Academic

Weekly Standard Article--Stuntz

By David Skeel and Bill Stuntz

Here is the link to a magazine piece I wrote.  The subject is a model of domestic policymaking that is usually ignored in public discussion: Lincoln's model. While fighting and winning the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln also shepherded through Congress one of the most ambitious and successful legislative programs in the nation's history. It deserves comparison with FDR's New Deal. But Lincoln's program was more successful than FDR's, because the key pieces of legislation were designed to create opportunity, not to fine-tune economic incentives and direct economic affairs. Statutes of the former type depend for their success on the energy and talent of American workers. Statutes of the latter type depend on the wisdom of American politicians. The workers are a better bet. Would that the Obama Administration thought the same.

Full post as published by Less than the Least on March 29, 2009 (boomark / email).