| November 2005
Politics & Government: Elections | The Supreme Court
Government Initiatives: Health Care | Homeland Security | Social Security & Welfare | Tax
Reform
Politics & Government:
C1 - The Inside View
Barnes, James A.
National Journal, November 12, 200, v37, # 46, pp3514-15
National Journal polled “insiders” in the American political system
on various aspects of Washington's political culture, on issues
ranging from special-interest groups, the news media, potential
presidential candidates, and most-admired politicians. The “insiders”
included both elected members of Congress and experts selected
because of their campaign experience, insider knowledge, and ties
to key voting blocs. Two poll results are highlighted here:
- In The Year 2025
Barnes, James A, & Peter Bell
National Journal, November 12, 2005, v37, #46, pp3516-17
What the key issues will be and what qualities voters will be
looking for in their leaders two decades down the road but two
potential presidential candidates — Republican andDemocrat — emerged
when political insiders were asked to make predictions. Democrat
Senator Barack Obama and, on the Republican side, George P. Bush,
the nephew of the current President. Will race and ethnic origin
be a deciding issue? Both potential candidates have parents of
different races. Obama's father was African (from Kenya), and
his mother is Caucasian (from Kansas). Bush's father is Caucasian
(from Florida), and his mother is Hispanic (from Mexico).
- Biting The Hands...
Vaida, Bara & Peter Bell
National Journal, November 12, 2005, v37, #46, pp3524-25
”National Journal asked poll participants, "Which special
interest would members of your party buck more often if the group
weren't so powerful?" the NRA was the No. 1 answer among
Republicans and tied for second place among Democrats -- a rare
instance in which the two major parties see almost eye-to-eye.
The other top GOP choices were Christian conservatives, drug manufacturers,
and anti-abortion groups. On the Democratic side, labor unions
ranked first. Abortion-rights groups shared the No. 2 spot with
the NRA.” Fulltext
C2 - All Political Ideas are Local
Shorto, Russell
New York Times Magazine, October 2, 2005, pp54-60
"Factionalism being the essence of politics, New York thus
had in its founding the ingredients to make it the nation's laboratory
of political ideas." This article on the political history
of New York City focuses on the city’s influence on politics in
the United States. The author discusses the nationwide strength
of New York politicians Rudolph Giuliani and Hillary Clinton.
He also analyses “the moralistic strain of U.S. politics” and
discusses New York’s changing role on the American political landscape
and the national political dialogue. Russell Shorto is a New York
Times Magazine contributing writer. Fulltext
C3 - Race: (Optional)
Gerken, Heather
New Republic, September 26, 2005, v233, #13, pp11-14
The author explores the history of the Voting Rights Act (VRA)
and questions if the VRA in its current form is still applicable
today. Gerken argues that the act is an outdated piece of legislation
that should be should be reworked to ensure more efficient election
reform. Currently, all state election law changes must be approved
by the federal government, creating a large backlog that hinders
election law reform. Gerken believes that local government and
civil rights groups can work together to ensure there is no voter
discrimination. Heather Gerken, an election law expert, is
a professor at Harvard Law School. Fulltext
C4 - Building Confidence in U.S. Elections: Report of the
Commission on Federal Election Reform
Report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, September
2005, 113p
Polls indicate that many Americans lack confidence in the electoral
system. This report represents a comprehensive proposal for modernizing
the U.S. electoral system built on five pillars: “(1) a universal
and up-to-date registration list, accessible to the public; (2)
a uniform voter identification system that is implemented in a
way that increases, not impedes, participation; (3) measures to
enhance ballot integrity and voter access; (4) a voter-verifiable
paper trail and improved security of voting systems; and (5) electoral
institutions that are impartial, professional, and independent.”
Co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary
of State James A. Baker, III. Fulltext
C5 - Separate and Unequal Effects: Information, Political
Sophistication and Negative Advertising in American Elections
Stevens, Daniel
Political Research Quarterly, September 2005, v58, #3, pp413-426
“This article examines the effects of negative political advertising
in American elections. Studies of negative advertising have become
unproductively bogged down on the question of whether or not more
or less exposure to negative advertising leads to higher or lower
turnout. [The author] take a step back in the causal chain by
looking at its effect on the kinds of information individuals
bring to the voting decision. [He] presents and tests a theory
that individuals lower in political sophistication gain little
or no information from negative advertising. In contrast, higher
sophisticates gain a great deal of information. The theory is
tested in an experiment and through analysis of American National
Election Study (ANES) data.” Daniel Stevens is an assistant
professor of political science at Hartwick College. Order Article
C6 - Congress and the Courts: Current Policy Issues
Oleszek, Walter
CRS Report for Congress, September 20, 2005, 54p
The purposes of this report are to examine the Congress-court
connection along several discrete, but overlapping dimensions.
First, the constitutional authority of Congress and the judiciary
is summarized briefly. Second, the report highlights the court’s
role as legislative-executive “umpire” and federal-state “referee”
in our constitutional system. Third, the report discusses the
court’s part in statutory interpretation as well as the diverse
ways Congress may “check and balance” the judiciary. Walter
Oleszek is Senior Specialist in the Government and Finance Division
of the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress
in Washington DC. Fulltext
C7 - Answer Key
Rosen, Jeffrey
New Republic, November 21, 2005, v 233, #21, pp16-20
”This article focuses on Samuel Alito Jr., the recent nominee
to the U.S. Supreme Court. The author believes that the relevant
question regarding Alito is whether he believes in judicial deference
to Congress, the states, and previous Supreme Court precedents,
or whether he has an agenda to turn back the constitutional clock
to the pre-New Deal era. His dissent from his colleagues' decision
to uphold the constitutionality of a federal law prohibiting the
possession or transfer of machine guns suggests Alito might be
a conservative activist. His stances on abortion, however, are
nuanced and restrained.” Fulltext
C8 - Are the Justices Serving Too Long? An Assessment of Tenure
on the U.S. Supreme Court?
McGuire, Kevin T.
Judicature, July-August 2005, v89, #1, pp8-15
With an aging Supreme Court, the question of life tenures for
Supreme Court justices has been raised. McGuire explores the question
of life tenure by looking at the history of the Court as it relates
to age. He notes that the ages of appointment and retirement for
Supreme Court justices from the nineteenth century to the present
has remained relatively unchanged -- in contrast to the growing
perception that justices are serving longer terms now than in
past decades. McGuire concludes that there is no need to create
legislation to force justices out of the Court at a certain age. Kevin T. McGuire is an associate professor of political science
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Fulltext
Government Initiatives:
C9 -This Man Wants To Heal Healthcare
Mullaney, Timothy J.
Business Week, October 31, 2005, # 3957, pp74-80
“Give every American an electronic record of their health care
by 2014, and link all the records into one giant medical Internet,
called the National Health Information Network Inc.” The article
describes the challenging task confronting David J. Brailer, the
National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the
Department of Health and Human Services. “He is leading President
George W. Bush's effort to remake the $1.9 trillion U.S. health-care
business by using information technology to save money and lives.”
Timothy J. Mullaney is an editor at Business Week. Fulltext
C10 - Can HIT (Health Information Technology) Lower Costs and
Improve Quality?
Hillestad, Richard et al
RAND Corporation Research Brief, RB-9136-HLTH, 2005, 5p
Health Information Technology could save money and improve health
care quality according to a two-year RAND study. The detailed
analysis shows that electronic medical records systems could save
more than $77 billion annually by reducing redundant care, speeding
patient treatment, improving safety and keeping patients healthier.
The widespread adoption of electronic medical records is a major
domestic initiative of President Bush. Richard Hillestad is a
senior management scientist at RAND Corporation. Fulltext
C11 - Winning the Long War: A Study Guide for Understanding
the Public Policy Challenges of the War on Terrorism
Carafano, James Jay, Paul Rosenzweig, and Rebekah Robblee
Heritage Foundation, September 8, 2005, Special Report #04
The authors provide a guide to their recent book, “Winning the
Long War: Lessons from the Cold War for Defeating Terrorism and
Preserving Freedom” (Heritage Foundation, 2005). The book “considers
the lessons learned from the failures and successes of the Cold
War and takes a comparative look at the strategies and policies,
both foreign and domestic, implemented at that period in history
and those taking shape during the U.S.-led war on terrorism.”
The article provides a summary of each chapter, a series of discussion
points taken from topics covered in that chapter, and recommends
additional reading materials. James Carafano, Senior Fellow
for National Security and Homeland Security. Paul Rosenzweig,
Center for Legal & Judical Studies, Heritage Foundation. Fulltext
C12 - Things Left Undone
Clarke, Richard A.
Atlantic Monthly, November 2005, v296, #4, pp 37-38+
The article presents information about the homeland security of
the United States. It examines the response of the U.S. administration
as well as the government of the U.S. President George W. Bush
to the destructive hurricane, Katrina. The failure to anticipate
the ravages of Hurricane Katrina has for weeks been the object
of trenchant observation. Some have pointed out that federal funding
for bolstering the levees was denied, and that federal assets
were not made available before the hurricane. The problem behind
the negligent response to Katrina certainly begins with the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, now buried in a big department, its
staff reduced by 10 percent and its budget cut. Richard A.
Clarke was the national coordinator for security and counter-terrorism
for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W.Bush, and is the author
of Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. Fulltext
C13 - From Enabling to Bootstrapping: Welfare Workers' Views of Substance
Abuse and Welfare Feform
Dohan, Daniel, Laura Schmidt, and Stuart Henderson
Contemporary Drug Problems, Fall 2005, v32, #3, p429-, 28p
“In the United States, a trope of "deservingness" shapes
policy related to public aid and substance abuse. In recent decades,
poor people with substance use problems have increasingly been
seen as "undeserving." Federal welfare reform, passed
in the mid-1990s, is an important exemplar of this trend. Welfare
reform empowered line workers to directly and indirectly withhold
aid from people with substance use problems. This paper uses in-depth
interviews with workers to explore their views of these new policies....
Workers' embrace of these policy changes appears likely to shape
how substance abuse problems are addressed within the welfare
system.” Daniel Dohan is an assistant professor at the Institute
for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco.
Laura Schmidt an assistant professor, and Stuart Henderson
a research associate, at the same institute. Fulltext
C14 - The Continental Divide
James K Galbraith
Mother Jones, November 2005, v30, #6, p32-, 3p
”There are some things everyone knows. One of them is that while
modern Europe has social democracy-with generous benefits, long
vacations, and short working hours-this comes at a terrible price:
high and chronic unemployment, technological stagnation, and social
torpor. Another is that America has a weak welfare state, with
low wages for the unskilled but plenty of jobs. As everyone says,
we are unequal but dynamic, entrepreneurial, and socially fluid.
Left and right agree that these are facts. They disagree only
on what to do about them.” The author disagrees. He claims these
so-called facts are myths and compares European countries' tax
systems and welfare policies to those of the United States to
prove his point. James K. Galbraith is Chair in Government/Business
Relations and Professor of Government at the LBJ School of Public
Affairs at the University ofTexas in Austin. He writes a column
called "Econoclast" for Mother Jones, and occasional
commentary in many other publications. Fulltext
C15 - Tax Reform Options in a Real World
Gale, William G.
Brooking Institute, October 2005, 14p (Published as Chapter 2
in Toward Fundamental Tax Reform by Alan J. Auerbach and Kevin
A. Hassett. American Economic Institute Press, 2005).
“The basic description of a desirable tax system is broadly accepted:
It should raise the revenues needed to finance government spending
in a manner that is as simple, equitable, stable, and conducive
to economic growth as possible. Although people agree that the
current system clearly falls short of at least some of these goals,
it is not easy to point to examples around the world that work
much better." William G. Gale is Deputy Director and
Senior Fellow, Economic Studies Co-director, Urban-Brookings Tax
Policy Center. Fulltext
C16 - Simple, Fair, & Pro-Growth: Proposals to Fix America's
Tax System: Report of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal
Tax Reform
November 2005, online edition, 272 total pages
In creating the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform
in January 2005, President Bush instructed the Panel to recommend
options that would make the tax code simpler, fairer, and more
conducive to economic growth. The Panel, headed by former senators
Republican Connie Mack and Democrat John Breaux, evaluated several
reform proposals. After 12 public meetings in five states and
Washington D.C., the Panel reached consensus to recommend two
tax reform plans -- the Simplified Income Tax Plan and the Growth
and Investment Tax Plan. While they use different approaches,
the plans share a common goal of providing simple and straightforward
ways for Americans to save free of tax, and lowering the tax burden
on productivity-enhancing investment. Fulltext
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