Over the past two weeks, a couple of charts — one from yours truly and one from Rex Nutting at MarketWatch — have really riled up conservatives and confused a fair number of DC establishment media types. For the past three years, it has been an article of faith among those folks that President Obama went on some kind of spending binge. And a casual glance at yearly spending figures does appear to support that charge. But what my chart and Rex’s chart show is that, once you account for the fact that most of the increase in spending from fiscal year 2008 to 2009 happened before President Obama even took office, then the “binge” utterly vanishes.

And this is the key point. The only way to show that spending has gone up dramatically under President Obama is to pretend like he had complete control over what was spent in fiscal year 2009. And that notion is utterly false.

First of all, recall that President Obama took office nearly four months into fiscal year 2009. That simple fact, all by itself, is enough to discount any “analysis” that merely compares fiscal year 2008 spending to fiscal year 2009, and tries to attribute the entire difference to President Obama.

But it actually goes beyond that. By the time President Obama took office, nearly all the dramatic increase in spending had already been baked into the cake. How do we know that? Well, in January 2009, before President Obama had even taken office, the Congressional Budget Office projected that federal spending would exceed $3.5 trillion for fiscal year 2009, half a trillion more than the government spent in 2008. Again, that was BEFORE President Obama event took office. It’s reasonable to use that number as our best guess at what spending would have been in FY2009 under ANY president. That’s what my chart from last week did.

Of course, the CBO’s projections aren’t perfect. They change as the economy changes and as laws change. Fortunately, CBO also tells us in subsequent reports how and why its previous estimates have changed. We can use that to understand how much of the total federal spending in fiscal year 2009 was attributable to legislative changes that occurred AFTER President Obama took office.

The answer is that out of a total of $3.5 trillion actually spent in FY09, only $165 billion, less than 5 percent, was the result of policy changes signed into law by President Obama.

In other words, probably the best baseline against which to judge spending under Obama is $3.5 trillion (the amount actually spent in 2009) minus $165 billion (the added amount Obama himself actually approved): $3.35 trillion. This year, the CBO expects that the federal government will spend $3.6 trillion. After accounting for inflation, that’s a growth rate of just 1.7 percent. By comparison, and using the exact same methodology, spending in President Bush’s first term was up nearly 15 percent.

Here’s the bottom line: there was a large increase in government spending in fiscal year 2009, but most of that that surge wasn’t President Obama’s doing. It would have happened no matter who was President. And since then, for better or for worse, spending growth under President Obama has been incredibly restrained. This doesn’t jibe with the conventional wisdom and it requires a touch more effort to understand than simply pretending President Obama inherited a blank fiscal slate. But it’s the truth.

I never thought my work would be featured in presumptive 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign literature. But the education policy white paper released by Romney earlier this week included a quote from a study of mine on educational productivity, saying that:

Even the liberal Center for American Progress acknowledged in a recent study that “the literature strongly calls into question the notion that simply investing more money in schools will result in better outcomes,” and reported from its own research that most states showed “no clear relationship between spending and achievement ” even after adjusting for other factors like the cost of living.

While the quotes are accurate, Romney’s paper misses the central point of my study and the overall role of funding in schools. It’s not that school funding does not matter. Rather, spending on education makes a difference only when it’s spent wisely.

In other words, if we want to reform our nation’s system of public education, we need to invest smartly in our schools and boost academic achievement. We should not be spending less; we can’t forget that many high-poverty schools don’t get their fair share of education dollars. As I wrote in the paper — right after the words quoted by the Romney campaign — “the literature also makes plain that school spending can make a difference in achievement; a large body of research shows that certain inputs such as teacher quality can significantly impact student outcomes.”

As Romney tours the nation talking about education reform this week, he is getting heckled, and it should come as no surprise. Observers understand that you can’t talk about education being a civil rights issue but also support the House Republican budget plan, which would cut federal education funding for disadvantaged students by as much as $2.7 billion dollars.

Boosting school productivity is not about slashing funds. Given the lackluster performance of many schools that would be a suicide pill for our nation’s future. We are already lagging behind in key indicators of academic success, and a federal report released earlier this month found that less than one-third of middle schoolers are performing at grade-level in science. Instead, we need real resources and real reform.

We need to transform our education system so that all schools produce students ready for college and the modern workplace. Or as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said: “It’s time to stop treating the problem of educational productivity as a grinding, eat-your-broccoli exercise. It’s time to start treating it as an opportunity for innovation and accelerating progress.”

State	Gun Deaths	Motor Vehicle Deaths
Alaska	104	84
Arizona	856	809
Colorado	583	565
Indiana	735	715
Michigan	1,095	977
Nevada	406	255
Oregon	417	394
Utah	260	256
Virginia	836	827
Washington	623	580

According to VPC, a successful decades-long public health-based injury prevention strategy has resulted in a 43% decline in motor-vehicle deaths since 1966. That strategy includes making changes to vehicles and highways to increase safety. Meanwhile, firearms are subject to limited regulation, and the rate of gun deaths remain largely unchanged. VPC Legislative Director Kristen Rand says

Americans are reaping the benefits of smart safety regulation of motor vehicles. The idea that gun deaths exceed motor vehicle deaths in 10 states is stunning when one considers that 90 percent of American households own a car while fewer than a third own firearms. It is also important to consider that motor vehicles–unlike guns–are essential to the functioning of the entire U.S. economy.

Gun rights supporters have reacted to the study predictably by questioning both the analysis and the motivation of VPC. Arizona State Sen. Frank Antenori (R-Vail) said that comparing deaths caused by firearms with those caused by cars is unfair because while car deaths are accidental, most gun deaths are not, while the Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners questioned how VPC connected a firearm to a death. Nevertheless, if public policy makers ignore the data the number of states where there are more gun than car deaths is likely only to increase.

–Alex Brown

Rhode Island has a long history of standing against the death penalty. The state has not executed anyone since 1852, and officially abolished the death penalty in 1984. Chafee argues that the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act, which governs prisoner transfer, allows him to refuse to surrender Pleu to federal authorities. Earlier this month, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Rhode Island was required to surrender Pleu to federal authorities, and this week, the same court decided 3-2 not to delay the decision until Chafee and Pleu had a chance to appeal to the Supreme Court. The transfer of Pleu may happen as soon as next Tuesday.

Federal officials have refused to indicate whether or not they will seek the death penalty in Pleu’s case. The rate of executions at the federal level are much closer to the rate in Rhode Island than the one in Texas; no one has been executed by the federal government in 9 years, and given the choice between a death sentence and life in prison, juries at the federal level choose life in prison at a rate of more than two to one.

–Alex Brown

The Supreme Court is currently reviewing the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as “Obamacare.” This landmark piece of legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama drastically reforms the way health insurance works in our country. Below, we outline 10 reasons why women in America have so much riding on the Supreme Court’s decision:

1. Obamacare guarantees coverage of preventive services with no cost sharing. Preventive care promotes health and saves money. Yet many preventive care services are out of women’s reach due to high co-pays, deductibles, and co-insurance. More than 50 percent of women have delayed seeking medical care due to cost, and one-third of women report forgoing basic necessities to pay for health care. But under the health reform law, insurers are now required to cover recommended preventive services such as mammograms, Pap smears, and well-baby care without cost sharing. More than 45 million women have already taken advantage of these services. And starting this August more services, including contraception, gestational diabetes screening, and breastfeeding supports, will be added to the list of preventive care that must be covered at no additional cost.

2. Maternity care will be required in new insurance plans. Coverage for maternity care—health care that only women need—is routinely excluded in the individual insurance market. Only 12 percent of plans sold in the individual market even offer maternity coverage, which is frequently inadequate because of waiting periods or deductibles that can be as high as the cost of the birth itself. But once Obamacare is fully implemented in 2014, about 8.7 million women will have guaranteed access to maternity care in all new individual and small group plans.

3. Women will no longer be denied insurance coverage for gender-related reasons. In today’s insurance market, it is common for insurers to refuse to cover women because of gender-based “pre-existing conditions,” such as having had a Cesarean section or being the victim of domestic violence or sexual assault. Thankfully, this practice will be outlawed under Obamacare in 2014. In the meantime, adults with pre-existing conditions who have been uninsured for at least six months can purchase affordable coverage through temporary Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plans.

4. Women will no longer be charged more for their insurance coverage just for being women. Under a practice known as “gender rating,” insurers currently charge women higher premiums than men for identical health benefits. As a result, women now pay $1 billion more than men each year for the same health plans in the individual market. As of 2014, however, under the Affordable Care Act, gender rating will become illegal in all new individual and small group plans.

5. Women have more control over their health care. Already, women no longer need a referral to see their obstetrician-gynecologist thanks to Obamacare. And they get to choose their primary care physician and their child’s pediatrician from their plan’s list of participating providers.

6. Women will gain better access to affordable health insurance. Starting in 2014 women and their families, as well as small businesses, will receive tax credits on an income-based sliding scale to help purchase insurance coverage. This will help individuals who earn up to $43,000 per year and up to $92,200 for families of four. Also in 2014 up to 10.3 million women will gain insurance coverage when Medicaid expands its income eligibility to include people with incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty level—less than $15,000 for individuals and about $31,809 for a family of four in 2011. The health law also eliminates Medicaid’s categorical requirements, so that low-income women who meet the income requirements can be enrolled even if they have no children and are not pregnant.

7. Insurance companies can no longer place limits on the amount of money they’ll spend on covered medical expenses. Women are more likely than men to suffer from a chronic condition, and an unforeseen medical emergency or a chronic illness can cause an insured person to rapidly reach a coverage cap in their insurance plan, leaving enrollees to fend for themselves, sometimes with thousands of dollars in unpaid medical bills. But under Obamacare lifetime coverage caps have been eliminated and annual limits are being phased out. Approximately 39.5 million women have already benefited from the ban on lifetime caps.

8. Women and their families benefit from critical consumer protections in Obamacare. Because women use health care services at higher rates on behalf of themselves and their families, ensuring just insurance practices is of critical importance. The Affordable Care Act has already eliminated the practice of “rescission,” when an insurance policy ends the moment a beneficiary gets sick. The health law also requires insurers to spend at least 80 percent of premiums on actually providing health care, as opposed to administrative costs, or pay enrollees a rebate. Policyholders and employers will receive approximately $1.3 billion in premium rebates this year alone.

9. Women in marginalized communities are seeing reforms that respond to their needs. Women of color, lesbian and bisexual women, and transgender people are disproportionately uninsured and subject to higher rates of health disparities. Obamacare is making critical strides in providing vulnerable women with quality health care through increased access to insurance coverage, increased funding for community health centers, promoting health literacy and cultural competency, prohibiting discrimination in the health insurance market, and improving data collection. For instance, already an estimated 5.5 million African Americans, 6.1 million Latinos, 2.7 million Asians, and 0.3 million Native Americans, many of them women, have received preventive service coverage with no cost sharing under the health reform law.

10. Mothers have peace of mind, knowing that their children have health insurance. Obamacare prohibits insurers from denying coverage to children under age 19 because of pre-existing conditions. And adult children can now stay on a parent’s plan up to age 26, an especially helpful provision in this tough economy, where finding a job with benefits is challenging. Young women in particular report delaying needed health care because of high costs. To date, 2.5 million young adults have gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Obamacare is a lifeline for women and their families. Women cannot afford to go back to a world where they pay more for less health care coverage, are denied preventive and essential health care services, and are treated like pre-existing conditions. A ruling that strikes down this important law would not only undo decades of precedent, it would have a devastating effect on the health and well-being of millions of women. Women have gained too much from Obamacare to lose it now.

–Alex Brown

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), however, thinks that requiring schools to actually do what they agreed to do in order to receive federal funds is unconstitutional. He took to the floor shortly after these two schools were told to pay back some of the money they received to rail against the idea that public schools should keep their promises:

It was wrong for congress to invade the role of states. It was wrong to punish kids for these silly reasons. It is wrong to violate federalism. If a community, school, and their PTA. wanted to create the standards themselves, fine. It is wrong for this body to think that every issue has to be decided here in this room and it is wrong for us to forget that the 10th amendment has a purpose. . . . It is there for a reason and should be respected.

Watch it:

Requiring schools to keep their promises does not violate the Constitution — at least when those promises are made in order to receive federal funding. Moreover, if Bishop were correct that holding public schools or other state government bodies to their word is unconstitutional, than far more than health school lunches would be at stake. Bishop’s theory would also apply to other, similar, federal programs, including Medicaid. Like the school lunch program, Medicaid is a federal-state partnership in which the federal government gives the states money, with certain conditions, to implement a program that serves low income Americans. If Bishop’s constitutional argument successfully brought down the school lunch program, Medicare and other similar programs could be next.

Bishop will also have a tough time finding anything in the Constitution that supports his theory. The Constitution grants Congress the power to “lay and collect taxes” and “provide for the . . . general welfare of the United States.” This includes the federal government’s constitutional power to provide for the general welfare by funding state education or healthcare programs and imposing conditions on the way that money is used — and nothing in the language of the Tenth Amendment takes this power away. States are of course free to refuse federal money, but if they accept it they must abide by conditions that Congress attaches. Otherwise Congress would have no power to prevent states from taking billions of dollars in federal grants and spending the money on the salaries of state government officials.

–Alex Brown

Source: John Gress/Getty Images

Many uncertainties remain — most immediately the status of negotiations with Pakistan over the reopening of NATO supply routes, and the funding plan for the Afghan national security forces over the coming years, which forms the biggest portion of an Afghan government budget that is still highly dependent on international donors. But pressing Afghan leaders to take responsibility for their country’s future, and for the ensuing political compromises and reforms that will be necessary to sustain the government in a way that does not require large-scale international intervention, is the right course for both U.S. interests and for Afghanistan.

As my colleagues Caroline Wadhams, Brian Katulis and I argued in our recent policy paper, a transition strategy that promotes Afghan’s stability over the medium to long-term requires the U.S. to prioritize diplomatic processes that can work to resolve the political disputes at the heart of the Afghan conflict — rather than pinning the country’s future on the cohesion of its regular and irregular security forces. Although media coverage in the run-up to the summit focused primarily on troop levels and funding pledges, it appears that President Obama focused his bilateral conversations with President Karzai on these issues, and the summit declaration includes strong language in support of reconciliation, good governance, and the importance of transparent presidential elections.

With the news that the United States’ ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, is likely to step down soon, his successor will face the challenge — alongside the other branches of the U.S. government — of making sure that these commitments are not left on the summit drafting table. This effort will require renewed focus from the U.S. and its partners to ensure free and fair elections for Karzai’s successor in 2014, to support an inclusive reconciliation process, and to hold the Afghan government accountable for its management of international donor funds. The international donors conference in Tokyo scheduled for this summer will be the next major opportunity to hold negotiations on this issue on an international scale. NATO and its allies have laid out an increasingly detailed plan for the transition of security responsibility in Afghanistan, but more work will need to be done to develop the processes of political reform and reconciliation that can ultimately support a durable end to the Afghan conflict.

The Senate Appropriations Committee will meet this afternoon to mark up the budget for the State Department and USAID. Included in the administration’s $51.6 million budget proposal is a $770 million request for the Middle East Incentive Fund. The Senate should include money for the Fund in the budget bill it passes.

A number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa are undergoing unprecedented transitions that will either yield to free, equal and stable societies, or ones that are perpetually mired in conflict, violence and instability. The Middle East Incentive Fund is essential to help bring necessary economic and political reforms and create good jobs to promote stability, quell anti-Americanism and nudge these volatile nations towards democracy.

What’s at stake goes beyond the Arab people’s aspirations for a better life. How these nations manage their turbulent transitions has implications for stability in the region and the strategic interests of the United States.

Economic woes were a driving force behind the revolutions that began last year. For too long, too many bright Arab citizens dreamed a seemingly impossible dream of having just jobs with good pay, decent working conditions and opportunities to make a better life for themselves and their families. The revolutions have created an opportunity to break the cycle of jobless growth that has plagued the region for many years.

But despite the clear need, the House Appropriations Committee chose not to include the Middle East Incentive Fund in the budget it submitted. The proposal submitted by the State Department, they said, lacked sufficient detail.

This complaint misses the point. Last year, to respond to the Arab Spring, the State Department had to raid country allotments to find money to support new programs in strategically important places like Egypt. So the projects that money was originally meant to support went dry.

By not having to draw on country accounts, the Middle East Incentive Fund would give the State Department the ability to support projects that can help address the unique needs of these nations as they navigate their difficult and fluid transitions. These funds would allow the State Department to respond better to developments in Syria, Bahrain, Yemen or elsewhere in the region.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) has voiced his support. Hopefully the rest of the committee will follow suit to support this important initiative.

– Alex Brown

-Zachary Bernstein

Last night, the Massachusetts Senate passed a bill projected to trim $150 billion off state medical costs over 15 years. As the Boston Herald reported, health care spending currently consumes about 40 percent of the state budget and is expected to double by 2020. This legislation, passed by an overwhelming 35-2 vote, aims to reduce that burden by changing the way medical professionals care for patients and taking steps to keep Massachusetts residents healthier:

The bill, which was debated over two days in the Senate and required the consideration of 265 amendments, would seek to limit health care cost growth to a level at or slightly above overall state economic growth.

It aims to achieve that goal by encouraging hospitals and doctors to adopt new care delivery and payment models focused on patient outcomes rather than quantity of care provided, and would transition state-funded health care programs away from fee-for-service to alternative payment systems by 2014.

The Senate has also proposed to invest $100 million over the next five years in a transition to electronic medical records, and another $100 million in wellness and prevention programs paid for with an assessment on insurers.

Celebrating the vote, Senate President Therese Murray said Massachusetts “[o]nce again” leads the U.S. on health care. Moving medical records to an electronic format is expected to reduce administrative expenses, while prevention initiatives could cut health care costs by potentially billions of dollars, reducing the burden on taxpayers without negatively impacting care. A study released last year, meanwhile, found that doctors will improve the quality of care if their performance is tracked.

Leaders in the Massachusetts House have their own version of this bill that differs from the Senate version, including a luxury tax on some high-cost hospitals featured in the House version, which Murray said she would not support. An architect of the bill, Sen. Richard Moore (D), said he hoped “the bulk” of the bill would ultimately become law.

-Zachary Bernstein

-Zachary Bernstein

Watch it:

Despite the video and expert testimony that “Blomberg’s actions were ‘objectively unreasonable’ and were ‘contrary to any legitimate police action,’” an all-white, six member jury acquitted Blomberg on Wednesday. Blomberg was the first of four officers who were fired by the Houston police department over the incident to face trial trial for official oppression, which carries a penalty of up to one year in jail. Blomberg claimed to being using his foot to “sweep” not stomp Holley after Holley failed to put his hands behind his back. Jurors in the case told Blomberg’s attorney, Dick DeGuerin, that prosecutors had failed to prove that Blomberg had acted unreasonably.

The acquittal came after another white officer was accquitted of wrongdoing in the shooting of African-American Robert Tolan in the driveway of his home last year, and members of the local community are outraged at the outcome:

“The jury sent a message that the life of a black man don’t mean a damn thing in Houston,” African-American community activist Quanell X told the Los Angeles Times. “I believe the prosecutor never truly intended to convict this cop. I believe that allowing an all-white jury to be impaneled in this case was absolutely wrong and a miscarriage of justice.” …

“Black people must rise up and send a message to white people in this city and this town that our lives and the lives of our children do matter,” Quanell X told the Times. “We’re at a boiling point where America is headed toward some real civil conflict because of cases like Trayvon Martin and Robbie Tolan and Chad Holley. Black people are sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

The community responded to the outcome by holding a protest in downtown Houston on Thursday. The protest started with three dozen people but the crowd grew to about 300.

Both Houston Mayor Annise Parker and Harris County District Attorney agree with protesters that the verdict in the case was incorrect. Mayor Parker told a news conference that none of the officers who were fired over the incident will ever be Houston police officers again regardless of the outcome of their trials. State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, also disagreed with the verdict and has called for a complete review of the Houston criminal justice system, stating that “[a]n officer of the law simply cannot be above the law.”

Three other officers await trial for their part in the incident. Drew Ryser is charged with official oppression and Phillip Bryan and Raad Hassan are both charged with official oppression and violating the civil rights of a prisoner.

–Alex Brown

-Zachary Bernstein

Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, not all of the response has been positive. Despite the global show of support, anti-LGBT activists and government officials have tried to stymie some of these events. Here are a few examples:

-A gay pride march in Georgia was attacked by several Christian activists, including some Orthodox priests. About 20 people marched through the streets of Tbilisi, but were blocked by an “improvised cordon” of activists who threw punches and smashed signs. Police arrested at least three people.

-LGBT activists in Malaysia announced they would not be holding a march, citing security reasons. One organizer of the march claimed “a rising wave of threats made against the LGBT community by the government and certain religious organizations” since the government banned a sexual minorities festival, Seksualiti Merdeka, last year.

-Police in Fiji canceled a gay pride parade despite granting a permit the month before. According to one rights activist in Fiji, police “said we cannot march today because they did not realise they had given a permit for gays to march.” Homosexuality in Fiji was decriminalized in 2010, but homophobia is still prevalent, according to activists.

-Government officials in Belarus rejected requests to hold three separate demonstrations in the capital Minsk. The officials cited “technical” issues and repair work being done near the sites, according to the owner of an online portal, who also said he found the explanations “far-fetched.”

Responses like these show just how important an event like IDAHO is. Despite the remarkable progress that has been made on LGBT rights over the past several years, strong homophobia still exists across the world, whether it is religious activists attacking peaceful protestors in Georgia or a government minister in Zimbabwe urging tribal chiefs to “banish” people who support marriage equality. A lot has been gained, but a lot more is left to do.

-Zachary Bernstein

Yesterday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed legislation that extends health insurance and other benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees.  Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced the bill, called the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligation Act, which if passed into law would extend health insurance and a number of other workplace benefits to federal employees and their same-sex partners.

Because of discriminatory laws like the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), gay federal employees do not have full access to benefits currently afforded to straight federal employees and their spouses. Without access to health insurance through their partners, many gay individuals must either purchase costly insurance plans in the private market or forgo health insurance, a considerable financial risk should be they become seriously ill. Yesterday, the Senate committee advanced a bill that would significantly alleviate that risk and bolster economic security for gay couples in the federal workforce.

Passing this bill out of committee is long overdue. Not only does this mean equal treatment for gay employees in the federal workforce, it also ensures that we attract the best and brightest workers into public service. When it was introduced back in November, Senator Collins remarked :

COLLINS: This change is both fair policy and good business practice. The federal government must compete with the private sector when it comes to attracting the most qualified, skilled, and dedicated employees. Today, health, medical, and other benefits are a major component of any competitive employment package. Indeed, private sector employers are increasingly offering these kinds of benefits as standard fare.

She’s right. Eighty-six percent of Fortune 100 companies offer equal health care benefits to employees with same-sex partners, according to the Human Rights Campaign. And research shows that when you treat gay workers equally on the job, what results is a happier, healthier, and more productive workforce.

Some, like Governor Rick Snyder (R) of Michigan, who recently vetoed a bill to extend domestic partner benefits to state employees, oppose equality in the workplace because they say it costs too much. They’re wrong . The take-up rate for domestic partner benefits is extremely low and it is likely that the boon from attracting a more talented and productive workforce outweighs any costs of providing equal benefits to gay couples.

What’s more, passing laws that extend workplace benefits to gay employees is politically popular. A whopping 8 in 10 Americans believe gay employees should be given equal benefits on the job. Even Mitt Romney agrees. Just last week, after restating his opposition to marriage equality, he voiced his support : “My view is that domestic partnership benefits, hospital visitation rights and the like are appropriate.”

Conservatives and corporations should take a cue from the American people: workplace equality is critical to fostering a more efficient and effective government.

“Our research confirms what farmworker advocates across the country believe: sexual violence and sexual harassment experienced by farmworkers is common enough that some farmworker women see these abuses as an unavoidable condition of agricultural work,” said the report.

An estimated 630,000 of the 3 million people who perform migrant and seasonal farm work are female. The federal government estimates that 60 percent of them are undocumented.

“It’s easiest for abusers to get away with sexual harassment where there’s an imbalance of power, and the imbalance of power is particularly stark on farms,” the report’s author, Grace Meng, told The Associated Press.

Fear of being deported prevents female farmworkers from reporting the instances of rape, stalking, fondling, and vulgar language that are described in the report. Farmworkers described experiences such as the following:

• A woman in California reported that a supervisor at a lettuce company raped her and later told her that she “should remember it’s because of him that [she has] this job.”
• A woman in New York said that a supervisor, when she picked potatoes and onions, would touch women’s breasts and buttocks. If they tried to resist, he would threaten to call immigration or fire them.
• Four women who had worked together packing cauliflower in California said a supervisor would regularly expose himself and make comments like, “[That woman] needs to be fucked!” When they tried to defend one young woman whom he singled out for particular abuse, he fired all of them..

In the report, Human Rights Watch calls for strengthened legal protections for immigrant farmworkers, starting with enacting the Senate version of VAWA. The House failed to respond to this recommendation, and in fact reduced protections available to immigrant crime victims in VAWA. Right now, victims of sexual abuse who cooperate with law enforcement may be eligible for U visas, which make women feel safe to report crimes to police without fear of deportation. The House version of VAWA limits U visas to cases actively under investigation or currently being prosecuted. These limits create gray areas around investigation and prosecution that could expose victims to deportation.

–Alex Brown

But as opponents of the measure point out, there is more at stake than religious convictions for doctors or pharmacists:

Most of the opposition in the House came from Democratic lawmakers representing districts near St. Louis and Kansas City who argued the legislation would inhibit access to health care for some Missourians. Several opponents said it seemed the measure was aimed particularly at birth control.

Rep. Stacey Newman, D-St. Louis, said the medical procedures at issue in the legislation would affect women most directly. Speaking with a male opponent of the measure, Newman said, “You will be putting your stamp on what you think I should be doing and also deciding if your religious beliefs will supersede my religious beliefs and my moral convictions.”

This bill now goes to the state Senate for consideration before the Missouri legislative session ends on Friday.

Missouri is not the only state to consider this kind of bill. On Tuesday, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) signed a similar bill allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill a prescription that they think could be used to induce an abortion. Opponents claim the law is broad enough that it could allow pharmacists to deny birth control or emergency contraception, or even procedures like chemotherapy if they would put a pregnancy at risk.

-Zachary Bernstein

A study released Wednesday showed that the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) averted 741,000 deaths between 2004 and 2008. Previous research found that PEPFAR, created in 2003 by President George W. Bush, had prevented AIDS-related deaths, although researchers did not know if those people were dying of other diseases instead. But this report shows that is no the case, according to Reuters:

Data for the new study came from surveys done with adult women in 27 African countries, including nine with PEPFAR programs. Women were asked about their adult siblings and recent deaths in their families. The researchers used that information to calculate approximately how many adults in each country were dying every year, for any reason.

In 2003, Bendavid and his colleagues found that between eight and nine out of every 1,000 adults died, both in PEPFAR and non-PEPFAR nations. Countries in the new report that weren’t part of the program included Madagascar, Liberia, Senegal and Zimbabwe.

Five years later, death rates had dropped to four per 1,000 in PEPFAR countries and declined more modestly to seven out of every 1,000 without the program. That worked out to a 16 percent lower chance of death in countries with PEPFAR between 2004 and 2008, once other factors such as a country’s overall HIV rate and wealth were taken into account, the researchers reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Despite the proven results, Mitt Romney would cut PEPFAR funds if elected president. At a New Hampshire town hall last October, Romney said he was “very reluctant to borrow lots more money to be able to do wonderful things, if those things can be done by people making charitable contributions or if other countries that are wealthy.” But as Bush said of PEPFAR last year, “We’re a blessed nation in the United States of America and I believe we are required to support effective programs that save lives.”

Romney is not always against spending or borrowing more money, however. From 2003 to 2008, Congress appropriated $18.8 billion to PEPFAR, or $3.76 billion a year. In contrast, Romney’s budget plan would increase the military budget by at least $210 billion a year over 10 years. Overall, the tax cuts in his budget would cost $10.7 trillion over the next decade.

-Zachary Bernstein