About Voices On The Economy
Our Mission
To inspire new solutions to our country’s urgent economic problems by building a culture of respectful listening, passionate advocacy, and intelligent debate.
Our Vision
A world in which people are freed from material worry so each of us can contribute our unique gifts, and society can reach its highest potential.
The Obstacle
Partisan hostility and siloed thinking keep us from sparking the brilliant ideas we desperately need to create prosperity for all.
Our Method
We teach people from all walks of life to hear the voices of the great economic thinkers of the past echoed in today’s arguments. Then, we line up the conservative, liberal, and radical perspectives on economic issues—side-by-side, in a completely unbiased way. By using role plays and other activities, participants become fluent in each point of view, combative debate becomes solution-focused conversation, and the foundation is set for innovative thinking to emerge.
Overview
Voices On The Economy (VOTE) is an award-winning nonprofit organization that addresses a debilitating problem in our nation. We all know that liberals, conservatives, and radicals routinely vilify and reject one another’s ideas out of hand. But these are ideas that could spark brilliant solutions to our critical economic problems, if only we would hear them with open minds. The stakes couldn’t be higher. If we don’t find alternatives to scornful debates, the logjams will continue. We risk our nation’s prosperity and our collective well-being.
Many people think, “Economics? That’s not relevant to me.” Not true! Economics is about everything in our lives — from smog in the atmosphere, to quality health care, to hunger in our country, to affordable housing. As a nation, we could have everything we need for all to thrive, but what we don’t yet have are the creative economic solutions to realize this potential. The VOTE Program is founded on the belief that systems change is possible. We can address the root causes of our most pressing problems. It’s time to dispel the notion that finding those solutions is a task best left to the “experts.” VOTE inspires all of us to become the next great economic thinkers who can solve the core human question of how to create prosperity.
This program is the antidote to toxic economic partisanship and limited thinking in the classroom, media, and wider society. We present multiple economic perspectives in a balanced and unbiased way, defying the norm of teaching a single perspective as the Truth. The best solutions to move our nation forward come from pluralistic thinking—not shouting one another down and shutting out good ideas. We change the conversation by giving participants hands-on practice with civil discourse, while at the same time teaching basic economic literacy so that every person from every background can enter the larger conversations in an informed way and “vote”—at the ballot box, at the kitchen table, and in every other area of life.
Each of us has a stake in the future of our country. Each of us has a responsibility to be informed about the pressing economic issues that affect us all: agriculture, product safety, livelihood, housing, income distribution, the environment, health care, market power, retirement security, the federal budget, international trade, and economic stability. By analyzing issues from the conservative, radical, and liberal perspectives, we maximize our ability to find ingenious solutions.
But please don’t think the VOTE Program is just a curriculum. Better to compare it to a Sputnik moment. People had looked up at the sky for millennia, but the launch of the first satellite sparked the human imagination in a new way, and a whole generation fell in love with space exploration. VOTE sparks people to fall in love with the questions economists have been asking for hundreds of years: How do we create a community where people have what they need to flourish? How do we create a world where we are released from worry about our physical well-being and free to make our unique, positive contributions to society? There are no limits to the possibilities and beauty of what we can accomplish through our economic relationships when we harness the intelligence and imagination of the whole nation to create economic well-being for all.
Our History
The VOTE Program has been developed over decades, beginning with founder Amy S. Cramer teaching multiple perspectives on economic issues to college students in 1992. The curriculum has been a work in progress ever since, culminating in the VOTE Textbook. Dedicated to spreading pluralism in economics education, Cramer launched the VOTE Educator Series in 2013, with generous support from the Thomas R. Brown Foundations and Pima Community College. Thousands of educators and hundreds of thousands of students have been influenced by this pluralistic approach to economic issues.
Voices On The Economy: How Open-Minded Exploration of Rival Perspectives Can Spark Solutions to Our Urgent Economic Problems, by Amy S. Cramer, PhD and Laura Markowitz, is an open education resource. Since the publication of Volume I in 2019, the VOTE Program has attracted a growing audience around the world. Cramer earned her doctorate in economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and has served on the faculties of Trinity College, Clark University, and the University of Arizona. Since 2002, she has been an economics professor at Pima Community College. Markowitz is a National Magazine Award-winning feature writer and a multimedia producer. Since 2009, she has been contributing producer for Arizona Public Media, Southern Arizona’s NPR and PBS affiliates.
Our Awards and Recognitions
Special Congressional Recognition for The VOTE Center, U.S. House of Representatives
Economics Education Leadership Award, Arizona Council on Economic Education
Outstanding Faculty Award, Pima Community College
Best in Class Teaching Award, National Economics Teaching Association