Are There No Workhouses?

Part of this is a tale of my two sisters and their families. Through some luck and some pluck, I managed to get myself out of the working class. I could miss a paycheck and still make the mortgage, got good healthcare for my family, a low rate mortgage, no other debt, decent schools, good grill, little patio, well, just about everything your upper middle class public servant family may want. We'll probably never vacation in Maui, see Machu Pichu or have his and her Lexuses, but we're pretty well off. My mother often told me, "the bank president's job is taken", well mom, maybe you're right. (why this didn't make me strike to become bank president is beyond me)

My sister on the Cape was recently laid off, she managed a family owned convenience store for eight years. Trustworthy to a fault, always there on time generally long before sunrise, never pilfered, balanced the register, didn't smoke or play lottery, the ideal convenience store manager. Alas the Cape economy has suffered, winter on the Rock has never been easy. But with the relatively warm weather laying off plow drivers and oil man, along with the unrelated building bubble bursting, the ramifications for restaurants and retail were great. The store closed. Her husband, another hard worker, manages a fish market and has been known to pick up cooking shifts to cover the cost of their health insurance for their family.

My other brother in law, who I've written about before, is due to leave the army in the fall. I've been helping him with his resume, which consists greatly of his military service in an attempt to get him a decent job in trucking or logistics that will help him to support his wife and two young children in mimicking the Greatest Generation's service to country followed by success in civilian life.

Perhaps both my siblings and brothers in law share a couple of common threads, they are all hard workers, but they also do not have college degrees. The college degree is what separates them and myself. It has anointed me with a certain level of economic success. But when the large majority of the adult population not possessing college degrees and the likelihood of those who are older and have families not obtaining college degrees, what lies in store for these folks?

The struggle of the working and lower middle class, is another ticking timebomb for America. The cost of healthcare, childcare and housing for these folks eats at a great deal of their paycheck, leaving little opportunity for retirement savings. As we throw huge tax cuts at the wealthy and crumbs to the working class to placate them rather than work on long term solutions.

The GOP has made itself very popular amongst the working class, using "niche" issues such as gay marriage, abortion and other social issues as well as the image of Democrat's as wimps, (would life have been different today if John Kerry smoked 'boro Reds, drank a couple shots of beam and went atv'ing instead of windsurfing) to get poor folks to vote against their own economic interest. The majority of Americans through 401K's, IRA's etc. are now members of the Investor class, so many of our financial interests have been intertwined with those of nine figure a year CEO's, even if it's only a couple hundred bucks a year. Does the fact that Citigroup is laying off thousands of workers, make me more comfortable as a small stockholder in the company, or does it bother me as an American that a successful company is shedding jobs?

How do we implore poor and working class folks to vote their own economic interest? And further more to encourage folks to encourage those in power to support their interests? I mean my sister isn't going to hire a team of K Street lawyers to help revitalize the Cape's economy and build the "Silicon Sandbar".

What has become dissipated is the American grand labor bargain since the end of the Depression. Workers will work hard, be the most productive and educable workers in the world in exchange for good pay, good benefits, and a respectful retirement. This bargain has broken down and where are our leaders to protect this legacy? For Democrats, how can "we" appreciate those who actually labor and engage them as voters. Organized labor is at it nadir in recent American history, and even those who are in unions are likely to be "Reagan Democrats", as likely to vote Republican as Democrat outside of government employee unions.

Democrats have become as enamored with identity politics and serving special interests as the Republicans have and frankly many of the special interests that the Republicans serve have much deeper and generous pockets. How can Democrats rebuild the relationship with those who work, those who are lower middle and middle class who we seemed to abandon in the years following the Vietnam War.

This is the opportunity for 2008, for the Democratic party to reunite itself with the working class.