Public opinion polls consistently show that people hugely overestimate the portion of public spending that goes to programs like welfare or foreign aid. For example, a Kaiser poll from the mid-’90s found
that 40 percent of respondents ranked welfare as one of the two largest items in the federal budget, and 40 percent put foreign aid in this category. At the time, the two largest items in the federal budget were Social Security at 22 percent and military spending at 18 percent. The share of the budget going to Aid for Families with Dependent Children, the core welfare program, was less than 1 percent. Adding in food stamps, housing subsidies and other low-income programs could push this figure close to 4 percent. Less than 0.5 percent of the budget went for anything remotely resembling foreign aid.
The extent of this misinformation is important. If a person believes that 25 percent of the budget is already going to welfare, then she is likely to have a very different attitude toward further spending than if she knew the real numbers. She would believe that welfare spending is already imposing a substantial tax burden—one that must have a real effect on the living standards of many middle income families.
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For example, when the New York Times discussed the political battle over the reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) bill last summer, it reported that the current budget provided $16.5 billion dollars for TANF. This number provided almost no information whatsoever. Only a small group of wonks is sufficiently familiar with the budget to recognize the significance of this level of spending. For the vast majority of people, $16 billion is simply a very large number, as would be $160 billion or even $1.6 billion. The problem is made worse when stories present budget numbers that refer to 5- or 10-year totals, often without even making this fact clear.
Reporting on the budget in ways that actually convey information is not rocket science. The most obvious way is to simply express spending and tax items as a share of the total budget. For example, the $16 billion TANF bill can be described as 0.6 percent of federal spending; the $5 billion foreign aid appropriation can be referred to as 0.2 percent of federal spending. This would immediately inform readers and listeners of the context and relative importance of this item in the budget.
In addition, a recent study of four combat infantry units by the New England Journal of Medicine found that 15 percent to 17 percent of those who had served in Iraq and 11 percent of those who had been
in Afghanistan showed signs of major depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder.
"The mental toll that this war has had on our newest generation of veterans is severe and growing," said Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq veteran and founder of Operation Truth, a nonpartisan group that reports on the war from service members' perspectives. Post-traumatic stress disorder, he said, "could very well be my generation's Agent Orange."
The legislation comes a day after the Republican-controlled Senate killed a Democratic plan to add $2 billion to supplemental spending legislation to help pay for a predicted increase in veterans health-care services. The plan contained more than half a billion dollars for mental health care.
Members of Congress from both parties have raised sharp questions about the exclusion of political opponents from two taxpayer-funded appearances by President Bush.
Three people were ejected from the president's Social Security town hall meeting in Denver March 21 after they arrived in a car with a "No more blood for oil" bumper sticker.
The Denver incident happened after a list was discovered in Fargo, N.D., naming 42 people to be barred from a Bush speech there in February attended by 8,000 people.North Dakota's two Democratic senators, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, have jointly called for an investigation into the list. And the state's lone congressman, Democrat Earl Pomeroy, was quoted by the Fargo Forum as saying the list now appears to be standard operating procedure for the White House, rather than an isolated incident. "I had been inclined to view the North Dakota incident as a
fluke ... not to be repeated," he said. "The fact that this happened in Denver shows they didn't learn any lesson."
The White House apologized and blamed the Fargo list on an overzealous volunteer." But it never named the person responsible. In Denver, Leslie Weise, 39, Karen Bauer, 38, and Alex Young, 25,
say they did nothing inappropriate, but were bounced from Bush's speech by a man dressed and acting like a Secret Service agent, who threatened them with arrest if they misbehaved.
In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, five women were killed in action and 10 were nonhostile casualties. In the Vietnam War, women's roles were restricted to administrative, medical and communications work that was mostly performed in more secure rear areas. During that war, only one
woman was killed in ground combat. Five others died in military plane and helicopter crashes; two died of medical problems.
Shortly after the Gulf War, the Pentagon opened more military jobs to women, including piloting attack and scout helicopters. The military also spelled out the kinds of assignments that would remain off limits - any job requiring a female soldier to "physically collocate and remain with" ground combat units that are closed to women.
The distinction then was clear. Now, the Army is redesigning its main fighting forces to make them "modular," or interchangeable.
Cpl. Isaiah Ramirez endured the rigors of Marine Corps basic training and two tours of high-risk duty in Iraq.
But since his lower right leg was shot off in January, Ramirez says
he'll be happy just to walk again.
Ramirez, 21, took his first steps toward that goal this month at Brooke Army Medical Center, where two dozen amputees wounded in the Iraq
war have become a tightly knit group as they adjust together to life-altering injuries.
