It is an unlikely alliance, to say the least. When the National Federation of Independent Business partners with the American Association of Retired Persons, and then signs up the Business Roundtable and the Service Employees International Union, the result is a curious coalition of what usually are conflicting interests.
“Those organizations . . . do not agree on everything,” deadpanned the AARP’s CEO, Bill Novelli, stating the obvious and setting off a polite smattering of chuckles.
The NFIB hosted a breakfast earlier this month at which Novelli spoke, as did Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. Tony Gagliardi, the NFIB’s state director, was the emcee. I went to see if any skirmishes broke out.
Not a one. It was as sweet as orange juice and danishes. The mayor set the tone, saying there’s “a hunger . . . for that kind of collaboration.” In the restaurant business, he said, he learned that “there’s no margin in having enemies.”
The four groups, liberal and conservative, have made common cause in an ambitious effort called Divided We Fail to promote better health care and financial security.
These can be costly programs. And one can’t help but get the impression that the NFIB, a reliably conservative bunch, is not as keen on the financial security piece of the package as it is on finding some solution to the rising cost of health insurance.
Financial security has long been at the top of AARP’s list, a principal reason the organization was founded 50 years ago. “We’re finally old enough to join ourselves,” Novelli noted wryly. The cost of health care is perhaps the leading cause of financial insecurity — the biggest cause of personal bankruptcies, Novelli said.
This kind of a coalition is enough to give the anti-tax lobby a serious case of the willies. The NFIB usually is a reliably conservative advocate of that small-government point of view. In fact, Gagliardi said he got some nasty e-mails from members when the coalition was announced.
But almost three-fourths of the medically uninsured in this country are from small businesses, the NFIB lobbyist pointed out. They want to know why health care costs keep rising so steeply, and what they can do about it. “We’ll see what we can do when it’s not politics as usual,” he said.
“There’s real urgency to all this,” Novelli said. “People are saying we have had enough of political inaction and the failure of leadership.”
It’s unclear exactly what form this would take or what it would cost. But that’s the point. It requires negotiation and conciliation. The organizations are promoting this as a larger effort to return some civility to public discourse. They’re hoping to show by example that politically disparate lobbying groups can put aside their differences to work for mutually beneficial goals.
Democrats and Republicans could head off the coming crisis in Social Security “in a week,” Novelli said, if they’d work together. But for years, ideology, politics and partisanship have gridlocked the lawmaking process in Washington. These are “basically good people, smart people, but they’ve just become paralyzed,” Novelli said. And it’s spreading to state legislatures, including comparatively wholesome places like Colorado.
It’s “dangerous and corrosive,” Novelli said. “You can get a cheap laugh anywhere in the country just by making fun of Washington.”
The public should turn its anger and cynicism into action, he said. Demand solutions. “We have got to get the public to beat up on politicians.”
“None of this is rocket science,” he added. “I believe we’re going to get things done, but I have no misconceptions about how easy it will be.”
Fred Brown (punditfwb@aol.com), retired Capitol Bureau chief for The Denver Post, is also a political analyst for 9News. His column appears twice a month.
