FDR Distinguished Public Service Award in Washington DC, April 9th, 2008. Photos by Nick Bradley. |
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25 Ideas > Roosevelt Home > Publications > 25 Ideas
Launched July 13 at the DC Policy Expo
Two years ago, representatives of progressive college students across America came together at the Roosevelt Policy Expo in DC and at the FDR Home in Hyde Park, NY, to discuss the most pressing issues facing our generation.
After setting ourselves three challenges, we returned back to our college and university campuses and performed a year's worth of public policy research. We held conferences, conducted public fora, got small groups together for public policy brainstorming sessions, wrote papers and theses, and met with extracurricular groups. As the year came to a close, we selected the best 25 ideas that we wanted to bring to the public policy discussion. Here they are:
A central tenet of progressivism tests the strength of a community by measuring the
welfare of its most defenseless citizens: the poor, the disenfranchised, the very old,
and the very young. With that theme as their anchor, numerous pieces tackled top-
ics as diverse as healthcare, higher education, and environmental sustainability. From
Kira Newman’s analysis of medical mistrust among Native Americans to Daniel Odom’s
indictment of hate crimes against GLBT students, some of the best answers to the
community development challenge can not be narrowly defined as construction or
economic growth at all.
What each of these 25 ideas reflects is, instead, a progressive sensibility toward the
problems of community development: equity, inclusion, history, sustainability, and
growth. Part of that sensibility is an awareness that issues are far too complex, and their
solutions far too specific, to be addressed by the broad stroke of theory. Trial and error,
case study and prototype: these are the weapons of the progressive policymaker, and
these are the tools of the student researchers and advocates featured in the 25 Ideas
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We are most confident that the 25 ideas that comprise the Roosevelt Institu-
tion’s 2008 Democracy Challenge will not only reshape conventional wisdom
but will also lend credence to the urgent need to take young Americans seri-
ously. Behind each policy submission lies a passion for legislative accountability,
increased civic participation, a more accessible voting system, verifiable and
transparent elections, and citizen ownership of government. The creative and
tenacious visions displayed in this publication prove that the youth of this
country have directly invested in its future and dedicated themselves to the
protection of the democratic system. |
America’s institutions of justice are outstanding by several measures. They are
largely free of the corruption that impedes justice in so many of the world’s
court systems. They cultivated a liberal respect for the individual at an earlier
point in history than even their European corollaries. Yet our institutions of
justice are also unique in ways that should be troubling to most Americans.
Most visibly, we incarcerate our citizens at rates that are not accompanied by
proportionate reductions in crime, and that exceed incarceration rates in other
developed nations eight times over. Moreover, this tendency means more for
some communities than it does for others, and our incarcerated population
reflects serious and systemic social inequities. Perhaps most troubling, there
is no consensus on why we incarcerate so many Americans, whether it is to
reform criminals, increase public safety, or deter criminal behavior. Goals such
as these are laudable, and therefore it is unfortunate- indeed dangerous- that
our criminal justice system has great difficulty accomplishing them.
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America's College Students Respond
to the Roosevelt Challenges...
Download full versions as PDF:
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The way America uses fossil fuels interferes with every other progressive goal. Our environment is being not only threatened by global climate change, but by extraction efforts that invade pristine wildernesses and level whole mountains in the greedy quest for oil and coal. Huge economic resources are being poured into the ground when they could be used to create jobs for Americans in sustainable energy and conservation. Internationally, our oil use enriches oppressive dictatorships and theocracies, undermines our democratization efforts, props up and funds terrorist groups, and provides a powerful diplomatic weapon for rivals to use against us and our allies.
The Roosevelt Institution is committed to developing practical ways to reduce our fossil fuel use through reduced energy consumption and moves to other sources of energy.
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Historically, work was the pillar upon which family life rested. In recent years, however, with more single parent or two breadwinner households, longer hours, and declining minimum wages, work has become a tougher impediment to family life. Family-friendly fringe benefits -- health insurance, company retirement plans -- have been cut back and job security has eroded. And even as volatility has increased there are attempts to reduce social insurance, as the household is being asked to bear a larger share of the risks in our economy.
The point of the American economy is to support the American family, but instead we find our families being sacrificed to our economy -- a squeeze in which jobs demand more of a family's resources and provide fewer of a family's needs. The Roosevelt Institution is committed to advancing policies that will make the economy once again support working families.
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Higher education shapes so many things about our society -- it is a credential that gives access to more and better job opportunities, it creates social networks and is a center of cultural production and definition, and it provides resources and time for personal growth and reflection. Yet our system of allocating access to higher education does not reflect our values as a society.
Unequal access to higher education is un-American. It restricts the life choices, productivity, and creative output of our children simply because of the neighborhood, family, or economic circumstance they were born into. And by excluding some qualified people from our higher education system, it impoverishes the experience for all students. The Roosevelt Institution is committed to broadening access to higher education, ensuring that we provide a place for every student who works hard and wants to attend.
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The Roosevelt Institution is a national network of student think tanks. Founded in late 2004, it has grown to over 7000 members at hundreds of campuses across the country.
The 25 Ideas series is a direct extension of the Roosevelt Institution’s mission to connect students’ policy ideas to policymakers. Each aspect has been designed with the policy maker in mind: from the two-page, condensed formatting, to the inclusion of concise sets of key facts and talking points. Both easy to read and easy to understand, these ideas have been distilled into small bursts of creativity and thoughtfulness. Though they been condensed here for the busy reader’s convenience, several of these Ideas are also available in extended form in our upcoming issue of the Roosevelt Review.
While we hope that you will enjoy reading these Ideas, they are not meant to stay on your coffee table. Some Ideas have ramifications for those who work at the federal policy level; others, at the state and municipal levels. Still others focus primarily on what universities can do. So no matter what level of government you focus on - or even if you are still a student - there is an Idea in these pages that you should consider acting on.
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