Subject: [big campaign] New Huff Post from Creamer-Time to Stand Up for the Public Sector
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2011 08:42:25 -0500 (EST)
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Time to Stand Up for the Public  Sector 

For over forty years, the right wing has mounted an irrepressible  campaign 
to discredit the very concept of government in the United  States.    
It continued its campaign to demonize government even as we watched first  
responders—government employees -- run into the collapsing twin towers to 
rescue  their fellow citizens on September 11, 2001.  They continued to defame 
the concept of  government in the face of daily reports of the bravery and 
sacrifice of our  soldiers in Iraq and  Afghanistan – all  representing the 
Government of the United States of America.   
The Right even continued this drum beat in the face of the most  
spectacular recent failure of its anti-public sector philosophy – the 2008  financial 
collapse. They simply ignored what was obvious to the entire world:  that 
today’s economic crisis was caused by the fact that Republicans had  
essentially ended effective public sector oversight of the big Wall Street Banks  
whose greed and recklessness caused the worst economic crisis in 60 years and  
cost eight million Americans their jobs.  
In the Republican moral universe, the private sector is good, and the  
public sector is evil – it’s as simple as that. 
This week, the new House Republican Majority rode into Washington, DC to 
promote an anti-public sector agenda  that is overtly aimed at shrinking the “
evil” Federal  government. 
Progressives can no longer allow the radical right to define the concept  
of Government in the United  States. It’s time to proudly and forcefully  
stand up for the public sector.  
The Progressive concept of government is rooted in the Declaration of 
Independence: 
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,  
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that  
among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure 
these  rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just 
powers from  the consent of the governed. 
Wall Street  banks are not instituted to secure these rights – neither are 
giant  international corporations, nor private insurance companies, nor big 
oil  conglomerates. Democratic governments are instituted to protect and 
advance  those unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness.  Government is the vehicle through which  we assure that the notion that “
all men are created equal” is realized in the  real world because it is the 
only institution in society that represents all of  us, where – at least 
theoretically – every American is equal and has equal power  to shape society’
s goals.  
Government is the place where democracy lives.  It is, as Congressman 
Barney Frank says,  the name we give for the things we choose to do together.  
The wealthy elites that dominate the American Right have financed the  
campaign to demonize government because they want the opportunity to pursue a  
very different group of values that have nothing to do with America’s  
founding principles.  They want the  right to concentrate more and more wealth and 
power into their own  hands. 
They are not interested in “democracy” or the notion that “all men and  
women are created equal.”  They are  devoted to plutocracy – to the notion 
that they should have the unfettered  ability to accumulate a larger and 
larger share of the fruits of our economy –  and more and more control over the 
natural resources that belong to us  all. 
For the last forty years, the Right’s attempts to demonize government is  
one of the reasons why the wealthy and big Wall Street banks have been 
allowed  to siphon off a greater and greater share of the nation’s wealth from the 
middle  class.  For the last twenty years,  middle class incomes have been 
stagnant.  Every dime of economic growth has ultimately flowed to the top 2% 
of the  population. 
Today the distribution of wealth is more polarized than at any other time  
since 1928.  Today, the top one  percent of the population controls as much 
total wealth as does the bottom 90%.   
The Right’s campaign to demonize government was intended to create the  
backdrop for its successful attempts to end the oversight of the big Wall 
Street  banks that had prevented a recurrence of the Great Depression for more 
than 50  years. They wanted to be free to make huge sums of money through 
speculation and  financial schemes that allowed them unimaginable rates of 
return – but risked  the stability of the entire economy.  
They succeeded in eliminating that oversight. They gambled on everything  
-- with everyone else’s money. They collapsed the economy, they got bailed 
out –  and many of them are still raking in multi-million dollar bonuses while 
millions  of their victims remain unemployed.  
Now one of the key items of the Republican agenda is to eviscerate the  
newly-passed Wall Street Reform legislation that is one of the most important  
accomplishments of the Obama Administration and Democratic  Congress. 
But that’s not all.  The new  Republican House majority wants to repeal the 
health care reform law to allow  private insurance companies once again to 
have free rein to deny care to those  with pre-existing conditions, revoke 
coverage when people get sick, and raise  rates whenever they please.  They  
rail against the cost of health care while protecting a bloated private 
sector  system that requires that Americans pay twice as much per capita for 
health care  than the citizens of any other industrial democracy – and get 
health care  outcomes that rank only 37th in the world. 
The Republicans want to pass new legislation easing the way for states to  
file for bankruptcy so they can void union contracts, and cut public  
services. 
They have passed new “cut-as-you-go” rules for the House which require  
that in order to spend a new dollar on a critical public service, the new  
expenditure must be paid for by a cut in some other expenditure – never by any  
increase in revenue.   
Worse, their rules do not require that tax cuts – including tax cuts for  
the rich – be paid for by anything.  So much for their alleged concern for 
the deficit.  
In fact, the Right has never really been concerned about the  deficit.  
Remember that only a  decade ago, the Federal Government had budget surpluses 
as far as the eye could  see.  But beginning in 2001, the  Bush 
Administration and Republican Congress cut taxes for the rich and launched  two 
unpaid-for wars that created a ballooning Federal deficit.  Right wing leader Grover 
Norquist was  quite explicit that the Republicans created that deficit 
intentionally to generate the political  and financial pressure to shrink the 
role of government.  
And, of course, the Right has never let the facts stand in its way.  You 
have to admire how brazenly they are  willing to distort reality.  Republicans 
argue daily that cutting government spending – even in the  near term – 
will create jobs, when from an economic point of view exactly the  opposite is 
true. 
Virtually every mainstream economist in America  agrees that funds for 
unemployment compensation, infrastructure projects, food  stamps, funding to 
prevent the layoffs of teachers, and firefighters and police  officers are the 
best ways to create jobs – and multiples of economic activity,  since 
expenditures are used by everyday consumers to buy products and services  from 
businesses in local communities.  
And one thing we have learned all over again as a result of the 2008  
economic collapse: a strong, vibrant public sector is necessary to assure a 
strong, vibrant  private sector.  
For the private sector to prosper,  countries need an economic environment 
that includes high-quality public  education, safe secure communities, an 
effective healthcare system, and an  efficient transportation and 
communications infrastructure.  A strong public sector is necessary to  provide that 
environment. 
And a clear, strong set of rules is necessary to prevent powerful  economic 
elites from engaging in activity that threatens the entire economy –  and 
to create clear expectations that allow entrepreneurs to make long-term  
investments with confidence.  All of  that requires a strong public sector. 
In fact, a strong public sector is necessary to assure competitive  markets 
that would otherwise be dominated by the largest, most powerful economic  
actors. 
Progressives believe that there is an important role for private markets  
and private economic activity – and that there is also an indispensable role 
for  public sector economic activity.  
Intentional attempts by the Republican right to demonize and weaken  
government do not ultimately strengthen the private sector in  America.  
Individual actors may strengthen their  own domination of our economy and society – 
and concentrate wealth in their own  hands.  But the long-term effect –  as 
we have seen over the last two years – is to weaken private sector economic  
activity and destroy the quality of our lives.  
In fact,  long-term economic growth requires widely-shared economic growth. 
 It requires a strong middle class that  has money in its pockets to buy 
products and services.  Widely-shared economic growth does not  happen if the 
wealthiest corporations are allowed to use their disproportionate  economic 
power to dominate our economy and society.  Only a strong public sector can 
assure  widely-shared prosperity. 
Finally, we must remember that the public sector is the one place in  
society where – at least in theory -- all of us participate as equals. For over  
two centuries America has struggled to perfect its  government to actually 
embody that ideal.  The Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case 
that allowed  corporations to spend unlimited sums on elections – and 
conferred on them even  more rights of “personhood” -- was a blow to making that 
ideal a reality.   But if we are ever to make that  democratic ideal a 
reality, it will only be through government.   Every person does not stand as an  
equal in the private sector economic marketplace.  We each cast our “dollar 
votes,” which  vary enormously between us – and are concentrated in the 
hands of giant  conglomerates or Wall Street banks.  
But we do stand equal before the ballot box.  And we can work to make us 
all equal in  our access to public education, or health care, or public 
services – when it  comes to the baseline access to the resources that are 
necessary for each of us  to fulfill our potential and exercise actual freedom.  
Only democratic government can make that happen, and it is time for us to  
stand up for democratic government with the same ardor as those who first 
wrote  that to protect our unalienable rights, governments are instituted 
among men.  
Robert Creamer is a long-time  political organizer and strategist, and 
author of the book:  Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can  Win, available on 
_Amazon.com._ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213241439&sr=8-1)

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "big campaign" group.

To post to this group, send to [email-masked]

To unsubscribe, send email to [email-masked]

E-mail [email-masked] with questions or concerns
 
This is a list of individuals. It is not affiliated with any group or organization.