Not long ago, I attended a meeting of 20 or so progressive advocates and experts on a major policy issue. I looked around the room and realized that I was, I'm quite sure, the youngest person there. And that's happened before. But I'm 43 years old. It's fun to feel like a prodigy, but I'm not.
In other settings, such as among bloggers, I'm the oldest. But rarely, on the cusp of middle age, do I find myself in… more
"WE NEED A MESSAGE." "WE NEED A PHILOSOPHY." "We need a simple statement of what we believe, just like the right has." No meeting of progressives lasts long before these sentiments are expressed. Sometimes a committee will be assigned to frame the new message. The result might be a crisp but banal statement of uncontested values. Or a list of 62 programs that acknowledge all the key constituencies and causes. As a colleague of mine once said, most attempts at… more
Tax reform will be on the national agenda this coming year. Considered the opening salvo in a much-needed debate, the President's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform recently released its recommendations to reform the federal tax code. Tax experts with differing goals and differing perspectives will come together to discuss their own recommendations for reforming the tax code. Key questions to be addressed include: What constitutes a fair tax code? What are the priorities in reforming the tax code? Do… more
For the environmental community, "The Death of Environmentalism" hit last year with the force of a tsunami, leaving its audience so taken aback by its sweeping, cocksure condemnation of their decades of selfless struggle that they could barely think about it rationally, even when they accepted its basic truth.
On the other hand, among progressives who don't situate their lives primarily in the world… more
Someday soon, when it can no longer be denied that the Bush administration's effort to phase out Social Security is dead, the president might call his team into the Oval Office for a postmortem. "What went wrong?" he'll ask. "I want complete honesty." (Did I mention that this conversation is fictional?)
Fingers will be pointed: Senator Charles Grassley. Representative Bill Thomas. Democrats. AARP. An honest voice might note that the "experts" at the Cato Institute had 20 years to figure… more
Ever since it debuted at a conference of environmental funders in Hawaii shortly before the election, a report titled "The Death of Environmentalism" has been infuriating the legions of nonprofit professionals who make their living in the "green" world. And it is easy to see why. Starting with the report's cover, embossed with a Chinese ideogram that, according to a tiresome and incorrect management-consulting cliche, is composed of the symbols for danger and opportunity and means "crisis," it is pompous,… more
