The Public Interest closed in 2005, when the last of the original editors, Irving Kristol, retired. It left a gaping hole. Fortunately, a new quarterly magazine called National Affairs is starting up today to continue the work. The magazine, edited by Yuval Levin, occupies the same ground: the bloody crossroads where social science and public policy meet matters of morality, culture and virtue.
The first essay concerns a great test of American national character. Today, James C. Capretta argues, America’s leaders are in the same position that General Motors’s executives were in a decade or two ago. The nation has made a series of lavishly unaffordable promises. The legacy costs are piling up. By the end of 2019, the nation’s debt will soar to 82 percent of G.D.P. ”” and that’s without new programs and before the full fiscal impact of the boomer retirements.
Creating a new and sustainable middle-class social contract isn’t only an accounting matter. It’s also a question of responsibility ”” whether Americans are willing to face the costs of their choices, and refrain from stealing from their grandchildren.
Read it all.
David Brooks: The Bloody Crossroads
The Public Interest closed in 2005, when the last of the original editors, Irving Kristol, retired. It left a gaping hole. Fortunately, a new quarterly magazine called National Affairs is starting up today to continue the work. The magazine, edited by Yuval Levin, occupies the same ground: the bloody crossroads where social science and public policy meet matters of morality, culture and virtue.
The first essay concerns a great test of American national character. Today, James C. Capretta argues, America’s leaders are in the same position that General Motors’s executives were in a decade or two ago. The nation has made a series of lavishly unaffordable promises. The legacy costs are piling up. By the end of 2019, the nation’s debt will soar to 82 percent of G.D.P. ”” and that’s without new programs and before the full fiscal impact of the boomer retirements.
Creating a new and sustainable middle-class social contract isn’t only an accounting matter. It’s also a question of responsibility ”” whether Americans are willing to face the costs of their choices, and refrain from stealing from their grandchildren.
Read it all.