politics

Over the past two decades, a wage subsidy operating through the tax system called the Earned Income Tax Credit has developed into America’s biggest program specifically dedicated to lifting low-income citizens out of poverty. Many Republicans as well as Democrats support this tax subsidy, which goes to people who work for modest wages. The extra money helps to reduce deprivation among poor families with children—something liberals very much want to do—yet it is the opposite of the sort of no-strings-attached “handout” that conservatives often decry.

As a tool to reduce poverty, the Earned Income Tax credit has a lot going for it. But it also has important limitations. The credit can be improved, and other programs are needed to help poor people find and hold jobs. more...

“Almost half of all Americans pay no taxes!” That’s the claim bandied about in elections and overheated television talk-fests. It refers only to federal income taxes, from which various groups are exempt. But many other taxes are also collected at the federal, state, and local levels. When all kinds of taxes are added up, almost all Americans pay substantial amounts.  In fact, poor and middle-income people frequently fork over higher shares of their incomes than the very rich.

Federal Income and Payroll Taxes

The U.S. federal government relies on two big taxes collected from large numbers of Americans: the federal income tax and payroll taxes regularly deducted from wages and salaries to cover Social Security and Medicare benefits. Income and payroll taxes each contribute about 40% of federal revenues. Almost half of U.S. households currently do not owe federal income taxes, but over three-fifths of these “non-filers” are workers who contribute very substantial payroll taxes. For example, Americans making the lowest incomes pay nearly 9% of their wages in payroll taxes, about the same percentage as middle-income workers pay.

Only about 17% of American households pay neither income nor payroll taxes, because they are headed by people in special sub-groups:

• Elderly men and women, who previously contributed payroll taxes during their working lives, living on their Social Security benefits.
• Students or disabled individuals.
• Workers unable to find jobs. During the recent recession, the numbers of long-term unemployed people not filing income tax returns went up.
• Active-duty members of the U.S. military, who do not have to pay taxes on their combat pay and do not owe income tax after having been deployed. more...
  

Across the United States, tens of millions of residents have been arrested for violating marijuana laws. Arrests for offenses related to marijuana have increased dramatically since 1992. In 2010 alone, there were 853,838 arrests. Remarkably, more than half of all drug-related arrests that year involved marijuana alone. And almost nine of every ten people apprehended for marijuana offenses are charged with mere possession, not sales or distribution.

America’s efforts to reduce marijuana use over the past four decades have largely depended on arrest, imprisonment, incarceration—and, recently, the seizure of private property through asset forfeiture laws. The aim of such heavy legal firepower is to deter potential consumers, reduce marijuana use, limit availability, and increase the price of the drug. But existing research suggests that these goals have not been achieved. Instead, prices have declined and increasingly potent marijuana has become more readily available to growing numbers of users—even as arrests have climbed. Developments are not the same in all states and localities, but overall there is no clear indication that intensified enforcement decreases marijuana use. more...

Women and minorities have made major gains in the ranks of elected U.S. public office-holders—but at all levels of government the progress has been incomplete and uneven. Consider, for example, America’s fifty state legislatures. Forty years ago, one would have been hard-pressed to find anyone other than a white man serving in any of these legislatures, yet women and various minorities now claim about one-third of the seats. But there are big variations across the states.

By now, women are about 24% of all state legislators, yet their contingents range from ten percent in South Carolina to forty percent in Colorado. African American legislators average 8.1% overall, but the largest contingents (ranging from 20% to 23%) appear in Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. Latinos are only 2.9% of all state legislators, and they are concentrated in New Mexico, Texas, California, New York, Nevada, and Arizona.

Apart from population ratios, why do state legislatures vary in diversity—and what difference does it make? Political scientists have made progress in answering these important questions. more...

Incomes are rising for the wealthiest ten percent of Americans—indeed, skyrocketing for the top one percent and one percent of the one percent—while wages and salaries have stayed largely flat for everyone else over the past several decades. As such disparities become undeniable, political scientists are paying renewed attention to inequality in politics. How have such glaring gaps grown, many ask, in a country we suppose to be a vibrant pluralistic democracy?

Not long ago, most students of American politics believed there were no permanent class divisions and posited that U.S. politics involves multiple, overlapping interest groups, any of which can exercise leverage by organizing and competing. Recently, however, this view has given way to debates about the United States as a “democratic oligarchy” where corporations and fat cats get their way on the things that matter most to them, especially taxes, public budgets, and business regulation. more...

The outcomes of the elections held on November 6, 2012 will have a big impact on students and other young Americans. The presidential candidates and their parties have taken sharply different stands on college costs, job opportunities, health care, social issues, voting rights, and investments in the nation’s future – all issues of special relevance to young people.

Paying for College – and Debt after Graduation

Since 1985, the price of a college degree has risen at more than twice the rate of inflation. Americans now owe more for student loans than for credit card debt. In response, President Obama increased Pell grants, simplified student aid applications, made it easier for ex-students to repay loans, and ended unnecessary subsidies to banks. The Obama administration has also moved to help students get accurate information on the costs and benefits of various colleges and universities. more...

How is 2012 shaping up in the long march of women, the U.S. majority, toward claiming their share of national public offices? We know that the Democrats and Republicans are running all-male slates for president and vice president, but what about Congress?  This should be an especially promising year—the chance for another “Year of the Woman” comparable to 1992, when record numbers of women ran and unusually large numbers won. That year actually turned out to be more a “year of the Democratic woman” than an across-the-board change in both parties, and the same pattern in shaping up for 2012.

Why 2012 Should Be Promising for Women

The 2012 election is the first following the 2010 Census. Many states have redrawn districts, so new openings have emerged for which would-be candidates often wait for up to a decade. Newcomers have the best chance to succeed in freshly drawn districts and in redrawn districts where re-situated incumbents must appeal to new voters. These are ideal situations for women candidates to run without having to face off against already ensconced male opponents. more...

A “grand strategy” can help America meet the challenges of a changing world – such as international terrorism, global environmental and economic instability, and the rise of new national powers. To approach foreign policy strategically requires defining America’s most important goals and then lining up available resources – money, military forces, diplomats, and expertise – to work consistently toward achieving those goals, through the twists and turns of daily events and unpredictable crises. Grand strategy is a conceptual framework that helps us use our power wisely by connecting day-to-day initiatives to our highest and most enduring national ends.

The idea of grand strategy is very much in vogue. Since the end of the Cold War, politicians and pundits alike have proclaimed the need for a fresh, comprehensive approach to America’s relationships with other nations. But important as grand strategy may be, it is also difficult. My research studies the past to illuminate challenges and possibilities for today. more...

“We have a unique opportunity to sweep and remake the political landscape,” declared Congressman Paul Ryan, chair of the House Budget Committee, to a gathering of Republican faithful and Tea Party activists. The audience laughed and cheered as Ryan promised to lead a crusade to revamp U.S. taxes and domestic programs. Backed by almost all of his Republican Congressional colleagues, Ryan’s radical budget plan would:

• Make immediate drastic cuts in social benefits—leading to slower economic growth, more unemployment, and additional hardships for the jobless, poor, and disabled.
• Bite with increasing force over time—steadily squeezing the resources the federal government needs to help most citizens, while pushing costs for health care and other social needs onto state and local governments already under severe fiscal strain.
• Slash taxes for the wealthy. As a joke circulating in Washington puts it, the Ryan plan means cuts for everyone. The rich get huge new tax cuts and most Americans get draconian cuts in education, job training, college loans, health care, and other necessities.
• Leave the U.S. Treasury coping with big deficits. Despite massive spending cuts, nonpartisan analysts calculate that the Ryan budget would actually increase the deficit. more...
  

Republicans in the House of Representatives are pushing a radical overhaul of the federal budget designed by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin—a plan to make huge cuts in vital U.S. safety net programs to pay for big new tax cuts for the very wealthy. Intense controversy already surrounds Ryan’s proposal to replace Medicare with a system of vouchers of steadily reduced value, forcing all senior citizens to pay more for their health care. But another part of the Ryan budget is equally extreme, because sixty percent of is cuts over the next decade would come from safety-net programs for highly vulnerable low-income Americans.

A whopping $3.3 trillion would be slashed from programs aiding people with incomes below or just above the poverty line (set at $22,113 a year for a family of four in 2010). Each year, more than $300 billion would be slashed, leaving the safety net torn asunder. more...