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The gains from trade and technological advance in recent decades have been enormous. But the transformation has had some downsides, too. These drawbacks have transformed our politics in recent decades, and the economic disaster accompanying the coronavirus pandemic has only magnified them. Defenders of markets have too often sought to dismiss the downsides, while populists point to them as reasons to build walls of protectionism and regulation. Both approaches are forms of denial. To make the most of the benefits of economic dynamism while addressing its costs, we need a revitalized understanding of the purpose of economic policy and social insurance. George Floyd's killing this spring put police unions under a microscope. A consensus quickly emerged, contending that unions protect officers who abuse their power. This stands to create some unusual agreement between conservative critics of public-sector unions and progressive critics of law enforcement. Both sides should seek common-ground reforms, but they should also keep their expectations modest. Rethinking Public-Service Unions Eli Lehrer & Skip Stitt In much of the country, public-sector unions are a fact of life, and politicians of both parties have little choice but to deal with them. Rather than trying to wage a fight to the death that the unions are likely to win, political officials should structure their relations with the unions in ways that benefit workers, taxpayers, and those who rely on public services. Does the Debt Matter? Peter Wehner & Ian Tufts Federal deficits and debt have been climbing for decades, always accompanied by dire warnings of consequences to come. So why haven’t the predictions of debt-induced economic ruin been realized? Why were economic indicators doing so well despite staggering national deficits and debt — at least before the coronavirus pandemic? Has this century proved the deficit worrywarts wrong? The Weakness of Modern Monetary Theory Jonathan Hartley Twenty-first-century progressives, reticent to confront the costs of the policies they propose, have increasingly sought refuge in so-called modern monetary theory, which proposes that, so long as a government's debt is denominated in its own currency, there is no limit on how much it can borrow. The political appeal of such an argument is obvious, but as economic theory, it holds up poorly. The Future of the Dollar Alex Entz The dollar is the world’s predominant currency. It is used in 85% of all foreign-exchange transactions, and nearly two-thirds of all reserves held by central banks are in dollars. But can this continue? World currencies have come and gone before, and today's global interconnectedness and geopolitical turmoil, combined with the enormous economic disruption from the Covid-19 pandemic, raise fresh challenges. The Case for Urban Charter Schooling David Griffith & Michael J. Petrilli Education reformers in this century have experimented with numerous approaches to boosting the achievement of disadvantaged children — from reducing class sizes to insisting on various board certifications for teachers to investing heavily in failing schools. Most of these ideas proved politically untenable or ill-conceived. But a careful look at the evidence suggests that charter schools — especially in urban areas — have been the great exception. A Social-Capital Approach to Education Reform Bruno V. Manno America’s 21st-century economy has yielded a dramatic skills gap, but the country's education system has yet to significantly respond or adapt. Some experiments at the margins can point the way, as can the example of the early 20th-century high-school movement — which illustrates the scale and creativity required to secure American prosperity and well-being in the decades to come. The Conservative Roots of Carbon Pricing Spencer Banzhaf Conservatives tend to think the carbon tax — or indeed, any pollution tax — is an inherently progressive idea rooted in misguided confidence in bureaucrats. But in fact, proposals to tax or price pollution have, from their beginnings, been championed by friends of the market economy. The history of such ideas can help clarify the assumptions that underlie them and illuminate their appeal. Overrule Stare Decisis Josh Hammer Should originalist Supreme Court justices interpreting the Constitution be bound by the Court's own past decisions? That question vexes and divides the originalists on the Roberts Court. Indeed, the place of precedent in the thinking of judicial conservatives has come to be contested in ways that highlight the complexity of originalism and the challenges it will face in future terms. Bowling Alone at Twenty Alexandra Hudson In 2000, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam published a book that cut to the quick of American identity. Bowling Alone argued that Americans just aren't doing things together anymore, and that this spelled enormous trouble for our society. Two decades on, how have the trends that Putnam noted fared, and what are the prospects for American community? The Dark Side of Holocaust Education Ruth R. Wisse Earlier this year, a nearly unanimous Congress passed a law to encourage more Holocaust education in America. Its champions suggest such education can help combat the rise of hate groups, including anti-Semites. The appeal of that argument is easy to see. But underlying it is a social and pedagogical logic that calls for real scrutiny. The Future is Faction Steven M. Teles & Robert P. Saldin As the parties have been increasingly captured by their ideological extremes in recent decades, the space for cross-party coalition building has shrunk. Some reformers argue that only third parties can help, but this solution has never been realistic in our system. A more practical way forward would require would-be coalition-builders to participate more vigorously in party politics, getting their hands dirty in organized faction-building. October 04, 2020 Should States Declare Bankruptcy? (with David Skeel) The National Affairs Podcast, Episode 18: a conversation about how bankruptcy, or at least the threat of it, could help reform states' finances.  September 06, 2020 Reforming Government before the Next Crisis with Philip Wallach The National Affairs Podcast, Episode 17: a conversation about how decentralizing Congress could help us prepare for future emergencies. Archives subscribe & access Every issue, every article, every year. Unlimited access to National Affairs online archive PDF downloads of past issues Support the work of a respected nonprofit journal Subscribe Learn More Patriotism in the American context has always involved both a devotion to an intricate latticework of ideals, sentiments, and overlapping loyalties, and also a commitment to our unique traditions, culture, history, people, and land. These two types of American patriotism are undeniably in tension, but the tension has been a healthy one throughout our history. Since its founding, our nation's universal ideals have meshed with, and derived strength from, Americans' local and particular sentiments. the public interest Summer 1972 Up and down with ecology—the issue-attention cycle Anthony Downs The Public Interestwas a quarterly public policy journal founded by Irving Kristol and Daniel Bell in 1965. Throughout its four decades of publication, ending in 2005, it offered incomparable insight and wisdom on a vast range of challenges at the intersection of public affairs, culture, and political economy—helping America better understand and govern itself in a tumultuous time.National Affairs now hosts its archives, free of charge. View Many conservatives felt betrayed by the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision, sensing they had lost an important political battle at the hands of a supposed ally. Justified or not, this sense of betrayal points to a much greater problem: the fact that the Court is viewed as capable of resolving political disputes at all. Today, the judiciary weighs in far too often on matters that should be left to the political branches of our government — a tendency toward overreach rooted in the Constitution itself. Summer 2013 Religion and the American Republic George F. Will America has generally marked out a division of labor between the institutions of politics and those of civil society, including and especially those of religion. It is as the foremost of our civil-society institutions that religious organizations play a crucial role in sustaining our distinctive system of government — as shapers of citizens, and as limiting counterparts to the state. That is why citizens concerned for our tradition of limited, constitutional government should be friendly to the cause of American religion — even if they are not believers themselves. Summer 2018 The First American Founder James W. Ceaser Americans revere the nation's founders, and it seems perfectly natural that we should. But we are never quite clear about exactly who counts as a founder, and exactly for what. Our country had more than one beginning, and has several uses for its several foundings. In fact, the idea of a national founding needed to be introduced into our political vocabulary and developed into the core of our self-understanding. The concept of the American founding itself had a founder. A weekly newsletter with free essays from past issues of National Affairs and The Public Interest that shed light on the week's pressing issues.

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