AuH20
04-09-2010, 11:55 AM
Someone please explain to me how one embarks on this type of philosophical journey? Moreover, I love how the author picks up on FDR's failed 2nd "Bill of Rights" meme. It appears to be an "end justifies the means" mentality. Imagine your utopia lies on the other side of the broad river and you're at the controls of an M-1 Abrams tank. Unfortunately, the bridge connecting the two parcels of land is filled with angry citizens. What do you do? Increase the throttle and run over them? Everyone of these foolish initiatives outlined below involve the "cogs" (us) in the machine sacrificing their rights for a select few.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/4/9/855685/-What-Next-for-Big-Government-Liberalism
In our time, far too many of the basic provisions of the Second Bill of Rights remain unmet. Therefore, the next step for "big government liberalism" begins with the unfinished business of the Second Bill of Rights:
Rebuilding the Welfare State - the cornerstone of the American welfare state is our Social Security system, which includes not just the old-age provisions, but also Unemployment Insurance, Disability Insurance, and the like. A major source of our continual problems with unemployment, poverty, and economic insecurity lie with the fact that the existing welfare state has been largely neglected, such that large sections of the population lack basic coverage and benefits are far below where they need to be to provide genuine protection against poverty. This is not a matter of mere implementation - substantial new expenditures will be required to make a welfare state that's up to the task of protecting all Americans from the "vicissitudes of modern life."
Creating a Unified Child Policy - one major hole in American social policy is child policy - and has been for a long time. While AFDC was hardly the ideal program, the results of welfare "reform" enacted in the 90s is that our child care policy is largely fragmented between dozens of programs, it's means-tested and thus excludes large numbers of children in poor, near-poor and working class families, and it's badly under-funded, so that a minority of the child population actually receives benefits. The result is one of the worst social policy records in the developed world: 21% of American children live in families below the poverty line; another 22% of children live in "near poor" families within 100-200% of the poverty line, where a sudden illness or job loss or other crisis can easily send the family into the ranks of the destitute. The United States has the worst record on infant, neonatal, and child mortality rates of any industrialized country - our under-5 mortality rate is 33% higher than the rate of other industrialized nations.
Creating a unified child policy program will require substantial resources. We need to move towards a universal non-contributory system of health care for children and expectant mothers that's free at the point of purchase, we need a system of family allowances that's sufficient to lift families with children out of poverty, we need to provide universal child-care and pre-K through an expansion of Head Start - all of these policies are essential, and they will provide returns on our investment far beyond the initial costs, but they're not going to be cheap.
Establishing a Jobs State - I'll be brief about this, because I've covered the issue of job insurance, labor market policies, andindustrial policy elsewhere. The basic point is this: American economic security is entirely dependent on employment; in addition to the wages and benefits we get while we're employed, virtually all of the social insurance protections that exist (Old Age Insurance, Disability Insurance, Worker's Compensation, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, etc.) are tied directly to your payroll contributions as a worker. And yet, as is becoming increasingly clear, our economy is producing fewer and fewer jobs, even fewer living wage jobs, and is becoming increasingly slow to add jobs in economic recoveries, as employers turn to productivity measures, a casualized labor force, and outsourcing to avoid labor costs. In order to restore the balance of our economy, and to ensure that our social insurance system is being supported by as many workers as possible and that as few workers as possible need assistance, the government is going to have to be a more active participant in the American labor market. While there are ways of financing such a system that are well within the fiscal capacity of the state, it also requires substantial new investments.
Abolition of Poverty and Reduction of Inequality - while measures to improve the welfare state, fight child poverty, and reduce unemployment will have a substantial impact on poverty rates and will reduce inequality by redistributing resources to the lesser-off, there will still be a need for additional measures to reduce poverty and reduce inequality- the good news is that combining these efforts will make the combined impact on poverty even more impressive, reducing the poverty rate well below 5.7% and returning our distribution of wealth to the more egalitarian levels of the 1970s if not better. Again, this will take additional resources and involve entirely new areas of policy.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/4/9/855685/-What-Next-for-Big-Government-Liberalism
In our time, far too many of the basic provisions of the Second Bill of Rights remain unmet. Therefore, the next step for "big government liberalism" begins with the unfinished business of the Second Bill of Rights:
Rebuilding the Welfare State - the cornerstone of the American welfare state is our Social Security system, which includes not just the old-age provisions, but also Unemployment Insurance, Disability Insurance, and the like. A major source of our continual problems with unemployment, poverty, and economic insecurity lie with the fact that the existing welfare state has been largely neglected, such that large sections of the population lack basic coverage and benefits are far below where they need to be to provide genuine protection against poverty. This is not a matter of mere implementation - substantial new expenditures will be required to make a welfare state that's up to the task of protecting all Americans from the "vicissitudes of modern life."
Creating a Unified Child Policy - one major hole in American social policy is child policy - and has been for a long time. While AFDC was hardly the ideal program, the results of welfare "reform" enacted in the 90s is that our child care policy is largely fragmented between dozens of programs, it's means-tested and thus excludes large numbers of children in poor, near-poor and working class families, and it's badly under-funded, so that a minority of the child population actually receives benefits. The result is one of the worst social policy records in the developed world: 21% of American children live in families below the poverty line; another 22% of children live in "near poor" families within 100-200% of the poverty line, where a sudden illness or job loss or other crisis can easily send the family into the ranks of the destitute. The United States has the worst record on infant, neonatal, and child mortality rates of any industrialized country - our under-5 mortality rate is 33% higher than the rate of other industrialized nations.
Creating a unified child policy program will require substantial resources. We need to move towards a universal non-contributory system of health care for children and expectant mothers that's free at the point of purchase, we need a system of family allowances that's sufficient to lift families with children out of poverty, we need to provide universal child-care and pre-K through an expansion of Head Start - all of these policies are essential, and they will provide returns on our investment far beyond the initial costs, but they're not going to be cheap.
Establishing a Jobs State - I'll be brief about this, because I've covered the issue of job insurance, labor market policies, andindustrial policy elsewhere. The basic point is this: American economic security is entirely dependent on employment; in addition to the wages and benefits we get while we're employed, virtually all of the social insurance protections that exist (Old Age Insurance, Disability Insurance, Worker's Compensation, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, etc.) are tied directly to your payroll contributions as a worker. And yet, as is becoming increasingly clear, our economy is producing fewer and fewer jobs, even fewer living wage jobs, and is becoming increasingly slow to add jobs in economic recoveries, as employers turn to productivity measures, a casualized labor force, and outsourcing to avoid labor costs. In order to restore the balance of our economy, and to ensure that our social insurance system is being supported by as many workers as possible and that as few workers as possible need assistance, the government is going to have to be a more active participant in the American labor market. While there are ways of financing such a system that are well within the fiscal capacity of the state, it also requires substantial new investments.
Abolition of Poverty and Reduction of Inequality - while measures to improve the welfare state, fight child poverty, and reduce unemployment will have a substantial impact on poverty rates and will reduce inequality by redistributing resources to the lesser-off, there will still be a need for additional measures to reduce poverty and reduce inequality- the good news is that combining these efforts will make the combined impact on poverty even more impressive, reducing the poverty rate well below 5.7% and returning our distribution of wealth to the more egalitarian levels of the 1970s if not better. Again, this will take additional resources and involve entirely new areas of policy.