Not Enough To Go Around? Let's Remedy That!

"There's not enough to go around!"

In this presidential election year, that's the overarching worry that's driving voter behavior, I take it.

Not enough income. Not enough wealth. Not enough jobs. Not enough economic opportunity.

When we hear President Obama's forces snipe at Mitt Romney about the girth of his bank account and the secrecy surrounding his tax returns, that's the not-so-hidden theme: Romney has gotten more than his fair share, and, as head of Bain Capital, he acquired it by zeroing out American jobs.

Romney snipes back that Obama is clueless about how wealth is created, which is why the current economic recovery is so anemic.

I have yet to hear either side tell how America can be returned to truly robust economic vigor. I think the president has, sadly, been notably silent about this topic.

Yes, we do get to see a few pieces of the respective economic jigsaw puzzles each candidate would try to put together if elected. Obama would let the "Bush-era" income tax cuts lapse for top earners, but leave them in place for the middle class. Romney would reduce all brackets' tax rates by 20 percent.

Obama would preserve Medicare's current way of doing things — though he hasn't really said how he'd head off the program's eventual insolvency. The Romney-Ryan ticket wants to convert Medicare to a voucher program for most yet-to-arrive-at-65 Americans.

Romney wants to solve the debt threat by drastically cutting programs, a full list of which which he has yet to announce, while generating more tax receipts (at albeit reduced tax rates) by "broadening the base" — eliminating or reducing itemized deductions and loopholes. Obama would cut federal programs more sparingly, while increasing tax rates sharply on upper incomes.

One approach or the other, or a mix of both, could shrink the deficit and thus keep the public debt from ballooning out of control, and that's a good, even necessary, thing.

Problem is, neither solution is aimed at enlarging the "economic pie." They represent two approaches to how after-tax income is allocated, addressing fairness-of-income-distribution concerns in two contrasting ways.

The two parties likewise exhibit two different attitudes toward expensive government entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid.

But what about making the economic pie much bigger than it is? Can't we agree that this is a goal we ought to pursue?

Can't we at least discuss it?

Here is problem number one with that, in my opinion: neither candidate really seems to have a clue about how to open up opportunity in this land to its fullest throttle, so more people could become better equipped to hold down ever more challenging jobs, thus enlarging the economic pie with their enhanced productivity.

Romney claims his experience as a businessman gives him the ability to manage the economy better than Obama. Well ... maybe.

But we know he killed or offshored jobs while at Bain; that was, supporters say, simply a much-needed bout of "creative destruction." I'm willing to accept that that kind of thing — putting American enterprise on a slimming diet — may sometimes be necessary for reasons of competitiveness abroad. But it's not the whole answer to growing our economic pie.

So, Mitt, what is the whole answer?

And how about you, Mr. President? Don't you have a plan to once again make America the fecund "land of opportunity" it once was?

If so, I for one haven't heard it.

Here's the kind of thing I think we need: How about a G.I. Bill, not just for servicemen and -women who have risked much in America's wars abroad, but for their children, too? The volunteer military is heavily weighted toward lower-income recruits whose kids may not get the opportunities Barack Obama's daughters and Mitt Romney's grandchildren will enjoy. Let's endow them all with the means to go to the very best schools for which they can qualify.

Meanwhile, I think we all need to get behind those conservative hobbyhorses, school vouchers, along with the parallel education revolution that seems to be exploding today, charter schools. True, vouchers-plus-charters needs to be augmented by serious reforms to traditional public schools, so they don't turn into warehouses for the least educable. And — sorry, NEA — I think teachers' unions will have to stand aside on this.

A G.I. Bill for "servicekids," as a variety of income redistribution, is a liberal notion. Mitt Romney could never embrace it. Vouchers-plus-charters-plus-union-disempowerment is a conservative notion. Barack Obama would never endorse that.

But if there's really not enough to go around these days, enriching opportunities for all demands that a lot of conventional orthodoxies be ushered into unceremonious retirement.

For instance, I propose that we get busy and pass the DREAM Act, the long-stalled-by-GOP-hard-liners congressional legislation that offers conditional amnesty to illegal immigrants in exchange for obtaining, or working diligently toward, a bachelor's degree or higher, or serving honorably in the U.S. military. They'd be helped along (this is not part of the current bill, unfortunately) by eligibility for Pell grants. If they go the military route instead, they'd come away with a sizable amount of training in IT, engineering skills, and the like, that will look great on their civilian résumés.

In addition, I'd pass state laws allowing children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuitions at state universities. Even Rick Perry, the conservative GOP governor of Texas, thinks anyone opposing this doesn't "have a heart."

Conservatives who blanch at those two proposals will grin at this one: I suggest we end the practice of affirmative action in hiring and college admissions based solely on race. Race-based affirmative action has outlived its usefulness, and it now just produces jealousies based on skin tone. In its place I would put affirmative action based strictly on socioeconomic factors. Smart working-class kids of any race who'd otherwise lack the slick résumés of the upper crusters would be given a leg up.

Get the point? We need to create a ladder of opportunity for all who now face an unadorned blank wall. This approach to the country's problems would tap the highest potential of all who live and work here, boosting their productivity and enlarging the economic pie for every one of us to feast on.

It would thus dispel the current atmosphere of fear, envy, class jealousy, financial greed, and worse. From the point of view of a Catholic voter like me, it would be a very Christian thing to do, since the current rancid, not-enough-to-go-around atmosphere is inimical to the spirit of Christian charity and poisonous to the milk of human kindness.