A common-sense argument that greater political unity is within reach, and would improve the nation’s prospects.
A panoramic survey of America’s political problems that offers a bipartisan path to their solution.
Busman’s inaugural effort is long on ambition. In it, he tackles an impressive array of seemingly intractable issues that have plagued United States politics, including tumult in the Middle East, nuclear energy, tax reform, same-sex marriage and the Electoral College. What connects these disparate topics, he says, is that they’ve all been created or exacerbated by blinkered partisan warfare. He aims to offer policy suggestions, light on ideology, that might have appeal across the political divide. He calls these policy proposals “planks,” and considers them “placeholders” designed to stimulate discussion and promote clarity rather than decisive conclusions. Although many of his proposals will be familiar to readers who faithfully follow the news, some, such as the elimination of depreciation from the corporate tax code, are unconventional and provocative. Busman’s ultimate objective is to create a full platform for a new political party, the “American Unity Party,” made up of people who are moderately conservative on fiscal issues and moderately progressive on social ones. The plan hinges on the idea that the country’s electoral divisions are largely illusory: “Our underlying thesis is that the United States is not as polarized as our elections and the polls tell us we are.” Readers may find some of his suggestions quixotic, such as the notion that aggressively promoting women’s rights in predominantly Muslim countries will win greater respect for the United States. Also, such a vast survey of so many subjects necessarily means that the analysis sometimes lacks depth; for example, his plan to introduce a “consolidated national health plan that will cover all Americans and foreign residents working legally in the U.S.” is both confusing and overly broad. Nonetheless, this is a refreshingly sincere attempt to build bridges between people who may share more common ground than they think.
A common-sense argument that greater political unity is within reach, and would improve the nation’s prospects.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-1491024119
Page Count: 296
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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