The mythic couple sitting around their kitchen table - not able to pay their bills - making the tough choices about what to cut.
‘Government needs to act more like that couple, tighten their belts, and make the tough choices,' opine conservatives.
But is this really how the mythic kitchen table conversation goes?
Does this couple really sit around talking about which of their children - little Jimmy or Jane - eats on Tuesday, as many conservatives suggest? Or the water dripping into their living room from the damaged roof will just have to continue to drip until it pours? Or they just won't fill the tank with gas even if it means they can't get to work?
Really? This is the conversation?
I think not.
Rather, I think this mythic couple starts out being pretty mad about being put into this situation in the first place. And once they have cancelled cable TV and their trip to Disney (which sets off another rage), this mythic couple focuses on how to get more money, not on calmly deciding which of their children will eat.
I think they talk about how to pick up extra hours, a better-paying job, or other ways they can get more money so they can pay for Jimmy, Jane, the roof and the gas - not about which of these need to be sacrificed.
And if they are forced to make the impossible choice, I don't think they describe it as a ‘tough choice,' but rather as a horrific and tragic one.
I think most Americans understand - just as this mythic family does - that their lives will not improve by making more cuts, but rather by finding the resources to pay for what they need.
The problem in most of the current budget debates raging across the country is this conversation about new revenue is barely mentioned; even many progressives concede the point as lost before the fight is even waged. The debate, then, devolves into how much to cut, how deep to cut, and which cuts hurt the least.
Paul Wellstone used to say "Progressives make the mistake that people are galvanized around ten-point programs. They are not! People respond according to their sense of right and wrong. They respond to a leadership of values."
Wellstone Action teaches that all campaign messages must present a clear values choice. Effective campaign messages need to name the problem - the challenge that connects deeply with people's lives - then define the choice and present a credible alternative and opportunity to act.
Our progressive messages around the budget need to show this same clarity and discipline.
Laying Out a Progressive Budget Values Choice.
Budgets are moral documents.
They are our values in numbers.
They reflect the choices our communities make together through our government.
The Republicans in Congress have already laid out a crisp choice. They say the budget deficit and out of control spending is the problem. They say the choice is between the Democrats and their class warfare and politics of envy and the Republican focus on jobs and renewed prosperity.
It's a clever choice they lay out. And it is defining the budget debates across the country.
And what has been the response so far from many Democrats?
"We need to come together. Now is not the time to draw lines in the sand," Senator Harry Reid deadpanned on the Sunday morning talk shows last week.
Really?
Surely we do not need more political polarization and gratuitous gamesmanship. But all politics is about choices, and if we lose this essential point in some gauzy effort to all get along and be bipartisan we have lost the essence of why politics matters.
As progressives we need to lay out our clear choice. People are hungry for an alternative.
We need to clearly identify who benefits through our budget decisions at the expense of whom?
Who can afford to sacrifice and who simply gets sacrificed?
We need to make clear that the current Republican budget and tax code that accompanies it benefit Wall Street and the wealthy class at the expense of Main Street and the rest of us.
Going Beyond the Politics of Scarcity.
There are a few brave voices in Congress making this case. In April, the Congressional Progressive Caucus under the leadership of Representatives Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) presented "The People's Budget."
This budget combines new revenue with strategic spending cuts. It ends the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and creates a truly progressive income tax for the highest earners. It cuts Pentagon spending that even the Pentagon doesn't want, and it gets us out of two wars with their $1.1 trillion price tag. The budget then directs these resources to creating jobs, strengthening social security, healthcare, education, and rebuilding our country's infrastructure.
The People's Budget is not fantasy but a real alternative. It has also gotten little attention from Democrats, or even from many progressives.
It's time for more progressives to define the clear choices we face.
We need to reject the politics of scarcity.
In the richest country on earth we have plenty of resources. Our problem is not the amount of resources but their distribution. We need to name those who enjoy a disproportionate share of our commonwealth - not to blame, but to point out that such accumulation comes only at the expense of many, many others. To point out this choice about how we will distribute the wealth we have created together.
We cannot fall into the trap of balancing budgets through the tired mantras of redesigning and streamlining government or cutting government inefficiencies and waste.
Certainly there are always better, even cheaper ways of delivering critical services and meeting our collective needs. But there is no magic bucket of government fat out there just waiting to be cut - certainly not enough to even come close to what is needed. Even our opponents concede the cuts are hand wringing ‘tough choices' that have to be made.
Hubert Humphrey used to say that we can judge the quality of a society by how it prepares its young, provides for its elderly and protects its most vulnerable citizens.
These are moral choices and need to be framed as the stark moral choices they represent.
As progressives we need to avoid the message frames that portray our public budgets as wasteful and bloated. We need to frame our choices about who will have jobs and who will not. Who will eat and who will not. Who will have heat and housing and who will not. Who will have health care and who will not. Who will have a decent school and chance at college and who will not.
These are moral choices and they speak to our moral values.
Our Choice: Corporations and Wall Street or the Middle Class and Main Street
Warren Buffet once famously remarked that if there is class warfare in this country, his class was winning.
Seldom has this been on such prominent display as the Senate testimony last week from the five CEO's of the largest oil corporations. With a straight face these five CEO's insisted that $32 billion in profits for the first three months of 2011 was not enough. They still needed that $2 billion in government subsidies if they were to thrive and continue to grow.
It is wrong to protect billions of dollars in subsidies to oil companies and propose cuts to energy assistance for low income people who need to pay for heat.
Thankfully Senator Schumer (D-NY) framed the moral choice the Senate faces: Are the handouts to the five wealthiest corporations in world history more important than the equivalent cuts Republicans propose for student loans? Which makes us a stronger and better country?
Conservative defenders and their oil company patrons frame the choice as investment, energy independence and jobs versus class warfare and the arbitrary punishment of a few successful businesses. They decry any progressive alternatives as "un-American."
But buried in the Senate testimony was the admission that nearly $30 a barrel - 30% of the price of oil - comes from market speculation, not the real cost of producing that barrel of oil.
As progressives we need to lay out the stark choice: do we use our tax dollars to subsidize market speculators and price gougers, or do we invest in educating the next generation of entrepreneurs?
These are moral choices.
And budgets are filled with these choices.
No society or business has ever cut its way to greatness. Greatness comes from hard work and coming together to make wise choices and investments in our future.
People are hungry for straight talk and clarity about what progressives stand for, and what their alternatives are. With laser focus we need to make clear the values behind each and every choice.
- We believe budgets should not be balanced on the backs of workers, the middle class, or those who are most vulnerable when the most fortunate contribute less than their fair share.
- We believe that we have collective responsibility for one another and all must share the burden in times of distress and challenge. And for those who have been extraordinarily blessed, as the Bible teaches us, much is to be expected.
- We believe that it is wrong that the wealthiest corporations are sitting on over two trillion dollars in cash reserves, are earning record breaking profits, and are still not hiring American workers. And it is intolerable that we continue giving these corporations even more subsidies and tax breaks.
- We believe the tens of billions of dollars in tax loopholes for corporations and the wealthiest taxpayers are not a higher priority than K-12 education, or health care, or housing, or any number of the myriad of public purposes we spend money on.
- We believe that it is wrong when many of the largest U.S. corporations pay little or no taxes, and the wealthiest Americans - the multi-billionaires and millionaires - pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than the teachers, firefighters, janitors, nurses, small business owners and snow plow drivers now under attack.
- We believe it is wrong when those who are doing really well ask for even more, and elected leaders support them.
Dan Cantor of the Working Families Party has said: "Of course we want government off our backs. We want it off our backs, and on our side. And not on the side of the banks."
In short, as progressives, we need to offer a choice of a government that works for our interest not against it. A budget that meets the needs of our very real families so none of us have to make the impossible choices facing our mythic family sitting around their kitchen table.
That is the moral choice before us.
Photo on flickr by RambergMedialImages