On Your Own: The Opt Out Society in Practice

The impact of the Opt Out Society can be seen across the policies the Bush administration has pursued since coming to office. These are consistently defined by three characteristics. First is market idolatry; all public policy issues are framed in terms of market choice, competition, and privatization. From school vouchers to a market for pollution credits, any outcome that results is by definition the right one, since it was freely decided by the market. Second, the politics of the Opt Out Society involve the concomitant privatization or outright elimination of government services, whether defunding public schools, encouragement of non-governmental "faith-based organizations", or the assault on a national retirement system, Social Security. Last, and most destructive during the war against terror, is the glorification of private interest and an extreme individualism that divides Americans by class and geography, and diminishes their belief and faith in their own government and institutions.

Take a look, for example, at the Bush energy policy. Formulated in secret (an approach for which Bush ultimately paid no political cost, unlike the Clinton administration's sorry experience with health care in 1993/4), the Bush/Cheney program merely rewarded producers without reform. Early on in the spring of 2001, its staunch support for market deregulation at any cost led the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reject California's pleas for price caps, an investigation into key companies like Enron or Duke Power, or any other market intervention. That we now know that Enron did in fact rig prices and limit energy supplies during the California blackouts, as then claimed by Gray Davis, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, was due only to Enron's malfeasance against its shareholders becoming public. (Gray Davis' recall and replacement by Arnold Schwarzeneggar in October 2003 was a bitter irony, as it was largely the result of the failed deregulation policies of his Republican predecessor and a GOP legislature.) At no point before or after September 11 was energy independence viewed as a national priority or vital issue of national security. ANWR would be opened to drilling as one means of expanding domestic oil production. Bowing to its allies in the energy and automotive industries, the GOP would not countenance raising fuel efficiency standards even as a national security measure.

The Republican approach to health care too reflects its Opt Out philosophy. Heading into the election of 2000, the GOP was touting private Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) to address the issues of rising health care costs and 41 million uninsured Americans. By offering tax deductions or credits to individuals setting aside funds each year for their own health care, the GOP would create incentives for generally younger, wealthier and healthier Americans to withdraw from larger insurance pools, while minimizing their own expenditures on "unnecessary" health care. The social impact, of course, would be higher premiums for Medicare, Medicaid and employer-funded health programs, as individuals left in these plans would be older, sicker and more often requiring long-term care. The president's initial prescription drug plan for seniors proposed in the fall of 2002 showed the same approach; the new benefit would be provided only to those opting out of Medicare, and instead putting funds into the hands of private insurers. Congressional Republicans did bow to public pressure on this point, but they won the war by building privatization of Medicare into the final bill in late 2003. Once again, the Republican message: you are on your own. The government has no responsibility to you, and you certainly have no responsibility to your fellow citizens.

As would be expected of a Republican administration, the Bush program for economic growth is its most naked and cynical. Coming to office proclaiming "it's your money", the Bush tax reform program has poured money into the hands of the wealthiest Americans who need it least. With unemployment hovering at 6% and 2.5 million jobs having evaporated in his term, Bush' s attack on the estate ("death") tax, progressive rates, and capital gains and dividend rates promises to empty government coffers and guarantee a mountain of deficits for years to come. (Only the $300 income tax rebate, advocated in 2001 by Senator Lieberman and other Democrats, offered any resemblance to near-term economic stimulus.) With his $350 billion "compromise" tax cut of May 2003 and his demand in the 2004 State of the Union speech that they be made permanent, Bush seeks to continue the administration's unapologetic policy of upward income redistribution. The sheer cynicism of that policy is exceeded only by the President's laissez-faire hypocrisy when it comes to steel tariffs and agricultural subsidies. In any event, as with Reagan and Bush the elder before him, Bush will leave a legacy of deficits that jeopardize economic growth and a government starved of funds for addressing the major challenges facing the nation.

Education reform is perhaps the most dramatic example of the Bush administration's belief in undermining public institutions and rewarding citizens for withdrawing their support as well. School vouchers represent the ultimate application of the market metaphor to public policy, as parents-as-consumers purchase educational performance as a product for their children. That there are other non-market considerations in educating our children (creating a sense of community, introducing students to others of different races and classes, inculcating American and democratic values) is irrelevant to the GOP; test scores are the only product in the market for education. Despite the administration's setback in 2001, victories by voucher proponents in the Cleveland Supreme Court decision, Colorado, and Washington, D.C. mean the threat of "School Choice" to public education is only just beginning. In essence, Republicans are saying to Americans, "this is not about our children; only be concerned with education of your own child. You have no obligation or responsibility to anyone's family but your own." That this encouragement to Americans to withdraw their support from common, public schools dovetails nicely with social conservatives' advocacy of parochial school education should come as no surprise. America's children are not just being left behind; they're being left in the dust.

The Opt Out philosophy also extends to the Republican program for retirement security. Social Security privatization has been a centerpiece of the president's program since his days as candidate. Despite the enormous success of the Social Security program in eradicating poverty among senior citizens, the Bush administration's clear message to Americans is that the only retirement issue of concern is your own. The Bush plan of 2000 allowing Americans to invest up to 16% of their current Social Security taxes is not only risky to investors (as the Dow dropped by a third and the Nasdaq by 75% in three years), but compromises the soundness of the program's financing by withdrawing $2 trillion from the Trust Fund over 10 years. That money for today and tomorrow's retirees has to come from somewhere; that's the price of "opting out." The administration would not consider any reform alternative other than the private market, such as means testing, progressive tax rates (perhaps as part of general revenue) for social security, or even a government-managed program of retirement investment options for participants. Yet again, the clear message, especially to younger workers, is "you are on your own, we are not in this together."

The Bush agenda extends its pervasive belief that Americans should not support common endeavors, and withdraw both their faith and their funds from their government to other aspects of public policy, both large and small. Environmental policy, media consolidation, and "faith-based" social services are clear examples. The "Clear Skies" program uses a regime of emissions "shares" to allow individual companies to skirt pollution limits previously in place under the Clean Air Act. The impact on Northeastern states from coal-burning power plants in the mid-west will be non-trivial. "Healthy Forests" and "Fair Use" rules extend the rights of logging companies, mining firms, farmers and herders to extract profits from public lands with limited restrictions, all for prices well below market rates. The attack on public goods is accompanied literally by an attack on the public good, the FCC's endorsement of corporate media consolidation being only the most recent. Further, the $8 billion federal office of "Faith-Based Initiatives" privatizes social service functions under the auspices of religious and sectarian groups that may discriminate against both potential employees and beneficiaries. (To not fund such groups, conservatives say, would be "discrimination against religion.") Never one for irony, President Bush might do well to consider that the Taliban was a faith-based organization.

At a time of war and threats to national security, the Opt Out Society championed by President Bush and the congressional GOP undermines national unity and the American social contract. Its vision of American society is a lonely and impoverished one. It tells Americans that they have few obligations to their government and even fewer to each other. The Republican notion of community is barren and empty, a modern version of Hobbes' war of each against all. The Opt Out Society encourages and rewards Americans for separating themselves from any one else not like themselves. From gated communities seeking tax exemptions and school tax breaks for the elderly to Internet communities of the like-minded and valet parking at public venues, it is 21st century secessionism, the nightmare of Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone. Americans have no commitment to each other for education, health care, retirement or virtually anything else. At a time of external threats to the United States, the Republican program clearly says we are not in this together. That Americans believe we are in this together can be the key to victory for Democrats in 2004.

1. Introducing the Opt Out Society
2. On Your Own: The Opt Out Society in Practice
3. Branding the Opt Out Society
4. Identity Politics and the Threat from the Left
5. A New American Bargain^TM: The Reciprocity Society^TM
6. The Reciprocity Society in Action