New Secretary of Homeland Security

As we were all studying Kettl, Jeh C. Johnson was confirmed as the new Secretary of Homeland Security. He was previously general counsel for the DOD, where he had significant influence in national security policy.

Napolitano had a background focusing on immigration; Johnson's is on counterterrorism. He worked on drone policy and policy related to the detention of terrorists. He is also a strong proponent of the idea that the war against al Qaeda may not be over. Finally, he has criticized the secrecy of the Obama administration, particularly as it relates to drones.

Obama says, “As secretary of homeland security, Jeh will play a leading role in our efforts to protect the homeland against terrorist attacks, adapt to changing threats, stay prepared for natural disasters, strengthen our border security, and make our immigration system fairer.”

Practice Final Exam

In preparing for the final exam, consider both the air midterm and the following practice exam. The questions on the final will be similar in form and content, though not identical.

I. Identifications. This section will ask you to write a brief paragraph explaining the meaning and significance of 12 out of 14 items from readings and class discussions (4 points each). Examples:

• David Kessler
• Medicaid
• Negative liberty
• The "Twenty Dollar Test"
• Master Settlement Agreement
• Generic vulnerabilities
• Weighted Student Formula
• Craft organization
• "Connecting the dots" in intelligence
• CPI
Synecdoche
• Organizational cultures
• Expressed v. ulterior motives
• "Broken Windows"

II. Short answers. In this section, you will answer 2 out of 3 question on factual or analytical points from course material (6 points each). Each answer should take no more than half a page. Examples:

• One view is that the poverty line is too high. Another is that it is too low. Another is that it is too high for some, too low for others.  Explain.
• What caused the 2004-2005 flu vaccine shortage?
• Tell how the FCC got into the smoking issue.

III. General Essays. In this section, answer 2 of 3 questions. Each answer should take 2-3 large bluebook pages or 3-4 small bluebook pages. Each is worth 20 points each.

• Fritschler and Rudder write: "In policy space [meaning] all current policies contained in one space bumping up against one another, a change in one policy increasingly impinges on many other policies, again requiring adjustments in those policies." Explain. Why does this "bumping" happen? How does it affect the process of decisionmaking? Give specific examples from the books on smoking and homeland security.
• Bardach advises policymakers to seek out "best practices." Stone would say that this process is far from straightforward.  Explain.
• President Obama recently said, "this increasing inequality is most pronounced in our country, and it challenges the very essence of who we are as a people."  Explain the difficulty of defining and measuring inequality.

IV. Bonus questions (one point each) Very briefly identify the following:

• Estes Kefauver
• Simon Kuznets
• C. Everett Koop
• Paul Krugman
• Sahil Kapur

Is it House of Cards Season 2 Promo or just a Smoking Commercial?

The FCC should probably check this out...I think Frank Underwood must be working with the tobacco companies or something

Smoking, Litigation, Implementation

Master Settlement Agreement (MSA)

Tobacco wins a narrow, brief victory in the Supreme Court.

But now, the rest of the story:

The decision rested on statutory, not constitutional grounds, and so Congress could overturn it by passing another statute: H.R. 1256: Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act

FDA acts

[If you want to write a senior thesis on the subject, start here.]

Smoking, Regulation, Media, and Public Opinion

Presentations from this week:

Leslie

Chad

Kelsey






Changing attitudes



Smoking rate

Smoking and Bureaucracy

Review:

"The business schizophrenia toward government regulation..."  p. 23: USDA and Tobacco

Other agencies: FDA, FTC, FCC, Surgeon General

A question to JFK

Q. Mr. President, there is another health problem that seems to be causing growing concern here and abroad and I think this has largely been provoked by a series of independent scientific investigations, which have concluded that cigarette smoking and certain types of cancer and heart disease have a causal connection. I have two questions: do you and your health advisers agree or disagree with these findings, and secondly, what if anything should or can the federal Government do in the circumstances?

THE PRESIDENT. That matter is sensitive enough and the stock market is in sufficient difficulty [laughter] without my giving you an answer which is not based on complete information, which I don't have and, therefore, perhaps we could--I'd be glad to respond to that question in more detail next week.

Advisory Committee on Smoking & Health

Administrative policymaking

• The process
• The Federal Register

-------------------------------

Federal advisory committees

The Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965

Policy Goes to the Movies

Political Influence

The Distinguished Gentleman (1992) on money and politics

Crime

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

Dirty Harry (1971) -- the exclusionary rule

The Sopranos -- a bleak look at HUD

Poverty

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Environment

Soylent Green (1973) -- ecology and aging

The Formula (1980) -- Hollywood looks at energy

Smoking

The Insider -- more-or-less true story of tobacco litigation

Mad Men -- very first scene and last scene of most recent season-- the 2000s look at the 1960s

Policy Analysis and Smoking

Laila presentation

"Policy is centrally about classification and differentiation, about how we do and should categorize in a world where categories are not given." -- Stone, p. 382

"By 1918, cigarettes had become identified with the war effort as a symbol of courage and dignity" --Fritschler & Rudder, 13-14.

 Tobacco mutates

"The business schizophrenia toward government regulation..."  p. 23: USDA and Tobacco

Other agencies: FDA, FTC, FCC, Surgeon General
A question to JFK

Q. Mr. President, there is another health problem that seems to be causing growing concern here and abroad and I think this has largely been provoked by a series of independent scientific investigations, which have concluded that cigarette smoking and certain types of cancer and heart disease have a causal connection. I have two questions: do you and your health advisers agree or disagree with these findings, and secondly, what if anything should or can the federal Government do in the circumstances?

THE PRESIDENT. That matter is sensitive enough and the stock market is in sufficient difficulty [laughter] without my giving you an answer which is not based on complete information, which I don't have and, therefore, perhaps we could--I'd be glad to respond to that question in more detail next week.

Advisory Committee on Smoking & Health

Administrative policymaking

• The process
• The Federal Register

Air Midterm

Relax. This “air midterm” does not count toward your grade; do not even turn it in. Instead, use it to appraise your own progress in the course. Try out this test, either in your head or on paper.If you flounder, then you should take more care with class sessions and assigned readings.

I. Identifications. Explain the meaning and significance of the following items. What is fair game for an identification?

• Items that we have discussed in class or on the blog;
• Items that appear in bold or italics in the readings;
• Items that cover several pages in the readings.

1. Polis model
2. Reactive effects
3. Policy lightning
4. Supplemental poverty measure
5. Federal Register
6. Uniform Crime Reports
7. Moral hazard
8. Coping organization
9. "Internalities"
10. Policy "stress tests"
11. Age-adjusted rates
12. Sensitivity analysis
13. Entrepreneurial politics

II. Short answers. Each reply should take a brief paragraph or two.

1. Describe the difference between "outputs" and "outcomes," with concrete examples.
2. "Defense spending has skyrocketed over the past 25 years!" "Defense spending is consuming far less of our resources than it did 25 years ago!" How could both statements be true?
3. Briefly describe Bardach's "eightfold path."
4. Explain the difference between "equity" and "efficiency."

III. General Essays

1. Stone says: "Policy is centrally about classification and differentiation, about how we do and should categorize in a world where categories are not given."  Explain, using examples from the Maier book.
2. Political scientist Steven Teles writes"America's federal system of government also does its part to add to policy complexity. In a purely federal system, in which governmental functions were clearly differentiated between the national and state governments, federalism would not translate directly into complexity. But that is not American federalism as it is currently practiced."  Explain, with reference to the issues of health care and homeland security.

IV. Bonus questions (one point each) Very briefly identify the following:

Kathleen Blanco

Todd Beamer

Bob Beckwith

Bill Buckridge

Chester Barnard

Obamacare Implementation

At The New York Times, Joseph Nocera quotes my dissertation adviser:

An insurance executive friend says that the systems Obamacare required were an order of magnitude more complex than even the most complicated insurance company systems. That complexity, says Drew Altman, the president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, was necessitated by the many compromises that were required to pass the bill into law. Ted Marmor, a former Yale professor and an expert on entitlement programs, says that it has to coexist within the extraordinarily complicated “patchwork” that is the American health care system.

Marmor was a young special assistant in the old Department of Health, Education and Welfare when Medicare rolled out in 1966 — a rollout that was as smooth as Obamacare’s has been rocky. (“Our biggest worry was getting Southern hospitals to treat black people,” Marmor told me.) Partly that was because Medicare was a relatively straightforward program. But Marmor also believes that it was because the men in charge of the new Medicare program were seasoned pros who knew how to get the job done.

Thus the second reason the Obamacare rollout has been so awful. “They put amateurs in charge,” says Marmor. Obama would have been much better served if, for instance, he had called upon his friend Jeffrey Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric, to choose a team of specialists to lead the effort.

Russia's Timeless Addiction to Potemkin Villages

Here's a humorous set of pictures I found while browsing the internet - a set of "renovations" made to a Russian village in preparation for a visit by Putin the Great:

http://m.imgur.com/a/NMauG

This one is my favorite:

Think he fell for it?

Health

David's presentation

Medicare and Medicaid

The Affordable Care Act




Flu:  Key Problems

• High risk populations need vaccines.
• The market for flu vaccines is unstable and unpredictable.
• The FDA relies on companies to provide vaccines, but may not be monitoring those companies sufficiently.
• The federal government is aware of the problems associated with the flu vaccine market, but has no long-term plan for addressing these problems.
• When a vaccine shortage does occur, there has been a lack of federal coordination to act.
• The US needs a more competitive flu vaccine production market.

The legal side

• National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
• The Bruesewitz Case (oral argument and opinion here)

In Places Like North St. Louis, Gunfire Still Rules the Night

The article does a great job of showing how statistics don’t reflect reality in a critical way.

Golden State Blues

Dan Walters writes at The Sacramento Bee:

California may be recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression, and its official unemployment rate has dropped by a third, but by another federal measure of employment distress, the state is second only to Nevada.

The alternative number, known as U-6 in economic statistical circles, includes not only unemployment — the percentage of the labor force that's jobless — but "marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers."

In other words, it represents every worker whose aspirations are being thwarted by economic conditions.

By the U-6 measure, California's employment distress rate is 18.3 percent for the 12 months ending June 30, according to a new report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. California's rate is second only to Nevada's 19 percent and four percentage points higher than the national rate of 14.3 percent.

California's U-6 rate is also more than twice as high as the state's 9.1 percent rate calculated by the BLS for 2006, the last year before the housing bubble burst, plunging the state into recession.

North Dakota, which is experiencing an oil boom, has the lowest rate of 6.2 percent. Texas, with whom California is often compared, has a U-6 rate of 11.6 percent.

Kathleen Miles writes (Nov 15) at The Huffington Post:

California has both the most ultra-wealthy individuals and the highest poverty rate of any U.S. state, according to recent reports.

"This chasm is growing day by day, year by year," Larry Gerston, professor of political science at San Jose State University, said to The Huffington Post. "Those at the top in California are just as happy as a clam. Their incomes are going up much faster than anyone else's."

In 2013, the Golden-for-some State was home to the most -- 12,560 -- ultra-wealthy individuals, according to a new report by Wealth-X, a think tank focusing on wealthy people. New York had the second most, with 8,945 ultra-wealthy individuals. Wealth-X defines ultra-wealthy as having a net worth of at least $30 million.

California gained even more ultra-wealthy individuals in 2013 than any other state, adding an additional 1,605 residents. Florida gained the second most, an additional 565 more than in 2012.

But California also has the highest poverty rate in the nation, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Nearly one in four Californians -- about 24 percent of the overall population -- lives in poverty. Behind California, the District of Columbia and Nevada have the second and third highest poverty rates, according to the analysis. Across the U.S., about 16 percent of Americans live in poverty.

The census analysis considered income, government benefits, taxes and cost of living. The official poverty threshold for a two-adult-two-child family was $23,283 in 2012.Read moCalifornia has both the most ultra-wealthy individuals and the highest poverty rate of any U.S. state, according to recent reports.

"This chasm is growing day by day, year by year," Larry Gerston, professor of political science at San Jose State University, said to The Huffington Post. "Those at the top in California are just as happy as a clam. Their incomes are going up much faster than anyone else's."

In 2013, the Golden-for-some State was home to the most -- 12,560 -- ultra-wealthy individuals, according to a new report by Wealth-X, a think tank focusing on wealthy people. New York had the second most, with 8,945 ultra-wealthy individuals. Wealth-X defines ultra-wealthy as having a net worth of at least $30 million.

California gained even more ultra-wealthy individuals in 2013 than any other state, adding an additional 1,605 residents. Florida gained the second most, an additional 565 more than in 2012.

But California also has the highest poverty rate in the nation, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Nearly one in four Californians -- about 24 percent of the overall population -- lives in poverty. Behind California, the District of Columbia and Nevada have the second and third highest poverty rates, according to the analysis. Across the U.S., about 16 percent of Americans live in poverty.

The census analysis considered income, government benefits, taxes and cost of living. The official poverty threshold for a two-adult-two-child family was $23,283 in 2012.re here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/11/california-has-nations-second-highest-job-distress-rate.html#storylink=cpy

Housing, Poverty, Labor

• Sam's Presentation.
• Caitlin's Presentation.

Housing

• The latest Census data
• White House infographic
• Is homeownership a public good or a public bad and economic burden?

Poverty and Welfare

From 11/4:

The welfare tradeoff triangle:

What are the appropriate tradeoffs among the three principal goals of welfare—securing adequate benefits for needy children, providing incentives that induce desired behavior in welfare recipients, and keeping public costs within acceptable bounds? These goals are linked in a relationship that David Stockman (President Reagan’s budget director) christened the “iron triangle.” Government cannot change one element of the relationship without affecting the other two.

Supplemental Poverty Measure (see Maier 183)

Views of Redistribution:

Nonmarital births:

Census data on nonmarital births

Labor

• BLS

income and cost of living for determining if you are "rich" or a HENRY

concrete numbers for  factoring cost of living by city. (from Data Game page 172)
also
HENRY (High Earner, Not Yet Rich)




There was also a flare-up of this rich/250k issue back in 2010 when Todd Henderson made the argument and more recently this guy complained:
“Look, I know my salary of $350,000 is high,” he said. “My whole point is that education and housing in New York are now priced for the wealthy, not the garden variety wealthy. I’m not living high on the hog and going to St. Barts. I mean my summer rental is bare bones, it’s not the Hamptons. ”
though there is the other question of how much of the higher cost should simply be viewed as a good to be consumed.

DHMO

Crime

Gabe's presentation on trauma centers

Statistical Overview: UCR v NCVS

Education

Adriana's presentation

Graphs on Educational Attainment
International Comparisons
Spending and outcomes:



The take of the Center for American Progress

Russlyn Ali, Executive Director of Education Trust West:



Weighted Student Formula:

• The finale in Chicago.
• LCFF in California

Stone on Efficiency (post from monday)

Although many people agreed that using average teacher salaries as opposed to actual
teacher salaries hid inequities within a district, many defenders of the WSF system
argued that using actual teacher pay as a criterion would cause principals to be biased
against hiring more experienced teachers in favor of younger, less expensive teachers.
Teachers unions were incensed by this discussion and felt strongly that using actual
salaries would hurt teachers with seniority who had worked long and hard for their level
of compensation. The unions were also concerned about the many layoffs ahead and the
uncertainty that the restructuring would create for all teaching staff in CPS. Lastly, they
were as concerned as everybody else that there simply were not enough funds for all the
schools.


--defining equity chicago public schools

"Researchers found no evidence that additional experience beyond the first few years nor additional education...are significantly related to student outcomes."
--Data Game 104

Another resource

As I was brainstorming what my policy paper should be on, I found a website on local government ordinances. It looks fairly comprehensive (I checked several Georgia towns), and it may be useful to look up similar legislation to your proposal or to see local legislation. It's called Municode.

Policy Analysis and Best Practices

Presentations:

• Style
• Content

Some balanced sources of news and policy analysis:

• Governing
• Government Executive
• Public Administration Review (use library site to access full text)
• California Legislative Analyst's Office
• National Governors Association Center for Best Practices
• Best Practices in Local Government
• Partnership for Public Service
• National Conference of State Legislatures
• GAO reports on best practices

Think about generic vulnerabilities by going back to the things that governments do:

• Taxes
• Regulation
• Subsidies and Grants
• Service Provision
• Agency Budgets
• Information
• Structure Private Rights (see critical view of citizen suits)
• Framework of Economic Activity (see Stigler)
• Provide Education and Consultation
• Financing and Contracting
• Bureaucratic and Political Reforms

A Closer Look at Riverside's GAIN Program

During his analysis on smart practices, Bardach mentions Riverside's GAIN Program and labels it as a successful "high- expectations welfare-to-work program" (111-112). However, Bardach neglected to fully illustrate what this program actually entailed. Riverside GAIN was unique among the programs studied in the larger California GAIN initiative in that it placed much more emphasis on moving participants quickly into the workforce — and much less emphasis on providing basic education — even for those deemed to be in need of basic education. For instance, the program conveyed a strong message to all participants about the importance of employment, and encouraged participants to accept job offers even if they were low paying. Given that recipients of Riverside's GAIN Program were encouraged to aim low in order to attain a job, I found Bardach's use of "high-expectations" to be questionable.

You Heard It Here First

In an article today, Ezra Klein has a graphic showing the health care tradeoff triangle.

CNN reports today on the Obamacare War Room:

Middle of the road analysis on Obamacare

“ 'Medicare for all' isn't perfect, but it does what the ACA can't: Guarantee better healthcare and a simpler system” - David Sirota


http://www.salon.com/2013/10/31/single_payer_health_care_vs_obamacare/

Stories, Tradeoffs, and Evidence

Review:  SUCCESS

A Wall Street Journal op-ed tells a story that could be problematic for the Affordable Care Act.

The welfare tradeoff triangle:

What are the appropriate tradeoffs among the three principal goals of welfare—securing adequate benefits for needy children, providing incentives that induce desired behavior in welfare recipients, and keeping public costs within acceptable bounds? These goals are linked in a relationship that David Stockman (President Reagan’s budget director) christened the “iron triangle.” Government cannot change one element of the relationship without affecting the other two.

A Washington Post story illustrates the health care tradeoff triangle:

Robert Laszewski, an industry consultant, said he thinks the rise in rates was inevitable. The new law, he said, has resulted in an estimated 30 to 50 percent increase in baseline costs for insurers.

“We’ve got increased access for sick people and an increase in the span of benefits, so something’s got to give,” he said.

Getting Information from People and Documents

• Networking and "Subformal Warning Systems"
• Some initial steps
• Locating sources:

	People leading to…	Documents leading to…
People	"To whom else should I talk?"	"How do I find the author?"
Documents	"What else should I read?"	"How do I track this source?"

Implementation and Healthcare.gov

The Washington Post offers an excellent graphic illustrating implementation problems with Heathcare.gov:

Brainstorming

Dilbert takes on brainstorming here and here.

A more-or-less realistic depiction in Apollo 13:

Butt-Legging in NYC

I sense more butt-legging in New York's future. NYC moves closer to tobacco-buying age of 21.

More on the Eightfold Path

Define the problem

• First internal step: "What's the story" rather than "What's the problem"
• Lay out a timeline, with other relevant political and policy developments

Assemble some evidence

• Using analogies K-U-P/L-D
• Distinguish known from unknown and presumed
• List similarities and differences

Construct the alternatives

• Look for past federal and state legislation
• Brainstorming and Rolestorming  
• JFK and Excomm
• Logic Model Development Guide (Bardach, p. 28)

Select the criteria

South Park explains confusion between alternatives and criteria (Bardach pp. 46-47):

Project the outcomes.  Ask:

• What odds will you give that your presumption proves correct?  What would you bet?
• What fresh facts would cause you to change your presumption?

Confront the tradeoffs

• Tradeoff triangles

Decide!
Tell your story

• The SUCCES Model

Organizations, Politics, and the Eightfold Path

A followup to  Bardach, Appendix C:  James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy (New York: Basic Books, 1989), ch. 9:

• Outputs:  what employees do on a day-to-day basis.
• Outcomes: how the world changes because of the outputs

	Outputs are visible to managers	are hard for managers to see
Outcomes are easy to measure	production organization (tax system) simple repetitive stable tasks; specialized skills.  Easy to stress measurable outputs & outcomes over hard-to-measure (satisfaction)	craft organization (Forest Service, wartime military) application of general sets of skills to unique tasks, but with stable, similar outcomes. Relies heavily on ethos and sense of duty of workers.
are hard to measure	procedural organizations (OSHA, peacetime military) specialized skills; stable tasks, but unique outcomes. SOPs are especially important	coping organization (colleges, police departments) application of generic skills to unique tasks, but outcomes cannot be evaluated in absence of alternatives.  "

Policy Windows

• Predictable (State of the Union, State of the State)
• Unpredictable (Policy Lightning)
• Closing windows:  issue-attention cycle and end-dates

Friend and Foe

• Supporters
• Allies:  supporters who will recruit more supporters and neutralize opponents
• Opponents

What Can Friend and Foe Do?

• In Government
• Votes
• Cosponsorships
• Hearings and reports
• Interest Group Community
• Statements, testimony, amicus briefs
• Reports and op-eds
• Advertising and grassroots mobilization
• Direct lobbying
• Political campaign activity

Resources Available to Friends and Foes

• Debts:  The Favor Bank
• Power status:  majority/minority
• Expertise and information
• Size and motivation of membership
• Money
• Polls

Identifying Friend and Foe

• Policy History
• Current statements and comments
• Cosponsorships
• Polls

The Eightfold Path

1. Define the problem
2. Assemble some evidence
3. Construct the alternatives
4. Select the criteria
5. Project the outcomes
6. Confront the trade-offs
7.  Decide!
8. Tell your story 

Sebelius on Implementation

A Problem with Political SurveysThat Look at Voter Knowledge

I have read numerous articles recently that have shown how low the average citizens' knowledge of government is (i.e., only 50% of citizens can name all 3 branches of government...). For my thesis on the initiative process, I uncovered an article arguing that these statistics are often inflated, and make the average citizen look bad, because: 1) the surveys do not offer incentives for getting the correct answer (while voting arguably does), and 2) surveys often leave little time for contemplation, research, etc., (unlike voting). By accounting for these two elements (through a monetary incentive and more time), those who did the survey answer in much higher percentages (increases ranging from 11-40%).

Check it out if this topic interests you. Just another example of statistics that are often misleading or wrong.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lupia/Papers/Prior_Lupia_AJPS_2008.pdf

Sources on Best Practices

• National Governors Association Center for Best Practices
• Best Practices in Local Government
• Partnership for Public Service
• National Conference of State Legislatures
• GAO reports on best practices

Data Questions in the News

On your first paper, several of you wrote about college sexual-assault data.  You scooped this US News article (on the AEI website).

In a few weeks, we shall look at chapter 8 of Maier and Imazeki, which considers the "poverty line" that economist Mollie Orshansky devised 50 years ago.  At The Los Angeles Times, John Schwarz writes:

An honest poverty line would clarify how many Americans are poor and yet ineligible for assistance that would allow them to afford the very basics that the assistance programs were intended to provide. It would show that a far higher proportion of the poor than politicians or the public are aware of are hard workers; many millions of them are already in year-round full-time jobs. And perhaps most important, the large numbers of the poor, now and in relation to the past, would help us understand the serious harm inflicted on demand in the economy, which in turn limits business and contributes significantly to the economy's sluggish growth.

Both for the sake of simple justice and to stop fooling ourselves, and causing great harm to the economy, we should celebrate the 50th anniversary of Mollie Orshansky's calculation by doing it right in 2013.

Now What Do We Do?

Things Governments Do:

• Taxes
• Regulation
• Subsidies and Grants
• Service Provision
• Agency Budgets
• Information
• Structure Private Rights (see critical view of citizen suits)
• Framework of Economic Activity (see Stigler)
• Provide Education and Consultation
• Financing and Contracting
• Bureaucratic and Political Reforms

Oral Presentations

We shall soon begin oral presentations in class. In each oral presentation, a student will speak for no more than five minutes, and then take questions for another five.

In your presentation, you should make a specific policy recommendation to the government official who has the most authority to deal with this issue.  See our previous discussion here.

Your recommendation may deal with any domestic issue at any level of American government. It should involve a subject on which there is real debate. It should be significant, yet manageable enough to analyze in a five-minute presentation. (That is, you will probably not be able to offer a comprehensive solution to the federal debt problem.)

It should also concern a topic that you care about, yet can discuss in a professional manner.

Use data to define the problem. You may present tables or graphs in a blog post, to which you may refer during your presentation.  You may also use PowerPoint.  See a guide here.  But beware of PowerPoint Poison.

Read these useful guidelines for oral presentations: http://www.auburn.edu/~burnsma/oralpres.html

Watch this video:

Campaign Finance Policy Issue

A fascinating 60 minutes video on a loophole in federal law that allows for politicians to use their leadership PACs to spend money on lavish personal items. Also delves into how campaigns (especially in non-competitive races) pay family members tens of thousands of dollars to work on their campaigns. This might be good issues for someone to look into for their final policy paper.

The Shutdown and the Accuracy of Government Data

As a followup to our discussion yesterday, here is a piece from the Cleveland Fed explaining how the government shutdown will screw up government statistics for months to come.

more on who bears the tax burden

looking at Boxes 11.2 and 11.3 and the broader conversation on taxes and tax rates in Maier there seemed to be something he didn't mention. There was a recent CBO report which raised the point that the question of tax rates is more complicated than initially appears. For low/moderate income workers this is more interesting than the Mankiw example because of means-tested programs being phased out at higher income levels and suggesting that for some families 11.3 will be wrong and increased earnings will yield negative net income.

more     articles on CBO report

Halftime Report

Data sources

• Blog post on workarounds
• Links on bureaucracy and domestic public policy
• Links on disclosure

The Reg Map

 


"Government Climate Change"

Implementation, Administration, and Risk

More research tips

House Report on Katrina

Brown's side of the story:




Balancing security and rights:

Second Assignment

CMC Government 116
Professor Pitney
Second Essay Assignment
14 October 2013

Pick one:

1. Propose a change in the organizational structure of the Department of Homeland Security.  Explain why the change is necessary and how you would secure the necessary political support.  See, especially, Kettl and Appendix D of Bardach.
2. Answer any of the “case study” questions that Maier and Imazeki pose at the end of their chapters.
3. Bardach (pp. 15-16) suggests that an early step in offering a policy proposal consists of surveying “best practices.” With Stone’s analysis in mind, explain why this step is harder that it looks at first.  Use a specific example (e.g, from the areas of health care, welfare, law enforcement) to make your point.
4. Write a four-page answer to the question in the Inaugural Prize Competition.  The answer, of course, must deal with a topic relevant to this class.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Whichever essay you choose, do research to document your claims.  Do not write from the top of your head.  
• Essays should be typed, double-spaced, and no more than four pages long.  I will not read past the fourth page.
• Cite your sources with endnotes, which should be in a standard style (e.g., Turabian or Chicago Manual of Style).  Endnote pages do not count against the page limit.
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation.  Errors will count against you.
• Turn in essays via Sakai by the start of class, Monday, October 28.  Please send them as Word documents (not pdfs) to the course dropbox. Late essays will drop a gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that.  I will grant no extensions except for illness or emergency. 

Implementation and Homeland Security

GETTING DATA DURING THE SHUTDOWN

From the government point of view:  the complexity of joint action.

Path dependency

A Sample Truman Policy Proposal

The application for the Truman Scholarship includes a policy proposal that is similar to our 6-page assignment, except that it is shorter.

See tips here, and a sample below.

To: Janet Office
Office Held: United States Secretary of Education
Issue: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Awareness in Higher Education

Problem Statement

Every child born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is unjustly handicapped by the alcohol  consumption habits of his or her mother. The leading, preventable cause of birth defects in the US  is alcohol, with FAS resulting in the most extreme cases (Floyd and Sidhu, 2004). Approximately  half a million pregnant women report alcohol use each year, and 80,000 report binge drinking  (Floyd and Sidhu, 2004).

Binge drinking among young women ages 18-44 is on the rise, increasing by 13 percent in a  recent three-year period (Gardner, 2004). Binge drinking puts women at an increased risk for  unintentional pregnancies and means they are more likely to drink while pregnant. These statistics  are evidence of a major public health problem in the United States.

Low levels of FAS awareness in the nation ultimately contribute to the unwanted  conception of FAS children. The 2002 National Health Interview Surveys found that 73% of  women and only 55% of men have a measurable awareness of FAS (Nation et al., 2003),  indicating that substantial numbers remain unaware of the dangers of alcohol consumption during  pregnancy.

Proposed Solution

My proposed solution is to increase FAS awareness in higher education. Support would be  sought from the US Department of Education's Policy and Program Studies Service, as its mission  statement is in line with my project goals ("US Department of Education," 2004). Monies would  be requested from the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE), to be  spent on prevention and intervention though education ("Office of Postsecondary Education,"  2004). Prevention education would address both FAS and binge drinking in higher education and  in future marital relations.

The awareness program would be delivered via First-Year Experience (FYE) classes, also  known as First-Year Seminars (FYS). According to Bradley Cox of the National Resource Center  for the First-Year Experience and Students and Transition, over 621 institutions of higher  education host FYE/FYS programs (Cox, 2004), making them a standardized setting for the  delivery of the FAS program. FIPSE monies would be promoted to higher education institutions  across the country to thereby increase FAS awareness and decrease the future conception of FAS  children.

If successful, this program could be adapted for future intervention in public high schools  and community colleges.

Major Obstacles/Implementation Challenges

There exist three significant challenges to the implementation of this FAS program. A  realistic proposal would be needed to promote the curricular addition of FAS into FYE/FYS  classes across the country. FYE courses are highly variable, both in conception and credit hours,  and therefore the program will need to be comprehensive and concise enough as to be a  reasonable addition.

The second challenge would include the delivery of the program by a professor. One major  reason for the failure of prevention programs to date has been poorly trained presenters (Nation et  al., 2003). An efficient, comprehensive training program would be needed to maximize program  effectiveness. Coordination with established on-campus groups such as residence life and  counseling programs would be ideal.

Thirdly, the FAS program must be established in a way pertinent to the college student's  life and so that students take it seriously. College students do not engage in risky drinking habits  with the intention of getting pregnant. Therefore the connection of risky drinking habits to the  birth of FAS children can be difficult to establish.

References, Footnotes, and Exhibits

Cox, Bradley. Personal Communication. 2004.
Floyd, RL and Sidhu SS. Monitoring Prenatal Alcohol Exposure. American Journal of 
Medical Genetics, Vol 127C, 33-39, 2004.
Gardner, Amanda. "Report: Binge Drinking on Rise in Young Women." Health Day. 23 June
 2004. <http://www3.komotv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1965365>
Golden, Janet. "An Argument That Goes Back to the Womb: The Demedicalization of
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, 1973-1992. Journal of Social History, Winter 1999.
<http://www.fmdarticles.eom/p/articles/mi_m2005/is_2_33/ai_58675447>
Nation et al. "What Works in Prevention: Principles of Effective Prevention Programs."
American Psychologist, June/July 2003, Vol 58, No 6/7,449-456.
"Office of Postsecondary Education - Programs Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary
Education (FIPSE)." 26 November 2004.
<http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/fipse/index.html>
"US Department of Education Principal Office Functional Statements: Office of the Secretary &
Deputy Secretary." 26 November 2004.
<http://www.ede.gov/about/offices/list/om/fs_po/osods/policy.html

Common Core, Decentralization, & Coordination

Governor Brown recently signed AB 484, which ends previous standardized testing procedures and creates a trial run for new testing procedures. These will be computerized and correspond with the new Common Core. This is a good example of coordination, because the federal government is promoting these policies by incentivizing states to adopt these standards. States that adopt these standards qualify for Race to the Top grants.

It is also an example of decentralization, as some states have adopted these standards with slight variations. For example, Minnesota has adopted the English Language Arts standards, but not mathematics.

Implementation and Administration

Stone (p. 362) is wildly wrong about African American voter mobilization. Also see Obama legacy report, p. 26
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Vertical Organization:  Federalism: -- over 89,000 governments in the United States

Horizontal -- Organization Charts

• Department of Education
• Department of Defense
• The Intelligence Community

Privatization: forms

From the government point of view:  the complexity of joint action.

Government from the point of view of the average person:  the classic set of charts on "Understanding Systems That Affect Families"

More on Interests, Decisions

Campaign Finance Reform

This morning, when I picked up the NY Times in the dining hall, a story about campaign finance reform was on the front page.

The Supreme Court is going to hear a case next Tuesday on the topic of limitations to individual contributions to political candidates. The issue is not over how much an individual can donate, but the number of candidates an individual can contribute to. The current limit is 17.

My question: Why, if so many citizens feel passionately about Citizens United, is campaign finance reform a topic that is decided by the judiciary? Legislators (Sen. McCain for instance) have tried to address this problem from the legislative branch, but to little avail.

Policy, Interests, Decisions, Incentives

Stages of the Policy Process

• Initiation
• Estimation
• Selection
• Implementation
• Evaluation
• Termination

E.E. Schattschneider:  "What happens in politics depends on the way in which people are divided into factions, parties, groups, classes, etc. The outcome of the game of politics depends on which of a multitude of conflicts gains the dominant position."

A variation of the table on p. 239 of Stone:

Allison's Three Models:

• I. Rational Actor
• II. Organizational Process
• III.Bureaucratic Politics

Measuring Outcomes

The Los Angeles Times reports on Mayor Eric Garcetti's push for performance measures:

Garcetti's goal is to develop a finely tuned data system that will track key measures of performance for every city agency — how many miles of streets get repaired, how long it takes to pick up bulky items of trash. Starting around Oct. 8, the 100th day of his administration, aides say, results will be posted on the Web. What measures Garcetti will roll out remains to be seen, but the concept would be to allow residents to check such things as whether 911 response times in their neighborhoods are improving or how long it takes to clean up graffiti.

The objective, Garcetti says, is a higher quality of life for the city's 3.8 million residents. Managers who embrace the new ethos of efficiency and accountability will stay, he says. The others will go.

"It's much more than just interviewing winners and losers," Garcetti said. "This is about changing the relationship between mayors and his cabinet, and finding people who share my sense of urgency, working with them to develop a better sense of accountability and metrics, and rewarding their innovation."

But watch out for reactivity:

Mythical Numbers in Healthcare Costs, as told by John Green

I saw John Green's video about the myths surrounding certain healthcare cost statistics, and thought it was extremely relevant to the themes we've been discussing in class. Hope you find it interesting!

Policy Argument and Policy Data

Assembling evidence

• A quick guide
• Scholarly literature and statistics
• Bureaucracy and public policy

Demographics

• Sources
• Counting the undocumented
• 1940 Census:  actual raw data

Manipulation and Misunderstanding

• Lying with graphs
• Lying with statistics

From Mother Jones:

The study, by Yale law professor Dan Kahan and his colleagues, has an ingenious design. At the outset, 1,111 study participants were asked about their political views and also asked a series of questions designed to gauge their "numeracy," that is, their mathematical reasoning ability. Participants were then asked to solve a fairly difficult problem that involved interpreting the results of a (fake) scientific study. But here was the trick: While the fake study data that they were supposed to assess remained the same, sometimes the study was described as measuring the effectiveness of a "new cream for treating skin rashes." But in other cases, the study was described as involving the effectiveness of "a law banning private citizens from carrying concealed handguns in public."

The result? Survey respondents performed wildly differently on what was in essence the same basic problem, simply depending upon whether they had been told that it involved guns or whether they had been told that it involved a new skin cream. What's more, it turns out that highly numerate liberals and conservatives were even more—not less—susceptible to letting politics skew their reasoning than were those with less mathematical ability.

Mythical numbers:

• More on heroin addicts
• Recovery.gov
• Super Bowl & domestic violence
• Other myths

A puzzle whose answer I do not know:

1.  Assume an autism prevalence of one in 150.

2.  Find historical population data here.

3.  Find data on mental hospitals and institutions for the "retarded" here:  United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1975), 84-85. Online: http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/CT1970p1-03.pdf  (pp. 84-85) 

4.  Compare the estimated Number of people with autism and total population of mental hospital and institutions for the "retarded."

            Total Population           Population/150 Total in Institutions

1940    132,164,569                  881,097                     578,222

1950    151,325,798                1,008,839                    705,375

1960    179,323,175                1,195,488                    769,682

1970    203,302,031                1,355,347                    580,956

Symbols and Matthew Shepard

In chapter 7 in Stone she talks about symbols which "are means of influence and control...[whose] meaning isn't isn't intrinsic in it but invested in it by the people who use it" (Stone 161).

A recent book came out which claims Matthew Shepard's death was not a hate crime but instead of a violent meth related death.





In a review of the book Out Editor Aaron Hicklin wrote:

There are valuable reasons for telling certain stories in a certain way at pivotal times, but that doesn’t mean we have to hold on to them once they’ve outlived their usefulness. In his book, Flagrant Conduct, Dale Carpenter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, similarly unpicks the notorious case of Lawrence v. Texas, in which the arrest of two men for having sex in their own bedroom became a vehicle for affirming the right of gay couples to have consensual sex in private. Except that the two men were not having sex, and were not even a couple. Yet this non-story, carefully edited and taken all the way to the Supreme Court, changed America.

In different ways, the Shepard story we’ve come to embrace was just as necessary for shaping the history of gay rights as Lawrence v. Texas; it galvanized a generation of LGBT youth and stung lawmakers into action. President Obama, who signed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, named for Shepard and James Byrd Jr., into law on October 28, 2009, credited Judy Shepard for making him “passionate” about LGBT equality.


This argument has attracted strong opposition from groups such as media matters and the Matthew Shepard foundation,

Link of a roundup of responses to the book and an excerpt in the daily beast

How Bad Data Warped Everything We Thought We Knew About the Jobs Recovery

Great article from The Atlantic detailing how Lehman Brothers' collapse had, for 3 years, caused misleadingly optimistic job growth data in winter months.

Parts of the article below:

"Okay, but what are seasonal adjustments, and how do they work? Well, you know the jobs number we obsess over every month? It's cooked, in a way -- but not how Jack Welch thinks. For example, the economy didn't really add 169,000 jobs in August. It added 378,000 jobs. But that 378,000 number doesn't tell us too much. See, the economy pretty predictably adds more jobs during some months more than others. Things like warmer weather (which helps construction), summer break, and holiday shopping create these annual up-and-downs. So to give us an idea of how good or bad each month actually is, the Bureau of Labor Statistics adjusts for how many jobs we would expect at that time of year."

"But there's a problem. The BLS only looks at the past 3 years to figure out what a "typical" September (or October or November, etc.) looks like. So, if there's, say, a once-in-three-generations financial crisis in the fall, it could throw off the seasonal adjustments for quite awhile. Which is, of course, exactly what happened. The BLS's model didn't know about Lehman. It only knew about the calendar. So it saw all the layoffs in late 2008 and early 2009, and interpreted them the only way it knew how: as seasonality, not a shadow banking run."