Common Ground

            Times are tough, or at least we still think they are.  According to the recently released 2015 American Values Survey, 72% of Americans believe that the country is still in recession, even though the recession officially ended years ago.  What that tells us is that the benefits of our anemically growing economy haven’t trickled down to most people.  It’s not surprising that nearly half of us think our country’s best days are behind us.  That’s a change since 2012 when 54% of us thought America’s best days were yet to come.

            With all of this malaise, something’s got to give.  And, if we can find a set of politicians smart enough to see that there is widespread agreement about what our problems are and how to fix them, it just might.

            Buried within the survey are some hopeful seeds.  First of all, there is a growing consensus that a lack of opportunity is or is becoming a major problem.  Unsurprisingly, over 81% of Democrats agree.  But 61% of Independents also agree, and so do 43% of Republicans. Sixty-five percent of all Americans also say that we don’t give everyone an equal chance in life, and that’s up by 10 percentage points since a year ago.

           Almost 80% of all Americans think that the current economic system favors the wealthy, and that belief is strong among Democrats, Independents and Republicans. A slim majority of Republicans joins with large majorities of Democrats and Independents to say that hard work does not necessarily lead to success.  It’s not surprising that large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Tea Party supporters think that the government pays more attention to the needs and interests of wealthy people and large corporations than to the needs of all other groups.

            Large majorities place a major share of the blame for this unfairness on big business.  Almost nine out of ten Americans point to the corporate off-shoring of jobs as part of what has gone wrong with our economy, and that’s up by 12 percentage points since 2012.  And 77% of survey respondents think that part of our economic troubles stem from the reluctance of big business to pay workers a fair wage.

            While there is still some significant disagreement on how much of the blame can also be attributed to overregulation and illegal immigration, there is a significant amount of agreement about the policies we ought to pursue in order to remedy our economy.

            Over 75 percent of all Americans, including 60% of all Republicans, would agree with Hillary Clinton that the federal minimum wage should be increased to at least $10.00 per hour.  Close to 60% of all Americans, including 32% of all Republicans would go along with Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley in their support for a $15.00 per hour minimum wage.

            There is also strong bipartisan support for requiring companies to provide paid sick leave and paid parental leave, both of which are key planks in the platforms of all three of the major Democratic presidential candidates.

            The American Values Survey did not address questions of taxation, but if it had, it might have found what the Pew Research Center found in a February 2015 survey: large majorities of Americans, including 52% of Republicans, are at least somewhat troubled by their perception that big corporations are not paying their fair share of taxes.  And while there is general agreement between large majorities of Democrats and Independents that wealthy people are not paying enough in taxes, a majority of Republicans aren’t yet ready to go this far.

            What all of this means is that a politician who pitches a “populist” economic program is likely to be more in tune with the electorate than one who pitches supply side economic policies that coddle big corporations and the rich.  James Pethokoukis of the conservative American Enterprise Institute has even gone so far as to say that the 2016 presidential election is likely to be the “last hurray” for the “1980s-style supply-side doctrine.” 

            “The U.S.,” he argues, “is almost certainly not an example of the veracity of the Laffer curve, where lowering rates sometimes boosts tax revenue. Nearly half of households pay no federal income tax. And while targeted reform might help US economic dynamism, faster growth seems insufficient for broadly shared prosperity. Middle-class incomes have stagnated as inequality has risen.”

            Replacing it, he predicts, will be policies that include “business tax and regulatory fixes, but also policies to which Republican supply-siders give short shrift, such as education reform and public investment in infrastructure and science research.”  He points to indications that Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are already trying to “wriggle out of the supply-side straightjacket.”

            The social/cultural/tribal issues remain.  Americans are not in agreement on topics such as immigration and abortion, and there is still the antipathy that at least some segments of the electorate feels toward public assistance programs.  But here, at last, is some important common ground that could result in a quick win for all sides.