22. Peggy Bailey et al., “African American Uninsured Rate Dropped by More Than a Third Under Affordable Care Act,” Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, June 1, 2017, https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/african-american-uninsured-rate-dropped-by-more-than-a-third-under-affordable-care.
23. Julia Foutz et al., “The Role of Medicaid in Rural America,” Kaiser Family Foundation, Apr. 25, 2017, https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/the-role-of-medicaid-in-rural-america/.
24. Suzanne Mettler, Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (2005).
3. The Theory of the Public Option
1. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, book I, chapter II, section I.2.2.
2. Bill Vlasic, “Record 2016 for U.S. Auto Industry; Long Road Back May Be at End,” New York Times (Jan. 4, 2017).
3. Kelley Blue Book, “New-Car Transaction Prices Jump More than 3 Percent Year-over-Year in May 2016,” at http://mediaroom.kbb.com/new-car-transaction-prices-jump-more-than-3-percent-year-over-year-may-2016; Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Household Data, Annual Averages,” Table 37, www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat37.pdf.
4. Thomas Stipanowich, “Living with ‘ADR’: Evolving Perceptions and Use of Mediation, Arbitration, and Conflict Management in Fortune 1,000 Corporations,” 19 Harvard Negotiation Law Review 1 (2013); Thomas Stipanowich, “Arbitration: The ‘New Litigation,’ ” 2010 University of Illinois Law Review 1 (2010); Katherine V. W. Stone, “Alternative Dispute Resolution,” in Encyclopedia of Legal History (Stan Katz ed., 2004); Rory Van Loo, “The Corporation as Courthouse,” 33 Yale Journal on Regulation 547 (2016); Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Arbitration Study 10 (2015), http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201503_cfpb_arbitration-study-report-to-congress-2015.pdf.
5. Workers pay half, or 6.2 percent, while employers pay another 6.2 percent, for a total of 12.4 percent. See Social Security Administration, “Program Data,” www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/taxRates.html.
6. The payroll tax is capped at annual earnings of $127,200 in 2017, so no one pays more than $15,773 in Social Security taxes (taking into account both the worker’s and the employer’s shares). See Social Security Administration, “Cost of Living Adjustments,” www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/cbb.html#Series.
7. See Elisa A. Walker, Virginia P. Reno, and Thomas N. Bethell, “Americans Make Hard Choices on Social Security: A Survey with Trade-Off Analysis,” 8, 11, National Academy of Social Insurance (2017), www.nasi.org/sites/default/files/research/Americans_Make_Hard_Choices_on_Social_Security.pdf, finding that 81 percent of Americans “don’t mind paying Social Security taxes because it provides security and stability to millions of retired Americans” and that 77 percent “would pay more taxes if needed to preserve Social Security.” Strikingly, these findings hold true across age groups and political party affiliation.
8. As of June 30, 2017, Aetna offered just one Connecticut health plan, a silver-level plan (see www.aetna.com/plan-info/individual/health-plans/2017/connecticut.html), but the summary sheet included only copays, not monthly premiums. Clicking on the full plan document, at www.aetna.com/plan-info/individual/health-plans/2017/connecticut.html, accessed a long PDF with more detail on coverage but, again, no information on monthly costs. Scrolling down, we finally found monthly rates but had to work through a lengthy document with county-by-county pricing: www.aetna.com/individuals-families/document-library/rates/2017/Rates_2017_CT.pdf. After reading the fine print, Anne was able to figure out that she had to add her premium ($781) to the premiums for each of two kids ($234 each) for a total of over $1,200 per month.
9. Social Security Administration, “Annual Statistical Supplement” (2016), www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/supplement/2016/2a20-2a28.html.
10. For a range of progressive tax proposals, see, e.g., Anne Alstott & Bruce Ackerman, The Stakeholder Society (1999) (proposing, inter alia, a wealth tax and an inheritance tax); Anne Alstott, A New Deal for Old Age (2016) (proposing progressive tax increases in the context of Social Security); see also Michael Lind, “The Liberal Case for Regressive Taxation,” Salon (Aug. 10, 2010).
11. Joelle Saad-Lessler, Teresa Ghilarducci, & Kate Bahn, “Are U.S. Workers Ready for Retirement?,” New School for Social Research (2015), www.economicpolicyresearch.org/images/docs/research/retirement_security/Are_US_Workers_Ready_for_Retirement.pdf; Keith Miller, David Madland, & Christian E. Weller, “The Reality of the Retirement Crisis,” Center for American Progress (Jan. 26, 2015), www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2015/01/26/105394/the-reality-of-the-retirement-crisis.
12. Joint Committee on Taxation, “Estimates of Federal Tax Expenditures for Fiscal Years 2016–2020” 53, JCX-3-17, www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=4971.
13. Congressional Budget Office, The Distribution of Major Expenditures in the Individual Income Tax System (2013), www.cbo.gov/publication/43768; Alicia Munnell, Rebecca Cannon Fraenkel, & Josh Hurwitz, “The Pension Coverage Problem in the Private Sector,” Boston College Center for Retirement Research (2012), http://crr.bc.edu/briefs/the-pension-coverage-problem-in-the-private-sector.
14. For a comparison of these three forms, see K. Sabeel Rahman, “The New Utilities: Private Power, Social Infrastructure, and the Revival of the Public Utility Concept in a Changing Economy,” 39 Cardozo Law Review 1621 (2018); K. Sabeel Rahman, “Challenging the New Curse of Bigness,” American Prospect (Nov. 29, 2016).
4. Caveats and Counterarguments
1. The effect of food stamps on consumer behavior is complex. For instance, in a 2014 study, Hilary Hoynes and her coauthors found that most SNAP recipients spend more than their benefit allotment on food, so SNAP benefits likely serve as a general consumption supplement; that is, recipients experience them as a cash boost rather than as a restricted food grant. (To see why, imagine that a family spends $500 per month before they receive food stamps. They then receive a SNAP benefit of $400. They can use the food stamps to free up $400 in their budget—the $400 they would’ve spent on food anyway.) Hilary Hoynes, Leslie McGranahan, & Diane Schanzenbach, “SNAP and Food Consumption,” in SNAP Matters: How Food Stamps Affect Health and Well-Being (Judith Bartfeld et al. eds., 2015).
2. CitySeed, Who We Are, http://cityseed.org/who-we-are-2.
3. Frederick Schauer, “Slippery Slopes,” 99 Harvard Law Review 361 (1985); Eugene Volokh, “The Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope,” 116 Harvard Law Review 1026 (2003).
4. See, for example, James Fallows, “The Boiling Frog Myth: Stop the Lying Now!,” Atlantic (Sept. 16, 2006).
5. See, for example, Drew Griffin et al., “Veterans Still Facing Major Delays at VA Hospitals,” CNN (Oct. 20, 2017).
6. Anjali Athavaley & Melissa Fares, “Shkreli Insults Congress on Twitter after Refusing to Testify,” Reuters (Feb. 4, 2016).
7. “ ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli Defies Attorney’s Advice to Lay Low before Trial,” Fox News (June 26, 2017).
8. Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970).
9. Dave Phillips, “Did Obama’s Bill Fix Veterans’ Health Care? Still Waiting,” New York Times, Aug. 5, 2016; Quil Lawrence et al., “Despite $10 B ‘Fix,’ Veterans Are Waiting Even Longer to See Doctors,” Morning Edition, NPR (May 16, 2016).
10. Jack Meserve, “Keep It Simple and Take Credit,” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas (Feb. 3, 2017).
11. Levin, Fractured Republic, at 239–240 n. 29.
12. For the classic statement, see Kenneth A. Shepsle, “Congress Is a ‘They,’ Not an ‘It’: Legislative Intent as Oxymoron,” 12 International Review of Law and Economics 239 (1992); see also Cass R. Sunstein, “The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs: Myths and Realities,” 126 Harvard Law Review (2013) (noting that the White House is also a “they,” not an “it”).
13. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974).
14. See, for example, Gary Shapiro, “The Election of the Ant and the Grasshopper,” Forbes (Aug. 15, 2012).
15. Mike Konczal, “N
o Discount: Comparing the Public Option to the Coupon Welfare State,” 2, New America Foundation (Dec. 2012), https://static.newamerica.org/attachments/4165-no-discount-comparing-the-public-option-to-the-coupon-welfare-state/Konczal_Mike_PublicOption_NAF_Dec2012.73ec1576c8a14f248cf792a954387e36.pdf.
16. Konczal, “No Discount,” at 2.
17. J. W. Mason, “Public Options: The General Case” (Sept. 5, 2010), http://jwmason.org/slackwire/public-options-general-case.
18. Jacob Hacker, The Divided Welfare State: The Battle over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States 40–41 (2002).
19. Konczal, “No Discount,” at 3 (citing Suzanne Mettler, “Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era,” Perspectives on Politics [Sept. 2010], 803–824).
20. Ganesh Sitaraman, “Reforming Regulation: Policies to Counteract Capture and Improve the Regulatory Process,” Center for American Progress (Nov. 1, 2016), www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2016/11/01/291499/reforming-regulation.
5. Public Libraries, Social Security, and Other Successes
1. From the early days, there was a postal monopoly—a mandate that no other actor could operate postal services akin to those of the Post Office. This monopoly was essential to ensure that there wouldn’t be cream-skimming: that is, that the most valuable routes wouldn’t be taken by private postal carriers, leaving the government with the most expensive routes. But the laws still allowed private couriers. See “United States Postal Service, Universal Service and the Postal Monopoly: A Brief History” (Oct. 2008), https://about.usps.com/universal-postal-service/universal-service-and-postal-monopoly-history.pdf. For an older take, see George L. Priest, “The History of the Postal Monopoly in the United States,” 18 Journal of Law and Economics 33 (1975).
2. Richard R. John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse 36 (1995)
3. John, Spreading the News, at 15.
4. For histories, see generally John, Spreading the News; Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America (2016); Devin Leonard, Neither Snow nor Rain: A History of the United States Postal Service (2016).
5. See generally John, Spreading the News; Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America; Leonard, Neither Snow nor Rain.
6. Wayne A. Wiegand, Part of Our Lives: A People’s History of the American Public Library 8, 24–26, 94 (2015)
7. Wiegand, Part of Our Lives, at 37, 77, 138–39, 145–46, 193.
8. These paragraphs draw on Jeff Wiltse, Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America (2007).
9. Wiltse, Contested Waters, at 93–94.
10. Wiltse, Contested Waters, at 182.
11. Social Security Administration, “Annual Statistical Supplement” (2017), www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/supplement/2016/oasdi.html, and in particular table 5.B4, “Number, Percentage, and Average Monthly Benefit, by Year of Entitlement as Retired Worker and Sex, December 2016,” https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/supplement/2017/5b.html.
12. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2017, Table 3, https://www.census.gov/content/census/en/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-265.html; Kathleen Romig & Arloc Sherman, “Social Security Keeps 27 Million Americans Out of Poverty,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Oct. 25, 2016, www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/social-security-keeps-22-million-americans-out-of-poverty-a-state-by-state.
13. Elisa A. Walker, Virginia P. Reno, & Thomas N. Bethell, “Americans Make Hard Choices on Social Security: A Survey with Trade-Off Analysis,” National Institute for Social Insurance (Oct. 2014), www.nasi.org/sites/default/files/research/Americans_Make_Hard_Choices_on_Social_Security.pdf.
14. Social Security Works, “New Polling: Americans Are United in Support of Expanding Social Security” (Oct. 26, 2016), www.socialsecurityworks.org/2016/10/26/new-polling-americans-are-united-in-support-of-expanding-social-security; Social Security Works, “New Polling on Social Security, Medicare, and Prescription Drug Prices” (Mar. 16, 2018), www.socialsecurityworks.org/2018/03/16/new-polling-social-security.
15. Social Security Administration, “Benefits Planner: Life Expectancy,” www.ssa.gov/planners/lifeexpectancy.html (last visited June 21, 2018); Michael J. Graetz & Jerry L. Mashaw, True Security 95–96 (1999).
16. Authors’ calculations based on interest rates of 1 percent and 8 percent over thirty-five years.
17. EdwardJones.com (last visited June 21, 2018).
18. Carmen Castro-Pagan, “Edward Jones Hit with Second ERISA Lawsuit over 401(k) Fees,” Bloomberg News (Nov. 15, 2016).
19. Olivier Armantier, Luis Armona, Giacomo De Giorgi, & Wilbert van der Klaauw, “Which Households Have Negative Wealth?,” Liberty Street Economics (Aug. 1, 2016), http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2016/08/which-households-have-negative-wealth.html.
20. Dora Costa, The Evolution of Retirement 128–130 (1998).
21. Budget of the U.S. Government, FY2018, Historical Tables, Table 1.1 (total budget outlays of $3.85 trillion for 2016) and Table 11.3 (expenditures on Social Security and railroad retirement of $919 billion for 2016), www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals.
22. Sahil Kapur, “Inside Paul Ryan’s Plan to Privatize Social Security,” Talking Points Memo (Aug. 14, 2012).
23. Anne L. Alstott, A New Deal for Old Age (2016).
24. Alicia H. Munnell, “Falling Short: The Coming Retirement Crisis and What to Do about It,” Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, Paper 15-7 (April 2015), http://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IB_15-7_508.pdf.
6. Mixed Results in Education and Housing
1. Raymond V. Mariano, “The Failure of Public Housing: Temporary Help Has Become a Permanent Way of Life,” Huffington Post (Nov. 10, 2015).
2. Pam Belluck, “End of a Ghetto: A Special Report; Razing the Slums to Rescue the Residents,” New York Times (Sept. 6, 1998).
3. Ray Teixeira, “The Public Opinion Paradox: An Anatomy of America’s Love-Hate Relationship with Its Government” 3–4, Center for American Progress (June 2010), https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2010/06/pdf/dww_public_opinion.pdf.
4. Shane J. Lopez, “Americans’ Views of Public Schools Still Far Worse than Parents’,” Gallup (Aug. 25, 2010), www.gallup.com/poll/142658/Americans-Views-Public-Schools-Far-Worse-Parents.aspx.
5. See, e.g., Robert Pear, “Reagan Proposes Vouchers to Give Poor a Choice of Schools,” New York Times (Nov. 14, 1985); Amit R. Paley, “Bush Proposes Adding Private School Vouchers to ‘No Child’ Law,” Washington Post (Jan. 25, 2007); Tad DeHaven, “Five Decades of Failure Is Enough,” Cato Institute (Feb. 9, 2010), www.cato.org/publications/commentary/five-decades-failure-are-enough.
6. Dehaven, “Five Decades of Failure Is Enough.”
7. National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk (1983), www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html.
8. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics, “Public and Private School Comparison, Fast Facts,” https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=55.
9. See, e.g., Drew Desilver, “U.S. Students’ Academic Achievement Still Lags That of Their Peers in Many Other Countries,” Pew Research Center (Feb. 15, 2017), www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science.
10. U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Household Income: 2015,” table 2, www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/acs/acsbr15-02.pdf.
11. For an overview of the sources of residential segregation, see Richard Rothstein, “Why Our Schools Are Segregated,” 70 Education Leadership 50 (May 2013).
12. For a discussion of the hybrid nature and wide range of charter schools, see James Forman Jr., “Do Charter Schools Threaten Public Education? Emerging Evidence from Fifteen Years of a Quasi-Market for Schooling,” 2007 University of Illinois Law Review 839 (2007); Jeffrey R. Henig et al., The Influence of Founder Type on Charter School
Structures and Operations,” 111 American Journal of Education 487 (2005); Los Angeles Times, Graphic: Types of Charter Schools, Jan. 10, 2010, http://www.latimes.com/local/la-011010-me-charter_stats-g-graphic.html (describing types of charter schools and their relationship to the LA Unified School District).
13. Joshua Angrist et al., “Stand and Deliver: Effects of Boston’s Charter High Schools on College Preparation, Entry, and Choice,” 34 Journal of Labor Economics 275 (2016).
14. Kimberly Hefling, “Charter School Scandal Haunts John Kasich,” Politico (Mar. 14, 2016).
15. ECOT, www.ecotohio.org (last visited June 21, 2018).
16. Patrick O’Donnell, “Dealing with E-Schools: Is the Drop from C Grades to F’s for Online Schools Accurate?,” Cleveland Plain Dealer (Sept. 28, 2015).
17. Patrick O’Donnell, “ECOT Attendance Inflated by 9,000 Students, Audit Finds; $60 Million in State Funding in Jeopardy,” Cleveland Plain Dealer (Sept. 27, 2016).
18. Patrick O’Donnell, “Ohio Is the ‘Wild, Wild West’ of Charter Schools, Says National Group Promoting Charter Standards,” Cleveland Plain Dealer (July 28, 2014).
19. Doug Livingston, “Charter Schools Misspend Millions of Ohio Dollars as Efforts to Police Them Are Privatized,” Akron Beacon-Journal (May 30, 2015).
20. Jeff Bryant, “The Truth about Charter Schools: Padded Cells, Corruption, Lousy Instruction and Worse Results,” Salon (Jan. 10, 2014).
21. National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, “The Evaluation of Charter School Impacts: Final Report” (June 2010), https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104029; National Assessment of Educational Progress, “A Closer Look at Charter Schools Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling” (2006), https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/studies/2006460.pdf.
22. Martin Carnoy, “School Vouchers Are Not a Proven Strategy for Improving Student Achievement,” Economic Policy Institute (Feb. 28, 2017), www.epi.org/publication/school-vouchers-are-not-a-proven-strategy-for-improving-student-achievement. Emphasis added.
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