. President. But the glue hasn’t set and the glue will not set if you do not recalibrate your message.

The last and most important question: what is to be gained by leveling?

Perhaps the best way for me to address the positive, the potential for realizing your vision, is to circle back to Mr. Plouffe’s request, and speak to you in personal terms about the lessons of illness and impending death.

You may be familiar with this quote from the poet, Sylvia Plath. “If only you could see me forge my soul, fighting and fighting to forge my soul.”

Sylvia Plath succumbed to her despair, committed suicide in 1963. But her words still stand, maybe now more than ever, as tens of millions face the potential, at least, of entering the forging fire. And should that come to pass the people will look to you, just as the British looked to Churchill, for guidance, solace, and above all hope in the midst of their despair.

And where does my twenty-year dance with the fire fit into all of this? Where do you and I intersect? What have I learned that could possibly be of use to the President of the United States? What have I learned that might help this good man forge the soul of a nation?

Maybe something. Maybe nothing. But for what it’s worth I offer a glimpse of my journey and a couple of nuggets I’ve picked up along the way.

The first nugget?

That we forge our souls not for ourselves but in order to be better disciples of compassion.

And how does an obscure writer and former prison teacher make a contribution this late in the day with a timeline, in all likelihood, of months?

Below, an excerpt from a recent note to the doctor who saved my life on numerous occasions over the past two decades.

… Suffering may teach but it is not an end in and of itself. And when the pain abates, during windows of peace, I write.

I have a book to complete before I die. It is different from the others. I want to leave something behind that may serve as a source of solace to a reader here or there; a reader who wrestles with despair during this era of incomprehensible suffering.

All those high-risk infusions? The fatal infection you warn me about? And my choice to continue, to run the risk, in order to buy time to write?

Like any man I fear a painful death. But after receiving Extreme Unction on multiple occasions, I no longer fear death itself. What I fear is a life not well-lived. And the best way for me to do so during the time that remains is to complete that manuscript.

It’s just my body (not my soul) that is weary…

So that is my final task: to forge my soul on the page. I may die before I finish. Or I may risk all on the page and find that my skill is wanting; that the story implodes on itself. But if I fail in this task, I will do so in obscurity.

Because you sit where you sit, you don’t have that luxury.

What you do have is the opportunity and responsibility to explain how we got here and enumerate the full panoply of outcomes.

If the rosy scenario comes to pass? The people will know, by dint of your honesty, that you are neither above nor below but of them.

And if worse continues to lead to worse? If tens of millions find themselves living at the extremes of deprivation and want? And you’ve retained your credibility?

The dreams you’ve resurrected may still be realized. Realized in ways and to a degree that would be unlikely during less uncertain times.

You’ll be able to protect us, protect the children, from those who would prey upon fear and unleash violent thought, language and deed.

And as this economic Katrina continues to strengthen? As the people become increasingly aware that economic security is not a birthright? And are overwhelmed by a sense of vulnerability?

As the people walk through the fire together, the differences so artfully exploited by your predecessor will assume their proper perspective. And compassion may well fill the void. Shared adversity has a way of doing that.

And after the worst has passed, Mr. President? And the people, having been tempered by the fire, emerge stronger and more compassionate? Emerge with a visceral understanding of what it means to be dispossessed?

That, Mr. President, is when your vision may be realized. For the people who revealed a desire to serve at the outset of your candidacy, during times of relative prosperity, will still be here when the fire is extinguished. But the people will not be the same. They’ll be more able and willing to answer your call. And their progeny will learn through their example.

This is not to say that the fire is pleasant. At times it’s excruciating. I know that well. At times I want nothing more than to escape, and it is only faith that sustains me. Faith in God, yes, but also in man. Indeed, as I approach the River’s edge, the distinction between divinity without and divinity within seems merely to be one of choice. And a simple choice at that: towards violence or towards compassion.

This is your hour, Mr. President.

I, like you, am both a child of God and a member of the body politic. And as I ready myself to leave this bittersweet world, I want you to know that it affords me much peace to know that you are the President. A President who quietly rescued the Constitution. Who can forge the nation’s soul if the need arises. And who re-ignited the flame of hope and compassion months before the general election. A flame that was muted but not extinguished some forty years ago.

And this speaks to the most important lesson I’ve learned from my twenty-year dance with the fire. Certainly all people wish and deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion. But the human heart is bigger than that. We wish, as well, to experience our magnanimous natures, the divinity within. This is what Gandhi knew and tapped into. This is what my favorite saint knew: “It is in the giving that we receive.” And this, Mr. President, is what you know.

So. A dying man’s prayer for you and the nation: that the light that burns so brightly in you and your family will extend through generations. And if the children of the children choose to be their brothers and sisters’ keepers simply because they listen to their hearts; hearts that tell them they’re here to improve the lot of others?

Well, they may never know it was you who reminded their forbears of who they truly are. They may never even know your name.

But what of it?

If the words you spoke on election night come to fruition, they will not bring an end to suffering. But they will bring forth the better angels of which you speak; of which the last great candidate for president spoke.

And when I hear you summon our better angels forth, I hear echoes of the poet Robert Kennedy quoted on the darkest night of his brief campaign. And what greater legacy could he ask of you, and you, in turn, ask of us, than a renewed commitment to the age-old call to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world?

Sincerely,

Robert Ellis Gordon

Seattle, Washington

Robert Gordon is the author of When Bobby Kennedy Was a Moving Man and The Funhouse Mirror: Reflections on Prison. He’s written for Esquire, the Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe, Ploughshares, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and taught writing in Washington State prisons, juvenile institutions and inner-city high schools. He wrote Funhouse Mirror while undergoing chemotherapy, collaborating with six of his incarcerated students to let their voices be heard. The book won the 2000 Washington State Book Award. As one critic wrote of Bobby Kennedy, “Gordon’s vision is at once radical and healing. It teaches us a little about Heaven and a lot about Hell.” Robert can be reached at robertegordon@mac.com

America: A Center-Left Nation

Isaiah J. Poole — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:35:42 -0400

» Read the full report
» Blog: "Center-Left America"

Audio: Robert Borosage explains the report's findings..

Then-Sen. Barack Obama promised change during his White House campaign, and he ran on a distinctly progressive platform. Clean energy, affordable college, comprehensive health care reform. Obama’s victory capped off several years’ of sweeping Democratic electoral wins, each more progressive than the last.

But conventional wisdom still calls America a “center-right” nation. Immediately after the election, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham insisted that to govern successfully, Obama had to become a center-right leader in order to match America’s “instinctively conservative” streak.

Conventional wisdom is wrong.

America is more progressive than many people think. Public opinion shows the popularity of progressive policies. Demographics show the rise of progressive demographic groups. The new report we are publishing with Media Matters for America documents the trends and challenges the mainstream media to recognize reality.

Public opinion

Our report examines public opinion on a range of issues, from the role of government to universal health care.

Health care: "In general, would you favor or oppose a program that would increase the federal government's influence over the country's health care system in an attempt to lower costs and provide health care coverage to more Americans?"— CNN/Opinion Research Corporation, Feb. 18-19, 2009

Favor	72 percent
Oppose	27 percent

Energy: Would you prefer the government to increase, decrease, or not change the financial support and incentives it gives for producing energy from alternative sources such as wind and solar? —Gallup, March 5-8, 2009.

Increase	77 percent
Decrease	8 percent

Stimulus: “Which do you think is more effective in stimulating the nation's economy and creating jobs: An economic agenda focused on returning money to taxpayers through tax cuts, or an economic agenda focused on spending for improvements to the country's infrastructure such as roads, bridges and schools?” Los Angeles Times, December 6-8, 2008[i]

Infrastructure	54 percent
Tax Cuts	33 percent

Demographics

We examine population demographics, which are also pointing left. The bedrock voters of the conservative movement are growing older and declining in number. America is becoming an increasingly diverse, younger and more metropolitan.

Younger voters: People under 30 chose Obama for President by a full 34 point margin over McCain (66 percent to 32 percent). Even more impressive than the margin was the diversity. Obama scored a 91 point margin among young African Americans (95 percent to 4 percent), and a 57 point margin among young Hispanics (76 percent to 19 percent). He even won young whites by a 10 point margin (54 percent to 44 percent), a strong contrast to his 14 point deficit among whites aged 45 to 64 (42 to 56 percent).

Hispanic voters: Two-thirds (65 percent) of registered Hispanic voters identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. The gap is driven by the same issues that drive white voters — a general dissatisfaction with the state of the country, and their priority issues of education, health care and jobs. In the 2008 presidential election, Obama won Hispanics by 36 points (67 percent to 31 percent).

Unmarried Women: Women as a whole tend to lean Democratic, and Obama outscored McCain among women by 56 percent to 43 percent (compared to 49 percent to 48 percent among men). But this is only the tip of the iceberg. The most important hidden block is unmarried women, who chose Obama by a stunning 41 point margin (70 percent to 29 percent). Unmarried women are growing in number, and registering to vote in record numbers.

What it means

The wind is at our backs. It’s safe to push. It’s important that we do. We need to channel the energy of our center-left nation, and achieve the promise, not the compromise. The crisis is great, bold action is needed, and the people are hungry for progressive change.

Beyond Crisis Management: Obama's Next 1,361 Days

OurFuture.org Staff — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:53:20 -0400

President Obama passed the first 100 day mark this week with generally positive, or at least patient, reviews from the media, which has focused largely on his decisive handling the country's economic crisis. By signing the $787 billion stimulus bill and adopting other initiatives to restore a floor to the falling housing market, Obama provided tangible relief to millions of Americans who have lost, or are at risk of losing their jobs or their homes. At a time when comparisons to the Great Depression have become all too frequent, there's a lot to be said for that sort of response.

But it's important to note that the Obama administration's economic policy to date has been one of economic crisis management and not one that will achieve the deep structural change needed to provide sustained support to the average working American, whose earning power and job security has been eroding for decades. To make good on his campaign mantra of change, Obama still needs to create the framework for a progressive economy that will help Americans enjoy the fruits of their labor and reverse a trend of economic cycles defined by asset accumulation bubbles that have rewarded powerful corporate interests at the expense of the average worker.

Click the logo for more views on President Obama's first 100 days and the road ahead.

A lot of lip service has been paid in recent months to that average worker, yet most American workers were losing ground long before the current recession, suffering reduced earnings power even during periods of rapid economic growth. In 2007, the tail end of a seven-year growth cycle, some 26.4 percent of all U.S. workers earned poverty-level wages. The real incomes of middle-class families were lower at the end of the latest business cycle than they were when it started in 2000. That marks the first time since the Census Bureau began tracking this data in the 1940s, that real earnings power declined over the course of a business cycle, and provides sobering evidence that prosperity is eluding most workers even during times of strong growth in productivity. The Obama Administration should be commended for moving swiftly and aggressively to end the current recession but now it needs to it also needs to take steps to ensure that all Americans will benefit from the recovery.

That will require a sweeping change in a 30-year-trend of deregulating markets, which has proven to help powerful corporate interests claim bigger slices of our national pie. There are also substantial and achievable policy changes that can be implemented with bold action from the President and Congress that will lead to a progressive economy. Contrary to our current economic system,which leaves many workers out of the growth equation, our approach is for growth that is sustainable and broadly shared. Our vision links workers' increased productivity with enhanced living standards while they are working as well as after they retire. It means strengthening the social safety net to keep people out of poverty when jobs are not available to all. To achieve this vision, we need and a vibrant economy characterized by innovation and growth.

Labor Policy

The architecture of a progressive economy is built on the foundation of policy that empowers workers to equitably share in the income gains they help produce. Laws supporting workers who choose to organize is an essential tool in this effort.

Unions provide workers with a number of clear advantages, including a premium in wages and benefits that are especially significant for minority workers. But they also benefit management. Job security for workers translates into reduced turnover, more predictable costs, and less employee volatility. An organized work force can leads to greater productivity as well as higher wages, a classic "win-win" scenario.

Jobs

In addition to seeking to regain the millions of jobs lost in during this recession, we must also use the tools and resources of government to promote job creation. The goal of stimulus act is to create 3.5 million jobs, but that is less than half of what is needed just to return to December 2007 levels of unemployment -- and those levels were already too high. The Obama administration should commit to a full employment strategy, and this will require substantial investment in a public jobs program. Lowering interest rates, the typical policy tool for creating jobs, has been rendered ineffective as they currently close to zero.

And yet, at a time that so many people who have jobs are living in poverty, creating more jobs is not in itself enough to truly build a progressive economy. Those jobs must allow workers to earn adequate wages. EPI proposes that as a minimum, wages be at least 50 percent of the hourly wage for private, non-supervisory workers--and provide benefits including access to health care. Industries built around energy efficiency and renewable energy provide a unique opportunity to add an engine to the economy that will sustain growth that can be broadly shared.

Retirement Security

Americans are coming to terms with the insecurity they face in retirement with a system that subjects them to so much market risk. The Obama administration should seek to capture revenue lost from 401(k) tax breaks and fund a public retirement system that, combined with equal contributions from employees and employers, goes a long way to ensuring Americans have adequate income in retirement.

Justice

A big component of any progressive agenda is justice. Government's responsibility is to make sure it distributes resources and opportunities fairly. Trillions have been loaned or leveraged to help failing financial institutions and soften the fall for their investors, yet ordinary folks have seen no comparable government intervention despite their staggering losses.

Next Steps

The Obama budget, passed by Congress to the tune about $3.5 billion, plans for investments in education, health care and energy, which are all necessary first stems in creating a progressive economic agenda. But much more work remains to achieve comprehensive immigration reform, trade policy that promotes domestic manufacturing and supports workers, and a public investment program that endures beyond the stimulus.

As part of a progressive economic agenda, Obama must ensure adequate revenues for necessary expansion in federal spending. In the near-term, that means spending what is required to soften the brunt of this long and deep recession. Longer term, it will require new tax policies such as imposing a financial transactions tax, a social security tax on higher incomes and maintaining the estate tax at least at current levels.

Reviewing the President's first 100 days can be a useful way of gauging his early accomplishments. But the passing grades he has earned so far in managing the crisis he inherited should not take away focus from his longer-term agenda. At a time of short news cycles and even shorter attention spans, it can be easy to forget that the economic contraction we are now experiencing was thirty years in the making. President Obama is only guaranteed only 1,361 more days. We've all got to get to work.

Christian Dorsey is acting communications director at the Economic Policy Institute.

Sally Burnell

Sally Burnell — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:23:39 -0500

I am a 1979 graduate of Kent State University with a B.A. in Theatre and a minor in Anthropology. Since 1983 I have been employed by the Akron-Summit County Public Library in the Mobile Services Department. Of Irish descent on my mom's side, we've always been good Democrats and progressives and were raised to believe in the value of the social contract. My father died in a car accident in 1961 when I was 4 years old and it was due to his GI Bill and Social Security survivor pension that we were able to live a decent life.

That same money paid my way through college and I have been eternally grateful for FDR's social programs that allowed me to not only grow up in dignity but to receive a college education, which in turn allowed me to start a career that I am still in 26 years later and will hopefully retire from in four years. (I'm one of the lucky ones who seems to have a job that weathers all economic conditions and is - almost - recession proof.)

I've worked on the campaigns of George McGovern (even though I was too young to vote at the time), Jimmy Carter, John Kerry and Barack Obama. I am extremely hopeful about the new Obama presidency and I hope that people give him a chance to succeed. I know that the Right is doing their utmost to try to trip him up and make him fail so that they can say, "I told you so!" but I hope that Obama is smart enough to see the traps they are setting for him and avoids them at all cost.

I consider myself an old "Yellow Dog Democrat" in the same mold as my mom, who proudly hails herself as an "FDR Democrat" at age 81 and is an active progressive herself. She is my example of lviing to the fullest at her age and I defy anyone to guess how old she is, given how active and engaged she is in so many causes. She is a product of the Depression years and the lessons she continues to teach me enrich my life daily, especially in these times in which we live. I am grateful to her for teaching me the value of the social contract and how it enriched this country in so many ways, like allowing my father not only to pursue an education after WWII himself, but to provide for his children after his untimely death. I will always be grateful for these lessons taught to me throughout my life.

The Obama Craze: Count Me Out

Michael Kwiatkowski — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:33:04 -0500

Part of me shares the enthusiasm for Barack Obama. After all, how could someone calling himself a progressive not sense the importance of what it means to have an African-American so close to the presidency? But as his campaign has unfolded, and I heard that we are not red states or blue states for the 6th or 7th time, I realized I knew virtually nothing about him.

carl halpern

carl halpern — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:50:52 -0500