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Oren M. Levin-Waldman is faculty member in the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University-Newark, and Socioeconomic Research Scholar at Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity Research. Learn more at the professors Website: https://www.econlabor.com/. Direct email to olevinwaldman@gmail.com

NEWARK, NJ October 6, 2021 By design the American political system is supposed to be incremental, thus ensuring that individual rights are protected by default. Progressive Democrats who insist on passing their $3.5 trillion budget with no compromise, not only seek to transform the country economically and socially, but to blow up the constitutional system of separation of powers and checks and balances.

Attempting to ram through legislation with a razor thin majority as though an electoral mandate exists is hardly an example of democracy at work. Rather it is the voice of an anti-democratic elite that presumes to know what is good for all of us whether we like it or not. Democracy is only good when the Dems are in agreement with them. Otherwise, they are nothing less than deplorable.

To review, we have a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill passed by the Senate, which the House refuses to vote on unless the $3.5 trillion budget proposal is passed first. But a couple of more conservative Democrats in the Senate are balking at the price tag as are some moderates in the House. Of course, this type of political brinkmanship is nothing new. And yet, what is lost despite all the claims that we are a democracy, is that we really arent. We are a republic, and the two are not the same.

Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham talked about two sovereign masters of the universe towards the end of the Eighteenth into the early Nineteenth centuries: pleasure and pain. Individuals seek to maximize pleasure while minimizing pain. In the neoclassical theory of competitive markets, this has found expression in maximizing profits and minimizing costs for firms and maximizing utility and minimizing costs for consumers.

Bentham, however, was laying out a theory of democracy, which was that utility would be achieved when governmental actions would satisfy the greatest happiness for the greatest number. If a majority of the public desires something, then it is presumed to satisfy the greatest happiness for the greatest number. But are we achieving utility when only a razor thin majority and only fifty senators with a tie-breaking vote from the Vice President pass something?

Contrary to popular misconception, Congress does not operate on the basis of majority vote. Well, yes it does but only as the last act of a final drama. Rather bills that are usually brought to the floor for final votes are generally the product of painstaking consensus building requiring tremendous compromise.

Progressives in Congress act as though they have a mandate from the public to radically transform the country, which in their minds means no compromise. Compromise is weakness and a thing of the past. With compromise, little gets done. But then again, that is the whole point of the Madisonian system of checks and balances.

The American political system was not designed to achieve any kind of monumental change unless there is a crisis. And even then, it is very difficult. If each member of Congress represents a specific district, and senators representing even broader constituencies, the odds of having agreement are virtually nil. On the contrary, a bill can only achieve consensus once it has been watered down through compromise, which often entails a fair degree of horse trading.

Again, what is often missed here is that this process is where democracy really exists because it speaks to broad-based representation. Congressman A tells Congresswoman B that he will only vote for a provision that she wants if she agrees to vote for a different provision that he wants. Each provision satisfies a different constituency. Neither of the two separate constituencies has an interest in the others, but because each has received something of interest each feels that it has been represented. When this is multiplied throughout 435 districts in the house and a hundred different constituencies in the Senate, what will have been achieved, at least on budget bills, is something typically larded with pork, but broadly representative of the entire population.

This is also the meaning of distributive politics: everybody gets something and everybody also pays. It is also the reason why new programs can never be removed and deficits ultimately swell. Of course, this isnt completely what Madison thought would happen. After all, he assumed that most spending on domestic matters would occur at the state level, and that the federal government would have little to do.

What Madison did assume was that the need to achieve consensus as a way to overcome checks and balances would result in measures that would be very minimal in impact so that the effect would be the protection of individual rights by default. Which is to say, public policy would only be made in incremental steps, with each measure building on the previous one. This is what the late Yale economist and political scientist Charles Lindblom referred to as the science of muddling through.

If we return to the Bentham utilitarian model of the greatest happiness for the greatest number as the measure of democracy, we have to recognize that there is no place for individual rights. After all, the greatest happiness can be achieved with the majority riding roughshod over the rights of minorities. Jim Crow laws in the South very much represented democracy in utilitarian terms. So much was this so that Twentieth Century philosopher John Rawls had to respond to Bentham with the priority of the right over the good.

Protection of individual rights needs to be protected from utilitarian goods. Put simply, there is no real democracy if individual rights are trampled on. But isnt that precisely what will happen if a bill representing the interests of only a vocal few is rammed through Congress on the baseless claim that they have a mandate? Moreover, the failure of the president to make that clear speaks to a larger problem, which is his failure to lead.

We are already hearing Progressives say that if they dont get exactly what they want, they are willing to blow up the Biden agenda and presidency. The way we used to govern rested on the premise that it would be better to get a little than nothing at all because it was still more than what was there before. For the Progressives, it is better to get nothing than to compromise. One wonders if the real target isnt the U.S. Constitutional system as we have known it. But please dont insult our intelligence by touting your commitment to democracy.

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Author of

Restoring the Middle Class Through Wage Policy: Arguments for a Middle Class

Understanding Public Policy in the United States.

The Minimum Wage: A Reference Handbook

Wage Policy, Income Distribution and Democratic Theory

The Case of the Minimum Wage: Competing Policy Models

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Oren M. Levin-Waldman, Ph.D

(914) 629-6351

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Contrary to Their Rhetoric, Progressives are No Friends of Democracy By Oren M. Levin-Waldman - Yonkers Tribune.

Sen. Bernie Sanders was playing the sleazy salesman, inflating his original price to offer a discount. This took the form of noting that his $3.5 trillion figure was a markdown from the $6 trillion he previously wanted.

New York Rep. Mondaire Jones, meanwhile, says he has a problem with people applying the term "moderate" to Democrats not on board with the left's social spending goals. He apparently thinks that progressives threatening to torpedo the wildly popular infrastructure bill if their demands aren't met should henceforth be called "the moderates."

What is it about the left that constantly wants to police language? It would seem part of an unconvincing charm offensive in a party whose majority increasingly resents the left's serial extortion demands often delivered in words that hurt the very Democrats who have given them the ability to influence anything.

That ability shrunk in the 2020 election, as an electorate that preferred President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes also punished several House Democrats who held hard-won seats in purple districts.

Much of the blame goes to the far left's incontinent radical talk about "defunding the police." Jayapal, for one, said she would "redirect law enforcement funding to other community programs." Translation: Take money from police. This was propitiously timed during a spike in crime rates. Public safety had become a concern among Americans of all races, but the left-wing gentry had posturing to do.

All this created a politically stupid diversion from calls to reform law enforcement practices, a response to serious incidents of abusive policing. Democrat Max Rose from Staten Island had voted for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, as did other swing-district Democrats, such as Abby Finkenauer of northeast Iowa and Anthony Brindisi from upstate New York. Rose, Finkenauer and Brindisi all lost in November. (Finkenauer is now running in Iowa for the Senate.)

A few months before the 2020 presidential election, while the Democratic primaries were still going on, "60 Minutes" did a feature in which Sanders renewed past praise of Fidel Castro for his literacy program and for expanding health care. The former Cuban dictator also tortured and murdered dissidents, it was pointed out.

Pressed on the matter, Sanders said he didn't approve of the torture part, but that wasn't enough to save Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. She lost her Miami-area district, home to many Cuban Americans.

The left can complain all it wants about West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and his insistence that the price for the social spending come down. But he and (the incomprehensible) Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema have so much power, as Biden has noted, because the Senate is evenly divided. Democrats might have held more Senate seats were it not for the left's habit of scaring moderate voters.

Manchin did offer to accept $1.5 trillion in increased social spending. That is not a small sum, and perhaps he'd go higher. The left indicates it may go lower, but it's already weakened the Democrats' reputation as the party that can govern. It doesn't understand -- or care -- that the future of the country is also at stake as leaders of the opposite party work to destabilize democratic institutions.

The left is a minority within the Democratic Party. Its champions lost recent primaries in New York, Virginia, Louisiana and Ohio. The radical fringe seems larger than it is because it gets media attention, especially when it flames other Democrats. Only Democratic voters can exact a price for sabotaging the team.

Froma Harrop is a nationally syndicated columnist whose work regularly appears in the Grand Forks Herald.

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Froma Harrop: So-called progressives vs. the Democratic Party - Grand Forks Herald

With just two days left for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to lock down votes on the infrastructure bill, Bidens sitdown with Manchin and Sinema could be pivotal. While Sinema has been engaging with a group of House lawmakers behind the scenes, Manchin has been largely mum about his support for the partys sprawling bill with a price tag of up to $3.5 trillion. Sinema will head to the White House for a second meeting later Tuesday.

And many progressives in the caucus say theyll refuse to move forward until those two senators spell out their position in some formalized way with Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. If not, they fear Manchin and Sinema will ditch the broader spending talks as soon as the public works bill is complete.

My father told me when I was growing up, theres a fine line between a good guy and a goddamn fool. I dont want to be rolled, said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). I think a lot of us want to make sure we have an assurance that, in fact, theres going to be a reconciliation bill.

Im not a yes until we have assurances that it will pass, echoed Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.).

An agreement with Manchin and Sinema would be critical to resolving the deadlock in the House, said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

I think it would give confidence to a lot of people in the House and around the country, Hoyer told reporters Tuesday, reiterating that the House wouldnt take up any social spending plan that the Senate couldnt support. What were hoping this week is to get a number and a framework.

Pelosi and her leadership team as well as progressive and moderate leaders have been working furiously behind the scenes on a compromise that all corners of the party can back. They hope that so-called framework can be enough for Jayapal and her caucus to back the vote Thursday, helping leadership and the White House avoid a humiliating defeat.

Jayapal released a statement reiterating the CPCs position on Tuesday afternoon after an hourlong meeting with the progressive caucus, which was held the day after Pelosi stunned many liberals by announcing Monday night that the House would proceed with an infrastructure vote even as the partys broader spending bill slipped past this week. During that meeting, not a single progressive member spoke up to say they would support the vote on Tuesday without the broader spending bill staying firm on the caucuss earlier position.

Pelosis decision to muscle ahead with infrastructure without the social spending bill in tow was essentially a reversal of the vow she made to progressives earlier this summer to pass both at the same time a dynamic that will complicate leaderships ability to lock down the votes before Thursday.

Asked about how Democrats would convince progressives to support that vote, Pelosi said: Thats a question that well deal with, but Im not going to negotiate that right now.

Well see what we need to have and that is the essence of the Build Back Better, Pelosi told reporters.

Democrats expect an intense whipping operation from Pelosi and her leadership team for the infrastructure plan, but it hasnt formally begun yet. Many lawmakers have pegged their hopes on Biden nailing down a commitment from Manchin, thereby prying more progressive commitments loose.

"I haven't started whipping anything yet, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said in a brief interview.

Jayapal has said as recently as Monday afternoon that dozens of progressives as many as 60 would be willing to block Bidens infrastructure bill Thursday.

But there are others within the caucus who say they cant go that far with the presidents agenda on the line.

Ive come to the conclusion that keeping things moving helps us, even though its got some risks that some folks will say, Hey I got what I want, I wont keep going, said Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), alluding to many of his colleagues fears that Manchin and Sinema will ditch the broader spending talks as soon as the public works bill is complete.

House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries projected confidence Tuesday that the caucus would be in lockstep behind Bidens two priorities before the vote later this week.

On substance the votes are there, in the context of what were trying to get accomplished, Jeffries told reporters. Now were figuring out the pathway to get both of these very important bills over the finish line.

More here:
Progressives threaten rebellion as Pelosi pushes forward on infrastructure - POLITICO

WASHINGTON (JTA) After the controversy last week surrounding a progressive push to block extra Iron Dome anti-missile funding for Israel, the final vote to pass it was lopsided: 420-9.

And in the end, most progressives backed it: Of the 95 members of the Democrats progressive caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, 85 voted yes.

At first glance, that resounding progressive yes to the $1 billion in additional funding to replenish the systems batteries depleted from the latest Gaza conflict in May would seem to put to rest the narrative that the Democratic Partys largest caucus was discarding pro-Israel tradition.

But last week did mark a significant change: the way the funding was ultimately approved, in addition to statements from some of the progressive caucus members who voted yes, made clear that from now on, Israel can no longer expect a blank check for defense assistance, at least from progressives.

Last week the progressive caucus forced Democratic leadership to pull out the $1 billion from an unrelated emergency government funding bill that came before Congress on Sept. 21.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who led the push to separate the Iron Dome funding from the larger spending bill, said it was absurd to shove through such an amount of money without first debating its merits.

That just isnt the way things work around here, she told CNN the following day, after the House passed the spending bill, sans Iron Dome. There was no discussion about it.

After the critique, Democratic leadership moved quickly. There was a debate last Thursday, and it seemed to have been persuasive: Jayapal was among those who voted yes, and so were some of Israels toughest critics in the progressive caucus, among them Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, Betty McCollum of Minnesota and Jamaal Bowman of New York.

Bowman told Bloomberg News that his problem with the original effort to approve the Iron Dome funding had nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with the rush to get it voted on without traditional debate.

Its not about Israel, its about, once again, leadership, throwing something on our table last minute and expecting us to decide in five minutes what to do with it, thats the bigger problem, he said.

The eight Democrats who voted against funding, and the two who voted present, got plenty of political and media attention Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortezs lengthy and anguished explanation of her present vote late Friday made many headlines, in part because of the tears she admitted to shedding on the House floor. Republicans in Congress tried to paint them as the true face of the Democratic Party (a single Republican, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, was among the small group that voted no on the final funding bill).

But many of the progressives who spoke during the debate were reportedly unequivocal in agreeing with their more moderate colleagues that the Iron Dome was purely a defensive measure, and deserves support because it saved lives.

The legislation before us ensures that Israel can fully defend all its citizens, a necessary condition for lasting peace, said Rep. DeLauro, D-Conn., the progressive who is the chairwoman of the Houses most powerful committee, Appropriations, in remarks reported by the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Still, while Iron Dome may have been an easy yes, progressives otherwise made clear that the days of unquestioning approval of Israels defense requests were over.

Just hours before the vote Thursday, Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich., convened a press conference outside the Capitol to announce a bill that would enshrine the two-state outcome as U.S. policy. But it includes restrictions on how Israel could spend U.S. funding, with explicit bans on spending on West Bank settlements.

The bill makes clear that assistance to help Israel to address its very real security challenges should continue at not one dollar less, but it cannot be used in a manner that violates internationally recognized human rights, or for activities that perpetuate the occupation or enable de facto annexation of parts of the West Bank, said Levin, who is Jewish.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency asked the five co-sponsors present at the press conference whether they planned to vote for the Iron Dome funding, and each said yes.

Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., who is Jewish, underscored the defensive nature of the antimissile system in explaining her vote.

Ill be voting for it; I think what this bill that were talking about calls for is the legitimate use of our support for the security of Israel, and thats what Iron Dome does, she said. And its time for a new chapter and a new approach, where were making sure that this defensive equipment is used in furthering that.

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The vast majority of progressives overwhelmingly backed Iron Dome funding but with a caveat - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

In the final days of Germanys election campaign, the center-left Social Democrats appeared to focus their final message to voters on one idea: respect. The message was plastered across the country on vibrant red posters and featured in the closing campaign speech of the partys candidate for chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who pledged that a Germany under his leadership would recognize the contributions of everyone in society, regardless of their professional or social merit.

We are working very hard on respect. Recognition is a question of how we live together in our societies, Scholz told me and a small group of reporters following his final campaign rally, in the West German city of Cologne. What mattered, he said, was that Germans all felt a degree of responsibility for the future, and that none thinks they are better than the others.

The message, though earnest and somewhat anodyne, nevertheless contains an anti-populist pitch aimed at combatting the narrative, both in Germany and around the world, that establishment parties such as the Social Democrats are out of touch with the wants and needs of everyday real people. A Germany led by Scholz would, the party seemed to be arguing, respect the contributions of all Germans.

This strategy, dull though it may be, might just have worked: Preliminary official results published today showed that the Social Democrats won the largest share of votes in yesterdays election, beating outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkels center-right Christian Democrats for the first time in more than a decade. Although the Social Democrats barely scraped together more than a quarter of all ballots, and the outcome of the election is still uncertain (coalition negotiations could take weeks, if not months), the results are being received as a great success by the partyone that other progressives can learn from.

And that is partly because Scholz and his team are open about the lessons theyve learned from progressive parties elsewhere. Close advisers to the candidate said that while he was crafting his political message, Scholz studied two of the lefts biggest political failures in recent memory: the United States 2016 presidential election and Britains Brexit referendum. His primary takeaway from both events was that we should, as progressives, be very careful to acknowledge all the different choices that people make about their life, Wolfgang Schmidt, a junior finance minister and one of Scholzs closest advisers, told me. Thats why Olaf Scholz talked a lot about respect. Somebody without a college degree should not get the impression [that] he or she is seen as part of a basket of deplorables, he said, referencing Hillary Clintons infamous gaffe about Donald Trumps supporters.

Scholz might not disagree with Clintons assessment. But his point is that this kind of rhetoric isnt the best way to reach voters. In a recent interview with The Guardian, he surmised that the main reason Britons voted for Brexit and Americans voted for Trump was that people are experiencing deep social insecurities, and lack appreciation for what they do. During his final campaign speech, Scholz bemoaned societys tendency to determine peoples merit on the basis of their education or profession, noting that lawyers such as himself are no more important to society than laborers or craftspeople. By appealing to those individuals and making them feel heard, Scholz would argue, progressives can bring them back into the fold and, crucially, steer them away from the appeals of the populist right.

Read: What Germany says about far-right politics

In some ways, Scholzs approach speaks to the consensual nature of the German system. Although it does see some elements of name-calling and partisan attacks (Merkels Christian Democrats, for example, sought to cast Scholz as a harbinger of the far left, despite the fact that he currently serves as deputy chancellor in Merkels governing coalition), German politics hardly rivals the polarization in American and British politics. Throughout the campaign, Scholz sought to avoid any rhetoric that would make him appear overtly partisana move that his campaign manager, Lars Klingbeil, said was intentional.

There are hard attacks in the election, but in the end, we know that we have to be respectful to the others because we have to work together in some coalitions, Klingbeil, the Social Democrats secretary general, told me and other American journalists in a briefing, noting that one of the issues he has observed in U.S. politics is politicians inclination to speak to their party base rather than to the people writ large. This, he argued, not only brings about polarization, but also unnecessarily limits a candidates appeal. Here, he said, we focus on the middle of society.

It helps, of course, that Scholz hasnt had to face a major populist challenger akin to Trump in the U.S. or Marine Le Pen in France. Although the far-right Alternative for Germany maintains a significant presence in German politics, support for the party has essentially flatlined since it entered Germanys parliament, following the countrys previous federal election, in 2017. That the AfD is all but certain to be excluded from any coalition talks has allowed Germanys mainstream parties to largely ignore it.

Yascha Mounk: The world wont miss Angela Merkel

Scholzs strategy has made him the front-runner to succeed Merkel as Germanys next chancellor. Yet winning an election and retaining power are two different things, and respect has to be more than just a slogan to be effective. In the Social Democrats case, that means following through on the partys pledge to address societal inequality by, among other initiatives, increasing the hourly minimum wage by 25 percent to 12 euros ($14) an hour and reintroducing a wealth tax on the countrys rich. Such promises wont be easily fulfilledespecially if the Social Democrats are forced into coalition with the pro-business Free Democratic Party, one of the elections kingmakers (the other being the Greens) and a fierce opponent of tax hikes.

Whether Scholz gets the chance to achieve any of these goals will be determined by coalition talks, which have already begun. Although his Social Democrats will enjoy the symbolic boost of having secured the highest number of votes, it doesnt guarantee that Scholz will succeed Merkel.

Still, Scholz is optimistic that progressives will look to his campaign not as a failure but as a playbook.

The Friedrich Ebert Foundation (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung) supported reporting costs for this article.

Original post:
Germany's Progressive Playbook - The Atlantic