A Positive Democratic Strategy for 2008

By Anthony Vitarelli

Given the US’s uncertain economic condition, continuing calamity in Iraq, and the government’s botched response to the Katrina disaster, there will likely be a favorable environment for the Democratic nominee for President in 2008 (not to mention the mid-terms in 2006).

However, as was painfully demonstrated in 2004, the eventual nominee must define himself (or herself) positively, rather than simply as the alternative to a perceived negative. This will be particularly important in 2008, when the Republican nominee will seek to differentiate himself from the failings of the Bush administration.

Remember, when Bill Clinton ran in 1992, he was running against a successful war president, who was widely expected to cruise to victory. Clinton’s campaign centered on a set of policies, entitled “Putting People First,” that articulated a positive vision of government with actionable policy recommendations. Moreover, he employed an effective communication strategy that conveyed his message to the public. James Carville summed up the strategy in his famous campaign haiku: “Change versus more of the same / It’s the economy stupid / Don’t forget about healthcare.”

So what to do in 2008? Generally speaking, candidates should stay positive and explain how government can make appreciable improvements to their lives without getting in their way. Moreover, it is possible to stay positive, while demonstrating that this Democratic approach is fundamentally different than the likely Republican approach. If the candidate stays on message, pundits will demonstrate this contrast without the candidate needing to “go negative.” In that regard, here are three areas of potential focus:

1) Educate and Train Americans to Compete Globally. Government must be in the business of continually expanding the productivity of the American labor force.

Investments in education and job training can dramatically grow and improve the efficiency of our already capital-intensive economy. Candidates should propose programs to increase the college-tuition tax write-off, increase federally subsidized student loans, and increase funding to states and municipalities for community colleges and technical schools. Additionally, the concept of trade-related adjustment assistance (i.e. job retraining for those who have lost their jobs due to freer trade) falls into this category.

In the contemporary knowledge economy, endogenous skills have become increasingly important. The responsibility of the government is to ensure that its citizens are adequately equipped to succeed in an ever more globalized and competitive marketplace.

2) Target Terrorism at it Roots. Certainly, taking the battle to the terrorists is preferable to waiting for them to take the battle to us. However, only half the battle involves the military.

It is incumbent upon the next President to address the causes of terrorism and to implement strategies to reverse those trends. The US must work more aggressively with foreign governments to address their structural instabilities, such as failing educational systems and crippling poverty. These programs must no longer be considered “foreign aid,” but rather a critical component of our national security strategy. Moreover, our meaningful participation in international organizations and treaties (such as rejoining the ABM treaty) will go a long way toward creating a more positive perception of the US in foreign countries. As always, substance outweighs marketing. Improving the image of the United States abroad will entail far more than the appointment of Karen Hughes as Assistant Secretary of State for PR.

3) Get Serious about Healthcare. Forty million Americans live their lives without healthcare, many others subsist with insufficient access to care, and the rest of the insured population suffers as a result.

A candidate must make the commitment to address the looming public health and economic disaster of 40 million Americans living each day without healthcare. Candidates should promise that if elected they will seek to create a system whereby every American has access to primary care, while not altering the existing employer-centered system for all others. While the specter of “socialized medicine,” continues to stymie most efforts at sweeping healthcare reform, a successful candidate will communicate the imperative of change due to the following factors. First, emergency room visits remains the primary form of care for most Americans without healthcare, causing an enormous economic burden on hospitals and precluding the option of advanced, preventative care. Second, when the uninsured wait until the last possible moment to seek care, they spend more time being sick and risking the chance of infecting others, causing a serious public health concern.

These three suggestions could easily frame an entire candidacy for the Presidency. Others have run on less.

The Iraq Dividend: Domestic Electoral Effects in the West

By Robert Samuel

By almost all measures, the Iraq War should be politically disastrous for world leaders who supported it. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction, the ten-fold number of casualties since the end of major combat operations, the constant kidnappings and beheadings, and the mangled democratic negotiations between the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis hardly create political capital for the Coalition of the Willing.

A myriad of polling evidence can vouch for the public’s dismay with Bush’s handling of Iraq. The same can be said for Bush’s two greatest allies in Iraq, Tony Blair and John Howard, the respective Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and Australia.

But look what has happened to President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany—the two strongest Western voices in the coalition of the unwilling. One would think their constituencies would reward the two heads of government for their avoidance of a bloody mess in the Middle East.

This, however, has not been the case. Jacques Chirac currently is politically impotent. Unemployment rates in France have been over 10 percent for several years, and his referendum on European Union was a complete failure. Few expect Chirac to win his party’s nomination in the next French election, with his archrival and pro-American Nicolas Sarkozy as the current favorite to succeed him. Many favorably view Sarkozy as France’s version of Tony Blair.

Things are even worse for Schroeder. The German economy is in horrendous condition and his Social Democrats lost their plurality to the far more pro-American Christian Democrats. Angela Merkel is poised to replace Schroeder to become the first woman Chancellor of Germany.

And what has happened to Bush, Blair, and Howard?

Howard increased the size of his parliamentary majority in an October 2004 election. Blair’s Labor Party lost seats, but still retained a semi-comfortable 66-member parliamentary majority in last May’s election. And Bush became the first U.S. President to receive 60 million votes.

One can somewhat persuasively argue the Anglo-Saxon leaders’ vote tallies would have been higher had they not invaded Iraq, especially in Blair’s case. Similarly, Chirac and Schroeder could easily have found themselves in an even further diminished political position had they gone along with Bush, Blair, and Howard.

Also, Iraq was hardly in the only variable in each respective election. There were numerous economic and domestic concerns with significant effects.

That being said, I believe a pattern can be found as to what the Western world wants out of its leaders. It wants its leaders to standup to threats and attack them head-on. No matter what public opinion polls show, the Anglo-Saxon nations gained a certain confidence in their leaders when they made the ballsy decision to invade Iraq.

Similarly, Chirac and Schroeder ultimately appeared weak when they did not join their traditional allies in a quest to remove a sworn enemy of the West. Democratic theory, which admittedly has its unavoidable flaws, shows that the West desires its leaders to make tough decisions in the face of threats and risky projects.

(One can point to the removal of the Popular Party in Spain after the 3-11-04 attacks as an example of how a party lost power for supporting the war in Iraq. This, however, is a misunderstanding of that election. The Popular Party lost the election for misleading the public on the perpetrators of the terrorist attack, and thus lost its reputation as a strong and honest party in the War on Terrorism.)

As Bill O’Reilly would put it, the West wants “stand-up guys” to lead them in this global world of asymmetric threats. Despite the war's lack of popularity, Western leaders benefited more from joining this noble cause than for protesting it. This is a wonderful sign for the ultimate success in the War against Terrorism.

Historically, liberal democracies have always been horrific at preparing for war. Their anti-liberal adversaries, however, are always surprised by the ultimate resilience these so-called “decadent” societies show once the fighting begins. Thanks to Bush, Blair, and Howard, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are finding this out first-hand.

Opt Out... of Woe

By Andrew Collins

Political issues can be categorized by the reactions they elicit. One such category is the Anger Division, composed of values-oriented issues like abortion that almost always yield strong, even venomous reactions. There is also the Indifference Division, where fiscal policy and campaign finance lead a pack of wonkish issues that trot unnoticed before vacant stares. But my favorite category is the Pantheon of Woe, a status reserved for the most complex and/or foreboding issues. When such an issue is raised in conversation, the typical response is a dolorous, slow shake of the head--possibly accompanied by a trite statement like, "I just don't know" or "I tell you." Foremost in the Pantheon of Woe are the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, oil prices and the venerable standard-bearer, Social Security.

Social Security heads the Pantheon because it is presumed to be vastly and surreptitiously complicated, vitally important and stricken with a horrific and incurable disease. That killer trifecta infuses enough angst to keep the issue in the public sphere, but enough hopelessness to prevent good ideas from emerging. The best solution we have heard so far is privatization, which is more a reapplication of an axiomatic market-economy outlook than an expressly new idea. Even though Social Security was the prime issue last winter, I heard remarkably few fresh ideas.

The first step to "demoting" Social Security from the Pantheon of Woe, making it more accessible, coming up with some workable plans and implementing them is to throw a bunch of simpleton ideas on the table and see whether they would work.

So I am going to start with one: What if wealthy individuals could opt out--not from the system entirely; that has been proposed and rejected many times--but from benefits? That is to say, their payroll taxes would be a de facto charitable contribution to the Social Security system, and though they would reserve the right to change their minds, they would at last be able to forego benefits that they do not need.

You might think no one would ever do that, and you might be right. But let's say 100 of the very wealthiest billionaires decided to forego their relatively meager $2,640* monthly Social Security checks upon retirement. Most of these people would give this money to charity anyway, but opting out just saves them the trouble. With a 6.2 percent payroll tax on their $76,000 maximum taxable salary for 50 years, plus a 6.2 percent matching employer tax, not including interest, Social Security would enjoy a net benefit of $46 million from these 100 people alone. If there were 100,000 participants, you guessed it: $46 billion.

It would be a small dent in Social Security's projected $3.7 trillion shortfall over 75 years, but an absolutely painless one. And in a world where the talk is of benefit reductions, higher tax rates, higher retirement ages and insecure investment accounts, what's wrong with taking advantage of every small opportunity?

Perhaps a benefits opt-out is practical, perhaps it is not. (I would certainly participate if I became fabulously wealthy.) But one thing I can say for the idea is that it is not a frown and a shake of the head. There are countless better ideas out there waiting to be hatched, but are cordoned off in darkness because Social Security waits outside the egg as some sort of ethereal bogeyman. Engage with the issue; you will find it challenging, exciting and rife with opportunity. Let's take Social Security out of the Pantheon of Woe and put it where it belongs: as a manageable issue just waiting to be solved by people like us.

* For a 20-year-old making $10 million annually from 2005 until retirement at 70; in today's dollars.

IT for Healthcare

By Anthony Vitarelli

Kroger uses laser-recognized purchasing codes to tally your bill and to control inventory. General Motors allows consumers to design custom cars on their website and uses robots to assemble cars. Home Depot uses computers to mix paint.

Do any of these examples seem unusual to you? Naturally, market forces have compelled nearly every private sector of the economy to take advantage of the efficiencies offered by emerging technologies. You can easily check your bank records online, purchase stocks with the click of a mouse or buy a rare Russian antique that you spotted on eBay. Political campaigns employ the same data mining tools used by private market researchers to target likely voters. Even governments store legal records, Social Security data and tax data in massive servers. Simply put, technological advances reduce transaction costs and increase productivity. In so doing, new technologies improve the efficiency with which markets function.

Unfortunately, America’s healthcare system remains the glaring omission from the litany of sectors that have embraced information technologies to reduce overall costs.

Americans (individuals and government) spend $1.8 trillion (15.3 percent of GDP) on healthcare each year, and these costs are projected to rise continually with the retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. An ever growing share of this sum results from the rising administrative costs associated with the system’s required record-keeping. In 1999, per capita administrative costs averaged $1,059, compared with only $450 in 1987. (Certainly, these costs are not solely due to the lack of IT integration, as our decentralized private system contributes strongly. One needs look no further than Canada’s single-payer system, which resulted in administrative costs of only $304 per capita in 1999.)

Nonetheless, assuming the United States maintains its current private system, enormous cost savings can still be achieved through the implementation of electronic medical records – not to mention an increased quality of medical care. The Progressive Policy Institute reports, that “Doctors order more than $8 billion worth of duplicative lab tests, X-rays and prescriptions that could be eliminated through the use of a health information network.” Such a network would entail each citizen being issued an ATM-like card that would store all relevant information such as allergies, past medical history, and insurance information – just the like the system that will be implemented in England by 2010.

Needless to say, this system would entail high startup costs: issuance of cards, creation, distribution and installation of “card-readers,” and the cost of maintaining an exceptionally secure system in which this sensitive data can be stored. However, if amortized over the life of this project (which theoretically is infinite), the savings achieved and net welfare benefit of improved care will likely far outweigh those costs. Unfortunately, the federal government has a history of eschewing long-term investments when faced with upfront costs, as demonstrated with recent cuts to federal student aid and the AmeriCorps program.

This summer, President Bush announced that he would like to see “interoperable electronic health records” by 2014. Little has actually been done to advance this charge beyond a few requests for proposals from private firms, but one hopes that Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt will aggressively pursue the President’s call for action.

However, there is good news. Where the federal government drags its feet, forward-thinking states can move forward. This week, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano announced that Arizona will have fully digital records by 2010. She has charged a “steering committee” of healthcare professional, IT experts, and policy makers to draft a “roadmap for health care information technology.” Hopefully, Arizona will serve as an example for other states to follow, in addition to the federal government.

To offer services effectively to the American people, our government must act more entrepreneurially, which demands effective investment in cost-savings. Faced with simultaneously escalating deficits and healthcare costs, such measures should be pursued vigorously and with the help of private sector experts. In this spirit, a national health care information network would eliminate redundancies, reduce healthcare costs and improve overall patient care.

The Axis of Evil Continued...

By Robert Samuel

Optimism should still surround North Korea’s agreement to abandon "all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs" and submit to international inspections. Though disagreement on which parts of the deal North Korea actually agreed emerged immediately, the once diplomatic quagmire now appears to have an acceptable outcome for the United States and its allies. Just four days ago, it seemed there were no viable solutions to prevent Kim Jong Il’s regime from turning into a nuclear Wal-Mart for all despots and terrorists. Such is the scope of this considerable and surprising achievement.

Despite this diplomatic progress, few have given the Bush Administration due praise. In fact, the agreement has generated as much criticism as acclaim for Bush’s foreign policy team.

The gripe from most of the critics is not over the deal itself, but over Bush’s foreign policy in general and its decision to invade Iraq in particular. “If the Bush team can get the even more hallucinogenic Kim Jong Il regime to abandon weapons programs diplomatically, why couldn’t it have done the same with Saddam Hussein?” goes the thinking.

The agreement with North Korea, however, does not prove Bush mistakenly rushed to war with Iraq, but rather the reasonableness of Bush’s foreign policy decisions. Just as the title of his now-famous 2002 commencement address at West Point promised, the Bush administration adeptly followed the credo “Different Threats Require Different Thinking.”

One need not go into detail over the history of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction negotiations. Thirteen years after agreeing to disarm, the chief U.N. Inspector and anti-war Hans Blix felt Iraq was not cooperating. And remember the audiotapes Colin Powell played at the Security Council in February 2003? Iraqi officials were heard saying these such as “We evacuated everything” in the moments before U.N. inspectors arrived. And this behavior characterized a regime that apparently did not have any of the weapons.

North Korea’s history has been much different. Though the regime has at times seemed more terrifying and more unpredictable than Saddam’s, Kim Jong Il has proven far more concerned with international acceptance. Saddam generated almost all of his support from standing up to the West. A similar argument can be made with Kim, but he has been far better at calculating the limits of its adversaries’ patience.

Though he ultimately violated the agreement, in 1994 Kim was concerned enough with his regime’s standing with the world that he agreed to disarm. In 2005, Kim has agreed to even stricter regulations on weapons, and ones that would be far more difficult to break.

And let us not forget that Kim has observed what can happen if one pushes the United States too far. Saddam sits in a jail cell with his country in ruins. The North Korean regime understands that the Bush administration is unafraid of pulling the trigger, and this variable cannot be completely discounted in analyzing the success of the United States’ negotiations.

The Bush team has also correctly assessed geopolitical issues in its different strategies with Iraq and North Korea. Iraq was surrounded by regimes not unlike itself: authoritarian, terrorist supporting, anti-democratic, etc. The most prosperous countries outside the West surround North Korea, and the pressure of the four parties involved with the United States is far more substantial than anything that could be mustered up in the Middle East.

Bush’s foreign policy has not been without mistakes. It has, however, dealt with two of the three “axis-of-evil” nations far better than its predecessors, and this is a significant achievement. How the U.S. now deals with the even more isolated Iran will further decide how Bush’s foreign-policy decisions go down in history. Despite the rambunctious way its detractors describe the Bush team's thinking, Bush will be sure to find success in disarming Iran if he continues to reasonably use the tools at his disposal, just as he has done with North Korea and Iraq.

Welcoming Message and Statement of Purpose

Welcome to The 18-to-24 Bracket, a new youth political journal. Our contributors come from a variety of ideological backgrounds but share a commitment to fair, thoughtful, vivid commentary on today’s political issues. Our perspectives are unburdened by dogma and the cynicism of experience. For better and worse, we are taking on the politics of our time with fresh eyes.

Our format will consist of weekly contributions from Andrew Collins (Mondays), Robert Samuel (Wednesdays) and Anthony Vitarelli (Fridays). Guest contributors will occasionally contribute on a Tuesday, Thursday or weekend, writing about politics from a young person’s perspective or writing about youth in politics. And we encourage you, the readers, to respond to our articles with comments and ideas of your own.

This journal is intentionally structured as a work in progress. Solutions never hatch fully spawned; they are built from dialogue, fresh perspectives and competing voices. The 18-to-24 Bracket, like the 18-to-24 bracket, is only as good as your energy and commitment to joining the debate. Let’s get to it.

Andrew Collins
Robert Samuel
Anthony Vitarelli