Understanding Government

Considered among the nation’s largest urban infill projects since Denver converted Stapleton Airport into a neighborhood, the ambitious plan to redevelop Sacramento’s massive railroad yard hit a snag, according to Tony Bizjak in the Sacramento Bee.

The plan, backed by some $28 million in federal stimulus funds, (more…)

Joshua Green’s massive article about Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner in the latest Atlantic tells us more than we want to know — even more than the latest Vanity Fair, which covers the big bankers and investors who run our economy in alarming detail. (more…)

As Ian Talley and Stephen Power report in the Wall Street Journal, the Energy Department has expended only 7% of stimulus funds the Department received in 2008 — funds that are supposed to go to job creation and innovative energy projects.  The tension at Energy is between vetting proposals carefully and getting money out the door quickly.  Officials want to avoid even the appearance of waste or haste in the selection process, something the Obama administration takes seriously.  But jobs are not being created even as other major programs at the DOE are also experiencing a slow rollout.  What’s the problem?

Talley and Power sum it up as follows:  “department offices were still too short-staffed and under-trained to handle such a massive increase in funding authority.”

Congress usually hates to fund new government hires, but in this case it’s understandable that more hands are needed.  Spending billions of dollars effectively isn’t easy.  So for future projects of this kind, Congress should include funding for temporary, project-related hires and training programs.  If they had set aside even a small portion of the billions in funding for temporary hires, contracts, and training, we’d have more funding going to clean energy projects and more people employed.

The New York Times’ Kirk Johnson looks at how state and local governments are failing the elderly, especially the rural elderly. Recession-fueled budget cuts have lead to 24 states cutting programs for seniors, but some of the biggest problems were not being dealt with by government in the first place: a lack of broadband internet access for the rural elderly, and the lack of public transportation.

In theory, the Obama administration is actually dealing with these problems through stimulus projects that deal with rural broadband and high-speed rail. But only a full-scale federal commitment to building a broadband grid and mass transit would serve the isolated people that Johnson profiles.

I agree with Wisconsin Congressman Dave Obey, the top House appropriator, on funding the Afghanistan War:

As an Appropriator I must ask, what will that policy cost and how will we pay for it? We are now in the middle of a fundamental debate over reforming our healthcare system. The President has indicated that it must cost less than900 billion over ten years and be fully paid for. The Congressional Budget Office has had four committees twisting themselves into knots in order to fit healthcare reform into that limit. CBO is earnestly measuring the cost of each competing healthcare plan. Shouldn’t it be asked to do the same thing with respect to Afghanistan? If we add 40,000 troops and recognize the need for a sustained 10 year or longer commitment, as the architects of this plan tell us we do, the military costs alone would be over800 billion. And unlike the demands that are being made of the healthcare alternatives that they be deficit neutral, we’ve heard no such demand with respect to Afghanistan. I would ask how much will this entire effort cost, when you add in civilian costs and costs in Pakistan? And how would that impact the budget?

Obey’s entire statement on Afghanistan bolsters the case to scrutinize costs: he talks about how sending more U.S. troops might actually embolden terrorist groups, how the U.S. is moving from its narrow goal of wiping out al Qaeda, and how a war in Afghanistan helped sink the Soviet Union. You can disagree with all these points — but what they show is that there’s legit doubt about expanding the war. It’s not necessarily a national security imperative.

Yet the costs of any national security policy, be it the Afghanistan War, the Iraq War or the DHS build-up at the Mexican border, escape the budget scrutiny Congress applies to domestic policy. This double-standard is associated with Republicans, but it exists regardless of the party in power.  Barack Obama does not call on Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orzsag to give charts and graphs on how Afghanistan will impact the 2019 national deficit.

Now would be a very appropriate time to fight this double standard given that Washington is debating the funding of a questionable war and also the funding of health care and more economic stimulus. Obey’s remarks do seem to be gaining traction — will other Congressional leaders second his analysis?