Economic Policy

CBO Data

Where the data are pointing

Prop. 29: Cigarette Tax in California

Proposition 29 plans to increase the tax on a pack of cigarettes in California by a dollar to use the tax-generated revenue on cancer research.

David F. Veneziano of the San Fransisco Chronicle supports Prop. 29 because he feels that increasing the price of tobacco would reduce the number of people consuming it, and thus reduce smoking. He feels that it is important to spend on cancer research because of its potential to save lives.

This editorial from the LA Times opposes Prop. 29 arguing that the National Institute of Health (NIH) already spends enough on cancer research. In addition California has more pressing areas to spend on, such as: retaining K-12 teachers, keeping parks open, public college education, health care for the infirm, and medical care for the poor.  

Birth rates and class divides

An interesting, and different, perspective on the issue of birth rates affecting government decisions and social structure: http://alvinology.com/2012/04/03/singapores-fertility-rate-is-now-the-lowest-in-the-world-will-singapore-born-singaporeans-become-extinct-soon/

This article cites the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) website, showing that 2012 estimates place Singapore as the country with the lowest fertility rate in the world. Singapore averages at 0.78 children born per woman. This article also cites the CIA website and shows that Singapore has the sixth highest net migration rate (the difference between the number of persons entering and leaving a country within a year per 1,000 persons) in the world. This is a big issue, and it is creating a great class divide in Singapore. In order to compensate for a decreasing labor force, the government is allowing vast inflows of foreign workers – changing Singapore’s social landscape. People worry, understandably, that the amount of “Singaporean” Singaporeans in Singapore is quickly dwindling with respect to the total population. Just found it interesting that in another part of the world, class divides are being created due to sharp declines in the fertility rate – and there’s really not much the government can do to target the root of this problem.

American Domestic Policy

Bloomberg reports:


The underlying data on age

Data on births outside marriage

Health

• Medicare for seniors, disabled people, and kidney patients
• Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California)
• White House summary of health bill.
• Report on financial effects
• Vaccine court

Social Welfare

• Social Security
• TANF
• Births ou

Education

• Education Stats on spending and performance (who's on top?)
• Creationism

Pell grants, student loans, the POTUS, Jimmy Fallon, and The Roots. It's pretty funny, and possibly relevant to students too. The video is of "the Barack-ness monster" appearing on late night TV to talk about his plan to keep the interest rates on stafford student loans low-- and he does it in an interesting way.

Entitlement spending compared to defense spending

I came across this chart, which I found quite interesting:

http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/defense-entitlement-spending

I was just wondering how spending on entitlements, such as Social Security, has interacted with spending on military defense. I also researched mandatory and discretionary spending; do these concepts factor into the relationship the graph portrays?

Bureaucracy and the Administrative State

IN RESPONSE TO VIKRANT'S QUESTION

Public Sector Unions

• Largest is AFSCME
• Largest federal is AFGE
• Others
• Political role

Regulation

• Administrative rules
• Instructions for IRS Form 1
• Growth of regulation:

Organizational Culture and Organizational Complexity

• The special case of the military
• DHS Organization Chart

The Citizen's Perspective

• A spaghetti chart
• Services for kids on the spectrum

An example of political participation on the Internet

Internet has changed the public's political participation. On the official website of the White House, an online program, "We the People-- Your Voice in Our Government" asks people's petitions online. According to the website, "the idea of petitioning the White House or the government isn’t new, but this online platform is." People can ask for petition, and the related government departments response to the petitions. People can also share the responses on Twitter and Facebook.

Judiciary, II

C-SPAN documentary on the court (start at 36:40)

Oyez: audio and transcript of oral argument

• Edwards v. Aguillard
•  The Health Care Cases

The current court

Followup on the Courts

In class, we discussed whether the prohibition of double jeopardy forbids federal and state authorities from prosecuting the same crime.  This essay in FindLaw explains that it does not:

In a federal system, different units of government may have different interests to serve in the definition of crimes and the enforcement of their laws, and where the different units have overlapping jurisdictions a person may engage in conduct that will violate the laws of more than one unit. 50 Although the Court had long accepted in dictum the principle that prosecution by two governments of the same defendant for the same conduct would not constitute double jeopardy, 51 it was not until United States v. Lanza 52 that the conviction in federal court of a person previously convicted in a state court for performing the same acts was sustained. ''We have here two sovereignties, deriving power from different sources, capable of dealing with the same subject-matter within the same territory . . . Each government in determining what shall be an offense against its peace and dignity is exercising its own sovereignty, not that of the other.'' 53 

Look here for more information about federal prisons.

Judiciary, I

A statute is act of a legislature (whether Congress or a state legislature) that declares, forbids, or commands something; a specific law.  Some references:

• Concise guide to federal statutes.
• Statutes at Large
• US Code
• State statutes
• National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws

After Congress passes law, the bureaucracy drafts rules:

• Federal Register
• Code of Federal Regulations

Then the courts may act:

• The Structure
• Guide to Supreme Court decisions
• State courts

The system in practice:

"The Lecture" from Anatomy of a Murder (start at 20:00). They show this scene in law schools.

C-SPAN documentary on the court (start at 36:40)

Texts from Hillary

Please excuse the lack of relevance to the course, but I felt obligated to share one of the funniest pieces of political humor I've ever come across.

I present to you all the "Texts from Hillary" Tumblr:

http://textsfromhillaryclinton.tumblr.com/

Presidency, II

• Federalist 70:  unity and energy
• Federalist 71:  the four-year term
• Federalist 73: veto

Tocqueville, p. 126: "If the Union’s existence were constantly menaced, and if its great interests were continually interwoven with those of other powerful nations, one would see the prestige of the executive growing, because of what was expected from it and of what it did."

Question on Responsibility and the Single Executive

As I read Federalist Paper #70, I wondered whether our government today follows Hamilton's plan. He wrote, "one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the executive...is that it tends to conceal faults and destroy responsibility." Having a single executive eliminates the "difficulty of detection" problem when something goes wrong in the executive office. Today, however, the increased size and number of departments and agencies seem to create the problem that the Founders tried to avoid by having a single executive. The complexity of the system makes it more difficult to determine who is really responsible for various issues. Although the president receives blame or praise for nearly everything that affects American citizens and is indeed responsible for the executive branch, I wonder whether the size of this branch of government could potentially allow a president to escape responsibility? Or perhaps it prevents us from holding others accountable who should be.

The Presidency I

Prologue:  The President at Easter

Congressional powers in Article I

• Presidential powers in Article II
• Prerogative power and the oath
• Reprieves and pardons
• Treaties
• Appointments and recess appointments

Washington

FDR



LBJ orders pants.

Hot Mic Moment

“This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” A hot mike was recording when President Obama said this to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in South Korea recently. Republicans have taken the comment as a way to mobilize voters, warning them of what Obama might do without reelection pressure. The incident begs a couple questions:

• In what ways do presidents usually, like the article claims, "become more ambitious with their agendas" in their second terms?
• Do gaffes and slips like this one usually affect public perception of officials , or does it often simply blow over?
• Could this comment and his earlier "spread the wealth around" comment spell real trouble for Obama?

Earmarks

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/02/house-gop-earmarks_n_1396368.html?ref=politics 

The reading this week briefly discussed the use of earmarks in bills. The way the text talked about the use of earmarks reflected the generally negative feeling in America towards their use. Many Americans view earmarks as wasteful government spending. Thus, in 2011, the Senate appropriations committee placed a two-year moratorium on earmarks.

But, are they actually harmful? According to CBSNews, earmarks count for less than a ½ a percent of the entire Congressional budget. Moreover, many of them target specific communities in need. President Obama has both condemned their use and yet approved legislation containing them. House Speaker Boehner, who was a strong proponent of the initial ban, has said he would consider reforms that reintroduce earmarks.

The Huffington Post article by Richard Cowan discusses the support for ending the ban on earmarks. One of the main reasons he cites is how earmarks increase the ability to pass legislation; they are used like tools in a bargain. Congressmen and women are willing to vote for bills they don’t necessarily favor if they can set funds aside for a certain project they care more about. The article however, doesn’t say whether earmarks are like riders – that they don’t need to be relevant to the bill. The fact that most earmarks go unnoticed when the bills are passed understandably leaves constituents with an uneasy feeling. That is the same feeling you might get when hearing John Conyers discuss how he votes on bills.

Congress, II

Congress and the New Media

• House Hub and House homepage
• Senate Hub and Senate homepage

Motives of members

• Reelection
• Power
• Policy

Federalist 57:

[The] House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the members an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people. Before the sentiments impressed on their minds by the mode of their elevation can be effaced by the exercise of power, they will be compelled to anticipate the moment when their power is to cease, when their exercise of it is to be reviewed, and when they must descend to the level from which they were raised; there forever to remain unless a faithful discharge of their trust shall have established their title to a renewal of it. I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society.

Federalist 63 on continuity and the Senate:

Yet however requisite a sense of national character may be, it is evident that it can never be sufficiently possessed by a numerous and changeable body. It can only be found in a number so small that a sensible degree of the praise and blame of public measures may be the portion of each individual; or in an assembly so durably invested with public trust, that the pride and consequence of its members may be sensibly incorporated with the reputation and prosperity of the community.

Tocqueville:

When you enter the House of Representatives in Washington, you feel yourself struck by the vulgar aspect of this great assembly. Often the eye seeks in vain for a celebrated man within it. Almost all its members are obscure persons, whose name furnishes no image to one’s thought. They are, for the most part, village attorneys, or those in trade. . . . In a country where instruction is almost universally widespread, it is said that the people’s representatives do not always know how to write correctly.

Life on the Hill

Congressional powers in Article I

Congress, I

The official version

A diagram

Introducing a bill:

Procedure


The House floor -- and CMC!