First Reading - Hawaii LRB Library

State of Homelessness in America 2011

2011-01-12T15:04:00.003-10:00

The National Alliance to End Homeless has released a new report which "reveals national and state level homeless counts, but also delves into economic indicators and demographic drivers." Selected key findings include:

The nation’s homeless population increased by approximately 20,000 people from 2008 to 2009 (3 percent increase).
A majority – 31 of 50 states (including Hawaii) and the District of Columbia - had increases in their homeless counts.
The largest percentage increase was in the number of family households.
Nearly 4 in 10 {homeless} were living on the street, in a car, or in another place not intended for human habitation.

State of Homelessness in America (available as PDF, 48 pp, 5 MB) by M William Sermons and Peter Witte

Need For Actions to Reduce and Adapt

2010-12-13T13:46:00.006-10:00

America's Climate Choices, a series of congressionally-mandated studies, emphasizes why the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change. Available to read online or purchase PDF or print copies:

Advancing the Science of Climate Change

Limiting the Magnitude of Climate Change

Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change

Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change

Watch video, America's Climate Choices Series

Don't raise SS retirement age

2010-08-24T16:37:00.004-10:00

In a Fact Sheet issued today, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) gives ten reasons not to raise the retirement age for Social Security. Among them:

Raising the retirement age is a benefit cut, and benefits are already too low.
It cuts benefits for all retirees, whether they retire at age 62, age 70, or any other age—and it is a cut for retired workers’ spouses, widows, and dependents, as well.
Social Security’s problem is not that people are living longer.
The biggest financial problem facing Social Security is rising income inequality, which cannot be addressed by raising the retirement age.
The shortfall can be reduced without cutting benefits. Taxes should be raised on the highest earners, who pay a much lower share of their income in Social Security taxes.

Top Ten Reasons Not to Raise the Retirement Age (pdf, 2pp/76kB), Aug. 24, 2010

More on CDHPs

2010-08-17T15:31:00.003-10:00

Last week FR published a post on consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs). Yesterday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a July study on CDHPs, specifically health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Analyzing data from two large employers--one public and one private--and several published studies, GAO compared enrollees in HRAs with those in preferred provider organization (PPO) plans. Generally, spending and utilization of health care services were less for HRA enrollees than for those who remained in PPOs.

CONSUMER-DIRECTED HEALTH PLANS: Health Status, Spending, and Utilization of Enrollees in Plans Based on Health Reimbursement Arrangements, GAO-10-616 (pdf, 47pp/504kB), July 16, 2010

Digital lending library

2010-08-13T11:14:00.004-10:00

The Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, was founded in 1996 "to build an Internet library." According to its website, its collections now include "texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages." It recently launched a project called OpenLibrary.org, a collaboration of libraries providing e-books to check out. Read about how it works on the Internet Archive's Digital Lending Library page.

Currently available at OpenLibrary.org:

More than one million digital versions of older books are now available for free download in a variety of formats.
Over 70,000 current digital books to those with a library card from many of the over 11,000 libraries that subscribe to the OverDrive service.
Genealogical books from the Boston Public Library.
How-to and technical book collection via the Internet Archive.
Marine life reference materials from the Marine Biological Laboratory and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Spanish texts from Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala.

Consumer-driven health plans

2010-08-09T17:15:00.003-10:00

Consumer-driven health plans are offered by self-insured employers and administered by a third-party. They include health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs). The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) reviews CDHPs in its August Issue Brief. Among its findings: about 19 million, or 11% of those with private insurance, were enrolled in a CDHP in 2009; and premiums were generally lower than for non-CDHPs. The paper discusses the impact of CDHPs on health care services such as preventive care, enrollee knowledge of cost sharing, medication adherence, emergency room use, quality of care received, and employer contributions.

(In June, EBRI reported on financial aspects of HSAs and HRAs, see FR post.)

What Do We Really Know About Consumer-Driven Health Plans?, August 2010
Issue Brief (28pp/587kB)
Executive Summary

Long-term care generosity index

2010-08-05T16:07:00.006-10:00

According to a report issued this week by the Rockefeller Institute of Government on Medicaid and long-term care, states vary widely in their coverage of eligible populations, the amount, duration, and scope of services, the amount of care that is covered, and their administrative processes. Finding that there is no standard definition or a way to measure key dimensions of long-term care, the report predicates, "Perhaps the most straightforward measure of state long-term care policy is the generosity of its coverage of both populations and services."

To measure generosity, compiling a "Long-Term Care Policy Generosity Index," the authors looked at coverage and service policies for each state in 2004 for 8 major categories of long-term care--home health, hospice, personal care, private duty nurse, intermediate care facility/mental health, inpatient psychiatric care, intermediate care/mental retardation, and nursing home--and ranked states accordingly. New York came in first; Hawaii ranked 48th.

Medicaid Policy and Long-Term Care Spending: An Interactive View
Report (pdf, 20pp/224kB), August 2010
News release, Aug. 3, 2010

Cloud in government

2010-07-29T16:07:00.003-10:00

In April Darrell West, Director of Brookings Governance Studies, authored a report on how cloud computing could cut costs for the federal government (see FR post). In the first paper of a series launched by the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings last week, West reviews current federal IT policy and discusses rules, practices, and procedures that limit innovation. Among his recommendations:

Public officials should develop more consistent rules on computing across desktop, laptop, mobile, and cloud platforms.
The use of video, collaboration, and social networking should be authorized for congressional offices. This would make legislative branch policy consistent with that of the executive branch.
Judicial branch computing should be modernized, with greater emphasis on cloud computing.
There should be a more uniform certification process for federal agencies.
Privacy rights should be placed on the same footing regardless of whether a person is using desktop or cloud computing.

Steps to Improve Cloud Computing in the Public Sector, July 21, 2010
Report (pdf, 13pp/255kB)
Executive Summary

Just in ... on education

2010-07-28T10:24:00.002-10:00

In The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education at New York University (NYU), critiques current conventional wisdom about the American educational system. She herself has changed positions on what she previously advocated for reform. Her prescriptions for improving our schools:

Leave decisions about schools to educators, not politicians or businessmen
Devise a truly national curriculum that sets out what children in every grade should be learning
Expect charter schools to educate the kids who need help the most, not to compete with public schools
Pay teachers a fair wage for their work, not "merit pay" based on deeply flawed and unreliable test scores
Encourage family involvement in education from an early age

Some chapter titles: - Hijacked! How the Standards Movement Turned Into the Testing Movement. - NCLB: Measure and Punish. - Choice: The Story of an Idea. - The Trouble with Accountability.

LA217.2 R38 2009
283 pp.
ISBN-10: 0465014917
ISBN-13: 978-0465014910

Seniors: help for financial decisions

2010-07-23T16:41:00.003-10:00

Noting that most retirees have acquired significant assets as well as debts, and that cognitive decline afflicts older adults, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College in a recent brief discusses four policy responses to help seniors make effective financial decisions. The paper lists them from least to most paternalistic:

Disclosure. "Legislation to strengthen disclosure requirements has recently been introduced in many different domains....However, we are skeptical that improved disclosure will be effective in improving financial choices."
Financial "Driving Licenses." "...require that individuals pass a 'license' test before being allowed to make nontrivial financial decisions, such as opting out of 'safe harbor' investment products. Such proposals would need to overcome several logistical problems."
Mandatory Advance Directives. "...require older adults to put in place a financial advance directive before reaching a certain age so that the management of their assets could be transferred to a third party in the event of their incapacity."
Regulatory Approval. "Instead of primarily targeting individual investors, regulations could instead target the financial products themselves."

What Is the Age of Reason? July 2010
Brief (pdf, 8pp/249kB)
Introduction

Creating jobs

2010-07-22T16:21:00.003-10:00

With the U.S. facing its worst recession in the post-WWII era, William Galston of Brookings Governance Studies has presented an agenda that "would demand both elected officials and their constituents to subordinate other objectives, however worthy, to the overriding objective of restarting the engine of economic growth and sustaining robust job creation." His proposed policies:

Pro-growth tax reform
Public incentives for larger private capital investments in public infrastructure
Conditional revenue-sharing by the federal government
Jump-starting the stalled trade treaty agenda
Pro-growth regulatory policy
Facilitating immigrants with advanced education, critical skills, or entrepreneurial capacity to enter and remain in the U.S.
Reducing student dropouts and using community colleges to provide skills for future jobs

Priority No. 1: Creating an Agenda to Spur Job-Creating Economic Growth, July 20, 2010, pdf (6pp/291kB), html

Retirement readiness

2010-07-16T11:41:00.002-10:00

In its July Issue Brief, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) discusses the adequacy of retirement preparation, specifically the issue of retirees "at risk" of inadequate retirement income. The study uses two assessment models EBRI developed--the Retirement Security Projection Model (RSPM) and the Retirement Readiness Rating--and examines:

Modeling retirement income adequacy
"At risk" levels, by age and income
Future eligibility in a defined contribution plan
Running short of money
Additional savings needed

EBRI divides the "at risk" population into three age cohorts: Early Boomers (born between 1948–1954, now ages 56–62); Late Boomers (born between 1955–1964, now ages 46–55), and Generation Xers (born between 1965–1974, now ages 36–45). Among the paper's conclusions:

The baseline 2010 Retirement Readiness Rating finds that nearly one-half (47.2 percent) of the oldest cohort (Early Baby Boomers) are simulated to be “at risk” of not having sufficient retirement resources to pay for "basic" retirement expenditures as well as uninsured health care costs. The percentage "at risk" drops for the Late Boomers (to 43.7 percent) but then increases slightly for Generation Xers to 44.5 percent.

The EBRI Retirement Readiness Rating: Retirement Income Preparation and Future Prospects, July 2010
Issue Brief (pdf, 36pp/748kB)
Executive Summary

Spectrum policy and Congress

2010-07-13T11:52:00.007-10:00

In March 2010 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released the National Broadband Plan (NBP), mandated by Congress to ensure every American has "access to broadband capability." It presented issues to be addressed by regulatory changes, FCC policies, and Congressional action. Last month the Congressional Research Service (CRS) published a paper discussing spectrum issues for the 111th Congress. From the Summary:

A challenge for Congress is to provide decisive policies in an environment where there are many choices but little consensus. In formulating spectrum policy, mainstream viewpoints generally diverge on whether to give priority to market economics or social goals. ...economic policy looks to harness market forces to allocate spectrum efficiently, with spectrum license auctions as the driver. Social policy favors ensuring wireless access to support a variety of social objectives where economic return is not easily quantified, such as improving education, health services, and public safety. Both approaches can stimulate economic growth and job creation.

On legislative issues, the CRS report covers spectrum inventory, the Spectrum Relocation Improvement Act of 2009, H.R. 3019 (pdf, 11pp) and Spectrum Relocation Improvement Act of 2010, S. 3490 (pdf, 11pp), incentive auctions, and the Broadband for First Responders Act of 2010, H.R. 5081, (pdf, 8pp).

Spectrum Policy in the Age of Broadband: Issues for Congress, R40674 (pdf, 36pp/324kB), June 21, 2010, from Open CRS

Social Security options

2010-07-06T15:17:00.002-10:00

In 2010, for the first time since the enactment of the Social Security Amendments of 1983, Social Security’s annual outlays will exceed its annual tax revenues, CBO projects. If the economy continues to recover from the recent recession, those tax revenues will again exceed outlays, but only for a few years. CBO anticipates that starting in 2016, if current laws remain in place, the program’s annual spending will regularly exceed its tax revenues, and beginning in 2039 the Social Security Administration will not be able to pay the benefits currently specified in law. If revenues were not increased by that point, benefits would need to be cut by about 20 percent to equalize outlays and revenues. (Director's Blog)

In light of this dire outlook, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) presents policy options for Social Security in a recent study. CBO analyzes 30 options in five categories:

Increases in the Social Security payroll tax
Reductions in people’s initial benefits
Increases in benefits for low earners
Increases in the full retirement age, and
Reductions in the cost-of-living adjustments that are applied to continuing benefits

Social Security Policy Options, July 2010
      Report (pdf, 67pp/1.8MB)
      Summary (pdf, 4pp/148kB)
      Director's Blog, July 1, 2010

Arts thru tech

2010-06-29T15:47:00.007-10:00

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) published a report on Americans' participation in certain "benchmark" arts activities through electronic and digital media--radio, TV, CDs, DVDs, the Internet, and portable media devices. The benchmark activities surveyed: Jazz, Classical music, Opera, Musical plays, Non-musical plays, Ballet and other dance, Visual arts such as paintings, sculptures, or photography, and Programs about artists, art works, or art museums. The report is based on the 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA).

Its conclusions:

Arts participation through media appears to encourage — rather than replace — live arts attendance.
Education shows the strongest relationship with arts participation through electronic media.
A sizeable group of Americans — particularly racial/ethnic minorities and older adults — participate in benchmark art forms solely through electronic media.
The rate of arts participation through electronic media for different racial/ethnic groups depends on the art form.
Given the relatively high rate of young adults who engage in literature through media, the overall rate of literary participation via media may increase markedly in the future.

Audience 2.0: How Technology Influences Arts Participation, June 2010
Report (pdf, 146pp/2.72MB)
Multi-media version

America's children

2010-06-23T14:57:00.002-10:00

In May and June the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) has been publishing sections of a compilation of national and 50-state data on the nation's children.

The report provides a statistical compendium of key child data showing alarming numbers of children at risk: the number of poor children has increased by 2.5 million since 2000 to 14.1 million, with almost half of them living in extreme poverty, and 8.1 million children lack health coverage―with both numbers likely to increase during the recession.

According to the CDF report, children in America lag behind almost all industrialized nations on key child indicators. The United States has the unwanted distinction of being the worst among industrialized nations in relative child poverty, in the gap between rich and poor, in teen birth rates, and in child gun violence.

The report covers: Key Facts, Child Population, Child Poverty, Family Structure, Family Income, Child Health, and Early Childhood Development. Sections to come: Education, Other Vulnerable Children and Youths, and Gun Violence.

The State of America's Children 2010

Retail clinics

2010-06-16T16:12:00.003-10:00

Retail clinics are medical clinics located in pharmacies and grocery and "big box" stores. Since they first opened in 2000, they now number nearly 1200. RAND Health conducted a study of the clinics focusing on three areas: 1. A profile of retail clinics (locations, services, and ownership); 2. Patient characteristics; and 3. Costs, quality, and preventive care delivery. Its key findings:

Most (88 percent) U.S. retail clinics are located in major metropolitan areas, and one-third of the U.S. urban population can easily access a clinic.
Retail clinics typically serve younger adult patients who do not have a regular health care provider.
For a selected group of conditions, retail clinics deliver lower-cost care of equivalent quality compared with other settings.
Approximately one in five visits to a primary care physician and one in ten visits to an emergency department are for a problem that can be treated at a retail clinic.

Health Care on Aisle 7: The Growing Phenomenon of Retail Clinics, pdf (7pp/160kB), html, June 14, 2010

Small business as jobs generator

2010-06-10T13:31:00.007-10:00

The Brookings Economic Studies program issued a policy brief on the role of small business in job creation.

As the nation strives to recover from the “Great Recession,” job creation remains one of the biggest challenges to renewed prosperity. Small businesses have been among the most powerful generators of new jobs historically, suggesting the value of a stronger focus on supporting small businesses—especially high-growth firms—and encouraging entrepreneurship.

The paper examines the following recommendations to strengthen the small business sector:

Improve access to public and private capital.
Reexamine corporate tax policy.
Promote education and research to train workers and spur innovation.
Rethink immigration policy.
Explore ways to foster “innovation-friendly” environments.
Strengthen government counseling programs.

The Future of Small Business Entrepreneurship: Jobs Generator for the U.S. Economy, pdf (8pp/456kB), html, June 2010

HSAs & HRAs

2010-06-04T14:50:00.001-10:00

The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) reports on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs). Employers first began offering HRAs in 2001 and HSAs in 2004. HRAs are employer-funded and reimburse workers for qualified medical expenses. An HSA is a tax-exempt trust or custodial account set up by an individual to likewise pay for certain medical expenses. EBRI states:

The theory behind these accounts is that when individuals are given more control over funds allocated for health care services, they will spend the money more responsibly, especially once they become more educated about the actual price of health services. Furthermore, these accounts can be used as tax-advantaged vehicles to save for health care expenses in retirement.

In 2009 these plans covered 15-19 million people, representing 9-11 percent of the privately insured market. There was $7.1 billion in 5 million accounts.

Health Savings Accounts and Health Reimbursement Arrangements: Assets, Account Balances, and Rollovers, 2006–2009, June 2010
Issue Brief (pdf, 32pp/546kB)
Executive summary

SS "notch" for '47?

2010-06-02T16:34:00.005-10:00

In a May brief the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College reports on lower Social Security benefits for new retirees born in 1947 compared to those born in 1930-1946. This is due to an "unintended quirk" in the benefit formula, and the paper urges congressional action for adjustment.

Since cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) were adopted in 1975, this is the first year of no COLA. The formula for granting COLA interacted with a spike in inflation in 2008, and those born in 1947 did not receive the 5.8 percent "windfall COLA" paid in Jan. 2009. The paper explains the term "notch" from the 1970s when beneficiaries born in 1917-1921 appeared to be at a disadvantage because of changes in SS benefit rules.

A New Social Security 'Notch'? Bad News for People Born in 1947, May 2010
Brief (pdf, 8pp/203 kB)
Introduction

Wage penalty in the public sector

2010-05-28T13:11:00.005-10:00

With the recession, state and local government budgets have been buffeted by lower tax revenues and higher demand for social services. In a paper from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), economist John Schmitt responds to arguments that "excessive pay for public employees is the real cause of the financial woes."

Schmitt found three important differences between state-local and private workforces:

State and local employees are substantially better educated than workers in the private sector--over half of state and local employees have a four-year college degree or more, compared to about 30 percent in the private sector.
State and local employees are about four years older than private-sector workers.
Sixty percent of state and local workers are women compared to less than half of private sector worker.

When the two sectors are compared, especially when matched by age and education, public workers earn 4 percent less on average.

According to 50-state charts in the report measuring state and local public employees, ages 18-64 in 2009, Hawaii has 70,742 such employees (55,725 state and 14,747 local) comprising 13.8 percent of all employees.

The Wage Penalty for State and Local Government Employees (pdf, 20pp/257kB), May 2010
Press Release, May 12, 2010

Related Issue Brief: The Benefits of State and Local Government Employees (pdf, 2pp/78kB), May 2010

Safer SAFER

2010-05-26T11:57:00.001-10:00

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported on the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Act that was enacted in 2003 in response to concerns about the adequacy of firefighter staffing. SAFER is administered by FEMA and is up for reauthorization.

The SAFER Act authorizes grants to career, volunteer, and combination local fire departments for the purpose of increasing the number of firefighters to help communities meet industry-minimum standards and attain 24-hour staffing to provide adequate protection from fire and fire-related hazards. Also authorized are grants to volunteer fire departments for activities related to the recruitment and retention of volunteers.

With the economic downturn and local fire departments' budgetary problems, Congress is considering easing restrictions to enable more participation in the program.

Hawaii received its first SAFER grant of $1.6 million in FY2008.

Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response: The SAFER Grant Program, RL33375 (pdf, 13pp/176kB), from Open CRS, April 30, 2010

Reimbursements to nonprofits

2010-05-19T16:37:00.000-10:00

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report on how nonprofits are reimbursed by federal, state, and local governments for indirect costs. Recognizing that nonprofits are "key partners in delivering federal services yet reportedly often struggle to cover their indirect costs," GAO reviewed six grants from the Depts. of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and 17 nonprofits in Louisiana, Maryland, and Wisconsin, which receive at least one of the six grants, for this study. GAO discussed the following:

Inconsistencies in terminology lead to challenges in cost classification, which can result in uneven treatment of costs
Nonprofits’ reimbursement for indirect costs largely depends on federal, state, and local government practices
When nonprofits report differences between indirect costs incurred and reimbursed, they take a variety of steps to bridge gaps

NONPROFIT SECTOR: Treatment and Reimbursement of Indirect Costs Vary among Grants, and Depend Significantly on Federal, State, and Local Government Practices, GAO-10-477 (pdf, 32pp/298kB), May 18, 2010

2010 grads & jobs

2010-05-18T11:47:00.004-10:00

"For the class of 2010, it will be one of the worst years to graduate high school or college since at least 1983 and possibly the worst since the end of World War II," according to a recent paper from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

Its main findings:

The class of 2010 will be entering a labor market with the highest rates of unemployment in at least a generation; unemployment rates for both college graduates and non-graduates younger than 25 are nearly double their pre-recession levels.
Since the start of the recession, the youth labor force (workers age 16 to 24) has contracted by 1.1 million workers.
Since the start of the recession, an additional 1.2 million 16-24-year-olds have become disconnected from both formal schooling and work.
Most young adults that come across hard economic times will fall through the large gaps in the public safety net.
Contrary to arguments that higher federal budget deficits burden future generations, rising public debt that finances efforts to boost economic recovery will minimize the deep economic scarring caused by the recession and increase future earnings for young workers.

THE CLASS OF 2010, Economic Prospects for Young Adults in the Recession (pdf, 14pp/256kB), May 11, 2010

Metro stats

2010-05-11T15:11:00.018-10:00

Considered "a signature effort" of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, the State of Metropolitan America reports on demographic and social trends in large metropolitan areas, together with implications for public policy for these areas and their populations to thrive.

Chapters: 1. Population and Migration, 2. Race and Ethnicity, 3. Immigration, 4. Age, 5. Households and Families, 6. Educational Attainment, 7. Work, 8. Income and Poverty, and 9. Commuting. These nine chapters correspond to "the most important subjects tracked by the Census Bureau in its annual American Community Survey (ACS)."

The report notes five "new realities":

Growth and outward expansion
Population diversification
Aging of the population
Uneven higher educational attainment
Income polarization

And large metropolitan areas—the collections of cities, suburbs, and rural areas that house two-thirds of America’s population—lay squarely on the front lines of those trends.

The State of Metropolitan America, May 9, 2010
      Full Report, Part One (pp 1-75) (pdf, 77pp/7.57MB)
      Full Report, Part Two (pp 76-168) (pdf, 95pp/15.6MB)
      Executive Summary (pdf, 4pp/1.65MB)

Health coverage in the recession

2010-05-04T16:46:00.004-10:00

In a report released today, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) examines changes in employment-based health coverage during the recession that began in Dec. 2007. It uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), up to July 2009, with emphasis on changes that occurred between Sept. 2007 and April 2009. The findings include the following:

Between Dec. 2007 and July 2009, the percentaqe of workers with coverage fell from 60.4% to 55.9%.
The uninsured rate rose from 12.3% in May 2007 to 16.4% in July 2009.
Deductibles and copayments for office visits and prescription drugs have been increasing.
Demographically, those most likely to lose coverage were younger vs. older workers, Hispanic vs. white or black workers, and part-time vs. full-time workers.

The Impact of the Recession on Employment-Based Health Coverage, May 2010
      Issue Brief (pdf, 24pp/1.5MB)
      Executive Summary
      Press release, May 4, 2010

Pension funding 2009-2013

2010-04-28T13:55:00.005-10:00

A recent paper from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College reports on funding levels for state and local pension plans for FY2009, the first year that reflects the financial crisis, and projections for 2010-2013.

The report covers: (1) the evolution of public sector funding, which from the early 1980s made significant progress until the 2008 market collapse; (2) 2009 status of plans; and (3) projections for 2010-2013 under three different scenarios for the stock market (Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Index).

An appendix of 109 state and 17 local plans provides ratios of assets to liabilities for 2001-2008 and estimates for 2009. The aggregate funding ratio declined from 91.4 in 2001 to 84.3 in 2008 and 78.5 in 2009. Hawaii went from 90.6 (2001) to 68.8 (2008) to an estimated 62.9 (2009).

From the Conclusion:

The key question is what should be done. A major increase in contributions is not realistic at this time....if funding levels are to be restored quickly, the money must come primarily from tax revenues. But the recession has decimated tax revenues and increased the demand for state and local services. Thus, finding additional taxes to make up for market losses will be extremely difficult. One small step that would be viewed as a commitment to responsible funding would be for states and localities to at least pay their full ARC [annual required contribution]. Otherwise, the only option is to wait for the market and the economy to recover.

The Funding of State and Local Pensions: 2009-2013, April 2010
Report (pdf, 18pp/268kB)
Introduction

Accountability in education

2010-04-23T15:56:00.001-10:00

The Aspen Institute Education and Society Program produced a wrap-up of its July 2009 workshop on accountability policy, focusing on six core principles as a framework for future discussion. Workshop participants recommended that education accountability systems should:

Set clear outcome goals and progress targets
Account for all groups of students
Employ multiple sources & types of evidence
Communicate clearly to all stakeholders
Motivate people at all levels of the system
Work within a comprehensive system to improve outcomes

The group found that:

Calibrating the right mix of pressure and support is complicated in our system of divided school governance, because it is difficult to coordinate across the systems. Under current rules, one level establishes the overarching accountability goals and targets (federal), another sets the standards and assessments upon which the determinations will be based (state), and yet another (district) is charged with performance management and technical assistance to low-performing schools – and all three control elements of resource allocation....Accountability policies should be cognizant of the tensions inherent in setting policies across these levels and seek to maximize the comparative advantage of each.

Core Principles for New Accountability in Education (pdf, 19pp/576kB), April 16, 2010

Patient safety and malpractice claims

2010-04-20T16:46:00.001-10:00

The RAND Institute for Civil Justice issued a report on the correlation between patient safety in hospitals and malpractice claims against physicians and facilities. The study focused on California, examining safety data for hospitals from 2001 through 2005. The team used the inpatient database for California from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project HCUP and applied Patient Safety Indicators PSIs to the dataset. PSIs consist of 20 classes of events and complications potentially harmful to patients. Researchers analyzed approximately 365,000 adverse safety events and 27,000 malpractice claims. Among the report's conclusions:

Ultimately, it would be desirable to link specific safety practices and interventions not only to bottom-line improvements in safety outcomes for patients, but also to reductions in malpractice activity against providers—an aim that has recently been identified by the President as a target for new large-scale demonstration projects (White House, 2009a). In turn, improved safety practices and quality in the delivery of care could provide a reward to the provider community, in the form of reduced malpractice activity and costs, perhaps thereby spurring further investigation of new safety interventions and avenues for improving care.

Is Better Patient Safety Associated with Less Malpractice Activity? Evidence from California, April 15, 2010
      Technical Report (pdf, 39pp/768kB)
      Summary (pdf, 6pp/180kB)
      Research Brief (pdf, 3pp/84kB)
      News release

Cloud save$

2010-04-13T17:45:00.005-10:00

The Brookings Governance Studies Program published a report on cost savings the federal government could achieve through cloud computing. Darrell M. West, Governance Studies Director, found that government agencies moving to the cloud have seen 25-50 percent savings, which could translate to billions saved by the federal government as a whole. However, there is a wide variation in estimates of cloud savings. West cites these factors:

How extensive the migration is and whether the cloud deployment focuses on applications, service delivery, or platform storage
Reliance on public, hybrid, or private clouds
The efficiency of capacity utilization, reducing the number of servers
Level of privacy and security protection
Extent of labor savings, whether an agency can reduce personnel

While the paper's focus is on the federal sector, it also reports on savings made in e-mail service by the city governments of Los Angeles, Washington DC, and Carlsbad, CA, and 311 management in Miami.

Saving Money Through Cloud Computing, April 7, 2010
Report (pdf, 14pp/288kB)
Executive Summary

Public trust doctrines

2010-04-09T10:04:00.004-10:00

An article on western states' public trust doctrines - "emphasis on the plural" according to author Robin Kundis Craig - appears in the latest Ecology Law Quarterly. In the "arid West," a state's public trust doctrine is a legal tool "that can re-balance private and public rights in water."

The article notes four key factors in the evolution of public trust doctrines in the West:

the severing of water rights from real property ownership and the riparian rights doctrine,
subsequent state declarations of public ownership of fresh water,
clear and explicit perceptions of the scarcity of water and the importance of submerged lands and environmental amenities, and
a willingness to consider water and other environmental issues to be of constitutional importance and/or to incorporate broad public trust mandates into statutes.

From these factors, the author found two important trends:

the extension of public rights based on states’ ownership of the water itself, and
an increasing, and still cutting-edge, expansion of public trust concepts into ecological public trust doctrines that are increasingly protecting species, ecosystems, and the public values that they provide.

An appendix provides summaries of the public trust doctrines of 19 western states: AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, KS, MT, NE, NV, NM, ND, OK, OR, SD, TX, UT, WA, and WY. The water law system of Hawaii is described as: "Combination of Native Hawaiian rights with elements of both riparianism and prior appropriation."

"A Comparative Guide to the Western States’ Public Trust Doctrines: Public Values, Private Rights, and the Evolution Toward an Ecological Public Trust" (pdf, 146pp/756kB), in Ecology Law Quarterly, 2010, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 53-197

Unfunded mandates

2010-04-07T14:32:00.003-10:00

The federal government may require state, local, and tribal governments and private-sector entities to expend funds for national goals. The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA, pdf, 25pp) was passed to ensure that Congress receives information about proposed federal mandates before enacting legislation. UMRA requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to prepare "mandate statements" for bills approved by authorizing committees.

In those statements, CBO must address whether the direct costs of a bill’s federal mandates would be greater than the thresholds established in UMRA and identify any funding that the bill would provide to cover those costs. If the total direct costs of all mandates in the bill exceed the statutory threshold in any of the first five fiscal years in which the mandate is in effect, CBO must provide an estimate of those costs (if feasible) and the basis of its estimate.

CBO published a report on its UMRA activities in 2009. Per the Director's Blog: "As in previous years, few laws enacted in 2009 contained mandates whose costs, in CBO’s estimation, would exceed UMRA’s thresholds."

A Review of CBO's Activities in 2009 Under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act
Report (pdf, 82pp/3.4MB), March 2010
Blog, April 1, 2010

Spectrum policy

2010-03-31T16:12:00.004-10:00

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program held its annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on Spectrum Policy (AIRS) in Nov. 2009 and published its report on the session. Blair Levin, executive director of the Omnibus Broadband Initiative, or National Broadband Plan, of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), was the keynote speaker.

The conference discussion reached nine conclusions, among them:

Given the current network architecture, the recent estimates of significantly expanded future spectrum requirements to satisfy exponential growth in demand may be reasonable.
It is important to consider the extent to which spectrum reallocation from broadcasters, other private sector users and the federal government is a legitimate policy response to the growth in wireless demand, but it will not, by itself, satisfy wireless demand.
Market-based approaches such as flexible licenses and license auctions have the potential to free some spectrum to respond to the growth in wireless demand, but not nearly enough to provide what will be required.
Demand for wireless spectrum can be restrained by various kinds of usage sensitive pricing that charges heavy users for the additional demands they put on wireless systems, but political and marketplace resistance might prevent the full use of this marketplace response to the growth in wireless demand.

The report covers: Demand for wireless broadband service, Demand for wireless spectrum, Inventory, Spectrum reallocation, Receiver standards, Shared use, Secondary markets, Pricing, Network architecture, and Developments after the conference.

Rethinking Spectrum Policy: A Fiber Intensive Wireless Architecture (pdf, 66pp/380kB), March 2010

Higher ed spurring economy

2010-03-25T13:24:00.002-10:00

The Rockefeller Institute of Government at University at Albany, SUNY, released a study on the increasingly important role of higher education in revitalizing regional and state economies. Authored by David Shaffer and David Wright, the report found that higher ed is:

Advancing innovation through new technologies, processes, products, ideas, and leveraging knowledge creation to yield tangible economic benefits.
Helping employers prosper and grow through worker training, management counseling, help for startups, and other initiatives.
Playing a more vigorous role in community revitalization.
Continuing its core mission of creating an educated population.

According to the report, the old paradigm for economic development rested on business attraction and retention incentives (infrastructure, tax breaks, etc.), with research, technology transfer, and worker training "thrown in...sometimes as a kind of afterthought." The authors propose a new, "knowledge first" paradigm in which "knowledge is the lead incentive that states offer businesses they want to attract or grow."

A New Paradigm for Economic Development
Report (pdf, 74pp/588kB), March 2010
News release, March 15, 2010

Hawaii Directory of Officials, 2010

2010-03-23T15:46:00.006-10:00

LRB Library publishes the 2010 Hawaii Directory and offers pdf downloads as a complete volume and by individual agency on the LRB website.

A companion volume to the Guide to Government in Hawaii, this annual publication provides directory information for government in Hawaii. Includes phone numbers, mail and email addresses, and web site URLs.

Hawaii Directory of State, County and Federal Officials, 2010
(March 2010, pdf, 175pp/1.5MB)

Brookings on education

2010-03-18T13:51:00.003-10:00

The Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings released two reports this week: (1) the 2009 Brown Center Report on American education, "How Well Are American Students Learning?" and (2) a proposal to create America's Teacher Corps (ATC) through federal legislation.

The Brown Center Report:

Examines national test data going back to 1971 from the
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
Compares 1989 test scores of more than 1,000 schools to the same schools' scores in 2009
Compares test scores of conversion charter schools from 1986, when they operated as traditional public schools, to those from 2008, when they operated as charter schools

Membership in the proposed ATC would consist of K-12 public school teachers qualified through district or state evaluation systems. ATC would complement the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), a federal program with similar goals, and its proposed replacement, the Teacher and Leader Innovation Fund provided for in the FY2011 Budget for elementary and secondary education; see under Excellent Instructional Teams. The authors of the report conclude that:

the conditions of teacher employment have to be restructured to recruit and select more promising teachers, provide opportunities for potentially good teachers to realize their potential, keep the very best teachers in the profession, and motivate them to serve in locations where students have the highest needs.

The 2009 Brown Center Report on American Education: How Well Are American Students Learning? Jan. 2010, released March 17, 2010
      Report (pdf, 36pp/6.5MB)
      Summary
      News release

America’s Teacher Corps, March 15, 2010
      Report (pdf, 16pp/440kB)
      Executive summary

Employee benefits databook

2010-03-11T12:29:00.002-10:00

The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) maintains its Databook on Employee Benefits online and updates it when new data is available.

Topics include the retirement income system; employer-sponsored benefit plans; government programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; health insurance; and labor force and demographic trends.

The book is organized into four sections -- overview, retirement programs, health programs, and other employee benefits. The date next to each chapter link indicates when data and/or links were last updated.

EBRI Databook on Employee Benefits, updated March 2010

Health costs post-65

2010-03-04T13:11:00.005-10:00

The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College published two papers on health care costs from age 65. Both papers used data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS).

"Nursing home care is the real wild card in assessing potential health care costs" is the keynote of the brief, "What Is the Distribution of Lifetime Health Care Costs from Age 65?" which calculates:

At age 65, a typical married couple free of chronic disease can expect to spend $197,000 on remaining lifetime health care costs – excluding nursing home care – while it faces a 5-percent probability that these costs will exceed $311,000. Including nursing home care, the mean cost is $260,000, with a 5-percent probability of costs exceeding $570,000.

In the working paper, "How Much Is Enough? The Distribution of Lifetime Health Care Costs," the same figures are carried forward for a couple age 85 who still face a 5 percent chance of remaining health care costs exceeding $477,000. It concludes: "The risk is not of destitution, but of health care costs impoverishing a couple or a surviving spouse, or of the household not having the retirement it planned for."

What is the Distribution of Lifetime Health Care Costs from Age 65?, March 2010
      Report (pdf, 7pp/112kB)
      Introduction

How Much Is Enough? The Distribution of Lifetime Health Care Costs, Feb. 2010
      Report (pdf, 45pp/1.8MB)
      Abstract

Wind wars

2010-02-25T11:50:00.002-10:00

In this month's ABA Journal appears "The War of Winds," an article on the growing opposition to wind farms. The author states, "Wind power is one of the current darlings of the movement to find alternative energy sources, and in 2008 the United States surpassed Germany as the world's leading producer of electricity generated by wind." The article discusses the adverse health effects of wind turbines claimed by neighboring residents. The primary complaint is noise, but there is also "shadow flicker" when turbine blades chop up sunlight and may cause nausea, and the matter of aesthetics. The article focuses on communities where wind farms have generated contention between supporters for their financial benefits and opponents who claim health liabilities.

Nuisance suits filed against wind energy projects was the subject of the lead article in the October 2009 issue of the California Law Review. Case law is still very limited. The author discusses four cases, only two of which involve large-scale projects, which "leaves advocates of expanded wind energy with unsettled precedent." The author concludes:

If the rights of neighbors are enforced too strictly, or if the public policies in favor of wind turbine development are neglected, then the nuisance mechanism will cease to be a protector of environmental rights and will become an impediment to environmental progress.

The War of Winds, ABA Journal, Feb. 2010

Headwinds to a Clean Energy Future: Nuisance Suits Against Wind Energy Projects in the United States (pdf, 38pp/224kB), California Law Review, Oct. 2009

Comparing health care bills

2010-02-19T13:07:00.002-10:00

The RAND Corporation has issued analyses and a comparison of two bills in Congress on health care reform: H.R. 3590 (pdf, 2409pp), and H.R. 3962 (pdf, 2016pp). For the comparison, RAND used its COMPARE microsimulation model, conducted by RAND Health. Estimates of potential effects of each bill were made for coverage (of the uninsured), spending (by the federal government), consumer financial risk (health care spending), and alternate design choices and assumptions (how various provisions of the bills might result in changes in coverage and spending).

Coverage, Spending, and Consumer Financial Risk: How Do the Recent House and Senate Health Care Bills Compare? (pdf, 3pp/116kB), Feb. 16, 2010

Analysis of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590) (pdf, 15pp/232kB), Feb. 16, 2010

Analysis of the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962) (pdf, 15pp/216kB), Jan. 8, 2010

Campaign finance post-Supreme Court

2010-02-09T13:51:00.006-10:00

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has issued a report outlining campaign finance policy options for Congress to consider in response to the Supreme Court's Jan. 21 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. CRS cites two "particularly noteworthy" issues from the decision:

First, corporations (and presumably unions) now appear to be permitted to fund advertising explicitly calling for the election or defeat of federal (or state) candidates. Second, previous restrictions on corporate-funded broadcast ads known as electioneering communications have been eased.

CRS discusses six possible options for Congress:

Maintain the status quo
Amend the Constitution
Enact public financing
Provide campaigns or parties with additional access to funds
Restrict certain types of expenditures
Revisit disclosure or disclaimer requirements

Campaign Finance Policy After Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission: Issues and Options for Congress, R41054 (pdf, 11pp/156kB), from Open CRS, Feb. 1, 2010

Federal support for school choice

2010-02-05T14:23:00.005-10:00

"Education choice exercises a powerful pull on parents of school children" begins a report this week from the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings on expanding school choice.

Current types of school choice include residential (choosing a place of residence for a school), magnet schools and other forms of intra-district choice, inter-district choice, charter schools, school vouchers, and virtual (online) education. The report does not favor a particular model but instead advocates for parents to have "the maximum degree of choice among education programs and schools." In order to achieve this, the report recommends federal funding at the school district level and for virtual schooling to increase choice and competition. At the school district level, providing parents with information on schools based on performance is vital. The authors argue for federal aid for "a new generation of web-based tools to support informed choice by parents."

The U. S. Dept of Education (ED) currently offers College Navigator for post-secondary school choice. The report proposes a similar K-12 search engine called School Navigator. Users would enter their preferences and the School Navigator would provide lists of schools not only in the local district but all schools and education programs to which students are entitled to enroll, including charter schools, private schools, and virtual schools.

Expanding Choice in Elementary and Secondary Education: A Report on Rethinking the Federal Role in Education, Feb. 2010
Report (pdf, 32pp/480kB)
Executive Summary

Big data

2010-01-28T17:45:00.002-10:00

From the Communications and Society Program
of the Aspen Institute comes The Promise and Peril of Big Data, on the challenges posed by large databases. The Internet is presently estimated to hold five hundred billion gigabytes of data, and even larger measures of terabytes or petabytes are being used.

The explosion of mobile networks, cloud computing and new technologies has given rise to incomprehensibly large worlds of information, often described as "Big Data."

Big Data's massive analytical ability raises such issues as:

(W)hat are the ethical considerations of governments or businesses using Big Data to target people without their knowledge? Does the ability to analyze massive amounts of data change the nature of scientific methodology? Does Big Data represent an evolution of knowledge, or is more actually less when it comes to information on such scales?

The report covers "making sense" of Big Data, the business and social implications, its relation to health care, and addressing abuses. It is a product of the 18th Annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on Information Technology, held Aug. 4-7, 2009.

The Promise and Peril of Big Data (pdf, 66pp/356kB), Jan. 2010

Just in ... Environmental review in Hawaii

2010-01-22T14:48:00.004-10:00

Report to the Legislature on Hawaii's Environmental Review System, by Karl Kim, Denise Antolini, and Peter Rappa, was prepared in response to the passage of Act 1 by the Legislature in 2008. Section 10 therein required the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) to contract with the University of Hawaii (UH) to study the State's environmental review process, specifically:

Examine the effectiveness of the current environmental review system created by chapters 341, 343, and 344, Hawaii Revised Statutes;
Assess the unique environmental, economic, social, and cultural issues in Hawaii that should be incorporated into an environmental review system;
Address larger concerns and interests related to sustainable development, global environmental change, and disaster-risk reduction; and
Develop a strategy, including legislative recommendations, for modernizing Hawaii's environmental review system so that it meets international and national best-practices standards.

From the report's executive summary:

Hawaii’s "trigger" and "exempt" approach is now archaic compared to the more efficient "discretionary approval" approach used in many other states and the focus on "major" actions under well-accepted federal law. The diverse group of stakeholders of the current system, of whom over 100 participated in this study, has different views about the specific problem and solutions, yet there is a shared sense that the system is in need of change.

The report proposes that Hawaii update, refocus, and streamline its environmental review system by replacing the current "project trigger" screen, which encourages late review and 11th hour public participation, with a new "earliest discretionary approval" screen to encourage early review and public participation.

An omnibus bill to amend chapters 341 and 343 is included.

Report to the Legislature on Hawaii's Environmental Review System (pdf, 180pp/1.6MB), Jan. 2010
KFH354 K55 2010

The UH Study Team has a blog on this project.

Historic Hawaii newspapers online

2010-01-14T17:09:00.010-10:00

The University of Hawaii at Manoa Library announced that three Hawaii newspapers are now available online at the Library of Congress's Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers website. The Library is a participant in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Library of Congress, and state projects to provide access to U.S. newspapers published between 1836 and 1922.

The Hawaii papers are:

The Daily Herald (Honolulu, 1886-1887)
The Hawaiian Gazette (Honolulu, 1865-1916; online: 1877-1913)
The Independent (Honolulu, 1895-1905)

According to the Library, The Daily Herald and The Hawaiian Gazette had "a conservative pro-American editorial viewpoint" and The Independent had "a strongly nationalistic Hawaiian viewpoint."

Chronicling America currently provides newspapers from 1880 to 1922 from the District of Columbia and 15 states: Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. It aims to eventually have every state and U.S. territory represented.

Google snafu

2010-01-07T12:12:00.007-10:00

So what happens when Google snafus? Seems Google insists on publishing the phone number to the smaller, special Legislative Reference Bureau Library (808-587-0690), which serves the Hawaii legislative community, as the number for the main Hawaii State Library. The methods Google has in place to correct inaccurate information seemingly do not work (at least for several months in this case), whether directly from the web search results page or from the map page. Phone call queries to Google by both libraries have also not resulted in correction of information.

Recently it has been noticed how Google is beginning to presume the user's actual wants. As a Google member, one may choose for Google to save all of one's web searches to build upon subsequent searches, no matter how seemingly irrelevant the later search might appear. However, when search history is not to be saved nor the user signed in as a member, even the most general of search queries usually lists the inquirer's IP location specific results high on the returned page, flavoring it with many local commercial sites not usually expected to rank so high.

The volume of indexed information on the Internet is too massive to imagine. How to manage the data or how to access the information without presuming too much knowledge would seem to be still in the future...and sometimes the data is just plain wrong.

Health reform and retiree benefits

2010-01-06T15:47:00.001-10:00

In its January Issue Brief, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) examines the impact of healthcare legislation now in Congress on retiree health benefits. The paper covers:

Reinsurance program for early retirees
Medicare drug benefits
Tax treatment of employer subsidies under MMA
Postretirement benefit changes

EBRI's summation:

Since the mid-1990s, there has been erosion in retiree health benefits. This has been driven by the excessive cost of offering this benefit due to new accounting rules and the increasing cost associated with providing the benefit. Fewer private-sector employers offer the benefits, both private- and public-sector employers have been increasing retiree premiums and cost sharing, and workers are finding it harder to qualify for a subsidized benefit....

However, current legislative proposals will increase the cost to employers of offering retiree health benefits. If these proposals pass...private-sector employment-based retiree health benefits are practically certain to decline: They will be less valuable to retirees in the future, and employers will find they are not as necessary to offer in the future, dramatically reducing the number of retirees enrolled in employment-based plans.

Implications of Health Reform for Retiree Health Benefits< jan. 2010
Issue Brief (pdf, 20pp/428kB)
Executive Summary

Who regulates whom?

2009-12-31T15:29:00.004-10:00

In a recent paper, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) gives an overview of U.S. financial supervision. It notes: "Historically, major changes in financial regulation in the United States have often come in response to crisis. Thus, one could have predicted that the turmoil beginning in 2007 would lead to calls for reform." CRS did this report to provide a basis for evaluating such legislative proposals. It focuses on H.R.4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, which "would overhaul the financial regulatory structure." The paper includes discussions of capital requirements, federal financial regulators, and unregulated markets and institutions.

Who Regulates Whom? An Overview of U.S. Financial Supervision, R40249 (40pp/404kB), from Open CRS, Dec. 14, 2009

Public retiree health liabilities

2009-12-23T16:12:00.003-10:00

Today the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a study on state and local governments' retiree health liabilities, specifically: (1) what has been reported in their annual comprehensive annual financial reports (CAFR), (2) actions they have taken to address retiree health liabilities, and (3) the overall fiscal pressures they face.

Under accounting standards issued by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) in 2004, governments are required to account for costs of other postemployment benefits (OPEB) when they are earned (during employment) and not when they are paid (during retirement). The largest component of OPEB is retiree health benefits. Historically, governments have not funded these benefits when they were earned, therefore much of their liability may be unfunded. According to GAO, the total unfunded OPEB liability in state and the largest local governments exceeds $530 billion.

For this study, GAO selected 10 governments and reviewed their actions in more detail: four states--Alaska, Nevada, New Jersey, and South Carolina; three counties--Montgomery County, MD; Harris County, TX; and Oakland County, MI; and three cities--Gainesville, FL, New York, NY; and Thousand Oaks, CA.

GAO found that some governments have addressed retiree health liabilities through prefunding using irrevocable trusts, and making benefit changes such as: (1) changing the type of health benefit plan, (2) changing the level of government contributions, and (3) changing eligibility requirements.

State and Local Government Retiree Health Benefits: Liabilities Are Largely Unfunded, but Some Governments Are Taking Action, GAO-10-61 (pdf, 49pp/772kB), Nov. 30, 2009

Restoring value to the minimum wage

2009-12-17T13:19:00.013-10:00

In a paper issued today, Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) finds that the current minimum wage of $7.25 is 20% lower than its real value 40 years ago. To restore its value, she proposes setting the minimum wage at 50% of the previous year's average wage and indexing it annually thereafter. According to her formula, the minimum wage would be $9.80 in 2012, with incremental increases over the next two years.

The paper divides workers who would benefit from the new minimum wage into two groups: those directly affected because they earn less than the new minimum wage, and those who would be indirectly affected because they earn a little above it but "would likely see a wage increase as employers preserve internal wage ladders." In Hawaii, of its total workforce of 557,415 (from EPI analysis of 2008 Current Population Survey data), 55,932 would be directly affected by the new minimum wage and 22,219 would be indirectly affected. Among the paper's conclusions:

(Indexing the minimum wage) will help to reverse the trends toward increasing inequality and to restore income growth for millions of working families. These new steps for the minimum wage are a crucial component in the effort to ensure that the benefits of economic growth are shared broadly across the workforce.

FIX IT AND FORGET IT, Index the Minimum Wage to Growth in Average Wages, Dec. 17, 2009
Briefing Paper #251 (pdf, 24pp/408kB)
Press Release

Jobs in the recession

2009-12-10T13:24:00.001-10:00

Bruce Katz, Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings, testified yesterday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Subcommittee on Economic Policy. "Creating Jobs in the Recession" presents highlights from his written testimony. Katz states three main points that would build on President Obama's Dec. 8 speech at Brookings and "try to connect Macro Economy Policy to Metro Economic Realities."

Katz's 3 points:

The American economy is a network of metropolitan economies. As a Metro nation, we need smart policies and targeted investments to enhance our competitiveness globally.
The Great Recession has affected different metro economies in radically different ways. There is no single American economy. Even with talk about a national recovery, many metro economies are mired in recession.
Federal efforts to bolster job creation need to connect "The Macro to the Metro." Metros need two kinds of federal responses:
1. Quick intervention to prevent further job losses, e.g., direct fiscal assistance to local governments which employ 10% of the nation's workforce
2. Creating jobs to build the next economy--low carbon, innovation fueled, and export oriented.

Creating Jobs in the Recession, Dec. 10, 2009

Backyard city hall

2009-12-07T01:33:00.005-10:00

Local governments are releasing data in the hopes (and fears) that citizens will make it meaningful and "perhaps think differently about their city and its government." New York Times published a story today on city governments' release of formerly hard-to-get data sets which might change the way local governments "deliver programs, services and promises."

Advocates of these open-data efforts say they can help citizens figure out what is going on in their backyards and judge how their government is performing...

By releasing data in easy-to-use formats, cities and states hope that people will create sites or applications that use it in ways City Hall never would have considered.

9 1/2

2009-12-01T12:13:00.004-10:00

In the United States, every 9½ minutes, someone is infected with HIV.

World AIDS Day

Hawaii apology resolution

2009-11-27T17:18:00.004-10:00

The November issue of the Harvard Law Review covers the Supreme Court 2008 term. The section on Leading Cases includes a discussion of Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, in which the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Hawaii Supreme Court regarding the 1993 joint resolution acknowledging "the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii" in 1893 and apologizing to Native Hawaiians, S.J. Res. 19 (pdf, 5pp), P.L. No. 103-150.

The case concerned a Maui tract of former crown land that was ceded to the United States at annexation and held by the State. The Hawaii high court ruled that the State had "a fiduciary duty as trustee to protect the ceded lands pending a resolution of native Hawaiian claims." The U.S. Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Apology Resolution did not strip Hawaii of its authority to "sell, exchange, or transfer" ceded lands. The final section of the Resolution is a Disclaimer: "Nothing in this Joint Resolution is intended to serve as a settlement of any claims against the United States."

The Harvard writer states, "The Hawaii case is remarkable for the apparent consensus that the Apology Resolution was legally insignificant," and concludes:

We have become accustomed to an overwhelming amount of empty political rhetoric — politicians’ words that are neither false nor efficacious. Congressional resolutions are a prime culprit....it is easy to understand a congressional apology as mere "conciliatory and precatory" verbiage with no actual legal effect. By reading the resolution this way, however, the Court accepted and perpetuated an understanding of political rhetoric as meaningless and impotent. The Court should instead take seriously the possibility that congressional language may be legally significant, even where it is not, strictly speaking, used to create legal rights.

Hawaii Apology Resolution (pdf, 11pp), Harvard Law Review, Nov. 2009, pp. 302-312

Daily Bread

2009-11-25T14:24:00.007-10:00

ONE, "a grassroots campaign and advocacy organization...committed to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease," blogs today on the organization, Bread for the World, and their 2010 Hunger Report.

The report notes that hunger is on the rise in both the U.S. and abroad—1.02 billion people are suffering from food insecurity around the world, up 100 million from last year. The report also argues that green jobs are the best investment that the U.S. can make. Green jobs will not only help reduce both unemployment numbers and carbon emissions, but they could also help address hunger and poverty throughout the developing world.

Bread for the World provides both html and pdf access to the report with interactive and downloadable data sets. Besides global statistics, the data sets include:

U.S.: Hunger And Health
U.S.: Income Security
U.S.: National Hunger and Poverty Trends
U.S.: State Hunger and Poverty Statistics

The 2010 Hunger Report, A Just and Sustainable Recovery. - Bread for the World

Costs of reducing emissions

2009-11-24T21:05:00.001-10:00

In a brief issued yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) discusses the economic costs of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in the U.S. in terms of (1) determinants of costs, and (2) size of costs.

What determines the costs of reducing emissions?

Emissions in the absence of policy changes - if emissions are allowed to grow, mitigation costs would be greater
Types of policies adopted - regulatory or market-based
Response of the economy - the more easily producers and consumers can respond to price changes, the lower costs would be
Efforts by other countries - their policies would influence U.S. costs

How large are estimated costs?

Changes in energy use and emissions - changes are only modest in the near term, thru 2025
Allowance prices - projections relate to H.R. 2454 (see below)
Macroeconomic impact - net effects on GDP are likely to be negative because most benefits are expected in the second half of this century
Impact on employment - H.R. 2454 would cause a significant shift in the composition of employment
Distribution of costs - under H.R. 2454, the loss in purchasing power would be distributed to benefit lower-income households

CBO uses studies of H.R. 2454 (pdf, 1428pp), the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, for its range of estimates.

The Costs of Reducing Greenhouse-Gas Emissions, Nov. 23, 2009
Brief (pdf, 12pp/656kB)
Blog

State disparities in education funding

2009-11-19T16:21:00.001-10:00

While state funding for education has grown in the past 20 years, so have disparities in per-pupil revenues among the states, according to a recent paper from the Rockefeller Institute of Government. The report divides the states into four "spending quartiles" (high, medium-high, medium-low, and low) based on per-pupil spending during 1998-2000. The high and medium-high states tend to be in the Northeast or Midwest, are wealthier, and have lower child poverty.

In 2000, the gap between high- and low-spending states was about $1,825. After the 2001 recession, the gap grew as high-spending states experienced strong growth while the other groups lagged. By 2007, the gap between high- and low-spending groups expanded to $2,585 per pupil. The report concludes:

The current economic downturn could exacerbate interstate disparities in education revenues
The stimulus Stabilization Fund is more likely to widen these differences than reduce them

Spending Is Up, and So Are Interstate Disparities in States’
K-12 Education Revenues, Nov. 4, 2009 (pdf, 7pp/552kB)

DC Marriage Initiative of 2009

2009-11-17T14:23:00.004-10:00

AP (hosted by Google News) reported hours ago that the DC Board of Elections and Ethics today ruled the measure "to let voters decide whether to ban same-sex marriages in D.C. cannot go on the ballot because it would violate a city human rights law."

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BOARD OF ELECTIONS AND ETHICS MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER (on Marriage Initiative of 2009) (pdf, 13pp/80kB)

Living longer and the 3-legged stool

2009-11-11T21:23:00.001-10:00

That the retirement of boomers and longer life expectancies will strain the traditional three-legged stool of retirement income--Social Security, pensions, and personal savings--is not news, but a report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) buttresses this projection with data on the demographics and budget issues of seniors. Relating to people 65 and older, the report covers:

Employment
Sources and amounts of income
Household income
Poverty status
Changes in income as people age

The report's conclusion is also reiterative:

With Social Security facing a financial shortfall and the number of private-sector pensions continuing to decline, it is likely that a relatively greater share of current workers' future retirement income will have to be financed from their own personal savings.

Income of Americans Aged 65 and Older, 1968 to 2008, RL33387 (pdf, 40pp/324kB), from Open CRS, Nov. 4, 2009

States, pass or fail? Innovation in education

2009-11-10T00:38:00.007-10:00

The Center for American Progress, "a think tank dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through ideas and action," examines all 50 states and D.C. and their approaches to innovative improvement in education. Two years ago they similarly co-authored with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute the first Leaders and Laggards report examining school performance.

In this follow-up report, we turn our attention to the future, looking not at how states are performing today, but at what they are doing to prepare themselves for the challenges that lie ahead...We chose this focus because, regardless of current academic accomplishment in each state, we believe innovative educational practices are vital to laying the groundwork for continuous and transformational change...Put bluntly, we believe our education system needs to be reinvented.

The report focuses on eight areas:

School Management
Finance
Staffing: Hiring & Evaluation
Staffing: Removing Ineffective Teachers
Data
Technology
Pipeline to Postsecondary
State Reform Environment

As reported in Christian Science Monitor, "States like Nebraska, Hawaii, and Nevada, meanwhile, receive abysmal grades in at least a few areas and don't shine in any."

Leaders and Laggards A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Innovation:

Executive summary (pdf, 5pp/250kB)

Full report (pdf, 135pp/1.2MB)

Interactive map (html)

Individual state profiles (in pdf)

Myths about opportunity

2009-11-04T16:28:00.001-10:00

Americans have always believed that their country is unique in providing the opportunity to get ahead. Just combine hard work with a bit of talent and you'll climb the ladder—or so we've told ourselves for generations. But rising unemployment and financial turmoil are puncturing that self-image.

Isabel V. Sawhill and Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution and authors of Creating an Opportunity Society have come up with five myths about "our land of opportunity."

For starters, contrary to the belief that "Americans enjoy more economic opportunity than people in other countries," children born into a lower-income family in the Nordic countries and in the United Kingdom have a greater chance of forming a higher-income family as adults. Sawhill and Haskins counter the belief that poverty and inequality in the U.S. are driven by immigrant workers and offshoring of jobs with statistics on "a dramatic change in American family life"--the rise of children in single-parent families whose poverty rates are five time as high as two-parent households. The authors also discuss myths concerning generational upward mobility, public assistance, and cutting waste and abuse in the federal budget.

Five Myths About Our Land of Opportunity, Nov. 1, 2009

Costs of legalizing marijuana

2009-10-30T16:03:00.001-10:00

California may become the first state to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana, as the NY Times reported on Oct. 27, in anticipation of a hearing by the California State Assembly the next day. In an article yesterday on the hearing held before the Committee on Public Safety, The Sacramento Bee stated, "Testimony revealed layers of complexity."

Among the testfiers was Rosalie Liccardo Pacula of the RAND Corporation. She discussed four areas affecting either potential revenue or cost:

Legalizing marijuana would drop its price considerably, more than the 50% in current revenue estimates.
The proposal to tax marijuana at $50/ounce is not realistic; to deter the black market requires the state to let the price of marijuana fall to an amount close to production that will mean a smaller tax revenue.
Current estimates of price are not useful for predicting a change in consumption because demand elasticities apply to small changes in price and there would be a large price drop with legalization.
"The Board of Equalization’s estimate of $1.4 billion potential revenue for the state is based on a series of assumptions that are in some instances subject to tremendous uncertainty and in other cases not validated."

Legalizing Marijuana: Issues to Consider Before Reforming California State Law (pdf, 8pp/170kB)

Blog on blog

2009-10-19T15:35:00.004-10:00

State of the Blogosphere, Technorati begins releasing its annual status report with, Who Are The Bloggers? A quick scan reveals the majority of bloggers to be highly educated, affluent U.S. males, aged 18-44. (Most likely the readers, too?)

For the full color pie charts, visit the three webpage report, Day 1: Who Are The Bloggers? SOTB 2009.

Good dog, bad dog

2009-10-06T01:26:00.007-10:00

According to recent Pew surveys, Americans positively view news media as political watchdogs, discouraging leaders "from doing things that should not be done." However, just 29% of Americans think news reporting to be accurate, down from an 55% in 1985.

Partisan politics also play a role in supporting press criticism of political leaders.

In the most recent survey, 65% of Republicans said press criticism of political leaders does more good than harm; in four surveys during the Bush administration, far fewer Republicans expressed this view (51% in 2001; 43% in 2003; 44% each in 2005 and 2007).

Democrats, by contrast, have become less supportive of a watchdog role for the press than they were during the Bush administration. In September, most Democrats (55%) saw more benefit than harm from press criticism of political leaders, but that was down substantially from 71% in 2007.

What most Americans agree on is the major loss were the news media to completely disappear, including regional and national television, newspapers and websites.

The age of unemployment

2009-09-29T14:50:00.004-10:00

The 2007–09 recession hit older workers, throwing many into unemployment lines instead of retirement parties.

Growing concerns about the adequacy of retirement savings and whether retirees will have enough money to live comfortably in later life appear to have discouraged early retirement.

The nonprofit Urban Institute released a study examining the necessity for many older adults to keep working during the traditional retirement years and the special challenges that older job seekers face.

Joblessness among older workers has soared in recent months. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, about 2 million adults age 55 or older were unemployed in August 2009. That’s more than double the number unemployed in November 2007...

Uncertainty about whether workers today are saving enough for retirement further complicates the outlook. New trends in employment, employer-sponsored pensions, and health insurance influence retirement decisions and financial security at older ages.

UI undertook this study to evaluate retirement policies, demographic trends, and private sector practices.

Rising Senior Unemployment and the Need to Work at Older Ages
(Urban Institute, September 2009, pdf, 19pp/160kB)

Twitter in Congress

2009-09-25T13:19:00.004-10:00

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) analyzed how members of Congress used Twitter during two one-week periods in July and August 2009. Among the data: as of Aug. 2009, 127 Representatives and 31 Senators were registered with Twitter and issued approximately 1,187 tweets during those periods. Of six categories that CRS used--position taking, press or web links, district or state activities, official congressional action, personal, and replies--the most frequent tweets were for press and web links.

From data collected on Sept. 2, 2009, on followers: Congress had a total of 1.7 million+ followers. Representatives had followers ranging from 130 to 13,000+, with the median Representative having 1,617 followers. Senators had followers ranging from 353 to 1.2 million+, with the median being 3,998 followers.

CRS concluded:

As Members continue to embrace new technologies, their use of Twitter and other forms of social media may increase. These mediums allow Members to communicate directly with constituents (and others) in a potentially interactive way that is not possible through mail or e-mail. For Members and their staff, the ability to collect and transmit real time information from constituents could be influential for policy or voting decisions.

Social Networking and Constituent Communication: Member Use of Twitter During a Two-Week Period in the 111th Congress, R40823 (pdf, 15pp/185kB), from Open CRS, Sept. 21, 2009

Do the right thing...or pay later

2009-09-23T01:14:00.005-10:00

...statistical indicators are important for designing and assessing policies aiming at advancing the progress of society

New York Times (NYT) reports Wednesday on the recent study on "new assessment tools that incorporate a broader concern for human welfare than just economic growth." Authored by Nobel prize-winning economists, Joseph E. Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, the report is their response to the President of the French Republic, Nicholas Sarkozy, "unsatisfied with the present state of statistical information about the economy and the society,...to create a Commission, subsequently called, The Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (CMEPSP)":

...to identify the limits of GDP as an indicator of economic performance and social progress, including the problems with its measurement; to consider what additional information might be required for the production of more relevant indicators of social progress; to assess the feasibility of alternative measurement tools, and to discuss how to present the statistical information in an appropriate way.

NYT considers the report as being "more critique than prescription" and "a treatise on the inadequacy of G.D.P. growth as an indication of overall economic health." The report itself states that "our measurement system [needs] to shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people’s well-being."

When evaluating material well-being, look at income and consumption rather than production.
Emphasise the household perspective.
Consider income and consumption jointly with wealth
Give more prominence to the distribution of income, consumption and wealth.
Broaden income measures to non-market activities.

Report of the commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress
(September 2009, pdf, 292pp/3.2MB)

Fourth sector

2009-09-17T14:48:00.003-10:00

The Aspen Institute Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation (PSI) published a report on the Fourth Sector, "a new sector of organizations at the intersection of the public, private, and social sectors." These are organizations that integrate social missions with business practices, creating a new class of "for-benefit" organizations. The thesis of author Heerad Sabeti is that:

...a new class of organizations with the potential for generating immense economic, social, and environmental benefits is emerging--and this sector can be consciously developed and expanded through broad recognition and engagement.

He suggests a new supportive ecosystem for the Fourth Sector, including new kinds of financial markets, legal structures and regulation, tax policy, and assessment and reporting standards.

The Emerging Fourth Sector, Executive Summary (pdf, 15pp/804kB), Sept. 2009
(Only the executive summary is currently available as a free download)

Retiring boomers' impact on assets

2009-09-10T17:27:00.000-10:00

With the 78 million baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 beginning to retire (the oldest having turned 62 in 2008), some economists had warned of a fall in prices of assets as boomers sold their holdings to finance their retirement. However, a paper from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that such a scenario is unlikely, based on the behavior of earlier groups of retirees. CBO cites three factors:

Retirees generally are cautious about selling assets to finance consumption because they might need those assets in the future. They might live longer than expected, and medical costs, which are likely to rise as people age, could be higher than anticipated.
Rather than spend all of their assets, retirees might intentionally retain some to make bequests.
Wealth in the United States is highly concentrated: One-third of the nation’s financial assets is held by the wealthiest 1 percent of the U.S. population. The wealthiest people do not spend significant portions of their assets during retirement and in most cases die leaving bequests.

Will the Demand for Assets Fall When the Baby Boomers Retire?
Report (pdf, 33pp/788kB), Sept. 2009
Blog, Sept. 8, 2009

Internet, income, education, civic engagement

2009-09-09T01:48:00.003-10:00

Whether they take place on the internet or off, traditional political activities remain the domain of those with high levels of income and education.

So begins the summary to a new study by researchers at the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Traditional Internet political civic engagement activities are viewed as: emailing government officials; signing an online petition, emailing an editor; making political contributions on the internet; communicating with civic/political groups by messaging, instant messaging or using the group's social networking site.

Examining the data regarding offline civic activities and their online counterparts, the researchers found:

Online political activities are marked by the same high levels of stratification by income and education as their offline counterparts.

Political activity is highly correlated with income, whether that activity takes place online or off.

However, examining political engagement on blogs and social networking sites, they found "young adults more likely to engage in "new" forms of online civic engagement;" and the income and education gaps for these who take part in the new civic activities are reduced:

...those under age 35 represent 28% of the respondents in our survey but make up fully 72% of those who make political use of social networking sites, and 55% of those who post comments or visual material about politics on the Web. The youngest members of this group—those under age 25—constitute just 10% of our survey respondents but make up 40% of those who make political use of social networking sites and 29% of those who post comments or visual material about politics online.

Without offering more than the suggestion that the new social media might be changing the traditional character of civic engagement, the study asks:

[W]ill these forms of internet-based political engagement which entail opportunities for political expression and communication among large numbers of dispersed people foster the forms of political participation that involve attempts to influence political outcomes?

The Internet and Civic Engagement by Aaron Smith, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba, Henry Brady
(Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, 2009, pdf, 66pp/5MB)

Insurance reform

2009-09-02T15:35:00.002-10:00

Regulation of the insurance industry has been the purview of the states since 1868, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in a recent paper. CRS traces the history of this jurisdiction to the present, with increasing Congressional interest in insurance oversight in the current financial crisis, particularly with the failure of American International Group (AIG).

A major catalyst for congressional interest has been the aftermath of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (GLBA), which modernized the regulatory structure for banks and securities firms, but left the insurance sector largely untouched. Many larger insurers, and their trade associations, had previously defended state regulation but consider themselves at a competitive disadvantage in the current regulatory structure. They are now largely arguing for an optional federal charter akin to that available to banks.

CRS summarizes several bills introduced in the current Congress addressing this issue.

Insurance Regulation: Issues, Background, and Legislation in the 111th Congress, R40771 (pdf, 16pp/192kB), from Open CRS, Aug. 19, 2009

Financing social security; bonds in retirement

2009-08-28T15:59:00.005-10:00

"It's no secret that Social Security is facing a long-term financing shortfall" begins a recent paper by Alicia Munnel, Director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, who discusses whether a portion of Social Security should be financed with the income tax, or general revenues. Munnel notes the two components of Social Security costs: the contributions that generate current benefits and contributions "to make up for paying benefits to early participants that far exceeded their contributions." It is the latter that needs shoring up. Her conclusion:

...the shift from the payroll tax to general revenues for the portion of the system’s financing associated with the start-up of the program would represent a more equitable sharing of the burden. At the same time, through the payroll tax workers would be paying an amount for their benefits equal to what they would have paid had a trust fund accumulated.

In another paper from the Center, research economist Anthony Webb argues that for retirement income security, households should seek return on capital over return of capital. He briefly discusses short-term deposits, long-term bonds, and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS). He states, "...the true risk-free asset is a portfolio of bonds and, in particular, inflation-protected bonds of appropriate maturities."

Should Social Security Rely Solely on the Payroll Tax?
      Report, IB#9-16 (pdf, 7pp/188kB), Aug. 2009
      Summary

The Case for Investing in Bonds During Retirement,
      Report, IB#9-17 (pdf, 6pp/156kB), Aug. 2009
      Summary

Mine's better than yours...not

2009-08-26T00:00:00.004-10:00

The Urban Institute recently published a brief examining the quality of U.S. health care as compared internationally.

The U.S. does relatively well in some areas, including cancer care, and less well in others, including conditions amenable to prevention and coordinated management of chronic conditions. The authors conclude that concerns that health reform could compromise currently excellent care are unwarranted; health reform can only help.

Measuring the technical quality or effectiveness of health care, the authors considered several areas:

Quality of preventive care.
Quality of care for chronic conditions.
Quality of care for certain acute conditions.
Quality of cancer care.

Findings include:

U.S.-Canada comparisons more often find Canadian quality is better.
Overuse of health services not linked with service volume.
Patient safety problems appear more prevalent in the United States.
Close to one-fifth of the U.S. population under age 65 is uninsured.

Stating that "the United States is one of only three countries in the OECD, together with Mexico and Turkey, which has a sizeable share of its population lacking coverage," the authors go on to summarize their findings:

Our findings strengthen arguments that reform is needed to improve the relative performance of the U.S. health system on quality. If reform accomplishes no more than extending insurance coverage to the more than 45 million Americans without insurance, it will be an important step forward, but more is needed to ensure health care quality improvement.

How Does the Quality of U.S. Health Care Compare Internationally? by Elizabeth Docteur and Robert A. Berenson (Urban Institute)
(August 2009, pdf. 14pp/148kB)

Abstract (html)

Containing MA health costs

2009-08-20T17:19:00.003-10:00

In 2006 Massachusetts passed landmark legislation to provide almost universal health insurance to its residents. A report on the first year of its implementation warned that health care reform "will become unaffordable...unless health care spending can be brought under control." The state contracted with RAND to develop cost containment strategies and to assess their impact on the health care system.

RAND Health said to first consider two basic approaches to reducing spending: reducing prices (pay less for care) and reducing volume (use fewer services), and noted that within those two approaches two common methods are used: incentives and regulation. RAND also came up with 21 policy options grouped under five categories:

Reform payment systems
Redesign the healthcare delivery system
Reduce waste
Encourage consumers to make good health choices
Change medical liability laws

Controlling Health Care Spending in Massachusetts: An Analysis of Options
      Report (pdf. 246pp/1.5MB)
      Summary (pdf, 49pp/365kB)
      News release, Aug. 7, 2009

The Hawaii Legislature - its first 50

2009-08-19T14:50:00.000-10:00

In commemoration of Hawaii's 50th statehood anniversary to be celebrated August 21, the Hawaii Legislature has produced an informative chronicle of its history. Beginning with the First Legislature that convened on Aug. 31, 1959, in Special Session, and concluded in 1962, this account is conveniently compiled by decades. Each biennial session contains rosters of Senate and House members, as well as legislative actions on the top issues of the day.

Fifty Years of Legislative History, 1959-2009

Hawaii's Five-O KO'd

2009-08-18T08:44:00.014-10:00

The New York Times published an editorial wondering at Hawaii's much lack of official celebration commemorating Hawaii's 50th anniversary of statehood:

It's not that the anniversary is being totally ignored. There’s a statehood commission. There are events...On the actual anniversary, there's a conference at the convention center in Honolulu where panelists will discuss state history, the economy and the environment, then party into the night with the Platters, the Drifters and the Coasters.

Hawaii's governor's current webpage would differ as to the extent of celebration, "the Hawai`i 50th Anniversary of Statehood Commission is sponsoring events across the state." The mentioned conference is titled, The New Horizons for the Next 50 Years, A Commemoration Conference, and its website states:

The 50th Anniversary of Hawai‘i’s Statehood provides a unique opportunity to commemorate the path that has brought us to the success we have experienced in our first 50 years since statehood, and to solidify the vision for who we will be over the next 50 years.

The price of attendance is listed as only $30 ($15 for students), and "original Hawaii 50th Statehood Anniversary products certified by the 50th Anniversary of Statehood Commission" are available for purchase online.

Seems this is not enough for NYT:

...the islands bled at Pearl Harbor, rebuilt the fleet to win the Pacific war, and sent thousands of sons overseas, including the Japanese-American volunteers of the 100th Battalion, one of the most decorated units in Army history...

Hawaii has given a lot to the Union. It got its own native-son president in January. Only 21 states are in that club. The guy who really invented baseball is buried in Honolulu. And if you could go to any of the 50 states right now, which would it be? The state has a lot to celebrate, if it really wanted to.

PO closures

2009-08-14T10:23:00.008-10:00

Citing a May 15, 2009, letter (pdf, 88pp) from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), regarding possible closures of post office branches (POBs) and stations (POSs), the Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a report on the proposed closures and issues for Congress. (Attached to the letter was an 87-page list of the 3,105 POBs and POSs being considered for closing.) CRS stated in its Summary:

Federal law requires the USPS to arrange its delivery and service network to most efficiently serve the public. However, the proposed closures may raise a number of issues, including public participation in the closure process, the effects on postal workers, and the possible effects of closures on communities. Congress may wish to consider a variety of measures to address these possible issues.

Post Office and Retail Postal Facility Closures: Overview and Issues for Congress, R40719 (pdf, 19pp/263kB), from Open CRS, July 23, 2009

See earlier post that includes a GAO testimony on USPS's financial problems.

Social Security projections '09

2009-08-11T17:07:00.006-10:00

On Aug. 7, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released the 2009 update of its long-term Social Security projections, covering the 75-year period 2009-2083. CBO "projects that the Social Security trust funds will be exhausted in 2043." The report concludes:

Long-term budget projections require a stable economic backdrop. For these projections, CBO assumed that even a large increase in federal debt would not affect economic growth or real interest rates after the first 10 years. However, CBO projects that under current law, federal debt will increase substantially, resulting in higher interest rates and slower economic growth than are assumed in this report. If that occurred, the actual shortfall in Social Security’s finances would be greater than that projected in this report.

CBO's Long-Term Projections for Social Security: 2009 Update
Report (pdf, 44pp/328kB)
Director's blog

Just in ... Haleakala FEIS

2009-08-04T15:20:00.001-10:00

Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope on the proposed ATST within the Haleakala High Altitude Observatory (HO) site on Maui was prepared by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The purpose of the project "would be to help scientists understand the solar magnetic activities and variability that drive space weather and the hazards it creates for astronauts and air travelers, and for communications to and from satellites."

Back in May, "Haleakala called best site for telescope" headlined an article in the Star Bulletin that reported NSF had studied 70 sites around the world, including Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, and selected Haleakala as "the only site that satisfies the goals of the world's largest optical solar telescope."

TD194.5 N32 2009
FEIS (pdf, 4 vols.)

See also NSF's ATST environmental compliance website with links to related documents

Consumer Financial Protection Agency

2009-07-29T16:07:00.001-10:00

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently issued a comparative analysis of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act as proposed by the Obama Administration and HR 3126, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009, introduced by Rep. Barney Frank.

The Obama proposal, also called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009 (CFPA Act) (pdf, 152pp), is based on a report (pdf, 89pp) that presents five objectives:

Promote robust supervision and regulation of financial firms
Establish comprehensive supervision and regulation of financial markets
Protect consumers and investors from financial abuse
Improve tools for managing financial crises
Raise international regulatory standards and improve international cooperation

CRS questions whether the CFPA, as a dedicated agency for consumer protection, would be an improvement: whether it would add a redundant layer of regulation to federal banking statutes; whether it would stifle financial innovation; and whether the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) would retain their consumer protection role in securities and derivatives markets.

Financial Regulatory Reform: Analysis of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) as Proposed by the Obama Administration and H.R. 3126, R40696 (pdf, 14pp/168kB), from Open CRS, July 17, 2009

12 to life

2009-07-28T02:05:00.007-10:00

New York Time's editorial for July 27 online and July 28 in print expresses concern for the children caught in the adult court machinery.

[States] have continued to mete out barbaric treatment - including life sentences - to children whose cases should rightly be handled through the juvenile courts.

Suggesting Congress should correct these states' practices by amending the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, NYT mentions a new study by Michele Deitch, of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin:

According to the study, every state allows juveniles to be tried as adults, and more than 20 states permit preadolescent children as young as 7 to be tried in adult courts.

The study reports such alarming findings as:

Policy makers lack reliable data on the numbers of children "shunted into the adult system by state statutes or prosecutors."
Children 13 and under who commit crimes like burglary and theft are just as likely to be sent to adult courts as children who commit serious acts of violence against people.
Transferring juveniles to the adult system is counter-productive as a strategy for preventing or reducing violence.
Juveniles held in adult facilities are five times as likely to be victims of sexual abuse and rape as youth kept in the juvenile system.
Children under age 14 are as poorly prepared to participate in their trials as adults with severe mental illness.

The study concludes offering ten policy changes, among which include:

Keep young children in the juvenile justice system.
Disallow mandatory sentencing of young children in adult criminal court.
Always provide an opportunity for parole for young children transferred to the adult criminal justice system.
Young children in the adult criminal justice system should be housed in juvenile facilities.
Improve data collection on young children in the adult criminal justice system.

From Time Out to Hard Time: Young Children in the Adult Criminal Justice System
(pdf/134 pp, 1.1 MB) Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, July 2009

Executive summary (pdf/4pp, 228kB)

LBJ School Alumni Discuss Work: Survey of Statutes of 50 States Began as Supreme Court Certiorari Petition (html)

Recent GAO reports

2009-07-24T14:21:00.002-10:00

From the Government Accountability Office (GAO):

COMBATING GANGS: Better Coordination and Performance Measurement Would Help Clarify Roles of Federal Agencies and Strengthen Assessment of Efforts, GAO-09-708 (pdf 89pp/2.5MB), July 24, 2009

There are approximately 1 million gang members in the U.S., operating in every state, according to Dept. of Justice (DOJ) estimates. A problem of urban areas, in the 1980s and 1990s gangs began migrating into suburban and rural communities as well. DOJ and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) are the key federal agencies combating gang crime. GAO reviews federal programs and their collaboration with state and local agencies in anti-gang efforts.

WILDLAND FIRE MANAGEMENT: Federal Agencies Have Taken Important Steps Forward, but Additional Action Is Needed to Address Remaining Challenges, GAO-09-906T (pdf, 19pp/256Kb), July 21, 2009

The Forest Service and four Dept. of Interior agencies are responsible for wildland fires on federal lands. In the past decade, both average annual acreage burned and federal appropriations for fire management have doubled. In this testimony, GAO recommends: developing a cohesive strategy, establishing a cost-containment strategy, clearly defining financial responsibilities for fires that cross jurisdictions, and mitigating effects of rising fire costs on other agency programs.

SCHOOL MEAL PROGRAMS: Experiences of the States and Districts That Eliminated Reduced-price Fees, GAO-09-584 (pdf, 44pp/648kB), July 17, 2009

In FY2008, 31 million children participated in the National School Lunch Program and more than 10 million in the School Breakfast Program, both providing meals for free or at reduced price for low-income students, based on federal poverty guidelines. Some states and school districts have eliminated the reduced-price fee (ERP) programs, providing free meals to increase participation. GAO reviewed ERP programs and concluded:

Some state- and district-level officials believe that there is an even greater need for this type of program at a time when some families are experiencing increased economic hardship. However, state and local fiscal conditions have continued to deteriorate since we began our audit work and the effect of the changes in the economic climate on ERP programs is unknown.

Steady pays off for 401(k)s

2009-07-21T16:10:00.003-10:00

From its annual EBRI/ICI 401(k) database update report, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) examined how a consistent group of participants accumulated retirement assets for the eight-year period 1999-2007 (consistent meaning those with accounts at the end of each year from 1999 thru 2007).

For consistent participants at year-end 2007:

The average 401(k) account grew 9.5% annually to $137,430, double the average account balance among all database participants.
The median 401(k) account grew 15.2% annually to $76,946, more than four times the median account balance among all database participants.

What Does Consistent Participation in 401(k) Plans Generate? July 2009
Issue Brief (pdf, 16pp/368kB),
Executive Summary

Search and seizure in the cloud

2009-07-16T14:12:00.006-10:00

Also in the June 2009 issue of the Minnesota Law Review is a Note on applying the Fourth Amendment to privacy in the cloud, where data is stored on distant servers. "With individuals and entities increasingly using the cloud to conduct business and store data, it is important to have a clear framework within which the government may conduct a search that meets constitutional requirements." The author proposes that courts should:

Recognize society's reasonable expectation of privacy in the cloud as the court did with the telephone in Katz
Adopt the virtual-container theory to standardize privacy appraisals in the cloud, and recognize virtual-concealment efforts
Treat cloud service providers as virtual landlords and apply the third-party doctrine narrowly to cloud content

Note, Defogging the Cloud: Applying Fourth Amendment Principles to Evolving Privacy Expectations in Cloud Computing (pdf, 35pp/236kB), Minnesota Law Review, June 2009

Kelo backlash

2009-07-16T14:05:00.004-10:00

In 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court held in Kelo v. City of New London that private property can be taken for private economic development to serve a public purpose. In the June 2009 issue of the Minnesota Law Review, Prof. Ilya Somin of George Mason University School of Law reviews the state legislation generated by Kelo. Somin writes: "The Kelo backlash probably resulted in more new state legislation than any other Supreme Court decision in history," and continues:

This Article challenges the validity of claims that the political backlash to Kelo has provided the same level of protection for property owners as would a judicial ban on economic development takings. It is the first comprehensive analysis of the Kelo backlash to date, and finds that the majority of the newly enacted post-Kelo reform laws are likely to be ineffective. It also suggests a tentative explanation for the often ineffective nature of post-Kelo reform: widespread political ignorance that enables state and federal legislators to pass off primarily cosmetic laws as meaningful reforms.

The Limits of Backlash: Assessing the Political Response to Kelo
(pdf, 79pp/424kB), Minnesota Law Review, June 2009

Just In...second life grid

2009-07-13T12:54:00.005-10:00

Kimberly Rufer-Bach of The Magicians, a 3D interactive software development company, has authored a guide for organizations considering Second Life. The virtual world offers not only unbounded environs for personal development and social dynamics, but provides a platform for the expanded development of organizations as well.

Drawing on her involvement in several government agencies' and educational institutions' projects to establish their Second Life presence, Ms. Rufer-Bach initiates the reader into the creative and sometimes demanding social and cultural protocols for a successful Second Life.

the second life grid, the official guide to communication, collaboration, and community engagement, by Kimberly Rufer-Bach

GV1469.25 S425 R84 2009

Clouds in my way

2009-07-07T01:30:00.005-10:00

Issues in Science and Technology, a National Academy of Sciences publication, is "a forum for discussion of public policy related to science, engineering, and medicine." The Summer 2009 issue currently features an article on personal computing in the Cloud.

The Internet is entering a new phase that represents a fundamental shift in how computing is done. This phase, called Cloud computing, includes activities such as Web 2.0, Web services, the Grid, and Software as a Service, which are enabling users to tap data and software residing on the Internet rather than on a personal computer or a local server.

According to the author, Michael R. Nelson, the Cloud offers users:

Limitless flexibility
Better reliability and security
Enhanced collaboration
Portability
Simpler devices

Mr. Nelson discusses the importance public policy decisions will have on the Cloud's development and character, and the "key policy factors" influencing its pace of progress, which include:

Research
Privacy and security
Access to the Cloud
E-government and open standards
Competition and antitrust
Wiretapping and electronic surveillance
Intellectual property and liability
Consumer protection

The Cloud, the Crowd, and Public Policy, by Michael R. Nelson
(Issues in Science and Technology, Summer 2009, html)

Sweatshops are not a game

2009-07-01T00:49:00.006-10:00

New York Times posted a story online Tuesday (appearing in print July 1, 2009, B4) on China's latest attempts to restrict the trade and use of virtual money, banning virtual currencies being exchanged for real world goods...

The buying and selling of the make-believe currencies used in online gaming has become so widespread that Chinese authorities fear it will affect the real economy.

NYT writes that the China Internet Network Information Center found that nearly $2 billion in virtual currency was traded in China in 2008. Real world sweatshops producing earned virtual credits later to be resold at profit to overseas customers and online marketplaces trading in virtual goods for real goods and cash are two sides of the online coin.

NYT reports Edward Castronova, a professor of telecommunications at Indiana University Bloomington, approves China's response and considers virtual currencies pose a possible threat to world economies.

As virtual currencies take over more and more purchasing power, control over the effective money supply shifts from the central bank to the game developers.

Author of such works as, Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality and Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, Castronova as early as 2001 predicted:

Unlike many internet ventures, virtual worlds are making money -- with annual revenues expected to top USD 1.5 billion by 2004 -- and if network effects are as powerful here as they have been with other internet innovations, virtual worlds may soon become the primary venue for all online activity.

While describing China's current regulations to rein in online gaming as their toughest, NYT points out the activity continues to grow.

Law's second angle of vision

2009-06-25T17:06:00.007-10:00

The July 2009 Scientific American Magazine* includes an article by Michael Tennesen examining the possible legal issues of virtual realities:

...as online communities conduct actual financial transactions and draw in more participants, some legal experts think that it may be time to extend brick-and-mortar jurisprudence into the virtual realm.

Examples of fraud, marital alienation, character and attributes theft, even murder are cited to have overflowed into the real world demanding courtroom adjudication. Tennesen supposes:

Courts could set precedents as cases arise from the virtual world. South Korean courts, for instance, have done so a number of times in dealing with virtual property; in contrast, U.S. courts have shied away from the issue. The scope of the online realm suggests that legislation may be desirable. Virtual commerce is worth about $1 billion annually and is set to get bigger...

Avatar Acts: Why Online Realities Need Regulation by Michael Tennesen
(July 2009 Scientific American Magazine, html)

*Scientific American Magazine is made available online over the course of each month.

Health insurance exchange

2009-06-22T12:22:00.006-10:00

Earlier this month the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) issued a study that examines managed competition and using a health insurance exchange to address cost, quality, and access to health care services. From the press release:

A key element being discussed as part of health reform—the creation of a health insurance exchange that would offer new forms of insurance pooling, combined with an individual mandate and guaranteed issue—would restructure the health insurance market and has major implications for the existing employment-based benefits system....

Relating to the exchange, the paper discusses risk vs. price competition, adverse selection and affordability, the public plan option, and the future of employment-based coverage.

Addressing Health Care Market Reform Through an Insurance Exchange: Essential Policy Components, the Public Plan Option, and Other Issues to Consider, Issue Brief #330 (pdf, 24pp/204kB), June 2009

Press release, June 9, 2009

Recent GAO reports

2009-06-17T13:47:00.000-10:00

From the Government Accountability Office (GAO):

TROUBLED ASSET RELIEF PROGRAM: June 2009 Status of Efforts to Address Transparency and Accountability Issues, GAO-09-658 (pdf, 117pp/1.3MB), June 17, 2009

This is GAO's fifth report on TARP. Here GAO reviews:

activities that had been initiated or completed under TARP as of June 12, 2009
the Dept. of the Treasury's Office of Financial Stability's (OFS) hiring efforts and use of contractors
TARP performance indicators

It makes 5 recommendations, including that Treasury improve disclosure of the warrant repurchase process, fully implement a communication strategy that ensures all key congressional stakeholders are kept up to date about TARP, and ensure consideration of generally consistent criteria to evaluate repurchase requests.

TROUBLED ASSET RELIEF PROGRAM: Capital Purchase Program Transactions for October 28, 2008, through May 29, 2009, and Information on Financial Agency Agreements, Contracts, Blanket Purchase Agreements, and Interagency Agreements Awarded as of June 1, 2009 (an e-supplement to GAO-09-658), (GAO-09-707SP), June 17, 2009

AVIATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE: Aircraft Emissions Expected to Grow, but Technological and Operational Improvements and Government Policies Can Help Control Emissions, GAO-09-554 (pdf, 100pp/1.25 MB), June 8, 2009

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), aviation emissions account for 2 percent of CO2 emissions and 3 percent of global warming. While fuel-efficient engines and other technological, operational, and alternative fuel improvements are expected to help reduce emissions, some technologies are in the distant future and likely to be costly. GAO presents policy options for governments that can address emissions from many sources including aircraft - market-based policies such as a cap-and-trade program, an emissions tax, or subsidies; mandating certain technologies or placing emissions limits; and increasing government R&D.

INFLUENZA PANDEMIC: Continued Focus on the Nation's Planning and Preparedness Efforts Remains Essential, GAO-09-760T (pdf, 28pp/300kB), June 3, 2009

This testimony was presented prior to the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring a global pandemic of the H1N1 (swine) flu on June 11. The testimony was based on a report GAO issued in Feb. 2009, which synthesized its earlier 11 reports and two testimonies on influenza pandemic planning. GAO found that federal agencies have acted on 13 of its 23 recommendations. "With the possibility that the H1N1 virus could return in a more virulent form in a second wave in the fall or winter, the administration and federal agencies should turn their attention to filling in the planning and preparedness gaps GAO's work has pointed out."

REAL ESTATE TAX DEDUCTION: Taxpayers Face Challenges in Determining What Qualifies; Better Information Could Improve Compliance, GAO-09-521 May 13, 2009

Every year there is a gap between federal taxes owed and paid. Real estate taxes in the U.S. are levied primarily by local governments, and taxpayers deduct those taxes on their federal income tax returns. The problem is determining what is deductible, as neither local-government tax bills nor mortgage-servicer documents identify what qualifies as deductible. The Joint Committee on Taxation has identified improved taxpayer compliance with real-estate tax deductions as a means to reduce the tax gap. To do this, GAO recommends that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) change its guidance to taxpayers, revise its auditing of the deduction, identify a cost-effective means of obtaining information on tax bill charges, and conduct outreach to local governments and others on options for helping taxpayers comply.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS: Broadband Deployment Plan Should Include Performance Goals and Measures to Guide Federal Investment, GAO-09-494 May 12, 2009

Of the 30 nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the U.S. ranks 15th in broadband subscribership, slipping from 4th in 2001. Universal broadband access is "a critical economic engine, a vehicle for enhanced learning and services, and a central component of 21st-century news and entertainment." Some type of broadband access reaches 90 percent of U.S. households, but to reach the remaining unserved or underserved regions is estimated to cost tens of billions of dollars and likely require federal funds because of low profit potential. GAO discusses

the federal broadband deployment policy, principal federal programs, and stakeholders' views
how the policies of OECD nations with higher subscribership rates compared with U.S. policy
actions states have taken to encourage broadband deployment.

Climate decisions

2009-06-14T13:55:00.006-10:00

National Academies created the Panel on Strategies and Methods for Climate Related Decision Support "to provide a framework and a set of strategies and methods for organizing and evaluating decision support activities related to climate change." In evaluating the growing need for climate-related decision support, the Panel offers:

Both conceptually and practically, people and organizations will have to adjust what may be life-long assumptions to meet the potential consequences of climate change. How and where should bridges be built? What zoning rules may need to be changed? How can targets for reduced carbon emissions be met? These and myriad other questions will need to be answered in the coming years and decades.

The published study "drawing on evidence from past efforts to organize science for improved decision making, develops guidance for government agencies and other institutions that will provide or use information for coping with climate change."

Informing Decisions in a Changing Climate, National Academies Press (available online as an Open Text Document)
2009, 200 pages

Substance use and workplace injuries

2009-06-08T17:45:00.003-10:00

The RAND Center for Health and Safety in the Workplace published a paper on the effect of substance use on occupational injuries. In examining the literature, the authors found these emergent themes:

The impact of substance use on occupational injuries varies by age and gender, which may reflect differing rates of substance use and job hazards across these groups.
There is also variation in substance use, occupational injuries, and the association between the two across different industries.
Other factors related to alcohol and substance use, such as social structures and level of risk aversion, may better explain injury than alcohol and substance use do.
Even where correlations between alcohol and drug use and injury are significant, only a small proportion of occupational injuries can be attributed to alcohol and drug use.
Few studies look at the cost to industry of off-the-job worker injuries through disability and absenteeism. This may, in fact, be a bigger concern.

The authors conclude that there is an association between substance use and occupational injury, and this association is stronger for males and in certain industries, and may also be stronger for younger workers.

The proportion of injuries caused by substance use, however, is relatively small. Instead, there is mounting evidence that harmful substance use is one of a constellation of behaviors exhibited by certain individuals who may avoid work-related safety precautions and take greater work-related risks. Thus, we suspect that it is more likely that risk-taking dispositions, often termed deviance proneness, and other omitted factors can explain most empirical associations between substance use and injuries at work.

The Effects of Substance Use on Workplace Injuries, June 5, 2009
Report (pdf, 55pp/345kB)
Overview

Blogging and the supreme court

2009-06-03T16:55:00.005-10:00

The 2009 Stanford Law Review Symposium, "Media, Justice, and the Law," was covered in its April 2009 issue. Rachel C. Lee authored a Note on "the power of blogs to rapidly reach large audiences--possibly including Justices or their clerks--with persuasive arguments on pending cases."

The Note focuses on the Court's 2008 decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana, 128 S.Ct. 2641, 554 U.S. ___ (pdf, 37pp/164kB), which held that the Eighth Amendment prohibited the death penalty for child rape. On June 28, 2008, three days after the opinion was published, a military attorney noted on his blog of a possible error in the decision. Another attorney saw the post and told his wife, a New York Times writer, who wrote a July 2 front-page article on it. On July 21, the state of Louisiana petitioned the Court for a rehearing. According to the Note, the Court rarely grants a rehearing but did invite briefs from Kennedy, Louisiana, and the Solicitor General of the U.S. on the matter. On Oct. 1, the Court declined to rehear the case but issued a modification of its earlier decision.

The Note concludes:

...the phenomenon of ex parte blogging raises serious ethical issues that must be considered by the legal community. This Note offers a starting point for the necessary conversation about how best to respond to the challenges and opportunities created by this distinctive new mode of communication.

Ex Parte Blogging: The Legal Ethics of Supreme Court Advocacy in the Internet Era (pdf, 39pp/436kB), 61 Stan. L. Rev. 1535 (2009).

Health insurance in Congress

2009-06-01T16:30:00.003-10:00

Congress is considering major changes in the health insurance system. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a brief on how it will judge budgetary treatments of the various proposals. The proposals share some or all of the following features:

Mandatory insurance with specified minimum benefits
"Play-or-pay" requirement for employers
New subsidies and expanded eligibility for Medicaid
New "exchanges" for individuals and some small employers to purchase insurance
Establishment of a "public plan" alongside private plans
A federal health board for oversight

In CBO’s view, the key consideration is whether a proposal would be making health insurance an essentially governmental program...(or)...a largely private-sector system.

The Budgetary Treatment of Proposals to Change the Nation's Health Insurance System
Issue brief (pdf, 7pp/108kB), May 27, 2009
Blog, May 27, 2009

Just in ... Hawaii outdoor rec

2009-05-28T14:12:00.000-10:00

The State Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP) 2008 Update was published last month by the Hawaii Dept. of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR). An update of the 2003 SCORP report, it was prepared to qualify for federal funding under the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Act, P.L. 88-578. LWCF funding is used for the acquisition and development of public lands for outdoor recreation. The state and counties of Hawaii have received more than $36 million in federal grants since the program's inception in 1965.

HC107 H3 H56 2008
Report (pdf, 207pp/14.8 MB)
Appendix (pdf, 274pp/22.3MB)

PBGC

2009-05-26T17:54:00.000-10:00

Douglas J. Elliott of Brookings Economic Studies and the Center On Federal Financial Institutions (COFFI) has authored a guide to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). The PBGC was established by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974, which was enacted in part, according to the paper, because of the bankruptcies of automakers Packard and Studebaker in the 1960s that left many employees with greatly reduced pensions. The current crisis in the auto industry raises the same concern. The PBGC basically guarantees pensions when a firm goes bankrupt. It is primarily funded by premiums from employers that offer defined benefit pension plans. The PBGC itself is in major financial stress, being $11 billion in debt as of Sept. 2008. A GM bankruptcy could add $20 billion to the deficit.

The guide covers:

Background on retirement plans
Pension funding rules
Guarantees provided by the PBGC
How the PBGC works
The situation in the auto industry
The PBGC's financial crisis
Options to fix the crisis
Glossary of terms

A Guide to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (pdf, 50pp/436kB), May 20, 2009

Child stats

2009-05-20T11:14:00.011-10:00

On May 1 the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) released Children in the States Factsheets for the U.S. and each of the 50 states. Data are from November 2008. The factsheets provide basic stats and rankings for racial demographics, poverty, health, hunger, early childhood development, education, child welfare, and youth at risk.

Factsheets for:
U.S. and all states (pdf, 104pp/608kB)
Hawaii (pdf, 2pp/60kB)

Don't let them bite

2009-05-18T16:16:00.004-10:00

On May 15 McClatchy published an article on "the biggest bedbug outbreak since World War II" and legislation introduced by Congressman G.K. Butterfield (D-NC), the Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2009 (HR 2248). The bill includes grants for state inspection programs and adds bed bugs to public housing inspections and preventive public health services. (A similar bill Butterfield introduced last year HR 6068 died in committee.) The article also noted the "first-ever" bed bug summit held by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in April in Washington.

According to the article, pesticide resistance is a factor in the resurgence. In Hawaii bed bugs fall under the purview of the Vector Control Branch of the Dept. of Health (DOH). Its website acknowledges the decrease in broad spectrum pesticides as the primary cause but also attributes "the increase and speed at which humans can travel" for the spread of new bed bug infestations.

Climate change and U.S.

2009-05-15T16:45:00.003-10:00

A recent paper from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) gives an overview of the potential impacts of climate change in the U.S. The paper discusses impacts on:

The physical environment - temperature; precipitation; cyclones, typhoons, and hurricanes; ocean currents, sea level, and ocean acidification
Biological systems - ecosystems and biodiversity; agriculture, forestry, and fisheries
Economy and human health - water supply and other infrastructure; human health; and aggregate economic impacts

A primary source used for the paper was the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Potential Impacts of Climate Change in the United States
Report (pdf, 33pp/1.3MB), May 2009
Blog, May 4, 2009