A New Framework for American Policy

Planning magazine, a publication of the American Planning Association, recently reviewed Mandate for Change.

“In the view of Chester W. Hartman of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, the deregulatory, market-worshiping conservative (or “neoliberal”) framework of American national policies since 1980 is bankrupt.  Hartman is the editor of Mandate for Change: Policies and Leadership for 2009 and Beyond (2009; Lexington Books; 473 pp; $39.95), a compendium of progressice proposals directed at the Obama administration.  Each of the 47 chapters follows a standardized format, with bullet pointed proposals followed by an essay, then a point-by-point elaboration, and finally a list of sources.

Planners will find material of professional interest in several of these chapters, notably “Transforming U.S. Transportation,” by Michael A. Replogle of the Enviromental Defense Fund; “Rebuilding and Renewing America: A National Infatructure Plan for the Twenty-first Century,” by U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer; and “The Affordable Housing Crisis: It Is a Solvable Problem,” by Sheila Crowley of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Reviewing the Progressive Agenda

The American Prospect reviews discusses progressive agendas with John Cavanagh, Director of IPS and contributing author to Mandate for Change

“There are lots of people who are coming in with centrist ideas and lowered expectations, and I think we have a right to say we expect a government can do all of these things.” As Cavanagh of IPS puts it, “There’s a lot that we can achieve by just getting good ideas to the right people.”

Click here to read the article.

Repeating History, Reversing History

Too Much weekly reviews Mandate for Change.

This new volume, produced by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. and not so coincidentally entitled Mandate for Change, covers nearly every major element of domestic and foreign public policy. Over 70 different activists and academics have contributed chapters, with each contribution offering specific policy prescriptions for change, a rationale for those changes, and resources for readers interested in learning — and doing — more.

Several of the chapters, including one co-authored by the editor of Too Much, directly address the importance of slicing America’s preposterously wealthy down to more democratic size.

Read the whole review here.