#mark schmitt

I'm tired of giving quasi-conservatives credit for what I call Miss America compassion (I'll explain in a minute). Smith's son's suicide led him to support more funding for suicide prevention and for mental health care generally. Great -- my life has been affected by suicide also, so I'm all for that. Similarly, Senator Pete Domenici's daughter's mental illness made him an advocate for mandating equitable treatment of mental and physical well-being in health insurance, a cause in which he was joined by Paul Wellstone. Again, I'm all for it, and I have no doubt that Domenici was at least as personally sincere and driven about it as Wellstone, and watching the two of them pair up on this cause and learn to work together was a good example for the potential of democratic institutions to create understanding.

But what has always bothered me about such examples is that their compassion seems so narrowly and literally focused on the specific misfortune that their family encountered. Having a child who suffers from mental illness would indeed make one particularly passionate about funding for mental health, sure. But shouldn't it also lead to a deeper understanding that there are a lot of families, in all kinds of situations beyond their control, who need help from government? Shouldn't having a son whose illness leads to suicide open your eyes to something more than a belief that we need more money for suicide help-lines? Shouldn't it call into question the entire winners-win/losers-lose ideology of the current Republican Party? Shouldn't it also lead to an understanding that if we want to live in a society that provides a robust system of public support for those who need help -- whether for mental illness or any of the other misfortunes that life hands out at random -- we will need a government with adequate institutions and revenues to provide those things?

And that's what I mean by "Miss America Compassion." These Senators are like Miss America contestants, each with a "platform": Mr. Ohio: "Adoption Assistance." Mr. Oregon: "Suicide Prevention." Mr. Minnesota: "Community Development." Mr. New Mexico: "Mental Health Parity." Mr. Pennsylvania: "Missing children" The platform is meant to show them as thoughtful, deep and independent-minded, but after the "platform segment" they return to play their obedient part in a degrading exercise that makes this country crueler and government less supportive.

And, of course, as with Miss America contestants' "platforms," there are a few approved topics and many more that simply couldn't be considered. It's not too likely that you'll see Miss Alabama adopt "Income inequality" as her platform or Miss Colorado, "Corporate tax evasion." Nor is a Senator likely to have a family experience with lack of health insurance, or personal bankruptcy, or Food Stamps.

I respect and admire the way in which their family's personal experiences have helped change some of these conservatives' view of certain issues. That's certainly better than the large number who let nothing shake their ideology. But I just think it's too easy to collect the prize for Independence and Courage, and that these conservative Republicans should be pushed much harder to move on to the next level of understanding.

Bloggingheads.tv has posted a compelling video discussion between Mark Schmitt of the Roosevelt Institute and Dr. William Voegeli of the Claremont Institute, about the possibility of creating common ground between Democrats and Republicans on U.S. national political issues.

The basis of the discussion is Dr. Voegeli’s book entitled Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State, which is excerpted here.

This discussion summarizes and extends an ongoing dialogue between Schmitt and Voegeli. That dialogue appears to have begun with Schmitt's post in Breakthrough Journal, and Voegeli's post in the same journal; followed by Schmitt's response to Voegeli, Voegeli's response to Schmitt, and Schmitt's concluding post.

The basic contentions, as I understand them, are the following. Voegeli argues that the agenda of the U.S. Left lacks principle, and entails an unbounded expansion of the national state.

Asserting that there are both principled and political limits to U.S. Progressives' goals for the welfare state, Schmitt responds that most U.S. Progressives embrace policies that resemble those advocated by the Democratic Leadership Council. He asserts that the mainstream Left and Right have many principles in common, including the views that the market is the best mechanism for distributing goods and services and for valuing labor; that state action is justified for purposes of realizing equality of economic opportunity, not equality of economic outcomes; and that the state should provide pensions and health insurance for the elderly. Schmitt argues that the primary difference between Left and Right concerns the extent of support the state should provide to citizens in order to facilitate equality of opportunity (e.g., health insurance and state-funded child care).

In the end, Schmitt and Voegeli reach agreement on certain shared objectives: limiting federal taxation to a particular percentage of GDP (say, approximately 18-20%), and embracing a combination of tax increases and cuts to government spending, including Medicare expenditures, so that the size of the federal government is consistent with that tax ceiling. Schmitt and Voegeli appear to agree that, in order to achieve these shared goals, both Democrats and Republicans must compromise: Democrats must accept cuts in Medicare as well as tax increases on individuals with annual incomes below $250,000; and Republicans must accept both tax increases and reductions in defense spending.

Schmitt and Voegeli also reject several forms of bad-faith politicking and negotiation that Democrats and Republicans have endorsed or practiced in recent years.

Schmitt and Voegeli's prescription thus combines shared substantive policy goals and a norm of good-faith communication practices.

Overall, I think this dialogue describes a feasible path forward for bipartisan U.S. federal policy, and gives the lie to claims that partisan differences have rendered U.S. national politics fundamentally broken. What do you think?

This is not just a winner-take-all society in which super talents and geniuses like LeBron James and Steve Jobs command huge rewards. Rather, these are simply corporations deciding to hand over more of their revenues to their CEOs and other top executives, and less to workers. In this sense, then, the gains at the top and the stagnation and decline in the middle of the income spectrum are very directly linked. Their gains are our losses, through a series of very specific choices."

Read more at tnr.com...

Been there, experienced this. This is unscrupulous corporations taking the additional wealth (long work weeks, unpaid overtime) that their worker teams brought to the corporate table, (which contributions resulted in corporate success), and redistributing that wealth to investors/owners -- then telling workers there's technically no money, on paper, for raises or bonuses or profit-sharing to continue, and by the way, you'll have more withheld from your paycheck for health insurance. We might even insist you agree to a pay cut. We know no one else is hiring...