While progressive sentiment is strong is the land (most people when asked, for example, favor single-payer universal health insurance, nowhere on the political agenda), progressive institutions are not. Our leaders are blown like dry leaves by the force of concentrated power, even if their personal convictions might lead them elsewhere.
Congress has just enacted a multi-Billion “stimulus†package to put cash into people’s hands and pump money into the economy so as to deter the looming (but technically not-here-yet) recession. [1] The basic stories are reported in the NY Times [2] and Washington Post [3]. The package price is between $152- and $168 Billion; bringing to mind Everett Dirkson's remark: "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money". The package passed is better than that bargained for by President Bush and Speaker Pelosi. There are problems with the package.
It throws from the train the weakest and poorest of us: no food stamp increases and no extension for longer term unemployed. The George Bush-Nancy Pelosi vision of compassionate conservatism shuts out the poor. Money for the poor and unemployed would have been the quickest spent and produced the most economic activity for each dollar spent.
Bush-Pelosi enriches and subsidizes corporations – the least efficient way of stimulating the economy.
Bush-Pelosi is a tax rebate which will take 3-5 months to reach people. As a result of both the delay and the focus on people who may not spend the extra money – employed people – the stimulus is less economically stimulating. (Many may just put the extra cash in the bank or pay down debt.) This is more an anemic public relations stunt than progressive leadership. Congress and the President have done something or other.
Did any of our wonderful, smart and insightful Members of Congress say anything? Well I didn’t check with all but the short answer is no. Nydia Velazquez., silent; Jerrold Nadler; silent. Anthony Weiner, silent. These are obviously, to me at least, not bad people, but they appear to feel under no pressure to act as progressive representatives of the people who elected them. (For further description of Bush-Pelosi with links to more substantial analysis than I can do try my prior post here. [4]
Of course, as among Mr. Bush, Ms Pelosi and our other leaders, the vision as to what we need is small for a new-deal oriented program try Robert Kuttner writing in The American Prospect [5]. Kuttner's broader and deeper program had-has no advocate in Congress whatsoever.
I part with Mr. Kuttner because where he proposes an inside-the-beltway analysis of how Congress failed to bargain well with Mr. Bush. As I see it, the fault lies in our political disorganization, more than our leaders. As rabble myself and a rabble-rouser by inclination, I find our Congressional allies much braver when they have a mob at their back. When we can focus popular political sentiment into political strength, we’ll win; about which more soon.
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