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The Real Cost of Shrinking Government |
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Sunday, 17 February 2013 14:58 |
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Excerpt: "These cuts, which will cost the economy more than one million jobs over the next two years, are the direct result of the Republican demand in 2011 to shrink the government at any cost."
NYT: 'About $85 billion will be cut from discretionary spending over the next seven months.' (photo: TPM Muckraker)
The Real Cost of Shrinking Government
By The New York Times | Editorial
17 February 13
 n less than two weeks, a cleaver known as the sequester will fall on some of the most important functions of the United States government. About $85 billion will be cut from discretionary spending over the next seven months, reducing defense programs by about 8 percent and domestic programs by about 5 percent. Only a few things will be spared, including some basic safety-net benefits like Social Security, as well as pay for enlisted military personnel.
The sequester will not stop to contemplate whether these are the right programs to cut; it is entirely indiscriminate, slashing programs whether they are bloated or essential. The military budget, for example, should be reduced substantially, but thoughtfully, considering the nation's needs. Instead, every weapons system, good or bad, will be hurt, as will troop training and maintenance.
These cuts, which will cost the economy more than one million jobs over the next two years, are the direct result of the Republican demand in 2011 to shrink the government at any cost, under threat of a default on the nation's debt. Many Republicans say they would still prefer the sequester to replacing half the cuts with tax revenue increases. But the government spending they disdain is not an abstract concept. In a few days, the cuts will begin affecting American life and security in significant ways.
While some departments may have exaggerated the dire effects of their reductions, Congressional budget experts say they have little doubt that the size and pervasive nature of the sequester will inflict widespread pain. Here are some examples from the government departments most affected:
NATIONAL SECURITY Two-week furloughs for most law-enforcement personnel will reduce Coast Guard operations, including drug interdictions and aid to navigation, by 25 percent. Cutbacks in Customs agents and airport security checkpoints will "substantially increase passenger wait times," the Homeland Security Department said, creating delays of as much as an hour at busy airports. The Border Patrol will have to reduce work hours by the equivalent of 5,000 agents a year.
The Energy Department's nuclear security programs will be cut by $900 million, creating delays in refurbishing the weapons stockpile, and cutting security at manufacturing sites. Environmental cleanup at nuclear weapons sites in Washington State, Tennessee, South Carolina and Idaho will be delayed.
AIR TRAFFIC About 10 percent of the Federal Aviation Administration's work force of 47,000 employees will be on furlough each day, including air traffic controllers, to meet a $600 million cut. The agency says it will be forced to reduce air traffic across the country, resulting in delays and disruptions, particularly at peak travel times.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE Every F.B.I. employee will be furloughed for nearly three weeks over the course of the year, the equivalent of 7,000 employees not working each day. The cut to the F.B.I. of $550 million will reduce the number of background checks on gun buyers that the bureau can perform, and reduce response times on cyberintrusion and counterterrorism investigations.
A cut of $338 million will mean more than a two-week furlough for 37,000 prison employees. This will result in lockdowns at federal prisons across the country, increasing the chances for violence and risks to guards, and preventing the opening of three new prison buildings.
Federal prosecutors will handle 2,600 fewer cases, because of furloughs resulting from a $100 million cut. That means thousands of criminals and civil violators will not face justice, and less money will be collected in fines.
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION About 70,000 children will lose access to Head Start, and 14,000 teachers and workers will be laid off, because of a $424 million cut. Parents of about 30,000 low-income children will lose child-care assistance.
HEALTH AND SAFETY A cut of $350 million to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will mean 25,000 fewer breast and cervical cancer screenings for low-income women; 424,000 fewer H.I.V. tests; and the purchase of 540,000 fewer doses of vaccine for flu, hepatitis and measles. Community health centers will be cut by $120 million, meaning that about 900,000 fewer patients lacking insurance will receive primary care.
A three-week furlough of all food safety employees will produce a shortage of meat, poultry and eggs, pushing prices higher and harming restaurants and grocers. The Agriculture Department warns that public health could be affected by the inevitable black-market sales of uninspected food.
Several air-monitoring sites will be shut down, as will more than 100 water-quality projects around the country. About $100 million will be cut from Superfund enforcement, allowing companies to evade their responsibilities to clean up environmental disasters.
RESEARCH Nearly 1,000 grants from the National Science Foundation will be canceled or reduced, affecting research in clean energy, cybersecurity, and reform of science and math education.
RECREATION National parks will have shorter hours, and some will have to close camping and hiking areas. Firefighting and law enforcement will be cut back.
DEFENSE PERSONNEL Enlisted personnel are exempt from sequester reductions this year, but furloughs lasting up to 22 days will be imposed for civilian employees, who do jobs like guarding military bases, handle budgets and teach the children of service members. More than 40 percent of those employees are veterans.
The military's health insurance program, Tricare, could have a shortfall of up to $3 billion, which could lead to denial of elective medical care for retirees and dependents of active-duty service members.
MILITARY OPERATIONS The Navy plans to shut down four air wings on March 1. After 90 days, the pilots in those air wings lose their certifications, and it will take six to nine months, and much money, to retrain them. The Navy has also said the Nimitz and George H. W. Bush carrier strike groups will not be ready for deployment later this year because the service will run out of operations and maintenance money. This means the Truman and Eisenhower strike groups will remain deployed indefinitely, a decision affecting thousands of service members and their families.
Continuous bomber flights outside of Afghanistan will be reduced, and there will be cutbacks to satellite systems and missile warning systems.
TRAINING AND MAINTENANCE The Army, which has done most of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, says it will be forced to curtail training for 80 percent of its ground forces and that by the end of the year, two-thirds of its brigade combat teams will fall below acceptable levels of combat readiness. Air Force pilots expect to lose more than 200,000 flying hours. Beginning in March, roughly two-thirds of the Air Force's active-duty combat units will curtail training at their home bases, and by July will no longer be capable of carrying out their missions. Some ship and aircraft maintenance will be canceled for the third and fourth quarters of the fiscal year, resulting in fewer available weapons.
Last week, Senate Democrats produced a much better plan to replace these cuts with a mix of new tax revenues and targeted reductions. About $55 billion would be raised by imposing a minimum tax on incomes of $1 million or more and ending some business deductions, while an equal amount of spending would be reduced from targeted cuts to defense and farm subsidies.
Republicans immediately rejected the idea; the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, called it "a political stunt." Their proposal is to eliminate the defense cuts and double the ones on the domestic side, heedless of the suffering that even the existing reductions will inflict. Their refusal to consider new revenues means that on March 1, Americans will begin learning how austerity really feels.
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Making Racism Palatable to Latinos |
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Sunday, 17 February 2013 14:53 |
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Wessler writes: "Though the general consensus seems to be that a GOP shift on immigration led by a young Latino senator will be enough to show the country that not all Republicans are rich white men named Mitt, the opening acts from Rubio do not amount to a move to the center."
Sen. Marco Rubio addresses the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. (photo: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/MCT/Newscom)
Making Racism Palatable to Latinos
By Seth Freed Wessler, Color Lines
17 February 13
 arco Rubio's been getting a lot of play lately. Time Magazine plastered the freshman senator on its cover with "Republican Savior" printed in bright yellow. His Tuesday night response to the president's State of the Union was billed as a crucial moment for Republicans: the high profile anointing of the party's new face.
But for a speech from the man supposed to lead a fractured and beleaguered GOP into a more colorful America, it clung tightly to familiar Republican themes. Though the general consensus seems to be that a GOP shift on immigration led by a young Latino senator will be enough to show the country that not all Republicans are rich white men named Mitt, the opening acts from Rubio do not amount to a move to the center. In fact, on nearly every issue he's remained quite tightly in line with the party's far right.
This makes one wonder if the Florida freshman's task as the GOP's front man is less about leading the Republican party toward a rebirth and new constituencies, and more about testing exactly how much the party can manage to stay the same without dying. Rubio has crafted himself as an indispensible implement in this pursuit. But it's a posture teetering on an edge and nobody's sure Rubio can pull it off.
"My parents immigrated here in pursuit of the opportunity to improve their life and give their children the chance at an even better one," Rubio said on Tuesday night. "They made it to the middle class, my dad working as a bartender and my mother as a cashier and a maid. I didn't inherit any money from them."
The storyline is a profound divergence from most GOP leaders and presidential hopefuls. But it's not at all clear what Rubio's identity changes, or what a more diverse Republican lineup will mean at the polls. No doubt Mitt Romney's oratorical brutishness on immigration locked in his particularly pitiful performance with Latinos, Asians and many others, but the party as a whole has been bashing immigrants for more than two decades and a few new faces won't heal that harm.
"The rhetoric and the image do matter, but only if it's connected to policy," says Matt Barreto, a political scientist at the University of Washington who studies race and elections. "Latinos think Republicans are racists. That's where they're starting. You can't just change what you say and who says it and not change policy."
Rubio's policy positions are standard-line tea party Republican, circa 2010.
"More government isn't going to help you get ahead. It's going to hold you back," he said on Tuesday, wasting little time establishing his conservative chops. He lambasted government spending, went in on taxes, Obamacare and the safety net, and took swipes at reproductive choice, "moral breakdown" and the "mistakes" of single mothers. Then yesterday, Rubio added to his arch-conservative credentials when he joined 21 other Republican senators to vote against the Violence Against Women Act.
So if Rubio sounds like any other tea party-era Republican, just with a very different origin story, what's left to bring on new constituencies, namely Latinos? A recent Pew Hispanic Center poll indicates that Latinos are more liberal on nearly every issue, with wide margins believing that government is a driver of positive change. Yet the Republican establishment thinks a shift on immigration alone will get them Latino votes.
"We can also help our economy grow if we have a legal immigration system that allows us to attract and assimilate the world's best and brightest," Rubio said on Tuesday. "We need a responsible, permanent solution to the problem of those who are here illegally."
But even as the press narrates the 41-year old Cuban American Senator as the new middle on immigration, the truth is that he's engaged in a white-knuckled cling to Republican doctrine on this issue as well. And he's volunteered to produce two impossibly contradictory results: delivery of a reform bill that's narrow enough to garner House Republican support, and a whole bunch of new Republicans voting Latinos.
"It's very precarious," said Barreto, the political scientist. "If he has the influence within his party to deliver votes on this issue, then he does have an opportunity to come out of this as a very favorable politician within the Latino community. Latinos know many Republicans are trying to block reform, and if Rubio unclogs it, it's an opportunity for him."
But Baretto and others say that it's not just any kind of reform that will work to change voter affinities. Polls show that when communities express support for immigration reform, they mean a bill that includes a path to citizenship.
That's a problem for Rubio because House Republicans indicated last week that they would not vote for a path to citizenship. That may be why Rubio has now adopted the tired GOP line that the border must be a fortress before any immigrant gets a green card.
"But first," Rubio said on Tuesday, before immigrants move toward citizenship, "we must follow through on the broken promises of the past to secure our borders and enforce our laws."
Immigrant rights advocates see the border-first demand as the seed of destruction for a reform bill. And for many, Rubio's insistence on the line raises questions about how serious he really is.
"We don't know if this is just an attempt to change the face, speak in Spanish, add diversity," said Marielena Hincapié, the head of the National Immigration Law Center. "Is it a window dressing or is it actual policy change? Have [Republicans] crossed the line where they'll sit down on a path to citizenship?"
Democrats will likely shun a bill that doesn't include clarity about how applicants become citizens and even if such a law passes, it's not clear that Republicans can pick up Latino votes with a watered down version of reform.
Quite aware of the hard road ahead, Rubio is trying to tamp down expectations, hoping that if somehow he fails either at pulling enough Republicans into a reform agreement or at getting enough Latinos to come the way of the GOP, he'll still have a chance at a political future.
"If anyone is under the illusion that suddenly our percentage of Hispanic voters will double, let me dissuade them," Rubio told Time.
The young Republican may have an impossible task no matter how it's cut, and he's done himself no favors. He is to lead Republicans forward on immigration and more broadly into a racially changed country by acting as a sort of gatekeeper of the political status quo loathed by the constituencies his party needs. And in that arrangement, the freshman from Florida is shaky at best.
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FOCUS | Democracy for Dollars |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=15952"><span class="small">Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company</span></a>
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Sunday, 17 February 2013 11:09 |
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Moyers writes: "The House of Representatives, where Congress gathers to hear the President, used to be known as 'The People's House.' But money power owns the lease now and runs the joint from hidden back rooms."
Bill Moyers is interviewed by Val Zavala, 01/06/12. (photo: SOCAL Connection)
Democracy for Dollars
By Bill Moyers, Moyers and Company
17 February 13
  he House of Representatives, where Congress gathers to hear the president, used to be known as 'The Peoples' House'," Bill says in this broadcast essay, "but money power owns the lease now, and runs the joint from hidden back rooms."
Bill spotlights Congressional leaders from both parties whose connections and possible allegiances to deep-pocketed backers makes one wonder who's really running our government, and buying our democracy.
Full Transcript:
BILL MOYERS:
Welcome. At the State of the Union speech, there’s always more than meets the eye. Just out of sight is the reality of how we are governed. The House of Representatives, where Congress gathers to hear the President, used to be known as “The People’s House.” But money power owns the lease now and runs the joint from hidden back rooms.
You're looking at the most expensive Congress money can buy. The House races last fall cost over one billion dollars. It took more than $700 million to elect just a third of the Senate. The two presidential candidates raised more than a billion a piece. The website Politico added it all up to find that the total number of dollars spent on the 2012 election exceeded the number of people on this planet -- some seven billion.
Most of it didn’t come from the average Joe and Jane. Sixty percent of all super PAC donations came from just 159 people. And the top 32 super PAC donors gave an average of 9.9 million dollars. Think how many teachers that much money could hire.
We’ll never actually know where all of the money comes from. One third of the billion dollars from outside groups was “dark money,” secret funds anonymously funneled through fictional “social welfare” organizations. Those are front groups, created to launder the money inside the deep pockets.
And don't let anyone ever tell you the money didn't make a difference. More than 80 percent of House candidates and two-thirds of Senate candidates who outspent their general election opponents won, and were present and counted as the new Congress prepared to hear the President. Remember, money doesn't necessarily corrupt legislators, but it certainly tilts them.
HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER at the State of the Union:
Members of Congress, I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you, the President of the United States.
BILL MOYERS:
So let's share some snapshots from the State of the Union. That’s Speaker of the House John Boehner, of course. He's led his party to protect Wall Street from oversight and accountability. The finance, insurance, and real estate industries gave him more than three million dollars last year.
Eric Cantor is the Republican majority leader in the House. Among his biggest donors--Goldman Sachs, masterminds of the mortgage-backed securities that almost sank the world economy. Cantor’s also the third largest recipient of money from the National Rifle Association in the House, which is one reason he's such a "big gun" there.
Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, may be in hot water. He's currently under investigation for allegations that he improperly intervened with government agencies on behalf of a big donor.
And there's Fred Upton, Republican from Michigan, chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee. What a coincidence. The oil and gas industry is one of his top donors, helping him raise the four million dollars he spent last year to win re-election.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrats of New York, have Wall Street as a constituent and patron. Her biggest contributors include JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and law firms that have advised them. His top donors include securities and investment firms, lawyers and legal firms, and lobbyists.
And there are fleeting glances of some familiar faces here tonight seen recently on our broadcast. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate, Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah, and Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana. All cited by "The New York Times" as suspects in that mysterious migration of half a billion dollars from taxpayers over to the bottom line of drug companies, especially the pharmaceutical giant Amgen. Would it surprise you to learn that over the past five years, Amgen has been one of the top ten donors to McConnell, Baucus, and Hatch?
As for our president--by attending a fundraiser on the average of every 60 hours during his bid for a second term, he once again broke the record for bringing home the bacon. Although the money power that controls Congress could thwart everything Obama proposed in his State of the Union address, there was not a single word in his speech about taming the power of private money over public policy.
And so it goes: The golden rule of politics. He who has the gold, rules.
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The War Christopher Dorner Brought Home |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=63"><span class="small">Marc Ash, Reader Supported News</span></a>
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Sunday, 17 February 2013 09:22 |
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Ash writes: "It's another flaming meltdown for the Los Angeles Police Department. One more in the proud history of America's most bizarre police force."
Navy service photo of Christopher Dorner. (photo: U.S. Navy)
The War Christopher Dorner Brought Home
By Marc Ash, Reader Supported News
17 February 13
Reader Supported News | Perspective
t's another flaming meltdown for the Los Angeles Police Department. One more in the proud history of America's most bizarre police force. Words fail.
It bears noting that Christopher Dorner's now hyper-analyzed manifesto makes perpetual use of military terminology. He makes it plain that he intends to use military tactics against LAPD personnel and their families. His use of the term "warfare" in the manifesto is ubiquitous.
"I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty. I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own, I'm terminating yours."
From where do such thoughts come? War, of course. Christopher Dorner was a Navy Reserve veteran. While not highly decorated, he did receive a number of citations, most notably for rifle marksmanship and pistol expertise, and he did serve in Iraq. His military experience and training were central to his manifesto and his war on the LAPD.
All men and women who are exposed to military training and combat are changed by the experience. Some more or differently than others, but everyone who lives through that horror is changed by it and they bring it home with them. PTSD affects people in different ways. The level of violence Christopher Dorner displayed was highly unusual for a U.S. civilian environment, but he was certainly not the first veteran to act out violently after returning from war.
Deborah Sontag and Lizette Alvarez, reporting for the New York Times in January of 2008, "found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war." Those statistics are now 5 years old. Today's figures would be significantly higher.
Flashback to 2003 and the Bush administration's frantic efforts to convince anyone, anywhere in the world, that there really was a need to for the U.S. to invade and occupy Iraq. Something about mushroom clouds and weapons of mass destruction. None of which ever materialized. What did materialize were unprecedented profits for military contracting firms and another American generation lost to a war without meaning.
Christopher Dorner earnestly felt that he had been defamed, railroaded and betrayed by the LAPD. The problem was his coping mechanism, or the lack thereof. He struggled throughout his life against the manifestations of an anti-African-American bias that was both overt and subtle. It was the militarism and the exposure to warfare that converted that sense of victimization into a heavily armed expression of rage.
A fully militarized police SWAT team goes door-to-door in Big Bear, Calif. searching for Christopher Dorner. (photo: AP)
America is trapped in a never ending cycle of enormously profitable warfare. The public relations packaging is always the same: "We are fighting for freedom and democracy." Who better to believe that than the idealistic and young? The truth however is cleverly hidden in plain sight: We are sending America's young men and women off to protect the global interests of wealthy and powerful mega-corporations based on US soil. The notion that this militarism somehow benefits the communities from which these newly adult soldiers come is flatly false. In fact American communities suffer great harm from these unnecessary military forays. The harm is both economic and social.
After Vietnam there was a sense that America had learned from what had occurred. Sadly that appears not to be that case. Those who profit from war will never learn. They can always find a rationale for conflict as long as lucrative government contracts are on the table. The larger and more important question is when will the American people learn? Without public support, the military profiteers will have to fight the wars themselves.
The Christopher Dorner saga is one more painful reminder that war must never be made without good cause and must never be supported by the country unless such cause exists. Beware: it's not a global force for good, it's a global force for profit.
Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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resident Obama's second Inaugural Address used soaring language to reaffirm America's commitment to the dream of equality of opportunity: "We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own."
