Gas Prices & the Middle Class Squeeze -ASK THE EXPERT

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http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/06/gas_food.html How are rising gas prices affecting household budgets? Is there an end in sight to the middle-class squeeze? And how can we ease the strain on America's families? Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Christian Weller answers the call in the latest installment of CAP's ASK THE EXPERT series.

McCain U: Energy & Environment - Appetite for Destruction

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http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2008/analyzing_mccain.html George Bush cannot be the bar against which we measure John McCain, argued Navin Nayak of the League of Conservation Voters. Nayak provided McCain 101 for the final panel of the day on energy policy. The panel included Joseph Romm and Bracken Hendricks, both Senior Fellows at CAPAF, and Nayak, who emphasized that while McCains energy policies look good compared to President Bush, voters must look at McCains policies more broadly. Like Bush, Nayak said, McCain opposes renewable energy, as evidenced by his votes against a renewable electricity standard and tax credits for renewable energy. Nayak also criticized McCain for voting against increasing automobile fuel efficiency, his advisors ties to the oil and gas industries, and the fact that McCains plan to combat global warming only calls for 60 percent reductions in greenhouse gases by 2050. Romm criticized McCain for what he called a placebo energy policy, which would do nothing to resolve the energy crisis, but would still make people feel better. Similarly, Hendricks criticized McCain for supporting energy policies which even McCain acknowledged would only have a psychological effect. Attacking McCains support of a gas tax holiday, Romm said, the important thing to realize about the gas tax holiday is that its just a holiday for gas and oil companies. Romm also argued that allowing offshore drilling in sensitive costal areas, as McCain has proposed, would have no effect on oil prices. Romm also attacked McCains plan to offer $300 million to the inventor of cheaper, more efficient batteries that could make plug-in hybrids more efficient. It is completely pointless for the federal government to offer $300 milliontheres no way you could actually award this prize. Nobody invents anything that is much cheaper than existing technology today. That only occurs when you sell a million units a yearthis is a complete and utter gimmick, he said. Panelists criticized McCains plan to build more nuclear power plants for a number of reasons. Nayak pointed out that building nuclear plants is expensive, and that the electricity generated by such plants would also be expensive in the absence of government subsidies. Romm said that providing such subsidies to a mature technology like nuclear energy would be a poor choice, and instead suggested subsidies for alternatives like wind and solar power. He also noted the difficulties in disposing of the radioactive waste that is a byproduct of nuclear power. [McCain is] trying to simultaneously appeal to conservatives and moderates by adopting ambiguous and ultimately ineffective positions, said Romm.

McCain U: Don't Get Sick

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http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2008/analyzing_mccain.html Overall, the goal is not universal coverage, it's cost containment, Peter Harbage said while introducing McCains health care plan. Harbage, Health Care Policy Advisor at CAPAF, described how McCains plan would allow a $5,000 tax credit for families and $2,500 for individuals with which they could purchase private health insurance and establish health savings accounts. Harbage noted, however, that the tax credit would grow at the rate of inflation, rather than at the higher rate of health care cost increases. He also said that McCain would allow the sale of health insurance across state lines. Currently, states regulate insurance within their borders. Jeanne Lambrew, Senior Fellow at CAPAF, moderated the discussion on health care. Panelists included Karen Davenport, Director of Health Policy for CAPAF; Karen Pollitz, Director of the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University; and Harbage, filling in for Elizabeth Edwards, also a Senior Fellow at CAPAF. Pollitz set the framework for the discussion by arguing that a successful policy must make health care available, bring down costs, and provide adequate coverage, all the time. She noted that health care costs are unevenly distributed, and the sickest 5 percent account for half of all spending. Pollitz said that a competitive insurance industry will always try to limit insurance for people when they are sick, so the only way to make a competitive insurance market cover people when they are sick is to regulate it. She criticized McCains health care plan for deregulating health care and removing tax credits for job-based coverage, although such coverage currently provides health insurance to many Americans. Pollitz further faulted McCains plan for allowing insurance companies to choose the state in which they are regulated, and therefore choose which set of regulations apply to them. Panelists agreed with Davenport when she commented, for people with disabilities or chronic disease, those tax credits are going to be inadequate to pay for their insurance. McCains proposal would establish Guaranteed Access Programs, through which the federal government would work with states to provide coverage to those with pre-existing conditions. Pollitz noted, however, that the $10 billion McCain proposes to spend on these programs is only about 1 percent of the funding necessary to provide health care to this population. Panelists also agreed that McCains health care plan would benefit insurance companies. One of the top groups that would benefit from this plan is the insurance industry itself, remarked Harbage. As a factual matter, the individual market is more lucrative for insurers than the group market, he said. Davenport noted, its a fallacy to think that individuals are going to have the kind of bargaining power they need to find the insurance policies that meet their needs. Its called consumer choice, its really insurance company choice, said Pollitz. I think that people want good choices, and this plan offers them a lot of bad choicesand when they get sick, no choices at all.

McCain U: What Economic Policy?

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http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2008/analyzing_mccain.html Whats rather stunning about Sen. McCains proposalsis their magnitude, and the magnitude of the tax relief that is devoted solely to people at the very top, Gene Sperling, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, told the audience. Sperling was a participant in the economic panel, which was moderated by Robert Gordon, also a Senior Fellow at CAPAF, and included Jared Bernstein, Director of the Living Standards Program at the Economic Policy Institute. Prior to the panel, James Kvaal, Domestic Policy Advisor for CAPAF, provided an overview of McCains economic plan. The panelists focused on the presidents influence on the distribution of wealth and national regulatory policies. Referring to McCains economic policy, Sperling said, I dont think I have ever seen anything quite like that. Sperling pointed out that all major presidential candidates from both parties support extending the Bush tax cuts for people earning under $250,000, but McCain supports an additional $110 billion in tax cuts for those with incomes above that amount. Additionally, McCain has proposed corporate tax cuts of over $175 billion. The difference between him and most progressive candidatesis about $300 billion per year, said Sperling. The panelists agreed that McCains plan to offset these tax cuts by eliminating earmarks and holding down spending was unrealistic, with Bernstein comparing cutting earmarks to bringing a thimble to a crater. This notion that we can hold the line on spending is a complete abstraction, said Bernstein. To offset tax cuts, youre going to have to go after the entitlements, and thats actually what worries me the most. Because they favor the wealthy, the Bush and McCain tax plans exacerbate the inequalities in the system, Bernstein said. Sperling added, corporate profits have not been a problem. The problem has been wages and jobs. He suggested focusing on creating jobs in the United States and ensuring effective regulation of the economy when crafting tax policy. Panelists pointed to the housing crisis as evidence of excesses in the private market and the need for government oversight. Bernstein said that such excesses can be squeezed out of the system with good policies, but noted that McCain hasnt said nearly enough about the kind of regulation we need in financial markets.

Debating the Divine - CAP Event HIGHLIGHTS

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http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/06/debating_the_divine.html The iconic public square where Americans of the past used to gather to debate the politics of the day is long gone from most cities and towns, but the spirited conversations that once defi ned these placesboth in myth and factare alive and well today. The topics of our current political and cultural conversations range from the mundane to the profound, but a recurring theme has to do with religion and politicsin particular, whether religion should be a force shaping our public policies and our common civic life. Of course, this is not a new conversation. Contrasting views about the role of religion in public life predate our nations birthfrom the Massachusett s Bay Colony, where officials collected taxes to support the Puritan church and compelled att endance at its services, to the Founders who disestablished religion from the state and drafted the Constitution without mention of God. In recent years, these conversations have been heating up. Invectives fly back and forth as opponents stake out mutually exclusive claims on behalf of truth, fairness, and the American way. Listening to each side, one is hard-pressed to tell whether we are a God-saturated, intolerant, antiintellectual theocracyor a severely secular nation that punishes the practice of religion and banishes God altogether from our laws, policies, and public life. Debating the Divine: Religion in 21st Century American Democracy aims to turn down the heat and turn up the light. Because the issue of religion in public life is complex, encompassing theory, history, and practice, we purposely did not set up a narrowly-focused debate in which each side shot at the other, and the side with the fiercest arguments and most adherents won. Instead, we have chosen to examine the many facets of the issue in a thoughtful way, in hopes of finding new insights and, perhaps, common ground.

How to Close Guantanamo - ASK THE EXPERT - CAP's Gude

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http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/06/guantanamo.html President George W. Bush is fond of saying that his administration tackles challenges head-on and refuses to leave tough decisions to his successors. No description could be further from the truth when applied to his policy at Guantánamo. Regardless of what happens over these last months of the Bush administration, the next president will inherit a detainee policy in total disarray. Transfers out of Guantánamo have stalled; the easier cases have already been shipped out, leaving a population stabilizing at around 270 detainees. Trials of Guantánamo detainees in Military Commissions are sputtering as the unproven system struggles to get through simple procedural hearings. Future prosecutions have been thrown into doubt as charges were dropped against a detainee once thought to be the 20th hijacker on 9/11 because too much of the evidence against him was obtained through torture. In its third successive decision rebuking the Bush administrations detention policies, the Supreme Court recently ruled that the Guantánamo detainees have a constitutional right to habeas corpus. This decision will finally allow the detainees to contest the lawfulness of their confinement in a truly impartial hearing before a federal judge, rejecting the Bush administrations contention that Guantánamo existed outside the law. And beyond the prisons walls on the eastern tip of Cuba, serious problems have arisen in Afghanistan as both U.S.- and Afghan-run detention camps are replicating the worst excesses of Guantánamo. One critical conceptual error of the architects of Guantánamo within the Bush administrationan exclusive focus on the threat posed by the detainees themselveshas frustrated the efforts of senior officials like Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to overcome the prisons deficiencies. This myopic vision has completely discounted the strategic impact Guantánamo has had on the global security environment. In the Bush administrations paradigm, the risk of transferring or releasing any one detainee is measured only against the potential harm that individual might do if set free, a calculus always tilted in favor of continued detention in cases when doubt exists. In this context, the status quo gives the illusion of perfect security dramatically increasing the burden on those arguing for alternatives to Guantánamo. The reality is that the potential harm from Guantánamo detainees to American interests is not limited to the prospect of violence perpetrated after release. Guantánamo as currently constructed has become a symbol of a rogue American hegemony that disregards the rule of law, even as it uses calls for freedom and democracy as a weapon to assert its influence across the globe. The perpetuation of that symbol does great damage to American interests. Recognizing this new paradigm significantly alters the landscape when considering the future of Guantánamo and strongly favors closing the prison and pursuing alternative regimes for those detainees that require additional imprisonment. Counterintuitively, reaching the threshold decision to close Guantánamo will be the easiest part of cleaning up the catastrophe of U.S. detention policy. The next president will confront numerous obstacles in any effort to make changes at Guantánamo and to all U.S. detention policy, including: overturning the massive current credibility and legitimacy deficit of the United States; satisfying the real security challenges posed by some the detainees and respecting legitimate anxieties and fears about future acts of terrorism; building a far greater level of international cooperation, because even though this is an American problem, the United States cannot solve it on its own; deciding who among the Guantánamo detainees should stand trial, which trial venue is most appropriate, and what evidence can be used in those trials; and finding a new home for those detainees that are not going to be tried.

What is SUSTAINABLE SECURITY? CAP's Gayle Smith

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http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/06/sustainable_security.html That much of the world has lost faith in America bodes ill for our national security because our role in the world is secured not simply by our military power or economic clout, but also by our ability to compel other nations to follow our lead. The next president will have the opportunity to craft a modern national security strategy that can equip the United States to lead a majority of capable, democratic states in pursuit of a global common gooda strategy that can guide a secure America that is the worlds champion for all of us. But positioning America to lead in a 21st century world will take more than extending a hand to our allies, fixing a long list of misdirected policies, or crafting a new national security strategy that is tough but also smart. With globalization providing the immutable backdrop to our foreign policy, America is today competing on a global playing field that is more complex, dynamic, and interdependent and thus far less certain than in the past. Leading in this new world will require a fundamental shift from our outdated notion of national security to a more modern concept of sustainable securitythat is, our security as defined by the contours of a world gone global and shaped by our common humanity. Sustainable security combines three approaches: * National security, or the safety of the United States * Human ƒsecurity, or the well-being and safety of people * Collective ƒsecurity, or the shared interests of the entire world Sustainable security, in short, can shape our continued ability to simultaneously prevent or defend against real-time threats to America, reduce the sweeping human insecurity around the world, and manage long term threats to our collective, global security. This new approach takes into account the many (and ongoing) changes that have swept our planet since the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union.