and of course, the Middle Class.
Let me apologize right here. My title is somewhat deceptive.
Obama does talk about the Middle Class. Incessantly. And he criticizes McCain for tilting towards the wealthy. And McCain - deceptively in my opinion - talks about "hard-working" Americans with his untruthful refrain about Obama increasing taxes on families making as little as $42,000.
Today two perspicacious writers get things at least partly right. Derrick Jackson offers McCain's blatant pitch to the rich and Bob Herbert has "penned" Crises on Many Fronts in which he addresses how little he problems of the poor are addressed in this campaign.
I will explore both columns, and offer a few words of my own.
First from Jackson. He begins by writing about McCain going to New Hampshire
at a time when voters understand the limits of their state motto "Live Free or Die." They know the economy is dying on fat cats living far too free. Barack Obama leads in state polls by 7-to-13 percentage points.
He quotes the Senator's words about "spreading the wealth" ahd his Alaskan running mates accusations about socialism, noting especially the cheers McCain achieved when he said "The redistribution of wealth is the last thing America needs right now." We then read
The problem for McCain, Palin, and the Republicans is that the majority of Americans beg to differ. Redistribution in some form is the first thing people want after two decades of runaway pay disparity between CEOs and workers, tax loopholes so wide that two-thirds of American corporations paid no income tax from 1998 to 2005, and the banking system now getting $700 billion from us to bail out its incompetence. All this while healthcare, gasoline, and college tuitions gobble up any raises regular folks get.
After going through the polling data which shows how much more Americans trust Obama on matters economic, having previously gone through the "Joe the plumber" tactics and the abhorrent spending to beautify Sarah Palin, - things which together make it clear that McCain seems willing to write off large chunks of the population, Jackson offers a zinger:
One can guess only that McCain is hoping for a 100 percent turnout from the rich - minus, of course, Obama supporter Warren Buffett.
Jackson continues by reminding us of Bush's famous words at an Al Smith dinner, about the elite being his base, then points out that it is too late for McCain to attempt to turn that into a strategy, as the wealthy are now splitting equally in their support of the two presidential candidates. He writes of the so-called maverick
What once was a campaign of a senator who reached across the aisle on campaign financing and global warming is now stoking selfishness into the silly zone.
He connects McCai's attitudes on economics with his approach to foreign affairs, finds the rest of the world concerned about the implications and therefore tilting towards Obama, and then concludes:
This is, of course, no concern to a campaign whose slogan is "America First." It is rapidly sounding like "Me First." How patriotic. That is too much even for the limited-tax Live Free or Die state.
And yes, McCain has seemingly lost any appeal for the Granite State. Like many New Englanders, they may have a libertarian streak, but they are not inherently selfish. And McCain's appeal to selfishness is self-defeating in a time of crisis, when everyone wonders if they could be the next to lose jobs, retirements, and/or homes.
You cannot win an election with an approach that appeals mainly to the rich. But many candidates seem willing to try an approach that ignores the needs of the poor. Bot Herbert warns that continuing to look at the economic crisis is increasingly a harrowing prospect. He then writes
The focus in the presidential campaign has been almost entirely on the struggles faced by the middle class — on families worried about their jobs, their mortgages, their retirement accounts and how to pay for college for their kids.
Each nauseating plunge in the Dow heightens their anxiety. Each company that goes under and each government report showing joblessness on the rise intensifies their fear.
No one knows how to quell the uncertainty. And no one is even talking about the poor.
And no one is even talking about the poor.
He offers us this caution:
But if we are indeed caught up in the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression, the ones who will fare the worst are those who already are poor or near-poor. There are millions of them, and yet they remain essentially invisible. A step down for them is a step into destitution.
A step down for them is a step into destitution.
Herbert quotes the head of a charity cofounded by singer-songwriter Paul Simon warning not only about the increased homelessness as foreclosures continue, but also the impact of increasing job losses, since so many have their health care through their jobs. Dr. Irwin Redlener, who cofounded the Children's Health Fund with Simon, is quite blunt:
"I don’t think the health care system can bear another five million or more people uninsured and economically fragile. More people without insurance will crowd into the nation’s hospital emergency rooms when medical problems become too severe to ignore or there is no other access to basic health services. Such a trend will have a seismic impact on our health care system."
Let me blunt. Home foreclosures and job losses push more people down the economic ranks into the poor. In fairness, Obama has talked about how many families are one medical crisis away from severe financial difficulty, and we all know how medical crises are the most common cause of bankruptcies. But he does not talk directly about the poor we already have, nor are we in our worries about our middle-class selves insistent that he or any other politician so speak.
Herbert quotes a study that warns that 4,500 hospitals are already in danger, and their precarious situation will only worsen with an influx of patients to the emergency rooms - where they must be accepted - because they have lost the insurance necessary to receive health care earlier in illness and in less expensive settings.
The heart of Herbert's column is this:
The nation’s financial system was all-but-overwhelmed by the mortgage crisis because none of the nation’s leaders paid serious enough attention to the widespread symptoms of what turned out to be a metastasizing disease.
A similar situation exists on a number of important fronts right now: the deteriorating national infrastructure, the woefully inadequate public school system, our self-defeating energy policies, health care. Symptoms of serious trouble are staring us in the face, but no one is mounting an adequate response.
When a new president takes office in January, the temptation will be to delay bold action on these fronts until the overall economic situation improves. That is the kind of mistake (like ignoring the housing and credit bubbles until it was too late or refusing to heed the pre-Katrina warnings in New Orleans) that opens the door to additional crises.
Let me briefly explore the implication of Herbert's "important fronts" on the poor.
Infrastructure - that includes public transportation, without which the poor often cannot get to where the jobs are. In the DC area from which I write, our Metro system is overwhelmed, increasingly suffering breakdowns, and has far too much deferred maintenance. But at least it still works.
Infrastructure also includes roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, the few remaining public hospitals. And it includes public school buildings, on which a few years ago a study indicated the maintenance necessary merely to bring buildings up to basic standards already exceeded $100 billion.
woefully inadequate public school system - The poor have no meaningful alternatives to public schools. It is unfair to ask students to learn in crumbling buildings, with no doors on toilet stalls, with leaking roofs, rats running through buildings - and I have seen all of these and worse in public school buildings within 60 miles of where I sit, in the immediate area of our national Capitol. Our classrooms are overcrowded, teacher turnover is far too great, and too much of our rhetoric is about test scores, reducing education for the poor to little more than drill and kill for tests which really do not tell us all that much.
self-defeating energy policies - the selfishness of so many sectors of our nation contribute to this. Our auto makers are now in crisis, and it far exceeds the additional cost per car of health care. It includes their fighting every attempt at energy efficiency, and a long history of hostility towards public transportation. Energy companies have had far too much influence on policy. And Americans have for too long believed that we could be profligate in our use of energy. But for the poor? Even if they wanted more energy efficient homes or appliances or most of all cars, they lack the credit to purchase, they have no resources for the higher initial investment, they consider themselves lucky to have any residence, a washing machine that works, and a car that runs.
Health care - the poor suffer far too much from treatable illnesses. And our policies on food (including school lunches) contribute to our lack of health. And for poor kids, who too often already suffer from unhealthy diets, our emphasis on testing and fundamentals in school mean we cut back on physical education, making them even less healthy.
Rich and Poor, Poor and Rich, and the Middle Class . . .
Many hope we will invent the better mousetrap or hit the lottery and find ourselves rich, where these issues will not directly affect us. We like to think of ourselves as solidly middle class, and believe that our values indicate that. While we consume far too much, we have some savings and investments: we know how to be responsible, even if we are inconsistent.
The average value of American homes has plummeted. Our IRAs and 401Ks and mutual funds have suffered severe losses. More and more are losing jobs, or finding companies limiting health care, or seeing our premiums skyrocket beyond affordability. We worry - rightly in my opinion - that we or those we know might actually slip out of the middle class into the ranks of the poor, working or otherwise.
And yet too much of what we insist on from our politicians is to ensure our economic status, perhaps insisting on the rich paying more of a fair share for the needs of society.
But we too often limit our vision and our demands, and do not include the poor in either.
Perhaps if we considered what might happen to people like us, we would not only be demanding a safety net for the Middle Class, we would insist upon policies that do not aggravate the situation for those already in economic distress and despair. We would demand that any vision for the future of our country provide a way of bringing those people up.
A man cannot lift himself by his bootstraps if he is barefoot. We must provide the basic footwear. Our vision for America must be inclusive, with each contributing and none being so selfish that they think it is not their concern,
None of us makes it completely on our own. Those who think that are deluded. And it is the responsibility of our political leaders to reiterate that, so that our policies reflect that we are all in this together.
Rich and Poor, Poor and Rich, and the Middle Class . . .
No matter where you place yourself now, are you really sure that you are guaranteed to remain so well off?
And if that selfish appeal is insufficient, what about our moral responsbility? Or do we exclude some people from "We the people" because they are a different religion, or race, or sexual orientiation, or economic status?
Peace???