American Dream

Hard work no longer is a guarantee of financial security, and the people increasingly feel that the political corpse is non responsive to their needs. Rivlin says that nobody will change unless the people themselves become involved in rede pledgeing the economic and political systems. The basic problem is that the system is in like manner big, as well complicated, and too confusing with respect to who or what (federal or invoke powers) has the responsibility to meet the people's needs.

Rivlin is hopeful that by fetching pragmatic steps the system can be changed. The redo of the federal system in Rivlin's enamour must sharpen on giving more power and responsibility to the states and communities, and trim federal power and responsibility. The federal system as it is directly gives too much power to the federal government which is too far from the needs of local and state entities.

The restructured federal system should focus on five areas: productivity (including investment, incomes, education, skill breeding & infrastructure), devolution (decreasing federal responsibility and power), taxes (increasing state income and spending), wellness bid (giving every person health coverage and reducing health care costs), and budget surplus (running the federal government to, in effect, turn a profit which would help private businesses) (17).

Rivlin argues that these changes would pull in about the restructuring and revitalization of political an

d economic life in the nation and peculiarly at the local and state levels. The people and leaders at these levels are the ones who deal best what is needed economically and politically to define, address and fix the problems of the people and their institutions.

Rivlin, Alice M. Reviving the American Dream. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1992.

ace undeniable piece of evidence standing against Rivlin's optimistic view of the future tense is her own analysis of the Reagan revolution. Not surprisingly, Rivlin was herself a segment of the Reagan government whose policies parallel her recommendations. Rivlin argues that Reagan's tax cuts somehow revitalized state and local governments and forced them to deal with social problems of the 1980s, such as welfare.

Rivlin does not know what the future holds, and this reader does not know either. However, past behavior is a good indicator of future behavior. There does not seem to be in the American populace or leadership much of a sign that the current trends of fear, self-centeredness, and increasingly lowered expectations will be slowed or reversed in the future. America's decline both economically and politically seems to be a function of history. After all, every gigantic power planetually experiences decline, whether that decline is sudden or gradual. The optimism of an causation or a leader, or many authors and leaders, has not originate in the turn downward for these civilizations in the past. This would seem to be peculiarly true for the United States today in a humanness which is increasingly global, in which national boundaries blur and fade. It is unlikely, and not even desirable, that the United States reclaim its dominant position economically and politically. Those days, get after World War II, are long gone. Rivlin does not say that such a golden era should or could be reclaimed, but under her optimism is the assumption that the United States should be, deserves to be, has a destiny to be, the number
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