In the Tanks for the Democrats
Back from the political wilderness, left-leaning thinkers are having their day
But with Democrats in control of the House and Senate for the first time in 12 years, Democratic think tanks have a bevy of front-burner issues that they're optimistic about, including immigration reform legislation, changes to No Child Left Behind, and broad competitiveness concepts. If those ideas do lead to legislation, they may help voters identify what Democrats stand for. So far, says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, voters increasingly see Democrats as representing a "new direction," but what that means exactly still needs to be "filled in with specifics."
Some of the broader policy debates may not lead to legislation immediately, and these groups aren't in sync on everything. But several of them agree that wage growth in recent years has generally not kept pace with productivity gains and would like to see that situation addressed.
Progressives like Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute and Borosage of the Campaign for America's Future also see the healthcare debate moving away from incremental changes, especially in coverage for children, to a broad discussion of universal coverage. (Mishel's and Borosage's think tanks, for example, both embrace a policy developed by Yale University Prof. Jacob Hacker to allow nonelderly Americans who lack good employer-based coverage to buy into a Medicare-like public plan.)
But there are fault lines too in the Democratic idea world, most obviously on trade policy. More leftist Democrats argue that the Clinton-era globalization policy of free trade hasn't worked and needs significant revision. "The progressive side feels more and more emboldened," says Borosage, in taking on the dominant economic policy of the party under Clinton's Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.
Economic populists, as the progressives are known, argue for tougher labor and environmental standards on trade agreements and for more investment in technologies that generate domestic manufacturing jobs. Rubin and others have set up the Hamilton Project, which argues for sustaining free trade but is also discussing programs like wage insurance and additional training for workers who lose their jobs.
Some of these larger debates in the party will very likely take years to hash out, not months, and whoever winds up as the Democratic nominee will have the biggest role in shaping those outcomes. For the moment, though, the idea world is churning out reams of paper with new entries. "I would expect this flurry to continue for another six months," says William Galston of the Brookings Institution. After that, the stage shifts to the presidential race.
With James Pethokoukis
advertisement
