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1.
November 3,
2011, 7:00-9:00 p.m.
The Westin Georgetown Hotel. More info and to register
2. “Polluting
Black Space: Physical Locations as Targets of Housing and Environmental
Discrimination”
Dr. Courtney Bonam, UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the
November 7,
2011, 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Room 105 -
3. “In Search
of Good Food” with an introduction by the filmmaker, Antonio Roman-Alcalá – a film screening
November 15th,
6:30-8:30 p.m. GSPP Room 250
Presented by GSPP’s Students in Nutrition and Agriculture Policy
4. The 15th annual Mario Savio Memorial Lecture & Young Activist Award: Robert Reich on Class Warfare in America
November 15 |
8 p.m. | Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, Pauley Ballroom
Doors open at
6:30 p.m. Admission is free, but tickets are required; they will be available
in the student center lobby from 6:30 p.m. on.
Sponsored by:
Library,
Event
Contact: savio@sonic.net, 510-643-0394
5. “Can the Blue & Gold Excel in an Economy in the Red?”
An Evening Salon with Michigan Governor Emeritus Jennifer Granholm
‘84 and UC Berkeley Chief Financial Officer
November 16, 2011, 6:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., Luxe
Sunset Boulevard Hotel | 11461 Sunset Blvd.,
Sponsored by the Cal Alumni Association; more info
6. Annual Aaron Wildavsky
Forum 2012
Lawrence Summers, President Emeritus of
Harvard University; Director of the National Economic Council in the Obama
Administration 2009-2011; U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, 1999-2001.
April 12-13, 2012.
ALUMNI AND STUDENT NEWSMAKERS
1. “
2. “Industry fears blow to wind power if federal credit ends;
Energy trade group pushing Congress to extend incentive before end of 2012”
(The Houston Chronicle, October 31, 2011); story citing ROB GRAMLICH (MPP 1995).
3. “Dayton forms two task forces to deal with health care
issues” (St. Paul Pioneer Press, October 30, 2011); story citing PHILLIP CRYAN (MPP 2009).
4. “Brown’s pension plan leaves out CalSTRS”
(The Sacramento Bee, Oct. 29, 2011); story citing ED DERMAN (MPP 1978); http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/29/4015230/browns-pension-plan-leaves-out.html
5. “PG&E paid for survey on
6. “Without federal stimulus help, states find Medicaid
straining their budgets” (Washington Post, October 28, 2011); story citing TRACY GORDON (MPP 1996/PhD 2001).
7. “Open enrollment: Higher pay could mean higher premiums”
(Reuters Health Medical News, October 28, 2011); story citing KAREN POLLITZ (MPP 1982).
8. “Governor aims to cut pension costs by half” (Orange
County Register, October 27, 2011); story citing MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980).
9. “Federal officials approve reductions to Medi-Cal” (Associated Press: Los Angeles Metro Area,
October 27, 2011); story citing TOBY
DOUGLAS (MPP 2001/MPH 2002).
10. “Income for richest 1% grew 275% from 1979 to 2009” (San
Francisco Chronicle, October 27, 2011); column citing CISCO DEVRIES (MPP 2000); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/26/BUDA1LMI5T.DTL#ixzz1bzrL26mx
11. “Sheriff’s race a test for ranked-choice voting” (San
Francisco Chronicle, October 27, 2011); column citing DAVID LATTERMAN (MPP 2002); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/26/BAQA1LMI6F.DTL#ixzz1c089WFWT
12. “
13. “
14. “BofA Corp. Chief Economist M.
Levy on Bloomberg Surveillance” (Bloomberg: Surveillance Show, October 26,
2011); interview with MICKEY LEVY
(MPP 1974).
15. “Vote nears on Bay Area toll lane network expansion”
(Contra Costa Times, October 26, 2011); story citing group headed by STUART COHEN (MPP 1997); http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_19191141
16. “Viewpoints: As minorities rise, state college funds drop”
(Sacramento Bee, Oct. 21, 2011); op-ed citing NANCY BOROW SHULOCK (MPP 1978); http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/21/3992181/as-minorities-rise-state-college.html#ixzz1bR4x0ws9
17. “Occupy The Classroom” (The New
York Times, October 20, 2011); column citing DAVID DEMING (MPP 2005).
18. “Jilted by state, community colleges seek parcel taxes to
pay for basic courses” (Contra Costa Times, October 18, 2011); story citing JESSE ROTHSTEIN (MPP/PhD Econ 2003) and
ABEL GUILLEN (MPP 2001); http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_19138744
19. “Outlook goes from bad to worse for CalSTRS
under proposed accounting standards” (Sacramento Bee, Oct. 18, 2011); story
citing ED DERMAN (MPP 1978); http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/18/3986621/outlook-goes-from-bad-to-worse.html#ixzz1b9FsdPLj
20. “SF plan would offer tax break for hiring felons” (San
Francisco Chronicle, October 18, 2011); story citing study authored by SARAH LAWRENCE (MPP 2000); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/17/BAT31LISSG.DTL#ixzz1b9UShXFo
21. “
22. “Federal prosecutors will visit
23. State Worker: “
24. “Saving the UC – but at what cost to students?” (San
Francisco Chronicle Online, October 13, 2011); interview with JONATHAN STEIN (MPP/JD cand.); http://blog.sfgate.com/kalw/2011/10/13/saving-the-uc-%E2%80%93-but-at-what-cost-to-students/
25. “My Word: We’re on the right path at Alameda Point” (San
Jose Mercury News, October 13, 2011); op-ed citing JENNIFER OTT (MPP 2000); http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_19105858?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
26. “Feds fend off fuel rule criticism” (The Detroit News,
October 13, 2011); story citing ROLAND
HWANG (MPP 1992).
27. “AM Alert: Crime and punishment” (Sacramento Bee Online,
October 12, 2011); event featuring STUART
DROWN (MPP 1986).
28. “Hard Start: Sarah Marxer knows
that some adopted kids need help to overcome early adversity” (Perspectives,
KQED public radio, October 10, 2011); commentary by SARAH MARXER (MPP 2004); Listen
to this Perspective
29. “Graduation rates to play bigger role in college funding”
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 10, 2011); story citing NANCY BOROW SHULOCK (MPP 1978); http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/graduation-rates-to-play-1197702.html
30. “Prop. G adds half-cent to sales tax in S.F.” (San
Francisco Chronicle, October 9, 2011); story citing CARMEN CHU (MPP 2003); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/08/BA891LAP99.DTL#ixzz1aQ3S9SPx
31. “CA Governor Jerry Brown Signs Two Life Saving Bills to
Prevent HIV and Hepatitis Syringes Can Be Purchased at Pharmacies Without
Prescription and Areas in Need Can Apply for Syringe Access Programs through CA
Dept. of Public Health” (States News Service, October 10, 2011); newswire
citing LAURA THOMAS (MPP/MPH 1995).
32. “Some locals say ‘not so fast’ to proposed fuel economy regs; others say it’s about time” (Midland Daily News (MI),
October 9, 2011); story citing LUKE
TONACHEL (MPP 2004).
33. “Time to shop Medicare plans” (Dallas Morning News,
October 8, 2011); column citing JULIETTE
CUBANSKI (MPP 1998/MPH 1999).
34. “Community fund creates lending program for jobs” (San
Francisco Chronicle, October 5, 2011); column citing organization headed by BETH SIRULL (MPP 2005); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/04/BUIP1LCUIK.DTL#ixzz1ZviYskIi
35. “DOD Perfectly Suited as Innovations Tester, Official
Says” (Defense Department Documents and Publications, October 5, 2011); story
citing DOROTHY ROBYN (MPP 1978/PhD
1983).
36. “House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations Hearing; ‘Administration Efforts on Line-by-Line Budget Review’;
Testimony by Stan Collender, Partner, Qorvis Communications” (Congressional Documents and
Publications, October 5, 2011); congressional testimony by STAN COLLENDER (MPP 1976).
37. “Alabama immigration gets through one court, and it’s on
to the next” (The Colorado Independent, October 4, 2011); story citing KAREN TUMLIN (MPP 2003/JD 2004).
38. “
39. “Center for American Progress Holds a Conference Call
Briefing on ‘Buffett Rule’” (Financial Markets Regulatory Wire October 3, 2011
Copyright 2011 CQ Transcriptions, LLC, All Rights Reserved); event featuring MICHAEL LINDEN (MPP 2007).
40. “Canadian court lets drug injection facility stay open”
(Lewiston Morning Tribune (
41. “UNITED STATES: Department of Defense awards $225,000 to
city of
42. “Vermonters can appeal FEMA decisions” (Brattleboro
Reformer, September 26, 2011); story citing KARI DOLAN (MPP 1990).
43. “State budget cutting prompts worries by nation’s
children’s hospitals” (McClatchy Washington Bureau, September 25, 2011); story
citing KELLY ABBETT HARDY (MPP/MPH
2004).
44. “Jerry Brown grants bulk of state hiring freeze exemption
requests” (September 18, 2011, Sacramento Bee); story citing TRACY GORDON (MPP 1996/PhD 2001).
45. “Comment Requested on Rural Community Wealth and Health
Care Provision Survey” (Targeted News Service, September 13, 2011); newswire
citing JOHN PENDER (MPP 1983/PhD
Agriculture & Development).
46. “Cutthroat Admissions and Rising Inequality: A Vicious
Duo” (The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 11, 2011); commentary citing
NANCY BOROW SHULOCK (MPP 1978).
47. “Deportees waive rights unwittingly, report says” (Los
Angeles Times, September 9, 2011); story citing KAREN TUMLIN (MPP 2003/JD 2004).
48. “ASU Ranked in Top 25 in the World in Biological Sciences”
(States News Service, September 2, 2011); newswire citing KEVIN GURNEY (MPP 1996).
49. “Handicapped drivers outraged by
50. “EU/US : Mounting Concern on
Both Sides of Atlantic over Debt Crises” (Europolitics,
No. 4252, August 30, 2011); analysis citing TRACY GORDON (MPP 1996/PhD 2001).
51. “Supporting Green Jobs and Energy-Efficient Homes in
52. “
FACULTY IN THE NEWS
1. “Flat tax a flat-out fraud” (San Francisco
Chronicle, October 30, 2011); op-ed by ROBERT
REICH; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/29/IN9J1LM1E3.DTL#ixzz1cOmUmuu8
2. “What’s the future of public universities?
Forum seeks way forward” (UC Berkeley NewsCenter,
October 27, 2011); story citing ROBERT
REICH; http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/10/27/forum-on-future-of-public-universities/
3. “Low birth weight, poverty affect disease in
adulthood, says new study co-authored by UC Berkeley economist” (The Berkeleyan, October 25, 2011); story citing RUCKER JOHNSON; http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/10/24/low-birth-weight-poverty-effect-disease-in-adulthood-says-new-study-co-authored-by-uc-berkeley-economist/
4. “The End of the Iraq War” (Forum with Michael Krasny, KQED Public Radio, October 24, 2011); program
featuring commentary by MICHAEL NACHT;
Listen to the program
5. “Top candidates happy to take Wall Street’s
money” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 24, 2011); analysis citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/23/MNA91LJVIB.DTL#ixzz1bii4elXL
6. “
7. “Doug Bandow: It’s Time to
Declare Peace in the War Against Drugs” (AOLB-5176,
October 19, 2011); commentary citing ROBERT
MACCOUN.
8. “The rise of the regressive Right and the
reawakening of
9. “Wall Street, not financial reform, is the
problem” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 16, 2011); op-ed by ROBERT REICH; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/14/IN7R1LG58T.DTL#ixzz1b3vxKacn
10. “They’re trolling for dollars; In the Pac-12,
most athletic departments need cash from school coffers to make ends meet,
sparking criticism in a time of shrinking budgets” (Los Angeles Times, October
16, 2011); column citing MICHAEL O’HARE.
11. “Former Mich. Governor to Host Current TV
Talk Show” (New York Times Online [*requires registration], October 13, 2011);
newswire citing Visiting Lecturers JENNIFER
GRANHOLM and DAN MULHERN; http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/10/12/arts/AP-US-TV-Current-Granholm.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Berkeley&st=nyt
12. Robert Reich’s Blog: “The seven biggest
economic lies. This nation can’t improve unless more Americans know the truth
about the economy” (Christian Science Monitor Online, October 12, 2011);
commentary by ROBERT REICH; http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Robert-Reich/2011/1012/The-seven-biggest-economic-lies
13. “Bioterror ‘Report
Card’ to Show More Work Ahead” (Wall Street Journal [*requires registration],
October 12, 2011); story citing STEPHEN
MAURER; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204450804576625261768268384.html?KEYWORDS=Berkeley
14. Robert Reich’s Blog: “‘Occupy Wall Street’
the Left’s Tea Party? Maybe, but...” (Christian Science Monitor Online, October
11, 2011); commentary by ROBERT REICH;
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Robert-Reich/2011/1011/Occupy-Wall-Street-the-Left-s-Tea-Party-Maybe-but
15. “Can
16. “Robert
Reich on bringing tenacity to public leadership” (Wahington
Post, October 10, 2011); interview with ROBERT
REICH; http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ask-the-fedcoach/post/robert-reich-on-bringing-tenacity-to-public-leadership/2011/03/04/gIQAxXvCTL_blog.html
17. “Poor bear brunt of GOP’s morally bankrupt
plans” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 9, 2011); op-ed by ROBERT REICH; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/08/INV31LD6AK.DTL#ixzz1aPwJTsTM
18. “Some Unemployed Find Fault in Extension of
Jobless Benefits” (New York Times, October 7, 2011); story citing JESSE ROTHSTEIN; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/business/some-unemployed-find-fault-in-extension-of-jobless-benefits.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25
19. “Wall Street Protests Spread” (Forum, KQED
public radio, October 6, 2011); features commentary by ROBERT REICH; Listen to the program
20. “Solyndra crash
puts heat on energy secretary” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 5, 2011);
story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/04/MNR81LD85L.DTL#ixzz1Zwj9aAs9
21. “Why would
22. “Some Studies Suggest Restricting Criminal
Background Checks by Employers May Increase Unemployment Rates of Minorities”
(ESR News Blog, October 5, 2011); blog citing STEVEN RAPHAEL.
23. “Broken Government; Fixing Unemployment”
(Your Money, CNN, October 1, 2011); program featuring commentary by ROBERT REICH.
24. Zeitgeist Americas 2011: “Each of us, All of
us,” (Google Zeitgeist, September 28, 2011); event featuring ROBERT REICH; View the video
1. “
By Terry Frieden, CNN Justice Producer
Justice Department
officials pressed their campaign against an immigration law in
Justice Department
officials argue that
Karen Tumlin, managing attorney of the
National Immigration Law Center, praised the federal move in
“The Department of
Justice has rightly challenged
2. “Industry fears blow
to wind power if federal credit ends; Energy trade group pushing Congress to
extend incentive before end of 2012” (The Houston Chronicle, October 31, 2011);
story citing ROB GRAMLICH (MPP
1995).
By
For nearly two decades,
wind power has benefited from the production tax credit, a federal incentive
providing 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour to companies for new wind capacity for
the first 10 years it’s online. The industry says the credit has helped wind
account for 35 percent of all new
With the credit set to
expire after Dec. 31, 2012, wind energy expansion may slow if a politically
polarized and budget-cutting Congress doesn’t approve an extension....
The wind-energy trade
group wants Congress to extend the credit now and not wait until late next
year. Rob Gramlich,
senior vice president for public policy at the American Wind Energy Association,
said uncertainty already has led some site developers and turbine-component
makers to scale back their 2013 plans because they have to make business
decisions now.
A bipartisan group of 24
governors in July called for extending the credit by up to seven years. Gramlich said he
was optimistic that Congress would act because both parties like policies that
provide tax relief to businesses without imposing mandates....
3. “Dayton forms two
task forces to deal with health care issues” (St. Paul Pioneer Press, October
30, 2011); story citing PHILLIP CRYAN
(MPP 2009).
By Doug Belden
Gov. Mark Dayton named
two task forces Monday aimed at improving health outcomes in the state....
The second committee,
the 15-member Health Insurance Exchange Advisory task force, is chaired by
Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman.... Its task is to develop an exchange, an
online marketplace that would allow consumers to compare and buy coverage.
The exchange, a
centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, needs to be ready
by Jan. 1, 2013, with implementation the following year, or else the federal
government will impose one in
COMMERCE DEPARTMENT
HEALTH INSURANCE EXCHANGE ADVISORY TASK FORCE
Sue Abderholden,
executive director of the Minnesota Alliance on Mental Illness (
Dannette
Coleman, vice president-general manager, individual and family business, Medica (
Phillip Cryan, health policy specialist and
organizing director, SEIU (
4. “Brown’s pension plan
leaves out CalSTRS” (The Sacramento Bee, Oct. 29,
2011); story citing ED DERMAN (MPP 1978);
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/29/4015230/browns-pension-plan-leaves-out.html
By Dale Kasler
Gov. Jerry Brown gestures Thursday toward a
display of the 12 points in his plan to overhaul the state pension system. (Hector Amezcua / Sacbee.com)
... Despite two years of
lobbying from the teachers’ retirement fund, a plan to shore up CalSTRS’ finances was missing from Gov. Jerry Brown’s
pension reform proposal this week.
The California State
Teachers’ Retirement System faces a long-term shortfall of $56 billion – the
gap between assets and estimated liabilities. The fund has been quietly pushing
a plan to increase taxpayer contributions, and has stepped up its campaign in
recent weeks....
Unlike the California
Public Employees’ Retirement System, which can unilaterally raise taxpayer
contributions, CalSTRS must get permission from the
Legislature and governor....
Ed Derman, deputy CEO at CalSTRS,
said in an interview Friday that he’s optimistic the Legislature will take a
look at the pension fund’s finances.
“We’ll continue to work,
continue to meet with the administration and the Legislature,” Derman said.
Brown’s 12-point plan “is the beginning” of the debate, not the end, Derman added....
5. “PG&E paid for
survey on
--Jaxon
Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
Pacific Gas and Electric
Co. has spent shareholders’ money on a survey measuring the public-opinion
effects of recent Chronicle coverage of the San Bruno natural-gas explosion and
other problems for the utility, company officials say.
PG&E would not say
how much the survey this month of 500 customers cost or provide details of what
the market research firm that the company hired had asked.
[David Eisenhauer, a PG&E spokesman] said a confidentiality
agreement with the company that developed the survey, which he did not
identify, barred him from revealing the survey’s cost....
A pollster in
“It would have taken
some time to structure that kind of survey,” said Shanan Alper, senior analyst for David Binder
Research in
6. “Without federal
stimulus help, states find Medicaid straining their budgets” (Washington Post,
October 28, 2011); story citing TRACY
GORDON (MPP 1996/PhD 2001).
By N.C. Aizenman
The expiration of
federal stimulus funding for Medicaid has dealt a blow to states still
struggling to recover from the economic downturn, according to figures released
Thursday.
To compensate for the
loss of extra federal Medicaid dollars this June, states have increased their
spending on the program by an average of 29 percent in the current fiscal year.
Nearly every state also
has turned to tough measures to trim Medicaid costs, such as eliminating
benefits, reducing payment rates to doctors and hospitals, and increasing the
co-payments they charge the poor and disabled served by the program....
Tracy Gordon, a researcher at the Brookings Institution
who specializes in state budgets, said there were signs of progress. The growth
in Medicaid enrollment is slowing, and states have had six straight quarters of
revenue growth.
Still, she said, state
revenues remain at least 6 percent lower than pre-recession levels, and states
are projecting a total of $46 billion in budget shortfalls for the fiscal year
that will start next July.
That shortfall is “a lot
less than at the height of the crisis,” said Gordon, “but the [extra] federal money is not available this time,
and there’s a sense that the easy solutions are off the table—one-time things
like selling off assets or borrowing from special funds.”
One option no one is
pushing is another round of federal stimulus spending. “It really just boils
down to the federal government’s budget challenges,” Gordon said. “In this environment, I think additional aid to the
states is just not forthcoming.” ...
7. “Open enrollment:
Higher pay could mean higher premiums” (Reuters Health Medical News, October
28, 2011); story citing KAREN POLLITZ
(MPP 1982).
(Reuters) - Open
enrollment for benefits ends today at the
... Even though he’s in
the second-highest quintile, you won’t hear him complain about paying roughly
$120 a year more for his Blue Cross-Blue Shield HMO plan than employees at the
bottom of the ladder....
That attitude squares
with expert opinion: that in an age of ever-soaring healthcare costs, higher wage earners must pull more weight, lest their
lower-earning colleagues face precarious risks....
A survey of about 600
employers by the National Business Group on Health (NBGH) and Towers Watson
shows that 23% of large- and mid-sized companies
structure health benefit premiums based on employee pay levels. About one in five
employers (22%) that kept healthcare costs at or below national averages the
last four years used this approach. By contrast, only 10% of employers with the
highest healthcare increases structure premiums based on pay.
“It’s not new, it’s not
illegal and I’m not surprised by the numbers, given the significant cost of
healthcare,” says Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation
and a former health policy adviser to members of Congress. “It’s a good,
human thing to do; you want your employees to be in the pool and you want the
pool to be as large as possible. That’s what helps bring people in.” ...
8. “Governor aims to cut
pension costs by half” (Orange County Register, October 27, 2011); story citing
MIKE GENEST (MPP 1980).
By Brian Joseph,
Gov. Jerry Brown
unveiled Thursday a sweeping pension reform plan that he said would cut state
costs in half by reducing benefits and increasing the retirement age of state,
local and school employees....
Brown’s proposal would
establish a “hybrid risk sharing plan,” where new employees, not existing ones,
would receive a third of their pension benefits from Social Security, a third
from a defined benefit plan and a third from a 401(k) type defined contribution
plan....
Brown’s plan also would raise the retirement age for non-safety workers from 55 to
67, a move that’s thought to be unpopular with public employee unions....
The governor’s proposal
also includes policies to prevent pension spiking and prohibit retroactive pension
increases and pension holidays. It also would eliminate “airtime,” a
little-known perk that allows public employees to boost their retirement
benefits by purchasing imaginary service credits....
In all, the governor’s
office estimates his plan would save the state $4 billion to $11 billion over
the 30 years of its implementation. If it was implemented this year, it would
save the state an estimated $900 million.
Mike Genest, a former director of Finance
under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a leader
in the group
“While it’s a good
start, any proposal that does not require current employees to share in the
responsibility of reducing our unfunded liability falls short of averting this
crisis,” Genest
said in a prepared statement.
9. “Federal officials
approve reductions to Medi-Cal” (Associated Press:
Los Angeles Metro Area, October 27, 2011); story citing TOBY DOUGLAS (MPP 2001/MPH 2002).
By Shaya
Tayefe Mohajer – Associated
Press
The federal government
on Thursday approved a state proposal to reduce Medi-Cal
provider reimbursements by 10 percent and make other cuts to the federal health
insurance program for the poor and disabled.
Proposed by the
Schwarzenegger and Brown administrations, the cuts will save the state’s
ever-floundering general fund $623 million - but health providers worry the
real cost will be paid by the state’s poorest patients.
The cuts approved
Thursday by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services include a 10
percent reduction to payments for outpatient services for doctors, clinics,
optometrists, dental services, medical equipment and pharmacy.
‘‘We value our provider
partners and look forward to continuing our service to our most vulnerable
populations,’’ said Department of Health
Care Services Director Toby Douglas....
10. “Income for richest
1% grew 275% from 1979 to 2009” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 27, 2011);
column citing CISCO DEVRIES (MPP 2000);
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/26/BUDA1LMI5T.DTL#ixzz1bzrL26mx
--Andrew S. Ross
... Green for green:
Called GreenFinanceSF Commercial, the project is modeled on the
Property Assessed Clean Energy program [originally
developed in
The city, which has authorized
up to $100 million in initial financing, has brought in an
“San Francisco’s
commercial PACE program has been designed to allow a competitive market for
financing and contracting to develop, all under a strong set of rules that
protect property owners, mortgage holders and the city,” said Francisco DeVries,
president of Renewable Funding.
The U.S. Department of
Energy and the California Energy Commission are also backing the initiative, as
are local financial institutions.
“GreenFinanceSF
will open up new sources of capital to building owners to enhance their assets
while mitigating environmental risk,” said Vincent Siciliano,
CEO of New Resource Bank in
More information,
and how to apply, at www.greenfinancesf.org .
11. “Sheriff’s race a
test for ranked-choice voting” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 27, 2011);
column citing DAVID LATTERMAN (MPP
2002); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/26/BAQA1LMI6F.DTL#ixzz1c089WFWT
--C.W. Nevius, Chronicle Columnist
This may also be the
acid test for ranked-choice voting. It is entirely likely that the person with
the most first place votes election night will be upended in later rounds by
seconds and thirds....
Sheriff is a “down
ticket” race, meaning voters have to track down the ballot to find it. Political analyst David Latterman,
who is working on the mayoral race for David Chiu but is not working with a
candidate in this race, said as much as 15 percent of the electorate might not
vote for sheriff....
The three top contenders
have their pluses. Ross Mirkarimi, a two-term
supervisor, has name recognition and holds a slim lead in polls. He also has
Hennessey’s endorsement.
Chris Cunnie has been a
... [Cunnie]
was the logical front-runner until his 20-year-old son, Patrick, died
unexpectedly a year ago. Cunnie was devastated and
withdrew himself from consideration. He’s back now, but his status as favorite
suffered.
“If Cunnie
had gotten into the race last year, it would have been over,” Latterman said. “Ross
might even have not run.” ...
12. “
By Rick Radin
Jeff Cohen is the brand
of high-tech executive
Cohen, CEO of Halt
Medical Devices, opened an engineering facility six years ago for his business,
which just completed Food and Drug Administration clinical trials for a device
intended to remove benign tissue growths in the uterus, eliminating the need
for a hysterectomy....
“Living in places like
“
“The next challenge was
to bring in more office parks, but there are 3 million square feet of empty
office space in the (Interstate 680) corridor,” he said.
The city is targeting solar
power, medical devices, health care delivery and a few other select industries,
according to a report
With solar, Brentwood
offers a strategic location to serve the Bay Area without having to pay Bay
Area rents,
“It’s becoming more
feasible to serve customers out of Brentwood,”
13. “
By Dana Hull
In 2009, the latest year
for which data is available, there were 12,560 smart grid jobs in the Bay Area,
defined as
Businesses in the Bay
Area providing smart grid-related products and services grew 139 percent
between 1995 and 2009, expanding from 280 to 670. Many of the companies are
small: the report found that in 2009, 69 percent of smart grid companies had 10
or fewer employees. This week saw the emergence of Nest, a
The Department of Energy
and the nation’s leading utilities are eager to make the electric grid more
reliable, secure and efficient, from the power plant and transmission lines to
homes and offices. The valley’s telecommunications and software expertise are key to those efforts, and several local companies are
working on ways to better present energy data to consumers. “As this continues
to unfold, it has tremendous opportunities for companies here,” said Doug Henton, CEO
of Collaborative Economics....
[The Collaborative
Economics study was also reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/26/BU2V1LM5CB.DTL
]
14. “BofA
Corp. Chief Economist M. Levy on Bloomberg Surveillance” (Bloomberg:
Surveillance Show, October 26, 2011); interview with MICKEY LEVY (MPP 1974).
KEN PREWITT: ... Mickey,
it is almost a chicken or egg thing, isn’t it here? Some people say the order
of recovery is going to be housing, labor market. And other people say it is
labor market and then housing. Where are you in that discussion?
MICKEY LEVY, CHIEF ECONOMIST, BANK OF AMERICA CORP.: We need a stronger product demand and business
perception that that product demand is going to be sustained in order that
businesses feel comfortable to hire. So they both occur at the same time.
But we do need stronger
demand, but once again, the point I would emphasize here, Ken, is monetary
policy and traditional counter cyclical fiscal policy will not work to increase
aggregate demand because there are unique factors that are inhibiting demand
such as the inhibitions and some of the mismatches in the labor markets that
have been reported widely, the absolutely gray cloud hanging over the housing
market due to mortgages.
And so, once again, we
need to address those problems directly rather than rely on counter cyclical
stimulus and then get frustrated that it is not working....
15. “Vote nears on Bay
Area toll lane network expansion” (Contra Costa Times, October 26, 2011); story
citing group headed by STUART COHEN
(MPP 1997); http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_19191141
By Denis Cuff
An express lane sign displays the fee for solo
drivers to use the lane along southbound I-680 in
... On Thursday, the
Metropolitan Transportation Commission will ask a state panel for authority to
extend the area’s toll lane network by 290 miles. The proposal is the next step
in MTC’s plans to construct 570 miles of toll lanes
on Bay Area freeways over the next two decades, at a cost of $1.6 billion to
$6.8 billion. Some 266 miles of toll lanes have already been approved, but not
yet built....
Critics, however, worry
that the toll lanes, which are intended to ease congestion, actually could lead
to greater auto use and more greenhouse gas pollution, and fail to serve
low-income residents without cars.
Skeptics say the MTC has
not provided assurances that the revenue from the lanes will be used to fund
express buses to move public transit riders.
“We are talking about
authorizing a $6 billion project, one of the largest transportation projects in
the history of the Bay Area, yet many important questions remain unanswered,”
said John Knox White, project manager for TransForm, an Oakland-based transportation advocacy group. “If we do it
right, we can end up with a world-class transportation system. But the
commission’s current approach won’t do that.”
His and other groups are
unhappy that MTC didn’t hold public workshops on the proposed toll lane
expansion before asking the California Transportation Commission to approve
it....
It remains unclear,
however, when the early Bay Area toll lanes will make enough to pay for
creating other toll lanes and fund express bus service....
TransForm, the advocacy group, wants money set aside earlier for the express
buses....
16. “Viewpoints: As
minorities rise, state college funds drop” (Sacramento Bee, Oct. 21, 2011);
op-ed citing NANCY BOROW SHULOCK
(MPP 1978); http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/21/3992181/as-minorities-rise-state-college.html#ixzz1bR4x0ws9
By Peter Schrag - Special to The Bee
It’s been 20 years since
Patrick Callan, maybe our most thoughtful analyst of
higher education policy, observed that just as waves of poor and minority
students were nearing college age, the proportion of state budgets allocated to
college and university support was going down....
But underfunding isn’t
the whole story of a national education system, once first in the world in
educating its citizenry, now overtaken by a dozen other countries. As for
And because the
California Master Plan for Higher Education, which divided the turf between the
three segments of the system, was seen as such a success in the years after its
adoption in 1960, the state is still locked into its three separate educational
silos....
... Equally irrational
is that even as budget cuts force the community colleges to reduce course
offerings, and thus reduce access, and as the universities jack up tuition, the
two-year colleges charge the lowest fees in the nation. The $36 a unit, or
$1,080 a year, is about half the national average.
Because low-income
students get tuition waivers, even $60 a unit, which is what the state
legislative analyst recommends, wouldn’t have any impact on struggling
students. But it would make many eligible for federal financial aid and tax
breaks.
It would also provide
enough revenue to enable the community colleges to restore many of the courses
they’ve been cutting. The system, as Nancy
Shulock and her colleagues at
17. “Occupy The Classroom” (The New York Times, October 20, 2011);
column citing DAVID DEMING (MPP
2005).
By Nicholas D. Kristof
Occupy Wall Street is
shining a useful spotlight on one of
Most of the proposed
remedies involve changes in taxes and regulations, and they would help. But the
single step that would do the most to reduce inequality has nothing to do with
finance at all. It’s an expansion of early childhood education....
One common thread,
whether I’m reporting on poverty in
One of the Harvard scholars
I interviewed, David Deming,
compared the outcomes of children who were in Head Start with their siblings
who did not participate. Professor
Deming found that critics were right that the Head Start advantage in test
scores faded quickly. But, in other areas, perhaps more important ones, he
found that Head Start had a significant long-term impact: the former Head Start
participants are significantly less likely than siblings to repeat grades, to
be diagnosed with a learning disability, or to suffer the kind of poor health
associated with poverty. Head Start alumni were more likely than their siblings
to graduate from high school and attend college.
Professor Deming found that in these life outcomes, Head Start had
about 80 percent of the impact of the Perry [Preschool] program—a stunning
achievement....
18. “Jilted by state,
community colleges seek parcel taxes to pay for basic courses” (Contra Costa
Times, October 18, 2011); story citing JESSE
ROTHSTEIN (MPP/PhD Econ 2003) and ABEL
GUILLEN (MPP 2001); http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_19138744
By Matt Krupnick
An East Bay college
district may soon ask taxpayers to foot the bill for axed classes that were
once funded by the state, a rare move that may become more commonplace as
campuses try to make up for lost revenue.
The Peralta Community
College District is considering sending a parcel tax to voters in
“If the state’s not
going to come through on its end, it’s not that surprising that folks would
pick up the ball,” said Jesse Rothstein,
a UC Berkeley professor of public policy and economics.
Peralta received $5.8
million less from the state this year than in 2010, leading the district to cut
about 400 classes....
Colleges
turning to the voters is “a piecemeal approach that’s happening,” said Peralta Trustee Abel Guillen.
“You’re going to have some parts of the state with the ability to raise funds
locally and some areas that aren’t.” ...
19. “Outlook goes from
bad to worse for CalSTRS under proposed accounting
standards” (Sacramento Bee, Oct. 18, 2011); story citing ED DERMAN (MPP 1978); http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/18/3986621/outlook-goes-from-bad-to-worse.html#ixzz1b9FsdPLj
By Dale Kasler
A proposed change to
pension accounting standards could give more ammunition to conservatives
seeking to reduce pension benefits for public sector workers. Gov. Jerry Brown
is expected to issue a wide-ranging proposal to overhaul pensions sometime
soon.
The [Governmental
Accounting Standards Board]’s proposal would triple the gap – on paper – to
around $150 billion, said Ed Derman, deputy chief executive officer at CalSTRS.
“It complicates things,”
Derman
said. “People are going to see this other number … and they’re going to say, ‘Oh
my gosh, it’s a much bigger problem.’ “
Derman said CalSTRS’
financial problem won’t actually worsen. It will just look worse to accountants
– and maybe elected officials. That could complicate CalSTRS’
efforts to plug its funding gap.
Today, CalSTRS gets about $6 billion a year combined from the
state, school districts and teachers.
It believes it needs
about $4.1 billion more each year or it will run out of money in a little more
than 30 years. If that were to happen, the state would be responsible for
paying benefits to retirees.
“We have to be
responsible, to educate the governor and the Legislature,” Derman said....
Right now, funds base
their calculation on a forecast of how their investments will do. CalSTRS, for instance, says it will earn an average 7.75
percent a year on stocks, bonds and other investments....
Pension funds still
awaiting a solution – like CalSTRS – would have to
adopt a lower rate. Their funding gap would expand, even though they say their
true financial situation hasn’t changed.
“We have to get people
to understand,” Derman
said. “It wouldn’t really affect what we actually do.”
20. “SF plan would offer
tax break for hiring felons” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 18, 2011); story
citing study authored by SARAH LAWRENCE
(MPP 2000); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/17/BAT31LISSG.DTL#ixzz1b9UShXFo
--Rachel Gordon,
Chronicle Staff Writer
Persuading an employer
to hire a convicted felon, particularly in this economy when the unemployment
rate is hovering just under 10 percent, is difficult, especially when there’s a
wide pool of job applicants without felony records.
But offering businesses
a monetary incentive may get them to consider hiring someone with a criminal
past, said [Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who is
crafting the plan]....
The legislation comes as
Studies have shown that
ex-offenders who find jobs after release are less likely to end up back behind
bars. By some estimates, the recidivism rate is cut in half for former inmates
who are employed within six months upon release compared with those who remain
jobless.
Employers are often
hesitant to hire felons, a study [authored
by Sarah Lawrence] issued last year by the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice at UC Berkeley found. Some
industries, such as social services, are legally restricted from hiring felons.
Other employers just don’t want to.
“There is also ample
evidence that employers’ reluctance in large part stems from a negative stigma
associated with people with prior convictions,” the study stated.
The authors listed a
series of recommendations, including expanding vocational training for inmates
and encouraging employers to adopt fair hiring practices that include
consideration of ex-offenders....
[Read the report, “Reaching
a Higher Ground: Increasing Employment Opportunities for People with Prior
Convictions“ (
21. “
--C.W. Nevius, Chronicle Columnist
Back in 2008 the
residents of a one-block stretch of street out by
Residents were told they’d
have to change everything—driver’s license, billing, voter registration, and
public records—or mail would not be delivered.
A compromise was reached
where mail addressed to either street would be delivered, but problems have
continued. This year,
22. “Federal prosecutors
will visit
By David Montero – The
Salt
Federal prosecutors will
visit
Two assistant
Sandstrom,
the Orem Republican who carried HB497, said the
But Karen Tumlin, managing attorney for the
“
“We think the Justice
Department should step in and join the lawsuit in
23. State Worker: “
Posted by Jon Ortiz
A new report from the University of California, Berkeley’s Center
for Labor Research and Education and Center for Wage and Employment
Dynamics finds that state budget woes around the country have come from
imploding housing markets and the Great Recession—not public employee costs.
The report takes a look
at the relationship between public sector workers, their unions, and state
budget deficits.
“The Wrong Target:
Public Sector Unions and State Budget Deficits” by researchers Sylvia
Allegretto, Ken Jacobs and Laurel Lucia
concludes that:
The share of state and
local government jobs has remained relatively steady, whether measured per
thousand residents or as a percentage of all jobs....
States with the lowest
union density averaged 74.6 state and local employees per thousand residents in
2009, while the highest union density states averaged 68.3. This study shows
that the number of state and local employees per thousand actually fell in the
high union density states between 2001 and 2009.
There is no correlation
between union density and the size of state budget deficits.
State budget deficits
were due, in large part, to the decline in house prices and ensuing recession.
[Read the entire report:
The
Wrong Target: Public Sector Unions and State Budget Deficits
. The UC Berkeley report was also cited in
24. “Saving the UC – but
at what cost to students?” (San Francisco Chronicle Online, October 13, 2011);
interview with JONATHAN STEIN
(MPP/JD cand.); http://blog.sfgate.com/kalw/2011/10/13/saving-the-uc-%E2%80%93-but-at-what-cost-to-students/
--KALWNews
In the
HOLLY KERNAN: How did we
get to where we are now?
JONATHAN STEIN: People make the point a lot that this state has put
us in this position, and to a very significant extent they’re correct. The
budget crisis that the UC is in today is not just the product of a short-term
economic recession that is affecting the state budget. It’s actually the
product of a long-term divestment from the state of
I mean, if you look at
some of the numbers… In 1985, so two and a half decades ago, corrections in the
UC and the state of
So the Regents are put
in this very difficult position where they have to make choices in a difficult
financial environment and they’re saying, “Okay, we refuse to compromise in the
quality of the university. We refuse to increase the student to faculty ratio.
We refuse to increase the number of tenure track faculty. We don’t want to cut
staff or services. And in the absence of state funding, how are we supposed to
pay for all of that?” And their answer time and again is student fees....
KERNAN: So let me ask
you this. What is different about
STEIN: Fully 40% of students in the UC system receive Pell grants.
You compare that to privates: USC, 16%; MIT, 15%; Harvard, 7%... I mean when
people say that we’re in danger of limiting the quality of this institution if
we make further cuts, my response is “Yes we are.” And that’s unfortunate.
At the same time, we’re
also on the verge of compromising access and affordability and while we’re in a
really impressive university because of our Nobel prizes and because of the
amazing research we do, we’re a really unique university because of the
community of students that we educate – because of this unique population, from
diverse and varied backgrounds, from all over the socio-economic spectrum. And
to compromise that, in my mind, would be just as much of a tragedy as
compromising our research excellence or our Nobel prizes or what have you....
25. “My Word: We’re on
the right path at Alameda Point” (San Jose Mercury News, October 13, 2011);
op-ed citing JENNIFER OTT (MPP 2000);
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_19105858?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
By Randy Rentschler
Finally, enough good
news is emanating from Alameda Point to soften even the hardened cynics. It is
difficult to overstate the importance of the new direction and recent agreement
between the city and the Navy to transfer the former naval base free of charge.
While a decision on the
proposed new Lawrence Berkeley Lab site is still far off, credit a rock-solid
game plan and day to day execution by in-house city staff that is paying off
with real results that benefit the city no matter what plan eventually is
decided upon....
These new developments
make me optimistic. Let’s not forget the people who often labor hard behind the
scenes of government to make things happen. One name for sure requires
mentioning, Jennifer Ott,
chief operating officer, Alameda Point....
26. “Feds fend off fuel
rule criticism” (The Detroit News, October 13, 2011); story citing ROLAND HWANG (MPP 1992).
By David Shepardson -
The Obama administration
Wednesday defended its agreement with 13 major automakers to hike fuel
efficiency standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, despite criticism from
House Republicans....
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has asked automakers and the
White House to disclose more about the talks and complains that consumer demand
isn’t being considered. He said at the hearing that the administration has
declared “war on the private automobile.” ....
Roland Hwang, transportation program director at the Natural Resources
Defense Council, strongly defended the deal.
“Far from ‘running on
empty,’ these clean car and fuel economy standards will save Americans from
emptying their wallets at the pump, stop the emptying of our national wealth
for foreign oil, and cut the dangerous carbon pollution that is emptying our
children’s future,” he said.
He noted the new rules
through 2025 are expected to save Americans $1.7 trillion at the pump, reduce
oil dependency by 12 billion barrels of oil and cut heat-trapping pollution by
about 6 billion metric tons.
Automakers are free to
withdraw their support and challenge the final regulations in court if they
stray too much from the deal reached this summer.
27. “AM Alert: Crime and
punishment” (Sacramento Bee Online, October 12, 2011); event featuring STUART DROWN (MPP 1986).
By Amy Chance
The interim policy
summit of the day is “Crime & Punishment Revisited: Sentencing in a
Post-Plata World,” hosted by the UC Davis School of Law beginning at 9 a.m....
Participants include Los
Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, retired Sacramento County
Sheriff (and KFBK talk radio host) John McGinness,
Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Steve White, Sacramento Assemblyman
Roger Dickinson, Dept. of Corrections & Rehabilitation Secretary Matthew Cate and Stuart
Drown, executive director of the Little Hoover Commission. Gov. Jerry Brown
will be represented by deputy legislative secretary Aaron Maguire.
The event, which ends at
4:30 p.m., will be webcast live at www.law.ucdavis.edu....
28. “Hard Start: Sarah Marxer knows that some adopted kids need help to overcome
early adversity” (Perspectives, KQED public radio, October 10, 2011);
commentary by SARAH MARXER (MPP
2004); Listen to this Perspective
By Sarah Marxer
As an adoptive mother, I
had a complicated reaction to this year’s federal report on the status of
children, which has a special focus on adopted children. Its most striking
finding is that while just 12 percent of all children have a physical or mental
health problem, that figure is 29 percent for adopted children in general and
45 percent for children who, like my child, were in foster care before their
adoption.
Despite my worry that
sharing this information will stigmatize adopted kids, I want to make sure that
we don’t miss this chance to learn something important about the ways that
intensely stressful conditions early in life affect children. This report ought
to raise alarm about the ways our tolerance for poverty harms the life chances
of too many kids—most of whom are not adopted.
Researchers are learning
that abuse, neglect and other forms of trauma during childhood—including
poverty and exposure to community violence—affect many aspects of health
throughout life. The findings about the compromised health of adopted children
bear this out....
With adequate resources,
even children who’ve had a hard start in life can flourish. These insights
should spur us to make it a priority that vulnerable children
and their families—adoptive or not—get the help they need, and to reorder our
priorities so that families don’t have to raise their kids in unsafe and
chronically stressful conditions....
29. “Graduation rates to
play bigger role in college funding” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 10,
2011); story citing NANCY BOROW SHULOCK
(MPP 1978); http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/graduation-rates-to-play-1197702.html
By Laura Diamond; Staff
Georgia Tech students graduate in Alexander Memorial Coliseum. (Hyosub Shin, hshin@ajc.com)
Gov. Nathan Deal is
preparing to tackle how the state funds colleges so that more money would go to
the schools doing the best job graduating students.
Deal is in the final
process of selecting members to serve on a commission that will recommend
changes that would allow
Nancy Shulock, executive director of the
Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy at
Shulock said there is no best
program, but several states have gotten creative.
30. “Prop. G adds
half-cent to sales tax in S.F.” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 9, 2011);
story citing CARMEN CHU (MPP 2003); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/08/BA891LAP99.DTL#ixzz1aQ3S9SPx
--Rachel Gordon,
Chronicle Staff Writer
At Palayan’s Oriental Rugs on
The sales tax rate in
San Francisco would climb to among the highest in the state—but not as steep as
it once was—if city voters back a revenue measure on the Nov. 8 ballot aimed at
pumping an estimated $60 million or more a year into the city’s piggy bank.
If approved, Proposition
G would impose a half-cent sales tax hike in
The proposal, placed on
the ballot by Mayor Ed Lee and the Board of Supervisors, came after state
lawmakers and the governor couldn’t reach agreement on extending a 1 percent
temporary state sales tax that expired June 30.
The stalemate means less
money coming from
Passage of the sales tax
measure requires a two-thirds majority vote. The increase would sunset after 10
years.
Supervisor Carmen Chu, who voted to put the proposal to voters,
said it may be a tough sell.
“From a consumer’s point
of view, it’s going to feel like a tax increase, even though it will be less
than where we were,” said
31. “CA Governor Jerry
Brown Signs Two Life Saving Bills to Prevent HIV and Hepatitis Syringes Can Be
Purchased at Pharmacies Without Prescription and Areas in Need Can Apply for
Syringe Access Programs through CA Dept. of Public Health” (States News
Service, October 10, 2011); newswire citing LAURA THOMAS (MPP/MPH 1995).
NEW YORK, N.Y. --
California Governor Jerry Brown signed two life-saving bills last night that
will help prevent new HIV and hepatitis C transmissions in California. The two
bills expand access to sterile syringes, which is by far the most effective way
to prevent HIV and hepatitis C among people who use drugs. These bills will
save lives and save the
The first bill, SB41
that was authored by Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) allows people to buy
syringes at pharmacies without a prescription....
The second bill, AB 604
was introduced by Assembly member Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) to deal with the
lack of public health response to high rates of hepatitis, HIV and drug use in
rural parts of the State. AB 604 would allow the California Department of
Public Health to authorize new syringe exchange programs, after consultation
with local public health and law enforcement leadership....
This is a huge victory
for public health and common sense, said Laura
Thomas, Deputy Director of
32. “Some locals say ‘not
so fast’ to proposed fuel economy regs; others say it’s
about time” (Midland Daily News (MI), October 9, 2011); story citing LUKE TONACHEL (MPP 2004).
--Cheryl Wade
As proponents rolled out
a major campaign this past week for new fuel economy standards for vehicles,
some locals expressed caution, saying, in effect, “not so fast.”
The Natural Resource
Defense Council and the Union of Concerned Scientists launched an information
campaign supporting the proposed regs. They said
The average fuel
efficiency for 2011 models is 27.8 mpg, according to a Los Angeles Times
report, so the regs would nearly double the mpg rate
by 2025. They would be phased in beginning in 2017.
Some vehicles would perform above the standard, some below....
President Obama
announced the new rules in July but, last month, the government said it would
delay them until November. The two groups who rolled out Wednesday’s
pro-regulation campaign pointed to a study stating
In a streaming audio
news conference announcing the campaign to get out the word about proposed
savings, proponents said the standards could be achieved with transmissions
that have more gears, vehicles that are lighter and more aerodynamic, fuel
injections systems and more powerful engines. Automotive engineers already know
how to make these changes, Tonachel said....
33. “Time to shop
Medicare plans” (Dallas Morning News, October 8, 2011); column citing JULIETTE CUBANSKI (MPP 1998/MPH 1999).
By Pamela Yip
Listen up, seniors: It’s
time to shop for your best deal on Medicare drug and health plans for 2012....
“Thanks to new
bargaining power gained through the Affordable Care Act, Medicare was able to
ward off significant cost increases or benefit cuts for those health plans in
2012,” [BobMoos, spokesman for the U.S. Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services] said. “In fact, Medicare Advantage premiums
will be about 4 percent lower, on average.” ...
Here’s how to decide
whether you should change your Medicare coverage:
“Many aspects of the
benefit design can change,” said Juliette
Cubanski, associate director of the Program on
Medicare Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan group that
studies health care issues.
“Drug plans can change
which drugs they cover, how much they charge for generics and brands, which
tier they place a drug on,” such as preferred vs. nonpreferred
brand.
Premiums and deductibles
can also change, she said.
“Similar aspects of
benefit design can change in Medicare Advantage plans,” Cubanski said. “They have to
cover all Medicare-covered benefits, but they can change how much they charge
for office visits, for example.” ...
34. “Community fund
creates lending program for jobs” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 5, 2011);
column citing organization headed by BETH
SIRULL (MPP 2005); http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/04/BUIP1LCUIK.DTL#ixzz1ZviYskIi
--Andrew S. Ross,
Chronicle Columnist
Not content with jawboning fellow CEOs into not
giving money to feckless presidential candidates and members of Congress,
Howard Schultz has decided to do something about jobs.
The CEO of Starbucks has
launched the Create Jobs for
“This critical jobs
engine has stalled,” Schultz said in a statement Tuesday announcing the
initiative. “We’ve got to thaw the channels of credit so that community
businesses can start hiring again.” ...
Beginning Nov. 1, you’ll
be able to donate $5 to the cause at any one of Starbucks’ 6,800
company-operated stores, including about 150 in the Bay Area.
Or, you can donate
online at www.createjobsforusa.org, a site operated by the Opportunity Finance
Network, a nationwide organization of community development financial
institutions (CDFIs) that loan money to small
businesses to spark job growth. Each $5 donated can be leveraged into $35 of
financing by the CDFIs, according to the
organization. One hundred percent of the money raised will go into the lending
program.
“The money will go for
new lending in communities to support job creation among small manufacturers
and retailers and affordable housing and commercial real estate,” said Mark Pinsky, CEO of the
Americans helping
Americans: On the local level, the program will be administered by the 180
members of the group, including, in the Bay Area, Pacific Community Ventures (directed
by Beth Sirull), the Northern California
Community Loan Fund and the Low Income Investment Fund in
In total, the
organization lent out $5 billion in 2009, according to its website ( www.opportunityfinance.net)....
35. “DOD Perfectly
Suited as Innovations Tester, Official Says” (Defense Department Documents and
Publications, October 5, 2011); story citing DOROTHY ROBYN (MPP 1978/PhD 1983).
By Lisa Daniel, American
Forces Press Service
“We are uniquely
positioned to play a role as a test bed for next-generation technology,” Dorothy Robyn said at the annual
Washington Ideas Forum here, sponsored by The
Atlantic and the Newseum.
Pentagon leaders are
committed to energy conservation and alternative fuels as a means of cost
reductions and mission assurance, Robyn
said during a panel discussion with corporate and think tank representatives on
the “greening” of the Defense Department.
Robyn said the department’s role as a leader in the growing energy
conservation movement maintains its long history as a tester of innovations,
ranging from musket production to satellites and the Internet.
“We’ve been at the
forefront of almost every technological wave,” she said.
DOD is the nation’s
largest single user of energy, at a cost of $16 billion per year—three-fourths
of which pays for fuel, Robyn said.
Officials are focused on the costs—and ramifications—of supplying so much fuel
into war zones, she said, but domestic fuel use also is a concern. The
department spends about $4 billion each year to supply energy to its 300,000
buildings, she said.
But it’s the department’s
size that allows it to test new technologies with less risk than other
entities, providing great contribution in getting innovations into the
marketplace, Robyn said. If the
department fields 10 new technologies and five fail, it still is better off by
having the five that work out, she said.
“Because DOD is so
large, we say, ‘Let us take on that risk of testing,’” Robyn said. “It’s where the department can make the biggest
contribution” to the green movement, she added.
36. “House Energy and
Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Hearing; ‘Administration
Efforts on Line-by-Line Budget Review’; Testimony by Stan Collender, Partner, Qorvis Communications” (Congressional Documents and
Publications, October 5, 2011); congressional testimony by STAN COLLENDER (MPP 1976).
... I have spent most of
my adult life working on the federal budget in some capacity. I am one of only
a handful of people who has worked on the staffs of both the House and Senate
Budget Committees. I have been director of federal budget policy for what today
are known as PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte. I
am the author of The Guide to the Federal
Budget, one of the most assigned texts on the topic in the 19 years an
annual edition was published. Forthe past 15 years I
have written a weekly column on the budget, first “Budget Battles” in
NationalJournal.com, and now “Fiscal Fitness,” a feature you no doubt all read
religiously when it appears in Roll Call
each Tuesday. I am also the founder and one of the principal writers for “Capital
Gains and Games,” a blog devoted mostly to federal budget issues that in 2009 the
Wall Street Journal included in its
list of the top 25 economic blogs in the United States.
I consider myself to be
a deficit hawk, but I sometimes get criticized from both the far right for
being too left and by the left as being too far right. I take a great deal of
comfort in that and am proud that, when it comes to the budget, I am considered
a centrist and rational. Because of it, I have been invited on a number of
occasions to do the briefing on the budget for the newly elected members of
Congress at the orientation held after each congressional election at the
Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
Before anyone asks me
about it, I did indeed work for three very liberal Democratic members of the
U.S. House of Representatives when I was much younger. But you should also know
that I was privileged to be the first speaker at the first meeting of the House
tea party caucus held on February 28. I was there at the invitation of
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann who liked a column on the debt ceiling I wrote
for Roll Call back in January and
asked me to discuss the topic with the members of Congress who attended the
meeting....
37. “Alabama immigration
gets through one court, and it’s on to the next” (The Colorado Independent,
October 4, 2011); story citing KAREN
TUMLIN (MPP 2003/JD 2004).
Civil and immigrant
rights groups have expressed outrage about a federal judge’s decision to allow
many of the provisions of
Judge Sharon Lovelace
Blackburn, a George H.W. Bush appointee, blocked a number of the law’s
provision in response to lawsuits from both the U.S. Justice Department and a
coalition of civil rights groups including the ACLU, the
However, the judge
allowed many of the provisions to stand, including one that requires police to
check the immigration status of anyone they stop, detain or arrest, and allows
police to hold anyone stopped for a traffic violation if they cannot
immediately verify the person is of legal status.
Another upheld provision
criminalizes the “willful failure” of undocumented immigrants to carry their
federal papers. But Karen Tumlin, managing attorney of the
“The freedom to move has
been compromised for people based on the fact that they look Hispanic,” she
said....
For many immigrant
rights activists and for the attorneys involved with the case, the most
surprising part of the decision was that it allowed the K-12 schooling-related
provision to go through. The provision would require public schools to count
the number of undocumented children who attend them. Opponents of the law
believe that asking schools to count undocumented children would have a “chilling
effect” on the right to a public education.
It’s a prediction that
appears to be coming true already. The Mobile
Press-Register reported Friday Hispanic children attending
Using K-12 schooling to
regulate immigration was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court under a
1982 case, Plyler v. Doe. That’s why “nothing like this
has ever really happened before,” according to Tumlin....
38. “
By
Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch in
The bill instructs the
Commerce Department to investigate if a country is subsidizing companies
through an artificially low currency, and allows for retaliatory
A similar measure
overwhelmingly passed the House last fall. But House leaders are now more
cautious. Speaking to reporters on Monday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor
said he wants to hear more from the White House about the measure. He also said
he wants to know if the bill would have “unintended consequences,” including on
Some lawmakers said the
bill is a risky move that could alienate one of the
Analysts at the Eurasia Group said Monday that House passage of the
bill isn’t impossible.
“If the bill becomes
law, it would risk a broader fall-out in the [U.S.-China] relationship,” wrote
analysts Nicholas Consonery and Sean West. “The risk is less that
39. “Center for American
Progress Holds a Conference Call Briefing on ‘Buffett Rule’” (Financial Markets
Regulatory Wire, October 3, 2011, CQ Transcriptions, LLC, All Rights Reserved);
event featuring MICHAEL LINDEN (MPP
2007).
... MODERATOR: ...
Welcome to CAP Action’s call on What
Reagan Would Do.... But first, let’s hear from the
40th President of the
FORMER PRESIDENT RONALD
REAGAN: We’re going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allows some of
the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. In theory, some of those
loopholes were understandable, but in practice they sometimes made it possible
for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of
his salary, and that’s crazy. It’s time we stopped it....
MICHAEL
The big reason why ...
some millionaires today are able to pay lower average tax rates than average
Americans is for two reasons: One, there are specific loopholes and tax breaks
that go mainly to them; and two, preferential rates on things like capital
gains, which is where very, very wealthy people get most of their income.
So there was a similar
problem in the mid-1980s. There were huge loopholes that wealthy people could
drive most of their income straight through, and they had preferential rates ...
on capital gains. The 1986 reform did a lot to close those loopholes, and it
raised capital gains rates, which helped to solve some of those problems.
So that’s what you heard
President Reagan, both in this speech and in others, call for simple tax
fairness that everybody could understand. Millionaires should not be pay lower
rates than the people that work for them, than average Americans, and it’s a
rule that, I think, President Obama and President Reagan can agree on....
40. “Canadian court lets
drug injection facility stay open” (Lewiston Morning Tribune (
By Associated Press
The court’s decision
could facilitate the eventual opening of other facilities in different cities,
but the court’s ruling applied only to the site in
The facility called Insite was promoted by its founders as a safe, humane space
for drug abusers.
The top court issued its
9-0 decision in a landmark case that received international attention.
As of 2009, there were
65 injection facilities in 27 cities in
“It saved lives and it’s
a proven tool in management of addiction,” Dr. John Haggie
[president of the Canadian Medical Association] said. “We would like to see it
as part of a national strategy.”
Laura Thomas, California deputy director of the Drug Policy Alliance,
said no one has tried to open a legal safe injection facility in the
41. “UNITED STATES:
Department of Defense awards $225,000 to city of
The Department of
Defense declared that it has granted $225,000 to the City of
“The strategy will
result in a cohesive and targeted approach to leveraging the city’s existing
commercial tenant base and attracting new commercial and institutional groups
to the Alameda Point property, resulting in increased jobs and lease revenues
that will help finance future predevelopment and implementation efforts at the
property,” said Jennifer Ott, the city’s chief operating officer for Alameda Point.
Ott said, “If Lawrence Berkeley
National Lab (LBNL) decides to locate its second campus in Alameda, the
strategic plan will help position Alameda Point competitively for capturing
spin-off companies that want to co-locate near LBNL.” ...
42. “Vermonters can
appeal FEMA decisions” (Brattleboro Reformer, September 26, 2011); story citing
KARI DOLAN (MPP 1990).
By Bob Audette / Reformer Staff
State and federal
officials are encouraging Vermonters to sign up for federally backed flood
insurance before the end of the month, when the program is set to expire.
While funding for the
National Flood Insurance Program has traditionally been extended by Congress,
officials warn that during the period between its expiration and when a new
funding measure is approved, residents seeking flood insurance may be unable to
acquire it.
“Without the program in
place while Congress sorts out the legislation, homeowners and renters may not
be able to purchase it,” said the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Federal
Coordinating Officer, Craig Gilbert. “And with the record rain and flooding
However, some
“As soon as a community
joins the program, anyone in that community can purchase flood insurance, even
those that may be outside of the mapped floodplain, but are still vulnerable to
flooding,” said Kari Dolan, Vermont NFIP
Coordinator. “Joining the program is free; a community would simply adopt
and administer a flood hazard bylaw.” ...
43. “State budget
cutting prompts worries by nation’s children’s hospitals” (McClatchy Washington
Bureau, September 25, 2011); story citing KELLY
ABBETT HARDY (MPP/MPH 2004).
By Gilbert M. Gaul,
Kaiser Health News
Advocates say the biggest
change is the shift of approximately 900,000
“We’re worried whether
the access to care will be there,” said Kelly
Hardy, director of health policy for Children Now, a nonprofit. “That’s
critical. Will kids be able to keep their doctors?” ...
44. “Jerry Brown grants
bulk of state hiring freeze exemption requests” (September 18, 2011, Sacramento
Bee); story citing TRACY GORDON (MPP
1996/PhD 2001).
By Jon Ortiz
In the seven months
since imposing a hiring freeze to deal with the state’s fiscal woes, Gov. Jerry
Brown has greenlighted nearly three-fourths of all
requests for exemptions to hire state workers.
Most of those jobs were
low-paying positions without benefits, a Bee analysis of state data from March
through May shows. Exclude those approvals, and Brown turned down more hiring
requests than he allowed.
State officials asked to
hire 3,642 workers in the months following the governor’s Feb. 15 order that
departments freeze hiring unless authorized by the administration. The total
cost to fill all the jobs would have been $15 million a month, according to the
departments’ estimates.
Brown’s office granted
exemptions for 2,661, or 73 percent of those requests, for jobs ranging from
lifeguards to social workers, psychiatrists to police officers.
Of the 981 Brown denied,
nearly half were refusals to hire trainees for the California Highway Patrol
and prisons....
It’s difficult to know
how much the hiring freeze is helping the state save money, said Tracy Gordon, a state budget expert at the
Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
45. “Comment Requested on
Rural Community Wealth and Health Care Provision Survey” (Targeted News
Service, September 13, 2011); newswire citing JOHN PENDER (MPP 1983/PhD Agriculture & Development).
The three proposed study
regions include the lower Mississippi Delta region including parts of
Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee; the Southern Great Plains
region including parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico and
Colorado; and part of the Upper Midwest region including parts of Missouri,
Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois.
According to a Federal
Register notice: “The proposed rural community survey will address the
information gap by collecting information from representatives of 150 rural
communities in three regions of the U.S. and from health care providers in the
same communities. The survey will investigate the perspectives of community
leaders and organizations concerning the need for improved access to health
care services, the local community assets that attract or repel health care
providers, the investments and efforts undertaken or planned to recruit and
retain health care service providers and the effects of changes in health care
service provision on other aspects of community development.”
...
Written comments may be
submitted by Nov. 14 through jpender@ers.usda.gov; or to John Pender, Resource and Rural Economics Division, Economic Research
Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1800 M. St., NW., Room N4056,
Washington, DC 20036-5801....
46. “Cutthroat
Admissions and Rising Inequality: A Vicious Duo” (The Chronicle of Higher
Education, September 11, 2011); commentary citing NANCY BOROW SHULOCK (MPP 1978).
By John Quiggin
... The [increasing intensity
of the struggle for admission to elite colleges] is often presented as the
product of wrongheaded policies, pushy parents, and so on. In reality, however,
the problem is both a consequence of, and a contributor to, the growing
inequality and polarization of American society....
College education is a
crucial mediating step here. Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill,
who direct the Brookings Institution’s Center on Children and Families, show
that children from families in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution
are nearly five times as likely to remain there than children from families in
the top 20 percent are to end up in that bottom quintile. College shifts the
odds sharply.... Yet, as the two researchers observe, “Kids from poor families
are ... less likely to enroll in and graduate from college as compared with
kids from families with more income.”
The supply side of the
equation is even more striking.... Taken together, the Ivy League and other
elite institutions educate something less than 1 percent of the
Virtually all the
expansion in postsecondary education has been concentrated in the lower-tier
systems of community colleges and the less-prestigious state universities....
Unfortunately, these
lower-tier institutions are failing badly, and in ways that make this
comparison more difficult. On the one hand, they have higher dropout rates
(which would imply that the total number attending is even larger than that two-thirds). On the other hand, time to completion of a
two-year degree is nearly always more than two years. The picture is further
complicated by the prevalence of part-time enrollment. In their 2010 report, “Divided
We Fail,” Colleen Moore and Nancy Shulock found that six years
after initial enrollment, only about a third of community-college students in
47. “Deportees waive
rights unwittingly, report says” (Los Angeles Times, September 9, 2011); story
citing KAREN TUMLIN (MPP 2003/JD
2004).
By Paloma
Esquivel
The U.S. has deported
more than 160,000 immigrants, the vast majority of whom had no legal
representation—and signed documents they may not have understood—under a
program that carries severe penalties should they try to reenter the country, a
report released Thursday said.
According to the
U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Nicole Navas said in
a statement that the agency had not had a chance to fully review the study.
But, she wrote, “an alien’s decision to accept a
stipulated removal is strictly voluntary. Before an alien agrees to such an
order, ICE procedures require that the process be fully explained to the
individual, through an interpreter if necessary.”
However Karen Tumlin,
managing attorney at the
“They didn’t know what a
stipulated order of removal was,” she said. “They had absolutely no idea what
the legal consequences were.”
Some, Tumlin said,
thought they were waiting to take their cases before an immigration judge....
48. “ASU Ranked in Top
25 in the World in Biological Sciences” (States News Service, September 2,
2011); newswire citing KEVIN GURNEY
(MPP 1996).
Increases in research
publications and citation rates (the category that QS ranked ASU most highly
in), patents, and multiple, multimillion dollar awards in life sciences
research have followed from National Institutes of Health, National Science
Foundation, Departments of Energy and Defense and NASA. In 2011, these have
included a ... $1.4 million for studies of climate change and emissions by new
hire Kevin Gurney....
49. “Handicapped
drivers outraged by
By Sean Maher –
Parking Director Noel
Pinto made the change without informing Mayor Jean Quan
or the City Council, according to Quan, Councilmember
Pat Kernighan (Grand Lake-Chinatown), and several furious
The law already allows
for cities to ticket handicapped parkers who do not pay to park in pay lots,
and it’s not unusual for handicapped drivers to pay for parking when they pull
in to most paid parking lots, Kernighan said. The problem, she said, is that
law was not always enforced and that nobody was warned that it would be.
Quan
said she will offer amnesty to anyone who has gotten such a parking ticket and
will order Pinto to properly notify the public if he plans to continue the new
enforcement....
In her most recent
revenue report to the City Council, Budget
Director Sabrina Landreth said in July the city
was then looking at a $7 million revenue shortfall, caused mostly by a
lower-than-expected number of parking tickets being issued.
50. “EU/US : Mounting Concern on Both Sides of Atlantic over Debt
Crises” (Europolitics, No. 4252, August 30, 2011);
analysis citing TRACY GORDON (MPP
1996/PhD 2001).
By Brian Beary in
The feverish activities
of political leaders in Europe and the
While this is the first
major debt crisis for the EU since the euro was created in 1999, it is not the
first for the
51. “Supporting Green
Jobs and Energy-Efficient Homes in
Green jobs hold a lot of
promise for our country’s economic future. But it hasn’t proved to be an easy
industry to create. Community Power Works is at the cutting edge of green job
creation in the country. It is one of the first programs of its kind in the
Advocates for green jobs
remain supportive of this program, and are eager to work to get more homeowners
signed up. Howard Greenwich of Puget
Sound Sage released a statement about Community Power Works:
Now
it’s time to give the program its day. We’ve been excited about the potential
of Community Power Works from the beginning and we are committed to making it a
success.
We
would have liked to roll out the jobs yesterday—but the City had to be smart
about crafting a program attractive to homeowners. It’s homeowners that will
drive the demand for those jobs. Now that the behind the scenes work is done,
it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get homes weatherized....
52. “
By Jeff Stanfield
An administrative law
judge in
Judge David Gamson of the California Public
Utilities Commission proposed that the PUC stop automatically allowing
demand response resources to qualify for both system and local resource
adequacy credits because not all such resources are capable of being dispatched
where needed.
Under the proposed
decision, a demand response resource could receive a local resource adequacy
credit only if it is capable of being dispatched to serve a local area.
Requiring all existing
demand response programs to be locally dispatched may not be achievable by the
start of 2012 because investor-owned utilities may have to modify program
designs and operational systems or procedures in order to comply with the new
rule, Gamson
said. Therefore, he proposed that the PUC delay the effective date for the rule
until 2013....
Gamson said the fundamental
reason for a locational dispatchability
requirement for resource adequacy is to meet local capacity needs. If demand
response resources cannot be dispatched to do that, similar to generation
resources, the ISO must purchase capacity to cover the deficit. That could
increase energy costs for consumers because the ISO ends up buying capacity
that it cannot use, and then has to buy capacity to make up for the inadequate
resources....
1. “Flat tax a flat-out fraud” (San Francisco
Chronicle, October 30, 2011); op-ed by ROBERT
REICH; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/29/IN9J1LM1E3.DTL#ixzz1cOmUmuu8
--Robert
Reich, © 2011 Robert Reich
The so-called flat tax is all the rage among
Republican presidential hopefuls. Herman Cain was the first. Now, Rick Perry
and Newt Gingrich have come up with their own flat-tax proposals.
The flat tax is a fraud. It raises taxes on the
poor and lowers them on the rich....
...[P]roponents of a flat tax say it’s fairer than the current
system because, in Cain’s words, a flat tax “treats everyone the same.”
The truth is, the
current tax code treats everyone the same. It’s organized around tax brackets.
Everyone whose income reaches one bracket is treated the same as everyone else
whose income reaches that bracket (apart from various deductions, exemptions
and credits, of course)....
The real problem is that the top brackets are
set too low relative to where the money is. The top-most bracket starts at
$375,000 a year. People with incomes higher than that pay 35
percent—again, only on that portion of their incomes exceeding $375,000.
This means a doctor who’s making, say, $380,000
a year pays the same income-tax rate as a plutocrat pulling in $2 billion or
$20 billion.
Actually, it’s worse than that because the plutocrats
get most of their income in the form of capital gains, which are taxed at only
15 percent. That’s why America’s 400 richest people—who earned an average of
$300 million last year, and who have more wealth than the bottom 150 million
Americans put together—now pay at a 17 percent rate (according to the Internal
Revenue Service)....
Regressives are
pushing the flat tax as a smokescreen. They’d rather not have anyone talk about
the unfairness and fiscal absurdity of the current system.....
Robert Reich, former
2. “What’s the future of public universities?
Forum seeks way forward” (UC Berkeley NewsCenter, October
27, 2011); story citing ROBERT REICH;
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/10/27/forum-on-future-of-public-universities/
By Cathy Cockrell
For public-policy
professor and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich — who jokingly
dubbed himself not a “class warrior” but a “class worrier” — answers lie in the
nation’s growing wealth disparity and the declining economic fortunes of the
middle class.
“It’s not that the American public became less
generous or necessarily more intimidated by diversity,” Reich said. Rather, in the face of globalization and technological
change that eroded wages and shed good-paying jobs, the middle class “lost its
capacity” to pay taxes to fund public services. And the politically influential
upper middle class, in turn, lost faith in the quality of public provisions — “seceding
from the commons” in favor of private schools and services for itself. In that
way, he suggested, a vicious cycle was born.
Reich
faulted
“Regardless of the quality of people you’ve got
in government,” he said, “nothing good happens” unless those outside of
government “are mobilized, organized and energized to push the people inside to
do the right thing.” ...
3. “Low birth weight, poverty affect disease in
adulthood, says new study co-authored by UC Berkeley economist” (The Berkeleyan, October 25, 2011); story citing RUCKER JOHNSON; http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/10/24/low-birth-weight-poverty-effect-disease-in-adulthood-says-new-study-co-authored-by-uc-berkeley-economist/
By Kathleen Maclay,
Media Relations
Nearly 26 percent of study participants who
weighed less than 5.5 pounds when they were born had asthma at age 50, compared
with about 16 percent of those who weighed more at birth. Those who grew up in poverty were also more
likely to have one of these fatal, debilitating conditions by age 50.
These data are the first nationally representative
estimates of adult chronic disease onset by birth weight and by childhood
family and neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage in the
The study findings “provide clues to the
childhood origins of racial health disparities in adulthood,” given the
well-documented racial differences in socioeconomic disadvantage and low birth
weight incidence, said Rucker Johnson,
the Goldman School economist and associate professor who co-authored the
study, “Early-Life Origins of Adult Disease,” with economist Robert Schoeni at the University of Michigan....
Johnson’s research agenda at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy
emphasizes issues of poverty and inequality and examines the intersection of
labor markets, the urban economy, and socioeconomic determinants of health over
the life cycle. His work has contributed
to the national dialogue between academics, educators, the medical community
and policy makers over the most effective health policy interventions and
social welfare policies to improve the health and well-being of children and of
underserved and vulnerable populations.
He said his research springs from his interest
in the interactions between public policies, children’s school, neighborhood
and home environments, and how they impact youngsters’ future success....
Johnson joined the
4. “The End of the Iraq War” (Forum with Michael
Krasny, KQED Public Radio, October 24, 2011); program
featuring commentary by MICHAEL NACHT;
Listen to the program
Host: Michael Krasny
President Obama has announced the withdrawal all
American troops from
Guests:
Michael Nacht, professor and former dean of the Goldman School of
Public Policy at UC Berkeley, former assistant secretary of defense for
global strategic affairs and former nuclear arms negotiator in the Clinton
administration....
5. “Top candidates happy to take Wall Street’s
money” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 24, 2011); analysis citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/23/MNA91LJVIB.DTL#ixzz1bii4elXL
--Joe Garofoli,
Chronicle Staff Writer
While President Obama and some Republican
candidates struggle with how to embrace the pain and anger fueling the Occupy
Wall Street movement—while not endorsing the politically polarizing street
protests—the Oval Office seekers have not been shy about accepting money from
the financial world.
The finance, insurance and real estate sectors—known
collectively as “FIRE” in campaign finance jargon—is a top contributor to all
the major presidential candidates, funneling $16 million to the White House
aspirants, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which
charts the intersection of money and politics.
The FIRE sector was the No. 1 contributor to
three GOP candidates—former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Pennsylvania
Sen. Rick Santorum and former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman—for this
year through Sept. 30, the most recent campaign finance disclosure deadline.
Of the $89 million Obama has raised thus far,
$3.9 million came from those interests. It is his third-highest donor sector,
just behind “lawyers and lobbyists,” according to the center’s analysis....
Obama recently told ABC News that he “understands
the frustrations being expressed” by the Occupy movement. In December 2009 he
said he didn’t “run for president to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers
on
With the exception of Obama’s “fat cats” remark,
he “has been extraordinarily solicitous” of Wall Street, liberal former Labor Secretary Robert Reich
wrote on his robertreich.com blog recently.
Reich, a
professor of public policy at UC Berkeley, wrote that it was Obama’s “unwillingness
to place conditions on the bailout of Wall Street—not demanding, for example,
that the banks reorganize the mortgages of distressed homeowners, and that they
accept the resurrection of the Glass-Steagall Act, as
conditions for getting hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars—that
contributed to the new (Occupy Wall Street) populist insurrection.” ...
6. “
By Katy Murphy
The
Jesse
Rothstein, a professor of public policy and economics at UC Berkeley, didn’t
offer an opinion on
[This story also appeared in the <a href=“http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19172351“>San
Jose Mercury News</a> and <a href=“http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_19172351“>Contra
Costa Times</a>]
7. “Doug Bandow: It’s Time to Declare
Peace in the War Against Drugs” (AOLB-5176, October
19, 2011); commentary citing ROBERT
MACCOUN.
Americans like to style their nation as the land of the free. Yet the
government is engaged in a war on its own people. The misnamed Drug War.
As Prof. Douglas Husak
of
Arresting and jailing people because they use a substance which some
people abuse is dubious enough on moral grounds. Even more it fails the test of
cost-effectiveness....
Despite all this effort, drug prohibition appears to have
accomplished little....
The terrible price of the Drug War has sparked growing interest in
Overall drug use likely would increase, but perhaps not as much as commonly
assumed. Given the porous nature of drug prohibition, the most likely abusers
already have access to drugs.
In their detailed book, Drug
War Heresies, Robert MacCoun and Peter Reuter concluded that “Reductions in
criminal sanctioning have little or no effect on the prevalence of drug use
(i.e., the number of users)” and that “If relaxed drug laws increase the
prevalence of use..., the additional users will, on average, use less heavily
and less harmfully than those who would have also used drugs under prohibition.” ...
[This post first appeared at Forbes
online.]
8. “The rise of the regressive Right and the
reawakening of
By Robert
Reich, Guest blogger
A fundamental war has been waged in this nation
since its founding, between progressive forces pushing
us forward and regressive forces pulling us backward....
Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Rick Perry, Michele
Bachmann and the other tribunes of today’s Republican right aren’t really
conservatives. Their goal isn’t to conserve what we have. It’s to take us
backwards....
Listen carefully to today’s Republican right and
you hear the same Social Darwinism Americans were fed more than a century ago
to justify the brazen inequality of the Gilded Age: Survival of the fittest.
Don’t help the poor or unemployed or anyone who’s fallen on bad times, they
say, because this only encourages laziness.
Yet the great arc of American history reveals an
unmistakable pattern. Whenever privilege and power conspire to pull us
backward, the nation eventually rallies and moves forward. Sometimes it takes
an economic shock like the bursting of a giant speculative bubble; sometimes we
just reach a tipping point where the frustrations of average Americans turn
into action....
Perhaps this is what’s beginning to happen again
across
9. “Wall Street, not financial reform, is the
problem” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 16, 2011); op-ed by ROBERT REICH; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/14/IN7R1LG58T.DTL#ixzz1b3vxKacn
--Robert
Reich, © 2011 Robert Reich
Police in
It’s impossible to know whether Occupy Wall
Street will coalesce into a political movement, but there’s little question
Wall Street is still up to its old tricks.
Right now the Street is dedicating all its
lobbying power to watering down regulations designed to implement
financial-reform legislation. Its spokespeople, including
congressional Republicans and GOP candidates, charge that Dodd-Frank (as the
law is known) is overkill.
Yet take a close look at
Follow the money: If
That’s why shares of the biggest
Haven’t we been here before?
The mere fact that Morgan and other big Wall
Street banks are susceptible to the rumor mill is evidence enough that no one
knows Morgan’s or any other bank’s exposure to European banks or derivatives.
It shows Dodd-Frank didn’t go nearly far enough....
Robert Reich, former
10. “They’re trolling for dollars; In the
Pac-12, most athletic departments need cash from school coffers to make ends
meet, sparking criticism in a time of shrinking budgets” (Los Angeles Times,
October 16, 2011); column citing MICHAEL
O’HARE.
--David Wharton, Baxter Holmes
The clock is ticking, less than a year until the
Pacific 12 Conference starts collecting on its historic $3-billion television
contract. The largest broadcast deal ever negotiated by a college league, it
will pour hundreds of millions into the member schools annually.
And it cannot come a moment too soon.
A sluggish economy has left athletic departments
across the Pac-12 scrambling to cover costs, and some barely afloat, according
to records acquired by The Times.
Cash-strapped programs at
Sports at all 10 of the conference’s public
schools—USC and Stanford did not have to share records—received allocated
revenues in some amount. Even relatively robust programs at UCLA,
Critics see a problem with diverting any money
from classrooms in an era of budget cuts and tuition increases. “It would be
great if we had an athletics program that didn’t have to cost so much,” said Michael O’Hare, a professor of public
policy at Cal. “Maybe there would be money left over for actual students.”
...
11. “Former Mich. Governor to Host Current TV
Talk Show” (New York Times Online [*requires registration], October 13, 2011);
newswire citing Visiting Lecturers JENNIFER
GRANHOLM and DAN MULHERN; http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/10/12/arts/AP-US-TV-Current-Granholm.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Berkeley&st=nyt
By The Associated Press
“The War Room with Jennifer Granholm”
will premiere in January at 9 p.m. Eastern time, following “Countdown with
Keith Olbermann,” Current announced on Wednesday....
Granholm, a Democrat,
was the first woman to be elected governor in
Asked about the Occupy Wall Street movement,
which claims that 1 percent of the nation’s population is getting rich at the
expense of the rest of
Granholm is now
teaching at the University of California at Berkeley, near Current’s
[This story appeared in more than 100 sources
nationwide, including the <a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/current-tv-announces-new-prime-time-show-hosted-by-former-michigan-gov-jennifer-granholm/2011/10/12/gIQALJCQfL_story.html“>Washington
Post</a>, <a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/APf1fe8ed20e644eb6b3a1939488140272.html?KEYWORDS=Berkeley“>Wall
Street Journal</a >. Other stories appeared in the <a href=“http://www.detnews.com/article/20111013/POLITICS02/110130395/1022/Granholm-to-host-primetime-Current-TV-talk-show--quits-Dow-board“>Detroit
News</a>, <a href=“http://www.freep.com/article/20111013/ENT03/110130403/Granholm-host-Current-TV-show“>Detroit
Free Press</a>, <a href=“http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2011/10/current-tv-taps-former-michigan-governor-granholm.html“>Los
Angeles Times Online</a>, and <a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/12/dowchemical-granholm-idUSN1E79B1KQ20111012“>Reuters</a>]
12. Robert Reich’s Blog: “The seven biggest
economic lies. This nation can’t improve unless more Americans know the truth
about the economy” (Christian Science Monitor Online, October 12, 2011);
commentary by ROBERT REICH; http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Robert-Reich/2011/1012/The-seven-biggest-economic-lies
By Robert
Reich, Guest blogger
An
... Here’s a short effort to rebut the seven
biggest whoppers now being told by those who want to take
1. Tax cuts for the rich trickle down to
everyone else. Baloney....
2. Higher taxes on the rich would hurt the
economy and slow job growth. False....
3. Shrinking government generates more jobs.
Wrong again....
4. Cutting the budget deficit now is more
important than boosting the economy. Untrue....
5. Medicare and Medicaid are the major drivers
of budget deficits. Wrong....
6. Social Security is a Ponzi
scheme. Don’t believe it....
7. It’s unfair that
lower-income Americans don’t pay income tax. Wrong....
Demagogues through history have known that big
lies, repeated often enough, start being believed — unless they’re rebutted.
These seven economic whoppers are just plain wrong. Make sure you know the
truth – and spread it on....
13. “Bioterror ‘Report
Card’ to Show More Work Ahead” (Wall Street Journal [*requires registration],
October 12, 2011); story citing STEPHEN
MAURER; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204450804576625261768268384.html?KEYWORDS=Berkeley
By Keith Johnson
Ten years after anthrax attacks terrorized the
The
Some experts think the threat of bioterror stemming from scientific progress is overstated.
“There’s so many consultants wandering around
Washington explaining that high-school students can do this stuff—which they
can, in the sense that a million monkeys can write Shakespeare,” said Stephen Maurer, a WMD and homeland-security
expert at the University of California at Berkeley. “Running an R&D
program that has a reasonable chance of inflicting mass casualties is a very
different proposition.”...
14. “Robert Reich’s Blog: ‘Occupy Wall Street’
the Left’s Tea Party? Maybe, but...” (Christian Science Monitor Online, October
11, 2011); commentary by ROBERT REICH;
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Robert-Reich/2011/1011/Occupy-Wall-Street-the-Left-s-Tea-Party-Maybe-but
By Robert
Reich, Guest blogger
Police officers defuse a
situation between
Will the Wall Street Occupiers morph into a
movement that has as much impact on the Democratic Party as the Tea Party has
had on the GOP? Maybe. But there are reasons for
doubting it.
Tea Partiers have been a mixed blessing for the
GOP establishment – a source of new ground troops and energy but also a pain in
the assets with regard to attracting independent voters. As Rick Perry and Mitt
Romney square off, that pain will become more evident.
So far the Wall Street Occupiers have helped the
Democratic Party. Their inchoate demand that the rich pay their fair share is
tailor-made for the Democrats’ new plan for a 5.6 percent tax on millionaires,
as well as the President’s push to end the Bush tax cut for people with incomes
over $250,000 and to limit deductions at the top....
But if
After all, a big share of both parties’ campaign
funds comes from the Street and corporate board rooms....
Yet the real difficulty lies deeper. A little
history is helpful here....
15. “Can
By Frances Dinkelspiel
When
But that was then, and this is now. Wozniak,
currently a city council member, is proposing to scuttle parts of the 25-year
old Nuclear Free Berkeley Act, particularly the parts that prohibit the city
from investing in the federal government.
In the next month, he plans to submit a proposal
to the city council severely limiting the scope of the law.
“The Cold War is over,” said Wozniak. “There is
no longer a
The law prohibits
[Another story on this topic appeared in the
<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2011/10/10/MNK11LEE46.DTL“>San
Francisco Chronicle</a>]
16. “Robert
Reich on bringing tenacity to public leadership” (Wahington
Post, October 10, 2011); interview with ROBERT
REICH; http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ask-the-fedcoach/post/robert-reich-on-bringing-tenacity-to-public-leadership/2011/03/04/gIQAxXvCTL_blog.html
By Tom Fox
Robert Reich is a professor at the Goldman
School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national
administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill
Clinton. Under his leadership, the Department of Labor won more than 30 awards
for innovation....
Q: What
leadership lessons did you learn during your tenure as the secretary of labor?
There is a difference between leadership and
formal authority. Many people have
formal positions of authority, but do not exert leadership. A Cabinet officer
has a lot of formal authority, but can only exert leadership indirectly,
usually through working with Congress, other Cabinet officers, White House
staff, and countless organizations in the private and non-profit sectors, as
well as, of course, with career civil servants....
Q: Do you
encourage your students to consider government service?
College students are deeply committed to public
service. The problem is that too many of them look at politics and at the
federal government and recoil. I encourage them to enter politics and to think
seriously about a career in the civil service. I try to explain to them how it’s
possible to make a huge difference in this country with enough energy and
tenacity. The biggest enemy we have right now is cynicism about government. I
try to encourage them to get over their cynicism and understand that without an
effective federal government, we can’t possibly have a good and just society.
Q: Can you
give examples you draw on to demonstrate what’s possible?
One simple example came in 1996 when many at the
Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division thought it was important to
increase the minimum wage. I took the evidence to the president and to
Congress. In 1996, Republicans were in control of the House and the Senate. We
were victorious. We raised the minimum wage, and 30 million people got a pay
raise. I remember coming back to the Department of Labor and there were
hundreds of career people who had worked so long on the issue who felt
validated. Similarly, this happened with the Family Medical Leave Act. Many in
the department had been working on it many years. We got it passed and, here
again, people felt that their work was justified and that their work had a
positive influence on people’s lives — and it has....
17. “Poor bear brunt of GOP’s morally bankrupt
plans” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 9, 2011); op-ed by ROBERT REICH; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/08/INV31LD6AK.DTL#ixzz1aPwJTsTM
--Robert
Reich
We dodged another shutdown bullet, but the next
stopgap bill to keep the government going will run to Nov. 18. And their price
for signing on to this one, Republicans say, will be more budget cuts.
Among other items, Republicans are demanding
major cuts in a nutrition program for low-income women and children. The
appropriation bill the House passed June 16 would deny benefits to more than
700,000 eligible low-income women and young children next year.
What kind of country are we living in?
More than 1 in 3 families with young children now
live in poverty (37 percent, to be exact), according to a recent analysis of
census data by Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies. That’s
the highest percent on record....
Drastic cuts already are under way at the state
and local levels. Since the fiscal year began in July, states no longer receive
about $150 billion in federal stimulus money—money that was used to fill gaps in
state budgets over the last two years.
So far this year, 23 states have reduced
education spending....
Local family services are being cut or
terminated. Tens of thousands of social workers have been laid off. Cities and
counties are reducing or eliminating their contributions to Head Start, which
provides early childhood education to the children of low-income parents....
When Republicans recently charged the president
with promoting “class warfare,” he answered it was “just math.” But it’s more
than math. It’s a matter of morality.
Republicans have posed the deepest moral question
of any society: whether we’re all in it together. Their answer is, we’re not.
President Obama should proclaim, loudly and
clearly, that we are.
Robert Reich, former U.S. secretary of
labor, is professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and the author of “Aftershock: The Next
Economy and
18. “Some Unemployed Find Fault in Extension of
Jobless Benefits” (New York Times, October 7, 2011); story citing JESSE ROTHSTEIN; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/business/some-unemployed-find-fault-in-extension-of-jobless-benefits.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25
By Shaila Dewan
... If [unemployment benefits] extension is not
renewed, benefits for more than 2.2 million people will be curtailed by
mid-February, according to the Department of Labor. The Obama administration
estimates that with no extensions, a total of six million people will run out
of benefits over the course of next year.
Unless job growth picks up sharply, many of those
people will struggle to stay out of poverty. Unemployment benefits, which
average $298 a week, help families and serve as economic stimulus because most
of the money gets spent right away on basics. Liberal and many centrist
economists say that the economy is too weak now to withstand the shock of a
sharp drop in those payments.
Still, conservatives contend that extending
benefits pulls money from other parts of the economy, discourages people from
finding work and increases the unemployment rate. Some Republican politicians
have gone so far as to suggest that people living on unemployment are simply
lazy....
Economists generally agree that unemployment
benefits encourage some job seekers to delay accepting a job, thus raising the
unemployment rate. A study by the San Francisco Federal Reserve last year found
that the benefit extensions had increased the rate by four-tenths of a
percentage point.
A more recent paper by Jesse Rothstein, an economist at the
19. “Wall Street Protests Spread” (Forum, KQED
public radio, October 6, 2011); features commentary by ROBERT REICH; Listen to the program
Host: Dave Iverson
A man holds a sign on the
steps of the Federal Courthouse as members of trade unions join Occupy Wall
Street protesters as they rally on October 5, 2011 in
The Occupy Wall Street protests continued this
week in
Guests:
...Robert
Reich, professor of public policy at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public
Policy, former labor secretary under President Clinton and author of books
including “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future”...
ROBERT
REICH: ... There’s
been a long distinguished strain in American history of populism against the
forces of Wall Street and big business that have held back everybody else. During
his 1912 campaign Woodrow Wilson promised to wage “a crusade against powers
that have governed us … that have limited our development … that have determined
our lives … that have set us in a straitjacket to do as they please.” He was
talking about big finance and big business.
And in his 1937 campaign FDR railed against the “economic royalists” who
had impressed the whole of society into service. We do have a long tradition of
economic populism, particularly when the gap grows very very
wide between people at the top and everybody else. And Americans are justifiably concerned that
with great income and wealth comes great power to entrench that income and wealth
in the future.
Q: What do you make of the labor union activity
in the last 24 hours ... to sort of join ranks with, at least to a degree
lending support to the
ROBERT
REICH: It makes a lot of sense from the
standpoint of politics and also of economic policy.
Unions in the private sector now are down to about
7% of the total employment base; that is, only 7% of workers are unionized, which
is the lowest it’s been since—well, by comparison, in 1955, one third of American
workers were unionized. In the 1950s so many people were unionized that they
had the bargaining leverage they needed to get a higher share of corporate
profits. These days, with so few people
who are unionized they have very little bargaining power. In fact, if you want to take a larger view of
the problem, American workers as a whole have very little bargaining leverage these
days and, with unemployment so high, they have even less bargaining leverage. So it makes a lot of sense for what we used
to call the union movement or organized labor to join with the protestors in
saying things are completely out of balance in this country right now, in terms
of the extraordinary concentration of income and wealth and also political
power at the top, and the rest of America, particularly the middle-class, lower
middle class, the poor and working class being left out, essentially drying on
the line with very little hope for things getting better. We’re talking now fundamentally, potentially,
about the allocation of power and that’s after all what all great social
movements have been focusing on and have focused on in our history....
20. “Solyndra crash
puts heat on energy secretary” (San Francisco Chronicle, October 5, 2011);
story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/04/MNR81LD85L.DTL#ixzz1Zwj9aAs9
--Carolyn Lochhead,
Chronicle
Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
(Pool / Getty Images)
Washington -- Republicans are using the Solyndra debacle to take aim at Energy Secretary Steven
Chu, arguing that the Nobel laureate and UC Berkeley physicist’s enthusiasm for
green energy led him to ignore warning signs that the Fremont solar-power firm
was about to default on more than half-a-billion dollars in taxpayer-backed
loans....
Daniel Kammen, a professor at UC Berkeley and director of the university’s Renewable and
Appropriate Energy Laboratory,
said
“The logic of having a secretary of energy who
has real scientific chops is quite valid,” Kammen said. But unlike Europe,
where energy and climate policy are integrated, the
The administration’s failure to enact climate
change legislation in 2009 was a critical setback to its overall green-energy
strategy. The legislation foundered on GOP opposition but also on regional
resistance from coal-producing states.
The idea was that a cap-and-trade climate law
would put a price on carbon, creating a huge market for alternative fuels....
21. “Why would
By David Kirp
With the Oct. 19 deadline for applying for the
preschool version of Race to the Top rapidly approaching,
This year alone, more than 35,000 preschoolers
were dropped from the subsidized early education rolls because of budget
constraints. With
Decades of research underscore the critical
importance of high-quality early education in closing the achievement gap for
low-income youngsters.
These efforts show the strides that the state has
made in ensuring that poor children enter school ready to learn. A Race to the
Top-Early Learning grant would maintain this momentum, strengthening the early
learning programs that serve more than 400,000 poor children. Using a chunk of
grant funds to help implement transitional kindergarten would be a godsend to
financially strapped school districts. The federal money could also underwrite
a system that links state and local early education initiatives, promoting
greater efficiency and effectiveness....
David L. Kirp,
Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, is the author of Kids First: Five Big Ideas to Improve Children’s
Lives and
22. “Some Studies Suggest Restricting Criminal
Background Checks by Employers May Increase Unemployment Rates of Minorities”
(ESR News Blog, October 5, 2011); blog citing STEVEN RAPHAEL.
A letter from three members of the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) to the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) suggests a recent hearing held by the EEOC examining arrest
and conviction records as a hiring barrier in which some panelists sought to
limit—or in some cases eliminate—the ability of employers to perform criminal
background checks on job applicants during the hiring process fails to consider
recent studies that suggest the use of criminal background checks does not
automatically lead to lower hiring rates of minorities, according to the
article ‘Will restricting criminal background checks actually increase minority
unemployment?’ from The Daily Caller.
In their letter to the EEOC, Civil Rights
Commissioners Peter Kirsanow, Gail Heriot and Todd Gaziano cited a
2006 research paper—”Perceived Criminality, Criminal Background Checks and the
Racial Hiring Practices of Employers” by Harry J. Holzer,
Steven Raphael, and Michael
Stoll—that analyzed the effect of criminal background checks on the hiring of
African Americans and found that employers using criminal background checks
were more likely to hire African American workers, especially men, than those
without that information....
23. “Broken Government; Fixing Unemployment”
(Your Money, CNN, October 1, 2011); program featuring commentary by ROBERT REICH.
ALI VELSHI, HOST: ... Robert Reich is a professor of Public Policy at University of
California Berkeley. He’s also the author of “After Shock, the Next Economy
and
... You recently wrote that the Republican Party
wants to keep the economy lousy through Election Day.
Let me ask you, if the president is really
serious about fixing this economy, wouldn’t he have drafted a jobs plan that he
spoke about a few weeks ago that would be more likely to garner partisan
support and get done?
PROF.
ROBERT REICH, PUBLIC POLICY,
VELSHI: Bob, let me ask you this. Most
economists, most smart people sort of agree that raising taxes right now is
probably not ideal. But the taxes will have to be raised not only on the rich,
but possibly the middle class down the road. That maybe stimulus is not a bad
idea right now.... Why is that not a normal part of the discourse coming from
moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats? Why are we having discussions on
the extremes, particularly on the Republican side?
REICH:
Well, one problem, Ali, is we don’t have many moderate Republicans. Or that
many moderate Democrats, but certainly there are more moderate Democrats than
abundant Republicans.
I mean, if we had a normal political dialogue
right now, politicians would certainly be in sync with most of the economists
and policy analysts would say right now don’t cut the deficit. Spend more. Don’t impose taxes. Later on cut
the deficit and impose taxes. It’s a sequencing thing; right now you want
growth and jobs....
24. Zeitgeist Americas 2011: “Each of us, All of
us,” (Google Zeitgeist, September 28, 2011); event featuring ROBERT REICH; View the video
Building on today’s theme of “Each of us, All of us,” Former
US Labor Secretary, Robert Reich explored
his definition of “us” and how, in order to ensure the future of
Also, Robert
Reich was part of panel discussion with Eric Schmidt, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
and Mayor Cory Booker:
http://www.zeitgeistminds.com/videos/each-of-us-all-of-us-panel-discussion
Oct. 7 Robert Reich gave the keynote talk at
the 5th Annual California Town & Gown Conference, Berkeley.
Oct. 12 Jesse Rothstein’s presentation on “Reforming
the Teaching Profession: A Look at Teacher Quality Policy” at the UC Center,
Oct. 13 David Kirp
gave a free public lecture on “Kids First: Transforming the Lives of Children,”
at
Oct. 25 Robert Reich spoke on the topic of “Social
Inequality and Social Opportunity” at Forum #1 of the Forum on the Future of
Public Universities; more info at: http://www.futureofthepublicuniversity.org/
New this month:
“Populism and the Tea Party“ (sponsored by the
Premiering this month on
UCTV:
“The Atlantic Meets
the Pacific: Exploring Energy“ (11/28/11) – The Atlantic’s Steve Clemons leads a provocative session on energy
issues with Pulitzer-Prize winning author Daniel Yergin,
Steve Koonin of the US Dept. of Energy, Dan Kammen of the
World Bank and biofuels expert Steven Mayfield of
UC San Diego. (#22775)
To view a complete list
of GSPP videos, visit our Events Archive at: http://gspp.berkeley.edu/events/webcasts
Recent events viewable on UC Webcast: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/events.php?group=The+Richard+%26+Rhoda+Goldman+School+of+Public+Policy
If you would like further information
about any of the above, or hard copies of cited articles, we’d be happy to
provide them.
We are always delighted to receive your material for inclusion in the Digest. Please email the editor at wong23@berkeley.edu .
Sincerely,
Annette Doornbos
Director of External Relations and Development