Martha Holstein
On Saturday, June 26, 3,500 people gathered at 19 locations across the United States in town hall meetings sponsored by AmericaSpeaks. I attended the event at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois. We spent the entire day in a carefully-facilitated discussion, that is, with an aim at neutrality, about spending cuts and tax changes. The background materials were detailed although several important options, in my mind, were simply omitted like structural changes to the health care system. All the health related options, for example, involved cuts to existing programs—by 5%, 10%, or 15%— rather than identifying other means to rein in medical care costs, such as expanding primary care or reducing the use of high technology medicine or, perhaps most importantly, introducing a single payer system so that no dollars meant for health care go to profit and revenue enhancing activities.
The day’s goal was to identify ways to reduce the deficit by 1.5 trillion by 2025. The event was well-organized and was not, as we had feared, taken over by a right-wing agenda. In Chicago, the “tea party” folks were certainly represented but so were large numbers of people identifying themselves as liberals. In fact, 26% of the participants identified themselves as liberals while only 20% identified as conservatives; the remainder identified as moderates. The three funders were the Peter Peterson Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. The wrap-up speaker was the highly-regarded Alice Rivlin.
The Scene at the Navy Pier Town Meeting
Let me describe the scene at Navy Pier. As usual, on a hot and humid day, many people were leisurely strolling down the pier. Since I had arrived intent upon joining a rally that Older Women’s League (OWL) had called, along with Move-On.org and a broad coalition called Social Security Works, I tried to distribute leaflets to people strolling along the pier (we had designated spots, marked by masking tape, in which to stand) but most of the people going to the rally must have entered the room directly from the garage because we saw very few people who even seemed to know about the Town Hall. When I entered Festival Hall A, it was filled with large round tables, each with a laptop computer and a facilitator, large screens to capture the scene in other cities and the lead facilitators, who were in Philadelphia. Coffee, tea, and cookies were available all day. Lunch was brought to each table so that we could continue working while eating. The latest in computer technology brought instant results for the areas in which votes were taken. We were able to see the tallies for Chicago set against the national results.
The first hint of tea party involvement came in the opening round of discussions. At my table of 10, the theme very quickly became “I want the old America back where it was safe, people were ‘hard’ and we were more competitive.” Luckily for me, I was the last speaker at the table. I simply said that I did not want the country that once was, where women couldn’t own property and were effectively closed out of many jobs and educational programs like law or medicine, and people of color faced discrimination wherever they went. My refrain throughout the day was that whatever decisions we made had to be judged by how they would affect the least advantaged. I actually think people heard that message. Other signs of tea party sentiment emerged at different times during the day—even when the facilitator couldn’t restrain inserting his ideas like the time one person criticized executive salaries, second homes, yachts, and so on. The facilitator responded by saying that second homes, etc. created jobs. But that claim was relatively easy to rebut by suggesting that universal pre-school or adequate special education or any number of critically needed infrastructure improvements would create not only jobs but socially useful ones. In this way, it was good to meet face-to-face with people I would never otherwise meet.
Social Security & Economic Security at the Town Meeting
Going in to the Town Hall meeting, Social Security was our biggest concern. Given the major sponsorship of the Petersen Foundation, known to be a strong advocate of Social Security privatization, progressive advocacy groups expected a strong push in that direction. Nationwide only 27% supported that option and even fewer in Chicago.
Here is a capsule summary of the voting results:
• 52% supported raising the age for full benefits to 69;
• 85% supported raising the limits on taxable earning so that it covers 90% of total earnings in America;
• 42% supported increasing the payroll tax to 14.4% (from 12.4%) by 2025;
• 23% supported no change;
• 30% supported limiting increases in starting benefits for all but the lowest wage earners;
• 32% supported changing the formula for raising benefits each year to reflect a lower rate of inflation.
These issues are critically important for current and future generations. We will address each one in future posts and in a major Social Security Public Forum that we will convene in the fall in conjunction with the Elder Economic Security Initiative (EESI). In the meanwhile, we welcome your comments.
FYI—AmericaSpeaks is a national organization involved in numerous activities characterized as “direct democracy.” It convened and managed this Town Hall meeting but will report to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, otherwise known as the Deficit Reduction Commission. I just signed up to be on their mailing list. I think it would be a good idea for many people with progressive ideas to do so. While AmericaSpeaks describes itself as a neutral organization, the results of deliberations at the meetings it sponsors will clearly be influenced by who knows about them and who attends.
Thank you to Pete Fletch on flickr.com for the image.
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