This is a substantive article, unlike other news articles, that details Edwards' work on Poverty (after viewing it from close quarters) and where this guy is headed. Regardless of what you think of Edwards, and leaving aside 08, I think what he is doing here is worth noticing for ALL of us - Edwards is planning to bring back the FDR democrats we lost to Reagan. In an age when economic stratification is rapidly increasing, isn't it about time someone deals with the issues Edwards is trying to bring back? Maybe, just maybe, those millions of Americans who don't vote will find a reason to do so if we pick up the mantle of issues that matter most to them? Of course, we never know what a "winning" formula is until it actually "wins," but I like the ideas being presented in this article that Edwards seems to be pondering over. Time to bring back economic progressivism - anyone?
Here's an excerpt:The North Carolina conference was not a political event. No one even hinted that the experts assembled for the two-day wonk-fest were there to help Edwards refine his stump speech or develop a policy agenda for a White House run. Indeed, Edwards peppered the scholars and practitioners with questions that revealed that he was already familiar with most of their statistics and policy suggestions.
He was looking for ways of communicating those ideas to a broad public and opinion leaders who might be skeptical of his populist platform. At the end of a panel on the privatization of household-level financial risk, for example, Edwards asked, "When you propose broad-based social policy programs, critics say all you're doing is putting a burden on the American economy and making it like Europe's welfare state that is presently having great difficulty. How would you respond to that? On the issue of the privatization of risk, could you comment specifically on the privatization of social security and health savings accounts?"
Edwards clearly believes that America is ready to elect a president who inspires idealism rather than triangulates with caution. He is positioning himself to the left of Hillary, fellow southerner Mark Warner (the former Governor of Virginia), and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. The discussions at the Chapel Hill conference reaffirmed that Edwards wants to move away from DLC-style centrism. He wants to position himself and the Democratic Party to advocate for a new New Deal in this era of corporate downsizing and globalization. Edwards differs from the centrist wing of the Democratic party in his strong support for unions, and the importance of reforming labor laws to strength the right to organize.
Edwards shares many qualities with Bill Clinton -- his Southern charm, his firm grasp of policy details, his wide-ranging intellect, his up-from-poverty personal story, and his law degree. But he wants to avoid the political and policy traps that ensnared Clinton from almost the day he entered the White House, and led him at one point to whine to his liberal aides that "I hope you're all aware we're all Eisenhower Republicans."
After the Democratic-controlled Congress failed to support his plan for a major public works plan and universal health insurance, Bill Clinton redefined his party's center by claiming that "the era of big government is over." Clinton presided over an unprecedented period of economic growth, which -- along with policies such as an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit and a raise in the minimum wage -- helped reduce the poverty rate in the 1990s to its lowest in a generation. By the end of the decade, the economy had generated enough jobs to provide work for most women who had been pushed off public assistance by Clinton's controversial welfare reform.
But the Bush era has reversed those positive trends. The hard working families who embraced Clinton's new covenant of "personal opportunity and responsibility," got more responsibility and less opportunity. The Bush recession and the jobless recovery exacerbated poverty and hardship. In 2004, according to the most recent figures, 37 million American lived below the official poverty line, an increase of 5 million since Bush took office. But the new economy has also put a growing number of middle class families, in jeopardy, as workers at Delphi, GM, and other companies are now feeling...
It has always been safe for politicians to care about the poor in America so long they confine it to the noblesse oblige of the George Bushes and the rich who support volunteers at homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Now here comes Edwards, searching to define the next New Deal in an era of globalization. He supports an increase the national minimum wage, local living wage laws that impose even higher wages on companies that receive government subsidies, strong labor laws that level the playing field between business and unions, and protections for middle class families from the insecurities of corporate downsizing and outsourcing. In his stump speech, Edwards lashes out against the greed of big tobacco, big pharmaceutical companies, big insurance companies, big broadcasters and big oil companies.
According to data assembled by the Luxembourg Income Study, an international group of social scientists that defines poverty has half of a nation's median income, the US poverty rate was 17% in 2000, compared with 11.4% in Canada, 8.3% in Germany, 7.3% in the Netherlands, 6.5% in Sweden, and 5.4% in Finland. (Among children, the poverty rate was 21.9% in the US and 2.8% in Finland). The poverty rate is significantly lower in these other nations because they provide a much wider and generous array of government-sponsored social insurance and safety net provisions to cushion the harshness of poverty, such as universal health insurance, family allowances, housing subsidies, and child care. The US's stingy social programs have only a minor impact in reducing the poverty rate, while programs in other countries have a dramatic impact in lifting children, low-wage workers, and the elderly out of poverty.
Without endorsing any particular set of policies from these countries, Edwards is saying that the US should be embarrassed at being ranked first in poverty. Whether or not Edwards wins his party's nomination, his presence in the campaign will help shift the debate to a stronger focus on social injustice. We might even see the next Democratic candidate adopt the following bold but do-able goal: By 2014 -- the 50th anniversary of LBJ's dramatic declaration of a "war on poverty" -- the US should reduce the nation's poverty rate to Canada's or, to be even bolder, Germany's or Finland's.
No doubt Edwards is already hearing from political consultants, editorial writers, and many of the Democratic Party's corporate funders, that resurrecting the moral idealism of Bobby Kennedy is no way to win the White House.
But with a fire in his belly that seems genuine, Edwards is hoping to prove that promoting an agenda of prosperity, opportunity and compassion can win the hearts and minds of America's affluent, its beleaguered middle class, and the working poor. If he's correct, the son of a mill worker might become the next president of the United States. Read the whole thing:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0415-30.htm
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(714 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
