The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy. Suzanne Mettler

The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy



Download The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy



The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy Suzanne Mettler ebook
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Page: 176
ISBN: 9780226521657


“Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” Such comments spotlight a central question animating Suzanne Mettler’s provocative and timely book: why are many Americans unaware of government social benefits and so hostile to them in principle, even though they receive them? The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for its inability to convey how much it has accomplished for ordinary citizens. Mettler argues that this difficulty is not merely a failure of communication; rather it is endemic to the formidable presence of the “submerged state.” In recent decades, federal policymakers have increasingly shunned the outright disbursing of benefits to individuals and families and favored instead less visible and more indirect incentives and subsidies, from tax breaks to payments for services to private companies. These submerged policies, Mettler shows, obscure the role of government and exaggerate that of the market. As a result, citizens are unaware not only of the benefits they receive, but of the massive advantages given to powerful interests, such as insurance companies and the financial industry. Neither do they realize that the policies of the submerged state shower their largest benefits on the most affluent Americans, exacerbating inequality. Mettler analyzes three Obama reforms—student aid, tax relief, and health care—to reveal the submerged state and its consequences, demonstrating how structurally difficult it is to enact policy reforms and even to obtain public recognition for achieving them. She concludes with recommendations for reform to help make hidden policies more visible and governance more comprehensible to all Americans. The sad truth is that many American citizens do not know how major social programs work—or even whether they benefit from them. Suzanne Mettler’s important new book will bring government policies back to the surface and encourage citizens to reclaim their voice in the political process.

MORE EBOOKS:
online Letters From Father Christmas
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting download ebook
Textbook of Gastroenterology, 2 Volume Set, 5th Edition (Textbook of Gastroenterology (Yamada)) download ebook
online A first course in theory of numbers







Tags: The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy ebook pdf djvu epub
The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy download pdf epub djvu
Download The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy free ebook pdf
Read The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy online book
The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy cheap ebook for kindle and nook
The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy download book
Suzanne Mettler ebooks
The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy download pdf rapidshare mediafire fileserve 4shared torrent