Big Ideas for a New America

In early 2007, our collection of "10 Big Ideas for a New America" was published, providing the catalyst for an overdue bipartisan debate about how to update our national policies for the common good.

Now New America has launched an ongoing series of "Big Idea" proposals -- exploring the most intractable policy challenges, and outlining innovative solutions that either party could embrace. We encourage you to read the papers below, watch the videos that accompany them, and add your own questions and suggestions to the discussion.

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New: Political Money as a Force for Good

Mark Schmitt
For decades, campaign finance reform has been based on the assumption that big money corrupts, leading politicians to foresake voters' interests in favor of donors'. Yet in the 2008 presidential campaign -- where contributions were more than twice the total from four years earlier -- Americans both voted and donated in record numbers.

In this new electoral world dominated by small donors, no single individual can have significant sway -- and the purpose of campaign finance reform needs to be re-thought. The challenge will not be to try to rebuild the post-Watergate campaign finance regulations, but to ensure that big money in politics is a force for good, promoting political participation and robust political dialogue.

Previously:
Steel Wheel Interstates

Phil Longman
It's time for America to reinvest in its railroads. This proposal offers dramatic improvements in highway safety and public health, as well as much reduced highway maintenance and construction costs. It will also significantly reduce energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, traffic jams, and shipping costs while providing significant short- and long-term economic stimulus. If fully implemented, it could get as many as 83 percent of all long-haul trucks off our nation's highways by 2030, reduce carbon emissions by 39 percent and oil consumption by 15 percent.

Longman also published an article on the same subject in The Washington Monthly.

To Save America's Finances, Bring Back Community Banking

Phil Longman and Ellen Seidman
Does bigger always mean better? Or does small-scale "relationship" banking, in which individual savers and borrowers are members of the same community, help to make a better banking sector? Community banks and credit unions were regarded until recently as vestigial players in a new world of global consumer finance. Today they aren't merely doing well, they also seem to have a lot to offer.

Instead of focusing exclusively on propping up the big banks, we should be taking steps to support community banks -- and the principles of community banking. This paper outlines several important policy changes that would do exactly that.

Phil Longman and T.A. Frank also published an article on the same subject in The Washington Monthly.

Time for a U.S.-Iranian 'Grand Bargain'

Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
It is clearly time for a fundamental change of course in the U.S. approach to the Islamic Republic of Iran. By fundamental change, we do not mean incremental, step-by-step engagement with Tehran, or simply trying to manage the Iranian challenge in the region more adroitly than the Bush administration has done. Rather, we mean the pursuit of thoroughgoing strategic rapprochement between the United States and the Islamic Republic.

The reciprocal commitments entailed in a U.S.-Iranian grand bargain would almost certainly be implemented over time and in phases. The key, though, is that all of the commitments would be agreed up front so that both sides would know what they were getting.

The Energy Security for American Families Initiative

Lisa Margonelli
Today, we spend three times as much on gasoline as we did six years ago. Although most of us are feeling the pinch, those hurt the most by increased energy costs are working families who struggle to buy gas for their cars and to heat and cool their homes.  While high energy prices appear to be part of America's future, few of the 70 million American families making less than $60,000 a year are prepared for this new reality.

The Energy Security for American Families initiative will give moderate-income families the power to control their energy costs over the long term. Offering a combination of vouchers, low-interest loans, and market-based incentives, ESAF will enable working families to invest in energy-efficient cars, homes, and commutes. These families will be able to save money, year after year, gaining economic security.

Channeling money toward investments in energy efficiency will not only help working families, but also create jobs while reducing energy demand, pollution, and greenhouse gases. Energy subsidies are short-term palliatives for high prices, but the ESAF initiative represents a long-term investment in the health and resilience of the American economy.

An Economic Recovery Program for the Post-Bubble Economy

Bernard L. Schwartz and Sherle R. Schwenninger
The American economy is in trouble. Battered and bruised by the collapsing housing and credit bubbles, and by high oil and food prices, it is having trouble finding its footing. By the time a new president is sworn in, there is a good chance the economy will have stalled again, and the hope for a relatively quick rebound will have given way to the fear of a protracted slowdown.

The next administration must therefore have a second dose of medicine ready that is stronger, more enduring, and different in kind from the first stimulus program of tax rebates and tax cuts for business. The most promising new sources of growth are America's enormous public infrastructure needs and the increased global demand for American technology created by the drive for greater efficiency in economies around the world.

An economic recovery program built around public infrastructure investment and demand for American technology would be more effective in stimulating the economy in the short term, and far better for it in the long run, than would another round of tax rebates for American consumers.