DRAFT: SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Public Policy Since the New Deal
CMC Government 191 Fall 2025
MW 11AM- 12:15 PMBauer 23
ZOOM: https://cmc-its.zoom.us/j/92228697468
J.J. Pitney
Office: Kravis 232
Student Hours:
- Monday and Wednesday, 1-2 PM
- If these times are inconvenient, just make an appointment for an in-person or Zoom meeting.
General
To understand the issues of 2025, we have to know how they started and evolved over time. Accordingly, this course offers a broad overview of federal domestic policy since 1932. One key concept is "path dependence," how initial decisions and events shape future policies and outcomes. Another is "the law of unintended consequences," the tendency of policies to have effects that their sponsors neither expect nor want. Yet another is the power of ideas. “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist," said economist John Maynard Keynes. "
Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."
The organization is chronological, with an emphasis on presidential administrations. This approach helps us see how different policies overlap, interact, and share common origins.
Classes
Classes will include lecture and discussion. Finish the readings before class because our discussions will involve those readings. We shall also talk about breaking news, so you must read a good news source such as Axios or Politico.
Grades
The following will make up your course grade:
- One three-page essay 15%
- One four-page essay 20%
- One 6-page research paper and class presentation 25%
- Final exam 30%
Participation 10%
The papers will develop your research and writing skills. In grading, I will take account of the quality of your writing, applying the principles of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. If you object, do not take this course or anything else I teach.
After fall break, student will make short class presentations on their research. These presentations will encourage early preparation and provide useful feedback.
The final examination will test your comprehension of the class sessions and readings. In addition to the required readings (below), I may also give you attachments and web links covering current events and basic factual information. The final will cover this material.
Participation includes your activity in class and online. I will call on students at random, and if you often miss sessions or fail to prepare, your grade will suffer. In addition, you may volunteer comments and questions. This experience will hone your ability to think on your feet.
Blog
Our class blog is right here at https://gov191.blogspot.com. I shall post videos, graphs, news stories, and other material there. We shall use some of this material in class, and you may review the rest at your convenience. You will all receive invitations to post to the blog. (Please let me know if you do not get such an invitation.) I encourage you to use the blog in these ways:- To post questions or comments about the readings before we discuss them in class;
- To follow up on class discussions with additional comments or questions;
- To post relevant news items or videos. Remember that this blog is on the open Internet. Post nothing that would look bad to a potential employer.
Details
- Check due dates for coursework. Do not plan on extensions.
- As a courtesy to your fellow students, please arrive on time, and refrain from eating in class.
- Except as a documented disability accommodation, please do not use electronic devices (tablets, laptops, smartphones) in class. Take notes the old-fashioned way, by hand, on paper. Why? Research shows that it works better.
- Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty are not victimless offenses, because they hurt fellow students. Please study our Statement of Academic Integrity, which reads in part: "Each faculty member has the responsibility to report cases of academic dishonesty to the Academic Standards Committee." Misrepresenting AI-generated content as your own original work constitutes plagiarism.
- This class welcomes viewpoint diversity. See: https://heterodoxacademy.org/library/advice-on-syllabus-language/
- Your experience in this class matters to me, and I have a particular interest in disability. If you have set up accommodations with Accessibility Services at CMC, please tell me about your approved accommodations so we can discuss your needs. You can start by forwarding me your accommodation letter. If you have not yet set up accommodations but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability, please email Ari Martinez, Associate Director of Accessibility Services, at accessibilityservices@cmc.edu to ask questions and start the process. For general information and the Request for Accommodations form, go to the CMC Accessibility Services website.
- Dennis W. Johnson, American Public Policy: Federal Domestic Policy Achievements and Failures 1901-2022 (New York: Routledge, 2023).
Schedule (Subject to change, with advance notice).
In addition to the readings below, I may also furnish you with additional material via the Internet.
August 25: CMC Convocation, no class.
"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
August 27: Introduction
"The past is never dead. It's not even past" -- William Faulkner.
Sept 1: Labor Day, no class.
"The phrase 'Roaring Twenties' was derived from the 'Roaring Forties,' the very powerful westerly winds that blow between 40 and 50 degrees latitude in the southern hemisphere. The Roaring Forties could hugely speed sailing ships - but also swamp and sink them. Whoever borrowed the adjective `roaring' for the decade of the 1920s didn't mean to say that the decade was serenely prosperous, but that it was wild, nerve-wracking, and dangerous, like the far south seas below Australia." -- David Frum
Watch "The Dawn of the Great Depression," directed by William Karel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8Ew7jbot_k
Sept 3: Before the New Deal
"[Route] 66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and
shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership..." -- John Steinbeck
"I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain, common working men."-- Frances Perkins
Sept 15, 17: New Deal II
"We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program. Those taxes aren’t a matter of economics, they’re straight politics." -- FDR on Social Security - Martha Derthick, Policymaking for Social Security (Washington: Brookings, 1979), ch. 11-12. ON CANVAS.
- Steven M. Gillon, "That's Not What We Meant to Do" Reform and Its Unintended Consequences in Twentieth-Century America (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), ch.1. ON CANVAS.
THREE-PAGE ESSAY ASSIGNED BY SEPTEMBER 15,
DUE IN CANVAS BY SEPTEMBER 26.
Sept 22, 24: World War II and the Truman Era
"The 80+ students that first came to CMC were almost all veterans. They came on the GI Bill [of Rights] and that's what founded this place." -- Jack Stark- Johnson, ch. 5.
- James Rowe and Clark Clifford, "The Politics of 1948" (memo to Harry Truman). EXCERPTS ON CANVAS.
Sept 29, Oct 1: The Age of Ike
"In case of an atomic attack on our key cities, the road net must permit quick evacuation of target areas, mobilization of defense forces and maintenance of every essential economic function. But the present system in critical areas would be the breeder of a deadly congestion within hours of an attack." -- Dwight Eisenhower, 1955
FOUR-PAGE PAPER PAPER ASSIGNED BY SEPT 29,
DUE IN CANVAS BY OCT 10
"It will increase social security benefits for all of our older Americans. It will improve a wide range of health and medical services for Americans of all ages. In 1935 when the man that both of us loved so much, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, signed the Social Security Act, he said it was, and I quote him, `a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but it is by no means complete.' --
LBJ addressing Harry Truman upon signing the Medicare law- Johnson, ch. 7.
- Theodore R. Marmor, The Politics of Medicare, 2d. ed. (New York: Aldine deGruyter, 2000), ch. 4. ON CANVAS
OCT 13 FALL BREAK
Oct 15: New Frontier and Great Society II
"The power structure started out the new year the same way they started it out in Washington the other day. Only now they call it—what's that?— `The Great Society?'" -- Malcolm X
Oct 20, 22: Nixon: Tory Men and Liberal Policies
"Tory men and Liberal policies are what have changed the world" -- Richard M. Nixon
- Johnson, ch. 8
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, The Politics of a Guaranteed Income (New York: Vintage, 1973). EXCERPTS ON CANVAS.
Oct 27, 29: Ford, Carter, and Malaise
"In short, we are entering an era of limits. In place of a manifest economic destiny, we face a sober reassessment of new economic realities; and we all have to get used to it." -- Jerry Brown, 1976- Johnson, ch. 9
- Joseph A. Califano, Governing America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981). EXCERPTS ON CANVAS
Nov 3, 5: Reagan and Bush 41
"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. .. Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work -- work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back." -- Ronald Reagan, first inaugural address, 1981
Nov 10, 12: Clinton and the 1990s
"The era of big government is over. But we cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves. Instead, we must go forward as one America, one nation working together to meet the challenges we face together. Self-reliance and teamwork are not opposing virtues; we must have both." -- Bill Clinton, 1996
RESEARCH PAPERS DUE NOV 14.
Nov 17, 19: Bush: The Rough Start to the Millennium
"If the Social Security system’s principal problem was a long-term threat to its solvency, as the President rightly argued in his 2005 State of the Union address, it was not clear how private accounts were even part of the solution." -- William Galston
- Johnson, ch. 11.
- Excerpts from Amy E. Black, Douglas L. Koopman, and David K. Ryden, Of Little Faith: The Politics of George W. Bush's Faith-Based Initiatives (Washington: Georgetown University ress, 2004). ON CANVAS.
Nov 24: Hope, Change, and Obama
Dec 1, 3: To the Wilmington Station
"Social Security turns 90 today – but its retirement program is on course to be insolvent by age 97 – according to new estimates from the program’s Chief Actuary. Even if combined with the disability trust fund, Social Security will deplete its reserves before it turns 100." -- Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, 8/14/25 FINAL EXAM: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, AT 9 AM
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