Megan Corrarino, MPA
Imagine a country where twelve-year-old children work twelve-hour days, where wage theft is rampant, and where child workers handle pesticides, operate hazardous machinery, and engage in other dangerous work that contravenes of the International Labor Organization’s Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor. In the US, these are the workplace conditions for roughly half a million children currently working on commercial farms. While most forms of child labor are strictly regulated, a farmwork exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) allows children to work at younger ages, for longer hours, and under more dangerous conditions than in any other industry in the country.
When the FLSA was created in 1938, agricultural lobbyists convinced Congress that applying the same standards to agriculture would spell the end of the rural way of life. But most children working on farms today are not family farmers’ sons and daughters, rising early to milk cows before school or spending summers learning the family business. Most children today work on commercial farms. They are overwhelmingly migrant, poor, and vulnerable. They perform routine tasks for hours on end, leaving them susceptible to repetitive motion injuries, and are often exposed to highly toxic pesticides and other hazards. An average of 104 child agricultural workers die each year, and over 22,000 are injured – a rate more than four times that in other sectors. Sexual harassment and abuse are commonplace. Children employed on farms, like their adult colleagues, work long hours, are not entitled to overtime, and often move in order to follow the growing season. Half of all child agricultural workers never graduate from high school.
Current farm labor law fails to protect the rights of children in two ways. First, the laws themselves fail to require reasonable working conditions that respect the dignity of child workers and that provide sufficient support and time for schooling. For example, in addition to allowing children to perform hazardous work, current farm labor laws allow 14- and 15-year old children to work unlimited hours – even during the school year. In any other sector, the same children would be restricted to three hours of work a day on school days and eight hours on other days.
Second, agricultural labor laws that do exist are often poorly enforced. Children are particularly vulnerable to rights abuses. The 1983 Migrant and Seasonal Protection Act, for example, guarantees a minimum wage. Although farmers may pay by the pieces picked instead, they are required to make up the difference if that does not reach the set wage. But children often pick on family tickets, making it difficult to determine what they should have been paid and allowing employers to hide the hours worked if children ever try to recover unpaid wages.
A proposed Department of Labor rules change, designed to “bring parity between the rules for agricultural employment and the more stringent rules that apply to the employment of children in nonagricultural workplaces,” would, among other things, limit animal and pesticide handling, prevent children under 16 from working on tobacco farms, and restrict operation of power-driven equipment by children under 16. But even these relatively straightforward changes have faced opposition from a wide range of agricultural lobbyists.
Given the resistance to even these small changes, comprehensive child labor reform will be a political challenge. But it is nevertheless necessary; child workers in agriculture typically work out of economic necessity and are among our country’s most vulnerable workers. Workplace laws must protect their fundamental human rights.
One bundle of suggested reforms, the Children’s Act for Responsible Employment (CARE Act), HR 3564, would apply the same workplace standards to agricultural child workers as are currently applied to others. (It would still include a family farm exemption.) Crucially, because enforcement of labor law is often challenging, particularly in agriculture, it would require better data collection by the Department of Labor and would raise the fines for violations from $11,000 to $15,000 – making employers less willing to take a risk.
Advocates for the CARE Act are currently lobbying with a non-traditional coalition of agricultural unions, members of Congress, filmmakers, Hollywood stars, and human rights organizations. Successful advocacy will require continued public mobilization and creative alliance-building – perhaps drawing on coalitions of workers in other informal sectors, or parlaying the growing national interest in food policy to highlight labor practices in the food production chain. As Edward R. Murrow observed in The Harvest of Shame, a 1960 documentary that reflected agricultural working conditions strikingly similar to today’s, “The migrants have no lobby…Maybe we do.”
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
Saving Congress From Itself: Can the Independent Payment Advisory Board make Congress’s Medicare cost control problems go away?
David Mitchell, MPA
With the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction – a.k.a., the Super Committee – missing a major deadline this week, the prospects for a debt deal before the next election seem bleaker than ever.
Eventually, Congress will have to act. The long-term deficit situation is truly unsustainable and the sequestration trigger agreed upon in August will begin sharply cutting Defense Department programs and Medicare provider payments in January 2013 (assuming Congress and the President allow it to stay in effect).
But for those hoping that responsible decision-making on the country’s entitlement and tax programs will materialize after next year’s election, prepare to be disappointed. In particular, Medicare – the public health insurance program for the aged and disabled, and by far the largest contributor to our long-term fiscal mess – has been subject to congressional mismanagement now for years.
As Wes Joines pointed out in a post earlier this month, the Medicare physician payment system is broken and has been so for more than a decade. Private insurance carriers that participate in the Medicare Advantage program have been overpaid since 2003, when the Republican-controlled Congress set artificially high payment rates as part of the same bill that expanded subsidized prescription drugs at the government's expense. And members of both parties have proven themselves unable to withstand the temptation of using the Medicare program to steer benefits to special interests. Whether it’s boosting payments to rural hospitals, delaying competitive bidding for durable medical equipment, or shielding beneficiaries from scheduled benefit cuts, there are many recent examples of costly Congressional micromanaging on both sides of the aisle.
Underlying this mismanagement is a simple political calculus: members of Congress believe that they must avoid being linked to any policy that will hurt the country’s 47 million Medicare beneficiaries (not to mention the tens of millions more about to join the program) or risk defeat at the polls. Cutting benefits is one obvious no-no, but cutting provider payments is also politically dangerous, since doctors and hospitals may then stop treating Medicare patients or otherwise incite seniors’ anger.
So what can be done? One hope is that legislators themselves may be looking for a way out of this Medicare cost-control political vortex, especially given the hard decisions that most political elites know will have to be made as part of an eventual debt reduction deal.
One sign of this thinking is Congress’s recent decision to establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) as part of last year’s health reform legislation.[1] The IPAB is designed to take Medicare payment policymaking out of the hands of Congress and put it into the hands of expert technocrats. Though the IPAB was not a major focus of the yearlong debate on health care legislation (Americans were otherwise obsessed with abortion, the public option, and death panels[2]), it may prove to be one of the most consequential provisions included in the ACA. In the words of former budget director Peter Orszag, IPAB represents “the largest yielding of sovereignty from the Congress since the creation of the Federal Reserve.”
Here’s how it works: A 15-member board appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate will propose sharp cuts to Medicare payments if cost growth in the program continues on its current trajectory. What makes this Board different from past Medicare commissions – or even the current Super Committee – is that the recommended cuts will go into effect unless Congress finds equal savings elsewhere in the program or supermajorities in Congress vote to waive the new rules (and even then only if the president signs the resulting bill). There is concern that future Congresses will not allow themselves to be constrained by these parliamentary hurdles and will try to prevent the cuts by simply not confirming IPAB appointees or passing a new law revoking some or all of IPAB’s powers. But the IPAB provision includes rules to check these congressional urges, so there is reason to believe that IPAB will have teeth.
Beyond the technical details, one’s optimism about the Board depends in large part on what one believes is ailing the US health care system. If high prices are the culprit (as many on the left believe), IPAB could prove effective at withstanding political pressure from doctors, hospitals, and other providers and keeping prices low. If over-utilization is the main cost driver (as many on the right believe), IPAB’s usefulness will be limited. This is partly by design: currently, the Board can only recommend changes to provider payment rates, not benefits.
But many outside experts – including some who sat on the US Fiscal Commission last year – recommend expanding IPAB’s powers. And the president has urged Congress to lower IPAB’s cost growth rate target, making it more likely that recommendations will be triggered. Some have even speculated that IPAB could be the vehicle by which a new all-payer rate setting scheme could be implemented.
It’s unlikely that Congress will go along with any of the above proposals any time soon. Indeed, many in Congress have called for IPAB’s repeal. And it’s true that further empowering a board of unelected technocrats is not an easy sell to the American people (especially since the biggest problems facing Medicare – and the federal budget as a whole – require moral, not mathematical, answers). But as the extent of our long-term structural deficit becomes more apparent – and the situation grows more urgent – members of Congress may be tempted to delegate more and more tough decisions to IPAB. Some might view this as an undemocratic and irresponsible abdication of authority – in other words, the coward’s way out. But as Edgar Allan Poe once wrote: “That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.”
With the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction – a.k.a., the Super Committee – missing a major deadline this week, the prospects for a debt deal before the next election seem bleaker than ever.
Eventually, Congress will have to act. The long-term deficit situation is truly unsustainable and the sequestration trigger agreed upon in August will begin sharply cutting Defense Department programs and Medicare provider payments in January 2013 (assuming Congress and the President allow it to stay in effect).
But for those hoping that responsible decision-making on the country’s entitlement and tax programs will materialize after next year’s election, prepare to be disappointed. In particular, Medicare – the public health insurance program for the aged and disabled, and by far the largest contributor to our long-term fiscal mess – has been subject to congressional mismanagement now for years.
As Wes Joines pointed out in a post earlier this month, the Medicare physician payment system is broken and has been so for more than a decade. Private insurance carriers that participate in the Medicare Advantage program have been overpaid since 2003, when the Republican-controlled Congress set artificially high payment rates as part of the same bill that expanded subsidized prescription drugs at the government's expense. And members of both parties have proven themselves unable to withstand the temptation of using the Medicare program to steer benefits to special interests. Whether it’s boosting payments to rural hospitals, delaying competitive bidding for durable medical equipment, or shielding beneficiaries from scheduled benefit cuts, there are many recent examples of costly Congressional micromanaging on both sides of the aisle.
Underlying this mismanagement is a simple political calculus: members of Congress believe that they must avoid being linked to any policy that will hurt the country’s 47 million Medicare beneficiaries (not to mention the tens of millions more about to join the program) or risk defeat at the polls. Cutting benefits is one obvious no-no, but cutting provider payments is also politically dangerous, since doctors and hospitals may then stop treating Medicare patients or otherwise incite seniors’ anger.
So what can be done? One hope is that legislators themselves may be looking for a way out of this Medicare cost-control political vortex, especially given the hard decisions that most political elites know will have to be made as part of an eventual debt reduction deal.
One sign of this thinking is Congress’s recent decision to establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) as part of last year’s health reform legislation.[1] The IPAB is designed to take Medicare payment policymaking out of the hands of Congress and put it into the hands of expert technocrats. Though the IPAB was not a major focus of the yearlong debate on health care legislation (Americans were otherwise obsessed with abortion, the public option, and death panels[2]), it may prove to be one of the most consequential provisions included in the ACA. In the words of former budget director Peter Orszag, IPAB represents “the largest yielding of sovereignty from the Congress since the creation of the Federal Reserve.”
Here’s how it works: A 15-member board appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate will propose sharp cuts to Medicare payments if cost growth in the program continues on its current trajectory. What makes this Board different from past Medicare commissions – or even the current Super Committee – is that the recommended cuts will go into effect unless Congress finds equal savings elsewhere in the program or supermajorities in Congress vote to waive the new rules (and even then only if the president signs the resulting bill). There is concern that future Congresses will not allow themselves to be constrained by these parliamentary hurdles and will try to prevent the cuts by simply not confirming IPAB appointees or passing a new law revoking some or all of IPAB’s powers. But the IPAB provision includes rules to check these congressional urges, so there is reason to believe that IPAB will have teeth.
Beyond the technical details, one’s optimism about the Board depends in large part on what one believes is ailing the US health care system. If high prices are the culprit (as many on the left believe), IPAB could prove effective at withstanding political pressure from doctors, hospitals, and other providers and keeping prices low. If over-utilization is the main cost driver (as many on the right believe), IPAB’s usefulness will be limited. This is partly by design: currently, the Board can only recommend changes to provider payment rates, not benefits.
But many outside experts – including some who sat on the US Fiscal Commission last year – recommend expanding IPAB’s powers. And the president has urged Congress to lower IPAB’s cost growth rate target, making it more likely that recommendations will be triggered. Some have even speculated that IPAB could be the vehicle by which a new all-payer rate setting scheme could be implemented.
It’s unlikely that Congress will go along with any of the above proposals any time soon. Indeed, many in Congress have called for IPAB’s repeal. And it’s true that further empowering a board of unelected technocrats is not an easy sell to the American people (especially since the biggest problems facing Medicare – and the federal budget as a whole – require moral, not mathematical, answers). But as the extent of our long-term structural deficit becomes more apparent – and the situation grows more urgent – members of Congress may be tempted to delegate more and more tough decisions to IPAB. Some might view this as an undemocratic and irresponsible abdication of authority – in other words, the coward’s way out. But as Edgar Allan Poe once wrote: “That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.”
----------------------
Notes
[1] The Affordable Care Act also created the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMI), which has broad powers to experiment with new payment systems like accountable care organizations and bundling, and then apply the most successful models nationwide – all without further congressional action. This is a promising idea, but the Congressional Budget Office and others are skeptical of its cost-saving potential and so it will not figure as prominently as IPAB in debt reduction negotiations.
[2] Since the bill’s passage, some have used the “death panel” moniker to describe IPAB, but during the debate that phrase was used in reference to a provision that attempted to expand the use of living wills.
Friday, November 11, 2011
New Year's Irresolution: Medicare’s sustainable growth rate and physician reimbursement
Wes Joines, MPA
Unless Congress acts between now and the end of 2011, at least one group will not be experiencing a happy New Year: physicians who provide services to Medicare patients. Under current law, starting in 2012, reimbursement for Medicare-provided services will be reduced by an estimated 30%. Why is this happening? It is all related to policies enacted nearly 15 years ago in an earlier iteration of debt reduction efforts.
The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 was signed into law on August 5, 1997 and was designed to balance the federal budget by 2002. Of its $160 billion in spending cuts during that time period, $112 billion was applicable to the Medicare program, which is the primary health coverage program for older and some disabled Americans. A key component of the cuts to Medicare included, for the first time, a budgetary restraint on Medicare’s total expenditures to maintain budget neutrality. Known as the sustainable growth rate (SGR), it is a major component of the current formula for determining annual updates to physician reimbursement. While Medicare payment rate increases since 1992 had been tied to trends in physician utilization (i.e. efficient use of medical tests and facilities by a doctor), in 1997, for the first time, the implementation of the SGR meant that Medicare reimbursement changes would be linked to four factors: 1) changes in input costs, 2) changes in Medicare fee-for-service enrollment, 3) changes in the volume of physician services relative to growth in the national economy, and 4) changes in expenditures due to changes in law and/or regulation.
The SGR resulted in annual increases to the Medicare fee schedule until 2002, when a 4.8% reduction took place. Since that time, rate reductions called for by the formula have been deferred, although Congress has not changed the underlying SGR formula or the cumulative spending targets. Because of vast increases in the volume and complexity of health care services for the Medicare population in recent years, especially when compared to the SGR designers’ projections, the formula specifies cuts in physician payments that become more severe with each passing year. In fact, at a cost of $19 billion, a last-minute December 2010 vote delayed a scheduled 25% reduction in the SGR that was to take place in January 2011.
So, here we are again, this time in late 2011, deciding whether or not reimbursement for Medicare providers will be cut. Even before the current debt reduction debate and increasing prevalence of political gridlock in Congress, policy movement regarding the SGR involved numerous short-term fixes. For example, from 2003 through 2010, Congress included provisions in 13 separate pieces of legislation to forestall reimbursement cuts. As a long-term fix for the SGR – e.g. replacing it with a current fee freeze – would be extremely costly to the taxpayer (some estimates currently peg it around $300 billion over 10 years), short-term fixes have generally proved to be an easier bargain (as much as they have irritated physicians and their respective trade associations).
At this point, anyone’s guess is as good as another’s regarding the level of reimbursement for Medicare services on January 1, 2012. Although the current political climate is not one that generally supports massive spending to doctors that would be required for a long-term fix, many believe that cuts of the magnitude prescribed by the SGR would not be conducive to ensuring beneficiary access to services. Therefore, another short-term fix might be in the works as a stop-gap measure. However, there is also a chance that the currently-convened deficit reduction “Super Committee” might address the SGR as part of its proceedings.
If compromise is within reach, within or outside of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, it may be similar to a plan recently recommend by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), which ironically enough, was also established by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and serves as an independent advisor to Congress. MedPAC’s plan, which would cost $200 billion over 10 years (instead of the $300 billion of the fee freeze), would protect both primary care and specialty physicians from the deep cuts called for by SGR. Primary care physicians would see physician fees associated with Medicare services frozen for 10 years, while specialists would see smaller cuts (of 5.9% per year) over the first three years that would then remain frozen for the remaining seven years in the budget window.
Granted, MedPAC’s suggestion is not a panacea, but it is a good start. At the very least, it should focus us on attempting to resolve this looming crisis.
Unless Congress acts between now and the end of 2011, at least one group will not be experiencing a happy New Year: physicians who provide services to Medicare patients. Under current law, starting in 2012, reimbursement for Medicare-provided services will be reduced by an estimated 30%. Why is this happening? It is all related to policies enacted nearly 15 years ago in an earlier iteration of debt reduction efforts.
The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 was signed into law on August 5, 1997 and was designed to balance the federal budget by 2002. Of its $160 billion in spending cuts during that time period, $112 billion was applicable to the Medicare program, which is the primary health coverage program for older and some disabled Americans. A key component of the cuts to Medicare included, for the first time, a budgetary restraint on Medicare’s total expenditures to maintain budget neutrality. Known as the sustainable growth rate (SGR), it is a major component of the current formula for determining annual updates to physician reimbursement. While Medicare payment rate increases since 1992 had been tied to trends in physician utilization (i.e. efficient use of medical tests and facilities by a doctor), in 1997, for the first time, the implementation of the SGR meant that Medicare reimbursement changes would be linked to four factors: 1) changes in input costs, 2) changes in Medicare fee-for-service enrollment, 3) changes in the volume of physician services relative to growth in the national economy, and 4) changes in expenditures due to changes in law and/or regulation.
The SGR resulted in annual increases to the Medicare fee schedule until 2002, when a 4.8% reduction took place. Since that time, rate reductions called for by the formula have been deferred, although Congress has not changed the underlying SGR formula or the cumulative spending targets. Because of vast increases in the volume and complexity of health care services for the Medicare population in recent years, especially when compared to the SGR designers’ projections, the formula specifies cuts in physician payments that become more severe with each passing year. In fact, at a cost of $19 billion, a last-minute December 2010 vote delayed a scheduled 25% reduction in the SGR that was to take place in January 2011.
So, here we are again, this time in late 2011, deciding whether or not reimbursement for Medicare providers will be cut. Even before the current debt reduction debate and increasing prevalence of political gridlock in Congress, policy movement regarding the SGR involved numerous short-term fixes. For example, from 2003 through 2010, Congress included provisions in 13 separate pieces of legislation to forestall reimbursement cuts. As a long-term fix for the SGR – e.g. replacing it with a current fee freeze – would be extremely costly to the taxpayer (some estimates currently peg it around $300 billion over 10 years), short-term fixes have generally proved to be an easier bargain (as much as they have irritated physicians and their respective trade associations).
At this point, anyone’s guess is as good as another’s regarding the level of reimbursement for Medicare services on January 1, 2012. Although the current political climate is not one that generally supports massive spending to doctors that would be required for a long-term fix, many believe that cuts of the magnitude prescribed by the SGR would not be conducive to ensuring beneficiary access to services. Therefore, another short-term fix might be in the works as a stop-gap measure. However, there is also a chance that the currently-convened deficit reduction “Super Committee” might address the SGR as part of its proceedings.
If compromise is within reach, within or outside of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, it may be similar to a plan recently recommend by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), which ironically enough, was also established by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and serves as an independent advisor to Congress. MedPAC’s plan, which would cost $200 billion over 10 years (instead of the $300 billion of the fee freeze), would protect both primary care and specialty physicians from the deep cuts called for by SGR. Primary care physicians would see physician fees associated with Medicare services frozen for 10 years, while specialists would see smaller cuts (of 5.9% per year) over the first three years that would then remain frozen for the remaining seven years in the budget window.
Granted, MedPAC’s suggestion is not a panacea, but it is a good start. At the very least, it should focus us on attempting to resolve this looming crisis.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Islamophobia and the etymological roots of the King hearings, part I: The premises and implications of the King hearings
Editor’s Note: This is the first of a three-part series on Islamophobia in America. Part II discusses the emerging semantics of Islam and Muslims in the West. Part III examines Islamophobic language trends in major English and Arabic media outlets and their implications for public policy.
Nazir Harb, MPA
Despite opposition from the Obama administration and a wide array of American minority groups, especially major Arab-American and American Muslim organizations, on March 10th the House Committee on Homeland Security convened a hearing entitled “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response.” It was truly a tragic event in our nation’s history but unfortunately only the beginning of a year-long series of hearings that attempt to put Islam and Muslims on trial. The next hearing is supposed to take place in the next few weeks. Representative Peter King (R-NY), who chairs the committee and is the driving force behind the hearings, has been rather enigmatic about the exact dates of these show trials.
The title of King’s hearings is telling in and of itself, as it reveals the innate biases of the Congressman and his witnesses. The hearings attempt to legitimize a premise that is not only baseless and untrue, but also brazenly racist, prejudicial, and provocative. They antagonize a susceptible, peaceful community that constitutes a diverse multi-national and multi-cultural American minority with a longstanding history of contributions to the United States and the world.
Obama administration officials have stressed that the hearings are condemnable and that their premise must be amended to investigate radicalization in America in general as a phenomenon independent of Islam or Muslims. Instead, the hearings present a forgone conclusion damning an American minority without so much as giving it the opportunity to speak for itself. Indeed, during the first hearing, each of the speakers was well-known for harboring and fomenting Islamophobic and anti-Muslim sentiments (save Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim congressman from Minnesota). Their testimonies that day predictably served King’s fear-mongering and self-aggrandizing political agenda. While some of King’s witnesses were “practicing Muslims” who admittedly had very negative—but undoubtedly unrepresentative—experiences with Islam and Muslims inside or outside of the US, their testimonies thus far have supported the sort of abominable and unwarranted claims that Rep. King has recently made, such as that “85% of mosques in America are ruled by the extremists.” To quote King, who has faced relatively little castigation for such statements, his hearings are meant to demonstrate that Muslims in the United States are “an enemy living amongst us.”
Notably, countless American Muslims and non-Muslims who have requested to testify, including specialists who would represent the counterargument to these allegations and provide for real debate on the topic, have been declined the right to testify. There could therefore be no doubt that these hearings are political show trials which target a vulnerable minority that is politically difficult to defend in public. Fortunately at least Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) had the fortitude to use his own bully pulpit for such a noble purpose and convened a Senate hearing on March 29th on threats to American Muslim civil rights.
Sadly such mistrust and public aspersions on the loyalty of American citizens is not without precedent in our recent history. These events recall the regrettable and horrific treatment of Japanese Americans following the tragedy of Pearl Harbor. True, these hearings don’t rise to the level of mass internment (though something of the sort did take place immediately following 9/11), but we cannot stand by as another American minority is profiled, singled out, and blamed for a foreign attack. American Muslims have begun protests and educational programs to emphasize that this is a critical matter of civil rights which concerns every American, and is not what Rep. King has characterized as strictly a “Muslim problem.” Attorney General Eric Holder is right to assert that anti-Muslim bigotry is “the civil rights issue of our time.”
Get involved! Please sign our petition to stop the targeting of American Muslims: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/hearings/
Nazir Harb, MPA
Despite opposition from the Obama administration and a wide array of American minority groups, especially major Arab-American and American Muslim organizations, on March 10th the House Committee on Homeland Security convened a hearing entitled “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response.” It was truly a tragic event in our nation’s history but unfortunately only the beginning of a year-long series of hearings that attempt to put Islam and Muslims on trial. The next hearing is supposed to take place in the next few weeks. Representative Peter King (R-NY), who chairs the committee and is the driving force behind the hearings, has been rather enigmatic about the exact dates of these show trials.
The title of King’s hearings is telling in and of itself, as it reveals the innate biases of the Congressman and his witnesses. The hearings attempt to legitimize a premise that is not only baseless and untrue, but also brazenly racist, prejudicial, and provocative. They antagonize a susceptible, peaceful community that constitutes a diverse multi-national and multi-cultural American minority with a longstanding history of contributions to the United States and the world.
Obama administration officials have stressed that the hearings are condemnable and that their premise must be amended to investigate radicalization in America in general as a phenomenon independent of Islam or Muslims. Instead, the hearings present a forgone conclusion damning an American minority without so much as giving it the opportunity to speak for itself. Indeed, during the first hearing, each of the speakers was well-known for harboring and fomenting Islamophobic and anti-Muslim sentiments (save Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim congressman from Minnesota). Their testimonies that day predictably served King’s fear-mongering and self-aggrandizing political agenda. While some of King’s witnesses were “practicing Muslims” who admittedly had very negative—but undoubtedly unrepresentative—experiences with Islam and Muslims inside or outside of the US, their testimonies thus far have supported the sort of abominable and unwarranted claims that Rep. King has recently made, such as that “85% of mosques in America are ruled by the extremists.” To quote King, who has faced relatively little castigation for such statements, his hearings are meant to demonstrate that Muslims in the United States are “an enemy living amongst us.”
Notably, countless American Muslims and non-Muslims who have requested to testify, including specialists who would represent the counterargument to these allegations and provide for real debate on the topic, have been declined the right to testify. There could therefore be no doubt that these hearings are political show trials which target a vulnerable minority that is politically difficult to defend in public. Fortunately at least Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) had the fortitude to use his own bully pulpit for such a noble purpose and convened a Senate hearing on March 29th on threats to American Muslim civil rights.
Sadly such mistrust and public aspersions on the loyalty of American citizens is not without precedent in our recent history. These events recall the regrettable and horrific treatment of Japanese Americans following the tragedy of Pearl Harbor. True, these hearings don’t rise to the level of mass internment (though something of the sort did take place immediately following 9/11), but we cannot stand by as another American minority is profiled, singled out, and blamed for a foreign attack. American Muslims have begun protests and educational programs to emphasize that this is a critical matter of civil rights which concerns every American, and is not what Rep. King has characterized as strictly a “Muslim problem.” Attorney General Eric Holder is right to assert that anti-Muslim bigotry is “the civil rights issue of our time.”
Get involved! Please sign our petition to stop the targeting of American Muslims: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/hearings/
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
National (dis)service: Symbolic budget cuts with real consequences
Larry Handerhan, MPA
When the House of Representatives passed $60 billion in fiscal year 2011 spending cuts last month, the programs on the chopping block ranged from the perfectly logical (repetitive fighter jet contracts) to the overtly political (Environmental Protection Agency). However, these efforts can not be taken as a serious deficit reduction strategy: by primarily targeting non-defense discretionary spending, which accounts for just 12% of the federal budget, it is clear that these cuts were more symbolic than substantive.
However, even in a climate where political symbolism is the cause du jour, it is alarming – and counter intuitive – that House Republicans would defund the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the agency that administers AmeriCorps and Senior Corps.
At a time where politicians and civic leaders champion public service, there must be some other option beyond joining the military. Volunteerism has never been more crucial: as cities and states cut services in response to budget shortfalls, volunteers are increasingly responsible for ensuring that the social safety net remains intact. And in addition to supporting its own volunteers, CNCS provides crucial capacity-building to some of the nation’s most well-respected and effective non-profits like City Year, Teach for America, and Habitat for Humanity.
If anything, fiscal conservatives should appreciate such a prudent program: most AmeriCorps members serve for an annual stipend of just $12,000.
Defunding CNCS is further perplexing because national service has not been – and should not become – a partisan issue. Bill Clinton launched AmeriCorps after successful pilot programs instigated by Republican predecessor George H. W. Bush. And George W. Bush increased the size of the program from 50,000 to 75,000 participants.
As any national service champion can attest, these symbolic cuts will have real consequences.
These consequences can be measured in fewer meals served, fewer students tutored, and fewer houses built. Unfortunately, the “softer” benefits of this work are equally as important but harder to quantify.
National service invests in communities, but also invests in the volunteer. This fosters positive externalities that extend far beyond time spent in a CNCS program and are not easily captured by traditional performance metrics.
Consider:
66% of AmeriCorps alums go on to work in public service, and are more likely than their peers to volunteer later in life.[1]
Volunteering has been shown to improve the mental and physical health of service-providers, particular older Americans.
And federal dollars incubate innovation. One salient example hits close to home: CNCS helped bring Teach for America to scale after it started as Wendy Kopp’s undergraduate thesis here at the Woodrow Wilson School. Due to the program’s success and popularity, it now attracts an additional $4 in private, state, and local funds for every federal dollar it receives.[2]
That sounds like a pretty good return on investment to me.
Note: Larry Handerhan served as a Team Leader in AmeriCorps*NCCC in 2005-06, aiding victims of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast.
----------------
References:
[1] AmeriCorps: Changing Lives, Changing America – A Report on AmeriCorps’ Impact on Members and Nonprofit Organizations,” Corporation for National and Community Service, 2007.
[2] Matt Kramer (president of Teach for America), Congressional Testimony, March 8, 2010.
When the House of Representatives passed $60 billion in fiscal year 2011 spending cuts last month, the programs on the chopping block ranged from the perfectly logical (repetitive fighter jet contracts) to the overtly political (Environmental Protection Agency). However, these efforts can not be taken as a serious deficit reduction strategy: by primarily targeting non-defense discretionary spending, which accounts for just 12% of the federal budget, it is clear that these cuts were more symbolic than substantive.
However, even in a climate where political symbolism is the cause du jour, it is alarming – and counter intuitive – that House Republicans would defund the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the agency that administers AmeriCorps and Senior Corps.
At a time where politicians and civic leaders champion public service, there must be some other option beyond joining the military. Volunteerism has never been more crucial: as cities and states cut services in response to budget shortfalls, volunteers are increasingly responsible for ensuring that the social safety net remains intact. And in addition to supporting its own volunteers, CNCS provides crucial capacity-building to some of the nation’s most well-respected and effective non-profits like City Year, Teach for America, and Habitat for Humanity.
If anything, fiscal conservatives should appreciate such a prudent program: most AmeriCorps members serve for an annual stipend of just $12,000.
Defunding CNCS is further perplexing because national service has not been – and should not become – a partisan issue. Bill Clinton launched AmeriCorps after successful pilot programs instigated by Republican predecessor George H. W. Bush. And George W. Bush increased the size of the program from 50,000 to 75,000 participants.
As any national service champion can attest, these symbolic cuts will have real consequences.
These consequences can be measured in fewer meals served, fewer students tutored, and fewer houses built. Unfortunately, the “softer” benefits of this work are equally as important but harder to quantify.
National service invests in communities, but also invests in the volunteer. This fosters positive externalities that extend far beyond time spent in a CNCS program and are not easily captured by traditional performance metrics.
Consider:
66% of AmeriCorps alums go on to work in public service, and are more likely than their peers to volunteer later in life.[1]
Volunteering has been shown to improve the mental and physical health of service-providers, particular older Americans.
And federal dollars incubate innovation. One salient example hits close to home: CNCS helped bring Teach for America to scale after it started as Wendy Kopp’s undergraduate thesis here at the Woodrow Wilson School. Due to the program’s success and popularity, it now attracts an additional $4 in private, state, and local funds for every federal dollar it receives.[2]
That sounds like a pretty good return on investment to me.
Note: Larry Handerhan served as a Team Leader in AmeriCorps*NCCC in 2005-06, aiding victims of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast.
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References:
[1] AmeriCorps: Changing Lives, Changing America – A Report on AmeriCorps’ Impact on Members and Nonprofit Organizations,” Corporation for National and Community Service, 2007.
[2] Matt Kramer (president of Teach for America), Congressional Testimony, March 8, 2010.
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