Former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, a Democratic Party stalwart, worries in his latest book, "We Can All Do Better," that America is stuck in a number of dangerous ruts, from what we eat to how we educate our children to how we govern ourselves. If we don’t find our way out of these ruts, he argues, democracy itself could be in jeopardy.
Since getting out of politics, Bradley has become a managing director at the merchant bank Allen & Company and hosts American Voices on SiriusXM radio. The one-time New York Knicks great will be in Dallas on Oct. 30 to speak to backers of Education First Steps and discuss a topic that is important to members of both parties — early childhood education.
Points asked Bradley about his views on education, governance and other issues he raises in the book.
How has your view of early childhood education evolved since the 2000 election, when you challenged Vice President Al Gore for the Democratic presidential nomination?
As time passes, larger amounts of evidence are becoming clearer and clearer that early childhood education is the key to education generally. We know that kids who are without it perform differently when they get to school. We know that investment in early childhood education pays off in the long run. It just makes common sense.
We also know now that a child’s ability to read by the third grade is an indicator of whether that child is going to succeed. What do we do to translate studies into policy?
One of the key things is there needs be an agreement nationally on the importance of early childhood education. There should be a national preschool program through the states. There ought to be certain national standards for preschool. It’s partly education, and it’s partly health — having access to the right nutrition. Now, some people will say early childhood education is provided by the parents. Certainly that’s the most important early childhood education. But even parents who are loving and interested at the deepest level in their children don’t always have the equipment to teach their child what that child needs to be taught. Home efforts are important, but there also needs to be a bigger effort beyond the home.
How do we bridge a political gap in favor of spending more on getting kids into school earlier?
What you do is you clearly marshal the evidence. One of the people I admire most is the former founder and prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. He said years ago that the 21st century will be determined by talent. Take a look at the Chinese. They have 1.3 billion people to draw talent from. We don’t have that many people to draw talent from. Therefore all of our talent has to be utilized and developed. Every child has to be able to enter that pool of the potential talent that could invent the new thing or who could energize the economy or broaden our creative imagination or set up the structures or law to take us into the second half of the 21st century. Human capital is the most important capital to determine what is going to happen in our country in the next 50 years.
Your book is a call to America about its governance and its habits. What are you trying to tell people now?
The title of the book essentially conveys what the message is, and that is we can all do better. The reality is we can all do better. Obviously, politicians in Washington can do better. But, all of us, in our own lives can do better in terms of how we raise our children, how we spend our time, in terms of what food we eat, or how we take care of our health. And in terms of how we view our participation in our democracy.
I point to a couple of specific areas. If you take a look at the major problem in our country today, I think it is how the middle class has been stuck for over 25 years. The mean per capita income is the same today as it was in the late 1990s. That means a lot of families are not advancing, and many are losing ground. If that takes hold, the whole upward mobility that’s come to define America will be in danger. That’s an example of one of the things we have to face up to and do something about.
And how can government do better or be better?
If you say an economic problem is middle-income citizens stuck, then the problem of our political system is really threefold.
One is there’s too much money in politics, and courtesy of the Supreme Court no law can be passed that will make that better. Two cases, Buckley vs. Valeo in 1976 and Citizens United, basically have opened the door to massive sums of money coming into politics, financing ads that lie about other candidates. To me, it’s a destructive part of our democracy. The only way to right that is to have a constitutional amendment that says federal, state and local governments may limit the amount of money in politics. For my money, if that amendment took place, I’d like to see public financing of elections so everybody would have the same amount of money to make their case to their voters.
The second problem, and Texas is certainly familiar with this, is gerrymandering — redistricting by partisan state legislators so as to maximize the advantage of a particular party. The result of that is of our 465 members of Congress, there are only about 50 seats that are competitive. … I don’t have to worry about a challenge in the general election if I’m in a district that is 60-40 Democrat, in my case. But I do have to worry about a challenge on my left.
You see this happening in Texas in vivid terms where every Republican quakes in his boots worrying about a challenge from the right. That has the effect of pulling the two parties to the extremes, and it has the effect of a candidate not having to listen to anybody in the other party in order to get elected because he doesn’t need their votes. When they get to Congress they just have to avoid that primary challenge, which makes it more and more extreme.
The third thing you need to have is a national government that’s allowed to govern. The president’s authorities are constrained in a multitude of ways. He ought to be able to appoint who he wants. He ought to be able to direct a bureaucracy to function. Bureaucracy has got to be a lot more responsive to executive leadership, no matter who’s in power. And the workers in the federal bureaucracy have to be held accountable for results. There’s got to be a real meritocracy. And we have to find ways to review existing laws because laws get on the books and they are larded with massive amounts of regulation. Nobody can review it. We need to make those kinds of changes in order to liberate our democracy.
What are your thoughts about the 2016 election?
Let’s see what the field is. Hillary Clinton clearly is the favorite [for the Democratic nomination.] I don’t know anybody else who is going to run.
On the Republican side, there is a great divergence and it will be a very interesting primary. In your state Ted Cruz is probably going to be a candidate. In my home state of New Jersey, Gov. [Chris] Christie is going to a candidate. The gap between Gov. Christie and Ted Cruz is enormous. It will be very interesting to see how the Republican electorate will play it.
This Q&A was conducted and condensed by Dallas Morning News editorial writer Rudolph Bush. His email address is rbush@dallasnews.com.
