government - Robert Maguire on Diigo

10 Nov 09

For these reasons, reading an actual bill is a completely useless exercise for the vast majority of members of Congress and staff. They rely heavily on committee reports that are supposed to accompany all bills coming up for a floor vote. These reports are written by committee staff and are required to faithfully reflect the bill's intent. They may contain important details, clarifications, data, citations to hearings, and supporting materials, such as a section-by-section analysis, that allow the legislation to be intelligible to non-lawyers and other non-experts.
In addition, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have organizations that review all bills coming up for a vote, summarize them and offer political perspectives. Here, for example, is the House Republican Conference report on the health bill. If one's party holds the White House, a member may find the Statement of Administration Policy to be important in understanding a bill and how to vote on it. Here is the SAP on the health bill. The Congressional Budget Office's analysis may also be important. Here is its report on the health bill.
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- Finally, on important bills a member's office is flooded with analyses by trade groups, think tanks, and vast numbers of lobbyists. In many cases they employ very high-powered lawyers who go through legislation with a fine-tooth comb and are more than happy to make their expertise available for free to any congressional staffer seeking guidance.
- In each party there are go-to members who specialize in particular issue areas--health, taxes, banking, energy, agriculture, whatever. In most cases, they are members of the committees with primary jurisdiction and more often than not are the chairman or ranking minority membe

08 Nov 09

The “Government-Run” Mantra | FactCheck.org

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The claim that the House bill would amount to "government-run health care" suffered a blow last week, when the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the so-called "public plan" in the revised bill wouldn’t offer much in the way of competition to private insurers. But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from repeating the claim.

Tom Tancredo Storms Off the Ed Show • VideoSift: Online Video *Quality Control

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05 Nov 09

Matthew Yglesias » The New American Economy

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Here he is explaining why Europe isn’t a zero growth dystopia:

In America, people tend to think of their federal taxes as money down a rat hole and react accordingly. But in Europe, the people are more apt to feel they are simply paying for services with their taxes that Americans have to pay out of pocket.

This fact is best illustrated by health care. Most Americans get health insurance through their employers. The cost reduced their cash wages by 7.9 percent on average in 2008 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If we had national health insurance and insurers were entirely relieved of this expense, they could afford to pay their workers 7.9 percent more and be no worse off. If the payroll tax went up by 7.9 percent to pay for health insurance, it would all be a wash, but both taxes and government spending would be higher. [...] The second reason why taxes have less of an impact on incentives in Europe than one might expect is because European countries raise much more of their revenue from consumption taxes than the United States does.

My friendly Nudge of the day. « Rortybomb

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04 Nov 09

The real State-Defense turf war begins | The Cable

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The forum for this fight: a new interagency policy task force being managed by the National Security Council and being pushed along by the White House's Office of Management and Budget, which needs to start forming its fiscal 2011 budget and wants to sort out who gets the funding for a variety of foreign aid and security assistance programs.
The range of funds up for grabs between the different departments includes everything from coalition support funds and combatant commanders' initiative funds to foreign military financing, the Commanders Emergency Response Program (CERP) funding, and many more.
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- although the NSC is managing the process, it's understood that the principals themselves will have the final say.
- At the Pentagon
- At State
- Michele Flournoy
- Sources inside the process tell The Cable that the Pentagon effort, supported by civilian contractors, is far more massive than at State, giving DOD an advantage in terms of research, preparedness, and execution.
- Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro
- One pool of money at the center of the debate is what's called "1206" authority, which covers money, over $1 billion since 2006, for all equipping and training of other countries' security forces who are involved in the "overseas contingency operations" but not Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Here, the Pentagon brass is said to be amenable to allowing the initial funding to go through State, provided they have some influence over its distribution, such as a "duel key" mechanism whereby they would be able to approve or veto expenditures.
- But sources said the Pentagon is receiving blowback from the commanders in the field
- From the combatant commands' point of view, they don't trust the State Department's ability to raise money or to act with the agility with which they can act. So they want the money on their turf.
- Congress is also trying to drive some of these authorities toward the State Department, namely the money that goes to support the Iraqi Security Forces and what's call the Pakistani Counterinsurgency Capability Fund (PCCF).

27 Oct 09

Why the Economy Needs Spending, Not Tax Cuts | Capital Gains and Games

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But he or whoever ghosted this op-ed for him neglected to check the facts.
According to the Congressional Budget Office's January 2009 estimate for fiscal year 2009, outlays were projected to be $3,543 billion and revenues were projected to be $2,357 billion, leaving a deficit of $1,186 billion.
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- Keep in mind that these estimates were made before Obama took office, based on existing law and policy, and did not take into account any actions that Obama might implement
- unless one thinks that McCain would have somehow or other raised taxes and cut spending (with a Democratic Congress), rather than enacting a stimulus of his own, then a deficit of $1.2 trillion was baked in the cake the day Obama took office.
- According to CBO, it ended with spending at $3,515 billion and revenues of $2,106 billion for a deficit of $1,409 billion.
- To recap, the deficit came in $223 billion higher than projected, but spending was $28 billion and revenues were $251 billion less than expected. Thus we can conclude that more than 100 percent of the increase in the deficit since January is accounted for by lower revenues. Not one penny is due to higher spending.
- According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, these tax cuts reduced revenues in FY2009 by $98 billion over what would otherwise have been the case.
- As if we needed further evidence that transfers have virtually no stimulative effect, the Bureau of Labor Statistics just issued a report on the 2008 tax rebate showing that only 30 percent of the money was spent; the rest was saved
- On January 24, 2008, George W. Bush assured the country that a tax rebate was just the right medicine to prevent an economic downturn.
- It continues to amaze me that no one on the left or right seems to have noticed that the essential factor causing the economic downturn is a decline in velocity: the number of times that money turns over in the economy, which is measured as the ratio of the money supply to GDP. In 2006 and 2007 this ratio was 1.9. I take that as normal. In 2008, velocity fell to 1.76 and currently is 1.69. (I divided end of year M2 into 4^th quarter GDP; the latest figure is 2^nd quarter GDP divided by end of June money supply.)
  
  If velocity were 1.9 instead of 1.69, 2^nd quarter GDP would have been $1.6 trillion higher. Therefore, no recession. The output gap would have simply disappeare
- I continue to believe that the Republican position is nonsensical. Final proof is that the previously cited CBO report shows total federal revenues coming in at 14.9 percent of the gross domestic product in FY2009. According to the Office of Management and Budget, one has to go back to 1950 to find a year when federal revenues were lower as a share of GDP. For reference, revenues averaged 18 percent of GDP during the Reagan administration and were never lower than 17.3 percent - 2.4 percent of GDP above where they are now.

PolitiFact | Obama's Columbia 'thesis' is all fiction, dreamed up by blogger

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When we last spoke with Matthew Avitabile, a grad student in upstate New York who writes a blog called Jumping in Pools, he had stirred up a hornet's nest with a satirical posting that claimed President Barack Obama wanted soldiers to stop taking an oath to the Constitution and instead pledge their loyalty to the president himself.

That put some conservative bloggers into a tizzy. "Good g*d -- Obama is an egomaniac like we've never seen before. Another Hitler on the rise. This guy is just trashing everything the Consitution stands for," wrote someone named Kitty on the blog Tree of Liberty. The report kept spreading, getting picked up by other bloggers and circulating as a chain e-mail. It earned a Pants on Fire from our Truth-O-Meter.

DAT2010mint.jpg (JPEG 圖片，3500x2333 像素) - 已縮放 (34%)

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Chris Matthews to Conservative Party: SPEAK ENGLISH • videosift.com

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26 Oct 09

The Economic Case for Slashing Carbon Emissions | Green Business | Reuters

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"The Economics of 350."
McKinsey & Company, an international consulting firm, has carried out detailed studies of the costs of hundreds of emission-reducing technologies. They find that some emissions can be eliminated for no cost or even an economic savings; more than half of worldwide business-as-usual emissions in 2030 could be eliminated at very small total cost. The net costs of reducing carbon emissions (i.e. investment costs, minus the value of energy saved) go down when the price of oil goes up, and vice versa. McKinsey's entire package of reductions, eliminating more than half of world emissions, would have zero total cost if the price of oil were $90 per barrel.
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- Both assume high oil prices - up to $140 per barrel for Greenpeace - along with rapid change in emissions-reduction technologies.
- Alternatively, we know we can afford to devote 2.5 percent of income to protection against a remote but disastrous threat - because we already do, year after year. In 68 countries, military spending exceeds 2.5 percent of GDP. In the United States and China, the top greenhouse gas emitters, military spending absorbs more than 4 percent of GDP. Both countries would be safer, not more vulnerable, if they diverted half of their defense spending to defense against climate crisis.
- The most important conclusion of our research involves what we did not find.
- There are no reasonable studies saying that a 350 ppm stabilization target will destroy the economy. This is not surprising. The ominous recent research on potential climate damages does not examine the cost of doing something; instead, it looks at the cost of doing nothing about emissions.
- If the worst happens, our grandchildren will inherit a degraded Earth that does not support anything like the life that we have enjoyed. On the other hand, if we prepare for the worst but it does not quite happen, we will have invested more than was absolutely necessary - in perfect hindsight - in clean energy, conservation, and carbon-free technologies. Which extreme presents the greater danger?
- the public sector must also guide research on clean energy technologies. Despite free-market mythology to the contrary, this has worked well in the past. Wind power is profitable today as a result of decades of government investment in the United States and Europe. In another arena, the U.S. government essentially invented microelectronics in the 1950s and 1960s: At first, almost all transistors, integrated circuits, and the like were bought by agencies such as the Pentagon and NASA, because no one else could afford them. Just a few decades of massive government purchases of these items turned microelectronics into the premier private-sector success story of the late-20th century, transforming everyone's life in countless unexpected ways.

21 Oct 09

Department Organization

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Within the Executive Branch, the Department of State is the lead U.S. foreign affairs agency, and the Secretary of State is the President's principal foreign policy adviser. The Department advances U.S. objectives and interests in shaping a freer, more secure, and more prosperous world through its primary role in developing and implementing the President's foreign policy.
supports the foreign affairs activities of other U.S. Government entities including the Department of Commerce and the Agency for International Development
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- provides an array of important services to U.S. citizens and to foreigners seeking to visit or immigrate to the U.S
- little more than 1% of the total federal budget
- paid for by the foreign affairs budget
- 12 cents a day for each American citizen
- peace
- opening markets abroad
- developing nations establish stable economic environments
- Bringing nations together to address global problems such as cross-border pollution, the spread of communicable diseases, terrorism, nuclear smuggling, and humanitarian crises.
- developing and implementing foreign policy
- Managing the foreign affairs budge
- Leading and coordinating U.S. representation abroad
- conveying U.S. foreign policy to foreign governments and international organizations
- The services the Department provides include:
- Protecting and assisting U.S. citizens living or traveling abroa
- Assisting U.S. businesses in the international marketplace;
- Coordinating and providing support for international activities
- official visits
- (local, state, or federal government
- Keeping the public informed about U.S. foreign policy and relations with other countries and providing feedback from the public to administration officials
- The Department of State conducts all of these activities with a small workforce comprised of Civil Service and Foreign Service employees. In fact, the Department employs fewer people than do many local governments -- for example, in Memphis, Tennessee or Baltimore, Maryland.
- a total of more than 250 posts around the world
- The U.S. maintains diplomatic relations with about 180 countries and also maintains relations with many international organizations
- In the United States, about 5,000 professional, technical, and administrative Civil Service employees

18 Oct 09

Vote: Expressing the sense of Congress regarding the freedom, security, and stability of Taiwan. (H CON RES 200)

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16 Oct 09

GOP House members call for investigation of Muslim political activity - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

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EPA to Clamp Down on Water Polluters : TreeHugger

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Perhaps in response to recent revelations that hundreds of coal plants across the country are dumping waste into lakes and rivers where Americans get their drinking water, the EPA has announced it will be getting tough on enforcing the Clean Water Act. Here's what it's planning to do to keep our drinking water safe.

15 Oct 09