JAMES C. CAPRETTA
The mid-term elections have handed Republicans a mixed bag: a majority in the House, but continuing Democratic control of the Senate and the presidency. Given their new power, as well as the constraints that come with it, what should Republicans do to encourage growth, address the nation's fiscal challenges, and restore government to its proper role? Three key battles — over health care, discretionary spending, and entitlement reform — will determine just how much the new Congress can achieve, and whether voters will give Republicans a real chance to govern in 2012.
HENRY OLSEN
Many conservatives argue that America is a "center-right nation," and November's election results would seem to support their claim. But if this assertion is true, why do conservatives always have such trouble turning their ideas into policy and law — even after decisive victories at the ballot box? A look at polling and election results from the past several decades shows that America's political sensibilities are more complex than the pundits would suggest.
JOEL ALICEA
Among the campaign promises Republicans made to voters this fall was a pledge that every piece of proposed legislation would cite the constitutional provision that authorizes it. Given lawmakers' reliance on the courts to determine the constitutionality of our laws, the new majority's promise could open some fascinating — and useful — debates. Chief among them: Just how should Congress interpret the Constitution?
JOHN HOOD
Across the country, governors and state legislators have seen their budgets devastated by the Great Recession. But the states' fiscal woes began long before the downturn: Decades of irresponsible spending have now produced enormous unfunded liabilities
— and, in many cases, the very real prospect of default. If the states are to have any hope of regaining solvency, they must move swiftly to implement critical reforms
— from renegotiating retirement benefits to structural changes in tax and spending policies. And state lawmakers must move soon
— because while it is not too late to avoid catastrophe, they are quickly approaching the point of no return.
JULIE GUNLOCK
Recent years have found countless activists, politicians, celebrity chefs, and even the first lady raising the alarm about childhood obesity. But their preferred approaches to helping kids eat better — particularly the expansion of the federal school-lunch program
— are poised to do more harm than good. What the activists ignore, and what Americans need to be reminded of, is the one solution to childhood obesity that actually seems to work: attentive, responsible parenting.
JEFFREY A. MIRON
The federal government spends almost half of its annual budget on programs to alleviate poverty. Our progressive tax code, and government interventions in the marketplace to benefit the poor, redistribute income even further. Despite this massive effort, however, America's project of income redistribution has failed to work as advertised. Why has it fallen short of its promises? And how should we approach the task of building a reasonable safety net, while simultaneously fostering economic growth and freedom?
TED GAYER
The global-warming debate has given cap-and-trade a bad name. But in other arenas of environmental policy, market-based measures provide a promising alternative to the command-and-control approach that dominates environmental regulation in America today. How can friends of the free market ensure that the controversy surrounding climate change does not prevent market-based approaches
— policies like cap-and-trade systems and pollution taxes — from informing our approach to safeguarding the environment? 
HOWARD HUSOCK
Through its new "Social Innovation Fund," the Obama administration plans to direct taxpayer dollars to promising non-profit charitable groups. On the surface, the fund might seem like a good idea — but the history of Washington's interaction with non-profits offers reason for caution. As a rule, using non-profits as contractors for the social-services state has benefited neither government nor non-profit groups. Will the Obama administration's plan now undermine the very strengths it seeks to encourage in the world of non-profit charities?
RALPH LERNER
Abraham Lincoln said he "never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence." Yet he also argued that "the dogmas of the quiet past" were "inadequate to the stormy present." To address the grave crisis of his day, Lincoln both called upon and transformed those quiet dogmas, stressing the importance of the relationship between the founders and later generations of Americans. His retelling of how America came to be America simultaneously burnished the reputation of the founders, scraped off some of the patina that, over time, had prettified the revolutionary struggle, and — more audaciously still — remolded a national legacy into one for mankind at large.
