Anecdotally, I have felt an increase in a phenomenon this past year: people identifying as “politically homeless.” Different people identify with this label seemingly for different reasons: some are Republicans who are fed up with Donald Trump but still maintain some of their core conservative convictions. Others are Democrats who feel uncomfortable with the recent leftward push both on social and political issues. Some are Libertarians who feel that the last 10-15 years made them disillusioned with the purity of the movement, and they recognize that investment in our government’s capacity to function well matters.
In some ways, I personally can identify with this feeling (and in some ways I do not). For me, this is probably best illustrated by economic issues: in many ways, I have moved in both directions: I have become fairly more skeptical of how government regulation, especially on a local level, can easily be captured by powerful interest groups, rather than serving the common good. However, simultaneously, I feel like I have become increasingly convinced we need expanded social welfare programs for the poor and especially poor kids.
Generally, being in the position sucks: we are human beings who are wired to want to be part of a team or belong to a community. But the feeling of not being cleanly sorted into a "tribe” also can be a productive space to dwell, since it opens up new political possibilities. One of the groups I see that is trying to occupy this place in an interesting way is the Niskanen Center, which has been putting out some great policy work the past few years, trying to synthesize the best parts of the left and right economic policy in a way that tends to agree with my sensibilities (Sam Hammond, in particular, is a really interesting follow). Many of them fall into the last category I describe: libertarians (most of them worked at Cato or Mercatus) who have become skeptical of the pure libertarian state as recent events have highlighted the need for government capacity.
I have really enjoyed two of their recent works, which hopefully you will find some food for thought within:
1) Faster Growth, Fairer Growth
The oldest debate in economics is: should we focus on growing the economy, which helps all people, but not necessarily by the same amount? Or should we try to focus on making sure the gains to economic growth are distributed fairly among all people? Of course, the easy answer is: Why not both at the same time? The authors of this policy synthesis really work hard to identify what policies can be pursued to push the economy toward both a larger economic pie and a fairer distribution of that pie.
Those on the economic left will recognize the case for a government that invests heavily in its citizens:
“Moving from principles to practice, we believe that achieving the politics of uplift in 21st-century America requires expansive and energetic government. Just as a high road employer invests heavily in its workers, a government committed to the high road needs to make big investments in its citizens — investments in sound regulation, education, infrastructure, conservation, research and development, and social insurance, as well as national security and the criminal and civil justice system. Contrary to the wishful thinking of many libertarians and small-government conservatives, we cannot rely on private businesses and charities to make these investments at adequate levels.12 Free markets are truly amazing, but they cannot supply their own enabling conditions. In the modern world of high social complexity and extreme interdependence, externalities, uninsurable risks, and other collective action problems are a widespread and unavoidable fact of life — and the only social agency capable of dealing with them properly is government.”
But those on the right will also recognize the valid criticism of what Progressives actually do when using government power by forefronting the policy failures of California’s own super-majority Democratic state and local government:
“Consider California in 2019, before the pandemic struck. Here was a rich state
with the Democratic Party and progressive cultural values utterly dominant. There
was little ideological opposition to expansive government, and state and local government spending was high by national standards. Yet housing was unaffordable,
homelessness was rampant, human feces littered the streets of San Francisco,
teachers went on strike in Los Angeles to protest deteriorating conditions, out-ofcontrol wildfires destroyed thousands of homes and forced tens of thousands of
people to evacuate, and the electric utility left millions without power for days at
a stretch in rolling preemptive blackouts. This is a picture of big government gone
wrong. This is not the high road”
One section I found timely on the merits of expanding the current child tax credit into a full child allowance (an idea of whose merit I have ben 100% convinced over the last 11 months):
Studies of Canada’s child benefit show it actually increased total employment. This is because, as a flat benefit, a dollar earned is a dollar kept, unlike in traditional welfare programs in which benefits are abruptly clawed back. Among low-income, unmarried households, for example, parents appear to use the benefit to afford child care and increase their labor force participation. Following its 2016 expansion, the Bank of Canada even reported that the Canada Child Benefit helped move our neighbor to the north closer to full employment…Under the status quo, the U.S. federal government spends over $320 billion per year on children — no small amount. And yet its effectiveness is diluted across more than 100 fragmentary programs. While adult social insurance is overwhelmingly in the form of income support or medical reimbursements, federal spending on children is largely inkind, including subsidized school lunches, diaper vouchers, baby formula, and a lot of administrative overhead. The result is a convoluted, bureaucratic mess bloated by rent-seeking and waste, whether due to industry interests or politicians trying to leave a legacy. Poor parents, in turn, are forced to navigate a complex welfare bureaucracy, while middle-class parents receive a simple tax credit. Enacting a universal child allowance would thus be an opportunity not only to consolidate these wasteful programs, but also to bring low-income families and children into a common system that treats them with equal dignity and respect.
Another section aims at the over-regulation of the healthcare sector:
In our view, though, the most pressing priority in health care reform is putting downward pressure on the bills, not changing who pays them. Prices are too high, and too much of the care that is provided is wasteful. To address these ills, the most effective approach is to unleash competition — which health care providers have systematically throttled in order to pad their incomes…
…It should be screamingly obvious that one promising way to make health care more affordable is to increase the supply of health care providers. That supply is artificially suppressed by medical licensing laws. Under those laws, completion of a U.S. residency is with very few exceptions required before one can obtain a medical license. However, the number of residency slots funded through Medicare has been frozen for more than 20 years, so that available residencies have increased only 1 percent a year since 2002 even as the number of medical school slots has grown 52 percent over the same period. The misguided freeze on residencies should be ended, but so too should the U.S. residency requirement. Canada, for example, allows residency training in select other countries — including Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom,
I recommend reading it in full, but you can also listen to the podcast version!
2) Reconstructing Justice
This summer, there was an extensive conversation about the relationship between race and policing in the wake of the George Floyd protests. What emerged very quickly, though, was that many in media (and politics) flattened the conversation to be simplistic, but specifically, simplistic about the role that police play in low-income communities.
I found this overview piece by CUNY professor Michael Fortner, a fellow at Niskanen, to be a pretty comprehensive view of what polling can tell us about crime and police views. It illustrates that while much of the discussion of policing is influenced by race, it is also heavily influenced by age (and increasingly, college education). Older African Americans (and Latinos) who lived through the crime wave of the late 60s through the 90s have much more nuanced views on crime and policing than many (both on the left and right) believe they do. The better way to look at the broad consensus of Black and Latino communities as a whole (again, mostly driven by older residents) is to think of a desire for:
Less racially targeted policing.
Policing more focused on community concerns
Ultimately more policing.
One section people might find enlightening:
In this early period in the movement for Black lives, national polls told a similar story of ambivalence: African Americans did not see police either as friends or enemies. They believed law enforcement treated Blacks unfairly yet also valued policing. In a 2015 Gallup survey, only 10 percent of African Americans preferred a smaller police presence in their local area, while 38 percent wanted a larger presence. Most preferred no change at all. Interestingly, among those who felt police treated African Americans unfairly, 44 percent wanted a larger police presence and only 12 percent preferred a smaller presence. In a 2016 Pew survey, 55 percent of African Americans expressed a lot or some confidence in the police department in their community. Only 24 percent expressed no confidence at all. While giving them low grades for treating minorities fairly and excessive use of force, 48 percent said that police in their community do an “excellent” or “good” job at “protecting people from crime.” In a 2019 Vox poll, 58 percent of African Americans expressed favorable opinions of their local police and 60 percent supported “increasing the budget for the police force and hiring more police officers in high crime areas.”
The paper finds that in the wake of the George Floyd protests over the summer, a consensus has emerged on policing:
A consensus has been emerging around some reform ideas, though not others. The Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 52 percent of whites, 61 percent of African Americans, and 47 percent of Hispanics supported banning noknock warrants allowing police to enter a person's residence unannounced. In the Yahoo News survey, overwhelming numbers of whites, Blacks, and Hispanics supported banning chokeholds and strangleholds, encouraging deescalation strategies, and maintaining use-of-force data and a national registry of police misconduct. The Cato Institute Summer Survey showed overwhelming support among whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians for ending qualified immunity and prohibiting collective bargaining agreements from covering police misconduct. In the Gallup poll, substantial numbers of whites, Blacks, and Hispanics endorsed several systemic reforms including ending stop-and-frisk, eliminating police unions, and curtailing the policing of nonviolent crimes.
They also find that:
Moreover, abolition has been unpopular across all racial groups. In the Gallup survey, only 12 percent of whites, 22 percent of African Americans, 27 percent of Asians, and 20 percent of Hispanics endorsed abolishing police departments…
And also:
In general, young people were more likely to embrace abolition than older people…Seventy percent of individuals between the ages of 18 and 34 and 50 percent of individuals between 35 and 49 favored reducing police budgets and directing those funds to community programs, compared to 32 percent of individuals between 50 and 64 and 32 percent of individuals 65 and older. In Minneapolis, 61 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 34 and 44 percent of voters between 25 and 49 supported reducing the size of the police force. Only 24 percent of voters between the ages of 50 and 64 and 30 percent of voters 65 and over approved.
Again, I recommend reading it in full (It is much shorter than the previous paper), but you can also listen to the podcast!