Three Great Progressive Ideas

The Nation. Posted January 25, 2006.

Editor's note: The Nation assembled 20 short political proposals authored by some of the most progressive members in the House of Representatives. The following is a selection of three of those.

Out of Iraq
by Reps. Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee

With the official case for war long since discredited, the human and economic costs mounting and evidence growing that the Bush Administration's "stay the course" policy may keep us there indefinitely, it has never been clearer that the war in Iraq is a moral and functional failure. Human decency, fiscal sanity and national security demand that we move quickly to bring our soldiers home.

The insurgency will never be quelled as long as American troops are in Iraq. It's the occupation that gave rise to the insurgency in the first place. Every day that U.S. boots are on Iraqi soil, militant anti-Americanism intensifies and more insurgents are created. As one American officer in Iraq bluntly put it: "We can't kill them all. When I kill one, I create three."

A radical shift in Iraq policy is long overdue. Sixty-one members of the House have signed a letter to the president offering concrete steps toward peace:

• Withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.
• Establish, through the United Nations and NATO, a multinational interim security force to keep Iraq secure and stable.
• Recast the U.S. role in Iraq as reconstruction partner, not military occupier, stepping up efforts to rebuild economic infrastructure and renouncing plans to control Iraqi oil and create permanent military bases.
• Help establish an international peace commission, with global conflict-resolution experts overseeing postwar reconciliation and peace talks among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

The president has hinted at troop reductions in the coming year, but we fear that any drawdown will be a cosmetic, cynically timed effort to minimize Republican losses in the 2006 elections. Bush warns, self-servingly, against "irresponsible debate" on Iraq. He is well aware that November's midterm elections offer progressives an opportunity to seize the initiative and define the withdrawal debate. Let's make the most of that historic opportunity. Let's remind voters that this war is not an isolated mistake but rather the central component of a flawed and destructive foreign policy. Let's insist that candidates -- even if they claim to support troop reductions -- say whether they support permanent military bases in Iraq. With the majority of Americans now seeing Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive war through the lens of its failure in Iraq, we can finally put to rest the myth that Republicans are "strong on defense" -- and redefine the debate on security.

Accountable Corporations
by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

As they read about waste and fraud in the post-hurricane reconstruction -- and in Iraq -- my constituents in Houston are increasingly demanding stronger corporate accountability and oversight. Like Americans across the political spectrum, they see downsizing and outsourcing, excessive executive pay, the unjust dumping of pensions, accounting fraud, price gouging and other corporate abuses as fundamental threats to our democracy. They know the problem goes much deeper than some of the well-known "bad apples." They know the government condones the behavior of irresponsible corporations by giving them taxpayer subsidies and lucrative contracts.

It's time for Congress to demand that contracts and subsidies -- federal loans, grants and tax breaks -- are tied to responsible business practices. Federal regulations require that government contracts go only to "responsible" companies. But in Iraq, and now on the Gulf Coast, this standard is applied weakly; the awarding of no-bid or limited-bid contracts to corporations with government cronies as lobbyists or executives has taken even more teeth out of the accountability standards.

Congress must increase its oversight. An additional level of scrutiny should be applied to corporations with repeated violations of labor, consumer, environmental, human rights or antitrust laws, and those with multiple violations of contract-related laws (e.g., fraud or bribery). Companies that reincorporate offshore to avoid their fair share of taxes should have their tax and other benefits curtailed. A portion of their tax savings could be channeled into domestic programs that rebuild the refinery areas disabled by Hurricane Katrina.

We should use the federal purse to support a progressive vision of economic progress -- one that benefits all Americans equally and creates as many good-paying jobs as possible. To promote that kind of responsibility, Congress should make any companies that do not provide full health-care benefits to all full-time employees ineligible for federal contracts, loans, foreign aid and other subsidies -- period.

As the FEMA disaster and the lobbying scandal have shown us, we also have to improve standards of transparency and accountability. Congress must reject unqualified appointees in public safety and contract-oversight positions. We must stop the awarding of no-bid contracts to companies with close ties to federal officials. Transparent and well-publicized "pre-bid" conferences, making a special effort to include minority-owned and small businesses and representatives of struggling communities, can also help level the playing field. A pre-bid conference in my Houston district in December helped insure that $1.5 billion in federal contracts was competitively and fairly awarded. Another way to improve transparency is to post federal contracts (and large subcontracts) on a publicly accessible online database, with links to information on the companies' records of compliance with the standards of accountability that I'm proposing. Let's allow the public to see where their money is going.

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