Similar images come to mind when discussing Governor Corbett’s new policy regarding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps. The Corbett Administration recently announced that it would bar people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings or other assets (home, retirement benefits, and one car not included) from collecting food stamps. A higher limit would be set for seniors. This was all done under the guise of clamping down on fraud.

Yet a closer examination reveals these vague claims of fraud to be more akin to Quixote’s imaginary monsters than to any real threat to taxpayers. A Department of Agriculture report on how well the states administered their food stamps program shows that no fraud claims were established in 2010. In fact, the costs of agency errors far exceeded that of non-existent fraud, raising the question of whether an asset test could have unforeseen costs. It is widely accepted – except, of course, by the Corbett Administration – that the additional training, paperwork and document verification accompanying this policy change will mean higher administrative costs. An increase in agency errors resulting from the added bureaucracy could have a similar effect.

But the cost is not only monetary. Food stamp usage has increased as a result of the Great Recession and its aftermath, which dislocated workers and wreaked havoc on families’ finances. Yet putting a limit on the amount of savings and assets one can hold punishes people that choose to save for the future, encouraging them instead to deplete their reserves.

The Corbett Administration claims this will stop people from taking advantage of the system. But food stamps are already limited to those with low incomes, and food stamp payments are low enough only to help people, not to provide for them entirely. Pennsylvania ranks in the bottom tenth of the nation as far as average state food stamp payment amounts go – below even Texas. The average monthly benefit for a Pennsylvania household ($262.61 in 2010) would only go so far in covering that average household’s grocery bill. The Department of Agriculture’s estimates that monthly food costs for a family of four range from around $550 to $800 per month, depending on how old the children are. And those estimates are for the spending plans it labels “thrifty” and “low-cost.”

Losing such aid would hurt not only the recipients, but businesses and the economy as well. Food stamps help prop up demand, preserving jobs in grocery stores and the trucking and warehouse services they employ. The spending done by workers in those preserved jobs, in turn, ripples through the economy. Moreover, food stamps are the most effective form of economic stimulus, since they are given to cash-strapped individuals who usually spend them immediately. A Moody’s Analytics study found that food stamps generated $1.73 for every dollar spent.

So one could be excused for feeling a bit like Sancho Panza as he watches his leader gallop off full-speed at a windmill. Perhaps Quixote truly believes in the imaginary beasts he seeks to slay, or perhaps he has some inkling of the absurdity of his quest. No matter – the result is the same.

• Limits on the amount of money corporations can spend on political candidates
• Government regulations and testing to make sure children’s toys are not contaminated with lead
• Environmental Protection Agency standards ensuring clean water
• Laws protecting workers against sexual harassment in the workplace
• Laws protecting whistleblowing offshore oil workers from retaliatory firing
• Public schools

The answer? These are all things Ron Paul opposes.

Before I go any further, let me make one thing clear: I respect Ron Paul personally. I think it is wonderful that he has remained true to his principles, and not conveniently changed his views for political gain. I admire his ability to unflinchingly take unpopular stands and break rank with his nominal party (I say “nominal” because although Paul is technically a Republican, it would be more accurate to describe him as a Libertarian). I like that he has brought obscure economic ideas into the public spotlight for debate. And, not for nothing, he also seems to me to be a genuinely honest guy.

So for that, I respect him. Of course, I also think he is generally unelectable and would make an awful president. This is the point at which I expect some people will stop reading and immediately begin pondering ways to decry this post as a vast conspiracy of big business, big government, and the media. But before that happens, let me just ask that this post be judged on its accuracy, rather than any emotional attachments to Paul’s candidacy.

Bizarrely, some Ron Paul supporters point to the fact that Paul was elected to Congress as evidence of his electability, regardless of the fact that he represents a district of only 651,619 Texans. To put that into perspective, that is about 0.2 percent of the United States population.

A more common claim is that his second and third place finishes in New Hampshire and Iowa, respectively, support his electability. Of course, Rick Santorum finished second (or first, perhaps) in Iowa, but I have yet to hear someone tell me with a straight face that they think Santorum is electable, largely for the same reason that I think Ron Paul is unelectable: once the public takes Paul’s views to their logical conclusions, they will shy away.

Perhaps the Santorum comparison is unfair. After all, Rick Santorum’s views are extreme and out of touch with public opinion. Banning abortion under any and all circumstances? Bombing Iran? That’s crazy talk. Any Paul supporter will tell you that he wants to pursue commonsense reforms, like rolling back our overreaching military and cutting a bloated federal government.

Things start to break down when the discussion goes beyond these generalities into specifics. Paul’s libertarian utopianism envisions a country in which private industry self-regulates itself at almost every turn. Should the government ensure that citizens have clean drinking water? Or that every child has access to a public education? Most Americans think so, even if they advocate some sort of reform of the current system. But Paul eschews such things. This is an ideology based not in small, efficient government — but, rather, in no government (or, as close to no government as you can get).

The problem is that following his positions to their conclusions produce grim results in the real world. Unemployment benefits would end for thousands of people, causing a large contraction in demand in the economy, helping derail a fragile economy and causing greater hardship for the unemployed. Failure to raise the debt ceiling (an action against which Paul voted) would have caused enormous turmoil, and the first ever American default, exacerbating, rather than alleviating, the current economic situation. As it happened, the near-failure caused the first ever downgrade in America’s credit rating.

Many Americans agree that the Pentagon should share the sacrifice of spending cuts, but Paul’s advocacy of large-scale shuttering of overseas military bases is dangerously naive. Despite the harsh lesson America has learned about its own limitations over the past decade, it remains the global hegemon, and a stabilizing force. An Economist article notes the possible unintended consequences of military cutbacks in Europe:

The thinking behind the “rebalancing” looks flawed for several reasons. The first is that far from being on oasis of stability, EUCOM’s 51-country region covers some pretty flammable trouble spots, among them Georgia’s border with Russia, Kosovo’s border with Serbia and Turkey’s border with Iraq and Syria. Israel is also within EUCOM. There are less conventional security threats too, from terrorists moving between safe havens to cyber attacks.

The second is that—quite apart from possible flashpoints in its own region—Europe is closer to many of the fights that American forces may be committed to in the future than bases in the United States.

…

The third is that the new strategy places great emphasis on military-to-military co-operation with other countries. The best way of enhancing that is for American soldiers to train with their counterparts from other nations. General Hertling says that after training, the command’s second priority is to enter into effective partnerships with the many different countries in its region. “By sharing ideas, tactics and procedures,” he says, “you build trust with partners.” During the final readiness exercise before deployment to Afghanistan, the 172nd trained with troops from nine other countries, the same ones, notes the general, whom they would later find themselves fighting alongside.

And that article is talking about President Obama’s comparatively modest rebalancing of American forces. Paul advocates a much larger drawdown, which would inevitably gut NATO, and further weaken our military capacity and lessen global stability.

The thing is, people can get behind the generalities of his platform. They (rightly) do not think we should be overreaching in two simultaneous ground wars. But, more than that, I think people can get behind the Ron Paul persona. Americans love to identify with the underdog and the straight-talker, and Paul has both in spades. His unpolished speaking style has a genuine, endearing feel to it that many Americans take to heart. He’s that kindly old gentleman that could well be your own uncle (albeit, your slightly crazy old uncle).

And, indeed, polls of Republican primary voters show Paul ranks highly in questions about his personal character and human interactions. Voters say he stands up for what he believes in and is honest, and that counts for a something when faith in government (and Congress in particular) has fallen to new lows. Indeed, right now he is polling fairly well among independents.

But throw him in the general election and that will all change. His views will not only be revealed as outside the mainstream, but will also leave him open to attacks from both the right (on defense and social issues) and the left (on economic and labor issues). President Obama’s current edge in the polls when hypothetically matched against Paul would quickly expand.

Yet, for a moment, let us imagine a world in which Ron Paul wins the nomination and the presidency. What then? Well, as president, he would have little control over enacting his particular agenda and would face a Congress that has absolutely no interest in moving his legislation. The right would bristle against his demobilization, while the left would staunchly oppose gutting entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. His average man persona would be of no help in dealing with Washington’s power brokers.

You thought the gridlock of the past few years has been bad? A Paul presidency would be a million times worse.

Economic liberalization and free trade agreements, which one might hope for from a libertarian candidate, would languish. This seems counter-intuitive, considering Paul’s ideology, but his voting record in Congress (against free trade agreements) shows that the strictures of his views lead him to the belief that free trade results from less government intervention, not from agreements with foreign nations. While wonderful in theory, this, of course, is utterly unrealistic.

Stymied by Congress and his own beliefs, Paul’s biggest effect would be through his appointive and veto powers, the latter of which he would undoubtedly use with relish.  Congress, not up to the task of overriding his vetoes, would sit by helplessly as little to nothing becomes law. The de-stimulative effect of vetoed federal spending would shrink the economy (sorry, no more unemployment benefits for you, never mind that your job search keeps turning up nothing), possibly even pulling it into a double-dip recession, like the austerity-laden Europeans. Courts and federal agencies would be filled with people that believe the job they are being paid to do should not exist in the first place, and that the federal government has little role in anything at all. So, in sum, little would get done, but the effects would be long-ranging.

I appreciate Ron Paul’s character, his dedication, and his role in bringing alternative economic ideas to the public debate (no matter how incorrect I believe that they are). All of that makes him a man that I would love to sit down and have a nice, pleasant dinner with. What it does not make him is a good president.

Map of Narberth

Looking at a map of Narberth makes it clear: it appears as if a wedge has been removed from the eastern side of the borough. Why is this?

Well, as the old saying goes, “All politics is local” — and, in this case (it would seem), personal. As I was told the other day by Narberth Borough Manager Bill Martin, the Narberth residents lobbying for a separate borough and drawing up the maps delineating their town’s boundaries simply did not like the gentleman who lived in the area in question. So when the time came, they just drew him out of the town.

A humorous story, yes. But also a lesson to those who prefer to ignore history and politics — they directly affect your everyday life, right up to something as simple as your mailing address.

Now, however, I would like to open up the Diniverse News Roundup to any and all interested individuals. It will still probably be fairly erratic (daily sometimes, weekly others), but, hey, it’s a free and easy way to keep informed and read articles you might otherwise never see. If you would like on the listserv, just email diniverse@gmail.com and say so! And no worries, if you want off at any point in the future, all you have to do is ask.

Yet there is another aspect of the debate over stimulus and austerity that many Americans tend to overlook — the fact their government has been slashing spending and raising taxes to balance budgets, only at a state and local level. Forced by balanced budget provisions in most state constitutions, these government entities have undertaken the kinds of measures many conservatives are clamoring for at the federal level. The result has been a drag on both national and state economies.

This week’s Economist (Jan. 7-13, 2012) had an excellent article on the effects of state austerity packages on the national economy. From that article:

In 2009 and 2010 this austerity offset much of the expansionary effect of federal-government stimulus. Even in 2011, according to a Goldman Sachs estimate, government spending cuts reduced America’s GDP growth by half a percentage point. State and local governments bore most of the blame: they have been responsible for nearly 600,000 government jobs going since the recession’s end.

…

State and local governments trimmed 16,000 jobs in November—down from 45,000 in May but still a negative number. Yet the worst appears to be over. And just as local austerity amplified the previous economic decline, its end should reinforce the recovery.

A November 2011 study by the Keystone Research Center shows the huge impact Governor Corbett’s 2011 budget cuts have had on Pennsylvania’s economy:

From September 2009 to September 2010, Pennsylvania outpaced most other states in job creation, ranking fourth in the number of jobs created and seventh by job growth percentage. Between April 2011 and September 2011, we shifted into reverse and are now headed in the wrong direction. A wave of public-sector job losses has driven job growth in the Commonwealth into the bottom 10: 47th measured by the change in the number of jobs and 43rd measured by job growth percentage.

It is also interesting to note that the same people calling for fiscal tightening at the federal level also decried the “failure” of the stimulus package. That the stimulus package passed by the United States Congress in 2009 did not suddenly rocket the entire economy out of the recession is not an admission of its failure. The stimulus performed a much-needed role by helping states plug their deficits as tax receipts plunged, preventing an even larger tightening. As the Economist notes, state cuts “offset much of the expansionary effect of federal-government stimulus,” which allows the package’s opponents to get away with the claim that the stimulus had no effect.

It is difficult to run on a political platform of ‘things would have been much worse if we had not passed the stimulus package,’ but nonetheless there it is — things would have been much worse. Without aid to the states, cuts would have been deeper and tax increases greater, deepening the recession. And yet, still, talk of immediate austerity, balanced budget amendments, and the “failure” of economic stimulus somehow persist.

–FURTHER READING–

http://www.economist.com/node/21542445

http://keystoneresearch.org/sites/default/files/Public-sector-job-losses-PA-recovery-11-2011.pdf

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=711

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=13003068

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/budget_cuts.html

http://gaudini.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/government-balancing-budgets/

If you cannot ban something directly, at least make it unavailable – that seems to be the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s view on abortion.

Republican majorities in the state House and Senate recently passed two such laws. One prohibits insurance coverage for abortions in plans bought through the state’s soon-to-be-established health care exchanges. The other requires all abortion clinics to meet new requirements and undergo expensive renovations that will likely force most, if not all, of the state’s 20 freestanding abortion clinics to close.

Both are huge setbacks for women’s health in the Keystone State. It is revealing that various medical organizations, like the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, have come out against these proposals, while none have endorsed them.

Abortions should be procedures that are safe, legal, and rare. Instead, these bills institute a de facto ban that makes abortions neither safe nor rare. They create a situation in which middle and lower class Pennsylvanians, unable to pay the travel and medical costs associated with out-of-state abortions, are forced to take matters into their own hands.

Hangers, needles, and other traumatic practices fill the void of a safe medical environment – and leave would-be patients horrifically scarred. And that is if they are lucky enough to survive the self-induced abortion and resulting infection. It would be a stretch to think that making abortion unavailable would deter someone willing to risk such terrible consequences. Even for women whose pregnancies threaten permanent physical harm, abortion would no longer be an option.

Keeping abortion safe and legal is not an admission that our society enjoys seeing the procedure carried out. Rather, it is a recognition that making abortion unavailable is not a credible policy for preventing it. Abortion incidents are high in many countries where abortion is illegal, and low in others where it is legal and safe. Correlations between abortion incidence and legality are weak, at best.

If the majority Republicans in the General Assembly truly cared about women’s health issues or preventing abortions, they would pursue proven policies that address the core issue: preventing the need for abortions in the first place.

Ineffective contraceptive use and inaccessibility of contraceptives are two key areas that should be emphasized when fighting to minimize abortion rates. Policies that promote sex education and access to contraceptives help remedy this.

Unfortunately, these new laws do not do much in the way of actually minimizing abortions. They are counterproductive policies that simply seek to make abortions unavailable. Instead of searching for a remedy, they have ripped the wound wide open.

Read the Introduction here.
Read Part 1: The New Deal Democrat here.
Read Part 2: Defender of the Status Quo here.
Read Part 3: Breaking Down the Old Order here.
Read Part 4: Morning in America here.
Read Part 6: America in the Post-Soviet World (when the post is ready).
Read Part 7: Reconnecting with Humanity here (when the post is ready).

–BIG BUSINESS AND THE UNIPOLAR WORLD–

The 1980s saw a divided, stagnant country finally conquer rampant inflation, revitalize its economy and renew its sense of a national identity. Yet this period was not without its defects, as well.

It saw the beginning of widening economic inequality, for several reasons. New technology made businesses more efficient, eliminating some jobs and decreasing the value and pay of others. There was a shift in power from capital to talent. Before the 1970s, the people employing high paying individuals (professional athletes, CEOs, celebrities, etc…) had the power: they generally decided how much to pay the individuals. During the 1970s, however, a shift in this power structure took place, as talent began to realize it could demand higher payment from capital for its services. By the 1980s, this power shift was fairly set. This change, along with shifts in the political mainstream against progressive taxation and social safety nets contributed to a growing ‘wealth gap.’

As income for the wealthiest soared and income for the middle and lower classes stagnated, big business began to be painted as the villain: something like a modern version of the robber-barons of the early 1900s. Enter: a revamped Lex Luthor.

Most people today know Lex Luthor as an unscrupulous, if ingenious, businessman whose strength lies primarily in his intelligence and boundless resources. But before Crisis on Infinite Earths, Luthor was a simple mad scientist, running about in his classic (if ridiculous) green battle suit. He embodied the Cold War fear of a militarized science (like the atomic bomb) that would destroy the world.

By the 1980s, fear of the bomb was still alive, but not as potent as it once was. Anger at perceived “corporate fat-cats,” however, was growing. So Superman writer John Byrne re-imagined Lex Luthor as a businessman whose stature and power in Metropolis came from the fact that he already owned most of it. This enabled Clark Kent, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, to play the watchdog with big business, keeping the robber-baron accountable.

The American Flag morphs into Superman's "S" symbol visually.

By the end of the millennium, Lex Luthor (the stand-in for evil big business, as opposed to Bruce Wayne’s philanthropic capitalist) took the next logical step in his acquisition of power: taking over the U.S. government. This astounding development in the DC Universe was matched by the contentious nature of the real-world 2000 election, and its grand finale in the Supreme Court. President Luthor was later impeached and forced from office after creating a crisis and misleading the nation, two charges Democratic opponents often levied at President Bush (though, unlike Luthor, President Bush never shot up with steroids and donned a robotic battle-suit to take on Superman, as awesome as that might have been).

The critique of dominating big business commandeering government was also echoed in one of the most famous and influential comic books of all time: Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. It, along with Alan Moore’s Watchmen, helped usher in an era of “more serious” comics as a literature and more attention from the mainstream. Yet they also had the unintended effect of inspiring excessively violent comics in the early 1990s, as the industry sought to inject so-called ‘gritty realism’ into their books.

The Dark Knight Returns is an ‘alternate universe tale’ that tells the story of an old, retired Bruce Wayne being galvanized back into action as Batman. In the ‘Millerverse’ (as fans have dubbed the alternate universe in which Frank Miller’s Batman stories take place), Superman is the last active superhero. And he is only allowed to function as a federal agent of the Reagan Administration.

There is a certain irony here. President Reagan spent much of his career decrying what he saw as a huge, strong federal government.  Yet for all his talk of small central government, Reagan actually enlarged it. He ramped up military spending and set a national drug policy with his War on Drugs (though much of the crack epidemic was actually facilitated by CIA dealings with the Contras in South America). In The Dark Knight Returns, Reagan, the rhetorical opponent of big government, actually super-powers it by employing Superman. And despite his stated belief in states’ rights, comic-book Reagan nevertheless orders Superman into an American city (Gotham) to take down Batman — surely a breach of the separation of state-federal power.

Frank Miller critiques President Reagan in his "Dark Knight Returns."

Miller’s Superman also puts an interesting twist on the Cold War-era portrayal of the Man of Steel. Whereas in the 1950s, Superman was the solution to evil science and the bomb, in Miller’s world, Superman is the very symbol of militarized science. President Reagan upsets the Cold War balance of power by using Superman on the battlefield, setting off a chain of events that lead to a nuclear winter. Indeed, this was a common critique of Ronald Reagan (mostly as a presidential candidate, since he showed a desire for nuclear disarmament during his presidency, such as with the START Treaty). Opponents often said that his advocacy of a military buildup would lead ultimately to escalating hostilities and nuclear war. The Dark Knight Returns‘ Superman was representative of this brinksmanship.

But Miller goes a step further. Superman is not just a militant foreign policy — he is an American militant foreign policy. This is handled visually. On a page where Superman is introduced, the American flag morphs into Superman’s “S” symbol over the course of eight panels, strengthening the visual connection between the two. President Reagan is likewise garbed in a red, white and blue outfit, underscoring Reagan’s articulation of a revived American identity.

Rhetorically, (real-world) President Reagan tied this American identity into his foreign policy. Of course, he intimated, Americans loved freedom — and they would fund corrupt South American regimes and death squads in order to help countries attain that freedom. Furthermore, they were destined to succeed because America was a godly nation. Comic book Reagan couched his foreign policy in similar terms:

“We’ve got to secure our–ahem–stand up for the cause of freedom… and those cute little Corto Maltese people, they want us there, just you ask them… Meanwhile, don’t you fret… we’ve got God on our side… or the next best thing, anyway…heh…”

Superman — the atomic bomb — was that next best thing.

And then the Soviet Union collapsed.

Continue on to Part 6: America in the Post-Soviet World (when the post is ready).

Yet, as one quickly learns when studying economics, simplistic “common sense” is often wrong. And, given today’s economic circumstances, the family/government budget comparison is dangerously wrong. On one level, it should be obvious that the federal government is really nothing at all like a family, and that this is a comparison of apples and oranges. Imagine trying to fight World War II with a balanced budget. Mobilization and the war effort took high debts from the ongoing Depression and sent gross federal debt skyrocketing past 100 percent of GDP. Top marginal tax rates, above 90 percent, failed to balance the budget — only booming economic growth in the post-war period helped to achieve that.

But put aside the difficulties of comparing two extremely different things for a moment, and focus only on the economic issue at the heart of the comparison: should the federal government be forced to balance its budget during a recession? In a word, no. The explanation is a bit more complicated.

Let’s start off with a quick refresher on Keynesian economics. In a nutshell, John Maynard Keynes, whose book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money shaped modern economic thinking, would say that a government should run a surplus during booms and a deficit during busts. That is, it should take in more money than it spends when times are good (raising taxes and cutting spending and the debt), and spend more money than it takes in when the economy tanks (cutting taxes and spending more).

Keynes viewed proper government policy as counter-cyclical, trying to smooth out the economic cycle by putting the breaks on an over-heated economy and speeding up a stagnant one. An economy is powered, essentially, by spending. People use their paychecks to buy goods and services. The money charged for those goods and services help pay for another person’s paycheck. The cycle continues. Savings, too, are channeled into spending, through loans and investments. This further grows the economy as businesses expand and productivity and technological gains are made.

But, during a recession, spending falls precipitously. Businesses lay off workers, and households cut their spending, blowing a huge hole in the economy. If the government were to likewise suddenly balance its budget, it would amplify this damage.

There are two ways a government can balance its budget in any one year:

1. Cut spending
2. Raise taxes

Or it can pursue some combination of the two. Either way, these policies would have dragged the economy down deeper into recession, perhaps even into a full-fledged depression, had they been implemented back in 2008, and could derail the economy today.

Consider what would happen if the government cut spending immediately. It will need to lay off government workers (meaning they will have less to spend), halt contracts and projects that help employ private sector workers (meaning they will have less to spend), and cut back on programs that encourage or sustain spending. Social safety nets are a good example — food stamps and unemployment benefits are very stimulative because beneficiaries usually spend the money soon after it is received, generating economic activity.

Tax increases to address budget issues have a similar effect, by taking money out of citizens’ pockets instead of encouraging them to invest and spend to get the economy started again.

The result is that trying to balance a budget during a recession or a fragile recovery can actually lead to greater debt and deficits. This is because the state of the economy dictates how much a government will take in in taxes. When the economy is tanking, the government will take in less money in taxes because of falling incomes. When you have a lower income (due to being laid off, having hours cut, having pay cut, etc…) the amount of money you pay in taxes falls.

If the government tries to deal with this fall in revenue levels by raising taxes and cutting spending, it will send the economy down even further, blowing a new hole in the economy, necessitating further cuts and tax increases, etc…

Tax increases and spending cuts are needed as solutions to address debt and deficit issues once the economy is growing steadily again (and then, cuts should usually outnumber tax increases by a 3:1 or 2:1 ratio), but such austerity during the crisis could drive an economy deeper into a recession or derail a fragile recovery.

We only need to look as far as the Great Depression for evidence of this. The idea that governments should always balance their budgets, and that doing so would spur investment and recovery, was widespread before and during that period. Both President Hoover and President Roosevelt raised taxes early in the Great Depression, hampering economic recovery. Increased spending by President Roosevelt (and, more importantly, the stabilization of the nation’s banks and removing the United States from the gold standard) helped the nation begin a fragile recovery.

However, insistence that America balance its budget led to cuts in spending and tax increases that derailed the economy in 1937, plunging it back into recession. This is especially relevant for Americans today, as we debate deficit reduction.

The best policy options for dealing with the current budgetary outlook would be to sustain short-term tax cuts and well-placed spending increases (like on infrastructure projects and extending unemployment benefits), while also laying out a long-term plan addressing budgetary issues (including future tax increases and spending cuts, but mainly restructuring Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to make them more sustainable).

The riskiest and worst policy the government could pursue would be balancing its budget “like a family.”

Still, the Pennsylvania General Assembly (along with many other legislatures) is moving forward with a bill (tagged at $11 (eleven) million) that professes to safeguard our democracy by preventing a non-existent problem.

The fact that voter fraud is not widespread may come as a surprise to some people. Indeed, some polls show that around half of Americans think that voter fraud occurs fairly regularly (and as an interesting aside, the existence of voter identification laws doesn’t even seem to have any impact on these perceptions — that is, voter ID laws don’t even have the psychological effect of increasing confidence in election safety).

People seem to think voter fraud is extremely pervasive, and many point to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) as proof of a grand conspiracy. The problem with this is that the ACORN case is one not of voter fraud, but of voter registration fraud. The difference is key.

Though people often lump them together in their minds, the two are actually quite different. For voter fraud to occur, people would actually need to show up at their polling place and fraudulently try to vote. Voter registration fraud, on the other hand, occurs when someone submits a fraudulent voter registration form. Keep in mind that these forms are then reviewed by the state, and also that registration figures don’t determine elections, votes do.

While it is fairly easy for a person to simply fill out a registration paper with false information, it would be incredibly difficult for them orchestrate widespread voter fraud. Current law already demands voters show identification the first time they vote at their polling place.

So, in order for Joe Fake to actually do this, he would need to fill out a fake registration. That registration would need to get the ok. Then Joe Fake would have to show up on election day with valid identification (since this is his first time voting). Then Joe Fake goes and casts 1 vote. But Joe Fake knows 1 vote won’t swing the election, so he travels to another polling place, where he hopes not to be recognized by anyone who might know he doesn’t live in this area. He has a different fake registration for here, and different fake identification that must again pass the poll workers.

This process has to occur thousands upon thousands of times, so Joe Fake better have a lot of time on his hands and a lot of fake identification for his various personas, and he’d better be good at persuasion because it’ll take everyone he knows voting as many times as they can all day at different polling places, with none of them getting caught or spilling the beans.

With all the time and effort Joe and his cohort have put into this effort, they’ve probably thought through the harsh penalties and fines they’ll be facing if they get caught. Voter fraud in a federal election could land them in prison for five years and with a $10,000 fine — and that’s on top of however the state penalizes them. So they must have come to the conclusion that they value trying to change the outcome so much (already a slim chance they will), that it is worth taking on these high risks.

No sane person would take such extraordinarily high risks for such a small chance of success, let alone be able to convince the numbers of people necessary to fraudulently swing an election to do likewise (with no one ever saying a word). Of course, not everyone is sane. I suppose it is lucky for us, then, that enforcing existing law would keep our elections both accessible and safe.

And we wouldn’t have to spend a couple million extra dollars to do it.

–SOURCES–

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/12/voting-rights?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/holdercomesoutswinging

http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/truthaboutvoterfraud/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/12/voting-rights-0

http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/121/may08/Essay_2417.php

http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2011/11/15/opinion/doc4ec1e36956216890232981.txt

• Electoral Districts and Redistricting
• What is Gerrymandering?
• What are Some of Gerrymandering’s Effects?
• How Do We Redistrict in Pennsylvania?
• The Way Forward
• Conclusion

–ELECTORAL DISTRICTS AND REDISTRICTING –

In order to understand what gerrymandering is, you first have to understand redistricting.

As you know, Americans live in a representative democracy (also known as a democratic republic). That is, we elect people to represent us at various levels of government. We elect mayors, presidents, congressmen, senators, etc… In Pennsylvania, we elect everyone from the governor and PA Supreme Court justices on down to the local coroner. We march into our polling place on election day and cast our ballots. But how do we know which candidates will appear on which ballots?

Some offices (like governor) are elected statewide, which means the candidates appear on every ballot in the state. Some (like mayors) are elected only in their own municipality. One office (president) is elected country-wide.

But for our purposes, let’s focus on U.S. senate elections. Every state gets two senators, no matter the size. California, with 37,253,956 people has the same number of U.S. senators as Wyoming, with 563,626. Because the number of representatives is not proportional to the representative’s population (A U.S. senator from California represents more people than one from Wyoming), this is known as non-proportional representation. This system was put into place during the Constitutional Convention because small states were worried that their votes would be meaningless if the big states had more representatives.

But, as you know, the U.S. Congress (which makes federal laws) has two houses, the Senate being the upper house. The lower house, the House of Representatives, is elected on the basis of proportional representation. This means that each state is given a number of congressional seats based on how big or small their populations are — the bigger the state, the more representatives. And the states divided these seats up proportionally, so that each congressman represents roughly the same amount of people.

This is where electoral districts come in. In the next election, Pennsylvania will have 18 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Those 18 people will have to each represent roughly the same number of people. In order to account for this, we draw electoral districts. Electoral districts are political boundaries that define who represents you.

But, since populations are always changing — people are born, die, and move all the time — that means electoral districts’ compositions are always changing. And by the end of a decade, two districts that were once the same size could suddenly be very different. So, every ten years, we redraw the districts, to keep the sizes equal and the representation fair. The process by which these districts are redrawn is known as redistricting.

–WHAT IS GERRYMANDERING?–

Unfortunately, politicians since the founding of the country have taken this noble goal of proportional representation and used it for their own means. Gerrymandering is the result. Essentially, gerrymandering occurs when the people redrawing the district lines do so with ulterior motives.

Back in the day, a lot of gerrymandering was racial. Politicians would draw lines that split up minority populations into different voting districts, so that none of them would be represented. Say, for instance, that an outspoken racist had a lot of minority voters in his district. Those voters could pose problems for his re-election. So, when redistricting came around, the lines would be redrawn to divide the minority population into several districts — and also to include people in his district that he knew would vote for him. With less minority voters in his electorate (and more supporters), his re-election was assured.

Though the courts have ruled racial gerrymandering unconstitutional, they have found no workable standard for political gerrymandering, where groups are split up or put together based on voter registration figures. People that redraw political lines use information on how many Republicans or Democrats are in an area to decide where the lines will be drawn. Clever redistricting allows those in charge of the process to consolidate power, reward friends, punish foes, and escape accountability. They are allowed to pick their constituents, instead of their constituents picking them.

Political gerrymandering has a long and storied history in the United States. The term “gerrymandering” itself comes from Massachusetts Governor and Founding Father Elbridge Gerry, who signed off on a redistricting map that the opposition said looked like a salamander, or (once they combined it with the governor’s name) a “gerrymander.”

–WHAT ARE SOME OF GERRYMANDERING’S EFFECTS?–

Gerrymandering has many effects. First, it undermines democracy. Democracy is based on representative government and accountability. Both of these are subverted if a handful of people are able to redraw the lines in such a way that designs districts with the specific purpose of isolating the opposition. Imagine a district that is 50% Democrats and 50% Republicans, and all around it is surrounded by areas that are 75% Democratic. With a little maneuvering, the Democrats can split the Republicans in that 50-50 district, putting some in one district, some in another until voila! Suddenly, the Democrats have a commanding lead in every district. And the Republicans can do the same thing in the places where they control the process.

Under these circumstances, pretty much everyone knows who is going to win in the general election. The seat is safe. In the words of Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.” Nothing short of a full-blown scandal or major misstep will unseat them. And when voters already know the outcome of an election before it is even held, there is little reason to turn up at the polls. Decreased voter turnout is another vicious effect of gerrymandering. Where’s the democracy or accountability in that?

Furthermore, when an electoral challenge comes, it won’t be in the general election. The opposition doesn’t have enough votes to launch a credible challenge. Under these circumstances, a challenge normally comes from within the incumbent’s party. A Republican, for example, challenging a fellow Republican in the primary.

Voters in primary elections are often (though not always) more partisan or ideological purists. Fending off a primary challenge means an incumbent will pander to his base and take extremist positions on issues instead of cooperating and compromising. That is another effect of gerrymandering: creating a dysfunctional atmosphere of polarization and partisanship.

Gerrymandering also allows political powerbrokers to punish enemies and reward friends. For instance, an annoying legislator can have his district eliminated or merged with another, nearby district in the hopes that he will lose the next election battle against a fellow incumbent. Potential challengers can likewise be redrawn out of districts, in order to reward loyalty with a safe seat.

In the first round of 2011′s PA General Assembly redistricting, State Sen. Piccola’s (R-15) seat was kept safe from an angry electorate. Piccola had sponsored a controversial plan for the state to take over the city of Harrisburg. Piccola represented part of Harrisburg and many of his constituents were unhappy with this legislation. After the preliminary redistricting plan was put forth, Piccola’s new district conveniently lost its Harrisburg bits, insulating the legislator. As an aside, Piccola later announced his retirement anyway, and the map was changed accordingly.

This type of chicanery makes legislators beholden not to their constituents, but to those people drawing the political boundaries.

–HOW DO WE REDISTRICT IN PENNSYLVANIA?–

The PA Constitution lays out the process for redistricting of PA General Assembly (the body that makes state laws) seats. In 1968, Pennsylvania drafted a new constitution and made a major reform to how it redistricts. Before 1968, the General Assembly simply passed a plan as it would any other bill — by a majority vote. This meant that the party that controlled the majority seats in the General Assembly and the Governorship got to pass whatever plan they wanted, no questions asked.

This is how Pennsylvania’s U.S. House of Representatives seats are still redistricted today. The PA General Assembly’s own seats, however, are redistricted through a different process.

After 1968, the PA Constitution provided that a commission composed of the four majority and minority leaders from the PA Senate and PA House of Representatives, and a fifth person of their choosing, would produce the plan. This ensured that both Republicans and Democrats would have a say, and a supposedly neutral chairman of their choosing would break ties. In the event that the four could not mutually choose a chairman, the PA Supreme Court would decide. This has turned out to be the general rule, rather than the exception.

However, this process still results in gerrymandering. Sometimes, as in 2011, the chairman has generally favored one party’s demands over another’s, allowing that party to dominate the process. Yet, even when the chairman is supposedly neutral, the other four members still have a vested interest in maintaining political power, and the result is a bipartisan gerrymander that protects their incumbents.

–THE WAY FORWARD–

There are ways to minimize the dangers of gerrymandering. Other states use independent commissions, comprised of citizens not holding any elected office, to redraw political boundaries. These commissions can be barred, by law, from using political considerations (like voter registration figures) when drawing districts. With specific prohibitions on such practices, the courts would have an easier time striking down blatantly political maps.

Maps could also be judged by contiguousness and compactness formulas that are designed to make preempt the creative drawing that often signals rampant gerrymandering. Such a formula was included in State Sen. Daylin Leach’s redistricting reform proposal for Pennsylvania in 2009. Essentially, it would have mandated that if a circle were drawn around a district, that district would have to fill at least 15 percent of the circle.

Finally, advances in technology are continually providing us with more tools of transparency and accountability, and it is conceivable that the redistricting process could be undertaken by a computer algorithm, and signed off on by an independent, or other appointed or elected, commission (with no powers to amend, only to approve or reject).

At the very least,Pennsylvania’s U.S. House of Representatives seats should be likewise placed in the commission’s hands, rather than allowing it to go through the General Assembly on a party-line vote in which the majority dominates the minority party. And proposals to expand the commission to 7 members instead of 5 would nullify the chairman’s ability to tip the balance of power, forcing more compromise — though it would not adequately address the issue of bipartisan gerrymandering.

–CONCLUSION–

Gerrymandering is one of the most important political issues of our day — but it is complicated and unglamorous. The blatantly gerrymandered maps that are turned out every decade are an indication that those who draw the boundaries know the electorate cares very little about the issue. They do not even try to hide the fact that they are engineering these maps in a way that benefits their political parties and ambitions.

Reform will come only from one place: the grassroots. That makes educating the public about gerrymandering and its effects that much more important. Our democracy depends on it.