When he interviewed the president on Sunday, Tim Russert spent most of the time asking about Iraq; this part of the interview has also attracted the most attention from pundits. But I was most struck by the following comment: “BUSH: If you look at the appropriations bills that were passed under my watch, in the last year of President Clinton, discretionary spending was up 15 percent, and ours have steadily declined.” The Heritage Foundation provides a clear graph of annual changes in discretionary spending, which shows that growth in the discretionary budget never exceeded 2% under Clinton. By my calculation, there was a 10% increase in 2002 and a 14% increase in 2003 . (I’m using this table for those years). You get slightly different results if you measure “discretionary spending” differently, but the basic pattern is clear. Spending inched up under Clinton and soared under Bush. The president is flat wrong. …

Continue reading →

On the very day when newspapers are covering the Massachussetts court decision that mandates gay marriage rights, CIRCLE and the Council for Excellence in Government released new polling data on young people’s attitudes toward gay marriage and other rights for homosexuals. The story we tell is compelling: “By six-to-one margins, American youth support gay rights and protections related to housing, employment, and hate crimes and those sentiments are held by all ideological, partisan, racial, geographic, and religious groups. One out of two respondents said they know someone who is gay; knowing a gay person has a significant impact on attitudes.” Also, a majority supports gay marriage.

I think these findings should affect the political calculus–to a degree. In the 2004 election, opposition to gay marriage is probably the safer political course (although morally wrong, in my view). But those politicians who oppose gay marriage today are likely to look foolish in 2024, when today’s youth predominate. I wonder whether fear of looking ridiculous in the history books will temper anyone’s opposition to gay marriage.

I was in the pool for jury duty today, although I was not selected for a panel. (This happens like clockwork every two years.) I used to want to be selected, because I study deliberation, and a jury is the paradigm of a deliberative body. Now I quietly hope that my number won’t come up; I feel I have too much to do at work–perhaps an indication that I’m putting too low a priority on civic duty. Anyway, they never seem to want me.

Waiting in the pool is, however, a nice chance to observe a random selection of my fellow Washingtonians. I have noticed, for example, that African Americans are much more likely than Whites to see someone else in the jury pool whom they already know. (The Black community is more stable, and residents are more likely to have gone to local schools.) Also, a striking percentage of jurors name someone in their family who serves in law enforcement. This is probably a DC phenomenon: we have numerous layers of police, prisons, and federal law-enforcement agencies here.

While in the courthouse, I helped my CIRCLE colleagues put out a press release on youth voting in New Hampshire. In Iowa, youth turnout quadrupled compared to 2004. In New Hampshire, it’s hard to say what happened to turnout. There was no contested Republican primary, so New Hampshire Independents who might usually vote in the GOP primary voted in the Democratic contest. Voting by all age groups increased in the Democratic primary, but this seems meaningless. Furthermore, the under-30’s did not increase their share of the vote, as they had in Iowa. I wonder whether youth turnout was lower in New Hampshire than in Iowa because some young Dean supporters became disillusioned during the last week. Dean came first among the under-30s in New Hampshire, but some of his young fans may have stayed home.

We’ve got kids (one 4 and one 14), and sometimes it’s hard to explain the primary campaign to them. I’ve come up with the following key, which may come in handy for others who face the same predicament:

John Kerry = Pooh

Dick Gephardt = Rabbit

Al Sharpton = Gopher

Howard Dean = Tigger

Wesley Clark = Owl

John Edwards = Piglet

Joe Lieberman = Eeyore

Carol Mosely Braun = Kanga

Dennis Kucinich = Little Roo

George W. Bush = A Heffalump

Dick Cheney = A Woozle

Christopher Robin = The American People

I attended a forum today on No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the major federal education law. The event took place in a U.S. House office building on Capitol Hill; it was organized by the American Youth Policy Forum.

I have long wondered how the federal government gains so much power simply by spending $30 billion/year on education from kindergarten through 12th grade. That’s only 8 percent of education spending. NCLB is extremely unpopular in some areas, so I never understood why no local jurisdictions (or even states) have turned down the federal aid. Compliance is not mandatory; a state could pull out of the NCLB regime if it were willing to forego the money. From the complaints of many education leaders, it sounds as if the dollar costs imposed by NCLB are greater than the benefits. Today I learned that while federal monies cover 8 percent of the cost of k-12 education, they fund about half of state education agencies’ costs. In other words, half of the salary positions in state departments of ed are directly dependent on federal funding. So these state agencies feel a need to comply with NCLB; and they have regulatory power over local jurisdictions. I don’t know if this is true, but the source was knowledgeable, and it makes sense.