hroughout his two terms of office, President Reagan has ignored the rising incidents of racial violence and expressed no sensitivity to the economic violence which has driven scores of farmers to suicide and dislocated and disrupted the lives of millions of American families. He urged our children to pursue education with excellence, while cutting their educational options and scholarships. He urged Americans to say no to drugs, while he said no to drug education even louder. Look at the President’s 1988 Budget proposal. His campaign promise was to balance the budget by ’84, and reduce the size of government. Instead he has doubled it, accumulating a debt in five years that took 40 Presidents to accumulate. When he assumed o ffice the Federal budget was 23 percent of the GNP. His goal was to reduce it to 19 percent. It has hovered around 25 percent for these seven years. For the first time in our nation’s history we have a trillion dollar budget. He has increasd military spending by 22.4 billion dollars while decreasing domestic spending by 18.7 billion dollars. And he still proposes to cut spending to help the poor by 31/z billion dollars. He wants to spend more money on Star Wars, nuclear warhead production, Midgetman missiles, Tomahawk Cruise missiles, start-up costs for a new aircraft carrier, satellite weapons, cargo planes, MX missiles and aid to the Contras. At the same time he proposes to cut Medicare and Medicaid, cut subsidizing housing for low and middle-income families, cut educational aid to needy students, cut child nutrition programs, cut community development block grants, cut aid to families with dependent children, terminate legal services, terminate their urban development action grants, terminate the work incentive program for poor mothers and te rm ina te tempora ry food assistance—these are his priorities. In the tradition of Herod, Mr. Reagan would have denied Mary and Joseph access to the inn, and they could not even have sued for discrimination, because they did not have the right to vote. Mary could not have gotten prenatal care on Reagan’s budget, Joseph could not have gotten re-trained, could not have gotten a Union job. Jesus could not have gotten preschool or a Head Start education, there would have been no heat in the stable, and the Star of Bethlehem would have been blown out of the sky with Star Wars. . . . President Reagan is a dream buster. In 1984 the Rainbow Coalition embarked on an historic mission to alter the course of our nation. We went to fore- saken places—the cotton and fruit fields, Indian reservations. We slept alongside the urban rejected, family farmers, disa f fe c ted and d is lo ca te d wo rke rs , apartheid, peace and freeze activists. We created a group made up of many patches and pieces and colors and sizes bound by a common thread. Not a spread of one hue or texture. Our adversaries called us special interest. We know ourselves to be a family. A majority American constituency. Let’s reflect on the record of the Rainbow Coalition. We registered two million new voters who voted progressive, for the most part Democratic. It was a net gain of black, Hispanic and female participation, and new office holders. Four new black Congresspersons in ’86 came out of the congressional districts that we won in 1984. We were a major factor in changing the makeup of the U.S. Senate. Senator Sanford of North Carolina won 53 percent of the vote: 44 percent of white vote, 94 percent of the black vote. In California Senator Cranston obtained 51 percent of the overall vote: 44 percent of the white vote, 96 percent of the black vote. In Georgia Senator Fowler won with 51 percent of the vote, 39 percent of the white vote, 85 percent of the black vote. That new coalition of interest, with a broad base of people shifting their politics from the gutter of racial battleground to economic and political common ground and a moral higher ground, has changed options in our nation. Voting franchisement was the key to these changes; it has opened up new । ft the tnodition o^ 'Phenod, "Mtn. ^eo^on wou ldU w denied "Mtany an d tyoccfih accede to- the inn, tyedud could not hove gotten ct ^ e a d S tun t education, an d the S tan o^ Bethlehem w ou ld have been Clown out o^ the chy with S tan 'Wane. doors. The Progressive Coalition need not stand on the outside any longer with just picket signs. We can now be part of our nation’s central nervous system, because we now can vote. We can think and feel and direct and choose. If we can elect representatives and governors and senators—who return phone calls—we can elect presidents as well. And we must. Dr. King put forth his dream outside the Lincoln Monument. Our generation cannot linger in that spot, we must take the dream inside the White House and implement it by appointing justices and cabinet members and having access to the entire U.S. Congress. We must go higher in pursuit of that dream. Unlike previous generations we have the ability as a Progressive Coalition to mass ten million votes. That’s enough to win the primaries, th a t ’s enough to change the course of American politics. Clinton St. Quarterly—Winter, 1987 13
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