Press Release
11/18/08Clinton White House Veterans Call for Plan to Raise Public Trust
Washington – For Democrats, the question is whether this moment is more like 1932 – the dawn of the New Deal era and long-term progressive dominance – or more like 1992 – prelude to loss of the Congress to Republican control.
According to a new paper released by Third Way and authored by Clinton White House veterans Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck, the answer will depend on whether President-elect Barack Obama and the expanded congressional majority succeed in restoring public trust in government. If he does, he will have the political authority to enact broad swaths of his agenda; if he does not, his political fortunes could be fleeting.
Galston and Kamarck draw on their own experience to argue that a strategy to restore the public’s faith in government was ignored in the early days of the Clinton administration, an oversight that helped doom the Clinton health care initiative. Now, as the Bush administration prepares to depart, public trust in the competence and motives of the federal government is so low that President-elect Obama and his allies in Congress must pursue an explicit trust strategy in order to pass the most far-reaching parts of his agenda
“Trust shapes the limits of political possibilities,” write the authors in the Third Way paper Change You Can Believe In Needs a Government You Can Trust. “A striking and longstanding decline in the public’s trust of the federal government has added a new hurdle to achieving transformative public policy. This decline in trust is not permanent or irreversible, but it must be addressed if a new president and a new Congress hope to achieve major change.”
Galston and Kamarck cite statistics dating as far back as 1958 to show that public trust in government is hovering near historic lows. Only 24% of Americans now trust the federal government to do what is right just about always or most of the time. In 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson launched the Great Society, public trust stood at 65%. Similarly, surveys that are proxies for trust – whether the government wastes too much money, listens to the concerns of average people, or looks out for the benefit of the many versus the special interests of the few – have mostly experienced steady decades-long declines.
The authors write that there are two principal components to trust: competence and concern. Competence refers to the expectation among people that government can fulfill the core functions of managing the economy, defending the nation, and preserving domestic security. Concern reflects the belief or skepticism that government is genuinely concerned about the well-being of average people as opposed to self-preservation, special interests, or the accumulation of riches and power. They write that a public trust strategy must address both or else the American people will quickly lose faith.
Galston and Kamarck take a sober look at the failed Clinton health care plan and lay much of the blame on the failure to aggressively address public trust. “President Clinton and his team made the problem of public trust in government a central thrust of the 1992 presidential campaign, but in 1993 and 1994 they relegated this central thrust to the back burner,” the authors write. “Trust rests in part on consistency between words and deeds, promise and performance, and the public values and principles embedded in public policy.” But after promising middle class tax cuts, reinventing government, and ending welfare as we know it, the administration was sidelined by a series of tertiary issues and controversies from which they could not recover.
The paper goes on to offer a detailed trust strategy. First, they advise the incoming administration to employ a narrative that explicitly acknowledges the legitimacy of people’s doubts about government and urge them to publicly outline a specific plan to address it.
Second, the new administration should unveil a short- and long-term strategy to clean up and reform government.
Third, they should employ a series of policy design and implementation principles – such as openness and transparency, simplicity, choice, bipartisanship, and the avoidance of special interest influence – that breeds confidence and trust. And fourth, they must move an agenda strategically and sequentially to ring up early successes and keep core campaign promises.
Third Way President Jon Cowan said the paper could be of critical importance to the new administration and Congress: “The election of Barack Obama and an expanded congressional majority put the bread in the oven, but it is public trust that will be the leavening allowing it to rise and usher in a progressive golden age.”
Galston and Kamarck also point out that periodic increases in public trust, such as at the beginning of a new administration, can be fleeting. “Trust got an added boost from the ‘rally-around-the-flag’ effect of 9/11 and the early military success of the Iraq invasion.” But it did not last. “Trust must be continually earned.”
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Contact:
Sean Gibbons (202) 384-1730
Jill Pike (202) 384-1708