Yesterday Hillary Clinton gave what her campaign touted as being a major speech to lay out her economic agenda. Since there was very little media coverage of the speech and not much on social media, I came to the conclusion that she did not really say anything new or exciting. Nevertheless, I read her speech to see for myself what her economic agenda is. You can read the transcript here. My preliminary conclusion was correct - she said nothing new or exciting.
If one of her goals was to not anger her big Wall Street and big business donors, she undoubtedly accomplished that goal. She came out for abolishing the carried interest loophole and for closing loopholes that encourage outsourcing jobs overseas and for actually going after white collar criminals. She talked about fairness but proposed nothing about having the rich pay their fair share in taxes. She likes the Buffett rule that CEOs should not have lower tax rates than their secretaries. None of those things hits them hard in their pocketbooks (other than the carried interest loophole which hits fund managers directly).
She listed many great things that any person other than a right wing conservative would embrace like, paid family leave, earned sick leave, better wages, fair profit sharing, high quality affordable daycare, enhancing social security and fair pay and scheduling. But she did not give any specifics about the details or how she would accomplish them or how they would be paid for. We still have no idea what she thinks the minimum wage should be, or how long paid family leave should be and how much you should be paid on leave, or how you would be sure that all 4 year olds have access to high quality affordable preschool within the next ten years.
She addressed trade agreements with platitudes as well saying that we need them, but they need to provide jobs and higher wages. She did not even mention the TPP (or any other trade agreement) by name or say whether it would pass her requirements.
She talked about establishing an infrastructure bank, but there were no details about how big it would be, how it would be funded, when it would be done and how the projects would be determined. The same is true for her proposal that we encourage cleaner renewable energy and scientific and medical research. The same is true for her proposal to improve schools and to make college truly affordable.
She mentioned several times that she would be providing more details in the months ahead, even this week in New Hampshire. I do not understand why she doesn't tell us now what she is proposing and then spend her time convincing the American people to support her proposals. She has had plenty of time to prepare.
She is apparently still wanting to use tax credits to encourage businesses to make investments that are good for America. These programs are not new ideas nor are they particularly effective, unless you compare them to the idea of giving the rich more tax breaks to create jobs.
David Brooks wrote a typically smug, condescending and error ridden piece in The New York Times today (here) about Hillary Clinton's speech. He mischaracterized the thrust of the speech and was unreasonably dismissive of the positive role that government should play in an economy that is good for all not just a few. Nevertheless I think that his last several sentences actually reflect what Hillary Clinton was trying to accomplish with this speech.
But this agenda does pull off a neat trick. It will excite the progressive base without automatically alienating the rest of the country. Substantively she’s offered at least a coherent response to today’s economic conditions. Politically, she’s cleared the first hurdle in this campaign.I, however, do not think that her speech will in fact excite the progressive base. It certainly did not excite me. It simply confirmed Secretary Clinton's unwillingness to be a leader. Nor do I think that just because something excites the progressive base, it will alienate the rest of the country. If the press and the pundits would stop using labels and talk about specific issues, they would find that the ideas and proposals that have been made by people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have great support among Americans. I am not going to hold my breath for that to happen or for Secretary Clinton to actually take clear positions and lay out specifics of her agenda.
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
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