Pacific Progressive

Asking Questions Like the British Do

By Jitinder Kohli

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

The Obama administration announced 120 high-level goals for government departments and agencies as part of the president’s fiscal year 2011 budget this year. This is a welcome step—defining what government is trying to achieve is essential if public money is to be used wisely. But setting goals can only ever be the first step. What matters most is whether departments and agencies actually accomplish the goals. That requires a culture change across government, with a much stronger emphasis on delivering outcomes for society.

Achieving culture change in government is never easy, but the administration can learn some important lessons from the United Kingdom. British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared immediately after winning the general election in 2001 that a key priority for the second term was to “deliver” on the targets, or goals, that the government had set itself. Reducing mortality from heart disease and cancer, increasing school attainment, reducing crime, and decreasing road congestion were all key goals Prime Minister Blair promised the country.

This strong emphasis on “delivery” of goals was new—government’s key focus was not to be the laws it passed or the programs it administered but the outcomes it achieved for society. That required a culture change across government departments. Central to driving this change was a new unit set up by Prime Minister Blair in the days after the election. The Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit led by Professor Michael Barber went about its task by asking those responsible for delivering targets a set of simple but challenging questions about their strategy for achieving the goals—the effect was a significant culture change across the senior ranks of the British government.

Slay the Sacred Tax Cow: It's Time to Say No to Wasteful Tax Credits

By Sima J. Gandhi

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Slaying a sacred cow is messy and challenging. But the rewards can be tasty. As Mark Twain said, "Sacred cows make the best hamburger." Many tax breaks are sacred cows worth slaying.

The path to fiscal balance requires both prioritized spending and increased revenues, as CAP has previously noted. A smart way to cut spending is to eliminate wasteful programs and redirect funding streams away from programs that don't work to programs that do work. One form of spending that often is left out of the discussion, however, is spending that happens to be administered through the tax code.

These "tax expenditures"—the special credits, deductions, exclusions, exemptions, and preferential tax rates that deliver tax breaks—are functionally equivalent to government spending aimed at achieving a public policy objective. For example, say the government wants businesses to make their facilities more accessible to the disabled. It could offer businesses grants for taking action—government checks would subsidize building ramps, making restrooms wheelchair accessible, etc—or it could offer a "architectural barrier removal tax deduction" and a "disability access tax credit." These tax credits, just like a direct check, would subsidize businesses that make their facilities more accessible. The difference? Businesses get the money by paying lower taxes instead of through a government payment.

Spending administered through the tax code costs the federal government more than $1 trillion each year—which is more than 25 percent of its total spending.

Climate Patriots: A Military Perspective on Energy, Climate Change and National Security

from the Project on National Security, Energy and Climate at the Pew Charitable Trusts. 

Climate Patriots addresses how America's dependence on foreign oil puts our armed forces in harm's way and how the effects of climate change could lead to more humanitarian missions and political instability.

$1.2 Billion in Stimulus Spending in Orange County

This information is published by ProPublica.

OC has received over $1.2 billion in stimulus spending.  Even though  many local electeds needed to grandstand that they wouldn't take stimulus money, they did. The money kept OCTA busses running, students going to college, built roads, and created jobs.

Here is the Top 10 OC Stimulus Projects

1. $76.8 million to OCTA including $7.6 million for operations 
2. $60.7 million to Hensel Phelps Construction for building Bachelor Enlisted Quarters at Coronado Naval Base
3. $50 M to Sapphire Energy for renewable energy research and development of Sapphire Integrated Algal Biorefinery (IABR)
4. $47.8 million to CalTrans for highway planning and constructino
5. $32.9 million in Cash for Clunkers - $2 billion of stimulus money was used to extend the program.  Tom's Truck Center - South County received $1.3 million, Oremor of Tustin - $1.2 million, DWW III Co - $1.1 million.  An complete list of dealers is here.  The names listed are the corporate names, not the dealer names on the signs, so a little digging will turn up which car dealers benefited.
6. $19.3 million to Santa Ana Unified School District
7. $17.6 million to Capistrano Unified School District
8. $17.5 million to Garden Grove Unified School District
9. $15.2 million to Anaheim Union High School District
10. $13.2 million to the County of Orange

The full list of Orange County recipients is here.  

Public Opinion Snapshot: Public Says Tax the Rich, Regulate the Banks, and End the Filibuster

By Ruy Teixeira

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

There is clearly a lot of dissatisfaction in the country today. Much of it is traceable to the state of the economy. But it has clearly been exacerbated by the dysfunctional political process in Washington. And it’s equally clear that conservatives have had considerable success turning that dissatisfaction to their political advantage despite their own culpability in that dysfunction.

Dissatisfaction with the economy and the political process, however, is not the same thing as an embrace of conservative policies. Indeed, the public remains enamored of a wide range of progressive policies, as polling data regularly document. Consider these findings from the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. In that poll the public was asked whether the 2001 tax cuts for those making $250,000 or more should be allowed to expire, explicitly pointing out that that would raise taxes on that group of people. The public deemed it a good idea to eliminate these Bush-era tax cuts for the rich by a 2-1 ratio (62-31).

In the same poll, the public was asked whether we should increase regulations on banks to help prevent future financial crises or not increase regulations because that would discourage private investors. The public endorsed increasing bank regulation by 56-36.

Finally, conservatives have been very proud of their use of the filibuster in the Senate to “protect” the people from progressive legislation. But apparently the public is not convinced they need this kind of protection. By 50-44 the public backed eliminating the filibuster option and allowing legislation to pass with a simple majority.

Majority rule—now that’s a novel idea! Unfortunately, conservatives seem uninterested in promoting this concept, preferring to block progressive legislation by any means available, democratic or not. Perhaps it’s time for progressives to more forcefully remind the public of this conservative disregard for democracy. By these data the public is ready to listen.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. To learn more about his public opinion analysis go to the Media and Progressive Values page and theProgressive Studies program page of our website.

Stimulus Worked - Jobs Created, Jobs Saved, Unemployment Lowered

Up to 3.4 million people will be employed thanks to the stimulus program according to a new report released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).  The stimulus cut between 0.6% to 1.5% off the unemployment rates during 2010.  The gross domestic product (GDP) increased by at least 1.5% as a result of the stimulus.  

There are people who claim that the stimulus didn't work and not enough jobs were created for the money spent. The reality is that the economy was a lot of worse off than many people realized, and the stimulus dollars had to stretch further than planned to just get the results that were achieved.  Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has talked about the problem of the deeper than realized recession. 

The ARRA report is here.  Download 02-23-ARRA

Border Patrol and Mexican Police Make History at Arizona Border

by Sebastian Rotella, ProPublica

This article was published by ProPublica and co-published with The Tribune Washington bureau.

NOGALES, ARIZ. -- In a politically sensitive operation at the Arizona-Mexico border, U.S. Border Patrol agents and Mexican federal police officers are training together, sharing intelligence and coordinating patrols for the first time.

The goal of the historic partnership: a systematic joint attack on northbound flows of drugs and migrants, and southbound shipments of guns and cash. It is part of a major, unannounced crackdown started in recent months that involves hundreds of U.S. and Mexican officers in the border’s busiest smuggling corridor.

The initiative appears likely to expand. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Mexican Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna will sign a declaration Thursday in Mexico City agreeing to replicate the experiment elsewhere. Eventually, officials say, joint operations border-wide could lead to the creation of a Mexican force serving as a counterpart to the Border Patrol — an agency once regarded with nationalistic aversion in Mexico.

After Blame, Moving the Burden to Wall Street

This article and video were published by the Center for American Progress.

“We’re gonna need some tax increases,” argued Michael Ettlinger, Vice President for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress at a CAP event Tuesday (February 9, 2010) on the prospect of a financial transactions tax that would give the federal government and the American public some much-needed revenue. Ettlinger was joined by Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research and Ellen McCarthy, managing director for government affairs at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association on a panel moderated by Greg Ip, U.S. economics editor forThe Economist.

Looking for the Full Measure of Jack Murtha

Remembering a Man Who Spoke the Truth in Tough Times

By Scott Lilly

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Twenty years ago I was the staff director of the Democratic Study Group, an organization that among other things provided research to members of the House of Representatives. By 1990 we had expanded our subscriber base to more than 30 House Republicans and every Democrat in the House except one. The hold out was John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania. I offer this information simply to point out that Mr. Murtha and I disagreed on a great many things over the decades we knew each other. At the same time, I am deeply troubled by the negative tone of some of the coverage of his passing. Simply put, it does not take full measure of the man.

Jack Murtha fervently believed that the people of his district elected him to go to Washington and find a way to make their lives better. He recognized that the severe economic challenges facing that district required extraordinary efforts from the outside if they were to be solved, and he was in no way shy about using his position and skill as a legislator to try to make that happen. But Murtha was not the father of earmarking on appropriation bills, and he did not preside over the major growth in that practice that has led to recent controversies. In fact, earmarking in the defense bill tripled during the eight years after he gave up the chairmanship of that subcommittee in 1994.

A Move to Close the Health Care Disparities Gap

The President's 2011 Budget Addresses Health Inequities

By Lesley Russell

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Léalo en español

The president’s proposed 2011 federal budget comes at a time when congressional leaders are regrouping on health care reform legislation. In the meantime, many sick Americans must battle our broken health care system every day. That battle is particularly difficult for racial and ethnic minorities, who are disproportionately represented among the poor and the uninsured. The proposed health budget’s inclusion of a number of provisions that will address health care disparities is therefore most welcome. These provisions will help build the foundation for health care reform and work in tandem with proposals pending in Congress.

As a recent report from the Center for American Progress shows, there is much to be done in the context of the budget, health care reform, and beyond to provide equal health care for all Americans. Half of Hispanics and more than a quarter of African Americans do not have a regular doctor, compared with only one-fifth of white Americans. And 28 percent of Latinos and 22 percent of African Americans report having little or no choice in where to seek care, while only 15 percent of white Americans report this difficulty. The inevitable consequence is a form of “medical apartheid” and a gap in health outcomes that is growing, not diminishing.

The United States of Science: President's Budget Marks a Turning Point for Science

By Jonathan D. Moreno

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Read also: A First-Place Budget for Science: Administration Proposes Foundational Investments in Innovation

Behind the numbing fiscal calculations in the budget, the president faces up to the reality of a national government that must bring down a fiscal deficit that stretches as far as the eye can see. What is truly sobering is the possibility that our long-term budget challenges might lead to a crisis of confidence in the U.S. economy that could at some time not only wreak more havoc on the financial markets, but lead to the kind of unrest that fosters political extremism and international conflict. The steps taken by the Obama administration in the FY 2011 budget are the right way to go. The new budget will boost our economy in the short term to ensure tax revenues rise amid a broad economic recovery while also trimming government spending where it is least effective to bring down the deficit over the medium to long term.

The previous administration’s feckless fiscal irresponsibility threatens the power and prosperity of our country just as its equally feckless management of the economy led to the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and the “lost decade” of prosperity for most Americans. President Barack Obama’s new budget tackles those inherited problems, but what is most striking is that he and his administration see that the best hope for our economy and working Americans lies in creating new wealth and, just as important, a new sense of national purpose.

Another Green Budget

The President's Budget Makes Critical Clean-Energy Investments

By Daniel J. Weiss

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

After eight years of sparse investment in the clean-energy technologies of the future, President Barack Obama launched a crash program at the start of his presidency last year to create clean-energy jobs and catch up to our economic competitors who grew their clean-energy industries while Bush slept. The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Actbegan this task by investing $70 billion in clean-energy technologies and adopting $20 billion in clean-energy tax cuts, and President Obama’s proposed fiscal year 2011 budget would continue to build on these investments.

The ARRA programs will create more than a million new jobs, increase American energy independence, and cut global warming pollution. ARRA will double the amount of renewable electricity in the United States by 2012, weatherize 1 million low-income homes so that they are more energy efficient, and double domestic manufacturing capacity for wind turbines, solar panels, and other clean-energy equipment.

President Obama’s proposed FY 2011 includes larger investments in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and advanced research, despite the budget freeze and reductions in other discretionary spending programs. This budget would create jobs, increase American energy independence, cut global warming pollution, and make our economy more competitive.

Proposed FY 2011 budget increases for critical efficiency and renewables programs

Quadrennial Defense Review Fails to Match Resources to Priorities

By Lawrence J. Korb, Sean Duggan, Laura Conley

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

Earlier this week the Obama administration released its first Quadrennial Defense Review, or QDR, a congressionally mandated planning and strategy document that is supposed to provide a framework for the military’s force structure and thus shape its annual budgets. The document should recognize the nature of the current threat environment facing the United States and show how the Pentagon plans to develop the force needed to address it. While the 2010 QDR largely accomplished the former objective, it did not achieve the latter. The true measure of the effectiveness of any QDR is whether it ensures that the department’s budget supports its analysis—on this measure the 2010 QDR comes up short.

The QDR does support a number of progressive national security priorities. For example, it points out the necessity of rebalancing the military to address unconventional enemies, the benefits of enhanced relationships and cooperation with our international allies, and the need to be able to fight and win today’s wars while preparing to fight the wars of tomorrow. Significantly, the 2010 QDR abandons the Bush administration’s “Long War” construct that oversimplified the nature of the struggle against violent extremists.

Health Budget, Healthy Nation

President’s Budget Provides Backdrop to Health Care Reform

By Karen Davenport, Ellen-Marie Whelan

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

The national debate on health care reform is an important backdrop to the president’s fiscal year 2011 budget request, which was submitted to Congress earlier this week. Reforming our nation’s health care system to modernize health care delivery, improve equity and access, and ensure affordable coverage for all Americans has profound implications for our nation’s fiscal future, as well as the Department of Health and Human Services’ short- and long-term responsibilities. Health care reform legislation is currently “on hold” in the wake of the Massachusetts special election, but the president’s budget proposal maintains and builds on his commitment to health care reform.

The budget proposal particularly emphasizes the nation’s long-term fiscal health throughcritical proposals to reduce the budget deficit, including a spending freeze and a range of tax proposals. Health care reform is a third key component of deficit reduction. The budget does not advance a detailed set of health reform proposals, but the administration does use congressional proposals as the basis for estimating that health reform would yield $150 billion over 10 years in deficit-reducing federal savings.

Slimming Down the Defense Budget

By Lawrence J. Korb, Laura Conley, Sean Duggan

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

The Obama administration’s newly released fiscal year 2011 defense budget request continues to provide real increases to the historically high level of defense spending that the Bush administration initiated after September 11. The $708 billion budget, which includes the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, represents an increase of nearly 3.4 percent from the FY 2010 baseline budget, or a 1.8 percent real increase over inflation.

The budget does not rebalance the defense budget to meet the national security challenges of the 21st century as the Pentagon should have done as a result of the Quadrennial Defense Review—a planning and strategy document also released on Monday that defines our military’s force structure and thus shapes its upcoming budget plans. The FY 2011 defense budget instead tinkers at the margins of reallocating resources to urgent priorities and fails to scale back or eliminate poorly performing or unnecessary weapons programs that are based on threats from a bygone era.

Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families here at home must receive every dollar needed to keep them well equipped and safe. But the federal government can and should do more to rein in spending on the investment portion of the defense budget, which still includes a number of outdated, over budget weapons systems.