What's at Stake

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CAF STAFF

By Bernie Horn

November 2nd, 2008 - 11:36pm ET

There’s no doubt that George W. Bush’s administration has been a catastrophe, and that historians will one day rank him as one of our nation’s very worst presidents. It’s not because Bush has been incompetent, it’s because his team has pursued goals that violate our nation’s basic principles. That’s why Tuesday’s election is so critical—America’s fundamental values hang in the balance.

By “values,” I don’t mean the anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-science mores of the right wing. Values distinguish right from wrong. They define fairness; they describe a philosophy. In politics, values are ideals that express the kind of society we are trying to build. And American ideals have been besieged for the past eight years.

Three of the most cherished American values are freedom, opportunity and security. In the society we are trying to build, freedom guarantees everyone’s constitutional and human rights; opportunity gives every person equal access to the American dream; and security means economic security, as well as physical safety, for all.

But look where conservative policy has taken us.

Freedom

  • The National Security Agency conducts warrantless eavesdropping on the phone calls and e-mails of innocent Americans, even listening in to “pillow talk” between American servicemen and their sweethearts.

  • The FBI’s TALON database shows that the government has been spying on peaceful domestic groups, including Quakers, the Campus Antiwar Network, and Veterans for Peace.

  • The Pentagon and the CIA use national security letters to pry into the lives of Americans.

  • Just 45 days after the September 11 attacks, with almost no debate, Congress approved the USA Patriot Act, broadly increasing government power to search medical, tax and even library records without probable cause, and to break into homes to conduct secret searches.

America was founded on the principle of freedom. But freedom has been hijacked by the right wing, and a conservative-leaning Supreme Court has barely come to its defense.

Opportunity

  • Wage inequality has grown. Between 1996 and 2001, the richest one percent of Americans received 21.6 percent of all the gains in national income. CEO pay, especially, has skyrocketed. Today, the richest 10 percent of Americans own 71 percent of all the wealth—the top one percent own 33 percent of all assets.
  • Poverty has increased. Although the number of Americans living in poverty steadily declined from 1993 to 2000, at least six million have fallen below the poverty line since George W. Bush took office.
  • Tax inequality has widened. Over the course of ten years, 36 percent of the Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 will benefit the richest 1 percent of Americans. Only nine percent of the Bush tax cuts benefit the least affluent 40 percent of Americans.
  • Educational inequality has worsened. Economic (and often racial) segregation of schools has increased, with schools in poorer areas having less money per student and paying less per teacher while dealing with larger class sizes, crumbling facilities, and inadequate equipment. Students who need more resources are given less.

The gauzy mist of the American dream is being blown away by a hurricane of conservative policy. The truth is, the affluent few have used every political opportunity to crush opportunity for all.

Security

  • The Bush Administration’s doctrine of preemptive war, its utter contempt for our traditional allies, its violations of the Geneva Conventions, and its refusal to comply with important treaties have sacrificed America’s moral standing in international affairs. As a result, our nation is now far less able to protect Americans and American interests worldwide.
  • The right-wing attack on Social Security is just one small facet of what has been a coordinated, cold-blooded plan to dismantle New Deal and Great Society programs that protect our health, our safety, and our environment.
  • The profligate spending and massive tax breaks for the wealthy enacted by a conservative-controlled Congress have restricted our nation’s ability to deal with threats to our security—from emergency preparedness to protection of the vulnerable in our communities.

In every important way, the Bush administration and its conservative allies have made Americans less secure.

What’s at stake tomorrow? It is the soul of America. It’s our most beloved and essential political principles. It is the survival of the American dream.

The writer is a Senior Fellow at Campaign for America’s Future and author of the recent book, Framing the Future: How Progressive Values Can Win Elections and Influence People.

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