Is The Democratic Party A Party Of Working People Or A Party Of Its Own Elites And Careerists?

Thomas Edsell's OpEd in the NYTimes yesterday, Has the Democratic Party Gotten Too Rich for Its Own Good?, came just as Blue America posted the above video by Mike Lux on our main 2018 congressional contribution page. Edsall began by pointing out that "During his primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, lived up to the grand Democratic tradition of favoring the underdog at the expense of the rich. He proposed hammering the affluent by raising taxes in the amount of $15.3 trillion over ten years. New revenues would finance about half the cost of a $33.3 trillion boost in social spending. The Sanders tax-and-spending plan throws into sharp relief the problem that the changing demographic makeup of the Democratic coalition creates for party leaders. Trouble brews when a deeply held commitment to the underdog comes into conflict with the self-interested pocketbook and lifestyle concerns of the upper middle class." Edsall, though, isn't celebrating.

In rhetoric reminiscent of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman, Sanders declared:

We must send a message to the billionaire class: “you can’t have it all.” You can’t get huge tax breaks while children in this country go hungry.

But Sanders spoke to the Democratic Party of 2016, not the Democratic Party of the Great Depression.

In days past, a proposal to slam the rich to reward the working and middle classes meant hitting Republicans to benefit Democrats.

Even as recently as 1976, according to data from American National Election Studies, the most affluent voters, the top 5 percent, were solidly in the Republican camp, 77-23. Those in the bottom third of the income distribution were solidly Democratic, 64-36.

In other words, 41 years ago, the year Jimmy Carter won the presidency, the Sanders proposal would have made political sense. But what about now?

In the 2016 election, the economic elite was essentially half Democratic, according to exit polls: Those in the top 10 percent of the income distribution voted 47 percent for Clinton and 46 percent for Trump. Half the voters Sanders would hit hardest are members of the party from which he sought the nomination.

The problem for the Democratic Party is that “them” has become “us.”

In the past, Democrats could support progressive, redistributive policies knowing that the costs would fall largely on Republicans. That is no longer the case. Now supporting these policies requires the party to depend on the altruistic idealism of millions of supporters who, despite being relatively well off, often feel financially pressed themselves.

This problem applies not only to tax policy, but even more to social policies concerning education and housing.

Richard V. Reeves, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, highlights the contradictions of modern Democratic liberalism in his new book, Dream Hoarders: How the Upper Middle Class is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust.

Reeves argues that those in the top 20 percent of the income distribution have become an increasingly isolated class; if the country is to restore the American tradition of upward mobility, this elite will have to pay for it.

“The upper middle class has been having it pretty good. It is about time those of us in the favored fifth recognized our privileged position,” Reeves writes. As members of this class protect their status and economic gains for themselves and their children, Reeves contends, they have capitalized on a host of less visible forces — exclusionary zoning, the clustering of elites, legacy college admissions, disproportionate political influence — to build a protective wall, keeping those in the lower quintiles of the income distribution from breaking in.

As Reeves points out,

it is a stubborn mathematical fact that, at any given time, the top fifth of the income distribution can accommodate only 20 percent of the population. Relative intergenerational mobility is a zero sum game. For someone to move up the ladder, someone else must move down.

Or, as he put it in a 2013 essay in The Times,

Even the most liberal parents are unlikely to be comfortable with the idea that their own children should fall down the scale in the name of making room for a smarter kid from a poorer home.

His proposals calling on the upper middle class to abandon unfair “opportunity hoarding” raise a basic political question. Can the Democratic Party, as it is currently constructed, maintain its commitment to a redistributive agenda? Put another way, can a political party impose costs on its own constituents, especially those voters who make up the most influential faction of the party: the affluent and well educated?

The preliminary evidence from actual events is that demanding sacrifice poses major risks. Asking people to think of themselves as compassionate and to pay higher taxes is one thing-- many Democrats have made that leap-- but ask them to live in a mixed income neighborhood or ask them to have their kid give up her spot at Princeton, and you get a different response.

Reeves himself points to the Democratic uproar when President Obama proposed a relatively modest change in a tax-based mechanism to help pay college costs. The change in what are called 529 College Savings Plans was designed to make the program more advantageous to people with moderate incomes and less so for those with high incomes. An estimated 70 percent of the tax benefits of 529 plans currently go to families with incomes above $200,000.

The moment Obama suggested the reform, prominent Democrats from both the House and Senate were inundated with angry complaints from affluent constituents. They pressured Obama to drop the proposal. In less than a week, he did.

“The idea was sensible, simple, and progressive,” Reeves writes. “The episode was a brutal reminder that sensible policy is not always easy politics.” Reeves noted that two of the leading Democratic opponents of the 529 reform, Nancy Pelosi and Chris Van Hollen, who was elected Maryland’s junior senator in November but was a congressman when Obama proposed it, represented districts where “almost half their constituents are in households with six-figure incomes.”

Perhaps the most problematic issue for affluent Democrats are proposals calling for expanded construction of affordable housing in middle-to-upper-middle class neighborhoods.

When local officials and the courts pressed for construction of relatively small numbers of moderate income housing units in such upscale liberal bastions as San Francisco (Clinton 84.5 percent, Trump 9.2 percent) and neighboring Marin County, Calif. (Clinton 77.3 percent, Trump 15.5 percent), the groundswell of opposition was loud and clear.

...In an effort to further explore this question, I asked Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, two questions:

As the share of Democrats who are well-educated and upper middle class grows, how can the party continue to advocate redistributive policies? Can a party survive that calls on its own members to pay the costs of policies designed to help those on the bottom rungs?

Hacker replied:

The evidence is clear that even relatively affluent Democrats are more supportive of redistribution than a typical Republican-- at least in opinion surveys. This general support, however, doesn’t always translate into support for pro-opportunity policies at the local level.

Affordable housing, Hacker wrote, “is far and away the best example.” Opposition to zoning allowing denser and more affordable housing “comes not just from well-off residents but also from landlords who get monopoly rents.” The inherent zero-sum thinking underlying not-in-my-backyard approaches

prevents positive-sum solutions that could reduce the economic conflict between poorer members of the Democratic coalition and the more affluent segments.

Hacker concluded his email on an upbeat note, contending that “demography is not destiny” and that Democratic leaders

could work more aggressively to identify and create positive-sum solutions-- pro-growth policies that both lift up the least advantaged and attenuate class-based cleavages within its own coalition.

Arthur Lupia, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, less optimistically put his finger on the core problem for Democrats:

The Democratic Party is evolving in multiple ways that separate it from the living conditions of large numbers of working-class Americans.

The result, Lupia wrote, is that

many Democrats now know less, and appear to care less, about the day-to-day struggles of many working class Americans. Hillary Clinton is an example of a Democrat who struggled to be seen by many such Americans as having a sincere and credible grasp of their concerns.

Hacker and Lupia, while differing in outlook, together raise a basic concern about the contemporary Democratic Party: the casual, if not negligent, willingness of the party elite to adopt policies and positions, however worthy, without regard to the costs such policies impose on others.

The characteristics of the Democratic elite are best reflected in studies of delegates to the Democratic National Convention. For years, CBS surveyed these delegates but stopped doing so in 2008. Still, even without data from 2012 and 2016, the CBS surveys show a consistent pattern. Delegates are drawn overwhelmingly from the liberal upper middle class. In 2008, 70 percent of the delegates reported earning $75,000 or more per year, compared to 27 percent of Democratic voters at that time.

The Democratic delegates were well to the left of Democratic voters, a trend that continues. Seven out of ten delegates said that abortion should be generally available and 20 percent said abortion should be available under “stricter limits”; 43 percent of Democratic voters supported generally available abortion and 39 percent said under “stricter limits.”

More than 8 out of 10 Democratic delegates in 2008 agreed that “government should do more to solve national problems,” while 54 percent of Democratic voters shared that view, according to American National Election Studies. Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Democratic coalition clearly reflected the same priorities.

As the Democratic elite and the Democratic electorate as a whole become increasingly well educated and affluent, the party faces a crucial question. Can it maintain its crucial role as the representative of the least powerful, the marginalized, the most oppressed, many of whom belong to disadvantaged racial and ethnic minority groups-- those on the bottom rungs of the socioeconomic ladder?

This will be no easy task. In 2016, for the first time in the party’s history, a majority of voters (54.2 percent) who cast Democratic ballots for president had college degrees. Clinton won all 15 of the states with the highest percentage of college graduates [Massachusetts, Colorado, Maryland, Conneticut, New Jersey, Virginia, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Minnesota, Washington, Illinois, Rhode Island, California and Oregon].

The steady loss of Democratic support in the white working class, culminating in Trump’s Electoral College victory on the backs of these white voters, must inevitably send a loud and clear signal to the Democratic elite: The more the party abandons the moral imperative to represent the interests of the less well off of all races and ethnicities, the more it risks a repetition of the electoral disaster of 2016 in 2018, 2020 and beyond.

Paul Clements is the Kalamazoo progressive who ran against reactionary Republican Fred Upton in 2014 and 2016. We're hoping he runs again in 2018 and he told me he's considering doing so but hasn't made up his mind yet. He's speaking to folks on the ground and figuring out if another run is the best way to defeat Upton. After watching Mile's video up top, he told me that "As Americans see and live the results of Trump's government of billionaires and generals allied with Ryan's free market fundamentalists, Democrats need to give a vision of government for the people. Medicare for all, breaking up big banks, and clean energy, not to mention getting rid of for profit prisons, raising the minimum wage, and re-investing in public education."

Jenny Marshall, who's running for the North Carolina seat held by right-wing knee jerk crackpot Virginia Foxx, is exactly the kind of progressive Democrat who feels in her bones exactly what Lux is talking about. "We want someone who will stand up for our values, our way of life and our families," she told me after watching the clip-- although it's exactly the kind of stiff she's been talking about ever since I met her. "We want a champion that will fight for us. Democrats need to be willing to go to the mat for people and stop caving in when the GOP refuses to compromise. We can no longer negotiate away our schools, our health, our livelihoods and our future. We cannot continue to follow the Republicans as they lead us further to the right. We must stand up for what we believe in. I am standing up for the people of the 5th district. It is time we had a real leader in Washington who won't back down from a challenge."

Last year Tom Wakely ran for the Austin-San Antonio corridor seat occupied by crackpot science denier Lamar Smith. He's running again this year. He found Mike's video spot on and without knowing about Edsall's OpEd, addressed some of the questions he raised in it:

As candidates, we need to be bold. We need to tell people that having Medicare For All is a good thing. We need to tell them having the EPA around is a good thing. Unfortunately, too many in the Democratic Party still think that being a centrist is the only way to win elections. Here in Texas, we are fond of saying the only thing that is in the middle of the road is a dead armadillo and it stinks to high heavens.

When I ran against 30-yr. Republican incumbent Lamar Smith in 2016, I ran on a progressive agenda and while I lost that race, we managed to do something no one else has been able to do in over 30 years-- we managed to drop Smith's percentage vote total to 56.9%, the lowest of his career. Our campaign accomplished this not by running a centrist political campaign but by running a progressive community organizing campaign. And Lamar Smith took note of this. For the first time in nearly two decades, Smith actually started campaigning. He also dumped over $1.7 million into his campaign, spending over $8.00 a vote. We only raised $70,000, which came to a little less than .55 cents per vote. Imagine what our campaign could have done with a  little more money.

As I take a look at the Democrat Party today, I don't see the party of FDR, of Kennedy, of LBJ. I see a party wed to Wall Street, to the Big Banks. A party more interested in helping line the pockets of consultants with cash than with helping line the pockets of ordinary, working class citizens of this country. We need to make voting a hell of lot easier and that is why I support a national program to vote by mail. A lot needs to be done in the Democrat Party if it is ever to be able to proudly raise it's head once again and say, "I stand for the working people of this country." It's a marathon and not a sprint.

I am 64 years old and I don't think I have that many years left in me to take on the Democratic Party Establishment and Wall Street and win. But there are so many young, enthusiastic activists out there I have hope that one day we will see a return to the party of FDR and LBJ. But until that day comes all I can do, all I will do, is continue to tell everyone that will listen, that I am a Progressive. I  will shout from the rooftops that I stand with the working people of this country against Wall Street and the Big Banks, against those who would destroy the EPA and against those who believe that making a profit off of sick and dying people is okay.

Will The Republican Party EVER Be Able To Escape Its Own Congenital, Backward-Looking Obstructionism?

On the day Obama announced his nominee to fill Scalia's job was Merrick Garland, we made it clear what our opinion of the nomination is: Yuck! The political gamesmanship yielded up the most conservative nominee a Democrat has proposed to the Supreme Court in many decades. Terrible choice... but politically strategic. Easily, the worst of all outcomes would be that Garland gets confirmed in a lame duck session after a Bernie landslide pulls in a nearly filibuster-proof Democratic Senate that does not include Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Rob Portman (R-OH), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Roy Blunt (R-MO), John McCain (R-AZ), Rand Paul (R-KY), Richard Burr (R-NC), and where Alan Grayson has replaced Marco Rubio. That would mean a Senate with 57 Democrats (as long as Vermont replaces Bernie with Peter Welch) and 43 pretty demoralized Republicanos. With Bernie in the White House and a healthy Democratic majority in the Senate, there would be no need to pick a conservative nominee. Even if Clinton wins the White House, she would likely pick a better nominee than Garland, likely nominate outstanding California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu.

But Democratic strategy has been to pressure vulnerable-- and even not-so-vulnerable-- Republicans to give Garland a fair hearing. Mark Kirk already met with him. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski said they will as well. And with editorialists across the country pounding on the GOP for their blatant and ugly obstructionism, even Kansas' Jerry Moran and far right ideologue Ron Johnson indicated that they might be open to a fair process. But then the pressure from the far right started mobilizing and-- poof-- Moran, Murkowski and Johnson instantly caved.

Johnson, who is the most likely Senate Republican to lose his seat in November, told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on March 16 that he'd meet with Garland. "I have no problem with meeting with people. I'll have to say, I'm not sure what the point will be." He's since changed his perspective to "no comment." Moran, who has no viable opponent in November, but was blasted by the editors of the Kansas City Star on March 16, has been even worse.

Senators Jerry Moran of Kansas and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have reversed themselves and say they now back the decision made by Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, not to hold hearings.

“Senator Moran called Senator Grassley to discuss his position,” said a statement released by Mr. Moran’s office on Friday. “As Senator Moran has said, he is opposed to President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. He has examined Judge Garland’s record and didn’t need hearings to conclude that the nominee’s judicial philosophy, disregard for Second Amendment rights and sympathy for federal government bureaucracy make Garland unacceptable to serve on the Supreme Court.”

Mr. Moran’s announcement, first reported by National Review, came a week after he said the Senate should move forward with the nomination process, including holding hearings and meeting with Judge Garland.

“As I have said since the vacancy was created, I believe I have a duty to ask tough questions and demand answers,” he said in a statement on March 25. “I am certain a thorough investigation would expose Judge Garland’s record and judicial philosophy, and disqualify him in the eyes of Kansans and Americans.”

On March 21, according to the Garden City Telegram, Mr. Moran told constituents, “I would rather have you complaining to me that I voted wrong on nominating somebody than saying I’m not doing my job.”

Similarly, a spokeswoman for Ms. Murkowski, Karina Petersen, said the Alaska senator also no longer supported holding hearings, though she will meet with Judge Garland to discuss cases that are important to her state.

“Senator Murkowski respects the decision of the chair and members of the Judiciary Committee not to hold hearings on the nominee,” Ms. Petersen wrote in an email.

In February, before Mr. Obama named Judge Garland as his pick, Ms. Murkowski told reporters in Alaska that the nominee should be granted a hearing. Though she emphasized, in a Facebook post the next day, that she opposed Mr. Obama’s making the nomination, Ms. Murkowski had declined to directly address her stance on holding hearings since her comments in February.

As the right-wing psychos-- including the Koch brothers' pet congressman Mike Pompeo-- went nuts on Moran's ass, he backed away from even agreeing to meet with Garland. His latest statement, through an aide: "He has examined Judge Garland’s record and didn’t need hearings to conclude that the nominee’s judicial philosophy, disregard for Second Amendment rights and sympathy for federal government bureaucracy make Garland unacceptable to serve on the Supreme Court. Senator Moran remains committed to preventing this president from putting another justice on the highest court in the land."

Just a week earlier Moran told the Dodge City Daily Globe "I think we have the responsibility to have a hearing, to have the conversation and to make a determination of the merit... I think I have the responsibility to consider a nominee presented by a president and make a determination whether he or she is qualified. I'm willing to participate in the process" and had admitted that not meeting with Garland and not pushing for a hearing would be "not doing my job."

You would be severely mistaken if you thought the only thing making the GOP dysfunctional and detrimental to the United States is Donald Trump. The way extremists can push Republican senators like Moran, Johnson and Murkowski around go deeper than Trump's bizarre ego-trip. Political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson in yesterday's NY Times:

Given the current dysfunction of the Republican Party, many both inside and outside Republican ranks are probably hoping that a big defeat will force the party to change. But waiting, as the current president once put it, for the “fever” to break may be fruitless.

Try this setup instead: It’s 2017. After Mr. Trump’s landslide defeat, President Clinton has a Democratic Senate and House of Representatives. The Republican National Committee has just released its latest post-mortem-- it probably looks a lot like the post-2012 soul-searching exercise, the Growth and Opportunity Project, which encouraged moderation in tone and inclusiveness in policy.

But that blueprint is ignored. Instead, the party quickly regroups in opposition to the incoming administration. Most Republican voters hate Mrs. Clinton even more than they hated Mr. Obama. The conservative apparatus for sowing discontent with a new administration is in place, flush with cash and battle-tested.

For Republicans in and outside government, it will be a time not for facing up to hard truths but for doubling down on hardball tactics.

...More worrisome, they reinforce a dangerous spiral. The most effective Republican response to its own unpopularity in presidential elections is to take steps to make the American political system more unpopular still.

The final pre-primary polling for Wisconsin came out a few hours ago by Emerson and it shows that Bernie has surged past the establishment candidate and now leads her by 8 points (51-43%); in Emerson's last Wisconsin poll 2 weeks ago, Hillary was up by 6 points. Nice turn-around, which he'll need to do in New York as well. He's doing his part; are we doing ours? And, you know, it's not enough to support Bernie's bid for the presidency. His political revolution means replacing an obstructionist, corporately-owned Congress with a more progressive one. You can be part of that-- we all can. Whether you give $270 to one candidate or split $27 among all of them, please take a look at these progressives running on Bernie's platform... and do what you can:

Professor Jacob Hacker Gives Wall Street Shill Ed Royce A Little Lesson In Economics

Not many DC pundits are following the campaign in California's suburban 39th congressional district (Hacienda Heights, Buena Park, La Habra, Rowland Heights, Diamond Bar, Chino, Yorba Linda, Fullerton. Brea and Placentia). It's a swing district where McCain edged Obama 49-47% under the new boundaries. Ed Royce didn't represent much of it, although he's being called the incumbent. And the challenger is Jay Chen, a local school board president and committed smart progressive. This summer he was endorsed by Blue America.

Royce is basically known for two things: his devotion to his Wall Street paymasters and his fervent, divisive racism and bigotry. Here's a new sign Royce or one of his supporters has put up around the district:

This is what Jay said when he saw it:

Yes, we were as confused as you when we first saw this sign in La Habra Heights yesterday. Only U.S. citizens can run for public office, so what are these folks getting at? Are they taking a jab at my birthplace city, Kalamazoo? I know it's a funny sounding name, but it's no worse than Honolulu, and it's not like anyone ever gets worked up about people being born in that city.

  Change can be hard to come by for many people, and it can illicit the worst kind of fears and reactions. In the last two weeks I've been accused of being a "Commie," of wanting to get rid of 401(k)s, and of wanting to tax your wheelchairs. Our yard signs have disappeared in record numbers. It's not pleasant, but this viciousness confirms my opponent's vulnerability, and validates my decision to run.

There couldn't be two more different candidates anywhere than Jay Chen and Ed Royce. Royce is one of Congress' leading proponents of the Austerity Agenda (the new way of talking about Voodoo Economics and Trickle Down) that is failing so miserably in Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal and across Europe and Jay has embraced policies for economic growth which have been talked about as "Prosperity Economics." Royce has been on the attack, distorting Jay's proposals and the whole package of proposals put forth by Jacob Hacker and Nate Loewentheil, claiming, for example, that the intent is to "do away with tax deductions for 401ks and force worker and employers to contribute to government-run 401ks." That's a flat out lie, as Jacob Hacker pointed out himself:

Congressman Royce is criticizing a made-up proposal that bears no resemblance to the framework for retirement security that we outline in Prosperity Economics. We do not say tax breaks for 401ks should be ended, and we certainly do not argue that workers and employers should be asked to contribute to “government-run 401ks.”

  This isn’t about government taking over anything. For half of workers, there’s nothing to take over because they don’t have a retirement plan. If we can work with the private sector to fill that huge void, that would be terrific. But if the market fails to solve this problem, the answer can’t be “tough luck.” Every American should have a secure and adequate retirement. They certainly do not today. Prosperity Economics is about ensuring that working families get more, not less.

  Where employers are offering a retirement plan of some kind now, we need to ask them to do better. Where they are not, we need to provide vehicles for private retirement savings that provide some security against market risks. As we argue in Prosperity Economics, we can do this through three steps. First, for the half of workers at private companies who have no opportunity for tax favored retirement savings on the job, we need to guarantee them a chance to save. Second, for the tens of millions of middle- and low-income people who now get little or no savings incentives under federal law, we need to give them the same sorts of tax breaks that upper income Americans get. Finally, to deal with how little is being put away for retirement, we need to insist upon shared responsibility, with employers and workers contributing, along with federal tax incentives.

Instead of demonizing constructive discussion of a problem that most Americans rightly see as dire, our leaders need to focus on making private retirement plans work for working families, because they surely are not working for far too many people today.

You can find all 16 of the candidates Blue America has identified who have been campaigning to protect Americans from the toxic Austerity Agenda Wall Street shills like Royce are trying to mandate in this country. This is what Jay told us about it after he had read Hacker's and Loewentheil's work:

Prosperity Economics brings us back to the principles that make our country great. These ideas, such as investing in infrastructure, education, and our social safety nets, and limiting the power of corporations to distort our political system, are not new or radical, they are part of the original formula that drove the unparalleled success our nation has enjoyed until recently.

But these ideas are now under constant attack, as is the prosperity of our nation, by corporate interests who continue to push a "trickle-down" theory that is already a proven failure. These special interests have made it a point to confuse wealth accumulation with job creation, and the result is a drastic increase in income inequality unseen in modern times.

In the meantime, our middle class, which is the true engine of economic growth and stability, continues to shrink. We simply cannot cut our way to prosperity anymore than we can drill our way out of oil dependence. We need leaders who understand how smart, sound investment made us the great nation we are today, and how prosperity economics can ensure our leadership in the world for generations to come.

Who would call these ideas "Communistic?" The same kind of dangerous right-wing fanatics and John Birchers like Ed Royce who called President Eisenhower a Communist when he made similar proposals at a time when government was working proactively to help build a solid American middle class. Below is the latest attack piece Royce sent out against Jay. Please consider contributing to Jay's campaign so he can fight back against these right-wing distortions and lies.

Shouldn't The Domestic Debates All Be About Prosperity Economics As An Alternative To The Bleak Austerity Agenda?

It would be useful to see a national discussion of Prosperity Economics as the alternative to the Austerity agenda Wall Street has prescribed for America before the November elections-- and before Obama and Boehner can foist their Grand Bargain on us. There are 16 congressional candidates who have been making an effort to do that in their districts and today Progressive Caucus co-chairs Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) are holding a hearing on year-end Congressional budget and fiscal issues, focussing on job creation, the impending budget sequestration process, realistic ways to increase revenue and reduce the national debt, and how to preserve Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security-- basically... Prosperity Economics. As much as I'd love to see Hacker's work being discussed on TV and on the front pages of the NY Times and even USAToday, I was happy to see a thorough examination by Paul Rosenberg at Al Jazeera this week. He also notices that the media is pretty much ignoring the stampede towards Austerity and that questions that go against the grain are the questions the media should be looking at.

They're also at the core of a new proposal laid out in a recent report, "Prosperity Economics: Building an Economy for All," which is supported by leading labour, civil rights and community organisations, and is being adopted by a growing list of progressive Democratic candidates. "Prosperity economics is built on three pillars: growth, security and democracy," the report explains. "These pillars reinforce one another and are intertwined politically and economically."

In a recent teleconference, the reports' lead author, Yale political science professor Jacob Hacker, explained, "Instead of the austerity agenda that we have now, focused on debt, this growth agenda is focused, really, on restoring broad-based economic growth and our democracy."

"The current debate is focused on how severely to cut, not whether to cut" government spending, Hacker added, "That's diametrically at odds with dealing with the two great challenges we face today, which are not the deficit, but rather the jobs crises, and the long-term stagnation and decline of the middle class." 

Once again, the same pattern holds: Even if you want to know about controlling the federal deficit-- the wrong question to be obsessing over at this time-- you have to ask about these other questions about restoring broad-based prosperity in order to make sense of the big-picture situation. As I pointed out in a recent column, even Paul Ryan understood the need for deficit spending when he was defending Bush's third stimulus package back in 2002:

"We've got to get the engine of economic growth growing again, because we now know, because of the recession, we don't have the revenues we wanted to, we don't have the revenues we need to fix Medicare, to fix Social Security, to fix these issues, we've got to get America back to work."

There are a lot more people out of work now than there were in 2002, so Ryan's logic then applies even more forcefully than it did back then. But Hacker and his co-author, Nate Lowentheil, have a much  deeper understanding of what this requires. It's not just a matter of knowing the economic history of how mass middle classes were created via modern welfare states in Europe and North America after the devastation of the Great Depression and World War II, though that certainly helps. In the report itself, the authors restate the accumulated wisdom borne of that experience:

"Prosperity doesn't just 'trickle down' from the top. It depends on the common investments and sources of security we agree on as members of a democracy, on institutions-- especially unions-- that ensure that gains are broadly shared, and on a healthy democracy that can sustain sound economic policies and prevent today's economic winners from undermining the openness and dynamism of the economy."

...With the debate still framed by asking the wrong question-- about debt, rather than growth-- Hacker  warned, "there is a real risk that even if President Obama wins, we could end up with a kinder, gentler version of austerity economics-- tax cuts that are slightly less skewed, cuts in public investment, cuts in economic security that are only slightly less draconian than those in the leading budget blueprints on the right."

...Toward this end, a stand-alone summary of policy recommendations at the Prosperity For All website briefly describes the three inter-locking pillars of the approach and how specific policies exemplify their synergy for America as a whole, as well as their direct value to individual Americans. The proposals aren't new, particularly. What is new is their presentation as part of an integrated vision of what shared prosperity looks like, and what it takes to achieve.

On the subject of economic growth, defined as "dynamic, innovation-led growth, grounded in job creation, public investment and broad opportunity," the authors write, "We must take immediate action to jump-start our sagging economy. Going forward, we need to invest in people and productivity that will lead to good jobs and rising wages." Examples of specific policy recommendations include:

• Invest $250 billion per year for the next six years to rebuild our nation's crumbling roads, bridges, ports, airports and public transportation systems.
• Restore America's manufacturing base by ending the trade deficit and tax incentives for offshoring.
• Provide help to states and localities to hire back teachers, first responders and other public servants.
• Ensure decent wages and job quality by guaranteeing that workers have the right to form unions and to collectively bargain.

On the subject of economic security, defined as "security for workers and their families, the environment and government finances," they write, "Markets work better when working families feel a basic security for their futures. Only when families can be sure they will not be deprived of necessities like health care and retirement security can we create a dynamic and competitive economy." Specific policy recommendations include:

• Build on the Affordable Care Act by adding a public option with the clout to push back against insurance companies so everyone has access to affordable, quality health care.
• End the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 per cent of Americans. The Bush tax cuts are the largest single contributor to our current revenue shortfall.
• Increase public investment in research and development for clean energy technologies by $15 billion per year. 
• Implement a financial transaction tax to discourage short-term speculation and reduce the chance of financial crises. The tax would be invested publicly and fund job creation.

On the subject of democracy, defined as "democratic voice, inclusivity and accountability-- in Washington and the workplace," they write: "Democracy means we have a strong system of checks and balances both in our government and in the private sector that empowers citizens, guarantees more inclusive decision making and creates strong mechanisms of accountability." Specific policy recommendations include:

Protect the right to vote to ensure every voice is heard in the political process. Repeal disenfranchisement and voter ID laws and adopt same day voter registration, provisional voting and other measures to maximize voter participation and access.

Guarantee every worker has a voice in the workplace, including a quick, fair process for workers to choose union representation and have the power to bargain collectively. Enforce stronger penalties on companies that violate labor laws.

Free government from corporate interests by reinstating the firewalls between investment and banking.
Improve consumer protections against unfair credit card fees and practices, predatory lending and bankruptcy rules biased in favour of creditors.

The comprehensive framework of prosperity economics-- and the research it draws on-- provides the vital context for understanding these policies not as a laundry-list of disparate ideas, but as interlocking aspects of a single, unified vision.

The just-completed Democratic National Convention sounded many notes in harmony with the prosperity agenda. That's hardly surprising, given the Democratic Party's long history of building American prosperity during the 20th century. But will Democrats actually stand firm for policies and programs that will make shared prosperity a reality, or will they return to President Obama's mindless mad scramble for an unattainable and disastrous "grand bargain" that will slash prosperity-promoting government programs in return for Republicans finally agreeing to some modest restoration of tax levels from the past? That is the real question that Americans should be worried about.

Some Democrats clearly understand the underlying synergistic logic of Hacker and Lowentheil's proposal. Liberal bloggers Howie Klein at Down With Tyranny and Digby at Hullabaloo have repeatedly called attention and urged support for a list of progressive Democratic challengers who've signed on to support the prosperity agenda, and Digby herself was partnered with Hacker on the teleconference I mentioned earlier.

But the logic of Obama's infatuation with a "grand bargain" is antithetical to the logic of prosperity economics. Prosperity economics and austerity economics have diametrically opposed purposes-- sharing prosperity among the many vs hoarding it for the few-- and each has its own self-reinforcing dynamic. There is no middle way that captures "the best of both", because each has a radically different idea of what "best" is. 

As Digby noted in response to Obama's convention speech, Obama has promised not to cut programs to give tax cuts for millionaires. (That's certainly much better than Romney-Ryan, who plan to do exactly that.) But he did not promise not to cut programs in return for tax hikes for millionaires-- and that's the very essence of the "grand bargain" strategy, a strategy that only makes sense if you're forever focused on asking the wrong questions.

Fixing The Deficit Without Making Things Even Worse

Wall Street's proposals to fix the deficit may be wonderful for Wall Street... but they are WRONG for America

Thursday night, when everyone was finishing up with the Democratic convention in Charlotte, author David Korten (Agenda For A New Economy) tweeted a recommendation for an article by John Cavanagh ay Yes! Magazine, 7 Ways To End The Deficit (Without Throwing Grandma Under The Bus). Cavanagh is looking for a more just, more secure, more sustainable economy... as Korten did in his book. And as we have been over the past month in our exploration of Jacob Hacker's alternative to the failed Austerity Agenda Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are pushing.

Along with 16 congressional candidates we've been looking at the proposals Hacker and his partner Nate Loewentheil have made-- "Prosperity Economics"-- to help us create prosperity across all income classes, reform our broken political system, invest for the long term and, not incidentally, fix the debt problem-- all without cutting vital government programs. Here's how Dr. David Gill, a Democrat in downstate Illinois running strongly for an open seat (IL-13) put it:

The politics of austerity embraced by Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republicans are not a solution to the ongoing economic malaise here in central Illinois-- in fact, such policies will only exacerbate the real pain that has been experienced by so many of my neighbors for so many years now. The ever-growing income gap between the extremely rich and the rest of us has reached historical proportions, and it is this gap that fuels economic misery on "Main Street." Politicians who refuse to acknowledge the need to have corporations and millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share are serving but a tiny minority of their constituents, and they are forcing us to remain in an economic quagmire. American workers are amongst the most productive in the world, but with real wages stagnant for 30 years now, with virtually all the gains going to a small fraction of society, we are left with a populace unable to enjoy the fruits of its labor, and unable to fuel economic recovery. Austerity is not the answer-- investing in people is the answer! Make the millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share. Put in place Improved Medicare for All, which will provide an economic stimulus the likes of which we've rarely seen by taking back the 30+% of our health care dollars currently wasted on the private health insurance industry. And fully invest ourselves in the Green Revolution so desperately needed to ensure clean air and clean water for generations to come, producing hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process. These are the steps which will restore our economic health and bring additional benefits in the bargain.

There was one sour note in Clinton's speech on Wednesday and one sour note in Obama's speech on Thursday-- and they were the same sour note: threats of a so-called Grand Bargain with the Republicans, a Grand Bargain based on conservative plans to further shred the social safety net. The last time Democrats entered into a Grand Bargain with the Republicans-- that time is was Teddy Kennedy and George W. Bush-- the end result was No Child Left Behind. Obama's deal with Boehner would be far worse-- and catastrophic for the Democratic Party brand and their reputation as a party willing to stand up for the legitimate aspirations of working families. It's why, in the end, even with the potential nightmare of a Romney/Ryan regime, I won't be voting (albeit safely in California) for Barack Obama. Obama could learn a lot from Cavanagh's deficit reduction proposals, far more than what he seems intent on doing for his party's corporate donors. Cavanagh reports that there are seven steps that, together, more than eliminate the deficit while making the country more equitable, green, and secure.

Our first three proposals could bring in $329 billion a year; this alone would solve the deficit problem while helping to close the yawning inequality gap.

• 1.  Tax Wall Street: $150 billion per year. A tiny tax on stock and derivatives transactions, which several European countries are on track to adopt, would discourage Wall Street speculation, fill the hole in the deficit left by the Bush tax cuts, and leave plenty left over to fund lots of programs. The National Nurses Union and many other allies are fighting hard for this.

• 2.  Tax Corporations and Stop Tax Haven Abuse: $100 billion per year. The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency coalition has pointed out that one of the main ways that corporations avoid paying taxes is by declaring their profits in overseas tax havens like the Cayman Islands. 
 
• 3.  Tax the Wealthy Fairly: $79 billion per year. Our rigged tax code lets CEOs pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries do (as Warren Buffett keeps pointing out). The proposed Fairness in Taxation Act (HR 1124) would address this by adding five additional tax brackets for incomes over $1 million.

These three policy changes would go a long way toward making our society more equal, and that means better health, too. There is a terrific body of global evidence, a lot of it compiled by British researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, that more equal societies are much healthier. People at all income levels live longer; they are more fulfilled; and there is less violence. The United States, a relatively equal society as recently as the 1970s, is now off the charts in terms of wealth and income inequality. It doesn’t have to be that way. Just as we created a more just and vibrant economy and a strong middle class through fair taxes between 1940 and 1980, we can do it again through progressive taxation.

The second source of revenue would make the economy more green, a key imperative in a world where the environmental crisis is now as deep as the economic one. We found two simple ways to raise revenues and help save the environment.

• 4.  Tax Pollution: $75 billion per year. A tax on the carbon content of fossil fuels would reduce our dependence on oil while cutting air pollution and emissions of greenhouse gases. And, as economist Robert Frank pointed out on August 25 in the New York Times, “News that a carbon tax was coming would create a stampede to develop energy-saving technologies.”

• 5.   End Fossil Fuel Subsidies: $12 billion per year. This call should unite left and right. Why would anyone want to maintain a giant government subsidy to an industry that is the world’s major contributor to fossil-fuel emissions? 350.org has made this a centerpiece of their work. We should be able to win this.

Finally, there are simple ways to cut the military while making the country and the world more secure. More than half of government discretionary spending now goes to the military. Congress has long avoided cuts, in part because they equate military spending with jobs, but IPS has pointed out that almost every other industry employs more workers per dollar than the military. Plus, there is now bipartisan support for two sets of significant cuts.

• 6.  End Military Waste: $109 billion per year. A broad spectrum of experts has found over $100 billion a year in waste that could be eliminated with no sacrifice in security. Three recent commissions, two of them bi-partisan, have recommended roughly $1 trillion in military cuts over 10 years.

• 7.  Close a third of our overseas bases and our Iraq operations: $21 billion per year. Over two decades after the Cold War ended, the United States still maintains roughly 1,000 military installations in other countries. A majority of the President’s own deficit commission, which includes three Republican senators-- the National Commission on Financial Responsibility and Reform-- backed a proposal to close one third of our overseas military bases.

These seven simple steps would raise close to $550 billion a year. They would quickly erase the fiscal deficit  and return the country to a healthy budget surplus. There would be hundreds of billions left to invest in key sectors that could make the country more secure, more green, and more equitable: care jobs, green jobs, infrastructure jobs.

In other words, this plan could help erase the nation’s dangerous social and environmental deficits.
Many groups-- from Jobs with Justice to National People’s Action to the AFL-CIO-- are organizing to counter a push by the Right to use the deficit crisis to shred social programs and our nation’s safety net. Let’s up the ante and spread the message. America is not broke. We have plenty of resources to rebuild shared prosperity in the U.S.

Would you like to see the country move down this path rather than the path the GOP and Wall Street are insisting on? The Prosperity candidates will help give Obama the strength and resolve he needs to resist Austerity. Please do what you can to help them get elected in November.

Americans For REAL Prosperity

Over the course of the last week, House candidates from every part of America have vowed to fight the failed Austerity agenda being pushed by Romney, Ryan and their Republican cronies in Congress. The full-- and growing-- list of candidates, with their statements, is on this page, where you will see an inspiring diversity of thought and approach. Patsy Keever, the intrepid Democratic state Rep from Asheville, NC, was the first to respond and she focused primarily on tending to the nation's infrastructure, something her opponent, Patrick McHenry, has blocked:

This country has faced the slowest economic recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression. Our Congress has been hijacked by extremely radical members who refuse to come together to put the best interests of all Americans before party allegiance. This country needs its infrastructure re-built. Thirty percent of North Carolina’s bridges are structurally deficient, 215 of the state’s damns fall short of its safety standards, 27% of our highways are in poor condition and 54% of them are congested. These statistics have a wide-ranging and devastating impact on our economy. Small businesses need roads and bridges to support their work. People need safe and uncongested roads to get to their jobs. Infrastructure spending not only ensures that people who do have jobs can keep them, but it creates jobs for people who don’t have them. It is critical for our country to invest in its own future. We need leaders willing to work for the people, not merely their parties.

The most recent candidate to sign on, Beto O'Rourke, the independent-minded Democrat in El Paso, is also a big booster of infrastructure. He's concentrating on strengthening communities from the ground up, starting with employment opportunities:

In order to strengthen our nation and revive our economy, we need strong communities. That means investing in infrastructure, in innovation, and in the public resources that ensure our continued competitiveness.

And while we certainly should rigorously review spending, and ensure that we are delivering government services as effectively and efficiently as possible, we will not cut our way to prosperity.

When it comes to raising revenues-- let's put every special interest, loophole and deduction on the table and-- with our eyes wide open-- decide what our priorities are and how we're going to pay for them. Right now the wealthy and connected are best equipped to navigate, and at times bend, the tax system to their advantage. My vote is to have a transparent, progressive structure that gives struggling families the best shot at moving up the economic ladder and creating greater wealth and opportunity in their communities.

I've knocked on nearly 20,000 doors in my district since I started campaigning a year ago. The number one issue people talk to me about is the economy and their most pressing concern is finding a job.

That's why I'm committed to investing in our communities, getting people back to work and ensuring that everyone's paying their fair share to move this country forward.

William Greider also tackled the notion-- in great depth-- at The Nation. Like our candidates, he seems very impressed with the work Jacob Hacker has done on the Prosperity Economics proposal and he's looking for a strategy that's in an entirely different world than what you'll find from Beltway careerist organizations like the DCCC. Greider identifies the real task progressive Americans have right now-- reelecting Barack Obama and resetting his priorities.

The challenge is forbidding and doubtless sounds naïve to establishment politicians. But the risks of failure are huge. Faced with the growing fear that Obama will pursue a “grand bargain” with conservatives after the election, further compromising core principles, leading liberal-labor forces are toughening up their tactics. They see the prospect of re-election as a great opportunity to coax or push the president toward the fundamental economic reforms he ducked in his first term-- a source of great disappointment on the left.

Cynics may sneer at part of the strategy for renewal, but it’s a novel approach, and I think it may represent a meaningful turn in the road. Instead of bombing voters with hyped-up TV messages, progressive leaders are going for big ideas. They are rolling out a meaty agenda of economic reforms, giving voters a firm grasp of the issues that affect their lives and charting a path toward a prosperous, more secure future. The ultimate goal is long-term and larger than Obama: reviving small-d democracy and rebuilding the left by helping ordinary people regain their power as citizens. Is that still possible in our dysfunctional system? We are going to find out.

Organizers say Americans are hungry for liberal alternatives to the austerity agenda. People everywhere are tired of manipulative rhetoric. They want to hear serious proposals for how to restore prosperity and an equitable society. Trouble is, neither the president nor the Democratic Party much wants to talk about solutions that sound suspiciously liberal. Mitt Romney is mocked for not having a coherent plan for economic recovery, but Obama doesn’t have much of one either. “Fairness” is not a governing strategy. Frequent factory visits are not going to bring back manufacturing jobs.

...Hacker lays out the principal steps for restoring progressive taxation, re-regulating the financial system and breaking up the mega-banks. He does not pause to note that the Democratic Party has been deeply complicit in these scandals. But his report could be read as a “shadow platform” for a party that has drifted rightward and lost its way.

“This campaign is basically the choice between austerity-- more pain for working people-- or an economy of growth and jobs and prosperity,” AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka explains. “Our president is campaigning for that future. Professor Hacker’s agenda spells out how to get there-- the ideas and actions that deliver what people want and need in their lives. ... Our agenda is about governing solutions that work, that can heal our wounded country,” Trumka adds. “The conservative corporate machine will oppose nearly everything we propose. But we know from polls that people are overwhelmingly for these propositions-- typically with 75 to 90 percent support.” By arming people with the truth about debt reduction and who gets hurt, Trumka thinks, Hacker’s blueprint should have an immediate impact on postelection decisions.

...As the election season heats up, organized labor and allied groups are trying to walk a delicate line. On the one hand, they intend to push these comprehensive reform proposals aggressively on Congress and the White House, no matter who wins in November. On the other hand, they are committed to Obama’s re-election and anxious to avoid making problems for him. After the election, however, all bets are off. Liberals and labor will be ready to play hardball. Or so they say.

Progressive leaders think they have figured out how to get the president’s attention and compel him to take their agenda seriously. The familiar pattern in Obama’s first term was serial disappointment and occasional anger. The cautious president kept his distance on major decisions while vaguely expressing sympathy with liberal aspirations. He seemed more worried about upsetting independents in the ambivalent middle. He worked especially hard at courting corporate and financial titans.

Looking back, many liberal activists realize they were much too deferential when the White House seemed to take them for granted. Because the GOP was savaging and slandering Obama, trying to block everything he proposed, faithful supporters were reluctant to add to his grief. But they have belatedly concluded that Obama, like most politicians, sometimes needs a poke in the chest from his friends.

The pattern of Obama’s encounters with frustrated supporters suggests what succeeds is a smartly focused strategy of tactical pressuring—a willingness to get in his face, up the ante with direct action, and withhold affection until you get a meaningful response. The president and White House staffers insisted that impatient agitators would only hurt their cause, since Obama had already declared his sympathy for their goals. Overzealous pressure campaigns would make it harder for him to act.

Obama’s track record indicates the opposite: he doesn’t like to be pushed, and he resents it especially when the pressure comes from allies. But if they keep the heat on, he is more likely to address their grievances. On at least four notable issues of great concern to Democratic constituencies—immigration reform, gays in the military, the Keystone pipeline and same-sex marriage—the pattern of sustained pressure and protest aimed at the president led him to “evolve” in his views. Instead of offering mere rhetoric, he responded concretely to their demands.

Two years ago, immigration advocates lost patience with the administration’s aggressive approach to deportation and its foot-dragging on the DREAM Act. They escalated the terms of their complaints in harsh and highly visible ways and started marching en masse. Bhargava, a leading organizer of the pro-immigration forces, told the president face-to-face at a White House meeting that the administration was presiding over a “moral catastrophe.” The president rebuked Bhargava for exaggeration and ingratitude and became “pissy” with immigration advocates in other meetings.

In June, nonetheless, Obama announced a great victory for immigrants’ rights. At the president’s command, the Department of Homeland Security stopped deporting DREAM Act–eligible young people-- as many as 1.5 million-- and arranged to provide work permits for them. This was a very big deal: the largest legalization of undocumented immigrants since Ronald Reagan’s sweeping amnesty in 1986. Certainly the approaching election had something to do with Obama’s change of heart. (That is what elections are for.) But it was the advocates’ persistence that persuaded the nervous White House to go for it. As the Obama team discovered, good policy can also be good politics.

Similar tactics produced similar victories-- or at least forward motion-- on the other issues. Liberal-labor forces intend to adapt these lessons as they push for the fundamental reforms enumerated in the Hacker blueprint. They recognize that they cannot easily emulate the model unless they go to work at the grassroots, building a popular base of citizens who are mobilized to demand action. Right now, the economic reformers lack the level of sophistication and solidarity that helped deliver results for gays, Latinos and environmentalists in recent years. Americans do not need to be told about their pain and insecurity. They need to learn how to do something about it.

...But will labor and other mediating organizations actually follow through with the plan? Can they establish enough distance from the Democrats and the White House to advance an effective pressure campaign? Skeptics doubt it. They recall earlier moments of crisis when similar declarations of independence were voiced but nothing much changed. This time is different, and for important reasons I think the results will be different too.

For one thing, the economic crisis has severely altered the political context. The new circumstances are especially adverse for working people, but an adequate response from government has not been forthcoming. As the broad middle class festered in desperation and bitterness in the wake of the crash, Democrats, including the president, were surprisingly restrained. The White House seemed reluctant to advocate aggressive measures that might alienate independents or upset financial interests and other malefactors.

Then Occupy Wall Street came along and blew away Obama’s soft talk. Now, candidate Obama has wisely adapted Occupy’s brilliantly succinct message as his own. He does not have the nerve to invoke “the 99 percent,” but his rhetoric of fairness plays to the same music. Occupy likewise became a wake-up call for labor liberals. When people in the streets began shouting what the left had been too shy to broadcast forcefully, unions got a welcome jolt. Soon enough, they began shouting too.

With any luck, this surge of energy and enthusiasm-- and the attendant rejection of 1 percent politics, as embodied by Mitt Romney-- will propel Obama to a second term. But some activists are already worried about what will happen if Obama wins. Will he abandon his “inner liberal” again and opt for a grand bargain with Republicans that will do brutal damage to the liberal legacy and long-loyal constituencies?

These enduring suspicions reveal the fraught nature of the marriage between organized labor and the Democratic Party. Unless the party renews its vows and honors them, this marriage may be headed for a trial separation.

For more than three decades, the union movement has faithfully turned out labor votes and raised many millions to finance Democratic campaigns. But as its membership shrank, it gradually became weaker and more dependent on the Democratic Party. Union membership was decimated by globalized production and the business campaign to destroy workers’ rights. But the Democrats became less reliable as the defenders of labor at precisely the moment labor really needed them.

Dissident union leaders and rank-and-file workers repeatedly complained that labor was getting the worse end of the bargain. Unions should put aside party loyalty, they argued, and free themselves to pursue more combative and radical strategies in both politics and the workplace. Labor leaders mostly resisted the demands-- partly out of inertia, but also because they understood how vulnerable union members would be if they lost their political allies.

This dilemma has finally reached the breaking point: labor and its liberal allies must chart a new course or face extinction. Given their weakened condition, it is especially difficult to imagine a reinvigorated labor movement or a more independent approach to politics. But the status quo looks like a loser for sure.

A different strategy might start with people on the ground who have no voice at all, represented by neither unions nor politicians. In order to launch a mass movement for economic justice, organized labor would have to relearn some of the things it used to know, including how to wage a campaign to address large economic grievances and speak for working people everywhere.

Jacob Hacker makes the basic point that securing shared prosperity necessarily requires the restoration of democracy. A strategy that gives voice to the people who cannot be heard amid the clamor of big-money politics would not just be about winning elections; it would apply as well to the workplace and financial markets, to corporations and governing institutions. The excluded who need to gain a voice and power might not add up to 99 percent, but they surely represent a majority large enough to change the country.

That said... let me invite you again to our Americans For REAL Prosperity page and ask you to take a look at what the candidates there have to say about these ideas. Jay Chen is running against egregious Wall Street shill Ed Royce in a new southern California district. The DCCC has expressed no particular interest in the race, even though it's certainly winnable. Jay is an enthusiastic supporter of Prosperity Economics and I'll leave you with his statement-- and The Clash:

"When I first read up on Prosperity Economics, I thought someone must have really taken a liking to my stump speeches. The ideas espoused by Professor Jacob Hacker and Nate Loewentheil are completely aligned with my core beliefs for getting our country and economy back on track. These beliefs, which include investing in infrastructure, education, and our social safety nets, and limiting the power of corporations to distort our political system, are not new. They are part of the original formula that drove the unparalleled success our nation has enjoyed up until recently.

But these ideas are now under constant attack, as is the prosperity of our nation, by corporate interests and social extremists whose ultimate goal is to increase income inequality and cultural disharmony. Wealth accumulation has now been confused with job creation, and the right wants to slash government services further to grow the war machine. All the while our middle class, which is the true engine of economic growth and stability, continues to shrink. We simply cannot cut our way to prosperity anymore than we can drill our way out of oil dependence. We need leaders who understand how smart, sound investment made us the great nation we are today, and how prosperity economics can ensure our leadership in the world for generations to come."

The Grand Bargain Isn't Shared Sacrifice, It's Human Sacrifice

If you're on the Blue America mailing list, you get an e-mail every week from Digby, John and I, usually about a new candidate or an action Blue America is taking. The only way to get on the list is to donate-- even if just one dollar-- to any one of our candidates on any of our many ActBlue pages, like the standard page for our House candidates or the page for our 3 Senate candidates or one of the more exotic pages, like the one to stop Paul Ryan or for stopping Eric Cantor and for permanently stomping out homophobia in Congress... or for our next awesome contest (which no one knows about but you, since it doesn't officially start 'til next weekend). So a buck to any candidate on any of those sites (or any other Blue America contribution site) and you're on. This week, though I want to share the latest newsletter. Digby wrote it for us and my favorite line is the subject of this post: "The Grand Bargain isn't shared sacrifice, it's human sacrifice."

Last week we alerted you to professor Jacob Hacker's manifesto called Prosperity Economics and asked you to take a look at what could be the blueprint for a progressive approach to our nation's economic problems. We believe this is a plan that can restore growth, reverse inequality and revitalize our democracy. It will even cut the deficit without resorting to slashing vital government services and the already frayed and weakened social insurance programs.

Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the plan of many of the leadership of the Democratic Party which remains focused on Grand Bargains, "balanced approaches" and Simpson-Bowles, all of which are basically conservative con games devised to slash government at the worst possible time. The Democrats have inexplicably defined victory in these negotiations not as the preservation of vital government programs but winning a nominal tax hike for the wealthiest Americans in exchange for their cooperation in cutting the safety net. Unfortunately for the American people, the Republicans seem to be seeing their winning hand: GOP moneybags David Koch revealed this week that he would be in favor of the tax increases. If his congressional minions follow suit,  the Democrats may get their "victory." Unfortunately, the people will lose, and lose big.

This is why we must have a progressive bloc in Congress that is willing to stand up to both parties in cases like this and be the bulwark against a raid on important government services in the name of austerity. This is why we need our Blue America candidates to be elected this November.

Just as we asked you to look at Prosperity Economics, we asked them too. And the response was remarkable. We asked our candidates to look at them too. You can read them all at this page.

Alan Grayson  had this to say:

"This coming election is too important to be about nothing. And that is why Jacob Hacker and Nate Loewentheil's 'Prosperity Economics' platform is important-- it's not nothing, it's something. Something big. For a Democratic victory to be meaningful, for it to create a 'mandate,' we owe it to America to explain what we would do with that victory. We need to make some promises, and then do our darnedest to try to keep them. 'Prosperity Economics' is a coherent, comprehensive plan that offers the hope-- the essential hope-- of leading us out of the wilderness."

This is where the Democrats should be planting their flag. Agreeing to cut vital government programs including Social Security and Medicare in order to obtain some tip money from millionaires isn't "shared sacrifice"-- it's human sacrifice. Up until now the Tea Partiers in Congress have refused to take yes for an answer. But if David Koch is now willing to accept some token tax hikes you can be sure the Republicans are waking up to how foolish that stance is.

No matter who wins the presidency and the majority after November's election, the nation will be facing the GOP's well-laid trap of the so-called "fiscal cliff." And unless there is a bloc of Democrats willing to demand Prosperity instead of Austerity there is a very good chance we will be thrown into another recession, just as our British friends across the pond faced when their government chose the slash government  in the midst of an epic slump. And even if we manage to dodge that bullet, we will have more slow growth, rising inequality and the further degradation of our vital social safety net. It is the wrong prescription for the Democratic Party and the people of this country.

You can help by helping elect these progressive House candidates who will come to congress with Prosperity Economics as their mandate. We urge you to read their comments at Blue America's Americans for REAL Prosperity page and give what you can. We simply must make our voices heard in Washington on this important issue. 

And the newest candidate to get behind "Prosperity Economics" as the antidote to the failed Austerity agenda being pushed on us by conservatives and corporate shills, is Missa Eaton who's running against reactionary multimillionaire Mike Kelly in northwestern Pennsylvania (PA-03). Like most of us, she explained that she's "been a part of a middle class family all my life. I have seen the hard work that goes into making sure dinner is on the table every night. I know what is like to live paycheck to paycheck, and sadly I have seen the American dream beginning to slip away. I announced my campaign as a candidate who believes the American dream is still attainable for anyone who follows the rules and works hard. The “New Strategy for Prosperity” given to us by Jacob Hacker will help us achieve just that. The principles of this new economic policy are something anyone should be able to support. It ensures an economic policy that isn’t built on deregulation and tax cuts, policy that works for the middle class. The policy keeps Medicare and Social Security solvent and adds a public option to the Affordable Care Act. This policy does not allow corporations the same rights as individuals and allows us to move our country forward."

Austerity Vs Prosperity-- In Congressional Race After Congressional Race, That's The #1 Question

Normally on Tuesdays we introduce a new Blue America candidate. But this week we're concentrating on the responses our candidates have to Austerity. In short, the response is... Prosperity. Like I said yesterday, Jacob Hacker and Nate Loewentheil have put into words-- and numbers-- the premise upon which progressives have been battling the Ryan Budget, the Wall Street Agenda and any moves towards a Grand Bargain that takes from the working and middle class to further enrich the already too wealthy. If you want to get into Hacker's and Loewentheil's details, which I encourage you to do, here are 60 glorious pages. Alan Grayson summed it up-- at least in part-- pretty well in the 30 second campaign ad above. He's running against a typical Republican clone who wants to turn Social Security over to Wall Street. That's a key to the Austerity Agenda and Grayson wants to make sure voters in FL-09 know all about it. Yesterday Grayson explained one of the reasons Prosperity Economics is so important right now:

The Seinfeld show, which TV Guide named the greatest TV show of all time (seriously), often was described as a show about nothing. We are in danger of the 2012 Election becoming an election about nothing. When a nation is facing the kind of problems that we are facing, then Barack Obama’s birth certificate, his religious beliefs, Mitt Romney’s gaffes, his personal deductions, and even Todd Akin’s understanding of female anatomy all are the moral equivalent of nothing. This coming election is too important to be about nothing. And that is why Nate Loewentheil’s “Prosperity Economics” platform is important-- it’s not nothing, it’s something. Something big. For a Democratic victory to be meaningful, for it to create a “mandate,” we owe it to America to explain what we would do with that victory. We need to make some promises, and then do our darnedest to try to keep them. “Prosperity Economics” is a coherent, comprehensive plan that offers the hope-- the essential hope-- of leading us out of the wilderness.

Although every Democrat on our Americans for REAL Prosperity page is running against a Republican who wants to privatize Social Security and abolish Medicare, few of them are stupid enough to say it into a microphone the way Todd Long, Grayson's hapless opponent did (several times). But all of these Democrats are using the issues that make up Prosperity Economics as part of the foundation of their campaigns. In yesterday's post we saw Jay Chen's and David Gill's pushback against Austerity in California and Illinois.

Every candidate on our growing list approachs the Austerity vs Prosperity battle from their own unique perspective. Aryanna Strader is running against anti-Choice fanatic Joe Pitts in a newly blue-leaning Pennsylvania district (16th CD) and she looks at the dichotomy in light of her own experiences:

As a small business owner, mother, and Iraq War veteran, I stand behind the foundations of prosperity economics presented by Dr. Hacker and Mr. Loewentheil. Like every aspiring entrepreneur, it comes as no surprise that our goals are to expand our business. Investing in America's growth through infrastructure not only creates jobs but drives private business to make investments of their own. Empowering young people who want to pursue higher education only makes us a greater, more competitive nation. Ensuring that people like my mother are secure in their retirement is a necessity. My mother worked hard her entire life as a waitress and her only form of retirement is Social Security. Had Medicare been turned into a voucher program, my mother would not have been able to receive a life-saving operation. We must do all we can to protect Medicare and ensure that those in future generation will have access to the health care they need. I served our Country and defended Democracy. Additionally I fought to protect and foster the right to vote of every U.S. citizen in order for their voice to be heard. We must remove barriers that infringe upon this right so that we can hold our elected officials accountable. The middle-class; the poor have been punched in the gut for far too long. Our American worker has always risen to the occasion throughout history. We in turn must support ideas that restore and provide them the ability to flourish. It is common sense in my opinion that we cannot have prosperity for all unless we justly and fairly provide the opportunity for all to prosper.

Syed Taj-- also running in a blue-leaning district (MI-11 in the Detroit suburbs)-- is an immigrant from India who has been a doctor for decades and teh first Democrat in his township to win elective office in many years. His whole reason for running for Congress is tied up in the bedrock of Prosperity Economics... and has been even before Hacker tied it together and put a name on it.

Prosperity Economics is the kind of powerful, intellectual force we need to rebuild our middle class, grow our economy, and recreate the equitable society that accomplished so much throughout our nation’s history. These are common sense solutions for sustainable public policy. We need leaders in Congress to invest in our middle class and Hacker and Loewntheil have shown the way. As a physician and small business owner, I stand behind this plan to rebuild our economic foundation because we cannot keep believing that prosperity for some must come at the expense of others.

The resistance to economic stimulus, environmental regulation, social safety nets, and progressive taxation has persisted for generations. “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much,” President Roosevelt said, “it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.” These ideals have upheld the test of time. The great feats we’ve accomplished have shown just how effective government can be when we invest in our future and protect the middle class. Economists have proven hazardous effects of austerity, market failures, and income inequality on our society. Austerity has had its day, but from the Great Depression to the Great Recession, it has failed to produce the prosperity its champions have promised. Prosperity Economics gives us a way forward.

The newest candidate to come aboard is Ann Kuster, who's running against New Hampshire corporate shill and Austerity fanatic Charlie Bass. Ann, who's currently ahead in the polling, told us "At hundreds of house parties across New Hampshire's Second Congressional District, I've heard the same thing: the middle class is hurting and they don't feel like they have a voice in Congress. I am running for Congress to be a voice for middle class families in New Hampshire. We can create jobs and turn this economy around so we can have Prosperity once again. How do we do it? Education is how we grew an economy this strong in the first place, and it's where we need to start again. Innovation has been a powerful competitive advantage for America, and we can’t afford to lose our edge. And Rejuvenation-- of our bridges and roads, cities and towns, and highways and broadband communications-- that's the key to a country that is built to win the future. We can make smart cuts, eliminate wasteful spending, and streamline regulation, but I agree with the principles of Prosperity Economics-- that we can't just cut our way to a stronger tomorrow. We need to make smart investments in our future. The time for political arguments and excuses is over. Doing nothing isn’t working. Let’s rebuild our country and win the future, again."