How Much National Security Can We Afford

post from ThinkProgress on 15 November 2011 11:00:06 AM. © ThinkProgress

Defense cuts kinda are and kinda aren’t on the table in Capitol Hill’s endless budget negotiations. But a new analysis from Cindy Williams, now at MIT but formerly the lead national security analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, says that over the long term, we need really big cuts. The paper is “The Future Affordability of
U.S. National Security” PDF) and the bottom line is:

Using CBO?s analyses of the overall federal budget as a starting point, I find that an affordable long-term level for national defense spending is between 1.6 percent and 2.6 percent of GDP. Within that band, the affordable level will depend upon whether taxes are permitted to rise and on how the cuts in federal spending are distributed among three broad categories: mandatory programs, nondefense discretionary accounts, and national defense. Assuming that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down a few years from now and are not replaced by new, expensive wars, that translates into cutting the non-war defense budget in real terms by four percent to 40 percent, relative to its 2011 level, within the coming decade.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/11/15/368572/how-much-national-security-ca
n-we-afford/

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House Republicans Will Only Fix America’s
Infrastructure If Oil Companies Can Drill In Arctic Wildlife Refuge

post from ThinkProgress on 15 November 2011 11:00:06 AM. © ThinkProgress

Despite the urgent need in many of their home states, House Republicans refuse to provide funding for infrastructure development and blocked the recent piece of President Obama’s jobs act offering $60 billion to rehabilitate America’s roads and bridges. It appears the only way Republicans are prepared to fix America’s crumbling infrastructure is by threatening the environment with domestic drilling. GOP Rep. Steve Stivers (OH) announced the GOP plan Friday to fund all infrastructure with 37.5 percent of drilling revenues earned specifically from opening up the Gulf of Mexico, Virginia’s coast, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil rigs:

On Friday, Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) put meat on the bones by announcing a plan that would require lease sales in areas off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, among other areas, and lift a congressional ban on oil-and-gas leasing that covers most of the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
The plan includes a lease sale off Virginia?s coast by mid-2012. [...]
Separately, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) introduced legislation that authorizes oil-and-gas leasing in Alaska?s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Stivers insists that removing drilling bans, or “government roadblocks,” will “provide much-needed revenue to help pay for vital infrastructure improvements.” However, as opening up the ANWR to drilling will do little to fill the need for revenue as the Department of Energy noted it’d take at least 10 years to produce any oil from the Arctic. It will only serve to endanger the home of America’s last polar bears and porcupine caribou.

Of course, the Senate Democrats plan to pay for infrastructure with a small surtax on America’s millionaires would actually yield the needed revenue to pay for these “vital infrastructure improvements.” But, as always, the Republicans are dead set against a revenue plan that doesn’t further their special interests agenda. And, as always, it’s done at the expense of the most vulnerable.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/11/15/368126/house-republicans-to-fix-infrast
ructure-with-arctic-drilling/

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Gingrich Calls For Privatizing The Congressional
Budget Office

post from ThinkProgress on 15 November 2011 11:00:06 AM. © ThinkProgress

GOP frontrunner-of-the week Newt Gingrich reiterated his call for repealing the Congressional Budget Office — the organization responsible for scoring legislation — yesterday, arguing that it “actually constrains what people are allowed to think.” Despite supporting the CBO’s scoring rules in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act and touting its scores to push through legislation throughout his long career in Congress, Gingrich is proposing a plan that would disband the CBO and outsource the job of actuarial analysis to private companies. Watch it:

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/11/15/368723/gingrich-calls-for-privatizing-
the-congressional-budget-office/

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Equality Ohio To Deliver 80,000 Anti-Bullying
Petitions

post from ThinkProgress on 15 November 2011 11:00:06 AM. © ThinkProgress

Equality Ohio will deliver 80,000 petitions to the Union-Scioto school district tomorrow urging the superintendent to adopt protections for LGBT students. The effort comes after Zachary Houston, “a 15-year-old teenager was severely beaten in his high school class room for being gay.” Houston is now speaking about his experiences “and the ACLU is standing behind him, threatening Union-Scioto with a lawsuit unless the school district meets with them about putting and end to bullying and harassment.” A recent analysis from GLSEN also found that Ohio schools have above average rates of anti-gay bias, with one in four Ohio LGBT students having been physically assaulted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/11/15/368634/equality-ohio-to-deliver-80000-an
ti-bullying-petitions/

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Egyptian Blogger Says Raid On Occupy Wall Street
Reminded Him Of Egyptian Military Crackdown

post from ThinkProgress on 15 November 2011 11:00:06 AM. © ThinkProgress

Following the surprise raid on Occupy Wall Street last night, much of the country and world is shocked by the suddenness and heavy handedness of the tactics used by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York Police Department. The Egyptian blogger Big Pharoah, who covered his country’s uprising and its current path to democracy, tweeted just now that what he saw from the raid reminded him of what the Egyptian military and police did in Tahrir when his people were rising up:

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/11/15/368784/egyptian-blogger-occupy-tahrir
/

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BREAKING: Bloomberg served with temporary
restraining order requiring reopening of Zuccotti Park to protesters at 7:50 a.m.

post from ThinkProgress on 15 November 2011 11:00:06 AM. © ThinkProgress

At 6:30 a.m. this morning, following a midnight police raid evicting protesters from Zuccotti Park, Justice Lucy Billings issued an order requiring the protesters to be readmitted to Zuccotti Park with their tents. ThinkProgress just spoke to one of the plantiff’s attorney’s, Gideon Orion Oliver, who confirmed that the order was served on Mayor Bloomberg and the other defendants via fax at 7:50 a.m. During his 8 a.m. press conference, Mayor Bloomberg seemed to acknowledge he was familiar with the temporary restraining order, but claimed he had not been served and was keeping the park closed. As of this writing, Zuccotti Park remains closed to protesters in direct contradiction of Justice Billing’s order.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/11/15/368664/breaking-bloomberg-served-with
-temporary-restraining-order-requiring-reopening-of-zuccotti-park-to-protesters-at-750am/

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On this Day In History November 15

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 15 November 2011 11:00:00 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow GazetteThis is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.Find the past "On This Day in History" here.On this day in 1867, On this day in 1867, the first stock[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Docudharma/~3/uVAmj4WI2S4/on-this-day-in-history-n
ovember-15

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Buffett Just Spent $7 BILLION on These "Forever
Stocks"

post from Jutia Group on 15 November 2011 11:00:00 AM. © Jutia Group

When the going gets tough, the tough… break out their checkbooks? After seeing stocks crater this summer, this is precisely what Warren Buffett did through his investment firm Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B). Buffett and his team invested $7 billion in the third quarter. To put that in perspective, that's more than twice the amount of buying he did just a quarter earlier and nine times the amount he bought in the first quarter. You'd have to go back to the late 1990s to find the last time Buffett was so aggressive. (Back then, a global currency crisis led by the Thai baht and the Russian ruble put a temporary scare in more faint-hearted investors.)

The fact . . . → Read More: Buffett Just Spent $7 BILLION on These "Forever Stocks"

Read The Full Article:
http://jutiagroup.com/20111115-buffett-just-spent-7-billion-on-these-forever-stoc
ks/

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What is the Quickest Way to Make Congress More
Corrupt

As part of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Texas Governor Rick Perry wants to ?Uproot and Overhaul? Washington D.C. with specific reforms to each branch of government. The proposals include a ?fundamental reform of the judiciary? through judicial term limits, a ?fundamental reform of the executive branch? through the elimination of three federal agencies (the Departments of Commerce, Education, and Energy), and a ?fundamental reform of the legislative branch.? Here is Politico?s Mike Allen with details on the latter:

Fundamental Reform of the Legislative Branch: Citizen Congress, Accountability and Transparency ? Work to establish a part-time, Citizen Congress ? Cut congressional pay in half and repeal the rules that prevent members of Congress from holding real jobs in their home states and communities.

Perry isn?t wrong to push for judicial term limits ? lifetime appointments incentivize obstruction and ideological packing ? and there is a plausible argument for dismantling some federal agencies (the USDA, for example). Where Perry goes off the rails is with his call for a ?Citizen Congress.? Combined with sharp congressional pay cuts (and presumably, an elimination of most congressional staff), a part-time, non-professional Congress would be ripe for corruption and incompetence. It?s not hard to see why. Legislating is hard work, and the value of a professional legislature is that it allows lawmakers to develop the skills and expertise necessary to write good laws. Decent pay factors into this ? when lawmakers aren?t worried about paying the bills, they are less likely to respond bribery, pay-for-play, and other forms of corruption.

Here?s what you would get by adopting Perry?s ?reforms.? Already, congresspeople are buffeted with concerns from constituents and interest groups on a variety of policies, to say nothing of the pressure of fundraising and reelection. Absent the time to educate themselves or the staff necessary to collect information, something has to give, and more oftne than not, that something is independence. When lawmakers are pressed for time, resources, and cash, they?re far more likely to rely on lobbyists for information, and even written legislation. After all, of the people in or around government, lobbyists (and assorted advocates) have the most time and resources for changing the direction of policy. Professionalized legislatures aren?t perfect, but they stand as something of a bulwark to the undue influence of interest groups. Take that away, and you?ve turned Congress into an institution more porous than it already is.

This isn?t a hypothetical. Back in 2002, Karen Olsson described the culture of corruption among our largely unprofessionalized state legislatures for Mother Jones:

With more than 2,400 state lawmakers as members ? roughly one third of the nation?s total ? ALEC [American Legislative Exchange Council] is a year-round clearinghouse for business-friendly legislation. Its nine task forces, each composed of legislators and representatives from private industry, sit down together to draft model bills on issues ranging from agriculture to school vouchers, which are then introduced in state legislatures across the country.

It?s also worth noting that Texas has one of the most corrupt state legislatures in the country. Whether he realizes it or not, this is the vision Rick Perry has outlined for the United States Congress.

Read The Full Article:
http://blog.prospect.org/article/what-quickest-way-make-congress-more-corrupt

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What Is the Quickest Way to Make Congress More
Corrupt

Fundamental Reform of the Legislative Branch: Citizen Congress, Accountability and Transparency ? Work to establish a part-time, Citizen Congress ? Cut congressional pay in half and repeal the rules that prevent members of Congress from holding real jobs in their home states and communities.

Perry isn?t wrong to push for judicial term limits ?- lifetime appointments incentivize obstruction and ideological packing -? and there is a plausible argument for dismantling some federal agencies (the USDA, for example). Where Perry goes off the rails is with his call for a ?Citizen Congress.? Combined with sharp congressional pay cuts (and presumably, an elimination of most congressional staff), a part-time, non-professional Congress would be ripe for corruption and incompetence. It?s not hard to see why. Legislating is hard work, and the value of a professional legislature is that it allows lawmakers to develop the skills and expertise necessary to write good laws. Decent pay factors into this -? when lawmakers aren?t worried about paying the bills, they are less likely to respond to bribery, pay-for-play, and other forms of corruption.

Here?s what you would get by adopting Perry?s ?reforms.? Already, congresspeople are buffeted with concerns from constituents and interest groups on a variety of policies, to say nothing of the pressure of fundraising and re-election. Absent the time to educate themselves or the staff necessary to collect information, something has to give, and more often than not, that something is independence. When lawmakers are pressed for time, resources, and cash, they?re far more likely to rely on lobbyists for information, and even written legislation. After all, of the people in or around government, lobbyists (and assorted advocates) have the most time and resources for changing the direction of policy. Professionalized legislatures aren?t perfect, but they stand as something of a bulwark to the undue influence of interest groups. Take that away, and you?ve turned Congress into an institution more porous than it already is.

This isn?t a hypothetical. Back in 2002, Karen Olsson described the culture of corruption among our largely unprofessionalized state legislatures for Mother Jones:

With more than 2,400 state lawmakers as members ? roughly one third of the nation?s total ? ALEC [American Legislative Exchange Council] is a year-round clearinghouse for business-friendly legislation. Its nine task forces, each composed of legislators and representatives from private industry, sit down together to draft model bills on issues ranging from agriculture to school vouchers, which are then introduced in state legislatures across the country.

Read The Full Article:
http://blog.prospect.org/article/what-quickest-way-make-congress-more-corrupt

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