Todd Suomela's Library tagged deficit →  View Popular, Search in Google

video economics deficit american politics

"Almost all of the $8 in added debt since 2000 can be traced to policies enacted under the cover of post-September 11th nationalism; these policies cemented the transition from neoliberalism to full-blown neoconservatism. Nothing more accurately illustrates the contradictory movements of the neoliberal project than the biography of the fundamentalist son of an American-owned autocrat, who spent millions of American dollars expelling the Soviets from Afghanistan, then bankrolled and organized September 11th, then was assassinated by the US and dumped into the ocean."

debt crisis government 2011 congress republicans 2000s federal deficit

Public science is basic scientific research funded by governments, and just in America alone it's led to breakthroughs in everything from medicine to clean energy. But now public science is under threat. Here's why — and why we can't afford to lose it.

science public benefits research funding government budget deficit politics economics

"You don't need look far to see that consensus in action -- just check out the current debt ceiling brouhaha. Paraded around by carnival barkers as supposed proof of unprecedented division and rancor, the moment's manufactured crisis in Washington actually exemplifies all the hallmarks of transpartisan consensus, as the Democratic president and the Republican congressional leadership essentially agree that Social Security and Medicare should be slashed, corporate taxes should be cut, taxes on the wealthy shouldn't be significantly raised and defense spending should face only minimal reductions. The only real "debate" is about the specific numbers -- not about whether such an extreme set of priorities is the proper way to balance a budget."

politics consensus agreement partisanship bipartisanship deficit debt ideology

"These data suggest that conflict over climate change, far from reflecting a deficit in public comprehension of scientific information, demonstrates how adept people are in forming beliefs that express their group commitments. Should that surprise anyone? Right or wrong, the risk perceptions of an ordinary individual won't actually affect the climate: the contribution an individual makes to carbon emission levels by her personal behavior as a consumer, or to climate change policymaking by her personal behavior as a voter, is just too small to matter. If, however, an individual (whether a university professor in Massachusetts or an oil-rig worker in Oklahoma) forms a belief about climate change that is heretical within her community, she might well forfeit the friendship and respect of people she depends on most for support in her everyday life."

climate global-warming psychology perception deficit science education bias cognition

science communication public-understanding deficit sts

"To keep pace with modern communications, scientists need to reflect on the institutional and philosophic frameworks they use to communicate scientific information to the public. At the AAAS panel, Lessl presented two principles he considers critical in order for scientists to rethink how they communicate with the public:

Personal knowledge always trumps technical knowledge in communication- Scientists often assume that scientific understanding is all that matters; they resist the idea that the decision making process involves personal values and biases of the audience.
Scientific knowledge cannot take the place of prudence in public affairs –As Lessl argues, people “bring to the table a variety of truth standards: moral judgment, common sense judgment, a variety of metaphysical perspective, and ideological frameworks.”"

science communication deficit advocacy public-understanding

"The United States of America also uses dollars as a unit of account for tallying up assets and liabilities, but the wealth of the United States is properly measured not by how many dollars there are but by what real production we’re engaged in and what real stock of assets we possess. "

economics metaphor budget spending deficit money fiscal-policy family

republican government deficit debt rules rule-making politics fiscal-policy

taxes tax-cuts budget federal government deficit

Tries to connect Democratic Senator William Proxmire's 'Golden Fleece' awards from the 1970s and 1980s to the current public rejection of all government spending. A good government idea taken to an absurd extreme by bad-faith Republicans.

history deficit government spending money taxes politics 1970s 1980s fiscal-policy

Ten or 20 years ago, you could plausibly deem Social Security's finances among the most pressing national problems. Those who were willing to take on the problem were admired for their farsightedness, bipartisanship, and seriousness of purpose. Social Security's place on our list of national problems has long since been overtaken, but, among Washington establishment types who remember those days, the issue retains its totemic significance. Entitlement hysteria has become less a response to a crisis than an expression of statesmanship.

social-security politics entitlement reform economics debt deficit government ideology