Liberals' Progress

...The "right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age" was, of course, the aim of the Social Security Act, now supplemented by the complex and untested Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 Finally, the "right to a good education," first embodied in the GI Bill—which made schooling available to almost 8 million World War II veterans—was given its biggest boost by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and supported by such other efforts as Head Start and the Job Corps In 1950 only one-third of the population over 20 had completed high school, today two-thirds have "Measured statistically, progress toward establishing FDR's Economic Bill of Rights since 1945 has been great," concedes Duffy—who agrees with Lyndon Johnson's observation that "Economic growth has been the most powerful social weapon in our hands," particularly given an activist attitude in government Yet upon closer and broader examination, he demonstrates, the achievement diminishes Thus besides the poor performance on providing jobs, unemployment is distributed unevenly by geography and gender, age, race, and occupation (or class) White, middle-aged males occupying white-collar positions and living in suburbia are best off Black isn't beautiful when it comes to jobs, especially for teenagers Higher education seemed to be an option in 1972, since as many black as white high school seniors expected to attend college But two years later, when the economy turned down, black expectations dipped far more sharply than white Duffy's findings make the point that class and race (not easily separable) are bigger obstacles than gender when it comes to bicaking into the work toice Even wheie high marks were initially scored, as in the easeot Social Secuilty, now embracing 90 percent of all workers, weaknesses have emerged Not only does the program perpetuate wage inequities into retirement, but its funding depends on a tax that is often more burdensome than the levy on income, and regressive to boot Despite Medicare and Medicaid, too, some 24 million Americans remain without any health insurance, 18 million are inadequately insured for basic medical costs, and 88 million are unprepared for catastrophic illness To make matters worse, the cost of health care skyrocketed an estimated 750 percent between 1950-74, a fact not unrelated to the bias of Medicare and Medicaid toward institutional treatment Domestic Affairs is very effective in showing us how far we have come and how far we have to go Once Duffy moves on to show why Congress has done poorly on two major issues, education and energy, and why Democratic Presidents are superior to Republican, the book becomes less satisfying He is quite candid about his belief in "programmatic solutions" and his loyalty to a liberal Democratic ideology Add to this a lawyer's rational mind and the reader is faced with a narrative that has little sympathy for opponents of programs the author deems worthy I do not debate Duffy's contention that those who have opposed Federal aid to education are "a willful minority of Congressmen exploiting divisive social currents and [using] parliamentary maneuvers, first to delay Federal participation in education and then to inhibit the logical and efficient development of that participation " It is probably correct to say as well that the "true motives of the conservative nucleus of Federal-aid opponents" derive from "a shrewd realization that Federal spending for education will inevitably have disrupting social consequences " But proponents of progressive legislation must understand more about their adversaries—as, indeed, they need to know more about the recipients ol Federal aid—it the legislation is to be approved without crippling amendments and iustl\ administered Duffy, instead, subscribes to a view expressed by LBJ "I believe there is always a national answer to each national problem, and, believing this, I do not believe that there are necessarily two sides to every question " His consequent intractability inhibits him from discussing the very issue that FDR's Economic Bill of Rights was meant to confront the effect of class mterest on legislation Duffy's sophisticated analysis of Federal energy policy, for instance, concludes that Congress never exercised "the imagination required to construct a program for development of alternative energy sources " A more likely explanation, however, is that most men are not interested in alternatives because of the economic interests they represent If they were, why would the government fund one study" after another of solar energy without implementing a program7 Duffy ends his study with the undeniable observation that, because economic growth today will not finance a wide range of social programs, priorities need to be established Consistent with the early chapters of his book, he sees employment as the number one issue He focuses here on the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth bill, as I read of its fate I thought that the bill's emasculation mirrored the sad illusions of its author It is difficult to be any more sanguine about inflation, despite Duffy's call for an aggressive government policy, spearheaded by a President who "should be unafraid of announcing that he will have no hesitation in imposing wage and price controls and will do so, selectively or in general, unless there is substantial adherence to announced guidelines for wage and price increases " An enlightened economic pohc\ is, nonetheless, the ke\ to a better soeietv —better environment, better race relations, etc No doubt libeial Democrats have been the maior dnwng lorec behind attempts to reali/c this goal But as Dutlv shows so well the destination is tai aw.n \nd it is not eleai that liberal DemociJts ean lead us theie...

...Liberals'Progress Domestic Affairs: American Programs and Problems By James Duffy Simon & Schuster 309 pp $17 50 Reviewed by Joseph E. Illick Senior Lecturer, University of East Angha, England At Princeton, where we were classmates, Jim Duffy had a reputation for being active in politics—considered somewhat strange in the mid-'50s (Certainly Pete Du Pont, another classmate who is now the Republican governor of Delaware, was not political) Even stranger, Duffy was a Democrat So far as we knew, only one other politically active Pnncetonian was a Democrat—Adlai Stevenson, whose name adorned the bumpers of the old Chevies and Fords driven by faculty members After college, Duffy went on to Harvard Law School and a busy career in a New York law firm There he remained until the 1972 Presidential campaign dismayed him so much that he returned to the Princeton library for some concentrated study of domestic, social and economic issues, which he had virtually ignored since his undergraduate days Domestic Affairs is the product of his labors in the stacks The early chapters, where Duffy uses an imaginative device to measure that vast and complex process called social progress, constitute the most interesting and illuminating section of the book He takes as a standard the Economic Bill of Rights enunciated by Franklin D Roosevelt in his 1944 State of the Union address, and compares it to subsequent legislation and statistics to determine how many of FDR's projections have been realized The "report card" is mixed Despite Truman's Employment Act and the doubling of the number of workers on the government payroll, an American still does not have the "right to a useful and remunerative job," as the unemployment figures testify On the other hand, he does have a better chance than ever before "to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation " In addition, the number of families living below the poverty line has significantly declined as a result of such programs as Social Security, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Supplemental Security Income, veterans' pensions, and, especially, Food Stamps That last, along with Food for Peace and government price supports for agriculture guarantees the farmer a decent living The author also finds mixed progress on the "right of every businessman, large or small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad ' Although there were some antitrust amendments and improvements in 1974 and 1976, the basic legislation—the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts of 1890 and 1914, and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914—is generations old The definition of monopoly, moreover, remains a source of contention Duffy thinks the Justice Department should focus its activity on pricing rather than bigness The "right of every family to a decent home," legislated through the Housing Act of 1949, is found to be in jeopardy as families become less able to purchase domiciles (Top-quarter income families bought 31 percent of new housing in 1965-66, 58 percent in 1975-76 ) While neither Truman nor following sympathetic Presidents could create a national health-care program, the Medicare and Medicaid programs of 1965 did get the Federal government involved in a big way—accounting for close to 13 percent of the projected 1978 Federal budget...