Government’s Not Dead Yet
By JOE NOCERA
NYT
Washington
I met up recently with my old mentor, Charlie Peters, the founder, editor and driving force behind The Washington Monthly, where I worked in the late-1970s. Charlie is a supreme idealist who believes deeply in the good that government can do. He saw it growing up with Roosevelt’s New Deal and then again as a member of Sargent Shriver’s Peace Corps, where he served as the agency’s first director of evaluation.
Now 85, Charlie still believes that that government can make a difference in people’s lives. Knowing that many Americans have turned against this idea, he is writing a book “to give evidence that it has happened — and to show it can happen again,” he told me. The New Deal and the Great Society were eras when “money was not the driving force in choosing a career,” he said. “Passion was. People wanted to be able to do something about the country’s most pressing problems — and government was the place to do that.”
As Charlie spoke, it occurred to me that there is one agency in today’s government where you can still see that passion: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Last week, I went to Washington to spend some time with some of the bureau’s new employees.
The brainchild of Elizabeth Warren, the consumer bureau was part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, and it has been charged with looking out for the interests of financial consumers. Warren initially brought it to life, and her charisma and rock-star status was a powerful early draw. “I saw her on TV, and then read her book ‘The Two-Income Trap,’ ” said Sean O’Mealia, 25, who joined the bureau from a consulting company. “I really believed in what she was saying about helping consumers. That was my motivating force.”
(More here.)
NYT
Washington
I met up recently with my old mentor, Charlie Peters, the founder, editor and driving force behind The Washington Monthly, where I worked in the late-1970s. Charlie is a supreme idealist who believes deeply in the good that government can do. He saw it growing up with Roosevelt’s New Deal and then again as a member of Sargent Shriver’s Peace Corps, where he served as the agency’s first director of evaluation.
Now 85, Charlie still believes that that government can make a difference in people’s lives. Knowing that many Americans have turned against this idea, he is writing a book “to give evidence that it has happened — and to show it can happen again,” he told me. The New Deal and the Great Society were eras when “money was not the driving force in choosing a career,” he said. “Passion was. People wanted to be able to do something about the country’s most pressing problems — and government was the place to do that.”
As Charlie spoke, it occurred to me that there is one agency in today’s government where you can still see that passion: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Last week, I went to Washington to spend some time with some of the bureau’s new employees.
The brainchild of Elizabeth Warren, the consumer bureau was part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, and it has been charged with looking out for the interests of financial consumers. Warren initially brought it to life, and her charisma and rock-star status was a powerful early draw. “I saw her on TV, and then read her book ‘The Two-Income Trap,’ ” said Sean O’Mealia, 25, who joined the bureau from a consulting company. “I really believed in what she was saying about helping consumers. That was my motivating force.”
(More here.)
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