Next Social Contract: Latest Articles

In its push to solve the long-term problems of U.S. healthcare and energy in only a few months by means of comprehensive reform legislation, the Obama administration and the Democratic majority could be inspired by the story of Henry Clay's success in framing the Compromise of 1850. In the greatest feat of his long career in American politics, the great Kentucky senator put together a comprehensive package of reforms that won bipartisan support, resolved outstanding issues about slavery and the territories annexed from Mexico after the Mexican War… more

Robert McNamara has died. Notwithstanding his previous career at Ford in the 1950s and his later career as president of the World Bank, Robert Strange McNamara will always be remembered for his service as secretary of defense for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations during the height of the Second Indochina War, known in the U.S. as "the Vietnam War." In death, as in life, he is likely to prove to be a Rorschach test for what people think about that conflict and the four-decade Cold War of… more

On June 3, 2003, the Treasury Department’s James Gilleran brought a chainsaw to a photo-op. While speaking to reporters, he promised to cut up piles of paper representing regulations of the financial sector. Joining him were representatives of four other U.S. regulatory agencies in charge of overseeing finance, armed with less formidable (but still sharp) gardening shears. The message was clear: The Bush Administration was tearing down the final pieces of the New Deal regulatory wall.

Now that the president and the Democrats in Congress have set a fall deadline for legislative action on universal police protection for all Americans, battle lines are being drawn on Capitol Hill. On the right are conservative defenders of America's system of for-profit, private mercenaries. The Democrats are divided among progressives who favor universal, publicly funded police who would protect all citizens against crime, and moderate and conservative Democrats who argue that any citizen security reform should leave America's existing system of soldiers for hire in place.

Lost in the ideological battles over fiscal stimulus is one newly authorized program that is already delivering results: Build America Bonds (BABs). Unexpected demand has transformed this once-obscure component of the federal stimulus legislation into the hottest bond since Daniel Craig.