The Fair Deal
One fine summer’s evening, my wife Kim and I sat with a few of our neighbors out on the side porch of our house in North Chatham, N.Y., population 503. We talked politics.
Most of us are Democrats. Some of us are old enough to have directly benefitted from the "New Deal" of Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose family estate at Hyde Park is just over in the next county. We all appreciate that the American middle class, as we know it today, was largely created in the progressive years of FDR’s presidency. And we all fear that our democracy will be destroyed by radical Republicans in the White House and Congress who are hell bent on destroying the New Deal and, therefore, our great middle class. As FDR and others remind us, you can have two percent of the people owning more than half the nation’s wealth and you can have a democracy ?but you can’t have both.
In another desperate time at home and abroad, Franklin Roosevelt drew up some ideas about how the Democratic party could save the Republic. His ideas worked because they were fair. Ideas such as Social Security, a ban on child labor, minimum wage law, visionary public works projects, government support for farmers and the arts and small business ?and the general notion that we’re all Americans, that we’re all in the enterprise of America together, and that we own a government in Washington that ought to look out for us. Above all, the demonstrable idea that Americans are a people with a decent soul.
We are now caught in our own desperate time. A president of moral vacancy occupies the White House. He and his apologists feel no shame for the thousands of husbands and wives and brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers they have sent to death in a foreign war built on their lies. They have no shame in colluding with criminals, no shame in stripping away our civil liberties, no shame in befouling our environment, no shame in the power they have amassed for themselves and their friends by exploiting fear and ignorance and intolerance ?no shame in punishing anyone who would dare question their conduct in office.
It is tempting to mourn, but too late to do so. It is time to organize a new American vision. It is time for a renewed sense of national purpose and decency.
Accordingly, my neighbors and I suggest a few ideas on how Democrats might create promise for all by promoting fairness for all.
Thomas AdcockAugust 2005
The Fair Deal Domestic Policy
1) The “Public Investment Act.?br />
To rebuild and maintain a broad American middle class, the proven guarantor of our democracy, we must expand on the unprecedented success of the G.I. Bill of Rights by extending its benefits to all:
Federal loan guarantees for home ownership and education.
2) The “Living Wage & Fair Workplace Act.?br />
Fairness in the workplace creates unity and enhances the competitive advantage of American industry. Fairness is good business and good profits. Working Americans have a right to prosperity.
To secure a fair chance at prosperity:
?Establish a wage and salary standard for private employers, in fair proportion to executive remuneration and/or according to the Fair Tax Act (see below).
?Remove all barriers to labor unions with strict federal oversight of workplace organizing efforts.
?Establish emergency access to the federal courts for employees to press civil and criminal claims against corporate representatives who interfere with legitimate union activity.
3) National health insurance.
Enroll all Americans in the efficient, single-payer health program long enjoyed by members of Congress.
4) The “Fair Tax Act.?br />
To ensure that wealthy individuals and corporations contribute their rightful share:
?No tax on a substantial first portion of individual or family income. Above the mark, assessment based on a steeply graduated income scale.
?Substantial increases in corporate taxation.
?Substantial increases in tax law enforcement, targeting individuals and corporations that demonstrate patterns of avoidance and non-compliance.
5) The “Fair Campaign Act.?br />
To help end the corrupting influence of special interest money in national political campaigns, require media corporations that profit from the free use of public airwaves to provide advertising at no cost to qualified candidates.
The Fair DealForeign Policy Platform
1) The “War Powers Act?br />
Solidify existing statutes and constitutional directives with adoption of a comprehensive package of laws addressing Congress as the sole legal authority for commencing military action abroad.
Articulate severe criminal consequences to elected government officials ?as well as corporate officials with vested interests in military incursions and those appointed to high government position ?who would:
?Place our military men and women in harm’s way under false pretenses.
?Conspire with others, at home or abroad, to cause unjustified engagement in warfare.
?Abuse political authority and/or endanger the security of the American people by falsifying or misrepresenting intelligence service reports and analyses, or by intimidating and/or obstructing the legitimate conduct and inquiries of intelligence and/or military professionals.
3) The “World Citizenship Act?br />
To rebuild world trust in America’s peaceful and democratic intentions:
?Declare support and respect for the world community by rejoining the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, institutions established largely due to U.S. leadership in global human rights law.
?Increase U.S. investment in worldwide efforts to improve human rights, labor rights, economic development, medical systems delivery and environmental protections.
?Provide financial incentives for public school districts that produce high school graduates who are fully fluent in multiple world languages.
4) The “Fair Labor Act.?br />
Amend all international trade agreements to provide wages and working conditions at parity with the U.S. standard set in the “Living Wage & Fair Workplace Act?(see Domestic Policy Program).
5) The “Energy Independence Act.?br />
Establish an emergency corporation as a joint venture of specialists from government, private industry, labor unions and environmental groups to research and develop alternative fuels and transport methods that would create total energy independence for the U.S.
Thomas Adcock is a novelist who lives in upstate New York.