Search

Begin New Search Topic Civil Society Publishing Institution American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

11. Iraq in Books, Part I

Author:
Michael Rubin
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The following article is the first of two installments by Michael Rubin in AEI's On the Issues series. The two articles originally appeared as a review essay in the Spring 2007 edition of Middle Eastern Quarterly.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, and Education
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

12. The Wrong Kind of Bipartisanship?

Author:
Frederick M. Hess
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is due for reauthorization in 2007. In the nick of time, a bipartisan conventional wisdom has emerged that conveniently excuses the shortcomings of this awkwardly assembled law.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Education, and Politics

13. The Fate of the Earth in the Balance - The Metaphysics of Climate Change

Author:
Steven F. Hayward
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
A close reading of Al Gore's views on the linkages between environmental issues and broader social and philosophical currents reveals their problematic political and policy implications. Gore derives our environmental problems from deeper metaphysical and psychosocial currents, a path that will foreclose a number of productive policy approaches to the problem of climate change.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Environment, and Politics

14. The Wal-Bank Principle

Author:
Peter J. Wallison
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
At the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC) recent hearings on Wal-Mart's application to acquire a bank-like institution in Utah that can accept FDIC-insured deposits, a representative of the National Association of Realtors testified that such an acquisition would violate the principle separating banking and commerce. No doubt the banks savored this rare support from the realtors, but what they may not have realized is that the joke is on them.
Topic:
Civil Society, Economics, Government, and Politics

15. Abortion Nation

Author:
James Q. Wilson
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
When South Dakota passed a law banning all abortions save those that threaten the physical health of the mother, opponents of abortion were cheered and defenders of it outraged. I think both sides were mistaken.
Topic:
Civil Society, Government, Health, and Human Rights

16. Preemptive Surveillance

Author:
James Q. Wilson
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Federal district court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor has ruled that the warrantless interception of telephone and Internet calls between a foreign agent and American persons is illegal and unconstitutional. It is possible that she is right about the illegality, but she is almost surely wrong that it is unconstitutional. The government has appealed this decision to the Sixth Circuit. No one can say what it will decide, although other appeals courts have tolerated such surveillance. Ultimately the Supreme Court will have to decide the matter. The Constitutional arguments against the surveillance are unpersuasive. A Washington Post editorial dismissed them as “throat clearing.” Judge Taylor refers to the free speech provision of the First Amendment but fails to explain how listening to a conversation or reading e-mail abridges anyone's right to speak. Taken literally, a Constitutional ban on intercepts would make it impossible to overhear the mafia plotting murders or business executives fixing prices.
Topic:
Civil Society, Human Rights, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and Washington

17. Two Cheers for Welfare Reform

Author:
Douglas J. Besharov
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
It has been nearly ten years since President Bill Clinton signed the landmark 1996 welfare reform law. The anniversary has been the occasion for various news stories and opinion pieces, most of them praising the law's success in reducing welfare dependency. And it is true: welfare caseloads have fallen an astounding 60 percent since reform efforts began. But even as a strong supporter of welfare reform, I find it difficult to muster unqualified enthusiasm for the law and how it has been implemented.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Economics, and Human Welfare

18. Who's Playing Politics?

Author:
Edward Blum, Roger Clegg, and Abigail Thernstrom
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Government memos leaked to the press are nothing new in Washington, yet they can still command a front-page, above-the-fold headline. The latest came on December 2, 2005, when the Washington Post trumpeted, “Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting as Illegal; Voting Rights Finding on Map Pushed by DeLay Was Overruled.” (Part of this story was recycled by the Post on Monday, January 23, in another front-page, above-the-fold story.) The story that followed loosely described the contents of a 2003 internal Department of Justice memo written by career staffers in the voting section of the civil-rights division. Those staffers—five lawyers and two analysts—had concluded that the Congressional redistricting plan Texas had recently submitted to them for approval was in violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act because it “retrogressed”—or, more simply, “diminished”—the electoral position of blacks and Hispanics. Then attorney general John Ashcroft and the political appointees in the civil-rights division—as well as, incidentally, a career lawyer higher in the chain of command (a fact that the Post failed to note)—rejected the memo's findings and allowed Texas to implement the new plan.
Topic:
Civil Society, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and Washington

19. A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

Author:
Charles Murray
Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
This much is certain: the welfare state as we know it cannot survive. No serious student of entitlements thinks that we can let federal spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid rise from its current 9 percent of GDP to the 28 percent of GDP that it will consume in 2050 if past growth rates continue. The problems facing transfer programs for the poor are less dramatic but, in the long term, no less daunting; the falling value of a strong back and the rising value of brains will eventually create a class society making a mockery of America's ideals unless we come up with some- thing more creative than anything that the cur- rent welfare system has to offer. So major change is inevitable—and Congress seems utterly unwilling to face up to it. Witness the Social Security debate of last year, a case study in political timidity. Like it or not, we have several years to think before Congress can no longer postpone action. Let's use this time to start thinking outside the narrow proposals for benefit cuts and tax increases that will be Congress's path of least resistance.
Topic:
Civil Society, Economics, Health, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
America

20. Air Quality: Much Worse on Paper Than in Reality

Author:
Joel Schwartz
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Journalists and environmentalists erroneously claim more than half the country has "some of the worst air pollution," when in fact the worst areas of California stand head and shoulders above all others. The nation sorely needs an honest assessment of air pollution, which would be aided by greater skepticism from journalists about air pollution claims.
Topic:
Civil Society and Environment
Political Geography:
United States and California