Democrats and Republicans must ground themselves in Americans’ pragmatism

This is certainly one dimension of the problem. Most Americans have an idealistic belief in the great virtue of this country and our democratic form of government, and most have a strong sense of fair play, but very important, this is conditioned by a widely shared, hard-nosed pragmatism about human behavior: Some people do bad things, some people do foolish things, and some will look out for themselves first and game the system to their advantage if they can.

Both parties seem to misunderstand this, but in different ways.

Democrats’ idealism gets in the way of solving Americans’ problems

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

Democratic progressives often appear to ground their policies in very idealistic models of how human beings will behave — and this repeatedly puts them at odds with the rest of the electorate.

For instance, the problem with “defund the police” was not that people approved of racially-driven police violence but rather that almost all of us see that “some people do bad things” and few see a viable path to addressing this, at least in the near term, other than thoughtful policing.

Worse, Democratically led cities that adopted lenient policing policies around drug use, homelessness and crime have paid a terrible and very visible price in terms of disorder and lawlessness.

The call for work requirements for any form of public benefits has a similar value frame that many Democrats seem to miss. Back in the 1990s, I was involved in the Clinton-era debate over welfare reform, where work requirements featured prominently.

I will never forget sitting on a plane next to a young man who was a New Jersey firefighter, and we had a long conversation about whether work requirements were a good idea. When he got up, his parting words were: “Well, now I’m going to work so I can pay taxes so that other people can sit around all day and watch TV.”

Two weeks ago, I had the exact same conversation with an Uber driver who happened to be an immigrant from Colombia. He voted for Trump because he saw people around him taking advantage of benefits that he had to drive an Uber car 10 hours a day to afford.

Again, whether you agree or not, most people believe that there are others who are gaming the system, and everyone who can, should work. Sixty percent of Americans support work requirements.

As Democrats struggle to “decode” language to talk to the “working class,” this is something to consider, because nowhere does it feel more unfair to give people free benefits than when you are someone working extraordinarily long and tough hours just to make ends meet.

Republicans are too consumed with favoring wealthy people

While Republicans are currently ascendant and perhaps have less reason to recalibrate, they, too, are missing American hard-nosed pragmatism, and perhaps even cynicism, about human behavior.

In their case, it’s about the other side of the income distribution. Wealthy people are also gaming the system.

Large majorities are infuriated by the corporate grift, the benefits for the wealthy and the related money in politics that corrupts our public and private institutions.

In the OBBBA, the Republican Party has designed a piece of legislation that even the most objective analysis shows disproportionately gives tax breaks to the wealthy — even while demanding work requirements for poor people and cutting Medicaid and food stamps to partially pay for the bill — while deficit financing the remaining $3 trillion.

Using the clinical language of the Congressional Budget Office, under this bill, those in the highest decile would see average resources increase by $12,000, while those in the lowest decile would see their average resources decline by $1,600.

To be fair, most of us will see a modest increase in resources, around $500 to $1,000, but because so much is debt financed, this is more like getting a reprieve from paying off our credit card balances, which will continue to accumulate interest, rather than any real increase in wealth.

I know that Republicans think that OBBBA tax cuts are going to juice the economy and make them popular, but they lost 40 seats in the U.S. House after passing the prior deficit-financed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017.

This legislation cut corporate taxes from 35% to 21% — a 40% cut. These corporate tax cuts were made permanent while tax cuts for the rest of us were temporary. Meanwhile, Republicans tried to cut health care benefits for many Americans because they were “too expensive.” It was a bad look. I know because I ran on these issues in the 7th Congressional District in 2018 and nearly flipped a heavily Republican district.

Politicians in both parties need to adopt the average person’s common sense

So here we moderates are again in a “not this, nor that” moment. We could have a reasonable extension of the tax cuts proposed by OBBBA, paid for not by the poorest but by asking the wealthiest to kick in their fair share.

We could structure it to reduce the deficit instead of adding to it — which would have the added benefit of helping reduce mortgage and credit card interest rates that are starting to strangle us.

We could restructure Medicaid and other benefit programs to reassure people that no one is gaming the system, but they do have what they need to succeed.

All it takes is for a political party to ground itself in the pragmatism, the common sense, of the American people.

Carolyn Bourdeaux is a former member of Congress from Georgia’s 7th District. She is also executive director of the Concord Coalition and Concord Action, organizations dedicated to education and advocacy in support of fiscal responsibility.