
          A Few Proposals: From Black Agenda To National Policy
          By Piliawsky, MonteMonte Piliawsky
          Vol. 4, No. 4, 1982, pp. 11-16
          
          Upon initial consideration, the offering of policy proposals which
grow out of a "black agenda" might appear to be a futile
exercise. Given the prevailing conservative mood in the United States,
black political leaders currently exert insignificant influence in the
formulation of national public policy. Congress, for instance, totally
ignored the 1983 counter-budget offered by the Black Congressional
Caucus.
          New Right ideologues recently have attempted to hold 

on to the
white lower middle and working classes, whose support was decisive in
the election of both Carter and Reagan, through the elaboration of a
full-blown conspiracy theory. This thesis posits an alliance between
the "new class" of what William Rusher calls a "liberal verbalist
elite"--leaders in the educational establishment, media and
governmental bureaucracies, and "a semi-permanent, welfare
constituency, all coexisting happily in a state of mutually sustaining
symbiosis." The argument is particularly persuasive, for, as David
Edgar points out, it combines "in one acceptable construct the radical
instincts of the vast middle layers of society (those instincts of
hatred and resentment directed at the rich above them) with a
rationale for retaining their superiority over the masses of the poor
below them."
          Black leaders are clearly on the defensive in combating this appeal
from the right. The white lower middle class, concerned that real
take-home income is eroding, is inclined to accept the underlying
premise of Reaganomics: that the only way to rescue the national
economy is to reduce the federal budget by sacrificing social
programs. Given this context, black spokespersons appear to be
representing only a narrow-interest group.
          However, an opportunity exists for blacks to press their public
policy demands, if they can persuade their potential white allies that
these policies are in the latter's self-interest. Rightwing
demagoguery can be countered with a populism of the left, in which
blacks form coalitions with other minorities and with whites who are
also feeling the pinch. As Vernon E. Jordan Jr. expresses it,
"Reagan's programs won't work for us, but they also are not going to
work for a lot of white people, and I think there will be a mutuality
of interest, even absent brotherhood and love." This
coalition-building strategy is supported by Barbara Williams-Skinner,
executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus:
          
            The Caucus has got to come across as representing the interests
of black Americans by showing white Americans how their interests
coincide with those of black Americans, instead of winning over white
Americans based on the concerns of black Americans. You've got to win
people based on their interests, based on a common struggle.
          
          The current prospect for coalition building is promising, given the
falling relative incomes for the lower middle class. In the decade of
the 1970's, the share of total income going to the poorest twenty
percent of American households remained essentially constant at 4.2
percent; however, the next lowest forty percent of households
witnessed their share of total income decline from 28.5 to 27.2
percent. MIT economist Lester Thurow suggests that as the earnings of
the lower middle class fall, relative to the groups above them, "what
may also be canceled is the social tolerance of low- and middle-income
groups for the large income gaps that have always marked the American
distribution of income."
          Without doubt, Reaganomics has jeopardized much of the President's
initial support among the lower middle class. Duped in 1980 by
candidate Reagan's slogan, "Get the government off our back," many
working people have come to resent President Reagan's favoritism to
the wealthy. Black leaders must graphically point out to those four
whites for every black who feel the impact of Reaganomics, exactly how
they are being victimized. As Williams-Skinner puts it, "We've got to
develop better research on the impact of the Reagan budget on
non-black, non-poor small business people, which is the majority of
what Nixon used to term the 'silent majority' voter."
          While the white lower middle class is the group most susceptible to
the wooing calls for coalition, some support seems likely from
disaffected portions of the middle class. A Newsweek
poll in early 1982 revealed that by overwhelming three-to-one margins,
Americans want federal spending to be increased
in the following areas: aid to education/college loans, medical and
health care, aid to states and cities, and job training. The same poll
also showed that a fifty-two percent majority of Americans' express
fear that their own financial situations will decline because of
Reagan's supply-side economic policies.
          In the following few pages I offer several policy positions
primarily for consideration in a national agenda. This agenda and its
particular suggestions must be seen as complementary to strategies
aimed at other levels of power. At every level, coalition-building
faces substantial obstacles: entrenched interests and enmities of
class, race and sex.
          One limitation to my agenda is that it does not touch 

specifically
on roles which black Americans must play in enhancing their own
lives. Even as they direct attention to broad advocacies, blacks need
to plan actions which stress self-sufficiency and independence. Blacks
should organize to take control of local resources. In the rural South
the focus should be on securing control of county governments and
their spending authorities, as well as local institutions such as
rural electrical cooperatives. In urban areas, blacks should seek to
control neighborhood institutions by having some of the powers
exercised by the city, such as in the areas of education, housing,
employment and health, transferred to a neighborhood corporation. Also
promising are current economic campaigns, backed by the potential of
boycotts, which negotiate jobs, training and re-investment from
corporations doing business with blacks. As we have learned, exclusive
reliance on national remedy leaves blacks vulnerable to the
vicissitudes of shifting popular majorities in American politics.
          
            Increase Political Participation
          
          Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, blacks have
dramatically demonstrated their voting strength. The number of black
elected officials in the U.S. has increased in that time from fewer
than five hundred to 5,038 by July of 1981. In addition, when there is
a high black voter turnout, coalitions of blacks and whites have
elected progressive candidates in the South even in constituencies
where blacks are a numerical minority.
          In August 1981, a huge black turnout provided the razor-thin margin
of victory (50.6 percent) for Democratic candidate Wayne Dowdy in
Mississippi's fourth congressional district, a seat held by
Republicans since 1972. In March 1982, a black turnout of seventy-five
percent--higher than the white turnout--re-elected New Orleans' black
mayor Ernest Morial. Referring to Virginia's November 1981
gubernatorial election, New York Times columnist Tom
Wicker wrote: "That an upsurge of black voting has so materially aided
the gubernatorial victory of Charles Robb in what has been the South's
most solidly conservative state does argue that the elements of the
old liberal coalition can be re-invigorated in the right
circumstances."
          However, many barriers impede the forging of populist voting
coalitions. For one thing, extralegal obstacles to full black
political participation still exist in the South. In 1974, the
U.S. Civil Rights Commission reported: "Acts of violence against
blacks involved in the political process still occur often enough in
Mississippi that the atmosphere of intimidation and fear has not
cleared." In the companion essay to this one, Alex Willingham has
outlined the continuing practices of Southwide resistance at the local
level through both direct and indirect intimidation. Although blacks
comprise popular majorities in over one hundred counties in the South,
they effectively control only ten, often because of ingenious
gerrymandering. In addition, a factor such as low educational
opportunity is generally associated with a high sense of political
powerlessness.
          Both the black and white poor have reacted to generations of
politicians' unkept promises by developing considerable
alienation. Nor does the election of black mayors in Southern cities,
such as Tuskegee, Alabama, and New Orleans--to cite two particularly
revealing instances--necessarily translate into an improved quality of
life. As Julian Bond notes, "these mayors and aldermen and
commissioners often remain accessories beside the fact of actual
governance of their towns counties and states." Perhaps reflective of
such cumulative reasons for disaffection, the percentage of eligible
Southern blacks who were registered to vote declined from 63.1 percent
in 1976 to 57.7 percent in 1980.
          Although they do not directly address deeper patterns of
disinterest, long habits of powerlessness and the corrupting influence
of private money in campaigns, structural changes in voting laws
coupled with intensive registration drives can increase voter
turnout. Citizens are required to register before they can cast a
vote. This aspect of the American electoral system is unusual, for in
most democratic countries the government assumes responsibility for
enrolling all citizens on the permanent nationwide electoral
register. Indeed in this country, registration is often more difficult
than voting, for as Steven Rosenstone and Raymond Wolfinger note, "it
may require a longer journey, at a less convenient hour, to complete a
more complicated procedure--and at a time when interest in the
campaign is far from its peak."
          The weightiest structural impediments to voter turnout are early
deadlines for registration and limited registration office
hours. Allowing citizens to register up until the election day itself
and adopting the practice of having the registration office open in
the evenings after normal working hours and on weekends would raise
voter turnout among working people considerably. An even more helpful
change would be to permit citizens to vote without registering in
advance. In 1976, the four states 

which utilized election-day
registration showed presidential turnouts of nearly seventy percent,
well above the national average of only fifty-four percent.
          Congress ought to pass legislation providing for nationwide
election-day registration. Bills to this effect were introduced five
times since 1971, culminating with President Carter's unsuccessful
1977 attempt. All of these bills foundered on opposition by
Republicans and Southern Democrats, who argue that liberalizing the
registration laws would increase proportionately the turnout of
low-income and less educated citizens, resulting in a windfall of
votes for the Democratic party.
          Also, Presidential and Congressional election days should be
declared national holidays. State and local elections should be moved
from Tuesdays to weekends. Based upon available empirical evidence,
these electoral reforms would result in a significantly enlarged
electorate, more representative of the entire American population. For
example, 85.9 percent of those registered cast ballots in the 1981
runoff French presidential election which was held on Sunday, an
enormous turnout by American standards. Voter turnouts of over seventy
percent are routine in those U.S. elections, such as the Democratic
party primaries in Louisiana, which are conducted on Saturdays.
          
            Combat the Assault on Public Education
          
          The United States has always considered public education to be the
primary means of achieving its commitment to equal opportunity. The
critical function of education was forcefully articulated in the Brown v. Board of Education decision:
          
            In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be
expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an
education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to
provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal
terms.
          
          Perhaps the greatest social calamity being perpetuated by the
Reagan Administration on black and working class white youth is the
federal government's abandonment of its commitment to adequate, free
and equal public education. Simply put, school systems are going broke
due to drastic reductions in federal aid. Secretary of Education
Terrel H. Bell has openly declared that the federal government intends
to totally withdraw support of public education, stating that
"education should be to state governments what defense is to the
national government."
          The federal government's retrenchment from education is especially
painful in light of the encouraging progress made by black public
school children during the past decade. The gap between blacks and
whites in educational achievement test scores narrowed from an
eighteen percent differential in 1970 to only thirteen percent in
1980. Many experts credit the improvement to Title I of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act, designed to support compensatory
education programs. Nevertheless, the Reagan Administration cut Title
I's funds in 1982 by six hundred million dollars; his 1983 budget
proposes an additional reduction of four hundred million dollars, or
forty-five percent.
          Equally devastating is the President's proposal to provide tuition
tax credits to private schools, a scheme which would cost $1.5 billion
by 1987. Senator Ernest Hollings's critique of the plan is on the
mark:
          
            The tuition tax cut proposal would turn our nation's educational
policy on its head, benefit the few at the expense of the many,
proliferate substandard segregationist academies, add a sea of red ink
to the federal deficit, violate the clear meaning of the First
Amendment of the Constitution, and destroy the genius and diversity of
our system of public education.
          
          The drastic reductions in federal financial aid for college
students proposed in the Reagan Administration's 1983 budget, which
include a forty percent cut in the Basic Equal Opportunity Grant,
imperil the future of U.S. higher education. The students who stand to
suffer the worst, of course, are low-income students, who are
disproportionately black. It is estimated that enrollment in the
traditionally black private colleges will be halved if the
administration's plans are fully implemented.
          Blacks and the poor must demand that education regain is rightful
place on the national policy agenda. A critical legal struggle should
be made to reverse the Supreme Court's five to four decision in 1973
(San Antanio School District v. Rodriguez) which
permits school districts to spend widely discrepant sums for public
education. Indeed, the inequitable system of financing public
education makes a mockery of the intent of the Brown decision: to
assure equal expenditures for educational purposes for all pupils
regardless of race.
          
            Implement Work Program
          
          In mid-1982, eighteen percent of adult blacks and fifty-three
percent of black teenagers are unemployed, more than double the
percentage for their white counterparts. According to the National
Urban League's total unemployment index, which includes the
discouraged unemployed who have stopped their job seeking, black
unemployment equals the highest national unemployment level during the
Great Depression of the 1930's, when one-quarter of all Americans were
out of work. To address this crisis, two government programs should be
implemented immediately: a public works program and employment
vouchers.
          During the Depression, the national government put three million
people to work building roads and public buildings that are still in
use. The present depressed condition requires a comparable
solution. Ideally, a public works program to provide jobs for the
unemployed would be structured to rebuild the decaying sections of
cities. Program costs could be offset by the savings of ten billion
dollars in federal services now spent for every percentage point of
unemployment. One component of the public works program should be a
public service work corps offering a more socially constructive
alternative to military service.
          Public works should be supplemented with a long-term system of
employment vouchers. As envisioned by Harvard economist Robert
B. Reich, unemployed (and low-skilled) workers would receive federal
vouchers that they could cash in for on-the-job training. The
companies that accept the vouchers would have half their training
costs paid by the government, for up to three years. Workers who
develop skills as machinists, computer pro-

grammers and operators would
obtain permanent jobs, while industries would secure workers with
needed skills. However, any system of providing industry with
government subsidized workers would have to be accompanied by
requirements that companies remain in present locations and maintain
present work forces, rather than write off their old plant and
equipment and move.
          
            Expose the "New Federalism"
          
          The program of "New Federalism" outlined by President Reagan in his
1982 State of the Union message is hoax. It is little more than an
ideological veneer to package an assault on social programs, as well
as a callous abandonment of the practice of the federal government,
since the New Deal, of providing grants-in-aid to equalize resources
among the states. These budget cuts hit the needy hardest; and the
needy are disproportionately black.
          Blacks and the poor are victimized by both the taxing and spending
policies associated with New Federalism. The Administration's
twenty-five percent cut in federal taxes for fiscal 1982 was
exclusively a reduction in corporate and personal income taxes, the
only progressive taxes in the entire governmental taxing
schedule. These shower-the-rich tax cuts are projected at $442 billion
over three years.
          As state and local governments now decide whether they will assume
some of the axed federal programs, they must also decide whether to
increase their taxes to offset the loss in federal revenue. With
property owners resisting increases in property taxes, any new local
taxes will likely be higher sales taxes. For example, in May 1982, New
Orleans' voters, with blacks providing the margin of victory, chose to
raise the city sales tax to a whopping eight percent in order to keep
the transit service in operation.
          Whether by the curtailment of services or by the burden of
replacing progressive federal taxes with regressive local ones, blacks
and the poor suffer. In mobilizing public support against New
Federalism, black leaders should expose the reality of this seemingly
benign concept. As Nick Kotz puts it, "The new federalism represents
an extension of the strategy of the budget cuts: shrink federal social
welfare and then place responsibility with the states, where it is
certain to shrink further."
          
            Unionize the Unorganized
          
          In the anti-union South where the majority of blacks live, union
members make significantly higher wages than their nonunion
counterparts. In New Orleans, for instance, black (union) bus drivers
have higher incomes than white (nonunion) police officers. One of the
most dramatic examples of the benefits of union representation is
found among clerical workers in Atlanta. In 1981, Southern Bell
Telephone's unionized clerical workers earned from $7.57 to $9.39 an
hour after forty-eight months on the job; their counterparts in
Atlanta's nonunionized firms brought home $4.18 to $6.67 per
hour--forty-five percent less.
          Significantly, black workers benefit from union representation even
more than whites. In 1974, the last year for which such information is
available, all groups of workers--black, white, male and
female--gained financially as union members. In the South, black men
profited the most, earning thirty to fifty percent more, while black
women earned seventeen to twenty-four percent more than nonunion
workers of the same race and sex; white men gained fifteen to nineteen
percent, with white women slightly higher at sixteen to twenty
percent.
          Labor unions presently protect many middle class workers. In
addition to higher wages, union members receive job security, a
grievance procedure, seniority rights, health insurance, and generally
improved respect and personal dignity. According to Leslie
W. Dunbar:
          
            The case for unions that could bring self-defense, and
self-reliance, to the poor and powerless is overwhelming. . . There is
simply no other expectable way in our economy for these bottom-rung
workers to become self-sustaining except through collective
bargaining.
          
          Especially in the South where business and government conspire to
oppose and obstruct organization, we need laws which encourage
unionization. In addition, we must support Southern black and white
workers' efforts to organize their own hospital, food service and
clerical unions. Here again, endemic racism looms as one of the basic
obstacles to organizing the un-organized. A recent study by Herbert
Hill, former director of the NAACP Legal Defense Education Fund,
concludes that the AFLCIO leadership has "refused to accept the
perspective of interracial unionism," a factor which has contributed
significantly to the nationwide decline in workforce unionization from
thirty-six percent in 1955 to only twenty-one percent today.
          
            Question Pentagon Spending
          
          While the Reagan Administration has drastically reduced the federal
government's commitment to social services, it has concomitantly
reversed a twenty-year trend of gradual decline in the military
proportion of the budget. For fiscal 1982, military spending was
increased by $28 billion, to $199 billion, the largest peacetime
one-year increase in absolute dollars in U.S. history. Reagan's
program for an accelerated military buildup calls for a total of $ 1.6
trillion over the next five years! Black leaders must question the
dire economic consequences of military spending of this magnitude.
          Even the political aims of military policy require a sound and
healthy domestic economy. A report released in 1982 by Employment
Research Associates of Lansing, Michigan, shows the contrary to
long-held and popular belief, military spending is not
good for the economy, for it 

inhibits economic growth and
actually generates unemployment. According to the study, defense
spending--because it produces no socially useful goods or services,
and because it is peculiarly capital intensive--leads to more loss of
employment and more inflation than any other category of government
spending. The net loss of jobs disproportionately affects black
Americans, because they are overwhelmingly involved in the production
of durable goods, services and state and local government--three of
the hardest-hit categories of the economy when military spending is
high. Specifically, the study finds that every one billion dollars
spent in the Pentagon budget results in fourteen thousand fewer jobs
than if the money had been spent in the private sector, and a net loss
of thirty-thousand jobs as compared with spending the money in the
state and local government sector. The report concludes:
          
            The deep problems of the American economy cannot be ameliorated
until the military budget is cut and the money either is left in the
hands of citizens through tax cuts or spent on economically productive
activities by the government--federal, state or local.
          
          A significant and growing constituency does not believe that the
rapidly escalating military budget buys extra security for the
U.S. Already the grass-roots movement for arms control and nuclear
disarmament has forced even the bellicose Reagan Administration to
consider negotiations on strategic weapons. The political climate in
now ripe for blacks and the poor to take the lead in integrating
anti-nuclear sentiment into a unified opposition to the buildup of
military weapons. In challenging the Pentagon's budget, we must deal
with specific items by always raising the question: Does spending for
this particular weapon advance a valid concept of national security,
or does it represent, like the B-1 bomber, waste and "overkill"?
          
            Extend Democracy
          
          Present supply-side economic policies have enabled the wealthy to
luxuriate in tax cuts or stash them in shelters, while corporations
have used their windfalls to bid against and buy up one
another. Instead, the national government should be encouraging
private investment in new and modernized production capacity and
placing public investment into the rebuilding of cities and the
development of skills. Long-term gains can accrue through government
investment in education and job training to both revitalize basic
industries and pursue high technologies.
          Finally, however, a fairer distribution of social wealth is
essential. The major problem is that of controlling the arrogance and
ruthlessness of trans-national corporations. Recent proposals for
economic democracy and for greater worker control include the
requiring of public shareholders in major corporations, encouraging
employee-owned businesses, using union pension funds to achieve labor
influence in corporate decisions and restricting corporate mergers.
          To date, the most comprehensive working class alternative program
to the current climate of accommodation and "givebacks" by labor
unions in which workers sacrifice wages and benefits for so-called job
protection, is the "Campaign for Corporate Concessions" spearheaded by
former Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union vice president Tony
Mazzocchi. The underlying assumption of the Mazzocchi plan is that
workers must assume responsibility for the management of the national
wealth themselves by having unions demand bargaining power over
corporate investment, plant location, supervisory staffing,
etc. Specifically, Mazzocchi's program calls for a three-year freeze
on the following: overseas corporate investment; unilateral investment
decisions by management; further reductions in workers" incomes;
increases in management compensation; the hiring of more supervisors;
and a freeze on unnecessary mergers and on speculations.
          As Mark Green, former head of Ralph Nader's Congress-watch, states,
the fundamental issue of the 1980's is "how to generate and distribute
wealth in a new era." The other face of the continued growth of
corporate wealth and power is the significant growth in poverty
rates. A minimum of fourteen percent, or thirty-two million people,
are now impoverished in the United States. More than sixty percent of
the poor are black or Hispanic and more than half are children. There
is no more compelling agenda for the politics of the coming years than
to reduce the upward trend in misery.
          
            Suggested Bibliography
          
          Ackerman, Frank. Reaganomics: Rhetoric
vs. Reality. Boston South End Press, 1982.
          Auletta, Ken. The Underclass. New York: Random
House, 1982.
          Ferguson, Thomas, and Rogers, Joel (eds.). Hidden Election:
Politics &Economics in the 1980 Presidential Election. New
York: Pantheon, 1981.
          Gill, Gerald R. Meanness Mania, The Changed
Mood. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1980.
          Green, Mark J. Winning Back America: Alternatives to
Reaganomics. New York: Bantam, 1982.
          Hayden, Tom. The American Future: New Visions Beyond the
Reagan Administration. New York: Washington Square Press,
Inc., 1982.
          Lekachman, Robert. Greed Is Not Enough:
Reaganomics. New York: Pantheon, 1982.
          Piven, Frances Fox, and Cloward, Richard A. The New Class
War. New York: Pantheon, 1982.
          Preston, Michael B., et al. (eds.). The New Black Politics,
The Search for Political Power. New York: Longman, Inc.,
1982.
          Wolfe, Alan. America's Impasse. New York: Pantheon,
1982.
          
            Monte Piliawsky is an associate professor of political
science at Dillard University. He is author of Exit 13:
Oppression and Racism in Academia.
          
        