ii- ila? (Jillian; it} 33:71 i555 rabbi??ii Memorandum to President-elect clinth Gar Alperovz'tz TO: President-elect Bill Clinton FROM: GnrAZperow'zz 5 UBJE T: ?Peresz?rozka, American?Style requested by D'lekun, herewith are my unvar- nished views on a tough-minded political strat- egy for your presidency?one that also dram- atizes a new ?vision.? DeSpite the relief we all feel at your victory, I believe you must now confront a hard reality. Given the dan- gerous political-economic context and smoldering so- cial problems facing the United States, your presidency could easily end up far worse than either Carter?s or Bush?s. On the other hand, if you are willing to seize the strategic initiative, I believe you stand a chance of do- ing as much for the United States as Gorbachev and Yeltsin have done for the former Soviet Union. To do so?-?and to maintain the political initiative?you must get ahead of the game with something truly bold, a vision of what needs to change fundamentally in Amer- ica plus a clear and detailed plan for bringing it about. If you are tough and shrewd, it is possible you could lay the foundation for a new era of extraordinary American de- veIOpment in ihe twenty-first century and be remem- bered as one of the great presidents in our history. What is necessary is nothing short of a fundamental ?perestroika"?the step-by-step restructuring of the American political economy and of American society. If you aim to do less than this, if you attempt to muddle through, allowing yourself to be pushed and pulled in a dozen different directions to please various con- stituencies that rallied behind your candidacy, I believe it will be your undoing. The issues facing America transcend the realm of what is usually called ?policy.? You?re coming to Wash- ington with a lot of bright policy people, many of them friends or former colleagues of mine, and many of them GarAlperow'tz, bummer: and political economist, is president of the National enter for EeonomieAltemativer, and a fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies. deluded into believing that if you adopt their recom- mended policies everything will work out. A new laun- dry list of intelligent, technocratic policies, however, simply won?t suffice. The only politically successful pres- ident in modern times, Ronald Reagan, based his ap- proach on the insight that vision is important (although his vision consisted of a fruitless attempt to return to the past). The fundamental question is whether you can of- fer a meaningful and ethically fulfilling vision for the fu- ture, coupled with policies offering practical steps in the right direction. Few Americans are interested in the legislative details. The way to rally them is to Speak honestly and boldly to the crisis they know in their hearts is creating the social, economic, and moral chaos that is engulfing the nation. Let me also offer a warning: You would do well to de- veloP a set of political initiatives to get a jump on your enemies, for they will certainly attempt to get a jump on you. What follows is a strategy for your presidency based on my recent research, and seasoned by several years of Washington-insider, congressional- and executive- branch service. It contains equal parts of ?vision,? prac- tical policies in furtherance of that vision, and some hardheaded pragmatic political moves to destabilize those who will challenge you. First things first: The truth is that the United States is in fundamental, not temporary, political-economic stalemate. There are simply very few politically viable conventional answers to our most pressing social and economic problems. We face an ongoing reality of stag- nation, taxpayer discontent, racial divisions, and urban and environmental decay. It would be a fundamental mistake to be misled by the illusion of a substantial ?mandate.? At best, you can hOpe for significant support for a single two-year Congress, and then, even if you attempt a crash one hun- dred?day program, expect the inevitable backlash, par- ticularly if you try to tax the middle class. Thus, in the foreseeable future, despite your talk of a ?new covenant,? we all know there is not going to be a great deal of new Spending on social programs, no matter who is elected at any level of government. Nor, deSpite 13 We your ?economic policy agenda, is there going to be much new economic stimulus. There will be only a small amount of additional Keynesian deficit expansion, hence proba- bly little change in the ongoing pattern of stagnation plus or minus a few up-down economic ripples. Furthermore, even if you are successful in enacting your most novel economic proposals?a set of ?indus- trial policies"?it will be difficult to detect any signifi- cant irnpact on the lives of most Americans. The indusrries affected are simply too small relative to our nearly $6 trillion economy. And, given the vested interest, political, and bureaucratic infighting that dom- inates industry-oriented policies in the real world, what- ever you do is likely to be flawed and compromised. Finally, the United States does not act in a vacuum: Even as we stumble forward with first-generation in- dustrial policies, other nations such asJ'apan will be rac- ing on ahead to second?, third?, and fourth-generation versions. Even if such policies have a modest impact, it will not be felt until long after your first four years in of- fice, and for the vast majority of Americans probably not much thereafter. Thus, after all is said and done, unless you can break through to a new level of public debate about vision, as Reagan did, you are likely to be boxed in as Carter and Bush were. Growing social and economic problems will slowly spread through the nation, and you will have very little capacity to affect any of the crucial variables. Few people have the courage to face the depth of our political-economic stalemate, but you helped lead the conservative Democratic Leadership Council in its po- litically successful rejection of two central liberal ax- ioms?large-scale social programs and Keynesian deficits. What you now need to do is stare the implica- tions in the face: The profound truth is that presidents can no longer have much impact on the domestic econ- omy. Our system~?not just a set of policies?is in trou- ble, which means either we begin to open the way to a new vision for the future that transcends decaying cap- italism (and the corpse of ?socialism! or quite simply, we are likely to flounder and fail. here is a very real question, in fact, whether con- ventional ?economic policy? ever made a major dent in the twentieth-century economic experi- ence. The U.S. economy has rarely achieved sustained high empIOyment except in time of war or very unusual postwar conditions: We were in trouble in the first quar- ter of the century until World War I bailed us out. The postwar years faded into the mixed bag of the 19208 which collapsed into the Depression until World War II bailed us out. Then the famous postwar boom oc- curred?aided and abetted by the Korean War, the war 14 VOL. 7, No. 6 in Vietnam, and the Cold War. (The wartime destruction of Germany, Japan, and Britain, our major global com- petitors, helped too, until they returned to the fight with renewed vigordeepening post- postwar stagnation. Furthermore, despite a highly publicized debate about redistribution, the truth is that ?policy? in our sys- tem has never achieved positive movement of income toward greater equality, not even through the New Deal and Great Society programs. The latter may have slowed the growth of economic disparities, but except for a tiny, temporary blip in the late 1960s the only phenomena that reduced inequality in statistically significant ways during the twentieth century were war-related economic booms and their aftereffects, and only temporarily. In the face of these realities, here is what I think you should do, both for the country and for your own po- litical survival. Obviously, you should try to accomplish as much as you can through tinkering with social programs, industrial policies, environmental regulation, and defense reduc- tion?i.e., continue along the lines you?re already propos- ing. I have no major argument with the reforms your kitchen cabinet of progressive policy advisers will cook up?except that in the end I doubt that you will be able to effect much measurable change in most people's lives, with perhaps a modest exception in the case of health care. There is, however, a truth you need to engage at a very deep and personal level: When a system is truly in stale- mate, the only answer is fundamental restructuring? ?perestroika.? Gorbachev and Yeltsin knew their sys- tem could not go on the way it was, and that therefore their own political fate was tied to their capacity to re- structure the system. Our situation is not yet at the breaking point, but you face the same need to shift course dramatically. The essential task is to help people confront what one day is likely to be understood as an extraordinary pe- riod of historical transition. I suggest you use the ?bully pulpit? of the presidency to drive home the reality of the stalemate and the failure of the dying old system and begin to point the way to a new vision of democracy and community that offers the possibility of new moral and spiritual meaning for America. Above all, a mean- ingful vision must begin to attack at its roots the overmilitarization of our system, the institutionalized power of money, corporate domination, and wealth, and it must simultaneously move democratic decision mak- ing steadily closer to the peOple. ?Perestroika, or ?restructuring,? in the Soviet Union first involved a radical shift in the power of the military. Almost everyone has realized that our bloated military budget can be drastically scaled back. Few have under- stood, however, that you are the first president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt to be in position to move for- ward with a serious program of general disarmament along the lines Kennedy and Khrushchev contemplated in the McCloy-Zorin agreements of the early 19603?not arms control, but carefully phased movement toward global disarmament. In the language of McCloy-Zorin, all states would keep ?only those non-nuclear arma- ments, forces, facilities and Establishments as are agreed to be necessary to maintain internal order. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of Soviet power fairly cry out for a bold disarmament strategy. Moreover, if you do not act decisively to alter global se- curity imbalances, other nations must inevitably assume worst-case scenarios and respond accordingly. Our cur- rent posture of maintaining thousands of nuclear war- heads is an improvement over the past, but if you live in China what you plainly see is that the United States is going to keep a lot of weapons around, and you had better do the same. The only way to crack the cycle of fear and distrust that fuels all arms races is through bold leadership. If all nations move down the thermonuclear and conven- tional military ladder together, no one is at a disadvan- tage. You should launch a comprehensive ?Year 2000,? eight-year global build-down, using publicity, economic sanctions, and in the extreme, selective UN military in- terventions in the same way?but for a better purpose? that George Bush focused world attention in his mobilization for the Gulf War. There is plenty of expertise available to fill out the details, and also numerous precedents from the Eisen- hower years, and even from the old Baruch plan of the Truman era. A comprehensive strategy must steadily re- duce national armaments around the globe at the same time UN inspection and expeditionary forces are built up, essentially an implementation of the initial pre-Cold War Rooseveltian conception of the United Nations. To accomplish your objectives you will need a tough politiCal strategy to get ahead of the Pentagon and the CIA. Otherwise they will find a new crisis and new en- emy somewhere, somehow?and they will box you in, moving to boost military Spending, which in turn will further limit your room to maneuver on the domestic front. The Pentagon and its allies have plenty of friends in Congress and the press, and decades of experience turning dubious secret intelligence information into scare stories to drum up political support for their bud- gets. They will eat you and your domestic program alive unless you launch an advance counterstrategy that puts them on the defensive. There are some rather obvious things to do: Inde- pendent Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh has shown that if you probe half an inch below the surface of recent ad- ministrations, you will find an extraordinary record of illegality, lying, corruption, and violation of public trust. As a historian, I can tell you that you will find the same basic pattern throughout the Cold War, especially in connection with covert activities on the one hand, and wasteful and corrupt military spending on the other. (Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan has recently shown how outrageous, for instance, were CIA intelligence es- timates, and how foreign threats were regularly and sys- tematically in?ated to bolster military budgets.) There LETTER TO CLINTON 15 is also an enormous amount of corporate-military pro- curement corruption?bribes, special deals, in?uence peddling, revolving door relationships. You should launch a major effort to investigate, target, expose, publicize, and prosecute all violations of law and public trust in these areas. I would suggest you go at it vigorously because it is important on its own and because it will put you in the driver?s seat, politically, as you be- gin to lower the military budget and move toward disar- mament and the demilitarization of American society. the heart of a new vision for the future must be recognition that the institutionalized power of wealth inevitably produces both human in- equity on a vast scale and power relationships inimical to meaningful democracy. Most Americans know that at bottom there is something fundamentally wrong about power in our democracy?something intimately con- nected with money, wealth, and the dominant in?uence of big corporations, which prevents us from building the kind of society we want. A fundamental shift in the power relationships at the core of our system is the precondition of a sense that ?we are all in it together, that our society is not just for the rich and powerful, that we can build a democracy that nurtures, sustains, and gives meaning to communi- ties of support. It is simultaneously the necessary (but, clearly not sufficient) condition of an ethically vibrant vision for the future that goes beyOnd the materialist pri- orities of our present institutions. Thus, just as prOperty relationships had to be re- assessed in the former Soviet Union, so too must they be reassessed as we in the United States approach a new cen- tury. I do not think you can duel-t this quesrion. The chal- lenge must be faced squarely, and then new alternatives proposed that point the way to fundamentally different economic institutions. Taking on these issues full-throt- tle will also permit you to maintain the initiative through the best of all political strategies: changing the subject?? focusing the nation?s attention on something new. The statistics of wealth ownership in America are now so incredible and the power of big corporations so ob- vious that most Americans are ready for the blunt po- litical argument that the only way to provide universal access to ?the American dream? is to correct the ex- traordinarily inequitable distribution of the nation?s eco- nomic resources. The concentration of corporate power is widely un- derstood by the American peOple. But the public at large is only slowly coming to recognize that individual and family wealth?the ownership of capital as Opposed to current income?is extremely concentrated. A mere 1 percent of Americans, for instance, now owns more than 16 VOL. 7, No. 6 a third of the nation?s wealth?close to the peak reached in 1929 before the crash. The top 1 percent of house- holds owns more than the entire bottom 90 percent taken together. The top 10 percent of households owns two-thirds of the country?s net worth?more than dou- ble the total held by 90 percent of America. The tiny top one-half of 1 percent has almost 30 percent by itself. Not only is something clearly wrong here, but the po- litical dynamics of targeting the small elite group of very large wealth-holders are much different from targeting the large mass of middle-class, upper-income subur- banite voters. Your modest proposal to increase taxes on people making more than $200,000 is based on the same insight: Most Americans simply do not identify their interests with those of the very rich who control real economic power. Taxation, and especially inheritance taxes, can play a role. However, the real trick is to combine? an attack on the profound inequities with very concrete proposals that simultaneously give content to a new vision that aims at different, more democratic arrangements of wealth and power. Here you are in the fortunate position of having hun- dreds of practiCal experiments available pointing the way: A very down-home, ?American~as-apple-pie? pro- cess that puts capital in the hands of various ?pOpulist? institutions has been quietly underway for several decades. Many are prOSpering; others are struggling along with other firms in the stagnating economy. A full- blown effort over eight years could strengthen existing models, encourage new experiments, and build from these institutional foundations: 'There are now hundreds of worker-owned firms in the country, ranging from tiny shops to large manufac- turing companies. Among the best-known are City Pride Bakery in Pittsburgh, numerous worker-owned plywood firms in the Northwest, Avis, and \Y/eirton Steel, plus many other small, medium, and large companies. Some involve both ownership and democratic control; others have yet to achieve real participation in decision mak- ing. If a broad definition, including all forms of em- ployee stock-ownership plans is used, the number of firms now experimenting with worker-own- ership approaches ten thousand, involving perhaps twelve million peeple. 'There are more than 30,000 co-ops, including 4,000 consumer goods co-ops, 13 ,000 credit unions, nearly 100 cooperative banks, and more than 100 cooperative in- surance companies. Add to this another 1,200 rural util- ities and nearly 5,000 housing co-ops, plus another 115 telecommunication and cable co-ops. 'Less well~known, but ultimately perhaps more im- portant, are numerous cities that have ?communitized? capital ownership. David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, in their recent book, Reinventing Government, have catalogued some of the most interesting, including community-owned cable systems, hotels, fertilizer man- ufacturing companies, towing services, real estate de? velopment efforts, professional sports teams, etc. Add to this list thousands of efficiently run city-owned electric utilities. Virtually all these municipal socialist enterprises are completely nonideOIOgical: An impor- tant claim to fame (and to new political support) is a profit stream that increasingly helps out with lOCal tax difficulties. 'At the state level, public capital-owning institutions range from the seventy-five-year?old state bank of North Dakota, to the state-owned insurance company in Wis- consin. Modern forms First, virtually all existing federal loan, technical as- sistance, procurement, training, and other economic policies can be shifted in emphasis to give priority to the development of populist institutions rather than major corporations. Second, state and local loan, technical assistance, pro- curement, and other programs can be geared toward the development of populist institutions as a priority, and the federal government can give incentives to states and localities that make the shift. You have already put forward proposals for two ma? jor changes that can also be used to foster ?perestroilta. Your industrial policies?involving the use of federal loans or loan guarantees (for pension or other funds)? can also be targeted to encourage growth of new economic institutions involving more demo- include state equity own? ership in private cor- porations, in which Connecticut is a leader. Alaska uses oil royalties for both public and indi- vidual citizen support. 0A precedent from the Kennedy-Johnson era you might build upon is neighborhood owner- ship. Before it was gutted by the Nixon administra- tion, the original Com- munity Development Corporation (CDC) idea was based on community ownership of housing, stores, factories, etc., with profits put toward broad commu- nity development goals. The late Robert Kennedy was a driving force behind the concept, and although many CDCs today have a narrow focus, several dozen of the more serious variety still show what can be done. You would do well, too, to look into some of the in- novative local economic ideas that Mayor Harold Wash- ington of Chicago was experimenting with before his death. Given the problems of America?s inner cities, a rehabilitation of the original idea of a community-based economic attack on urban problems could be excep? tionally important. In broad historical perSpective?and given powerful presidential backing for eight full years?such develop- ments could provide the foundation for the beginnings of a new form of democratized political-economic sys- tem?one different in tone, in feel, in moral and human meaning from both traditional capitalism and tradi- tional socialism. Here are some policies to add muscle to the call for a new vision: cratic forms of ow- nership. (While I do not believe industrial policies will solve ma- jor problems at this stage, they can? brilliantly, in my opin- ion?help move local economic institu- tional develoPment steadily forward.) It is also time to raise the profile and impor- tance of the existing federal Co-Op Bank. Presidential leadership could increase its lending au- thority and its technical assistance capabilities. You have also promised that you will use money taken from the military budget to invest heavily in infrastruc? ture such as roads, bridges, and highways. Those funds could also provide contracts and assistance to new eco- nomic institutions. (Recent Supreme Court decisions, such as the 1989 ruling overturning Richmond, Vir- ginia?s minority business set-aside program, make spe? cial procurement allocations to minority contractors more difficult, but they do not hinder preferential con- tracts to help low-income community-based economic institutions and cooperatives.) Strengthening the traditional antitrust weapon could also force companies to ?divest? profitable subsidiary operations that are in violation of law. You could take advantage of such a process by (1) requiring that a ?right of first refusal? to purchase such subsidiaries be given to local worker, neighborhood, community, and other groups; and (2) that new industrial policy or Co-Op Bank lending aid such institutions in buying the Spin-offs. LETTER TO CLINTON 17 Since they are by definition profitable, they are finan- cially viable. By this route, the country could move from experimentation to serious restructuring in many areas. You can also use all these powers, I believe, to make sure that the new enterprises become models of ecolog- ically sane and serious development, if such is your strategic objective. The Pentagon and its allies will eat you alive unless you launch an advance counterstrategy that puts them on the Investigate, expose, and prosecute the enormous amount of corporate- mz?Zz'tary procurement corruption. As to the hard?nosed politics: You know better than anyone else that many peOple have a huge stake in putting you on the defensive on economic matters and that you had better get ahead of the game, here, too, unless you want to be their next vicrim. President Kennedy, you may recall, found this out the hard way when corporate busi- ness leaders cornered him early in his administration. Thus it is absolutely essential that you launch a very early effort to define your enemies and that you do so in a way that helps pave the way for your eco- nomic initiatives. If your staff gets serious about it they will find so much double-dealing, tax evasion, bribery, and other material that you will easily be able to demonstrate that many ex- isting corporations are untrustworthy (and by implica- tion that new economic institutions, closer to the people, should be encouraged). You might also begin to scruti- nize American corporations that foist untested drugs and carcinogenic prodUCts on Third World people and bribe their government leaders. I think your administration should aggressively pursue tax evasion by the very rich. Here, too, the eco- nomic and moral issues coincide with your political need to keep the other side off-balance as you maneu- ver toward ?perestroika. A final aspect of a new vision involves ?power to the peOple. This requires that you confront issues of scale in governance and political-economic decision making. Yeltsin realized that if power stayed at the stalemated center, all was lost. Gorbachev, for all his brilliance, kept holding on to the center, and he was lost. Any serious new vision of the future must involve radical political decentralization. 18 TIKKUN VOL. 7, No. 6 Furthermore, given the profound deadlock at the cen- ter in the United States, I believe your only viable po- litical option is to decentralize a wide range of political?economic issues. If we are ever to have truly meaningful democracy in America, it will require mov- ing decision making on crucial political-ec0nomic issues ever closer to the community grass roots of the nation. People need to hear you loud and clear on this. They need a clarion call?and a sense that you really trust in and will help nurture the re-democratization of the na- tion at every level. As a former governor, you are undoubtedly familiar with a wide range of innovative new initiatives that states have been forced to develop over the last decade. They were compelled to act because of the withdrawal of fed- eral concern and support as a result of the stalemate. Many of these state initiatives, if combined with a new institu- tion-building strategy, could form the basis for a serious effort to decentralize the political core of a new system. A number of states have launched development poli- cies that begin to transcend the present economic power relationships. Massachusetts, and Wis- consin (to name only a few) have quite sophisticated public institutions that provide technical assistance, fi? nancing, and other support for both conventional and ?new direction? economic deveIOpment. Your own state of Arkansas has pioneered the use of state pension funds to help foster economic develOpment. Many current programs are quite diffuse; they aim to help any seemingly viable economic development pro- ject. But they could easily become a significant source of support for democratic political-economic institutions if this were made a priority. The state-level tools are there; the question is to what institutional use they are put. Such state programs, in turn, are the sine qua non for providing jobs targeted to local communities. Washing- ton has ignored truly local economic issues, but without local economic stability, democracy is a farce. Most com- munities are now hanging by their thumbs economically. The only ?democratic decision? they get to make is whose budget to cut. You can use federal power as a lever to achieve de- centralization and re-democratization by conditioning various forms of existing federal funding for state and local programs on their willingness to move in the new direction; using similar criteria for deciding where to Spend the enormous federal procurement budget; and creating new strategies of technical assistance and de- ve10pment funding to assist the process. The truth is that the United States is simply too big to solve many problems. Any continental nation of 250 (Continued on p. 80) LETTER TO CLINTON (Continued from p. 18) million people ranging over three thousand miles is the wrong scale. Like Moscow, Washington presides over far too large a population and land mass. Everyone knows ?Washington? can?t solve most big problems. Many American states (like the Baltic nations), how? ever, are too limited in scale and too underpOpulated to do much alone economically. Only a few states?Cali- fornia, Texas, perhaps New York?are large enough ?regions? to become important focal points for com- prehensive decentralization. In EurOpe many of the most successful political-eco- nomic achievements have been in? smaller nations where the politics of coherent, democratic decision making is easier. Even the so-called West German miracle took place in a polity that could easily have been tucked within the borders of Oregon. This suggests a vision of the United States in the new century as a democratic confederation of semiau- tonomous regional units, each large enough for serious economic management, but none so large that it would dominate. If you were to emphasize real decentraliza- tion, you would be wise to encourage smaller states to work together in regional units, organizations, com- pacts, or Special new institutions. If you begin to sketch a vision of such longer~term de- centralization for the American system, you can draw upon numerous precedents, which include several his- torical regional compacts, regional planning commis- sions, earlier ideas of grass-roots regional authorities such as the original conception of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Roosevelt?s proposals for seven re- gional ?TWlis.? In contrast to the current TVA, these early proposals were strongly influenced by principles of ecological planning. In the future, large-scale public enterprises might also logically be anchored in such re- gional democratic institutions. Eventually?probably after you leave office in the first decade of the next century?amendments to the Constitution, and perhaps a Constitutional Convention, would probably be necessary to restructure American federalism to give real power to the decentralized units, which would ultimately begin to form a new political? economic system. Let me stress a couple of points about dangers and opportunities. The first stems from Gorbachev?s failure: His bril- liance was in his understanding that when a system is in stalemate, there is no way forward without fundamen- tal restructuring. He made some very serious errors, however, for which he paid a heavy price. 80 TIKKUN VOL. 7, NO. 6 Gorbachev's primary mistake was his failure to move aggressively and fast enough. He temporized, hoping to muddle through without losing the support of those whose position he was inevitably undermining. He also failed to take the political offensive against his enemies before they did it to him. Given your own well-known proclivity for compromise, I suggest you ponder both his fate and his mistakes very carefully. In opposing what ultimately and inevitably became the radical decentralization of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev demonstrated his blindness to one of the characteristic po- litical forces of our time. Although it is sometimes confused and overlaid with the issue of ethnicity, the trend toward decentralization?from Quebec to Scotland, from Brittany to the Ukraine?appears increasingly as an inexorable global force. It is the essential form the democratic ideal is taking as we approach a new era. I mentioned at the outset that you might?a! best end up in the situation Carter and Bush faced if you did not grasp the full implications of the ongoing deadlock in our present political-economic system. This, I believe, is a conservative judgment. The situation may be far more dangerous, since Washington has very little room to ma? neuver on the economy and on Spending. If the economic situation worsens, you will inevitably be faced with rising racial antagonism and violence. Los Angeles was almost certainly just a beginning. Unless you have set the strategic stage very differently by of- fering a compelling new political vision and strategy, your response can only be reactive: you will be forced to put down the violence. While you already have ac- cepted capital punishment as a political necessity and as governor allowed several men to go to their deaths, we both know you detest this. Woodrow Wilson presided over the Red Scare; Franklin Roosevelt presided over the Japanese internment. You may well end up the pres- ident who presides over the vicious repression of Black America unless you can get ahead of the politics and the economics of the profound issues now facing America. On the other hand, the opportunity you face is clear. Your administration just possibly could crack through the stalemate and shatter the old People sense the difficulties we face and know in their hearts there are no quick answers. What they need to know is that you are moving in a serious and meaningful new direc- tion, even if the road may be long and the journey dif- ficult. In offering a new vision and a tough-minded strategy to achieve it you might possibly be able to pave the way, establish the conditions, and lay the ground- work for an explosion of American creativity, meaning, and economic and moral fulfillment in the new century. If so, you will be remembered as a great President and a world leader of real substance. Cl