Summer is rapidly drawing to a close, and that means it’s time for back-to-school shopping. But before you frantically stock up on new school supplies, take a moment to think about how you can green your child’s schooling. Purchasing recycled and used supplies, rethinking how you pack lunches, and redesigning your children’s morning commutes can have substantial cumulative effects on your family’s carbon footprint. CAP has the story.
CNN host and Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakaria has returned a prestigious award given to him by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), saying he is “stunned” at their decision to oppose the construction of an Islamic community center near Ground Zero. From his column:
The ADL’s mission statement says it seeks “to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.” But Abraham Foxman, the head of the ADL, explained that we must all respect the feelings of the 9/11 families, even if they are prejudiced feelings. “Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted,” he said. First, the 9/11 families have mixed views on this mosque. There were, after all, dozens of Muslims killed at the World Trade Center. Do their feelings count? But more important, does Foxman believe that bigotry is OK if people think they’re victims? Does the anguish of Palestinians, then, entitle them to be anti-Semitic?
Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. I was thrilled to get the award from an organization that I had long admired. But I cannot in good conscience keep it anymore. I have returned both the handsome plaque and the $10,000 honorarium that came with it. I urge the ADL to reverse its decision. Admitting an error is a small price to pay to regain a reputation.
On his CNN show this Sunday (which was pre-taped), Zakaria further says that he was “personally and deeply saddened” by the ADL’s stance. In a response letter to Zakaria, Foxman writes, “I am not only saddened but stunned and somewhat speechless by your decision.”
Our guest blogger is Heather Boushey, Chief Economist at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
In their report, How We Ended the Great Recession, Economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi estimates the effects of the financial and fiscal policies enacted since the crisis began in 2008 on the economy. Their conclusion is that had the combined financial and fiscal policies not been enacted, “GDP in 2010 would be about 6.5 percent lower, payroll employment would be less by some 8.5 million jobs, and the nation would be experiencing deflation.”
Blinder and Zandi break out their estimates separately for the financial policies and the fiscal policies. They estimate that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and other fiscal policies have saved or created 2.7 million jobs and without them, unemployment would stand at 11 percent and job losses would have totaled 10 million. On top of this, they estimate that if nothing had been done to address the financial crisis — no Troubled Asset Relief Program, no bailout of American International Group Inc, and no investment in the auto industry — our economy would have 5 million fewer jobs than we do today and unemployment would be sharply higher, at 12.5 percent.
However, one tidbit in the report that has received little notice is that by acting, Congress actually reduced our potential deficit problem. Given the policy steps taken, Blinder and Zandi estimate that by the end of the 2010 fiscal year, the federal budget deficit will be $1.4 trillion and it will fall to $1.15 trillion in fiscal year 2011 and $900 billion in fiscal year 2012.
However, had Congress done nothing, the deficit would have ballooned even higher, hitting over $2 trillion by the end of the 2010 fiscal year, $2.6 trillion in fiscal year 2011, and $2.25 trillion in fiscal year 2012. That’s right, doing nothing would have meant that the 2012 federal budget deficit would likely be over 2.5 times as large as taking the steps we took.
How’s this possible? Quite simply: a big reason that the deficit is rising is because unemployment has risen and incomes are falling. As my colleague Michael Linden has pointed out, the reason for the deficit is the recession itself:
The great deficit of 2009 was the result not just of increased spending, but also of dramatically lower tax revenues. In 2009, federal receipts were $419 billion below 2008 levels, a 17 percent drop, which was the largest decline from one year to the next in more than 70 years. Individual income tax receipts decreased by 20 percent, and corporate income tax revenues plummeted by more than 54 percent, which means corporations paid less than half in taxes than they paid the year before.
Of course, the main culprit here is the economic recession. Corporations paid lower taxes because they made lower profits. Individuals paid less in taxes because they lost their jobs, didn’t get raises, and didn’t make as much on their investments. The tax cuts directed at both families and businesses passed as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had a part to play here as well—about 15 percent of the decline in tax revenues can be attributed to provisions in ARRA—but the overall trend was driven primarily by the weak economy.
By taking actions to avert greater unemployment, we averted a bigger deficit. It seems there’s a win-win here that everyone should get on board with: the steps taken to shore up our economy have ended up being a better investment for jobs and for the deficit than doing nothing at all.
Perhaps nobody cares, but I think Neil Sinhababu is right to say that America’s system of fairly wide-open primary elections serves many of the same kinds of functions as the existence of multiple political parties in proportional parliamentary systems.
The interesting thing is that they’re not all that often actually used in this way. In continental Europe there’s usually a “liberal” party that would attract the votes of America’s “libertarians.” In the Netherlands (and perhaps elsewhere) there are even two liberal parties, one a market liberal “fusionist” party and one that’s a social liberal “liberaltarian” party. In the United States it would be possible in principle for self-identified libertarians to attempt an entryist strategy where they get deeply involved in organizing for primary candidates. But in practice they don’t. When primaries with ideological content happen, they tend to pretty generically pit a “more conservative/liberal” candidate against a “more moderate” alternative rather than really reflecting different potential ideological configurations and coalitions.
This is a CAP cross-post by Kate Gordon and John Emerson.
The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico may be the worst environmental accident ever to hit U.S. shores. But it is by no means the only disaster. America’s short history has been rife with natural and manmade environmental disasters that have tested our nation’s ability to balance economic and environmental interests””from the San Francisco earthquake, to the Dust Bowl, to the Exxon Valdez spill.
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