PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor says in her new [ [link removed] ]op-ed in The Hill that
we need to tell a story to Americans about what government can do -- and
is doing -- to make their lives better. It’s vital for 2022, 2024, and
beyond.

Check out Stephanie's op-ed below and please share it [ [link removed] ]on Facebook and
[ [link removed] ]on Twitter. Then, [ [link removed] ]give us your feedback and [ [link removed] ]donate to help
advance these ideas. 
-- The PCCC Team ([ [link removed] ]@BoldProgressive)

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STEPHANIE'S OP-ED IN THE HILL:

The Biden administration should tell a story about good government to win in
2022, 2024

President Biden was sworn in last week, but now the hard part begins:
showing tangible results to the American people.

The success of Biden’s presidency -- and Democratic fortunes in 2022 and
2024 -- will depend on internalizing the lesson of the Obama years about
telling a story of meaningful improvement in people’s lives.

In recent interviews about his first term, [ [link removed] ]Barack Obama has [ [link removed] ]said
that his biggest regret was the failure of his administration to tell a
story of progress to the American public. In his first two years in
office, Obama stabilized the cratering economy and passed the Affordable
Care Act. But he let those policies get defined by Republicans, who
hammered Democrats at the polls in 2010.

[ [link removed] ]Joe Biden himself, as vice-president, [ [link removed] ]noted in 2016 that "We don’t
go out and explain why we’re doing what we’re doing…When we have a good
idea, we think it will be self-evident."

This is the frequent lament of Democrats and progressives: The government
consistently makes meaningful change in people’s lives, and nobody knows
it.

In Michael Lewis’s book "The Fifth Risk," former USDA Undersecretary
Lillian Salerno described how the agency’s Rural Development program was
responsible for $30 billion in loans and grants per year, which in turn
helped put billions into small rural economies. But when she visited small
town mayors, they often had no idea their own community was being funded
by the federal grants that they criticized. In the South, she was greeted
with the message, in her words: “We hate the government and you suck.” The
people she was talking to had no idea she had helped pump $1 billion into
their economy that year.

So what does a full-court-press, all-hands-on-deck, public mobilization
and story-telling mentality look like?

Take the Export-Import Bank (EXIM), which is responsible for creating U.S.
jobs by supporting the export of U.S.-made goods through direct loans and
loan guarantees. EXIM has a lending authority of $20 billion, and has been
an effective job creator, funding thousands of small manufacturing
projects that each employ a few dozen to a few hundred workers. EXIM could
become a critical tool in the building of a green economy, supporting
loans towards American companies working in green technologies -- major
down payments on Biden’s Build Back Better promises. It’s also critical
for keeping American business competitive with heavily subsidized Chinese
companies, which would allow Biden to show American workers who were
vulnerable to Trump’s hollow trade promises that the new administration
understands their fears and is fighting for them.

But none of that works unless the bank -- and the Biden administration at
large -- are telling a public story both nationally and locally about
government progress and about keeping his promises. Every time EXIM makes
a loan to a business, a representative of EXIM should visit the community
to hold a press conference about it, meet with the workers, and learn
about its work. Each new job should be celebrated as a triumph. Local
officials and national representatives should be invited to share credit
-- and when necessary, held to account to explain their opposition.

This could be replicated across the federal government -- from every
school garden planted by a USDA initiative to every time a smart
technologist from 18F finds a way to save taxpayers money. Every time an
OSHA inspector meets with frontline COVID responders to every time the
U.S. trade representative battles to save Midwestern jobs, it should be
part of an ongoing story of how the government works to help people’s
lives.

The Biden administration should even consider creating a new position
based in the Executive Office to work across agencies on the mobilization
element of their policies -- someone who could work with agencies to
better conceptualize the way their policies will include the public, be
presented to the public, and help change perception of what the government
is delivering for everyday Americans.

The policy decisions that this administration pursues will be directly
linked to election results in 2022, 2024, and beyond, and every personnel
and policy decision needs to be understood through that lens, because
policy is also politics. Across agencies and at every level of the federal
government, the Biden-Harris administration must tell a relentless story
about the difference it is making in people’s lives, day in and day out.

The American people [ [link removed] ]want to see the government working for them. They
want to see more money in their pockets, cheaper prescription drugs,
faster internet, and cleaner air, as a direct result of government
policies.

It’s the job of this new Democratic administration to tell them that it
is, indeed, working for them -- and getting results.

Stephanie Taylor is the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign
Committee and the Progressive Change Institute.

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Share Stephanie's op-ed [ [link removed] ]on Facebook and [ [link removed] ]on Twitter. Then,
[ [link removed] ]donate to help advance these ideas. [ [link removed] ]Provide feedback on this
op-ed.


Paid for by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee PAC (www.BoldProgressives.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Contributions to the PCCC are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.

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