Economy & Budget

Thursday’s National Academy of Public Administration report on the United States Postal Service highlighted the need for reform. However, the proposal — which essentially recommends increased postal “worksharing,” or greater private participation in such activities as mail collection, processing, and local mail transportation — might not work well for one of its key stakeholders: postal unions.
 
Many labor groups have already voiced their opposition to the concept. What they have not done is stepped back and pushed for a third way that promises growth opportunities for their members while addressing budgetary and business concerns. Yet there is a third way that allows the Postal Service, postal unions, and American taxpayers to emerge as winners. 

Washington’s plan to furlough federal employees to balance its books is short-sighted and probably will actually cost taxpayers more than it saves. Washington’s newest approach to compromise is lose-lose. Simple and bipartisan proposals to reform federal and military retirement systems would save taxpayers a trillion dollars over the next decade and actually improve the retirement security of federal employees. It’s a win-win.  

hough estimates vary, about 1 million of Uncle Sam’s 2 million civilian workers will get a notice telling them to stop showing up for work – they earned an unpaid day off and up to 20 percent pay cut. The armed services plan to cut active duty positions to comply with the sequester.

A New Jersey company decides to re-verify all of its workers’ status after they complain of health and safety violations. A California supermarket decides to voluntarily join the federal E-Verify program just as workers' labor organizing campaigning intensifies. An Alabama restaurant worker is arrested and deported after trying to collect two months of unpaid wages.
 
Across the country, unscrupulous employers are gaming the enforcement system in order to silence “problem” workers and dodge both immigration and labor laws.
 
Immigration reform gives us a chance to fix this most perverse failure of our broken immigration system.

One of the great workforce injustices in aviation history occurred when the Association of Professional Flight Attendants at American Airlines (APFA), took unilateral action against the former TWA flight attendants by stripping them of all earned date of hire seniority from TWA.

In an interview with The Fort Worth Star Telegram, APFA President Laura Glading admitted APFA made a “mistake” and “screwed-up big time” by stapling the TWA members to the bottom of the seniority list. Ms. Glading has done nothing to remedy that mistake. APFA continues to cause direct financial harm to the former TWA attendants hoping they will retire or quit. Because the TWA attendants were laid off after 9/11 and unemployed for almost 10 years, they lost pension contributions, salary and benefits totaling more than $2 Billion. They must continue to work and many will until they are no longer physically able.

Recently, Washington will attempt to step away from its growing tradition of fiscal stalemate and – for the first time since 2009 – move a budget resolution through both houses of Congress. On the surface, this represents a genuine opportunity to return to the nearly forgotten “regular order,” and chart a course for managing the federal government that, someday, both parties could support.

Someday, maybe. But if history is a guide – not likely today.

The national conversation taking place around immigration is at its core about how we define ourselves as Americans, and about our relationships with one another. A critical issue that often escapes the limelight is that of the broken family-based immigration system which keeps loved ones apart, often for decades.

As of November 2012, around 4.3 million people were waiting to obtain visas in order to join their family members who reside in the United States. A significant number – 1.8 million – are seeking to unite with immediate relatives who are Asian Americans. Family members from China, India and the Philippines, for example, have been waiting between 10 and 23 years to receive visas that will enable them to join their U.S. citizen or permanent resident relatives in America.

Our elected leaders in Washington D.C. are making far-reaching decisions regarding proposed cuts to our national defense budget. Regardless of the outcome of the sequestration debate, our Armed Forces are entering an era where they are required to do more with much less.
 
This is a potentially perilous situation given the backdrop of recent world events. Iran is steadily goose stepping toward nuclear weapons and demonstrating a variety of delivery systems. The Middle East turmoil is growing as the hostage crisis in Algeria sadly punctuated. On the other side of the globe, North Korea is becoming less predictable and more menacing.
 
As the budget belt-tightening and increasing national security threats collide, legislators in Washington would do well to keep our limited resources focused on defense systems that provide the best bang for the taxpayer’s buck. That’s what makes the U.S. House of Representatives’ decision to fund the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) in its Continuing Resolution (CR) last week so shocking. The earmark for this missile program that will never protect a single warfighter: $380 million.
 
MEADS, a multi-national medium-range missile defense program among the U.S., Italy, and Germany, has routinely been over budget and behind schedule during its 18-year history. Some estimates put the cost overruns in excess of $2 billion. Not surprisingly, in 2011 the Pentagon cancelled the planned procurement of MEADS, stating that it could not afford it in this cost-conscious budget environment.
 
But in a lesson on how to keep a dying program out of the grave, the primary MEADS contractor and a sparse number of supporters on Capitol Hill have continued to push for design and development funding, despite the objections of both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.
 
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) called MEADS a “waste of money.” Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) perhaps best summed up congressional sentiment: “Especially in these times of budget uncertainty, every dollar spent on MEADS is a dollar we don’t have to provide our troops the training and weapons they need to protect themselves and our country.”
 
MEADS advocates and our cash-strapped allies have routinely used hefty “termination fees” as a way to perpetuate MEADS funding. And, in fact, House appropriators claimed that the $380 million earmark in the CR was to be used solely to pay the costs to terminate the programs. Read more...

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) recently released his plans to aggressively pursue comprehensive tax reform. The good news for American workers is that the Chairman includes transitioning to a more competitive system of international taxation on the “to-do” list.
 
Our current tax code is out-of-date and it’s hurting America’s ability to compete – and win – in the international marketplace. It’s no wonder that the tax code is stifling our growth and opportunity: it was designed for a world that no longer exists.  Written when John Kennedy was president and 17 of the 20 largest corporations in the world were American, the code just doesn’t make sense in the 21st century when only 6 of the world’s largest companies are U.S.-based.

With the budget battles moving to center stage, entitlements must be part of the debate.
 
In his State of the Union address, President Obama highlighted the need to reform our nation’s entitlement programs, specifically citing the need for “modest reforms” of Medicare and Social Security so they don’t “crowd out the investments we need for our children and jeopardize the promise of a secure retirement for future generations.”
 
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has proposed a plan to convert Medicare into a market-driven program with more competition and choices for seniors while putting it on a path to long-term sustainability.

Both sides of the aisle agree that the farm bill needs reform. There's widespread support for fixing our broken agricultural programs such as direct payments for farmers. Although these are good proposals in general and should be pursued, they will only make a small dent in overall farm bill spending.

That's because "farm bill" is quite the misnomer. Most of the spending doesn't even go toward farm programs. Eighty percent of the spending in the bill goes toward the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), informally known as food stamps. Congress simply won't be able to achieve meaningful farm bill savings if it keeps reforms to the welfare programs off the table.