What Do We Want Right Now?

Legislative Proposals for Social and Economic Reform

Legislation as a way to the Good Society is in bad repute, a passage beset with pitfalls and infested with outlaws. Jefferson once said, “No good measure was ever proposed which if duly pursued failed to prevail in the end.” But the legislature has the power to be negative as well as affirmative, and anyone who remembers the long and tortuous history of winning federal aid to education or medical care for the aged can testify to the enormity of congressional roadblocks. Though the legislative process is the chief expression of national purpose in this country, it can require an age for an idea to ripen into a proposal and a proposal to become law.