Weekly Quiz: Test Yourself on this Events

The weekly quiz is now live in Mypoliscilab. Good luck!

Weekly Poll: Your Opinion on the Budget Crisis

As negotiation continues between Republicans and Democrats in Congress and President Obama, many fear that the state of the U.S. economy is in grave danger. What do you think?

Colbert: Report: The Republican Ring of Power

The debt crisis and “The Lord of the Rings” both have elaborate plots, too many characters to keep track of, and talking about either of them repels girls.

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Colbert: Report: The Republican Ring of Power, posted with vodpod

Pork as Federal Spending; The Eternal Conundrum?

In the context of the federal budget the term “pork” generally refers to spending at the state and local levels that members of Congress are able to claim as evidence of their hard work on behalf of their constituents.  It goes without saying that members of Congress share the belief that “bringing home the bacon” increases the likelihood that  they will win reelection.  All one has to do is look for signs in their community that proclaim “YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT
WORK, funded in part by . . . .”  I dare say we usually appreciate the work being done. After all, don’t we all like road improvements, new libraries, and better policing?  Add national entitlement programs like social security and Medicare—and don’t forget military spending—to that list and voila, you have the federal budget.

That’s just on the spending side.  What about the revenue side?  Individual and corporate income taxes provide almost 51 percent of federal revenues (42 percent and 9 percent respectively).  In 2010, the federal  government collected $2.2 TRILLION in receipts from these and other sources.  That can buy a lot of “pork.”  Wait . . . it does buy a lot of pork.  The problem is that one person’s bacon (pork), lettuce, and tomato sandwich (in the form of some federally funded project or another) is another person’s social security check.  A federal dollar spent on one project is a federal dollar that can’t be spent on another. One person’s gain; one community’s gain, is another’s loss.  What one sees as our tax dollars at work another may see as our federal taxes being wasted.  After all, why should my taxes help build a bridge in Oregon (I live, work, and pay taxes in California)?  That’s the dilemma.  If there were enough money to go around we wouldn’t be having this and many other conversations.  But there isn’t.  Federal revenues are being strained by unemployment at the same time that the costs of government programs are rising in leaps and bounds.  And as long as members of Congress see spending federal money at home as their constitutionally granted prerogative there will be a strain that affects all of us (see Matthew Frank’s Blog posted on the Missoula Independent for an example of the thinking in Congress).  Is there an alternative to the system of pork barrel politics that drives much of federal spending?  Other than a threatened presidential veto, can you think of other checks that can be used to reduce the temptation on members of Congress to spend federal funds on projects that might be funded at the state or local level (or maybe even by private sources)?  We could use some help about now.

–DENNIS FALCON

Video Glossary: Impeachment

Weekly Quiz: Test Yourself on this Week’s Events

The weekly quiz is now live in Mypoliscilab. Good luck!

Weekly Poll: Your Opinion On The Debt Ceiling

President Obama and the Republican leaders in Congress have been going back and forth on the debt ceiling without a concrete solution to the problem. What would it take for both sides to fix the problem?

Colbert Report: Death of America’s Space Program

America ends its space program, making Stephen’s astronauts skills as obsolete as dodo husbandry, Zune programming and American manufacturing.

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Colbert Report: Death of America’s Space Program, posted with vodpod

Checks and Balances and the Ebb and Flow of Political Conflict

John Blake wrote a great piece on political conflict in Washington that can add perspective to the role of checks and balances in American politics.  The President (and his party) wants to raise the debt-ceiling and government revenues of the United States to head off historic defaults on American credit around the world.  The House of Representatives (headed by the opposing
party) disagrees, wanting to cut federal spending, hoping to avoid increasing
the national debt.  The political angles aside, what we have here is a classic example of the system of checks and balances that is built in to the Constitution of the United States.

The powers of the national government are distributed between a bicameral or two-house legislature, the executive branch, and the federal courts.  The House and the Senate, though belonging to the same legislative branch of government, each have different terms of office (two year and six year respectively).  They have different Constitutional duties (the House can originate new taxes while the Senate can deny Presidential nominations and treaties).  And each has different constituencies (smaller House districts verses States).  The President on the other hand is the only nationally elected official, thereby armed with the responsibility and opportunity to speak to a national constituency.  Add to all of this a political issue that has captured the attention of the media and the people just as a new election season dawns on the horizon and you have what we have now: theatrics, name-calling, posturing, starts and stalls, gridlock, and apparently no end in sight.

The issue of the national debt-ceiling has become the political football that we all have our eyes on.  No one political actor, branch, or constituency will win or settle this debate.  They can’t.  Institutionally, the system of checks and balances is denying both the President and Congress the ability to impose some solution on the other.  No single player or branch can claim supremacy over the issue and cancel out the prerogatives of the other.  They either find a political solution that they can each sign-off on or they don’t.  This isn’t the first time.  It won’t be the last.  It’s what we depend on year-in and year-out because it’s what the Framers of the Constitution handed down to us.

–DENNIS FALCON

Video Glossary: Isolationism