US military spending in two handy graphs

Both come courtesy of Andrew Sullivan, who stole them from other people.

Here's a description of spending over time - adjusted for inflation.



We are spending more now than we have in at least 50 years - it would be nice if the graph went back through WW2 at least. Believe it or not, after the end of the Cold War, people spoke of the peace dividend since a large military was no longer needed - but notice the impact of 9-11.

This graphs shows US military spending compared to that in the next nine nations in the top ten:



We spend considerably more than the next nine combined, and likely more than the rest of the world along with it. The question is whether this is necessary to secure the nation, or just pork. A reward for well connected military contractors and jobs for people in key congressional districts.

One argument in favor of having the dominant military in the world is that it helps cement the US's economic dominance as well. We own both the seas and space. That does contain dividends.

Spinning "Gun Control"

James Fallows suggests gun control proponents start talking about "Gun Safety" not "Gun Control."

Interesting idea - who is against gun safety?

He later writes about one man's attempt to insert language about gun safety in a related wikipedia page.

Advocating for "Big Data"

The Atlantic reports on TechAmerica - an advocacy group that promotes the interests of the US tech industry - and its efforts to convince governmental agencies to incorporate data into the public policy process.

It issued a report titled: Demystifying Big Data: A Practical Guide to Transforming the Business of Government as part of the initiative.

In a related story, the magazine discusses the difficulty of amasing the data necessary to prevent shootings like those we've seen recently:

Big data might have stopped the massacres in Newtown, Aurora, and Oak Creek. But it didn't, because there is no national database of gun owners, and no national record-keeping of firearm and ammunition purchases. Most states don't even require a license to buy or keep a gun.

That's a tragedy, because combining simple math and the power of crowds could give us the tools we need to red flag potential killers even without new restrictions on the guns anyone can buy. Privacy advocates may hate the idea, but an open national database of ammunition and gun purchases may be what America needs if we're ever going to get our mass shooting problem under control.

Just look at the gun-acquiring backgrounds of some of our more recent mass killers to see what I mean. James Holmes, the Aurora shooting suspect, went to three different locations spread out over 30 miles to legally buy his four weapons. All three were reputable outdoors retail chain stores. He then went online, and bought thousands of rounds of ammunition along with assault gear. UPS delivered around 90 packages to Holmes at his medical campus in that short period. It doesn't take a PhD in statistics to see that a quick, massive buildup of arms like this by a private individual -- especially one, like Holmes, who was known in his community for having growing mental health issues -- should raise a red flag.
The phrase "big data" sounds big brotherish. I can see civil liberties groups pointing that out.

Fifth Amendment, RIP?

A writer at the Atlantic thinks we've been slowly losing our 5th Amendment rights:

What everyone must understand is that American politics doesn't work the way you'd think it would. Most people presume that government officials would never willfully withhold penicillin from men with syphilis just to see what would happen if the disease went untreated. It seems unlikely that officers would coerce enlisted men into exposing themselves to debilitating nerve gas. Few expected that President Obama would preside over the persecution of an NSA whistle-blower, or presume the guilt of all military-aged males killed by U.S. drone strikes. But it all happened.

He's specifically referring to a provision in the reauthorization of the National Defense Authorization Act - now being considered in a conference committee - to allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens suspected of terrorism, without proof or due process. You can't defend yourself of the charges.

He points out that with the exception of one journalist at the New York Times, and a small handful of others - no one is covering this story.

Don't drink or you will spontaneously combust

According to this story, the idea that people could spontaneously combust was developed and promoted by supporters of the temperance movement since they believed this was far more likely to happen to alcoholics than others.

Moralists have long advocated abstaining from alcohol, but in the United States, during the radical reform era of the nineteenth century (when causes ranging from abolition to vegetarianism to phrenology all promised to cure all of society’s ills), the temperance movement found fertile ground. Teetotalers including Carrie A. Nation and Frances Willard started a slow boiling fervor that would finally boil over when the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified in 1919—and it wasn’t long before the threat of Spontaneous Human Combustion was added to their arsenal.

The February 1863 issue of the Pennsylvania Temperance Recorder, for example, carried a story of a medical student, Jacob C. Hanson under the subdued title of “Fire! Fire! Blood on Fire!” The story claimed that Hanson had been working in a physician’s office when a drunkard stumbled in and admitted to the doctors that he had consumed two gallons of rum in five days. Hanson, alarmed at the imminent possibility of Spontaneous Human Combustion, suggested drawing blood to avert the catastrophe; according to the Recorder, “a pint bowl filled with this fluid was handed to one of the spectators who ignited a match, and on bringing it to contact with the contents of the bowl, a conflagration immediately ensued: burning with a blue flame the space of twenty-five or thirty seconds.”
You have been warned. Hope this doesn't dampen your New Year's celebration.

From the NYT: For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall

The New York Times features some recent graduates of Galveston Ball in a story about the increasing difficulties poor students have in affording a college education. Are we pricing out certain students from higher ed? And you know you cant count on community colleges right?

Here's a startling fact:

Low-income students with above-average scores on eighth grade tests have a college graduation rate of 26 percent — lower than more affluent students with worse test scores.
This is a simplification, but it seems that you can be dumb and rich and do better than if you are poor and smart.

And in a example of how different media types are merging, the Times put together a great video of the story to go along with the written article:



The race for the Texas Speaker

The Texas House will select a speaker when it convenes in a couple weeks. The presiding Speaker is Joe Straus, but since he was elected last session with the support of House Democrats, he's not especially popular with hard core Republicans. He is being challenged for the position by David Simpson.

More detail will follow, but here are a few stories related to the race so we can keep current:

- Texas Tribune Topic: Speaker.
- Blogging up the race for Speaker.
- Texas Politics: Speaker.

Expect more as the session approaches.

Happy Birthday (State of) Texas!

Today (December 29th) is the 167th anniversary of Texas' admission to the US as the 28th state. We generally don't make a big deal about it. We prefer to celebrate Texas' independence on April 21st - San Jacinto Day - when the forces of Santa Anna were defeated near what is now the mouth of the Houston Ship Channel. We don't even make that big a deal of the day the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed, March 2. That's curious since the US celebrates its independence when its declaration was signed - not when the battle of Yorktown was concluded.

I have no idea why that's the case, but given Texas' identity, its little surprise we make a bigger deal about independence from Mexico than admittance to the US because, to be honest, the state lost independence when it was annexed. It became solvent, but .... you know ...

One little detail we tend to forget is that Mexico still did not recognize Texas independence at all, so there were legal disputes about what in fact was going on in 1845. Was the US annexing an independent sovereign state or taking over control of the state of an adjoining nation? Despite the lines we see drawn in maps today - much of the territory was in fact no man's land - and no one had yet to tell the Plains Indians that they did not control the land. This would wait until the 1870s.

That Mexican-American War ultimately settled the issue as far as Mexico was concerned - along with what would become the American southwest. Wars tend to settle what politics cannot. This helps explain the strained relationship we've had with Mexico over much of our history. Canada too - we made a brief attempt to take it over during the war of 1812. They still have hard feeling about that too.

Meet California City, California

One of the Fiscal Times' top 9 recession ghost towns:

Income segregation in the greater Houston area

From the previous post on maps - you'll note that ths includes us here at ACC. The blue areas - census tracts are where the rich folks live. The red ones are where the poor folk live. Click here for the study.



Is that tiny red spot below Houston Alvin? Is the blue spot above it to the right Pearland? If so, that explains a few things.

Is Houston the most income segregated city in the US? These charts suggests it might be:

More maps

. . . if you're into this sort of thing, I am.

Here's the ever important church v beer map:

One dot, one person

Click here for an explanation of this map:

Private property rights in one picture

From the Atlantic Cities:

From Forbes: Going Off The Fiscal Cliff Could Mean Missing The Next Hurricane Sandy

Cuts in federal programs might have unintended consequences:

One of the government services that most of us take for granted is weather forecasting. It’s the satellite data provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that meteorologists in the U.S. rely on for accurate atmospheric data to make weather predictions. In particular, predicting the path of extreme weather conditions like hurricanes absolutely depend on NOAA’s polar weather satellites.

For example, if it weren’t for NOAA satellites, weather forecasters likely would not have been able to predict that Hurricane Sandy’s “left hook” into the Eastern Seaboard, which enabled local governments to undertake emergency preparations for the storm.

Move up http://i.forbesimg.com tMove down

Unfortunately, due to what Undersecretary of Commerce Jane Lubchenco called, “chronic management problems,” it appears increasingly likely that the U.S. will have to suffer a at least a year without satellites starting around 2017 as the old satellites reach the end of their life cycle and the new ones are launched. And right now there’s no other alternative for getting that data,. The government is scrambling to do what it can to minimize the amount of time between the death of the old satellites and the launch of the new, but right now it looks like there will be at least some small gap.

But if we hit the Fiscal Cliff, all bets might be off.

According to the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade association representing aerospace manufacturers, the spending cuts mandated if the U.S. hits the Fiscal Cliff would include an 8.2 percent cut to NOAA’s weather satellite program. The association estimates that this would cost the jobs of 1,000 people who “design, build and operate weather satellites that have no equivalent or redundant system in the public or private sector.”

The US Senate passes extension of FISA

The House had passed the bill previsously, so its' set for a presidential signature.

FISA stands for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which authorizes warrantless searches of communications with suspected spies and terrorists, but concerns exist that it allows open ended monitoring of anyone the government wants to surveil:

Critics of the bill, including Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat, and Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, expressed concern that electronic surveillance, though directed at noncitizens, inevitably swept up communications of Americans as well.

“The Fourth Amendment was written in a different time and a different age, but its necessity and its truth are timeless,” Mr. Paul said, referring to the constitutional ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. “Over the past few decades, our right to privacy has been eroded. We have become lazy and haphazard in our vigilance. Digital records seem to get less protection than paper records.”

But the bill passed by comfortable margins in each chamber:

The bill, which extends the government’s surveillance authority for five years, was approved in the House by a vote of 301 to 118 in September. Mr. Obama is expected to sign the bill in the next few days.

It passed the Senate 73 - 23. Who says government is broken?

Top stories of 2012 according to the Texas Tribune

Worth perusing:

- Top Texas News of 2012.
- Year in Review: Politics.
- Year in Review: Crime, Immigration, the Border.
- Year in Review: Health and Human Services.
- Year in Review: News Apps, Interactives, and Visualizations.

I anticipating adding content from these stories to class material over the next few months.

More guns in Texas schools

Bills have been introduced in the Texas Legislature allowing for greater opportunities for people to be deputized in order to have guns in the schools - or for teachers with concealed handgun licenses to have their guns with them in the classroom.

Story in the Texas Tribune.

Contraception coverage requirement winds up through the court

This may well end up on the Supreme Court docket before the year is out. Does the contraceptive coverage requirement in the Affordable Care Act violate religious freedoms - specifically the free exercise clause - if the employer has a religious opposition to it? More interestingly, what if it is a publicly traded corporation that issue? Does the corporation have religious freedom? Its not a person afterall, but they were granted free speech rights in the Citizens United decision.

ScotusBlog is tracking the many cases winding their way up different federal avenuesend up on the SC docket by the end of the year - but if not, next year for certain.

Here's text from ScotusBlog's story about the Sevent Circuit Court's 2-1 decision to temporarily block the federal government from enforcing the contraception requirement:

Under the new health care law, employers who do not qualify for exemptions must provide their women workers of child-bearing age — without cost — with insurance coverage for the full range of contraceptive drugs and other birth control and pregnancy prevention measures. For non-exempt employers, the mandate is to become effect next Tuesday, January 1. Religious institutions, such as churches, are exempt from it, while other religious-affiliated entities — such as schools, colleges and hospitals — are temporarily exempted from it until the federal government writes a new final rule on implementation of the mandate. What will be in the final rule is expected to be known between now and the end of March.

The majority of the lawsuits challenging the mandate around the country have been filed by religious institutions, but a significant number have been filed by profit-making companies run by people who have religious objections to birth control drugs and devices that they believe will lead to abortion, which they oppose as a matter of their faith.

The majority of the lawsuits challenging the mandate around the country have been filed by religious institutions, but a significant number have been filed by profit-making companies run by people who have religious objections to birth control drugs and devices that they believe will lead to abortion, which they oppose as a matter of their faith.

The Illinois case involves a construction company, Korte & Luitjohan Contractors, Inc., of Highland, Illinois. A Roman Catholic couple, Cyril and Jane Korte, own about eighty-eight percent of the company, which employs ninety full-time workers. About seventy of those are members of a labor union, which provides them with health insurance. The Kortes provide health insurance for the other twenty employees. The Kortes have told the courts that they did not realize until recently that their health plan for those twenty workers did provide for coverage of contraceptives. They want to drop that plan as of January 1, and set up a new one without that coverage, and they sued to get the right to do so free of the new law’s mandate.

The Kortes’ main challenge is under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and it was that challenge that the Seventh Circuit majority concluded is likely to succeed when their appeal is decided. The new mandate, it concluded, probably will be shown to impose a “substantial burden” on the couple’s religious faith and on the religious principles on which they run their company. The panel majority also concluded that the federal government has not yet shown a compelling interest, in assuring contraceptive coverage, that was significant enough to justify the burden on the family’s faith.

A Federal Judge throws out a lawsuit claiming that the filibuster is an unconstitutional denial of majority rule

The judge argues that the petitioners did not have standing to sue (it was brought by Common Cause), and the courts would violated the separation of powers doctrine if it were to intrude on what it sees as an internal issue within the Senate.

The decision can be found here.

From ScotusBlog:

Ruling that the courts have no power to do anything about it, a federal judge on Friday threw out a claim that Senate filibusters are an unconstitutional denial of majority rule. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, in a forty-seven-page opinion, said none of the challengers had a right to pursue their case in court, and ruled that it would intrude on the Senate’s powers for the court to decide “an important and controversial issue.”

The decision leaves any chance of reducing the routine use of filibusters to block Senate action entirely within the hands of the Senate itself. There, Democratic leaders have been talking about a possible effort at the opening of the next Congress in January to make at least some changes in Rule XXII.

Under Rule XXII, it takes the votes of sixty senators to move ahead with debate or to close down debate on bills or presidential nominations. While the Senate is in the midst of one of its regular two-year sessions, the rule also requires a two-thirds vote to start or close debate on any proposal to change the Senate’s rules. Only at the opening of a new Congress could the Senate change its rules by a simple majority vote.

Judge Sullivan commented that, in today’s Senate, “even the mere threat of a filibuster is powerful enough to completely forestall legislative action.” But, he said, he “cannot find that any of [those who sued] have standing to sue….Second, and no less important, the Court is firmly convinced that to intrude into this area would offend the separation of powers on which the Constitution rests.”
The Constitution, the judge wrote, does not contain any “express requirements regarding the proper length of, or method for, the Senate to debate proposed legislation. Article I reserves to each house the power to determine the rules of its proceedings. And absent a rule’s violation of an express constraint in the Constitution or an individual’s fundamental rights, the internal proceedings of the Legislative Branch are beyond the jurisdiction of this Court.”

A little detail on the revenue side of the fiscal cliff

As it stands - unless a last minute can be reached on the fiscal cliff - the following changes are set to happen to revenues - this list is very likely incomplete:

- The payroll tax holiday will expire - this relates to the amount of money drawn from paychecks to pay for Social Security.
- A series of business tax breaks will end.
- The Alternate Minimum Income tax will make adjustments to what income brackets people are placed in.
The Earned Income Tax Credit will be trimmed back.
- The end of the Bush tax cuts - which means that be set back to where they were when W Bush became president in January 2001.
- The first of the taxes related to Obamacare will be assessed.

As far as I know, these are the changes on the revenue side (click here for more detail), but I'll modify this post as I discover otherwise. I'll also add separate posts to detail each of these changes. It'll provide a good opportunity to become more familiar with these specific means of obtaining revenue.

More background:
- Wikipedia.
- Washington Post.

Here's a calculator that helps you determine how it impacts you.

Remember that going over the cliffc helps solve the deficit and debt crisis very quickly, albeit brutally.

Top Texas political trends according to Houston Chronicle

Worth a look. The dominant theme is the increased influence of Latinos in the state, and questions about Rick Perry's future and how it impacts the rest of the state. Some highlights:

2. Ted Cruz’s triumphant rise.
A year ago, most of the Austin press corps viewed Ted Cruz as a longshot Tea Party favorite unlikely even to make a Republican runoff for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison. Today, the former Solicitor General and first Latino to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court clerk is now the Senator-elect. On Jan. 3, he will become, at age 42, the first Hispanic senator ever to serve Texas. He’s already being talked about as a future vice presidential (or presidential) contender.

3. The Castro Brothers, Parte Dos.
The best-known brothers named Castro don’t live in Cuba anymore. Instead, they hail from San Antonio. President Obama’s choice of San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro to deliver the keynote speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention made him an instant national star. Or, rather, his passionate speech and strong communications skills made him an instant star. But the most visible Castro in early 2013 may be twin brother Joaquin, who is forecast to be one of the stars of the freshman class in the U.S. House of Representatives. After a decade in the wilderness, the Texas Democratic Party has two reasons to be optimistic.

6. The bottleneck.
Perry’s desire to remain in power — and Dewhurst’s failure to move up — has created a major bottleneck at the top of Texas state government. There are a good dozen Republicans who covet one of the top three jobs (add Attorney General to guv and lite guv). But most are frozen in place until we know what Perry and Dewhurst are going to do in 2014. That means you, AG Greg Abbott. Among the others waiting for the dominoes to fall (or not): Comptroller Susan Combs and Austin congressman Michael McCaul, the new chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Texas #4 in unwanted teen pregnancies

A San Antonio Express News writer does not seem confident that the legislature will take the steps necessary to address the issue despite the fact that unwanted pregancies cost the state a good chunk of change:

. . . A lot of states do better — on fewer unintended births to all women of child-rearing age generally, on teen births specifically and, not without coincidence, on access to family planning services and to contraceptives.

There are things Texas could be doing to drop it from its fourth place ranking in teen pregnancy, says Susan Tortolero, director of the Texas Prevention Research Center at the University of Texas Health Science Center.

Even to the extent that Texas' rates have been going down, it's still well above the national average for teen births per thousand.

“We need more coverage, more education and more access for teens,” Tortolero said.

But Texas' trajectory here has not been encouraging.

“Unfortunately, Texas has turned in the wrong direction with regard to preventive healthcare and preventing unplanned pregnancy,” said Janet Realini, president of Healthy Futures of Texas, working to reverse these trends. “The women's health care safety net is in tatters.”

Texas cut its family planning funding by two thirds.

Women's health services in general have taken a hit in recent year. Few expect this trend to change.

For a look at how Texas compares to other states in a variety of categories, click here - though this link is a bit dated. Texas tends to be more business friendly than social welfare friendly.

Driverless cars will require news laws

One of the themes I hit in class is that legislation tends to follow the emergence of new technologies. The same is true for court decisions because new types of disputes present themselves and judges sometimes have to wing it when deciding issues of liability.
If you are rear ended by one, who is responsible? The owner or the programmer? A court will undoubtedly have to sift this through. Of courser this is a trick question at the moment since no one has yet to be rammed by one when it is in driverless mode - only when it is driven by a human.

Andrew Sullivan points to a story about the legal consequences of the development of the driverless car. Some of what they can do may never be legal.

There's a wide gap between having a prototype and going to market, and it's particularly gaping for anything with a combustion engine. The law has a lot to say about cars, especially about who’s allowed to drive them, and answering all the legal questions could easily take the rest of the decade.

For instance, when a self-driving car gets in a fender bender, who's liable for the damages? Should a computer choose to hit an animal or swerve off the road? How does the DMV give a robot an eye exam?

As the technical limitations fall away, these legal questions are becoming the self-driving car's biggest challenge. Unfortunately for Google, the solutions will have to come from lawyers and legislators rather than engineers.

. . . This is the nitty gritty of automotive law, not just the rules of who gets on the road but the web of regulations and statutes that decide what happens once you're there. For automated drivers, most of these rules have yet to be written, and they'll need to be handled extremely delicately. If the liability laws are too punitive towards driver bots, letting Paul and Julie join in a suit against the self-driving-tech developer, then companies might avoid the sector entirely. On the other hand, if the laws leave car-owners on the hook for anything the new gadgets do, consumers may be scared away from buying them. There's a balance to be struck, but it will have to be made across multiple courts and stand up to countless civil challenges.

Public policy formation ain't easy

Selling / spinning gay marriage

Buzzfeed describes how gay marriage proponents - specifically those hired to help gay marriage initiatives pass in several states this past election - were able to change attitudes about it and gain support from the electorate. The key was to change the attitudes of people in the middle - big surprise.

Its a great look at how effective interest groups influence public opinion.

The story links to a report from a group called Third Way titled Commitment: The Answer to the Middle's Questions on Marriage for Gay Couples. Some text from the story:

The surprise sweep for marriage equality efforts at the polls in 2012 came after a dramatic shift in the television ads their backers ran — a change that came about after a yearlong research effort to crack the code of previously successful ads run by marriage-equality opponents that focused on "gay marriage" being taught in schools.
Among the key changes were a shift away from talk of "rights" to a focus on committed relationships; a decision to address "values" directly as being learned at home; and an attempt to give voters "permission" to change their minds, according to elements of the research shared with BuzzFeed.

The research was "instrumental in helping us figure out our path," said Zach Silk, who served as the campaign manager to approve Washington's Referendum 74.

The research was sponsored by Third Way — a centrist Democratic think tank — that conducted an extended round of surveys beginning in September 2010 "aimed at answering a single question: How do we most effectively persuade people in the middle to support relationship recognition for gay and lesbian couples, including marriage?"

A robot that can track you down

Buzzfeed describes 27 tech developments that sound like science fiction.
Here's a fun little development from our friends at DARPA (I always make a point to post items about these guys - they brought you the internet among other things).

This is a robot that can track humans and run as fast as a cheetah. They provide an appropriate comment: which seems like a great combination with no possibility of horrible side effects.

 

Here's their crack at a robotic horse:

 

 

Causes of death by age group

This graph wasn't in Klein's list of year important year-ending graphs, but he calls it the most chilling. It shows where guns place as leading causes of death among different age groups.

So what's causing the suffocation deaths among 10 - 14 year olds?

Children from wealthy families earm increasingly more than children from poorer families

This graph was offered by MIT economics professor Michael Greenstone:



This graph shows that children born to families on the high end of the earnings distribution have more resources available than did their counterparts in 1975, while children on the low end of the spectrum have fewer resources than low-income families in 1975. While there have been great increases in inequality over the last several decades, the figure suggests that further increases may be in store during the coming decades.”

Social mobility declines as income mobility increases

This graph was suggested by Cynthia Freeland:



“This is my graph of the year — known as The Great Gatsby Curve. The Great Gatsby Curve draws on the research of Canadian economist Miles Corak and was widely popularized in a January 2012 speech by Alan Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. The Great Gatsby Curve is this year’s most important chart because it shows how social mobility declines as income inequality increases. At a time of rising income inequality, this is a hugely important finding because it suggests that the widening economic chasm imperils one of the characteristics many Americans believe is central to their society.”

The last few times the budget was in surplus, revenues were

Suggested by outgoing Senator Kent Conrad.




This chart demonstrates that additional revenue has to be part of any deficit reduction package. It shows that the last five times the budget was in surplus (in 1969, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001), revenue was near 20 percent of GDP. Revenue is now at 15.8 percent of GDP, near its lowest level in 60 years. And under the House Republican budget plan, revenue would reach only 18.7 percent of GDP by 2022, a clearly inadequate level. Even with spending cuts and entitlement changes, given the retirement of the baby boom generation and rising health costs, it is clear we are also going to need more revenue.”

Real hourly earnings of middle wage earners continute to decline

This was suggested by Jared Bernstein, from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.



“Here’s a simple one I keep thinking and talking about. While we’re all wound up in self-imposed fiscal madness, there’s still an economy out there that’s not working too well for a lot of people. Real hourly wages of middle-wage workers* have been drifting down for the past few years, a function of the persistently large amount slack in the job market. This figure also serves as a reminder that high unemployment doesn’t just hurt the unemployed — it hurts people with jobs, too. Finally, it’s a reminder as to why this is a lousy time to let the payroll tax cut expire. All that in one little line!”

The bottom 95% has become more indebted since the early 1980s

This graph was suggested by Sheila Bair - who used to chair the FDIC



“There has been much discussion about income inequality, but not enough focus on its corollary: debt inequality. As real wages for the masses decline, they try to sustain consumption through borrowing from the wealthy. This economic model is, of course, unsustainable, and eventually collapses, as we discovered in 1929 and again in 2007. Unfortunately, our tepid recovery continues to rely primarily on asset inflation and cheap credit to support economic growth, even as real income for most people erodes, likely setting us up for another bust down the road.”

From the Washington Post: The year in graphs

Ezra Klein asked some smart people to offer their selections for the graph of the year - the ones that explaining a major contemporary issue.

Here's a link to the story. I'll post a few separately.

From DMN: Clash over vouchers comes down to vastly different views on Texas schools

The fight over K-12 funding promises to dominate the upcoming legislative session. The Dallas Morning News outlines the nature of the clash and the dominant players in it:

The brewing fight between conservative legislators and education groups over efforts to send tax dollars to private schools offers a sharp contrast in the debate over how best to fund Texas’ public schools. Republican leaders are seeking vouchers and tuition tax credits to give private school scholarships, alternatives to an education system that they say has faltered despite big spending.

But teacher organizations and most Democrats fear that the proposals would hurt public education, which they say already has suffered from cuts the GOP-led Legislature made last year.

Their battle is shaping up as one of the biggest clashes of the next legislative session, which begins next month with the state’s finances topping the agenda. Republicans again control both the House and Senate.

The outcome over school funding could determine whether Texas becomes the largest state so far to experiment with vouchers, potentially resulting in sweeping changes in where students attend school and how they learn.

The story mentions the following people and institutions:

- Dan Patrick, Chair of the Senate Education Committee.
- Rita Haecker, President of the Texas State Teachers Association.
- The Coalition for Public Schools.

It also points out that the proposal - which supporters have opted to not label "school vouchers" - has the support of tea party members, Catholic schools, Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov David Dewhurst.

Get some popcorn and settle in - this'll be fun.

US to hit debt ceiling New Year's Eve

From the Washington Post:

The U.S. government will hit the $16.4 trillion federal debt limit on Monday and turn to “extraordinary measures” to continue borrowing, the Treasury Department said Wednesday, beginning a countdown until Congress either passes legislation to allow for more borrowing or the government defaults on its debt.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said in a letter to senior lawmakers that the Treasury would begin to undertake “extraordinary measures” in order to forestall default. Geithner said the measures could create about $200 billion in additional funding available to the government – giving Congress two months before it must raise the debt limit.

More from The Hill:

Under normal conditions, that would buy policymakers about two months to haggle over the debt limit before an increase would be required, Geithner said. The last time the government reached its debt limit, in May 2011, Treasury’s measures delayed the need for a debt-ceiling increase until August.

But the uncertain fate of the nation's tax and spending policies in the talks over the fiscal cliff has clouded Treasury’s calculations, Geithner said.
If policymakers do not strike a deal and the U.S. goes over the fiscal cliff, the combination of tax hikes and spending cuts is expected to push the U.S. economy into a recession.

Going over the cliff would actually buy Congress more time to strike a debt-limit deal, since the increased revenue and reduced spending would reduce the need for the government to borrow funds, Geithner said.

Lawmakers will get a more precise timeline on the debt limit once the policy outlook clears, Geithner said.

Click here for some Q and A about the debt ceiling, which is defined as the: statutory limit on the amount of U.S federal debt held by the public and the government's own accounts. The debt ceiling became law with the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917, which helped finance the United States' entry into World War I.
The Congressional Research Service provides a nice history of the debt ceiling - a shorter one can be found here. Click here for the Wikipedia page about the most recent debt ceiling  crisis in 2011.

In recent years, fights over spending in general have been waged over the level of the debt ceiling. It has been seen by some as another tool for restraining spending. Others argue that not raising the debt ceiling undermines the ability of the federal government to meet obligations that it has already committed itself to when it adopts a budget.

This has led to an argument that the the debt ceiling is unconstitutional because it violates the 14th Amendment's requirement that the credit of the US be maintained. The Obama Administration reportedly does not buy this argument.

Breaking Down the Factions in the 113th Congress

Nate Silver looks at the numbers in upcoming Congress and sees reason to expect repeated turmoil. Here's the reason: While there will be 233 Republicans and 200 Democrats, they will be broken down as follows:



The principle problem for Republicans is that the 182 establishment Republicans are not large enough to pass legislation on their own, and if the Tea Party wing does not support a bill - like the recent Plan B - there are not enough conservative Democrats - the Blue Dogs - to make up the difference. Since Liberal Democrats are unlikely to support anything substantive offered by Republicans, the Tea Party has enough leverage to control Congress' agenda.

Here's Silver's take:

Perhaps cooler heads will prevail in these negotiations. But a majority of the incoming House – 237 of 433 members – will be either Tea Party Republicans or liberal Democrats, leaving only 196 members who are either Establishment Republicans or Blue Dog Democrats and who might form a functional center-right coalition.
Moreover, the House is likely to engage in repeated battles over fiscal policy during the next two years: not just the over the fiscal cliff, but also over the debt ceiling, annual budgeting plans and whatever stabilization measures might be proposed in the event of another economic downturn.

If Mr. Boehner is having as much trouble whipping votes as he did on Thursday night, reducing the pool from which he might be able to draw together a compromise, this arithmetic problem could turn out to be intractable at some point.
The lesson: Don't expect much from the 113th Congress. 

Are Tea Party Republicans getting tired of Rick Perry?

Maybe. His pull in this legislative session might pale compared to previous sessions.

Texas Gun Culture

We love our guns in Texas. The Texas Tribune has a special feature on the state of the gun in Texas. Its as healthy as its ever been. If any legislation is passed, its likely that it will enhance, not restrict, access to gun. We tend to like self defense, and but into the idea that one person's possession of a weapon is a deterrence to crime. Expect to see bills introduced expanding - not limiting access to all types of weaponry.

Click here for some back and forth about whether greater access to guns reduces crime.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Lawmakers Prepare to Take On Water Projects

With the drought in Texas continuing, the legislature is expected to highlight water projects in the upcoming session.

Governor Perry Pardons 14

This is a year end tradition which has historical roots. Its also a central check that the executive has over the judiciary. Those selected tend to be non-controversial. As few as the governor pardons, President Obama has pardoned even fewer - 22 over the course of his presidency.

If - for whatever reason - you'd like info on how to obtain lemency, click here. 

Financial information for the Texas House Delegation

Here's an interactive feature from the Texas Tribune that shows how much miney was collected and spent in the recent election by members of the Texas US House Delegation, as well as their opponents.

Historical info - plus an idea about where the money came from - can be found here on Open Secret's website.

The Hack List

At the end of each year, a Salon writer lists the major media hacks, a hack defined as someone who produces low quality, high volume material intended to boost sales and to express a client's political opinions.

He's in the process of building this year's list (click here for his entry on MSNBC - number 8 on the list), and provides links to recent efforts. Here's 2010 and 2011.

Number one is Politico (click here for its website).

The State of the Fiscal Cliff Talks in One Picture

The guy on the left could use one of those stress puppies we had on campus finals week.

The NRA Speaks

More guns are necessary - armed guards in every school for a start - in order to curb gun violence. Violent movies are a problem also.

Here are the specific proposals the NRA suggests:

- Stop promoting gun free school zones
- Stop giving so much media coverage to school shooting
- Consider a national database for the mentally ill
- More scrutiny for violent video games
- Bring in armed guard for schools
- Stop debating legislation

The NRA is argued to have a stranglehold on a significant number of members of Congress - enough to stop most gun control legislation cold. Open Secrets has a good description of the NRA's political influence.

Comparing Fiscal Cliff Plans

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget lays out the various offers made to avoid going off the cliff. The Washington Post lays them out in a nice chart.

Houston's Metro Chief to Step Down

Culture Map reports on George Greanias' decision to resign as CEO.

Greanias was brought on board to help guide Metro's development of light rail. The recent approval of a referendum that diverted some funding to other transit projects is believed to have led to his decision, even to his being possibly pushed out of the office.

With our renewed attention to local politics in class I'll be building up information about Metro, as well as the overall issues about how to handle transportation issues in the greater Houston area. This is an especially difficult issue because while we all share a need for efficient and effective transportation, there is little agreement over what that entails. Even more difficult is the fact that the greater metro are is composed of small autonomous governing units that can make their own decisions about transportation - and there is little reason why these decisions make work together in a rational way.

Self government is seldom efficient government.

Some useful links:

- METRO.
- Wikipedia: METROrail.
- Support Houston Transit.

Plan B Fails

Commentators are reading a lot into the failure last night of Speaker Boehner to convince the Republican Conference in the House - the group he is alleged to lead - to vote for an alternate tax plan that would avoid the fiscal cliff. The bill contained an allowance for taxes to rise for incomes past $1 million. The conservative and Tea Party wing of the party refuses to let that happen, so no deal.

Congress will adjourn for Christmas and presumably return prior to the New Year to try again.

This is seen as a test of Boehner's speakership.

Some related items:

- The Plum Line. 
- Washington Post.
- Summary of reactions from The Dish

Robert Bork, RIP

Judge Bork's failed nomination to the Supreme Court is held by many political commentators to mark a change in the political landscape in Washington. Bork was already a controversial figure - as a member of the Nixon Administration he fired the man appointed to investigate Watergate - when he was nominated to the court by President Reagan. He was an unusually vociferous conservative nominee. Most previous nominees has been less so, they may have leaned to the left or right, but the pursuit of an ideological vision was not their primary objective.

But his overt criticism of the liberal direction of the court over the previous decades - and the decisions in cases like Brown and Griswold - galvanized liberal opposition to him and led to his defeat. The term "borking" was coined to refer to this process. This process has become more common since then. So his defeat has been argued to be a factor leading to the ideological polarization we see today.

So despite the fact that his nomination was defeated, he's a key figure in recent political history - perhaps because he was defeated. Here are a few stories about the man:

- Washington Post announcement of his death.
- The Atlantic: The Sad Legacy of Robert Bork.
- WSJ: The Wisdom of Robert Bork.
- US News: Robert Bork's Legacy.
- WP Blog: Bork's influence on antitrust law.
- Balkinization: Bork and the Contingencies of History.

Debt Reckoning

The NYT unveiled a page devoted to the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations: Debt Reckoning. Click on it for the latest details. We will pull out detail from time to time.

Texas School Reform Plans Introduced

State Senator Dan Patrick and Lt. Gov David Dewhurst outlined a variety of proposals they will make to transform K-12 education in the state. The proposals will make it easier for students to go to private schools:

Patrick, a Houston Republican who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said he would carry legislation that would increase the options for public school students through lifting the state's cap on charter schools, fostering open enrollment within and across school districts, and creating a private school scholarship fund through offering a state business tax savings credit to corporations. When asked for further information about how such a scholarship program would operate, Patrick said the plan was still in its formative stages, and earlier, Dewhurst indicated that it may begin through a smaller-scale pilot program.

Patrick also said he would revamp the accountability system by reducing the number of required state tests and increasing the pathways to graduation for high school students interested in technology. A new system would also evaluate school districts with letter grades instead of the current ratings of acceptable or unacceptable.

Though the set of reforms the two men described at the news conference did not contain a plan for what are often called private school vouchers, which allow parents to use public funding to send their children to private schools, Patrick said afterward that the legislation was still evolving. He indicated that it could include a measure that would be along the lines of "what some people might call vouchers."

- Here's detail on Patrick's focus on education.

Gun Control Back on the Agenda

Last week's elementary school shooting has not only placed gun control back on the public agenda (which no one had expected - which shows you how unpredictable the political environment can be) but allows us multiple opportunities to tie class material into an ongoing event.

While support for gun control has waned in recent years, some are arguing that this time its different since kids were involved. Public policy scholar claim that policies are more likely to be passed if a window of opportunity opens up to allow it. Perhaps we've just seen one open up. The Obama Administration is planning to introduce legislation to Congress soon and is now formulating its proposal.

Potential opponents - specially the NRA - seem to be lying low for a bit, probably waiting for the dust to settle before making moves. And they will certainly have to be careful about what they do and how. Many gun rights groups have attempted to head off gun control proposals by defining the problem as being about access to mental health, not guns. Perhaps elements of that will be in Obama's proposal - but that has yet to be seen.

I'll add more in subsequent posts, but here are links to info related to gun policy. This might provide us some focus for the 2305 mini that began yesterday.

- GunPolicy.org.
- Center for Gun Policy and Research.
- Wikipedia: Gun Politics.
- Wikipedia: Gun Politics in the US.
- Gun Control Policy.

Who do we send to jail and who do we not?

A couple recent stories point out the great discrepancies in who gets sent to jail in the US and who does not.

1 - The NYT reports on second thoughts (a bit too late for some) about harsh sentencing policies for non-violent drug crimes.

2 - The New Republic tells us a bank that was involved in drug transactions - as well as with terrorist organization - will pay a hefty fine, but the official involved will not be subject to criminal charges.

It worth speculating on why that discrepancy exists.

The Federal Reserve to Hold Interest Rates Down Until the Unemployment Rate Goes below 6.5%

Story in the NYT and Washington Post.

This marks a significant shift for the Fed. It will no longer focus strictly on inflation. It will also now take unemployment into account. This was part of its original mandate.

US Births and Deaths in real time

That's what this website claims to show anyway. A bit gripping - and creepy.

Story in Atlantic Cities.

Abortion bills to be introduced in the 83rd Session

The AAS reports that abortion opponents have an "ambitious wish list" for the upcoming session:

. . . including a measure that would ban the procedure beginning in the 20th week of pregnancy.
That bill, which is still being written, would declare that a fetus can feel pain in the 20th week, an assertion many abortion rights supporters dispute.

Other legislation — some filed, most still in the planning stages — would further regulate the use of abortion-inducing drugs, seek to cut off Planned Parenthood from any remaining Medicaid money and set up a system of stricter state inspections and audits of abortion clinics.

“We’re looking at a big pro-life majority in the House and in the Senate, so we ought to expect some big pro-life accomplishments,” said state Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, a leading abortion opponent in the Legislature who is campaigning to replace Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, as leader of the House.

The Houston Chronicle reports on Governor Perry's news conference where he announced his support for legislation which would prohibit abortions after 20 weeks. A related bill has yet to be filed - no word on whether the governor will declare this emergency legislation. The governor implies that he is unwilling to take on Roe v Wade and claims that the decision allows for states to impose restrictions on abortion if there is a compelling state interest in doing so. Preventing pain is the compelling state interest:

"Let me be clear, my goal - and the goal of many of those joining me here today - is to make abortion at any stage a thing of the past," Perry said. "But while Roe versus Wade prohibits us from taking that step, it does allow us, the states, to do some things to protect life if they can show there is a compelling state interest. I don't think there's any issue that better fits the definition of a compelling state interest than preventing the suffering of our state's unborn."

So the constitutionality of this legislation - should it be passed and challenged - hinges on whether a 20 week old fetus can feel pain. Here are a few sources that weigh in on this question:

- Doctors on Fetal Pain.
- The Flawed Basis Behind Fetal-Pain Abortion Laws.
- Behind the Right's Fetal-Pain Push.
- ABA Journal.
- Do Fetuses Feel Pain?
- Abortion Rights Groups Absent on Fetal Pain Laws.

Recent stories involving Twitter

We finished 2305 with a quick look at the media and some attention to the general impact of social media. Here are three quick stories about Twitter:

- Death Wish: A Writer Finds Twitter Turning Toxic. A journalist explains why she terminated her Twitter account. The nature of the interchange it sets up doesn't appear to breed civil discourse: What is it about Twitter that brings out the worst in some people and makes it acceptable—almost mandatory—to be small-minded jerks? Those 140 characters don’t leave a lot of room for context. It’s almost as if brevity breeds idiocy. Even powerful business executives have fallen prey to reckless comments.


- White House #My2K Twitter hashtag enters "fiscal cliff" debate. The Obama White House is promoting discussions about the fiscal cliff on Twitter by promoting a hashtag to frame the debate. They also held a Town Hall on Twitter.

- Israel and Gaza Battle Twitter War Over Rocket Attacks. The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza didn't just involve rockets. Salvos were fired back and forth online.

25% of the population has an opinion about the Panetta-Burns debt reduction plan

. . . but there is no such plan.

Becker and Posner on the Paradox of Voting

A couple rational guys try to figure out why people do something apparently irrational: Vote in an election that there is little or no chance they will be able to sway. One person's vote out of 100 million will not change results, but ...

Posner sees a similarity to clapping:

Some people vote because the political campaigns make it costly for them not to vote—one technique in “get out the vote” drives is pestering people to vote so that they will feel uncomfortable not voting. Some vote because they think that it will encourage others to do so. Some vote because they consider it a civic duty. Some voting is purely expressive—a way of expressing strong feelings pro or con a candidate (or pro one and con his opponent); certainly anger played a role in votes against Romney by members of groups that he or his party seemed to disrespect, and anger at Obama played a role in the large number of votes that Romney received. In this respect voting is like booing or cheering at an athletic event or other entertainment. One person’s applause at a concert is inaudible to the performers, yet people applaud, and not mainly I think because others in the audience would look askance at them if they did not. And finally people interested in politics like to vote to convince themselves and others that their interest is serious—they are willing to put their money (not money exactly, but the cost in time and bother of voting) where their mouth is.

No one thinks that applauding is irrational, even though like voting it has no instrumental value, and has some, though very slight, cost.

Becker is concerned that the fact that we know our vote does not matter makes it unlikely we will learn about the candidates we are voting for:

Since the great majority of voters presumably do not expect to influence election outcomes, who they support is influenced disproportionately by campaign rhetoric, debates among candidates that have little intellectual content, and by other methods of persuasion that are not very informative about the candidates. I like to say that consumers put more time and effort into deciding which cereal to buy and into other small consumer choices than in gathering information on economic and other issues about presidential candidates.
But I am not claiming that voters are less “rational” than consumers of everyday products. Individuals pay more attention to what they buy than whom they vote for because what they buy has a direct and tangible effect on their wellbeing. Since the incentives to become well informed are radically different, “rational” voting implies very different kinds of behavior than does rational choice of cereals or peanut butter.

The Millennial Generation Speaks

Andrew Sullivan compiles a handful of comments form millennial voters about the recent election, and life in general. These are the people born from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.

- Click Here.

This is a great portrait of an emerging factor in American politics. Some other links:

- Wikipedia: Generation Y.
- Pew Research Center: Millennial.
- About Mentoring Millennial.

The Ruins of Detroit

While we focus attention on local cities - and efforts to keep Houston vibrant - its worth looking at cities that have lost their vitality and suffer the consequences. Detroit is one of the classic examples, and is often used as a cautionary tale.

Detroit seems to have been too tied into the automobile industry and suffered heavily from white flight to the suburbs. Houston's aggressive annexation policies have largely curtailed white flight - there's just so far people are willing to fly. But we will have to see whether Houston's close connection with the energy sector hurts it down the road.

Detroit's decay is being documented heavily by photographers - example above. Its lead to a category of photography called ruin porn. Like the real thing there are questions about whether its a healthy obsession.

Rick Perry's influence on the bureaucracy

According to the Texas Tribune, it is considerable - which shouldn't be too surprising given his longevity in office.

Republicans 2012 = Democrats 1984?

Are the Republicans today in the same situation Democrats were in 1984 after Reagan's landslide and the loss of their fourth election in five tries (which woudl be 5 out of 6 after 1988)?

A Daily Beast writer thinks they are, and argues that the national party needs to undergo the same type of fundamental transformation the Democrats went through in the mid 1980s. Democrats began to marginalize the strong liberals who had defined the party since the 1930s and started moderating their policies. Central to this effort was the establishment of the Democratic Leadership Council which set the stateg for the election of Clinton in 1992 and 1996 and set the stage for Obama in 2008 and 2012.

But marginalizing Democrats was difficult to do - as will be marginalizing conservatives now. The Tea Party has no intention of going anywhere and will continue to dominate which candidates win primaries in the Republican Party. The transformation may take time:

Back in 1984 and ’85, when the Democrats were similarly wandering in the wilderness, a good-sized chunk of Democrats said, “Enough. We’re tired of losing, and we need some updating.” I don’t by a long shot agree with every position the Democratic Leadership Council took, but I certainly know that it was on the whole a good and necessary thing; the Democratic Party obviously had to reexamine some of its positions. Change didn’t come easy, and it took one more wipeout of an election, but along came Bill Clinton, and the party drank its tonic and embraced (sort of; enough so that voters noticed the change) welfare reform and free trade.

Republicans aren’t anywhere near to exposing themselves to the kind of self-examination and intra-party debate the Democrats undertook after Reagan’s second win. Despite upholstering their speeches with ample liberal rhetoric, and in Rubio’s case those aforementioned quasi-proposals, Rubio and Ryan both stuck hard to current-day GOP gospel. Raising tax rates isn’t an option. Relying on government isn’t the answer, and all the rest. When I read the Ryan remarks I quoted above, as I first started reading those words, I thought to myself, “Ah, might I encounter here an actual nugget of self-criticism?” It came. But it was only about messaging. The substance of their positions, to them, is fine and dandy.

Is the debt ceiling unconstitutional?

As we come close - again - to the debt ceiling, questions are being raised - again - about whether the debt ceiling is constitutional. Can Congress - after it has authorized spending - refuse to provide those funds?

Here's an argument that they cannot, and that doing so violates the 14th Amendment, but the issue gets complicated:

Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that "the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." Its purpose was to prevent Southern Congressmen and Senators from trying to hold payment of the nation's debts hostage in order to get their way on Reconstruction policies. The point of Section 4 was to put this sort of hostage-taking beyond ordinary politics. The framers of the 14th amendment did not want future politicians to threaten to destroy the country's finances by refusing to pay the country's debts in order to win political concessions from their opponents. After all, once politicians did so successfully, they would try it over and over again and it would become a normal feature of politics. That is precisely what we are seeing now.

If Congressional Republicans are threatening to let the nation to default on its debts if Obama doesn't agree to their demands, they are violating the Constitution. And the president should call them out for such an outrageous demand. But does that mean that the president can raise the debt ceiling himself to remedy the violation?

Not so fast. Article I, section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the authority to borrow on the credit of the United States. Even so, under section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment the president has an independent constitutional obligation not to allow the validity of the debt of the United States to be put into question. That means, at the very least, that the president must make sure that interest payments continue on existing federal bonds and similar obligations. He must assure bondholders that they will continue to get paid even after the debt ceiling is reached.

If the president follows his constitutional obligations, then some government operations will not get funded because payments to the bondholders must come first. That means a partial government shutdown, with more and more of the government closed as the president continues to pay the bondholders. 

Background on the Fiscal Cliff

I'll have my upcoming 3 week mini students focus on the Fiscal Cliff. By the end of the class we'll know whether we jumped off it or not - but here are some resources to help us figure out what the issue's all about.

Related written assignments will be forthcoming:

- NYT: Debt Reckoning.
- WP: Fiscal Cliff.
- The Daily Beast: Fiscal Cliff Countdown.
- Wikipedia: United States fiscal cliff.
- US Chamber of Commerce: Fiscal Cliff.
- You Tube: Fiscal Cliff Background.

US Supreme Court to hear same sex marriage cases

Now we know what we'll be spending time on this spring.

Here's detail from the NYT.

Spending growth in Texas capped at 10.71%

That's what the Texas Tribune reports that the Texas Legislative Budget Board accepted as the probable growth in the Texas economy during 2014-15. This places a limit on growth in the Texas budget - we are a pay as you go state as far as undedicated funds go. That allows for a $7.5 billion increase, which some Republicans argue is too much and want to see a different standard used to set the cap on spending. At the moment, it set to increases in the economy. Their goal is to index it to inflation, which would slow it further.

Such a proposal will likely be introduced in the legislature and presented to the voters as a constitutional amendment next year.

Relevant Links:
- State Leaders Adopt Spending Cap.
- Battle Over Budget Cap Looms.
- Billions of Dedicated Funds Unspent.

As Fort Worth goes, Texas goes

The Texas Tribune reports that the presidential vote in Fort Worth mirrors the presidential vote across the state more than any other metropolitan area. In fact, Fort Worth was the only one of the largest metropolitan areas in the state to vote for Romney.

One reason is that Fort Worth is less racially diverse than other urban areas. 538 points out however that despite the hopes of Democrats that a larger Hispanic population would make them more competitive in the state, low voter turnout by Hispanics has reduced their competitiveness. The story contains great graphics. This one shows where people live in the state:

   

How to address highway serial murder?

The Texas Observer reports on the difficulty in investigating crimes committed on interstate highways. Some serial murderers who commit crimes nationwide are truckers. They take advantage of the lack of communication across jurisdictions - municipal, county, state and federal. Texas has the highest number of unsolved highway homicides in the nation.

A possible flaw in a decentralized governing system.

From Slate: How Jim DeMint Changed the Senate

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint is stepping down from the US Senate to head the Heritage Foundation. Slate Magazine discusses how he changed the Senate in the brief period of time he was in office. The Senate has grown increasingly combatative over the years, and DeMint has played a role in this. Case in point: His support for Tea Party candidates whose mission has been to inhibit the Senate's tradition role in making long term decisions:

He now sees a greater fit for his skill set pressuring the Senate from the outside - plus, he'll make a lot more money doing so.

Feds consider what to do about state marijuana initiatives

Something to add to the material on federalism:

The NYT reports on the Obama Administration's continuing struggles with how to respond to the Colorado and Washington marijuana initiatives. This isn't the first conflict between state and federal governments over marijuana - and whether states can circumvent the Controlled Substances Act. We cover Gonzalez v. Raich in our section on federalism. The federal government won that round, but state are not backing down.

This story points out a new wrinkle in the conflict. Voter for marijuana initiatives were Obama supporters. Does he risk alienating them?

Public opinion has swung behind supporting legalization in recent years. 58% support legalization according to this story - support is stronger among the young than the old.

To fit this story in the broader framework of drug policy click on these:

- Marijuana Policy Project.
- Marijuana Policy: Stop the Drug War.
- Drug Policy: Wikipedia.

Final Reviews

Click here for a list of topics for the final exam

GOVT 2301
GOVT 2302
GOVT 2305
GOVT 2306

I see toll roads in your future

Lot's of them apparently.

The Texas Tribune reports that transporation policy in Texas is continuing to shift from publicly built and financed roads to privately built roads. Is this a good idea?

In the view of many critics, tolling in Texas has shifted from an if-we-absolutely-must option to the default approach for major road projects.

“The day will surely come when, if you want to get from point A to point B, you’re not going to have a choice but to get on a toll road,” state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, warned at a panel discussion at The Texas Tribune Festival in September on transportation financing. “Well then, suddenly, a toll is just another tax. Let’s not kid one another.”

Fueling the current tolling boom is the transportation financing system in Texas, which falls far short of the state’s needs. Federal and state gas taxes are the primary revenue source for road construction and maintenance. Despite rising construction costs and the improving fuel efficiency of cars, Texans pay the same 38.4 cents in federal and state taxes per gallon of gas as they did nearly 20 years ago. In recent years, the Texas Department of Transportation has borrowed billions of dollars to finance transportation projects.

A 2009 report by an advisory committee said Texas should invest about $4 billion more per year on its current road system just to prevent congestion from worsening. As proposals to raise more transportation revenue have failed to draw sufficient political support, charging a toll is now seen as one of the few viable paths to developing major routes.
- Click here for an interactive map of toll roads in the state.
- Click here to learn more about the Texas transportation financing system.
- Click here for a 2009 report estimating Texas' transportation needs.

Washington ain't Austin

The Texas Tribune describes how the newly elected members of Congress from Texas are acclimating to their new positions and points out that polarization begins early:

In Austin this week, new legislators-elect were doing the same thing their Washington counterparts were doing. The freshmen were getting their offices, getting oriented, hiring for the session, finding furniture, getting ready for the show.

Here’s a difference: some tables in the room where the Texas legislators met had Republicans at them — and Democrats.

Washington is a different culture, with firmly drawn partisan lines. One new lawmaker tells a story of getting in line for security passes this week and finding that photographs were being taken of Democrats in one line and Republicans in the other.

The tribes are strong in Austin, too, but not like that.

Who should appoint commissioners to the Port of Houston Authority?

At the moment, the Port of Houston Authority ( a single purpose governing entity that controls the Port of Houston) is headed by a seven person board appointed by different governing entities in Harris County:

The City of Houston and the Harris County Commissioners Court each appoint two commissioners. These two governmental entities jointly appoint the chairman of the Port Commission. The Harris County Mayors & Councils Association and the city of Pasadena each appoint one commissioner.


But the port has undergone the Sunset review process and the Sunset Commission recommends that the governor appoint the commissioners, in addition to a variety of other changes. This is part of a general effort to coordinate the activities of all ports in the state, as well as the belief that the port is poorly managed and that management is not transparent. It is difficult for the general population to know what the port is up to.

Click here for links to the report from the Sunset Commission's site as well as the Port of Houston's.

Both the City of Houston and the Harris County Commissioners' Court are opposed to the proposal that the governor appoint board members. Both argue that it compromises local control.

- Story from KUHF. Is this another power grab by the governor?
- The Chronicle reports that the Commisioners' Court would like to appoint all board members on the grounds that the county holds the port's debt.
- Houston Business Journal points out that the port is reorganizing as a response to the Sunset Review report.
- KUHF reports that State Senator John Whitmire of Houston recommended the change, and that County Judge Ed Emmett agrees that a statewide port authority would be a good idea in order to coordinate port activity across the state.

Civil War 2.0

An interesting, hypothetical (let's hope) battle between the states.

Why is public nudity illegal?

Because you've probably wondered from time to time.

Consensual police encounters

Slate writes up a story involving a search that began when a policeman approached a man on a bicycle to initiate a conversation. After noticing the man fidget, he was searched and a small amount of crack cocaine was found, which then led to a five year prison sentence.

The search was judged legal because it was consensual. Either party could have walked away from it - but is this in fact true? Would you feel comfortable walking away from a police officer who wanted to have a casual conversation with you? Might doing so give the officer the impression that you have something to hide? Is this a lose / lose situation?

. . . what interests me about this case is the way the appeals court characterized the initial contact between June and Young as a “consensual encounter.” The Florida Supreme Court classifies police encounters into three distinct levels: consensual, investigatory, and arrest. A consensual encounter is one into which each party enters willingly—a beat cop and a storekeeper exchanging greetings, for instance. It can be terminated by either party at any time with no consequences. You can’t initiate a search during a consensual encounter, and you can’t initiate an investigatory encounter without “a well-founded, articulable suspicion of criminal activity.”

The idea of a consensual encounter is a nice one, conjuring an image of lovers sneaking away for some mutually fulfilling afternoon delight. But, in reality, a police officer who pursues a “consensual” conversation is often just looking to screw you. As Janice Nadler and J.D. Trout note in their fascinating paper “The Language of Consent in Police Encounters,” many consensual engagements are pretexts for less-consensual behavior. “The police officer’s main purpose is to get information about what the person is doing, and get permission to do something else, like search their person, house, car, bags, etc.,” they write.

Police officers don’t just initiate conversations because they’re bored and want to talk sports with a stranger. (That’s what call-in shows are for.) They stop you because they can generally tell if you’re suspicious or “up to something,” and because they know the average person doesn’t feel they’re in a position to decline a conversation with a cop. Although courts tend to interpret consensuality based on surface-level cues—whether the police officer was polite, for instance—there’s always more going on. The unspoken power dynamics in a police/civilian encounter will generally favor the police, unless the civilian is a local sports hero, the mayor, or a giant who is impervious to bullets.