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.

The Opportunity Society

A recent Washington Post op-ed piece by the well-known economist Lawrence Summers (left), "Changing focus to inequalities in opportunity," hits an important nail on the head. What's really of more importance, he asks, equality of outcomes or equality of opportunity? Summers says the latter ought to be the focus of attention today.

Liberals have long sought outcomes equality. If some groups of people have less income or wealth than other groups, then the government ought to step in and redistribute same.

Conservatives rue redistributive government programs because they impose a drag on the economy: successful entrepreneurs are penalized by the taxes and other measures that take money from the rich to give to the not-so-rich. There is less incentive to succeed.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of that ongoing dispute, Summers says disparities of wealth and income have been increasing, not decreasing ... and that's bad. It hurts American competitiveness, among other complaints.

"It is hard to see who could disagree with the aspiration to equalize opportunity," Summers writes, "or fail to recognize the manifest inequalities in opportunity today."

If "widening inequality jeopardizes the legitimacy of our political and economic system," as progressives claim, conservatives who insist there is nothing wrong with "success on a grand scale" should likewise be alarmed. America needs as many of its citizens as possible primed at a young age for success.

If only the children on the ever-narrower top rungs of the ladder get the best preparation for success in life, the whole country is worse off. There will be less innovation, less entrepreneurship, less economic dynamism.

What's the solution? "The global track record of populist policies motivated by inequality concerns is hardly encouraging," Summers points out, and "inequality is likely to continue to rise, even with all that can responsibly be done to increase tax burdens on those with high incomes and redistribute the proceeds. Fairness-oriented measures that are high on the usual liberal agendas today "are unlikely to even hold at bay the trend toward increasing inequality." So we need to focus a lot more than we do on equality of opportunity.

But how? "The number of children not born into the top 1 percent who move into it must equal the number of children born into the top 1 percent who move out of it over their lifetimes," Summers urges. "So a serious program to promote equal opportunity must seek to enhance opportunity for those not in wealthy families and to address some of the advantages currently enjoyed by the children of the fortunate."

Yes ... but, again, how?

"By far the most important step that can be taken to enhance opportunity is strengthening public education. For the past decade we have focused on ensuring that no child is left behind. This effort must continue, but if everyone is to have a real chance for great success we must also ensure that every child in public school can learn as much and go as far as his or her talent permits."

That means, Summers says, "judging schools on measures beyond the fraction of students who exceed some minimum." We need to supplement — or rethink — No Child Left Behind.

And the nation's leading colleges and universities — Summers teaches at Harvard and is its past president — should "make the kind of focused commitment to economic diversity that they have long mounted toward racial diversity. It is unrealistic to expect that schools [like Harvard] that depend on charitable contributions will not be attentive to offspring of their supporters. Perhaps though, the custom could be established that for each 'legacy slot' room would be made for one 'opportunity slot'."

Those are good, solid, specific recommendations, but what seems most important to me is that here is a goal that liberals and conservatives ought to be able to join hands over. It is also something Catholics who want to promote social justice should be foursquare behind. If either President Obama or Mitt Romney would make it the centerpiece of his election campaign, the entire country would cheer.