Category Archives: Public Policy and Governance

It’s hard not to feel sorry for Mayor Greg Ballard. Not just because he’s being hit with criticism from all sides, but because he was so clearly unprepared for the realities he faces.

The most basic question of politics—the question every mayor must confront—is “what is government’s job?” The answers fall into a spectrum between “you’re on your own” and “we’re all in this together.” It should be noted that these aren’t partisan categories; Steve Goldsmith and Bill Hudnut, both Republicans, had very different visions of government’s responsibilities. (I used to describe the differences between them by suggesting that, if a poll showed lack of public support for transportation planning, Hudnut would explain to people why such planning was essential, while Goldsmith would stop planning.)

Most of us agree in the abstract that government should do only those things that must be done collectively, and should leave other tasks to the private sector. The problem comes when we try to apply that principle to specific tasks.

Let’s take garbage collection as an example. There are private scavenger companies that will pick up your garbage for a fee—why not leave that responsibility with homeowners? The short answer is that some people will be irresponsible or unable to pay for the service, and uncollected garbage is a threat to the health of all of us.

We don’t hire private security firms to provide public policing, not just because we have made a collective judgment that the use of force should be controlled by those who are accountable to the public, but also because we have learned that providing public safety is a broader, more complex task than policing alone.

We support transportation planning because failure to do so creates traffic nightmares and costs a fortune when gridlock forces us to add more concrete to our already bloated highways. (We are paying dearly today for prior mayors’ decisions to “save” money by cutting back on planning.)

We support the arts, public parks and public transportation (however inadequately) because we have learned that successful economic development depends upon the quality of life in a community—and economic development is critical if we are to maintain a tax base that allows us to collect garbage, pay police and pave streets.

It’s impossible to construct a city budget without first deciding what it is that government must do. People of good will can differ on the answer to that question, but those differences must be based upon an appreciation of how cities actually work. Money saved by refusing to pick up garbage will eventually be offset by increased costs of public health. Money saved by selling off parks will add to the costs of public safety and make it much more difficult to attract new employers.

Greg Ballard seems like a very nice man, but it is increasingly clear that he is in over his head. And while he’s learning that running a city is complicated, all of us are paying his tuition.

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I’ve just finished Fareed Zakaria’s recent book, “The Post-American World,” in which he discusses—among other things—the growing power of India and China, and what that growth portends for American interests.

To my mind, the most interesting part of the book came in the final chapters, as he evaluated America’s strengths and weaknesses in the context of the global challenges we face. One paragraph in particular struck me as a particularly apt statement of our current dilemma.

“The economic dysfunctions in America today are real, but by and large, they are not the product of deep inefficiencies within the American economy, nor are they reflections of cultural decay. They are the consequences of specific government policies. Different policies could quickly and relatively easily move the United States into a far more stable footing….Policy experts do not have wide disagreements on most of these issues, and none of the proposed measures would require sacrifices reminiscent of wartime hardship, only modest adjustments of existing arrangements. And yet, because of politics, they appear impossible. The American political system has lost the ability for large-scale compromise, and it has lost the ability to accept some pain now for much gain later.”

In short, Zakaria says our economic system is fundamentally sound when appropriately regulated. Our political system, however, is broken. Zakaria gives a number of reasons for this state of affairs, and most of us can add to his list. But one reason, I think, has gotten short shrift, especially from the so-called “chattering classes.” It’s what Bush 41 used to call “the vision thing.”

It has become fashionable to dismiss articulation of a vision as naïve, as the opposite of the sort of “can-do” policy-wonk approach that pundits and bureaucrats favor. But just as you can’t get Mapquest to give you directions to an unknown destination, you cannot muster political will or encourage political compromise in service of incremental changes and “course corrections.” In a democracy, unless there is a clearly articulated vision—a map clearly showing where you want to take the city, state or country—it is simply not possible to overcome the entrenched politics of self-interest and self-dealing.

When Ronald Reagan became President, “sophisticated” observers sneered at his evocation of “Morning in America.”What they failed to appreciate was the importance of placing policy specifics within an overarching framework mapping a destination.

I think Americans are hungry for that map, that vision, showing how America can do again what it has always done best—lead through example. But first, we have to believe in ourselves again. We have to remind ourselves of the values that make us American. We need to recommit ourselves to those values, and we need to restore the rule of law.

If history teaches us anything, it is that we need visionary leadership to remind us who we are, and what Americans can achieve when we work together.
How many of us, after all, are willing to set off on a voyage without a clear map?

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For once, Indiana voters will actually have a say in who gets a major party’s nomination—and a reasonably important say, at that. As a result, many of us are pondering issues we often don’t consider until fall. What are the factors that should—and should not—drive our choice of a President?

I can’t speak for others, but my vote will depend upon the answers to two sets of questions: whose positions do I find most convincing (recognizing that there is no candidate I will always agree with)? And who has the character, judgment and management skills to get those positions adopted? 

Whatever John McCain’s merits, his fervent embrace of virtually all the worst policies of the Bush Administration means I won’t be rejoining the GOP this year. That narrows my choices to Clinton and Obama. And because there are few policy differences between them, my choice is based upon my analysis of their respective abilities to do the job.

What are those abilities?

Most Americans desperately want a President with intellect and a real grasp of policy, someone who lives in what a Bush operative once dismissed as the “reality-based community.” But much as we like to think of the President as the sole “decider,” we know that he or she will choose a team to actually manage the government. The ability to choose highly competent people, and to manage them effectively, is critical. Evidence of character—truthfulness, honorable behavior, integrity—is equally important. Good judgment is key.

Barack Obama passes those tests. Hillary Clinton fails them.

The best available evidence of a candidate’s management skills is the ability to run a large, sophisticated Presidential campaign. Obama has chosen talented, highly effective people who are still with him, while Clinton’s campaign has been an ongoing soap opera. Her first campaign manager was fired for mismanagement. The current one is stiffing small businesspeople by not paying their bills. Mark Penn’s tirades and conflicts of interest have been the subject of ongoing leaks from dismayed campaign operatives. Bill Clinton has been a loose cannon. Clinton was so sure she’d be the presumptive nominee on Super Tuesday that she had no Plan B (a la Bush’s lack of an Iraq “exit strategy.”) These problems are uncomfortable reminders of Clinton’s mismanagement of the health policy effort—her one truly substantive assignment as First Lady.

Judgment? Clinton voted for the Iraq War, and still refuses to admit it was a mistake. Obama spoke out against it when it was politically damaging to do so.

Character? Ignore the obvious sense of entitlement. Forget the repeated “mis-statements” about being under fire in Tusla. Look instead at her campaign’s willingness to play the race card and identity politics, to go back on her prior commitment not to count Florida and Michigan, to throw the “kitchen sink” at the all-but-certain nominee no matter how much ammunition that might provide to Republicans.         

Ultimately, Clinton’s campaign has been all about her, while Obama’s has been all about us.

    

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The heated debate over whether the Administration lied to take us to war in Iraq or was the victim of its own mismanaged intelligence has cooled somewhat, as worries about the economy have heated up. But the two are connected; Iraq is a big part of our economic woes.

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who used to be vice-president of the World Bank, recently connected those dots in a talk to a British think-tank, Chatham House.

According to Stiglitz, not only has the Iraq war already cost the United States between 50-60 times more than the Administration originally predicted, it has been a major contributor to the sub-prime banking crisis now threatening the world economy. The war has cost American taxpayers nearly 3.3 trillion dollars—not 50 billion, as the Administration predicted in 2003, and not the 500 billion they currently admit to. (According to Stiglitz, the 500 billion dollar figure “massively understates things such as the medical and welfare costs of US military servicemen.”)

Stiglitz went on to explain why spending on the Iraq war—now the second-most expensive in U.S. history after World War II and the second-longest after Vietnam—has been a major, if hidden, cause of the current credit crunch. “Because the U.S. central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit. The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said. That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom. Now the fallout is plunging the U.S. economy into recession and saddling the next president with the biggest budget deficit in history.

So in addition to all the places we could have spent that money—repairing our deteriorating infrastructure, improving our public schools, public transportation and neglected parks…we’ve thrown the American economy into a tailspin.

And what do we have to show for this massive hemorrhaging of green? What “gain” have we purchased with our pain?

We invaded a country that wasn’t responsible for the tragedy of 9/11, rather than keeping our focus on the real culprits in order to bring them to justice. We further destabilized one of the world’s least stable areas. We created an opening for Al Qaida in Iraq, where they had previously been unwelcome. We damaged our standing in the world, making it much more difficult to get the co-operation from other countries that we need in order to protect America from international terrorism. Worst of all, we’ve lost over four thousand young Americans, maimed 128,000 more, and killed untold thousands of Iraqis.

But the news isn’t bleak for everyone. According to a recent investigation by the Chicago Tribune, war profiteers are doing quite well, thank you. Recently unsealed court records detail kickbacks, graft and massive fraud that “endangered the health of American soldiers even as it lined contractors pockets.”

Where was Congress while this was going on? And the American people—where were we?

 

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The heated debate over whether the Administration lied to take us to war in Iraq or was the victim of its own mismanaged intelligence has cooled somewhat, as worries about the economy have heated up. But the two are connected; Iraq is a big part of our economic woes.

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who used to be vice-president of the World Bank, recently connected those dots in a talk to a British think-tank, Chatham House.

According to Stiglitz, not only has the Iraq war already cost the United States between 50-60 times more than the Administration originally predicted, it has been a major contributor to the sub-prime banking crisis now threatening the world economy. The war has cost American taxpayers nearly 3.3 trillion dollars—not 50 billion, as the Administration predicted in 2003, and not the 500 billion they currently admit to. (According to Stiglitz, the 500 billion dollar figure “massively understates things such as the medical and welfare costs of US military servicemen.”)

Stiglitz went on to explain why spending on the Iraq war—now the second-most expensive in U.S. history after World War II and the second-longest after Vietnam—has been a major, if hidden, cause of the current credit crunch. “Because the U.S. central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit. The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said. That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom. Now the fallout is plunging the U.S. economy into recession and saddling the next president with the biggest budget deficit in history.

So in addition to all the places we could have spent that money—repairing our deteriorating infrastructure, improving our public schools, public transportation and neglected parks…we’ve thrown the American economy into a tailspin.

And what do we have to show for this massive hemorrhaging of green? What “gain” have we purchased with our pain?

We invaded a country that wasn’t responsible for the tragedy of 9/11, rather than keeping our focus on the real culprits in order to bring them to justice. We further destabilized one of the world’s least stable areas. We created an opening for Al Qaida in Iraq, where they had previously been unwelcome. We damaged our standing in the world, making it much more difficult to get the co-operation from other countries that we need in order to protect America from international terrorism. Worst of all, we’ve lost over four thousand young Americans, maimed 128,000 more, and killed untold thousands of Iraqis.

But the news isn’t bleak for everyone. According to a recent investigation by the Chicago Tribune, war profiteers are doing quite well, thank you. Recently unsealed court records detail kickbacks, graft and massive fraud that “endangered the health of American soldiers even as it lined contractors pockets.”

Where was Congress while this was going on? And the American people—where were we?

 

Comments