How is public policy formed in the American system of government?

[Raro]

How is the problem identified? Who is responsible for determining solutions or setting the public policy agenda?

[Earl Hickey]

The super-rich decide what they want and then they buy the politicians who will deliver.

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Obama champions “grand bargain” to slash entitlement programs
By Jerry White
9 November 2012
World Socialist Web Site
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/nov201...-n09.shtml

Excerpts:

With the US elections out of the way, the corporate and political establishment is getting down to the business of slashing federally guaranteed health care and retiree benefits, while implementing even greater tax cuts for big business and the wealthy.

An atmosphere of crisis is being stoked up with the approach of the December 31 “fiscal cliff” to prepare public opinion to accept extremely unpopular measures, including trillions of dollars in spending cuts and an historic attack on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

The media has been filled with dire predictions of another market collapse, crushing tax hikes for working people and a sharp increase in unemployment if a bipartisan agreement is not reached.

On Thursday, the major daily newspapers carried banner headlines designed to create the appropriate mood: “Back to Work: Obama Greeted by Looming Fiscal Crisis” (New York Times), “After Obama win, overtures on debt” (Washington Post), “New battle follows hard on Obama win” (Financial Times).

Obama signaled his priorities in his victory speech early Wednesday morning, in which he placed a bipartisan deal for “deficit reduction” and “reforming our tax code” at the top of his agenda. The president is scheduled for a White House address on the subject today.

Just hours after Obama’s victory, Fitch Ratings warned there would be “no fiscal honeymoon for President Obama.” On Wednesday, there was a major selloff on Wall Street, intended in part to pressure the administration and Congress.

Congressional leaders from both parties have portrayed the election, which returned Obama to the White House and a Republican majority to the House of Representatives, as a popular mandate for the two parties to reach a “grand bargain” to slash social spending.

In fact, the sentiment of the voters was the exact opposite. Exit polls showed only one in ten voters said reducing the deficit should be the next administration’s priority. A survey conducted by the AFL-CIO union federation found, by a 64 to 17 percent margin, that voters want to protect Social Security and Medicare benefits and address the deficit by increasing taxes on the rich, rather than cutting entitlements.

But the Obama administration’s policies are not determined by the will of the people—as the AFL-CIO and various liberal and ‘left’ supporters of Obama claim—but by the corporate and financial elite, which controls the entire political system.