Courage to be Different?

Helen Hammons offers this perspective on an issue before the Senate this week.

In 2007 I took a lot of flak from some news colleagues, politicians, and even Rush Limbaugh, even though he didn’t call me by name, for asking former New York Governor Rudolph Giuliani about the price of milk and bread. The purpose of the question was not a “gotcha,” it was simply the fact that for at least a third of Alabama’s citizens the cost of groceries was a major issue. While many in the state will never have to worry and can pay any price, it really is a struggle for many, including those with full- time jobs.

Since then, the prices have continued to climb – more people are now feeling the impact. Alabama Arise is a group that has fought to bring the issues of people seldom heard to policy makers, those at the bottom of the economic ladder in this state. They have fought long and hard to reform Alabama’s antiquated tax system, to make the system more progressive instead of regressive, and have fought to let the people of the state vote on this issue. They are right. The people should decide and it’s amazing opponents of the legislation don’t want this issue to go to the people of the state. If past votes are any indication, it will be voted down, anyway.

Dr. Keivan Deravi an economics professor at Auburn University Montgomery said on Alabama Public Television’s For the Record in April, “There is no mystery that [the state's tax structure] is highly regressive. It penalizes people at the lower economic level. ”

“Very rich people have very smart accountants…The lower income [people] have very little to manipulate and the higher income has a lot to manipulate and they have a lot of money to hire a lot of smart people.”

While the Governor’s idea of a tiered reduction of the federal income tax deduction may have some merit, the issue before us now is simple tax fairness on a playing field that’s long been sloped in favor of those at the higher end of Alabama’s economic scale.

Deravi hits the nail on the head when he says “a lot of people have a tremendous amount of vested interest that they don’t want to change…You want to break somebody’s toy, they’re going to fight.”

Governor Bob Riley found that out the hard way. In 2003, Riley said, “We’re not going to balance our budget on the backs of the poor any longer.” Now the Governor seems to be saying it’s okay to balance the budget on the backs of the poor if the alternative is to balance the budget on the backs of those who have largely benefited from Alabama’s regressive tax system.

But taking the sales tax off of groceries is part of a bigger debate Alabamians need to engage in – what kind of Alabama do we want to be? Is it enough that some in the state prosper while a third or more of the state is left behind? And why do so many politicians, despite their pontifications to the contrary, have no idea how their decisions really impact the lives of people at the bottom of the food chain? The answer is very simple – relationships.

In his most recent book, The Great Awakening, Jim Wallis talks about the obstacles to overcoming poverty in America. Wallis says politicians “know where the votes are,” so the poor aren’t on the radar screen. He also says “both liberals and conservatives spend more time blaming each other for the problems of poverty than in finding practical solutions.”

But it’s Wallis’s third point that hits the nail on the head, “The third obstacle is perhaps the foundation of the first two. It is the lack of relationship with the poor. The vast majority of people…in the top two-thirds of U.S. society have almost no relationship to the people at the bottom. Lack of relationship leads to lack of understanding, empathy, and urgency and causes stereotypes, myths, excuses and passivity…Most of us…simply don’t know anybody in the poorest half. It’s easy to pass over statistics; it’s much harder to forget about your friends…Without reestablishing relationship with the rest of us the poor will continue to be on their own, which usually means invisible and forgotten.”

Those forgotten include 37 million in the U.S. mired in the deepest poverty, but for whom some programs and benefits are available. But, according to author Katherine Newman, author of The Missing Class, there are another 54 million Americans, making between $20,000 and $40,000 a year for a family of four, that nobody’s concerned about. Newman talked about these individuals and families in a recent television interview. These folks are not on welfare – they work, sometimes more than one job. They make too much, in most cases, for any type of benefit help but don’t make enough to keep up with the rising cost of food, shelter, and healthcare. Most are underinsured or uninsured. Newman says, “They are not the poorest of the poor, but they are not seen.”

Dr. Deravi says while companies lured to the state with big tax incentives are good for the state, the new, more high tech jobs will help some, but many “will be left behind.”

The economist says while the new jobs will come with higher pay, they will also require a smaller labor force than the old days of the textile mills. “What it means is we lose 100 jobs in the T-shirt factory, but we create 10 jobs with higher pay. Those that are lucky to get those ten jobs are going to be in the upper income classes. The 90 people from that 100 that do not get the jobs will be in the lower income class.”

Deravi says the workforce of the future will consist of two parts – one part that is highly and technically trained and the other part “which is flipping the hamburgers. The middle will be eliminated at a very slow rate…So, the middle income workers are going to be under a tremendous amount of pain.”

Deravi said, in his television interview, the idea of retraining older workers “is a fantastic, good idea to make us feel good, but the rate of return is basically non-existent. It makes us feel good – do it, but it’s not going to work…It’s a lost cause. It’s a generational change. It’s called globalization. It’s called outsourcing.”

Are Alabama’s politicians and business leadership going to let this scenario come to pass? Are they too, and are we, going to be satisfied with an expanded feudal system of have and have-nots, basically an economic plantation system? While, in spite of pending budget cuts, the two-year college system is running like the proverbial gerbil on the wheel trying to ramp up its workforce development and adult education programs to train as many Alabamians as possible, businesses are advertising for workers outside the state. And, unfortunately still, many businesses in the state would rather hire illegal immigrants than pay decent wages to their workers.

Relationships, if these business leaders knew a few more people out of work personally, they might just pause for a second before making hiring and firing decisions. Sometimes, in spite of a company’s best efforts layoffs are unavoidable, but in some cases it’s pure greed as is, in many cases, the hiring of illegal immigrants.

I opened up the Atlanta Journal Constitution this weekend and there was a nice half page ad by the city of Auburn saying local industry was looking for “qualified candidates” for positions ranging from “Quality Engineers, Coordinators and Technicians” to “Automation/Robotics Technicians” and from “Operations Managers” and “Training Coordinators” to “Purchasing Managers and Agents” and an assortment of engineers.

Shipbuilders in Mobile have sent feelers out up north looking for already trained workers. So, is Alabama going to just be a place where people from other parts of the country come to get jobs, while Alabama workers are left on the sideline?

The two-year college system wants to train Alabama workers for Alabama jobs, but is that really what business wants? Deravi says business will get their workers anywhere they want. Are Alabamians at the top of the food chain going to turn their backs on everyone else as long as their needs are met?

Interdependence, Wallis says, “only comes when we see our destinies ultimately tied up with one another. It is the insight that what happens to the poor, or any of my neighbors, will also affect me and the people I love…We actually come to believe that we need one another, that everybody has things to give and to receive, and that in mutual aid we find our truest security. Our diversity becomes a rich bounty of blessings rather than a threat driving us behind tribal boundaries that are both costly and dangerous. What is fair, just, and ‘enough’ become questions of social equity and community relationships. And ‘justice’ reassumes its biblical meaning, which is ‘right relationships.’ Personal responsibility is also restored as nobody can be just a recipient of other’s social responsibilities but must also become a contributor, in his or her own way, to the common good. We all give and we all receive, which is how real life is.”

As the state moves toward the elections of 2010, which could decide whether Alabama moves forward and sets the example, or keeps tooling along with a government controlled by the special interests of both political parties and the in particular out-of-touch Alabama Legislature, which thinks they are entitled to a couple of good paying jobs, quality health care and other fringe benefits for doing absolutely nothing except the bidding of their masters on the right and left and sometimes both.

Are the future leaders of this state going to take a risk, put partisanship aside and really do more than mouth about bringing people together? Is there a leader out there who really wants to see all the people of the state lifted up, instead of lifting only their friends and cronies and those paying for access? Is there a leader out there who is willing to be a statesman, that’s ready to be different and stick to it? He or she will most likely make enemies in their own party, either party, if they’re willing to do that and they all remember what happened to Riley.

But in reality it’s up to the people of the state to decide they want to move forward instead of backward and who must be willing to support political leaders who step out on faith and do what’s right, not just what’s politically expedient or popular. Wallis sums it up best, “We need political leaders, of both parties, who believe in the importance of integrity, humility, honesty, and a commitment to the common good – and are willing to challenge their own party’s desire for power at the expense of moral principle. And we need a pledge by all of us to make fundamental changes in our culture and support political leaders who will work for those changes.”

Both parties have members who are ethical challenged. Both parties have members that are capable of doing things differently, moving the state as one forward and together, capable of extraordinary, inspired leadership, if they so choose. What kind of Alabama do you want? What are you doing to build relationships? Politicians are basically chicken, they’ll generally only go where they’re demanded to go. It will be our choice, we will get the candidates for good or ill we demand. Will we stand behind those in both parties with the courage to be different or will we doom the next generation to relive Groundhog Day, recreating over and over again the inequities of the past? You’ll have to decide.