Federal policy helps answer many questions about our national cultural identity: how the arts are supported, who decides what is broadcast, what will be built, what pastimes will be encouraged, when certain languages can be spoken or customs practiced, how we educate our children and treat our elders, how we relate to our diversity as a nation and to the rest of the world. Whether or not cultural policy is made explicit, government has massive cultural impact. From Indian removal to urban renewal, from importing human beings as slaves to excluding others through immigration quotas, U.S. cultural policy has been conceived and implemented by every arm of government. Though cultural policymaking in the United States is fragmented, haphazard, and frequently sub rosa, government intervenes in cultural life at many points. The next administration needs to acknowledge the federal government's enormous cultural impact, bring it under democratic control and turn it toward cultural democracy. Many new initiatives must be taken to encourage pluralism, participation, and equity in our national cultural life. This essay concentrates on the most critical aspects of public policy: elements of culture with broad social impact, such as the mass media; and initiatives with great democratizing potential, such as public service employment for creative workers. These emphases go against the grain of current policy, which treats certain cultural issues with obsessive attention—for instance, the level of public subsidy for such prestigious arts institutions as the major opera and ballet companies, museums and symphony orchestras. This narrow focus would end under a democratic cultural policy, which would offer major institutions new roles to play in implementing programs like those outlined below.