tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/government-cuts-8508/articlesGovernment cuts – The Conversation2019-07-15T10:57:08Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1202202019-07-15T10:57:08Z2019-07-15T10:57:08ZIn divided Alaska, the choice is between paying for government or giving residents bigger oil wealth checks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283945/original/file-20190713-173347-1kunqej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students protest Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy's budget cuts at the University of Alaska, Anchorage campus.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/alaska-landmine/48247436282/in/photolist-2gvsHTG-2gvsHP8-2gvsHLh-2gvsHEA-2gvsg79-2gvsHvn-2gvsHti-2gvsfY8-2gvsfSr-2gvsHge-2gvsHbE-2gvsH7m-2gvsH38-2gvsfus-2gvsfp7-2gvsGLg-2gvsfen-2gvsf9n-2gvsf5e-2gvsf11-2gvseRy-2gvseNs-2gvsG9u-2gvsG2W-2gvsevU-2gvsFRA-2gvsFKt-2gvsFCz-2gvse4m-2gvsdWx-2gvsFkL-2gvsdKa-2gvsdFY-2gvsF7K-2gvsEZW-2gvsEUL-2gvsdnX-2gvsdhM-2gvsdcM-2gvsd7S-2gvsEvV-2gvscVQ-2gvscRB-2gvscMD-2gvsEa9-2gvscAb-2gvscvb-2gvscmZ-2gvschk-2gvscar/">The Alaska Landmine</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Alaskans will soon confront the dramatic effects of Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s <a href="http://www.nomenugget.com/news/governor-eliminates-444-million-operating-budget">vetoes of US$444 million</a> from the state operating budget of $8.3 billion, which went into effect July 1.</p>
<p>The Alaska legislature was unable to get enough support to block the cuts through a veto override late last week. </p>
<p>The budget cuts will be immediate, <a href="https://iseralaska.org/2019/07/guettabi-provides-presentation-on-economic-impact-of-governors-vetoes/">affecting most Alaskans</a>. </p>
<p>I’m a faculty member at the <a href="https://www.uaa.alaska.edu/academics/college-of-arts-and-sciences/departments/journalism-and-communication/">University of Alaska Anchorage in the Department of Journalism and Public Communications</a> and have served on the community advisory board of Alaska Public Media. Both the university and the <a href="https://www.kcaw.org/2019/06/28/governors-veto-cuts-all-funding-for-alaskas-public-radio-tv-stations/">public broadcasting network</a> will face budget cuts. In the case of the university, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/13/741391200/alaskas-state-government-faces-big-budget-cuts">more than 40% of its state support</a> will be lost.</p>
<p>State legislators from both parties who tried to override the vetoes described a ruinous future, with <a href="https://time.com/5623042/alaska-budget-cuts/">university students bailing en masse, elderly residents moving out of state</a> and <a href="https://www.ktuu.com/content/news/Legislature-to-hold-vote-over-governors-operating-budget-vetoes-in-joint-floor-session-512441121.html">domestic violence survivors being left without emergency shelter</a>. </p>
<p>“You’re looking at Alaska at 1869 level of services,” said <a href="https://twitter.com/mattbuxton/status/1149064503939588097">Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tompkins</a>, a Democrat.</p>
<p>Dunleavy, who has largely avoided press interviews, told a conservative radio talk show host on July 10 that the vetoes <a href="https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/tns-alaska-budget-veto-override.html">would not “end Alaska as we know it</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-university-alaska-governor-dunleavy-legislature-vetoes-override-budget.html">Advocates for the university system</a>, <a href="https://time.com/5623042/alaska-budget-cuts/">the poor</a>, <a href="https://www.juneauempire.com/news/save-our-arts-juneau-artists-protest-governors-vetoes/">the arts</a>, <a href="https://www.ktuu.com/content/news/State-public-media-funding-targeted-in-Dunleavy-budget-proposal-512443012.html">public media</a> and other entities on the receiving end of the cuts rallied supporters, from <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/07/09/portugal-the-man-returns-home-to-protest-budget-vetoes/">indie music groups</a> to <a href="https://twitter.com/Nat_Herz/status/1149376994125025280">entrepreneurs</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.peninsulaclarion.com/news/even-right-leaning-groups-bankers-and-builders-are-calling-for-an-override/">Business groups, including the Alaska Bankers Association</a>, tried to persuade three-fourths of the Alaska Legislature – 45 of 60 members – to override the governor’s vetoes. In the end, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/452270-alaska-political-mess-has-legislators-divided-over-meeting-place">only 37 legislators</a> stood against the governor.</p>
<p>How did Alaska, one of the country’s <a href="https://www.anchoragepress.com/news/how-we-got-here-recapping-the-history-of-alaska-s/article_2df9cb56-9207-11e9-9dd3-b7cf7f00ad72.html">richest states with a $65 billion savings account</a> fueled by oil royalties and leasing revenues, get into this position?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283946/original/file-20190713-173338-1y07y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283946/original/file-20190713-173338-1y07y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283946/original/file-20190713-173338-1y07y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283946/original/file-20190713-173338-1y07y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283946/original/file-20190713-173338-1y07y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283946/original/file-20190713-173338-1y07y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283946/original/file-20190713-173338-1y07y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283946/original/file-20190713-173338-1y07y0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&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 800-mile Trans-Alaska pipeline carries Alaska North Slope crude oil from Prudhoe Bay south to Valdez.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Alaska-United-St-/b49f2204f8e6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/1/0">AP/Al Grillo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Safe landing or nose dive’</h2>
<p>The troubles have been a long time coming. </p>
<p>As the state prepared to <a href="http://www.alaskapublic.org/2017/06/22/midnight-oil-doesnt-he-know-its-frozen-how-alaska-almost-overlooked-prudhoe-bay/">reap the benefits of its oil reserves in the 1970s</a> as the trans-Alaska oil pipeline neared completion, voters approved in 1976 an amendment to the Alaska Constitution <a href="https://apfc.org/who-we-are/history-of-the-alaska-permanent-fund/">establishing the Alaska Permanent Fund</a>. </p>
<p>The idea was to save a slice of the current oil windfall in a special fund for future generations when the oil ran out. Meanwhile, the rest of the massive oil royalties – <a href="http://www.tax.alaska.gov/programs/documentviewer/viewer.aspx?1532r">$391.5 million in 1976, more than four times the amount collected the previous year</a> – flowed into state coffers. That meant less need to rely on the traditional way government raises money: taxes. So the legislature <a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/get_documents.asp?session=30&docid=17151">repealed a state income tax and the Alaska school tax in 1980</a>.</p>
<p>Now, most Alaska communities have no sales tax and property taxes are low. The total state and local tax burden on Alaskans is <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0210/7-states-with-no-income-tax.aspx">the lowest in the country</a>. </p>
<p>In addition to repealing state taxes, Alaska legislators in 1980 <a href="https://apfc.org/who-we-are/history-of-the-alaska-permanent-fund/">approved a payout from mineral royalties to state residents called the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend</a>, or “PFD.” </p>
<p>The idea was that the dividend would distribute to state residents a portion of the state’s natural resource wealth belonging to them as Alaskans. </p>
<p>“The initial bonanza of oil revenues was spent like a sailor hitting port after a long voyage,” <a href="http://www.alaskajournal.com/authors/clem-tillion">wrote Clem Tillion, one of the legislators behind the PFD’s creation, in an op-ed last summer</a>. The first payment was made in 1982 and Alaskans receive roughly $1,000 every year from state government.</p>
<p>Oil supports about <a href="https://www.aoga.org/facts-and-figures/state-revenue">85% of the state’s budget</a>. One respected state economist has been warning since the late 1980s that as the massive <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/06/24/533798430/alaskas-40-years-of-oil-riches-almost-never-was">Prudhoe Bay oil field</a> is depleted, the state faces a fiscal crisis necessitating a severe reduction in spending or a shift to different revenues. </p>
<p>“Alaska is poised for either a safe landing or a nose dive,” wrote economist Scott Goldsmith in 1992. “Whether we land safely or crash depends on <a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/get_documents.asp?session=29&docid=53071">how Alaskans deal with declining oil revenue.”</a> </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283949/original/file-20190713-173347-10dbijx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283949/original/file-20190713-173347-10dbijx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283949/original/file-20190713-173347-10dbijx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283949/original/file-20190713-173347-10dbijx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283949/original/file-20190713-173347-10dbijx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283949/original/file-20190713-173347-10dbijx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283949/original/file-20190713-173347-10dbijx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283949/original/file-20190713-173347-10dbijx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alaskans often use their Permanent Fund dividends to help pay for big-ticket items like trucks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Alaska-Dividend-Lawsuit/8e0836d44407449bb57048f32b155d42/12/0">AP/Mark Thiessen, file</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dividing lines</h2>
<p>Other factors have compounded the state’s fiscal dilemmas. </p>
<p>The usual partisan demarcations don’t apply to Alaskans. Some of the fiercest speechmaking against Dunleavy’s budget vetoes <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/07/12/pfd-fight-splits-alaska-gop-leaving-some-aligned-with-democrats/">came from his fellow Republicans</a>. </p>
<p>Alaskans are divided along more jagged lines, such as <a href="https://www.governing.com/topics/urban/gov-rural-urban-special-series.html">rural vs. urban</a>, <a href="https://www.espn.com/college-sports/news/story?id=3480242">Fairbanks vs. Anchorage</a>, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/salmon-vs-gold-splits-alaska-gop">pro-extraction industries vs. pro-fishing</a>.</p>
<p>The divides have made it hard to find agreement, and Alaskans have been whipsawed between state leaders’ different interpretations of fiscal solutions. </p>
<p>Gov. Sarah Palin campaigned for governor and then governed from 2006 to 2009 as a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122002615833483595">reform-minded Republican</a> who imposed higher oil taxes. Her successor, Republican Sean Parnell, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/us/politics/18palin.html">undid that reform</a> in 2013. That prompted <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/11/3/7150491/alaska-governor-election-2014">Palin to endorse Independent Bill Walker</a> in the 2014 governor’s race. He won.</p>
<p>By that time, <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/2516/wti-crude-oil-prices-10-year-daily-chart">oil prices had flagged</a>. The <a href="https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-alaska-oil-20141216-story.html">state budget, which depended on prices higher than the mid-$40 per barrel range, fell into deficit</a> starting in 2014. </p>
<p>State leaders turned to a <a href="http://treasury.dor.alaska.gov/Investments/Constitutional-Budget-Reserve.aspx">Constitutional Budget Reserve</a> to make up the difference. </p>
<p>Walker also <a href="https://www.adn.com/politics/2016/06/29/walker-budget-vetoes-include-capping-permanent-fund-divdends-at-1000/">resorted to budget vetoes</a> to reduce the Legislature’s spending.</p>
<p>Most notably, <a href="https://www.juneauempire.com/news/the-pfd-is-1600-a-qa-about-your-dividend/">Walker reduced the amount Alaskans received from the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend</a> in 2016, 2017 and 2018, enraging many Alaskans and inviting a state <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/alaska/supreme-court/2017/s-16558.html">Supreme Court challenge</a> from a Democratic state senator. That challenge failed, leading to the backlash that brought Dunleavy to office in November 2018.</p>
<h2>Basic income</h2>
<p>And it’s the PFD that is <a href="https://gov.alaska.gov/dunleavy/alaska-pfd-applicants/">driving Gov. Dunleavy now</a>. He campaigned on a <a href="https://www.adn.com/politics/2018/11/08/its-going-to-be-rolled-out-pretty-quick-heres-everything-governor-elect-dunleavy-said-about-super-sized-permanent-fund-dividends/">promise to restore the full PFD and pay $3,000</a> this year. That’s an appealing promise to Alaskans who <a href="http://hurricanedavemusic.com/music-44.html">feel as if they have been deprived of their rightful dividend</a> for three years in a row. </p>
<p>The problem is that by paying a dividend of $3,000 to Alaskans, major spending reductions or eliminations to basic services must be imposed, despite rebounding oil prices and a $65 billion savings account. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283947/original/file-20190713-173370-1v5elsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283947/original/file-20190713-173370-1v5elsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283947/original/file-20190713-173370-1v5elsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283947/original/file-20190713-173370-1v5elsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283947/original/file-20190713-173370-1v5elsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283947/original/file-20190713-173370-1v5elsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283947/original/file-20190713-173370-1v5elsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283947/original/file-20190713-173370-1v5elsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Signs urging Alaska lawmakers to fund a full oil wealth fund check, known locally as the PFD or Permanent Fund Dividend, are shown Monday, July 8, 2019, in Wasilla, Alaska.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Alaska-Legislature/742a739b00c54f19a240df061b9840d7/25/0">AP/Mark Thiessen</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Former Gov. Frank Murkowski, a Republican, was one of many former state leaders to lament the decision to fully fund the PFD. He predicted in an <a href="https://www.adn.com/opinions/2019/07/10/lets-step-back-and-compromise-to-protect-alaskas-economy/">op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News</a> the day the veto failed that “The Permanent Fund and its Earnings Reserve are crucial to funding a significant part of state services going forward.”</p>
<p>That fund can either pay $3,000 dividends to every Alaska resident, or it can pay for government services. It can’t do both.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283950/original/file-20190713-173347-1583yfw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283950/original/file-20190713-173347-1583yfw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283950/original/file-20190713-173347-1583yfw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283950/original/file-20190713-173347-1583yfw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283950/original/file-20190713-173347-1583yfw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283950/original/file-20190713-173347-1583yfw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283950/original/file-20190713-173347-1583yfw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283950/original/file-20190713-173347-1583yfw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=749&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 unusual front-page editorial in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on July 8, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.newsminer.com/news/alaska_news/alaska-legislators-brace-for-showdown-over-governor-s-vetoes/article_b6539b27-8a05-5734-9c29-fa7a61559b6f.html">Screenshot, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>State Sen. Natasha Von Imhof, an Anchorage Republican, <a href="https://www.360north.org/gavel/video/?clientID=2147483647&eventID=2019071010&startStreamAt=780">said</a>, “I cannot fathom why the governor is purposely throwing Alaska into a severe economic recession. … The governor is cutting the budget not because we are in a fiscal crisis. It is to distribute nearly $2 billion to Alaskans to the detriment of core government services like public safety, roads and education.”</p>
<p>Few state universities, social service networks or public media systems have had to adjust so quickly to such sharp declines in state support. Wisconsin comes close, when its state universities <a href="https://www.dailycardinal.com/article/2018/10/uw-system-continues-search-for-methods-to-reconcile-budget-losses">lost $250 million in 2015 and 2016</a>. </p>
<p>Alaskans’ PFD has become an entitlement so central that it impedes clear thinking about what the state needs in 2019 and what its future will be when oil wealth can’t provide basic services anymore.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120220/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paola Banchero works for the University of Alaska Anchorage and has served on the Community Advisory Board of Alaska Public Media. </span></em></p>How did Alaska, one of the richest states in the Union, end up with budget cuts that lawmakers on both sides say could wreck the state’s future? One answer’s found in three letters: PFD.Paola Banchero, Associate Professor Journalism and Public Communications, University of Alaska AnchorageLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/724632017-02-08T07:56:23Z2017-02-08T07:56:23ZThe secret to happiness in later life is simple to discover, but hard to achieve<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155881/original/image-20170207-8356-wqn8i6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=525%2C431%2C5044%2C3345&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/senior-friends-dancing-on-beach-sunny-570240202?src=nyLZUbS-pdyDLk7d0a6yQw-1-36">wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We live in an extraordinary time: increasing numbers of us <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationprojections/datasets/tablea21principalprojectionukpopulationinagegroups">are living longer</a> than ever imagined before. It is a major achievement of modern science and healthcare. The tough part of longevity is working out how to ensure those extra years are spent happy and financially secure and living independently engaged in activities we value. </p>
<p>Anyone with grandparents or older parents has seen that survival until a later age exposes people to vulnerabilities that can make the ingredients for a happy life a challenge to achieve. As a society, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/future-of-an-ageing-population">we cannot slack off</a> in acknowledging and responding to these challenges. </p>
<p>The costs of looking after a rising number of older people raise serious concerns about the sustainability of current provisions of care, especially when there are competing claims on the limited resources of a country. </p>
<p>It is into this context that the British charity Age UK has launched its <a href="http://www.ageuk.org.uk/wellbeingresearch">Index of Well-being in Later Life</a>, an authoritative reporting on what matters most for a good life in old age. </p>
<h2>Index-linked</h2>
<p>The index identifies how older people are doing in different aspects of their lives under five key areas – social, personal, health, financial and environmental. The knowledge it generates should take us a step closer to achieving greater well-being in later life, whoever we are and whatever our circumstances may be. The index is calculated using data from close to 15,000 individuals. The methods and interpretations have been checked in consultations with older people and experts.</p>
<p>First, what do we mean by well-being? Well-being refers to the happiness and life satisfaction of an individual. It points to a stock of personal, familial, and community resources that help individuals cope well when things go wrong. Well-being is a state in which an individual is financially comfortable, healthy and engaged in meaningful activities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155833/original/image-20170207-30937-dtgzor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155833/original/image-20170207-30937-dtgzor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155833/original/image-20170207-30937-dtgzor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155833/original/image-20170207-30937-dtgzor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155833/original/image-20170207-30937-dtgzor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155833/original/image-20170207-30937-dtgzor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155833/original/image-20170207-30937-dtgzor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155833/original/image-20170207-30937-dtgzor.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">Ageing models.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/patrick_q/210650722/in/photolist-jBD81-gxZyuW-gNg4eW-7xwd19-jiDzpb-6agmPN-8gk83W-kg2f2t-aApyDi-6bRgyu-b6WaSP-cxFWQG-e7g4q3-9Txqcz-dbxdJ4-nboH42-qGyNkU-5N1tdM-mwHHWC-fbkkmH-g12SZM-nv84wp-6d842E-BZJ5Vv-nqecf5-4qBMQC-dWq6cL-8SBfD6-87i7zt-hzTWZA-fYBtnG-dPkHa8-aaisWU-6JTbC5-bgcr4k-JmU69C-7Mdza-cRgFjW-nQasYu-rdth7J-fyarea-o8NVfm-9nMEfr-q5tsDd-jFwm7b-amRhqn-77gzwm-Ha9Dqz-5qJuVB-cUNU5Q">Patrick Q/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is good news and bad news: let’s start with the latter. Age UK’s index identifies the cohort of older people with low levels of well-being. And it is a big group – almost 3m older people in the UK are deemed to have low well-being. </p>
<p>From a practical perspective this group has a similar identity print: they are very likely to live on their own, do not have a strong friendship base and are largely disengaged from their local community. The vast majority have a long-standing illness or disability and are financially poor. </p>
<h2>Counting your blessings</h2>
<p>More positively the report provides evidence of what does work to enhance well-being. The index provides a dashboard of about 40 indicators of well-being in later life. You can see how the factors are weighted in the chart below. If you are approaching old age or have relatives for whom this is relevant, you might like to consider where you stand right now.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155874/original/image-20170207-30937-uyoka3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155874/original/image-20170207-30937-uyoka3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155874/original/image-20170207-30937-uyoka3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155874/original/image-20170207-30937-uyoka3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155874/original/image-20170207-30937-uyoka3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155874/original/image-20170207-30937-uyoka3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155874/original/image-20170207-30937-uyoka3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155874/original/image-20170207-30937-uyoka3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.ageuk.org.uk/">Age UK</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among the key factors in your happiness in later years is an active social life. This might include going to a cinema, museum, historical site, taking part in arts activities, events or play, being member of a social or sports club, or being active in a community or voluntary group. What they all share is a social element which prevents isolation and loneliness – feelings very destructive for a state of well-being for all, but particularly for older people.</p>
<p>Who we live with, whether we connect with younger generations, and whether or not we have good cognitive skills are also strong determinants. It is interesting that factors such as good health or money are important, but not to the same extent as being socially engaged.</p>
<p>What about if you end up caring for a partner? Well, a higher intensity of obligations for family members does have a negative effect, and lower intensity of help and caring has a positive effect. It’s not totally black and white: caring obligations in general can offer a sense of purpose. But it is damaging for other things such as maintaining a job when care duties become onerous. </p>
<p>One other factor to pull out of the data is that physical activity is very important to well-being along with an open attitude to trying things out and a positive outlook towards an active and engaged life. Sound advice for any age, you might think. </p>
<h2>Damaging cuts</h2>
<p>The really critical point here is just how important the social circle becomes for well-being among older people. According to the Age UK’s WILL index, it counts for about a third of individual well-being. People can stomach poor health and financial poverty if they enjoy secure networks of family, friends and community.</p>
<p>It is perhaps these individuals who hold the key to understanding how well-being can be maximised. Many of them are older than 70, emphasising how extreme old age is no barrier to experiencing happiness in later years.</p>
<p>So how can we maximise that feeling of being part of the wider world? It is true that it is here where <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/migrated/files/Summary-Final.pdf">cuts in central and local government funding</a> for older people act as a crucial obstacle. It affects provision of community and public services, and a particular consequence is the limiting of communal spaces for older people to socialise, participate and access essential healthcare and social care. </p>
<p>The clear message for government is just how crucial it is to sustain decent public services: without a local bus, for example, older people without alternative arrangements are forced to stay at home and become cut off. Often, those who are struggling most have lived in deprived areas with all that brings. And now a drastic lack of social care and hard-pressed health services diminishes their lives still further and undermines their resilience to illness and disability. An ageing population need not be an unhappy one. They deserve better and we must do more to help them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72463/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Asghar Zaidi receives funding from Age UK, United Nation Economic Commission for Europe, European Commission and UK's Economic and Social Research Council to undertake research on well-being of older people. He is also affiliated with London School of Economics and Political Science. </span></em></p>It’s not all about health and wealth.Asghar Zaidi, Professor in International Social Policy, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/718662017-02-06T04:52:29Z2017-02-06T04:52:29ZWhy do conservatives want the government to defund the arts?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155386/original/image-20170202-1641-zyqiza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What happens when funding isn't just eroded, but is wiped away?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sand-sculpture-made-next-thames-being-560845132?src=yvZqmpRTxF6V9ET4Uy_zWg-7-56">'Erosion' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://thehill.com/policy/finance/314991-trump-team-prepares-dramatic-cuts">Recent reports</a> indicate that Trump administration officials have circulated plans to defund the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), putting this agency on the chopping block – again. </p>
<p>Conservatives have sought to eliminate the NEA <a href="https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/nea-history-1965-2008.pdf">since the Reagan administration</a>. In the past, arguments were limited to the content of specific state-sponsored works that were deemed offensive or immoral – an offshoot of the culture wars.</p>
<p>Now the cuts are largely driven by an ideology to shrink the federal government and decentralize power. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, <a href="http://thf-reports.s3.amazonaws.com/2016/BlueprintforBalance.pdf">argues that</a> government should not use its “coercive power of taxation” to fund arts and humanities programs that are neither “necessary nor prudent.” The federal government, in other words, has no business supporting culture. Period.</p>
<p>But there are two major flaws in conservatives’ latest attack on the NEA: The aim to decentralize the government could end up dealing local communities a major blow, and it ignores the economic contribution of this tiny line item expense. </p>
<h2>The relationship between government and the arts</h2>
<p>Historically, the relationship between the state and culture is as fundamental as the idea of the state itself. The West, in particular, has witnessed an evolution from royal and religious patronage of the arts to a <a href="https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/how-the-us-funds-the-arts.pdf">diverse range of arts funding</a> that includes sales, private donors, foundations, corporations, endowments and the government.</p>
<p>Prior to the formation of the NEA in 1965, the federal government strategically funded cultural projects of national interest. For example, the Commerce Department subsidized the film industry in the 1920s and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=yXjqMrceCdAC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=arts+patronage+and+the+democratic+state&source=bl&ots=47AtgbnvXn&sig=FpUYedC4nrgP4GH7fl58b7h1iPo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizvpLHv-_RAhVq2IMKHUXQAFoQ6AEIUzAI#v=onepage&q=arts%20patronage%20and%20the%20democratic%20state&f=false">helped Walt Disney skirt bankruptcy during World War II</a>. The same could be said for the broad range of New Deal economic relief programs, like the Public Works of Art Project and the Works Progress Administration, which employed artists and cultural workers. The CIA even joined in, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html">funding Abstract Expressionist artists</a> as a cultural counterweight to Soviet Realism during the Cold War. </p>
<p>The NEA came about during the Cold War. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy <a href="https://www.arts.gov/about/kennedy">asserted</a> the political and ideological importance of artists as critical thinkers, provocateurs and powerful contributors to the strength of a democratic society. His attitude was part of a broader bipartisan movement to form a national entity to promote American arts and culture at home and abroad. By 1965, President Johnson took up Kennedy’s legacy, <a href="https://www.arts.gov/about/national-council-arts">signing</a> the National Arts and Cultural Development Act of 1964 – which established the National Council on the Arts – and the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965, which established the NEA. </p>
<p>Since its inception, the NEA has weathered criticism from the left and right. The right generally argues state funding for culture shouldn’t be the government’s business, while some on the left have expressed concern about how the funding might come with constraints on creative freedoms. Despite complaints from both sides, the United States has never had a fully articulated, coherent national policy on culture, unless – <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=yXjqMrceCdAC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=arts+patronage+and+the+democratic+state&source=bl&ots=47AtgbnvXn&sig=FpUYedC4nrgP4GH7fl58b7h1iPo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizvpLHv-_RAhVq2IMKHUXQAFoQ6AEIUzAI#v=onepage&q=arts%20patronage%20and%20the%20democratic%20state&f=false">as historian Michael Kammen suggests</a> – deciding not to have one is, in fact, policy.</p>
<h2>Flare-ups in the culture wars</h2>
<p>Targeting of the NEA has had more to do with the kind of art the government funded than any discernible impact to the budget. The amount in question – roughly US$148 million – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/19/trump-reportedly-wants-to-cut-cultural-programs-that-make-up-0-02-percent-of-federal-spending/?utm_term=.638cac3e27b4">is a drop</a> in the morass of a $3.9 trillion federal budget. </p>
<p>Instead, the arts were a focus of the culture wars that erupted in the 1980s, which often invoked legislative grandstanding for elimination of the NEA. Hot-button NEA-funded pieces included Andres Serrano’s “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ">Immersion (Piss Christ)</a>” (1987), Robert Mapplethorpe’s photo exhibit “<a href="http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2063218_2063273_2063220,00.html">The Perfect Moment</a>” (1989) and the case of the “<a href="http://hyperallergic.com/70673/the-nea-four-revisited-on-arts-funding/">NEA Four</a>,” which involved the rejection of NEA grant applicants by performance artists Karen Finley, Tim Miller, John Fleck and Holly Hughes. </p>
<p>In each case, conservative legislators isolated an artist’s work – connected to NEA funding – that was objectionable due to its sexual or controversial content, such as Serrano’s use of Christian iconography. These artists’ works, then, were used to stoke a public debate about normative values. Artists were the targets, but often museum staff and curators bore the brunt of these assaults. The NEA four were significant because the artists had grants <a href="https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/finley-v-nea">unlawfully rejected</a> based upon standards of decency that were eventually deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1998. </p>
<p>As recently as 2011, former Congressmen John Boehner and Eric Cantor targeted the inclusion of David Wojnarowicz’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHRCwQeKCuo">A Fire in My Belly, A Work in Progress</a>” (1986-87) in a Smithsonian exhibition <a href="http://idiommag.com/2011/05/hideseek-culture-wars-and-the-history-of-the-nea/">to renew calls to eliminate the NEA</a>.</p>
<p>In all these cases, the NEA had funded artists who either brought attention to the AIDS crisis (Wojnarowicz), invoked religious freedoms (Serrano) or explored feminist and LGBTQ issues (Mapplethorpe and the four performance artists). Controversial artists push the boundaries of what art does, not just what art is; in these cases, the artists were able to powerfully communicate social and political issues that elicited the particular ire of conservatives.</p>
<h2>A local impact</h2>
<p>But today, it’s not about the art itself. It’s about limiting the scope and size of the federal government. And that ideological push presents real threats to our economy and our communities.</p>
<p>Organizations like the Heritage Foundation fail to take into account that eliminating the NEA actually causes the collapse of a vast network of regionally controlled, state-level arts agencies and local councils. In other words, they won’t simply be defunding a centralized bureaucracy that dictates elite culture from the sequestered halls of Washington, D.C. The NEA is required by law to distribute <a href="http://www.nasaa-arts.org/About/About-State-Arts-Agencies.php">40 percent of its budget</a> to arts agencies in all 50 states and six U.S. jurisdictions. </p>
<p>Many communities – <a href="http://www.towntopics.com/wordpress/2017/01/25/trumps-plans-to-cut-arts-and-culture-funds-have-local-implications/">such as Princeton, New Jersey</a>, which could lose funding to local cultural institutions like the McCarter Theatre – are anxious about how threats to the NEA will affect their community. </p>
<p>Therein lies the misguided logic of the argument for defunding: It targets the NEA but in effect threatens funding for programs like the <a href="http://creederep.org/">Creede Repertory Theatre</a> – which serves rural and underserved communities in states like Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Oklahoma and Arizona – and <a href="https://www.appalshop.org/">Appalshop</a>, a community radio station and media center that creates public art installations and multimedia tours in Jenkins, Kentucky to celebrate Appalachian cultural identity.</p>
<p>While the present administration and the conservative movement claim they’re simply trying to save taxpayer dollars, they also ignore the significant <a href="http://www.americansforthearts.org/by-program/reports-and-data/research-studies-publications/arts-economic-prosperity-iv">economic impacts of the arts</a>. The Bureau of Economic Analysis <a href="https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/general/acpsa/acpsa0216.pdf">reported</a> that the arts and culture industry generated $704.8 billion of economic activity in 2013 and employed nearly five million people. <a href="https://www.arts.gov/infographic-nea-funding-the-arts">For every dollar of NEA funding</a>, there are seven dollars of funding from other private and public funds. Elimination of the agency endangers this economic vitality.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the Trump administration needs to decide whether artistic and cultural work is important to a thriving economy and democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron D. Knochel receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>The National Endowment for the Arts is on the chopping block…again. But this time, the ideological justifications don’t pass muster.Aaron D. Knochel, Assistant Professor of Art Education, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/672902016-11-22T03:14:37Z2016-11-22T03:14:37ZTrump may reverse US climate policy but will have trouble dismantling EPA<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146663/original/image-20161120-19371-92p8th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">EPA personnel collect water samples along the Louisiana coast after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usepagov/4682435863/in/album-72157623903657981/">Eric Vance, US EPA/Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the Republican primary debates, President-elect Trump threatened to gut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/03/the-fox-news-gop-debate-transcript-annotated/">saying</a>, “We are going to get rid of it in almost every form. We’re going to have little tidbits left but we’re going to take a tremendous amount out.”</p>
<p>History suggests that it may be harder to make radical cuts at EPA than Trump and his advisors think. While <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/97327/perry-debate-oops-cabinet-energy-commerce">many politicians have called for eliminating entire cabinet agencies</a>, none has succeeded. </p>
<p>Such efforts run into two empirical realities. First, <a href="http://kut.org/post/why-eliminating-government-agency-isnt-simple">government departments are rarely eliminated</a>. Second, in my research I have found that, paradoxically, over the past six decades Democrats have been more likely to enact big cuts to programs than Republicans. Furthermore, while climate change programs may be an easy target, other presidents have found that voters like clean air and water and do not support gutting the agency whose job it is to protect them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146667/original/image-20161120-19334-13mhazy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146667/original/image-20161120-19334-13mhazy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146667/original/image-20161120-19334-13mhazy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146667/original/image-20161120-19334-13mhazy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146667/original/image-20161120-19334-13mhazy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146667/original/image-20161120-19334-13mhazy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146667/original/image-20161120-19334-13mhazy.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smog over Los Angeles, 2011. The city’s air quality has improved greatly over the past 50 years, but the Los Angeles-Long Beach area still records some of the highest pollution levels in the nation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pamlane/5581451394/in/photolist-9vdp3A-8AJuv3-zsukD-rDhfh5-cak865-8xramF-a6wSPG-indSyV-rpr7Mu-pvuFDR-AFgmW-FsM74-9uq1Nn-5PMJiQ-vmTSE-7aJFQf-bdDngk-oHFsna-9utmzb-e5KqWs-9uwtHE-oHXzQP-b7bVDB-rFTQw5-p5duoq-bMwxa6-njvQ2S-bCWGmm-mNeSys-rpqnhG-mKpydN-inenwp-cG38EW-orsyjR-pZybKo-oXkv4j-7RkXGy-rmNGDb-dxmAhL-9Fiind-dwjdNr-5GwsJo-a2gbtU-pyaQKn-7UA3tX-h6SzgV-ihQaTK-h6RAvS-h6RF6o-iagjMy">Pam Lane/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Easier to grow than to cut</h2>
<p>When I was a graduate student researcher updating a budget database, I was puzzled when I searched the 623 pages of the <a href="http://kut.org/post/why-eliminating-government-agency-isnt-simple">fiscal year 1983 budget</a> for the budget of the Department of Education and couldn’t find it. There simply wasn’t an entry for the Department of Education because President Reagan had proposed to abolish it. Yet the budget for the Education Department increased in seven out of Reagan’s eight years as president, and it is still here today (Trump has also called for eliminating it). </p>
<p>Proposals to eliminate agencies have become pro forma for Republican politicians, recently including <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ron-paul-proposes-saving-1t-by-scrapping-five-federal-departments/">Ron Paul</a>, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/23/eliminating-education-department-still-option-but-unlikely-one.html">Newt Gingrich</a> and <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/11/10/9710146/ted-cruz-debate-gaffe">Ted Cruz</a>. But these proposals rarely come to fruition.</p>
<p>Most instances in which agencies were eliminated over the past 20 years were either reorganizations – for example, merging 22 agencies to create the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 – or involved small, obsolete agencies like the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/26/nyregion/tea-but-no-sympathy-for-the-tasters.html">Board of Tea Examiners</a>, which was closed in 1996. When Republicans proposed cutting government after winning control of Congress in the 1994 elections, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/when-congress-wiped-an-agency-off-the-map/2011/11/29/gIQAIt0J9N_blog.html">one of the few agencies that was actually closed was the the Office of Technology Assessment</a>, a small agency that provided technical and policy research to Congress itself.</p>
<p>Through this period, a surprising trend stands out. When <a href="http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/%7Elmh735/">Laurel Harbridge</a> and I <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1532673X13511658">analyzed</a> spending on more than 1,500 subaccounts in the federal budget from 1956 through 2003, we found that more large cuts to these accounts occurred when Democrats controlled two or three lawmaking institutions of government (House, Senate, and presidency) than when they controlled only one. (One limitation of our analysis was that we did not have data for periods when Republicans controlled all three branches.) </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146668/original/image-20161120-19352-1nr1kxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146668/original/image-20161120-19352-1nr1kxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146668/original/image-20161120-19352-1nr1kxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146668/original/image-20161120-19352-1nr1kxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146668/original/image-20161120-19352-1nr1kxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146668/original/image-20161120-19352-1nr1kxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146668/original/image-20161120-19352-1nr1kxg.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">William Ruckelshaus is sworn in as administrator of the newly created Environmental Protection Agency, Dec. 4, 1970.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-DC-USA-APHS316925-EPA-Ruckelshaus-1970/9061e5c959d74657be79eed26b70ba47/4/0">AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Why would Democrats, who traditionally support a more expansive role for government, make more large cuts in federal spending than Republicans?
In <a href="http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2011/05/04/what-is-motivated-reasoning-and-how-does-it-work/">social psychologist Dan Kahan’s words</a>, “individuals … fit their processing of information to conclusions that suit some end or goal.” So we expect Democrats to make lots of small increases to programs. </p>
<p>But after making all those changes, the party must make corrections to balance its prior decisions. And when parties ignore information that runs counter to their ideology, they end up having to make big corrections. So we’d expect Democrats to occasionally make large cuts to programs. </p>
<p>For example, in 1993, after increasing the budget in four out of the prior five years, the <a href="https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal93-1104939">unified Democratic government cut spending</a> to the Bureau of Land Management’s land acquisition subaccount. Although Democrats are generally supportive of acquiring land for conservation, President Clinton had pointed out that buying property was coming at the expense of maintaining existing federal lands. The budget for land acquisition was cut by more than 56 percent. It took until 2000 to reach the 1992 level of spending again.</p>
<p>Starting in January, when Republicans will control Congress and the presidency, this perspective suggests that they will make lots of cuts, consistent with their ideological stance in favor of more limited government. But we can also predict that they may make more big increases than Democrats when the evidence shows that they have cut too far and they have to make big corrections. </p>
<p>EPA’s history is illustrative. Its budget was volatile in the early years under Republicans Nixon and Ford, with both huge growth (including a 238 percent increase) and big cuts. Since the funding became more stable in 1981, the budget has essentially been flat. During the period of unified Republican government from 2003-2007, the budget slowly declined. EPA received a 35 percent increase under President Obama in 2010, but since then has experienced another slow decline.</p>
<iframe id="datawrapper-chart-e7MMM" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/e7MMM/1/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<h2>Americans value core environmental benefits</h2>
<p>To reduce the EPA to “tidbits,” President Trump will also have to contend with public opinion. Air and water quality have greatly improved in the United States over the past 50 years, thanks to enactment of landmark laws like the Clean Air and Clean Water acts. But Americans are still concerned about these issues. </p>
<p>Last March 81 percent of respondents in a <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/1615/environment.aspx">Gallup poll</a> said they worried a great deal or a fair amount about pollution of waterways. More than three-quarters of Americans have held this view in Gallup surveys dating back to 1989. The same survey found that more than 70 percent of Americans had similar views about air pollution.</p>
<p>Trump’s EPA transition team leader is <a href="https://cei.org/expert/myron-ebell">Myron Ebell</a>, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the <a href="https://cei.org/">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a>. Ebell is known for arguing that <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20161111000552/http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060041292">climate change is not a serious problem</a> and that the U.S. should not take action to reduce carbon emissions. We can expect that under President Trump EPA will focus on <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-president-trump-means-for-the-future-of-energy-and-climate-68045">rolling back Obama administration climate change policies</a>, such as the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/cleanpowerplan/clean-power-plan-existing-power-plants">Clean Power Plan</a> to reduce carbon emissions from power plants. </p>
<p>But the EPA is unlikely to disappear. While cuts on a lesser scale certainly would reduce the agency’s ability to enforce existing law and would dismay environmental advocates, the agency has been through reductions on this scale before and continued to function. But if the Trump administration makes too many cuts, lawsuits and public pressure to keep environmental quality high are likely to limit the administration’s ability to decimate the agency.</p>
<p>We are more like to see a period of slow decline <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/cen/email/html/cen_86_i51_8651gov1.html">similar to what occurred during George W. Bush’s presidency</a>. The motivated reasoning that encourages Republicans to cut spending showed in many small cuts across EPA’s budget. And these matter in the long run. By all accounts, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/us/politics/epa-faces-bigger-tasks-smaller-budgets-and-louder-critics.html?_r=0">the agency is being asked to do more with less and has been roundly criticized for failures like the one in Flint, Michigan.</a> On the other hand, even Republican presidents recognize that people want a clean environment and are therefore limited in how much they can cut the EPA. If they do cut, they may even be forced by the public, the environmental movement, and lawsuits to reevaluate and make corrections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67290/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Anderson receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to decimate the Environmental Protection Agency. But a political scientist predicts that while EPA will face budget cuts, the agency isn’t going anywhere.Sarah Anderson, Associate Professor of Environmental Politics, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/248032014-07-02T20:30:38Z2014-07-02T20:30:38ZGetting more bang for public bucks: is the ‘efficiency dividend’ efficient?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52615/original/yys7mzm8-1404110458.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the 27 years since the Hawke government came up with a public service efficiency dividend, the evidence has mounted against it.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp?B=11607705">National Archives of Australia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every now and again in public policy debates a consensus emerges on some particular point among policymakers, stakeholders and commentators. These moments are distressingly rare. It is even more distressing when the government ignores such consensus. Unfortunately, this is the case with the most significant attempt in the federal budget to increase the efficiency of government, through the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2012-2013/EfficiencyDividend">“efficiency dividend”</a>.</p>
<p>First introduced to federal public sector organisations in 1987 <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=CHAMBER;id=chamber%2Fhansardr%2F1986-09-25%2F0106;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2F1986-09-25%2F0120%22">by the Hawke government</a>, the efficiency dividend is a reduction of the budgets of these bodies by a certain percentage (usually 1.25%, but <a href="http://www.budget.gov.au/2014-15/content/overview/html/overview_33.htm">2.5% in the current budget</a>). </p>
<p>As the name suggests, this is intended to drive efficiency improvements. The idea is that public sector bodies do the same work with less resources and the government bottom line should benefit accordingly. Thus it is argued that this cut is not a cut at all, but merely a dividend from increased efficiency.</p>
<p>It is important to subject these justifications to scrutiny. As <a href="http://cpd.org.au/2014/06/false-economies/">my research</a> for the Centre for Policy Development points out, the efficiency dividend is the most significant initiative in May’s budget for driving more efficient government operations.</p>
<p>The measure’s predicted total saving of A$2.8 billion dwarfs the $530 million saved by the <a href="http://www.financeminister.gov.au/publications/docs/smaller-and-more-rational-government.pdf">“Smaller and More Rational Government”</a> initiative, which identifies a number of organisations for cessation or merger. This initiative is less of a blunt instrument in that it shows specifically what services will be affected, though the scattering of different organisations targeted makes it difficult to see any underlying rationale for the cuts.</p>
<h2>An incomplete form of efficiency</h2>
<p>The problem with the arguments for the efficiency dividend is that they take a very narrow view of efficiency. If the same results are obtained from fewer resources (this is questionable in some cases), this improves what is called technical efficiency. However, this ignores the “allocative” and “dynamic” <a href="http://cpd.org.au/?p=19141">aspects of efficiency</a>.</p>
<p>Allocative efficiency is about ensuring resources are directed to the areas where they achieve the highest benefits. An across-the-board cut affects all public services regardless of the value they provide. This means allocative efficiency is not increased; worse, it may be reduced because the efficiency dividend’s effects are not even.</p>
<p>Smaller organisations and offices (such as the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mediareleasesbyReleaseDate/745695D9AEBEFE64CA257CEE0004715C?OpenDocument">Australian Bureau of Statistics</a>) feel a disproportionate level of pain, while larger organisations have more flexibility on where to make the savings. This means smaller offices serving regional Australia tend to be disproportionately affected. It also punishes more efficient organisations since they are expected to improve at the same rate as those with more numerous and easily addressed inefficiencies.</p>
<p>Dynamic efficiency, which involves adapting to change (including new technologies and modes of operating), is also damaged because the operation of the efficiency dividend is directly at odds with the dynamics of innovation.</p>
<p>First, it applies each year, yet innovations are “lumpy” with large opportunities in some years and less opportunity in others.</p>
<p>Second, innovations often lead to an apparent decrease in efficiency before the gains begin to show. For example, the introduction of a more efficient computer system will initially slow down work as staff learn to use it. The efficiency dividend takes away the resources first, meaning that the initial dip in efficiency occurs in a situation of constrained resources.</p>
<p>Third, working out innovative new ideas and ways to implement them often requires an investment of resources. The efficiency dividend ensures such investment is harder to find.</p>
<h2>Experts unite against the efficiency dividend</h2>
<p>A number of well-supported government reviews stressed the need to review the efficiency dividend. Examples include parliament’s joint committee of public accounts and audit’s <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/house_of_representatives_committees?url=jcpaa/efficdiv/report.htm">2008 inquiry</a> and the <a href="http://www.dpmc.gov.au/publications/aga_reform/aga_reform_blueprint/">2010 Moran Review</a>. </p>
<p>Cynics may reject these findings as self-serving, but they might find it harder to dismiss two more recent critiques. The <a href="http://www.ncoa.gov.au/">National Commission of Audit</a>, led by former Business Council of Australia head Tony Shepherd, was very critical of the common practice of governments to increase the efficiency dividend as a savings measure. The commission’s opinion is that cuts should be targeted with a clear rationale. </p>
<p>Even more damning was <a href="http://www.cis.org.au/publications/target30-papers/article/5191-withholding-dividends-better-ways-to-make-the-public-sector-efficient">this year’s report</a> by the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), an organisation with a firm commitment to smaller government. The CIS recommended the “failed” efficiency dividend be abolished.</p>
<p>It is an indictment of any government’s commitment to efficiency that the most significant approach to driving more efficient operations is the use of such a blunt instrument, which flies in the face of condemnation from all sides. Complete disregard of advice on the efficiency dividend is unfortunately a bipartisan failing. It has survived through the governments of Hawke, Keating, Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Rudd again, and now Abbott.</p>
<p>The Rudd government’s <a href="http://www.budget.gov.au/2013-14/content/economic_statement/download/2013_EconomicStatement.pdf">economic statement in August 2013</a> increased the efficiency dividend to 2.25% for a period of three years despite all advice. The Abbott government has also gone against this advice, and the recommendation of its own Commission of Audit, by increasing the rate to 2.5%. </p>
<p>It is understandable, of course, that the Abbott government will not follow every recommendation. Governments must make decisions based on a range of different opinions, including from the departments of Treasury and Finance. Nevertheless, cultivating a more efficient government will require more rigour than the blunt and untargeted efficiency dividend. This approach is likely to be doing more harm than good.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24803/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This work draws on research conducted for the Centre for Policy Development's Public Service Research Program which is funded by the CPSU, the Becher Foundation and Slater & Gordon.</span></em></p>Every now and again in public policy debates a consensus emerges on some particular point among policymakers, stakeholders and commentators. These moments are distressingly rare. It is even more distressing…Christopher Stone, Research Director at the Centre for Policy Development and PhD Student, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/234482014-02-20T16:51:14Z2014-02-20T16:51:14ZFlood response hit by regional austerity cuts<p>Forecasters predict a wetter than normal start to March that will no doubt hamper efforts to bring an end to the misery of those whose homes are underwater. These extended floods and bad weather reveal the changes in how emergencies are handled.</p>
<p>Extreme weather conditions such as rainfall, wind, heat, cold, and tidal surges are becoming more common, and their impact felt for longer. Risk management planning by emergency services needs to start accommodating medium and long-term changes to the pattern of threats, particularly from the environment. This is something that <a href="http://www.ntu.ac.uk/apps/research/groups/22/home.aspx/group/143523/overview/public_management_and_governance_research_group">Public Management and Governance Research Group</a> and the <a href="http://www.ntu.ac.uk/soc/research/specialist_centres_units/65590.html">Emergency Services Research Unit</a> are already working on with the emergency services and government.</p>
<p>One of the key questions to arise from the current floods is why the government has seemed so out of touch with what is happening on the ground and why the preparations and responses to the emergency have been so uncoordinated. After all, we live in a world of round-the-clock media coverage and instant access to news on mobile phones and portable computers. Yet the government’s response to floods that began in December came weeks, even months late.</p>
<p>Part of the answer lies in the closure in 2011 of the <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/briefing-papers/SN05842/the-abolition-of-regional-government">Government Offices</a>, a regional network that functioned as the local points of presence of central government departments. This has led to cuts in the capacity and funding of the regional resilience and emergency planning teams that had operated in the nine English regions.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/preparation-and-planning-for-emergencies-responsibilities-of-responder-agencies-and-others">Civil Contingencies Act</a> replaced the earlier and very much outdated Civil Defence and Emergency Powers legislation, most of which dated back to World War II.</p>
<p>This came about as domestic and terrorist threats to services, along with widespread flooding in England and Wales between 1998 and 2000 and the outbreak of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12483017">foot and mouth disease</a> in 2001, became more numerous and their social and economic impacts more widespread.</p>
<p>This Act established <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.communities.gov.uk/fire/resilienceresponse/regionalresilience/">Regional Resilience Teams</a> in each regional office, small groups of dedicated specialists that co-ordinated and developed local resilience networks which brought together emergency planners and emergency responders. These include police, fire, ambulance and coastguard services, <a href="http://www.dft.gov.uk/mca/mcga07-home/emergencyresponse/resilience/list-of-responders.htm">but also experts</a> from for example the Environment Agency, Network Rail, Highways Agency, NHS, and electricity, gas and water utilities.</p>
<p>These specialists prepared and updated emergency plans and established a two-way dialogue between the centre office and local emergency responders through <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-role-of-local-resilience-forums-a-reference-document">Local Resilience Forums</a>. At times of emergencies they could call on their local knowledge, assistance and contacts in the area, or of the teams within the offices.</p>
<p>These teams knew their local areas well. They were in regular contact with all the key people on the ground in local communities – people who would know where and what resources were available, who would need to be involved, and how to effectively co-ordinate their deployment.</p>
<p>However, the regional Government Offices were caught up in the <a href="http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_191543.pdf">bonfire of the quangos</a> and swept away in a tide of austerity rhetoric and an anti-regional agenda spearheaded by Eric Pickles at the Department of Communities and Local Government.</p>
<p>Now, what’s left of the Regional Resilience Teams have become the responsibility of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/improving-the-uks-ability-to-absorb-respond-to-and-recover-from-emergencies">Cabinet Office</a>, somewhat defeating the point of their local links, and numbers have been slashed. Staff now operate in a semi-peripatetic way across one of the three regions England is now divided into, essentially the North, Midlands and South. Inevitably these staff have a much thinner network of contacts, and no real chance of knowing the huge geographical areas under their control in the detail needed.</p>
<p>The local forums have been left in place but inevitably with less support and guidance. They are all experienced in dealing with emergencies, but at a time when the affects of emergencies such as these floods are becoming more widespread and prolonged, there is a greater rather than a lesser need for better co-operation between emergency services – services which have themselves been subject to significant funding cuts.</p>
<p>Stripping away this layer of regional government has resulted in a demonstrable loss of organisational capacity, as well as historical knowledge and experience, all at a time of rising demand. The government is well aware of the need for co-ordinated response – it established the <a href="http://www.jesip.org.uk/">Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme</a> between the three main emergency services which produced it’s first publication just weeks before the floods began. But for those on the ground, it’s a case of fine words butter no parsnips.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23448/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Murphy receives commissions from local resilience forum services.</span></em></p>Forecasters predict a wetter than normal start to March that will no doubt hamper efforts to bring an end to the misery of those whose homes are underwater. These extended floods and bad weather reveal…Peter Murphy, Principal Lecturer in Public Service Management, Programme Director, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217752014-01-10T14:39:34Z2014-01-10T14:39:34ZInnocents will suffer as legal cuts put paid to due process<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38693/original/vs5vgc4s-1389197520.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lawyers pass judgement on proposed cuts to legal system.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Alastair Grant</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s not often you see bewigged barristers take to the streets waving placards in protest, but such were the scenes outside the Old Bailey and other courts around the country as <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/jan/06/courts-close-england-wales-lawyers-legal-aid-cuts">defence lawyers demonstrated</a> against planned cuts of £220m to legal aid. We may be entering what <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/business/2014-year-of-hard-truths-for-british-economy-george-osborne/articleshow/28459744.cms">George Osborne calls</a>, the year of “hard truths”, and, certainly, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/06/george-osborne-britain-cuts-austerity">Osborne’s speech</a> on Monday forecast some hardship for welfare claimants. But every bit as pertinent is how government cuts are reshaping the criminal justice system and dictating the nature of its operation.</p>
<p>Savings in the criminal process are precipitating a shift from <a href="http://debatesincriminaljustice.com/CrimeControlDueProcessSlidesWEBPDFsmall.pdf">due process values to those of crime control</a>. The difference between these approaches was famously <a href="http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=2971">articulated</a> by Herbert Packer in the 1960s and remains pertinent today.</p>
<p>Under crime control, the central function of the criminal process is the repression of criminal behaviour. The centre of gravity lies in the early, administrative, fact-finding stages operating under a factual presumption of guilt. The approach sees nothing wrong in organising affairs so that pressure is put on the defendant to confess. Conviction of the guilty is all-important and the mistaken conviction of some innocent defendants is seen as an unfortunate but acceptable price to pay. This approach demands as few restrictions as possible on those tasked with investigation and stands in opposition to rules restricting illegal arrest or coercive interrogations. To these ends, defendants should only be allowed access to representation in a minority of cases.</p>
<p>In contrast, due process is more concerned with upholding the rights of the defendant. The due process model lacks confidence in pre-trial fact-finding enterprises. Great emphasis is placed on the possibility of error. Adversarial processes are championed, with cases considered publicly in a formal hearing with an independent tribunal. As such, decisions are only made after defendants have been provided the opportunity to discredit the case against them. The right to representation is central, in order to allow the remedies and sanctions that check this process to be properly enacted. This position is premised upon the notion of the equality of arms, so each individual should have the ability to contest a charge against them. This necessitates that – where the system allows the right to be represented by a lawyer yet the individual cannot afford to instruct one – the state should provide one for free.</p>
<p>While maintaining its legitimacy through professing due process principles, such as legal aid lawyers and the right to an appeal, the criminal justice system of England and Wales is increasingly crime control in its functional reality. Values are shifting under the ideological impact of austerity.</p>
<h2>Cuts and the legal process</h2>
<p>This week’s unprecedented <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/jan/06/courts-close-england-wales-lawyers-legal-aid-cuts">mass walkout and demonstrations</a> by criminal defence lawyers highlights the manner in which <a href="https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/transforming-legal-aid-next-steps">proposed</a> legal aid cuts have the potential to destroy state provision of criminal representation as we know it. Defence lawyers will see average pay reduced by 17.5%. In place of access to justice will be a sausage factory approach as defendants are turned into <a href="https://theconversation.com/cuts-to-criminal-legal-aid-will-turn-defendants-into-products-21666">standardised products</a> by lawyers who do not have the time to offer a personalised service.</p>
<p>Research <a href="http://www.hartpub.co.uk/BookDetails.aspx?ISBN=9781849464338">has shown</a> that increased legal aid pressures will mean lawyers feel increasingly compelled to push their clients to plead guilty as quickly as possible. Legal advice deserts that emerge in certain geographical locations and around certain low-remunerative types of case will mean unrepresented defendants – with higher levels of self-incrimination and, again, a greater expectation for early guilty pleas.</p>
<p>Defence lawyers, though, are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jul/27/staff-cuts-cps-delays-errors">not alone</a> in facing such systemic pressures; tasked with making a 27% reduction to its budget by 2015, the Crown Prosecution Service <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jul/27/staff-cuts-cps-delays-errors">has cut nearly a quarter of its lawyers</a> in the past three years. As they <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17345034">keep more casework</a> in-house, there are concerns of declining standards; due to lack of experience and over burdensome workloads, it is feared that the quality of advocacy has been reduced.</p>
<p>The expectation appears to be that prosecutors should not expend as much energy on casework (as evident from increasing numbers of collapsed cases). With an ever-greater throughput of guilty pleas, then, this end is achieved and there is less work for them to do. in theory, at least, defendants should pass through the system more quickly (in practice, unrepresented defendants often take significant amounts of court time).</p>
<p>As part of the same trend are <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/judicial-review-proposals-for-further-reform">government proposals</a> to cut judicial reviews – charging more to bring about a review, reducing the eligibility for pre-application funding and shortening the period in which they can be raised. Judicial review is one of the only ways courts can scrutinise the decisions of public bodies. But, the prime minister, David Cameron <a href="http://www.cbi.org.uk/media/1849566/prime_minister_speech_to_cbi_annual_conference_2012.pdf">wants to see</a> a reduction in the number of such reviews, which will apparently curb “time-wasting”; cutting through the “red tape” of, what he dismisses as, “bureaucratic rubbish”.</p>
<p>The example <a href="http://thejusticegap.com/2013/07/ideological-differences/">most often dismissed</a> by the government is the supposedly frivolous legal aid for prisoners to review parole board decisions. Such cuts deny a human right to vulnerable people in need of rehabilitation back into society, not further marginalisation. They assert the notion that the state is always correct; citizens should simply agree.</p>
<p>What emerges is a crime control system where state decisions on citizens are quick and final. While this might sound positive to those who bemoan the inadequacy of our legal system to impose adequate punishment on wrongdoers, what it actually means is that this often happens more through luck than judgement. Without proper procedures in place to scrutinise evidence against an individual, the awesome power of the state often goes untested.</p>
<h2>What price justice?</h2>
<p>Justice on the cheap is no justice at all. Under Packer’s models, due process presents an obstacle course – we can have faith in our state decision-making apparatus as it has gone through a thorough process of checks. It is these due process concerns that have allowed its advocates to trumpet England and Wales as the finest legal system in the world. But if the criminal justice system rather emerges from these deep cuts as little more than a crime control system, evoking the image of an assembly-line conveyor belt with an endless stream of cases flowing down it, there can be no case for the defence of justice in England and Wales. Justice is sacrificed to save money.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/21775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Newman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s not often you see bewigged barristers take to the streets waving placards in protest, but such were the scenes outside the Old Bailey and other courts around the country as defence lawyers demonstrated…Daniel Newman, RA, Sustainable Places Research Institute, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.