Blue Collar Conservatives: Recommitting to an America That Works by Rick Santorum Page A
Authors: Rick Santorum
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drank my share of Rolling Rock beer (after I turned twenty-one, of course), and found my vocation in politics and public service. I worked on campaigns and ended up founding the College Republicans club on campus.
After Penn State, I got an MBA degree from the University of Pittsburgh, worked for a couple of years, went back to law school, and became an attorney in Pittsburgh. Three years later, I met my future wife, Karen Garver, who was a neonatal nurse and law student. In 1990, at age thirty-one, I left my law firm to run for Congress, serving two terms in the House of Representatives before running for the U.S. Senate. In all, I represented Pennsylvania in Congress for sixteen years, from 1991 to 2007. And during those years, Karen and I had eight children. We gave them the basics: the security of a good marriage, our time schooling them at home, and faith in our Lord and Savior.
I’ve gone pretty far on the steel-town values of education, working hard, loving your family, and living your faith. That doesn’t mean that we’ve never had problems. We’ve had more than our share, but my family, and our neighbors, schoolmates, teammates, and church members, has shared a common belief that we needed to look out for one another and bethere when we were needed. Getting help from the government wasn’t something you wanted—or wanted anyone to know that you had—and you took it only when you absolutely needed it. And even then, you didn’t take it for very long.
There are remnants of that America in some small towns and tight-knit neighborhoods. But my travels during the presidential campaign have sadly reminded me that many of the jobs that were once the basis of those communities for the 70 percent of Americans who don’t have college degrees are all but gone. Over the past few decades, bad corporate and labor leadership, a growing regulatory burden, and competition from low-wage countries have made America less competitive and jobs harder to come by. Economists turn this reality into statistics and tell us that we’re moving from a manufacturing to a service economy and that while the old jobs are gone, new ones will come. But with those old jobs gone, the toll has been more than economic; its effect on families and communities has been devastating.
Much has been made of a January 2014 study by a group of distinguished economists from Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley that appears to refute the common perception that it’s harder to get ahead in America than it used to be. 1 Examining forty years of data on economic mobility and inequality, the Equality of Opportunity Project found that “[c]hildren entering the labor market today have the samechances of moving up in the income distribution (relative to their parents) as children born in the 1970s.” 2 Republicans, however, should resist the temptation to dismiss all the talk about declining mobility as another hyped-up crisis—like global warming—and settle back to our old economic policies. For one thing, upward mobility varies greatly from community to community in America. Not surprisingly, it’s the lowest in rural and depressed areas. The poorest kids in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Salt Lake City, for example, are more than twice as likely to reach the highest income percentiles as those in Dayton, St. Louis, and Charlotte. And while our economic mobility rate has not changed substantially over time, it is lower than in other developed countries. Think about that—in upward mobility, the Land of Opportunity is falling behind the rest of world.
Digging a little deeper, the study reveals that globalization and automation in manufacturing and the breakdown of families and communities—circumstances that contribute to economic inequality—have been counterbalanced by a healthier environment, technological advancements that produce better living standards, and more opportunities for women and minorities. But
After Penn State, I got an MBA degree from the University of Pittsburgh, worked for a couple of years, went back to law school, and became an attorney in Pittsburgh. Three years later, I met my future wife, Karen Garver, who was a neonatal nurse and law student. In 1990, at age thirty-one, I left my law firm to run for Congress, serving two terms in the House of Representatives before running for the U.S. Senate. In all, I represented Pennsylvania in Congress for sixteen years, from 1991 to 2007. And during those years, Karen and I had eight children. We gave them the basics: the security of a good marriage, our time schooling them at home, and faith in our Lord and Savior.
I’ve gone pretty far on the steel-town values of education, working hard, loving your family, and living your faith. That doesn’t mean that we’ve never had problems. We’ve had more than our share, but my family, and our neighbors, schoolmates, teammates, and church members, has shared a common belief that we needed to look out for one another and bethere when we were needed. Getting help from the government wasn’t something you wanted—or wanted anyone to know that you had—and you took it only when you absolutely needed it. And even then, you didn’t take it for very long.
There are remnants of that America in some small towns and tight-knit neighborhoods. But my travels during the presidential campaign have sadly reminded me that many of the jobs that were once the basis of those communities for the 70 percent of Americans who don’t have college degrees are all but gone. Over the past few decades, bad corporate and labor leadership, a growing regulatory burden, and competition from low-wage countries have made America less competitive and jobs harder to come by. Economists turn this reality into statistics and tell us that we’re moving from a manufacturing to a service economy and that while the old jobs are gone, new ones will come. But with those old jobs gone, the toll has been more than economic; its effect on families and communities has been devastating.
Much has been made of a January 2014 study by a group of distinguished economists from Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley that appears to refute the common perception that it’s harder to get ahead in America than it used to be. 1 Examining forty years of data on economic mobility and inequality, the Equality of Opportunity Project found that “[c]hildren entering the labor market today have the samechances of moving up in the income distribution (relative to their parents) as children born in the 1970s.” 2 Republicans, however, should resist the temptation to dismiss all the talk about declining mobility as another hyped-up crisis—like global warming—and settle back to our old economic policies. For one thing, upward mobility varies greatly from community to community in America. Not surprisingly, it’s the lowest in rural and depressed areas. The poorest kids in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Salt Lake City, for example, are more than twice as likely to reach the highest income percentiles as those in Dayton, St. Louis, and Charlotte. And while our economic mobility rate has not changed substantially over time, it is lower than in other developed countries. Think about that—in upward mobility, the Land of Opportunity is falling behind the rest of world.
Digging a little deeper, the study reveals that globalization and automation in manufacturing and the breakdown of families and communities—circumstances that contribute to economic inequality—have been counterbalanced by a healthier environment, technological advancements that produce better living standards, and more opportunities for women and minorities. But
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