ideas

Ten days from now, on January 20th at noon, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the next President of the United States and Kamala Harris will be sworn in as the next Vice-President. With Harris as Vice-President, the balance of power in the Senate will swing to the Democrats (albeit only slightly) and the obstructionist Mitch McConnell will be relegated to minority leader.

With Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Presidency, there is an opportunity to get things moving again and accomplish a lot, and there is certainly a lot to do. Over the next several days I’m going to try to describe what I think needs to get done. I’m going to try to organize my thoughts into five categories:

1. Economic Security for Working Women and Men. Tens of millions of Americans, even in two income households, are just barely scraping by…or less. Wages have been stagnant or worse and costs of housing and other necessities have continued to increase. Child care costs are astronomical in many places with infant care costing an average of about $15,000 a year. College costs have also skyrocketed. It’s a recipe for disaster for our country.
2. A Sustainable Environment. I live on the seashore and most of us here are aware of the dangers of rising sea level. We see more frequent sunny-day flooding and stronger storms. Climate change is, of course, not the only environmental issue. There are things we can do but we need to act quickly.
3. Equal Treatment for All. I don’t like to use the term ‘Racial Justice’ because it means different things to different people. The concept, though, that all of us deserve fair and equal treatment regardless of our race, color, age, national origin, sexual orientation, gender or belief seems obvious to me but we are a long way from that ideal in our country.
4. Rebalance the Economy. The United States has the highest level of income inequality of any developed country and every year it gets worse. All of the increase in wealth since the Great Recession has gone to the wealthiest fifth of our people and almost all of it has gone to the top 5%. We need to enact policies and laws that will help share the wealth more broadly. The way we are going now will only lead to disaster.
5. End the Pandemic. We need real leadership from our Federal Government and from our President to bring this horrible pandemic to an end. We can do it, but we need clear guidance and direction from the top.

Please feel free to comment with your suggestions. I’m sure there are things I could have said better and maybe some things I’ve left out.

-Tom