An Opinion on PPI’s “Memos To the New President”.

Before those touting the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) “Memos To the New President” it would be wise to read between the lines. As the old saying goes, “liars figure and figures lie”.

Although the PPI has the word “progressive” in its title, it is anything but progressive. The PPI is an alter-ego of the centrist-right Democratic Leadership Council. Throughout the “Memos” an extremely troubling pattern emerges: More privatization. More privatization of our infrastructure, transportation, military, and health care!

What’s more, the “Memos” hold up WTO as some kind of a success story. Can’t argue with that. It has been extremely successful for the richest 5 – 10%, while undermining the economic security of millions upon millions of working class people. The same is true of other horribly-flawed “free trade agreements”. NAFTA has been absolutely devastating to workers and family farmers in Mexico. The “Memos” reflect the neoliberal ideology of global economics that have made the rich richer, while picking our pockets.

Unfettered “free trade”, greatly reducing or eliminating tariffs, and worldwide deregulation of protective assurances for working families are part of the neoliberal agenda. Tariffs and regulations are suppose to protect workers from having products they produce undercut by foreign-made goods manufactured by criminally-exploited workers. Trade between countries is good providing the workers who produce goods offshore are treated humanely. Such a moral imperative is called “fair trade”.

Another example of neoliberalism is the debt forced on South Africa by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, with the blessings of the US and the EU. Prior to the fall of the apartheid National Party of South Africa, that Party ran up a huge debt. Once the African National Congress came to power via free elections, worldwide financiers threatened to withhold credit from the new government unless it agreed to pay off the debts that were run up by the apartheid government. In other words, South Africans are now being forced to pay the debt incurred by their oppressors! Today, many plans for rebuilding the nation’s decaying infrastructure and funding essential services are being delayed because the new government hasn’t got the money to fund domestic programs and at the same time pay off the debt of their former persecutors.

Time and space limit an in-depth analysis of all of the PPI’s “Memos”. There is one “Memo”, however, that needs to be mentioned. It is the health care “Memo”. It incorrectly asserts that a national, single-payer health care program would cost an additional trillion dollars! That claim is misleading at best, and in my opinion nothing short of an outright lie. Over $2.4 trillion will be spent on health care in the US in 2009. That staggering figure will only climb unless real reform is implemented. HR 676 (the United States National Health Insurance Act) is a bill pending in Congress. When enacted it will actually reduce health care spending in the US while at the same time covering every resident for all medically-necessary care.

Part of the PPI’s “solution” is to build on state initiatives. That bogus proposal completely ignores the fact that there hasn’t been one state health care plan – not one - that has succeeded. We have several decades of proof. Hawaii was once held up as the model for state plans. In actuality, it never achieved universal coverage, and now it is so strapped for cash that benefits are being reduced and people are losing coverage. Incremental tinkering will only delay the inevitable. The PPI plan is like adding a quart of oil to an eight cylinder auto chugging down the freeway with three cylinders burned out. The oil may buy you a few more miles, but it won’t prevent the engine’s eventual destruction.

We have a national health care crisis, and the solution is national health care.

Here again, the PPI is touting its “public/private for-profit solution”. Hold it! Hold it! The “public/private for-profit solution” is what got us into this mess. HR 676 is the solution. It is expanded and improved Medicare for all.

In closing, I‘ll be the first to admit that components of some of the “Memos” deserve consideration. But aren’t you a little concerned that some of the policy makers who wrote the “Memos” have been policy makers for eons? Look where their “best thinking” has gotten us. Does it make sense to continue to allow the foxes to guard the chickens?

The solutions lie within each of us. When we voted for change last November we had expectations. Let’s not allow faux-progressives to slime our humane and ethical hopes and dreams.