Parts to Wholes: the Socionomic Systems Nexus

Key Prior Posts on Policy vs Politics

• Finding the RadCenter: Making Politics Work ?
• Framing the Radical Center: a Policy Agenda for the 4th Republic
• Policy Challenges: From Coasting Along to Coping ?
• Hidden Issues and Government Reform: the Politics of Special Interests
• Crossing the Cusp Points: Politics, Policy and a Proposal
• Party on Grasshopper: Digging Deeper....into the Policy Agendi
• Inside the Sausage Factory: the 4P's of Political Reality
• 911 Memorial: Fix the Problem Don't Repeat the Crash 

Policy and Politics: Setting the Stages

Why Washington Doesn't get Things Done Feb 6, 2008. Secretary Chertoff on major canonical barriers to successful policy implementation, built around discussions of Homeland Security examples. You really need to listen to this if you want to understand the institutional challenges to a successful change agenda.

'Stimulus' Doesn't Have to Mean Pork  If Mr. Obama is to make good on his promise to stimulate the nation's economy by firing up the nation's steamrollers, cement trucks and the like, the challenge is to find a way to make run-of-the-mill projects cost effective while also cutting the cost and time of travel. In other words , he needs to wring wasteful spending not just out of pork projects, but out of all of his transportation spending as well. Critically, his administration needs to face the problem that those who use roads, bridges and airports do not pay for the full cost of maintenance, nor do they pay for the cost they impose on other travelers by contributing to congestion. Those who use public buses and trains have long been heavily subsidized to encourage ridership. One of the biggest killers of all is that states insist on allocating federal transportation funds through a politically devised formula. The result? Smooth, well-paved rural highways and worn-out urban roadways that are paved with a layer of asphalt too thin to withstand heavy use and are therefore in need of excessive, costly maintenance. But don't blame the states for all the inefficient use of highway dollars. Federal regulations have also inflated the cost of providing roads, trains and so much more for a public on the move. All of this wouldn't be so bad if even inflated costs brought back large returns. In co-authored peer-reviewed research, I've published two papers on this subject in recent years in the Journal of Urban Economics. What I found was that over the past decade we have reaped a mere 1% return on our highway investments. And what's more, for every $1 the government has spent trying to reduce roadway congestion, motorists have saved a mere three cents in travel time and other costs. The wish lists that special interest groups are lobbying Congress to stuff into Mr. Obama's stimulus package do nothing to move us away from the over-priced, low social-benefit projects of the past. Instead of funding every special-interest pet project, the incoming administration would be better served by taking a two-step approach. First, work with Congress to address things that can reduce costs in the short run. Reforming Davis-Bacon, for example, would be a good start. Second, formulate a carefully considered set of infrastructure investments that are likely to generate the largest benefits to the traveling public, while boosting employment. In my view, such investments are likely to include building additional runways at congested airports and expanding highways in the most congested metropolitan areas where land is available to do so.

Not Right or Left, but Forward  You've got to give Barack Obama credit: The man knows how to read. Read the results of an election, and the mood of a country, that is. The team the president-elect is assembling around him is strikingly centrist in nature, a group of people known more for competence than for ideology. That seems to reflect what the nation ordered up this year. The campaign that brought Mr. Obama to power wasn't one that was dominated by policy positions or ideological debates, though both surely were present. Instead, it focused more on governing ability -- that is, who could best pull Washington out of the partisan ruts and ideological gridlock that seem to so frustrate voters. As that suggests, the mood in the country wasn't -- and isn't -- highly ideological. Indeed, the "change" impulse that Mr. Obama tapped into so effectively was rooted at least as much in a desire for forward movement in Washington as a call for movement in a particular direction. After all, Mr. Obama identified himself explicitly as a post-partisan figure rather than as a highly partisan one. Thus, one way to read the election is that it didn't give the president-elect so much a mandate to enact a liberal agenda as one to improve the way any agenda at all is put into effect in Washington. That was true before the fall meltdown in financial markets and probably was more true afterward. It seemed an election calling forth practicality and competence; certainly Mr. Obama's appointments by and large suggest that's how he read it. In fact, in an interview conducted a year before the election, David Plouffe, the man who managed the Obama campaign, already saw the mood of the country shaping up this way."I think it's a Herculean task to change this town," Mr. Plouffe said of Washington. "I do think presidential leadership may be the only answer....Before you tackle a lot of issues you have to demonstrate that you will change the way this place operates." That makes the historic election of 2008 different from that other seminal "change" election of recent times, Ronald Reagan's in 1980. That election was explicitly about changing ideology; this one was more about improving effectiveness. Which brings us to the group of people Mr. Obama has assembled for the government's most important jobs. The adjectives most often attached are experienced and moderate; the team's roots run to the center of the political spectrum rather than to the left.

• ELECTION 2008: The Campaign, the Transition, and the Obama Administration Nov 10, 2008
• WAR STORIES: Inside Campaign 2008, Obama's Inner Circle

Obama's true colors: Black, white ... or neither? A perplexing new chapter is unfolding in Barack Obama's racial saga: Many people insist that "the first black president" is actually not black. Debate over whether to call this son of a white Kansan and a black Kenyan biracial, African-American, mixed-race, half-and-half, multiracial — or, in Obama's own words, a "mutt" — has reached a crescendo since Obama's election shattered assumptions about race. Obama has said, "I identify as African-American — that's how I'm treated and that's how I'm viewed. I'm proud of it." In other words, the world gave Obama no choice but to be black, and he was happy to oblige. But the world has changed since the young Obama found his place in it. Intermarriage and the decline of racism are dissolving ancient definitions. The candidate Obama, in achieving what many thought impossible, was treated differently from previous black generations. And many white and mixed-race people now view President-elect Obama as something other than black. So what now for racial categories born of a time when those from far-off lands were property rather than people, or enemy instead of family? "They're falling apart," said Marty Favor, a Dartmouth professor of African and African-American studies and author of the book "Authentic Blackness." "In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois said the question of the 20th century is the question of the color line, which is a simplistic black-white thing," said Favor, who is biracial. "This is the moment in the 21st century when we're stepping across that." Rebecca Walker, a 38-year-old writer with light brown skin who is of Russian, African, Irish, Scottish and Native American descent, said she used to identify herself as "human," which upset people of all backgrounds. So she went back to multiracial or biracial, "but only because there has yet to be a way of breaking through the need to racially identify and be identified by the culture at large." "Of course Obama is black. And he's not black, too," Walker said. "He's white, and he's not white, too. Obama is whatever people project onto him ... he's a lot of things, and neither of them necessarily exclude the other."

Closet Centrist It is a lineup generous in its moderation, astonishing for its continuity, startling for its stability. A defense secretary, Robert Gates, who once headed the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M. A secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, who supported the invasion of Iraq, voted to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization and called direct, unconditional talks with Iran "irresponsible and frankly naive." A national security adviser, retired Gen. James Jones, most recently employed at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who served as a special adviser to the Bush administration on the Middle East. A Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, who is one of Henry Paulson's closest allies outside the administration. A head of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, whose writings and research seem to favor low tax rates, stable money and free trade. It is tempting for conservatives to crow -- or liberals to lament -- that Barack Obama's victory has somehow produced John McCain's administration. But this partisan reaction trivializes some developments that, while early and tentative, are significant. Second, Obama's appointments reveal something important about current Bush policies. Though Obama's campaign savaged the administration as incompetent and radical, Obama's personnel decisions have effectively ratified Bush's defense and economic approaches during the past few years. At the Pentagon, Obama rehired the architects of President Bush's current military strategy -- Gates, Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Raymond Odierno. At the Treasury Department, Obama has hired one of the main architects of Bush's current economic approach. This continuity does not make Obama an ideological traitor. It indicates that Bush has been pursuing centrist, bipartisan policies -- without getting much bipartisan support. The transition between Bush and Obama is smoother than some expected, not merely because Obama has moderate instincts but because Bush does as well. Particularly on the economy, Bush has never been a libertarian; he has always matched a commitment to free markets with a willingness to intervene when markets stumble. The candidate of "change" is discovering what many presidents before him have found: On numerous issues, the range of responsible policy options is narrow. And the closer you come to the Oval Office, the wiser your predecessors appear.

THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW: Bush on His Record As he sits at his mile-high desk, clad in his Air Force One crew jacket, George W. Bush is as he has ever been: upbeat, focused, confident in his past decisions and in the future. This is remarkable given the up and downs -- lately downs -- of his administration. Through it all, the president has acted on his own convictions, a trait that has inspired both violent critics and passionate defenders. In a more than hour-long interview, Mr. Bush tells me about his tenure. He ticks off his personal list of domestic achievements: No Child Left Behind, which he says was not only an "education reform" but a "civil rights measure"; a costly Medicare prescription-drug program, which also created health-savings accounts and put "people in charge of their own health-care decisions"; his faith-based initiative, which he says was not about making the state a "religious recruiter" but about creating a government mentality that says "if it works, fund it"; his tax cut, which he credits in part for "52 months of uninterrupted job growth." He also is proud of "fighting off protectionism and promoting trade," and his success at getting Trade Promotion Authority back in 2002. Mr. Bush had many big plans that never came to fruition, from school vouchers to radical health-care reform. He considers Social Security and immigration the "two big issues that were unfinished." His immigration plan infuriated his base, which viewed it as amnesty. He remains unrepentant. "Immigration was a very tough issue, and I knew it would be tough because it's a very emotional issue . . . On the other hand, the system was broken, falling apart, and people's lives were being affected in a way that was really not worthy of our country." He also won't agree that Social Security reform was a casualty of the Iraq war. "Social Security did not pass because legislative bodies tend to be risk-averse, and restructuring, reforming Social Security requires a certain amount of risk. And the idea of asking members of Congress to deal with a problem that is not imminent is difficult." He contents himself with having "laid out some solutions" and hoping a future president will take courage from the fact he campaigned on it twice, "proving it was not the third or fourth or fifth rail of American politics." Bush Is a Book Lover

Biden to shrink VP role - big time Joe Biden is laying plans to significantly shrink the role of the vice presidency in Barack Obama’s White House, according to an official familiar with his thinking. It’s not just that Biden won’t sit in on Senate Democrats’ weekly caucus meetings – a privilege Republicans afforded outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney. He won’t have an office outside the House floor, as House Speaker Dennis Hastert gave Cheney early on. Biden will not begin every day with his own intelligence briefing before sitting in on the president’s. He will not always be the last person Obama speaks to before making a decision. He also will not, as a transition official calls it, operate a “shadow government” within an Obama administration. One of the few ways he will resemble Cheney is in making clear his future ambitions, or lack thereof: Biden doesn’t expect to run for president after leaving the vice-presidency, according to a transition source who was not authorized to speak on the record. “What he has said previously is that Vice President Cheney had an overly expansive view of the vice president, almost created like a shadow government inside the White House," said the transition official familiar with Biden's role. "Vice President-elect Biden has a very strong view that the vice president’s role is to be an advisor to the president and to be a member of the president’s team, and that’s how he’s going to be in the job.” Cheney made clear he had no intention of succeeding President George W. Bush, which along with his expanded role contributed to his almost unparalleled freedom to act – pushing controversial positions on torture, energy policy and Iraq, knowing he’d be spared facing voters to explain his actions. But Cheney also had Bush, who gave his more seasoned No. 2 broad sway – with a particular emphasis on foreign policy, where Cheney already had a well-established portfolio as a former defense secretary during the Gulf War. Obama has shown no inclination to do the same for Biden.

Cars, Kabul and Banks If there is anything I’ve learned as a reporter, it’s that when you get away from “the thing itself” — the core truth about a situation — you get into trouble. Barack Obama will have to make three mammoth decisions after he takes the oath of office — on cars, Kabul and banks — and we have to hope that he bases those decisions on the things themselves, the core truths about each. Because many people will be trying to throw fairy dust in his eyes. The first issue will be whether to bail out Detroit. What is the core truth about Detroit? Auto executives will tell you that it’s the credit crisis, health care, retirement costs and unions. Sure, those are real. But the core truth is that for way too long Detroit made too many cars that too many people did not want to buy. After Detroit, Mr. Obama will be asked to bail out Afghanistan. Watch out. The tide has turned against us there because too many Afghans don’t want to buy our politics, or, more precisely, the politics of our ally, the corrupt government of President Hamid Karzai. That is “the thing itself.”  But maybe the most flagrant area where we continue to avoid looking at “the thing itself” is with our banks. What we are dealing with there is the effect of a credit bubble that began in the late-1980s with the advent of global securitization — the chopping up and bundling into bonds of everything from home mortgages to student loans to airplane leases, and then selling them around the world. When you take this much leverage and this much globalization and this much complexity and start it in America, and then blow it up, you have a nuclear financial explosion. The deflating of this credit bubble is so wealth-destroying that even the most prudent banks have been ravaged by it. What to do? The smartest people I know in banking are praying that Obama’s Treasury Department will tackle “the thing itself.” That is, do a real analysis of what the major banks are worth in a worst-case scenario. Then determine, if, on that basis, they have viable, survivable equity-to-asset ratios.

Rectitude Chic Is this the last Christmas of the old era, or the first Christmas of the new? Will people spend in a way that responds to what's around them (Nothing seems changed!) or to what they know is coming (Did you see this week's jobless numbers? Highest in 26 years!)? Will they go for some last big-ticket items, sliding the platinum card along the counter with a "We who are about to die salute you" flair, or will spending reflect a new prudence, and the new anxiety? Assume the latter. There's a new mood taking hold. For a generation we've been tapping on plastic keyboards, entering data into databases, inventing financial instruments that are abstract, complex and unconnected to any seeable reality. Fortunes were made in the ether, almost no one knows how; there's a sense that this was perhaps part of the problem. Workers tapped on keyboards and produced work they cannot see, touch or necessarily admire. They'd like to make their country better, and stronger, in a way they can see. And people want to belong to something. If you're a vibrant member of a church in America, or a casual member of a vibrant church, you're part of something. If you're a member of a family that's together, you are part of something. A lot of Americans do not have these two things. You can add to his reservations the inevitability of graft and boondoggles, the potential for corruption surrounding local efforts run by state houses led by people like Rod Blagojevich, and heady new power in the hands of those who used to be called, and are about to be called again, union chieftains. It will be a mess, a scandal a day, and Americans, ever sophisticated about such things, know it. They will support it anyway, for the reasons above. There's something else going on, a new or renewed sense of national shame. Or communal responsibility. Or a sense of reckoning. Whatever it is it's a reaction to the excesses of the O's, a reaction against the ways of those who caused the mess on Wall Street and Main Street. It is a reassertion that there actually are rules, and that it is embarrassing to break them in a way so colorfully damaging and destructive to everyone else.

• Peggy Noonan: Turbulence Ahead , Corporate Leadership and the Crisis