Enduring Political Questions and Public Policy - Pearson Sample... · Social contract theorists, such as the seventeenth century British philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke,

C H A P T E R 1

Enduring Political Questions and Public Policy

Governmental officials make authoritative choices on our behalf. They adoptand execute policies that affect our lives. We refer to these policies as publicpolicies because they are enacted by duly constituted governmental author-

ities, whether elected directly by the people or appointed by our elected representa-tives, and they affect us as members of the public. In participating as members ofthe public, we reaffirm government’s authority to make choices on our behalfde-cisions that grant us rights; protect our welfare and safety; provide services and fi-nancial assistance to us; tax our financial resources; and, at times, restrict our free-doms. This book introduces students to what government does to and for us, howand why it decides to do what it does, and the various agents it uses to carry out itspublic purposes. It also helps students to inform their own choices about how publicproblems should be defined and what should be done about them, and to appraisepublic policy making in America. In doing so, this approach introduces students tothe enduring political questions that both they and their policymakers must con-front in defining problems, evaluating prospective governmental responses, and ac-counting for government’s actions. Students come to appreciate how our forebear’sdistinctive answers to these questions have shaped America’s policy-making institu-tions and the political principles that our political culture holds dear. We begin thisdiscussion focusing on America’s ideological inheritance and how it has shaped ourdominant view of government’s appropriate role in our lives.

The Role of Government and Our Liberal TraditionSocial contract theorists, such as the seventeenth century British philosophersThomas Hobbes and John Locke, suggest that people abandon their lives as isolatedindividuals in the state of nature and willingly come together in a civil society thatdelegates power to government. They surrender to government some of the freedomthey exercised in the pre-civil state of nature in exchange for government protect-

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2 Chapter 1 Enduring Political Questions and Public Policy

ing them and their property, for they recognize that the absence of public restraintinvites attempts by some to dominate others and to appropriate their property.Their choice is a rational one for Hobbes. He writes:

The first and fundamental law of nature . . . is to seek peace and follow it . . .From this fundamental law of nature, by which men are commanded to en-deavor peace, is derived this second law: that a man be willing, when others areso too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think necessary, tolay down this right to all things, and be contented with so much liberty againstother men as he would allow other men against himself.1

For Locke, true sovereignty resides with the people, who form a civil societyand delegate power to government. If government fails to fulfill its obligations underthe contract, the people may revoke that delegation of power, and then are free to re-constitute the government, entering into a contract with a new authoritative protec-tor. Government’s obligation for Locke is limited. Government exists to protect therights of people. It provides personal security and the legal means to adjudicatewrongdoing, whether that be criminal actions against people and their property orcivil breeches of contractual agreements. Otherwise, government is to exerciserestraint.2

Yet what about the welfare of the community as a whole: What about the pub-lic interest? Are self-interest and the public interest incompatible? Do individuals act-ing in their self-interest undermine the broader public interest? The answer is largelyno, according to the utilitarians. They view self-interested action, which seeks plea-sure and avoids pain, as not only benefiting individuals but creating the greatest ag-gregate good possible“the greatest good for the greatest number,” as articulated byBritish philosopher Jeremy Bentham toward the end of the eighteenth century.3 ForBentham, and for John Stuart Mill, an important utilitarian writer in the nineteenthcentury, the public interest is best approximated by the summing of self-interested in-dividual action. In fact, it is Mill, in On Liberty, who develops the operating presump-tion that individuals know what is best for them, and that they should be free to pur-sue those interests as long as they do not prevent others from exercising their liberty.Government exists fundamentally to protect that exercise of liberty and otherwiseleave individuals alone in their pursuits. It is this philosophy, with its central role forindividual action, that has come to be labeled classical liberalism. It is also classicalliberalism that sharpens the line between the private and public spheres of life.

Mill specifically identifies three areas of private life that should be free of gov-ernmental control. He refers to them as “liberty of conscience,” the freedom to takepositions on issues and to promulgate them; “liberty of tastes and interests,” thefreedom to pursue knowledge, work, and avocation; and “liberty of combination,”the freedom to form associations that individuals believe advance their interests.Beyond these areas of outright proscription, the onus falls on government to makeits case for intervention, to show that governmental involvement advances aggre-gate utility better than self-interested individual action.4

Adam Smith, an older contemporary of Jeremy Bentham, also focuses on self-interested behavior and its contribution to the aggregate public interest. However,

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The Role of Government and Our Liberal Tradition 3

his interests lie foremost in the individual as a participant in the economic life ofsociety. Buyers purchase goods and services to satisfy their wants, and merchants selltheir goods and services out of a desire to reap economic return, not out of a sense ofbenevolence. As Smith puts it, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, thebrewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their ownself-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, andnever talk to them of our own necessities but of their own advantages.”5

Smith sees an economic order emerging as the unintended consequence ofthe actions of many, each seeking his own self-interest. Moreover, he holds that thisworking of “an invisible hand” promotes societal interests more effectively than docentrally directed economic choices. Still, Smith did not expect government tokeep out of economic affairs altogether. He realized that private interests might notbe willing to make economic investments in projects or programs that would likelyfail to return a profit, even though they would benefit society or contribute to itseconomic well being. Here he included public works projects (such as transporta-tion infrastructure) and public education. Nonetheless, helike the utilitarianswriting about political freedomsaw limited government intervention in the econ-omy as the recipe for economic freedom and the economic order that flows from it.

There are those who take this position today. Milton Friedman is probablythe most prominent proponent of letting individual choice in the marketplace de-termine the array of goods and services the economy produces. Like Adam Smith,he sees the market as making goods and services available that are wanted, as wellas creating an economic order that results from the voluntary coordination of self-interested and willing buyers and sellers. He also sees the market as a force for in-vention and innovation that works best when not subject to government control orundue regulation.6

Government’s role, beyond the essential of establishing a monetary system,should be largely limited to preserving the competitive market itself, by thwarting mo-nopoly practices and ensuring that parties to economic transactions honor their con-tractual obligations. However, Friedman also accords government a role in protectingpeople from what he calls the neighborhood effects of economic activitywhat econo-mists typically refer to as negative externalities. Here pollution serves as the traditionalexample. An industrial plant may not control its chemical discharges because of corpo-rate managers’ concerns that the costs of abatement would too greatly weaken theirfirm’s financial bottom line. As a result, communities downstream could find their wa-ter quality significantly deteriorated, perhaps no longer fit for swimming or fishing.

In this example, it may well be possible for governmental officials to identifythe source of the pollution and to seek an injunction against further discharge, or tofine the offender until the discharge meets acceptable standards determined by gov-ernment. Air pollution, in comparison, presents a thorny problem, since it is diffi-cult for government to trace pollutants back to individual contributors. Take auto-mobile pollution as an illustration. It becomes an overwhelming task to assess howmuch any person’s motor vehicle is polluting the environment, and to charge theowner for costs incurred by society. That is why government has turned to regula-tions requiring that vehicles be equipped with pollution-control devices and thatthey pass emission tests, both measures to overcome neighborhood effects.

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Although classical liberals such as Milton Friedman will accede to the need forgovernment regulation to protect third parties from negative externalities, they placethe burden on government to justify its intervention, seeing unsupported governmen-tal intervention as a threat to freedom. This perception comes from their broader sensethat the greater the reliance on unfettered economic activity, the wider the range ofneeds and wants the economy satisfies. Friedman also argues that the wider the scopeof market activities, the fewer the issues that government must decide, thus advancingindividual freedom.7 This is a position closely akin to former President RonaldReagan’s assertion that government is not a problem solver; it is the problem itself.

For Friedman, economic freedom is an “indispensable means” toward politicalfreedom.8 He knows of no society enjoying political freedom that fails to have acompetitive market economy. He also sees growing economic freedom in authori-tarian states as potentially eroding political repression over the long run, as a broad-ened market economy multiplies interests and disperses economic power.

An acceptance of Friedman’s ideological stance leads to a corresponding be-lief in the need for governmental restraint. Although Friedman, like his classicalliberal progenitors, accepts government’s role in national defense and public safety,he raises the hurdle for government’s involvement in domestic policy. Preferringcompetition and market outcomes, Friedman is leery of public policies that alterthose outcomes. That would notably include policies that use taxation to redistrib-ute resources. For Friedman, the tests to be met are demanding ones, for marketoutcomes follow the principle of just desertsthat the market rewards effort andrisk, and that people get out of it about what they deserve. Moreover, Friedman’semphasis on freedom and competition leads him to support such policies as deregu-lation, government vouchers for parents who wish to take their children out of pub-lic schools and send them to private schools (with the vouchers approximatingwhat government spends per child on public education), and abandonment of thepresent Social Security system in favor of mandatory retirement saving that allowsworkers to invest their savings in private sector annuities.

Rethinking the Public Interest and Government’s RoleThe market, as we have discussed, deals with wants and their satisfaction. The his-toric assumption here is that individuals are the best judge of their own interests.They pursue those interests through market transactions and by joining forces in or-ganizations that pool money and effort in support of public policy positions that ad-vance, or at least maintain, those interests.

This interpretation leaves little room for government as an advancer of thepublic interest, other than essentially keeping hands off, of being neutral to theends of individual want satisfaction. Brian Barry asks if there is more to the idea ofthe state than merely an instrument for satisfying the wants people happen to haveat any point in time, such as functioning as “a means of making good men (e.g., cul-

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Rethinking the Public Interest and Government’s Role 5

tivating desirable wants or dispositions in its citizens).”9 But classical liberalism’scorollary to individuals knowing what is in their best interest is that leaders do notknow what is better for the people than the people do for themselves. Americanshave shown scant willingness to turn to Plato’s philosopher king for enlightenmentor about substantive commitments to advance the good life.

So where does this leave the public interest? Is it, again, reduced to the sum ofself-interest, or is it merely what the majority says it is? In this latter sense, are thepolitical choices that emerge from majoritarian decision making always in the pub-lic interest, by definition? In other words, can the majority make choices that arenot in the public interest? The answer to this question comes back to how we definethe public interest.

Brian Barry suggests that the public interest is those interests that peoplehave in common as members of the public, as distinct from the narrower intereststhat they have as individuals or as members of organizations. These “nonassigna-ble interests,”10 as he calls them, transcend wants and are grounded in ideals iden-tified with the welfare of members of the public as a whole. These ideals, aboutwhich more will be said later, become standards against which the desirability ofconcrete public policy choices can be evaluated. Following this reasoning, thepublic interest consists of making choices on behalf of the members of the publicthat are consistent with ideal-based standards. For Barry, it is the job of govern-ment to advance common, shared interests. If the government does not advancethem, who will? Most likely, not those who are preoccupied with satisfying theirpersonal wants.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher writing in the eighteenth cen-tury, offers a different perspective on the role of government than that of the Britishclassical liberals. While classical liberalism extols the centrality of the individual,Rousseau focuses on the community and the common interests of its members. Theessential role of government is to serve those interests that all people have in commonnot those interests they have as self-interested individuals or as membersof organizations that seek to promote narrow group interests. For Rousseau, individ-ual self-interest is to be subordinated to the public interest, and any coincidence be-tween the two is merely fortuitous and temporary.11

Modern public intellectuals have picked up on this theme. Walter Lippmansuggests that the public interest is “what men would choose if they saw clearly,thought rationally, and acted disinterestedly and benevolently.”12 Building on thisconception, Robert Reich accords government an important role in providing thepublic with “alternative visions of what is desirable and possible” as a public,rather than just tallying individual preferences.13 For Reich, governmental leadershave the obligation to set a national agenda built on a vision of how to advancethe public interest.

Other sympathetic contemporary political theorists view members of the pub-lic as welcoming of, and receptive to, governmental leadership. Gary Orren arguesthat values, purposes, ideas, goals, and commitments that transcend self-interestmotivate people. He sees these “macromotives” as underlying successful agendaredirection, and points to the Civil Rights Movement, the Great Society social

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agenda, and the rise of national environmental protection policy as the products ofpublic-spirited motives rather than aggregate self-interest.14

Jane Mansbridge, in her book, Beyond Self-Interest, addresses the questionwhether common interests are but a myth, invoked to provide “diversionary cover”for what is self-interest. Although she recognizes that politicians and public policyadvocates are quick to clothe their preferences in the public interest, she argues thatpeople generally take account of both self-interest and the common good when theydecide “what constitutes a benefit they want to maximize.”15 In Brian Barry’s par-lance, want-regarding principles mix and compete with ideal-regarding principles.16

Deborah Stone, following this line of thought, places ideal-regarding princi-ples at the heart of the politics of public policy. Public policy is about “communitiestrying to achieve something as communities,”17 and the major debates in communi-ties revolve around questions of goals and the ideals underpinning them. For her,the major dilemma of policy making in the polis (borrowing the Greek term to sug-gest an organic community of sorts) is how to get people to give primacy to thebroader consequences of individual action when participating in goal-setting andmaking concrete policy choices.18 As for Reich and Orren, political leadership playsan important role here, as political leaders offer visions of the common good thatdraw upon the power of public ideas.

Ideal-Regarding PrinciplesThis call for greater attention to ideal-regarding principles should not suggest thatwe are starting from scratch. Our American political culture includes a normativeinheritance grounded in ideal-regarding principles. Yet, at the same time, it is clearthat they reinforce a deeply ingrained individualism. The Declaration ofIndependence and the U.S. Constitution enumerate the bedrock values that shapehow we view the role of government and our relationship to it and to others in soci-ety. They include popular sovereignty, or the idea that power resides in the people,not in government; liberty, or freedom; and equality. The Framers of theConstitution looked at equality through classical liberal political spectacles andworried about the potential for government-created inequalities that go beyond dif-ferences in individuals’ talents, skills, and preparation. Thus they saw the need tocheck government in creating artificial privileges, such as granting charters or mo-nopolies, or in artificially holding citizens back in their pursuit of opportunity (withslavery notoriously aside).

This combination of principles beckons individuals to seek their fortunes un-hindered by government, but also protected by it. Freedom allows us to pursue ourown interests, at least as long as we do not violate the right of others to pursue theirinterests. Equality supports equal treatment under the law and protection againstgovernment artificially constraining people in their lawful exercise of individualfreedom. These fundamental principles undergird the values of individual initiativeand personal responsibilityvalues supported by the Protestant ethic of America’searly settlers, an association recognized by Alexis de Toqueville in the early nine-teenth century.19 The dicta of hard work, self-improvement, and personal advance-ment ring resonantly in our collective consciousness.

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Ideal-Regarding Principles 7

Americans believe in the concept of the “American dream,” a term that didnot get popularly coined until the early twentieth century. It holds the anticipation,if not the promise that people can get ahead through hard work. They just need anequal opportunity to be free to compete; as John Manley ironically puts it, to com-pete to become unequal.20

President Bill Clinton captured the essence of the American dream in a 1993speech to the Democratic Leadership Council:

The American dream that we were all raised on is a simple but powerful oneifyou work hard and play by the rules you should be given a chance to go as far asyour God-given abilities will take you.21

Individual enterprise lies at the heart of the American dream.John Dewey, writing during the Progressive period in American politics of the

early twentieth century, saw the exercise of individual freedom not only as an av-enue to improve a person’s condition but also as an opportunity for “the fullest de-velopment of human capacities to share in the good that society has produced andthe ability to contribute to the common good.”22 For Dewey, that contributioncomes through a cooperative effort whose quality is improved by the personal de-velopment of the collaborating participants.

Yet the question remains, borrowing a contemporary slogan from Army re-cruiting commercials, about how individuals can “be all that they can be.” TheAmerican dream’s lure is that people can rise as far as their capabilities allow, aslong as they are given the opportunity to compete. Not everybody, however, startsout in life with the same assets and resources. Differences in genetic inheritanceand the social and financial standing of one’s parents advantage some over others.Some will rise faster and go farther than others as they make the most of their abili-ties. Inequalities will exist. But liberalism views them as unobjectionable, as consis-tent with the principle of just deserts.

This position is not without its detractors, and criticism follows two lines ofreasoning. The first focuses on equal opportunity, which critics hold is more thanfreedom to compete. They draw a distinction between government-ensured free-dom to compete and what constitutes effective equality of opportunity. Critics turntheir attention to the disadvantages that some individuals bring into that competi-tion, and the debate centers on government’s obligation to eliminate, or at leastminimize, those disadvantages. It quickly turns to the extent of government inter-vention necessary to secure more effective equality of opportunity.

Traditionally, policymakers and the general public looked at America’s publiceducational system as the vehicle for enhancing opportunity. Intellectuals such asJohn Dewey saw public education as the road to personal advancement and to astronger democracy. Contemporary critics find the public schools falling short ofthat aim. They call for reforms to improve educational quality, while realizing thatschools are only one factor, albeit a highly important one, that shapes human devel-opment and expands capabilities. They also look at how family life nurtures orimpedes individuals, and to what government should do to strengthen the familyand thus its contribution. The paramount question becomes how far should govern-ment go to ameliorate impediments that prevent some from competing on an effec-tively equal footing. However, the operating presumption remains that competition

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is to be valued, and that individual achievement should be rewardedachievementthat follows individual effort and diligence.

An alternative focus to equality of opportunity is equality of condition, andAmerica’s classical liberal ideology has held the latter suspect. It should be madeclear from the outset that in discussions of equality of condition no one advocatesfull equality, whether it be in income, wealth, housing, or educational attainment.Instead, the discussion turns on how large relative differences should be, and whatshould be government’s role in using public policies to narrow them. An examplewould be the debate over the extent to which policymakers should use redistribu-tive taxation policy to flatten income disparities.

Public opinion polls consistently show that the American public over-whelmingly prefers to view equality in terms of opportunity rather than condition.These polls indicate that a large majority of Americans consistently see opportu-nity present in the United States if one makes the effort.23 Public opinion surveysalso show that Americans are disinclined to support the proposition that govern-ment should use its taxing and legislative powers to redistribute income. AsBenjamin Page and Robert Shapiro conclude, based on their fifty-year study ofpublic opinion on policy preferences, “Surveys since the 1930s have shown thatthe explicit idea of income redistributing elicits very limited enthusiasm amongthe American public. Most Americans are content with the distributional effectsof private markets.”24

The work of sociologists James Kluegel and Eliot Smith on American publicopinion comes to a similar conclusion. They report that Americans believe thateveryone should count equally in moral terms and in the eyes of the law, butAmericans also reject economic equality of results in favor of equality of opportu-nity and individual effort.25

Seymour Martin Lipset and Jennifer Hochschild examine whether that findingapplies to African Americans, given their unique historical experience in America.Both conclude that most African Americans do believe in equal opportunity and thequest for the American dream. However, both also find that African Americans aremore welcoming than whites of government intervention to help them better theircondition.26 Hochschild, in her 1995 book, Facing Up to the American Dream: Race,Class, and the Soul of the Nation, finds, counter to expectations, that the least advan-taged blacks, including members of the working class, most strongly support the clas-sical liberal values of individual effort, equality of opportunity, and just deserts.Upper-income blacks, in comparison, tend to see greater obstacles in the way of up-ward mobility, and are more likely than lower-income blacks to invite governmentalassistance in that quest. They also are more likely, in particular, to support affirma-tive action preferences, which conflict with the value of meritocracy.

American Ideology in Comparative PerspectiveResponses to comparative public opinion surveys show that Americans, when askedthe same questions as their international counterparts, assign a more restrictive roleto government than do citizens of other industrial nations. In response to a question

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American Ideology in Comparative Perspective 9

about government’s power, 66 percent of respondents in the United States repliedthat government has too much power, considerably the highest of the eleven coun-tries surveyed. Compare that to 44 percent in France, 34 percent in Germany,27 percent in Sweden, and 21 percent in Japan. A similar pattern emerges from re-sponses to a question of whether government should provide a decent standard ofliving for the unemployed. Although the level of agreement rose to 48 percentamong those Americans responding to the question, it was dwarfed by respondentsin the other countries. Over 90 percent of those in Ireland, Spain, Sweden, andNorway answered yes, and at least 78 percent added their agreement in France andGermany. Finally, in response to a question about whether government should re-distribute wealth, only 33 percent of the American respondents answered in the af-firmative, again the lowest of the eleven countries surveyed. (See Table 1.1)

An earlier comparative survey paints a similar picture of citizens’ support forgovernment redistribution to bring about greater equality of condition. Only 39 percent of American respondents agreed that government should reduce incomeinequality. In comparison, levels of agreement rose to 80 percent in Italy, 70 per-cent in Austria, 66 percent in Germany, 65 percent in Great Britain, and 53 per-cent in Sweden.27

Commentaries on America’s distinctive political culture have been plentifulover time, starting from Alexis de Toqueville’s observations of American life in the1830s. Important and widely read scholarly works include the German sociologistWerner Sombart’s Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? (1906),28 RichardHofstadter’s The American Political Tradition (1948),29 Daniel Boorstin’s The Geniusof American Politics (1953),30 and Louis Hartz’s The Liberal Tradition in America(1955)31. Two more recent booksSeymour Martin Lipset’s AmericanExceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (1997) and Graham K. Wilson’s Only inAmerica? (1998)32draw on public opinion data and contemporary analysis topaint a picture of America’s distinctiveness among modern industrial nations.Lipset uses the label “exceptionalism” to describe America’s position within theworld, and Wilson argues that “distinctiveness” better captures reality, since he seesthe differences as a narrowing matter of degrees.

They, like their intellectual forebears, also try to identify, and account for, thefactors that have shaped America’s distinctiveness. Lipset focuses on America’s or-ganizing principles and founding political institutions, which he views as shaped byclassical liberal thought. Moreover, like others before him, he points to America’sunique historical development as part of the explanation.

The United States began its national existence having escaped feudalism. Ithad no sharply divided class system: no aristocracy, and no self-conscious workingclass. Colonists gave little heed to social hierarchy and status. Property ownershipwas widespread, a phenomenon that Toqueville recognized nearly sixty years afterAmerica’s independence from England. He writes:

Why is it in America, the land par excellence of democracy, no one makes thatoutcry against property in general that often echoes through Europe? Is there anyneed to explain? Is it because there are no proletarians in America? Everyone,having some possession to defend, recognizes the right to property in principle.33

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Tab

le1.

1C

ompa

rati

ve O

pini

on A

bout

the

Rol

e of

Gov

ernm

ent

Per

cent

age

of T

hose

Res

pond

ing

Uni

ted

New

St

ates

Can

ada

Fran

ceG

erm

any

Irel

and

Isra

elJa

pan

Zea

land

Nor

way

Spai

nSw

eden

Wha

t abo

ut g

over

nmen

t’s p

ower

?To

o m

uch

6646

4434

3837

2154

4356

27A

bout

rig

ht30

4441

4139

3513

4152

2552

Too

little

46

1611

1020

476

57

21Sh

ould

gov

ernm

ent r

edis

trib

ute

wea

lth?

Yes

3342

7153

6470

4437

5774

59M

ixed

feel

ings

2415

1317

1418

2318

1910

20N

o43

4116

2120

1226

4225

1221

Shou

ld g

over

nmen

t pro

vide

jobs

for a

ll w

ho n

eed

them

?Ye

s39

3573

7669

7449

5480

8865

No

6139

2719

3024

2944

209

35Sh

ould

gov

ernm

ent p

rovi

de a

dec

ent

stan

dard

of l

ivin

g fo

r the

une

mpl

oyed

?Ye

s48

6582

7890

6258

6193

9091

No

5231

1814

837

2235

76

9

Sour

ce:

Publ

ic P

ersp

ectiv

e9,

no.

2 (

Febr

uary

/Mar

ch 1

998)

, 32.

Rep

rint

ed in

revi

sed

form

wit

h pe

rmis

sion

of t

he R

oper

Cen

ter f

or P

ublic

Opi

nion

Res

earc

h, U

nive

rsit

y of

Con

nect

icut

, Sto

rrs.

GOSL.8454.C01_1-22 9/8/03 3:53 PM Page 10

American Ideology in Comparative Perspective 11

With property providing people a tangible stake in society (for white males,at that time), and with no rigid class structure or marked religious divides to keeppeople in their place, opportunity for individual advancement abounded. Theopening of the Western frontier provided cheap, or even free, land. Post–Civil Wareconomic growth at first multiplied the ranks of artisan and cottage-industry enter-prises, then fostered the birth of factories in the Northeast and the Upper Midwestthat preceded America’s seemingly unbounded industrial revolution. By the end ofthe 1920s, the United States had become the world’s industrial leader.

The economic boom of the 1920s gave way, however, to the Great Depressionof the 1930s. America’s economy, with its transition from cottage-industry to thelarge industrial firm, had provided jobs and opportunities for advancement to a ra-pidly growing American population, including the absorption of millions ofEuropean immigrants seeking work. Economic depression burst the bubble of rapidgrowth, and America’s economy sunk into a deep economic trough from which theprospect of recovery seemed distant. With one in four work-seeking Americans un-employed at its peak, the Great Depression created the objective conditions thatcould have been expected to greatly strengthen the hand of American socialism.Economic boom gave way to economic bust, and greed got its recompense, or so itmight have seemed. Yet socialism failed to make a significant inroad.

Louis Hartz argues that socialism’s failure to get a foothold in America at a timeof its greatest opportunity stemmed from the continuing power of classical liberalism’sallure. The individual remained at the focal center. Individuals fell into need, and theymerited help, as individuals. Governmental programs of assistance blossomed. Publicworks projects provided employment, and newly created public assistance programsaided those who lacked jobs. Government, through its New Deal agenda, assumed afar more activist and interventionist role in society, but, as Hartz reminds us, it did sopragmatically without abandoning the basic principles of Locke and Bentham.

America’s involvement in World War II completed the job of extricating theUnited States from economic depression. It put people to work, in military uni-forms or in industries supporting the war effort. It prompted technological advancesand improved techniques of production. The war also increased aggregate demand,enabling America to spend its way out of depression well beyond what New Dealprograms could have hoped to achieve alone.

Testing Political Principles: Post–WWIIDevelopments and America’s Political CultureThe post-war period through the 1960s was largely one of economic growth andwidening prosperity. The war’s end gave birth to the baby boom, as servicemen re-turned home, married, and started families. It also opened the spigot of pent-up de-mand for consumer products, triggering a strong wave of industrial expansion. Thegrowing baby boom generation soon put pressure on America’s schools. Housingconstruction flourished, and local governments found themselves faced with an un-precedented need for expanded physical infrastructure.

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Domestic employment rose markedly, as did worker productivity. That higherproductivity translated into an improved standard of living. Median family incomegrew by an average of almost 3 percent a year between 1947 and 1969. Suburbancommunities sprouted and grew rapidly, aided by growing automobile ownershipand an expanding highway network. With greater personal mobility, workers couldlive farther from work, afford bigger houses and lots outside of population centers,and feel that they had gotten their small part of the American Dream.

Yet that rosy picture did not square with the reality that some Americansfaced. The Civil Rights Movement exposed the scourge of discrimination that lim-ited opportunities for black Americans—limits on the schools they could attend,the jobs they could get, the places they could live, and the businesses they could fre-quent. In tandem, the publication of Michael Harrington’s The Other America34 in1963, and its resulting publicity that included graphic television coverage, exposedthe problem of poverty in America. It elicited calls for the federal government to dosomething about it, just as Civil Rights marchers called on the federal governmentto intervene and ensure African Americans equal treatment under the law. Civilrights and fighting poverty became joined on the national agenda.

The Great Society’s ResponsePresident Lyndon Johnson sought to advance both civil rights and the fightagainst poverty after his succession to the presidency following John F. Kennedy’sassassination. Linking the two together in his 1964 State of the Union Address,Johnson remarked:

Unfortunately, many Americans live on the outskirts of hopesome because oftheir poverty, and some because of their color, and all too many because of both.Our task is to replace despair with opportunity. This administration today, hereand now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. I urge Congressand all Americans to join me in that effort.

He continues:

Let me make one principle of this administration abundantly clear: All of theseincreased opportunitiesin employment, in education, in housing, and in everyfieldmust be open to Americans of every color. As far as the writ of Federallaw will run, we must abolish not some, but all racial discrimination. For this isnot merely an economic issue, or a social, political, or international issue. It is amoral issue. . . .35

In a special message to Congress, delivered in March, 1965, Johnson spoke of“the American Promise,” as he urged support for his proposed civil rights bill. Thataddress included a section entitled, “Rights Must Be Opportunities.” In discussingthe privileges of citizenship, Johnson reminded his audience that the exercise ofthese privileges takes more than just a legal right. It also takes opportunity, and hespoke of effective opportunity, to realize the fruits of life in America. For Johnson,

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Testing Political Principles 13

what does effective opportunity require? “It requires a trained mind and a healthybody. It requires a decent home, and the chance to find a job, and the opportunityto escape from the clutches of poverty.” It requires that the gates of opportunity beopened. And how is that done? For Johnson, it is accomplished by giving “all ourpeople, black and white, the help they need to walk through those gates.”36

Why not, instead, limit government’s role to fighting discrimination, usingthe law and moral persuasion, and then let people take the initiative to seek outand pursue opportunities? President Johnson saw such a tack as inadequate, asfalling short of the mark. In his view, what people need is opportunity that holdsreal promise of bettering their lives. He picked up on this theme in his commence-ment address given at Howard University on June 4, 1965. It is not enough to openthe gates of opportunity (using the metaphor he drew upon just ten weeks earlier)and merely allow them to walk through; or, drawing upon another popularmetaphor, to allow them to compete from the same starting line. As Johnson put it,

You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled in chains and liberatehim, bring him to the starting line of a race and say, “You are free to competewith all the others,” and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.37

Some people require special help to be able to compete effectively. Who is toprovide that help? For Johnson, the answer is clear: government, and, in particular,the federal government when the states fail to meet the challenge. The objective isalso clear: to give the disadvantaged the same chance as other Americans to “learnand grow, to work and share in society, to develop their abilitiesphysical, mentaland spiritual, and to pursue their individual happiness.”38 The pursuit of that objec-tive entails governmental efforts to close the opportunity gap by supporting pro-grams such as Head Start, school desegregation, job training, and affirmative ac-tion. Yet Johnson also called upon Congress and the states to improve the materialcondition of disadvantaged Americans, and to narrow the inequalities of condition.Here he pointed to support for public housing, cash assistance for families with de-pendent children, and medical care for the needy. Congress’s concurrence gavebirth to Johnson’s Great Society.

Congress, at Johnson’s behest, put money behind its programmatic commit-ments and significantly expanded its support throughout the 1970s, underRepublican and Democratic presidential administrations alike. Spending on means-tested entitlements (benefits that eligible recipients have a legal right to receive re-gardless of the amounts appropriated by Congress) quadrupled between 1964 and1974, the fastest rate of growth for any ten-year period of means-tested spendingsince World War II. Its share of the federal budget increased by 79 percent duringthat period, and continued to grow during the remainder of the 1970s.39

By the 1980 presidential campaign, the economy was beset by “stagflation,”experiencing both high unemployment and high inflation, defying the traditionalexpectation that high unemployment meant low inflation, and vice-versa.Unemployment stood at about 8 percent, and inflation reached 13 percent, rais-ing the so-called “misery index” (unemployment plus inflation) to a post–WorldWar II high.

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The Reagan RevolutionRonald Reagan, the victorious Republican presidential candidate, promised tospur economic recovery by leading the nation away from what he saw as the fed-eral government’s excesses of the 1970s, and which he viewed as rooted inJohnson’s Great Society. Reagan’s campaign message was straightforward:Reduce the federal government’s reach in the economy and in society by cuttingtaxes, slowing the growth rate of domestic spending, and paring back govern-ment regulation.

President Reagan emphasized these themes in his first inaugural address onJanuary 20, 1981. Assessing the economic problems facing the nation, Reagan of-fered the following observations:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. . . . Weare a nation that has a government—not the other way around. And this makesus special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power exceptthat granted by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of govern-ment which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.. . . Now so there will be no misunderstanding, it is not my intention to doaway with government. It is, rather, to make it work—work with us, not over us;to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provideopportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it. 40

Reagan met with some success in advancing his agenda. First, he convincedCongress to cut income tax rates across the board by 25 percent in 1981 as part ofthe Economic Recovery Tax Act. Second, he succeeded in reducing the rate ofgrowth in both domestic discretionary and means-tested entitlement spending,and in significantly reducing their respective share of federal spending. The for-mer fell from 20.1 percent in 1981 to 14.8 percent in 1988, and the latter de-clined from 7.6 percent to 7.2 percent over those years.41 Yet a sharp rise in de-fense spending, responsive to Reagan’s call for annual increases of 5 to 6 percentin excess of inflation, together with the foregone revenue associated with the siz-able 1981 tax cut, were enough to produce a series of high federal budget deficitsduring Reagan’s administration.

Although solid economic growth helped to lower the federal budget deficitover the last few years of the decade, an economic recession in late 1990 reversedcourse. The federal budget deficit peaked at $290.4 billion at the end of the 1992fiscal year, putting President George Bush in a precarious position as he sought re-election in 1992. Making the economy and the staggering federal budget deficit hismajor campaign themes, Bill Clinton, the victorious Democratic presidential can-didate, faced a projected federal budget deficit well in excess of $300 billion at thetime of his inauguration.

Clinton and the Emergence of the New DemocratsIn the 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton acknowledged the likely need for atax increase as part of any deficit-reduction package. He knew that the large

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Reagan-engineered income tax cut had removed more than $300 billion from fis-cal 1990 revenue.42 He also recognized that the top 1 percent of income earnersgained the lion’s share of the real after-tax income growth produced by the taxcut and the strong economic growth that followed recovery from the deep reces-sion of 1981–1982. He further knew that payroll tax increases (for Social Securityand Medicare) between 1982 and 1990 had hit low- and moderate-income earn-ers the hardest.

This realization appears to have influenced President Clinton’s choices abouthow to raise revenue as part of his deficit-reduction package. Of the $433 billion indeficit reduction enacted by Congress in 1993, the Congressional Budget Officeprojected that $240 billion would come from tax increases. Yet what is most signifi-cant here is the way in which the additional revenue was to be raised—with thebulk coming from an increase in the top personal income tax rate from 31 percentto 36 percent, along with a 10 percent surcharge on taxes due on incomes over$250,000. At the other end of the income range, Congress, at Clinton’s recommen-dation, expanded the earned income tax credit for low-income workers. The con-gressional vote on the deficit-reduction package reflected the highly partisan natureof the debate, as Republicans failed to give it a single vote in either chamber.Strong Democratic unity produced a meager two-vote victory in the House, and ittook Vice President Al Gore’s vote to break a deadlock in the Senate.

The 1994 election gave the Republicans decided control of both chambers ofCongress, as pundits debated the extent to which the 1993 tax hike or the adminis-tration’s failed efforts to create a system of national health insurance should beblamed for the dramatic partisan turnaround. Nonetheless, both Republican con-gressional leaders and rank-and-file members saw the 1994 election as a popularmandate to reverse what they viewed as a new tide of intrusive government. TheHouse Republicans, led by their new Speaker, Newt Gingrich, advanced an agendaof tax cuts and reductions in entitlement spending, and they pushed their Senatecounterparts to support their version in a late-session reconciliation bill. It includeda personal income tax cut of $241 billion over seven years, along with spending re-ductions of $887 billion over the same period. Prominently included among thespending cuts were major reductions for welfare ($82 billion), Medicaid ($117 bil-lion), and Medicare ($201 billion).

Republicans supported the bill overwhelmingly, with only five Democratsvoting for it in the House, and none in the Senate. Ideologically, the GOP leader-ship committed itself to finishing the “Reagan revolution,” which they viewed ashaving been derailed, first by Bush, then by Clinton.

President Clinton vetoed the measure, and his veto message portrayed the nor-mative divisions between the parties that existed at the time. Clinton objected tothe income tax cuts as returning to the failed policies of the 1980s and undermininghis 1993 initiative to restore tax fairness. He also objected to what he viewed as un-fair reductions in entitlement spending on programs benefiting the needy.

Congress’s and Clinton’s inability to reach agreement on a policy vision for theUnited States created governmental instability for much of the 1996 fiscal year. It wasnot until April, seven months into the fiscal year, that Congress and the presidentreached a compromise budget agreement that contained no tax cuts and essentially

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continued spending at the current level. During the interim, Congress was forced topass a record twelve continuing resolutions that provided temporary budget authority.Breaks in coverage forced the shutdown of federal agencies and the furloughing offederal employees, the longest lasting from December 16, 1995 to January 6, 1996.

Editorials from across the country decried these politics of gridlock, calling uponboth parties to turn from confrontation and work together to address the nation’sproblems, including the challenge of further deficit reduction—a direction supportedby a sizable majority of Americans. President Clinton laid the rhetorical groundworkin his 1996 state of the union address, given just seventeen days after federal offices re-opened following twenty-one days of shutdown. He asked how the American dreamof opportunity can be made a reality for all Americans who are willing to work for it,and he provided an answer that brought cheers from the Republican side of the aisle.

We know big government does not have all the answers. We know there’s not aprogram for every problem. We know, and we have worked to give theAmerican people a smaller, less bureaucratic government in Washington. Andwe have to give the American people one that lives within its means. The eraof big government is over.

He continued,

I believe our newer, smaller government must work in an old-fashionedAmerican way, together with all our citizens through state and local govern-ments, in the workplace, in religious, charitable, and civic associations.43

President Clinton sounded themes that rang resoundingly with members ofthe opposition party, and with the public at large: advancing opportunity andstrengthening American families. These themes came together in the president’scall for Congress to enact welfare reform—a policy initiative that could reasonablybe the locus of common ground, and one that was not new to the president’s andthe congressional Republicans’ agendas.

In issuing his call for support, Clinton remarked:

I say to those who are on welfare, and especially to those who have been trappedon welfare for a long time: For too long our welfare system has undermined thevalues of family and work, instead of supporting them.

He then issued the following challenges that must be met if welfare reform isto work:

I challenge people on welfare to make the most of this opportunity for indepen-dence. I challenge American businesses to give people on welfare the chance tomove into the workforce.44

Republican leaders ushered a series of welfare reform bills through Congress,two of which Congress passed. However, President Clinton vetoed both, viewingthem as crossing the acceptable boundaries of welfare reform as he drew them. Heobjected to the first because it would have eliminated Medicaid’s entitlement sta-tus, and to the second because it would have forced the states to deny additionalbenefits for children born to parents already on welfare. But with those provisions

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removed in the GOP’s third attempt, and with the 1996 election approaching,President Clinton signed the legislation, calling the occasion a historic opportunityto make welfare what it is meant to be: “a second chance, not a way of life.”

In closing his remarks upon signing the bill on August 22, 1996, the presidentconcluded:

Today we are ending welfare as we know it, but I hope this day will be remem-bered not for what it ended, but for what it began: a new day that offers hope,honors responsibility, rewards work, and changes the terms of the debate sothat no one in America ever feels again the need to criticize people who arepoor or on welfare, but instead feels the responsibility to reach out to men andwomen and children who are isolated, who need opportunity, and who arewilling to assume responsibility, and give them the opportunity and the termsof responsibility.45

The watchwords of the day were responsibility, work, and opportunity. Theseremarks show clearly the continued strength of classical liberalism’s normative pull.

Not everyone, however, shared the enthusiasm for welfare reform, as enacted.Liberal (in the contemporary sense) Democrats took umbrage at Congress’s elimi-nation of welfare’s entitlement status. With the change to a new program of blockgrants to the states, from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) toTemporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Congress capped the amount offederal cash assistance available to help the needy. It also limited assistance to fiveyears per recipient, although states could exempt 20 percent of their recipients—presumably the most unemployable—from the lifetime limit.

The president’s support of the GOP’s welfare reform legislation caused disaf-fection within his own administration. Mary Jo Bane, Assistant Secretary forChildren and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services, resignedin protest from her position shortly after President Clinton signed the welfare re-form legislation. Robert Reich, Clinton’s labor secretary, resigned early in the presi-dent’s second term, citing not only welfare reform as a precipitating event, but alsoClinton’s move to “a new center somewhat right of the old center” as he engaged inwhat Reich termed an “orgy of bipartisanship.”46

Following welfare reform, both parties seemed content to moderate theirpartisan agendas and to ride the waves of growing economic prosperity as the 1996elections neared. Both President Clinton and congressional incumbents benefitedfrom this state of affairs. The president won election easily, and the GOP main-tained sizable majorities in both chambers, although they suffered some losses inthe House.

Strong economic growth paved the way for greater cooperation between theDemocratic president and the Republican-led Congress, and deficit reduction pro-vided the vehicle. On May 2, following the election, they agreed on a deficit-re-duction package aimed at balancing the federal budget by 2000, an agreementsubsequently enacted into law in July. The wide margin of congressional approvalwas noteworthy, given the record of partisan rancor and divisiveness on previousdeficit-reduction debate and action. The House passed the tax portion of the deal389–43, punctuating its vote with a hearty round of applause, and the Senate

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followed with a nearly unanimous vote of 92–8. Similarly, the House voted346–85 in favor of the spending package, with Republicans most prominentamong the naysayers. The Senate added its approval, by an 85–15 vote.

The budget agreement allowed domestic spending to increase by $70 billionover a five-year period, capping its growth rate at projected inflation—a somewhatlooser lid than the cap that preceded it. Savings offsets came from lower Medicarereimbursements to hospitals and health care providers. The act also provided for$95 billion in net tax cuts, including a reduction in the tax on capital gains, a dou-bling of the estate-tax exemption, a liberalization of the deductibility of individualretirement accounts (IRAs), a $500 per child tax credit, and a broadened earnedincome tax credit for the working poor. Clearly, the act provided something forboth parties. Yet the normative glue holding it together centered on the values ofwork, saving, investment, and retaining a larger share of one’s income to devote toone’s own interests.

Strong economic growth continued to bolster budgetary bipartisanshipthroughout Clinton’s second term, despite the bruised feelings engendered by im-peachment. It generated sufficient revenues for Congress to increase spending be-yond what prior caps had allowed and still yield a federal budget surplus of $236 bil-lion at the end of the 2000 fiscal year, a record budget surplus.

George W. Bush and Pragmatic LiberalismBoth candidates for the presidency in 2000, Democrat Al Gore and RepublicanGeorge W. Bush, argued over what should be done with a surplus then projected toexceed $4.5 trillion between the 2001 and 2010 fiscal years. Although both candi-dates called for about $2.4 trillion of the projected surplus to be reserved for SocialSecurity, Bush championed devoting approximately $1.3 trillion for tax cuts overthe ten-year period. Gore, in comparison, called for net tax cuts of $480 billion.

The tax law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush onJune 7, 2001, would cut taxes by $1.35 trillion through December 31, 2010.Reductions in income tax rates would account for about $875 billion of the pro-jected tax savings, while a phase-out of estate and gift taxes would add another$138 billion. The remainder would come largely from changes in income tax de-ductibility favoring married couples, child tax credits, pension and IRA liberaliza-tion, and favorable tax treatment for educational expenses. In passing the tax cuts,Congress clearly heeded the president’s urgings to return a significant part of thesurplus to the taxpayers.

In signing the bill, Bush unambiguously linked tax cuts with individualfreedom, remarking:

Tax relief expands individual freedom. The money we return, or don’t take in thefirst place, can be saved for a child’s education, spent on family needs, invested ina home or in in a business or a mutual fund or used to reduce personal debt. Werecognize loud and clear the surplus is not the government’s money. The surplus isthe people’s money and we ought to trust them to spend their own money.47

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The tax bill lowered revenues by about $70 billion in 2002. New spending au-thorized by Congress in the wake of terrorist attacks on New York City’s World TradeCenter and the Pentagon added over $40 billion in federal outlays. The effects of thesetwo congressional actions, along with a revenue-depressing 2001 recession that had itsroots in a growing economic slowdown beginning in mid-2000, raised the specter of anear-term return to federal budget deficits. Although the federal government closed itsbooks on September 30, 2001, with a $127 billion surplus, it was much lower than the$281 billion level predicted for fiscal 2001 when Bush assumed the presidency.

Commenting in late-October on the prospect of a budget deficit at the closeof the 2002 fiscal year, budget director Mitch Daniels warned members of Congressthat “We must make sure that this [fiscal 2001] is not the last surplus by limitingspending to purposes directly related to the nation’s battle against terrorism.”48

Despite that warning, Congress, just before adjourning for its Christmas recess,added $7 billion in fiscal 2002 spending for education, marking the largest single-year increase in federal spending on education in our nation’s history.

The new legislation requires the states to test children in grades three to eightannually on their math and reading skills. States must then release the results of thetests: providing parents the results of their children’s performance, and making pub-lic the performance of each school in the state. The act gives parents of children at-tending failing schools the right to transfer them to better-performing schools, andschool districts must cover the costs of providing transportation. It also authorizesfunding that parents of children attending persistently failing schools can tap to paythe costs of added tutoring for their children. Tutors can come from within the pub-lic school systems, or they can be drawn from nonprofit organizations, or even fromfor-profit enterprises.

The successful legislation represents an interesting accommodation of appar-ently conflicting values. On the one hand, it is consistent with the value of individ-ual freedom, by empowering parents to make choices about how best their chil-dren’s learning can be improved. It also is grounded in the values of responsibilityand accountability. On the other hand, it greatly extends the federal role in educa-tion, a dramatic turnaround from President Reagan’s early pledge to abolish theU.S. Department of Education and reserve educational policy and funding to thestates and local governments, even though the legislation prohibits federal testingand requires the states to design the exams.

Following on the heels of the education bill, with less than a week remainingbefore Christmas, President Bush and the Republican congressional leadershippushed passage of an economic stimulus package that largely contained tax cuts. Ifsuccessful, the legislation originating in the GOP-controlled House would have cuttaxes significantly for the second time in a five-month period. It also would havelowered revenues by about $70 billion in the 2002 fiscal year alone, and by almost$220 billion over three years. Its major provisions included business write-offs of 30 percent on new investment, relief from the alternative minimum tax owed bysome corporations, and an acceleration to 2002 of the 27 percent to 25 percent per-sonal income tax rate reduction scheduled for 2006. To attract Democratic support,the bill also extended unemployment benefits by thirteen weeks for workers who

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had lost their jobs since the beginning of the 2001 recession, authorized a 60 per-cent tax credit for workers who lost their health benefits when they lost their jobs,and included payments of $300 to those who did not qualify for the preceding sum-mer’s tax rebates (because they had not originally paid enough in taxes).

Despite appearing to include something for both parties, the package failed togenerate sufficient support for passage in the Senate. Senate Democrats rallied intheir opposition to the investment write-offs for businesses and the weakening ofthe corporate alternative minimum tax. Senate Republicans refused to go furtherthan the health-care tax credit provision and rejected the Democrats’ demands thatemployers instead be mandated to pick up the costs of continuing health insurancebenefits for laid-off workers.

The Republican arguments had a familiar ring: the investment incentives re-sult in business expansion and employment growth, benefiting the unemployed;and the tax savings provided to individuals appropriately transfers resources fromthe public sector to the private sector, empowering people to use that greater after-tax income as they see fit. The Democrats, while voicing less opposition to the ac-celerated personal income tax rate reduction, still argued that the resulting tax sav-ings would go to only 25 percent of income taxpayers. Just five months earlier,however, Democrats voted overwhelmingly for rate reduction as part of the major,Bush-led tax cut.

In their opposition, the Democrats seemed to be drawing a line about whomgovernment should be helping. They seemed suspicious of Republican claims thataid to business will trickle down to the unemployed in the form of jobs that other-wise would not have been created. They also expressed concern that governmentwas not doing enough to target tax relief to lower-income taxpayers, or to help theunemployed get through a period of greatly reduced income and, for some, the lossof health insurance. Their focus appeared to turn toward improving the condition ofthe less fortunate rather than “helping them help themselves,” a theme reminis-cent of the 1990s.

Whether this represents a lasting redrawing of normative lines in partisan politi-cal relationships, or whether it is a more pragmatic effort to differentiate the parties fol-lowing a period of normative homogenization, remains to be seen. Also remaining tobe seen is the extent to which Republicans, who captured control of the Senate in theNovember 2002 elections, while increasing the size of their majority in the House, willbe able to successfully pursue an agenda less dependent on support from Democrats.

Notes1. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. H.W. Schneider (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958),

Chapter 14.2. John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ed. Richard H. Cox (Arlington Heights, Ill.:

Harlan Davidson, 1982).3. Jeremy Bentham, The Theory of Legislation (Holmes Beach, Fl.: Gaunt, 1999).4. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, ed., Currin V. Shields (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956).5. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, ed. Edwin Cannan (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1976), 2:18.

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Notes 21

6. Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (New York:Harcourt Brace, 1980), Chapter 1.

7. Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,1962).

8. Ibid., 8.9. Brian Barry, Political Argument: A Reissue with a New Introduction (Berkeley, Calif.:

University of California Press, 1990), 66.10. Ibid., 192, 226.11. Jean Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Political Economy and The Social Contract, ed.

Christopher Betts (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).12. Walter Lippman, The Phantom Public (New York: Hartcourt Brace, 1925), 16.13. Robert B. Reich, “Introduction,” in The Power of Public Ideas, ed. Robert B. Reich

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988), 4.14. Garry R. Orren, “Why Public Ideas Matter,” in The Power of Public Ideas, 31–53.15. Jane J. Mansbridge, “Preface,” in Beyond Self-Interest, ed. Jane J. Mansbridge (Chicago:

The University of Chicago Press, 1990), x.16. Brian Barry, Political Argument, 38.17. Deborah Stone, Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making (New York: W.W.

Norton & Co., 1997), 18.18. Ibid., 23.19. Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America, trans. George Lawrence (New York:

Harper, 1988).20. John F. Manley, “American Liberalism and the Democratic Dream: Transcending the

American Dream,” Policy Studies Review 10 (1990): 90.21. President Bill Clinton, Address to Democratic Leadership Council, November 13, 1993.22. Terry Hoy, The Political Philosophy of John Dewey: Toward a Constructive Renewal

(New York: Praeger Publishers, 1998), 83.23. Jack Ludwig, “Economic Status: Americans Assess Opportunity, Fairness, and

Responsibility,” Public Perspective 10 (1999): 2–3. This source draws upon poll data from1952 through 1998. A 2001 survey by the Gallup Organization (January 10–14) pro-vided further continuity, as 86 percent of respondents agreed that there is “opportunityfor a person in this nation to get ahead by working hard.”

24. Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro, The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends inAmerica’s Policy Preferences (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 128.

25. Jerome Kluegel and Eliot R. Smith, Beliefs About Inequality: Americans’ Views of What Isand What Ought To Be (New York: Aldine Publishing, 1986).

26. Semour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (New York: W. W.Norton & Co., 1997, 113–150; Jennifer L. Hochschild, Facing Up to the American Dream:Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995).

27. International Social Survey Program (ISSP) polls, as reported in Public Perspective6 (1995): 20.

28. Werner Sombart, Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? (White Plains, N.Y.:International Arts and Sciences Press, 1976).

29. Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition (New York: Knopf Publishers, 1948).30. Daniel Boorstin, The Genius of American Politics (Chicago: The University of

Chicago Press, 1953).31. Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Hartcourt, Brace and World,

1955).32. Graham K. Wilson, Only in America? (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House Publishers, 1998).33. Toqueville, Democracy in America, trans. George Lawrence, 238.

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34. Michael Harrington, The Other America: Poverty in America (New York: MacmillanPublishing, 1963).

35. President Lyndon B. Johnson, State of the Union Address, January 8, 1964.36. President Lyndon B. Johnson, Special Message to the Congress: The American Promise,

March 15, 1965.37. President Lyndon B. Johnson, Commencement Address at Howard University, June 4, 1965.38. Ibid.39. James J. Gosling, Budgetary Politics in American Governments, 3rd. ed. (New York:

Routledge, 2002), 67.40. President Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.41. James J. Gosling, Budgetary Politics in American Governments, 3rd. ed., 67.42. Allen Schick, The Federal Budget: Politics, Policy, Process (Washington, D.C.: The

Brookings Institution, 1995), 6.43. President Bill Clinton, State of the Union Address, January 23, 1996.44. Ibid.45. President Bill Clinton, Remarks at the Welfare Reform Bill Signing, August 22, 199646. Robert B. Reich, “Up From Bipartisanship,” The American Prospect, no. 32 (1997): 26–32.47. President George W. Bush, Remarks by the President in Tax Cut Bill Signing, June 7, 2001.48. Mike Allen, “Budget Chief Predicts Deficits for the Rest of Bush’s Term,” Washington

Post, November 29, 2001, A1.

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Enduring Political Questions and Public Policy - Pearson Sample... · Social contract theorists, such as the seventeenth century British philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke,