The Think Tanks Strike Back

Last week the Washington Post’s Robert Samuelson took the Beltway think-tank community to task for having “tiptoed around” the nation’s long-term fiscal challenge. “Ideally, think tanks expand the public conversation by saying things too controversial for politicians to say on their own. Here, they've abdicated that role,” Samuelson says. It’s absolutely worth a read.

Today, the Post’s Think Tank Town feature has replies from budget experts at no less than 10 organizations, including Heritage, Brookings and the Concord Coalition, (all of whom are Facing Up partners). Some of the replies sound a little wounded, which is understandable, since Samuelson is one of the media people who’s been most vocal and committed to confronting this problem. So many people seem to consider this “friendly fire,” as Concord’s Bob Bixby puts it.

Personally I think the think-tank community has put out lots of ideas on this topic (At least it feels that way -- I’ve certainly plowed through enough budget policy papers over the past few years). I’m not sure the problem is that there aren’t enough ideas for leaders to choose from. I think the problem is that political leaders don’t believe the public will actually allow them to implement any of those ideas, because too many of them involve pain or sacrifice.

Samuelson's solution is essentially for the think tanks to compete in proposing solutions, a competition that the presidential candidates won't be able to ignore or evade. Frankly, I have great confidence that our presidential candidates will be able to evade that idea without breaking a sweat.

The one thing a presidential candidate can't evade (other than an embarrassing YouTube video) is an engaged public. And there's no way, absolutely no way, the next president can reach a viable solution to this problem without some kind of public consensus on what to do. No inside-the-Beltway idea, no matter how brilliant, no matter what organization stands behind it, is going to get anywhere unless the public accepts the problem and believes they have a say in the solution.

That’s why the Facing Up initiative is important, and that’s why it’s critical that groups like Heritage, Brookings and Concord are involved in it. Because on this problem, public engagement is the only way out.