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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 4/10/15

The Defining Moment, and Hillary Rodham Clinton

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For example: Wall Street is still running the economy, and still out of control.

So we must resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act and bust up the biggest banks, so millions of Americans don't ever again lose their homes, jobs, and savings because of Wall Street's excesses.

Also: Increase taxes on the rich in order to finance the investments in schools and infrastructure the nation desperately needs.

Strengthen unions so working Americans have the bargaining power to get a fair share of the gains from economic growth.

Limit the deductibility of executive pay, and raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Oppose trade agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership designed to protect corporate property but not American jobs.

And nominate Supreme Court justices who will reverse "Citizens United."

I'm not suggesting a long list. Democratic candidates too often offer mind-numbing policy proposals without explaining why they're important.

She should use such policies to illustrate the problem, and make a vivid moral case for why such policies are necessary.

In recent decades Republicans have made a moral case for less government and lower taxes on the rich, based on their idea of "freedom."

They talk endlessly about freedom but they never talk about power. But it's power that's askew in America --concentrated power that's constraining the freedom of the vast majority.

Hillary Clinton should make the moral case about power: for taking it out of the hands of those with great wealth and putting it back into the hands of average working people.

In these times, such a voice and message make sense politically. The 2016 election will be decided by turnout, and turnout will depend on enthusiasm. The largest party in America isn't the Republican or Democratic Parties; it is the Party of Non-Voters, who have become so cynical about politics they've ceased voting.

If she talks about what's really going on and what must be done about it, she can arouse the Democratic base as well as millions of Independents and even Republicans who have concluded, with reason, that the game is rigged against them.

The question is not her values and ideals. It's her willingness to be bold and to fight, at a time when average working people need a president who will fight for them more than they've needed such a president in living memory.

This is a defining moment for Democrats, and for America. It is also a defining moment for Hillary Clinton.

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Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, has a new film, "Inequality for All," to be released September 27. He blogs at www.robertreich.org.

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