All posts tagged: federal government

Confidence in US institutions continues to decline

Confidence in US institutions continues to decline

Published by skeptic

Public confidence in the U.S. government, judiciary and military has plummeted, placing the country behind most other Group of Seven (G7) nations, according to a new Gallup analysis. Approximately 68% of Americans lack confidence in their national government. Confidence in the judiciary stands at a low 42%. Even the U.S. military, a traditionally popular institution, experienced a reported drop in public confidence, from 90% in 2021 to 81% last year. The G7 is made up of the leading industrial nations: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Among the G7, Germany exhibited the lowest level of public confidence in its military, with nearly 60% expressing a lack of confidence. The American public appears split on the nation’s military budget, even though the United States spends more on its military than all other G7 nations combined. Approximately 35% think spending is too high, 29% believe it is too low, and 33% consider it the right amount. “There’s no smoking gun that explains all of it,” Benedict Vigers, a Gallup analyst, told …

Trump Would Break the Budget

Trump Would Break the Budget

Published by skeptic

A decision Donald Trump made in his first presidential term has triggered one of the most important policy choices at stake in this year’s election. The massive tax cuts for individuals that Trump signed into law in 2017 will expire at the end of 2025 unless Congress and the next president act to extend them. So far, the question of whether to preserve the Trump tax cuts has received almost no attention in the early stages of a presidential contest dominated by other issues (including abortion, inflation, and immigration), Trump’s legal troubles, and Joe Biden’s age. But the fate of Trump’s expansive and expensive tax cuts will frame all the budget decisions for the federal government over the next decade, determining how much money is left for other priorities—including investing in children, cutting taxes for the middle class, and preserving entitlement programs for seniors. “It is the largest economic-policy debate of the decade, with trillions of dollars on the table,” Chuck Marr, the vice president for federal tax policy at the Center on Budget and …

Joe Biden and Donald Trump Have Thoughts About Your Next Car

Joe Biden and Donald Trump Have Thoughts About Your Next Car

Published by skeptic

Get ready for the EV election. Doug Mills / The New York Times / Redux March 20, 2024, 6:32 PM ET The Biden administration earlier today issued a major new rule intended to spur the country’s electric-vehicle industry and slash future sales of new gas-powered cars. The rule is not a ban on gas cars, nor does it mandate electric-vehicle sales. It is a new emissions standard, requiring automakers to cut the average carbon emission of their fleets by nearly 50 percent by 2032. It would speed up the transformation of the car industry: The simplest way for automakers to cut emissions will likely be to shift more of their fleets to electric and hybrid models, and the Biden administration estimates that the rule would result in electric vehicles making up as much as half of all new cars sold by 2032. It also gives the country more of a chance of meeting the administration’s goal of cutting U.S. emissions in half by 2030 and eliminating them by 2050. The final rule is a less …

Why Oregon’s Drug Decriminalization Failed

Why Oregon’s Drug Decriminalization Failed

Published by Sam

America’s most radical experiment with drug decriminalization has ended, after more than three years of painful results. Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has pledged to sign legislation repealing the principal elements of the ballot initiative known as Measure 110: Possessing hard drugs is again a crime in Oregon, and courts will return to mandating treatment for offenders. Oregonians had supported Measure 110 with 59 percent of the vote in 2020, but three years later, polling showed that 64 percent wanted some or all of it repealed. Although the measure was touted by advocates as a racial-justice policy, support for its repeal was especially strong among African American and Hispanic Oregonians. The key elements of Measure 110 were the removal of criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of drugs such as methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl, and a sharper focus, instead, on reducing the harm that drugs cause to their users. More than $260 million were allocated to services such as naloxone distribution, employment and housing services, and voluntary treatment. The original campaign for the measure …

Stop Trying to Understand Trump Voters as if They Are Aliens

Stop Trying to Understand Trump Voters as if They Are Aliens

Published by skeptic

If Trump Wins In The Atlantic’s January/February issue, 24 contributors considered what Donald Trump could do if he were to return to the White House. Explore the April 2024 Issue Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read. View More The Atlantic’s January/February issue performs a valuable service by raising the country’s awareness of what’s in store should Donald Trump be reelected president. In the same way, the United States ought to understand how reelecting Joe Biden might benefit Americans and improve world security. We also need to learn about the inner workings of the Biden administration, its future policies and programs, and how another four years could affect the quality of American lives. Todd EverettHealdsburg, Calif. Although the various articles in the “If Trump Wins” issue may have been accurate, I fear they didn’t go far enough in analyzing the real problem: the Republican Party. Few of Donald Trump’s successes as president could have been accomplished without the full support of nearly the entire GOP. Few of Trump’s second-term …

The U.S. Health System’s Single Point of Failure

The U.S. Health System’s Single Point of Failure

Published by skeptic

Cybercriminals see the nation’s vulnerabilities far more clearly than regulators do. Source: Getty. March 6, 2024, 10:50 AM ET When the coronavirus began straining American health care four years ago, hospitals and public officials at least saw the problem coming. Now a different kind of invader—purposeful and malign—has caught the system off guard. Late last month, hackers conducted a massive ransomware attack on Change Healthcare, a division of UnitedHealth Group that transmits health providers’ claims to patients’ insurers, and the consequences are rippling outward. Prescriptions, payments, and insurance authorizations are being delayed. Providers are having trouble sharing patients’ medical records. Some institutions worry about their ability to make payroll. Because Change doesn’t provide critical care or treat patients, few people outside the health-care industry had even heard of the company before it publicly acknowledged the cyberattack. But one number makes the incident’s importance clear: Change says it handles more than 15 billion claims a year. It has quietly become an essential part of the infrastructure of American health care. And as the company struggles to …

End War Profiteering in the Defense Industry

End War Profiteering in the Defense Industry

Published by skeptic

America’s national priorities are badly misplaced. Our country spends, with almost no debate, nearly $1 trillion a year on the military while at the same time ignoring massive problems at home. We apparently have unlimited amounts of money for nuclear weapons, fighter planes, bombs, and tanks. But somehow we can’t summon the resources to provide health care for all, child care, affordable housing, and other basic needs. The United States remains the world’s dominant military power. Alone, we account for roughly 40 percent of global military spending; the U.S. spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined, most of whom are allies. Last year, we spent more than three times what China spent on its military. David Frum: Yes, the U.S. can afford to help its allies Not counting supplemental spending, the United States plans to dedicate about $900 billion to the military this year. Almost half of this amount will go to a handful of huge defense contractors enjoying immense profits, which have significantly increased as a result of the war …

The ‘Southern Lady’ Who Beat the Courthouse Crowd

The ‘Southern Lady’ Who Beat the Courthouse Crowd

Published by skeptic

In 1976, a little southern lady “dressed like a fairy princess”—as she later recounted the moment—stepped to the microphone at a shareholder meeting in Boston and lavishly praised the chair of W. R. Grace & Co. for his commitment to preserving her community. Rae Ely knew perfectly well this was a lie; W. R. Grace was planning to strip-mine for vermiculite in her bucolic Virginia town. In fact, the whole “southern lady” thing was a bit of a lie. But Ely, who had fought the scheme for years, was prepared to use every tool at her disposal to stop the plan, whether eye-catching outfits that captured the attention of the news cameras or entirely unearned flattery. The crowd stood and cheered. The board chair soaked in the applause. And Ely—determined to demonstrate that W. R. Grace had more to gain from goodwill than from vermiculite—had made her point. This article has been adapted from Balogh’s new book. Many at the time dismissed the activism of women like Ely—the press, their opponents, even their own allies. …

What Has Happened to the Rule of Law in India?

What Has Happened to the Rule of Law in India?

Published by skeptic

On December 11, India’s supreme court upheld ending the constitutional privileges of the Indian-controlled province of Kashmir, a disputed region claimed by both India and Pakistan. The decision was a sobering example of the Indian judiciary’s creeping servility in the era of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Just as India’s vibrant, secular democracy is transforming into an authoritarian, ethnonationalist state, the supreme court, once vaunted for its fierce independence, is failing to stand up for the rule of law. The Kashmir ruling is the resolution of a case that began in 2019. In a brazen and theatrical move that year, Modi’s government scrapped Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which gave Kashmir—the only Muslim-majority province in India—autonomy and special privileges relative to other states. Article 370 was a condition of Kashmir’s accession to India in 1947, toward the end of British colonial rule. The move to revoke its provisions was seen by many legal experts as illegal and unconstitutional, and more than a dozen petitioners, including private citizens, activists, and political parties, challenged the decision in …

The Great American Aversion Toward Renting

The Great American Aversion Toward Renting

Published by skeptic

When the Federal Reserve began jacking up interest rates in 2022, home sales cratered almost overnight; inventory dried up; the housing market “froze.” People who have mortgages with interest rates below 4 percent—which is more than 60 percent of homeowners—aren’t going anywhere. They’re not selling their houses. They’re staying put. The current availability of homes for sale is about 36 percent lower than before the pandemic; this past October, home sales dropped to their lowest level in more than 13 years, and in November, the share of homebuyers looking to relocate to a different metro area was at its lowest level in 18 months. People who own homes have become so reluctant to move that they’re likely to pass up job offers in other cities, one study found. If swapping a low mortgage for a much higher one is plainly undesirable, the way out of the problem—and into a new space—seems plainly obvious: renting. Now is a terrible time to buy a home, but renting would allow more Americans to relocate without becoming “house poor” …