Features
Where the Public Good Prevailed
Many Americans know, all too well, what is wrong with health care. Ask the single mother who waits half a day in a crowded clinic for a five-minute visit with a harried physician, or the unemployed worker who has been downsized out of his job and his health insurance. Their experience tells a devastating tale […]
Sins of Commission
In stacking the nominally bipartisan social security commission with members all committed to some form of privatization, this mandateless president seeks to advance one of his top campaign promises. But he also debases the concept of a presidential commission as it has been used historically. In an increasingly polarized environment, the man who called himself […]
The Strange Disappearance of Civic America
A more extended version of this article, complete with references, appears in the Winter 1995 issue of PS, a publication of the American Political Science Association. This work, originally delivered as the inaugural Ithiel de Sola Pool Lecture, builds on Putnam’s earlier articles, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy (January 1995) and […]
Why Bush is Winning
The puzzling question is why George W.’s three big plans are moving forward. The immense tax cut whose benefits will go mostly to the rich, the hugely expensive missile-defense shield of dubious technical possibility, and the aggressive expansion of oil, gas, coal, and nuclear-energy availability coupled with a rollback of environmental regulations–all of these are […]
Clash in the States
Many people think of Oregon as a liberal bastion: an “ecotopia” where environmental protection is a priority, the law permits the terminally ill to choose death over protracted suffering, and citizens once voted by initiative for the highest state minimum wage in the country. But in fact, conservatives have quite a foothold in Oregon. Republicans […]
Bush Got One Right
The dramas in April over the downed U.S. reconnaissance plane and the sale of arms to Taiwan have revealed a burgeoning American hawkishness toward China. Centrists have joined conservatives in blaming America for being soft on the Communists and weak in supporting democratic Taiwan. But this growing fashion for fulmination is misguided, for two reasons: […]
Humble Pie
If we are an arrogant nation, they will resent us. If we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us. –George W. Bush, encapsulating his diplomatic philosophy, October 11, 2000 Bush’s America is certainly not more “humble,” as the president promised. On the contrary, he has managed to give himself an image as an international […]
Whitman in the Balance
The Bush presidency has already been a nauseating roller coaster ride for environmentalists. “There was tremendous disappointment once it became clear that George W. Bush would be president,” says a senior attorney at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “That was followed by a real sense of hope when Christie Todd Whitman came in [as EPA […]