Mark Schmitt

American social policy, and the debate about poverty and inequality, are constrained by assumptions about politics: That only universal programs will win political acceptance and programs targeted toward the poor will always be poor programs. That the modest American welfare state was built in two great waves, The New Deal and The Great Society, the likes of which we'll never see again. That tax credits and incentives are a subtler and more effective way of delivering benefits than direct… more

The most confusing political phenomenon of recent times is "big-government conservatism." The lines on every graph show the same pattern: Government -- whether measured by spending, the deficit, the number of employees, or earmarked appropriations -- expanded through the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush Senior administrations; declined steadily under Clinton; then shot rapidly northward after Republicans took control of the White House in 2001.

For conservatives, the story of big-government conservatism has become a chapter in their own self-satisfied mythology.… more

There are, we are told, two kinds of congressional elections. In most even-numbered years, the issues are local and only a few incumbents are vulnerable, usually for reasons unique to them or their districts. Occasionally, as in 1994, an election is decided on national issues and a strong partisan or ideological wave loosens the bonds between even the hardest-working members of Congress and their constituents, and new members are swept in on essentially identical messages.

Last year’s election was something a… more

Democratic presidential primary contests often follow a familiar pattern: There is one candidate (usually the one I find myself supporting) with a high-minded pitch for "a new kind of politics" -- what the Los Angeles Times columnist Ron Brownstein recently called the "wine track" candidate -- and there is a "beer track" candidate who says things like "It’s your fight, too!" (Dick Gephardt, 1988) or "The presidency [isn’t] an academic exercise; [it] has to be a day-to-day fight for the… more

If you start to read the policy proposals of the Democratic presidential candidates and the mainstream Democratic think tanks, you will quickly get the impression that, while Democrats see lots of problems, there’s always just one solution: a tax credit.

John Edwards proposes an "American Dream Tax Credit" -- up to $1,000 a year for five years to help buy a first home. Barack Obama has a new tax credit to promote fatherhood. Outside of the candidates, competition for the tax-credit… more

Ten years ago, the United States held its first billion-dollar election -- that was roughly the amount spent by all candidates for Congress and the presidency put together. The same year brought the first large-scale campaign finance scandal since Watergate, best remembered for the almost accurate metaphor of President Bill Clinton selling overnights in the Lincoln Bedroom in exchange for large contributions to the Democratic Party. And both took place at a time when Americans were deeply disconnected from politics;… more

"The billion-dollar election." Get used to that phrase, because you’ll be hearing it a lot over the next year and a half. That’s the total that all candidates for the presidency are expected to spend on their campaigns between now and 2008. It’s a staggering figure that critics will surely cite as evidence that money has thoroughly corrupted politics. Newt Gingrich shocked the bluenoses back in 1996, when he said that there was too little money in politics, not too… more

When I was in college, during Ronald Reagan’s "Morning in America," I had a classmate who is the person I always think of when I try to imagine the young George W. Bush. (Although the comparison is terribly unfair to this person, since unlike Bush, he has considerable accomplishment to show for his first 45 years on this planet.) This guy had a little motto, typical of the privileged-punk campus conservatism that was then just taking hold, and that would… more

The US House of Representatives on Friday issued a rebuke to George W. Bush’s Iraq strategy in the first concrete demonstration of opposition to the war by Capitol Hill since the US-led invasion almost four years ago.The 246-182 vote was non-binding and will have no impact on Mr Bush’s plan to deploy 21,500 extra troops in addition to the 131,000 already there as part of his “new way forward in Iraq” unveiled last month...Democratic leaders plan… more

American politics is in a time of upheaval, as old ideological lines dissolve and the changing economy demands a rethinking of the social contract. Recently, several prominent thinkers have proposed new policy and political syntheses that marry approaches usually favored by the right with solutions from the left. In a December 2005 article in The Weekly Standard entitled "The Party of Sam's Club," Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam suggested that the Republican Party pay attention to the … more