Guide book for the Democrats

...Foreign trade...

...expanded choices for child care, expanded opportunities for home ownership, and new opportunities for upward mobility for all Americans, and especially for the unemployed and working poor...

...Here is a summary of the report's highlights: Family changes...

...Conventional forces...

...to prudently funded research until fundamental questions of mission and feasibility can be answered," with the pace of research to be slowed if the Soviet Union agrees to "deep cuts" in its heavy ICBM missile force...

...But there are two sides to this coin...

...It offers the standard suggestions— eliminating waste in Defense spending...

...2) enforcement of existing trade rules prohibiting countries from maintaining "subsidies, tariffs, import restrictions, closed markets, licensing regulations...

...It calls for (1) a reduction of the budget deficit and an increase in American productivity through "investments in education, R&D, and institutional innovations to make things work in the American economy...

...and more employers are hiring professional union-busters to crush organizing campaigns than at any time since the 1930s...

...workplaces providing parental childbirth leaves, flex-time, flexible work hours, flexible benefit packages and job sharing...

...You have to make a minimum contribution of $10 to the party s coffers...

...Yet other Democrats attracted heavy support from these groups too, plus enough nonunion white male votes to win office...

...Hence, instead of a bailout of the teetering farm-credit system, the report favors "immediate policies for credit relief, carefully targeted to credit-worthy farmers who can be independent tomorrow with transitional assistance today...

...Further, suggestions are made for "economic diversification, credit relief, better targeting of benefits to middle-sized and family farms, and the elimination of tax loopholes and other nonmarket forces that increase surpluses and encourage absentee ownership...

...In a written critique, Walters assails the Commission for framing issues in a manner that is "more palatable to a constituency which has supported Republican policies," and declares: "The emphasis here is on strong domestic leadership, the middle-class family, fiscal responsibility, and strength and protection of American security interests abroad...

...taxpayers that they can save money by investing now in areas like education, job-training, health: "For example, compensatory education costs about $600 per child per year, but it saves about $3,400 over the cost of having the child repeat a grade...

...At least that will be the case if the just released Democratic Policy Commission report becomes the program manual it is meant to be...

...Headed by former Utah Governor Scott Matheson, it consisted of 100 officeholders from around the country plus eight party officials...

...The biggest challenge assigned to the Federal government is controlling the national debt...

...Yet even here the Commission is almost amusingly cautious...

...A study that fails to address the beleaguered state of the labor movement, the persistence of the male-female wage gap and the decline in college enrollment by minorities is surely incomplete...

...Social programs are appraised in terms of their impact on the middle class and not, as in the past, on the poor and the distressed...

...The report's attention to detail is often exemplary, as well...

...It is up to the Democratic National Committee, our nation's leaders and commentators, and the American people to carry on the debate, to review the agenda, and to assess its fit with the new realities that describe our life today...

...But to be incomplete is not to be without merit...

...To cope with "the changing economy which, like swiss cheese, has areas of great strength riddled with gaping holes—booming economies on the east and west coasts and deep recession on the Gulf coast, booming high-tech areas and dying rural areas, booming service industries and stagnating manufacturing industries," government at all levels should act "not primarily as a banker, but as a broker" —removing tax and regulatory burdens, insuring a stable financial climate and venture capital for small businesses, and maintaining "first-class schools, airports, water, waste disposal and other infrastructure...

...It explains why Democrats should "urge the Republican Administration to withdraw its proposal to ban mobile missiles and move ahead with the development of the Midg-etman...

...and reforms such as "portable pensions...

...To meet the complaints of many Americans who feel that" while we are struggling to play by the rules, others are ignoring them, or doing their best to twist the rules to their advantage,examples are given of how the Federal government might reduce the frequency of "defense-contract, tax and environmental abuses...

...Matheson and Philip Burgess, the Coloradan who served as staff director, explain its rationale in their Introduction to the report: "The Commission was structured to give a central role to the party's elected leadership, to men and women who have stood the test of the polling booth, who make decisions every day about public policy, and who are in touch with the American people who elected them...

...and (3) new trade rules to "protect patents and copyrights and to deal with state-directed economies," to "resolve inequities [arising from] national industrial policies that create formidable competition for private American companies trying to make it on their own," and to "provide adequately for trade in agricultural products, internationally traded services [and] investment disputes...

...There is a catch-22 to that seemingly ingenuous invitation, however...

...In a rather different key, foreign aid is treated as a tool for stabilizing markets, rather than as a compassionate effort to help people in poor countries survive...

...In fact, whites still discriminate against minorities, men against women...

...The report thus affirms their growing influence and seems likely to prove the basis of the platform the Democratic Presidential candidate will have to run on in 1988...

...some are of proven efficacy, and the politicians who made them work were not shy about having them spelled out...

...Further, measures specifically aimed at alleviating poverty should be "positive" and "cost-conscious," assuring ANDREW MOLLISON is the chief political writer for the Cox Newspapers...

...20003...

...We rely more on public-private partnerships to solve problems...

...The 71-page document, product of a year-long study, abounds with proposals that would have been unspeakable—if not unthinkable—at the faction-riven national level of the party during the first half of this decade...

...Expressions of displeasure with the report have so far issued mainly from the Left...

...Italics in original...

...The report expresses a clear preference for state, local and private initiatives over Federal intervention: "To make choices real they must be part of the places where people live and work...

...But the Commission would "limit support for the Strategic Defense Initiative...

...The Policy Commission was appointed by Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Paul Kirk as an alternative to the more costly, politically divisive midterm conventions of grassroots delegates...

...Military reforms," areproposed, "toimprovethe way we educate our military officers and organize our fighting units...

...To secure a copy of the full report—which, incidentally, is uninspiringly entitled, "New Choices in a Changing America"—you not only have to write to the Democratic National Committee, Attn: DPC, 430 South Capitol Street, SE, Washington, D.C...

...And it is not our way...

...First, several of its proposals are predicated on the notion that harmony prevails, or will prevail, between labor and management...

...The strategy that follows does indeed strongly reflect the views of those Democrats who have been flourishing in state and local government while the White House has remained beyond the party's grasp...

...Meritorious or not, several of the trial balloons, options and flat prescriptions put forward by the Commission are bound to become public policy in one form or another, whether through Democratic victory or Republican borrowing...

...Perhaps inevitably, a few of the more difficult issues are handled evasively: sweeping diagnoses, skimpy details on the cures...

...Several of the prescriptions advocated appear to be mutually contradictory...

...At the conclusion of their Introduction, Matheson and Burgess write: "Our job is now finished...

...Nonetheless, the report takes a pluralist view of the causes of international disorder: "Democrats also recognize that there are other threats to our security—terrorism, drugs, and Third World debt and poverty—which can plunge friendly countries, even neighbors, into chaos and revolution that undermine freedom and threaten peace.'- After adding, "That's why Democrats insist on implementing sanctions against South Africa's racist regime until it abandons apartheid," it carefully balances its censure of Right-wing and Left-wing governments: "...we believe it is right to press for human rights not only in El Salvador, Haiti and the Philippines, but also in Chile and Nicaragua, in North and South Korea, and in South Africa and the Soviet Union...

...The difference is not only in the specifics, but also—and possibly more significantly—in the general tendency to emphasize the individual and the community as a whole above such social intermediaries as racial caucuses and labor unions...

...A three-point trade plan is advanced...

...So are methods for reducing rivalries between the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines...

...That's why we need an effective nuclear policy, arms control, increased conventional strength, and clear policies for dealing with regional conflicts and human rights—including self-determination and emigration...

...Similarly, San Francisco's success in bringing down the growth rate of aids cases by creating a comprehensive care system is held up for emulation, because "the Federal government could be saving millions of dollars in its share of Medicaid costs...

...Ideological strictures like those of Walters and Harrington aside, the report does have at least two shortcomings that seem to stem from a Pollyannaish view of American society...

...Nuclear policy...

...The Socialist leader and Ann Lewis, national director of Americans for Democratic Action, have planned a series of "Democratic Alternative" meetings in large cities after the November elections...

...A notable instance is the chapter drafted under the direction of Wisconsin Representative Les Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee...

...economic isolationism," the Democrats aver: "This is not in America's interest...

...Walters goes on to maintain that the Democratic Policy Commission "shifts away from a significant base of the party by excluding specific issues of major concern to those constituencies which now make up a larger part of the party* s Presidential vote...

...Many of the recommendations appear feasible...

...Occupational changes...

...It does not help consumers...

...Second-strike" weapons like the Midgetman missile, theStealth bomber and the Trident submarine and its D-5 missile, are described as "credible and stable nuclear weapons," and the ABM treaty and salt accords win approval...

...To help individuals cope with the enormous stresses imposed by shifts in employment from the mining, manufacturing and agricultural sectors to computers, space medicine, biotechnology, telecommunications, and service industries, greater " investing in people" is urged—through college loan programs, job training and retraining, support for pure research, provision of capital for entrepreneurs...

...In the realm of foreign affairs, top priority is given to defense against the Soviet Union: "Democrats recognize that the expansion of Soviet influence continues to pose the major threat to American interests and world peace...

...Ronald Walters of the National Rainbow Coalition has charged DNC Chairman Kirk and his fellow Democratic leaders with trying " to realign the party to win the White House at any cost, even at the cost of its legacy...

...And the Commission's report manifests the conviction of the successful Democrats that they got where they are without sacrificing their party's principles...

...They make up two-thirds of the nation's governors and mayors, and control most state legislatures and city councils...

...One learns, for example, how Massachusetts' popular Governor Michael Dukakis brought together business, local government, labor, and educational leaders to form a model system of "affordable, safe, quality" care for children that "has been vital in helping welfare recipients finish school, get job training and go to work...

...We place more and more reliance on the wisdom and experience of civic leaders —both public and private—at the state and local level...

...Fair play" changes...

...and other non-tariff barriers...

...It's not Republican, but it's a very conservative sort of 'Jimmy Carter warmed over' Democratic document,' said Michael Harrington...

...What stands out, however, is the number of areas where the Commission reached a consensus on positions that diverge from the party's conventional wisdom...

...Claiming that "the failure of the Republican Administration to take charge on international trade is pushing some Americans to retreat to protectionism, to advocate sweeping import restrictions and a return to U.S...

...The economy...

...Actually, Governor Matheson couldn't have said it better himself...

...stepping up revenues through economic growth, tax reform 'and sometimes...

...increasing taxes'—then says: "Almost any combination of approaches is preferable to the poison pill represented by Gramm-Rudman-Hollings' mandatory cuts, though Gramm-Rudman-Hollings is preferable to no strategy at all...

...To deal with the rise of two-earner and one-parent families, it calls for "tax policies that raise family income...

...Second, there is a conspicuous absence of measures to revive the flagging struggle against discrimination...

...It may be true that 24 per cent of the votes garnered by Walter M ondale in 1984 were cast by blacks, and that Hispanics, women and union families also yielded him a disproportionately high number of votes...