An Orwellian Supreme Court decision creates a false choice between social benefits and individual rights.
Health & Social Policy
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
Why the States Can’t Solve the Health Care Crisis
One of the enduring metaphors of American federalism is that states serve as laboratories for the federal government. States are the basement tinkerers that generate ideas to solve big national problems. They are the crucibles for testing the safety and efficacy of new ideas before the whole country adopts them. State leaders, the argument goes, […]
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
Dealing with Legalization
What would happen if we legalized hard drugs? Here are six different plans for what to do after the end of drug prohibition—and why one of them makes the most sense.
Posted inLaw and Justice
Civil Reconstruction: What to Do Without Affirmative Action
The time is approaching when we will have no alternative but to find a new road to equal opportunity in America. With the confirmation of Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court now will likely have a black justice among the majority when it votes to overturn Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the 1978 […]
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
The Limits of Legalization
Advocates of legalization confuse the effects of criminalizing drugs with the effects of social deprivation. They’re also blithely unrealistic about the impact of legalization on drug consumption and its social costs.
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 inWorking in America
A New Picture of The American Economy
What really ails the American economy? Many economists blame stalled productivity—without understanding it. A new analysis suggests that prosperity depends on success in key industries significant in international trade.
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
Unhealthy Rations
Oregon’s plan to ration care of the poor has won favorable reviews around the country. But take a closer look.