In is latest New York Times column, David Brooks marvels at “The Center Right Moment” in the wake of the UK elections. As a center-rightist himself, however, Brooks may be indulging in a bit of wishful thinking.
What “center-right” is he talking about in the U.S.? Very few of today’s Republican politicians accept even modest social welfare policies, or even negotiate in good faith. Brooks also conveniently overlooks the reality that many of northern Europe’s “conservative” parties have long embraced policies that would be termed as “socialism” by Ted Cruz and other members of the ascendant right in the U.S.
And the U.S. right’s control of congress, he neglects to acknowledge, is deeply-rooted in gerrymandering and voter suppression. But that’s biz as usual for conservative pundits who embrace the code of political omertà regarding their party’s relentless advocacy of disenfranchising African American voters.
For a more interesting analysis of the political moment, try “Progressives Are Getting Clobbered in Europe. Here’s Why Their Chances Are Better in America” by TDS founding editor Ruy Teixeira. Writing in Mother Jones, Teixeira explains:

…In the United States, the Democratic Party has largely succeeded in capturing the current wave of modernizing demographic change (immigrants, minorities, professionals, seculars, unmarried women, the highly-educated, the Millennial generation, etc.) Emerging demographic groups generally favor the Democrats by wide margins, which combined with residual strength among traditional constituencies gives them a formidable electoral coalition. The challenge for American progressives is therefore mostly about keeping their demographically enhanced coalition together in the face of conservative attacks and getting it to turn out in midterm elections.
The situation is different in Europe, where modernizing demographic change has, so far, not done social democratic parties much good. One reason is that some of these demographic changes do not loom as large in most European countries as they do in the United States. The immigrant/minority population starts from a smaller base so the impact of growth, even where rapid, is more limited. And the younger generation, while progressive, does not have the population weight it does in America.
Beyond that, however, is a factor that has prevented social democrats from harnessing the still-considerable power of modernizing demographic change in Europe. That is the nature of European party systems. Unlike in the United States, where the center-left party, the Democrats, has no meaningful electoral competition for the progressive vote, European social democrats typically do have such competition and from three different parts of the political spectrum: greens; left socialists; and liberal centrists. And not only do they have competition, these other parties, on aggregate, typically overperform among emerging demographics, while social democrats generally underperform. Thus it would appear that social democrats, who have also hemmoraged support from traditional working class voters, will be increasingly unable to build viable progressive coalitions by themselves.

Germany and the Scandinavian nations, where core social welfare policies are popular, are going to be alright for the foreseeable future. Having long-ago achieved progressive reforms American liberals are still fighting for, it’s more a matter of holding on and fighting over taxes and immigration for the political left. The U.K., for as long as it survives as a political entity, and to some extent France, are ground zero for the struggle Teixeira previews, while Spain, Italy and Greece also look forward to protracted battles over austerity vs. social welfare.
As Teixeira concludes,

Bringing progressive constituencies together across parties is of course difficult to do and so far European social democrats seem completely at sea on how to handle this challenge. Much easier to have all those constituencies together in one party–like we do in the United States…The road to progress isn’t clear anywhere but, defying national stereotypes, it’s starting to look a bit clearer in the US than in Europe.

Democrats will have to edge leftward to keep it all together for the upcoming national elections. Making their message palatable to potential swing voters is the over-arching challenge for 2016, made more possible by the rigid right turn of their adversaries.

At Vox Jonathan Allen explores reasons why “Hillary Clinton’s move to the left could help her win the general election“: “Here’s the gamble Clinton’s taking: targeted policy shifts will activate key Democratic voting constituencies early in the campaign without alienating swing voters. If it works, African Americans, Latinos, gays and lesbians, and straight white men (the group that seems to like her the least among Democrats) will see her as a true champion and remain energized through the general election. Her campaign views the risk of pushing away independents as minimal compared with the advantage of rallying Democrats…”Over time, the landscape has shifted on so many of these issues that now Democrats don’t have to hide from them,” one campaign official said. “The data is pretty clear: the independent voters are on our side on issues like gay marriage. So leaning into them comes with a benefit, not a cost.”
I doubt any of today’s presidential candidates would do very well on this test, particularly if subjected to a similar level of scrutiny as that experienced by Clinton. And then there’s the relevant follow-up question that should always be asked: “Compared to who?”
Ronald Brownstein addresses the topic in his National Journal article “Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Need Americans to Trust Her,” noting, “For all those convinced that the serial allegations of ethical impropriety swirling around Hillary Clinton will puncture her prospects of winning the presidency next year, there’s a relevant precedent to consider: On the day Bill Clinton was reelected by more than eight million votes in 1996, a solid 54 percent majority of voters said in exit polling that they did not consider him honest and trustworthy…It’s possible that voters have since grown less tolerant of perceived ethical missteps, such as the questions Hillary Clinton is facing over her private State Department email account and the Clinton Foundation’s fund-raising practices. But it’s more likely that empathy, faith in her competency, and ideological compatibility will count more than integrity in shaping voters’ verdict on Hillary Clinton–just as they did for her husband.”
“…If American schools did a better job teaching about history and government, students most likely would grow up to be more engaged adults. Alas, the latest testing by the National Assessment of Educational Progress — aka NAEP or The Nation’s Report Card — found that just 18 percent of eighth-graders scored “proficient” or better in history; 23 percent scored proficient or above in civics. In short, close to 4 in 5 middle schoolers don’t know much about history, while 3 in 4 don’t know much about their government,” writes Debra J. Saunders in “Want more voters? Teach more civics and history” at The herald of Everett, Washington.
In Amy Chozick’s NYT article “As Middle Class Fades, So Does Use of Term on Campaign Trail.” she observes, “A social stratum that once signified a secure, aspirational lifestyle, with a house in the suburbs, children set to attend college, retirement savings in the bank and, maybe, an occasional trip to Disneyland now connotes fears about falling behind, sociologists, economists and political scientists say…Rising costs mean many families whose incomes fall in the middle of the national distribution can no longer afford the trappings of what was once associated with a middle-class lifestyle. That has made the term, political scientists say, lose its resonance…”We have no collective language for talking about that condition,” Dr. Elwood said.”
Democratic candidates, not Republicans, take note: Some good tips in Mark Leibovich’s New York Times Magazine article, “Crying Gotcha” for handling trick questions.
Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson write at American Prospect, via Moyers & Company, “The GOP isn’t moving back to the center. The “proxy wars” of 2014 were mainly about tactics and packaging, not moderation…The far right has built precisely the kind of organizations needed to turn diffuse and generalized support into focused activity on behalf of increasingly extreme candidates…Those organized forces have two key elements: polarizing right-wing media and efforts by business and the very wealthy to backstop and bankroll GOP politics. Pundits like to point to surface similarities between partisan journalists on the left and right, but the differences in scale and organization are profound. The conservative side is massive; describing its counterpart on the left as modest would be an act of true generosity…The Republican base generates an exceptionally strong gravitational pull, and that pull takes politicians much farther from the electoral center than do the comparatively weak forces on the left of the Democratic Party.” As for the Democratic response, Hacker and Pierson urge, “As difficult as it surely will be, there is no substitute for restoring some measure of public and elite respect for government’s enormous role in making society richer, healthier, fairer, better educated and safer. To do that requires encouraging public officials to refine and express that case and rewarding them when they do so. And it requires designing policies not to hide the role of government, but to make it both visible and popular.”
The dean of conservative political columnists has a one-word description of Mike Huckabee’s presidential candidacy: “Appalling.”
But there is an inherent weakness in conservative messaging. Jonathan Chait addresses “Why Conservatives Use Novels to Justify Inequality,” and observes “Abstract thought experiments and references to old novels are a more attractive way for conservatives to frame their defense of existing economic privilege than engaging with the actually existing debate over inequality.” Their overall message strategy is to avoid relevant statistical realities because they tend to favor progressive arguments.

The biggest news from yesterday’s elections in the United Kingdom was the achievement of a parliamentary majority by the Conservative Party. The second biggest news was that the entire polling industry predicted a different result.
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight had a succinct summary of why this seems to be happening lately, not just in the UK but in the Scottish Independence Referendum, the Israeli elections, the 2014 U.S. midterms and even the 2012 U.S. presidential election:

Voters are becoming harder to contact, especially on landline telephones. Online polls have become commonplace, but some eschew probability sampling, historically the bedrock of polling methodology. And in the U.S., some pollsters have been caught withholding results when they differ from other surveys, “herding” toward a false consensus about a race instead of behaving independently.

But I added this comment at Washington Monthly:

All these are big and legitimate concerns. But probably the bigger problem is that such issues will be seized upon by anti-data zealots and “game-change” journalists–think of them as like the old-fart baseball scouts in Moneyball who knew a good player when they saw one–to seek to discredit any objective measurements of public opinion or any analysis based upon them. After all, polls are “wrong,” right? So let’s just wing it with our instincts, prejudices, snail’s-eye observations from the campaign trail (or bar), insider opinions, and of course, first-person anecdotal takes on the mood of the electorate.

The solution to flawed data is better data, not less data and certainly not data-free reporting and analysis. Keep that in mind next time someone tells you to “ignore the polls.”

Washington Post political/pop culture writer Hunter Schwarz takes a look at some of the presidential candidates’ slogans for 2016 and offers some observations, both wry and perceptive.
Schwarz likens Republican Ben Carson’s “Heal. Inspire. Revive” to a slogan for “a spa or a multi-level marketing company that sells energy drinks.” Perhaps a cut to the chase is needed here. Given Carson’s somewhat low name-recognition, maybe preface his slogan with “Think Ben Franklin and Kit Carson, Oh, and Here’s Some Nice Words.”
For Carly Fiorina’s “New Possibilities. Real Leadership,” add, “– Not Much to Say, but a Couple of Cliches should Do.” Ted Cruz’s “Reigniting the Promise of America” sounds hackneyed (How do you ‘reignite’ a ‘promise,’ anyway?). How about “Resurrecting the Spirit of Joe McCarthy,” which is more on point.
Regarding Marco Rubio’s “A New American Century,” Schwarz enthuses, “Rather than just promising four or eight years of peace and prosperity, he’s promising 100. What a deal!” Better still, Rubio’s campaign could add “OK, The New American Century is 15 Years Old, But You Can Still Vote for the Youngest-looking Wing-Nut.”
Then there’s Rand Paul’s “Defeat The Washington Machine. Unleash The American Dream,” which Schwarz feels has a little moxie. To punch it up with a little more veracity, however, it could be replaced by “Ayn Rand in a Trojan Horse.”
With respect to Democrats, Schwarz credits the slogan of Bernie Sanders: “A Political Revolution is Coming” with at least being “on-brand.” For Hillary Clinton’s “Everyday Americans need a champion. I want to be that champion,” Schwarz notes:

So it’s not her official slogan, but it’s a sentence she used in her announcement video…In lieu of a slogan, it’s what people are using…While it basically sums up what all elections are about, it uses the phrase “everyday Americans,” which we’ve established isn’t a phrase actual “everyday Americans” actually use, and it’s self-centered. Even though candidates are the entire reason for their campaigns, they’re supposed to pretend they’re not, by saying things like “we” and “us” instead of “I” and “me.”

Point taken. But maybe what is really needed here is a party-centric slogan that all Democrats can run on. For that, TDS suggests a meme from one of our bumper stickers:

I don’t have to remind TDS readers that Democrats have been agonizing about what to do to appeal to non-college educated white voters–a.k.a. the “white working class”–ever since their current tilt towards the GOP became evident. But with Democratic “populism” on the rise, it’s now Republicans who are finally having to worry about this demographic, with some even attempting their own “populist” appeals at each other’s expense. I wrote about this at TPMCafe in the context of Mike Huckabee’s campaign launch:

What’s been missing for a good long while in the GOP is any serious effort to do what Nixon did: make Republican economic policies working-class-friendly. But now, as Democrats have more or less in concert decided to struggle towards a “populist” economic message that can win back some of these voters, Republicans are waking up to the same necessity.
The disconnect between the economic policies of the GOP and the interests of their most reliable voters has been a recurring theme for the self-styled “Reform Conservatives,” who often borrowed Tim Pawlenty’s line that the GOP needed to become the party of “Sam’s Club,” not just the country club. But as the Reformicons’ influence has grown, their demands have been watered down: the budget plan recently unveiled by Marco Rubio and Mike Lee, supposedly a new acme of Reformicon thinking, buys off traditional Republicans with the elimination of taxes on investment and inherited income before timorously cutting in the “Sam’s Club” voters with an enhanced child tax credit (plus an enhanced EITC for the working poor).
Some libertarian-oriented Republicans also claim to be promoting a new right-wing economic populism via attacks on corporate subsidies or “crony capitalism.” But again, this is at best a syncretic approach, since these self-same “populists” are avid to reduce or eliminate taxes on or even regulation of the corporations they are savaging as fascistic leeches.
But at least two prospective GOP candidates for president in 2016 seem inclined to take an edgier approach to the task of appealing to the economic views of working-class conservatives — both of them candidates who have experienced considerable success in the past appealing to their cultural resentments.
Rick Santorum’s distinctive pitch so far in the 2016 invisible primary has been to match rhetorical appeals to white working class voters with a very specific hostility to legal as well as illegal immigration as the alleged reason for underemployment and wage stagnation. It’s sort of like an AFL-CIO argument circa 1990 with everything other than one subject blotted out.
But Mike Huckabee shows signs of going significantly further. He got a lot of credit in 2008 for being a “populist” initially because he refused to go along with GOP cheerleading over the George W. Bush economy, and subsequently because he feuded with fiscal hardliners — especially the Club for Growth (which Huckabee called the “Club for Greed”) — over his record in Arkansas. This time around he’s earning the “populist” label by criticizing two shibboleths of contemporary conservatism: free trade and “entitlement reform.”
In both cases, he’s mining grass-roots conservative disgruntlement with Republican orthodoxy. Moreover, he’s linking these economic complaints about the agenda of conservative business elites to his longstanding and more-pointed-than-ever attacks on the cultural agenda of liberal elites.
It will be interesting to see if he seeks and gains attention for being (most likely) the only candidate in a huge presidential field to take issue with the Republican congressional leadership’s push to win approval for Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. More importantly, the heavy, heavy investment of Republican politicians in budget schemes that depend on reductions in Social Security and Medicare spending will give Huckabee constant opportunities to tout his newly stated opposition to such cuts as a betrayal of promises made to middle-class workers who’ve been contributing payroll taxes their entire lives. Beyond that, two candidates — Chris Christie and Jeb Bush — are already on record favoring reductions in retirement benefits that go beyond the highly indirect voucher schemes associated with Paul Ryan.
Now it’s not entirely clear Huckabee can be an effective spokesman for a working-class-oriented “populist” faction in the GOP. He’s vulnerable to counter-attacks based on his record of supporting tax hikes as governor of Arkansas. Speaking of taxes, he’s very identified with the “Fair Tax” scheme of replacing the income tax with a national consumption tax, which has a superficial appeal to “populists” as a way to kill the IRS, but would massively shift the federal tax burden from the wealthy to the middle and lower classes. Huckabee’s commitment to culture war issues may be too much for many non-conservative-evangelical white working class voters, much as the non-economic views of the politician who introduced the whole concept of culture war, Pat Buchanan, made him unattractive to people who shared his disdain for free trade and liberalized immigration and foreign aid. Huckabee’s questionable organizational and fundraising skills are also handicaps.
But it is possible Huckabee (and perhaps Santorum, and maybe other opportunistic candidates down the road) could succeed in scaring away others from those economic positions of the Wall Street Journal editorial board that actual Republican voters do not like. And short of that, if something a bit closer to real “populism” than the token gestures of Reformicons and libertarians is crushed by party elites, the GOP could be exposed to some dangerous inroads from Democrats, who look to be far less reluctant to offend wealthy donors this cycle.

So Democrats should watch these conservative lurches in the direction of “populism”–and the quite possibly savage reaction they could produce–with great interest.

“The Map: 11 Angles on the Electoral College” by Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley provides a riveting read for anyone interested in 2016 political strategy, as well as political map junkies. My overall take-away is that Dems are going to have to screw up really bad to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory this time out.
As a bonus, the same guys have “The 2016 Results We Can Already Predict,” in which they i.d. the likely 2016 toss-up states as: CO; FL; IA; NH; NV; OH; and VA. The only “Leans R” state is NC; The only “Leans D” states are WI and PA. The rest are all “likely” or “safe” one party or the other.
From an ABC News report by Chris Good and Rick Klein comes a reality check on the fuss about the number of presidential debates: “In 2004 and 2008, the DNC similarly sanctioned six debates, but thanks to advocacy groups and media outlets organizing their own debates and forums, the actual number of debates ballooned to over 20 in each year.” Any effort to restrict debate is likely doomed to failure of one sort or another. Strategic concerns about overexposure are probably futile in today’s media environment anyway.
Yet another indication that Dems ought to be able to get a bigger bite of the high-turnout senior vote.
At The Atlantic Gillian B. White probes a question of political consequence: “What Does ‘Middle Class’ Even mean?” Her article has the disturbing subtitle, “The gap between the richest and poorest in the U.S. is so wide that more Americans have started to assign themselves to lower socioeconomic groups.”
E. J. Dionne, Jr. explains why “Populism could divide the Grand Old Party,” and notes “a steady but little-noticed trend: Americans are becoming less conservative. In the fall of 2010, the Times/CBS poll found, there were twice as many self-described conservatives as liberals: 19 percent of Americans called themselves liberal, 38 percent called themselves conservative. In the latest poll, liberals stood at 25 percent, conservatives at 33 percent. In less than five years, a 19-point margin has shrunk to eight points.”
You probably knew that the U.S. record on voter turnout is not so hot, compared to many democracies. But 31st out of 34 countries studied is an embarrassment for a nation which fancies itself ‘the world’s greatest democracy.’
Memo to the good people of Iowa’s 4th congressional district: Is this really the best you can do?
Here’s why such neo-McCarthyite rants by Rep. King, Sen. Cruz and others are not going to get much traction.

Bloomberg political commentator Mark Halperin gives Mike Huckabee an overall “B” grade for his “Colloquial, Clever Appeal to the Working Class” in his presidential candidacy announcement. No reason to doubt the grade — The Huck can flat work a script.
But I have to wonder if Huckabee’s tour as a credible presidential nominee is going nowhere. I don’t doubt his ability to rally blue collar swing voters in the general election to some extent; it’s just hard to envision him outpolling the more lavishly-heeled and genteel Bush, Rubio or Walker in the GOP primaries, each of whom is chugging along nicely in the latest polls. Of course, anything can happen in such a large primary field.
I have no trouble, however, envisioning the media-savvy Huckabee on the GOP ticket as Spiro Agnew Jr., blasting away well-crafted one-liners. Dig his announcement jab at Jeb Bush: “I grew up blue collar; not blue blood” or remember, as I do with a grimace his put-down “Congress spends money like John Edwards in a Beauty Shop.”
A number of political commentators have noted the GOP candidates bragging abut their respective working-class childhoods. Not to doubt the authenticity of their social class origins, but none of them project it quite as shamelessly as does Huckabee. It’s not so much where you came from that makes a strong candidate with blue collar voters or any demographic group; it’s how well you connect with the constituency on all levels. Huckabee seems more comfortable in his skin with the blue collar meme than do Walker or Rubio, who also have working class roots. He may not walk the walk, but he can parrot the talk.
Huckabee’s facility with zingers may be just what the party Brahmins are looking for — in the number two spot. Halperin calls Huckabee ‘clever,’ but I wouldn’t object to shrewd, devious or conniving, which is kind of what you want in your attack-dog.
Rubio may be a better choice for the veepstakes, since he brings a big plus in the GOP’s quest for the elusive Latino vote and could excite young Republicans. But if he wins the presidential nomination, he’s going to want some extra entree with white, blue collar swing voters. Who better do the Republicans have to connect with this pivotal constituency and maybe even shore up rural voters, as well as disappointed religious wing-nuts?
Huckabee is expected to make much of his Arkansas pedigree as a candidate who knows how to stick it to the Clintons. But Huck became Governor because he was positioned in the Light Gov slot when Jim Guy Tucker resigned after being scandalized in the Whitewater mess. Further, Huckabee’s Arkansas record is tainted by his rap sheet as “a tax-raising big-spending criminal-coddler,” as Ed Kilgore has noted.
I don’t doubt that Huck is playing to win the presidential nomination. But I think the GOP mainstream wants a less devious, more trustworthy front-man, and sees Huckabee as a guy whose persona screams ‘Veep!’

In the wake of the Baltimore riots, Dalia Sussman of The New York Times reports findings of a new CBS News/NYT study of race relations and racial attitudes in the U.S.:

Sixty-one percent of Americans now say race relations in this country are generally bad. That figure is up sharply from 44 percent after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown and the unrest that followed in Ferguson in August, and 43 percent in December. In a CBS News poll just two months ago, 38 percent said race relations were generally bad.
The negative sentiment is echoed by broad majorities of blacks and whites alike, a stark change from earlier this year, when 58 percent of blacks thought race relations were bad, but just 35 percent of whites agreed. In August, 48 percent of blacks and 41 percent of whites said they felt that way.
Looking ahead, 44 percent of Americans think race relations are worsening, up from 36 percent in December. Forty-one percent of blacks and 46 percent of whites think so. Pessimism among whites has increased 10 points since December.

As you might expect the poll shows substantial differences in racial attitudes towards police culpability. And there are differing opinions about the rioting that followed. “Most Americans, 61 percent, say the unrest after Mr. Gray’s death was not justified. That includes 64 percent of whites and 57 percent of blacks,” writes Sussman.
Of course “justified” is a loaded word, which can mean different things to different people, ranging from “understandable” to “morally right.” Unfortunately, the study did not probe possible solutions, other than 93 percent of both black and white respondents agreeing that police wearing body cameras is a good idea.
There are a range of constructive reforms to reduce police-community violence, which should have strong support. The body cameras are a slam dunk, and I suspect you would also find lots of agreement on the merits of more cities creating independent police review boards, better training in conflict-resolution and rules of engagement for police, and more African American and Latino police throughout department ranks, among others.
With respect to rioting, however, state and local governments rarely have adequate resources to address the underlying cause that contributes so powerfully to rioting — hopelessness. The overwhelming majority of impoverished people of Ferguson, MO and Baltimore are law-abiding citizens. But when large numbers of people feel that they have little reason to hope for a better future, or even a decent life, some are going to feel they have little to lose by rioting. It is more remarkable, considering the generations of grinding poverty and despair in America’s ghettos and barrios, that there has been so little rioting.
So how does a great democracy address poverty, despair and hopelessness? We have tried decades of neglect, and clearly that is not working. But there are points of consensus about possible solutions.
it is often noted for example, that there are more impoverished whites than people of color in the U.S. Add to their numbers the millions of citizens of all races working their tails off for incomes just a little above the poverty line, and you are talking about tens of millions of voters. It ought to be possible to build a majority for practical, corrective programs which can reduce hopelessness among impoverished and low-income families.
Paul Krugman writes in his NYT column, “Race, Class and Neglect,”

…At this point it should be obvious that middle-class values only flourish in an economy that offers middle-class jobs…The great sociologist William Julius Wilson argued long ago that widely-decried social changes among blacks, like the decline of traditional families, were actually caused by the disappearance of well-paying jobs in inner cities. His argument contained an implicit prediction: if other racial groups were to face a similar loss of job opportunity, their behavior would change in similar ways.
And so it has proved. Lagging wages — actually declining in real terms for half of working men — and work instability have been followed by sharp declines in marriage, rising births out of wedlock, and more.
As Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution writes: “Blacks have faced, and will continue to face, unique challenges. But when we look for the reasons why less skilled blacks are failing to marry and join the middle class, it is largely for the same reasons that marriage and a middle-class lifestyle is eluding a growing number of whites as well.”

So why not put millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans of all races to work at jobs that need doing? For many years progressive Democrats have argued for a major investment in improving America’s infrastructure, and with good reason.
Currently, 65% of U.S. roads are rated “in less than good condition,” while 25% of our bridges “require significant repair or can’t handle today’s traffic,” according to a report by the National Economic Council and the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. The report found that “the U.S. lags behind many of its overseas competitors in transportation infrastructure investment. In the most recent World Economic Forum rankings, the U.S. had in less than a decade fallen from 7th to 18th overall in the quality of our roads.” In addition, 45% of Americans lack access to transit. Our ability to compete in the world marketplace is being crippled by infrastructure neglect.
But there is wide support for major infrastructure investments. A 2013 Gallup Poll found that 91 percent of Democrats, 76 percent of Independents and 63 percent of Republicans supported “a federal government program that would put people to work on urgent infrastructure repairs.”
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) have introduced The Rebuild America Act, legislation to “invest $1 trillion and create or maintain at least 13 million decent-paying jobs. The legislation “makes targeted investments in roads, bridges, transit, passenger and freight rail, water infrastructure, marine ports and inland waterways, national parks, broadband and the electric grid.”
We’ve also got to start thinking about education as a critical, make that central, component of our infrastructure and the most cost-effective investment we can make in America’s competitiveness, as well as for reducing hopelessness. In a CBS/Washington Post poll taken in January, 53 percent of respondents said they supported President Obama’s proposal “providing free tuition to attend community colleges at a cost to the federal government of sixty billion dollars over 10 years,” an impressive figure, considering there was no public education campaign before announcing the proposal. But Democrats will have to make a stronger, more unified case for investing in education than has thus far been the case.
We can no longer afford the luxury of substituting pious talk about bootstrap mobility for needed investment in America’s human and physical resources. As Krugman concludes,

The poor don’t need lectures on morality, they need more resources — which we can afford to provide — and better economic opportunities, which we can also afford to provide through everything from training and subsidies to higher minimum wages. Baltimore, and America, don’t have to be as unjust as they are.

Instead, we can put millions of Americans to work improving our physical and educational infrastructure — which will do more to enhance our world-wide competitive position than any trade agreements. But Democrats have to unite behind it and make such infrastructure upgrades the priority message of the day — every day.