Restoration Roundtable


America's Crumbling Foundation And The People Who Might Fix It

Unworthy of their trust

By Kristin Roberts  //  April 10, 2012 | 2:00 p.m.

Trust. We don't have it anymore. Not in our government, for sure. Not in the political process that has degenerated into mind-numbing, amateur theater around us. Look no further than the blah-blah-blah surrounding the Buffett Rule today to understand why Americans no longer trust anything coming from the mouths of our elected leaders.

Team Obama spent Monday afternoon laying the groundwork for Tuesday's Big Pitch by arguing that a minimum tax rate on millionaires makes economic sense. They said that because the Buffett Rule just forces the rich to pay more, it doesn't really amount to a new tax. Um, yes it does. It also doesn't do a thing to address the economy's real problem - jobs, as Jim Tankersley writes today.

Not to be upstaged, Republican Veep-Contender Paul Ryan said the left mistakenly thinks the Buffett Rule can magically fix the deficit. "People think the Buffett Rule is sort of budget pixie dust," Ryan said on MSNBC. Really, it will only raise $47 billion, Ryan and Friends say. Just $47 billion. Funny how Ryan dismisses this revenue as a pittance when he won't identify a single tax loophole he would close to raise the $10 trillion he needs to pay for his deficit-deepening budget plan.

Any wonder Americans are just bored with this show? They're over it. They've tuned out. They don't trust Washington anymore. And they don't trust much of anything else either.

Restoration Calls is taking a hard look at the loss of trust in America this month. Next week, you'll see our lead story that grapples with a small town's loss of trust in almost all of its institutions - local government, schools, church, and on. Then we'll look at one small slice of life where trust remains and what other groups and institutions might learn from it.


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About Restoration Calls

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his first inaugural address, told a country struggling under the weight of the Great Depression that the nation needed to take action to rebuild and rejuvenate itself. He said: "Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now." It was a time not unlike our own, where misbehavior on Wall Street fed a widespread credit and confidence crisis that swept like a tornado through the U.S. and global economy. And as in 1933, Washington again faces the time-sensitive task of diagnosing how its institutions are ill-equipped to fix the nation's problems, and then building a new system responsive to America's new needs. This project will tell that story, through the eyes of the Americans affected.

Introduction to this series >>