Domestic Policy

DOMESTIC POLICY, OFTEN synonymously referred to as socioeconomic policy, is the sum of issues spanning the domain of concern to a nation's citizenry, including affairs that permeate personal, professional, educational, economic, and governmental institutions, excluding foreign affairs. Long-established views of domestic policy have rested on the platform of Federalist and Anti-Federalist traditions of the late 18th century. While Federalists called for a strong central government able to temper the fickle public, the Anti-Federalists believed that the federal government's role should be limited, and that state governments should be relied upon to care for the bulk of the domestic interests of citizens. The right and responsibility of state and federal governments to direct domestic public policy is derived from the U.S. Constitution and its 27 Amendments. The Constitution, since its ratification, has been open to political and judicial interpretation by the people and governmental institutions of United States.

Until the 1930s, much of domestic policy implementation was left to state governments, believed to better reflect the needs of their constituency by virtue of direct representation and accountability. However, the Social Security Act of 1935 marked the passage of a redis-tributive policy that created one of the first national entitlement programs. Its passage required the alignment of vast coalitions across the government, not easily accomplishabled since. The program was designed for administration by state governments, maintaining the federal-state partnership. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–45) subsequently became one of the most famous domestic policymakers in the history of the United States; his New Deal platform institutionalized the idea of a national social system that could provide for the general welfare of citizens; a philosophy which Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter built on throughout the 1960s and 70s.

By the 1990s, Democratic President Bill Clinton attempted a revolutionary revival of New Deal-like domestic policy through the formulation of a universal healthcare plan. However, the bill failed to pass the legislative process when the Republican Party, which has over time tended to favor a market-based approach over government intervention, held the congressional majority. A testament to this conservative philosophy is the 2004 initiation of a Republican campaign to privatize the Social Security System, the landmark national domestic policy and legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The turn of the 21st century rise of globalization and post-9/11 concerns have continued to alter the profile and salience of domestic policy issues [Page 186]in federal campaigns. Over time, state politicians have again been given de facto responsibility for formulating and implementing domestic policy. Domestic issues that do make it to the forefront of the country's public eye tend to be short-lived, media-driven events that yield no public policy solutions. National domestic policy changes have occurred only incrementally since the 1970s, a result of the shrinking attention span of the watchdog public juxtaposed with the conversely lengthy and complex legislative process.

Though there are typically only two sides to domestic policy choice in the United States, Democratic (liberal) and Republican (conservative), there are exceptions to these two-party views. The conservative, capitalist, free trade view tends to oppose national entitlement programs and federal government interventions through regulation and taxation. Those who favor a Democratic, socialist, regulatory approach often vote in favor of federal government enactment of national social programs, industry regulation, and increased taxes on the upper-class. On the campaign trail it is likely that any one candidate will make a number of domestic policy promises, in an attempt to appease the greatest number of voters.

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