American Infrastructure Initiative: Publications, Events and More

Healthcare Can Get America Working

Erin Drankoski — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:03:00 -0400

With official unemployment in the US hovering around 10 per cent, and actual levels much higher when the underemployed and discouraged are counted, the most urgent priority is job creation. But efforts to get America working again must be informed by the striking fact that most employment growth in the past decade has been concentrated in three sectors: healthcare, education and government, mostly state and local public services.

Obama Pressed By Foreign, Domestic Issues | Washington Times

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:29:00 -0400

... but also of the public," said Michael Lind, director of the economic-growth program at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank. ... and more »

Uninsured Like Me

Erin Drankoski — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:04:00 -0400

Now and then a moment occurs that clarifies the nature of American politics like a flash of lightning over a prairie landscape. Such a moment occurred on Sept. 9 during President Obama's televised address to a joint session of Congress about healthcare. As the president explained that illegal immigrants would not be eligible for benefits under the plan he supported, Joe Wilson, a conservative Republican member of Congress from South Carolina, shocked the chamber and the television audience by shouting, "You lie!"

Dealing With America’s Debt | WTOP

Erin Drankoski — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:54:00 -0400

Who Are The Wealth Creators?

Erin Drankoski — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 10:54:00 -0400

Today is Labor Day, when we celebrate the wealth destroyers--at least if the libertarian right is to be believed.

Can Obama Give 'Em Hell Before It's Too Late?

Erin Drankoski — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:25:00 -0400

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering," President Franklin Roosevelt told an audience in Madison Square Garden in 1936. "They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they

Liberalism Without Labor Unions?

Erin Drankoski — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:46:00 -0400

Can there be liberalism without labor? Can a progressive movement exist in a country in which organized labor has lost its political influence? My friend Mark Schmitt, the executive editor of the American Prospect, asks that question:

Obama, You're No Machiavelli

Erin Drankoski — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:39:00 -0400

To judge from his faltering campaign for healthcare reform, President Obama, well-read as he is, appears to have neglected to read Machiavelli. If he had done so, the American president would have learned this from the Florentine statesman and philosopher in "The Prince":

Obama on Drive to Tackle Healthcare Rage | Financial Times

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:42:00 -0400

... president when he says we can have all these good things without paying for it," said Michael Lind, a political analyst at the New America Foundation. ...

Are Liberals Seceding From Sanity?

Erin Drankoski — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:16:00 -0400

Back in the 1960s, Seymour Martin Lipset and Richard Hofstadter and other liberal sociologists, historians and political scientists, puzzled that anyone could support Barry Goldwater rather than Lyndon Johnson, concluded that Goldwater supporters were deranged. They didn't say so directly, of course. They said that members of the radical right were emotionally disturbed victims of "status anxiety." The evidence? They didn't vote the way that Lipset and other academics thought that they should vote. Therefore they had to be crazy.

Rush to Renewables Threatens to Blow Another Bubble | The National

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:04:00 -0400

Another recent study, by Samuel Sherraden and Jason Peuquet of the New America Foundation, a public policy institute in Washington found that America's ...

The Case for Goliath

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:33:00 -0400

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.

Wanted: Freedom from Religion

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:41:00 -0400

In the summer of 1968, as Soviet tanks rolled into communist Czechoslovakia to end the brief period of liberalization known as the "Prague Spring," W.H. Auden composed a poem titled "August 1968":

Green Trade Balance

Communications — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:12:00 -0400

Green Trade Balance

Economic Growth — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:00:00 -0400

Green investment is a major pillar of the president's economic recovery plan. Yet, America's dependence on foreign countries to produce green technologies may undermine this recovery strategy. Using a list of green goods derived from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), we have determined that the United States ran an overall green trade deficit of -$8.9 billion in 2008, including a deficit of -$6.4 billion in the critical category of renewable energy, one of the main targets of the Obama administration's green agenda. The U.S. economy also suffered a significant deficit in the pollution management category. On the positive side, the United States ran modest surpluses in two categories--energy efficiency and a grouping of other environmental goods related to water purification and sustainable agriculture.

A Warning for Democrats

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:25:00 -0400

The populist backlash that many have predicted would follow the crash of 2008 is here. Well, not here, exactly. Over there, in Europe.

In the June 7 elections to the European Parliament, center-left social democrats were devastated, while far-right nationalist and populist candidates made big gains. The center-left fell from 217 seats to 159, while the center-right coalition remained the largest bloc with 267 seats.

Storm Brews Over Obama's Tax Plan | Russia Today

Cecille Isidro — Thu, 21 May 2009 01:12:00 -0400

According to Michael Lind, Policy Director for the Economic Growth Program at New America Foundation, “this has alarmed a lot of the administrations' allies in the tech community which have been very supportive of President Obama. ...

Jobs Solutions for Our Jobless Recovery

Economic Growth — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:40:00 -0400

This speech was delivered at The New School on May 19, 2009.

Views on the U.S. economy

Who Will Emerge Stronger After the Crisis?

Cecille Isidro — Sun, 17 May 2009 21:00:00 -0400

A New America Event
05/26/2009 - 12:15pm

Will China and the Gulf oil states have the U.S. over the proverbial barrel, or will the world's leading capitalist economy get lucky once again? On May 26, 2009, two of the New America Foundation's leading experts on geopolitics and the global economy joined with Foreign Policy magazine to debate which countries will emerge relatively stronger in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

The "Best and the Brightest"? Spare Me

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 05 May 2009 08:39:00 -0400

Are we in danger of discouraging the best and the brightest from entering public service? According to Richard Haass, the former Bush administration official who now heads the Council on Foreign Relations, prosecuting former Bush administration lawyers who argued that torture was legal under domestic and international law would deter talented Americans from careers in public service. Haas, who served as director of policy planning in the State Department, wrote in the Wall Street Journal on May 1 that while in the Bush