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April 7, 2000
Solving the Nation's Problems:
Advice to the presidential candidates
Later this year, voters in the United States will be making an
important choice about who will be the next president. Each
candidate employs legions of advisers for counsel on everything
from hairstyles to foreign policy.
This week's University of Cincinnati e-briefing asks scholars to
take on the role of adviser to the presidential candidates by
offering concrete advice on the nation's most pressing problems
and outlining what the next president's priorities should be.
I. International affairs
a. Relations with Russia
b. Foreign and national security policy
II. Family issues
a. Women's rights
b. Education
c. Forget school vouchers
d. Child care
e. Family vs. work demands
III. Economic issues
a. Poverty and old age
b. Children in poverty
IV. Social Issues
a. Pollution and energy
b. Jails and crime
c. Mental illness
V. Political issues
a. Campaign finance reform
b. Voter apathy
I.INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
A. RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA
When it comes to U.S. relations with Russia and aiding its
development in the post-Communist era, Z. Lew Melnyk, suggests a
four-point strategy. The UC professor emeritus and Ukraine native
specializes in the economic affairs of the former Soviet Union.
He says that U.S. strategy so far has not been very clear. "It
seems to me that, number one, we should stop any assistance until
they stop the genocide in Chechnya. They are spending more on the
war than they receive in assistance from the West," he said.
"Number two, we should not give any financial assistance without
requiring functioning safeguards that assure that the money we
give is going to legitimate purposes such as new businesses, the
development of young entrepreneurs and the educational system.
Number three, we should demand from Mr. Putin a clearcut program
on economic reforms and democratization of Russia's political
processes, as well as insuring and protecting the constitutional
rights of their national minorities. So far he has said virtually
nothing. Putin has been quoted in Business Week saying that he
wants to establish 'a dictatorship of the law.' In the former
USSR, there was also a dictatorship of the law...the imposition
of the will of the party. Number four, Russia must cease
interfering in the internal affairs of and exerting political
pressures on its neighbors." contact: 513-759-9992
B. FOREIGN AND NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY
During the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy was pre-occupied with
the question of how to deal with Soviet power and trying to
contain it. According to Richard Harknett, associate professor of
political science at UC, the next president faces a much more
complex, multi-faceted challenge. The grand strategic question
facing the United States in 2001 is how do you best protect a
lead. "The United States is the dominant military and economic
power in the world. It must be the goal of the next president to
maintain that preeminent position, which can be undermined in
only two ways. First, by the emergence of a highly-motivated
significant challenger. Or second, by poor statecraft on the part
of the United States." Harknett doesn't believe that between
2001-2004 (first term), there will be any country that emerges as
a peer of the United States. One of the most important issues
facing the next president will be deployment of a National
Missile Defense System. He urges the next president to make a
decision based on an overall assessment on its impact on the
grand strategic question: maintaining the U.S. lead. "If handled
poorly, deployment of NMD can lead to an undermining of America's
preeminent global position, rather than enhance it," he said.
contact: 513-556-3314
II FAMILY ISSUES
A. WOMEN'S RIGHTS
Pay inequity between men and women remains a problem that
contributes to poverty, says Lisa Hogeland, director of UC's
Center for Women's Studies. She appeals to the presidential
candidates to enforce equal pay laws already on the books and to
strengthen them with additional ones. "In 30 years of
contemporary feminism, you would think this would not be a
problem any longer. But for every dollar earned by men, women
still earn only 75 cents. It used to be 59 cents, so things have
improved, but not enough. Think of the impact this might have on
the poverty of single mothers if equal pay for equal work was
enforced," she said. contact: 513-556-6652
B. EDUCATION
Margery Shupe, an academic counselor at UC's University College,
would advise the candidates to get back to the basics to prepare
kids for college. "They need to particularly focus on math and
English. We also need better methods on the high school level of
evaluating whether a student is learning and meeting academic
standards so they can perform well in college." Shupe's expertise
focuses on learning disabilities. She suggests the candidates
check the research about the success of mentoring programs. "I
think mentoring programs that focus on achievement in academics
and that foster relationships with local professionals would be
very helpful to students -- someone in addition to their parents
to offer guidance." contact: 513-556-1634
C: FORGET SCHOOL VOUCHERS
School voucher programs and charter schools are not the solution
to the educational problems we face, argues Marvin Berlowitz, UC
professor of education and director of the Urban Center for Peace
Research, Implementation, Development and Education (UCPRIDE).
Instead these approaches will just exacerbate the growing
disparities between the wealthy and the working poor.
"Privatization must be resisted, and public education must
receive a level of financial support commensurate with the top
priority which it should be." contact: 513-556-3608
D. CHILD CARE
Advocacy for quality programming and care for children from birth
to age 5 must be an integral part of any humanitarian,
intelligent, forward-thinking politician's campaign, according to
Vicki Carr, director of the UC Arlitt Child and Family Research
and Education Center. She urged the presidential candidates to
view the profession of early childhood educators "as extremely
important and invaluable versus 'anyone can watch children.'"
Quality programs need substantial funding to provide appropriate
environments, materials, staff salaries and support services.
Furthermore, parents, regardless of income level, need access to
these quality programs. contact: 513-556-3805
E. FAMILY VS. WORK DEMANDS
UC sociologist David J. Maume Jr. wants the presidential
candidates to find a way for workers to take family leave without
sacrificing all their wages. He suggests the answer lies in
unemployment funds collected by each state. Although the Family
and Medical Leave Act of 1993 allows employees to take up to
three months off to care for newborns or sick children,
according to one national study, two-thirds of employees who
didn't take family leave when they needed it cited lost wages as
the reason they didn't. So far four states -- Maryland,
Massachusetts, Vermont and Washington -- have obtained the U.S.
Department of Labor's approval to use unemployment funds to
provide family leave to individuals taking time off from work to
care for newborn babies.
Maume, director of the Kunz Center for the Study of Work and
Family at UC, suggests that the presidential candidates should
support this initiative and encourage all states to fund family
leave in this way. A survey by the National Partnership for Women
in Families, an advocacy group, found that 79 percent of
Americans support using unemployment funds for family leave, he
said. "The demand is there and if you care about how the next
generation turns out, it has to be a good thing to let employees
stay home with their newborn children. This would allow an infant
to get off on the right foot and allow parents to get off on the
right foot," he said. contact: 513-556-4713
III. ECONOMIC ISSUES
A. POVERTY & OLD AGE
To prepare for a future in which there may be just as many
elderly women who are divorced and not remarried as there are
aged widows, a UC assistant professor of social work suggests the
nation prepare to do something to keep these elderly single women
from living in poverty. Currently, Social Security earnings are
treated as individual earnings, so when a husband and wife
divorce, each keeps their own benefits.
Diane Marcus, an expert on aging issues in UC's School of
Social Work, says the problem with that is that it leaves many
divorced women with little Social Security income when they
retire. "Let's face it, women take care of children and many of
them hold low-paying jobs and pass up promotions in order to make
time to care for the kids. That leaves them without much to live
on later in life." Marcus advises the presidential candidates to
make sure that a federal law is passed that mandates splitting
the spouses' Social Security earnings upon divorce, just as
assets accrued during the marriage are. Today, only 6 percent of
elderly women are divorced and not remarried, but as the
post-WWII generation grows older, that figure will boom, she
said. According to recent census and Social Security
Administration data on people aged 65 to 74, 22.2 percent of all
unmarried aged women live in poverty. Of all unmarried aged men,
13.4 percent live in poverty while only 4.5 percent of married
elderly couples live in poverty. contact: 513-556-4630
B. CHILDREN IN POVERTY
Ellen Lynch, coordinator, Early Childhood Care and Education
program, University College, suggests that the next president
begin to back up our claim of "valuing children" by putting some
money into programs that directly benefit the 13.5 million
children who live in poverty. "The Congressional Budget Office
(CBO) has projected that the federal government will have a
surplus of $1.9 trillion over the next 10 years," she said.
Instead of giving tax cuts that benefit the wealthy, the money
should be used to expand health insurance for uninsured families,
expand the Child Care and Development Block Grant, and provide
additional housing vouchers for low-income families with children
-- just to name a name a few. Finally, she urges strong
presidential support of the Convention on the Rights of the
Child. "This treaty is the most universally accepted human rights
instrument in history. It has been ratified by every country in
the world except two: Somalia and the United States. This legal
commitment to children is long overdue." contact:
513-556-1621
IV. SOCIAL ISSUES
A. POLLUTION/ENERGY
Ohio Eminent Scholar of Urban Design David Gosling of UC's
College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning "America needs
to kick its gasoline addiction, its needless, debilitating
reliance on imported oil. We're vulnerable to economic blackmail
from the Middle East when we don't need to be. We have all the
tools at hand to kick our oil habit. We just need the drive to
do so." Gosling added that with its multitude of rivers,
waterfalls, lakes and ready access to two oceans, America
contains a wealthy source of cheap electric power to fuel our
transportation needs through tidal or hydroelectric power. In
addition, the U.S. has tremendous coal reserves that would fuel
our energy needs for centuries if only we concentrated on finding
clean ways to convert that energy for transportation and other
uses. "Unfortunately, America's political leaders seem to lack
the vision or courage to face off against the oil, airline and
other special-interest lobbies." contact: 513-751-7376
B. JAILS/CRIME
A form of legalized drug use would end the problems our nation's
problems with drug crime, said Marvin Berlowitz, UC professor of
education and director of the Urban Center for Peace Research,
Implementation, Development and Education (UCPRIDE). "It's
interesting to note that over the past decade, the prison
population has increased and we've built more prisons, yet the
rate of violent crime has decreased." Berlowitz says the majority
of new cases sent to prison involve non-violent crime such as
drug abuse, which means the courts are imprisoning people for
medical problems.
"I think it's interesting that perhaps the one issue in the
entire spectrum on which Angela Davis, William F. Buckley Jr. and
I agree is that the possession of drugs should be decriminalized
people should not go to prison for it." Berlowitz advocates the
adoption of a plan similar to one used in the Netherlands.
Addicts are supplied with drugs under the court conditions of
supervision and rehabilitation. "Not only would we stop making
organized crime and drug lords rich, but we would also end the
corruption of our government and the governments of other
countries. We'd stop forcing addicts into a life of crime to
support their habit, and we would end the prison industrial
complex. Building, supplying and operating prisons have become
big business and in many places. Convict labor is lucrative, and
companies are contracting with prisons to use their cheap labor."
contact: 513-556-3608
C. MENTAL ILLNESS
The nation would be a healthier place overall, Joyce Borkin,
suggests, if health insurance companies were required to cover
mental illness the same way they do physical illness. "They
either don't cover it at all now or, if they do, don't cover it
very well," said the UC professor of social work. "First we need
to stop thinking of mental illness as something other than an
illness and start treating it as a brain disease, which it is.
Clearly it is time we started covering mental illness as we do
other illnesses." contact: 513-556-4629
V. POLITICAL ISSUES
A. CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM
Terry Grundy, director of the Neighborhood Vision Council, United
Way & Community Chest, and UC adjunct associate professor of
planning who teaches "Urban Lobbying," says the lack of
meaningful campaign finance reform threatens to undermine our
democratic traditions: "Americans fear that their government is
bought or in danger of it...Only a sweeping overhaul of current
campaign financing mechanisms has a chance of cleansing the
moneychangers who serve well-heeled special interest groups from
the temple of representative democracy. However, history teaches
us that every one of the limited campaign finance reform
initiatives passed since the Nixon administration has been
circumvented by moneyed special interest, either in the courts
or in...the daily practice of political influence peddling.
Comprehensive campaign finance reform is the key to overcoming
the pervasive political cynicism that keeps voters away from the
polls in droves." contact: 513-762-7150
B. VOTER APATHY
Marvin Berlowitz suggest the presidential candidates make social
and economic justice their central issues and once they do,
they'll probably have to form a new party. "They should stop
listening to focus groups and start listening to the interests of
the people. We have the only major industrial capitalist country
in the world that does not have a labor party. We're limited to a
choice between the party of the rich and a party of the wealthy.
The working people and poor people have no candidate and no
party, which is why voter turnout in this country is among the
worst in the world." contact: 513-556-3608
Click here to view previous UC e-briefings.
E-mail reillymb@email.uc.edu if you would like to become a regular recipient of UC's e-briefings. Please provide your name, media affiliation, snail-mail address, e-mail address, phone and fax number.
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