Safe Democracy Foundation - Safe Democracy

David Brooks
9/28/2010

Brooks looks back on what good government looked like in California, where from 1911 to the 1960s its governors were pro-market and pro-business progressive reformers. In addition to their accomplishments in education, business, and public works, they focused on the middle class to build prosperity. But the model is abandoned, and Brooks says California is now in crisis. He cites declines in infrastructure spending and the interests of the coastal affluent trumping those of the inland middle class, to name a few. The solution is a return to the pro-market progressivism that built modern California with a focus on supporting immigrant entrepreneurs, averting state bankruptcy, and unleashing the state’s industrial and agricultural base.

Brooks is a New York Times columnist.

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Anatole Kaletsky
9/27/2010

Asian nations are interested in American politics because Asian leaders believe that the era of American hegemony is ending and polarized politics symbolizes its inability to adapt to global capitalism after the financial crisis. Kaletsky says Chinese economic policy is now serving as a model for other Asian countries. Japan recently chose to follow China in its currency valuation at the cost of irritating America. Instead of obsessing over China’s currency manipulation, America must understand that the rules of global capitalism have been changed for good since Lehman Brothers collapsed. The market is not always right. Sometimes it can be trusted and sometimes government intervention in needed. Kaletsky looks at other world market models and says if we continue to opt for nostalgia and ideology when it comes to economics, “the new model of capitalism will probably be made in China, like so much else in the world these days.”

Kaletsky, the chief economist of a Hong Kong-based investment advisory firm, is the author of “Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of Crisis.”

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Rufus Phillips
9/27/2010

The administration should be in no doubt that unless corruption in Afghanistan is curbed at the national and local level, we are going to lose the war. Association with the CIA has given some Afghan officials a sense of impunity, which threatens Gen. Petraeus’s hearts-and-minds effort. Fighting corruption doesn’t mean publicly shaming Karzai or dramatically arresting his top officials. Backroom persuasion and pressure by Gen. Petraeus and Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador, would be more effective.

Phillips is the author of “Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned” (Naval Institute Press, 2008).

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Edward Lazear
9/27/2010

Limiting spending increases to inflation minus 1% would balance the budget in less than a decade, writes Lazear. The inflation-minus-one rule would allow us to grow our way out of our fiscal problems without taxing a higher proportion of GDP. Eventually the deficit would vanish and with taxes remaining at historic levels, there would be no impediment to economic growth. Calling for a rigid rule may seem wishful thinking, but the alternative is a dangerous false choice between high deficits and high taxes. Failing to take a stand now, Lazear argues, will condemn subsequent generations to lower living standards and fewer opportunities.

Lazear, chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2006-2009, is a professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and a Hoover Institution fellow.

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Gail Collins
9/23/2010

The Senate failed to override a Republican filibuster of a defense authorization bill based on elements of procedure, which Collins says sets a new record for dysfunction. As a result, now it has failed to pay the Army. Collins notes that procedural arguments will make people crazy, and those who claim to be voting on the basis of procedure are “fibbing, delusional, or crazy” when it comes to their real motives.

Collins is a New York Times columnist.

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Jacob S. Hacker and Carl DeTorres
9/23/2010

The authors use a chart format to grade how the government has progressed in building the foundation for and rolling out the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which is six months old today. They look at the rollout, public reactions, and results to date. Overall they give the effort a B.

Hacker is a professor of political science at Yale and the co-author of “Winner-Take-All Politics.” DeTorres is a graphic designer.

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