Bread

The term "Bread" is used to refer to the transition to a decent society, one that satisfies core rights, eliminates discriminations, ensures equal opportunity and exercises compassion for the less fortunate. A decent society shows respect to those outside its bounds that it impacts. It is a steward of the environment, respectful of the next generation, and it pays its bills. In a decent society, there are no "throw away" people, whether because of race, or gender identity, or age, or other characteristic. In a decent society we say both "If I am not for mysef, who will be?" and "If I am only for myself, what am I?"

Roses

The term "Roses" is used to refer to what lies beyond decency. This includes beauty in the public domain, enabling lives of meaning and purpose, expanded leisure, overcoming the deeper underemployment of unused human potential. And it involves education that unlocks, for all, the treasures of our human inheritance, and imparts the values and skill sets that enable us to live authentically, lightly, and vibrantly. It means discovering and nurturing the creativity that every child is born with. And it means drawing on the wisdom of those with life experience. In all, it means Renaissance in America.

"Bread": Policy Specifics

Money and Politics

1. A $50 Refundable Tax Credit for Campaign Contributions. Severing the link between big money and politicians is essential for any serious effort to reform the Congress, and for any serious effort to make government work for most of the people. I support a Constitutional Amendment to overcome the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, which enables super PACs to receive unlimited funds from large corporations and the super-wealthy/super-powerful among us. Achieving this, however, is not likely to happen any time soon as amending the Constitution is an enormous task, and the powers that be, would move to defeat such effort.

In the immediate present, we need a totally different approach: Rather, than restricting big-money, we should empower those with little money. Campaign contributions in 2016 for the Presidential race and all Congressional contests combined, totaled approximately $6.8 billion—a figure that may sound like a lot, but given the size of our economy, is not. In 2016 our GDP was around $18 trillion. 1% of that is $180 billion. The $6.8 billion is less than 4% of that, so we are only talking about 4/100ths of 1% of our economy. There are 250 million adults in America. If we provided each adult with the right to be reimbursed for up to $50 they might give to the campaign of their choice (a $50 per person refundable tax credit for campaign contributions), this would generate $12.5 billion in small size campaign contributions, completely swamping the role of big money! Essentially, we would use the tax system to provide each adult American citizen with a $50 spending account to be used for campaign contributions. People could give to whomever they choose. Not only would this dramatically dis-empower big-money, it would powerfully promote the engagement of poor and low-income Americans in our civic life. And it would make campaign contributors in the “bottom 99%”of most interest to politicians. It would also make it feasible for candidates to refuse any PAC funding. If $50 proved insufficient we could to a $100 credit per person.

Health Care Rights

2. A national right to affordable, adequate health care. The best way to secure such right is along the lines advocated by Bernie Sanders and John Conyers. This means moving towards a single-payer system, with no deductibles, and no co-pays. And it means financing this major shift, with bold steps that reform the tax system, rolling back the redistribution to the rich tax-heist recently enacted by the Republican dominated Congress.

That said, the problems of transition from our current system to a Canadian-style or Israeli-style system are substantial and perceived as threatening by many who already have decent health insurance. For instance, if you already have decent health care coverage, and if much of it is paid for by your employer, you are sitting pretty and are likely to not be eager for big upheavals. In truth, the problems of transition may be more daunting than the problems of actually running a totally new system.

Fortunately, it is possible to make major progress towards securing for all the right to affordable and adequate health care on a voluntary basis and with only limited pressure on public finances. The current Medicare program, with its deductibles and co-pays, is far from perfect, but it is a good program, strongly embraced by most recipients. At present, you need to be sixty-five to get coverage. We should expand the program, making it possible for anyone, living anywhere in the United State to "buy-in" to the program. For those seeking to do so, who already receive employer contributions, they would be able to re-direct such contributions to Medicare, and because of efficiencies, in most cases their present insurance payments would be more than sufficient to cover the remaining premium costs. For those with modest incomes that are above the cut-off level for Medicaid, there would need to be some subsidization of premiums. No one would be required to shift their health plans, and existing private plans would have to improve to compete or otherwise watch a voluntary shift to single-payer.

With respect to those who seek to game the system by being un-covered until they need health care, there could be a requirement of pay-back for skipped premiums plus a penalty fee. This could be done through the tax system.

3. Health Insurance Coverage (Extension): Extend to 29, the age to which parents may elect to cover their children on their health insurance policies.

Wages and Economic Rights

4. A Right to a "Living Wage" Income Level For All Working Americans. 

The federal minimum wage needs to be raised and then indexed to inflation. $15/hour seems reasonable, though living expenses vary considerably in dfferent parts of the country. Rather than fixating on a specific number, we should establish in law the goal: No American family with at least one full-time worker equivalent should be living in poverty. Depending on family composition, even a higher minimum wage may be insufficient to achieve this goal. Thus we should proceed through two steps:

(I) Revive, within the Bureau of Labor Statistics the calculation of "health and decency budgets." These are not actually wage levels but income levels required for families with different compositions to live at levels of decency. They were calculated by the Labor Department for most of the 20th Century, ending during the Reagan administration.

(II) Link the level of the existing Refundable Earned Income Credit which supplements earned income, to an Increased Minimum Wage such that the combined effect of the minimum-wage increase plus the refundable income credit is sufficient for each family with at least one full-time worker (or its equivalent) to live at the calculated "health and decency" level. This proposal enables all full-time American workers to earn a "living wage" income without having to resolve the sterile policy debate over exactly how high the minimum wage can go before it causes businesses to shift to job-eliminating technologies. These levels would be indexed to inflation going forward.

Taxes, Tax Reform, and the Economy

5. Moderate the Impact of Recessions and Unemployment: One of the greatest inequalities in American life is found in the pattern of unemployment. The focus on a single national rate of unemployment (e.g. 5%) conceals that fact that for specific groups (e.g. youth, people of color, blue collar workers) a 5% national rate may mean 10% or 15% or 20% unemployment for them. At the same time, even when the national rate is very high, say 8% unemployment, groups such as white professionals may face levels of unemployment of only 3% or less. This is especially unjust when the unemployment is the direct result of a government decision to "cool down" the economy to fight inflation.

During World War II we had long periods in which both the unemployment rate and the rate of inflation did not exceed 2%. While no one wants to return to war-time controls, it does demonstrate that when the stakes are high, there are other policy choices when in comes to controlling inflation. The burden of our current "dampen the economy through restrictive monetary policy" places the burden most centrally on those at the bottom. This is deeply unjust.

One approach is to have selective jobs stimulation programs ready to go in low income areas, and to have them automatically launched when the unemployment level exceeds a pre-determined level.

We also need policies that will moderate the impact of a weak economy. A variety of approaches should be experimented with, including work sharing which might allow all workers at a plant to undergo a day off each week, with everyone staying on the job. Also we could move towards patterns of work in which each person would be trained in multiple fields, and employed in two or more sectors, thus helping ensure that no one would be fully out of work, even in downturns.

6. Wealth: Estate Taxes and a Right to Share in the Nation's Wealth Expand, rather than eliminate, the estate tax. People who have worked hard have a right to leave their children and grandchildren the fruits of their labor. But there are limits. There is no place in a democratic society for a permanent aristocracy of inherited wealth and power.

It is not sufficient to tax a portion of the great estates. We should also dedicate estate tax revenues to establish birthright accounts for all newborns. And we should supplement such funds by dedicating revenues attained from closing the present loophole that avoids any payment of capital gains when property (e.g. stock holdings) is transferred at time of death. Exemptions that would allow small family businesses to function when transferred to the next generation would continue to be provided.

7. Weath Development/Tenant-Ownership: Establishment of the right of tenants to priority-in-purchase should an owner decide to sell a rental property. Establish within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a program that will provide tenants, or tenant groups, with technical, organizational, and financial assistance so they might purchase and convert their rental dwellings into cooperatives, owner-occupied condominiums, and owner-occupied homes, and further assist in the development of the management skills to maintain them. Provision to very low income tenant-groups of purchase vouchers that will provide them with assistance in coming up with a down payment to purchase properties for their residence, whether they presently live there or not.

8. Empowering the Vulnerable: A $100 Per Person Refundable Tax Credit for Contributions to Non-Profits: This would give poor and low-income households the ability to support the non-profits organizations that address the problems most central to their lives. One value of this, in addition to expanding the role of non-profit social well-being/empowerment organizations, is that the not-for-profit sector provides highly meaningful job opportunities at relatively low cost. An expansion of the non-profit payroll by, say $25 billion, could provide as many as 500,000 full-time jobs, or more creatively, a million half-time jobs, or even 2 million quarter-time jobs for healthy retirees who are eager to contribute their energy and life skills to causes that they believe in.

This kind of program could be used in low income areas as one of the automatic job stimulation measures needed to prevent inflation control from falling unfairly on vulnerable demographic groups.

Right to a Safe Childhood

Every child has the right to a childhood without fear; no one in America should be born into an environment in which it is dangerous to go out and play, an environment in which their daily lives are ruled by violence and intimidation, an environment in which they are both afraid of the police, and are confronted with criminality on a daily basis.

It is a national disgrace that we have such places in America, and it is indicative of who we are as a nation that they can be found within walking distance of the Capital. Once a year, every member of Congress should be required to walk, alone, through neighborhoods within three miles of their offices, and if they are afraid, let them reflect on the children who are born into those neighborhoods and know nothing else.

A decent society simply cannot abide by such reality. It is time to open our eyes. What can be done?

Worst things first. We need to commit to the full transformation of these environments. And we need to start with the worst, and begin the long march to a society we can be proud of. To do this we must break new ground and we should experiment with multiple holistic approaches in the cities and neighborhoods that are the most dangerous, including Maryland's largest: Baltimore. Such holistic approaches might include:

1. Gangs/Drugs: Establish a National Commission to develop a holistic approach to gangs, include schooling, employment apprenticeships, and policing to assure personal safety in inner-city neighborhoods and to free young people from gang intimidation. Fund alternative approaches to the drug problem, seeking to discover what can work in the U.S. Portugal decriminalized drug use in 2001 (not the drugs themselves) and has come close to eliminating death through over-dose.
2. Inner-City Schools: Inner-City schools would be eligible to apply for special "transformation grants" for innovative programs, that counter school-flight through education enrichment that provides services and curricula often available at only the best private schools in the nation.

Administrators/Teachers/Parents collaboration in design and approval of grant submissions would be required. Overall, the goal is to show that inner-city schools can become magnet schools.

1. Focused Efforts on Employment, Home Ownership, Wealth Development and Beautification: This agenda, on a national approach calls for such programs. The cities and neighborhoods where the right to a safe childhood is most seriously violated must receive priority in funding these kinds of programs.
2. Violent Crime. In fulfilling the right to a safe childhood, while the socio-economic roots of criminality must be addressed, there must also be a strong response to those who actually carry our crimes of violence. How those who commit violent crimes are dealt with when incarcerate is a separate issue from whether they are incarcerated. A safe childhood agenda requires that violent offenders are not allowed to continue to endanger and intimidate others.

Perspective on Immigration, Refugees, and Sanctuary:

We should have far greater openness to refugees. It is hard to reconcile our tough-guy, gun toting, John Wayne country with our lack of courage when it comes to standing up for our values and common humanity. At the same time, in a democracy there is a powerful case for obedience to the law. We must have both, a more welcoming society and strong respect for the laws we enact.

But can we turn desperate people away? Should we not give sanctuary regardless of the law? I believe it makes little sense to speak of support for sanctuary in general. It all depends on context— sanctuary from what? The specifics make the difference. Consider the St. Louis, a ship that in 1939 carried Jewish refugees from Germany. They were denied entry by Cuba, their intended port, and when they sought entry to the U.S., their appeal was ignored. Ultimately, the refugees returned to Europe where half of them perished in the Holocaust. Suppose, when off the Florida coast, they had jumped overboard and swam to American shores. I would hope that I would have had the conscience to provide sanctuary to these illegals, and the strength to accept the penalties I would have faced for violating the law. Indeed, I would hope that our society would have been wise enough to use "prosecutorial discretion" to not indict those who provided sanctuary, when the law has not caught up with common morality.

Perspectives on Crime, Justice and Imprisonment

1. Rape Adjudication: Rape is a criminal offense and should be reported to the police, immediately investigated and promptly prosecuted. Ways to make this doable with dignity need to be enhanced. At the same time, those accused of rape are entitled to the full protection of the law. Colleges should get out of the business of trying to determine what happened, adjudicating, and imposing their own sanctions. We need an enforceable law that guarantees rape victims the prompt investigation of the crimes they have suffered. Steps need to be taken to make it easier for victims to come forward, report rape to the police, and attain expedited police response to these crimes.
2. Crimes Within Prisons: The threat and reality of sexual abuse and male or female rape in American prisons is an indelible stain on us all. It rises to the level of un-Constitutional "cruel and unusual punishment," and as those who run such institutions we are complicit-by-default in this criminality. Such in-prison sex crimes must be eliminated, including if necessary, by special Justice Department takeovers of prisons, special prosecutors, and incarceration of prison officials who violate the law. It will surely cost money, but even prisoners are entitled to minimal norms of decency.
3. Closing Prisons: Eliminating victimization of the incarcerated is not suffificent. The basic "lock-em-up" approach to crime in America has not worked. Non-violent crimes should not be met with long periods of incarceration. Disparities in criminalization, prosecution and sentencing between racial groups is intolerable, and should be viewed as an un-Constitutional violation of the right to equal protection under the law.

Imprisonment for violent stranger-to-stranger crime should focus on both mental health issues which are pervasive and on equipping those who are imprisoned with the skills and education that will enable them to turn their lives around rather than becoming hardened repeat offenders. A person's first imprisonment should be seen by society as a one-time opportunity, perhaps a last chance, to intervene forcefully in the offenders life trajectory. In-prison degree completion and higher education programs should be widely available, as well as teaching entrepreneurship skills. Exposure to the humanities, creative writing and arts expression seem to produce results and should be evaluated and, very probably, greatly expanded. Post-prison support must replace rote check-ins with parole officers.

"Roses": Policy Specifics

Introduction

The Roses/Renaissance Agenda seeks to address four central questions

1. How do we make America into the land of "With Beauty for All"
2. What policies will assist people in achieving work/life balance so that there is time for the best things in life?
3. What policies will assist people, whether young or old, to draw on their deepest potentials and translate them into meaningful forms of activity, whether paid or unpaid.
4. What policies will assist us in lowering our need for income, so that we may work less and opt for more meaningful work.

This last question, about lowering our need for income, itself opens a variety of questions. Some of them are sector-based, such as, how do we lower what we need for housing, or transportation, or retirement. But another has to do with consumerism, with not developing the felt-need for so much stuff, and how education for modest living can be promoted through the right kind of education. That of course raises key questions about what is "the right education" and the proper role of schools in an economically insecure society.

These are enormously complex and wonderfully interesting questions about the fundamental intersections of work, time, money and happiness. They receive insufficient attention by policy makers and Washington think-tanks. I have engaged with these questions over a lifetime, both in thought and action (e.g. helping to found the organization "Take Back Your Time"). Much of what I have to say is contained in my book, Graceful Simplicity: The Philosophy and Politics of the Alternative American Dream. Excerpts are on the website, along with many of my writings about the economic realm and its relationship to human fulfillment and flourishing.

We need to make use of an approach to economic policy that was developed by thinkers such as Paul Streeten, the author of "First Things First." The approach was termed "the basic needs" approach and was formulated in the context of development economics, with low income countries in mind.  What is needed then, is a sector by sector analysis, identifying what the key needs are in each sector of the household budget, whether there is a problem in meeting those needs at modest levels of income, and if so, how to make it possible to do so. The "basic needs" approach is the primary alternative to "trickle down." Thus rather that saying, infant mortality declines with higher levels of GDP and thus we should push for growth as much as possible, we say, "the primary cause of infant mortality in third world countries is dehydration caused by diarrehia -- with the provision of sugar and salt treatments at the village level, at very low cost, deaths from dehydration can be cut in half with two years, whether or not the economy as a whole expands"

Food: We are the beneficiaries of the greatest transformation in economic history. Two centuries ago, the average person worked ten months a year, just to earn enough or to grow enough to keep their family adequately fed. Today, because of an incredible increase in labor productivity in the agricultural sector, this is achieved in the US after about six weeks of worth.

Similarly, clothing today occupies a very minor part of household expenditure. Thus for both food and clothing basic needs can be met with modest over income.

Inefficiency of American Society

Lowering cost of meeting basic needs

1. Housing

Further promotion of self-reliance through simpler home design projects and vocational training that empowers people to participate in their own home construction. Promote changes in zoning regulations to facilitate widespread ownership of modest homes such as the “tiny-home movement.”

2. Education

1. Free Higher Education: Bernie Sanders, hats off to him, put this proposal into mainstream political discourse in the 2016 Presidential Primary contest. In my book, Graceful Simplicity, published in 1999, I advanced the same idea, based on my own free education at the City College of New York in the 1960's. I recognize that there are also other ways of making college more accessible for those families with low and moderate income. We could add to our crazy-quilt of Federal, State and private loans; we could add to student aid funds; and we can expand work-study programs.

A central limitation of these approaches compared to free higher education becomes visible when set against a more far-reaching criterion: the goal of making our economy “user-friendly” for those who seek to live modesty. Knowing that your children’s future education is secured, allows for freedom in lifestyle choices, freedom to choose more leisure and less income, freedom to opt for meaning rather than money, freedom to provide for one’s children the great blessing of parents who are less stressed, and who are less likely to stress their children, parents who have time and better mental health and enthusiasm for the lives they are living. No one should go through life worrying about how they will pay for their children’s education years ahead, and no one should have to count on annual governmental appropriations for accessibility funding, when both our private fortunes and the commitment of political decision makers, are subject to ever more uncertainty. The education of our young people should be anchored in free public institutions and this, in our very wealthy society, should be viewed as a right. 

Health care and education, especially, pre-kindergarten and college education, require considerable household income. Moving to a single payer system in health care, and free pubic higher education, will add two more sectors to the group in which basic needs are met on modest income

What remains, are housing, transportation, communications and economic security especially as we age. Here the situation is quite different in different sectors. In housing the real issue is affordable access to neighborhoods with good public schools and where it is sufficiently safe to tell one's children: Go out and play. Such neighborhoods are out of reach for most Americans. It is neigborhood transformation that is required.

In transportation, the basic need of being able to get around between the venues of everyday life are met for most people.  ple.What are needed are policies that make it possible to do without a car, or to makes it significantly less expensive to own and maintain one.  

With Beauty For All

Promoting Home Ownership at the Bottom

1. Ownership Enables Enhancing City Life Across the Country: We need comprehensive quality of life transformation that will affect all sectors: housing, schools, crime, policing, unemployment, with special focus on beautification and renaissance. Key is to start with transition from rental housing to ownership. Home ownership is the anchor. Otherwise there will be rapid gentrification, and rise in rents, with people pushed out of neighborhoods. Ownership is key to neighborhood stability and commitment.
2. Home ownership Promotion Policies: Designation of high unemployment urban areas as transformation zones within which sales to tenants are promoted through new policies. Consideration should be given to a) Allowing landlords who sell to tenants, to defer part of their capital gains, when funds are re-invested outside real estate sector. Presently, landlords are locked into having to buy one property if they sell another. b) Provide tenants with credit and down payment assistance to facilitate by-outs. This would be accompanied by a small bonus payment to landlord sellers upon sale to tenants. Thus, landlords would be offered slightly above market prices and opportunity to exit from rental real estate by selling to tenants, and tenants would be offered wherewithal to make purchases. c) Newly acquired conversion properties, provided they are owned and occupied by former renters, would receive a holiday on real estate taxes for an initial period. Overall goal is to ensure that monthlies are lower for tenants as new owners than when renters.

- Facilitate home fix up by the new low-income owners. Provide programs in skills development – insulation, painting, plumbing, landscaping. 

Once home ownership reaches target levels, then leap-frog to beautification commences, and beautification + ownership becomes a wealth accumulation strategy as well.

Quality of Life and Urban Environments

1. Urban Beautification: Establishment within the Department of Agriculture of services or a special program that will carry out the planting of 300 million trees throughout American towns and cities and most essentially, in parking lots that are a blight in every city and town in America.

- Tree-care financial allotments to young persons over age 8 who adopt a tree

- Inner City Nectarine Project. You can grow them in Philadelphia! Most Americans have never tasted a tree ripened nectarine -- totally different than the inferior fruit available even in quality stores. (Admittedly my personal obsession, buy I'm right).

- Emulate the most elite neighborhoods inside the DC beltway with the planting of tens of thousands of flowering cherry trees.

2. Inner-City Quality of Life #1: Food:

- Eliminate the injustice that throughout America, middle-class neighborhoods have both lower priced and higher quality supermarkets. Outlaw such forms of discrimination by chain stores.

- Through a Commerce Department service, provide technical assistance and loans to local entrepreneurs, aiming to create vibrant local shops as in Paris or Manhattan.

- In very low-income areas, provide subsidies to lower prices, not just for basics but for pastry shops and delicatessens as well.

3. Inner-City Quality of Life #2: Art and Culture:

- Creation of inner-city projects to promote urban beautification including murals and training in fine arts and performing arts for urban youth, building on the success of the Federal Arts Project/Works Progress Administration (WPA) under the New Deal.

- Invest in making inner-cities cultural hubs, centers for music, theatre, dance and museums.

4. Equal Access to America's Natural Beauty

- Eliminate entry fees to America's nation parks, or provide free-entry cards for those at the bottom.

- Provide initial Grant Support to Summer Camps that Offer Free Summer Camp to children from low income families.

- Provide grants to non-profits that provide day or weekend trips into the countryside for children from the inner cities.

- Provide grants to non-profits that provide counselor-in-training opportunities to young adults from inner cities.

1. Equal Access to Art Museums

Recently the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York decided that visitors from outside the city would be charged $25 admission to the otherwise free museum. This terrible decision reflects the financing problem facing museums around the country. The worst situations are when local people are charged admission fees so high that they effectively cut off access by low-income families. This is simply intolerable, especially for institutions who celebrate the importance of art as part of the good life. Because of various forms of assistance to museums, the Congress has the ability to put a halt to such practices, and it should. But it has to also face the question of how the financial costs of running these great institution are to be covered. Private contributions play a major role, but we need legislation either to enhance such contributions or to increase direct government support.

1. Promoting and Protecting Natural Beauty

-  Establish a national CCC-type program to hire unemployed coal miners to restore cutoff Appalachian mountaintops.

-  Including beautiful design as a decision criteria in awarding contracts for major infrastructure projects.

- Convert more national monuments to national parks thereby protecting them from arbitrary presidential decisions.

-  Immediately extend funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which expires September 30.

1. Equal Access to the Natural Beauty of Our Nation

- Eliminate all entry fees to national parks for anyone who qualifies for Medicaid

- Establish Birthright Trips Whereby Every Young American would be entitled to the equivalent of eight weeks of experience of our national parks

- Enlist the non-profit sector in developing these programs and the corporate    sector in funding them

 - Establishment of training programs in preparation for the visitation trips, skill of the sort we learned when we were kids in the Scouts -- fire building, wood                                   cutting, tree identification, rock climbing

 - Grant support for a diversity of new scouting organizations.

 - Establish "Wider Horizons" travel programs for young people, especially from the Transitional Cities to experience the most exciting and beautiful places in the                                     country, both in big cities such as San Francisco, great college towns such as Ann Arbor, unbelievable environments such as the Pacific coast line and                                     Alaska.

- For the Transformation Cities such as Detroit and Baltimore, the Birthright Travel allotment would be doubled to a total of 16 weeks which could be one    month for 4 summers or any other combination.

1. Education for Renaissance

A society in Renaissance is a society of human flourishing and of creative expression. All children are born with such potential, and they should be enhanced through schooling not depleted. It should become a general requirement, starting at the earliest years of education, that every young person master at least one way of adding beauty to the social world. This should be part of how we understand the general obligation of all to contribute to society.

Beauty takes so many forms, and its creation is such a natural source of pride, that this is not hard to do. Achieving "value-added" in the realm of beauty can be done in music, literature, gardening, cooking, painting, carpentry, film making, dress making, soup making, hair styling, landscaping, sculpture, pottery, poetry and pet grooming. Indeed, virtually all human endeavor has an aesthetic dimension.

Facilitating Work/Life Balance

It is not the job of government to ensure that people are happy; nor to ensure that their lives are balanced. Rather, the responsibility of government is to help to shape the structures of society, the rules of the game, the rights and responsibilities recognized under law, so that the successful pursuit of happiness is not frustrated. The goal is that our society be made "user friendly" for those seeking to find a balance between earning a living, and living.

How to benefit from increased productivity?

The great engine of material transformation is growth in labor productivity. But productivity growth can be taken in two very different forms (and anywhere in between). We can keep work hour constant and produce more that ever before. Or we can hold output constant and work less than ever before. For much of the nineteenth Century and the first third of the Twentieth Century the goals of the Labor Movement were to both reduce working hours (from 60 hour, six day workweek, to a 40 hour, five day work week) and to increase income. Then, without any actual decision or debate, America stopped reducing hours of work, and on the household level, as women entered the paid work force, we went in the other direction,

1. Time-Liberty: Establishment of a national right of each worker to choose to forgo income in exchange for leisure time. Gradual introduction of an increasing number of days per year any person working for large companies (over 25 employees) could elect unpaid time-off (for any reason, with advance notice). Alternatively, the gradual introduction of Fridays as an optional workday such that, without pay, one could opt for a three-day weekend.
2. Right to Time-Off With Pay: The United States is the only major industrialized country that does not guarantee its workers a paid vacation. This leftover objective from the New Deal needs to be achieved promptly. Vacation time should be supplemented with the right to paid sick leave, family emergency leave, and parental leave. As an aspirational goal, our country should aim towards the right of workers to take five weeks of paid leave to be used for any purpose, current law on family and medical leave only ensures unpaid leave. This too, should be expanded.

Discovering Our Potential, Achieving Se

1. Work Sabbaticals: Thirty-nine years ago, the Congressman I worked for, Donald M. Fraser, introduced legislation that would create work sabbaticals. Fraser focused on the fact that under our Social Security system, people have the option of retiring at age 62 with reduced benefits, or waiting until age 65 (now 67) for full benefits. He suggested that people be able to take work sabbaticals—an optional year at reduced benefits, every 10 years of their work life, say at ages 35, 45 and 55. This would give individuals an enormous opportunity to retool, to try something different, or just to regain a vitality they may have lost.

Food -- not just cost but thrill of growing/inner city farming

1. subsidize urban farms and smaller sustainable farms in the heartland
2. Add an A to STEM, making it STEAM.  The A stands for Arts and Agriculture both
3. Fund university training for young farmers--young people want to grow food successfully and need to be trained to do so--just as important as computer science.

Humanizing the Job System: Worker Liberation

1. Urban Extension Service: Modeled on the extension services of the Department of Agriculture, the establishment of an urban extension service: aprogram that assists small size, would-be-entrepreneurs, in successfully undertaking start-ups.

 2. Workers' First Right of Refusal: Preventing Business Closure: A first right of refusal should be given to employees (in any firm of over 50 workers) to purchase, as a worker-owned establishment, any company that would otherwise close down or re-locate. Establishment of services, programs, and policies in the Department of Labor that provide workers the wherewithal to undertake an analysis of the financial implications of such purchases, and assist them in attaining financing for such buy-outs. Further, the establishment of an Arbitration Service, should the parties be unable to agree on a sales price or need to settle other transactional conflicts.