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Showing posts with label federal budget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label federal budget. Show all posts
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Salit: The Battle Behind the Budget Battle, May 10th
Monday, April 11, 2011
The Parties, The President and the Budget
THE PARTIES, THE PRESIDENT AND THE BUDGET
INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING
Gerrymandering Lawsuit Brings New Scrutiny To Governor’s Use Of Budget Extenders (City Hall News - New York) This most recent case pits the Department of Corrections and the Legislative Task Force on Redistricting, also known as LATFOR, against a number of prominent Senate Republicans. The defendants have until April 24 to answer the complaint. If the case goes to court and the ability to append non-budget related bills is taken away, the Legislature could regain some power from the governor, Lane said.
- GOP presidential field sees budget wars from afar (AP) In the absence of a Republican president or clear-cut party leader, a little-known congressman from Wisconsin seized the initiative. Backed by most House Republicans, Rep. Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, wrote a far-reaching spending plan that right away framed the debate on Capitol Hill.
- Budget deal foreshadows larger fight ahead - The last-minute resolution on 2011 was a victory for Republicans, and helped President Obama preserve his standing. But the wrangling offers little hope for an easy resolution to the next fight: lifting the U.S. debt ceiling. (By Paul West, Washington Bureau, LA Times)
INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING
Gerrymandering Lawsuit Brings New Scrutiny To Governor’s Use Of Budget Extenders (City Hall News - New York) This most recent case pits the Department of Corrections and the Legislative Task Force on Redistricting, also known as LATFOR, against a number of prominent Senate Republicans. The defendants have until April 24 to answer the complaint. If the case goes to court and the ability to append non-budget related bills is taken away, the Legislature could regain some power from the governor, Lane said.
Saturday, April 09, 2011
Power Struggle in Washington; Idaho Legislature Insults Independent Voters
INDEPENDENT VOTERS AND THE PARTISAN FACE-DOWN
IDAHO LEGISLATURE
EDUCATION REFORM
Can a New Schools Chancellor Fix Education Reform's Image Problem? (By Anna Sale, WNYC/It's A Free Country) Walcott called himself "just a guy from Queens" who went to public school and started his career teaching kindergarten. He said he's visited hundreds of schools, "held the hands of students and talked with the moms and dads." His call-and-response with students at City Hall felt warm and natural, where Black had come off as stilted and uncomfortable.
- Analysis: Budget deal leaves scars on both parties (By Caren Bohan and Thomas Ferraro, Reuters) Obama will score some points, too, for being willing to compromise with Republicans, a potential plus as he campaigns for re-election and tries to rebuild ties with independent voters who fled Democrats in congressional elections last year.
- Doyle McManus: The fight on Capitol Hill wasn't about money; it was about political power (By Doyle McManus, LA Times) But among Democratic voters — and perhaps most important, among independent voters, who often decide how elections come out — more than two-thirds favored compromise, not confrontation.
IDAHO LEGISLATURE
- Idaho Legislature finishes ‘difficult’ session (Betsy Z. Russell, The Spokesman-Review) Rep. George Eskridge, R-Dover, called the session as a whole “tough” and “disappointing,” and said he didn’t like the way the debate over school reforms implied “that teachers are the problem.” He also objected to the Republican Party’s move to close its primary elections, saying, “I think we’ve disenfranchised independent voters.”
- Public to pay for GOP suit - Lawmakers vote $100,000 to pay attorney fees (Betsy Z. Russell, The Spokesman-Review) “I have to point out, we’re paying $100,000 for the Republican Party to sue the Republican Legislature, defended by the Republican secretary of state, in order to close primaries in Idaho – I just think this is so bad it’s comical,” said Sen. Elliot Werk, D-Boise… Keough said, “I remain disturbed that even while in essence shutting out the public, they asked the public to pay for it.”
- What Idahoans got from the Legislature (By Ben Botkin - Magic Valley Times-News) Loser: Independent voters, who will have to declare a party affiliation to vote in primary elections, or be classified as unaffiliated voters. Political parties can decide if they will accept ballots from unaffiliated voters.
EDUCATION REFORM
Can a New Schools Chancellor Fix Education Reform's Image Problem? (By Anna Sale, WNYC/It's A Free Country) Walcott called himself "just a guy from Queens" who went to public school and started his career teaching kindergarten. He said he's visited hundreds of schools, "held the hands of students and talked with the moms and dads." His call-and-response with students at City Hall felt warm and natural, where Black had come off as stilted and uncomfortable.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Bittle & Johnson: Playing Roulette With the Country's Future
By Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, Authors of Where Does the Money Go? Rev Ed: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis. A new and updated version is due out in January. Find out more at PublicAgenda.org
There's something about playing roulette that makes everyone feel a little like the uber suave James Bond. You can picture the actor of your choice (we're not doctrinaire here), but they all make gambling seem glamorous. Not knowing exactly what will happen adds an agreeable tension to the drama. A clever screenwriter has labored long and hard to insure a satisfying outcome. Casablanca makes roulette alluring too. Remember when Rick steps in to fix the results so a dewy-eyed ingénue and her husband win enough money to escape the Nazis? It's one of the best scenes in the movie.
The problem is that things don't always work out so nicely in real life - - and rarely does anyone step in to fix a game of roulette in your favor. That's why it's so disturbing to see the country's leaders playing roulette with the country's economic future by procrastinating on tackling our massive debt and budget problems.
Basically, they're betting that the government can continue to spend more than it takes in, because people around the world will be glad to keep lending to us by buying our Treasury bonds. In the short term, it's not a bad bet. Given the world's shaky economy, the U.S. government is still a better investment than most.
And in the long run? As David Brooks so succinctly puts in, "The bond markets are with you until the second they are against you. When the psychology shifts . . . the shock will be grievous: national humiliation, diminished power in the world, drastic cuts and spreading pain." 1 FDIC chair Sheila Blair, who certainly knows a thing or two about what happens when investors lose confidence, warns of danger too: "Financial markets are already sending disquieting signals," she recently wrote.2
It's no secret that the most bipartisan position in Washington has been the determination of both parties to live beyond our means for decades. And outside of government, public frustration is high, but realism remains low.
On the right, the Tea Partiers furiously demand that government get dramatically smaller, slashing spending by huge amounts to balance the budget now. Some even argue that Congress should slam the brakes on borrowing overnight, by refusing to raise the government's debt ceiling. The Tea Partiers rage against the machine, but seem unprepared for any frank discussion of how the federal government really spends its money, or the human consequences of its ideas.
But even if the Tea Party's champions in Congress could get their agenda through - - and governing is considerably balkier than complaining and criticizing -- such a sudden lurch into smaller government would be wrenching. And refusing to raise the debt ceiling could be disastrous. Tens of thousands of federal and state workers would lose their jobs in the middle of the Great Recession. Schools and colleges around the country would face massive cutbacks. The global bond markets, already nervous about the debt crisis in Europe, might start dumping U.S. bonds as well. The right likes to slam big government entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, but there are millions of human beings depending on them. You don't make major changes in these programs overnight.
The situation on the left is as just as bad. Despite careful, non-partisan assessments from multiple analysts inside and outside government detailing Social Security's shaky future funding, there is a profoundly disingenuous mantra coming from some progressives: "Don't worry. Don't touch it. There's no serious problem. The Trust Fund is good until 2037."
Yes, but Trust Fund is filled with government bonds, and Social Security will start drawing on the bonds in about five years. Those bonds guarantee that Social Security benefits are first in line when the government pays its bills - - people will get their checks. But that money has to come from somewhere, and the government's own auditors say the only way to do that is by raising taxes, cutting other spending, or borrowing from someplace else. In other words, something else in the budget has to give.
Do progressives really believe the country will suddenly be flush enough to cover Social Security and still pay for all the other spending these very same progressives want? And by claiming there's no problem, they undercut public backing for the ideas they do support, like raising the income cap on Social Security taxes. Why would people want to raise Social Security taxes on anyone if there's no problem?
There's a reasonable discussion about how quickly to move to bring the country's spending in line with its revenues given how weak the U.S. economy is. Huge, abrupt program cuts, big sudden tax hikes, pulling the plug on infrastructure and educational spending that is crucial to having a competitive economy down the road - - these are all risky, both economically and socially. Boring old long-term planning and gradualism are probably the only sensible ways out. But there is no time to delay on starting a reality-based discussion.
A recent Public Agenda survey of Washington insiders - - people whose careers revolve around the federal government - - showed that a whopping 8 in 10 agreed that the only way to solve the country's federal budget problem is to combine spending cuts and tax increases. Why don't these people step up to the plate and say something? Largely, they're silent. Meanwhile, we have profiles in cowardice in Congress and relentless volleys of self-serving spin coming from both the left and the right.
The trouble with roulette is that the house nearly always wins, and players who don't know when to quit lose their shirts. What American needs now is leadership that understands when it's time to leave the roulette table and leave the gambling to others.
1 The New York Times
© 2010 Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, authors of Where Does the Money Go? Rev Ed: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis. The problem is that things don't always work out so nicely in real life - - and rarely does anyone step in to fix a game of roulette in your favor. That's why it's so disturbing to see the country's leaders playing roulette with the country's economic future by procrastinating on tackling our massive debt and budget problems.
It's no secret that the most bipartisan position in Washington has been the determination of both parties to live beyond our means for decades.
Basically, they're betting that the government can continue to spend more than it takes in, because people around the world will be glad to keep lending to us by buying our Treasury bonds. In the short term, it's not a bad bet. Given the world's shaky economy, the U.S. government is still a better investment than most.
And in the long run? As David Brooks so succinctly puts in, "The bond markets are with you until the second they are against you. When the psychology shifts . . . the shock will be grievous: national humiliation, diminished power in the world, drastic cuts and spreading pain." 1 FDIC chair Sheila Blair, who certainly knows a thing or two about what happens when investors lose confidence, warns of danger too: "Financial markets are already sending disquieting signals," she recently wrote.2
It's no secret that the most bipartisan position in Washington has been the determination of both parties to live beyond our means for decades. And outside of government, public frustration is high, but realism remains low.
On the right, the Tea Partiers furiously demand that government get dramatically smaller, slashing spending by huge amounts to balance the budget now. Some even argue that Congress should slam the brakes on borrowing overnight, by refusing to raise the government's debt ceiling. The Tea Partiers rage against the machine, but seem unprepared for any frank discussion of how the federal government really spends its money, or the human consequences of its ideas.
But even if the Tea Party's champions in Congress could get their agenda through - - and governing is considerably balkier than complaining and criticizing -- such a sudden lurch into smaller government would be wrenching. And refusing to raise the debt ceiling could be disastrous. Tens of thousands of federal and state workers would lose their jobs in the middle of the Great Recession. Schools and colleges around the country would face massive cutbacks. The global bond markets, already nervous about the debt crisis in Europe, might start dumping U.S. bonds as well. The right likes to slam big government entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, but there are millions of human beings depending on them. You don't make major changes in these programs overnight.
The situation on the left is as just as bad. Despite careful, non-partisan assessments from multiple analysts inside and outside government detailing Social Security's shaky future funding, there is a profoundly disingenuous mantra coming from some progressives: "Don't worry. Don't touch it. There's no serious problem. The Trust Fund is good until 2037."
Yes, but Trust Fund is filled with government bonds, and Social Security will start drawing on the bonds in about five years. Those bonds guarantee that Social Security benefits are first in line when the government pays its bills - - people will get their checks. But that money has to come from somewhere, and the government's own auditors say the only way to do that is by raising taxes, cutting other spending, or borrowing from someplace else. In other words, something else in the budget has to give.
Do progressives really believe the country will suddenly be flush enough to cover Social Security and still pay for all the other spending these very same progressives want? And by claiming there's no problem, they undercut public backing for the ideas they do support, like raising the income cap on Social Security taxes. Why would people want to raise Social Security taxes on anyone if there's no problem?
There's a reasonable discussion about how quickly to move to bring the country's spending in line with its revenues given how weak the U.S. economy is. Huge, abrupt program cuts, big sudden tax hikes, pulling the plug on infrastructure and educational spending that is crucial to having a competitive economy down the road - - these are all risky, both economically and socially. Boring old long-term planning and gradualism are probably the only sensible ways out. But there is no time to delay on starting a reality-based discussion.
A recent Public Agenda survey of Washington insiders - - people whose careers revolve around the federal government - - showed that a whopping 8 in 10 agreed that the only way to solve the country's federal budget problem is to combine spending cuts and tax increases. Why don't these people step up to the plate and say something? Largely, they're silent. Meanwhile, we have profiles in cowardice in Congress and relentless volleys of self-serving spin coming from both the left and the right.
The trouble with roulette is that the house nearly always wins, and players who don't know when to quit lose their shirts. What American needs now is leadership that understands when it's time to leave the roulette table and leave the gambling to others.
1 The New York Times
Author Bios
Scott Bittle, author of Where Does the Money Go? Rev Ed: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis, is the Director of Public Issues Analysis at Public Agenda and is executive editor of PublicAgenda.org, where he has prepared citizen guides on more than twenty major issues including the federal budget deficit, Social Security, and the economy. He is also the website director for Planet Forward, an innovative PBS program designed to bring citizen voices to the energy debate.
Jean Johnson, co-author of Where Does the Money Go? Rev Ed: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis, is the Director of Education Insights and Director of Programs at Public Agenda, is a co-founder of PublicAgenda.org. She is the author or co-author of studies on education, families, religion, race relations, manners and civility, retirement, welfare, and health care.
For more information please visit PublicAgenda.org and follow the authors on Facebook and Twitter
Friday, March 07, 2008
Ready for Another War between the Generations?
_______________________________________________________________
Let's end the generational war -- yet another relic of the traditional partisan political culture that many Americans are trying to relegate to the trash heap!______________________________________________________________
By Jean Johnson and Scott Bittle
Authors of Where Does All the Money Go? Your Guided Tour of the Federal Budget
In primary after primary this year, journalists have remarked on the tendency of older voters to support Senator Clinton while younger voters flock to Barack Obama. On the face of it, this suggests that older and younger Americans have different ways of thinking about the country’s problems. Fair enough – the two groups are at different life stages. It’s reasonable enough that they’d be focused on different issues and concerns.
Meanwhile, the DC speechifying set is pointing out how much of the federal budget is spent on programs for older Americans compared to how little goes to benefit the young. At $586 billion in 2007, Social Security now takes up the largest slice of the federal budget. We spend more on Social Security than we spend on defense – and that’s with two wars going on. And Social Security dwarfs the $24.6 billion the federal government spent on higher education.
With 78 million boomers starting to receive benefits beginning this year, there’s no question that Social Security and Medicare costs present a major financial challenge for the country. To headline writers and the chattering classes, who often confuse conflict with genuine policy debate, this new “war between the generations” colors everything from the 2008 elections to how to tame entitlement spending.
The country went through a generation war back in the sixties and seventies, and a lot of boomers are probably surprised to find themselves painted by some as a bunch of greedy has-beens soon to be a millstone around the neck of the young. But leaving aside the feelings of the boomers themselves, we can’t help thinking that revving up a new war between the generations is such a patently bad idea. If younger people and older people begin to see each other as automatic political adversaries, it could well derail a lot productive ideas for solving our problems.
For one thing, the two putative “sides” in the supposed generational war actually have a lot in common, especially when it comes to their initiation into national politics. Both entered adulthood in the wake of shocking national tragedy – for one generation, the assassination of JFK (and Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy not too long after); for another, September 11. Both have had to contend with a deeply unpopular, costly, mismanaged war (feel free to insert the adjectives you prefer). This time around at least, we’ve avoided blaming the soldiers for the errors of their elders. Some members of boomer generation were stupider and crueler back in the day. Even so, can we really say that the two generations are such political opposites?
But beyond this, setting up political discussions as a war between the generations seems a bit odd. Nearly all members of both generations have someone they dearly love in the other camp. Based on the opinion research we’ve seen, most parents recoil at the idea of saddling their children with humongous Social Security and Medicare debt. Most young people don’t want to see their parents anxiously scraping by in old age and failing health.
We suppose families view these things differently, but most probably want a choice about whether 30-something junior lives upstairs or whether to renovate the garage so grandma can move in. Having to make these choices because younger workers can’t make ends meet or because widespread elderly poverty has once again spread across the land isn’t what most of us are aiming for. A wealthy country like this one can avoid these scenarios if we just stop procrastinating and start working on this problem now. And not every solution needs to be either-or. For example, controlling rising health care costs is vital for dealing with Medicare, but it’d be good for everyone.
So let’s stop the generation war hyper-ventilating. The boomers and the “next’ generation live together in the same country, and as individuals, we mostly care a lot about each other. Realistically, both groups are going to have to do a little adjusting and rethinking to reach any kind of consensus on what to do. There are a lot of ways to talk about what our options really are, but this war between the generations thing isn’t a very good one. It’s so been there, done that.
Crisis and editors of PublicAgenda.org.
Copyright © 2007 Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, Authors
Jean Johnson and Scott Bittle are authors of Where Does the Money Go? Your Guided Tour of the Federal Budget. For more information, please visit http://www.publicagenda.org/
Let's end the generational war -- yet another relic of the traditional partisan political culture that many Americans are trying to relegate to the trash heap!______________________________________________________________
By Jean Johnson and Scott Bittle
Authors of Where Does All the Money Go? Your Guided Tour of the Federal Budget
In primary after primary this year, journalists have remarked on the tendency of older voters to support Senator Clinton while younger voters flock to Barack Obama. On the face of it, this suggests that older and younger Americans have different ways of thinking about the country’s problems. Fair enough – the two groups are at different life stages. It’s reasonable enough that they’d be focused on different issues and concerns.
Meanwhile, the DC speechifying set is pointing out how much of the federal budget is spent on programs for older Americans compared to how little goes to benefit the young. At $586 billion in 2007, Social Security now takes up the largest slice of the federal budget. We spend more on Social Security than we spend on defense – and that’s with two wars going on. And Social Security dwarfs the $24.6 billion the federal government spent on higher education.
With 78 million boomers starting to receive benefits beginning this year, there’s no question that Social Security and Medicare costs present a major financial challenge for the country. To headline writers and the chattering classes, who often confuse conflict with genuine policy debate, this new “war between the generations” colors everything from the 2008 elections to how to tame entitlement spending.
The country went through a generation war back in the sixties and seventies, and a lot of boomers are probably surprised to find themselves painted by some as a bunch of greedy has-beens soon to be a millstone around the neck of the young. But leaving aside the feelings of the boomers themselves, we can’t help thinking that revving up a new war between the generations is such a patently bad idea. If younger people and older people begin to see each other as automatic political adversaries, it could well derail a lot productive ideas for solving our problems.
For one thing, the two putative “sides” in the supposed generational war actually have a lot in common, especially when it comes to their initiation into national politics. Both entered adulthood in the wake of shocking national tragedy – for one generation, the assassination of JFK (and Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy not too long after); for another, September 11. Both have had to contend with a deeply unpopular, costly, mismanaged war (feel free to insert the adjectives you prefer). This time around at least, we’ve avoided blaming the soldiers for the errors of their elders. Some members of boomer generation were stupider and crueler back in the day. Even so, can we really say that the two generations are such political opposites?
But beyond this, setting up political discussions as a war between the generations seems a bit odd. Nearly all members of both generations have someone they dearly love in the other camp. Based on the opinion research we’ve seen, most parents recoil at the idea of saddling their children with humongous Social Security and Medicare debt. Most young people don’t want to see their parents anxiously scraping by in old age and failing health.
We suppose families view these things differently, but most probably want a choice about whether 30-something junior lives upstairs or whether to renovate the garage so grandma can move in. Having to make these choices because younger workers can’t make ends meet or because widespread elderly poverty has once again spread across the land isn’t what most of us are aiming for. A wealthy country like this one can avoid these scenarios if we just stop procrastinating and start working on this problem now. And not every solution needs to be either-or. For example, controlling rising health care costs is vital for dealing with Medicare, but it’d be good for everyone.
So let’s stop the generation war hyper-ventilating. The boomers and the “next’ generation live together in the same country, and as individuals, we mostly care a lot about each other. Realistically, both groups are going to have to do a little adjusting and rethinking to reach any kind of consensus on what to do. There are a lot of ways to talk about what our options really are, but this war between the generations thing isn’t a very good one. It’s so been there, done that.
Crisis and editors of PublicAgenda.org.
Copyright © 2007 Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, Authors
Jean Johnson and Scott Bittle are authors of Where Does the Money Go? Your Guided Tour of the Federal Budget. For more information, please visit http://www.publicagenda.org/
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