Category Archives: Fiscal Freedom

To the editor:

With prices skyrocketing everywhere from the grocery store to the gas pump, New Hampshire families are feeling the squeeze. Inflation is a harsh, regressive tax that takes more from our pockets every time we try to meet our families needs. As your state senator, there isnt much I can do to change the national and international trends driving record inflation, but I have worked hard to keep more money in the pockets of New Hampshire families.

I was proud to support a balanced New Hampshire budget that provides tax relief for all Granite Staters. We lowered business taxes, helping to create jobs and grow our states economy as we come out of the COVID-19 pandemic. We began to phase out the interest and dividends tax on retirement savings, which hits our seniors and sometimes drives them out of state after retirement. We established Education Freedom Accounts to help working families afford school choice for their children.

I also wanted to update you on how we have helped lower your local property tax bill.

As part of the budget, we increased revenue sharing under the meals and rentals tax and set up a dedicated fund guaranteeing that 30% of these revenues will be sent to cities and towns before they enter the State Treasury. This will prevent future legislatures from raiding this revenue for state spending, shortchanging local property taxpayers.

Overall, municipalities will receive more than $100 million in revenue sharing this year, an increase more than $31 million from last year. Locally, that means an additional $167,000 in Epping, $109,000 in Fremont, and $167,000 for Brentwood. Every town will see similar increases based on their population, and every dollar coming from the state relieves pressure on your property tax bill. If your taxes are going up this year, its because of local spending decisions, not lack of support from the state.

In addition to increased revenue sharing, next year you will also be receiving direct tax relief under the statewide education property tax. The budget includes a $100 million cut to this tax in Fiscal Year 2023. Every family and every business that pays property taxes will see this savings. For example, this will mean savings of $434,000 in Kingston, $235,000 in Danville, and $364,000 in Chester.

With four children, I certainly understand how hard it is to keep up with inflation. Thats why Im doing what I can to make New Hampshire a more affordable place to live, work, and raise a family. Every bill we see, I ask whether it will make it harder for New Hampshire taxpayers to pay their bills. I promise to keep looking out for you as your state senator.

State Sen. Bill Gannon

R-Sandown

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Letter: Working to protect pockets of NH taxpayers - Eagle-Tribune

Work is fundamental to American society and human flourishing. That is why todays labor shortage and low labor force participation rate are so troubling.

Employment should have surged in 2021. The widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines significantly slowed the spread of the original virus and the delta variant. That, combined with a years worth of pent-up household savings and trillions of dollars in new federal spending enacted in the name of COVID-19 relief, massively increased the demand for goods and services.

Yet there are 2.1 million fewer jobs today than there were prior to the pandemic, and the labor force has declined by 600,000 even as the population aged 16 and over has grown by 3.7 million.

But unlike past recoveries, its not a lack of jobs thats the problemits a lack of willing workers.

>>>Economic Freedom, Now More Than Ever

With 11.3 million job openings, there are 1.7 jobs available for every unemployed worker. At the same point during the last recession and recovery (2009 to 2011), there were 0.27 jobs available for every unemployed worker.

With 48% of businesses having unfilled job openings, many employers cant meet demand. Thats led to shortages of products and services, delays and even life-threatening limits on access to health caresomething the impending vaccine mandates for Medicaid and Medicare providers will only exacerbate.

When businesses cant get the workers they need, they have to increase wages and/or benefits. In January, a record-high 50% of businesses increased compensation, and 45% did so in February.

Higher compensation is a great thing when it comes from workers becoming more productive, but when employers have to pay people more to do the exact same thing, that causes inflation. And inflation is a hidden tax that eats away at workers wages.

In fact, inflation has more than erased workers above-average wage gains, meaning their bigger paychecks buy them less at the grocery store and gas pump.

Bad government policies are directly fueling this inflationary cycle. Welfare-without-work policies have suppressed the labor supply at the same time as trillions of dollars worth of deficit-financed federal spending has artificially increased the demand for goods and services.

Excessive unemployment benefits, which paid most people more not to work than to work, were the worst of the work disincentives, but big increases in monthly food stamp benefits and expansions of eligibility for Obamacare are still subsidizing unemployment.

Pumping even more money that we dont actually have into the economy and adding more unfunded government entitlementsas called for in the Build Back Better Actwould only exacerbate inflation and the labor shortage.

The recent drop in work and labor-force participation, particularly among working-age adults without dependents, is troubling. Counter to the narrative that a lack of child care is preventing many parents from reentering the workforce, the reality is that 71% of those missing from the workforce have no children.

>>>How Policymakers Can Stop Driving, Start Fighting Inflation

Workers are literally the fuel for the economy. Continued low levels of employment will reduce the rate of economic growth, result in smaller real incomes and output, cause greater dependence on government social programs, require higher levels of taxation and exacerbate Americas already precarious fiscal situation.

Federal lawmakers would be wise to heed the words of Robert Kennedy, later quoted by Bill Clinton when signing the successful welfare reforms of 1996: Work is the meaning of what this country is all about. We need it as individuals; we need to sense it in our fellow citizens; and we need it as a society and as a people.

Its time for the federal government to make work attractive again by eliminating work disincentives in welfare and entitlement programs and removing government-imposed barriers that prevent employers from providing workers with real wage gainsones that wont be eaten away by inflation.

That includes eliminating needless regulations on business, ending double-taxes on investments that make people more productive and allowing people to work in the way that is best for them.

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Why Has Employment Been So Slow To Recover? - Heritage.org

Last year, the federal government offered $3.07 billion to Indiana units of government through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to help mitigate the financial effects of the pandemic. This optional funding gives state and local officials the freedom to invest these dollars in infrastructure, critical public health programs, and other areas of need. But local governments and communities in the state arent spending the money.

The strings attached to the funding and confusion about the rules are making leaders hesitant to spend the funding. Many communities across the state are still trying to figure out how to correctly spend the money or decide if its even worth it. But heres why they should reconsider.

Prior to the pandemic, Indiana was often cited as a model of fiscal responsibility and economic growth, one of a few that have routinely been placed in this category over the past 10-15 years. Indiana continues to break records in job creation and capital investment, make investment in critical programs, and fully fund its road plan. Additionally, Indiana has a massive budget surplus, with nearly $5 billion in reserves.

But the pandemic has leveled the playing field, and states like California now have a $31 billion budget surplus. Our neighbor to the west, Illinois, which was close to a default, now has a fiscal life preserver. Suddenly, Indianas big lead over other states is gone.

This begs the question: How can Indiana, with a history of rejecting federal resources because of the accompanying requirements, compete for jobs and growth in this environment?

Heres how: We have to look beyond national politics and party lines and do whats best for our community our home. By using the available federal ARPA funds, our community leaders can fuel community and economic development. Investing these funds into future-focused programs can spur economic growth for decades in the future, ensuring Indiana remains a top-tier state for economic investment.

Every locality in our state has a wish list of growth initiatives. In some rural areas of our state, communities are already planning to expand broadband or increase wastewater storage capacity. Other areas of the state are considering investments in longer-term projects such as establishing microloan programs, affordable housing plans, and much more.

The big consideration is what you want your community to be in 20 years. How are you generating new economic growth, and how are you going to prolong that growth? Why would someone want to live and work in your community? How do you get people to stay?

This is the time to get creative and maximize the potential of your community. And the ARPA funds can help your community get there.

Of course, the ARPA funds are much more restrictive than they should have been. After all, the one-size-fits-all approach to allocating the funding based in part on population overlooks rural communities. But there are still right ways for every community to take advantage of the funds, whether you agree with how the funds were made available or not. Opportunities for funds like these rarely present themselves to local governments, and theres still plenty of money on the table.

However, the strings attached to the funds are so burdensome that communities are starting to think that its not worth the time. To that, I would say that yes, there are a lot of strings attached to the ARPA dollars, but the purpose the betterment of our communities is worth the administrative cost. Will it take some work? Yes. Will it be worth it? Absolutely.

As a state, we are at a crossroads. The choices we make today will impact our communities for decades in the future. Lets not let our politics stand in the way. Consider taking the ARPA funds and use them to make our communities stronger and more vibrant for ourselves, our children, and for our Indiana home.

Luke Bosso is managing director of government advisory at Katz, Sapper and Miller.

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Why the strings attached to federal funds are worth it - The Statehouse File

WASHINGTON (AFNS)-- Speaking separately at an influential gathering two blocks from the White House March 9, the Department of the Air Forces highest-ranking civilian and military leaders offered emphatic variations on a similar theme the need to modernize faster, think faster, and nurture the cultures needed to confront potential threats and adversaries.

I am focused on modernization, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said during a keynote address closing the 13th Annual Defense Programs Conference staged by McAleese and Associates.

With Russias invasion of Ukraine entering its third week and Chinas continued military expansion and modernization, no one has to look far to understand why, he said.

Its still China, China, China for me, Kendall said in outlining the challenges hes focused on. Russia is a significant power to be concerned with. Weve had a wake-up call; weve had an emotional event that says, Yes, war at scale among great powers, among modern powers can actually happen. It can also happen in the Pacific.

China, he said, Has vastly more resources than Russia does and has been investing for almost 30 years to field forces that can keep the United States out of that region, (and) defeat us if we try to interfere in something they might do. So, the threats are increasing over time.

Those realities, as well as others, including North Korea, are the catalyst for Kendalls Seven Operational Imperatives, his blueprint for reshaping the Air and Space Forcesto meet challenges now and in the future.

Those themes the need for urgent change to reshape the Air and Space Forces amid Chinas rise and Russias ambition as well as hardening operations in space were the focus in remarks earlier in the day from Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., and Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. Jay Raymond.

Kendall agreed that space is a key component. He praised Raymond for how hes developed the Space Force but, like Raymond, said more must be done.

We have a lot of work to do in terms of the Space Force and transitioning from a force which was designed for a period when we could operate with impunity in space. We are starting down the path that takes us in the direction of having more resilient capabilities in space, Kendall said.

That we have arrived at an inflection point in history is something Raymond and Brown in their remarks later in the day, highlighted.

We live in a very complex, strategic security environment. Probably the most complex strategic environment that weve had in over three generations, Raymond said in a morning session.

We have some problems that were facing that are becoming more complex, more complicated with increasing uncertainty and will all take leadership to solve, Brown said only hours after Raymond spoke.

The remarks from all three officials were, in large measure, echoes of comments each delivered last week at the Air Force Associations Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Florida. But they also provided more detail about the plans and priorities of each service and the consequences if those goals arent realized.

Space plays a crucial role in addressing these challenges because it underpins every instrument of national power: diplomatic, informational, military, and economic, Raymond said. A few years ago, we could assume unfettered access to space and freedom to maneuver in space. You cant assume that anymore.

Like Kendall, Raymond said there cannot be delay and he described how the Space Force, in its third year, is being built for speed and to ensure sustained superiority in that critical domain.

We have to get this right, and we dont have time to waste, said Raymond, who has led the Space Force since it was born in December 2019.

Our challengers are moving fast and ultimately seek to surpass the United States as the worlds leading space power. The Space Force must deliver faster than our competitors and extend our nations advantage in space. The competition in space over the next decade will be fierce. We cant afford to lose, he said.

Raymond also said the Space Force is moving aggressively to harden capabilities in space, making them more resilient instead of the vulnerable hardware that came before and was suitable to a domain that was peaceful and benign. Those conditions are no longer present.

Competitors are escalating their coercive and malign activities in all domains and are imposing new transboundary challenges on the joint force, he said. China and Russia are demonstrating capability to contest our advantage and build capabilities that enhance their power, putting our forces at risk. Space underwrites the joint force our joint missions dont close without space. We cant fight, communicate, target, precision-strike, or maneuver without space, he said.

To ensure we are able to continue to offer these capabilities today and in the future, the Space Force is embarking on an unprecedented shift in our Space Force architecture, Raymond said.

Brown made a similar point, noting that the Air Force must adroitly balance risk if it is to succeed in meeting todays challenges while also shaping itself for the future.

Navigating those challenges, he said, demand the Air Force bring to life his strategic approach to transforming the service called Accelerate Change or Lose, and address what he outlined as four types of risk: warfighting risk, which pertains to the Air Forces rate of modernization relative to adversaries; foundational risk, which includes nurturing and sustaining Airmen, ensuring readiness; execution risk, which is shorthand for budget and acquisition hurdles; and industrial base risk, which refers to the impact of budget instability on current and future companies that feed the services manufacturing needs.

Even though Brown spoke on the same day Congress finalized a full budget for the current fiscal year, he emphasized that delaying budgets has a direct and adverse impact on security.

Any good strategy needs to be actionable, and it needs to be resourced. I know were getting close to a budget, but continuing resolutions are devastating to actually allowing us to move forward, Brown said, using the term for a temporary budget that keeps the government from shutting down in the absence of a completed, final, full-year spending plan.

Think about it. Were six months into the fiscal year and were just now getting a budget. Weve passed one budget in the past decade. If you line all those CRs together its over three years we worked without a budget. If youre trying to accelerate change, you cant be spotting your adversaries three years.

Like Brown and Raymond, Kendall noted the dangers of delayed annual budgets, warning that they hamper modernization at a time when adversaries are closing the gap that in the past separated the U.S. and its capabilities from their own.

We have a narrow window of opportunity to modernize our force and realize the change that is required to defend our homeland. Time truly is of the essence, he said.

Continued investment in new capabilities ensures the nation has the cutting edge technology needed to remain competitive and stay ahead of our adversaries, Kendall said. While divesting legacy and aging platforms is a necessary first step, this alone will not free the resources (the Department of the Air Force) requires to modernize. Significant additional resources are required to attain the (forces) the nation needs for the future.

Brown explained what that means in the real world and why the U.S. must increase its pace.

Since Desert Storm (in 1991), the Air Force is now half the size and the average age of our fleet has tripled, he said. By comparison, since the 1990s, (Chinas) Air Force has modernized their fighter fleet, increased their flight hours by over 60%. Our rate of modernization has not kept pace with our adversaries.

The future Air Force must be resourced appropriately so we can prevail in a future conflict. We must fund the transition of the Air Force today to the Air Force well need for tomorrow, he said.

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Kendall, Brown, Raymond outline changes necessary to defend the nation, the need to go fas - aetc.af.mil

As the world is (hopefully) emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, major challenges await societies across the world related to climate change (Pisu et al. 2022), inequality (Angelov and Waldenstrm 2021), digitalisation (Benzell and Ye 2021), and the undermining of democracy (Freedom House 2021). Economists can contribute to this debate, based on historic insights, theoretical models, and analysis of data.

This column launches a new eBook containing three papers presented at the 30th Anniversary Conference of the Korea Institute of Finance (KIF), as well as the contributions of the disccussants and a summary of the panel discussion (Beck and Park 2022). The papers discuss the necessary institutional changes to address societal challenges and the necessary reforms to better manage the global financial commons.

The first global pandemic in more than 100 years, COVID-19 has spread throughout the world at an unprecedented speed. At the time of writing, 4.5 million cases have been confirmed and more than 300,000 people have died due to the virus.

As countries seek to recover, some of the more long-term economic, business, environmental, societal and technological challenges and opportunities are just beginning to become visible.

To help all stakeholders communities, governments, businesses and individuals understand the emerging risks and follow-on effects generated by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Marsh and McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group, has launched its COVID-19 Risks Outlook: A Preliminary Mapping and its Implications - a companion for decision-makers, building on the Forums annual Global Risks Report.

Companies are invited to join the Forums work to help manage the identified emerging risks of COVID-19 across industries to shape a better future. Read the full COVID-19 Risks Outlook: A Preliminary Mapping and its Implications report here, and our impact story with further information.

As pointed out by Daron Acemoglu at the start of his chapter, today's world faces four fundamental and existential challenges: the rise in inequality, climate change, demographic change, and the weakening of democracy. These challenges not only require urgent actions, but have also been exacerbated by the pandemic. At the same time, these challenges provide opportunities to make institutions more inclusive, but they also require global cooperation, which has been waning in recent years due to the rising confrontation between the US and China.

Acemoglu argues that the rise in inequality was driven by globalisation but even more importantly, by new digital technologies such as specialised software and robotics that have automated work previously performed by low- and middle-skill workers. These trends have been exacerbated by an increasing focus on corporate profits and weakening of unions, the rise of global BigTech firms without the necessary oversight, and capital being taxed less than labour. These trends are intensifying with the rise of artificial intelligence technologies, which are not just continuing the automation trend but have also contributed to the retreat of democracy and steep falls in trust in public institutions.

To counter these trends, Acemoglu calls for the rebuilding of domestic and global institutions capable of harnessing the power of large corporations and significantly redirecting technological change. At the same time, better regulation of technology is required so that the composition of innovations is tilted away from technologies that pollute the environment and cause climate change, and equally tilted away from Silicon Valley's excessive focus on automation and more towards human-friendly technologies that are capable of creating employment opportunities for a broad range of skills.

Climate change calls for global cooperation and more specifically for a global carbon tax probably of no less than $150 per metric tonne of carbon, which is in the neighborhood of the level of carbon tax in Sweden today complemented by aggressive and immediate subsidies to research in renewables and other green technologies, including storage and transport technologies and a smart grid for the allocation of renewable energy.

In his chapter, Maurice Obstfeld chronicles the evolution of the global financial markets since the Global Financial Crisis, focusing on changes in the markets' domestic impacts, the strains that have emerged due to the Covid-19 crisis, and risks that may lie ahead. A key theme of his analysis is reforms that strengthen market resilience for enhancing financial stability.

One of the trends that has shaped the contour of the evolution has been the slowing but upward trend of international financial integration among advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). The volume of global financial transactions seems disproportional to any fundamental economic need or activity, yet it produces a system prone to fragility.

Another trend is emerging evidence of a global financial cycle in which global asset and commodity prices, capital flows, and bank borrowings move in a synchronised pattern. While high-income economies seem to absorb the resulting shocks relatively easily due to deeper and more fluid financial markets, their wealth, the generally greater credibility of their policy frameworks, and elements of the global financial safety net (GFSN) from which they benefit disproportionately, for emerging markets the close linkage between the global financial cycle and growth raises the important policy issue of the extent to which a flexible exchange rate system can insulate EMDEs from shifts in global financial conditions.

EMDEs could be vulnerable to sudden stops in the near-term future in the next contractionary phase of the global financial cycle, for two main reasons. First, there has been an uneven rollout of effective vaccines across the globe, which might threaten recovery in many EMDEs. Second, EMDE fiscal responses to the crisis have made them even more vulnerable to hikes in advanced-economy interest rates which may already be setting off a contractionary phase of the global financial cycle. The concentration of new sovereign debt issuance on domestic bank balance sheets in a number of EMDEs presents the possibility of a sovereign-bank doom loop.

What policy reforms are necessary to make the global financial system more resilient? Obstfeld calls for expanding the regulatory perimeter to non-bank financial intermediation, where risks have shifted in the wake of tighter bank regulation; extending the scope of bilateral central bank swap lines as part of the GFSN; revisiting the use of capital flow measures as part of a larger toolbox to enhance stability in small open economies; and a new architecture for sovereign debt restructuring, which might be needed in the wake of rising sovereign debt burdens in many emerging markets.

In the third chapter, Thorsten Beck and Yung Chul Park discuss the shorter- and longer-term challenges for the financial sector, both related to the exit from the pandemic and consequent economic crisis and to the challenges posed by economic transformation, digitalisation, and climate change. As societies emerge from the pandemic, sequencing of exit strategies from government support is important to avoid cliff effects and scarring, but also in terms of how quickly the economy can recover and manage the necessary resource reallocation process. Beyond the exit from direct support measures for corporate and financial sectors are the challenges of monetary policy normalisation and fiscal consolidation, with different countries and regions of the world facing different challenges and needs for policy normalisation.

Beyond the immediate challenges, the banking system has undergone structural changes over the past decades that have changed its role in middle- and high-income countries. While the share of credit to households rather than enterprises has increased, the corporate sector has seen an increasing role for intangible assets, which are harder for traditional banks to finance than tangible assets a trend that can also explain increased cash holdings by corporates. Banks activity mix has expanded towards non-intermediation businesses, while tighter bank regulation has raised the importance of non-bank financial intermediaries. These trends have changed the way we think about the relationship between the financial system and economic growth, but also stress that we have to look beyond the traditional banking system towards other segments of the financial system, including private equity and debt providers.

Digitalisation has been an important disruptive force in banking. Traditional banks face increasing competition from new players, including FinTech start-ups and technology platform (BigTech) companies, with the regulatory response critical for the future structure of the financial system. These potentially decisive changes raise the question of whether the benefits from digitalisation and structural changes outweigh new risks and what the financial sector of the future will look like.

A final challenge that Beck and Park discuss is climate change, which both poses problems for the financial system (climate, regulatory and transitional risks resulting in stranded and non-performing assets) and requires the critical function of the financial system for necessary resource reallocation. However, tentative evidence has shown that banks might have limited incentives to support such a transition (especially when compared to public capital markets), which puts the focus on the regulatory response to the climate change challenges but also raises the question of the relative roles of different segments of the financial system.

The debates around these topics reinforce the critical contribution that economists can and should make to the current challenges that humanity as such and advanced, emerging and developing economies face as they exit from the pandemic. This exit poses many challenges for policymakers across the globe but also the opportunity to address fundamental risks for humanity and move towards a safer and more sustainable world.

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The pandemic is not the end of the world's problems, here's why - World Economic Forum

More than 2 million Ukrainian refugeesincluding 1 million childrenhave fled the country in less than two weeks. It is the largest and fastest refugee exodus in Europe since World War II. And as Russia continues to escalate its attacks, the crisis shows no sign of abating. Its one the United States has a moral obligation to help alleviate.

Poland is heroically managing the overwhelming majority of refugees. Countries across the European Union are stepping forward, even those that resisted refugees from the Middle East and elsewhere.

Podcast March 08 2022

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Meanwhile, the Biden administration has granted Temporary Protected Status to Ukrainians in the United States as of March 1. However, with regard to the millions in Europe seeking protection, the administrations official position has been that the majority of Ukrainians will want to stay in Europe near family networks, close to Ukraine so they can return home if and when the crisis ends.

In the face of such a catastrophe, this is not an adequate response. The United States can and must do morefor Ukrainians, yes, but also for refugees fleeing conflict around the world, regardless of their nationality.

The United States has a legal process in place for admitting into the country refugees fleeing their homelands. The statutes setting out the refugee-admission process give the president the power to set an upper limita cap or ceilingon the number of refugees whom the United States will take in. President Trump slashed the number of refugees admitted by more than 85 percent, from a cap of 110,000 that President Obama set for 2017 down to just 15,000 in 2020. Along the way, when the issue of refugee resettlement came up during a fall 2018 cabinet meeting, Stephen Miller infamouslysaid, What do you guys want? A bunch of Iraqs and Stans across the country?

As a result of the cuts, a third of domestic resettlement offices were forced to close. Within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 352 refugee corps employees conducting approximately 110,000 refugee interviews a year fell to under 200 officers and barely any interviews.

The consequences for refugees around the world, as well as for American security, have been dire. President Biden set a resettlement cap of 125,000 for fiscal year 2022, but five months in, the administration is on track to resettle just 15,586. If that looks like a Trump-era number, thats because it takes time and a true commitment to recover from Trump-era cuts.

When it comes to welcoming those who flee persecution, the American public is better than our current refugee system. Every day across the nation, communities welcome Afghan allies, helping those fleeing conflict. Meanwhile, Republican Governor Mike DeWine has already directed Ohios Department of Jobs and Family Services to convene a March 17 summit of various service organizations to prepare for the arrival of Ukrainian refugees. Following the Trump administrations gutting, the administration has an opportunity to rebuild the system to be much nimbler and more effectivestarting with ways to help Ukrainians.

Raising the overall refugee resettlement cap will not be enough. The United States should raise the regional refugee allocation for Europe, which currently stands at 10,000 for fiscal year 2022. That will clearly direct resources to the crisis and serve as a signal to the world that the United States understands the severity of the situation.

Second, the administration should use all the tools at hand to streamline entries in the immediate term. For example, Ukrainians with pending family-based immigrant visa applications should be expedited and able to enter the country via humanitarian parole, then adjust their status through their family-based case. Those who do not have a family petition pending or approved should be able to enter on some sort of expedited refugee status. There is ample precedent for each of these options over the last 40 years.

There are also several thousand applicants in the Ukrainian pipeline for the Lautenberg program, a family reunification program that allows certain individuals in the United States to bring their eligible family members from the former Soviet Union via the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. These cases should be expedited, and these Ukrainians should be allowed to reunite with their families and finish their case processing.

Congress has taken the crucial step of including the Lautenberg amendment in the Fiscal Year 2022 omnibus spending package. The most recent application period for this program expired on September 3, 2021, so upon reauthorization, the cases of new Ukrainian applicants who qualify for the program should also be expedited.

All of this requires resources and personnel to do the work. Officers and support staff are needed to review applications, conduct interviews, perform background checks, and issue decisions. Given the ongoing crisis, resources should be focused on processing Ukrainian applications at the U.S. consulates in Poland, Romania, and Hungary.

The Biden administration must also deepen partnerships with international relief organizations to stand up necessary processing infrastructure, including virtual interviews and other practices that have become the norm over the course of the pandemic.

Over the longer term, the administration should assess and streamline operations of relevant offices in the departments of State, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services. This will not be the last refugee crisis we see, so lets be better prepared for the next one.

Our current refugee resettlement system was established, in large part, in response to the last major refugee crisis in Europe, when approximately 60 million people were displaced by World War II. That system was built during the early years of the Cold War, a time of growing nationalism and extremism.

President Dwight Eisenhower worked with Congress on the Refugee Relief Act to extend special visas above the nationality quotas allowed under immigration law at that time. Within a few years, the United States had welcomed 32,075 Hungarian refugees fleeing communism. While Eisenhowers overall approach to immigration was complicated by his deportation of more than 1 million Mexican laborers (and their U.S. citizen children), he saw the moral clarity of refugee resettlement as a way to enhance our global leadership and national security.

As the world watches developments in Ukraine with alarm, the Biden administration has reclaimed our leadership role on foreign policy. A robust refugee resettlement programone that can meet the urgent needs of Ukrainians today as well as of refugees seeking protection in the futureshows Americans and the world that we can be a nation of grace, compassion, and freedom.

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The Moral Clarity of Resettling Refugees - The Bulwark

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss begins an intensive round of diplomatic talks in the US tomorrow (Wednesday 9 March) as countries around the world continue to hold the Putin regime to account for its invasion of Ukraine.

In Washington DC, she will meet Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to discuss what more the UK and US can do to support Ukraine on security, intelligence, and humanitarian issues.

Liz Truss will raise the importance of a stronger deterrence against hostile states, and the need to reduce strategic economic reliance on authoritarian regimes, including energy dependency on Russia.

She will also emphasise the need for both the US and UK to build closer economic and security ties with like-minded countries who believe in democracy and the sovereignty of nations.

Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss said:

The UK, US and our allies have shown remarkable strength and unity in supporting Ukraine and imposing severe sanctions on Russia. We need to maintain that unity and do more to ensure Putin fails in Ukraine.

The Ukraine crisis is a wake-up call for free democracies. I am in the US to talk about what more we can do to deter hostile state actors, reduce strategic dependency on Russian energy and authoritarian states more broadly and build stronger economic and security alliances around the world.

During her visit, the Foreign Secretary will also hold a series of talks with Members of Congress to discuss deepening UK-US ties and she will deliver a keynote speech at the Atlantic Council.

The Foreign Secretarys visit to the US follows an intensive week of diplomacy in Europe. She spoke at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, met Baltic allies in Lithuania and in Brussels attended the EU Foreign Affairs Council, met NATO allies and held talks with G7 counterparts. In all her meetings she has sought to bring together fellow believers in freedom and democracy to isolate Russia and stand against its aggression.

In addition, the Foreign Secretary announced last week additional UK sanctions against Russian oligarchs, as part of a tough package against Russia, which also includes sanctioning the Russian Central Bank, and banning the Russian State and all Russian companies from raising funds in the UK. In coordination with the US and other allies, these measures amount to the largest set of financial sanctions in history. The Foreign Secretary will use her visit to further coordinate with the US on what more the international community can do through sanctions to cripple the Russian economy.

In terms of humanitarian efforts, the UK has pledged 394 million in aid to help Ukraine 220 million in humanitarian aid; 100 million on the energy sector and reform; 74 million fiscal support. The UK is matching pound for pound the publics first 25 million for the DEC Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal the UKs largest ever aid-match contribution. UK humanitarian experts have deployed to neighbouring countries (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova).

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Foreign Secretary travels to USA to strengthen joint action against Russia and increase support for Ukraine - GOV.UK

In the US, state governments are responsible for overseeing how much freedom local governments have in deciding their budgets. But do states need to put limits on local governments to stop them from spending in ways that are detrimental to their constituents? In new research which looks across all US cities, Mikhail Ivonchyk finds no relationship between autonomy and inflated city budgets. Cities, he writes, can largely manage their own resources without their states government looking over their shoulder.

The American Constitution does not mention local governments, which leaves their fate in the hands of the states. Throughout history states have overseen the degree of local autonomy they allow and today no two states in the country treat their local units identically. At the same time, the debates over the appropriate level of local freedom from state restraints and interference have continued since the adoption of the Constitution itself.

On one side, some argue that greater local autonomy is a necessary democratic principle enabling local policymakers to better meet the needs of diverse local communities. A lack of autonomy can make it difficult for local officials to react to political, social, environmental, and economic changes, it may stifle local creativity and policy innovation. Local democratic processes will keep local policymakers in check and prevent power abuses, excessive spending, and taxation by voting them out office.

Others are skeptical about voters ability to control the government. They are convinced that in the absence state-imposed restraints local officials will abuse their taxing and spending authority and use public resources to distribute rewards to their political allies and ensure re-election. Government in this model is akin to an uncontrollable Leviathan with expansionary tendencies that over time produce grossly inflated budgets and taxes at the level above and beyond of what is preferred by the voters.

If the first argument is correct and local officials remain accountable to their constituents even when state-imposed restraints are absent, greater autonomy is unlikely to be linked to the level of taxation and spending that is higher than what voters are happy with. In an econometric model that would mean that once socio-demographic community characteristics are taken into account, autonomy will be insignificant. In fact, more autonomy may allow localities to find innovative ways to generate cost savings, which could translate into lower spending, holding other relevant factors constant. If, on the other hand, the supporters of the Leviathan model are correct, more autonomy will be associated with higher levels of spending and taxation holding all else constant.

Empirical evidence from academic research that would test these predictions has been inconclusive and sometimes contradictory. This can be attributed to two major challenges; one is with conceptualization and measurement of local autonomy and the other with the availability of data. There is no one commonly accepted concept of autonomy, and the results may vary depending on what aspect of autonomy is studied. Those who study the topic note that autonomy includes structural (incorporation, annexation, and extraterritorial jurisdiction), fiscal (tax, revenue, spending and debt limitations), functional (services localities can perform), legal (predominant judicial interpretation of pertinent laws) and personnel-related dimensions. Moreover, autonomy is a multidimensional, continuous concept without bright-line boundaries, and it is impossible to use several ordered categories to accurately measure it in all states.

To fully understand the effect of autonomy, all dimensions must be considered together. We know about the influence of fiscal dimensions of autonomy, but other dimensions have been largely ignored and no study have considered them together using individual governments as the unit of analysis. The other shortcoming of existing empirical evidence is that most of it comes from non-random samples of larger cities, so their applicability to most American cities is unclear.

My research seeks to close some of these gaps and uses a dataset on all cities in the United States to test the relationship between municipal autonomy and the level of expenditures, taxes, and debt. The autonomy index is constructed using a rare study of all state constitutions allowing more granular measurement of the dimensions of autonomy such as local discretion (includes unconstrained revenue, fiscal limits and state legal imposition on local structure and functions), local capacity (includes personnel capacity and diversity of local revenue sources) and local importance (significance of local spending and employment to Gross State Product).

I find no evidence that cities in the states with more autonomy inflate their budgets, increase taxes or issue more debt. If we pick two cities with similar socio-demographic profiles, wealth, and intergovernmental support, the one with more autonomy will likely have the same or lower levels of spending, taxation, and debt. This expectation, however, is not uniform for all city sizes.

Figures 1, 2, 3 illustrate how autonomy effect changes from the smallest (on the left) to the largest (on the right) cities. The dashed line shows the average effect across the entire sample, the dotted lines are 95 % confidence intervals, whereas the solid line represents the autonomy effect at different levels of total expenditures, taxes and debt and the shaded area is its 95% confidence interval.

Figure 1 Autonomy effect on the level of City Expenditures

Figure 2 Autonomy effect on the level of City Debt

Figure 3 Autonomy effect on the level of City Taxes

Figure 1 indicates that in the smallest cities expenditures are unlikely to change with autonomy, but the effect becomes negative and more pronounced as we move to larger cities. The relationship is similar with the level of debt shown in Figure 2, where no difference is found for the smallest cities, but significant declines are likely in larger cities with more autonomy. The reverse is true for taxes, however, where smaller cities tend to lower their taxes if given more autonomy, but no significant changes are found in larger cities (Figure 3).

My analysis of all cities in the United States finds no trace of the Leviathan model predicting that more autonomy will lead to inflated budgets. As far as spending, taxes and debt are concerned, more autonomous cities are unlikely to run amok. In fact, more autonomy may be associated with lower spending, taxation and debt holding other relevant factors constant. It is possible that local policymakers with more discretion can find more efficient ways to meet voters demands.

Taken together, my results cast doubts on the notion that state restraints are necessary for proper functioning local units. It is quite likely that local politics keeps local officials in check, which, along with the greater responsibility for public services that comes with autonomy, are sufficient to minimize waste and misuse of public resources. This does not mean to say that states should have no role in local affairs. State governments have greater policy expertise and managerial capacities and may need to step in limited circumstances, but it looks like an average city can manage its resources without a state looking over its shoulder.

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Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP American Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics.

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About the author

Mikhail Ivonchyk State University of New York at AlbanyMikhail Ivonchyk is an assistant professor of Public Administration & Policy at the State University of New York at Albany. He holds LL.M. with a concentration in Public Institutions and the Law, and Ph.D. in Public Administration with a concentration in Public Budgeting and Finance from the University of Georgia. His primary research interests are in the areas of public budgeting, financial management and capital finance.

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Giving cities more autonomy over how they tax and spend does not lead to inflated budgets. - USAPP American Politics and Policy (blog)

The freedom convoy, which began in January 2022 to challenge vaccination requirements for truckers crossing the Canada-US border, is a fascinating specimen for the sociology of law enforcement. At a time of growing fatigue over social distancing and other COVID-19 measures, the protests soon began to evolve. Some protesters have been observed bearing Nazi symbols. Reports of harassment of residents and violence against passersby, Trump 2024 signage, and hate crimes have emerged. These concerns fit into the criminal activities of right-wing groups identified in a report submitted to Public Safety Canada and have led to questions about whose freedoms the protesters are fighting for.

Law enforcement or lack thereof has been the epicenter of public discourses on the freedom convoy. At issue is the juxtaposition of the freedom convoy and how protests by Indigenous groups were handled in the recent past. While downtown Ottawa has been ground zero of the protests, the Coutts, Alberta crossing has seen its share of the blockade. A statement by the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation argues If the blockade in Coutts consisted of Indigenous people, there would have been arrests and charges laid; instead, the Coutts blockade is being allowed to continue, even though it has at times become violent It is important to recognize the disparity between how Indigenous and non-Indigenous protests are approached by our government. It is shocking to see this blatant disparity

Indeed, the differential law enforcement intervention stares us all in the face. However, it is a mistake to consider this primarily or exclusively a law enforcement problem. The superficial law enforcement paralysis more than a week into the protests speaks to broader issues in our society.

More than a policing matter

The response to the freedom convoy offers a glimpse into the underbelly of the criminal justice system. The law is not like the weather and its enforcement involves significant degrees of discretion. Earlier in my career, I occasionally asked second-year introductory criminology students to indicate by raising their hands if they had ever encountered situations in which the police caught them with contrabands (e.g. drugs), seized such items, and asked them to go home. Some hands would usually go up with their peers shocked. I would explain to the students that they went back home peacefully to their parents for the same acts over which their peers might have been arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to prison. The aim was to help students think about inequality in the criminal justice system and their own social positionality. The dispensation of favourable or unfavourable discretionary use of power goes beyond policing. The judiciary is not immune. The prosecution of participants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol has been fraught with professional lenience that questions the notion of equality before the law.

For example, Judge Beryl A. Howell was unsparing in her critique of the disconnect between the gravity of the actions of the offenders and the tepid charges filed by the US Department of Justice. She described the situation as muddled and almost schizophrenic asking: Is it the governments view that the members of the mob that engaged in the Capitol attack on January 6 were simply trespassers? The Republican-Democrat divide on the attack was irrelevant. My point? The criminal justice system works in ways that dovetail with the contours of inequality in society.

Political capital

The freedom convoy protesters have been able to draw on a level of political capital that most people who take to the streets to fight for their rights rarely have. Conservative party leader, Erin OToole, met with some of the protesting truckers before being ousted. The CTV reports that his interim successor, Candice Bergen, pushed OToole to show support for the Freedom Convoy protest, arguing there are good people on both sides. It was an unoriginal statement, of course, but emblematic of the thinking at the highest echelons of the Conservative Party. The report also states that Bergen informed MPs that I dont think we should be asking them to go home; rather the issue should be turned into a problem for the prime minister. That is how you win elections through polarization. The truckers are a rich mine for votes and their anger is a catalyst for electoral mobilization. Therefore, their protest is being approached with greater circumspection than is accorded most street protesters. Bergen and other MPs and MLAs who have voiced their support for the protest are aware of the social and political value of the protesters. The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is right to be wary of inviting the military to intervene as that rarely ends well.

Financial capital

The freedom convoy is also well resourced. Organizers garnered approximately $10 million within days on Go Fund Me before their account was frozen. The Toronto Star reports that despite being blocked by GoFundMe, the freedom convoy was still raising thousands of dollars per minute on GiveSendGo. The continuing influx of cash suggests the freedom convoy goes beyond some fringe elements of society. Support for the freedom convoy is organic within conservative to right-wing sections of the population. The kinds of funds being generated are not restricted to $10 to $30 from average members of society. For perspective, consider that the NDP in Alberta raised $6.2 million in 2021, its highest fundraising ever, while the United Conservatives generated $3.8 million in the same fiscal year. Therefore, the freedom convoy is a piece of money-generating machinery that rivals several established political parties with well-manicured fundraising architecture in Canada. Its supporters are not mainly or primarily from the margins of society. Such serious cash means organizers can mobilize effectively and provide supplies to prolong the protest. This wears out law enforcement capacity.

Ideological symmetry: Freedom Convoy and Mounties for Freedom

On 21 October 2021, a group of RCMP officers known as the Mounties for Freedom wrote an open letter to Commissioner Brenda Lucki on their opposition to vaccination mandates. The officers noted that they were not against vaccinations, but as law enforcement officers, we cannot in good conscience willingly participate in enforcing mandates that we believe go against the best interests of the people we protect. They also noted that they have concerns about the science we are being coerced to follow and argued that our constitutionally-protected freedoms precede the government. Does that sound familiar? There is ideological symmetry between participants in the freedom convoy and a section of law enforcement. In other words, some officers would presumably participate in the freedom convoy but for the uniform. Consider that the US Capitol attack involved almost 30 off-duty police officers from 12 police departments. ABC News reports that some defendants charged in the attacks are adopting a defense that they thought they were free to enter the Capitol because law enforcement authorities either didnt stop them from coming in or never told them they were not allowed to be there. This has added to broader concerns over right-wing extremist infiltration of law enforcement and the military in the US and Canada. A declassified 2020 report of Canadas Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre notes that far-right groups such as the Proud Boys are actively recruiting serving and retired members of the police and military. Such ideological sympathies may weaken law enforcement.

Political economy of protest risk

Scholarly engagement with protest policing has a long history. How police respond to protesters is indicative of a combination of subjective and objective calculus as regards risk to law and order and bearers of risks. For example, in Alberta, the Wetsuweten First Nations protests against the Coastal GasLink Pipeline in 2020 attracted legislative action and several arrests. Bill 1 The Critical Infrastructure Defence Act was passed at impressive legislative speed. That is not a critique. Governments must respond proportionally to threats. However, the reluctance to enforce the same law on the freedom convoys takeover of the Coutts crossing in Alberta subjects law enforcement and the entire criminal justice system to unnecessary public ridicule. The same applies to the ostensible helplessness of Ottawa police.

Making political choices regarding protests

The freedom convoy provides a lesson in the politics of law enforcement. Right-wing groups increasingly pose serious threats to society and need to be recognized and treated as such. Some political leaders have declared that they do not direct the police. That is not a lie but it is not entirely true. The police take cues from political leaders. The spread of the freedom convoy and the disruption it increasingly represents embody a political choice (via inertia) by some elected leaders and chiefs of police. Canadian police are some of the most effective and highly regarded in the world. The officers on the streets would have acted swiftly and decisively if they had been properly directed long before the trucks arrived.

Finally, it matters who is protesting and the social and political position they occupy. Although the freedom convoy has been treated lightly to date, other groups contemplating street demonstrations in the near future should be warned: Dont try this at home.

Oriola is professor of criminology at the University of Alberta, Canada. The Conversation first published a version of this article under a creative commons licence. Follow Oriola on Twitter: @topeoriola

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Canada's freedom convoy protests: Politics, policing and the law - TheCable

The Hutchinson News| The Hutchinson News

The First Amendment prohibits government from abridging the freedom of speech. Yet for decades far right extremists have pressed lawmakers to censor public school education and books that some perceive as disturbing. Some have convinced Republicans that Critical Race Theory is brainwashing schoolkids.

In Goddard, Kansas, education officials removed 29 books from circulation after a parent complained about language in one of them. Among the titles pulled were several novels, including Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Fences, an award-winning play by August Wilson was also pulled, as was They Called Themselves the K.K.K.," a nonfiction history of the racist hate group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.

Looking at the targeted works, one can't help but note that many deal with America's troubled racist history and sexuality. Some people, it seems, would rather their children be taught comforting lies rather than uncomfortable truths. But just as creationists can't rewrite the science curriculum because they reject evolution, we can't let historical revisionists attack young people's freedom to learn. Books for young adults that discuss issues of human sexuality are often controversial, but curbing access is unacceptable. LGBTQ teens need to see themselves reflected in literatureor find nonfiction resources for factual information.

Parental involvement in public schools is always welcome, but that doesn't mean parents will gain veto power over all aspects of the curriculum. It's essential that informed parents stand up strongly against ignorance and censorship. The censors won't win if enough people stand up to them.

Janean Lanier, Hutchinson

City's new website reveals "transparency" to be a meaningless term.

Transparency is often touted as the hallmark of government agencies operating with utmost honesty and integrity. The need to be transparent was expressed by our current mayor as recently as the Feb. 2 City Council meeting. Unfortunately, the City's new website does little to advance this concept.

The most glaring example of the shift towards opacity can be seen in the removal of City Council agendas, minutes and supportingmaterials prior to January of 2020. Any citizen interested in current issues, such as those revolving around the Woody Seat or the Atrium are at a loss when it comes to exploring actions taken by the Council and Administration in previous years. Anyone asking, "how did we get here?" will not find any relevant information through the City's new website. Another more subtle obfuscation, is the removal of any information pertaining to the numerous grants our City relies on for its functioning. RFPsand other contractual information have also been quietly removed.

This shift towards opacity should alarm every citizen of our community. The problems we as a community face have been decades in the making. Any hope of rectifying our current circumstance must be met with a clear understanding of what has brought us to this point. To see our current Administration move so dramatically in the direction of opacity, in the direction of less available information, raises more questions without providing any answers.

Scott Brown, Hutchinson

Dave Trabert of the Kansas Policy Institute stated the topic of his Jan. 31 column was the proposed legislative bill to make computer science a required course for graduation, but he delivered they-are-so-wrong-and-so-bad messaging instead.

To discuss his stated topic, Trabert would have had to say that making computer science a graduation requirement would be a resource draining hardship for the many rural districts already struggling to hire qualified teachers. He would have also had to say that is why the bill sponsor has already agreed to delete the graduation requirementbut retain the new funding to train teachers in computer science. He would have also had to retract his statement about the need for universal school choice (his code word phrase for funding private schools with tax dollars). Private schools are not required to provide a computer science course.

Instead, Trabert tells us that Kansans of the last 55 years, who set graduation requirements through their elected state and local board of education members, were wrong. As a professional lobbyist who has spent 13 years running a dark-money funded, political propaganda platform, he tells us teachers who have dedicated their lives to educating our students care more about themselves than our kids because they do not agree with him. He also looks unfavorably on the majority of Kansans electing our current governor over his preferred candidate who promised to largely reinstate the Brownback income tax cut fiscal train wreck. For Trabert, most of us are wrong and bad.

Sincerely,

John Sturn, Ellinwood, KS

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Letters to the editor - The Hutchinson News