Third Way Dispatch

Helping progressive leaders develop effective middle class policy and messaging is a consuming passion for us at Third Way.

That’s why we are thrilled by the recent introduction of a middle-class tax relief package by Senator Charles Schumer and six freshmen Senators called the Middle Class Opportunity Act of 2007. The bill is based on proposals developed at Third Way.

This package is aimed directly at people like Joe and Eileen Bailey, the fictional middle-class family in Sen. Schumer’s new book, Positively American. Its purpose is to provide middle-class families with additional help in overcoming the hurdles to their aspirations: sending their kids to college without breaking the bank; balancing work and family with more resources for quality child care; giving new parents a hand with the “start-up costs” of new parenthood; and helping families shoulder the responsibility of caring for aging parents. It also includes two years of relief for middle class families from the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Proposals such as these will also go a long way toward helping middle-class families succeed under the new rules of today’s economy. As we wrote in our recent report, The New Rules Economy, middle-class families are currently coping on their own with vast and dramatic change. Under the old rules, high school was sufficient to prosper in the middle class; under the new rules, college is virtually a necessity. Under the old rules, families had one breadwinner; under the new rules, women are seeking opportunity in the workforce and most families now have two earners.

Yet government has failed to keep up with these new rules, and the result is significant anxiety.

The Middle Class Opportunity Act, cosponsored by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Bob Casey (D-PA), Jon Tester (D-MT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), takes a big first step toward rebuilding government policies adapted to the economy’s new rules. This bill recognizes the modern hurdles facing today’s middle class and takes concrete steps to ensure that middle-class families can continue up the ladder to prosperity.

We are confident the Baileys would agree.