CONCLUSION| 461Even with these eff orts at imposing a national approach, there can be variations
in state and local implementation of the national law. States and local school dis-
tricts are also experimenting with policies aimed at introducing more competition
for public schools, including public school choice and publicly funded vouchers for
attending private schools.
CONCLUSION
The experiences with social policy reform illustrate the themes of this book. First,
health care reform illustrates the confl ictual nature of politics.
Similarly, confl ict is natural in many economic policy decisions, and politics
is a part of this process. Any economic policy has winners and losers and elected
leaders must be involved in this process if representative democracy is to have any
meaning. This is especially true of the budget process because the redistributive
implications of taxing and spending are so clear, but even monetary policy is not
insulated from politics. This role for politics is g ua ra nteed by our system of checks
and balances: Congress, the president, and to some extent the courts all have a
hand in shaping economic policy.
It shouldn’t be surprising when politics enters the economic policy debate.
Elected leaders should be responsive to what their constituents think about the
central questions concerning the direction of the economy. The struggles over
economic and social policies—especially in Congress—demonstrate that politi-
cal process matters. Politicians’ decisions have a key impact on policy outcomes,
and the timing and politics of the policy-making process drive the results. Finally,
politics is everywhere: social and economic policies touch every American.