New America Policy Papers: 2006

Papers and other formal publications from our policy programs are available below. To jump to another year in the archives, please use the links at right.

Instant Runoff Voting: Making Your Vote Count

July 29, 2006

Overview

California’s winner-take-all electoral system is responsible for polarized politics, a balkanized legislature and declining voter turnout. Advanced electoral systems like instant runoff voting offer voters the opportunity for better choices at the ballot box, improved political debate and broader-based politics.

Programs:

Proportional Voting

July 29, 2006

Overview. California’s representative government is plagued by an unprecedented number of noncompetitive elections. The Legislature is highly partisan because over 90 percent of legislative districts strongly favor one political party over the other. Incumbents are not accountable to voters and act without fear of losing re-election.

Programs:

Closing the Achievement Gap

  • By
  • Justin King,
  • New America Foundation
July 25, 2006

A significant, albeit still insufficient, expansion of access to publicly supported early education programs for children ages 3 to 5 has occurred over the last decade. This trend bodes well for children at risk of academic failure, but is endangered by uneven, halting, and at times inadequate attention to program quality in grades prekindergarten through three.

Programs:

Budget Update -- The Senate Budget Reform Package

  • By
  • Maya MacGuineas,
  • New America Foundation
July 14, 2006

You have heard us say it before and we will say it again: Budget rules alone cannot do the heavy lifting required to address the nation's fiscal challenges. One could argue that focusing on budget reform is a diversion from the issues that should be getting Members' attention -- the revenue and spending policy changes to bring the short- and long-term budget back into balance. But given the polarized partisan environment and that it is an election year, improvements to budget process may be the most one can hope for.

Programs:

AutoSave

  • By
  • Reid Cramer,
  • New America Foundation
July 13, 2006

Last year the United States had a negative personal savings rate for the first time since the Great Depression, contributing to a historically low national saving rate. If low saving persists over an extended period of time, it will drain resources available for potentially productive investments, undermine economic growth and foster economic insecurity. Recent findings from the field of behavioral economics and institutional savings theory provide valuable insights into what it would take to turn America back into a saving nation.

Programs:

Beyond Censorship

  • By
  • Brian Beutler,
  • Naveen Lakshmipathy,
  • New America Foundation
July 11, 2006

As the FCC dramatically increases fines for indecency over broadcast TV -- and as Congress and the President raise the fine limits by a factor of ten and threaten to extend decency standards to cable and satellite networks -- the debate over how best to protect children from inappropriate media has reached a fever pitch. The problem is real: a plethora of studies show that repeated exposure to violence, inappropriate sexual content and even repeated advertising for junk food can have a negative, long-term impact on children.

Programs:

Examples of Consumer Benefits from TV 'White Spaces' Legislation

  • By
  • Michael Calabrese,
  • New America Foundation
July 10, 2006

What all community wireless networks—commercial (WISP), municipal and community nonprofit—have in common is the unlicensed spectrum they use to transmit signals. Opening more low-frequency spectrum – such as the unused TV channels – is therefore the “rocket fuel” needed to facilitate and scale up community wireless networks, as well as home and business WiFi networks. Unlicensed, or open spectrum, refers to segments of the airwaves that have not been licensed by the government for exclusive use by one company or other entity.

Programs:

Why Unlicensed Use of Vacant TV Spectrum Will Not Interfere with Television Reception

  • By Michael Marcus, Associate Chief for Technology, FCC Office of Engineering and Technology; Paul Kolodzy, former Director, FCC Spectrum Policy Task Force; and Andrew Lippman, founding Associate Director, MIT Media Lab
July 10, 2006

This paper takes account of new information to update an earlier New America Issue Brief by the same authors: “Why Unlicensed Use of the White Space in the TV Bands Will Not Cause Interference to DTV Viewers” (October 2005).

Programs:

State Policy Options for Building Assets

  • By Karen Edwards and Gena Gunn, Center for Social Development; Heather McCulloch, New America Foundation
June 30, 2006

States continue to play an important role in helping low- and moderate-resource families save and build wealth. They have been innovators in assets policy, whether on their own or through the forces of "devolution," in which federal funds and decision-making authority are shifting from the federal to the state level. These initiatives and experiments -- these "laboratories of democracy" -- have inspired and informed other states as well as policymakers at the national level.

Programs:

Policy Options to Improve Financial Education

  • By Lisa Servon, Associate Professor and Acting Director of the Community Development Research Center, New School University
June 30, 2006

Sorting through credit card offers, deciding how to invest retirement funds in the stock market, picking the right mortgage from a myriad of options, deciding how to save for a child's college tuition—the scope and diversity of the financial decisions a family has to make has grown exponentially. Former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan observed, "Today's financial world is highly complex when compared with that of a generation ago. Forty years ago, a simple understanding of how to maintain a checking and savings account at local banks and savings institutions may have been sufficient.

Programs:
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