The military campaign in Afghanistan demonstrated that, among NATO countries, only Great Britain – with its small but professional military – has the capability to deploy advanced military assets to far-flung theaters of operation in support of U.S. forces. However, the British spend less on defense every year than France and about the same amount as Germany.
Some past studies have shown that air pollution can aggravate pre-existing lung ailments. But pollution-control advocates are mistakenly citing a study published in the February 2nd issue of The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, to justify ever more intrusive air pollution regulations. The study, which focused on children in southern California, reports that frequent, strenuous, outdoor exercise, combined with high levels of ozone air pollution, can more than triple children's risk of developing asthma. It is also the first work of its kind to conclude that air pollution might actually cause asthma, not just aggravate it.
Ever since Hillary Rodham Clinton's failed attempt to restructure the nation's health care system, members of Congress have been reluctant to propose any major health care reforms, sticking instead to reform by small steps.
The federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard was enacted during the 1975 energy crisis. It required auto manufacturers to meet certain mileage standards, measured in Miles Per Gallon (mpg), across a manufacturer's entire fleet of vehicles. CAFE was originally proposed as a means of reducing America's dependence on foreign oil.
President Bush's Commission to Strengthen Social Security moved the Social Security reform discussion forward. However, despite the commission's hard work, its findings are not the final word in the debate. As Congress takes up the discussion, it should consider the "hybrid" reform plan proposed by the National Center for Policy Analysis. The NCPA plan combines the most attractive features of major plans developed by both Republicans and Democrats over the past several years. It includes no benefit cuts for those who contribute to a personal retirement account (PRA) and no tax increases.
Since 1996, the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program has provided tax-funded vouchers that allow children from low-income families to opt out of the city's failing public schools. Teachers' unions and the education establishment have challenged the program in court, arguing that it violates the First Amendment because many voucher students attend religious schools. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on the Cleveland case, a decision that is expected to clarify whether it is constitutional for children to use tax-funded vouchers to attend religious schools.
The Clean Power Act of 2001 (S. 556) is sponsored by Sens. Jim Jeffords, Joseph Lieberman and John McCain. Its supporters say it will reduce emissions of air pollutants from the nation's power plants. However, the inclusion of carbon dioxide (CO2) as one of the "pollutants" to be reduced raises questions concerning the true goal of the bill. Regardless of any other merits of or problems with S. 556, many analysts view the inclusion of CO2 as a regulated pollutant as an attempt to placate environmental lobbyists and certain international allies and to embarrass the president by implementing the Kyoto Protocol without Senate ratification.
President Bush created the Commission to Strengthen Social Security in May 2001 to develop a plan to reform the nation's retirement system. The commission's final report to the White House includes three broad frameworks for reform and leaves it up to Congress and the administration to develop the details.
Parents seeking educational opportunities for their children are now finding more options available to them. Inspired largely by the success of Arizona's Tuition Tax Credit Program, a number of states are establishing tax credits to support scholarships that families may use to send their children to both public and private schools.
Now that President Bush's Commission to Strengthen Social Security is preparing its report for release later this year, the debate on the wisdom of investing in the stock market is again at center stage. As we choose which option, if any, will replace Social Security's present financing, the behavior of our stock market over the last three-quarters of a century clearly suggests that it should be one of the considered choices.
People with employer-provided health insurance receive a substantial tax saving because this benefit is not taxed as income. On the other hand, people who buy their own insurance must do so with after-tax dollars. There are proposals in both the House and Senate to remedy this inequity through refundable tax credits for those who buy their own health insurance.
The Census Bureau recently reported that the number of Americans without health insurance fell to around 38.7 million in 2000, down about 600,000 from 1999 and well below the record 44.3 million who were uninsured in 1998. However, with health care costs increasing and the economy slowing, many public health advocates are worried that this number might soon begin to rise. Why do more than 38 million Americans lack health insurance? Who are they?
When the threat of anthrax became a widespread concern, the Canadian government said it had serious doubts that Bayer, the owner of the patent for the anti-anthrax drug Cipro, could meet Canadian needs. Canada ignored the patent and ordered generic copies. In the United States, Sen. Charles Schumer expressed the same concerns and proposed that the U.S. government do the same. After Bayer said it could meet the needs of both nations, and after other drugs that are effective against anthrax were identified, Canada reversed its decision, and the issue was dropped in the United States for the time being.
Every five years the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) publishes a massive three-volume report on global climate change. The first volume of the newest publication, the Third Assessment Report, reviews the immense body of climate change literature and attempts to present a consensus view of the current understanding of the scientific basis of climate change.
The state of wildlife on the African continent today resembles that of wildlife in the United States in the late 19th century. African wildlife populations are declining as habitat is converted to farming, wildlife is competing with or preying on domestic livestock and wildlife pursuit is increasingly commercialized. But first in the United States and now in Africa, hunters have led the charge to conserve wildlife.
The terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center have emphasized that the present U.S. airport security system is not adequate to the task.
In a national emergency, perhaps the strongest urge of democratically elected officials is to "do something" immediately. Politicians believe that inaction sends citizens the message that their leaders are indecisive and perhaps incompetent to deal with the crisis. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Congress and the president are proposing a host of new security measures and other laws and regulations.
We are now at war. President Bush and the U.S. Congress have made that clear and the public has evinced so far overwhelming support for their leaders' calls for waging a long, patient and difficult struggle against both those who attacked us so brutally on September 11 and those who support global terrorism.
Congress has before it several bills to help newly laid-off workers from the airlines and other industries affected by the terrorist attacks on America. President Bush has proposed – and members of Congress from both parties have offered bills – helping these workers to retain their health insurance coverage and avoid joining the ranks of the uninsured.
President Bush's attempt to draw attention to the social contribution of religious charities represents the best spirit of progressive conservatism. It is an attempt to move away from failed government programs of the past and push toward expanding private and often religious programs that have consistently worked to integrate the poor into productive economic life.
Virtually every child in a low-income family is eligible for either Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), but a recent fact sheet from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured reports that 24 percent (or about 7.7 million) of the 32 million children in low-income families remain uninsured.
Physicians for a National Health Program and other groups advocate a single-payer health care system as a way to improve quality and increase access to health care. The idea may be appealing to many physicians, frustrated by constraints on their medical practices that may reduce the quality of patient care. However, rather than improving the conditions physicians face under our current system of multiple payers, national health insurance would make matters worse.
For decades, advocates of socialized medicine in the United States and Canada have maintained that health care systems financed by taxes and under government control are more efficient than private sector models in their ability to control costs and maintain quality of health care.
Many environmentalists, citing the adage "better safe than sorry," argue that the "precautionary principle" should govern policy making. By this, they mean that technology should not be used until or unless it can be shown to pose no threat to humans or the environment.
President Bush has appointed a bipartisan commission to study reform of Social Security. But the response to the commission's first report reveals that most Americans – and many members of Congress – do not understand how Social Security works.