RESEARCH

Candidates, Take Heed

Kennedy School experts offer their advice on seven vital issues to whomever is elected president this fall.

Poverty and welfare reform
Mary Jo Bane, Professor of Public Policy and Management

Poverty is rarely discussed in the presidential campaign, yet 35 million Americans (including 18 percent of our children) live below the poverty level, which is a disgrace. People need to talk about this problem and, more important, do something about it.

Welfare reform of the 1990s focused on getting people off welfare and into jobs. But the “working poor” need assistance of various sorts, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, day care, job training, and transportation. Many who remain on welfare face serious barriers to employment. The system should provide substance abuse programs, mental health counseling, and education to help these folks enter the labor pool.

Education is also essential to keep kids from being stuck in poverty. But in addition to focusing on children themselves, we need to increase efforts to revitalize the poor neighborhoods in which they live.

Paying for such programs will be tough unless we change our priorities. Are tax cuts for the richest people our top concern, or should we invest in our kids? That’s the choice we face.

The federal budget deficit
Linda Bilmes, Lecturer in Public Policy

Next January, the president will face a record deficit of $500 billion, and Americans will be stuck paying off that debt — and associated interest — for years to come. We can’t balance the budget without tackling both expenditures and revenues. That means curtailing the Bush tax cuts and reducing our spending. The biggest area for spending cuts is in entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. One simple fix would be to raise the eligibility age for Social Security, as Canada and the United Kingdom have already done.

We also need to make major cuts in the defense budget. Each year we spend $150 to $200 billion on military R&D and new weapons purchases. There’s very little control over these expenditures, and cost overruns are rampant.

To raise revenues, we should eliminate, or adjust, some of the hundreds of tax credits and deductions hidden in the tax code.

Somehow, we must bring down spending and boost revenues. Continuing on the current course will place an unfair burden on the next generation.

Three keys to a successful presidency
Roger Porter, Professor of Business and Government

The president in January 2005 will face two overriding challenges. First, the fight against international terrorism merits a continued re-examination of our intelligence and domestic security needs. Second, net national saving has declined, while demographic trends are driving entitlement spending. Tax reform is needed to encourage private saving; entitlement reform is needed to restrain the growth of federal spending. To succeed in these efforts, the president must do three things: focus, persist, and educate.

He must resist distractions. The pressure to respond to every problem and cure every ill is immense. Wisdom lies in focusing attention on the nation’s most pressing long-term concerns.

In a system composed of separate institutions sharing power, persistence is a necessary virtue. Dealing with a closely divided Congress and a diverse international community requires much patience. The president must continually adapt, while holding fast to important principles.

Presidents do not merely decide, propose, and negotiate. They must also educate. Fundamental change requires broad support. People are willing to be led if they have a clear understanding of the destination and the proposed strategy for reaching it. In this quest, great presidents are idealists without illusions.

Education Reform
Brian Jacob, Assistant Professor of Public Policy

The challenges in education are numerous and daunting, yet we can illuminate many of them simply by improving the state of education research. Most research conducted today doesn’t provide clear answers because of sampling biases and a reliance on anecdotal accounts. As a result, teachers, principals, superintendents, school boards, and the federal government itself are making decisions without a rational basis for weighing the various approaches. Randomized field trials, which use proven statistical techniques, can’t answer every conceivable question in education, but they can provide insights about the optimal class size, the effectiveness of competing reading and math curricula, the role of computers in the classroom, and so forth.

The federal government must take the lead in upgrading the research it funds. In deciding which proposals to support, for example, the Department of Education should favor researchers who follow rigorous experimental protocols.

Energy policy and the environment
Henry Lee MPA 1974, Lecturer in Public Policy

Scientists agree that climate change is a real threat, and we need to design and implement serious responses. We can argue about how big a step to take, but we cannot stand still. Every year we lose increases the risks of costly damages in the future. Yet environmentalists should be careful to avoid overreaching and triggering opposing coalitions that can block any meaningful action.

Central to this effort will be R&D to develop technologies that will emit less carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The biggest payoff will come from raising the efficiency of transportation vehicles, which consume 70 to 75 percent of the world’s oil. Significant improvements can also be made in the efficiency of buildings and appliances. Although people get excited about alternative energy sources, far bigger gains can be reaped through energy efficiency.

The Terrorist Threat
Juliette Kayyem, Senior Fellow, International Security Program

Although we’ll never be immune from terrorist attack, we can make our country safer. The Department of Homeland Security, which has floundered without priorities, should be required to devise a five-year strategic plan that helps state and local agencies coordinate their efforts to enhance emergency preparedness and links funding to need and vulnerability. As the 9/11 Commission recognized, we need a federal director of intelligence who can oversee the activities of our 20-plus intelligence agencies. In addition, private companies — in chemical, electrical, and energy industries, for instance — should be regulated on security grounds just as they’re regulated on environmental standards. Relying on voluntary measures by industry has not worked. Finally, we need to recognize that the terrorist threat will persist until steps are taken toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The United States can’t go it alone. Progress will depend more on intelligence sharing, law enforcement sharing, and diplomacy than military might.

Stabilizing Iraq
Ashton Carter, Professor of Science and International Affairs

The reason to invade Iraq was the fear of weapons of mass destruction, but that fear, which seemed wellfounded, turns out to have been misplaced. The reason not to invade Iraq was that the aftermath would be difficult. This has proved true and was not helped by our appalling lack of planning. Our goal now should be to leave behind a stable Iraq that is neither worse for its people nor worse for its region than Saddam’s Iraq. That’s not a high standard, but even it will be difficult to achieve.

The key to “success” rests upon providing three kinds of security. First, we must avoid a general uprising against the United States and its allies. Second, we must avoid civil war among Iraq’s three constituent groups: Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. Third, we must restore lawfulness in the streets, so people can safely go about their business.

Without security, there can be no economic reconstruction and no civil society, let alone democracy, in Iraq. Without security, Iraq could become a base for international terrorism — something it was not before the invasion.