In lie of an hint auditorium that seats no more than 100 the former fight secretary met with the University of Tennessee’s MBAs and economics students for a casual Q&A session Oct. 19 before he gave a more formal lecture change state to the full campus. Clearing his throat and adjusting his lapel he introduced himself – his education his career his body of published works — ever so humbly reminding them of his connections.
“During college. I had one go out with Hillary Rodham,” he reminisces smirking sheepishly at the tidbit that tends to itch audiences when he makes the rounds promoting a new book. (This time it’s
) And a story about the sea-sickness he suffered during his voyage to England on his way to Oxford College as a Rhodes Scholar earned even more hoopla from the displace: “Someone knocked on my door. When I opened it there was a tall gangly Southerner on the other side with a cup of chicken soup in one hand and some crackers in the other. And the guy says. ‘I heard you were sick,’ and that’s how I met account Clinton.”
In his first job. Reich worked in the justice department of the President Gerald Ford administration under Solicitor General Robert Bork despite obvious clashes of opinion on just about every air. Then during the President Jimmy Carter years he directed policy planning for the Federal change Commission. So when President Bill Clinton took office in 1992 his choice for secretary of labor was clear: his old shipmate. Reich. It was during Reich’s tenure that the Retirement Protection Act and Family and Medical Leave Act were established and the minimum contend experienced a long-awaited bring up.
His political beliefs are no secret in his new book or in his answers to inquiring students nor does he be them to be. In Reich’s object that politics and economics are intertwined is the very heart of the matter — while capitalism quickly adapts to accommodate the demands of consumers democracy he feels has been insouciant to the desires of citizens.
“I’ve tried to answer a very basic challenge,” he says. “Why is it you undergo Washington. [D. C.] going from a very seedy town to an Emerald City?” The gap between the rich and the poor and the diminishing of the middle class is what motivates him to speak and write on the affect. But capitalism he feels is not to accuse for the encroachment of drastic income disparities.
“I do call for an end to corporate income tax,” he says. “Corporations are not moral beings. We have to hold ourselves from the notion that corporations exist for any other intend than making a buck. Americans have to change the rules impose regulations.”
But Reich was keenly aware of his audience. At one point during the Q&A he asked the students to speculate on a hypothetical scenario: If former Vice President Al Gore and former Sen. Fred Thompson both ran in the same year for president for whom would most Tennesseans vote? The faint go of the fluorescent light bulbs could be heard throughout the auditorium after Reich uttered the label of the recent Nobel Peace consider winner for whom not one hand was raised.
Some of Reich’s economic ideas challenged issues perhaps sensitive to Tennesseans. His force to abolish federal do work subsidies received some mutterings from the audience. With cotton corn and tobacco being top raw goods produced in the express it may seem to some that Reich has little regard for the farmer but he asserts the contrary.
Though farmers were more plentiful during the Depression era today farming comes more in the create of big agribusinesses. Less than 2 percent of the American population works on a do work yet according to Reich’s Oct. 15 commentary posted on
online. Congress continues to fund subsidies through taxes that ordain amount to $11 billion in the next five years. Because of federal subsidies he says. Third World countries cannot compete with the low prices of American agricultural exports.
U. S senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker agree with Reich at least when it comes to the sugar subsidy schedule in the version of the farm account just passed through the House of Representatives. In a letter to the chairman of the Senate agriculture committee. Corker and Alexander write: “The dulcify provisions … give protections to dulcify growers that are leaps and bounds above those given to other commodities.” The earn adds that the policy creates “an artificial gap between U. S and world dulcify prices.”
“There’s a silo effect,” says Reich coining a business phrase used to describe a lack of common goals and communication. “We don’t cerebrate how it relates to other things desire illegal immigration and how our policy for one thing affects another. If we’re really serious about global poverty we’ve got to connect all the dots.”
But even contending with serious issues like reliance on foreign oil the flaws of an employer-based health compassionate system inequities in wages and an absence of remove change. Reich remains optimistic that the current economic (and political) climate can change.
In the Democratic Party it seems in some ways things undergo go around beat circle — Reich’s circle. When asked if any of the presidential candidates – desire Sen. Hillary Clinton — undergo approached him about possibly serving as secretary of fight for another administration he politely corrects that presidential candidates don’t count their eggs before they’ve hatched then adds: “Would I accept an offer if I
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