Progressive Policy Institute: Memos to the New President

Memos to the New President, by Progressive Policy Institute
January 15, 2009

Mr. President, your election was a testament to our country's amazing capacities for self-correction and reinvention. Those national qualities have manifested themselves not a moment too soon. With our country mired in war and a worsening economic crisis, Americans across the political spectrum sense that hyperpartisan grandstanding is a luxury they can no longer afford. They seek a new era of competence and comity, in which our people reach across old divides to find new solutions to the urgent challenges of our time.

The purpose of this book is to offer you and our fellow citizens some constructive ideas on how we can meet those challenges. It is a collection of short policy pieces the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) published as Memos to the Next President starting last September, before we could be sure who our next president would be. Our work continued through the transition, and this book -- with the updated title of Memos to the New President -- collects all 25 memos in a volume that we respectfully commend to your attention.

Taken together, these ideas constitute a new progressive agenda, one that we believe is entirely consistent with your vision for transcending outdated boundaries, forging new coalitions, and governing in a spirit of radical pragmatism.

This is a "big ideas" book in the tradition of PPI's Mandate for Change (1992) and Building the Bridge (1996). Those earlier volumes spelled out the policy innovations that defined President Clinton's modernizing agenda during the 1990s. This new collection features the creative contributions of a wide array of analysts and policy experts. It reflects PPI's belief in the power of ideas to overcome the forces of inertia, stasis, and partisan orthodoxy that hold our country back.

We do not seek merely to advance ideas for the sake of novelty. This book rests on the same core tenets that have always undergirded PPI's work: equal opportunity for all -- and special privilege for none; a social compact based on mutual responsibility and civic reciprocity; and the vigorous defense of individual liberty at home and abroad.

We see the progressive tradition in American politics as the continual struggle to apply and modify such classically liberal ideals in the light of changing economic and social conditions. At a time when uncertainty haunts our financial markets, our Main Streets, and the international landscape, the need for modernized approaches to policy and governance is as great as it has ever been. You have called for transformative change, and this book is intended as a source of ideas for making it happen.

Memos to the New President is organized into six main parts, each of which pertains to a broad challenge facing your administration and our country. We start where any serious project for fundamental change must start -- a candid assessment of our broken political system. Americans' confidence in Washington has reached low ebb. Restoring trust in the basic integrity and problem-solving capacity of our federal government is the indispensible prerequisite for sweeping reform. In his memo, Ed Kilgore offers creative proposals for reducing the power of special interests in Washington and restoring genuine political competition in congressional elections.

Part II of the book grapples with what may be the most urgent substantive challenge you face: saving America's free-enterprise system from the greed and myopia lately exhibited by far too many financiers and corporate leaders. You will find here sage advice from Gene Ludwig, former Comptroller of the Currency, for building a new regulatory framework to stabilize U.S. financial markets. Other memos offer novel ideas for stimulating our ailing economy; rebuilding the nation's aging transportation infrastructure; overhauling our regressive tax code; and rebalancing the intergenerational compact embedded in Social Security. All of these prescriptions share an emphasis on reviving a dynamic, entrepreneurial economy that can once again deliver broad-based national prosperity.

While addressing the concerns of the middle class must be central to our economic policy, we must also redouble our efforts to help low-income Americans enter the middle class in the first place. Part III focuses on reviving our nation's promise of upward social mobility for all. This section of the book offers a set of highly specific prescriptions for closing persistent gaps in educational attainment. It also explores ideas for bringing low-income men into the workforce, and for ending the scourge of childhood hunger in the wealthiest nation on Earth.

Part IV presents strategies for building a clean-energy economy and restoring America's leadership in green technology innovation. By now, there is a broad consensus on the need for energy policies that can heal our natural environment, rebuild our job base, and wean us from dependence on foreign oil. These memos offer specific plans for accelerating development of clean cars; unleashing the economic benefits of energy efficiency; contending with the problem of nuclear waste; and creating a new international body to foster cooperation on climate change and other threats to the global commons.

Part V addresses a longstanding challenge for progressives: spelling out clear, credible principles on national security and foreign policy. Sen. Evan Bayh proposes a Nuclear Fuel Bank to curb the spread of nuclear materials and technology. Other memos call for spurring economic growth and opportunity in the Greater Middle East; modernizing the concept of collective security; reforming the military acquisitions process; striking a better balance between military and civilian power; and establishing a legitimate legal framework for trying terrorist suspects.

Finally, in Part VI, we delve into one of our most vexing domestic challenges: a health-care system that absorbs about one-seventh of our national wealth; imposes onerous financial burdens on the public and private sectors; and leaves more than 45 million of us uninsured. These memos elaborate a broad argument for reducing costs by raising quality. They affirm PPI's longstanding support for covering all Americans, while suggesting ways that reform can pay for itself. The book ends with an in-depth analysis by David Osborne of how the nation's governors can join forces with you and the federal government to break the back of medical inflation -- an essential step toward creating a distinctly American approach to universal health care.

We would like to conclude by thanking our PPI colleagues, particularly Debbie Boylan, Beth Kennedy, Tyler Stone, Maria Bello, Alice McKeon, and Moira Vahey. We also thank the writers who contributed to this collection. These memos are offered in the hope that they may reinforce the call for transformative change at a time when our country faces daunting challenges. The last election was an expression of this nation's keen desire to meet those challenges in a new spirit -- a constructive spirit that transcends the tired ideological distinctions of the past, and seeks to renew the finest elements of our national character.

The book is downloadable here