Remaking America: Democracy and Public Policy in an Age of Inequality

"Remaking America is an edited volume, a compilation of all the best minds on the politics of policy. It covers a broad scope. The general idea of the book is to grapple with the role that politics and policy are playing in amplifying the increasing problem of inequality. The book approaches this topic through a number of different institutional lenses. There are chapters that address tax policy, health care, welfare and more. There are also chapters that address broader questions: To reduce inequality, is it best to create policies that are universal or policies targeted towards the poor? There is a chapter on the concept of public policy feedback—the notion that policy affects people’s inclination to participate politically and, therefore, iteratively affect the content of future policies. So it’s really wide-ranging, which is one of the things that makes it a gem. “Inequality is coming not just from the economy; it is coming from politics and policy” You can learn a little about a lot of things by reading it. But you can also get a deeper perspective on the policies that affect inequality. Inequality is coming not just from the economy; it is coming from politics and policy. This book really helps us to understand how our politics and policy produce or exacerbate inequality. And it helps us start to think about solutions. Policy moulds the lens through which people consider the political world. We tend to think of policy as an output—we have a political process and at the end of that process you get a policy as the end product. Policy feedback scholars, of which I am one, say policies aren’t just end products, they affect people and they shape the way people think about politics and government. Most people go into the voting booth for a couple of moments every few years. That experience does not affect them as much as the more frequent occasions on which people—especially those on the economic margins of society—engage with government as part of their daily lives. “When we design polices, we can’t just consider its most direct and concrete consequences” I’m writing a book about the policy feedback effects of Medicaid. We know that Medicaid affects peoples’ health and wellbeing. What I examine, as a policy feedback scholar, is how Medicaid affects its beneficiaries as citizens. Whether you can get health care, for yourself and for your family, and how you interact with government. Interaction with government forges people as political citizens. Whether they see government as efficacious and believe they can change government, shapes the policy environment and the trajectory of future policy. When we design polices, we can’t just consider its most direct and concrete consequences. We also have to consider what proposed policies will mean for our politics and for our democracy."