POSC 182: Politics and Economic Policy Homework 2 -- Op Ed Assignment Due: May 23, 2019 via iLearn For this assignment you must write an opinion article (~600 words) about a contemporary political/policy issue. You MUST pick an issue where you can have an opinion. Your task is to write an opinion article in which you try to convince a reader of your position. In your article you must: • • • • Take a position on (makes an argument for) a position regarding a social, political, educational, or cultural issue. Op-eds are not reporting or reviews of facts. Please consult the resources I’ve posted on Blackboard and read a few newspaper op-ed sections for examples and more background. Address why your idea hasn’t already been enacted. • If it’s a good idea (which is your argument), then why hasn’t it already been done? Cite at least one academic article/research in your OpEd. You will need to describe the article and what it tell us, but the description of the results of the article will be brief Cite at least one non-academic article (i.e. newspaper, magazine, etc.) that provided you with information for the article. Helpful(?) Hints • Think of a topic based on what interests you. • Make sure you have a thesis. I strongly encourage you to have a sentence in your essay that reads: “In this essay I argue that [insert your opinion/argument].” • Ground your opinion in social science, i.e., back your opinion up with evidence! • Connect your OpEd to something that has happened in the world recently. The connection should be about something very recent; it should not be too difficult to find one if you expand your standards to include news events all over the globe, relatively more local and more national in nature. Sample Topics: If you need ideas I would suggest you look at articles or opinion columns in the New York Times, The Economist, Washington Post or publications from think tanks such as Brookings, Cato Institute, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the American Enterprise Institute or other similar organizations. Here are some sample topics from which you can choose from or you can choose your own idea. 1. Federal legalization of recreational use of marijuana 2. Federal re-enactment of the assault weapons ban 3. Immigration/DACA 4. Tax reform: increasing taxes on wealthy earners, implementing a Universal Basic Income, cutting corporate tax rates, etc. 5. Federal/State support for higher education Grading criteria (100 points total) 1. Does the topic address politics/policy? (10 pts) 2. Did you express your opinion? (20 pts) 3. How well did you justify your opinion? The following two components will contribute to this part of the grade. (50 pts) a. Logical consistency of the argument b. Empirical support for the conclusions/claims i. You need to address why your proposed idea hasn’t already been implemented. 4. Writing style, grammar, and conventions (20pts) Prevention should be emphasized in effort against drug abuse by Nick Weller IN LAST week's Thresher , Jean Claude De Bremaecker called for an open debate to discuss this nation's drug problem ("Current nation- al policy on drugs deserves campuswide discussion"). I would like to second that call and offer my own thoughts and ideas about how to construct a better drug policy. When Richard Nixon took office, he began what was called the war on drugs. Seventeen months later it was ended because Nixon claimed he had won the war. Later, however, presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton also declared a war on drugs. In spite of all of the money being spent to fight drugs, there is still no end in sight. Instead of this futile attempt at punishing drug users, government policy should dictate an approach which seeks to reduce the social harm of drug use. Current drug policy places a large emphasis on punishing the offenders of drug laws. Rolling Stone on May 5, 1994, reported that over 330,000 Americans are behind bars for violating drug laws. Despite the tremendous number of people behind bars, this policy of locking up the criminals is not reducing drug use or drug-related violence. It is time to look past these simplistic solutions which only serve to treat the social effects of drug abuse and not the cause. Policy goals should be twofold. First, reduce the use of drugs by implementing better prevention programs. Second, implement policies designed to reduce the harms that come along with drug abuse and sales. There is a pattern of drug use stemming from the use of "gateway drugs." According to a story in the November 1994 issue of Alcoholism Report , people who use tobacco or alcohol are much more likely to use illicit drugs than people who do not use alcohol or tobacco. Cigarette smokers who start before age 15 are more than twice as likely to become regular cocaine users as those who start smoking after 18. By the same token, people who start drinking before age 15 are more than eight times as likely to be regular cocaine users than those who start drinking after 18. This suggests that reducing the use of tobacco and alcohol would also reduce the use of illicit drugs. There has been steadily increasing movement toward reducing teenage tobacco use. A number of legislators have tried to limit tobacco advertising directed at minors. Most congresspersons, however, have stymied these attempts, choosing to serve the corporate interests of R.J. Reynolds instead of the citizens they represent. The other prevention strategies we need to look at would address delinquency, sexual intercourse and alcohol and drug use. In Public Health Reports of June 1993, it was reported that these three factors often occur simultaneously; comprehensive solutions must be addressed. Current programs of punishment and incarceration do not place enough emphasis on the underlying causes of the problem. We are simply whitewashing a fence which is rotting from the inside out. In addition to increased emphasis on prevention, there must also be more focus on alleviating the harms of drug abuse. One of the greatest harms that comes from drug use is the spread of HIV. A third of all HIV transmissions are spread by IV needle sharing among addicts. Needle-exchange programs help reduce HIV transmission. In 1992, Yale University reported that an exchange program in New Haven, Conn., was able to reduce new incidences of HIV by 33 percent in one year. Needle-exchange programs are a simple, cost-effective method of reducing the harm that very often accompanies drug use. All across the political spectrum, from libertarians to conservatives to liberals, people are calling for drug legalization. This cry is mainly based around the premise that doing so would reduce the profit motive associated with drug selling and thus would decrease drug-related violence. The current problems with drugs is reminiscent of the era of prohibition. As Rolling Stone points out, "All the available evidence indicates that a switch from a war-on-drugs approach to a harm-reduction strategy would save lives, reduce disease, cut crime and contribute to safer, healthier, more livable cities." Whether or not drug legalization is the panacea it is claimed to be, the current policies are not solving the drug problem. Most of the problems with drug legalization originate in the fact that many of its champions have trumpeted civil libertarian reasons. There is a faction of Americans who find this persuasive, but most of America wants concrete evidence that legalization will improve the drug situation. There needs to be an effort to carry out well-constructed studies to establish the feasibility of legalizing drugs. In the meantime, steps are needed to ensure that more effective prevention programs are implemented. Congress needs to recognize that without wholehearted efforts to address the multitude of factors which cause drug abuse, the problem will not get better. Also, effective harms-reduction strategies, such as needle-exchange programs, should be implemented. Despite the efforts of Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Clinton, there is still a large drug problem in this country. The drug problems this country faces cannot be solved by simply locking up prisoners. These simplistic solutions are a waste of money. Instead, society needs to look at more holistic methods of treating the drug problem. As one of the nation's pre-eminent universities, we should help lead this charge to find solutions to the problem of drug abuse. This debate needs to be a rational discussion. It must encompass more than emotional pleas for and against changing federal drug policies. Rice University could do itself and the country a great favor by sponsoring an informed, lucid debate about the current drug problem. John G. Matsusaka: Prop. 1A won't cure state's overspending Special to The Bee Published Friday, May 15, 2009 California desperately needs a spending limit and a rainy-day fund for emergencies, but Proposition 1A won't do the job. It won't contain spending, and its rainy day fund is full of leaks. The need to control state spending is now plain to any impartial observer. Revenue from all sources grew from $100 billion to $194 billion over the 10 years preceding the fiscal crisis that hit last year, almost twice as fast as inflation and population growth. Yet despite this gusher of new money, the state emerged in mid-2008 with a prospective deficit in the vicinity of $15 billion. As the economy slid into recession, the prospective deficit grew to $42 billion by Jan. 1of this year, according to the Department of Finance. This did not have to happen. Even without the recent tax increases, anticipated revenue from all sources this year is about $185 billion. If spending for the last 10 years (starting in 1998-99)had been capped at inflation plus population growth, this year's budget would be $168 billion, a surplus of $17 billion. And if revenue in excess of the limit had been deposited in a rainy-day fund each of the last 10years, the fund would be worth about$237billion, not counting interest. This is $237 billion that could have been spent on extraordinary needs during an economic crisis, from increased unemployment benefits to stimulus spending. The state could even be reducing taxes to ease the burden in tough times. A few pundits still continue to blame the state's problems on a shortage of revenue, Proposition 13 or the state's two-thirds rule for budget approval, but the problem is much simpler: The Legislature and governor can't stop themselves from spending. The voters thought they had solved this problem in 1979 when 74 percent voted in favor of Proposition 4, the so-called Gann limit that restricted state spending to the growth in population and inflation. The Gann limit kept expenditure under control in the 1980s, helped avoid the cycle of fiscal chaos that has plagued the state over the last 10 years, and even forced the government to rebate excess revenue to taxpayers in 1987. Unfortunately, voters gutted the Gann limit in 1990 with Proposition 111, which tied the spending limit to growth in income rather than population and inflation. The new spending limit formula in Proposition 111 allowed spending to grow rapidly in years when Californians had unusually high earnings, such as during the dot-com boom, precisely the years when excess revenue should have been stashed away rather than spent. Proposition 111 was placed on the ballot by the Legislature and sold to the voters as a way to relieve traffic congestion; most voters probably did not realize that they were killing the Gann limit when they approved it. Proposition 1A is a complicated measure with so many moving parts that the nonpartisan legislative analyst has concluded that its fiscal effects can't be predicted. It is clear that 1Adoesnotlimitthegrowthofspending. While it restricts the use of unusual revenue windfalls, it does not prevent the Legislature from increasing or creating new taxes to fund additional spending. And the restrictions are weak: Once the rainy-day fund is topped off, the Legislature is free to spend the rest of the money in a variety of ways, including on infrastructure and benefits for government workers. Proposition 1A proposes to increase the rainy day fund from $8 billion to about $12 billion, which is a step in the right direction, but $4 billion feels like a drop in the bucket in the context of a $185 billion budget. A recent study by political scientists Thad Kousser, Mathew McCubbins and Ellen Moule at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Southern California found that in 19 of 20 states with tax and expenditure limits, the limits had no detectable effect over the last 30 years. They conclude that spending limits seldom work because state officials are able to circumvent them. The current budget crisis will end someday, probably when the economy rebounds, but as long as the Legislature is unable to control its spending, another crisis will be just around the corner. California needs a spending limit to break the cycle, but it has to be one that works. Experience and common sense tell us that an effective limit must be simple and clear, with realistic limits, and exceptions allowed only with approval of the voters. Proposition 1A is the right idea but done in the wrong way. Share This Buzz up! Buzz up! John G. Matsusaka is a professor of business and law at the University of Southern California and the author of "For the Many or the Few: The Initiative, Public Policy and American Democracy" (University of Chicago Press, 2004).
Purchase answer to see full attachment