E. J. Dionne Jr. - Round Three

E. J. Dionne Jr.
Round Three: Concluding Remarks - November 6, 2000

Rereading the thoughtful and vigorous comments of my partners in this exchange, and also my own, I was struck by how pessimistic we all sound. Before moving to specifics, I'd like to suggest that there is good reason for the country to be guardedly optimistic about the future, and progressives especially so. And I say that without any illusions about the current boom continuing forever.

From Post & Riposte:

"It's easy to forget how big the country is -- 260 million or so and counting. This is a staggering number, and makes it impossible to generalize (condescendingly as politicians do: 'I think the American People know the difference...') about politics and political movements. The low voter turnout is equally resistant to generalization. Still, among the young, there is widespread apathy and ignorance, the result of a school experience devoid of civics and history, and a saturation of their worlds by material and commercial interests. Thus, an under-appreciated result of this massive non-involvement is a disconnect from political history, from a sense of participation in the still-unfolding American democratic experiment. This is why Nader's campaign (and the progressive momentum afterward) is so important. It goes a little way toward filling in this near civic vacuum; it attempts to inject the culture with a progressive history lesson and a sense of civic participation, before these things are eclipsed altogether."
--Jim Moyer - 05:12pm EST, Nov 4, 2000

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The past eight years have proven progressives right about one large thing -- and progressives don't seem to want to take credit for the achievement. From Harry Truman forward, liberals have argued that near full employment was the key to dealing with a slew of social problems. And guess what? We've had an experiment, and sustained low unemployment works. Lots of good things have started happening for lower-income Americans -- even if we have a long way to go.

My colleague and friend Tom Edsall put the facts plainly in a Washington Post op-ed piece this past Saturday (Nov. 4, 2000). Edsall wrote, "From 1993 to 1998, income for those in the bottom 20 percent has grown at the fastest annual rate, 2.7 percent, compared with 2.4 percent for the top quintile. The rate of income growth for those in the middle 60 percent is just behind the top. And overall, the pattern of income gains is much more evenly balanced than during the prior 20 years."

Edsall went on, "The most recent poverty figures are even more favorable. On Sept. 26, the census released its latest findings on income and poverty, which showed the following: The poverty rate for 1999 fell to its lowest level since 1979, 11.8 percent. In 1993 the rate had been 15.1 percent. Child poverty, which is at 16.9 percent, is the lowest since 1979."

Near full employment means that every other problem becomes a little easier to solve. It also gives workers in the middle and bottom of the economy more bargaining power. This is hugely important.

Second, without reopening the fiscal debate, the budget situation allows us to think more readily about solving social problems, be they the number of children without health coverage, the problems the elderly have with prescription-drug costs, or child care.

And on this note, Chris, I'm not being cynical. National Review said flatly and honestly that the big tax cuts have the benefit, from a conservative point of view, of constraining government. Ronald Reagan made that point himself when he used to talk about cutting off Congress's "allowance." Irving Kristol has made a similar argument. It's very clear: the best way to shrink government is to have a big tax cut. Most conservatives are happy to embrace that logic.

As for Chris's point on Gore's spending, it seems to me that in the event of a downturn, it's far easier to adjust spending than to take back a tax cut. (In fact, a tax cut might make sense as part of a program to get us out of a recession, which is why it makes little sense, to me anyway, to enact a big tax cut now, when its most likely effect would be to force interest rates up.)

I agreed with Barbara Ehrenreich in opposing welfare reform -- not because I thought it wrong to link work and benefits but because I didn't think the reform plan included enough money to help the most disadvantaged people to move into self-sufficiency. I thought the trade-off for getting rid of the "entitlement" to welfare should have involved more assistance to our poorest citizens.

But let's not lose sight of the huge spending increases for the working poor we've seen over the past eight years -- through the Earned Income Tax Credit especially, and also through health-care expansions such as the Children's Health Insurance Program. (It's still not adequate, but it's a start.) The money going into such programs dwarfs what we spent on AFDC. And here again, low unemployment has allowed welfare reform to work better than I expected it would. Make no mistake: there are still real problems with the new system, and I suspect I'd agree with Barbara Ehrenreich on reforms needed to protect poor families who are losing, or are about to lose, benefits they need. But I also think it's possible to build on programs that help the working poor in ways that will reduce both inequality and poverty.

I think Chris, Harold, and Barbara get to the heart of the issue when they talk about the politics of globalization. The difficulty for the center-left -- from Blair, Gore, and Clinton over to Nader and the European Socialists -- is that no one has a fully convincing program.

Except for its nationalist wing, the center-right is very clear in embracing free trade and globalization as the keys to future prosperity. The center-left doesn't trust the market that much, worries about growing inequalities, and doesn't want the global market to roll over environmental and labor protections put in place after years of democratic struggle. But the center-left also knows that this new economy is a machine that does produce wealth and technological innovation. As it has throughout its history, the center-left finds itself proposing measures that seek simultaneously to keep the market working and also to reform, humanize, and democratize it. The Naderites have made a real contribution in challenging a smugness about the global economy which could, in the end, be its undoing. But neither Blair nor Gore, Clinton nor Nader, has anything close to a fully articulated program of how you can have both growth and social justice, both economic expansion and environmental protection. Progressives, liberals, and social democrats, in fairness, always have this problem: they don't want to overthrow the system, and they don't want to embrace it whole. They're right, I think, but their position in the argument is always the hardest to sustain.

My dear friend Harold (thanks for the friendly words, brother) is onto something when he suggests that one test for this election is to figure out which side will strengthen the forces that challenge smugness. But ultimately, both the left and the New Democrat/New Labour types need a more convincing approach to the global economy than they have now. In the meantime, this election turns on what I would still insist are big choices between Bush and Gore, who have, for all their shortcomings, articulated two very different approaches to the future.

What do you think? Join the debate in a special conference of Post & Riposte.

E. J. Dionne Jr. is a senior fellow in government studies at the Brookings Institution and a columnist for The Washington Post. His books include They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era (1996) and Why Americans Hate Politics (1991).