A few days ago I listened to an interview on
Talk of the Nation, where Neal Conan interview
New York Times Magazine politics columnist Matt Bai and Democratic congressman Rahm Emanuel. What I heard was not heartening.
The main message that came through is that while the Republicans are hemorrhaging, the Democrats are not gaining from the electorate's disaffection. Matt Bai's point was a simple one: in order to win, Democrats must win over Republican voters. The question is what are Democrats espousing that can possibly gain the interest of Republicans. According to Bai, not much. One major problem is that Republicans still associate Democrats with failing programs. Now of course we can argue over the quality and cost-effectiveness of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and various welfare and unemployment programs. But the important point that Bai raises is that while the majority of Americans agree with the policies of the Democratic party, it is less than enamored with the current set of programs. In short, the Democrats simply refuse to engage with the reality of changing (or, as I prefer to put it, "recalibrating") these programs.
Bai was followed on Talk of the Nation by Rahm Emanuel, who outlined (more than once) the "5-point program" that the Democrats intended to lead with as they entered the 2006 elections. Folks, it did not inspire--at all. Instead of speaking about the very programs themselves that are the objects of American concerns, these points addressed "out there" issues that did not immediately impinge on Americans. Here are those five points.
1. Make college education affordable.
2. Convene a budget summit in order to work towards a balanced budget
3. Cut energy dependence on foreign oil in half over the next ten years and move more rapidly to a "hybrid" economy.
4. Substantially increase funding for the National Institute of Science and Engineering so it can reach NIH funding levels and accelerate hybridization of the economy.
5. Create affordable health care
These are all solid points but in certain fundamental ways they bypass a whole slew of issues--most important of which is positioning the Democratic party as what I call the party of Competent Stewardship. The above are no doubt middle class issues. But do they have any intrinsic appeal to Republican voters? I'll argue that they do not for a simple reason, and it is the reason outlined by Bai. Democrats refuse to engage--as Clinton had done--with our current governance issues. Clinton's brilliant masterstroke in embracing most (but not all) of the Republican Contract with America was not in posing as a wolf in sheep's clothing (a debatable point); it was in showing his willingness to rethink policies of the past--that may have worked in past circumstances--and bring them forward into the future.
Policies established in the 1930s through the 1980s were no doubt appropriate to their times--regulations and programs such as those affecting, say, pension plans and Social Security. But times change, as do the state of global markets, lifetime expectancies, health care costs, population growth (or nongrowth), productivity rates, technological advances, and other factors. As we enter a new era, these factors inevitably impact programs that now show the constraints of their origins.
Now, so-called political pundits have argued that conservatives have shown greater intellectual energy in the last ten years than liberals because they have been willing to question the wisdom of these programs. Though I am a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, I have to agree. Conservatives have been more energetic. They just haven't been right in their proposed solutions. But just because they have not been right does not mean that the Democrats have been any more right defending programs in their current form. As my brother-in-law so wisely pointed out to me years ago during the "Reagan Revolution," Reagan was right to want to change they way the business of government was being conducted. What he got wrong was instead of fighting for the reregulation (or, as I put it, "recalibration) of outdated federal programs, he opted for the devastating effects of deregulation. And that is all the difference in the world--a problem aptly reflected in the fight over Social Security.
When Kerry and Bush went at it during the 2004 election over Social Security, Bush was bold enough (yes, bold enough) to touch that third rail of electoral politics and address the problems confronting Social Security. Yes, yes, he inflated the scope of the problem--both rhetorically, by making it sound worse than it was, and through his tax cuts--but he embraced the reality that there were problems with Social Security forthcoming given the realities of current funding levels, life expectancies of retirees, population growth (or lack thereof), and relative productivity (and wealth creation and distribution) in the United States. Kerry refused to touch that third rail. Good politics perhaps but a perceptible weakness that every commentator noted in his defense of the program. The man just simply refused to suggest alternatives. And yet there should be solid Democratic alternatives, otherwise we just cede ground to our opponents. Some of these alternatives are third rails themselves, but there they are nonetheless: raising the retirement age for collecting Social Security; raising the FICA on wealthy recipients or reducing outlays from Social Security to them, and I'm sure many other more intelligent ideas than any that I necessarily have. Surely there are Democrats with Ph.D.'s who can outline approaches to addressing the problems that afflict Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, pension plans, and other major funding programs both private and public. But have Democrats shown any willingness to come to grips with these legacy programs on which their dominance in Congress had been built? Reading Rahm Emanuel's five points, the answer would have to be clear "No."
Kerry struggled to come to grips with this problem when he changed horses in his policy statements (at the prompting of his wife) and talked about "market-based" solutions. That type of talk was specifically broadcast as an appeal to Republicans. Unfortunately, it still came across as talk rather than action. I actually think Democrats can not only talk the talk of "market-based" solutions, but can argue that they are in a far better position to do so than Republicans because they run economies more efficiently by recognizing that economic policy requires greater sophistication than the antiquated Laffer Curves and supply-side economic ideas that permeate Republican ideology. I suspect Democrats will have to argue that their ideas have also moved beyond Keynsian views as well. I mean, Jesus Christ, we're forty years beyond John Maynard Keynes and twenty years beyond Milton Friedman. You'd think we'd have caught up by now and figured out what works and what does not from the two of them and long since engaged with their successors in outlining theories of how markets can work not merely for wealth creation but also for wealth distribution.
I'll give one example of how tied Democrats are to programs (and the constituencies that instantiate these programs) and then sign off...
Michael Bloomberg will be walking into the New York mayor's race literally without competition. Why? Because notwithstanding Bloomberg's Republican affiliation (the man was a Democrat), his management style is something to behold. The New York Times has done several pieces on his management style and here's what has been revealed: Bloomberg has two expectations of his staff--one direct and the other indirect. The direct expectation is a meeting of very specific goals: greater productivity from city services, reduced crime, greater employment, a balanced budget, and so forth--the goals I think all of us can agree with. The indirect expectation is that these goals be reached expeditiously and ethically. If they're not met, you're out on your ass. Interestingly, he does not hamstring his direct reports by establishing how they reach their goals. They can employ market or nonmarket methods. Bloomberg is interested in what works and is only interested in how it works when the policies cross red lines (ethical or legal violations, brusque politics, confounded race or labor relations).
Alright, that's not my example; that's just background. Here's the example: Bloomberg is notorious for being a tough negotiator with New York City's municipal unions. A number of them complained that he was only willing to provide raises in exchange for increases in productivity. This is a market-based expectation in the modern world. The sanitation union, which had already acclimated itself to just this kind of collective bargaining sailed through their negotiations with a splendid contract. The police and teacher's unions bitched and moaned the whole way through about added time or obligations rather than just receiving a pay raise with no expectation of either better performance, additional work, and greater efficiencies. Bloomberg won hands down in all of his negotiations. In the end the unions got their raises and benefits and all the rest. In exchange they had to give something back. There was to be no more pay raises for doing the same job at the same level of expectation over and over. In short, Bloomberg compelled the unions to innovate to raise levels of productivity or achieve cost savings through greater efficiencies (without layoffs).
So here's my question: why are Democrats seemingly reluctant to embrace what seems to me a very reasonable set of expectations? I hardly even regard this as a Republican ideal. (and this is why Fernando Ferrer will make no headway as the Democrat's mayoral candidate.) I support unions--but not unions that feel in exchange for wage increases, robust benefits, and job security they have no more of an obligation than to merely do their job. This is a negative ratings view of union performance. I'm sure we all agree that there should be no union protection for incompetence (even though some unions--or their locals--are notorious for protecting certain types of incompetence through seniority systems). However, what happens when merely doing your job as you've been doing it for the last ten or twenty years with no clear attempt to raise the level of productivity or efficiency evolves into incompetence because the job hasn't kept up with the ways in which that job can, ought (and thus sometimes is) done today? Here then is a fundamental problem with unions--one that my wife has described as a city librarian. Instead of protecting workers--their primary goal--unions (especially government union) have evolved to protect their worker's jobs, and by protect their jobs I don't mean the position but the actual way in which the job itself is performed. Is this really something Democrats want to be seen as defending? I don't. I don't even consider that a Democratic value. In fact, that form of protection is a highly conservative value because it emanates from a deeply held view that change is bad and that human beings are incapable of change. No wonder union membership has not only dwindled but union members have shown themselves to be less than loyal to the Democratic party. I should know: my brother has been voting Republican despite his nearly 20 years a municipal union worker in New York City.
As a former union member--and proud when I was one--the Democratic alignment with this aspect of unionization has hurt the Democratic party tremendously. It is this very alignment of Democrats with not unions per se but unions' ideas about what their best interests are--ideas that pay no dividends in either union member votes or with non-union workers who resent protections that have no expectation of increased returns (in, say, municipal services)--that are killing any possibility of reaching out to Republicans. Should Democrats support unions? Yes. But should they support union ideas that have not caught up with 21st-century expectations and known facts about productivity, life expectancy, health care costs, and so forth. If you think so, then take your head out of your ass if you expect to win an election.