Next Social Contract: Latest Articles

It's Not Socialized World After All

Erin Drankoski — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:02:00 -0400

During last year's Republican presidential primary season, candidate Rudy Giuliani succinctly captured what millions of Americans think about health care abroad. "These countries that say they provide universal coverage -- they pay a price for it, you know," Giuliani told his audience. "They do it by rationing care, by long waiting lines, and by limiting, or I should say eliminating a patient's choice."

Can Obama Be Deprogrammed?

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:02:00 -0400

In my first foray into political life in the 1970s, I worked during college on the staff of a liberal Democrat in the Texas state Senate. Only a few years earlier, Patty Hearst had been kidnapped and brainwashed by the Symbionese Liberation Army, and a moral panic about cults seducing college kids was sweeping the nation. One result was the rise of a new, thankfully ephemeral profession: "deprogrammers" who for pay would kidnap a young person from a cult and break the spell, by means of isolation, interrogation and maybe reruns of "The Waltons."

Green Jobs: Hope or Hype?

Kate Schuler — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:57:00 -0400

After the release of a miserable June jobs report, President Obama stood with a group of green company CEOs and told reporters that "men and women like these will help lead us out of this recession and into a better future."

But if the White House puts too many eggs in the green recovery basket, we may all be disappointed. The green sector is simply not large enough or competitive enough to be a major engine of job creation.

Immigrants Should Be Eligible for the Presidency

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:01:00 -0400

The presidential election of 2009 is the first in American history in which questions about the citizenship of both major party candidates were raised. Article II of the Constitution says that "No person except a natural-born citizen ... shall be eligible to the office of president." During the campaign, some argued that this disqualified John McCain, because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone where his father, a naval officer, was stationed. Also during the campaign, some conservatives raised questions about whether Obama was born on U.S. soil. Since Obama's election

Healthcare Reform: More Raw Deal Than New Deal

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 08:26:00 -0400

In 2001, Ted Halstead and I published a book titled "The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics." Though I'm not sure we always succeeded, the goal we set for ourselves was to think freshly about how the legacy of the New Deal could be revised and updated for the 21st century. We decided that when it came to benefits our guiding principle should be a "citizen-based social contract." We chose this phrase, not to discriminate against non-citizens, but to express two ideas: first, that benefits like healthcare ought to be not a privilege but rather an