Reform Watch: Healthcare, Education, Nuclear Non-proliferation & Military Spending
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Healthcare Reform
Two Senate Democrats have pledged not to aid Republicans in blocking a full Senate vote in healthcare reform legislation. That moves the Democratic majority closer to the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster and bring the bill to a floor vote that will require only 50 votes plus one. This means the public option is now far mor likely to enter into the final legislation, as majorities in both houses support it.
Recent polling shows an increase in support both for the public option and for the president. Insurers’ sponsored report announcing they would raise rates by 40% over the next few years if reforms are not to their liking is thought to have made the president’s argument for why the public option is a market-based solution, and a necessary one, resonate more clearly with the public.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), a key Senate leader working to marshal support for the public option and for healthcare reform broadly, says the Democratic majority is close to winning support from 60 senators to pass comprehensive health insurance reform that includes a public option. A provision that would allow states to “opt out” of a public option is reportedly winning support from conservative Democrats wary of any expanded government involvement in healthcare.
Education Reform
Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, has said that “teaching has never been more difficult, it has never been more important” and significant improvements need to be made to the network of institutions that train career teachers. He criticized some education schools as “cash cows” that do “mediocre” work and foster an inadequate standard for professional educators.
Duncan has sought to improve the system’s ability to staff schools with quality teachers, demanding that standards not be limited to specific training requirements or preferred methodologies, but that the aim be to cultivate and hire the best quality teachers.
The Department of Education has an unprecedented amount of increased federal funding, in part from the Recovery Act, as the long-term return on investment is high for education spending, and improved education is vital to both rebuilding communities and fostering a dynamic 21st century workforce.
Nuclear Non-proliferation
The nuclear non-proliferation movement has gained significant ground with the coordinated efforts of Pres. Obama, the UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon and other world leaders, to forge a framework for total joint nuclear disarmament over the coming decades. The total disarmament paradigm for nuclear policy negotiations has taken root, as the US and Russia agreed this year to cut their stockpiles in half and all 15 Security Council members voted to move toward global disarmament.
Iran has followed through on its pledge to allow IAEA inspectors access to its uranium enrichment facility at Qom, and talks are ongoing to establish a remote processing system that would allow Iran to acquire processed civilian-use uranium from a partner country, where proliferation is not a risk, likely Russia and/or France.
If the Iran deal goes through, and a comprehensive new civilian-use framework can be established, the risk of nuclear proliferation can be significantly reduced across the world, and the military tensions between Iran and the west can also be calmed. The geopolitical logic regarding nuclear weapons is moving away from the presumption that all nations implicitly seek them to an understanding that such projects are related to political and security circumstances.
Military Spending
The last 30 years have seen military spending in the US increase at a rate that is fiscally unsustainable and undermines the solvency of government and its ability to adequately provide for and maintain vital infrastructure and civil services. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars now mean the US spends well over $650 billion annually on its military, more than twice as much as all the nations of the European Union combined —despite the EU’s having a 50% larger population—, and only $85 billion less than half the entire world’s joint military spending.
The $663.7 billion in current annual Defense expenditures is significantly more than double the $305.4 billion requested for the 2001 budget. An aggressive militaristic foreign policy, open contemplation of a deliberate nuclear arms race and wasteful spending on flawed and over-budget “weapons systems”, not to mention corruption and no-bid contracts, in recent years, have inflated the Pentagon budget massively, without producing the desired improvements to conditions on the ground for US soldiers or for the people living where we fight our wars.
Intelligent, politically delicate decisions have been made, to scrap failed over-budget weaponry, plan a more efficient, vast and flexible missile defense system, and move toward a zero-nuclear multilateral security posture that will allow increased security with smarter spending that does not keep growing out of control, all while focusing more resources on the welfare and service of soldiers. The F-22 fighter jet program will be de-funded, after outstanding orders are filled; the program had been extremely costly and had not produced any specific tactical or strategic benefit.
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