Will America Remain a Good Society?

Our country is in the midst of a clash between two competing moral visions, between those who believe in the common good, and those who believe individual good is the only good. A war has been declared on the poor, and it is a moral imperative that people of faith and conscience fight on the side of the most vulnerable. – Rev. Jim Wallis

I have been reluctant to write about the partisan bickering in Washington over the debt ceiling, if only to resist the urge to become overly cynical about our political process. But it is difficult. President Obama presented Republicans with a “Grand Bargain” that should have been embraced as every conservative’s dream – spending cuts of $4 trillion over ten years, an increase in the age of eligibility for Medicare, and other structural changes to the vast entitlement programs – but House Speaker John Boehner walked away. Boehner walked, I suspect, because he has a metaphorical gun to his head by the anti-tax, Tea Party radicals in Congress. Nevertheless, walk away he did, not because the spending cuts were insufficient, but because they would be achieved, in part, through very modest tax increases and the closing of loopholes on hedge fund managers, corporate jet owners, and companies that move offshore.

There once was a time when the Republicans would have embraced the President’s proposal as an opportunity to limit the size and scope of the federal government while also preventing a default of the nation’s obligations (see Where Have the Moderate Republicans Gone?). Led by the Tea Party, Republican refusal to compromise is a symptom of a much larger problem, a dysfunction in our political process. As David Brooks of The New York Times noted recently, the Republican Party no longer occupies the realm of normalcy, but has instead “been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.” To the Tea Party radicals, compromise is weakness. They are the Hezbollah faction of American politics, suicide bombers willing to destroy themselves to destroy their opposition. Meanwhile the country is collateral damage. “The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise,” Brooks noted, “no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no.”

The Democrats in Congress are only slightly better. While the Republicans are acting like children, neither side is taking into account the people who always get left behind in these debates, the poor, the weak, and the vulnerable. Senator Harry Reid presented an alternative to Obama’s plan that contained deep cuts in spending and no revenue increases, but upon closer scrutiny it involved numerical smoke and mirrors and “fuzzy math” as one former President liked to say. Only the President seems to understand that anyone serious about reducing the debt and deficits must put forth a plan that contains a balance of real spending cuts and tax increases, but he appears unwilling to insist on this. Where is LBJ when you need him?

Where are the statesmen in the Republican Party? Where are the moral voices in the Democratic Party who used to fight for the most vulnerable in our society? Where are the voices of reason, the men and women who believe in the end that the good of the country outweighs partisan ideology? Even Ronald Reagan, the most right-wing President of my lifetime, raised the debt ceiling 18 times and raised taxes eleven times when he occupied the White House in the 1980’s. Were Reagan around today, I suspect the anti-tax mafia of the Republican Party would metaphorically instruct their underlings to “take him to the airport” and have him “swim with the fishes”; he would be politically excommunicated. Reagan knew that the debt ceiling debate was about the country fulfilling its obligations and paying its creditors, not a fight over tax policy and government programs. That is reserved for the budget debates. But the anti-tax fundamentalists are threatening to savage the already flickering economy and the country’s long-term interests to win a political game, to humiliate the President, and to force their ideology onto an American public that yearns only for America’s leaders to act responsibly.

Meanwhile, the nation’s unemployment rate hovers at 9.2%, while the real unemployment rate consisting of those who have given up on finding work and the severely under-employed, exceeds 16.2% of the workforce. Forgotten and ignored in the debt ceiling talks are “the people who come to my church’s front door every day,” writes the Rev. Jennifer Kottler, Associate Pastor of Park Avenue Christian Church in New York City, in this week’s Sojourners. She talks of the people hurting the most from our current economic structure.

It’s the guy I met last week who is trying to make ends meet with a $300 per week job (in New York City) with three kids and a wife, on parole, and at the end of his rope. He doesn’t need piecemeal charity; he needs an economic system that rewards hard work and allows him to work and provide for his family. He doesn’t want to end up back in prison, but he knows that he might go back to the underground economy so that he can feed his family. It was 104 degrees here last week, and he’s already thinking about his kids needing winter coats and boots and school supplies.

CNN has reported that one in five males in the United States presently fill the ranks of the unemployed. But the anti-tax radicals insist this is the time to shrink government and to let everyone fend for themselves.

What is really at stake, it seems, is a much larger, more crucial debate over the role of government in a good society. How do we maintain the greatness that is America while ensuring that we remain a decent, fair and compassionate country?

We live in a country that values freedom and rugged individualism. Born of a revolution, Americans achieved independence from colonial oppression, expanded westward and made their own way. We developed the frontier, survived a civil war, and won two world wars. Through it all, we allowed our citizens to dream and innovate, compete, and create enormous wealth. We have historically, through the unfettered engines of capitalism, free enterprise, and competition, combined with substantial government support and investment, produced the richest, most productive economy in the world’s history.

But fundamental to our economic system and the free flow of capital is a dark reality, one easily overlooked by the people who most benefit from our economic system. A market-based economy requires a certain level of inequality and unfairness to function efficiently and properly; it demands that some people be left to fend for themselves. A competitive economy, consisting of winners and losers, offers great wealth to some and a long, uphill struggle for others; it is a zero sum game with millions of people left behind. In business, the bottom line is king, a dictator with an army of accountants and financial wizards whose impersonal decisions affect the lives of employees and their families. When times are good, we can be a generous nation, taking care of the weak, the vulnerable, the poor, the sick, and the unemployed. But in times of peril, when we experience phases dominated by greed and intolerance, our society begins to look less friendly, less ideal.

Throughout the Twentieth Century, it had been the government’s proper role to narrow the gaps inherent in a profit-driven, market economy; to uplift the poor and to make certain that society remains, if not equal, at least fair and compassionate. Government is needed, in part, to do the things that private enterprise, left to its own devices, cannot or will not do: protect our air and water; ensure a safe food supply; educate our children; build and repair our roads and bridges; protect our country from foreign and domestic threats; enforce our laws fairly and equally; regulate our disputes and maintain a fair judicial system; protect consumers and oversee fair and competitive markets. Following the Great Depression and American victory in World War II, the United States enacted the Employment Act of 1946, which made full employment a national priority, in which it was understood government would play a significant role whenever the private sector fell short.  Although we never achieved the ideals of the Great Society, we sought as much as possible a Good Society.

In their zeal to return the United States to a 19th century world where property and privilege dominated, the Tea Party has lost sight of the world in which we actually live. The countries that shape the 21st century will be those most adept at managing the private-public partnership needed to sustain infrastructure, energy sources, scientific and medical research, the environment, and the development and nurturing of human capital. The financial collapse of 2008 that led to the Great Recession, and the rapid advances of technology that continue to eliminate people and jobs, demand reforms of today’s hedge fund capitalism. If the Tea Party insists on imposing a 19th century form of capitalism onto the nation’s economy, it will only accelerate the country’s moral and economic decline.

In the current debate over the debt ceiling, concepts of justice, fairness, decency, and hope have been forfeited to the forces of power politics. The victims are the poor, the middle class, the millions of laid-off and underemployed Americans who have settled into a semi-permanent state of economic depression. Responsible leaders are not those who force a makeshift debt ceiling bill at the midnight hour designed only to delay another fundamental debate and to prevent an economic collapse. Responsible leaders sit down together and find ways to cut spending without damaging our economy and hurting our most vulnerable citizens; they agree on ways to raise new tax revenues to pay down our debt (which merely pays for past expenditures, including the Bush tax cuts and the unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), while maintaining those programs that benefit our people and our economy; and they find ways to maintain a fair and compassionate society, while at the same time reinvigorate economic growth and success.

Budgets are moral documents. They involve choices that reveal the kind of country we are and desire to be. Do we continue to lavish tax cuts on people who make more than $250,000 a year, or do we instead increase the top marginal rates by two percentage points to help fund defense, infrastructure, environmental protection, and food stamps for the elderly poor? Do we really need the new $2 billion fighter jet if it means cutting Head Start and early childhood nutrition programs? Should we allow unlimited mortgage-interest deductions on vacation homes if it means spending less on improvements to our highways and bridges? The answers cannot simply be to cut food stamps, or to stop protecting the environment, or to eliminate Head Start, or to ignore the nation’s transportation systems. The implications of such negligence are too painful; the consequences to the nation’s soul too severe.

It is in these difficult times when the moral fabric of our society is most tested. Anyone who claims that we should cut Medicare, food stamps, and education but will under no circumstances increase taxes, does not have a plan for America’s future. Anyone who believes that millionaire hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners should pay no more while the elderly, the poor, the environment, the nation’s infrastructure, our schools and the sick must do with less, are not serious about leading this nation and solving our problems. I am not yet ready to give up on the American Dream or the hope and vision of a Good Society. And I am willing to pay for it, individually and collectively, through a reasonable, progressive tax system. But if the anti-tax radicals of the Tea Party have their way, America as a nation will have lost its soul.

Does America Need a Civics Lesson?

Freedom of speech and the First Amendment are a testament to America’s greatness, a declaration of confidence in our system of governance and our institutions of democracy. Recent public displays of anger over passage of health care reform, however, portend a perilous moment in our nation’s history. Death threats against Members of Congress, broken windows and acts of vandalism, a cut propane line at the home of a targeted congressman’s brother, and other acts of intimidation bordering on violence, signifies that we may be relinquishing our capacity for civic engagement. Among the most hurtful displays of vitriolic outbursts were the racial epithets shouted at Representative John Lewis, among the most dignified and honorable leaders of the civil rights movement, and the homophobic slurs against openly gay Congressman Barney Frank.

The history of nonviolent protest in the United States, from the woman’s suffrage movement to civil rights and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, have inspired positive social change and reforms to unjust government policies. But when peaceful demonstrations cross the line into mob rule, when an African American Congressman from Missouri, Emanuel Cleaver, is spat upon by a grotesque and disgraceful display of venomous immaturity, there is something wrong with the body politic.

I understand those who share a passion for politics and who feel strongly about issues of importance. The art of politics, the thrill of debate, the intellectual give-and-take of verbal combat – while not for everyone – are notions I embrace. On some issues, on matters of conscious, when injustice is perceived, public demonstrations in an effort to move public opinion or influence the vote of a Senator are shining examples of democracy and a resounding proclamation of the freedoms we all share. But the ugliness on display in the recent past, especially when wrapped in shades of racism and homophobia and a false patriotism disguising a xenophobic nationalism – are detrimental to democratic values, to republican ideals, and to robust citizenship.

Incivility is distasteful regardless of its political stripes. I was in law school in 1981, when just ten blocks away President Reagan and White House aide James Brady were shot (Brady paralyzed for life) by a mentally disturbed gunman. When news accounts first reported that Reagan had survived, I winced at and denounced a classmate who “joked” that she wished the gunman’s aim had been more accurate. The remark was humorless and shameful. Although I had opposed the election of Ronald Reagan several months earlier, on March 30, 1981, he was our elected President and, not unlike the Kennedy assassination, the attempt on Reagan’s life was a near tragedy from which this nation would have suffered greatly. I also was disturbed at left wing critics who suggested that President Reagan, and later President George W. Bush, were modern versions of Hitler, or were fascists and other historical inaccuracies.

So, I recognize that the current state of affairs, the belittling and degrading attacks on President Obama and Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and John Lewis, are not exclusive to Republicans or Tea Party activists (though I find it laughable that anyone could equate Obama with Hitler – please, go back to school and read a history book). But the acts of violence, the insane level of anger displayed during the protests on Capitol Hill this past weekend have reached heightened and potentially dangerous levels. I hope that Frank Rich of the New York Times is wrong when he suggests, “To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look . . . to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” A historic piece of legislation that outlawed racial and other forms of discrimination at public establishments and businesses affecting interstate commerce, it was impugned as a “threat to the very essence of our basic system” by the Republican nominee for President, Barry Goldwater, while Richard Russell, the Democratic senator from Georgia and a staunch segregationist, said the bill “would destroy the free enterprise system.” Although history has proved these statements absurd, the right wing and segregationist opponents of the law exhibited much hysteria in attempting to persuade the populace that civil rights laws would destroy America. The issues are different, but much of today's rhetoric sounds all too familiar.

It appears that much of the feverish excitement these past several months has very little to do with the proposed changes to our health care system. Do the Tea Party protesters really oppose requiring insurance companies to permit parents to keep their sons and daughters on their health plans until age 26? Do they really want insurance companies to deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions? Are they opposed to tax credits for small businesses? Or is something else at work, something more sinister, an awakening of a repressed and dark resentment of the changing face of American society. “It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver – none of them major players in the health care push – received a major share of last weekend’s abuse,” wrote Rich in The Times op-ed piece. “When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan, ‘Take our country back!,’ these are the people they want to take the country back from.”

That Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, shouted to a group of Tea Partiers, “Let’s beat the other side to a pulp!” and that Representative Randy Neugebauer, a conservative Republican from Texas, shouted “baby killer” at pro-life congressman Bart Stupak of Michigan on the House floor on Sunday night, attests to the sad state of affairs of American politics. John McCain, who ran for president on the slogan, “Country First,” now proclaims a vow of “no cooperation for the rest of the year.” As Steny Hoyer of Maryland said, “Democracy can’t survive unless we can have a civil society in which debate is open and free and unfettered.” But a civil society implies that we listen respectfully to the other side and respond appropriately. It does not involve death threats and rocks, racist slurs and spit.

Peaceful protest, vigorous debate, creative expression, and public statements of persuasion are the fuel upon which a healthy democracy thrives. When public anger turns to mob rule; when stones are thrown through windows of congressional offices; when a Member of Congress, Bart Stupak, feels compelled to refer 50 death threats to the FBI because he voted for legislation that expands health care for the uninsured; and when John Lewis, who forty years ago withstood near fatal beatings and vicious verbal attacks in fighting for equal rights for black Americans, is called racist names because he wants all Americans, black and white, rich and poor, to have access to health care, we are in trouble as a country. It is time for the leadership of both parties to stand up and put an end to angry distortions and rhetoric that encourages violence.

It is entirely possible to engage in aggressive and spirited debate, yet acknowledge that, as fellow Americans, you and your opponent share equally in love of country. Were he alive today, I believe that Ronald Reagan would have denounced the recent bad behavior. While he often sparred publicly with Tip O’Neil and Ted Kennedy, he (and they) never lost cite of their common citizenship.

Treating those with whom you disagree as the Enemy is so much easier than seeing the other side as friends and neighbors, brothers and sisters, fellow citizens whose views merely differ on an issue. With all of the problems confronting the United States and the world today, will there be a time when liberals and conservatives, Tea Partiers and Coffee Drinkers, talk, listen, and work together to find common ground? For the future of our country, I hope that day comes soon.