A National ID Card?

The Wall Street Journal reports that Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and colleagues are working on changes in immigration law that might include a national identification card:

The biggest objections to the biometric cards may come from privacy advocates, who fear they would become de facto national ID cards that enable the government to track citizens.

"It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people's privacy," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We're not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We're also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification."

Mr. Graham says he respects those concerns but disagrees. "We've all got Social Security cards," he said. "They're just easily tampered with. Make them tamper-proof. That's all I'm saying."

More broadly, the proposal might clash with the American individualism that we describe in our chapter on civic culture. And some religious activists worry that biometric identification cards are reminiscent of Revelation 13:17: "And that no man might buy or sell, save that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."

Federalism and Health Insurance

The health care debate involves tough questions about federalism. The New York Times reports:

At the heart of President Obama’s drive to rein in health costs is a proposal for federal review and regulation of health insurance premiums, with a new agency empowered to block excessive rate increases.

State officials are leery of the proposal, which raises a host of questions: How would Congress define “excessive”? How would the new federal power relate to state insurance regulation?

The proposal has great political appeal. But experts see a serious potential problem: Federal officials will focus on holding down premiums while state officials focus on the solvency of insurers, the ultimate consumer protection.

Governor Paterson in Church

A major theme of our book is the role of religion in American politics. Contrary to myth, that role extends far beyond Christian conservatives. For instance, New York's Democratic governor, David Paterson, went to a church yesterday to discuss the ethics controversy that threatens his tenure in office. The New York Times reports:

In his remarks, Mr. Paterson cast his struggles in religious terms. “I shouldn’t be listening to the god of the media,” he said. “I shouldn’t be listening to the god of polls. I shouldn’t be listening to the god of popularity. I shouldn’t be listening to people who are going in a path, rather than leading a path. I should be listening to my own heart.” He added, “If you know the truth, and you want to serve God, then stand before him no matter what happens.”

Mr. Paterson, who is Roman Catholic, rarely makes public appearances at churches, a Sunday ritual for many other elected officials. His visit to the politically influential Cornerstone congregation, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, will be followed Monday by a town hall meeting in Downtown Brooklyn to discuss the state budget gap.

Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, a Cornerstone parishioner who attended the Sunday service, said, “I think during difficult times, many individuals turn to the church to be strengthened while in the middle of the storm.”

A local TV report on the appearance:

An American in al Qaeda

As of Sunday night, there were conflicting reports on whether Adam Gadahn, an American-born spokesman for al Qaeda, was actually under arrest. Gadahn is the first American to face treason charges since the Second World War era, and the charges carry a possible death penalty.

The story touches on two points from our textbook.

First, as we explain in the mass media chapter, news involves uncertainty. Reporters often err, especially in the early stages of a breaking story.

Second, as the citizenship chapter describes, it is possible to renounce citizenship. But the State Department explains that any American who wants to renounce citizenship must

1. appear in person before a U.S. consular or diplomatic officer,
2. in a foreign country (normally at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate); and
3. sign an oath of renunciation

Renunciations that do not meet the conditions described above have no legal effect. [emphasis added]

The last point is important. Gadahn appeared in a video ripping up his passport and saying he was renouncing his citizenship. But because he did not meet the specified conditions, what he did on the video did not count. He is still an American citizen, so the charges remain in effect.

Economics, Mortgages, and Civic Virtue

In our chapter on economic policy, we discuss how mortgage defaults helped bring about the financial turmoil of recent years. But while things are bad, they could be much worse. Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute writes:

The puzzling fact is that Americans have not walked away from their debts in large numbers--at least so far. Only about 10 percent of those with negative equity have defaulted. Why have so few done the "economically rational" thing? And is the wave still coming, or is there something about Americans that makes them unwilling to default, even when it is in their immediate interest to do so?

...

Economists Luigi Guiso, Paola Sapienza, and Luigi Zingales set out to better understand the drivers of strategic de fault, using a novel approach for econ omists: They surveyed homeowners about their willingness to default on their mortgages under a number of hypo­thetical circumstances.

The results were startling. Fully 80 percent of individuals said they thought it would be "morally wrong" to strategically default on their mortgages. The economists correlated these responses with default behavior and found that moral beliefs indeed influence decisions: Individuals were 77 percent less likely to declare their intention to de fault if they said it would be morally wrong to do so.

The moral constraint is far from perfect: if people see their neighbors getting away with defaulting , they are more likely to do so themselves. This mix of virtue and vice would not have surprised Madison.

Deficit and Debt

In our chapter on economic policy, we discuss the deficit and the debt. New figures from the Congressional Budget Office are not encouraging. From CBO's letter to Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), chair of the Appropriations Committee:

Under the President’s budget, debt held by the public would grow from $7.5 trillion (53 percent of GDP) at the end of 2009 to $20.3 trillion (90 percent of GDP) at the end of 2020. As a result, net interest would more than quadruple between 2010 and 2020 in nominal dollars (without an adjustment for inflation); it would expand from 1.4 percent of GDP in 2010 to 4.1 percent in 2020.

Here are year-by-year deficit figures:

Blogging, Twittering, and Teaching: Online Resources in the Classroom

A presentation at the annual convention of the Texas Community College Teachers Association, Houston, March 5, 2010.

Uses for class blogs:

• To post questions or comments about the readings before we discuss them in class;
• To follow up on class discussions with additional comments or questions.
• To post relevant news items or videos.

Examples of class blogs:

• Introductory American -- fall 2009
• Introductory American -- spring 2010
  
• American Presidency
• US Congress
• Politics of Journalism

The Claremont Legislative Simulation

• YouTube 2007
• Student blog
• Student Twitter

Interactive sites

• Budget Hero
• Pew Typology
• Center for Congress Learning Modules
• The Redistricting Game
• Fundrace
• Fantasy SCOTUS

One relevant video involved a wildfire and its lessons for federalism.