![]() Her earlier books include Dividing Citizens: Gender And. Her most recent book is The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy (University of Chicago Press 2011). Suzanne Mettler’s important new book will bring government policies back to the surface and encourage citizens to reclaim their voice in the political process. Suzanne Mettler, the Clinton Rossiter Professor of American Institutions, conducts research and teaches on American politics and public policy. The sad truth is that many American citizens do not know how major social programs work-or even whether they benefit from them. She concludes with recommendations for reform to help make hidden policies more visible and governance more comprehensible to all Americans. Mettler analyzes three Obama reforms-student aid, tax relief, and health care-to reveal the submerged state and its consequences, demonstrating how structurally difficult it is to enact policy reforms and even to obtain public recognition for achieving them. Neither do they realize that the policies of the submerged state shower their largest benefits on the most affluent Americans, exacerbating inequality. As a result, citizens are unaware not only of the benefits they receive, but of the massive advantages given to powerful interests, such as insurance companies and the financial industry. These submerged policies, Mettler shows, obscure the role of government and exaggerate that of the market. 'Keep your government hands off my Medicare,' said a citizen attending a town hall meeting in Simpsonville, S.C., in 2009. ![]() In recent decades, federal policymakers have increasingly shunned the outright disbursing of benefits to individuals and families and favored instead less visible and more indirect incentives and subsidies, from tax breaks to payments for services to private companies. ![]() Mettler argues that this difficulty is not merely a failure of communication rather it is endemic to the formidable presence of the “submerged state.” OPINION: On November 18, 2021, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its long-anticipated score of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better (BBB) legislation. “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” Such comments spotlight a central question animating Suzanne Mettler’s provocative and timely book: why are many Americans unaware of government social benefits and so hostile to them in principle, even though they receive them? The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for its inability to convey how much it has accomplished for ordinary citizens.
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