A View from the National Kitchen Table

By Martha F. Davis
November 4, 2008

(Editor's Note: Martha F. Davis is Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy at Northeastern School of Law.  She has been a long time advocate and respected lawyer for women's rights and women's health issues.)

With the $700 billion government bank bailout behind us, no one can now credibly claim that programs for low income families are driving government expenditures.  Even before the recent bailout package, OMB Watch reported that taxpayers spent three times as much on corporate welfare as they spent on programs for low income Americans.  Now, Congress has approved additional expenditures for failing financial institutions that amount to almost a quarter of the U.S. annual budget.
   
There's certainly enough hypocrisy to go around, as government shifts taxpayer dollars to fund corporate capitalists who don't understand the irony of their persistent rejection of welfare for poor women and their families.
   
But aside from the blame game, the question is, are there also opportunities to use this crisis to begin seriously addressing some of the economic issues in the nation that have exacerbated the hardships facing low income women.  The gaping divide between the poor and the rich, the failure to provide adequate educational opportunities for low income workers (particularly women), and a tax system based on the disproved theory of “trickle-down” economics could all be casualties of the current crisis.  What emerges on the other side of the crisis, after more widespread economic hardship than this nation has seen in many years, could be a stronger, more cohesive and more economically egalitarian nation, with social supports that are reflective of that increased cohesion.
   
The current Presidential polling lends credence to the idea that most Americans are ready to sacrifice.  As much as Republican candidate Senator John McCain has ridiculed Senator Obama's off-the-cuff statement to Joe the Plumber about “spreading the wealth around,” the taunts simply don't stick.  Most Americans, it seems, appreciate the need for greater community, and recognize that we can no longer afford the greed of the past few decades. 
   
America's last Great Depression of the 1930s is also instructive.  While the economic parallels between bygone eras and today are not exact, particularly given the greater integration of foreign and domestic markets, it is clear that the hardships of the Depression  led directly to legislation creating a range of social welfare programs, including the Social Security system and Aid to Families with Dependent Children.  Likewise, early New Deal legislation strengthened worker's unions, leading to rapid expansion of both union membership and worker protections.  With strong American leadership in this new economic crisis,, perhaps similar initiatives might be mounted on a global scale appropriate to our contemporary era.
   
Low income women, of course, face some unique challenges.  As Congress and the new Administration grapple with the current economic picture, poor mothers must convince legislators of the value of caregiving, and of the importance of supporting education along with bare minimum job search programs.  There is no doubt that it's a hard sell given the persistence of the “male” norm as the basic unit of economic production.  But as happened in the Great Depression, the economic shake-up will force a new assessment of how to best use and nurture our nation's most fundamental renewable resource – our people.  And when that happens, low income women and their supporters must demand the opportunity to sitjoin with others at the national kitchen table to envision and create a New America that builds and expands on the legacy of the New Deal.