James M. Lindsay

Henry Aaron

Pietro S. Nivola

More powerful and affluent today than ever, the United States has promising opportunities to influence the course of history. Yet these prospects are shadowed by significant perils and burdens. In this visionary book, leading scholars from the Brookings Institution and other prominent research organizations and universities analyze the major domestic and foreign policy problems facing the nation over the next five to ten years. The challenges on the domestic front are formidable: assuring fair but affordable access to health care, shoring up retirement income for an aging population, encouraging long-term economic growth, easing the growing pains of an increasingly diverse society, and reconciling energy policies with environmental concerns. In international affairs the central task is to use America's unprecedented power wisely and to protect a homeland that has been revealed as surprisingly vulnerable. Yet efforts must also focus on improving the economic fortunes of poorer countries, expanding trade, and reforming the rules that regulate the flows of capital across national borders. Is the United States government capable of rising to these vast and varied challenges? The concluding chapters of this book offer cautious optimism. While it is often criticized, the American political system is fundamentally resilient and flexible. Ambitious in scope, Agenda for the Nation provides thoughtful, constructive answers to questions of how the U.S. government can effectively serve its citizens and meet its global responsibilities in a world of opportunity and uncertainty.

Agenda for the Nation

Leonard E. Burman

Few people realize that one of the nation's largest health programs runs through the tax system. Reformers of all stripes propose to modify current tax rules as part of larger programs to increase coverage and control costs. Is the current system working? Will tax-based reforms achieve their goals? Several of the nation's foremost experts on taxation and health policy address these questions in Using Taxes to Reform Health Insurance, a joint product of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and the American Tax Policy Institute. Led by respected economists Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution and Leonard Burman of the Urban Institute, contributors examine the role taxes currently play, the likely effects of recently introduced health savings accounts, the challenges of administering major subsidies for health insurance through the tax system, and options for using the tax system to expand health insurance coverage. No taxpayer or consumer of health care services can afford to ignore these issues.

Pitfalls and Promises

Using Taxes to Reform Health Insurance

Deciding when and how to retire are among the most important decisions most people make. Can they be depended on to plan with foresight and make sound decisions? According to standard economic analysis the answer is a qualified "yes." But studies by psychologists, sociologists, and economists themselves raise doubts about this comforting appraisal. This volume by analysts trained in economics and other disciplines suggests that retirement planning and decisions fall far short of the rational ideal. Gary Burtless explains what economic research has to say about retirement behavior. Annamaria Lusardi reports that many people in their fifties and older say they have not even thought about retirement. Mathey Rabin and Ted O'Donoghue show that procrastination can cause huge economic losses. Robert Axtell and Joshua Epstein show that herd behavior explains observed patterns of retirement behavior better than does the assumption of rational decisionmaking. George Loewenstein, Drazen Prelec, and Roberto Weber report that many people incorrectly anticipate what retirement will be like and rationalize whatever decision they have made. David Fetherstonhaugh and Lee Ross report experimental evidence that the effect of Social Security provisions may depend on how these policies are "framed" as well as on the specific content of those policies. These and other authors also explore the broader implications of these behavioral patterns. Copublished with Russell Sage Foundation

Henry Aaron

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