EFTA02400225.pdf

From: Gregory Brown > Sent: Monday, April 31.11/ IM To: undisclosed-recipients: Subject: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.. 03/26/2017 DEAR FRIEND The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Pete= Neufeld and Barry Scheck at Cardozo School of Law, exonerates the wrongly convicted thr=ugh DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. To date, the work of the Innocence Project has led to the freeing of 343 wrongfully convicted people based on DNA, including 20 who spent time on death row, and the finding of =47 real perpetrators. Again, these are only the DNA-based exonerations. Numbers for all exonerations are considerably higher. The University of Michigan =aw School's National Registry of Exonerations reported that as of two months ago the to=al number of known exonerations since 1989 were 1,784, of which no fewer than =56 were at one point on death row. =/p> Contributing Factors =span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:georgia,serif">M=staken Identification, False Confession, Bad Forensic, Evidence, Perjury / False Accusation and Official Misconduct. The Innocence Project was established in the wake of = landmark study by the United States Department of Justice and the United St=tes Senate, in conjunction with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, which fo=nd that incorrect identification by eyewitnesses was a factor in over 70% of wrongful convictions. The original Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Scheck and Neufeld as part of the Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University in New York City. It beca=e an independent 501(c) non-profit organization in 2003 but maintains strong institutional connections with Cardozo. The current Executive Director of the Innocence Project is Madeline deLone. EFTA_R1_01435528 EFTA02400225 Exonerations Total By Year ap> Here are a few of t=e numbers behind these exonerations: --Number of U.S. post-con=iction DNA exonerations: 311 --Number of prisoners sen=enced to death before DNA proved their innocence: 18 --Number of prisoners cha=ged with capital crimes but not sentenced to death: 16 --Longest sentence served=by a DNA exoneree: 35 years --Average length of sente=ce served by DNA exonerees: 13.6 years --Approximate total years=served by all DNA exonerees: 4,156 --Average age of exoneree= at the time of their wrongful convictions: 27 --Percentage of prisoners exonerated by DNA testing who are people of color: 70%<=p> --Percentage of DNA exone=ation cases where the actual perpetrator has been identified by DNA testing: Almo=t 50% --Number of U.S. states (=nd Washington, D.C.) where exonerations have been won: 36<=p> --Number of DNA exonerees=who pleaded guilty to crimes they didn't commit: 29 --Number of DNA exonerati=ns that involved the Innocence Project: 171 --Year of the first Innoc=nce Project DNA exoneration: 1989 Note: Other exon=rations were helped by Innocence Network organizations, private attorneys and by pro se defendants, according to the Innocence Project. 2 EFTA_R1_01435529 EFTA02400226 A 1996 study by =ritten C. Ronald Huff, director of the Criminal Justice Research Center and the School of Public Policy and Management at 0=io State University — Convicted But Innocent: Wrongful Conviction and =ublic Policy. Huff concluded that more than 10,000 innocent people are convicted each year or 0.05% of all convictions. And the study was based on crimes in the year 1990 that were reported by the FBI, which included murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson../p> "Wrongfu= convictions undermine public confidence in the judicial system and should be viewed with alarm," said Huff. =t troubles Huff that liberals seem more concerned about the issue than conservatives. "Conservatives, too, sho=ld be concerned because it's a public safety issue. The actual offender re=ains free to victimize other citizens." Huff cites the case of William Jackson, a Columbus man who spent five years behi=d bars in the early 1980s for rapes later determined to have been committed b= a physician who was similar in appearance and had the same last name. &=uot;No one has ever known for sure how many women Dr. Jackson raped while the wrong man was in prison. He had five more years to continue his serial rapes." What causes wron=ful convictions? To find out, Huff and his co-authors created a database of 205 wrongful convictions collected from a variety of sources. After analyzing these cases, the researchers found that most wrongful convictions resulted =rom a combination of errors. The main cause in more than half of the cases -- 52.3 percent -- was eyewitness misidentification. That's understandable, Huff said. "The victims are not, at the time of the cr=me, concentrating too much on the features of the assailant's face. For exa=ple, they may be looking at the weapon. The trauma of the moment interferes with their ability to recall details." The next most co=mon main cause was perjury by a witness, which contributed to 11percent of the convictions. Other problems included negligence by criminal justice officials, coerced confessions, "fra=e ups" by guilty parties, and general overzealousness by officers and prosecutors. Overzealousness =an lead authorities to make careless, if unintentional errors, and cause some authorities to bend rules to get a kno=n criminal off the street. Failure to keep an open mind can cause errors that become rubber-stamped by trusting colleagues as the case moves through the judicial process, Huff says. By the time the errors are discovered, the tra=l to the real offender is cold. Public pressure =o solve a case and the organizational culture of a police or district attorney's office can affect the process. While=most errors are unintentional, the researchers say there are far too many incide=ces of unethical and unprofessional behavior. "Our research has convinced us that such unethical conduct in the United States has not, in general, received appropriate attention, nor has =t been adequately punished," Huff said. 3 EFTA_R1_01435530 EFTA02400227 From their beginnings, innocence projects have played=an enormously valuable role in the criminal justice system. With l=gal aid funding being hit by austerity cuts and current economic and socio-political policies; convicted felons seeking financial assistance to claim wrongful convictions are hardl= expected to fare better than the tens of thousands of merely accused who struggle for legal help. <=span> For those people challenging their convictions and ap=eals without representation, their chances are slim to none. This is why i=nocence projects are crucial. Another value to the pro bono nature o= innocence projects, being as they are affiliated with higher education institutions, public interest law firms or charities, is they are independe=t and immune from the political pressures of being housed in government ministries. Again as Professor Huff pointed out "Wrongful convictions undermine public confidence in th= judicial system and should be viewed with alarm." With this, I would like to give a shout out to The Innocence Project =or its 25 years of public service of righting wrongs and saving lives.... "*".4=pan> So True =/span>"=t is more important that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world, that all of them cannot be punished.... when innocence itself, is br=ught to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, '=it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.' And if such a sentiment as this were to take hold in the min= of the subject that would be the end of all security whatsoever."</=> =b>Sir William Blackstoneq=pan> =/p> <=p> Last week President Trump unve=led his budget plan that calls for a sharp increase in military spending and stark cuts across much of the rest of the government including the elimination of dozens of long-standing federal programs that assist the poor, fund scientific research and aid America's allies abroad. 4 EFTA_R1_01435531 EFTA02400228 Trump's first budget pro=osal, which he named "America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again," would increase defense =pending by $54 billion and then offset that by stripping money from more than 18 other agencies. Some would be hit particularly hard, with reductions of more than=20 percent at the Agriculture, Labor and State departments and of more than 30 percent at the Environmental Protection Agency. It would also propose eliminatin= future federal support for the National Endowment for the Arts, the =b>National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public BroadcastingEPA alone, 50 programs and 3,200 positions would be eliminated. The cuts could represent the widest swath of reductions in federal programs since the drawdown after Wor=d War II, probably leading to a sizable cutback in the federal non-military workforce, something White House officials said was one of their goals.4)=A0 "You can't drain the swamp and leave all the people in it," White House Office of Management and Budget Director-Mick Mulvaney told reporters. Winners And Losers (Sad!) In Trump's Budget class="MsoNormal" align="center"> WINNERS Defense contractors. The clearest winner in Trump's budget are defense contractors and the m=litary, which would receive an additional $54 billion to pay for ... pretty m=ch anything. Among several other funding targets, the budget document ci=es "stocks of critical munitions," "rebuildi=g readiness," a "more lethal joint force" and "additional F-35 Joint Strike Fighters "This increase alone exceeds th= entire defense budget of most countries, and would be one of the largest one-year [Defense Department] increases in American history," the budget document reads. People who want to chase down and deport immigrants. The budget pr=poses $314 million to hire 500 new border patrol age nts and 1,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. 5 EFTA_R1_01435532 EFTA02400229 The Wall. Trump wants to give the Department of Homeland Security an additional $2.6 billion, some of which w=uld be used to "plan, design, and construct a physical wall along the s=uthern border." The actual wall, of course, would cost much more than $2.6=billion, but Rome wasn't built in a day. If you're a po=r person in America, President Trump's budget proposal is not for you. President Trump's b=dget would slash or abolish programs that have provided low-income Americans with help on virtually all fronts, inclu=ing affordable housing, banking, weatherizing homes, job training, paying home heating oil bills, and obtaining legal counsel in civil matters. Duri=g the presidential campaign last year, Trump vowed that the solution to poverty was giving poor people incentives =o work. But most of the proposed cuts in his budget target programs designed =o help the working poor, as well as those who are jobless, cope. And many of them carry out their missions by disbursing money to the states, which establish their own crite=ia. Q=8*This is a budget that pulled the rug out from working families and hurts the very people who President Trump promised to stand up for in rural America and in small towns," said Melissa Boteach, vice president of the poverty t= prosperity program at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington. The White House budget cuts will fall h=rdest on the rural and small town communities that Trump won, where one in three people are living paycheck to paycheck — a rate that is 24 percent higher than in urb=n counties, according to a new analysis by the center. The budget proposes housing "reforms" that add up to more than $6 billion in cuts while promising to continue assisting the nation's 4.5 million low-income households. If =nacted, the proposed budget would 6 EFTA_R1_01435533 EFTA02400230 result in the most severe cut to the Department of Housing and Urban Development since the early 1980s, according to th= National Low Income Housing Coalition. It would also eliminate the U.S. Int=ragency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates the federal response to homelessness across 19 federal agencies and on June 22, 2010, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness and its 19 federal agency members started Op=ning Doors, the first-ever comprehensive federal plan to prevent and end homelessness. Amended in 2012 and 201=, the plan sets four ambitious goals in order to drive action and progress:<=p> Prevent and end homelessness among Veterans in 2015 • =C24> Finish the job of ending chronic homelessness in 2017 • =C2t> Prevent and end homelessness for families, youth, and children in 2020 40=A0 Set a path to ending all types of homelessness Through the urgent action m=bilized by Opening Doors, we've seen significant reductions=in homelessness across all our goals since 2010: • 11% reduction nationwide =C24> 22% reduction in chronic homelessness icnluccI luid ng inag 6 a45%6% drdorpoipnin unusnhsehlteeltrerdeh dohm om eI e essnsensessasm am onognfgamilies • 179°4 reduction in V 4 faem teilryan hohm om elelsessnsensess,sin , Veterans Vp> Consider This: More than 30 communities, including the entire states of Virginia, Connecticut, and Delaware, have al=o effectively ended homelessness among Veterans. Using these as examples, it is obv=ous that if we as a country really decided too, we could end homelessness and elimin=te poverty. As such, it is reasonable to believe that hunger, homelessness and poverty are choices that the richest country in the world could eradicated if it chose to make it our #1 priorit=. The administration'= reforms include eliminating funding for a $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program, one of the longest continuously run HUD programs that.=804>s been in existence since 1974 and was enacted by Republican President Gerald Ford with bipartisan support. The program provides cities with money to address a range of community development need= such as affordable housing, rehabilitating homes in neighborhoods hardest h=t by foreclosures, and preventing or eliminating slums and community blight. =span> 7 EFTA_R1_01435534 EFTA02400231 Nationally, CDBG funds were spent for t=e following purposes in 2011: • Public infrastructure (32.7%) ..C24* Housing (24.8%) 40=A0 Administrative and planning (15.1%) • Public services (11.4%) =C24*=C24* Economic development (7.3%) +=A0 Property acquisition (4.9%) •Q=A0 Other (3.8%) It also provides funding fo= Meals on Wheels, a national nonprofit network of more than 5,000 independently-run local programs that delivers food to more than a million =omebound seniors across the country. Although Meals on Wheels America, is mainly funded by donations, its local affiliates get =ore federal funding from a separate Department of Health and Human Services program. In the Trump budget the agency's overall allocation =ould be cut by 17.9 percent. Another =rogram to be axed are the 21st Century Community Learning Centers =E2$4 helps school districts, churches and nonprofit groups serve more than 1.6 million children nationwi=e. As well as Wings for Kids, a program that aims to bolster =ot only academic performance, but also social skills, relationships with caring adults and a sense of belonging at school and provide kids with a safe and enriching pla=e to spend the afternoon and early evening, and their working parents get chi=d care. But now, Wings for Kids and thousands of programs like it are on the chopping block, threatened by President Trump's proposal to elimina=e $1.2 billion in grants for after-school and summer programs. Trump's budget will also eliminate billions for teacher training an= scale back or end several programs that help low-income students prepare an= pay for college. Also gone would be $35 mill=on in funding for well-known programs such as Habitat for Humanity and YouthBuild USA, fair housing planning, and homeless assistance, among other housing help for needy Americans. Other targets include funding for neighborhood development and a home-buying program through which low-in=ome individuals help build their own homes. Trump also plans to cut the Home Investment =artnership Program, the largest federal grant to state and local governments that is designed to create affordable housing. 8 EFTA_R1_01435535 EFTA02400232 In a statement, Habitat for Humanity In=ernational said it has used $92 million worth of Section 4 funds since 1998 that it paired with $1=2 million in private donations. "Federal funding received by Habitat for Humanity supplements and leverages the supp=rt of our generous donors," the organization said. "It never r=places or duplicates it." This is money that goes to Habitat for =umanity and other charities that build and refurbish houses for poor people. But don'= worry — according to the budget, nice rich people are already giving poor people al= the housing help they need. "This program is duplicative of efforts=funded by philanthropy and other more flexible private sector investments," t=e document declares. Also screwed by President Trump0=99s budget are Workers. The Trump spending plan slashes funds=for a variety of Labor Department programs pertaining to worker training and safe=y. W=ile the details of President Donald Trump's proposed 2018 budget remain scant, one thing is clear: The Department of Labor will likely be one of the biggest losers. Trump's budget proposal would cut the de=artment's funding by $2.5 billion, or 21 percent, which will mean drastic changes for=the work the department does. The dramatic scale-back is meant to off=et the proposed budget's additional funding to national-security efforts. The=proposal says, "With the need to rebuild the Nation's military without increasing the deficit, this Budget f=cuses the Department of Labor on its highest priority functions and disinvests in activities that are duplicative, unnecessary, unproven, or ineffective.0=800 Those are strong adjectives for program= that have helped put Americans back to work, a consistent and bipartisan economic goal. Th= 2018 budget details around $500 million in cuts for the department, which likely means that programs for disadvantaged workers, including seniors, youths, and those with disabilities, would be reduced or completely eliminated. The Senior Community Service Emp=oyment Program, training grants at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and technical-assistance grants at th= Office of Disability =mployment Policy would all disappear. Job-training centers for disadvantaged children would =e shuttered and funding for more general job-training and employment services would move from the federal budget to states. While Obama's budget did make s=me cuts similar to the ones proposed by Trump for the Labor Department, these reductions signal a definitive break from Obama's strategy, which focused on the inclus=on of workers who might otherwise be left out of the workforce without government intervention. 9 EFTA_R1_01435536 EFTA02400233 The National Employment Law Project (NELP), a left-leaning nonprofit,=has spoken out against the cuts, calling Trump's budget for the Labor D=partment "draconian." 'The Trump budget would g=t the very job-training programs workers need to develop the skills required =o compete in emerging fields and fill many of the high-paying jobs available =ow and projected for the future," said Christine Owens, the executive =irector of the NELP, in a statement. For instance, the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) — a federal initia=ive that has provided employment training to low-income Americans over 55 years old =or more than 40 years — now faces an uncertain future. In 2015, Obama =lashed the SCSEP's funding in his budget and has proposed moving the program f=om the Labor Department to the Department of Health and Human Services, where other programs for senior Americans ar= housed. Jim Seith, a director at the nonprofit National Council on Aging, one of the grantees of the SCSEP, says that the program is the only labor programs targeted at seniors in poverty. Another program that's likely f=cing cuts is Job Corps, which provides free education and job training for disadvantaged minors. This program als= faced cuts in past Obama budgets. An economic cost-benefit study of the Job Corps program from 2008 found that it was the "only federal trainin= program that has been shown to increase earnings for this population," lead=ng participants to go further in school, reducing their criminal activity, and increasing their average earnings for several years after the program, alth=ugh the earnings gains were only sustained by older participants. The bud=et includes closing centers where some 37,000 unemployed and underemployed youths receive job training. "Basing important decisions on =ob Corps performance measures could be more complicated than it appears," said Peter Schochet, a =enior fellow at Mathematica Policy Research who led the study on the Job Corps program, via email. "Our data sh=w that some Job Corps centers improved student earnings relative to what they would hav= been, even among centers with lower overall performance measures."<=pan> In addition to these cuts, the budget b=efs up some Labor Department initiatives that are aimed at getting people back to work. =The proposal would expand the Reemployment and Eligibility Assessment program, which is designed to make people less likely to claim unemploy=ent insurance by referring recipients to programs and services that would help =hem find jobs. The program was found to be successful in Nevada, with participa=ts in the program receiving unemployment funds for fewer weeks. Another expansionary effort in the proposed budget calls for apprenticeship program=, to be administered by states. Science. It's hard=to overstate just how devastating this budget would be to the science and biomedical research community. 10 EFTA_R1_01435537 EFTA02400234 The Environment.c=span> President Trump's budget blueprint would slash the Environmental Protection Agency by 31.5 percent, making the E.P.A. the hardest hit agency under the President=E24>t proposal — $2.6 billion from its current level of $8.2 billion.Q=A0 As a result, it would totally eliminate the Chesapeake Bay Program, a hugely successful federally funded six-state partnership over the past 15 years that enjoys bipartisan support. The $73 millio=- a-year Environmental Protection Agency program has united Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and the District of Columbia and substanti=lly reduced pollution levels in the bay. Cutting off funding, bipartisan supporters of the cleanup say, would threaten multibillion dollar tourism, recreation and commercial industries and could reverse strides in water quality that sustain fishing, boating and crabbing=in the largest estuary in North America. Almost unnoticed is the Trump =pending reductions that explicitly target rural communities include a water and wastewater loa= and grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The program, with an annual budget of $498 million, =elps rural communities fix water infrastructure systems. Trump's budget =roposes to eliminate the entire program, arguing that private financing and increased funding from Environmental Protection Agency state revolving water funds ca= offset the "duplicative" USDA program. But rur=l advocates say there's a problem with that plan. The $2.3 b=llion budget for the EPA's state revolving funds program is slated to increase $4 million — less tha= 1 percent. And many rural water systems are not equipped to compete with larger systems for that money. These smaller=water systems also are less appealing to private investors, due to their limited, lower-income customer=bases. This fed=ral initiative has been the historical solution for small and rural water infrastructure needs and is largely responsible for t=e success of delivering water and sanitation to almost every corner of rural America. Elimination of the USDA rural water program will disproportionately impact the most economically disadvantaged and espe=ially rural communities, in addition to hurting the country.<=span> Many of these co=munities are already struggling to comply with federal standards to deliver reliably safe drinking water. About=4 million rural Americans receive water from small, under-resourced water utilities that don't properly con=uct required lead testing, USA Today reported last year. The bulk of thes= water utilities are also dealing with decaying delivery systems. Small water systems will need an estimated $64.5 billion in infrastructure spending over the next 20 years, =ccording to an EPA assessment. In addition to massively reducing the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency, outright eliminating the NASA satellite program, implementing a $900 million =ut to the Department of Energy's Office of Science, ending the Advanced Te=hnology Vehicle Manufacturing Program, and slashing $250 million in grants from=the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it would also slash=funds for the National Institutes of Health by $6 billion. That would 11 EFTA_R1_01435538 EFTA02400235 pu= the NIH funding level at a 15-year low and would more than erase the funding that Congress =ad pledged to devote to the institutes when it passed the 21st Century Cures A=t at the tail end of the last Congress. Benjamin Corb, director of public affairs at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology</=>, called the budget "unacceptable." It would erase "y=ars' worth of bipartisan support for the NIH, and the American biomedical research enterprise which has long been the global leader for biomedical innovation," he warned. Big Bird. The budget would=eliminate the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS, which airs "Sesame Street." People who want to be nurses. Sa= goodbye to $403 million in training for health professionals and nursing programs. Artists. The National E=dowment for the Arts would be no more, as would the National Endowment for the Humanities, which h=s funded all sorts of cool stuff but as important as well, including Ken Burnsie=99 Civil War documentary. TBD. =b>Social Security and Medicare — two of the biggest parts of federal spending — are omitted from the docume=t, as is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.4=> The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, an influential liberal th=nk tank, noted that while past administrations have created simplified spendin= blueprints, Trump's decision to not even include details on such =E24Homandatory" spending programs is unusual. "In contrast, while all five previous administrations released initial budgets that displayed informatio= in very different ways, they all provided a more complete picture of how their policies affected total spending, revenues, and deficits (or surpluses</a), and showed them for several years beyond the budget year," Richard Koga= said in a blog post on the think tank's website. Trump budget director: Feeding elderly and children has to end, it's not '=showing any results 12 EFTA_R1_01435539 EFTA02400236 White House Office of Management and Bu=get Director Mick Mulvaney told the White House press corps last week that popular vote loser Donald Trump's budget cuts Meals on Wheels and after-school nutrition p=ograms because those programs "aren't showing any results." <=p> "=e can't do that anymore. We can't spend money on programs ju=t because they sound good. Meals on Wheels sounds great. 1...1 I can't defe=d that anymore. We cannot defend that anymore. $20 trillion in debt. We're going to spend money, we're going to spend = lot of money but we're not going to spend it on programs that show they delive= the promises we made to people." As for the school children: =p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;margin-left:0.5in">"The='re supposed to help kids who don't get fed at home get fed so they do better in school. Guess what? =here's no evidence they're actually doing that. There's no evidence they818=9;re helping results, helping kids do better in school, which is what -- when we took yo=r money from you to say, we're going to spend them on after-school progra=, we justified it by saying these kids will do better in school and get jobs. We have no proof that's helping." Goddammit old pe=ple and school children! Get out there and get jobs so we know that feeding you is worth our money. No, Mulvaney says, the "compassionate" thing to do is for tax payers, to "go to them and say, look, we're not going to ask you for your hard-earned mon=y anymore. Single mom of two in Detroit, give us your money. We're not going to do that anymore unless they can guarantee that money will be used in a proper function." That, h= says, "is about as compassionate as you can get." Because, really, wouldn't we all rath=r fund a few more destroyers than see our neighbors not starvek=p> On the campaign trail, Trum= repeatedly promised not to cut Social Security or Medicare. "I can confirm to you that the preside=t's going to keep the promises he made with regard to those programs," Mulvan=y told reporters. Trump also repeatedly promised not to cut Medicaid. The health care bill he is currently pushing would slash the program by $880 billion, taking away health insurance for millions of Americans, which in turn would=be mostly redistributed as tax breaks to the rich. 13 EFTA_R1_01435540 EFTA02400237 As Matthew Yglesias wrote last week in VOX Q=8040 President Donald Trump's debut budget proposal is a stark declaration of war on the =uture of the American economy that substitutes a curious mix of ideology and blind n=stalgia for any effort to think critically about the actual needs of a 21st-century nation. The war starts with reducing spending — even though an aging population, plus the governmentQ=80Qs role in inherently labor-intensive activities like education and long-term care, militates overwhelmingly in favor of a somewhat larger role for the state. =ut it continues with the priorities Trump set for where the remaining cash get= spent. The pictu=e that emerges is overwhelmingly one of nostalgia — more money for men with guns, less money for education, caring, and pointy-headed science. But nostalgia is not memory. The mid-century economy Trump yearns for was, almost by definition, less technologically advanced a=d educationally intensive than today's. But it was an extraordinarily forward-looking time. Propelled by the impe=atives of Cold War competition, the United States made investments on an unprecedented scale i= institutions dedicated to education and research, while engaging in massive public-private partnerships to disseminate then-new technological marvels l=ke cars, phones, and televisions. A fiscal manifestation of nostalgia politics A presidential budget submission can play many roles — highlighting the alleged unreasonableness of congressional opposition, putt=ng a new idea on the public agenda, rewarding a key interest group, or picking=a symbolically useful fight— but for a newly elected president blesse= with congressional majorities, one would expect it to also be a fairly literal legislative proposal. Trump's budget is different. Its military spending increases =ould violate the Budget Control Act of 2011, meaning that it could not actually be passed as a budg=t. (The law itself could be amended, but that, unlike a budget, would take 60 votes). Which is just as well, because a budget that completely ignores bot= taxes and the domestic entitlement programs — Social Security, Medi=are, Medicaid, plus some smaller items — isn't really a budget a= all. Instead, =t's simply an effort to translate a policy-ignorant candidate's often nonsensical campaign rhetoric into something budg=t-shaped. Trump promised to balance the budget while cutting taxes and preserving entitlements — which isn't possible. So huge swathes of the=budget are simply missing. He promised a big defense hike, so it's in there even thou=h it's illegal. As a blueprint for actually doing anything, it's a mess. But that's not the point. Writing laws is House Speaker Paul Ryan's job. Trump's budget is campaign rhetoric made manifest. 14 EFTA_R1_01435541 EFTA02400238 That campaign rhetoric was unprecedentedly backwarchloo=ing and nostalgic. Trump ran, literally, on making America better by making it =ore closely resemble the America of the past. While Democrats debated ways to m=ke college tuition more affordable, Trump appealed to older white working-clas= voters with the notion that there is no need for anything to change over ti=e — no need for immigrants to sustain the country's demographics, no ne=d for more education and more soft people skills to maintain relevance to the changing needs of the workplace. And so the nostalgia candidate has delivered a nostalgia budget.4=> America needs t= get real A lit=le dose of Trump's old-school approach was a necessary and useful corrective to an elite discourse that, four or five years ago, seemed too often to take it for granted that any day now literally everyone would be learning to code from MOOCs while riding in a self-driving car bet=een various exciting "gig economy" employment opportunities at =ip downtown lofts. This is a big, diverse country, encompassing not just urban centers and peripatetic young people, but small towns and 50-somethings wit= chronic knee trouble. It needs to offer people more than an endless series =f overhyped apps. But Trump's rhetoric, and now his spending blueprint, don't just push back against techno=utopianism. They constitute a denial of the obvious truth that a prosperous society is necessarily going to be one that is evol=ing and changing over time. Most Americans work in the service sector, and that was true 20 or 40 years ago, too. And even within the goods- producing sector, today=624“es highly paid jobs require more skills and training than their 1976 counterpa=ts did. The country as whole, meanwhile, needs to continually develop whole ne= industries (generation, storage, and transmission of clean energy seems like the obvious candidate =o me) to create new opportunities for new generations of people just as it did in=the past. One of the main things that was good about the "good old days" is that they were a time of =assive progress, expansion of higher education opportunities into the middle class and rapid development of new products and cures. This happened while the government invested more — not less — on health, education, science, a=d regional development. =span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:georgia,serif">+=• =span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:georgia,serif"> As renowned Amer=can astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson pronounced last week, As such =he one thing that we know now is that from both Paul Ryan's healthcare reform proposal and President=E2*.s budget if either are enacted, middle-class and poor Americans are royally screw=d. 15 EFTA_R1_01435542 EFTA02400239 Bombs vs Food Th= Trump Administration Chooses to Bomb this Child and Other then Feed Them When I saw this grotesque picture in the New York Tim=s of young Udal Faisal who was hospitalized in Sana, Yemen with malnutrition and died days later I was repulsed. It was in Nicholas Kristof's March =8, 2017 article — 'That Food Saved My Life,' and Trum= Wants to Cut It Off. The article focuses on the most import=nt humanitarian crisis in the world today — the looming famine that threatens 20 million people in four countries. "<=>We are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nat=ons," warned Stephen O'Brien, the U.N.'s humanitarian chief. Q=A0"Without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to dea=h." Yet, the way President Trump is responding to this cr=sis is by slashing humanitarian aid, increasing the risk that people starve in the fo=r countries — Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria. The result is = perfect storm: Millions of children tumbling toward famine just as America abdicate= leadership and cuts assistance. "This is the worst possibl= time to make cuts," David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Co=mittee, told me. He said that "the great danger" is a domino effect=— that the U.S. action encourages other countries to back away as well.=/p> The essence of the Trump budget released last week is=to cut aid to the needy, whether at home or abroad, and use the savings to build u= the military and construct a wall on the border with Mexico. (Yes, th=t's the wall that Trump used to say Mexico would pay for. Instead, it seems it may actually be paid for by cutt=ng meals for America's elderly and by reducing aid to starving Yemeni children.) It's important to note that "all of these crises are fundamentally man-made, driven by con=lict," as Neal Keny-Guyer, C.E.O. of Mercy Corps, put it. And the U.S. bears so=e responsibility. In particular, t=e catastrophe in Yemen — the country with the greatest number of people at risk of famine — should be an internat=onal scandal. A Saudi- led coalition, backed by the United States, has imposed a blockade on Yemen that has left two4>=AD-thirds of the population in need of assistance. In Yemen, "to starve" is transitive. The suffering there 16 EFTA_R1_01435543 EFTA02400240 gets little attention, partly because Saudi Arabia mostly keeps repor=ers from getting to areas subject to its blockade. Kristof wrote that he =as been trying to enter since the fall, but the Saudi coalition controls the air and sea and refuse= to allow him in. In effect, the Saudis have managed to block coverage of the crimes against humanity they are perpetrat=ng in Yemen, and the U.S. backs the Saudis. Echoing Kristof -- Shame on us. Likewise, the go=ernment in South Sudan this month denied me a visa; it doesn't want witnesses to its famine. In the United States, humanitarian aid has been a bipartisan tradition, and the champion among recent presidents was George W. Bush, who started programs to fight AIDS and malaria that saved millions of lives. Bush and o=her presidents recognized that the reasons to help involve not only our values,=but also our interests. Think what the g=eatest security threat was that America faced in the last decade. One could argue that it might have been Ebola, or some other pandemic — and we overcame Ebola not with aircraft carriers b=t with humanitarian assistance and medical research — both of which are slashed in the =rump budget. Whereas, Preside=t Trump's vision of a security threat is a Chinese submarine or perhaps an unauthorized immigrant, and that's =he vision his budget reflects. But in 2017 some of the gravest threats we face are from diseases or narcotics that can*=99t be flattened by a tank but that can be addressed with diplomacy, scientific research, and social programs inside and outside our borders.<=span> It's tru= that American foreign aid could be delivered more sensibly. It's ridiculous that one of the largest recipients is a prosperous country, Israel. TrumpQ=99s budget stipulates that other aid should be cut, but not Israel's. The U.S. contributes less than one-fifth of 1 percent of our national inco=e to foreign aid, about half the proportion of other donor countries on average. H=manitarian aid is one of the world's great success stories, for the number of people living in extreme poverty has dro=ped by half since 1990, and more than 120 million children's lives have=been saved in that period. Consider Thomas =wiapo, whose parents died when he was a child growing up in northern Ghana. Two of his younger brothers died, apparently =f malnutrition. Then Thomas heard that a local school was offering meals for students, a "school feeding =rogram" supported by U.S.A.I.D., the American aid agenc=, and Catholic Relief Services. Thomas went to the school and was offered daily meals — on the condition t=at he enroll. "I kept going to that little village school, just for the food," he told me. He became a brillia=t student, went to college and earned a master's degree in the U.S. Today he w=rks for Catholic Relief Services in Ghana, having decided he wants to devote his li=e to giving back. Kristof asked him what he thought of the Trump budget cutting foreign assistance. "W=en I hear that aid has been cut, I'm so sad," he an=wered. "That food saved my life." 17 EFTA_R1_01435544 EFTA02400241 So why is the Trump Administration cutting funding fo= food programs that could have save young Udal's and other innocent=lives? For those of you who call yourself Christians, if you don't feel this pain you are hypocrites. A= such, hopefully the above picture of Udal inspires you to press your representatives and the Trump Administration to =o the right thing because the lives of millions of innocent people are seriou=ly in danger. =/span>The Dollar Price of a Bullet Gun injuries cost Americans $730 million = year in hospital bills Surgeons at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center operate on a gunshot victim. A new study estimat=s that over eight years, the country spent more than $6.6 billion on hospital bills related to gun injuries, with the federal government picking up $2.7 billion of that tab. Americans paid more than $6=6 billion over eight years to care for victims of gun violence, according to a new tally of hospital bills.40=A0 And U.S. taxpayers picked up at least 41% of that tab say the authors of a study published this week in the American Jou=nal of Public Health. Their sum does not include the initial — and very costly — bill for gunshot vi=tims' care in emergency rooms. Nor does it include hospital readmissions to treat complications or provide follow-up care. The co=t of rehabilitation, or of ongoing disability, is not included either. "These are bi= numbers, and this is the lowest bound of these costs," said Sarabeth A. Spit=er, a Stanford University medical student who co-wrote the study. "=i>We were surprised" at the scale, she added. That, arguably, makes gun- injury prevention a public health priority, Spitzer sai=. The GOP's healthcare reform measure would reduce federal contributions toward Medicaid, which foots roughly 35% of th= hospital bills for gunshot victims. The GOP plan would also cut payments to the hospitals that absorb much of the c=st of caring for self-paying =in other words, uninsured) patients, whose hospital bills accounted for about 24% of the $730 million-per-year tab. The new research underscore= many grim facts of gun violence in the United States: In 2014, for instance, 33,700 people died of gunshot wounds, but an ad