Second Bill of Rights
Towards a more just and equitable society
Four Freedoms on New Year’s Day
In the months and weeks since the 2016 election much has been written about the social and electoral dynamics that shaped the outcome. An 18 Nov New York Times op-ed piece The End of Identity Liberalism by Mark Lilla, professor of humanities at Columbia University caught my eye and has been on my desk since then. Professor Lilla has written an analysis of the perhaps unintentional fragmentation and alienation that a focus on identity politics causes and which can move the country to the kind of election results we saw this past November. When people are excluded by identity, then struggle for inclusion and fairness, a focus on identity can be useful to seek necessary redress. As Professor Lilla sees it, a reliance on identity as a basis for political engagement can obscure our broader common connection and needs as citizens. While the article has caused controversy, it was the reference to what Lilla called upon as a political vision that caught my eye, and unfortunately, has not been taken up in the subsequent dialogue around this op-ed piece. Lilla ends his article referencing Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms as the “real foundations of modern American liberalism.” Here they are as expressed by FDR in his last state of the Union address on January 1944. “In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is...
What will it take to create a Second Bill of Rights society?
In this week after the momentous presidential election of 2016, I have had many conversations with people about the outcome, the nature of the national dialogue. I’ve listened to their reflections, anguish and concern. I’ve spoken to friends, colleagues, cab-drivers, strangers on a plane, and at a church service. There’s a lot to reflect upon and analyses to be made - but there is a clear way forward. Over the last eight years, I have had the privilege and occasion to meet some noted and notable liberal economists at various talks or events - Robert Reich, Joseph Stiglitz and Laura Tyson. In the brief moment I had with each of them, I asked if they were familiar with Franklin Roosevelt’s proposal in his final state of the union address for a Second Bill of Rights. My rationale for asking these illustrious thinkers and public servants was not to pose a trick question, but to gain a sense of the work to be done. Robert Riech’s film Inequality for All as does Joseph Stigletz’s work The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future (2012) clarifies the drastic shift to gross economic inequality in the United States over the last 25 years. In a talk with the director after a Berkley filming of Inequality for All a few years ago, Robert Riech spoke of how the film illuminated the nature of that profound shift of wealth and the impact of income inequality, but he himself noted that having diagnosed the patient what was needed was prescription for...
The Second Bill – A Platform for Progressives – Thoughts for OWS
The Occupy Wall Street protests are now in their third week, and seem to be catalyzing similar protests in other parts of the country. How Occupy Wall Street is Getting it Right Despite initial tepid media coverage, and critiques that the protest seems to possess an inchoate sense of focus, it actually well targets two key thoughts. First, by the name and initial location of the protest, Occupy Wall Street highlights the financial industry's evasion of full reform and proper societal oversight that, after repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, lead to a decade of risky behavior and the financial Armageddon of 2008. Second, with the '99-percent' refrain, OWS casts a spotlight on the appalling disparity in wealth and well-being amongst the citizenry of the United States after thirty years of the erosion of the basic social contract. This graph from the Century Foundation blog is a helpful visualization of what that 99 percent is all about. The result of the disparity in wealth, has lead many middle class families into an increasingly marginalized existence, thrusting many of them into outright poverty. This 2010 Census report on income, poverty and health care coverage articulates the damage in numbers, and we can only surmise the heartbreak, sense of loss, and perpetual anxiety that are the facts of life for at least one third of the country's citizens. As the census report shows in 2010, One out of six Americans live in poverty (46.2 million) More than a...
Speaking of Entitlements
In the current political debate over the federal debt, the political rhetoric flies fast around the discussion of ‘entitlements’ which is a catch-all term used to describe the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs. No matter that Social Security is a self-funded program, it is the cost of these ‘entitlements’ that is being used to justify not only cuts in the federal budget, but as a platform to reshape the dialogue on what the nature of government and its role in our society should be. What is not included in the word ‘entitlements’, but should be, is tax cuts, used as a mechanism for the systemic, conscious reshaping of the flow of prosperity and wealth in the U.S that has occurred over the last three decades. In a recent NPR interview, David Stockman, former budget director under President Reagan noted that the U.S. now raises 14 percent of GDP in taxes – the lowest since 1948. The Bush tax cuts took 1.8 trillion dollars out of the government revenue stream. (This graph and explanation on the deficit from the NY Times is an excellent visual for understanding the understanding the deficit structure). As Mr. Stockman points out, federal spending has been at the rate of 24 percent of GDP, and the government has had to borrow against the gap of revenue vs. spending for the last three years. Discussion or debate on the budget often uses the seemingly common-sense homily of "living within our means." But we have allowed the scaling back of our...
The Second Bill of Rights – The Time is Now
The time is now -- to revive and energize for the present era, a vital and relevant extension to the Bill of Rights. This powerful understanding and vision of extending the Bill of Rights and what it could mean for the quality of life for the citizens of America was articulated by President Franklin Roosevelt in his State of the Union address to Congress on January 11, 1944. After leading and guiding the nation through the social and economic cataclysm of the Great Depression and the global upheaval of World War II, with his health almost spent, but his visionary vigor still intact, President Roosevelt proposed his Second Bill of Rights to ensure a just and equitable society. Here they are: The right to useful and remunerative jobs in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living; The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; The right of every family to a decent home; The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment; The right to a good education. I am writing this blog three years after the most profound economic...