Health Care: The Issue of the Nineties

Across the United States, voters vent their frustrations with a health-care system desperately in need of intensive care. Increasingly, politicians hear the demands for radical change and government action. As the 1992 elections approach, voters worry about many issues: jobs, the national deficit, their standard of living, their children\u27s economic future, the country\u27s general direction. Most of all-in the face of ten years of declining purchasing power and stagnant incomes-American voters worry about their pocketbooks. And health care already has become the chief pocketbook issue of the nineties

PEN National Civic Index Analysis

See Results of 2008 National Civic Index Poll, conducted by Lake Research

Connections: A Journal of Public Education Advocacy - Fall 2001, Vol. 8, No. 2

President's Message - Wendy D. Puriefoy reflects on the public aspects of public schools and the necessity for Americans to take civic action to create quality public schools for all young people.Summary of PEN/EducationWeek National Poll Action for All is the first in a series of national surveys on public responsibility for public education in partnership with Education Week. Pollster Celinda Lake presents what Americans see as their primary responsibility for public education, their chief concerns, and what motivates them to act.Q&A: James Howard Kunstler - The author of Home from Nowhere reflects on the decline of public space in America and its effect on the nation's public schools.Conversations - William L. Taylor, a prominent Washington, DC-based attorney and co-chair of the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights, and Ramon C. Cortines, one of the nation's foremost superintendents, discuss the threats to public education as public space.Making it Happen - Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, examines the standards movement and the role LEFs can play in helping all students achieve at high standards.Annual Conference - Information on PEN's 2001 Annual Conference, Assessment & Accountability: The Great Equity Debate, November 11 -- 13, in Washington, DC.About the Network - Current lists of Network members and funders

Voices for Two-Generation Success: Seeking Stable Futures

Findings from 10 focus groups with low and moderate income mothers, and teenage boys and girls

Southwest Border Violence: Issues in Identifying and Measuring Spillover Violence

[Excerpt] There has been a recent increase in the level of drug trafficking-related violence within and between the drug trafficking organizations in Mexico. This violence has generated concern among U.S. policy makers that the violence in Mexico might spill over into the United States. Currently, U.S. federal officials deny that the recent increase in drug trafficking-related violence in Mexico has resulted in a spillover into the United States, but they acknowledge that the prospect is a serious concern. Currently, no comprehensive, publicly available data exist that can definitively answer the question of whether there has been a significant spillover of drug trafficking-related violence into the United States. Although anecdotal reports have been mixed, U.S. government officials maintain that there has not yet been a significant spillover. In an examination of data that could provide insight into whether there has been a significant spillover in drug trafficking-related violence from Mexico into the United States, CRS analyzed violent crime data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Report program. The data, however, do not allow analysts to determine what proportion of the violent crime rate is related to drug trafficking or, even more specifically, what proportion of drug trafficking-related violent crimes can be attributed to spillover violence. In conclusion, because the trends in the overall violent crime rate may not be indicative of trends in drug trafficking-related violent crimes, CRS is unable to draw definitive claims about trends in drug trafficking-related violence spilling over from Mexico into the United States. This report will be updated as circumstances warrant

Southwest Border Violence: Issues in Identifying and Measuring Spillover Violence

This report focuses on how policy makers would identify any spillover of drug trafficking-related violence into the United States. It provides an overview of Mexican drug trafficking organization structures, how they conduct business, and the relationship between the drug trafficking organizations in Mexico and their partnerships operating here in the United States; a discussion of the illicit drug trade between Mexico and the United States; and other related issues

Health Care: The Issue of the Nineties

Across the United States, voters vent their frustrations with a health-care system desperately in need of intensive care. Increasingly, politicians hear the demands for radical change and government action. As the 1992 elections approach, voters worry about many issues: jobs, the national deficit, their standard of living, their children\u27s economic future, the country\u27s general direction. Most of all-in the face of ten years of declining purchasing power and stagnant incomes-American voters worry about their pocketbooks. And health care already has become the chief pocketbook issue of the nineties

The Dangers of Formulaic Deregulation

The recent series in The Regulatory Review debating the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s “one-in-two-out” executive order raises important issues, but it misses the broader dangers presented by deregulation and the further ossification of the rulemaking process created by the order. The constitutionality of the executive order needs to be resolved in light of “the dangers of reflexive rejection of regulation,” a policy approach promoted by the Trump Administration and by conservatives since President Ronald Reagan. Sadly, the disastrous Grenfell Tower fire in London, and the history of fire safety efforts more generally, illustrates the failure—and harm to the public—of formulaic prescriptions such as the one-in-two-out rulemaking approach. In the United States, the debate should be about the dangers of deregulation, with its toolkit of cutbacks, out-sourcing of government functions to third parties, and a cost-saving ethic that the London fire exemplifies. Citizens of the United Kingdom are already engaged in a vociferous debate after almost 40 years of Thatcherism that was embraced by both Conservative and Labour governments. A recent New York Times article asking whether deregulation has gone too far quotes even Conservative politicians as saying that the United Kingdom has “moved too far away from state as guarantor.” Economist Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform said: Between 2011 and 2015, Britain moved from a regulatory regime of one-in-one-out to one-in-three-out, leaving inadequate safety standards across important areas of vital consumer protection. In the United States, Executive Order 13,771 endangers a similar, broad range of protections built up over years, as required by Congress. Proponents of the mechanistic approach reflected in a one-in-two-out policy often claim that regulation hurts the economy and costs jobs, or they say that states should shoulder the responsibility for public protections, not the federal government. They often claim governments cannot effectively provide appropriate regulation, so we should rely on the private sector to decide what level of regulation adequately protects the public. Yet the proponents of these positions provide scant evidence for their positions. On the contrary, years of studies of the impact of regulation point in the opposite direction. Regulation often leads to business innovation and public benefits that overwhelm the costs. In a 2011 Economic Policy Institute review of these studies, Isaac Shapiro and John Irons concluded: Moreover, we know from recent and past nationwide public opinion polling that there is strong support for health, safety, and environmental regulations, including majority support for the agencies that write the rules. There is also strong support for the enforcement of regulations. Whether enforcement is defined as “commonsense,” “fairer, more equal,” “proper,” or “tougher,” 74 to 94 percent of voters agree that we need increased enforcement. This support is bipartisan and exists across geographical, demographic, and socio-economic divisions. Seventy-nine percent of democrats, 63 percent of republicans, and 73 percent of independents believe increased enforcement is a good thing. Voters across party lines also strongly believe there is a role for government to protect Americans from harm resulting from unfair and unsafe business practices. Voters also support punishing those who cause harm to our physical or economic well-being and the need for tougher penalties. In addition, majorities of voters believe that there is a critical role for enforcement especially when it comes to clean water and protecting us from food and drugs from other countries. Opinion polls also show that voters largely reject the deregulatory arguments that regulations and enforcement kill jobs, increase costs, and hurt small businesses. Instead, voters believe insufficient regulation and enforcement has already had disastrous consequences for Americans. Although the United States may avoid a Grenfell Tower accident, we have already seen incidents in the United States, like the overflowing of 100,000 gallons of coal slurry from a containment facility and the blackening of about six miles of a West Virginia creek. We have also seen lead contamination in Flint, Michigan’s drinking water. As part of its deregulatory agenda, the Trump Administration has delayed many rules that impact workers. For example, rules were delayed that protect workers from two chemicals that can cause lung cancer—crystalline silica and beryllium—leaving millions of workers exposed in their workplaces. The question now is whether and how these rules will go into effect under the Trump Administration. Executive Order 13,771 provides a clear indication of the intent of this President. The one-in-two-out requirement is likely to slow down rulemaking considerably and certainly impact the ability of federal agencies to fulfill their missions. As in Britain, this trade-off approach to regulation is likely to lead to some health, safety, and environmental rules being eliminated in order to meet the regulatory budgets the new executive order imposes. Debating the constitutionality of the executive order is important, and the courts could bring an end to this formulaic approach. Regardless of the order’s legality, however, it is bad policy. Although the United States may avoid a catastrophe like the Grenfell Tower fire, there is no reason to believe that a different health and safety record may result in the United States after just as many years of deregulatory fervor