Rebuild the Dream (27 page)

IN MANY WAYS, THE INSIDE GAME
is the most difficult part of the grid to inhabit, because the system itself is both complex and deeply corrupt. For a movement based on principles and fueled by passion, engaging with the system will require making hard choices
and confronting tough dilemmas. It demands walking the fine line between strategic compromise and capitulation. The electorally oriented part of the movement must be able to claim small victories while never losing sight of the big changes we need. The entire movement must be open to finding common ground with unlikely allies. This kind of work is not for everyone.

But all great movements—labor rights, civil rights, women's rights, lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender liberation, and the environment—have had to evolve accountable mechanisms to convert protest energy into political power. With its huge and transformative agenda, the 99% will be no exception.

The good news is that the enthusiasm generated by the Occupy Wall Street protests already has begun to have a tangible effect in the voting booth. The positive outcomes of November 2011's elections—in which voters in Ohio, Arizona, and even Mississippi rejected Tea Party overreach and punished right-wing extremism—proved that the rising energy can impact election dynamics. Ohio voters restored collective bargaining rights to its unions; Mississippians voted down the idea that fetuses must be treated as people. In an historic state senate recall election, Arizonians booted out Russell Pearce, the key force behind Arizona's controversial crackdown on illegal immigrants. The victories of November 2011 should be only the beginning.

Even if Occupy Wall Street activists choose, understandably, to function solely inside the lower quadrants, those who care about the 99% must resolve to occupy the entire grid.

T
HE
H
EAD
S
PACE IS THE QUADRANT
where big ideas and big solutions matter. One of the main criticisms of the Occupy Wall Street protestors was that they allegedly lacked “clear demands.” In some important ways, the “no demands” criticism of Occupy Wall Street was sketchy. It was clear from the beginning that the protesters wanted the economy to be fixed and Wall Street to be held accountable for crashing it. It was also clear that the sources of the financial crisis and economic inequality are complex, as are the solutions. It was not the protesters' job to engineer the answers—only to make the problems visible and salient. Additionally, the lack of demands was useful, as it let the protesters continue to point out the issues without having their “demands” denounced for being too large or ridiculed for being too small.

The media's insistence on demands was particularly strange, since both the media and elected officials routinely ignore “demands” by grassroots groups. In fact, every antipoverty, social justice, and labor-related think tank or group in Washington, DC, already has enough
economic policy proposals (demands) to choke a brontosaurus. The power elite simply chooses to overlook them. In other words: if Washington has done nothing about jobs, economic inequality, or Wall Street's betrayals, a lack of demands from social justice advocates could hardly be the culprit. One might blame instead a lack of interest by key decision makers. But policy demands literally fill bookshelves and storage cabinets throughout the nation's capital.

And yet the media began to act as if, unless some young protesters showed up with a comprehensive proposal for derivatives reform, nothing much could be done to respond to the economic pain they were protesting. It was ludicrous.

Much of this kind of chatter was the outgrowth of a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Wall Street protests were. They were not normal protests. After all, the demonstrators were not there to
gain
something. They are there to
lose
something: their silence, their fears, their loneliness, their submission, and their complicity in crimes against the future. They were not there to
get
something. They were there to
give
something: inspiration, beauty, joy, passion, truth, and some attitude. They were not there trying to get a gigantic bail out for themselves. They were there to bail out democracy itself. They were not there to tear the system down. (The plutocrats and oligarchs are already doing that.) They were there to build a new system up.

In that regard, they were much like the 1960s youth, who risked their lives during the sit-ins and freedom rides. They did not know exactly which laws Congress needed to amend or what pieces of legislation President Kennedy needed to sign. They just knew that the status quo was intolerable—and they placed those intolerable injustices before the eyes of the world.

That said, no movement can continue forever without an agenda. In a democracy, ideas matter. In a crisis, solutions matter.
The 99% cannot rebuild the American Dream without a plan. Fortunately, a few good plans exist.

I was proud to help generate one plan a few months before the Occupy Wall Street protests broke out. Rebuild the Dream—an organization that I co-founded, along with Natalie Foster and Billy Wimsatt—and the American Dream network, which is the alliance that it anchors, helped to forge a jobs agenda that could put the country back to work without hurting essential programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. More than 131,203 people got involved, both online and in person. Participants generated 25,904 ideas, then rated and ranked them to identify the best ones.

The outcome was a ten-point program called the Contract for the American Dream. It provides a conceptual framework for how to put America back to work and pull America back together. The fact that more than 311,837 people have signed onto this contract is a testament to the salience and appeal of the ideas. Opinion research suggests that all ten of the items are extremely popular, attracting between 55 to 80 percent support in various polls. Rebuild the Dream and its allies are now using the contract as a basis to evaluate candidates for elected office and as the core of a major public education campaign.

In December 2011, the Congressional Progressive Caucus—made up of more than seventy Congress people—introduced the contract's main ideas in the form of a bill: the Restore the American Dream for the 99% Act. The proposed legislation would create more than 5 million jobs in the next two years and save more than $2 trillion over ten years. The bill would put in place emergency job creation measures; establish fair tax rates; cut wasteful weapons spending; end overseas wars; and strengthen Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Other elements within the broader 99% movement could choose to adopt this blueprint wholesale or use it as a starting point to inform their own policy frameworks.

Here is the preamble:

We, the American people, promise to defend and advance a simple ideal: liberty and justice . . . for all. Americans who are willing to work hard and play by the rules should be able to find a decent job, get a good home in a strong community, retire with dignity, and give their kids a better life. Every one of us—rich, poor, or in-between, regardless of skin color or birthplace, no matter their sexual orientation or gender—has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is our covenant, our compact, and our contract with one another. It is a promise we can fulfill—but only by working together.

Today, the American Dream is under threat. Our veterans are coming home to few jobs and little hope on the home front. Our young people are graduating off a cliff, burdened by heavy debt, into the worst job market in half a century. The big banks that American taxpayers bailed out won't cut homeowners a break. Our firefighters, nurses, cops, and teachers—America's everyday heroes—are being thrown out onto the street. We believe:

AMERICA IS NOT BROKE

America is rich—still the wealthiest nation ever. But too many at the top are grabbing the gains. No person or corporation should be allowed to take from America while giving little or nothing back. The super-rich who got tax breaks and bailouts should now pay full taxes—and help create jobs here, not overseas. Those who do well in America should do well by America.

AMERICANS NEED JOBS, NOT CUTS

Many of our best workers are sitting idle while the work of rebuilding America goes undone. Together, we must rebuild our country, reinvest in our people, and jump-start the industries of the future. Millions of jobless Americans would love the opportunity to become working, tax-paying members of their communities again. We have a jobs crisis, not a deficit crisis.

And here are the ten items the contract calls for:

1. Invest in America's infrastructure. Rebuild our crumbling bridges, dams, levees, ports, water and sewer lines, railways, roads, and public transit. We must invest in high-speed Internet and a modern, energy-saving electric grid. These investments will create good jobs and rebuild America. To help finance these projects, we need national and state infrastructure banks.

2. Create twenty-first century energy jobs. We should invest in American businesses that can power our country with innovative technologies like wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal systems, hybrid and electric cars, and next-generation batteries. And we should put Americans to work making our homes and buildings energy efficient. We can create good, green jobs in America, address the climate crisis, and build the clean energy economy.

3. Invest in public education. We should provide universal access to early childhood education, make school funding equitable, invest in high-quality teachers, and build safe, well-equipped school buildings for our students. A high-quality education system, from universal preschool to vocational training and affordable higher education, is critical for our future and can create badly needed jobs now.

4. Offer Medicare for all. We should expand Medicare so it's available to all Americans, and reform it to provide even more cost-effective, quality care. The Affordable Care Act is a good start and we must implement it—but it's not enough. We can save trillions of dollars by joining every other industrialized country, paying much less for healthcare while getting the same or better results.

5. Make work pay. Americans have a right to fair minimum and living wages, to organize and collectively bargain, to enjoy equal opportunity, and to earn equal pay for equal work. Corporate assaults on these rights bring down wages and benefits for all of us. They must be outlawed.

6. Secure Social Security. Keep Social Security sound and strengthen the retirement, disability, and survivors' protections Americans earn through their hard work. Pay for it by removing the cap on the Social Security tax, so that upper-income people pay into Social Security on all they make, just like the rest of us.

7. Return to fairer tax rates. End, once and for all, the Bush-era tax giveaways for the rich, which the rest of us—or our
kids—must pay eventually. Also, we must outlaw corporate tax havens and tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas. Lastly, with millionaires and billionaires taking a growing share of our country's wealth, we should add new tax brackets for those making more than $1 million each year.

8. End the wars and invest at home. Our troops have done everything that's been asked of them, and it's time to bring them home to good jobs here. We're sending $3 billion
each week
overseas that we should be investing to rebuild America.

9. Tax Wall Street speculation. A tiny fee of one-twentieth of 1 percent on each Wall Street trade would raise tens of billions of dollars annually with little impact on actual investment. This would reduce speculation, “flash trading,” and outrageous bankers' bonuses—and we'd have a lot more money to spend on Main Street job creation.

10. Strengthen democracy. We need clean, fair elections, where no one's right to vote can be taken away, and where money doesn't buy you your own member of Congress. We must ban anonymous political influence, slam shut the lobbyists' revolving door in Washington, and publicly finance elections. Immigrants who want to join in our democracy deserve a clear path to citizenship. We must stop giving corporations the rights of people when it comes to our elections. And we must ensure our judiciary's respect for the Constitution. Together, we will reclaim our democracy to get our country back on track.

The reader can find a detailed white paper on each idea at
rebuildthedream.com
.