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Progressive Leadership To Serve the Common Good

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And while you're at it, raise the ceiling on income subject to Social Security taxes. And bring back the estate tax."

On this foundation, Reich suggests, "we can afford to do what we need to do as a nation" -- by which he means, of course, to make investments that will create jobs and grow the economy.

Reich also believes that requiring the very rich to carry a larger part of the country's tax burden represents the fairest means by which to finance investments that will generate the revenues needed to close budget deficits and reduce the national debt.  "Do this," he adds, "and you prevent Republicans from setting the working middle class against itself.   Do this and you restore some balance to a distribution of income and wealth that's now dangerously out of whack."


Creating the Reality of "One Nation"

If actually pursued by progressives in Congress, Reich's proposals would of course provoke umbrage among many -- though by no means all -- of the privileged and their supporters in Congress, just as initiatives for further stimulus spending would bring down the wrath of small-government deficit hawks.  

In response to such an outcry, the offended might be reminded in turn that all those who enjoy great success and privilege in our society operate in, and depend upon, an economic infrastructure that is created and maintained by the daily efforts of millions of ordinary Americans.   That reality ties them to their fellow citizens by a moral obligation.   Today, when many Americans, through no fault of their own, are falling into deeper and deeper states of penury and insecurity, surely the sense of fair-play -- said to be a characteristic American trait -- must at long last come into play.   It demands that the very well-off share a somewhat larger portion of their excess affluence to help those now steam-rolled by the recession get back to at least a decent life.  

Any advocacy for higher taxes on the rich is also subject, of course, to anathema from free-market ideologues.   Some conservatives believe as a matter of principle that any taxation is tantamount to theft, and that no government with the power to tax can seek moral ends, but only its own continual growth and more stringent domination.   Those who hold this view would seem to be outside the reach of progressive appeals to political conscience.   

Many more Americans, however, are simply caught up in a conservative political culture that is characteristically averse to government intervention in the free play of market forces.   They are skeptical of government's right to seek, and capacity to find, workable solutions for social problems, but they are not doctrinaire in impugning its motives.   Their mindset can therefore be influenced by persuasive counter-arguments.    

Now is surely the time to advance those arguments.   Following the collapse of Wall Street and the accompanying evidence of its reckless willingness to risk the economic security of the nation for personal gain, progressives can make a strong case that Americans need to reconsider their uncritical faith in the reliability of unregulated markets.   They need also to point up the many examples of sweeping government programs that, unlike recent Wall Street schemes, have in fact worked well: most notably, perhaps, Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, Medicare, and the GI Bill.  

Such rational arguments alone, however, will not be enough.   Given today's massive debt, aggravated suspicions of government, widespread social alienation, and partisan extremism on the right, it will take something more to win a critical mass of support for new government investments.   To do that, progressives must appeal foremost to the moral sense of Americans.    

They will have to make clear that, in view of the obscene gaps in income and wealth that now separate America's richest citizens from all the rest, the past privileging of the nation's economic and political elite must now come to an end: that a simple respect for justice requires that all Americans be empowered to secure a livelihood and pursue their own happiness.  

Progressives should also emphasize another point that is too seldom made.   It is that the government of the United States properly represents all of the people as a single community, not only their elite corporate and political leadership.  If it were to actually operate on that principle, it would be obliged to look first after the common good, not the interests of the powerful few.  

The obvious benefit of such a shift in government perspective would be to enable ordinary Americans to lead more secure and rewarding lives.   In addition, it could have a powerful spiritual effect.   Today, millions of Americans fear and resent their government as an "Other" that wastes their tax dollars and inflates its power at the expense of their own freedom to shape their economic future.   A government that seeks instead to empower its citizens to control their future, while also enriching the common good, could well transform that fear and resentment to a renewed sense of hope and community with other Americans.  

 

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In retirement, Bob Anschuetz has applied his long career experience as an industrial writer and copy editor to helping authors meet publishing standards for both online articles and full-length books. In work as a volunteer editor for OpEdNews, (more...)
 

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