On September 28, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich spoke on the floor of the House in regards to the proposed $700 billion Wall Street bailout, asking, "Is this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs?"
For once, Congress took seriously the words of the idealistic presidential hopeful -- a man who would have been the laughingstock of the 2008 Dartmouth Democratic Debates had Mike Gravel not stolen his limelight. The bill, which sought to address our current economic crisis by indiscriminately throwing tax dollars at the banks whose reckless lending got us into this mess, lost Monday in a House vote of 228 to 205.
Kucinich's jab was directed at the bill's architect, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson '68. Previously, Paulson served as CEO of Goldman Sachs.
Yet despite the continued economic pain the country will face as a result of Monday's stock market crash, the bill's defeat signals something good for everyday Americans: their voices are finally being heard.
It wasn't just Kucinich -- who winked charmingly at students in Spaulding Auditorium as he promised to lower the voting age to 16 -- that spoke out against the bailout. As the New York Times reports, lawmakers cast their vote in part because of an "outpouring of opposition from deeply hostile constituents."
At Dartmouth, we are keen to soak in conservative theories from our economics department, sheltered from the plight of American workers by a picturesque Hanover bubble with a local economy that feeds off the College's steady endowment. But in the real world -- where jobs are lost daily and millions live without healthcare -- people are beginning to question why, for the last 40 years, our government has clung to a dogmatic fiscal credo that fails to offer comprehensive economic policies directed towards ordinary Americans. Indeed, Americans' vitriolic response to Paulson's bailout shows that they have had enough with the "free-market-will-cure-all" mantra that Republicans and Democrats alike have championed since the '70s.
Seventy-five years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt responded to a similar American banking crisis by enacting a series of progressive policies designed to ease unemployment and regulate irresponsible financial institutions. While interning in Washington this summer, I visited the monument that pays homage to FDR's New Deal. Overshadowed by the gigantic statues of our Founding Fathers and breathtaking war memorials, the monument epitomizes current attitudes towards FDR's economic progressivism: It is an inspiring but oft-forgotten historical attraction.
Monday's proceedings suggest that things are changing, though. The billionaire Dartmouth alums who run Wall Street waited for their golden parachute from their buddy in the Treasury, but the people said no. Americans know that their lives won't be improved by giving a $700 billion check to greedy investment bankers, and now they are demanding a solution to this crisis that -- like the New Deal -- addresses the worker, the true fundamental of our economy. Already some of their demands have affected the political discourse: universal health coverage, a living wage and green jobs are all major selling points in Obama's campaign for presidency.
But there's still a long way to go. In American academia -- traditionally a field of great importance to economic policymakers -- support for New Deal-style economics is hard to find. Influential American economists at Dartmouth and elsewhere continue to snub their noses at progressive and Keynesian economic theory, despite its wild popularity in Western Europe and Scandinavia, where a focus on providing social services and infrastructure have made "welfare states" like Denmark among the most competitive economic powerhouses in the world.
So what does the everyday American do next? Electing Obama as president and securing a Democratic majority in Congress isn't enough; this country has seen Democrats pander to Wall Street for decades. Americans must continue to demand that their needs -- not investment bankers' salaries -- are given priority.
Though I am unduly privileged to attend a school like Dartmouth on a full scholarship, I can't help but connect the dire state of our nation to my life at home, where our country's failed economic policies put an all-too-tangible roadblock in front of my mother's search for employment. Having that personal connection to America's financial woes reminds me of the urgency with which our government must provide a comprehensive and sensible solution. It also further infuriates me when my libertarian peers haughtily recite their "socially liberal but fiscally conservative" catchphrase as they wipe the Keystone off their designer shoes.
Fiscal conservatism has had since at least the Reagan era to prove itself to America, and look where it's gotten us today. Now that the laissez-fairy tale has been exposed, it's time for an economic policy that will both address our current crisis and guide the American people into lasting prosperity.
