Washington Examiner: 'Equal Opportunity Should Be The Goal, Not Equal Outcomes'

Source:The New Democrat

In three years this might be the third time I’ve agreed with the Washington Examiner editorial page on anything. And that includes all of their editorial columnists, but I think they hit a home run with today’s editorial. By saying that the real goal when it comes to the economy is creating an economic system where all Americans have a quality opportunity to succeed in America. Even if that means that some Americans have a better shot at success, because of how they were raised. But that all Americans have quality opportunities to succeed in America. That quality opportunities becomes universal.

This is the economic debate that Democrats should be having with Republicans. Instead of so-called Progressive Democrats calling for everything to be equal including income. That all taxes need to be so high so no one has too much compared with the rest of the country or doesn’t have too little. In other words quality of outcomes which is very different and bit more socialist. And economic Conservative Republicans, “saying that this is how capitalism works. That is some people have so much and others have almost nothing. So what because that is how capitalism works.”

The mainstream establishments of both parties including in the Republican Party understand that we have an achievement and success gap that leads to our income gap. And why we have a very small population with a lot of money and a large population with very little. Which is what I call the income gap and both parties have talked about how to close it. And this one thing I credit President Obama for because he has a real plan to close it built around education and job training for our low-skilled workers and a big believer in having a new national infrastructure plan. That would create more economic opportunity especially for the Americans that do not have it.

The Republican economic plan to address the income gap which I believe does not go far enough, is built around school choice and training for low-income workers and low-skilled Americans who are unemployed. And work requirements for people on public assistance. So the leaderships in both parties at least now understand that the education and income gap is the problem. And both believe equality of opportunity is the way to solve it. But the real debate now what is the best way to fix the problems.