The legislative process often operates independent of the problems it is meant to solve. Behind a given legislative debate there may lurk myriad irrelevancies about which the public has little, if any, knowledge – backroom deals, back-scratching, tit-for-tats, revenge fantasies. The most dedicated muckrakers can unearth, on a good day, a mere droplet of the primordial sludge out of which legislation is wrought.
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When the Puritans arrived in the New World in the seventeenth century, they believed they were the Chosen Ones, placed in the Promised Land by the hand of God. They had extricated themselves from the oppressions and inequalities of the ancien régime and, in hopeful moments, fantasized that the iron laws of decay endemic to western civilization might not apply in the New World. What they ultimately concluded was that such laws would apply, but only as a test, a rite of passage. Life in the New World would be, in the words of J.G.A. Pocock, “the imperfect experience of the perfection of history.”
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Our world is growing more complicated, with our cell phones, gadgets, lap-tops and GPS systems. Corporate culture is a powerful example, its “movers” often immobilized by unnecessary meetings, presentations, lunches, committees and conference calls. We tend to make things more complicated that they need to be — text messaging, for example, is on most devices a highly inefficient way of communicating. Yet it remains wildly popular.
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Having died a thousand deaths in committees for the last 16 years, the proposed Sunshine in Litigation Act has not yet seen the sunshine of the House or Senate floor, let alone been voted on. Amidst all the hoopla about health care and cap-and-trade, a small cadre of adventurous lawmakers has put this little legislative nugget back on the 2009 calendar. Will it get the attention it deserves?
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Botching the Bernie Madoff Ponzi swindle and thus failing to prevent tens of billions in losses was pretty bad press for the SEC. But the more one looks into the agency’s conduct in the Bush years, the more missteps become apparent.
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Essays
The status quo is sticky. It clings. The nimble spirit of change is invariably tempered, slowed and often halted entirely by the bulky stuff of routine, tradition, convention, the inertia of human life. Add to that a constitutional structure designed to throw sticks into the spokes of forward motion, and you have a daunting task for a leader seeking to bring sweeping reform, of any kind, to the country. Which raises the question of health care.
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Lincoln once deemed education “the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.” But if Honest Abe were alive today, would he be happy with our current level of engagement? I fear not.
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In 1979, President Carter told Americans that in addressing the unprecedented energy crisis there would be “no way to avoid sacrifice.” In his run for the presidency the next year, then-Governor Ronald Reagan disagreed. For Reagan, no sacrifice was needed. Instead, the Gipper suggested, the instant gratification of across-the-board tax cuts, along with a titillating invocation of a “shining city on a hill,” would suffice. Americans, of course, took the quick money — an ill-fated choice that defined an entire era.
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Our crackpot health care system is not just compromising our health. It is holding us back on a whole host of fronts–psychologically, socially and economically. President Obama is giving a lot of latitude to Congress in devising a reform plan. But partisan opponents are already revving up the engines of fear and hyperbole. We must ensure that what comes out the other end of the political sausage factory solves problems, makes sense for all Americans, and includes more of those shifty Omega-3’s.
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How can you have postpartisanship when there are two dominant political parties? The answer lies in a distinction.
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The rise of the Internet, and specifically the political “blogosphere,” after Bush-Gore in 2000 held out the promise of a new day where the American people, who presumably would be more moderate and reasonable than the cross-firing cable commentators, could make their voices heard again. Let freedom ring on the Web!, we said.
So has the promise of the net-roots been fulfilled?
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Fair or not, new presidents have been judged on their first 100 days since FDR, who in his first three months as president ushered in some of the most dramatic and transformational policy changes that our country has ever experienced. But, more than any of his specific policies or programs, it was the sense of hope that FDR was able to instill in Americans that was his greatest accomplishment during his first 100. No other president since — except perhaps, some would argue, Ronald Reagan — has been able to do that. Until Barack Obama.
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In a time of big crisis, America needs leadership and vision. We need something to believe in. Is Newt Gingrich providing it?
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For all of its swift action on other fronts, the Obama Administration has moved particularly slow on intervening to resolve the meltdown on Wall Street. That doubtless has to do with the fact that most ordinary Americans are livid about the extent of the banking bail-out under George Bush. But if Obama does not seem keenly interested in saving the banks, it’s because the financial industry was never a significant part of his vision for the future.
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$85 billion on September 16, 2008. $38 billion on October 8, 2008. $27 billion in November. And $30 billion a few days ago. That’s what insurance-securities giant AIG has been able to coax out of our government over the past 6 months. A whopping $180 billion in total. It kinda makes the $165 million AIG paid out in bonuses last week, about which everyone is hyperventilating, look like a drop in the ocean.
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When the stock market started creeping up this week, the money pundits immediately began buzzing and babbling — Is this the rebound? Did we just hit bottom? It might be time to buy. Get in now. You could be rich next year, or maybe even tomorrow.
Why are we so reactionary? MIT finance professor Andrew Lo’s research indicates that when traders feel they have made some good picks, dopamine is released into their brains creating a stupor which causes them to under-perceive dangers and risks.
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What is the proper role of government in our society?
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David Sanger of the New York Times calls it “breathtaking.” Paul Krugman calls it “very, very good.” Frank Rich says that it “delivered” because “[g]overnment must step in boldly when free markets run amok and when national crises fester unaddressed for decades.” Time’s Joe Klein dubbed it a “full blown symphony.”
What is it you ask?
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Independents would be the true beneficiaries of California’s open primary initiative because primaries will occur on a more level playing field. It gives independents a greater chance to win the primary, and thus win the election, by opening the field to competition, regardless of party affiliation or ideology.
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Why do politicians fight with such ferocity over insignificant minutiae, generating an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation in Capitals the nation over? Why does so-called “bipartisanship” fail time and again?
The reason is our primary election system. The American primary system, writes Newsweek’s Jonathon Alter, “pushes candidates in both parties to the extremes, which polarizes the debate in ways that don’t reflect the centrist views of a vast majority of Americans.” But, in California, we have the opportunity to change that.
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