In today's politically charged atmosphere, hearing from informed voices about how to advance public policy changes that will grow wages and opportunity for the middle class should be important. In the past 3 months, former Congressman Harold Ford Jr has written at least 4 opinion pieces with specific recommendations for how to accomplish a pro-growth agenda, hold the government accountable for new spending and help Democrats maintain congressional gains from 2018 and pave a path to win the White House in 2020.
Having represented the 9th congressional district in Tennessee for 10 years, Ford Jr explained in an op-ed in the NY Daily News in January that, "Don't spend more, spend well...the newly empowered Democrat House should focus on delivering cost effective, innovative solutions to entrenched problems…For example, in conservative Utah they are experimenting with bold solutions to get the homeless off the streets, such as giving them low cost housing. Not only has homelessness dropped 90%, but local governments have saved significant tax dollars with per ca-pita annual spending on the homeless decreasing from over $19,000 to under $8,000. And those homeless are healthier, largely gainfully employed and less likely to commit crimes. Again, spending smarter is solving a critical American problem."
Ford Jr wrote in the Memphis Commercial Appeal last month urging America to not shy away from tackling the toughest challenges. He remembers the words of President John F. Kennedy when he said: "We choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard...because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one that we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win." In this same op-ed, Ford Jr urges Democrats running for President in 2020 "to stop pandering and have a more serious debate" about the problems facing America's middle class. "In exchange for free tuition, students should have to perform national service and pursue a degree in a field that leads them to a profession that will help the country," Ford Jr writes in response to what he believes are ideas (free college tuition for all) that don't hold beneficiaries accountable for government investment.
Earlier this month, Ford Jr spoke at the National Action Network (NAN) conference sponsored by Reverend Al Sharpton and reminded attendees, including many of the 2020 Presidential candidates, that ideas to expand opportunity for left behind communities "should be accepted or rejected not based on whether you like (congresswoman Alexandra) Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) but on whether her ideas actually work." While Ford Jr admits he doesn't always agree with the Congresswoman - he also told NAN conference attendees as he was quoted in the New York Post that "creating 25,000 jobs is always a positive thing" in response to AOC's opposition to Amazon locating in New York City - she's rightly giving voice "to the primary grievance of the millions of Americans who want major and lasting changes to a system they don't see working for them," as he wrote in Politico in late January in an op-ed encouraging national and moderate Democrats to not dismiss the progressive movement but instead to hear it and begin crafting a new economic compact for the 21st century.
Ford Jr's ideas and suggestions are reverberating across the Democratic Party because they offer a different path to growth. The op-eds are worth reading.