Diversity and the Challenge of Implementing "Good" Public Policy

We all know that if we were identical, then President Obama would have an easy time shaping public policy. He could poll one person and ask her for her policy priorities and everyone would love the resulting public goods agenda.

During a time of recession, and a time when the U.S keeps growing more diverse along every dimension (religion, geography, income inequality, ethnicity, green ideology) --- how does a President build a working majority coalition? In english, with a very diverse group of people, what will they all agree to? What is the basic "bill of rights" and who should pay for it? David Brooks discusses this a little bit here .

We celebrate diversity and I'm glad that my UCLA is a diverse place but there is no free lunch. When multiple interest groups disagree about new policy initiatives, this leads to paralysis. So, the question is how costly is such an inability to enact new legislation. In the case of health care? Costly, in the case of climate change mitigation, costly.