Centrist Policy "Manifesto" revised 1/11/2004
A draft electronic manifesto for centrist policymakers.
Outline:
Reform, Problem Solving and Economic Policy
Centrists and the Role of Government
Markets vs. Public Programs
Public Interest: Competition For Efficiency, Innovation For Progress
Public Interest: Opportunity and Fairness -- Entitlements and Taxes
Public Interest: Budget Fairness and Responsibility
Public Interest: Trust in Political and Economic Institutions
Summary and Conclusion: Overcoming Cynicism and Ideological Rigidity
Centrists.Org Issue Summaries
The framers put it best. People should form governments to protect "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." That implied a limited role for the public sector -- the belief was (and is) that free people will be best equipped to prosper without undue direction from their government.
However, as the economy gets more complex, the role of government has necessarily expanded. Prosperity (and freedom) can be enhanced by governments that can effectively address problems associated with technological change, business cycles, globalization, inflation (or deflation), poverty, and so on.
Centrists believe in limited, but effective government. Our job is to help clarify what government should try to do, and then offer solid ideas and plans for how to solve problems within that scope of activity, in the national interest.
Our theory is that a government of the proper scope that is grounded in problem-solving and economic logic will best serve the people who created it.
Problem-Solving and Economic Policy. Economic theories come and go: demand management to smooth business cycles, supply-side tax cuts and deregulation to encourage businesses, balanced budgets to lower interest rates and free up capital.
Sometimes the theories seem to work, and sometimes they fall short. Sometimes it seems as if government policy isn't affecting the economy very much.
However, there is one thing that government can always do to improve economic prospects: Solve problems fairly, reliably, and in the public interest.
Solutions don't have to be perfect, and some problems certainly don't require government action. Moreover, legislators shouldn't rush to write laws before they thoroughly understand what a solution would imply.
But the ability of a democratic government to responsibly address national problems helps build economic confidence, especially among businesses and investors.
In an era of sudden change and instant capital mobility, with global investors and consumers more forward-looking than ever, a nation's willingness to address big problems, and the ability of its government to make tough choices to resolve problems and adapt to changing circumstances, can create a sense of confidence that is, in turn, an extraordinary economic asset.
Long-term investors don't know what the future will bring. But they do know whether or not they have confidence in a nation's ability to solve the inevitable problems that do arise.
And they know that countries whose governments can't solve problems or adapt to a changing economic climate are not good places to invest.
For example: Japan. The main reason for Japan's decade-long recession wasn't a lack of fiscal or monetary stimulus -- the government ran deep deficits to pump up demand and the central bank lowered Japanese interest rates to nearly zero. Instead, Japan's stagnation was caused by a lack of confidence, particularly in the ability of nation's political system to address structural economic and financial problems.
In the U.S., our problem-solving capability is threatened by extreme political partisanship. Democrats and Republicans in Congress seem so preoccupied with battling each other that they neglect the public interest. Worse yet, the bitter partisanship and political gridlock seems to be spreading to state and local politics.
The first goal of centrists should be to improve the political climate. Realistic, workable solutions to the most difficult long-term problems we face -- budget imbalances, technological changes, health care, the costly and ever-nearer retirement of the baby boom generation -- cannot be rammed through legislatures on party-line votes. Bipartisan cooperation will be required.
Compromise and bipartisanship are not necessarily meek or accommodating. Often both parties are wrong, and centrists must find wholly new approaches, not just split the difference.
America is depending on its centrist leaders to find solutions that work, and that will inspire confidence that whatever problems the nation faces in the future, U.S. democracy will function effectively to serve the public interest.
Centrists and the Role of Government. Centrists are not necessarily moderates. They are passionate about solving problems of government, including the economy, the budget, and special areas of government involvement such as health and retirement.
However, centrists are ideologically flexible. Centrists recognize the complexity of public policy choices and look to many kinds of solutions. Which solution depends on the circumstances, the problem, and the public interest.
Here are some basic guidelines:
1. Avoid Governmental Overreach. Government should not try to solve all problems. Moreover, when the public interest requires government action, the solution should use public power only as needed, not as an unnecessary substitute for private or individual action. Not every problem is a government problem.
2. Consider Federalism and Devolution. When government action is appropriate, centrists should carefully examine the potential role of local and state governments, and of regional public associations. Not every government problem is a federal problem.
3. A Strong Federal Role Is Often Appropriate. In many policy areas, the federal government can and should play a powerful role. Some issues -- like health and retirement -- cannot practically be left to the private sector alone, and are so expensive and complex that federal involvement in solutions is almost inevitable.
4. Performance is Better Than Compliance. The federal government can set an example for all levels of government by switching from regulation and compliance systems to performance and accountability systems. Results, not process, are what matters.
5. Continuous Evaluation of Results. Centrists should hold both the public sector and private markets accountable for results in the public interest. Performance cannot be judged without comparable information, which the federal government is often well equipped to collect. Importantly, government programs must be set up to evolve or be eliminated if times change and the public interest would be better served in other ways.
Markets vs. Public Programs. Centrists generally prefer market solutions. Markets are generally superior to government direction at determining public preferences and allocating resources to meet those needs. However, centrists' preference for markets is based on practicality and experience, not dogma.
Sometimes markets fail to work efficiently and in consumers’ (and society’s) best interest. Just because private sector forces are at work does not guarantee that the marketplace will generate an efficient result.
When markets fail, government action is appropriate to fix them. Consumers may need better comparative information. Suppliers must be made to compete fairly.
Sometimes markets can’t be fixed. When this happens, centrists are open to government or public-sector solutions.
However, market failure should not be replaced by government failure. Centrists must insist that government programs are continually modernized and are as efficient and innovative as possible.
In many cases, a pure market or pure government solution is the wrong approach. Instead, the most efficient way to solve a problem is often a hybrid of the two sectors, or a public-private partnership.
The private sector is usually best at producing and supplying services. The public sector can sometimes take a necessary but complementary role that markets could not otherwise be expected to perform.
Example: Centrist Health Coverage Policy. The public interest in a properly functioning health insurance system is strong. A rich society will not tolerate vast numbers of people without access to mainstream medical services, on moral and social grounds. Moreover, the public health consequences of insufficient health care could be enormous in an era of exotic diseases and bio-weapons threats. We want sick people to get prompt, high-quality care if for no other reason than to slow the spread of communicable diseases.
But health markets are prone to failure. Unsubsidized health insurance is inefficient, because healthy people sometimes discount the need for insurance, while sick people will purchase any insurance they can find. People often know in advance whether or not they will need expensive coverage, and purchase insurance (or not) accordingly. This leads to what actuaries call adverse selection. When sick people enroll in health insurance but healthy people do not, the cost of a policy can be driven up to a point where the insurance market unravels. Insurance becomes too expensive to be valuable to low-risk people; when those people drop out of the market, insurance becomes even more expensive.
Centrist health coverage proposals generally include the use of public power and money to entice and compel healthy people to acquire basic health insurance, via public subsidies for health coverage and penalties for non-enrollment. Centrists usually also advocate group purchasing arrangements, fostered by government if need be, to allow all people -- healthy or sick -- to get fair prices for health coverage.
However, centrist proposals generally let the private sector take over from that point. Over-insurance can lead to over-consumption. Therefore centrist health proposals do not provide subsidies for blanket coverage. Centrist health proposals generally allow for significant individual cost sharing and price sensitivity to prevent over-use of health services.
Centrists also believe that the chaotic U.S. system of competing private health plans and health providers (hospitals, medical groups, clinics, laboratories, and so on) is reasonably efficient. (Private health insurance is certainly not as inefficient as advocates of government-run health insurance claim.) Government-run health insurance would probably have lower administrative costs, but government-set prices are less appropriate and more likely to create economic distortions.
Despite its problems, the private market is much more innovative and adaptable than any government-run system would be. Centrists favor private health care because it is tolerably efficient and remarkably innovative.
Therefore, centrist health proposals are a public-private mix, taking the strengths of both sectors.
Public Interest: Competition For Efficiency, Innovation For Progress. Markets work best when consumers are well informed, competition is vigorous and fair, and suppliers can enter and exit the market freely.
But the private sector may not work in the public interest if the market isn’t competitive. All things considered, businesses would prefer to be monopolies than competitors. Profits would be higher.
Competition can be disruptive, and it causes dislocations as some firms succeed and others fail. Nevertheless, the discipline of competition ensures that markets will work in the best interest of society as a whole, delivering products and services desired by consumers at the best possible prices.
Therefore, government policy should ensure that competition thrives in as many markets as possible. Policy should actively prevent collusion, price-fixing or other forms of anti-competitive behavior.
Innovation is Just as Important as Competition. In the long run, competition ensures that markets are operating efficiently. But competition is not enough. Markets must also be dynamic, allowing new competitors and ideas to enter the marketplace, and allowing competitors that fail to develop new products and ideas to disappear. Innovation, which often springs from new companies and entrepreneurs, is a key to progress.
Centrist policymakers should consider competition and innovation together. Both are essential to long-run economic growth and prosperity. Competition ensures efficiency, which drives gains in productivity, which causes incomes to rise. However, innovation can allow economies to leap ahead, greatly improving standards of living quickly.
Public Interest: Opportunity and Fairness -- Entitlements and Taxes. Centrists believe that attempts to legislate equality of outcomes are mostly in vain. Some people will always be better off than others, based on luck, genes, or family position in life. However, it is highly appropriate to ensure that all Americans have opportunities to succeed, in accordance with their desire, abilities, and willingness to work.
Generational Fairness and Entitlement Reform. Our major entitlement programs -- Social Security and Medicare -- are not pre-funded. Although each has a “trust fund,” neither could continue to pay benefits to retirees for more than a couple years without the constant inflow of payroll taxes from workers. (Medicare also has a substantial general revenue contribution; its payroll taxes only cover about two-thirds of benefit costs.)
As the huge baby boom generation retires and joins the entitlement rolls, the next generation of workers faces a squeeze: unless benefits are cut for baby boomer retirees, payroll taxes will have to rise substantially.
This is why centrists are interested in entitlement reform. For Social Security, the question is: Can we partially pre-fund the Social Security system, by making investments (sacrifices) now, so that the next generation of workers will not have to make a much larger sacrifice when the baby boomers retire?
For Medicare, the question is more complex. Medicare expenditures are likely to explode as the baby boomers retire, but projections of future health costs are much less certain than forecasts of Social Security obligations.
Therefore, most health reformers are reluctant to propose sacrifices now. It seems premature to start cutting benefits or raising taxes before we know for sure that we must.
So Medicare reform is a quest to improve the program’s value. Adding competition and improving Medicare’s bureaucratic processes so that the program can provide new choices and adapt to changes in health care.
Entitlement Reform and Means Testing. For decades, liberals have assumed that the only way to maintain broad public support for Medicare was to insist on equal benefits for all beneficiaries, rich or poor. To cement middle class loyalty to Social Security, benefits are explicitly linked to taxes paid, so that beneficiaries get the impression that they were collecting their own money at retirement.
It is time to challenge those assumptions. Within a constrained budget, if will be harder and harder to solve social problems among the low-income elderly -- insufficient Medicare benefits or retirement incomes -- while also giving equivalent (and often unneeded) benefits to the increasingly large number of upper- and high-income retirees.
The entitlement programs have been in existence for decades (Social Security since the 1930s and Medicare since the 1960s) and have solid public support. People do not confuse them with welfare programs, which are handouts only to the poor. If anything, support for the programs may erode if voters feel they are too expensive, and will not be fair to subsequent generations.
Social Security and Medicare will continue to have broad public support, if for no other reason than the huge baby boom generation will soon be beneficiaries. Centrists should balance the desire to be fair to each beneficiary against the more important goals of benefit improvements for the poor, and generational equity.
There are ways to reform entitlement programs that create more social insurance for the buck. It is possible to offer extra benefits to low-income seniors within Medicare and Social Security, without sacrificing public support, if other aspects of the programs are reformed.
For example, high-income seniors value choice and opportunity. Personal investment accounts in Social Security and new private sector options in Medicare can provide new opportunities. Centrists should ask: Are high-income seniors willing to allow extra benefits for low-income retirees in exchange for greater choices for themselves? If so, entitlement reforms could be crafted that include items that are appealing to rich and poor alike, while also addressing the long-term costs.
Tax Fairness and Progressivity. Taxes should be as fair and non-distorting as possible, within the limits of the public’s interest. In general is it acceptable to have many sorts of taxes. That way the tax rates for each type of tax can be relatively low, and the incentive for avoidance is reduced.
In general, income taxes are important because they are progressive. The U.S. economy rewards entrepreneurship and allows innovators to amass great fortunes. But opportunity should be matched with responsibility. Requiring high-income people to pay a progressive tax helps preserve the social stability of a free-wheeling capitalist system.
The only attraction of payroll taxes is that they are easy to collect. (Beyond that, payroll taxes -- literally taxes on the work of working people -- have little merit.)
Excise taxes, such as gasoline or cigarette taxes, can be used to collect revenue while also creating disincentives for over-consumption of goods that society would rather conserve or avoid.
Refundable Tax Credits. Ideally, the income tax code should not be cluttered with provisions better implemented as spending programs.
Nevertheless, the income tax system is uniquely intertwined with the public interest in social welfare, health insurance, homeownership, retirement, and other issues. Compared with spending programs, taxes can be a highly efficient way of subsidizing certain activities essential to the public interest.
Centrists must therefore balance the need for tax fairness and efficiency with the desire to use the tax code to achieve important social ends.
For example, centrists generally prefer refundable tax credits for poor, working people with children to bureaucratic welfare programs (which encourage dependency) or high minimum wages (which discourage hiring of low-skill workers).
Refundable tax credits -- such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit -- add complexity to the tax code. But they are more efficient and consistent with public values than traditional welfare programs or government wage setting. Certainly, the eligibility rules for refundable tax credits should be as consistent as possible, so that complexity is minimized.
Tax Simplification and Loophole Closing. Acceptance of some added complexity in the public interest has a flip side. Taxes must be perceived as fair, so that all taxpayers have some assurance that their liability is reasonable and that other taxpayers are not taking advantage of the system.
Centrists must continually scour the tax code for inequities, distortions, and loopholes contrary to public values. Taxes should be simplified as much as possible, and narrowly targeted tax provisions should always be a red flag: Can a tax break really be in the public interest if it only affects a small number of taxpayers?
Inheritance Tax Reform and Stakeholder Accounts. The desire to pass on one’s assets to surviving family members can be an important motivation to work hard and prosper. On the other hand, the estate tax system was designed to prevent undue concentrations of wealth and power in ultra-rich families.
Both values should be preserved. Centrists generally agree that inheritance taxes should be limited to very large estates.
Moreover, the inheritance tax system should be reformed and simplified, so that families do not need to resort to elaborate and expensive estate planning contortions to avoid tax. A combination of lower rates and controls on tax avoidance would help improve tax efficiency.
Finally, the government may need to help spark the process of wealth creation. Social Security reform proposals, and other proposals to create publicly funded “stakeholder accounts” would allow all Americans to start with a modicum of financial wealth. That, in turn, would help people escape the ruts of poverty or disadvantage, and boost social mobility and middle class values.
Individual and Corporate Income Tax Reform. Personal income taxes should be simplified. As a start, we should fix the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), consolidate tax preferences for education and children, and dramatically simplify taxes for small investors.
Simplifying corporate taxation wouldn't be enough. The corporate income tax system has grown so inefficient that it should be overhauled completely.
In general, tax reform shouldn’t be an attempt to raise or cut taxes. Nor should it attempt to switch the tax burden from higher- to lower-income people (or vice versa). Tax reform should be budget neutral and distributionally neutral.
Most importantly, no taxes should be off the table. Payroll taxes should not be considered sacred because they ostensibly finance entitlement programs.
In the long run, progressive consumption taxes could be a substitute for some payroll taxes. Consumption equals income less savings. Therefore, a progressive consumption tax could be devised by applying a progressive tax rate schedule to net of people's income less the amounts they saved.
Public Interest: Budget Fairness and Responsibility. Centrists believe that the power of government should not be used to buy voters’ affections. Government should be used as the public interest requires, but the federal treasury should not be disbursed frivolously or to achieve narrow goals.
Budgetary responsibility includes pushing against the legislative tendency toward small pork-barrel appropriations projects, restraining the cost of existing programs, and considering large-scale entitlement reforms.
Balancing the Federal Budget. The federal budget should be balanced in the long run. This is the least risky approach to proper governance over time.
In the short run, worries about deflation and recession may justify running deficits to stimulate demand.
However, there does not seem to be a good reason to overturn the long-standing economic logic that increased government borrowing diminishes the economy’s potential growth.
Most centrists do not believe that tax cuts will automatically “starve the government” of its appetite for spending. Some anti-government conservatives believe this, but the evidence is thin and the consequences of being wrong are high.
Consider the logic: If members of Congress cut taxes enough, the federal deficit will reach a sufficiently alarming level that the economy is threatened. Then, legislators, who are mostly concerned with business conditions and employment, not abstract concepts like deficits and inflation rates, will begin to rein in spending.
However, many times the tax cuts are not spread evenly across the population. Therefore, when some people get a new government benefit (in this case a tax cut) but others do not, the tax cuts spark more of a demand for new tax cuts or spending programs for those left out the first time, worsening the budget problem.
Moreover, it should not be necessary to create a recessionary scare to cut spending. Rising public debt will only reduce the appetite for government spending once it has threatened the economy. But lower economic growth will also reduce tax receipts, making the budget even harder to balance.
Starving the government of revenues probably has helped slow the urge to expand entitlement programs. The current deficits have slightly reduced liberals' demands for ever-more-expensive Medicare benefits. However, the deficits have also hurt the prospects for responsible entitlement reforms. Currently, the red ink is inhibiting Congress from considering Social Security reform, which inevitably includes large transition costs as future benefits are pre-funded through personal accounts.
On balance, centrists believe that Congress should address spending, taxes, and deficits in a responsible and straight-forward manner. Indirect approaches like attempting to starve the government are likely to fail, or spin out of control in unforeseen directions. It is better to be forthright with voters.
Centrists believe that budgetary sacrifices should be shared. Priorities should be set and spending should be cut accordingly. For equal priorities, cuts should be proportionate. Taxpayers should share the gain when taxes are cut and share the pain when they must be raised, in proportion to their incomes. If tax cuts are focused on people with high incomes, then subsequent tax increases should focus on high incomes.
Budget Caps and Offset Rules. Probably the most successful way to balance the budget is to prevent the situation from getting worse. This worked in the 1990s, through political acceptance of budget rules that required new entitlement spending initiatives or tax cuts to be “offset” elsewhere in the budget.
Offset rules enforced a discipline on Congress: all new initiatives must be paid for. If legislators wished to cut taxes, they would have to cut spending too, or face difficult procedural votes. If Congress wanted new entitlement spending, they would have to pay for it with tax increases or spending cuts elsewhere. These rules forced lawmakers to recognize that nothing comes for free.
Budget caps are also helpful, assuming the political will exists to abide by them. If legislators work around caps using budgetary gimmicks (like emergency spending accounts for routine appropriations), the caps will fail.
Ultimately, budget caps and offset rules work only if politicians have the will to make them work. But they can be very helpful in disciplining the budget if the will to use them is reasonably strong.
Public Interest: Trust in Political and Economic Institutions. Undue government attention to narrow or specific interest groups can cause market failure and government failure. Putting the interests of smaller or particular groups over the larger public interest can reduce economic opportunity and fairness.
Centrists must continually test three institutions of society for undue influence of special interests: legislatures, corporations, and civil servants.
Legislative Trust and Representative Districts. Bipartisanship is probably the best way to prevent narrow interest groups from dominating the broader public interest. Interest groups often choose sides, and make one party or the other dependent on their largess or voting power.
Centrist legislators, often representing neutral or bipartisan districts, cannot afford to tilt toward one special interest or the other. They must balance the needs of business and labor, hospitals and insurers and patients, children and senior citizens.
The fastest and most direct way to build bipartisanship and centrist political solutions is to disallow the gerrymandering of legislative districts. Instead of allowing state legislatures to pack districts with voters from one party or the other, districts should be drawn after each census by non-partisan commissions, based on objective criteria.
De-politicized district boundaries would force candidates to appeal to members of both parties, and to independent voters. It would reduce extremism in Congress, and state assemblies. It would increase national confidence that representative government was really representative. And it would create a much greater chance for bipartisan problem solving in the national interest.
There would still be issues. Congress could decide if special rules were appropriate to solve unique problems, like minority representation or rural representation. If the nonpartisan committees drew most boundaries based on logical geographic areas, it is possible that the number of representatives should be increased in the House, and in state assemblies.
Corporate Responsibility. The U.S. has decided to rely heavily on the private sector, and centrists are generally in agreement with that approach.
However, for private markets to work best allocating scarce resources, investors must have good information about corporate success or failure.
The economy is evolving away from manufacturing and other high-volume, low-margin industries toward intellectual high-margin sectors (high-tech services and software, communications, entertainment, health care), and this creates an accounting problem.
When businesses assets mostly consisted of tangible goods, such as factories and equipment and inventories, investors could get a pretty clear understanding of a firm’s underlying value.
However, now that many business assets are intellectual, based on human capital and abilities and unique business systems, it is not so easy to value a firm’s assets.
This creates new opportunities for fraud or securities manipulation, which in turn can create misallocations of investors’ capital. Improperly motivated executives can create large economic dislocations.
Solutions should include better disclosure and stiff penalties for executive cheats, as well as improved corporate governance. Among other things, independent boards of directors should be required for firms wishing to be listed on stock exchanges.
Performance-Based Government. In general, government programs should be evaluated on results, not on intermediate or process measures.
For any program, legislatures should specify the public interest being served. For example, if improved health is the objective, then government officials administering the program should be judged on improvements in health, not on claims paid or contracts signed.
Government programs have a tendency to stay in place long after the values they originally served have changed, or after other methods of attaining the public’s interest are discovered.
If programs are evaluated on the original goals, which are clearly specified, they are more likely to continually evolve and modernize, and less likely to stagnate or become bureaucratic.
Continual modernization and reform of government programs is a centrist goal that also serves both liberals’ and conservatives’ interest. Liberals can be sure modern programs will effectively address progressive goals, and conservatives can be sure the government is not wasting tax dollars.
Summary and Conclusion: Overcoming Cynicism and Ideological Rigidity. Government programs and markets are means to an end: the public interest and the greater public good. Which sector is better suited to solve a public problem should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Competitive markets are highly efficient. They can provide an optimal allocation of resources that is difficult for most government programs to match. However, innovation should not be sacrificed for short-term efficiency. Innovation is a key to long-term progress.
In general, centrists believe government should be limited, but progressive. Markets should be used where they work, and fixed if they fail. Government programs should be continually evaluated: Should private markets do this job? Should states or localities do this job? Should the program be reformed or revised for added efficiency or innovation?
Key centrist values are opportunity and fairness. Both values imply concern for the poor.
Taxes should be varied, and rates should be as low as practically possible. Bold centrists should consider substituting progressive taxes on consumption for some payroll taxes.
The tax code is part of the public interest, not purely a means of securing government revenue. Sometimes tax efficiency must be sacrificed to some degree to achieve a greater overall efficiency in the public interest.
The clearest statement of public responsibility is made in national budgets. Centrists support balanced long-term budgets, and frown on budgetary gimmicks and narrowly targeted programs or tax breaks that create distortions and economic inefficiency.
With some imagination and hard work, entitlement programs can be reformed in ways to appeal to young and old, rich and poor. Reform would be better than simply cutting benefits or raising taxes.
Centrists should try to be a showcase for Americans’ instinctive optimism and good will. Too often politicians view politics as a team sport, bent on destroying the other side, not governing in cooperation and good faith.
One manifestation of the polarization of U.S. politics is its extreme cynicism. For example, some Republicans seem to want the tax code to be complicated and frustrating for taxpayers. For example, they don’t particularly care about extra layers of tax calculations, like the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), because such now-absurd complexity makes taxpayers hate the tax code even more. They hope taxpayers’ anger will rise to the point that the income tax is overthrown (and replaced by less progressive forms of taxation).
Some Democrats actually seem to hope for the failure of the health system. Even though many poor people would be hurt by problems in the health insurance system, they hope voters will get so frustrated that they demand that the private health system be discarded and replaced by a national, government-run health insurance.
In the sharply divided U.S. political climate, legislators often retreat to pure ideology. Conservatives cling to the private sector in all cases, believing that cutting taxes will force reductions in the size and scope of government. Often they don’t even consider which parts of government would be reduced, or how long it would take -- that doesn’t matter as long as the question is ideological, not practical. On the other hand, liberals fight to protect government programs, without even questioning whether those public programs are actually achieving progressive goals.
Ideologues repeat their slogans with little regard to the specific policy problem at hand. Conservatives shout “private good, public bad.” Liberals shout “public good, private bad.”
By contrast, the centrist movement can show politicians how to use both the private and public sectors (often in combination) to creatively solve problems that we would otherwise just shout about.
The nation needs centrists to counterbalance the political system’s cynicism and ideological rigidity, break the political gridlock, and overcome the failure of the nation’s leaders to solve problems in the public interest.
Our democracy needs new hope and optimism. Centrists can help rebuild an ethic of compromise and consensus building and progress. This would not be timid or weak. Instead, it would be invigorating, and possibly, revolutionary.
