Build the Safety Net Back Better -- Put States in Charge

Say what you will about 2020, but it’s undoubtedly a time of reinvention. As an election collides with a pandemic, protests, and riots, it would be easy to summarize it all as chaos. But any keen observer -- or “Game of Thrones” fan knows -- chaos isn’t always a pit. Sometimes, it’s a ladder.

So, the question is: Which decaying institutions or dead ideas should we discard, and which should we reinvigorate? America’s welfare state jumps off the page. The pandemic has revealed just how rigid and costly our complex...