Miner Queries: Accountability needed at the top

 Accountability for whom?

I’ve been thinking a lot about accountability recently, partly because it came up in a long conversation about poverty in America. The 2014 election season and the arrival of my daughter’s Iowa Tests of Basic Skills scores probably didn’t help.

The test scores remind me of all the talk about holding teachers accountable for students’ education. Too many accountability proposals want to measure teachers’ performance by students’ test scores. However, we currently have no accountability measures for whether or not the kids come to school ready to learn – with a good night’s sleep, full bellies and healthy. Yet all these factors affect students’ ability to concentrate and learn. So should teachers be held accountable for student test scores when they do not control all the variables?

I also hear a lot of talk about accountability for low wage and unemployed workers – anyone who receives public assistance. For example, I hear suggestions to drug test anyone applying for aid. I also hear statements like, “They’re lazy and don’t want to work.” 

“That construct, that the poor are in some way deficient, is a particularly poisonous and unsupportable position,” writes Charles Blow in a May 18 column titled “Poverty is not a State of Mind.”  

We blame these individuals. We monitor their purchases at the grocery store for anything we see as wasteful spending. We conclude they are irresponsible and must be held accountable. 

But what about accountability at the other end of the spectrum – because these individuals are not responsible for the lack of jobs.

Instead, corporate moguls, or the “makers” in conservative parlance, have been sitting on profits, buying up their own corporate stock and stowing profits in foreign accounts to avoid taxes. Oh, and investing in campaign contributions to elect legislators they recruit to pass corporate-friendly laws. 

Likewise said legislators, particularly conservatives, have been busy blocking any legislation that would provide assistance for the needy, expand government employment or create incentives for infrastructure improvements that would create jobs. 

We the people are great at calling for individual accountability, but silent about corporate accountability. 

In his May 18 column titled, “Springtime for Bankers,” Paul Krugman writes about just this issue. “In the end, the story of economic policy since 2008 has been that of a remarkable double standard. Bad loans always involve mistakes on both sides — if borrowers were irresponsible, so were the people who lent them money. But when crisis came, bankers were held harmless for their errors while families paid full price.

“And refusing to help families in debt, it turns out, wasn’t just unfair; it was bad economics. Wall Street is back, but America isn’t, and the double standard is the main reason,” Krugman concludes.

So who do we blame? We blame the victim. And we let those who bear much of the responsibility for our troubles not only walk away, but take our money, too. 

And it won’t change until we the people are ready to call for accountability at the top of the economic ladder. Because as my favorite T-shirt says, “Democracy is not a spectator sport.”

Cherie Miner is a local parent, community volunteer, freelance writer and artist. In a former life, she was a corporate writer and public relations professional. Contact her at news@redoakexpress.com or on Facebook.