The American Enterprise articles from November 1997

The American Enterprise archives from November 1997

Shrink government to save liberty, not money. (US government)
November 1, 1997... Remember 1994? It seems like another world now. In that historic year, two out of three Americans agreed that "the biggest threat to the U.S. in the future is big government," and 79 percent said "a smaller government would be more effective...

Multiculturalism's next defeat. (education and multiculturalism)
November 1, 1997... When voters in California despair of a response from their state officials, they turn to referenda. Their latest end-run around recalcitrant government is the "English for the Children" initiative, which would dismantle bilingual education in...

Small government really is beautiful. (advantages of small government)
November 1, 1997... Amidst arguments over whether more limited government is better government, keep in mind that in most states, the legislators who run the government are still everyday citizens who legislate only part-time--and that these more lightly governed...

The PTA goes kaput. (National Congress of Parents and Teachers)
November 1, 1997... This year, the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, commonly known as the PTA, is celebrating its centennial. But the national PTA has little to cheer about. Fewer than a quarter of America's public schools have active PTA chapters, and...

Pop goes the icon. (Alfred Kinsey on sexual liberation)
November 1, 1997... The last decade has not been kind to the founding proponents of sexual liberation. First, much of the famous Samoan research of Margaret Mead--which purported to show that casual, early, and promiscuous sexual activity did no damage to human...

Male models. (battle between National Organization of Women and Promise Keepers)
November 1, 1997... Washington, D.C., has just been visited by a huge gathering of men meeting under the banner of the Promise Keepers movement to seek moral improvement in themselves and their nation. In the months leading up to this event, the National...

Indicators: race preferences shrivel. (racial preferences in education)
November 1, 1997... Racial preferences became ingrained on American campuses over the last two decades. In admissions offices at the nation's best colleges (top 20 percent), being black or Hispanic has counted in your favor as much as "several hundred points on the...

Should something be done about alcohol? (controlling liquor sales)
November 1, 1997... Robert Bork Virtuocracy--which may be defined as the bureaucratization of personal morality--is on the move again. We have just seen public hatred of tobacco companies whipped to a fever pitch with some dubious arguments. Now it is the...

Days of apathy. (essays on political apathy)
November 1, 1997... AMERICA HAS ENTERED A PERIOD OF POLITICAL APATHY. Everywhere we hear laments that the nation suffers from shallow politics: Washington is reduced to bickering over financial and sexual scandals, interest groups scurry for economic advantage, and...

Plain independent: what the Amish can teach other Americans about reducing reliance on government.
November 1, 1997... "I don't know what there is to talk about" said Lydia. "I can put it in five words: We don't take government handouts." Standing at the door of her kitchen in a calflength blue dress and white apron, she studied my notebook uncomprehendingly....

Small towns, big government: local bureaucracies can be tyrannical too.
November 1, 1997... "Please don't use my name," pleads the Takoma Park, Maryland resident. He's been under the thumb of his city government since 1990 and doesn't want them to apply any more pressure. His apartment is a few minutes from Washington, D.C., and...

No, we haven't stopped being angry. (America's overbearing government and its impact)
November 1, 1997... Roger Stoles was annoyed. His ire was aimed at yokels from Missouri, and when a group of us yokels traveled to Washington recently to meet with him, he let us know exactly, and at some length, why we made him so upset. Stoles is the U.S. State...

Welfare "cuts"? (impact of government downsizing)
November 1, 1997... "Welfare Cuts Will Leave Thousands Homeless," insists a recent New York Times headline. "Worried Welfare Recipients Bemoan Cuts in Benefits" adds the Los Angeles Times. The Washington Post claims that the 1996 welfare reform makes "deep and...

Missed opportunity. (federal government's balanced budget agreement)
November 1, 1997... This summer's much-ballyhooed balanced-budget agreement is a disaster for entitlement reform. No improvement is made in the top-down, bureaucratic, increasingly bankrupt Medicare and Social Security programs, nor is there any serious effort to...

A one percent solution: the tax-cutting follies of 1997.
November 1, 1997... It's been 16 years since Washington enacted a tax cut. Now, amidst a chorus of rich-bashing by Democrats and much screeching by deficit hawks of both parties, Congress has finally given Americans relief--a piddling one-penny package. ...

Republicans punk out: the tax-cutting follies of 1997.
November 1, 1997... The good news, according to GOP spin doctors, is that taxes have been reduced for the first time in 16 years. The bad news is how it happened. To the joy of tax accountants everywhere, the new tax bill adds complexity to the code and creates...

Cure the yearning for government: tell the truth about it. (cutting government budgets and eliminating agencies)
November 1, 1997... For the past 15 years conservatives have tried to reduce the size of government by cutting budgets and eliminating agencies. History suggests this approach results in (a) bigger budgets and (b) discredited conservatives. The reason why the...

Who really balanced the budget?
November 1, 1997... Until very recently, the idea of Congress spending only as much as it takes in was a hopelessly elusive dream--like visions of the Berlin Wall coming down, or Northwestern going to the Rose Bowl. But with the federal budget deficit now well...

Washington's coffers are about to overflow: how should the conservatives react?
November 1, 1997... To the surprise of most economists and politicians# the US. government is on a course to start running substantial budget surpluses very soon. Because the natural temptation will be for Congress and the President to spend those surpluses in...

How I tamed the government. (how four mayors reformed their city government)
November 1, 1997... While politicians in Washington mostly tread water, a number of the nation's mayors--Democrats and Republicans--have rolled up their sleeves and made real efforts to tame their local governments. These men have taken on union featherbedding,...

Privatization on a roll. (privatization as a tool to reduce the size of government)
November 1, 1997... The most immediate and lasting way to reduce the size of government and improve the efficiency of public services is to shift the responsibility for producing them from government bureaucrats to private managers. After beginning with a trickle of...

Left and right call for less wasteful government regulation. (criticisms on inefficient government regulations)
November 1, 1997... A statement calling for an end to inefficient government regulation was released recently by scholars from the Brookings Institution (a liberal think tank), the American Enterprise Institute (a conservative think tank), and Resources for the...

When it comes to schools, the U.S. lags Europe in shrinking government.
November 1, 1997... American schools have traditionally been governed by local boards that oversee a regional school district. Originally, most districts encompassed one or two schools, but over time districts have merged and bloated into progressively larger,...

Trail Fever: Spin Doctors, Rented Strangers, Thumb Wrestlers, Toe Suckers, Grizzly Bears, and Other Creatures on the Road to the White House.
November 1, 1997... By Michael Lewis Knopf, 299 pages, $25 I can't be the only person who, during The New Republic's fallow months of 1996, found little to read in its pages besides Michael Lewis's campaign coverage. After the early excitement of Iowa and New...

The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles.
November 1, 1997... Los Angeles, the perpetual bad boy of American urban areas, enjoyed an unexpected flourish of intellectual respectability around 1971, when the iconoclastic English design critic Reyner Banham briefly settled among the palms and produced a slim...

The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress: China's Search for Security.
November 1, 1997... The scenario of an expansionist China threatening to impose its will on Asia and the world has generated reams of articles recently. But is it accurate? According to a group of left- and right-wing Sinophobes, this prospect is quite...

Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber.
November 1, 1997... In Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber Yale computer scientist David Gelernter mixes political commentary with personal history to create a book that, if nothing else, proves successful as a work of art. The nominal catalyst for the book...

The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efiiciency.
November 1, 1997... To most Americans, Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) is a half-remembered Victorian, someone whose name we memorized for history class and forgot as soon as the exam was over. But Taylor should be better known. His notion of "scientific...