After a decade of conservative rule, a fair tally of claims and achievements yields a mixed picture. The major conservative strength remains foreign policy, where the right takes credit for the collapse of global communism as a military force and of Marxism as an ideal. Liberals are correct to respond that the policy of containment […]
Article
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Great Bargain
The next president of the United States either will lead the world into an era of unprecedented peace and growth, in which virtually all nations are knitted together into a seamless economic web, or will watch the world fragment into three trading blocs of advanced and rapidly developing nations, and a fourth vast territory — […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Liberal Idea
Textbooks tell us that a great gap separates classical from modern liberalism—James Madison from Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some conservatives say modern liberals betrayed the earlier tradition, and some progressives agree. But the continuities are funda
Posted inEnergy and the Environment
Priming the Pump: Paying for Clean Water in the 1990s
Federal standards for clean water have been rising; federal money for clean water has slowed to a trickle. So, many communities are facing fiscal nightmares, and you may be facing astronomical rate increases.
Posted inBooks
From Crisis to Working Majority
Reports of the death of the Democrats are greatly exaggerated. Three new books, despite their author’s pessimism, suggest how to reconstruct the party’s middle-class foundations.
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
The Rehabilitation of the Asylum
The shift of mentally ill patients out of institutions has not worked out the way supporters of deinstitutionalization wanted. But is the remedy a return to the asylum? Some neoconservatives think so.
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Kindest Cut
Of three tax relief plans on the congressional table, only one significantly benefits middle-class families.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Liberalism After Socialism
Some have long wanted to blend socialism and liberalism in a “third way”; that idea is now in ruins. But the alternative to a socialist liberalism need not be conservative. There is a liberalism that is serious, realistic, and where necessary even ra
Posted inLaw and Justice
The Flawed Vision: Deregulation and Public Choice
The theory of “public choice” tells us that the public cannot make intelligent choices about government. But deregulation is as much a choice as activism.
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Private Use of Public Life
Last December, a public interest group called the Center for Public Integrity published a unique analysis of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), titled “America’s Frontline Trade Officials.”* The center used a wide variety of government documents, newsletters, press clips, directories, and other sources to piece together the career paths of mid-level and […]