The answer, however, must be viewpoint-neutral: stronger antitrust enforcement, limits on concentration, scrutiny of mergers, and protection for local journalism. Government should not decide who may own media based on whether it likes their politics. The same principle applies to universities. Taxpayers deserve honest and accountable research, but politicians should not condition grants on ideological loyalty. Scholars should follow evidence, not political orders.⁸
Campaign finance reform is harder because the current Supreme Court treats much political spending as protected speech. That does not mean reformers should give up; it means they should start where progress can survive. A system in which candidates spend more time courting large donors than listening to voters is not healthy, even when it is technically legal. Public matching funds for small donations, stronger disclosure, better enforcement, and rules that make it easier for candidates to run without begging billionaires for help would all move us in the right direction. The goal should be simple enough for every voter to understand: make ordinary citizens louder.⁹
On wealth, I would revise Reich’s proposal. I understand the appeal of a wealth tax. Extreme fortunes do not merely buy comfort; they buy access, influence, and insulation from ordinary life. An annual wealth tax, however, is extraordinarily difficult to administer. Valuing private businesses, land, artwork, partnerships, trusts, and other complex assets every year would invite avoidance, litigation, and endless gamesmanship. A better approach is to tax income from wealth more fairly: higher rates on very high incomes, fairer taxation of capital gains, limits on stepped-up basis at death for large estates, stronger IRS enforcement, and tighter rules against borrowing-against-assets strategies that let billionaires live lavishly while reporting modest taxable income.¹⁰
I would also add a broad, high-threshold tax on luxury and speculative property: mansions, third and fourth homes, vacant luxury residences, private aircraft, yachts, ultra-luxury cars, and high-value collectibles. When great wealth turns into private privilege, the tax system should be waiting at the door. That kind of tax is easier for ordinary people to understand. If a teacher pays taxes on every paycheck, a billionaire should not get a free ride while turning wealth into mansions, jets, and political influence.
Finally, I part ways with Reich on the Electoral College. I do not favor abolishing it outright. The United States is not only a national democracy; it is a federal republic. States and regions matter, and a president should have to build a broad coalition across different kinds of communities. But defending the Electoral College does not mean defending every distortion in the current system. The goal should not be to erase the states. It should be to stop erasing voters inside the states.
Winner-take-all rules make millions of voters invisible. A Republican in California and a Democrat in Texas should not be erased. States should bind electors to the voters’ choice and consider proportional allocation of electoral votes by statewide popular vote. The congressional-district method used by Maine and Nebraska is less attractive unless partisan gerrymandering is first substantially curbed. Otherwise, presidential outcomes could be manipulated through district lines. Expanding the House would also make representation, and therefore the Electoral College, more population-sensitive without abolishing it.¹¹
This is the path reformers should take: not radical overreach, and not passive resignation. We can demand ethics rules that apply to everyone in power. We can demand fair maps. We can demand voting rights that mean something.