OPINION: In defense of incrementalism

May 26--"Gotta give 'em process" will never be an applause line in a barn-burner political speech.

It's hard to mount a stirring defense of slow, methodical change, achieved through twiddling policy, bureaucratic rule changes and the long, painful work of compromise. It's not inspiring; better descriptions might be "frustrating," "painstaking," "plodding."

But consider a presidential memorandum signed last week by President Barack Obama, making 4.2 million Americans eligible for overtime pay, a potential boon for salaried workers putting in uncompensated work hours.

Obama's memorandum will double the threshold for salaried workers to receive overtime pay, meaning that employees making less than $50,440 are now eligible.

Before the ink on the memorandum dried, naysayers were outlining a host of dodges employers might use: Bumping the salary of workers close to the threshold up, so they're not subject to the new rules; cutting back hours so workers receive their regular salary but don't work, and thus aren't paid for overtime, or hiring workers to pick up the extra hours once staffed by salaried employees -- as many as 100,000 new jobs, according to one report.

Even if cash-strapped, or crafty, employers use every trick in the book, it's a win for salaried employees, who'll stand to bring home more pay, or work fewer unpaid hours.

It's not the kind of change that's going to set the world on fire. No barricades were stormed. The existing social and political order continue unchanged.

It is, in short, an example of incremental change, the kind of moderate implementation of progressive goals that doesn't sell well on social media, or in, say, a presidential election. But it's the kind of change that adds up, for the families who'll take home more dollars, the economy in which those dollars will be spent, and for the social framework in which we all live.

And -- total overthrow of the American system notwithstanding -- incrementalism is the best way to create possible, effective, sustainable economic and social change.

Take the Affordable Care Act. Obama's 2010 health care reform fell short of the goal most progressives hoped to reach -- universal, single-payer health care -- but it's been, by any measure, an outstanding success, if the goal is to ensure more Americans have health insurance. Despite years of bellyaching from some states reluctant to take federal health care dollars for the act's Medicaid expansion, or to set up their own health care exchanges, the percentage of uninsured adult Americans is dropping, from 16.4% in 2010 to 12.9% in 2014.

By 2019, 27 million more Americans will have health insurance. The program's costs are projected substantially under budget, and its impact on reducing the deficit over time has been greater than anticipated. The growing costs of employer-based insurance have slowed, and while some people have seen substantial premium increases, there have been corresponding declines -- and the health care exchanges offer folks buying individual insurance the option to shop for better rates.

There's no question that there's work to be done. About 30 million Americans still lack health insurance. The health care system is still largely opaque to most consumers -- a reporter for the news and commentary website Vox spent something like 30 hours on the phone, trying to obtain estimates for how much hospitals would charge for his son's birth. (The estimate he finally got was wrong.) And while the ACA has narrowed the coverage gap among African Americans, Latinos and women, any private-industry based system lacks the equitability of a single-payer universal health care.

It's imperfect, but it's working.

Or Obama's requirement that all workers on new federal contracts be paid $10.10 an hour or better, or any progressive support for raising the minimum wage. In a perfect world, we'd have universal basic income -- the idea that each American is guaranteed an income, regardless of employment or disability -- but that, friends, is a non-starter in any political climate I can imagine. So raising the minimum wage is a step in the right direction.

The stuff of revolution? Hardly.

But incrementalism, unlikely as it may seem, is the American Dream.

Our system wasn't engineered for rapid, dramatic, change. When it comes to setting domestic policy, the power of the executive, and even the U.S. Congress, is limited -- each can set policy priorities, with incentives for going along and penalties for failing to, but it's up to the states to reject or embrace Washington's domestic agenda.

The Founding Fathers didn't care much for the caprice of monarchs, and deliberately structured the American government's system of checks and balances to limit how much power any one person or party could exercise. That, compared to what had come before, was radical change. It's what enables longevity and continuity of government, but it also stymies the kind of sweeping reform that inspires.

But incremental progress should inspire. Revolution is the easy part, comparatively. Creating a stable and sustainable government, capable of enduring for centuries through massive social, political end economic shifts -- that's more difficult. And the fact that we've pulled it off -- that should give us hope.

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