tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/us-budget-5013/articlesUS budget – The Conversation2023-11-13T13:33:19Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2172502023-11-13T13:33:19Z2023-11-13T13:33:19ZAs yet another deadline looms, a divided US House stumbles closer to a federal shutdown: 5 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558696/original/file-20231109-15-3o1kq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1253%2C576%2C3551%2C2622&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson arrives for a GOP meeting at the Capitol on Nov. 7, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-mike-johnson-arrives-for-a-house-news-photo/1768479565?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Once again, federal budget negotiations are down to the last minute, and once again, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-09/house-speaker-mike-johnson-is-running-out-of-time-to-avoid-government-shutdown#xj4y7vzkg">GOP hardliners</a> are in the middle of what might turn into a gridlock. </p>
<p>Current government funding expires on Nov. 17, 2023. While newly elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/republican-us-house-speaker-johnson-nears-choice-avoiding-govt-shutdown-2023-11-08/">has not announced</a> any <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/09/politics/house-republicans-government-funding/index.html">new and specific proposals</a> that stand a chance of passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate, he has urged the public to “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/07/congress-shutdown-house-gop-plan/">trust us</a>.”</p>
<p>The Conversation has published the work of several scholars who study Congress and federal budgets. They explain the brinkmanship politics and the economic consequences of federal shutdowns. Here, we spotlight five examples of those scholars’ work.</p>
<h2>1. How a government shutdown affects the economy</h2>
<p>In the past four decades, the government <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/government-shutdowns-how-long-lasted-years-parties-power-rcna117508">has shut down 20 times</a>.</p>
<p>During the Trump administration, the government <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/25/trump-shutdown-announcement-1125529">shut down three times</a>, the longest starting three days before Christmas in 2018 and lasting 34 days.</p>
<p>Northwestern finance scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8syQapsAAAAJ&hl=en">Scott R. Baker</a> examined a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1094202516300308?via%3Dihub">shutdown in 2013</a> to determine both short- and long-term effects of the federal government closing down. </p>
<p>Baker wrote that the most immediate impact of a shutdown is on the government’s day-to-day operations. </p>
<p>“Many national museums and parks are closed, immigration hearings are being postponed, and the Food and Drug Administration isn’t doing routine inspections of domestic food-processing facilities,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-government-shutdown-affects-the-economy-109688">Baker wrote</a>. </p>
<p>Whether or not a shutdown has a longer-term economic impact, Baker explained, depends on “how long the shutdown lasts and whether employees are paid their foregone wages after its conclusion.” </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-government-shutdown-affects-the-economy-109688">How a government shutdown affects the economy</a>
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<h2>2. Congressional dysfunction?</h2>
<p>As a public policy expert and former deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymond-scheppach-19b98536/">Raymond Scheppach</a> said he believes the challenges in 2023’s negotiations over the budget are the greatest faced in the last five decades. </p>
<p>The reason, Scheppach explained, is the result of “the magnitude of the differences” between the Republican and Democratic parties, as well as the split between the GOP-controlled House and the Senate, where the Democrats hold sway.</p>
<p>“A worst-case scenario could see a government shutdown for several weeks, or even a couple of months – and that could have a significant negative impact on the economy,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/congress-needs-to-pass-12-funding-bills-in-11-days-to-avert-a-shutdown-heres-why-that-isnt-likely-212520">he wrote</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/congress-needs-to-pass-12-funding-bills-in-11-days-to-avert-a-shutdown-heres-why-that-isnt-likely-212520">Congress needs to pass 12 funding bills in 11 days to avert a shutdown – here’s why that isn’t likely</a>
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<h2>3. Beyond partisan gridlock</h2>
<p>As a political scientist who studies the evolving budget brinkmanship, <a href="https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014TkUCAA0/laura-blessing">Laura Blessing</a> asks an important question: What are the costs of congressional dysfunction?</p>
<p>One such cost is the added bureaucratic burden on federal agencies to submit shutdown plans to the Office of Management and Budget as required by law. Though as of late September, 80% of the plans had been updated since 2021, no two shutdowns are exactly alike, and agencies are continually revising their plans, which help sketch out the variety of ways the shutdown will affect individual Americans.</p>
<p>And that’s the most immediate concern for most people of the country.</p>
<p>“Whether delayed business loans, slower mortgage applications, curtailed food assistance or postponed food inspections, the effects could be substantial,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-will-this-government-shutdown-shut-down-social-security-and-medicaid-keep-going-sba-loans-and-some-food-and-safety-inspections-do-not-214040">Blessing wrote</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-will-this-government-shutdown-shut-down-social-security-and-medicaid-keep-going-sba-loans-and-some-food-and-safety-inspections-do-not-214040">What will this government shutdown shut down? Social Security and Medicaid keep going; SBA loans and some food and safety inspections do not</a>
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<h2>4. An ideological battle</h2>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Jks9RasAAAAJ&hl=en">David R. Jones</a>, a scholar of Congress, political parties and elections, noted that one important factor in the House dysfunction over the federal budget is the difference in party ideologies. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-the-house-gop-is-not-any-more-dysfunctional-than-the-democrats-even-after-the-prolonged-speaker-chaos-216608">Jones wrote</a>, Democrats generally agree that a functioning government is needed to help solve societal problems. Even dissident factions within the Democratic Party are typically unwilling to shut down government operations indefinitely in order to extract concessions from their leadership.</p>
<p>Not so the Republicans. </p>
<p>They are more likely to believe, as President Ronald Reagan famously stated, that “government IS the problem,” Jones wrote. </p>
<p>“This means that dissident factions in the Republican Party can much more credibly threaten to indefinitely halt government operations – doing so does not conflict as much with their policy goals. In turn, the fact that they have less incentive to drop their obstruction gives them more leverage over their party’s leadership.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-the-house-gop-is-not-any-more-dysfunctional-than-the-democrats-even-after-the-prolonged-speaker-chaos-216608">3 reasons the House GOP is not any more dysfunctional than the Democrats − even after the prolonged speaker chaos</a>
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<h2>5. Federal workers feel the pain</h2>
<p>As a researcher who studies <a href="https://u.osu.edu/zagorsky.1/tag/wealth/">people’s wealth</a>, <a href="https://www.bu.edu/questrom/profile/jay-zagorsky/">Jay L. Zagorsky</a> understands that the loss of a single paycheck can be devastating for many American families.</p>
<p>During the 2019 partial shutdown, about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/politics/shutdown-who-gets-sent-home/?amp;utm_term=.db75457d08e1&noredirect=on&utm_term=.27e7c33902aa">800,000 federal workers</a> were either furloughed or working without pay.</p>
<p>“Going without a paycheck for a few weeks is hard enough,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-workers-begin-to-feel-pain-of-shutdown-as-800-000-lose-their-paychecks-109710">Zagorsky wrote</a>. “If the shutdown lasts months or years, the situation could get very dire for the average government worker.”</p>
<p>Zagorsky noted that there is a bit of good news.</p>
<p>“Congress tends to give all affected workers back pay, regardless of whether they worked during the impasse,” he wrote.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-workers-begin-to-feel-pain-of-shutdown-as-800-000-lose-their-paychecks-109710">Federal workers begin to feel pain of shutdown as 800,000 lose their paychecks</a>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217250/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The threat to shut down the federal government to attain political goals appears to be an important factor in the budget negotiations.Howard Manly, Race + Equity Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2139382023-09-27T19:56:29Z2023-09-27T19:56:29ZGOP shutdown threat is the wrong way to win a budget war − history shows a better strategy for reducing the deficit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549427/original/file-20230920-19-i4o0j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C0%2C5725%2C3837&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Past as prologue: October could bring yet another government shutdown.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/united-states-capitol-building-washington-dc-with-royalty-free-image/1094765660">Jorge Villalba/iStock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Congress has just days to keep the federal government from grinding to a halt, and a last-minute deal seems increasingly unlikely. The problem is that lawmakers <a href="https://theconversation.com/congress-needs-to-pass-12-funding-bills-in-11-days-to-avert-a-shutdown-heres-why-that-isnt-likely-212520">need to pass a dozen appropriations bills</a> – or a single continuing resolution – by Sept. 30, 2023, in order to keep the government’s lights on. But a key group of House Republicans is refusing to pass anything without steep <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/26/inside-spending-cuts-house-republicans-are-fighting/">spending cuts</a>. No bills, no government – at least for <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-happened-during-the-last-government-shutdown-4-essential-reads-169003">a few days or weeks</a>, anyway. </p>
<p>While fiscal discipline has long been the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/24/government-shutdown-congress-budget/">rallying cry</a> for shutdown supporters, the tactic isn’t necessarily effective at reducing the government’s deficit. </p>
<p>I’ve been following efforts to shut down the U.S. government for one reason or another for more than 40 years, first from various perches at the Congressional Budget Office, then at the National Governors Association, and now as a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymond-scheppach-19b98536">professor of public policy</a>. History shows that shutdowns are counterproductive – at least as measured by their own defenders’ goals. Fortunately, the past also provides a proven way to reduce the deficit, which I agree is a laudable goal.</p>
<h2>Deficits are too high</h2>
<p>When House Republicans say America’s finances are in bad shape, they do have a point. The deficit, currently estimated at <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/topics/budget/outlook-budget-and-economy">US$1.5 trillion</a>, and debt held by the public, estimated at $25.8 trillion, are both dangerously high.</p>
<p>Why is the status quo so risky? For one thing, large deficits are inflationary and put pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. For another, interest on public debt is now estimated to be <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58848">$663 billion</a> a year, which is slightly over 10% of total spending – a huge fiscal burden.</p>
<p>Finally, and most importantly, at some point individuals and foreign countries may <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-debt-default-could-trigger-dollars-collapse-and-severely-erode-americas-political-and-economic-might-198395">dump U.S. treasury bills</a> and bonds on the market because of a loss in confidence. That would make interest rates spike and could create a major economic collapse.</p>
<p>Because of these risks, members of the House Freedom Caucus have threatened to shut down the federal government on Oct. 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year, if they aren’t able to get big cuts to domestic discretionary spending. </p>
<p>Negotiations are further complicated by some House Republicans’ desires to add riders about the border and culture war issues to the must-pass spending bills, as well as the Biden administration’s request for <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-asks-us-congress-40-billion-including-24-billion-ukraine-2023-08-10/">$24 billion for Ukraine</a>, which not all party members support. </p>
<h2>Fighting the wrong battle</h2>
<p>I would argue that now is the wrong time for Republicans to take a stand on reducing the deficit, for two reasons. </p>
<p>First of all, shutdowns don’t get results. The U.S. has had 21 shutdowns over the past five decades, three of which have been major. These have all caused real harm to the U.S. economy, but they haven’t led to the spending levels Republicans wanted. </p>
<p>What’s more, in each case, the public <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/government-shutdown-polls/">blamed Republicans</a> for the shutdowns, polls show. Some historians have even suggested that the fallout from the weekslong 1995-96 shutdown contributed to then-speaker <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/07/us/the-speaker-steps-down-the-career-the-fall-of-gingrich-an-irony-in-an-odd-year.html">Newt Gingrich having to resign</a> in 1998.</p>
<p>Second, the cuts Republicans are seeking aren’t all that significant. The bottom line is that they’re ignoring national defense and mandatory spending, which together represent <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2023-02/58848-Outlook.pdf">75% of total spending</a>. The current effort aims only to trim domestic discretionary spending, which makes up a small and shrinking slice of the federal-spending pie – less than 15% in 2023.</p>
<p>At the same time, mandatory spending, including entitlements, totals nearly <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2023-02/58848-Outlook.pdf">$4 trillion annually</a> and is growing rapidly. So, even if Democrats agreed to the domestic discretionary-spending cuts advocated by the House Freedom Caucus, those savings would be overtaken by growth in entitlement spending – primarily Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – within a year. </p>
<p>What’s more, any serious plan to reduce the federal deficit must consider increasing the <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go">$4.8 trillion of federal revenue</a>. The House Freedom Caucus has expressed no interest in raising taxes. </p>
<p>The bottom line, in my view, is that the shutdown strategy is more about creating drama, publicity and campaign fundraising for certain lawmakers than it is about seriously reducing the deficit. </p>
<h2>How to get results</h2>
<p>While it’s never politically easy to cut entitlements or raise taxes, the reconciliation provision in the <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-10356/pdf/COMPS-10356.pdf">1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act</a> was enacted specifically for this purpose. It allows entitlement cuts and tax increases to be incorporated into the same bill, which cannot be filibustered in the Senate and only needs a majority for passage.</p>
<p>Over the past 40 years, there have been six serious budget negotiations that resulted in deficit reductions. One in 2011, negotiated by then-President Barack Obama and House Majority Leader John Boehner, was likely the <a href="https://manhattan.institute/article/getting-to-yes-a-history-of-why-budget-negotiations-succeed-and-why-they-fail">most successful</a> from a fiscal perspective. When it was finally enacted, it generated $1.95 trillion in deficit reduction over nine years. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550083/original/file-20230925-17-z6u5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="In a 2011 photograph, Barack Obama and John Boehner are seen in sitting at a table at Cabinet Room of the White House. Boehner has a slight smile; Obama, about to speak, has an expression of satisfaction." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550083/original/file-20230925-17-z6u5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550083/original/file-20230925-17-z6u5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550083/original/file-20230925-17-z6u5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550083/original/file-20230925-17-z6u5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550083/original/file-20230925-17-z6u5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550083/original/file-20230925-17-z6u5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550083/original/file-20230925-17-z6u5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker John Boehner, U.S. President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid discuss the budget and debt limit during negotiations at the White House on July 11, 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-barack-obama-meets-with-house-minority-leader-rep-news-photo/118825556">Roger Wollenberg/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>A similarly successful negotiation came <a href="https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0619BRdl.pdf">in 1997</a> during the Clinton administration. Lawmakers cut national defense spending by $247 billion, nondefense discretionary spending by $273 billion and entitlements by $374 billion, with interest savings of $142 billion. They also reduced taxes by $220 billion, mostly for low-income individuals, which brought the net total to $816 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years. </p>
<p>In addition to those successes, there were four other negotiations in 1993, 1990, 1985 and 1983 that averaged over $400 billion in deficit reduction, albeit over different timelines. </p>
<p>These examples show that budget negotiations without threatening a shutdown can be effective at enacting major deficit-reduction plans into law. The one during the Clinton administration even led to the budget surpluses in the years from 1998 to 2001, the <a href="https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/WH/New/html/19981028-13004.html">first surpluses since 1969</a>. </p>
<p>History indicates that there are three major requirements for a successful budget negotiation. First, lawmakers must be seriously committed to the goal of deficit reduction. Second, everything needs to be on the table, including revenues, entitlements and national defense. Third, there must be trust among the negotiators. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, I don’t believe any of these requirements can be met today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213938/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond Scheppach does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Shutting down the government won’t help reduce the deficit. Here’s what would.Raymond Scheppach, Professor of Public Policy, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2139512023-09-21T12:44:02Z2023-09-21T12:44:02ZKevin McCarthy’s leadership is an open question as budget shutdown looms and GOP infighting takes center stage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549445/original/file-20230920-23-qfcfls.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C11%2C7633%2C5085&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-kevin-mccarthy-addresses-reporters-news-photo/1676976025?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>What do you get when you combine a tiny legislative majority, a former president itching for influence and a rogue group of lawmakers who like making headlines? House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s hellish life these days. The pressure has been fierce on McCarthy to fashion <a href="https://apnews.com/article/mccarthy-government-shutdown-house-republicans-congress-543f93b6ad6a3f23ee3f5275e19293f9">an agreement with his caucus to stave off a government shutdown</a>. But every day seems to bring another set of demands from hardline House Freedom Caucus members, who seem unwilling to accept a deal – and willing to risk a shutdown to make their points. The Conversation spoke with congressional expert <a href="https://www.charlesrhunt.com/">Charles R. Hunt</a>, a political scientist at Boise State University, about the current political standoff, its roots and what it means for people across the country.</em></p>
<h2>Why does a small faction of GOP lawmakers have control over McCarthy?</h2>
<p>The 2022 elections were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/upshot/2022-republicans-midterms-analysis.html">much closer than Republicans thought</a> they were going to be. And there is a big difference between having a 20-vote margin and the nine-vote margin that McCarthy has now. A big part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-speaker-of-the-house-do-heres-what-kevin-mccarthy-will-have-for-a-job-94884">the speaker’s job</a> is to whip votes and to keep people in line, mainly in the speaker’s own party. And that becomes much more difficult when you have such a small margin.</p>
<p>McCarthy’s job is made even more difficult by the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/08/1147762006/the-house-speaker-battle-has-roots-in-the-tea-party-movement">extremist wing of the Republican Party</a>. Though the extremists have been around for years, starting with the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tea-Party-movement">Tea Party during the Obama Administration</a>, they have changed over the years. Back then, they were hyper-focused on true ideological battles such as small government and spending cuts. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">After much wrangling, Kevin McCarthy was finally announced as speaker of the House on Jan. 6, 2023.</span></figcaption>
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<p>It’s not that the current crop of lawmakers in <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/23/freedom-caucus-likely-to-play-a-bigger-role-in-new-gop-led-house-so-who-are-they/">the Freedom Caucus</a> don’t want those things. But more and more, it’s not so much issue positions, but rather personality and culture that are driving this faction of Republicans – as well as the voters that they need to win. </p>
<p>They are much more interested in impeaching President Joe Biden or investigating his son, Hunter, than getting a vote on, say, immigration reform. </p>
<h2>What is the Trump factor on the House GOP?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/15/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-trump-republican-influence">The fact that Donald Trump continues to have inordinate influence</a> tells us a lot about what being conservative means right now; more than ever, it is not so much a statement of policy positions as it is a statement on <a href="https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/82/S1/866/4951269">cultural identity</a>. </p>
<p>Trump is a good example. He is <a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-federal-ban-trump-gop-2024-20586bbb64a511030ef58290e98f99f0">not as traditionally conservative on the issues</a> as some of his GOP opponents in the presidential race. But he embodies the conservative wing of the party <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/6-things-to-know-about-rising-anti-establishment-politics-in-the-us-and-europe/">among both the voters</a> and members of Congress because of his cultural identity and his insistence on taking the anti-establishment road every time it is available to him, even if it has nothing to do with policy positions.</p>
<h2>Why is getting a budget deal more difficult to achieve with the Trump factor?</h2>
<p>It seems like no one in this far-right faction can define exactly what they want because striking a deal with McCarthy on the budget is not their endgame. Their endgame seems to be giving the congressional equivalent of the middle finger to the establishment. That was the <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/626012/donald-trump-middle-finger-entire-political-system">entire basis for the first Trump candidacy</a> in 2016. And some congressional Republicans are mimicking that because that is what their voters want.</p>
<h2>So what you’re saying is that the public interest is not what these extremists represent in Congress. They represent something entirely different.</h2>
<p>This is what’s really interesting about Congress. There’s a reasonable argument to be made that a member of Congress’ job is not necessarily to represent the broader public interest but to <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-reasons-why-abortion-laws-often-clash-with-the-majoritys-preferences-in-the-us-from-constitutional-design-to-low-voter-turnout-188180">represent the interests of their constituents</a> in their districts. And whether you like it or not, that is what these lawmakers see themselves as doing at this moment. </p>
<p>Compare the far-right wing to the more moderate Republicans in districts <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/vulnerable-republicans-arent-sold-impeaching-biden-rcna98638">who are reluctant</a> to go down the impeachment route and want to strike a deal with McCarthy and the Democrats to pass a budget. But the GOP far right doesn’t appear to care about passing any significant legislation. </p>
<h2>What is the process for removing McCarthy?</h2>
<p>Most of the time, speakership battles are not contentious. And there’s always a rumbling of some kind or another from an outsider wing of the majority party. But the problem now is that, in a new rule since McCarthy became speaker, one member can bring a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/speaker-of-the-house-ousted-motion-to-vacate-rcna64902">motion to vacate</a>, which forces a vote on whether the speaker keeps their job. That does not mean that McCarthy automatically loses the speakership – it would still require votes by the whole House.</p>
<p>And it seems like the Democrats’ strategy here is to <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/3797102-democrats-on-mccarthy-gop-chaos-pass-the-popcorn/">just watch the GOP self-destruct</a>. So a lot of this is what we call <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/02/14/long-shot-legislation-focus-republicans-118th-congress/11156048002/">messaging votes</a>. We got a lot of this in the 2010s with the Republican House voting over and over again to repeal Obamacare – even though President Barack Obama would obviously never sign that bill.</p>
<p>But the problem with McCarthy is that his majority is so slim and this faction is so extreme that it’s driving many of the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/01/moderate-centrist-republicans-pragmatic-conservatives/672856/">moderate Republicans</a> crazy. The moderates want to just get through the day, and the Freedom Caucus isn’t letting them.</p>
<h2>Why should GOP infighting matter to the average American?</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/20/federal-government-shutdown-2023/">government shutdown</a> is not just this kind of amorphous thing that only Washington cares about. It has <a href="https://abc7.com/government-shutdown-need-to-know/13798112/">huge implications</a> for people’s everyday lives, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-happened-during-the-last-government-shutdown-4-essential-reads-169003">especially if it drags on</a> for weeks.</p>
<p>A shutdown means slower mailing of Social Security checks, and closed national parks. A shutdown has automatic economic consequences on the stock market and in regular <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-workers-begin-to-feel-pain-of-shutdown-as-800-000-lose-their-paychecks-109710">people’s paychecks</a>.</p>
<p>We can talk about the 2024 presidential election and Trump’s indictments all we want. But budget negotiations matter now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213951/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An expert on Congress helps untangle the mess that is Kevin McCarthy’s life as speaker of the House right now.Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2051782023-05-12T12:20:16Z2023-05-12T12:20:16ZA brief history of debt ceiling crises and the political chaos they’ve unleashed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525714/original/file-20230511-17-v7jrtw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C3988%2C2850&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With the House GOP and President Joe Biden locked in a struggle over the debt limit, it's dark times in the U.S. Capitol.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dramatic-clouds-over-the-u-s-capitol-as-the-congress-faces-news-photo/1246606510?adppopup=true">Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A draft agreement to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/27/debt-ceiling-talks/">raise the debt limit, cap federal spending and stave off a default</a> has been announced by Republican and White House negotiators.</p>
<p>Republicans and Democrats in the House now must review the deal. How they <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/us/politics/debt-limit-deal.html">vote on it</a> will determine whether there will be a resolution to the long-running standoff, or the U.S. will plunge into an unprecedented fiscal crisis. </p>
<p>There have been numerous fiscal crises in the United States where Congress has either failed to pass a budget on time or there were doubts that the federal debt ceiling would be raised, which could cause the U.S. to default on its debt. </p>
<p>These two kinds of crises can sometimes play out at the same time. A federal budget was not adopted in time, for example, and there were threats of not increasing the debt ceiling.</p>
<p><a href="https://millercenter.org/sites/default/files/2017-01/CV%20Scheppach.pdf">I worked as</a> the deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office and the executive director of the National Governors Association, and I witnessed firsthand much of the wrangling in Congress during these crises. </p>
<p>Since 1976, there have been <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2023/04/27/why-is-federal-spending-so-hard-to-cut-recurring-debt-ceiling-fights-will-only-be-solved-by-budget-reform/">22 shutdowns of the federal government</a> due to lack of a federal budget. </p>
<p>While these were very disruptive and damaged <a href="https://policyinstitute.iu.edu/doc/mpi/insight/2013-03.pdf">the economy and employment</a>, they pale in comparison to the potential effects of failing to lift the debt ceiling, which could be <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/08/1174853895/what-happens-if-the-government-defaults-a-former-federal-reserve-economist-expla">catastrophic</a>. It could bring down the entire international financial system. This in turn could devastate the world gross domestic product and create mass unemployment. </p>
<p>Fortunately, the U.S. has never experienced a default. The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/29/1172894580/congress-has-revised-the-debt-ceiling-78-times-since-1960-a-financial-historian-">debt ceiling has been raised 78 times since 1917</a> and currently stands at US$31.4 trillion. </p>
<p>Here are three debt-limit crises I watched play out - which not only had economic consequences, but political ones as well.</p>
<h2>1995: A GOP revolution – and blunder</h2>
<p>Often, a debt-limit crisis is preceded by an election that produces a major shift in who controls Congress. In the 1994 midterm election, during President Bill Clinton’s first term, <a href="https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal94-1102765">the Republicans gained eight Senate seats and 54 seats in the House</a>, flipping both chambers. The election was seen as a Republican revolution. Bob Dole became the majority leader in the Senate, and Newt Gingrich became the speaker of the House.</p>
<p>GOP lawmakers pledged to pass a balanced budget as part of what they named their “Contract with America.” House Republicans sent Clinton a budget that <a href="https://millercenter.org/1995-96-government-shutdown">cut spending on domestic programs</a>, which he vetoed. This in turn led to a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-long-will-government-shutdown-last-2018-1">five-day shutdown of the federal government</a>. </p>
<p>Gingrich then threatened not to increase the debt limit. A Washington Post story described the House leader’s actions as “House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/09/22/gingrich-vows-no-retreat-on-debt-ceiling-increase/9f7c9620-e6aa-489e-8ace-3ebb27e349bc/">threatened yesterday to take the government into default</a> for the first time in history unless President Clinton bows to Republican demands for a balanced budget.” Clinton responded to the latest GOP budget offer with a second veto, which led to a longer government shutdown of 21 days.</p>
<p>In the end, the Republicans <a href="https://www.govexec.com/management/2023/02/i-helped-balance-federal-budget-1990s-heres-just-how-hard-it-will-be-gop-achieve-same-rare-feat/382443/">passed a budget offered by Clinton</a> and also lifted the debt ceiling.</p>
<p>There were unique aspects to this standoff. Dole was not interested in continuing the negotiation, as he was running for president. Gingrich made <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/11/16/underlying-gingrichs-stance-is-his-pique-about-president/cc78a470-7093-48ba-b2d0-386e0ede1372/">comments about being snubbed</a> by the president while traveling with him on Air Force One, and the press had a field day with those comments, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/a6b650344d947fc019f12343c63de231">linking the shutdown to the snub</a>. Polling increasingly showed that the <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voters-blamed-gop-for-1995-shutdown_n_842769">Republicans were getting blamed</a> for the shutdown – a 1995 ABC poll <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voters-blamed-gop-for-1995-shutdown_n_842769">indicated 46% blamed the Republicans</a> and only 27% blamed the Democrats. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rszHuvq4C5E?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The press and Democratic lawmakers made fun of House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s pique at what he said was a presidential snub.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2011: Budget reductions and reforms, with a side of financial chaos</h2>
<p>As in 1995, the 2011 crisis happened after an election and a major power shift on Capitol Hill. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/03/us-midterm-election-results-tea-party">The election of 2010</a>, in the middle of President Barack Obama’s first term, saw the Republicans gain seven Senate seats, but not yet a majority, and a net gain of 63 House seats, making the GOP the majority. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/07/25/debt.talks.timeline/index.html">The House then demanded</a> that Obama negotiate a deficit reduction package in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.</p>
<p>As the deadline for increasing the debt limit approached, both the U.S. domestic and even international <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/276/POTENTIAL-MACROECONOMIC-IMPACT-OF-DEBT-CEILING-BRINKMANSHIP.pdf">financial markets became chaotic</a>. The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-debt-ceiling-markets-gauging-fallout-2023-02-16/">S&P 500 fell by 17%</a> and bond rates spiked. On Aug. 5, 2011, the Standard and Poor’s rating agency <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/business/us-debt-downgraded-by-sp.html">reduced the rating for long-term U.S government debt</a>, which could result in higher interest rates on that debt. </p>
<p>On July 31, 2011, only two days before the U.S. government ran out of money, an agreement was reached between Congress and Obama that, once enacted, became the <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R41965.pdf">Budget Control Act of 2011</a>. It reduced spending over the following 10 years by US$917 billion and authorized raising the debt ceiling to $2.1 trillion. </p>
<p>The act also included several budget reforms – a concession to Republicans by Obama and the Democrats – including creating a congressional joint select committee to make recommendations on deficit reduction. It also included an automatic provision to cut the budget should Congress fail to act.</p>
<h2>2013: ‘We got nothing’</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A middle-aged man in a suit, standing in front of several US flags with his eyes closed, looking glum." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525718/original/file-20230511-29-qusgiv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, on Oct. 8, 2013, the eighth day of a government shutdown over the debt limit crisis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-john-boehner-speaks-at-the-us-capitol-news-photo/183655358?adppopup=true">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In January 2013, the debt ceiling that was established in 2011 was hit and the Treasury Department began extraordinary actions to continue funding necessary spending. </p>
<p>This included not paying into retirement funds of federal workers and borrowing from trust funds such as Social Security.</p>
<p>Treasury told Congress that those extraordinary measures to avoid default would be exhausted by mid-October 2013, and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20131017174553/http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/Documents/082613%20Debt%20Limit%20Letter%20to%20Congress.pdf">the debt limit would be reached then</a>, meaning the U.S. could not borrow any more money to pay its bills.</p>
<p>At the same time, Republicans, who controlled the House, had demanded budget cuts <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/us/congress-budget-debate.html">as well as policy changes</a>. They wanted Obama to <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/09/20/224422562/house-gop-votes-to-fund-government-kill-obamacare">eliminate the funding for</a> his Affordable Care Act, which was considered his major legislative achievement. </p>
<p>The government was shut down once more, for 16 days. Again, public support for the Republican approach <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/16/senate-leaders-strike-debt-ceiling-deal-shutdown">began to erode</a>. That led the GOP to capitulate and adopt a budget that did not include significant cuts, and raised the debt ceiling, all in a vote the day before the government was slated to run out of money. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/16/senate-leaders-strike-debt-ceiling-deal-shutdown">We got nothing</a>,” said conservative Republican Rep. Thomas Massie from Kentucky.</p>
<h2>Risks to both sides</h2>
<p>Each crisis is unique and depends on the specific leaders on both sides as well as how the public reacts to the crisis.</p>
<p>History indicates there are substantial risks to both parties as well as their respective leaders in such fiscal showdowns. The 1995 crisis <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voters-blamed-gop-for-1995-shutdown_n_842769">did not benefit Republicans</a>, and some even argue it contributed to Clinton winning reelection. </p>
<p>In 2011, I would argue that the Republicans gained substantial budget reduction and budget reform concessions from Democrats. But lack of support for the Republican position in 2013 saw them concede. </p>
<p>The 2023 crisis is like 1995 and 2011 in that it was preceded by an election that flipped the House majority. But it differs substantially in the size of that majority. With only a four-seat majority, the risks to the Republican leadership have been high. </p>
<p>As House members determine whether they will accept the deal their negotiators have settled on, the stakes for the two parties and their respective two leaders are huge. This could well affect President Joe Biden’s reelection and the longevity of the current Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy.</p>
<p><em>This story has been updated to reflect the draft deal announced on the evening of May 27, 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205178/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond Scheppach does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How will the House vote on the deal negotiated by the White House and GOP leaders? If they reject it, there are political as well as huge economic risks to debt standoffs in Congress.Raymond Scheppach, Professor of Public Policy, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1973952023-05-04T12:12:28Z2023-05-04T12:12:28ZCan Biden and McCarthy avert a calamitous debt default? 3 evidence-backed leadership strategies that might help<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523318/original/file-20230427-22-l2gfdz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C14%2C1167%2C783&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Whether or not the U.S. defaults on its debt may depend on the leadership of Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BidenIreland/008d696c1da94f00b79de33c01a6c4f8/photo?Query=Kevin%20mccarthy&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4749&currentItemNo=40">AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/22/politics/debt-limit-standoff-congress-white-house/index.html">is teetering toward</a> an unprecedented debt default that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/us/politics/debt-limit-date-janet-yellen.html">could come as soon as June 1, 2023</a>. </p>
<p>In order for the U.S. to borrow more money, Congress <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-america-has-a-debt-ceiling-5-questions-answered-164977">needs to raise the debt ceiling</a> – currently US$31.4 trillion. President Joe Biden has <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/04/20/democrats-biden-debt-ceiling-negotiate">refused to negotiate</a> with House Republicans over spending, demanding instead that Congress pass a stand-alone bill to increase the debt limit. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy won a small victory on April 26 by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/04/26/us/debt-ceiling-vote-news">narrowly passing a more complex bill</a> with GOP support that would raise the debt ceiling but also slash spending and roll back Biden’s policy agenda.</p>
<p>Biden recently <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-may-run-short-cash-after-june-1-without-debt-limit-hike-treasury-2023-05-01/">invited congressional leaders</a>, including GOP leader McCarthy, to the White House on May 9 to discuss the situation but insisted he isn’t willing to negotiate. </p>
<p>Rather than leading the nation, Biden and McCarthy seem to be waging a partisan <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/27/us/politics/biden-debt-ceiling.html">political war</a>. Biden likely doesn’t want to be seen as giving in to Repubicans’ demands and diminishing legislative wins for his liberal constituency. McCarthy, with his slim majority in the House, needs to appease even the most <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/26/mccarthy-debt-plan-gop-00094065">hard-line members of his party</a>.</p>
<p>Having <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=uM0ynrcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">studied leadership</a> for over 25 years, I would suggest that their leadership styles are polarized, oppositional, short-term and highly ineffective. Such combative leadership risks a debt default that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/us/politics/debt-default-economy.html">could send the U.S. into recession</a> and potentially lead to a global economic and financial crisis.</p>
<p>While it may seem almost impossible in the current political climate, Biden and McCarthy have an opportunity to turn around this crisis and leave a positive and lasting legacy of courageous leadership. To do so, they need to put aside partisanship and adopt a different approach. Here are a few evidence-backed strategies to get them started.</p>
<h2>1. Moving from a zero-sum game to a more holistic approach</h2>
<p>Political leaders often risk being hijacked by members of their own party. McCarthy faces a direct threat by hard-line conservative members of his coalition.</p>
<p>For example, back in January, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us/politics/house-speaker-vote-mccarthy.html">McCarthy agreed to let a single lawmaker</a> force a vote for his ouster to win enough votes from ultraconservative lawmakers to become speaker. That and other concessions give the most extreme members of his party a lot of control over his agenda and limit McCarthy’s ability to make a compromise deal with the president.</p>
<p>Biden, who just <a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-election-2024-president-democrats-trump-9c72115656855da89a41cac3f79aa65b">announced he’s running for reelection in 2024</a>, is betting his first-term accomplishments – such as <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/24/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-student-loan-relief-for-borrowers-who-need-it-most/">unprecedented climate investments and student loan forgiveness</a> – will help him keep the White House. Negotiating any of that away could cost him the support of key parts of his base.</p>
<p>My research partner <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Gs-m4_oAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Marianne W. Lewis</a> and I label this kind of short-term, one-sided leadership as “either/or” thinking. That is, this approach assumes that leadership decisions are a zero-sum game – every inch you give is a loss to your side. We argue that this kind of leadership is <a href="https://store.hbr.org/product/both-and-thinking-embracing-creative-tensions-to-solve-your-toughest-problems/10481">limited at best and detrimental at worst</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="a Black man and a white man stand next to each other holding Nobel Peace prize folders and medals" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523905/original/file-20230502-22-kwfxh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nelson Mandela, left, and F.W. de Klerk won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping end apartheid in South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ObitFWdeKlerk/f808d2c7d2294a13ab6821a7eaa730ae/photo?Query=de%20klerk%20mandela&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=160&currentItemNo=33">Jon Eeg/Pool photo via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, we find that great leadership involves what we call “both/and” thinking, which involves seeking integration and unity across opposing perspectives. History offers examples of how this more holistic leadership style has achieved substantial achievements. </p>
<p>President Lyndon B. Johnson and fellow Democrats <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/CivilRightsAct1964.htm">were struggling to get a Senate vote</a> on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and needed Republican support. Despite his initial opposition, Republican Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen – then the minority leader and a staunch conservative – led colleagues in crossing party lines and joining Democrats to pass the historic legislation.</p>
<p>Another example came in 1990, when South Africa’s then-President Frederik Willem de Klerk <a href="https://thunderbird.asu.edu/thought-leadership/insights/fw-de-klerk-man-who-ended-apartheid-freed-mandela-and-honored-his">freed opponent Nelson Mandela from prison</a>. The two erstwhile political enemies agreed to a deal that ended apartheid and paved the way for a democratic government – which <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1993/summary/">won them both the Nobel Peace Prize</a>. Mandela became president four years later.</p>
<p>This integrative leadership approach starts with a shift of mindset that moves away from seeing opposing sides as conflicting and instead values them as generative of new possibilities. So in the case of the debt ceiling situation, holistic leadership means, at the least, Biden would not simply put up his hands and refuse to negotiate over spending. He could acknowledge that Republicans <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/business/national-debt-biden.html">have a point about the nation’s soaring debt load</a>. McCarthy and his party might recognize they cannot just <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/26/mccarthy-debt-plan-gop-00094065">slash spending</a>. Together they could achieve greater success by developing an integrative plan that cuts costs, increases taxes and raises the debt ceiling. </p>
<h2>2. Champion a long-term vision over short-term goals</h2>
<p><a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/jcorl37&div=13&g_sent=1&casa_token=nuOoHSOf8WQAAAAA:7WunxXp3VpouwosDM-mbyu2w_yTxronnybSfNjtD-9kxGYQR3feeJ67kWXRLCyA_Z1yHyX8&collection=journals">What we call “short-termism” plagues America’s politics</a>. Leaders face pressure to demonstrate immediate results to voters. Biden and McCarthy both have strong incentives to focus on a short-term victory for their side with the presidential and congressional elections coming soon. Instead, <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2022.0251">long-term thinking</a> can help leaders with competing agendas.</p>
<p>In a 2015 study, <a href="https://research.monash.edu/en/publications/short-on-time-intertemporal-tensions-in-business-sustainability">Natalie Slawinski and Pratima Bansal</a> studied executives at five Canadian oil companies who were dealing with tensions between keeping costs low in the short term while making investments that could mitigate their industry’s environmental impact over the long run. The two scholars found that those who focused on the short term struggled to reconcile the two competing forces, while long-term thinkers managed to find more creative solutions that kept costs down but also allowed them to do more to fight climate change. </p>
<p>Likewise, if Biden and McCarthy want to avert a financial crisis and leave a lasting legacy, they would benefit from focusing on the long term. Finding points of connection in this shared long-term goal, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/27/us/politics/biden-debt-ceiling.html">rather than stressing their significant differences about how to get there</a>, can help shift away from their standoff and toward a solution. </p>
<h2>3. Be adaptive, not assured</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1617711114">Voters often praise political leaders</a> who act swiftly and with confidence and self-assurance, particularly at a moment of economic uncertainty. </p>
<p>Yet finding a creative solution to America’s greatest challenges often requires leaders to put aside the swagger and adapt, meaning they take small steps to listen to one another, experiment with solutions, evaluate these outcomes and adjust their approach as needed. </p>
<p>In a study of business decisions at a Fortune 500 technology company, I spent a year <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2011.0932">following the senior management teams</a> in charge of six units – each of which had revenues of over $1 billion. I found that the team leaders who were most innovative tended to be good at adaptation. They constantly explored whether they had made the right investment and made changes if needed. </p>
<p>Small steps are also necessary to build unlikely relationships with political foes. In his 2017 book, “<a href="https://reospartners.com/publications/introduction-collaborating-enemy/">Collaborating With the Enemy</a>,” organizational consultant Adam Kahane describes how he facilitated workshops to help former enemies take small steps toward reconciliation, such as in South Africa at the end of apartheid and in Colombia amid the drug wars. Such efforts helped South Africa <a href="https://origins.osu.edu/article/south-africa-mandela-apartheid-ramaphosa-zuma-corruption?language_content_entity=en">become a successful multiracial democracy</a> and Colombia <a href="https://www.wola.org/program/colombia/the-colombian-peace-process/">end decades of war with a guerrilla insurgency</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="two white men are seen shaking hands and smiling with other people who's backs are turned" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524207/original/file-20230503-27-ygagfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen, second from left, and former Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, right, have built a good relationship since leaving office despite their political differences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FormerGovernorsTennessee/5a99d137162a498caec7ee02a95cfe95/photo?Query=Phil%20Bredesen%20and%20Bill%20Haslam&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=15&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Mark Humphrey</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This kind of leadership requires small steps toward connection rather than large political leaps. It also requires that both sides let go of their positions and consider where they are willing to compromise. </p>
<p>Biden and McCarthy could learn from two former Tennessee governors, Democrat Phil Bredesen and Republican Bill Haslam. Though they <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/we-re-a-democrat-and-a-republican-here-s-how-both-parties-can-start-on-gun-reform-together/ar-AA19nbb7">oppose each other on almost every political issue</a>, including gun control, the two former leaders have built a constructive relationship over the years. Rather than tackle the big divisive issues, they started with identifying the small points where they agreed with each other. Doing so led them to build greater trust and continue to look for connections. </p>
<p>So when a gunman <a href="https://theconversation.com/nashville-attack-renews-calls-for-assault-weapons-ban-data-shows-there-were-fewer-mass-shooting-deaths-during-an-earlier-10-year-prohibition-202886">killed six people at a school in Nashville</a> recently, the two former governors were able to move beyond political finger-pointing and focus on how their respective parties could work together on meaningful gun reform.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s easier to do this once you’re out of office and the pressure from voters and parties goes away. And although current Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/11/tennessee-governor-bill-lee-red-flag-law-background-checks-00091404">agreed on the need for gun reform</a>, his fellow Republicans in the state Legislature balked.</p>
<h2>A long shot, but …</h2>
<p>And that’s why I know this is a long shot. The two main political <a href="https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2020/1/23/21077236/ezra-klein-show-book-why-were-polarized-identity-politics">parties are as polarized as ever</a>. The odds of a breakthrough that leads to anything more than a last-second deal that kicks the debt ceiling can down the road remain pretty low – and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/31/economy/default-debt-ceiling/index.html">even that seems in doubt</a>.</p>
<p>But this is about more than the debt ceiling. The U.S. faces a long list of problems big and small, from <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/inflation-645">high inflation</a> and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/2023-bank-crisis-135462">banking crisis</a> to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/ukraine-12-months-at-war-134215">war in Ukraine</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/climate-change-27">climate change</a>. </p>
<p>Americans need and deserve leaders who will tackle these issues by working together toward a more creative outcomes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197395/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy K. Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research shows that leaders who can embrace competing demands and focus on the long term are more likely to succeed.Wendy K. Smith, Professor of Business and Leadership, University of DelawareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2013602023-03-16T12:37:05Z2023-03-16T12:37:05ZWhy it’s hard for the US to cut or even control Medicare spending<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515188/original/file-20230314-3582-48y9sf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=77%2C94%2C5673%2C2862&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The number of Americans covered by Medicare is growing.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/female-friends-walking-with-nordic-walking-poles-in-royalty-free-image/1339068107">OR Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Joe Biden’s 2024 proposed budget includes plans to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/03/07/fact-sheet-the-presidents-budget-extending-medicare-solvency-by-25-years-or-more-strengthening-medicare-and-lowering-health-care-costs/">shore up the finances of Medicare</a>, the <a href="https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Medicare-General-Information/MedicareGenInfo">federal health insurance program</a> that covers Americans who are 65 and up and some younger people with disabilities.</p>
<p>His administration aims to increase <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11820">from 3.8% to 5%</a> an existing Medicare tax that’s collected on the labor and investment earnings of <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/08/what-to-know-about-proposed-biden-tax-on-the-wealthy-to-fund-medicare.html">Americans who make more than US$400,000 annually</a>. It also aims to reap some savings from having the government <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-pulse/2023/03/10/the-white-houses-health-care-wish-list-00086344">negotiate prices on more prescription drugs</a>.</p>
<p>The White House projects that these changes would generate an additional <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/budget_fy2024.pdf">$650 billion</a> in revenue over a decade. <a href="https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2023/3/10/president-bidens-proposal-to-extend-medicare-trust-fund">Some independent experts</a> concur.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=CwMgD5QAAAAJ">As economists</a> who have long <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=y0lrTOoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">researched</a> the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=y0lrTOoAAAAJ&hl=en">Medicare and Social Security programs</a>, we believe the president’s proposal is an important first step in opening the necessary debate on strengthening Medicare’s finances.</p>
<h2>Part A’s precarious funding</h2>
<p>Medicare consumes more than <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58848">15% of the federal budget</a>. The program cost $975 billion in 2022, out of the government’s <a href="https://usafacts.org/state-of-the-union/budget/">$6.5 trillion in total federal spending</a>.</p>
<p>As anyone who has enrolled in it can tell you, the program itself is rather complicated. It’s divided into three parts, known as A, B and D, each of which relies on revenue from a different mix of sources.</p>
<p>Medicare Part A covers care delivered at hospitals and nursing homes, as well as home health care. Part B pays for doctor’s visits and outpatient procedures, and Part D pays for prescription drugs. There’s also Part C, a private insurance option, known as Medicare Advantage. However, its costs are included in the accounting for Parts A and B. </p>
<p>Part A is primarily funded by a <a href="https://www.irs.gov/publications/p80">1.45% Medicare payroll tax</a> on both employees and employers. When that tax and the program’s other tax revenues don’t raise enough money to cover Part A’s costs, the program dips into the <a href="https://www.crfb.org/our-work/projects/medicare-hospital-insurance-trust-fund">Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund</a> to make up the difference. The trust fund, amassed from past surplus payroll taxes, currently stands at around <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TRSUM/tr22summary.pdf">$143 billion</a>.</p>
<p>Without spending cuts, funding increases or a combination of the two, the Medicare program’s trustees have predicted in their annual report that the <a href="https://www.cms.gov/files/document/2022-medicare-trustees-report.pdf">Medicare trust fund</a> will be exhausted by 2028. The <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/TR-2022-Fact-Sheet.pdf">trustees are the secretaries</a> of the Treasury, Labor and Health and Human Services departments, plus the Social Security commissioner. There can be up to two additional trustees, but those seats are vacant.</p>
<p>Medicare’s expenses are rising rapidly with the <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/032216/are-we-baby-boomer-retirement-crisis.asp">retirement of baby boomers</a>, the large generation of Americans born between 1946 and 1964, and <a href="https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nationalhealthaccountshistorical">rising health care costs</a>. </p>
<p>Should the trust fund be emptied out, the trustees predict that hospital benefits would have to be cut by 10%. But those cuts are widely considered to be politically unacceptable, as illustrated by <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2023/">statements from Biden</a> and his predecessor, former President <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-text-of-trumps-2020-state-of-the-union">Donald Trump</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to proposing an increase in the tax levied on the <a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/questions-and-answers-on-the-net-investment-income-tax">investment earnings of high-income Americans</a>, Biden also proposes that these revenues be fully dedicated to the trust fund. Currently the <a href="https://www.cms.gov/files/document/2022-medicare-trustees-report.pdf">government treats that money as general revenue</a> that can be used for <a href="https://www.thebalancemoney.com/net-investment-income-tax-3192936">any government program</a>.</p>
<h2>2 very different scenarios</h2>
<p>Unlike Medicare Part A, Parts B and D are funded largely by general federal revenue and by premiums paid by retirees.</p>
<p>Because the government is allowed to use general revenue to pay for them, the funding of Parts B and D isn’t jeopardized by the depletion of their trust fund – no matter how fast those costs rise.</p>
<p>Even without Biden’s proposed changes, official Medicare spending projections rise rapidly through the mid-2030s and then plateau as a percentage of gross domestic product.</p>
<p>However, those projections are based on a presumption that payments to <a href="https://www.cms.gov/files/document/2022-medicare-trustees-report.pdf">hospitals are constrained as specified in the Affordable Care Act</a> and that other spending constraints on <a href="https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/Value-Based-Programs/MACRA-MIPS-and-APMs/MACRA-MIPS-and-APMs">physician payments</a> are realized.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/usc-brookings-schaeffer-on-health-policy/2015/02/02/a-primer-on-medicare-physician-payment-reform-and-the-sgr/">history provides little assurance</a> that lawmakers will maintain all of these requirements to restrain future payments to health care providers. </p>
<p>We say this because of what happened after 1997, when Congress approved the sustainable growth rate system, which was intended to limit the annual increase in cost per Medicare beneficiary to the rate of economic growth. Starting in 2002, Congress passed legislation year after year to override it – and only stopped doing that once it <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.11.pfor1-1511">did away with the system altogether in 2015</a>.</p>
<p>Reflecting this uncertainty, the annual <a href="https://www.cms.gov/files/document/2022-medicare-trustees-report.pdf">trustees report</a> features an alternative projection that is arguably more credible and more scary. It indicates that Medicare costs will grow much faster than the economy starting in 2036.</p>
<p><iframe id="OcsqK" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/OcsqK/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Competing demands</h2>
<p>The Social Security program, a national pension program that primarily supports older Americans, faces similar funding shortfalls.</p>
<p>Its trustees anticipate that the <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/tr/2022/tr2022.pdf">Social Security trust fund will be depleted</a> by 2035 without changes in funding, promised benefits – or both. In that event, Social Security benefits <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/politics/social-security-benefit-cut/index.html">may have to fall by about 20%</a> from anticipated levels. </p>
<p>Medicare and Social Security are the nation’s largest <a href="https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/national-debt-guide/glossary/entitlements-definition.html">entitlement programs</a>. Almost all Americans, if they live long enough, will eventually be eligible to obtain these benefits – regardless of their income or wealth. </p>
<p>While Americans do not yet agree on how to put these programs on a steadier fiscal footing, the math is clear.</p>
<p>Our elected representatives cannot avoid making hard decisions that involve increasing taxes, reducing benefits or both.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201360/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis W. Jansen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Rettenmaier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond his academic appointment.</span></em></p>The program’s expenses are rising rapidly as baby boomers retire and health care costs grow.Dennis W. Jansen, Professor of Economics and Director of the Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M UniversityAndrew Rettenmaier, Executive Associate Director of the Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1595062021-05-26T19:41:03Z2021-05-26T19:41:03ZBiden’s budget includes a jump in climate spending – here’s why investing in innovation is crucial<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402761/original/file-20210526-13-1vm87b5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=39%2C59%2C3248%2C2129&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Electric vehicles and renewable energy will only get the country so far.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Biden/2585a94b39dc49628861fc442172bbfc/photo">AP Photos/Evan Vucci</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Joe Biden is calling for a more than 60% increase in spending to fight climate change in his first <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/">federal budget</a> compared to the previous annual budget, with more than $US36 billion in climate-related investments spread across nearly every agency of the government.</p>
<p>That includes more than $10 billion in nondefense spending on clean energy innovation, among other investments in research and development.</p>
<p>How much of this proposal Congress agrees to fund <a href="https://itif.org/publications/2021/05/17/energizing-innovation-raising-ambition-federal-energy-rdd-fiscal-year-2022">will be important</a> to the nation’s and the world’s ability to lower emissions. Biden’s <a href="https://www.state.gov/leaders-summit-on-climate/">vision of a cleaner future</a> – with greenhouse gas emissions falling to net-zero by 2050 – <a href="https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/share-of-emissions-reductions-in-2050-by-maturity-category-and-scenario">won’t be possible</a> without dramatically improved technology, and that requires investing in innovation.</p>
<p>Right now, for example, there are no technologies ready to be deployed on a global scale to eliminate emissions from many essential agricultural and industrial activities. Three examples are animal agriculture, cement production and steel production, which together account for over a quarter of all global emissions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman works with a blow torch and glass tube" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402759/original/file-20210526-13-p0decy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402759/original/file-20210526-13-p0decy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402759/original/file-20210526-13-p0decy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402759/original/file-20210526-13-p0decy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402759/original/file-20210526-13-p0decy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402759/original/file-20210526-13-p0decy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402759/original/file-20210526-13-p0decy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At the National Renewable Energy Lab, Annalise Maughan makes components for research and development of solid-state batteries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.nrel.gov/MX/Profiles/en/default/#/main/single/bfa33bcb-9a72-470d-91dc-5e07acf64c82">Dennis Schroeder/NREL</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://schar.gmu.edu/profiles/dhart">My research career</a> has been devoted to innovation policy, and I served on the White House staff under President Barack Obama. I’ve seen how smart public policies and savvy federal investments can help accelerate the innovation process.</p>
<h2>Progress, but yawning gaps</h2>
<p>There’s no question that the world is making progress on clean energy. <a href="https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-and-levelized-cost-of-storage-2020/">Wind and solar power costs have fallen dramatically</a>, allowing them to displace coal and natural gas in many locations to provide much cleaner electricity. Electric vehicles are <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-road-to-electric-vehicles-with-lower-sticker-prices-than-gas-cars-battery-costs-explained-137196">becoming mainstream</a> as well.</p>
<p>But as promising as these technologies are, they will still leave the world far short of net-zero emissions, even if they continue to develop rapidly.</p>
<p>The International Energy Agency, whose members include the world’s largest economies, developed a model to show how the world can <a href="https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/share-of-emissions-reductions-in-2050-by-maturity-category-and-scenario">get to net-zero emissions by 2050</a> while ensuring a basic standard of living for all people. The model incorporates more than 400 technologies and rates them by their current readiness level. </p>
<p>It found that almost half the emissions reductions between now and 2050 would come from technologies that are either still in the prototype phase or just being demonstrated. Another 40% would come from technologies that have recently entered the market and have not necessarily reached full cost parity with conventional resources. Most other energy and climate system modelers reach similar conclusions.</p>
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<p>Innovation is particularly essential for the <a href="https://itif.org/events/2018/11/28/innovation-agenda-low-carbon-energy-future-bridging-gaps-federal-energy-rdd">hard-to-decarbonize sectors</a>. For example:</p>
<p><a href="https://e360.yale.edu/digest/the-cement-industry-one-of-the-worlds-largest-co2-emitters-pledges-to-cut-greenhouse-gases">Cement</a>, the world’s most widely used material, causes about 8% of global emissions. It is typically produced in kilns that are fired to very high temperatures with natural gas. It also undergoes a chemical reaction that releases carbon dioxide. Emerging solutions include <a href="https://www.heidelbergcement.com/en/pr-15-12-2020">capturing the carbon</a> during production, <a href="https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/Alternative-materials-shrink-concretes-giant/98/i45">shifting</a> to low-carbon materials and <a href="https://biomason.com/technology/">inventing</a> new processes altogether. But none of these options is ready yet to scale up to meet the challenge of dramatically reducing emissions at a reasonable cost.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/iron-and-steel">Steel</a>, which produces 7% of global emissions, has similar challenges and solutions, with particular emphasis on using hydrogen in the production process. In Sweden, for instance, the <a href="https://www.iea.org/commentaries/aligning-investment-and-innovation-in-heavy-industries-to-accelerate-the-transition-to-net-zero-emissions">HYBRIT</a> (Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology) demonstration plant will use hydrogen produced through electrolysis, which splits water into hydrogen and oxygen to avoid emissions. It’s still expensive, though. Production <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/46d4727c-761d-43ee-8084-ee46edba491a">costs have been estimated</a> to be 20%-30% higher than conventional methods.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/4/2021/02/08_Chapter-5_3.pdf">Animal agriculture</a> is the source of 12% or more of global emissions. Livestock and manure emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Fossil fuels and fertilizers are also used to grow feed crops, and forests may be destroyed to accommodate grazing. These challenges require a different set of solutions, which might include new practices for <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978012812766700007X">managing soil</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/11/27/climate-solutions-seaweed-methane/">changing livestock feed</a> and <a href="https://gfi.org/science/the-science-of-cultivated-meat/">inventing substitutes for conventional meat</a>, along with reducing meat consumption.</p>
<p><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-aviation">Aviation</a> – responsible for 2% of global emissions – requires high-powered engines to provide thrust over a short period of time. That energy demand is hard to meet with batteries compared to fuel combustion, especially for long-haul flights. While some entrepreneurs are pursuing <a href="https://qz.com/1943592/electric-airplanes-are-getting-close-to-a-commercial-breakthrough">electric planes</a>, other possibilities for emissions-free flights could include <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/aviation">making liquid fuels from biological sources</a> or from hydrogen and captured carbon.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Reducing-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-ships.aspx">Maritime shipping</a>, currently 2% of emissions, may also switch to <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/international-shipping">sustainable liquid fuels</a> or hydrogen-powered <a href="https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/hydrogen-fuel-cells-for-ocean-going-ships-and-inland-waterways">fuel cells</a> to drive electric motors. <a href="https://epub.wupperinst.org/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/6656/file/6656_Decarbonization.pdf">Port operations</a>, which rely on heavy trucks and equipment for moving freight, will require similar solutions.</p>
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<h2>Putting it all together</h2>
<p>The argument for innovation is not an argument against deployment of climate solutions that already work. Deployment spurs innovation. That’s how wind and solar became cheaper, and why electric vehicles are likely to follow suit as more of them get on the road.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://itif.org/publications/2020/09/15/energizing-america-roadmap-launch-national-energy-innovation-mission">evidence shows that targeted policies will be essential</a> to accelerate innovation in sectors that now lack them. </p>
<p>Companies will rarely try to solve climate challenges with their own money because the payoff is too distant and uncertain. Government regulation and charging companies a fee if they emit greenhouse gases may help close part of the innovation gap, but it is not a substitute for public investments in innovation.</p>
<p>Fuel taxes provide an analogy. They have for decades been much higher in Europe than in the United States. As a result, European car dealers offered smaller and more efficient cars than did their American counterparts. But until very recently, no European carmaker offered electric vehicles. It took focused policies, like Norway’s large government incentives, as well as the startup Tesla’s ingenuity – which was aided by U.S. federal and state policies – for the EV market to take off.</p>
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<h2>Things are looking up</h2>
<p>Heeding the evidence, the Biden administration has <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/FY2022-Discretionary-Request.pdf">promised</a> to quadruple clean energy research in four years, and its infrastructure proposal includes numerous large-scale energy and climate technology demonstration projects.</p>
<p>At the recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-us-climate-pledge-cut-emissions-50-this-decade-but-can-biden-make-it-happen-158869">global leaders’ summit on climate change</a>, Biden also announced a revival of <a href="http://mission-innovation.net/2021/">Mission Innovation</a>, a global initiative set up in parallel with the Paris climate agreement to spark public and private investment.</p>
<p>Although climate policy is highly polarized in the United States, innovation receives <a href="https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/all/climate-change-in-the-american-mind-december-2020/">widespread support</a>. Large majorities from both parties endorse it in public opinion polls. So do organizations ranging from <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/climate/jumpstarting-a-decade-of-progressive-climate-innovation">Green New Deal advocates</a> to the tax- and regulation-averse <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/energy">U.S. Chamber of Commerce</a>.</p>
<p>Innovation can be a slow, complex process, as the decades-long story of renewable energy development shows. It’s now <a href="https://www.usa.gov/budget">up to Congress</a> to pass a budget that will move climate innovation faster. The <a href="https://www.globalchange.gov/what-we-do/assessment">increasing impact of rising temperatures</a> shows there is no time to waste.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated May 28, 2021, with the budget release.</em> </p>
<p>[<em>Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David M. Hart is affiliated with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, where he runs the clean energy innovation policy project. This project has received funding from the Spitzer Trust, Breakthrough Energy, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and numerous individual donors. </span></em></p>To cut enough greenhouse gas emissions, the world will need technologies that are still being developed, particularly for industries that are tough to clean up, like cement, steel and shipping.David M. Hart, Professor of Public Policy, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1296172020-02-04T13:32:58Z2020-02-04T13:32:58ZThe Iraq War has cost the US nearly $2 trillion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310550/original/file-20200116-181598-1vq9ftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C49%2C5406%2C2916&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Packed and ready to leave? Perhaps not quite yet.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-handout-picture-released-by-the-us-army-shows-u-s-army-news-photo/1191159403?adppopup=true">Capt. Robyn Haake/US Army/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: The <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/">Costs of Wars project</a> was started in 2011 to assess the long-term consequences of the post-9/11 wars. Project co-director <a href="https://www.bu.edu/polisci/people/faculty/crawford/">Neta C. Crawford</a>, professor and chair of political science at Boston University, explains the major implications of the Iraq War for the federal budget.</em></p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Even if the U.S. administration <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/06/pentagon-says-no-decision-iraq-withdrawal-after-qasem-soleimani-backlash/2827126001/">decided to leave</a> — or <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/01/05/iraq-parliament-calls-for-expulsion-military/UrIXb0TChbusBl08SV1CkI/story.html">was evicted from</a> — Iraq immediately, the bill of war to the U.S. to date would be an estimated US$1,922 billion in current dollars.</p>
<p>This figure includes not only funding appropriated to the Pentagon explicitly for the war, but spending on Iraq by the State Department, the care of Iraq War veterans and interest on debt incurred to fund 16 years of U.S. military involvement in the country.</p>
<p>Since 2003, the Department of Defense has received about $838 billion in “emergency” and “overseas contingency operation” <a href="https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2020/fy2020_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf">funding</a> for operations in Iraq through fiscal year 2019. This includes, from 2014 on, money dedicated to the <a href="https://www.inherentresolve.mil/">fight against the Islamic State group</a>, also known as ISIS or IS, in a region including both Iraq and Syria.</p>
<p>The Pentagon “base” budget — money needed to keep the department running on an ongoing basis — has also ballooned while the U.S. has been at war. War-related <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2018-10/54219-oco_spending.pdf">increases to the base budget</a> include heightened security at bases, enlistment and reenlistment bonuses, increased military pay, and the healthcare costs of soldiers. I estimate nearly $800 billion in such increases since 9/11, with Iraq’s share about $382 billion.</p>
<p>Add to this approximately $59 billion spent by the State Department and USAID on <a href="https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2013/sigir-learning-from-iraq.pdf">Iraq</a> and <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2019/Aug/09/2002169448/-1/-1/1/Q3FY2019_LEADIG_OIR_REPORT.PDF">Syria</a> for democracy promotion, reconstruction, training, and removing unexploded bombs.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, about 4.1 million post-9/11 war veterans are receiving <a href="https://www.va.gov/budget/docs/summary/fy2020VAbudgetVolumeIImedicalProgramsAndInformationTechnology.pdf">medical care</a> and <a href="https://www.va.gov/budget/docs/summary/fy2020VAbudgetvolumeIIIbenefitsBurialProgramsAndDeptmentalAdministration.pdf">disability and other compensation</a>. Roughly half the spending for those veterans is Iraq related, with the total nearing $199 billion.</p>
<p>And since there have been no Iraq War taxes and very few <a href="https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ebonds/res_e_bonds_eepatriotbond.htm">war bonds</a> issued to finance the post-9/11 wars, we should add another $444 billion in <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2020/Peltier%202020%20-%20The%20Cost%20of%20Debt-financed%20War.pdf">interest</a> on borrowing to pay for Pentagon and State Department spending. </p>
<p>Department of Defense spending on Iraq has tailed off in the past decade <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Crawford_Costs%20of%20War%20Estimates%20Through%20FY2019.pdf">after peaking at around $140 billion</a> in 2008. </p>
<p>In December 2019, Congress <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/national-defense-authorization-act-fiscal-year-2020">appropriated</a> about <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/21/trump-signs-738-billion-defense-bill.html">$70 billion for the post-9/11 wars</a> as part of the $738 billion National Defense Authorization Act.</p>
<p>The Pentagon originally <a href="https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2020/fy2020_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf">requested</a> less than $10 billion of that amount for Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria.</p>
<p>But that budget may already be blown. Earlier this month, the US sent <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/u-s-sending-thousands-more-troops-mideast-after-baghdad-attack-n1110081">more troops</a> into a war zone that was supposed to be winding down.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neta C. Crawford receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. </span></em></p>The Pentagon has spent more than $800 billion on military operations in Iraq. But that doesn’t include money needed to care for veterans, rebuild the country or pay interest on war debt.Neta C. Crawford, Professor of Political Science and Department Chair, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1288942019-12-13T21:35:14Z2019-12-13T21:35:14ZWhy Congress would keep working during a government shutdown<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306886/original/file-20191213-85376-1qwtds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4200%2C2803&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Congress holds the power to propose and approve the federal budget.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/State-of-the-Union-Address/311bc220494741c68f6bfca9e57ea2a7/142/0">Patsy Lynch/ MediaPunch /IPX</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Unless Congress passes <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/12/lawmakers-reach-a-bipartisan-deal-in-principle-to-fund-the-government-084008">new spending legislation</a> by December 20, at least some federal agencies may need to <a href="https://history.house.gov/Institution/Shutdown/Government-Shutdowns/">cease operations and shut down</a>, just as <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-government-shutdown-affects-the-economy-109688">several agencies did</a> for a month around this time last year. </p>
<p>But if <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/12/politics/deal-in-principle-on-2020-spending-bills-reached/index.html">current budget negotiations to avoid a shutdown</a> don’t pan out, at least one part of the government will keep running: Congress itself.</p>
<p>Depending on the exact terms of what is, and isn’t, funded during a shutdown, some congressional staff may need to stay home, and those staffers who keep working <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-workers-begin-to-feel-pain-of-shutdown-as-800-000-lose-their-paychecks-109710">might not get paid</a> until the shutdown ends. </p>
<p>Yet senators and representatives could keep working, handling impeachment and other duties – including budget deliberations to end the shutdown.</p>
<h2>Congress controls spending</h2>
<p>Under the Constitution, Congress holds what is called the “<a href="https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Power-of-the-Purse/">power of the purse</a>.” That means the government can spend money only if a law passed by Congress allows the spending. </p>
<p>An important law called the <a href="https://www.gao.gov/legal/appropriations-law-decisions/resources">Antideficiency Act</a> reinforces this congressional power by barring government employees from spending or incurring obligations to spend federal money without a law providing the necessary funds. Government employees who break this law could be <a href="https://www.gao.gov/legal/appropriations-law-decisions/resources">disciplined, fired or even fined or imprisoned</a>.</p>
<p>Since the nation’s founding, Congress has generally passed laws appropriating funds for federal agencies that last only a year at a time. Congress adopted this practice <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/check-and-approve-government-spending-and-taxation/the-budget-and-parliament/">from the British Parliament</a>, which used time-limited spending bills to ensure that the king couldn’t go to war or undertake certain other activities without parliamentary support. </p>
<p>Today, annual spending laws similarly ensure that Congress can check and balance the power of the president and the executive branch. But this system creates a risk: If both houses of Congress and the president can’t agree on how much money the government should spend, and on what, existing funding might run out before new money is made available.</p>
<p>When that happens, federal agencies and programs that run out of money generally have to stop operating. The Antideficiency Act prevents them from continuing many of their functions while waiting for a new budget. (There are some exceptions, including one that allows certain activities related to <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/1342">protecting public safety and national security</a>.)</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306887/original/file-20191213-85404-ya4kfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306887/original/file-20191213-85404-ya4kfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306887/original/file-20191213-85404-ya4kfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306887/original/file-20191213-85404-ya4kfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306887/original/file-20191213-85404-ya4kfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306887/original/file-20191213-85404-ya4kfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306887/original/file-20191213-85404-ya4kfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306887/original/file-20191213-85404-ya4kfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Even in a shutdown, some Customs and Border Protection officers would almost certainly continue to work, under exemptions allowing some law enforcement and national security workers to stay on the job.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cbpphotos/8468743022">U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Flickr</a></span>
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<h2>Congress’ own expenses</h2>
<p>What about Congress, though? </p>
<p>Congress and the president could avoid any disruption of Congress’ own operations by passing a <a href="https://appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/appropriations-committee-releases-fiscal-year-2020-legislative-branch-funding">law providing funds for the legislative branch</a>, even if they can’t agree on funding for the rest of the government. Last year, a law funding the legislative branch passed before the shutdown, so Congress and its staff were unaffected.</p>
<p>Even if the law funding Congress expired, however, the legislative branch could keep working. Salaries for representatives and senators don’t depend on annual appropriations. Instead, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/97th-congress/house-joint-resolution/325">a 1981 law</a> established a permanent appropriation from which their salaries are paid, even if other federal spending has not been approved.</p>
<p>Even if that law were repealed, the representatives and senators themselves would still get paid for their work, though perhaps not until after the shutdown. Article I of the Constitution guarantees that “<a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-section-6-">the Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States</a>.” The <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxvii">27th Amendment</a> further prevents any law from “varying” representatives’ and senators’ compensation until after an intervening House election. Though aimed principally at preventing representatives and senators from giving themselves a raise, the amendment could also prevent them from giving themselves a pay cut.</p>
<h2>A limit to financial power</h2>
<p>Whatever happens with congressional salaries, Congress’ work could continue. </p>
<p>Although Congress may limit many government activities by denying funding for them, lack of funding cannot prevent activities allowed by the Constitution that don’t require money in the first place.</p>
<p>As I explained in a recent research paper, Congress <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2983453">cannot prevent presidential pardons</a>, vetoes or appointments by denying funding for them, because presidents don’t need any resources beyond their own salary to carry out these functions.</p>
<p>Similarly, a funding lapse should not prevent representatives and senators from discharging constitutional functions that they can carry out personally, such as considering and voting on legislation. Any other view would yield the absurd result that a shutdown could prevent Congress from voting on legislation to end the shutdown.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306892/original/file-20191213-85371-3xh4vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306892/original/file-20191213-85371-3xh4vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306892/original/file-20191213-85371-3xh4vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306892/original/file-20191213-85371-3xh4vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306892/original/file-20191213-85371-3xh4vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306892/original/file-20191213-85371-3xh4vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306892/original/file-20191213-85371-3xh4vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306892/original/file-20191213-85371-3xh4vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In a shutdown, Congress would keep operating, but perhaps with fewer staff.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Capitol_Snow_2018_(32026277508).jpg">Architect of the Capitol/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What about staff?</h2>
<p>The elected officials in Congress may therefore continue to vote on legislation, debate bills and consider impeachment, among other things, even if other components of the government shut down. </p>
<p>But the question whether they can get help from their staff is more complicated. Staff salaries and other support expenses are subject to annual appropriations – not permanent ones like the one funding the representatives’ and senators’ own salaries.</p>
<p>The Government Accountability Office – an arm of Congress – has concluded, however, that legislative aides may keep working if their tasks are “<a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/170/169212.pdf">necessary to assist the Congress</a> in the performance of its constitutional duties.” </p>
<p>Along the same lines, the Department of Justice has ruled that executive branch employees may continue to perform work that is “<a href="https://www.justice.gov/file/22536/download">necessarily incident to presidential initiatives</a> undertaken within [the president’s] constitutional powers.”</p>
<p>The reasoning in these opinions is not airtight. The Constitution does not require the president, senators or representatives to have any staff at all – let alone some minimum “necessary” number. Nevertheless, the practice of allowing continued staff assistance for constitutional functions is sufficiently well established at this point that the Antideficiency Act should probably be understood to allow it.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that Congress itself can’t be shut down. Whatever happens in the coming weeks, Congress may proceed with impeaching the president and considering new legislation – including, Americans might hope, bills to end any government shutdown. </p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zachary Price is a registered Democrat and has contributed to and volunteered for the Democratic Party and some Democratic candidates. He worked for Representative Rush Holt in 1999-2000 and the U.S. Department of Justice from 2009-2012, but the views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. government or any agency or official.</span></em></p>Even if other parts of the federal government shut down, Congress could – and would have to – keep working. A legal scholar explains why and how that is possible.Zachary Price, Associate Professor of Law, University of California College of the Law, San FranciscoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1146942019-05-01T10:41:53Z2019-05-01T10:41:53ZUS, Russia, China race to develop hypersonic weapons<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271583/original/file-20190429-194627-1fzvvu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=71%2C402%2C2661%2C1219&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A new-generation weapon, in white, launches from an older one, the B-52 bomber.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104467/x-51a-waverider/">Mike Cassidy/U.S. Air Force</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/2178620/nothing-matches-our-new-hypersonic-weapons-and-they">Russia</a> and <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a26015499/china-hypersonic-missiles-sink-us-aircraft-carriers/">China</a> have touted their progress in developing hypersonic vehicles, which fly much faster than the speed of sound, which is 767 mph. Hypersonic missiles are rocket-boosted to high altitude and may be launched from land, sea or air. They fly far faster than any other weapons – more than 3,000 mph and potentially <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-the-global-race-to-develop-hypersonic-weapons/">up to 10,000 mph</a> – which makes them difficult to identify, avoid or shoot down. After leading the development of this technology area for decades, the U.S. finds itself behind and investing heavily in the technology to try to keep up.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://aero.engin.umich.edu/people/iain-d-boyd/">professor of aerospace engineering</a> at the University of Michigan, and one of my primary research areas is in the development of computational models to help design hypersonic vehicles. The research is funded by the government and private industry. I have led studies on hypersonics for the government.</p>
<p>Over the past 60 years, U.S. interest in hypersonic vehicles has waxed and waned. An early success was the <a href="https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/north-american-x-15">X-15, a hypersonic test aircraft</a> with a maximum speed of 4,500 mph that was flown from 1959 to 1968. The X-15 flew 199 times and only experienced two failures, of which one resulted in the death of the pilot. It set the stage for the development of the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html">space shuttle</a>, which flew from 1981 to 2011. The next ramp-up in hypersonic activity was the <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/NSIAD-88-122">National Aero-Space Plane</a> Program, from 1986 to 1993, which never built a prototype. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271582/original/file-20190429-194637-1azpce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271582/original/file-20190429-194637-1azpce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271582/original/file-20190429-194637-1azpce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271582/original/file-20190429-194637-1azpce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271582/original/file-20190429-194637-1azpce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271582/original/file-20190429-194637-1azpce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271582/original/file-20190429-194637-1azpce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271582/original/file-20190429-194637-1azpce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An earlier generation of hypersonic weapon: the X-51A WaveRider in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wpafb.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/400162/new-scramjet-has-promising-future/">U.S. Air Force</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A recent success was the X-51A, from 2005 to 2013, which set <a href="https://www.space.com/20967-air-force-x-51a-hypersonic-scramjet.html">a world endurance record</a> for sustained flight of a hypersonic vehicle powered by a high-speed propulsion engine called a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/X43A_2006_5.html">scramjet</a>. However, there were only four flights, of which flights <a href="https://newatlas.com/x-51a-waverider-second-flight/18942/">two</a> and <a href="https://spacenews.com/future-x-51a-test-program-uncertain-after-another-failure/">three</a> were not fully successful. In addition, there were no plans in place for any follow-on at the end of the X-51A program.</p>
<p>Now it seems the U.S. is back in the hypersonic effort in a serious way. The Pentagon has declared hypersonics to be its <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2018/03/06/hypersonics-highest-technical-priority-for-pentagon-rd-head/">number one research and development technical priority</a>. The president’s recent budget request proposes allocating <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/10/pentagon-eyes-windfall-as-trump-seeks-750-billion-defense-budget-military/">almost US$3 billion</a> to develop hypersonic weapons and defense systems against potential adversaries’ hypersonic weapons.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ir6eh9HUgUY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S. and Russia are working to develop hypersonic weapons.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The race for hypersonic supremacy</h2>
<p>China and Russia have become increasingly interested in hypersonic weapons in recent years. Since 2005, <a href="https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/features/hypersonic-weapons-race/">China has published more research papers</a> at a key hypersonics conference than any other country or international group. The Chinese have invested in a number of new and impressive <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2120072/china-builds-worlds-fastest-wind-tunnel-test-weapons">hypersonic test facilities</a>. And, China has conducted more <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-hails-successful-test-of-a-new-hypersonic-weapon-2018-8">hypersonic flight tests</a> recently than the U.S. </p>
<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin recently claimed that his country’s military will begin deploying a <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/12/26/putin-oversees-hypersonic-weapon-test-says-its-invulnerable/">hypersonic weapon called the Avangard</a> sometime in 2019.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Russia launches a test of its Avangard hypersonic weapon.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s not yet clear when those countries will be able to deploy hypersonic weapons in any significant numbers, which is why the U.S. has seized upon this moment to step up its efforts. The recent presidential <a href="https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2020/budget_justification/pdfs/03_RDT_and_E/RDTE_Vol2_MDA%20RDTE_PB20_Justification_Book.pdf">funding requests</a> for weapons development signal efforts to figure out how to deploy hypersonic weapons from air, sea and land.</p>
<h2>Need for a good defense</h2>
<p>Most of the U.S. spending appears to be aimed at developing new weapons – but that risks ignoring the key priority of defense. To counter Chinese and Russian development efforts, the Pentagon will need to invest in ways to detect, track and disable or destroy incoming hypersonic weapons.</p>
<p>It is not clear if the types of interceptors that have been developed for defense against slower weapons will be effective against hypersonic missiles. Entirely novel approaches may be needed to defeat this new threat. Examples include <a href="https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/12/03/high-energy_laser_systems_and_the_future_of_warfare_113998.html">high-power lasers</a> and beams of electromagnetic energy.</p>
<p>I believe that to avoid an important gap in U.S. defensive capabilities, American efforts in defense must at least keep up with the progress of other nations in developing hypersonic weapons.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114694/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iain Boyd is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Physical Society, and the Royal Aeronautical Society. His research on hypersonics is funded by the Air Force, the Navy, and NASA. He is a paid consultant for several organizations, both non-profit and for-profit.</span></em></p>Missiles that fly 3,000 mph or faster – much faster than the speed of sound – are the next generation of high-technology weapons.Iain Boyd, Professor of Aerospace Engineering, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/989942018-06-27T10:42:02Z2018-06-27T10:42:02ZWhy Trump’s proposal to merge the departments of Labor and Education should fail<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225016/original/file-20180626-112623-tvci87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Trump administration plan to merge the Labor and Education departments focuses on workforce needs.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/controlled-workforce-choice-forced-decision-concept-321664988?src=J_DQPlfxyo94bXVEeIFWUw-1-0">Rawpixel.com/www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most people go to school with the expectation that it will lead to a job. If this is the case, then it makes no sense for the federal government to have separate departments for schools and jobs. Or so goes the logic behind the Trump administration’s <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2018/06/trump_proposes_education_labor_department_merger.html">proposal to create a Department of Education and the Workforce</a> that merges the federal Education and Labor departments.</p>
<p>However, as a <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/common-core">political scientist</a> who researches education policy, I see several major problems with the planned merger. </p>
<h2>Education is more than workforce training</h2>
<p>The Trump proposal assumes that the government should build a career pipeline and that young people must fit within it. The Trump administration takes for granted that the existing economic power structure is just and should be supported by the schools. </p>
<p>That approach is at odds with the fact that, historically, colleges have been a place where young people – aided by the liberal arts – can envision new ways of distributing power in society. However, the Trump administration seems to see little room in higher education for the liberal arts. Instead, the Trump plan is more of a call for institutions of higher education to serve American businesses, not nurture democratic dreams.</p>
<p>That much can be gleaned from a new report – <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Government-Reform-and-Reorg-Plan.pdf">“Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century”</a> – in which the Trump administration lays out its political philosophy.</p>
<p>The report argues that the federal government must reorganize itself to better serve the American taxpayer. It states further that the federal government should learn from the private sector how to improve customer service and lower costs. </p>
<p>The Trump administration wants the federal government to focus on “maximizing the effectiveness of skill-building efforts” and build an “education-to-career pipeline.” </p>
<h2>Bipartisan effort</h2>
<p>The report states that this plan is the next step in a series of bipartisan government reform initiatives. For instance, in 2014, President Barack Obama signed into law the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/113/plaws/publ128/PLAW-113publ128.pdf">Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act</a>. The law authorizes the federal government to develop programs to educate and train workers to improve their job prospects. To get federal funds, states needed to “align content standards for adult education with State-adopted challenging academic content standards.” In other words, the Obama administration regulated education to prepare young people for the job market. The Trump administration takes it a step further by arguing this can be better done if one department oversees all of the nation’s employment, training and education programs. </p>
<p>In order to become a reality, the plan must <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2018/06/trump_proposes_education_labor_department_merger.html">get</a> congressional approval. Up to now, this appears unlikely. In 2015, Congress passed a major education law and seems committed to working with the Department of Education. One of the sponsors of the Every Student Succeeds Act, Patty Murray, D-Wash., has <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2018/06/trump_proposes_education_labor_department_merger.html">called</a> the proposed governmental restructuring “unrealistic, unhelpful, and futile.”</p>
<p>The report is an important signal of the Trump administration’s plans to disrupt higher education. The proposed Department of Education and the Workforce would have an agency called the American Workforce and Higher Education Administration to coordinate “federal skill-building policy.” According to the Trump administration, the main purpose of education is <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Government-Reform-and-Reorg-Plan.pdf">connecting</a> young people to “the jobs they want and need.”</p>
<p>As did the Obama administration, the Trump administration sees a federal role in promoting individual and national economic growth. Both Democrats and Republicans have sometimes disagreed on whether this is best accomplished by eliminating the Department of Education as a stand-alone entity.</p>
<h2>Silence on liberal arts</h2>
<p>In my view, it bears emphasizing that government ought to subsidize things that are not immediately profitable. College is a time for young people to learn about the best that the world’s civilizations have to offer and to think about justice, beauty and truth. A liberal arts education has the potential to liberate young people from the prejudices of their time. Yet, the Trump plan is virtually silent on the liberal arts.</p>
<p>The Trump administration may not succeed in its plans to create a Department of Education and the Workforce. But its narrow conception of higher education as workforce training weakens our democracy and its commitment to providing all young people with the opportunity to broaden their thinking. </p>
<p>If the next generation is going to create a better world, it will need to think differently. A liberal arts education is one of the best ways to do that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Tampio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A Trump administration proposal to merge the federal departments of Labor and Education could spell doom for the liberal arts, an education scholar asserts.Nicholas Tampio, Associate Professor of Political Science, Fordham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/933222018-06-05T10:46:58Z2018-06-05T10:46:58ZWith federal funding for science on the decline, what’s the role of a profit motive in research?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221412/original/file-20180601-142069-1d17td4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=318%2C661%2C4572%2C3163&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Money doesn't grow in flasks – scientists have to find funds outside the lab.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/UmncJq4KPcA">chuttersnap/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What is the place of a profit motive in the production of knowledge at public universities?</p>
<p>The Trump administration’s initial budget request presented in 2017 offered one answer to that question. According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the budget proposal included a <a href="https://www.aaas.org/page/fy-2018-rd-appropriations-dashboard">17 percent reduction in funding for basic research</a>. Proposed cuts to particular agencies and programs within them, such as research on <a href="https://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/1.22036.1496251823!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/nature.2017.22036.pdf?origin=ppub">basic energy sciences at the Department of Energy</a>, were particularly acute. And while <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/trump-science-budget/556229/">Congress intervened</a> to avoid these cuts, the current funding package is nevertheless part of a long-term trend of reduced federal commitment to science. </p>
<p><iframe id="Amo48" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Amo48/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Proposed and actual funding conveys a recurring message to American academic scientists: do more to attract money from other sources. In most instances, this means industry funding.</p>
<p>On the face of it, partnerships between academia and industry in the production of knowledge are both sensible and critical. Given sluggish economic growth and the prevalence of societal problems that require technological solutions, one might argue that universities should be extensively engaged in contributing to innovation and less concerned with research lacking an apparent connection to real-world impact. Why spend time and money on studying the mating habits of Japanese quail when there are problems like Alzheimer’s disease and excessive reliance on non-renewable fossil fuels that urgently need solutions right now? </p>
<p>Yet many critics argue that a profit motive in science creates a scenario in which scientists place their values and potential personal gain ahead of the public good, resulting in <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/us/food-industry-enlisted-academics-in-gmo-lobbying-war-emails-show.html">bias and conflicts of interest</a>. Whether you are concerned about the advancement of science, economic innovation, or both, it’s worth considering the value and appropriateness of partnerships between academic scientists and the corporate sector.</p>
<p>What do researchers themselves think? I’ve spent more than a decade sitting down with hundreds of scientists around the world for in-depth conversations about their work. In my recent book, “<a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/fractured-profession">A Fractured Profession: Commercialism and Conflict in Academic Science</a>,” I examine how scientists experience the rise of commercialism in academic science. These researchers shared views with me that don’t necessarily fall neatly in line with either those who celebrate a profit motive in science nor those who lament it.</p>
<h2>What actually motivates scientists?</h2>
<p>Even if university administrators and federal officials reward profitable science, the scientists I spoke with say that profits are rarely their motivation. Commercialist scientists in academia certainly do not dismiss the importance of revenues or resources for research, but societal impact and the pursuit of status in science were more highly prized by the scientists in my study. Being able to claim that you reduced the cost of making a vaccine to less than the cost of the bottle in which it is stored, for example, is a new way to stand out at a university where most scientists are publishing in the top journals in their field. In this respect, self-interest – generating money and prestige – can coincide with the public good.</p>
<p>Perhaps more importantly to those who think that universities should operate even more like businesses <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/academic-capitalism-and-new-economy">than they already do</a>, scholars are finding that average rates of return from commercialization — even at universities with the highest licensing income — <a href="https://www.kauffman.org/what-we-do/research/2011/06/rules-for-growth-promoting-innovation-and-growth-through-legal-reform">are relatively low</a>. In the same way that relatively few universities benefit considerably from big-time college sports, relatively few universities — typically those that are rich already — actually produce blockbusters that lead to financial windfalls. </p>
<p>Unlike some commentators and <a href="https://theconversation.com/people-dont-trust-scientific-research-when-companies-are-involved-76848">members of the public</a>, most of the scientists I spoke with are relatively unconcerned with <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780742543713/Science-in-the-Private-Interest-Has-the-Lure-of-Profits-Corrupted-Biomedical-Research-">conflicts of interest and bias</a> in commercially oriented research. In their view, peer review mitigates such questions. Even if a scientist stands to gain financially from the outcomes of her research, if an invention is not scientifically sound, researchers contend it would have little chance of success in the market.</p>
<p>The traditional scientists in academia I spoke with reported <a href="https://theconversation.com/rather-than-being-free-of-values-good-science-is-transparent-about-them-84946">two chief values</a>: support for curiosity-driven research and a long-term vision of the technological fruits of scientific research. Traditionalists are still the majority, but they encounter scarce resources for basic research and increasing pressure to connect their work to concrete societal impacts. In the words of one scientist, much of what scientists understand about cancer stems from work based on Nobel Prize-winning biologist Lee Hartwell’s curiosity-driven research on how yeast cells divide. “If he had to apply his research, he probably would have had to work for Budweiser,” he said.</p>
<h2>Investing in a mix of sorts of science</h2>
<p>What should be the role of the state and the market in the production of knowledge in the American research university? Both are critical.</p>
<p>History shows there’s an intrinsic value to letting people explore, because such <a href="https://theconversation.com/tracing-the-links-between-basic-research-and-real-world-applications-82198">exploration is critical to later marketplace innovations</a> and economic prosperity. Today’s multi-billion-dollar global positioning system industries rely on Einstein’s general theory of relativity and ideas from 19th-century geometry, the latter of which were dismissed by contemporaries as useless. Other technologies, such as Teflon, saccharine and the pacemaker, were accidental creations. While corporations once valued having internal basic science laboratories where exploratory or “blue-sky” research took place, now the U.S government is the chief, and under-resourced, patron for this important work.</p>
<p>Few universities generate vast commercial returns from commercially oriented research. As a society, we must therefore be cautious in how eagerly we unleash the forces of the market in funding science in academia. Similar experiments in substituting the market for the state in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/magazine/michigan-gambled-on-charter-schools-its-children-lost.html">primary schooling</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/us/private-prisons-escapes-riots.html">prisons</a> and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/outsourcing-war/">the military</a> have not clearly paid off. </p>
<p>Much as a diversified investment portfolio includes various assets that balance returns and risk, society would benefit most from a healthy mix of investment in curiosity-driven, use-inspired and highly market-oriented research in academia.</p>
<p>Until scientists can better articulate why science is as worthy of investment as any other form of infrastructure, they will likely continue to encounter the message delivered today: look to the market.</p>
<p>
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<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248894/original/file-20181204-133095-1p2xxs2.png?w=128&h=128">
<div>
<header>David R. Johnson is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/fractured-profession">A Fractured Profession: Commercialism and Conflict in Academic Science</a></p>
<footer>Johns Hopkins University Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93322/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was funded by the National Science Foundation Grant #0957033 “A New Reward System in Academic Science.”
Johns Hopkins University Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</span></em></p>Money always seems tight for university scientists. A sociologist conducted hundreds of interviews to see how they think about funding sources and profit motives for basic and applied research.David R. Johnson, Assistant Professor of Higher Education, University of Nevada, RenoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/917132018-03-27T10:43:46Z2018-03-27T10:43:46ZCongress left a little something for waiters and dishwashers in its $1.3 trillion budget<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212052/original/file-20180326-188601-bjsgol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lawmakers have been generous. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trudy Wilkerson/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While federal workers were breathing a sigh of relief that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/us/politics/house-passes-spending-bill.html">Congress managed to avoid</a> a government shutdown, another group of workers also had reason to cheer. That’s because hidden deep in the US$1.3 trillion budget deal that President Donald Trump signed on March 23 was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/business/economy/tipping-workers.html">a measure</a> preventing his administration from changing the law to allow employers to take workers’ tips. </p>
<p>As an expert in workers’ rights, I believe the measure also has the potential to reduce an inequality that has long existed in the restaurant industry.</p>
<h2>The law on tips</h2>
<p>The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Tipped employees, however, can earn as little as $2.13 if they make up the difference between that and the minimum wage – or more – in tips. </p>
<p>This came to be known as a “tip credit” and <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/93/hr12677">allows</a> employers to pay subminimum wages, as long as they let the worker keep all of his or her tips. </p>
<p>In 2011, the Obama administration <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2011/04/05/2011-6749/updating-regulations-issued-under-the-fair-labor-standards-act">promulgated regulations</a> stating that employees must be allowed to keep all their tips, regardless of whether they are paid the tipped or full minimum wage. The only exception was in cases of a tip pool that distributed tips among employees who “customarily and regularly receive tips.” </p>
<p>Despite this rule, tip stealing is widespread in the restaurant industry. <a href="http://www.nelp.org/publication/broken-laws-unprotected-workers-violations-of-employment-and-labor-laws-in-americas-cities/">A 2009 survey</a> of low-wage workers in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles by the National Employment Law Project, a national policy organization, found that 12 percent of survey participants who received tips had their tips stolen by their employer in violation of current law. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212053/original/file-20180326-188604-3juqjz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212053/original/file-20180326-188604-3juqjz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212053/original/file-20180326-188604-3juqjz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212053/original/file-20180326-188604-3juqjz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212053/original/file-20180326-188604-3juqjz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212053/original/file-20180326-188604-3juqjz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212053/original/file-20180326-188604-3juqjz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some restaurants pool tips to distribute them more evenly among staff.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Ted S. Warren</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Changing the rules</h2>
<p>The Trump administration was poised to make this problem worse by repealing the regulation that required that employees be permitted to keep their tips, except pursuant to a legal tip pool.</p>
<p>In December, the Department of Labor <a href="https://www.eater.com/2017/12/5/16708374/tipping-laws-trump-department-of-labor-changes">announced</a> a proposed rule change that would have allowed employers to do whatever they wanted with tips earned by employees, including keep them, as long as the employees made at least $7.25 per hour. </p>
<p>The administration claimed that this rule change would have allowed employers to distribute tips more equitably among their employees. For instance, it would have permitted dishwashers and other kitchen staff to be a part of a tip pool, something previously not permitted. </p>
<p>Labor advocates <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/trump-department-labor-tipping-wage-theft-799683">cried foul</a>, arguing that the change would have resulted in a massive wealth transfer from workers to employers. <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-would-pocket-workers-tips-under-trump-administrations-proposed-tip-stealing-rule/">An analysis</a> by the Economic Policy Institute estimated that the rule would have cost workers at least $5.8 billion per year in lost income. </p>
<p><a href="https://bnanews.bna.com/daily-labor-report/labor-dept-ditches-data-on-worker-tips-retained-by-businesses">A Department of Labor analysis</a> that was initially kept from the public came to similar conclusions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212045/original/file-20180326-188607-v39b7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212045/original/file-20180326-188607-v39b7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212045/original/file-20180326-188607-v39b7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212045/original/file-20180326-188607-v39b7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212045/original/file-20180326-188607-v39b7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212045/original/file-20180326-188607-v39b7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212045/original/file-20180326-188607-v39b7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Until now, ‘back of the house’ employees such as dishwashers weren’t allowed to share in tip pools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Restaurant inequality</h2>
<p>Whether or not the administration was being honest about its real motivations, the Department of Labor was right to draw attention to a form of structural inequality that exists in the restaurant industry. </p>
<p>Tipped workers typically make <a href="http://rocunited.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/REPORT_The-Great-Service-Divide2.pdf">two to four times</a> that of non-tipped workers, even when their formal salary is just $2.13 an hour. The ones who earn gratuities, such as waiters, bussers and food runners, are called “front of the house” employees. Meanwhile, “back of the house” employees, like cooks, dishwashers and other kitchen staff, don’t earn tips. </p>
<p>Because racial minorities are more likely to be employed in non-tipped positions, this income inequality results in a stark racial divide as well. A <a href="http://rocunited.org/2011/08/restaurants-and-race-discrimination-and-disparity-in-the-food-service-sector/">study</a> by the Restaurant Opportunity Centers United, a <a href="http://rocunited.org/">national restaurant worker advocacy group</a>, found that white food service workers earn $3 more per hour on average than workers of color, in part because of the tips that white workers are more likely to earn. </p>
<p>As long as federal regulations forbade tip pools to include these back of the house employees, this structural inequality was likely to persist.</p>
<h2>What the budget deal does</h2>
<p>The measure passed as part of the budget deal addressed both the concern about employers’ taking workers tips and the structural pay gap. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CPRT-115HPRT29374/pdf/CPRT-115HPRT29374.pdf">It states</a> that under no circumstances can employers or managers take workers’ tips. But it also suspends the Obama regulation that prohibited tip pooling with back of the house employees as long as all employees earn at least $7.25 per hour. </p>
<p>In other words, this will allow employers to distribute tips more fairly and better compensate their lowest-paid employees, who often work in back, while preventing owners from using the rule to line their own pockets. </p>
<p>Congress rarely passes legislation that is win-win, but in this situation it has managed to do just that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91713/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Hallett directs the Community Justice Clinic, which represents low-wage workers on issues related to, among other things, tip-stealing. </span></em></p>The budget bill just signed into law by the president will both make it harder for restaurants to take worker tips while reducing a form of inequality rife in the industry.Nicole Hallett, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, University at BuffaloLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/918112018-03-26T10:48:05Z2018-03-26T10:48:05ZA return to earmarks could grease the wheels in Congress<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211759/original/file-20180323-54893-1vpgr9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of Congress debated a government spending bill into the early morning on March 20.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> AP/J. Scott Applewhite</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Congress passed a US$1.3 trillion spending bill last Thursday, March 22 – only narrowly averting a third government shutdown this year. President Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/us/politics/trump-veto-spending-bill.html">signed the bill</a> into law on Friday.</p>
<p>Congress’s inability to pass spending bills on schedule has produced unrelenting frustration and criticism by commentators and members of Congress alike. </p>
<p>Because the congressional budgeting process has become so dysfunctional, many suggest that a return to earmarks, popularly known as “pork-barrel spending,” would grease the wheels for appropriations bills. An earmark is money provided for an individual project in an elected official’s district, as a way of encouraging that official’s vote for a spending bill. </p>
<p>A return to earmarking – for <a href="https://www.cagw.org/content/pig-book-2010">projects ranging</a> from new bridges to museum funding to renewable energy research, tailored for individual members’ districts – would require lifting a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/what-is-an-earmark/2012/01/27/gIQAK6HGvQ_story.html?utm_term=.4d20f6eae67f">2011 moratorium</a> imposed on the practice.</p>
<p>I have <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/greasing-wheels-using-pork-barrel-projects-build-majority-coalitions-congress?format=PB&isbn=9780521545327#iRqCLBv6sXpLtGJr.97">studied</a> the effect of pork-barrel spending on passing spending bills. Although earmarks are worth reconsidering as a way of greasing the legislative wheels, I would argue that the case for them is mixed.</p>
<p>Pro-earmark arguments have come from <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/the-bipartisan-movement-to-bring-back-earmarks-in-congress">both parties</a>. The supporters include Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, as well as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/01/12/trump-just-praised-earmarks-heres-what-the-fuss-is-about/?utm_term=.c59c812e7fb8">President Trump</a>. </p>
<p>Simultaneously, pressure from House Republicans has led Speaker Paul Ryan <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?439801-1/house-rules-committee-holds-hearing-earmarks">to allow hearings</a> to consider ending the 2011 earmark moratorium. </p>
<p>Prior to 2011, these earmarks were, with a few exceptions, regularly, and until 2006, in increasingly <a href="https://www.cagw.org/content/pig-book-2010#historical_trends">large numbers,</a> put into appropriations bills as well as highway reauthorizations to help smooth the way to passage. </p>
<h2>Pork helps move things along</h2>
<p>My own <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/greasing-wheels-using-pork-barrel-projects-build-majority-coalitions-congress?format=PB&isbn=9780521545327#iRqCLBv6sXpLtGJr.97">research</a>, as well as that of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3186129?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents/">Frances Lee of the University of Maryland</a>, shows that earmarks helped transportation committee leaders pass three massive highway bills, overcoming significant policy controversies surrounding each bill. I also found that earmarks were often helpful in passing appropriations bills. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, to opponents, earmarks remain pork-barrel projects that are rife with waste and reek of corruption. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., called earmarks “the Washington swamp creature that <a href="https://www.flake.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2018/1/bipartisan-senate-coalition-introduces-bill-to-permanently-ban-earmarks">just never seems to die.”</a> </p>
<p>To supporters, on the other hand, earmarks are congressionally directed spending. They are a legitimate use of Congress’s constitutionally mandated <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Cheese_Factories_on_the_Moon.html?id=xwILSgAACAAJ">power of the purse</a>, which, not incidentally, may help members’ political careers.</p>
<p>Earmark proponents say a return to the practice could remedy the long-running difficulty of passing appropriations bills in a carefully considered, transparent manner. </p>
<h2>What did we spend that money for?</h2>
<p>In the normal appropriations process, Congress would pass twelve individual spending bills each year, a process designed to give members of Congress a chance to examine the spending in each bill before voting. </p>
<p>The reality is far different. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/16/congress-has-long-struggled-to-pass-spending-bills-on-time/">Data compiled</a> by the Pew Research Center show that between the 2011 earmark moratorium and fiscal year 2018, only one individual appropriations bill was enacted, rather than the 84 appropriations bills Congress should have passed. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211762/original/file-20180323-54869-1e7i2ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211762/original/file-20180323-54869-1e7i2ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211762/original/file-20180323-54869-1e7i2ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211762/original/file-20180323-54869-1e7i2ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211762/original/file-20180323-54869-1e7i2ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211762/original/file-20180323-54869-1e7i2ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211762/original/file-20180323-54869-1e7i2ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pork-barrel spending can help move things along.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead of using the process that encourages careful consideration of individual spending items, Congress has funded government agencies in <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/16/congress-has-long-struggled-to-pass-spending-bills-on-time/">massive omnibus appropriations bills or full-year continuing resolutions</a>. These bills make it virtually impossible for members to know what they are voting for. </p>
<p>This breakdown in the appropriations process coincides neatly with the earmark moratorium. </p>
<p>However, prior to the moratorium, the process did not always go smoothly. The <a href="https://www.cagw.org/content/pig-book-2010#historical_trends">large increase</a> between 1991 and 2006 in the cost of earmarks, from $3.1 billion to $29 billion, did not ensure the passage of stand-alone appropriations bills.</p>
<p>Would earmarks now help Congress pass appropriations bills? </p>
<p>The evidence is less clear than it is for highway bills. I <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/greasing-wheels-using-pork-barrel-projects-build-majority-coalitions-congress?format=PB&isbn=9780521545327#iRqCLBv6sXpLtGJr.97">analyzed</a> a number of Senate appropriations bills from 1994 to 2000; although the political dynamics might be different today, the findings could be helpful for the current conversation about earmarks. </p>
<p>In 1994, when the Democrats still controlled Congress, earmarks helped convince senators to vote in support of the positions of the powerful appropriations subcommittee chairs. </p>
<p>After the Republican takeover in 1995, however, earmarks were somewhat less effective. By 2000, with Republicans still in control, earmarks – although growing in number and cost – had no discernible effect on senators’ appropriations votes. </p>
<h2>Partisanship could undermine earmarks’ benefits</h2>
<p>My interviews with committee staff members suggested various reasons for this. Prominent among them, according to one staffer, was the fact that votes were “increasingly … on highly charged substantive policy matters.” Senators needed to vote on those issues in a partisan manner, regardless of earmarks. </p>
<p>Another staffer blamed the failure of leaders to punish disloyal members by removing their earmarks. </p>
<p>That staffer said, “People have no shame. They vote no and take the dough.”</p>
<p>It is difficult to predict how returning to pork-barrel spending would work today. </p>
<p>For earmarks to be effective tools, members who otherwise would oppose the bills on a partisan or ideological basis would have to vote contrary to their own or their party’s preferences. Their willingness to do so would undoubtedly depend partly on the electoral consequences.</p>
<p>As Yale political scientist David Mayhew has <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300105872/congress">argued</a>, members believe that bringing benefits to their home district gives them something they can claim credit for, enhancing their chances for re-election. That gives congressional leaders leverage over members’ votes.</p>
<p>The evidence for this effect is nuanced, however. </p>
<p>Earmarks can help members <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268013000633">win re-election</a>, especially when members <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/how-words-and-money-cultivate-a-personal-vote-the-effect-of-legislator-credit-claiming-on-constituent-credit-allocation/7538BBE494CE31274DAE7F9F2E220F04">claim credit for them</a>. </p>
<p>But there is also evidence that constituents are more likely to reward Democrats than Republicans <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4935138_Deficits_Democrats_and_Distributive_Benefits_Congressional_Elections_and_the_Pork_Barrel_In_The_1980s">for such benefits</a>. This is not entirely surprising, given that earmarks are consistent with Democrats’ commitment to activist government. For Republicans committed to cutting the cost of government, bringing home earmarks could be painted as hypocritical. </p>
<p>These differences could help explain why I found that earmarks provided leaders with less leverage over members’ votes in Republican-controlled congresses.</p>
<p>The negative effect of earmarking for Republicans may have grown over the last two decades, as critics have increasingly made earmarks a national issue, framing them as egregious government waste. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211737/original/file-20180323-54866-1bpk3hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211737/original/file-20180323-54866-1bpk3hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211737/original/file-20180323-54866-1bpk3hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211737/original/file-20180323-54866-1bpk3hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211737/original/file-20180323-54866-1bpk3hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211737/original/file-20180323-54866-1bpk3hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211737/original/file-20180323-54866-1bpk3hk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., was a frequent critic of pork-barrel spending.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Former Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, for example, called earmarks “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/tom-coburn-porkys-ii-the-earmarkers-strike-back-1398985965">the gateway drug to Washington’s spending addiction</a>.”</p>
<h2>The powerful get more</h2>
<p>At their peak, earmarks amounted to approximately 3 percent of the discretionary budget, the portion that Congress controls, which amounts to about one-third of total federal spending. As a result of earmark reform in 2007, spending on earmarks dropped to 1.3 percent <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02304.x/abstract">of the discretionary budget</a>. In fiscal year 2010, earmarks cost $16.5 billion.</p>
<p>Earmarks are vulnerable to other criticisms, not least of which is the disproportionate share awarded to the districts of the most powerful members, particularly to members and leaders of the appropriations committees. </p>
<p>For example, scholar Austin Clemens and his colleagues <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1532673X15576952">found</a> that in 2008 and 2009, members of the House Appropriations Committee got 35 percent of all earmarked dollars. That was more than twice what they would have received if earmarks had been equally distributed among all the committee members.</p>
<p>In addition, the majority party gets disproportionately more earmarks than the minority, although the minority gets enough to make it harder for them to use earmarks as a campaign issue. That’s a strategy dubbed “partisan blame avoidance,” <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/3088396?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">according to Steven J. Balla of George Washington University and his colleagues</a>.</p>
<p>While it is tempting to condemn earmarks as frivolous at best, and wholly wasteful and corrupt at worst, research on their uses and effects paints a more complex picture of their role in the governing process. </p>
<p>As Congress wrestles with the process of passing individual appropriations bills, Republican leaders may respond by once again allowing earmarks in appropriations bills, winning more Democratic votes for spending bills, and protecting some of their own vulnerable members at the polls.</p>
<p><em>An updated version of this story can be found <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gateway-drug-to-corruption-and-overspending-is-returning-to-congress-but-are-earmarks-really-that-bad-151909">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91811/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diana Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pork-barrel spending – that often reviled custom otherwise known as ‘earmarks’ – may well help Congress pass bills on schedule. Banned since 2011, they may be making a comeback.Diana Evans, Professor of Political Science, Trinity CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/898432018-02-15T11:36:43Z2018-02-15T11:36:43ZScaling back Obamacare will make the opioid crisis worse<p>There’s been much talk in the U.S. about fixing the opioid crisis. </p>
<p>In October, President Donald Trump declared the situation a public health emergency and set up a commission on opioids. On Feb. 9, Congress finally took action by allocating US$6 billion for substance abuse treatment in the budget bill. Though a step in the right direction, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/9/16991340/opioid-funding-budget-deal">many experts argue</a> that it’s still a drop in the bucket given the extent of the epidemic. </p>
<p>These funds will undoubtedly help states expand substance abuse services, but their impact will depend on the robustness of our current health care system. As a social worker who has witnessed addiction firsthand, I know the country needs a health care system that treats the whole person, rather than just his or her substance use disorder. </p>
<p>This concept drove many provisions of the Affordable Care Act, which seeks to improve access and quality of services for people suffering from drug dependence. The ACA also promotes <a href="http://utw10282.utweb.utexas.edu/project/connecting-body-and-mind">integrated health care</a>, the systematic coordination of physical and behavioral care.</p>
<p>By undermining the ACA, Trump and the GOP are taking away one of the health care system’s best tools for improving the lives of those with addiction.</p>
<h2>ACA and access to care</h2>
<p>When the ACA passed in 2010, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11414-014-9412-0">62.5 million people</a> gained access to mental health and substance abuse services for the first time. </p>
<p>By requiring that the essential benefits package include equal coverage for health and behavioral health conditions for both inpatient and outpatient care, the ACA significantly increased the reach of <a href="https://www.cms.gov/cciio/programs-and-initiatives/other-insurance-protections/mhpaea_factsheet.html">a 2008 law</a> that applied only to big employer plans.</p>
<p>Many Americans also gained access to mental health and substance use benefits if their states opted to expand Medicaid under the ACA. By 2015, Medicaid covered 38 percent of the 2 million people with opioid dependence. However, that still left 20 percent uninsured, many of whom live in <a href="https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/medicaid-and-the-opioid-epidemic-enrollment-spending-and-the-implications-of-proposed-policy-changes/">states that didn’t expand Medicaid</a>. </p>
<p>With greater access has come increased treatment rates. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/health/addiction-treatment-opiods-aca-obamacare.html">Clinics under the National Council on Behavioral Health Care</a> now treat 30,000 people a year for substance use disorders, versus 9,000 prior to the ACA. Many states expanded their Medicaid programs to include <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-treating-addiction-with-medication-should-be-carefully-considered-89010">medication-assisted treatment</a>, an effective approach that combines medication, such as Naltrexone or methadone, with counseling.</p>
<p>However, some Republicans go so far as to claim <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/17/16897122/senate-republicans-medicaid-opioid-epidemic">that Medicaid expansion caused the opioid epidemic</a>. <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20170823.061640/full/">Drug-related deaths</a> have continued to rise and are higher on average in states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA. People on Medicaid are also <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/18/578800264/republicans-blame-medicaid-for-contributing-to-opioid-epidemic">more likely to be on pain medication</a>. </p>
<p>But the fact that more people are on pain medication does not prove that more people on Medicaid misuse opioids. <a href="http://www.dhcs.ca.gov/provgovpart/Documents/Waiver%20Renewal/Executive_Summary_-_Faces_III.pdf">People on Medicaid</a> have more chronic conditions and pain than the general population and require more pain treatment. Moreover, these state trends in drug-related deaths were <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20170823.061640/full/">well-established before 2010</a>, when the ACA went into effect.</p>
<p>Altogether the data show that, while access to health care is a necessary step, it’s not sufficient to solve the problem. What also matters is the way we deliver care. </p>
<h2>Substance use and physical health</h2>
<p>In addition to improving access and coverage, the ACA aims to redesign the way Americans receive health care. </p>
<p>Physical and mental health are intertwined, but our health care system has long treated symptoms in isolation. There are even separate government agencies to oversee health, mental health and substance abuse services at the federal, state and local level. </p>
<p>Opioid dependence is arguably one of the most egregious examples of the damage wrought by treating one symptom without considering the whole person. During the crisis, new cases of hepatitis C from opioid use <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/statistics/2015surveillance/index.htm">tripled</a>, Indiana experienced an <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6416a4.htm">HIV outbreak</a> and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm">deaths from overdose skyrocketed</a>. People with substance use disorders are at <a href="https://www.rwjf.org/content/dam/farm/reports/issue_briefs/2011/rwjf69438/subassets/rwjf69438_1">high risk</a> for other ailments, such as heart disease, asthma, gastrointestinal disorders and skin infections. </p>
<p>Yet behavioral health care providers have neglected the physical health needs of the people with mental health and substance use disorders, leading to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1563985/">alarming mortality rates</a>. Conversely, <a href="http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/2005/Improving-the-Quality-of-Health-Care-for-Mental-and-Substance-Use-Conditions-Quality-Chasm-Series.aspx">primary care providers</a> have not paid attention to behavioral health. In the case of opioid addiction, this has led to <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/opioids/index.html">dangerous prescribing practices</a> to manage pain. </p>
<p>People with substance use disorders and mental illnesses make 12 million visits annually to emergency departments. These visits and subsequent hospitalizations are predominantly for medical care, not psychiatric care, and most importantly could often have been prevented with <a href="https://www.milbank.org/publications/integrating-primary-care-into-behavioral-health-settings-what-works-for-individuals-with-serious-mental-illness">good primary care</a>. </p>
<p>Under the ACA, millions of federal dollars have been awarded to health care systems find innovative ways to integrate care. For example, <a href="https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Medicare-Fee-for-Service-Payment/ACO/">accountable care organizations</a> are groups of hospitals, doctors and other providers who take on the cost of caring for an enrolled population and can share any savings they generate. Some models go further by actually locating primary and behavioral health clinics together, so people can have a one-stop shopping experience for all their health needs. </p>
<p>Such models provide financial incentives for systems to coordinate primary and behavioral care. <a href="https://innovations.ahrq.gov/perspectives/state-accountable-care-organizations">Early evidence</a> suggests that accountable care organizations improve the quality of care and reduce hospitalizations. </p>
<p>The ACA also increased funding for preventive services, such as <a href="https://www.integration.samhsa.gov/clinical-practice/sbirt">screenings for substance abuse in community settings</a>.</p>
<h2>Danger ahead</h2>
<p>During the 2016 elections, the repeal of the ACA became a rallying cry for Trump. </p>
<p>Yet Congress has not managed to overturn it. Instead, the attack on the ACA has become piecemeal. Trump has cut funding to promote enrollment in marketplace insurance, offered states the option to implement Medicaid waivers that <a href="https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/approved-changes-to-medicaid-in-kentucky/">undermine benefits</a> and constantly threatened to cut cost-sharing payments to insurers.</p>
<p>The most significant attack came recently as part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/historic-tax-overhaul-nears-finish-line-5-essential-reads-88517">tax overhaul bill</a>. This bill repealed the individual mandate, meaning people can no longer be penalized for not having health care insurance. Many experts are concerned that this will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/us/politics/tax-cut-obamacare-individual-mandate-repeal.html">exacerbate the fragility of insurance markets</a>. Furthermore, the bill eliminated key health care taxes that fund innovation to improve service quality and reduce costs. </p>
<p>While we have seen the opioid epidemic rise under the ACA, the crisis <a href="https://doi.org/10.1377/hblog20170823.061640">could have been worse without it</a>. What’s more, system integration is complicated and takes time. Even with the full support of the administration, Americans would not have seen the full benefits of these reforms yet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89843/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Stanhope receives funding from the National Institute of Mental Health. </span></em></p>By undermining the ACA, Republicans may be taking away one of the health care system’s best tools for improving the lives of those with addiction.Victoria Stanhope, Associate Professor of Social Work, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/913672018-02-09T14:55:24Z2018-02-09T14:55:24ZCongress’ budget dysfunction is more than 4 decades in the making<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205619/original/file-20180208-180833-1mhkiik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In an eleventh-hour twist, Sen. Rand Paul <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/08/congress-massive-budget-deal-2018-398189">protested the costs</a> of Congress’ latest budget deal and briefly shut down the federal government.</p>
<p>Then, in the wee hours of Feb. 9, both houses of Congress eventually voted to pass the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/07/politics/senate-announces-deal-budget-caps-agreement/index.html">budget deal</a> – a bipartisan agreement to repeal expenditure limits and fund the government for the next two years, if everything goes to plan. However, Paul’s midnight brinkmanship cast a sour note on its passage.</p>
<p>Paul had a point.</p>
<p>Based on my experience in government and as a professor of budgeting at Harvard, I predict that this latest deal, like most short-term fixes, will cause a lot of pain down the line for younger Americans who will have to pick up the tab. Critics of the budget deal may dub it the “Kick-the-can-down-the-road Act.”</p>
<p>Here’s a breakdown of what the deal will and won’t do, and a brief history of how U.S. lawmakers got into this mess to begin with.</p>
<h2>Good news, bad news</h2>
<p>Congress’ budget deal would raise military spending to its highest level in decades and boost most nondefense programs. To pay for this US$300 billion binge, lawmakers have decided to abandon any pretense of fiscal conservatism and borrow whatever it takes. As part of the bargain, Congress will raise the debt limit until March 2019. The agreement should keep the government open for the next two years – leaving members of Congress free to focus on the serious business of campaigning for their midterm elections.</p>
<p>The good news is that government agencies are likely to have some stability after decades of “continuing resolutions,” “fiscal cliffs,” shutdowns, sequestration and debt ceiling brinkmanship. Shutdowns hurt the morale of our civil servants, whether they are working to halt Ebola at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or to protect historical sites like Gettysburg. Budget impasses also end up costing the government more in wasteful last-minute spending. </p>
<p>The bad news is twofold.</p>
<p>First, the current deal technically only funds the government through March 23. Congress still must navigate a number of procedural hurdles such as getting the new spending figures into specific appropriations bills. For now, Democrats have called off their <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/07/nancy-pelosi-dreamers-democrats-398166">attempt to link rescuing</a> the young American “Dreamers” to a budget deal. The broader immigration issue remains unresolved.</p>
<p>Second, the agreement does not solve any of the underlying flaws in the federal budget. For example, it provides no solution to ensure that Social Security, Medicare, military retirement trust funds and other entitlements are made sustainable. These mandatory expenditures <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52480">have risen</a> from 4 percent to 12 percent of Gross Domestic Product since 1970 and now account for two-thirds of the federal budget. </p>
<p>Moreover, the injection of more funds than the Pentagon even asked for will squash any attempts at spending efficiency in the military. What is certain is that the budget deficit and our national debt will sharply increase.</p>
<h2>How did things get so bad?</h2>
<p>The present dysfunction in the congressional budget process can be traced back to the budget reforms of 1974 when Congress passed the sweeping <a href="http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/projects/debt/budgetcontrolact.html">Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act</a>. The law was the first fundamental change in national budgeting since 1921 and was driven by Congress’ effort to reassert its constitutional “power of the purse” in the aftermath of Watergate. The act strengthened the role of Congress in the budget process and established the House and Senate Budget committees to determine the size and allocation of the annual budget pie.</p>
<p>These committees have failed to control the budget process. In the intervening 44 years, Congress has ratified the annual budget bills on time <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/16/congress-has-long-struggled-to-pass-spending-bills-on-time/">only four times</a> – in 1977, 1989, 1995 and 1997. The combination of rising mandatory spending on entitlements and deep tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 has led to a chronic imbalance between government revenues and expenditures.</p>
<p>The budget “sequester” that Congress has just lifted was adopted in 2011. It imposed across-the-board limits to federal spending in a crude attempt to deal with this ongoing budget shortfall. Congress subsequently resorted to a series of gimmicks and financial work-arounds to circumvent the spending caps, including raising billions of dollars through “tax expenditures” – amending the tax code to reduce revenues coming in to the Treasury. They also increased “user fees” for government services such as TSA airline ticket charges and shifted regulatory burdens from federal agencies to state and local governments. Meanwhile, the huge costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been paid for outside of the regular budget using “emergency” and “exempt” funds that are <a href="https://theconversation.com/iraq-and-afghanistan-the-us-6-trillion-bill-for-americas-longest-war-is-unpaid-78241">entirely financed</a> by borrowing.</p>
<p>One consequence of all these policies is that the public debt <a href="http://www.usdebtclock.org/">has climbed</a> to more than $20 trillion, and now <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S">accounts for</a> more than 100 percent of GDP. Racking up this debt has been made possible by historically low interest rates and a global appetite for U.S. Treasury bonds. These benign economic conditions made it easy for the Treasury to issue increasing amounts of government debt without any material impact on the cost of borrowing.</p>
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<p>But interest rates are now beginning to climb. The latest congressional budget agreement comes hard on the heels of the recent Trump tax cuts, which will slash annual tax revenues by some $180 billion, according to the nonpartisan <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/reports/53514-debtlimit.pdf">Congressional Budget Office</a>.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most pernicious aspect of the current deal is its corrosive effect on the Republican Party. For decades, Republicans have at least aspired to stand for smaller, leaner, more efficient government. Now that they control both houses of Congress, they have rolled back spending limits and pushed through one of the most out-of-control spending packages in U.S. history. In the budget, as elsewhere in our national politics, traditional political certainties are out the window.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91367/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda J. Bilmes is affiliated with the US National Park Service Advisory Board, United Nations Committee on Public Administration, National Academy of Public Administration, Economists for Peace and Security, Council on Foreign Relations, Harvard Taubman Center for State and Local Government, Harvard Ash Center for Democratic Governance, Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Harvard Rappaport Center for Greater Boston and Oxford University's Blavatnik School of Government.
</span></em></p>Congress may have averted a shutdown, but don’t get too excited, warns a Harvard budget expert. The deal isn’t sustainable long term.Linda J. Bilmes, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Public Finance, Harvard Kennedy SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/904192018-01-19T23:42:14Z2018-01-19T23:42:14ZWill a federal government shutdown damage the US economy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202646/original/file-20180119-110121-1okyu2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Lincoln Monument was a casualty of the last shutdown, in 2013.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The federal government <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/us/politics/government-shutdown.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-ab-top-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news">shut down</a> for the first time in a little more than four years after Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on a last-minute deal to keep funds flowing for another few weeks. </p>
<p>The immediate and <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/government-shutdown-3305683">most visible impact</a> will be in the government’s day-to-day operations. Many departments and offices, like the Department of the Treasury, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Library of Congress, will be closed, and nonessential federal employees across the government would stay home. Families hoping to take their kids to a national park will usually be out of luck in a shutdown, but the Trump administration <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/18/politics/park-service-government-shutdown/index.html">hopes to keep some of them</a> open. Meanwhile, the men and women who protect our food supply and national security will still be doing their jobs – without pay.</p>
<p>But beyond the individual workers and families affected, could a short or lengthy shutdown affect the broader U.S. economy as well? </p>
<p>Constantine Yannelis, a business professor at New York University, and I examined data from the <a href="https://eml.berkeley.edu/%7Ecle/alluc/Constantine_abstract.pdf">last time the government shut down</a> in 2013 to better understand its impact. </p>
<h2>An economic speed bump</h2>
<p>While a shutdown affects the economy in a number of ways – from delaying business permits and visas to reducing service hours at innumerable agencies – a primary channel through which a shutdown affects the economy is through withheld or foregone pay from federal employees who don’t receive their paychecks. </p>
<p>Since consumer spending makes up a <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/consumer-spending-trends-and-current-statistics-3305916">majority of economic activity</a> in the United States, withholding pay from a large fraction of the workforce can introduce a significant economic speed bump in the short run. </p>
<p>And that’s exactly what we saw in 2013. </p>
<p>Similar to the situation today, a partisan standoff in Congress <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/lessons-from-the-last-time-the-government-shut-down">led to a partial shutdown of the government</a> that lasted a little over two weeks beginning on Oct. 1 of that year.</p>
<p>Well over a million federal employees were affected and didn’t receive a paycheck during the shutdown. Some were furloughed – sent home and told not to do anything related to their job. Those deemed “essential” or “exempted” – such as security personnel screening passengers at airport or border patrol agents – were required to continue working at their jobs, despite no pay at that time. The government eventually paid both groups the money owed them, regardless of whether they worked, after <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/10/16/235442199/how-we-got-here-a-shutdown-timeline">Democrats and Republicans reached</a> an agreement on Oct. 16. </p>
<p>My colleague Yannelis and I sought to understand how households responded by tracking how they behaved in the days leading up to, during and following the shutdown using detailed financial data. </p>
<p>We obtained this anonymized data from a personal finance website where people track their income, expenses, savings and debt. Using the paycheck transaction descriptions, we identified over 60,000 households that contained employees of federal agencies affected by the shutdown. These affected employees included both those who were asked to work without pay and those who were furloughed.</p>
<p>As a comparison group, we also identified over 90,000 households with a member who worked for a state government. That would likely mean they have fairly similar levels of education, experience and financial security, yet their paychecks were unaffected by the shutdown.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202640/original/file-20180119-110081-q0daov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202640/original/file-20180119-110081-q0daov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202640/original/file-20180119-110081-q0daov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202640/original/file-20180119-110081-q0daov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202640/original/file-20180119-110081-q0daov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202640/original/file-20180119-110081-q0daov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202640/original/file-20180119-110081-q0daov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who will be blamed for a government shutdown?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Short-term impact on spending</h2>
<p>Our study led to two primary findings. </p>
<p>First, we found that the shutdown led to an immediate decline in average household spending of almost 10 percent. Surprisingly, despite the fact that most federal workers have stable jobs and income sources, they were quick to cut spending on pretty much everything, from restaurants to clothing to electronics, just days after their pay was delayed.</p>
<p>While households with less money in the bank cut their spending by larger amounts, even those with significant resources and easy access to credit reduced their expenditures. </p>
<p>Second, households with a member who was furloughed and required to stay home from work slashed their spending more dramatically – by 15-20 percent, or almost twice as much as the average of those affected. This larger decline reflected the fact that these households suddenly had a lot more time on their hands. Rather than going out to eat or paying for child care for example, they were able to spend more time cooking and watching their own children. </p>
<p>This behavior is what tends to spread the economic effects of a shutdown that affects a slice of the population to a wider group of businesses and individuals. And in regions with substantial numbers of federal workers, these declines in spending can greatly hurt the health of the local economy in the short run. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202639/original/file-20180119-110094-zxwiwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202639/original/file-20180119-110094-zxwiwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202639/original/file-20180119-110094-zxwiwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202639/original/file-20180119-110094-zxwiwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202639/original/file-20180119-110094-zxwiwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202639/original/file-20180119-110094-zxwiwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202639/original/file-20180119-110094-zxwiwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Depending on how long the impasse lasts, lawmakers may need to order some pizzas, as they did in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Long-term impact?</h2>
<p>Whether or not a shutdown has a longer-term economic impact depends on whether employees are paid their foregone wages after its conclusion – and how long it lasts. </p>
<p>In 2013, the government <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-past-shutdowns-congress-gave-federal-workers-back-pay-this-time-dont-count-on-it/2013/09/23/a7028e3e-2485-11e3-ad0d-b7c8d2a594b9_story.html">repaid</a> even furloughed workers what they would have earned had the shutdown not happened. </p>
<p>This repayment, essentially increasing the size of their first post-shutdown paychecks, had significant and immediate effects on household spending. A sudden spike in spending occurred in the days after the paychecks were disbursed, largely erasing some of the most dramatic declines in spending during the previous two weeks.</p>
<p>The government has usually paid all its employees, “essential” or not, back pay after other past shutdowns, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-past-shutdowns-congress-gave-federal-workers-back-pay-this-time-dont-count-on-it/2013/09/23/a7028e3e-2485-11e3-ad0d-b7c8d2a594b9_story.html?utm_term=.477499b934a9">such as those in the 1990s</a>. While Congress is legally required to pay federal employees who worked during the shutdown, there’s no law requiring the same treatment for nonessential workers. </p>
<p>In addition, the longer the shutdown lasts, the worse its impact. Households might deplete savings or hit their credit card limits as the impasse stretches day after day, giving them additional time to adjust their spending in ways that they could not do with only a few days’ notice. For instance, in 2013, bills like health insurance or tuition payments were largely unaffected. Had that shutdown persisted, households may have started to cut back here as well.</p>
<p>So if Congress refuses to offer furloughed workers back pay and the shutdown lasts weeks rather than days, the economic impact could be severe. </p>
<p>However, if a shutdown is resolved in a relatively short amount of time, with workers being paid back their regular income, the damage would likely be fairly contained.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90419/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott R. Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 2013 shutdown offers some clues as to what the impact will be now after Republicans and Democrats failed to agree to a short-term spending deal.Scott R. Baker, Assistant Professor of Finance, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/887612017-12-14T03:56:14Z2017-12-14T03:56:14ZTrump’s right about one thing: The US Senate should end its 60-vote majority<p>As the <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-global-poy-trump/trumps-first-year-in-office-marked-by-controversy-protests-idUKKBN1E01W5">dramatic and traumatic first year</a> of the Trump presidency nears the finish line, with major legislative struggles over <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/johnson-to-back-senate-tax-bill-putting-gop-leaders-close-to-securing-passage/2017/12/01/0226ff98-d6a2-11e7-b62d-d9345ced896d_story.html">tax legislation</a> and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/11/28/5-very-real-scenarios-that-could-lead-to-a-government-shutdown/">budget</a>, it is easy to overlook other important political events.</p>
<p>One such development is essential to both the tax reform package, which would be Trump’s only significant legislative achievement to date, and the less noted but spectacular success the president has had with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/11/us/politics/trump-judiciary-appeals-courts-conservatives.html">judicial nominations</a>.</p>
<p>In both cases success has depended on procedures created to negate the Senate filibuster, which is better thought of as minority obstruction.</p>
<p>The question now is, should the Senate move even further toward being a legislative body characterized by majority rule rather than minority obstruction?</p>
<p>Many Democrats, including me, might resist anything that helps President Donald Trump and his GOP congressional majority. Yet as a <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/invention-united-states-senate">scholar of the Senate</a> and advocate of responsible government, I believe the end of the 60-vote Senate would nonetheless be a good thing for the country – and conform to what the founders intended.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198582/original/file-20171211-27683-hb0m6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198582/original/file-20171211-27683-hb0m6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198582/original/file-20171211-27683-hb0m6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198582/original/file-20171211-27683-hb0m6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198582/original/file-20171211-27683-hb0m6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198582/original/file-20171211-27683-hb0m6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198582/original/file-20171211-27683-hb0m6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sen. Charles Schumer and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid defend their vote to weaken the filibuster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Limited nuclear warfare in the Senate</h2>
<p>On Nov. 21, 2013 the Senate, under Democratic control, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-poised-to-limit-filibusters-in-party-line-vote-that-would-alter-centuries-of-precedent/2013/11/21/d065cfe8-52b6-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html?utm_term=.3b953842dea7">decided by a 52-48 vote</a> that the “vote on cloture under Rule XXII for all nominations other than for the Supreme Court of the United States is by majority vote.” </p>
<p>These few and perhaps obscure words embodied the most important change in Senate standing rules – or, to be precise, in their interpretation – since at least 1975.</p>
<p>Rule XXII is the Senate rule that defines <a href="https://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_index_subjects/Cloture_vrd.htm">cloture</a> – a motion to bring debate to a close – and requires a supermajority of at least 60 votes on most matters under consideration. The 60-vote threshold is what empowers filibusters or minority obstruction and can prevent a final vote on legislation. The 2013 decision eliminated that barrier for nearly all nominations to the executive and judicial branches. This allowed Democrats to confirm a <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/for.2015.13.issue-4/for-2015-0042/for-2015-0042.pdf">significant number of nominations</a> after cloture was invoked with a simple majority vote.</p>
<p>Just over three years later, on April 6, 2017, the Senate, under GOP control and with exclusively Republican support, <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/327591-gop-triggers-nuclear-option-gutting-filibuster-in-gorsuch-fight">voted by the same margin</a> to apply the same interpretation to nominations to the Supreme Court. The immediate result, of course, was the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/07/us/politics/gorsuch-confirmation-vote.html">easy confirmation</a> of Neil Gorsuch. </p>
<h2>What this means</h2>
<p>These decisions are significant for four reasons.</p>
<p>First, an entire category of Senate business, its constitutional duty to give “advice and consent” on presidential nominations, was protected from obstruction by the minority.</p>
<p>Second, only a few years apart, a majority from each party voted to categorically restrict the filibuster.</p>
<p>Third, in each case the Democratic or Republican majority employed the same controversial method – often referred to as the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/CRSpubs/cc582238-01e2-41b2-b955-5fdb2ed7b778.pdf">“nuclear option”</a> or <a href="http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Gold_Gupta_JLPP_article.pdf">“constitutional option”</a> – to make these significant changes in a standing rule of the Senate.</p>
<p>Instead of amending the wording of the standing rule, the majority called for a parliamentary interpretation and ruling, which requires only a simple majority vote to sustain or overturn. </p>
<p>Finally, this change will likely endure now that it has been sustained by majorities of both Republicans and Democrats.</p>
<h2>Fast-tracking past the filibuster</h2>
<p>Use of the so-called nuclear option was spectacular, controversial and did bring significant change to the Senate. Yet these moves have also been complemented by a different type of limitation on minority obstruction. </p>
<p>Over several decades, Congress has forged and used dozens of legislative “carve-outs” or – to use congressional scholar <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/book/exceptions-to-the-rule/">Molly Reynold’s term</a> – “majoritarian exceptions” that protect specific categories of legislation from minority obstruction in the Senate.</p>
<p>Every legislative carve-out features a time limit on consideration that applies to both chambers. This quashes minority obstruction in the Senate because a simple majority vote will be held at the end of the time restriction. The term <a href="https://www.senate.gov/CRSpubs/445f5bac-e33d-403b-b78e-ab7d2610c421.pdf">“fast-track”</a> is often associated with these provisions that expedite congressional consideration. These include such specifics as approval of <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43491.pdf">trade agreements</a> and the <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R43102.pdf">military base closure process</a>. In each case, lawmakers used a “fast-track” procedure to prevent obstruction.</p>
<p>Looming large in this category is the increased use of <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/introduction-to-budget-reconciliation">budget reconciliation</a> for <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/15/how-budget-reconciliation-broke-congress-215706">major legislation</a>, such as the final work on passage of the Affordable Care Act, the 2017 attempt to repeal that law and the current Republican tax legislation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198591/original/file-20171211-27714-d6eb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198591/original/file-20171211-27714-d6eb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198591/original/file-20171211-27714-d6eb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198591/original/file-20171211-27714-d6eb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198591/original/file-20171211-27714-d6eb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198591/original/file-20171211-27714-d6eb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198591/original/file-20171211-27714-d6eb9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Sen. Strom Thurmond exits the Senate after he held a 24-hour filibuster – the longest ever – in hopes of stopping the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The bill easily passed two hours later.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Restoring the Senate’s important but limited role</h2>
<p>The 60-vote Senate remains powerful but circumscribed. This threshold for ending debate still applies to most legislation. This includes appropriations bills and most laws in areas such as military policy, the environment or civil rights.</p>
<p>Still, the combination of the legislative carve-outs with the entire category of nominations nevertheless constitutes a serious diminution of supermajority politics. </p>
<p>Following the second nuclear option in 2017, many senators and observers asked whether the Senate might be heading toward the elimination of supermajority cloture entirely. “Let us go no further on this path,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/us/politics/filibuster-senate-republicans.html?_r=0">said</a> Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/senators-urge-save-filibuster-237014">A letter</a> signed by a bipartisan group of 61 Senators implored the majority and minority leaders to help them preserve 60 votes for most legislation. Sen. Lindsay Graham, who voted for the 2017 nuclear option, <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/read-lindsey-grahams-speech-on-the-court-filibuster-and-future-of-the-senate/article/2007549">warned</a> that if the Senate does away with the requirement, “that will be the end of the Senate.”</p>
<p>While most senators showed little appetite for further curtailment of supermajority cloture, President Donald Trump was ready to go all the way. Trump has more than once tweeted, with characteristic imprecision, his support for an end to all 60-vote thresholds in the Senate, the first time a president has taken such a stance. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"890931465885798400"}"></div></p>
<h2>Finish what it started</h2>
<p>In this rare instance, I agree with the president.</p>
<p>By creating these restrictions, the Senate has repeatedly recognized that the 60-vote threshold is often dysfunctional and that the costs to effective governance are too high. </p>
<p>The norms that support the supermajority Senate are eroding. And from a constitutional perspective, that’s just fine. Contrary to Graham’s all too common sentiment, a supermajority threshold is not what defines the Senate.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/book/politics-or-principle/">political scientists</a> and historians have noted over and over again, supermajority cloture is not part of and cannot be derived from the Constitution or any original understanding of the Senate. Elements such as equal representation by the states, six-year terms and a higher age requirement <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/invention-united-states-senate">are what distinguish</a> the Senate’s style of deliberation and decision-making from the House.</p>
<p>In fact, although it may seem like the 60-vote filibuster has been with us forever, <a href="https://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_index_subjects/Cloture_vrd.htm">it’s actually only been around</a> since 1917.</p>
<p>Moreover, the protection of minority interests, often cited as a justification for the filibuster, is a product of the system as a whole – the separate branches, the checks, federalism – not the self-appointed duty of the Senate.</p>
<p>To finish what it started, the Senate could change its rules to allow a simple majority to close debate on any bill, nomination or other matter, while also guaranteeing a minimum period of debate, which would allow the minority position to be voiced and debated. </p>
<p>In so doing the Senate would end its undemocratic pretensions and resume its prescribed and limited role in the system of checks and balances. That would be a good thing no matter which party controls the Senate and regardless of who is, or will be, president.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88761/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Wirls does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Republicans were able to push through a tax plan and a flurry of judicial nominees after the Senate curtailed use of the filibuster. It’s time to go all the way.Daniel Wirls, Professor of Politics, University of California, Santa CruzLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/806512017-07-27T02:01:11Z2017-07-27T02:01:11ZWhen the federal budget funds scientific research, it’s the economy that benefits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179810/original/file-20170726-27705-12b4ng0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=298%2C502%2C2708%2C1823&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Impacts of federal research funding can be felt region-wide.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/view-downtown-seattle-skyline-washington-usa-510934489">f11photo/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Emergency: You need more <a href="https://www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/june97/mills.html">disposable diapers</a>, right away. You hop into your car and trust your ride will be a safe one. Thanks to your phone’s GPS and the <a href="http://www.longviewinstitute.org/projects/marketfundamentalism/microchip/">microchips that run it</a>, you map out how to get to the store fast. Once there, the <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/sensational60.pdf">barcode on the package</a> lets you accurately check out your purchase and run. Each step in this process owes a debt to the universities, researchers, students and the federal funding support that got these products and technologies rolling in the first place.</p>
<p>By some tallies, almost two-thirds of the technologies with the most far-reaching impact over the last 50 years <a href="http://www.bu.edu/research/articles/funding-for-scientific-research/">stemmed from federally funded R&D</a> at national laboratories and research universities.</p>
<p>The benefits from this investment have trickled down into countless <a href="http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/technology/1110/gallery.government_inventions/index.html">aspects of our everyday lives</a>. Even the internet that allows you to read this article online has its roots in federal dollars: The U.S. Department of Defense supported installation of the first node of a <a href="https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/arpanet">communications network called ARPANET</a> at UCLA back in 1969.</p>
<p>As Congress debates the upcoming budget, its members might remember the economic impacts and improved quality of life that past <a href="https://nsf.gov/about/history/nifty50/index.jsp">congressional support of basic and applied research</a> has created.</p>
<h2>Federal dollars do more than fund labs</h2>
<p>Here in the state of Washington, federally funded research at both my employer, Washington State University, and the University of Washington has led to transformational innovations. It’s helped spawn not only new products that save and improve lives, but productivity growth through new businesses and services.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179521/original/file-20170724-11166-1s8eb5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179521/original/file-20170724-11166-1s8eb5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179521/original/file-20170724-11166-1s8eb5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179521/original/file-20170724-11166-1s8eb5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179521/original/file-20170724-11166-1s8eb5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179521/original/file-20170724-11166-1s8eb5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179521/original/file-20170724-11166-1s8eb5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179521/original/file-20170724-11166-1s8eb5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Zhang lab at WSU works on recycling carbon composite fiber materials.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Robert Hubner, WSU</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just a few examples include new kinds of <a href="https://cmec.wsu.edu/documents/2015/04/wmel-history.pdf">composite-based lumber</a>, <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2015/these-researchers-are-building-extra-brainy-smart-homes-to-monitor-aging-adults/">smart home technology for the aged</a>, <a href="https://nephrology.uw.edu/about/history-innovation">kidney dialysis machines</a>, <a href="https://magazine.wsu.edu/2015/08/16/the-ion-investigators/">airport explosive detectors</a> and new varieties of wheat, <a href="https://news.wsu.edu/2016/11/21/mcdonalds-chooses-wsu-potatoes/">potatoes</a> and other <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/quinoa-comes-to-the-northwest/">agricultural crops</a> that we enjoy at our tables and in numerous products.</p>
<p>All these inventions relied on federal investment combined with university research lab expertise. The important final step was commercialization. Together it all led to positive economic impacts.</p>
<p>We see this pattern again and again.</p>
<p>For instance, next time you’re on Google, remember it was founded by two Stanford University doctoral students who were funded in part by <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100660">National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships</a>. Fast forward 20 years and here in my backyard, the company is busy building a new campus in downtown Seattle that may house <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2016/paul-allens-vulcan-develop-huge-complex-google-amazons-backyard/">3,000-4,000 workers</a> by 2019. Many of those hired will likely be <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/google-plans-big-expansion-to-south-lake-union/">graduates from both WSU and UW</a>.</p>
<p>The fact is that <a href="http://www.sciencecoalition.org/downloads/AMI_v3_4-17-17.pdf">thousands of companies</a> can trace their roots to federally funded university research. And since the majority of federally funded research takes place <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/82xx/doc8221/06-18-research.pdf">at America’s research universities</a> – often in concert with federal labs and private research partners – these spinoff companies are often located in their local communities all across the country.</p>
<p>Just one of these firms, headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, employs over 2,800 workers and started with researchers at the University of Colorado who create instruments, data exploitation solutions and technologies for civil, commercial, <a href="http://www.sciencecoalition.org/successstories/company/ball-aerospace-technologies-corp">aerospace and defense applications</a>. Another in Audubon, Pennsylvania develops rapid, noninvasive <a href="http://www.sciencecoalition.org/successstories/company/liquid-biotech-usa-inc">“liquid biopsy” tests</a> for cancer screening and early detection based on research from the University of Pennsylvania. And another company with 85 employees in Madison develops high-density <a href="http://www.sciencecoalition.org/successstories/company/nimblegen-systems-inc">DNA microarrays</a> for pharmaceutical research based on research from the University of Wisconsin.</p>
<p>The list goes on and on.</p>
<h2>A Washington state case study</h2>
<p>Focusing federal research funding on research universities who enjoy strong corporate and business partners has <a href="https://www.rdmag.com/article/2015/04/how-academic-institutions-partner-private-industry">strategic value</a>. There is little doubt that the state of <a href="http://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/06/16/states-with-the-fastest-and-slowest-growing-economies-2/2/">Washington’s recent economic successes</a>, for example, comes down to a cycle of innovation and discovery that feeds additional economic growth and private-public-university relationships. Federal R&D funding is a key ingredient.</p>
<p>Our two public research universities have strong relationships with federal funding agencies. Together Washington State University and the University of Washington – the largest recipient of federal research funding in the nation among public universities – form the technological and intellectual pillar around which many of our state’s successful businesses are built and sustained. Both universities graduate thousands of undergraduate and graduate students who provide a constant supply of educated, trained workers. In turn, the universities and federal R&D investment benefit from the active engagement and monetary support of business leaders and professionals. Innovative ideas and knowledge percolate back and forth between federally funded research and the private sector.</p>
<p>A recent milestone provides an example.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179516/original/file-20170724-11666-199zx5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179516/original/file-20170724-11666-199zx5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179516/original/file-20170724-11666-199zx5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179516/original/file-20170724-11666-199zx5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179516/original/file-20170724-11666-199zx5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179516/original/file-20170724-11666-199zx5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179516/original/file-20170724-11666-199zx5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179516/original/file-20170724-11666-199zx5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gassing up with renewable, affordable jet fuel – thanks to a public/private research collaboration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Robert Hubner, WSU</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Federal research dollars helped solidify a collaboration aimed at solving a big problem: the high carbon emissions from air travel, a contributor to climate change. WSU worked together with the UW and a host of other regional public research institutions, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Alaska Airlines, Weyerhaeuser Corp., Gevo, Inc. and a large alliance of private industry to develop a <a href="https://nararenewables.org/">renewable, affordable source of jet fuel</a>.</p>
<p>Each collaborator brought unique expertise to the innovation table. USDA provided the funding and the policy commitment to the development of biofuels that spurred matching investment from private partners. Alaska Airlines brought the need to reduce its carbon emissions and its leadership in applying clean technologies to improve its environmental performance. WSU contributed decades of pertinent experience in both basic science and applied research. UW researchers demonstrated the fuel’s potential reduction in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions. And, Gevo, Inc. brought its private-sector skills and patented technology in developing bio-based alternatives to petroleum-based products. The sum of these parts created a strong, successful partnership that took a big step toward sustainable aviation.</p>
<p>Individual researchers with their deep expertise remain the bedrock of the research enterprise. But teams of scientists – drawn from research universities, government and the private sector – all <a href="http://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1116&context=publication">working on multidisciplinary problems</a> are having an increasing impact.</p>
<h2>Recipe for amplifying R&D investment</h2>
<p>Importantly, this phenomenon is not unique to the state of Washington. The <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/studies/americas-most-innovative-tech-hubs/">nation’s most active innovation hubs</a> and successful regional economies have similar factors that drive economic growth and resiliency, including:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Top-tier research institutions supported by federal, state and private funding;</p></li>
<li><p>A concentration of talented and diverse workers;</p></li>
<li><p>An ecosystem of firms, entrepreneurs and intermediaries;</p></li>
<li><p>Accessible pools of risk capital;</p></li>
<li><p>A global orientation; and</p></li>
<li><p>Communities that take advantage of the area’s unique assets and advantages in creating a desirable quality of life.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>We see these conditions <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-20-most-innovative-cities-in-the-us-2013-2#4-corvallis-oregon-17">coming together around the country</a>: in Silicon Valley, the Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle Park, Boston’s metro area and other innovation hubs in cities like Boulder, Colorado; Madison, Wisconsin; Austin, Texas; and Gainesville, Florida.</p>
<p>It’s this <a href="https://itif.org/publications/2008/07/09/where-do-innovations-come-transformations-us-national-innovation-system-1970">cooperative model</a> and leveraging of federal R&D dollars that have long been this <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/localizing-the-economic-impact-of-research-and-development/">nation’s competitive advantage</a>. With fewer federal dollars allocated to scientific R&D, the next Silicon Valley – with its potential for an economic renaissance for a new area not even on our innovation map yet – may not emerge as quickly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80651/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In his position as VP of Research for WSU, Christopher Keane oversees projects that receive grants from DOE, USDA, NIH, NSF and DOD.</span></em></p>Research dollars don’t stay locked up in academia and government labs. R&D collaborations with the private sector are common – and grow the innovation economy.Christopher Keane, Vice President for Research and Professor of Physics, Washington State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/760702017-06-01T01:57:24Z2017-06-01T01:57:24ZPrivate defense companies are here to stay – what does that mean for national security?<p>Share prices of many military and intelligence contractors have risen sharply since President Donald Trump’s election. </p>
<p>Investors are betting that an increase in defense spending will provide a windfall for these firms. For instance, <a href="http://www.generaldynamics.com/our-business/combat-systems/land-systems">General Dynamics</a>, a large contractor that develops combat vehicles and weapons systems for the U.S. military, saw its stock price jump by more than <a href="https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AGD&ei=ZcMtWYm4JIO0jAHxy6egDg">30 percent in the months after the election</a>. Likewise, Kratos Defense and Security Services, a smaller firm that builds <a href="http://www.kratosusd.com/capabilities/unmanned-tactical-systems">drones</a> for the U.S. Air Force, saw its shares soar <a href="https://www.google.com/finance?q=Kratos&ei=ZcMtWYm4JIO0jAHxy6egDg">more than 75 percent</a> between November 2016 and May 2017. </p>
<p>This trend may be short-lived. Congress still must decide whether <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/us/politics/trump-budget-winners-losers.html?_r=0">Trump’s proposed 10 percent increase in defense spending</a> is practical given current budget constraints.</p>
<p>What is certain is that for-profit military and intelligence firms will remain an integral part of U.S. national defense. My <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09636412.2017.1243912">research</a> focuses on the changing nature of the private defense industry. Military contracting <a href="http://archive.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=67440">is still big business</a>, although media coverage of private military firms has diminished since the withdrawal of the U.S. from Iraq in 2011. Today, contractors’ work ranges from assisting in drone missions to analyzing signals intelligence to <a href="http://www.jobs.net/jobs/dyncorp/en-us/job/Afghanistan/Advisor-Embedded-Police/J3J6Y7686BZTPSFRY48/">training police forces</a> in fragile countries like Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Like it or not, government agencies responsible for national security are dependent on private defense firms. These companies are primarily responsible to shareholders rather than the American people. How can they be held accountable to the nation’s interests?</p>
<h1>New frontiers</h1>
<p>In recent years, private military companies have adapted to changing demands from U.S. defense agencies. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military relied heavily on contractors to support counterinsurgency operations. However, high-profile incidents of alleged human rights abuses by the company CACI at <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-appeals-court-reinstates-abu-ghraib-prison-abuse-case-against-caci/2016/10/21/e53c43a6-97b5-11e6-bc79-af1cd3d2984b_story.html?utm_term=.6e0a02269e7a">Abu Ghraib Prison</a> in Iraq and Blackwater at <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/us/blackwater-verdict.html">Nisour Square</a>, Iraq brought to light the difficulty the American military faces monitoring private defense companies. </p>
<p>At the same time, Americans have since become averse to nation-building campaigns in <a href="https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/publication/americans-support-limited-military-action-syria-against-isis">failing states</a>. So, private defense firms have shifted away from supporting “boots on the ground.” Instead, they are increasingly assisting military and intelligence agencies with counterterrorism and cybersecurity.</p>
<p>While the American people generally want to avoid deploying troops to conflict zones, they still demand protection from terrorism. The Pentagon, CIA and other defense agencies receive assistance in these areas from private companies with expertise in drone warfare, special forces operations and analysis of electronic surveillance of potential terrorist threats. These traditionally were duties of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ejil/article/19/5/1055/505530/We-Can-t-Spy-If-We-Can-t-Buy-The-Privatization-of">public employees</a>.</p>
<p>Cybersecurity is another area in which private military companies see <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/09/29/raytheon-wins-1-billion-cybersecurity-contract-to-battle-attacks-on-u-s-agencies/?utm_term=.f3154e7c2d4d">increasing demand</a>. Information gleaned from hacking government agencies, world leaders and political campaigns can be used by rogue states like Russia and nonstate actors like WikiLeaks to harm American interests.</p>
<p>Governments and multinational corporations realize that protecting classified information and intellectual property is of paramount importance. They are willing to pay top dollar to private defense firms to keep their secrets safe.</p>
<h2>Serving the public interest?</h2>
<p>Most defense analysts now acknowledge that the question is not whether to privatize, but <a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/DAED_a_00100?journalCode=daed#.WRJ6HxiZO1s">where to draw the line</a>. If the U.S. government is going to work extensively with contractors, it requires a more <a href="https://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/cwc/20110929213815/http://www.wartimecontracting.gov/">robust oversight system</a>. Government agencies and courts also need assurances they can hold defense firms accountable if they break the law overseas. </p>
<p>During the Iraq War, this was a point of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09636412.2010.480906">serious contention</a>. It was unclear what legal jurisdiction applied to employees of private defense firms. The uncertain legal status of contractors caused significant tension between the U.S. and the government of Iraq and hampered <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/world/middleeast/01contractors.html?mtrref=undefined&gwh=04E8524B4347957ED094B882F7D70C09&gwt=pay">American counterinsurgency efforts</a>. </p>
<p>Here are three ways Congress could increase accountability for private defense firms as the industry becomes more enmeshed in national security.</p>
<p>First, Congress could create an independent regulatory agency to report on contractors’ performance. While major firms in the industry insist they can <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-public-policy/article/effectiveness-of-selfregulation-by-the-private-military-and-security-industry/4E7881E8C544004B3F6A8FB5310DD1EE">regulate themselves</a>, an independent oversight agency could more adequately assess how defense contractors perform. </p>
<p>Second, as things stand now, the U.S. government often overlooks bad behavior and renews contracts with companies that have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/opinion/will-anyone-pay-for-abu-ghraib.html?_r=0">less than stellar records</a>. Instead, the government could more severely penalize firms that do not fulfill the terms of their agreements.</p>
<p>Third, government employees often transition from public service into lucrative positions at <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pentagon-nominees-ties-to-private-firms-embody-revolving-door-culture-of-washington/2017/01/19/3524e8f4-dcf9-11e6-918c-99ede3c8cafa_story.html?utm_term=.3650925cd8bf">billion-dollar defense corporations</a>. Stricter rules to limit this “revolving door” would make government employees more willing to penalize firms.</p>
<p>Private defense contractors will likely be a major part of U.S. national defense for the foreseeable future. Diligent oversight and regulation of companies in this rapidly evolving industry, I believe, are necessary to ensure that these firms advance the public good of American security.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76070/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Mahoney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For-profit corporations are deeply embedded in US national security infrastructure – and they’re not going anywhere.Charles Mahoney, Professor of Political Science, California State University, Long BeachLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/750442017-05-03T01:11:56Z2017-05-03T01:11:56ZWhy America’s public media can’t do its job<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166707/original/file-20170425-13414-1g605i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">PBS headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/melaniephung/8036886386">melanie.phung/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the Trump administration released its proposed budget in March, it suggested eliminating federal funding for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB). </p>
<p>“Can we really continue to ask a coal miner in West Virginia or a single mom in Detroit to pay for these programs?” Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director, Mick Mulvaney, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/mick-mulvaney-trump-budget-priorities-236117">said in defense of the cuts</a>.</p>
<p>Mulvaney seemed to argue that public media was a luxury for the educated few, rather than a truly public resource. Indeed, since the CPB was first established, the degree to which public media reflects the diversity of the nation has the <a href="http://current.org/series/diversity/">subject of much debate.</a></p>
<p>But it’s not as simple as Mulvaney makes it out to be. <a href="http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/budget-bill-retains-funding-for-arts-agencies-public-broadcasting-1202406053/">Though the proposed cuts seem unlikely to go through this year</a>, public media will continue to be at the mercy of political and economic factors that have hampered its ability to fulfill its mission and achieve its goals. </p>
<h2>A mirror for the nation</h2>
<p>When Congress passed the <a href="http://www.cpb.org/aboutpb/act">Public Broadcasting Act of 1967</a> to establish a national, publicly funded media system, there were two clear mandates: to cultivate a more engaged citizen and to affirm the nation’s diversity. </p>
<p>In the network’s <a href="http://current.org/2012/05/national-public-radio-purposes/">original mission statement</a>, NPR architect Bill Siemering described public media as a “necessity for citizens in a democratic society to be enlightened participants.” Unbeholden to the demands of the marketplace, public media would ideally be able to reach audiences that might not be targeted by commercial broadcast networks and their advertisers. This included communities traditionally left out of civic discourse: the uneducated, the poor, the housebound, ethnic minorities and those living in rural areas.</p>
<p>“We try to mirror ALL of the country – perhaps the hardest thing of all,” NPR’s former deputy director Rick Lewis <a href="https://www.amazon.com/This-NPR-First-Forty-Years/dp/081187253X">said in 1970</a>, describing his vision for “Morning Edition.” </p>
<p>To tackle this challenge, the CPB decided its subsidiaries, National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), would have a national reach. Meanwhile, they would cultivate member stations rooted in a diverse range of communities across the country. NPR affiliates based in Fresno, California; Mobile, Alabama; or Erie, Pennsylvania might all carry national programs, but they are also tasked with pursuing local stories.</p>
<h2>A precarious funding model</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, speaking to the country’s extraordinarily diverse populations through a single media system has proven tricky. And over the years, public media has ended up tailoring its programs to an almost exclusively upscale audience of baby boomers.</p>
<p>The decision to focus on college-educated listeners and viewers is certainly a function of the CPB’s own economic realities. As communications professor Robert McChensney argued in his book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Political-Economy-Media-Enduring-Emerging/dp/1583671617/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493207698&sr=1-1&keywords=robert+mcchesney+political+economy+of+media">The Political Economy of Media</a>,” American public media has been severely handicapped since its inception.</p>
<p>Unlike the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) – which citizens subsidize by paying an <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/whoweare/licencefee/">annual television license fee</a> – American public media receives relatively little federal funding, denying it a stable source of income. With federal funding in a constant state of flux, public media has come to rely on income from private sources such as pledge drives and corporate underwriting accounts. For example, in 2015 NPR member stations <a href="http://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances">received</a> about 14 percent of their revenues from federal, state and local entities, while 20 percent came from corporations and 37 percent from private donations. </p>
<p>To be economically viable, therefore, public media must focus on affluent, educated listeners. The result is a media system that can, at times, seem woefully out of the touch with nation it purports to represent. </p>
<p>Just as the country is becoming more ethnically, religiously and linguistically diverse (<a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/03/2016-electorate-will-be-the-most-diverse-in-u-s-history/">a recent Pew study</a> showed that the U.S. electorate in 2016 was the most diverse in the nation’s history), consumers of national public media remain disproportionately white.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166709/original/file-20170425-13395-1nkmhuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NPR has ambitious aspirations, but its audience still skews old and white.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/bootbearwdc/5116147131">David/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ombudsman/2012/04/10/150367888/black-latino-asian-and-white-diversity-at-npr">According to a 2012 report</a>, the audience for NPR’s member station news programs was 5 percent African-American, 6 percent Latino and 5 percent Asian-American. This disparity is also reflected at the leadership level. <a href="http://current.org/2016/07/drive-for-diversity-demands-courage-commitment/">In an essay</a>, Joseph Tovares, the senior vice president and chief content officer for the CPB, admitted that the inclusion of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans at the general manager level are almost nonexistent at NPR and PBS member stations.</p>
<p>We see these disparities in the programming itself. Like other national media institutions, public media has traditionally struggled to find a way to include the voices of ethnic and racial minorities. While there are some bright spots – including PBS’s <a href="http://pbskids.org/">children’s programming</a> and NPR’s <a href="http://latinousa.org/">Latino USA</a>, the overall diversity efforts seem tepid. <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ombudsman/2012/04/30/151304276/six-national-leaders-and-experts-look-at-diversity-at-npr">In a forum</a> organized by NPR to address public radio’s diversity challenges, sociologist Michael Schudson effectively captured the dilemma:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“No doubt the staff makes an effort to cover issues of special importance to minorities and women, but you suspect that it is a mission and not a habit, and that it feels like a kind of foreign correspondence. You know it can be done well or poorly but, in either case, it is done with the handicap of a largely monochromatic newsroom.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A wavering commitment to diversity?</h2>
<p>Public media realizes that the status quo is a losing strategy. The demographic realities are too sobering. <a href="http://current.org/2015/10/drop-in-younger-listeners-makes-dent-in-npr-news-audience/">NPR projects</a> that by 2020, its stations’ audience of people younger than 45 will be around 30 percent – half of what that audience accounted for in 1985. </p>
<p>To its credit, the CPB has made broadening its appeal a core part of its <a href="http://www.cpb.org/faq">current strategy</a>, which includes what it calls the “three D’s”: digital, diversity and dialogue. </p>
<p>However, <a href="http://cdn.nationalpublicmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/NPR.org-and-On-Air-Audience-Profiles.pdf">their own strategic documents</a> provide some insight into just how elastic their definition of inclusion is. For example, NPR’s target audiences still include the “Affluent Business Leader” who is “a c-level employee, has an investment portfolio of $150,000 or more, and holds a leadership position in a club or organization.” Then there’s the “Cultural Connoisseur” who has a postgraduate degree, is more likely to buy tickets for classical music, ballet and opera, and takes more than three vacations a year. For its part, <a href="http://cdn.nationalpublicmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/PBS.org-Audience-Profiles.pdf">PBS touts</a> the “Power Mom,” who enjoys outdoor activities and spends a significant amount of time online searching for information on museums and concerts.</p>
<p>In other words, these are not the disenfranchised communities whom the original architects of NPR believed would be served by public media. </p>
<p>As journalism professor Ralph Engelman writes in his book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Public-Radio-Television-America-Political/dp/0803954077">Public Radio and Television in America</a>,” today’s public media was born out of the desire to achieve a more democratic version of German philosopher Jürgen Habermas’ <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/structural-transformation-public-sphere">public sphere</a>. Habermas’ notion of what “public” means was criticized as being reserved for propertied, educated males at the exclusion of the poor and disenfranchised. But by serving those already inclined to participate in civic life, it appears that today’s public media extends – rather than disrupts – this pattern.</p>
<p>Just as we’re witnessing unprecedented attacks on the country’s most disenfranchised communities, this seems like an institutional failure. Legislators are advancing policies designed to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/donald-trump-immigration-detention-deportations-enforcement/">restrict the movements of Latinos and Muslims</a>. Gains made by the LGBTQ community are being <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/trump-administration-rolls-back-protections-for-transgender-students/2017/02/22/550a83b4-f913-11e6-bf01-d47f8cf9b643_story.html?utm_term=.bceb662bc257">scaled back</a>. There are active efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, eliminate entitlement programs and defund early education programs like Head Start, all of which undermine working-class communities. </p>
<p>Now more than ever, it seems necessary to include the voices – and reach the people – most impacted by these policies. It seems that only by unhitching its funding model from private interests can public media truly fulfill its mission of serving the public at large. But this would require a federal government that’s willing to boost – rather than slash – its funds.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Chávez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was founded 50 years ago, it was supposed to reflect the nation’s disparate voices.Christopher Chávez, Assistant Professor of Communications, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/766712017-04-25T17:47:05Z2017-04-25T17:47:05ZWill Congress fund Trump’s border wall with Mexico? 5 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184276/original/file-20170831-32045-xq1js1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hundreds of people march along a levee in South Texas to oppose a border wall.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Eric Gay</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: The following is a roundup of archival stories.</em></p>
<p>On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised Mexico would pay for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.</p>
<p>Mexico has stated unequivocally <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/28/trump-border-wall-mexico-responds-242084">it will not</a> “under any circumstances.” Now, President Trump is demanding that Congress include funding for the wall in the budget lawmakers hope to pass by the end of September. Trump has threatened to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-30/u-s-government-shutdown-could-cost-more-than-trump-border-wall">shut down the government</a> if lawmakers fail to do so.</p>
<p>What will it cost to build a wall?</p>
<p>Here are some insights from our experts. </p>
<h2>Building walls, 101</h2>
<p><strong>1.</strong> Why do we build walls in the first place and what do they accomplish? </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/david-cook-martin-144025">David Cook Martín</a>, a sociologist at New York University, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trumps-wall-with-mexico-is-so-popular-and-why-it-wont-work-70047">explains that humans have been building walls for centuries</a>. But, he writes, they have rarely worked at solving the issues created by globalization.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Most importantly, walling the world distracts citizens and policymakers from complex problems.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Human and environmental impact</h2>
<p><strong>2.</strong> Of course, the primary purpose of this particular wall is to reduce the number of undocumented immigrants crossing the border.</p>
<p>However, Mexicans – the alleged culprits of Trump’s first speech on the topic – are no longer crossing in massive numbers for primarily economic reasons. <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jonathan-hiskey-347601">Jonathan Hiskey</a>, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University, <a href="https://theconversation.com/americans-and-mexicans-living-at-the-border-are-more-connected-than-divided-72348">describes how immigration from Latin America is rapidly changing</a>. A wall would instead impact a new demographic of people who are fleeing violence and insecurity in their home countries.</p>
<p><strong>3.</strong> A massive physical barrier would also impact years of cooperation on shared urban and environmental issues along the border, writes landscape architect Gabriel Diaz Montemayor at UT Austin. Instead of a wall, he offers a vision for <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-a-better-vision-for-the-us-mexico-border-make-the-rio-grande-grand-again-73111">a binational park along the Rio Grande</a> that would benefit the environment.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Traveling its length could become a trip comparable to hiking the Appalachian Trail, with opportunities to see recovering natural areas and wildlife and learn from two of the world’s richest cultures.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Montemayor’s article is also available <a href="https://theconversation.com/una-mejor-idea-para-la-frontera-entre-eua-y-mexico-invertimos-en-el-rio-no-en-un-muro-83077?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twitterbutton">en español</a>.</p>
<p><strong>4.</strong> In fact, cross-border communities in the U.S. and Mexico – so-called “twin cities” – have shared so much in common for so long, writes UC Berkeley’s city and regional planning expert Michael Dear, <a href="https://theconversation.com/americans-and-mexicans-living-at-the-border-are-more-connected-than-divided-72348">that they could be described as a “third nation.”</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Unlike many people in the U.S., border residents do not equate wall-building with national security.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Funding the wall</h2>
<p><strong>5.</strong> If Congress decides to fund a wall anyway, how would they do it if Mexico won’t foot the bill?</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/who-will-pay-for-trumps-big-beautiful-wall-72321">Good luck</a>, writes Wayne Cornelius, a professor of political science and U.S.-Mexican relations at University of California, San Diego. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“One way or another, it is U.S. taxpayers who will pay for Trump’s border wall – not Mexicans. And we are unlikely to get our money’s worth.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on April 25, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76671/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Trump has threatened a showdown over funding his proposed barrier between the U.S. and Mexico. Our experts offer a primer – from a history of walls to costs.Bryan Keogh, Managing EditorDanielle Douez, Associate Editor, Politics + SocietyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/764762017-04-20T23:32:58Z2017-04-20T23:32:58ZPeter Doherty: why Australia needs to march for science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166077/original/file-20170420-20063-140oya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">March for Science events will be held across the world on April 22 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/339032462?src=cFnzIOg4LUAs9VL-BvrPzQ-1-49&size=huge_jpg">from www.shutterstock.com </a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The following article is adapted from a speech to be delivered at the Melbourne <a href="https://marchforscienceaustralia.org/">March for Science</a> on Saturday 22 April, 2017.</em></p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.marchforscience.com/mission/">mission</a> posted on the March for Science international website states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The March for Science champions robustly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity. We unite as a diverse, nonpartisan group to call for science that upholds the common good and for political leaders and policy makers to enact evidence based policies in the public interest. The March for Science is a celebration of science.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To me, it seems the reason concerned people across the planet are marching today is that, at least for the major players in the English-speaking world, there are major threats to the global culture of science. </p>
<p>Why? A clear understanding of what is happening with, for example, the atmosphere, oceans and climate creates irreconcilable problems for powerful vested interests, particularly in the fossil fuel and coastal real estate sectors. </p>
<p>Contrary to the data-free “neocon/<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-trickle-down-economics-73062">trickle down</a>” belief system, the observed dissonance implies that we need robust, enforceable national and international tax and regulatory structures to drive the necessary innovation and renewal that will ensure global sustainability and a decent future for humanity and other, complex life forms.</p>
<p>Here in Australia, the <a href="https://marchforscienceaustralia.org/">March for Science</a> joins a global movement initiated by a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-were-marching-for-science-in-australia-73907">perceived anti-science stance in Donald Trump’s administration</a>. </p>
<h2>Trump’s 2018 budget proposal</h2>
<p>In the USA, President Trump’s <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/03/16/520379061/read-president-trumps-budget-blueprint">proposed budget for 2018</a> incorporates <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/trump-s-2018-budget-will-squeeze-civilian-science-agencies">massive cuts</a> to the National Science Foundation (<a href="https://www.nsf.gov/">NSF</a>), National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (<a href="http://www.noaa.gov/">NOAA</a>), the United States Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="https://www.epa.gov/">EPA</a>) and the National Institutes of Health (<a href="https://www.nih.gov/">NIH</a>). </p>
<p>And, though it in no sense reflects political hostility and deliberate ignorance, <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/how-scientists-reacted-to-the-brexit-1.20158">British scientists are fearful</a> that Brexit will have a terrible impact on their funding and collaborative arrangements.</p>
<p>How does this affect us in Australia? Why should we care? The science culture is international and everyone benefits from progress made anywhere. <a href="http://www.noaa.gov/">NOAA</a> records, analyses and curates much of the world’s climate science data. A degraded <a href="https://www.epa.gov/">EPA</a> provides a disastrous model for all corrupt and regressive regimes.</p>
<p>Science depends on a “churn”, both of information and people. After completing their PhD “ticket”, many of our best young researchers will spend 3-5 years employed as postdoctoral fellows in the USA, Europe and (increasingly) the Asian countries to our north, while young American, Asian and European/British scientists come to work for a time with our leading scientists.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=3518196-2018-Blueprint">proposed 2018 US President’s budget</a> would, for example, abolish the NIH Fogarty International Centre that has enabled many young scientists from across the planet to work in North America. In turn, we recruited “keepers” like Harvard-educated <a href="http://www.anu.edu.au/about/leadership-structure/university-executive/professor-brian-p-schmidt-ac-faa-frs">Brian Schmidt</a>, our first, resident Nobel Prize winner for physics and current Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU). </p>
<p>We might also recall that – supported strongly by Prime Ministers JJ Curtin and RG Menzies – the ANU (with 3 Nobel Prizes to its credit) was <a href="http://www.anu.edu.au/about/our-history">founded as a research university</a> to position us in science and international affairs.</p>
<h2>Not a done deal, yet</h2>
<p>What looks to be happening in the US is not a done deal. </p>
<p>The US political system is very different from our own. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers_under_the_United_States_Constitution">Division of Powers</a> in the US Constitution means that the President is in many respects less powerful than our PM. </p>
<p>Unable to introduce legislation, a President can only pass (or veto) bills that come from the Congress. Through to September, we will be watching a vigorous negotiation process where separate budgets from the House and the Senate (which may well ignore most, if not all, of the President’s ambit claims) will develop a “reconciled” budget that will be presented for President Trump’s signature.</p>
<h2>How March for Science might help</h2>
<p>The hope is that this international celebration of science will cause US legislators, particularly the more thoughtful on the right of politics, to reflect a little and understand what they risk if they choose to erode their global scientific leadership. </p>
<p>There are massive problems to be solved, along with great economic opportunities stemming from the development of novel therapies and new, smart “clean and green” technologies in, particularly, the energy generation and conservation sector.</p>
<p>Ignoring, or denying, problems does not make them go away. Whether or not the message is welcome, the enormous power of science and technology means we can only go forward if future generations are to experience the levels of human well-being and benign environmental conditions we enjoy today. </p>
<p>There is no going back. The past is a largely imagined, and irretrievable country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76476/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter C. Doherty is a founding board member of The Conversation, and is funded by an NHMRC Program Grant investigating immunity to the influenza A viruses. He will soon step down as Board Chair for the ending ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Systems Science, and serves in that capacity on the ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology. His most recent book (2015) is 'The Knowledge Wars'. </span></em></p>In its broadest sense, the March for Science aims to cause US legislators to reflect a little and understand what they risk if they choose to erode their global scientific leadership.Peter C. Doherty, Laureate Professor, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and ImmunityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/753742017-04-07T01:36:38Z2017-04-07T01:36:38ZCutting UN peacekeeping operations: What will it say about America?<p>In a recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, the American ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, <a href="http://www.cfr.org/diplomacy-and-statecraft/conversation-nikki-haley/p38970">made clear</a> the Trump administration wants to <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/international/un-treaties/323781-trump-wants-un-funds-cut-over-50-percent-report">slash</a> U.S. funds to the U.N., including support for peacekeeping. Ambassador Haley also asserted that “The United States is the moral conscience of the world.”</p>
<p>While only about 40 American troops are among the 92,000 peacekeepers currently deployed in 16 active peacekeeping operations, the U.S. pays a little over <a href="http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/70/331/Add.1">28 percent</a> of the cost. That amounts to about US$2.2 billion out of the U.N.’s peacekeeping budget of <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/financing.shtml">$7.8 billion</a>. While that is a lot of money, advocates of peacekeeping point out that the total is less than one-half of one percent of what all the countries in the world spend on their armed forces.</p>
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<p>It remains to be seen what the level of funding for these operations will actually be when Congress enacts the new budget. But it is worth considering what operations are actually contributing to peace and what the effects of cutting them would be. If the president and Congress want to spend less on peacekeeping, I believe they should consider starting with the five oldest operations first. </p>
<p>A brief review of the evolution of peacekeeping can help explain why. As a career diplomat, I was involved in a number of such operations around the world. Since I became an academic, it has been one of my areas of research. </p>
<h2>Out with the old?</h2>
<p>The U.N. engages in two distinct types of peacekeeping that result from two different types of conflict. One is following a war between two countries over territory. The U.N. became engaged in that kind of peacekeeping early on following the war that broke out in 1948 when Israel was created and then immediately attacked by its Arab neighbors.</p>
<p>The other is after a war over political power within a country. Civil wars have become the norm as the first type of conflict has become rare. Only one of <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/past.shtml">28 U.N. operations</a> initiated in the last 20 years was the result of a war between countries.</p>
<p>Today, of the 16 current U.N. peacekeeping operations, the ones involving wars between countries are the five oldest, with an average age of more than 54 years. In a war over territory between countries, once a ceasefire is established, all the U.N. has to do is monitor the zone between the two armies to ensure that it remains demilitarized. But after so many years, the question is whether the work of these operations contributes to peace or just makes the status quo and the lack of a final resolution of the conflict permanent.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163498/original/image-20170331-27256-1rzg2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163498/original/image-20170331-27256-1rzg2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163498/original/image-20170331-27256-1rzg2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163498/original/image-20170331-27256-1rzg2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163498/original/image-20170331-27256-1rzg2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163498/original/image-20170331-27256-1rzg2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163498/original/image-20170331-27256-1rzg2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163498/original/image-20170331-27256-1rzg2nh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.N. military observers in Ramallah, Palestine, 1948.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UN Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>U.N. peacekeeping began after the war at Israel’s creation in 1948. Its first operation was the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/untso/">U.N. Truce Supervision Organization</a>. It is still headquartered in Jerusalem, and its only real function is to provide military officers to other U.N. operations in the region. That could be accomplished by simply folding the required personnel into those operations and in my opinion no longer requires an entire standalone peacekeeping operation.</p>
<p>The second oldest is the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unmogip/">U.N. Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan</a>, a relatively small and inexpensive operation. However, its presence since 1949 has not prevented India and Pakistan from fighting each other over the years. Since both countries have nuclear weapons, it could be argued that the U.N. presence makes some contribution to stability in the region, but that premise needs to be examined closely.</p>
<p>One reason these operations have lasted so long is that politicians on both sides often prefer the status quo. The alternative would often mean surrendering some of the territory the war was fought over. </p>
<p>Take the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unficyp/">U.N. Peacekeeping Force</a> in Cyprus, launched in 1964 after fighting between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Various attempts over the years to bring the two communities back together have failed because the politicians involved haven’t engaged in serious negotiations to resolve their differences. The only thing this operation does at this point is allow that intransigence to have no consequences. The $56 million annual cost of the operation should be borne by Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, and not the U.N., so that there is some incentive to find a solution.</p>
<p>Because of the civil war in Syria, peacekeepers of the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/undof/">U.N. Disengagement Observer Force</a>, established in 1974 after the Yom Kippur war, have been forced to retreat from Syria to the Israeli side of the border. Since they can no longer monitor the ceasefire zone between the two countries, the operation should be at least suspended.</p>
<h2>What if there is no peace to keep?</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unifil/">U.N. Interim Force</a> was created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon in 1978. Today, the force must contend with Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed group the U.S. considers a terrorist organization, which controls all of southern Lebanon and is stockpiling tens of <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/hezbollah-hiding-100000-missiles-that-can-hit-north-army-says/">thousands of rockets there</a>. There is little hope that the Lebanese government will change this situation since Hezbollah has become part of it and holds a number of seats in parliament. The U.N. could save half a billion dollars a year by simply abolishing this operation, as it provides no deterrent to another war.</p>
<p>The mere presence of the peacekeepers is not going to change that situation either, as the mandate given to them by the Security Council does not allow them to search for weapons. To make matters worse, there is not a hint of a political process underway that might resolve the differences between Israel and Lebanon. As a result, this operation is unable to make meaningful contributions to peace and has even <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-un-learned-of-hezbollah-arms-cache-months-ago-1.280229">failed to investigate</a> when Hezbollah arms caches have exploded in the past.</p>
<p>In the interest of saving the American taxpayers some money, there is one more non-U.N. peacekeeping operation that should be ended. It is the <a href="http://mfo.org/en">Multination Force and Observers</a>, which was set up after the Camp David accords were signed in 1979 to monitor Sinai in order to permit Israelis to withdraw and Egypt to return.</p>
<p>It is not a U.N. operation because Russia threatened to veto any Security Council action to establish one. The MFO was <a href="http://mfo.org/en/origins">set up</a> to keep the Egyptian and Israeli armed forces apart, but those armies are now conducting joint combat operations, including drone strikes against <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/with-egypts-blessing-israel-conducting-drone-strikes-in-sinai-report/">terrorists in Sinai</a>. The terrorism has also forced the peacekeepers to relocate to the southern end of the peninsula, far from the area they should be monitoring. </p>
<h2>Peacekeeping has changed</h2>
<p>The remaining 11 U.N. peacekeeping operations largely deal with civil wars in Africa. They are younger and more complex. The U.N. often must gather and demobilize most of the combatants, form a new national army from the rest, help organize democratic elections, provide humanitarian aid and begin economic reconstruction and development.</p>
<p>Because the fighting is over political power and the armies involved are usually poorly trained and equipped, they often resort to attacking noncombatants as a way to weaken the other side since one measure of political power is the number of supporters one side has. In these situations, civilian casualties and refugees spilling over into neighboring countries create humanitarian disasters, which places great <a href="https://www.globalpolicy.org/qhumanitarianq-intervention.html">pressure</a> on the U.N. to send in the peacekeepers in their traditional blue helmets.</p>
<p>In her remarks, Ambassador Haley <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-ambassador-calls-congo-government-corrupt-46448137">said</a> that because the peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo deals with a corrupt government, the U.N. is aiding its predatory behavior. Her solution is to simply end the operation. In such unstable situations, however, U.N. peacekeepers can save lives. When stronger action against corrupt governments is needed, it is the responsibility of the Security Council to act and not the failure of peacekeepers.</p>
<p>Having spent the first half of 2016 on a Fulbright grant in Israel researching peacekeeping, I’m convinced that the operations in and around Israel are not making a significant <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2016-07-11/mission-impossible-israels-frontiers">contribution</a> to its security. To the extent they do, the same work can be accomplished with a few drones and a handful of people to facilitate communications between both sides when they are talking to each other. </p>
<p>However, I’m also not convinced that Washington will make the right decisions when it comes to reducing American support for peacekeeping. If the victims of such a move are innocent civilians in Africa, another casualty will be the claim that America is the moral conscience of the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75374/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis Jett received a Fulbright senior scholars grant to teach and do research in Israel in 2016.</span></em></p>A former US diplomat explains why some programs may make sense to cut, while others are crucial to America’s moral standing.Dennis Jett, Professor of International Relations, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/748102017-04-07T01:36:32Z2017-04-07T01:36:32ZUS foreign aid, explained<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163503/original/image-20170331-27277-p87hyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If implemented, President Trump's proposed foreign aid cuts would have many repercussions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/49482478@N06/4689443682">Kendra Helmer/USAID</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump seeks to fulfill his campaign promise to “put America first” in his proposed 2018 budget. </p>
<p>“This includes deep cuts to foreign aid,” Trump said in his <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/budget/fy2018/2018_blueprint.pdf">opening message to his proposed budget</a>. “It is time to prioritize the security and well-being of Americans, and to ask the rest of the world to step up and pay its fair share.”</p>
<p>His budget would slash funding for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to US$25.6 billion, down 28 percent from the current level. Although the budget doesn’t specify how much USAID alone would lose, if enacted, these deep cuts would significantly disrupt America’s ability to deliver foreign aid.</p>
<p>With foreign aid on the chopping block, it’s important for Americans to understand how it works, who benefits from it and how U.S. contributions stack up. I’ve done that here while attempting to debunk three common myths:</p>
<ol>
<li>The U.S. spends too much on foreign aid.</li>
<li>The U.S. spends more than its fair share on foreign aid compared to other countries. </li>
<li>Corrupt governments squander U.S. foreign aid.</li>
</ol>
<p>My research is on nonprofits, which in the foreign aid sphere are often called nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). These groups are <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/partnership-opportunities/ngo">key actors in foreign aid</a>. They deliver humanitarian services on the ground and, increasingly, are the direct recipients of foreign aid from governments such as the United States. </p>
<h2>What is foreign aid?</h2>
<p>Foreign aid consists of money, goods and services – like training – that official government agencies provide to other countries. Foreign aid falls into two broad categories: economic assistance and military (or security) assistance.</p>
<p><strong>Economic assistance</strong> includes all programs with development or humanitarian objectives. That tends to include projects related to health, disaster relief, the promotion of civil society, agriculture and the like. Most economic aid dollars come from the State Department budget, including spending allocated by USAID.</p>
<p>According to data from the nonprofit <a href="http://securityassistance.org/content/economic-aid-dashboard">Security Assistance Monitor</a>, the top five recipients of U.S. economic assistance in 2015, the most recent year for which comparative data are available, were Afghanistan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania.</p>
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<p>Official development assistance (ODA) constitutes the vast majority of U.S. economic assistance. This funding must be “concessional,” which means that some portion of it must consist of grants rather than loans. Military expenditures and peacekeeping expenditures don’t count. </p>
<p>Only countries that are considered low- and middle-income based on their gross national income (GNI) per capita are eligible. For example, Israel, the second-largest recipient of U.S. military assistance (see below), is ineligible for those overseas development funds, although it did receive <a href="http://securityassistance.org/content/economic-aid-dashboard">$10 million in other economic aid</a> in 2015. </p>
<p>While taxpayers are spending just a few bucks each on ODA, the impact is profound, <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/agriculture-and-food-security/food-assistance">saving millions of people from hunger</a>, averting <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/working-crises-and-conflict/responding-times-crisis">the worst of natural disasters like droughts and flooding</a>, tackling life-threatening diseases like <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/global-health/tuberculosis">tuberculosis</a> and <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/global-health/malaria">malaria</a>, and more.</p>
<p><strong>Military aid</strong> includes military financing, which our allies use to buy weapons, funding intended to advance counterterrorism and anti-narcotics initiatives, and money spent on efforts related to military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other nations. Most military aid dollars come from either the State Department’s or the Pentagon’s budget.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://securityassistance.org/content/security-aid-dashboard">top five recipients of U.S. military assistance in 2015</a> were Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq, Egypt and Pakistan. </p>
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<h2>Myth #1: US spends too much on foreign aid</h2>
<p>The United States consistently spends only about 1 percent of its budget on foreign aid – including military and economic support. The 2015 aid tab <a href="http://explorer.usaid.gov/aid-dashboard.html#2015">totaled $43 billion</a>. </p>
<p>Americans tend to believe that their government spends a far bigger share of its budget on foreign aid than it does. In a survey <a href="http://kff.org/global-health-policy/poll-finding/data-note-americans-views-on-the-u-s-role-in-global-health/">the Kaiser Family Foundation</a> published two years ago, it found that, on average, Americans believe that foreign aid accounts for more than a quarter of the budget. Only 5 percent of those polled answered correctly that foreign aid constituted 1 percent or less of total federal spending. </p>
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<h2>Myth #2: US spends more than its fair share</h2>
<p>According to the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States is by far the leading source of economic assistance dollars. In 2015, it contributed <a href="http://www2.compareyourcountry.org/oda?cr=20001&cr1=oecd&lg=en&page=0">$31 billion in ODA</a>, far outpacing the $18.7 billion spent by the United Kingdom, the second-biggest source of that kind of aid. </p>
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<p>That only tells part of the story, however. The United States spends very little on foreign aid relative to the size of its economy, particularly compared with other rich countries. The U.S. spent about 0.17 percent of its GNI on ODA in 2015. By comparison, Sweden, the top contributor by this metric, gave 1.4 percent of its GNI in overseas development aid that year. The United States ranks among the <a href="http://www2.compareyourcountry.org/oda?cr=20001&cr1=oecd&lg=en&page=0">bottom third of OECD countries</a>, close to Portugal and Slovenia, in ODA spending.</p>
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<p>In 1970, the United Nations General Assembly agreed that “economically advanced countries” would aim to <a href="http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/the07odagnitarget-ahistory.htm">direct at least 0.7 percent of their national income</a> to ODA. Although developed countries have repeatedly mentioned this target in agreements and at summits since then, very few countries have reached that goal. In 2015, only six countries met the 0.7 percent target. The OECD average is just 0.3 percent – almost twice the 0.17 percent the U.S. provides. </p>
<h2>Myth #3: Corrupt governments squander US aid</h2>
<p>You may think that foreign aid consists of government-to-government transfers of money. But governments channel most aid through nonprofits, public-private partnerships, <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/top-usaid-contractors-for-2015-88181">private companies</a> like Chemonics International and John Snow Incorporated, and multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank. </p>
<p>In fact, according to the <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=CRS1">OECD’s Creditor Reporting System</a>, only 37 percent of U.S. ODA went directly to governments in 2015 – and that includes other countries distributing the assistance rather than receiving it. The rest of that funding bypassed governments altogether: NGOs received 26 percent of the money, multilateral organizations 20 percent, and other organizations, such as universities and research institutes, 18 percent.</p>
<p>When <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818315000302">Simone Dietrich at the University of Essex</a> researched this question, she found that the United States chooses to outsource foreign aid to NGOs especially in countries like Sudan and Sri Lanka with bad governance and more corrupt leaders who are likely to squander or swipe those funds.</p>
<p>It’s impossible to argue that corrupt governments never squander U.S. foreign aid. They do. But it is important to understand that most aid never enters the coffers of those corrupt governments in the first place. </p>
<h2>Even without Trump’s proposed cuts, US fails to lead</h2>
<p>As Congress decides whether to follow Trump’s lead by slashing foreign aid spending, lawmakers should take into account the fact that U.S. taxpayers already spend far less than our global peers on foreign aid.</p>
<p>Even without these prospective cuts, other countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany, are paying far more on economic assistance for the world’s poorest people as a share of their economy than we do. Slashing foreign aid would damage U.S. credibility with our allies, reduce U.S. influence around the globe and – a group of more than 120 retired generals and admirals predict – <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/defense/321395-retired-generals-urge-congress-to-fully-fund-diplomacy">make Americans less safe</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74810/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joannie Tremblay-Boire does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As President Trump puts U.S. foreign aid on the chopping block, few Americans know much about it. Perhaps even fewer realize that the U.S. lags behind its peers on this front.Joannie Tremblay-Boire, Assistant Professor, Department of Public Management and Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.