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CBS News: Will white men sink Obama?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Will Marshall spoke to CBS News on why white men are frustrated with President Obama and the Democratic Party:

The movement of white men away from Democrats over the past four decades, argued Progressive Policy Institute President Will Marshall, is tied to both the culture war and the perception of “a change in the focal point of Democratic economic policymaking.”

“Many white men, and many, in particular, non-college white men, have not seen that the Democratic economic agenda is in their interest,” said Marshall. “There’s an account from the left that says these voters have been estranged from Democrats on social issues. And there’s some truth to that. But I also think these voters believe the economic policies of Democrats have benefitted somebody else – not them. Women, minorities, interest groups. They don’t feel that Democrats have championed the interests of white male voters in modern times as they did in the days of Roosevelt/Truman.”

Read the article at CBS News.

Slippery Mitt Evades KO

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI President Will Marshall questions whether Romney’s rope-a-dope strategy on foreign policy may actually work despite Obama’s superior performance in the debate in Foreign Policy:

Mitt Romney is a candidate of protean principles. When his positions on issues become inconvenient, he simply throws them overboard, sometimes even denying he took them in the first place. So it was in Monday night’s foreign policy debate, when the ferocious Rottweiler of the previous two debates unexpectedly morphed into “Me-Too Mitt.”

It was a tactically shrewd performance that made a virtue of necessity. Romney clearly hasn’t mastered the complexities of defense and security policy, and at several points last night seemed uncomfortably out of his depth. Rather than mount a vigorous challenge to Barack Obama’s conduct of U.S. foreign policy, Romney dropped previous lines of attack and wound up agreeing with the president’s handling of conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and even Iran.

By stressing continuity rather than radical change in U.S. foreign policy, Romney sought to reassure voters that he is ready to take over as commander in chief. Although post-debate insta-polls showed that he “lost” the debate, he probably achieved this crucial goal. And the appearance of a kinder, gentler Romney blunted Obama’s aggressive attempts to portray him as a “reckless” throwback to the bellicose policies of George W. Bush.

Read the entire article at Foreign Policy.

Will Marshall on Romney’s Mistaken Foreign Policy Ideas

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI President Will Marshall discusses Obama’s foreign policy advantages in Politico’s Arena:

Twice Mitt Romney has tried to capitalize politically on the murder of the U.S. Ambassador and three other Americans in Libya, and twice the issue has blown up in his face. First, as the tragedy was unfolding, he rushed out a statement falsely accusing the administration of apologizing for the video that sparked violent protests in Benghazi and elsewhere. And in the last debate, moderator Candy Crowley had to correct Romney’s erroneous claim that it took President Obama weeks to call the attack an act of terrorism.

These misfires show that Romney, though surefooted when it comes to critiquing the president’s economic record, has anything but a deft touch on defense and foreign policy. The president has a golden opportunity tonight to contrast his experience and grasp of global complexities with Romney’s vague and simplistic invocations of American strength and exceptional virtue.

Lacking a global outlook of his own, Romney probably will try again tonight to make the Libya episode a parable of weak presidential leadership.  In Romney’s retro world, it’s 1979 all over again, with Obama in the role of Jimmy Carter and Libya standing in for Iran. But even as he tries to channel Ronald Reagan, Romney often sounds more like George W. Bush, especially when he claims that bold assertions of American power and leadership will bring our enemies to heel and cause the rest of the world to fall in line. To which Obama has a compelling answer: Been there, done that.

Obama’s job tonight is to expose the unreality of Romney’s glib criticisms and force him to explain what he would actually do differently if he becomes Commander in Chief. With the spotlight momentarily off the economy, it’s the president’s turn to take the offensive.

Read it at Politico

Election Watch: 18 Days to Election Day and Strong Uncertainty Remains

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

With just 18 days left until Election Day, and with early voting picking up all over the country, it can be said that the state of the presidential race is as hard to figure as it ever was. A paucity of big national polls with data drawn after the vice presidential and the second presidential debate has made it difficult to determine if the president got the boost (at least in Democratic enthusiasm, if not swing-voter allegiance) many analysts expected. The tracking polls have shown varying results, and the most influential, from Gallup, has shown a steady rise in support for Mitt Romney—an astonishing seven-point lead among likely voters as of yesterday—that has perhaps been complicated by the firm’s implementation of new sampling practices and a likely voter screen. Battleground-state polls are also varying significantly, but many have shown Romney gaining pretty steadily, and perhaps even taking the lead in Virginia and Florida (even as almost everyone concedes NC to him) while drawing near even in Wisconsin. Just this morning NBC/WSJ/Marist surveys from Iowa and Wisconsin (including some post-second-debate data) were released indicating that Obama had regained robust leads in those two states, but this particular polling combine has regularly given Obama better-than-average numbers.

In terms of the dynamics of the race, the second presidential debate showed an invigorated incumbent attacking Romney’s moderate credentials, while the challenger refined his “failed economy” rap and repeated it very often. Both candidates exhibited swing-state obsessions, particularly in an extended argument over energy policies that seemed to become a battle over which of them was the best bet for the fossil-fuel industries. Foreign policy made its first appearance as a major issue, though it’s unclear who got the better of the exchange over Libya; it’s difficult to imagine quite how an entire debate over foreign policy will play out next Tuesday in the final debate.  Both candidates appealed overtly to women, though again, it’s hard to determine who did better (unless Romney’s “binders of women” line migrates from the Twitterverse, where it’s everywhere, to broader venues). It’s important to remember, of course, that the final debate, strictly on foreign policy topics, is being held in just three days, so it may be very difficult to isolate reactions to individual debates.

Early voting estimates seem to indicate an Obama advantage in Iowa, Nevada, Wisconsin and perhaps Ohio, with a Romney advantage in Florida and North Carolina. A Supreme Court decision rebuffing Republican efforts to shut down Ohio voting the weekend before Election Day was very good news for Democrats, but Republican officials are managing to keep early voting hours limited.

It appears the campaigns will be roughly even in stretch-run paid advertising, despite earlier reports of a big pro-Romney advantage. But where the money is deployed is another subject, particularly with the standing of candidates in the battleground states so much in flux. And as always, assessment of GOTV efforts will be difficult to make before the November 6, though it’s assumed that Team Obama will have an advantage in most key states, but not as large as the one it enjoyed in 2008.

Down-ballot assessments haven’t changed a great deal in the last couple of weeks, though there is some Republican optimism that Romney’s improved performance could lift the entire ticket, particularly in battleground states. The one place that sort of effect could be measurably happening is in Wisconsin, where GOP Senate candidate Tommy Thompson, despite multiple major mistakes, seems to be again closing the gap with Democrat Tammy Baldwin. Observers will now be closely watching polls to see if Romney’s stronger numbers in Virginia and Florida will help George Allen break a long deadlock with Tim Kaine in the former and/or make Connie Mack competitive with Bill Nelson in the latter. Republicans desperately need a positive surprise to keep hopes of a Senate takeover alive.

Indeed, one of the more interesting subplots right now is the increased possibility that Romney could win without his party gaining control of the Senate. Most scenarios until recently, based on the early assumption that the Senate was an easy reach for the GOP, have figured otherwise. There was some debate back and forth as to whether Romney’s recent talk about “reaching out to Democrats” after the election disguised an implicit agreement with congressional Republicans to enact the Ryan Budget on a straight party-line vote using reconciliation procedures. That would become very difficult with a Democratic Senate, particularly one that will lose some of its most notable party heretics (e.g., Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson). Expect a lot more speculation in the next few days about the extent to which Republicans might actually allow a President Romney to depart from the many very specific promises he made during the primaries.

The Astonishing Obama Tech Boom

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Going into the next two debates, Barack Obama would certainly like a bit more of Bill Clinton’s mojo. After all, Clinton both won a second term and presided over the Internet-driven New Economy boom of the late 1990s, which created millions of jobs and eliminated the budget deficit. These are achievements that Obama would dearly love to duplicate.

Yet, Obama has been surprisingly unwilling to take credit for the most powerful economic success story on his watch: The astounding growth of the communications/internet sector, including smartphone makers, app developers, internet companies, and wireless providers.

Here are some figures:

• Over the past four years, the internet publishing, search and social media industry has been the top industry in job growth, with a 44% gain in domestic employment.

• Tech has beaten motor vehicles as a source of job growth. Since Obama took office in January 2009, the motor vehicles and parts industry created 94,000 jobs. By comparison, the key tech industries of software, online retailing, and internet publishing, search and social media have created 98,000 additional jobs since Obama’s inauguration. Custom computer programming–much of which involves the internet or mobile–accounts for another 91,000 new jobs over the same period.

• The so-called App Economy includes more than 500,000 jobs, up from none in 2007. These figures, based on an analysis of The Conference Board’s database of help-wanted ads, include the tech jobs that involve developing and maintaining mobile apps; the non-tech jobs that support app developers; and a conservative estimate of local spillover jobs.

• The real growth rate of gross domestic product is about a half percentage point higher than the official numbers show, once we take into account the enormous increase in data use by consumers.

Read the entire article at the Atlantic.

Photo credit: spirit of america / Shutterstock.com

Housing Summit Wrap Up

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

America’s stricken housing markets appear to have hit bottom, as home prices rise modestly in many areas across the nation. Now is the time to reduce government’s overwhelming dominance of home lending – Washington guarantees more 90 percent of all new home loans – but don’t expect Congress to decide the fate of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac next year. And the mortgage interest deduction may be one of those tax loopholes that everyone is talking about closing, but that would deal a blow to housing markets just as they are finally showing signs of life.

Such were the main takeaways from a major, bipartisan housing conference at the National Press Club co-sponsored by the Progressive Policy Institute and the American Action Forum.

Kicked off by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan – with a vigorous defense of the administration’s handling of a housing market that faced historic challenges the past four years. Donovan argued, “Despite the fact that our progress has not been made in a straight line, it’s clear that housing is stronger than most expected it to be at the time when the president took office. There were challenges along the way. But today housing is in a significantly better position, by this measure, home prices, than most economists and market analysts expected at that time.”  The secretary also called on Congress to pass the broad refinance Menendez-Boxer bill. PPI has been, and continues to be a strong advocate of this proposal.

Experts sounded the alarm that that large-scale action was necessary in the next Congress, not only to decrease the size of government’s role in the housing market but to give some clarity to private capital to participate for the future. While Doug Holtz-Eakin noted that there has been some consensus building behind the scenes in Congress, he cautioned that “, Only the White House can make that step (on GSE reform). Professor Chris Mayer from Columbia Business School agreed, but pointed to the November elections, “it does matter” who is the next president because Mayer believes the two candidates have very different policies and that “FHFA becomes the place that sets de facto policy without Congressional guidance.” The panel backed Donovan’s plea to pass Menedez-Boxer, with the exception of Holtz-Eakin who said we’ve got enough housing programs.

With the nations “fiscal cliff” looming, the mortgage interest deduction set off a raucous exchange by Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics, who called for the housing industry to lead the way by promoting reduced limits on the $90 billion annual housing subsidy. Jerry Howard, CEO of National Association of Homebuilders, responded with a passionate defense that the industry could not weather any more hits in addition to the tsunami of upcoming regulation.

Election Watch: Muddy Political Landscape after Romney’s Debate Performance and New Jobs Report

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Wednesday night’s first presidential debate has thrown calculations about the presidential contest into some disarray, though it probably won’t be until after the weekend that sufficient public opinion surveys will have appeared to get a sense of whether Mitt Romney’s undisputed (if perhaps disputed in its extent or implications) win over the president will have any impact on the actual race, which has been remarkably stable for a very long time.

Political Scientist John Sides is one of the few to make a specific prediction: that Romney would likely enjoy a 1.25% “bump” in national polls, at least temporarily.  Some observers who had earlier thought Romney’s prospects for victory were evaporating viewed his debate performance as crucial in keeping donors from cutting their losses and focusing on downballot races.

In terms of the strategic impact of the first debate, the general view is that Romney sought and to some extent succeeded in repositioning himself to “the political center,” via his hedging on his earlier tax cut proposal, his passionate declaration of interest in public education and the protection of Medicare, his claims of possessing a viable alternative to Obamacare that would protect those with pre-existing conditions, and his assertion that he’d been more open to bipartisan cooperation than Obama.  It appears this tack by Romney threw the Obama campaign off-balance, contributing to a low-key and not terribly responsive performance by the president (who had allegedly decided against too many sharp attacks on his struggling opponent). Interestingly, after months and months of demands by conservatives that Romney run a sharply ideological “choice” campaign based on his running-mate’s budget, his very different tack in the debate drew virtually no criticism, presumably because conservatives were so delighted by Obama’s discomfiture and “defeat.”  The framing of the debate by moderator Jim Lehrer made it very difficult for Obama to bring up Romney’s vulnerabilities on cultural issues, though it’s surprising he didn’t find a way to bring up Mitt’s recently revealed remarks about “the 47%.” Continue reading “Election Watch: Muddy Political Landscape after Romney’s Debate Performance and New Jobs Report” →

Moderate Mitt Returns

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

No one should be surprised that Mitt Romney turned in a strong debate performance last night. After a string of missed opportunities and self-inflicted wounds stretching back to the Republican National Convention, his campaign had stalled and was losing altitude. Whereas President Obama merely had to avoid mistakes, Romney needed to pull himself out of a political tailspin.

Did he succeed? The commentariat says yes, but it has a vested interest in keeping the presidential race close. It will take a few days to gauge the debate’s impact on actual voters, but it’s probably safe to say Romney was won himself a fresh hearing.

Most important, Romney used the first presidential debate to reposition himself closer to the political center. This was just the opposite of what he had done during the GOP primary debates. Then, Romney worked hard to ingratiate himself with the ultra-conservative Republican base by attacking his rivals from the right — for example, by lambasting Texas Gov. Rick Perry as a softie on immigration.

Last night, in a bravura act of self-revisionism, Romney recast himself as the Massachusetts moderate he vehemently denied being during the primaries.

In the primaries, Romney had railed against regulation as a mortal threat to America’s “job creators.” Last night’s moderate Mitt sounded more reasonable, embracing the general need for regulation while singling out a few provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law he regards as going too far. Continue reading “Moderate Mitt Returns” →

PPI Unveils New Study, Rome Conference on The Data-Driven Economy”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

NEWS RELEASE 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Steven Chlapecka – schlapecka@ppionline.org, T: 202.525.3931

WASHINGTON—Government statistics don’t show it, but the production and consumption of data is the leading edge of economic growth in the United States, says a new report released today by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).

The report, Beyond Goods and Services: The (Unmeasured) Rise of the Data-Driven Economy, is by Dr. Michael Mandel, PPI’s Chief Economic Strategist and a senior fellow at the Wharton’s Mack Center for Technological Innovation. It was prepared for a transatlantic conference in Rome on Oct. 11-12 organized by PPI and John Cabot University.

Government statistical agencies, notes Mandel, traditionally divide economic activity into two categories: goods and services. Data, however, is neither a good or service:

Data is intangible, like a service, but can be easily stored and delivered far from its original production point, like a good. What’s more, the statistical techniques that have been traditionally used to track goods and services don’t work well for data-driven economic activities. The implication is that the key statistics watched by policy makers – economic growth, consumption, investment and trade – dramatically understate the importance of data for the economy. In turn, these misleading statistics distort government policy.

To remedy this problem, Mandel proposes that data be added as a primary economic category alongside goods and services. After adjusting government figures to account for unmeasured data consumption, Mandel estimates that real U.S. GDP rose at a 2.3 percent rate in the first half of 2012, compared to the official rate of 1.7 percent.

Next week’s Rome conference, The Rise of the Data-Driven Economy: Implications for Growth and Policy, brings together two dozen representatives of U.S. and European companies, officials of the European Union and Parliament, and academic experts. The forum will highlight the contribution of data-driven growth to the economies of Europe as well the United States; examine the potential impact of new European Union rules on data regulation and privacy on cross-border data flows; and, explore broader Internet governance questions that will on the agenda in December’s meeting of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai.

Leading representatives of U.S. Internet and telecommunications firms will also be hand to discuss corporate responsibility for empowering customers to protect their privacy and being ethical stewards of data. These include Laura Fennell, General Counsel of Intuit; Maurice Fitzgerald, Vice President of Strategy-Autonomy of Hewlett-Packard; Carolyn Nuygen, Technology Policy Strategist of Microsoft; Anthony House, Manager of Public Policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Google; and Ed Black, President and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association.

The Progressive Policy Institute is an independent, innovative and high-impact D.C.-based think tank founded in 1989. As the original “idea mill” for President Bill Clinton’s New Democrats, PPI has a long legacy of promoting break-the-mold ideas aimed at economic growth, national security and modern, performance-based government. Today, PPI’s unique mix of political realism and policy innovation continues to make it a leading source of pragmatic and creative ideas.

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Beyond Goods and Services: The (Unmeasured) Rise of the Data-Driven Economy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

INTRODUCTION
We live in a world where ‘data-driven economic activities’—the production, distribution and use of digital information of all types—are the leading edge of economic growth. Mobile broadband, increasingly available even in poor countries, is fostering a fundamental technological and social transformation.  Big data—the storage, manipulation, and analysis of huge data sets—is changing the way that businesses and governments make decisions.  And torrents of data ceaselessly flow back and forth across national borders, keeping the global economy linked.

Yet paradoxically, economic and regulatory policymakers around the world are not getting the data they need to understand the importance of data for the economy. Consider this: The Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S. agency which estimates economic growth, will tell you how much Americans increased their consumption of jewelry and watches in 2011, but offers no information about the growing use of mobile apps or online tax preparation programs.  Eurostat, the European statistical agency, reports how much European businesses invested in buildings and equipment in 2010, but not how much those same businesses spent on consumer or business databases. And the World Trade Organization publishes figures on the flow of clothing from Asia to the United States, but no official agency tracks the very valuable flow of data back and forth across the Pacific.

The problem is that data-driven economic activities do not fit naturally into the traditional economic categories.  Since the modern concept of economic growth was developed in the 1930s, economists have been systematically trained to think of the economy is being divided into two big categories: ‘Goods’ and ‘services’.

Goods are physical commodities, like clothes and steel beams, while services include everything else from healthcare to accounting to haircuts to restaurants. Goods are tangible and can be easily stored for future use, while services are intangible, and cannot be stockpiled for future use.   In theory, a statistician could estimate the output of a country by counting the number of cars and the bushels of corns coming out of the country’s factories and farms, and by watching workers in the service sector and counting the number of haircuts performed and the number of meals served.

But data is neither a good or service. Data is intangible, like a service, but can easily be stored and delivered far from its original production point, like a good. What’s more, the statistical techniques that have been traditionally used to track goods and services don’t work well for data-driven economic activities.  The implication is that the key statistics watched by policymakers—economic growth, consumption, investment, and trade—dramatically understate the importance of data for the economy.  In turn, these misleading statistics distort government policy.

SUMMARY
In this policy brief we will show that government economic statistics, stuck in the 20th century, are missing most of the data boom.  To remedy this problem, it is time to expand our economic statistics to add data as a primary economic category, just like goods and services.  Until we do this, policymakers and regulators won’t have the information they need to make good decisions.

This policy brief is organized around three major arguments:

  1. We explain why data is becoming important enough to get its own statistical category. Individuals can consume data, just like they can consume soda (a good) or haircuts (a service). Businesses can invest in databases, just like they invest in buildings and equipment.  And countries can export and import data, just like they export and import goods and services. As a result, instead of breaking down the economy into goods and services, statisticians need to be thinking about goods, services, and data. Adding data as a primary economic category can give policymakers a much more accurate picture of economic growth, consumption, investment, employment, and trade.
  2. We show how the official economic statistics dramatically undercount the growth of data-driven activities.  To give a real-life example, we focus on the consumption of data by Americans.  According to statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real consumption of ‘internet access’ has been falling since the second quarter of 2011.
  3. In other words, according to official U.S. government figures, consumer access to the Internet—including mobile—has been a drag on economic growth for the past year and a half.  This is simply absurd. As a result, the official statistics are missing such important trends as the increasing adoption of smartphones and tablets, the growth of mobile broadband, and the enormous surge of usage of services like Gmail, Dropbox, Facebook, and Twitter.
  4. We adjust the official U.S. statistics to account for unmeasured data consumption by individuals. Based on our estimates, we show that real GDP rose at a 2.3% rate in the first half of 2012, compared to the 1.7% official rate. In other words, the impact of the data-driven economy on overall economic growth is being substantially underestimated. Based on these figures, the growth in data consumption in the United States accounts for roughly one-quarter of adjusted GDP growth in the first half of 2012, making  data consumption by individuals is one of the largest contributors to U.S. economic growth in this period.
  5. We assess the link between economic growth and future government privacy and data regulatory policy in the 21st century data-driven economy Given that we have shown that data powers growth, correctly measured, we discuss the possibility that excessive privacy and data regulation can inadvertently harm future growth prospects.

To put it another way, restrictive and prescriptive regulation of the Internet and the movement and uses of data could have the effect not only of constraining Internet freedom but also Internet free trade.  Such regulation could become the trade barriers of the data-driven economy, “balkanizing” access to information and innovative data-driven products and services and constraining global economic growth. That’s a highly undesirable outcome for everyone.

Download the memo.

Photo credit: Shutterstock/photobank.kiev.ua

PPI in Rome – The Rise of the Data-Driven Economy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Progressive Policy Institute, John Cabot University, the Guarini Institute for Public Affairs, the European Privacy Association, and the Centre for European Policy Studies will host “The Rise of the Data-Driven Economy: Implications for Growth and Policy” on Oct. 10-12, 2012 in Rome, Italy.

Featuring prominent U.S. and European political and business leaders, as well as economists and policy experts, the conference will explore how the growing volume of cross-border trade in digital information is becoming an increasingly important driver of economic innovation and growth, as well as a key component of international trade. This reality raises a host of new and complex questions about the “rules of the road” that should govern data storage, security and privacy, and, ultimately, the Internet itself.

The conference will grapple with three key questions: 1) How is the data boom driving economic growth in the United States and Europe?; 2) What are the economic consequences of privacy regulations, and can Americans and Europeans find compatible approaches to privacy; and, 3) How can policy-makers best balance the competing imperatives of Internet freedom and responsible internet governance?

REGISTER

Continue reading “PPI in Rome – The Rise of the Data-Driven Economy” →

Election Watch: Obama Keeps Edge With Swing State Voters

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The President’s modest but wide-ranging lead in most national and battleground state polls is no longer dismissible as a post-convention “bounce,” and is beginning to engender some serious concern in Republican circles. NBC’s First Read has a useful summary of that network’s own polling:

We’ve now released nine battleground state NBC/WSJ/Marist polls in the last three weeks, and what have we learned? President Obama is ahead of Mitt Romney in all nine, with his biggest leads being 7 and 8 points (in Ohio, New Hampshire, and Iowa) and his smallest edge at 2 points (in Nevada and North Carolina). Obama’s average percentage in these polls is 49.5% and Romney’s is 44% — which is consistent with the national polls (see below). Our state surveys also show a slight improvement in voters who believe that the nation is headed in the right direction. And they find Obama and Romney essentially tied on who would better handle the economy, while Obama mostly enjoys double-digit leads on foreign policy.

Republican reactions to these numbers have fallen into three categories. Some express no particular concerns, suggesting it remains a close race where some combination of heavy pro-Romney, anti-Obama advertising, better-than-expected debate performances, and a general realization of the incumbent’s “failure” could easily turn things around. Others are more concerned, and are offering various ideas for a Romney “comeback,” ranging from a harshly conservative comparative assault on the president (with loud-and-proud association of the ticket with the Ryan Budget and other provocative policies) to highly targeted voter appeals. And still others are attacking with considerable ferocity the accuracy of polls (other than those from the reliably pro-GOP Rasmussen firm), arguing either deliberate bias or skewed 2008-based samples, or both. Continue reading “Election Watch: Obama Keeps Edge With Swing State Voters” →

Democratic Devolution: How America’s Colleges and Universities Can Strengthen Their Communities

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In the face of a deepening economic and political crisis, the U.S. political and governing system is deadlocked. We need a new way forward. The old and tired government versus markets debate is just that—old and tired. It’s time for a broader mobilization of America’s civic resources, including the nonprofit sector and especially our colleges and universities.

We see government as a catalyst that stimulates new forms of interaction and partnerships between all sectors of society. Based on our experience at the University of Pennsylvania, we believe government should challenge all institutions of higher education (public and private; community colleges, colleges, and universities) to contribute systematically to improving the quality of life and learning in their local communities.

When called to service (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) young people have answered the call. Each year, more than 75,000 citizens serve through AmeriCorps alone. But it is not enough to simply call upon college students to serve. Rather, government should challenge institutions of higher education, as well as students, to make a greater contribution to the public good.

America’s colleges and universities represent immense concentrations of human and economic capital (with nearly four million employees, 20 million enrolled students, $400 billion in endowments, and $1 trillion in annual economic activity). As “anchor institutions,” they have the potential to be sources of stability and permanence in civic partnerships with government and the private sector to revitalize local communities. For colleges and universities to fulfill their great potential and more effectively contribute to positive change in their communities, cities, and metropolitan areas, however, they will have to critically examine and change their organizational cultures and structures and embed civic engagementacross all components of the institution. Through more effectively targeting existing resources, as well as utilizing both modest financial incentives and the bully pulpit, the federal government can stimulate colleges and universities to realize their stated—but not fully realized—mission of service to society.

To realize this potential, we recommend a five-part strategy:

First, Congress should create a new federal commission—comprised of local, state, and national government officials along with leaders from the private sector and higher education—to forge civic partnerships with the nation’s institutions of higher education;

Second, the commission should develop innovative strategies for integrating federal programs and funding streams, as well as aligning federal efforts with these new local civic partnerships that involve colleges and universities;

Third, the commission should promote regional consortia of higher educational institutions to significantly and effectively improve schooling and community life;

Fourth, the federal government should create prestigious Presidential Awards for outstanding Higher Education-Civic Partnerships, and;

Fifth, government should provide support to colleges and universities based on the “Noah Principle”—funding given only for building arks (producing real change), not for predicting rain (describing the problems that exist and will develop if actions are not taken).

Download the memo.

Young Workers’ Salaries Continue To Decline

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Huffington Post picked up PPI Economist Diana Carew’s new numbers showing the fall in real average earnings of young college grads.

Data analyzed by the Progressive Policy Institute reveal that college grads from ages 25 to 34, working full time, earned an average of $54,500 in 2011 — about 15 percent less than in 2005. The drop is equivalent to about $10,000 in salary adjusted for inflation.

The survey comes as a rising number of students and their families question whether the high cost of college is worth it. A 2012 Pew study found that only 55 percent of those with undergraduate degrees felt that college helped prepare them for a job.

Part of the reason for this is that middle-skill positions, like white collar sales representatives and entry-level analysts, were some of the first to disappear when the economy collapsed in 2008. That forced recent graduates to take lower-skill jobs, such as customer service or low-skilled health industry positions. Those positions would likely have gone to people with high school degrees in a stronger economy.

Read the full article here.

Election Watch: Romney’s ’47 Percent’ Gaffe is Trouble for Campaign

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Twas another week when negative attention to comments by Mitt Romney combined with relatively strong poll showings by Barack Obama made observers wonder if the incumbent is still enjoying a post-convention “bounce,” is actually opening up a serious lead, or is fundamentally still in a very close race with the challenger.

As surely everyone has heard by now, a neglected videotape (unearthed and publicized by Mother Jones’ David Corn) of a May appearance by Romney at a Boca Raton fundraiser showed him embracing a Randian view of American society in which the 47% of households who don’t (currently) owe federal income taxes are locked into “dependence on government” and are sure Obama voters of no concern to the candidate and his virtuous coalition of productive folk. Aside from exposing Romney to Democratic criticism and media ridicule, the incident immediately set off an extended intramural debate among conservatives over the accuracy and political wisdom of his “47%” characterization (called, for example, “libertarian nonsense” by conservative Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson).

In terms of the state of the race, the consensus seems to be that Obama currently enjoys about a 4-point lead among likely voters, though the major dissenter, the Gallup Tracking Poll, which shows Obama’s “convention bounce” gone and the race tied, is unusually prestigious. Another consensus finding is that the “enthusiasm gap” between Republicans and Democrats has largely evaporated, which means Romney is not getting the polling “bump” long expected when pollsters started applying LV “screens” to the respondents. A heavy battery of battleground-state polls have been coming out this week, most providing good news for Obama (he’s led in all 21 post-convention polls of the ten closest battleground states that were conducted by traditional, phone-interview methodologies; robopolls have been somewhat less favorable), particularly in Virginia, Iowa and Colorado; Florida and (especially) North Carolina are dicier for the president. A closer national race, of course, would be reflected in closer battleground results, though the playing field is somewhat tilted to Obama so long as he looks strong in Virginia, Ohio and Iowa. Continue reading “Election Watch: Romney’s ’47 Percent’ Gaffe is Trouble for Campaign” →