A Time for Governing: Policy Solutions from the Pages of National Affairs

by Yuval Levin (Editor), Meghan Clyne (Editor)

America finds itself in a moment of profound and complex governing challenges. A crushing recession followed by a feeble recovery have shaken the foundations of our financial and economic system. We are struggling with the exploding costs of health-care and entitlement spending, and fiscal disaster looms as our society ages. American families are anxious about wage stagnation, barriers to social mobility, and the nation’s competitiveness in an era of globalization. Meanwhile, our large governing institutions — most of them designed several decades ago — are showing signs of strain and decay, calling out for serious reform. National Affairs , a quarterly journal of essays on domestic policy and political economy, was launched in 2009 to help Americans think more clearly about these problems and to develop promising solutions. This book is a collection of some of the most timely and concrete policy proposals published in the journal’s pages, offering ideas for reforming our welfare state, our tax system, financial regulation, monetary policy, education, state finances, and more. Each essay was written by a prominent expert in the field—the authors are all notable right-leaning academics, policy experts, former government officials, or think tank scholars with national reputations. The book thus comprises a ready-made domestic policy agenda for conservative policymakers (including a Republican president, should one be elected in 2012), based on the latest and best thinking from the world of conservative policy intellectuals. It will be the only resource of its kind in this election year—a one-stop-shop for conservative policy ideas.

328 pages, Paperback

First published April 10, 2012

About the author

Yuval Levin is an Israeli-American political analyst, public intellectual, academic and journalist. His areas of specialty include health care, entitlement reform, economic and domestic policy, science and technology policy, political philosophy, and bioethics. He holds a BA from American University and a PhD from the University of Chicago.

He is the founding editor of National Affairs, director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a contributing editor of National Review and a senior editor of The New Atlantis.
Levin was vice president and Hertog Fellow of Ethics and Public Policy Center, executive director of the President's Council on Bioethics, Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy under President George W. Bush and contributing editor to The Weekly Standard. Prior to that he served as a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels.