At In the Public Interest, we are motivated by two important ideas:

One, there are things that government must do and which only government can do; and two, government must be truly representative of the broadest needs of the people.

Right now, a Presidential cabinet is being stocked with millionaires and billionaires. A President and his family members are personally investing in the private sector in ways that will make them even richer by the decisions he makes in his role as a public official. His chief advisors and those who sponsored inaugural events stand to gain billions of dollars in government contracts and through the erosion of safeguards and sensible oversight.

For a decade and a half, we’ve worked to try to restore people’s faith in the possibilities that government can and should represent: the opportunity for poorer people to move into the middle class, the promise that excellent public education could lift up all Americans and make the nation stronger, the hope that the life-sustaining and enriching properties of public goods like public land, libraries, and waterways could be available for all.

We can’t pretend that we aren’t concerned about the direction the nation is moving. Government is supposed to reflect the people’s will, but with dark money political action committees exaggerating threats, distorting facts, and pushing outright lies, it sometimes acts like a funhouse mirror. The same potential for government to operate in the public interest exists to an equal and opposite degree. And, of course, the problem seems to multiply geometrically: We got here because of vast inequalities of income and wealth having a huge impact on our democracy, and this will create more of that. In this case, the cause and the effect are the same: more inequality.

But we’ve been here doing our work under every type of administration—including this one, once before—and we’re staying—and staying strong—in the fight. And the fight takes place well beyond Washington, D.C. and the federal government.

We will continue to lift up and support the inspiring work that is done by public officials in statehouses, county administration buildings, and city halls all over the country. We will continue to provide research and other resources to groups and individuals working to save and improve public education in districts rural and urban; preserve our parklands, water and sewer systems, libraries, and public goods and services of all type; and create and refresh the institutions of a true representative democracy.

We started ITPI because we think government should represents us all—not just the wealthy few. Government should do the things we can only do together as one, and we remain in this fight to make government better together.

Donald Cohen
Executive Director

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