The Hauser Group | Public Relations in the Public Interest

WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY

Here’s why America can’t meet most of its challenges: we don’t have enough public money.  But it’s about much more than the federal deficit.  It’s  an assertion about America’s collective self-image that I believe will determine our future.

The lingering wake of the Almost Depression of 2008 is a nation desperately short on meeting what it perceives to be its accepted public standards.  In other words – Social Security can’t afford a COLA; public libraries are curtailing hours; working families are going to soup kitchens; inmates are being released early; workers are “voluntarily” furloughing themselves.

The immediate littered landscape shouldn’t obscure life before Lehman.  OSHA has nowhere near enough inspectors.  Bridges and roads are crumbling at a faster rate than ever.  Head Start is nothing close to capacity.  Wages are flat.  Pensions are dangerously underfunded and plunging in value.

And what about aspirations?  Maybe we’ll enact health care reform, but it won’t be enough.  A clean energy future is wonderful but not cheap.  And think about what our public schools need …

Oh, and the deficit is projected to be $9-10 trillion by 2019 and that’s before Medicare and Social Security enter real trouble.

I’m not trying to be depressing, but my larger point is: America’s basic idea of itself – that we always move forward, that we tackle problems, that we are a slight cut above the rest of the world, that we don’t settle – may be flat out wrong.

The problem is that our politics is grounded in a paradox, namely, a symbolic embrace of public values coupled with an actual embrace of elite private desires.  We want it both ways.  We want to believe we lift everyone up even as our laws, mores, cultural affinities, and financial decisions undermine this goal.

So we lament everything described above but we don’t really do anything about.  Paradox intact, we firmly step aside.

One of two things will happen over the next generation: either America will continue its self-delusion, paying lip-service while protecting smaller pieces of turf, or somehow we will accept that our post-War, post Civil Rights specialness is gone.

The latter would mean deep malaise, or, if progressives really step up, and honest and thorough reckoning.  Not a program here, an amendment there, but an overhaul of our financial values. Meaning: much higher taxes, a new connection between work and capital, and bold government regulation that goes to the core of problems, not their edges.

More on this theme later this week …

As Socrates once said, “As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.”

White people (like me) should remember that sentiment as they think about the Henry Louis Gates / Cambridge PD conflict.  What white people know about being black in America is very little.  Our approach to racial situations should be guided by that core premise.

Every single second of every single day being black could mean that you get treated differently.  I literally can’t imagine what that’s like.

That doesn’t mean white people are racist, or indifferent, or not liberal enough.  Maybe any of us are one or all three, but most meaningfully, we are white.  And it doesn’t mean we are lazy and won’t understand what it’s like to be black.  It’s just not something you learn, like carpentry or poker.

That isn’t a flaw, but it is a barrier.  And it’s potentially destructive when awareness of that barrier dims.  That’s when only the things we understand matter, and prejudice goes right by us as we celebrate the Civil Rights Act, MLK Day, and Obama’s election.

I’m not a self-hater.  Of course white people have been a major part of racial progress.  But we need to remember that, outside the headlines, bigotry can be a daily, crappy fact of life for African-Americans.  Just because we don’t or can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Today’s poll news that President Obama’s personal popularity far outpaces his agenda’s should come as no surprise. First, complicated policy is always a tough sell to Americans who don’t care about Medicare reimbursement rates, and second, elected Barack Obama largely because he was a celebrity.

That last, disturbing point will be revisited soon. But for today my focus is on what this paradox means for progressives. It means we have a long way to go.

Let’s start by acknowledging that Barack Obama is not Paul Wellstone. The President is a good man, moderately progressive, and a strong leader. But he didn’t run as a fire-breather (which is good, because he would have lost) and it is largely emergency, not philosophy, that is defining his domestic agenda.

The existence of a President Obama is a good thing, but also a dangerous thing if his celebrity masks a greater and more lasting truth: progressives are behind the times.

To put it one way: when is the last time someone made a full-throated case to significantly increase the poverty line? Or to put another way my wife and accountant will not like: I should pay more in taxes.

The today and tomorrow of progressivism will be the central subjects of this blog. I seek to add my small bit to a thankfully growing conversation, and welcome your ideas and feedback.