Frank Micciche: All Publications, Events and Press

CA EVENT: On The Cutting Edge

Elizabeth Wu — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:30:00 -0400

A New America Event
05/08/2009 - 11:00am

Video: Part 1 of 2 | Part 2 of 2

Which Party Will Attract the Busted Boomers?

Cecille Isidro — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:40:00 -0400

While 2008 will go down as a year of hope and change in American politics, the collapse of Wall Street and bursting of the housing bubble will probably mean that fear and anger take center stage in the 2010 elections. If so, the most coveted swing voters may soon be the Busted Boomers - individuals 50 and older who placed supreme faith in the financial markets and now find their long-held dreams of a comfortable retirement eviscerated.

GM Chief Sacrificed Because of Obama's AIG Woes

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:26:00 -0400

In a recent interview on "60 Minutes," President Obama laughingly lamented that, "The only thing less popular than putting money into banks is putting money into the auto industry."

Explaining the dissonance between his mood and the grim reality of the situation, he cited the need for "a little gallows humor to get you through the day."

Geithner Unveils Massive Regulatory Agenda | Christian Broadcasting Network

Cecille Isidro — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:24:00 -0400

Click play for more analysis on the proposed overhaul with Frank Micciche of the New America Foundation...

On Health Care, Republicans Should Look to the Massachusetts Solution

Cecille Isidro — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:43:00 -0400

It's been fifteen years since Republicans rode the "HillaryCare" debacle to majority status in Congress. For all its rightful criticism of a big government solution to the dysfunctional health care market, the party has subsequently failed to achieve anything resembling the consumer-driven revolution that has been its rallying cry.

Obama's Audacious Agenda: Who's Paying For It?

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:40:00 -0500

Audacity on steroids. How else to describe the Obama administration's fiscal 2010 budget proposal, unleashed on an American public so staggered by the events of the last few months that they cannot comprehend the magnitude of the plans Mr. Obama and his still-inchoate Cabinet have for the nation.

Obama's Address to the Nation

Communications — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:22:00 -0500

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Barack Obama is set to deliver a speech to the nation this evening to lay out his economic recovery plans and discuss the challenges ahead in trying to pull the nation out of a severe recession.

The President's address comes on the same day as Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke testifying before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee about the state of our nation's banks.

The President is also expected to discuss healthcare and America's foreign policy.

Wall Street Got the Better Bailout

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:41:00 -0500

There was good news and bad news in the recent filings Chrysler and General Motors made with the federal officials overseeing their multibillion-dollar rescue.

The good news was that, if the federal government can see its way clear to adding another $21 billion or so to the more than $17.4 billion they received in bridge loans in December -- including a cool $7 billion by the end of March to forestall their insolvency -- the companies are confident that they will be able to retool, return to profitability and repay the money provided them.

The Latest Generation

Stephanie Gunter — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:45:00 -0500

A New America Event
02/18/2009 - 12:15pm

On February 18, 2009, the New America Foundation's Next Social Contract Initiative hosted a discussion with the authors of two newly-commissioned papers on the civic values and political habits of the Millennial generation (Americans born after 1982). Neil Howe and Reena Nadler discussed "Yes We Can: The Emergence of Millennials as a Political Generation," and Peter Levine presented findings from "Th

With Daschle Out, Obama Should Make Romney the Healthcare-Reform Czar

Cecille Isidro — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:03:00 -0500

Picture the scene: a dignified Ted Kennedy stands beside President Barack Obama on a brisk, late winter day in the Rose Garden. Mr. Obama laments the events that caused him to withdraw the nomination of his anointed healthcare-reform czar, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, as Health and Human Services Secretary. Reaching back to the lofty rhetoric of his campaign, he implores his audience to look past his own lapse in judgment and seize the opportunity to implement sweeping national reform that puts health insurance within reach for

Party's Over – Now Welcome to the Hot Seat, Mr. President | The Scotsman

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:07:00 -0500

"He's trying to send the message to say that he will be extremely active," said Frank Micciche of Washington's New America Foundation. ...

Changing Society, Changing Ideas | CQ Weekly

Cecille Isidro — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 10:49:00 -0500

"What we're talking about are the kinds of investments that will create the platform for people to thrive, not just a safety net," said Frank Micciche, deputy director of New America Foundation's Next Social Contract initiative.

States Seeking Bailout Bucks Should Disclose as Much as Big Three

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:38:00 -0500

Even before President Bush announced that billions of dollars in aid from the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Recovery Program will soon flow to America's automobile manufacturers, a third wave of relief-seekers was already washing up on the shores of the Potomac.

Massachusetts Health-Care Model Works Well

Cecille Isidro — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:26:00 -0500

With Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick’s announcement that the Bush administration had agreed to increase and extend its support for Massachusetts’s bold health-care reform initiative, we witnessed the kind of bipartisan leadership that has thus far eluded those trying to stabilize the financial markets.

What Should Be Done to Help the Big Three Automakers?

Cecille Isidro — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:28:00 -0500

Tough love, in the form of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, may well be the best course for the automotive Big Three. But the catastrophic ripple effect of Ford, Chrysler and GM's insolvency would threaten the economies of several states and the jobs of millions of Americans, including many who have never spent a day in the employ of the woefully mismanaged trio.

It is hard to imagine any incoming administration, never mind one that rode to power on the promise of hope and change, allowing this to be the central economic story of its first 100 days. So the federal government will step in, however dubious the case for a rescue may be.

The crisis offers a rare (if expensive) opportunity to publicly rethink the social contract - the policies and institutions that supported a remarkable postwar boom lasting more than half a century and generating unprecedented levels of broadly shared prosperity - as it applies to individuals and corporations alike. Done right, it could yield much needed reform in both Detroit and Washington.

A frayed social contract and the Big Three's decline are two symptoms of the same disease - a malignant failure to adapt to the remarkable social, economic and technological changes of a fully globalized world and the hard realities these changes mean for corporate America and the country as a whole.

The national mood on this score was grim even before we sank into recession. A July survey by the Rockefeller Foundation had 9 in 10 Americans saying that it was as hard as or harder than ever just to "get by." A quick scan of the landscape would support this sentiment.

Defined-benefit pensions have virtually disappeared, meaning significantly more income volatility for retirees. The number of Americans without health coverage is quickly approaching 50 million, average real wages are stagnant this decade and the percentage of disposable income spent on housing needs has increased by more than 25 percent since 1980.

GM has been on a similarly rough trajectory. In 1965, GM reported earnings for the previous year of $1.7 billion after taxes, the largest corporate profit ever recorded. Today it is losing approximately $2 billion a month, having pioneered inefficient practices such as the "jobs bank" program, which effectively paid inactive workers at near full salary until they were passed on to the Elysian Fields of GM-sponsored retirement.

Meanwhile, a local five-and-dime store owner in Arkansas was launching his own experiment in mass capitalism. Wal-Mart, founded only three years before GM's peak, has since superseded the automaker as the world's largest employer. Their innovative supply-management technology and hard-nosed business practices are legendary. Wal-Mart has also fully embraced both sides of the globalized economy - relentlessly expanding into the same international markets it has relied on for cheap imports to keep prices down. They have even stepped into the health-care void, offering in-store clinics and $3 generic prescription drugs.

So what conclusions can we draw from this comparison and how should they inform the composition of the automakers' federal lifeline?

First, no matter how nostalgic we get for the Motown days of yore, the winners in the 21st-century economy will look a lot more like Wal-Mart and a lot less like GM. Even a pro-labor Obama administration cannot and should not force American companies to take on the crippling labor and retirement costs that have all but sunk the Big Three. In fact, the bailout must include provisions that will allow for a restructuring of these costs and prevent future unsustainable commitments.

Washington can help by recognizing that the ad hoc system built up to support families in their pursuit of economic opportunity and security is ill-suited to the complexities of today's world. Our system of employer-sponsored benefits is antiquated, costly to both sides and hugely inefficient. For example, the percentage of payroll spent on health care has risen from less than 2 percent in 1965 to nearly 10 percent today. And American manufacturers spend 2.5 times per worker on health care than their foreign counterparts. These factors help explain the stagnancy of wages during the most recent economic boom, as well as the competitive difficulties of American companies abroad and the spike in the uninsured.

Experiments in citizen-based benefits, like the health-care reform undertaken in Massachusetts, are a promising start in this direction. Extension of 401(k)-like treatment of private savings, possibly including a government match for lower-income individuals is another possibility. For a less complicated solution, policymakers could eliminate the current tax penalty on savings. In the long term, a more progressive consumption-based tax reform would spur productivity and empower individuals.

Fortunately, we will be renting, at a steep price, a tremendous laboratory for experimenting in these areas with the auto-rescue bill. Lawmakers should take this opportunity to establish innovative pilot programs in health care, pension reform, job training and unemployment assistance for Big Three employees. Progress in these areas would make the bitter pill of a bailout at least slightly more palatable.

Sarah Palin for President in 2012? No Way

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:45:00 -0500

The remarkable enthusiasm around Barack Obama's election makes the thought of running against him in four years daunting. But potential Republican challengers are already jockeying for that right. The GOP's path back to power is murky and its coalition fractured, but one thing should be crystal clear: Sarah Palin will not be the party's nominee in 2012, or even a serious contender.

The Myth of the Values Voter

Cecille Isidro — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:08:00 -0400

If Sen. John McCain pulls out a stunning upset next Tuesday, he'll have the country club, not Sam's Club, to thank for it. Conversely, if Sen. Barack Obama maintains his lead and coasts to victory, it will likely be because he was able to persuade wealthier voters to take a chance on his economic vision. That's because while wealthy states remain firmly in the blue column, wealthy voters run deep red.

In 2000, the poorest voters in Mississippi (50th in nation in per capita income), Ohio (middle of the pack) and Connecticut (first in per capita income) were equally likely to vote for George W. Bush. The richest residents of the same three states diverged sharply, with more than three-quarters of wealthy Mississippians voting Republican, 60 percent in Ohio and less than half in Connecticut. This pattern held in 2004.

It turns out the mythical lower-income "values voter," who puts "God, guns and gays" before economic concerns is just that. The Republican edge in poorer states has little to do with the cultural concerns of lower-income voters, and far more to do with the intensity of GOP support by the wealthy in these states.

In graphical terms, this is represented by a steep incline in the likelihood of voting GOP as you move up the income scale in the classic red states. Battleground states, such as Ohio, show a more moderate slope. The urbanized anchors of blue America approach a flat line.

Andrew Gelman, a statistician at Columbia University, and his colleagues have documented these trends in their book, "Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do." Their findings answer several questions about the twists and turns of the 2008 presidential election. And the path to victory for McCain or Obama becomes clearer to imagine.

For starters, how has the seemingly hapless and relatively underfunded McCain campaign kept pace, at least until recently, with a man their own ads famously call "the biggest celebrity in the world"? And why is Obama now seemingly pulling away?

Because, until recently, the patterns that Gelman identified had held. For example, in early September, Pew Research had McCain leading Obama 53 to 39 among those Americans making $75,000 or more. Their latest poll has Obama up, 52 percent to 41 percent in this category - a 12-point swing in a matter of weeks. Pew's horse-race poll has Obama gaining six points overall during this period.

Another of Gelman's observations on recent voting patterns found that those who regularly attend church, regardless of what state they live in, are more likely to vote Republican - although the pattern is that much stronger in red states than blue. According to Pew, Obama has also gained 7 points in the last month with weekly churchgoing white mainline Protestants and 9 points with Catholics who attend weekly Mass, another likely cause for his recent surge.

Returning to a familiar campaign narrative, many ask whether Obama hasn't changed the map, particularly in poorer states with relatively large minority populations? There is little evidence that this is the case. In the 10 lowest-income states, McCain leads by an average of 16 points, trailing only in New Mexico, a classic battleground state. Similarly, nine of the 10 richest states look firmly Democratic in 2008. If you discount traditionally red Wyoming, which has catapulted from 28th in per capita income in 2000 to sixth today, based on natural gas revenues, it is a clean sweep. Among these, Obama has swung Colorado and Virginia into his column from the 2004 GOP column. So, in the 10 richest and 10 poorest states, only three look to be moving away from the party they favored in previous elections. Of these, two are simply falling into line with their fellow wealthier states, and one is continuing a pattern of vacillation between parties (although looking solidly Democratic at this point). Hardly a seismic shift between red and blue.

So, then, what should we look for in trying to figure out whether Obama's momentum will lead to a Reaganesque landslide or another electoral nail-biter? RealClearPolitics.com lists 85 electoral votes not solidly in the GOP or Democratic column - Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina and North Dakota. If Obama can smooth the curve in the poor toss-up states (Georgia and North Carolina), and steepen it in richer ones (as he has done in Colorado and Virginia), he may well get a landslide. On the other hand, if McCain can maintain President Bush's popularity with wealthy churchgoers, particularly in the low- to moderate-wealth states still up for grabs, we could be in for a long night.

Rethinking Red and Blue

Cecille Isidro — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 18:15:00 -0400

A New America Event
10/27/2008 - 12:15pm

With the 2008 presidential election barely a week away--and visions of swing states dancing in the candidates’ heads--the Next Social Contract Initiative hosted “Rethinking Red and Blue” at the New America Foundation on October 27, 2008. Keynote speaker Dr. Andrew Gelman, professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University, discussed his book, Red State Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do, an analysis of the relationship between income and voting patterns across the 50 states. Frank Micciche, deputy director… more

How to Pull Congress Away From Pork

Cecille Isidro — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:45:00 -0400

A consensus is emerging to include billions of dollars for transportation projects in an economic stimulus plan to be taken up shortly after the presidential election.

Infrastructure investments may well be the best short-term stimulus available to policymakers. Supporters tout the two-for-one benefits of fixing crumbling highways and bridges while pumping money and jobs into a sagging economy. And there's no outsourcing a road crew.

However, standing between your state highway department and all those federal infrastructure dollars is something far more dysfunctional than the local traffic grid – Congress's earmark-riddled transportation funding process.

This reality raises the question whether, as we navigate the minefield of economic recovery, we can afford to take directions from the people that gave us the "Bridge to Nowhere"? Assuming not, we have an opportunity in debating the terms of a stimulus bill to take a small step back toward accountable governance and find a silver lining to the dark economic cloud hanging over us.

There was a time when relying on the federal blueprint for transportation funding would have made a lot more sense. In 1991, 538 earmarked projects were included in the highway reauthorization bill, an average of one project for each member of Congress.

Fourteen years later, Congress passed the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) – the bloated, self-indulgent title of which was sadly well-suited to its contents.

In this masterpiece of pork, Congress saw fit to include 6,371 earmarks, a staggering 12 projects per member, that ate up $24.2 billion of the $287 billion in authorized funding and doubled the percentage of transportation dollars set aside for so-called "high priority projects."

The fingerprints that then-House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R) of Alaska left all over that bill illustrate just how broken the transportation budgeting system has become.

For example, Mr. Young is widely reported to have added the "Legacy for Users" subtitle to the 2005 act to ensure that the bill's acronym include a nod to his wife, Lu. He also included a generous nod to his home state in the form of a $231 million appropriation for another Alaskan bridge, named "Don Young's Way."

Assuming the public has had enough with doing things Don Young's way, they should demand that infrastructure spending in the stimulus bill be targeted to projects that can create jobs, increase productivity, and promote economic recovery in the immediate future. Most important, this infusion of cash can not simply be plugged into the existing pipeline of earmarks members were awarded in SAFETEA-LU. If there ever was a period when we could afford to indulge these legislative legacy projects, it has clearly passed with the current economic crisis.

Fortunately, a system for programming funds rationally and impartially is already in place. And it entails the type of deliberate, holistic, and farsighted planning that befits a multibillion-dollar investment of taxpayer dollars.

Federally mandated metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) exist in each of the nation's 385 "urbanized areas," defined as those with populations of 50,000 or more. These boards are made up of representatives of state and local government and advocates for various transportation sectors (transit, bicycle, freight, etc). They also include nonvoting members that represent the various federal agencies involved in transportation planning and environmental review of projects.

MPOs are charged with developing and updating two primary documents, the strategic Long-Range Transportation Plan and the tactical Transportation Improvement Plan, with which projects are programmed.

If the Senate is, in George Washington's words, the "cooling saucer" into which the rash legislative decisions of the House are poured, the MPO is the sieve that filters the most egregiously unworthy projects approved by Congress. In fact, Gov. Sarah Palin used just such a process to reprogram federal funds earmarked for the "Bridge to Nowhere." The danger that Congress will bypass the MPO process in making emergency funding available for infrastructure projects threatens to remove this vital check on pork-barrel prerogative.

The sobering fiscal realities of 2008 should dictate a rigorous approach to government spending, each new dollar of which adds to the historically high budget deficit and our dependence on other nations to make ends meet.

Both presidential candidates have suggested they would eliminate earmarks as part of their plans to fund the new initiatives they are proposing. By insisting that any projects funded as part of an economic stimulus package be subject to a thorough, impartial analysis of their costs and benefits, the president-elect can signal to the country, and his partners in Congress, that the long journey to pork-free living has begun.

Confronting Economic Meltdown

Communications — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:30:00 -0400

A New America Event
09/23/2008 - 8:30am

The New America Foundation's Smart Globalization Initiative and Next Social Contract Initiative cordially invite you and your colleagues to an important national policy forum.

The following are highlights of the event, while video of the full discussion can be viewed at right.

Steve Clemons “Given the economic meltdown today…we ought to consider the interests of various partners in the global economy.” “What are the responsible roles and intermingling interests in the world economy?” Frank Micciche “There are rights and responsibilities that each sector of… more