ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses stock of other developments that laid the foundation for the nation’s political economy in the early twenty-first century. The advance of party polarization through the 1990s and later decades was one of the most significant political developments of the past half-century. Issues related to race also increasingly divided the parties, and thus the nation’s politics became unidimensional. The regulation, put in place in the late 1940s, had required radio and television programs to provide opposing views on political issues. The government repealed it because it was said to have a “chilling effect” on political speech, as media outlets might prefer to avoid an issue rather than cover how it might be received by both liberals and conservatives. The elimination of the budget deficit in the 1990s was greatly eased by the decade’s long stretch of economic growth, but politicians also made it happen.
