Pacific Standard July-August 2013 Cover

The Highest Paid People on the Pentagon’s Budget: 3 Football Coaches

June 18, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
Army Football Media Day

According to Chicago Life magazine, yes, that is true. The three highest-paid employees on the Pentagon budget are the head football coaches at Air Force (Troy Calhoun), Navy (Ken Niumatalolo), and Army (Rich Ellerson), which is not totally shocking. Especially after Deadspin released that chart last month, listing the highest-paid public employees in every state, most of which were basketball or football coaches. Plus, a sizable portion of the Department of Defense's budget is spent on outside contractors, who, though they may be vulnerable to upcoming cuts, tend to make more than ... Read More

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How to Entice People to Buy Symphony Tickets

May 21, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
symphony

These are very tough times for America’s orchestras. Symphonies in some cities are facing bankruptcy, while others are contending with nasty labor disputes. Subscriptions—which once provided a reliable funding stream—are declining, with more and more concertgoers opting to buy single tickets. Given those realities, a new analysis of what types of pieces lure people to a concert is of keen interest. In the June issue of the International Journal of Research in Marketing, Wagner Kamakura of Duke University and Carl Schimmel of Illinois State University use a sophisticated model to ... Read More

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The Price of a Fumble by the Super Committee

November 15, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Sequestration graphic

If the congressional “super committee” fails to come up with a deal by Thanksgiving — as the media and public now predict — all kinds of automatic budget cuts will take place across the federal government. Decimal points will be moved and programs trimmed without much deliberation. To meet the $1.2 trillion deficit-reduction goal, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that non-defense discretionary spending will have to take an immediate 7.8 percent cut across the board — and that number could cut away at anything. “It’s meant to be painful and idiotic,” said David ... Read More

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An Army of Change

September 19, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

As U.S. soldiers pull out of Iraq this December, and with 33,000 more scheduled to leave Afghanistan by the fall of 2012, American land forces may find themselves the victims of their own success. The budget deal signed by the president in August promises big cuts in defense dollars, and the burden of leaner budgets is expected to fall on the troops. A key Pentagon review published last year signaled that the future belongs largely to the Navy and the Air Force; Libya seems a proving ground for the use of U.S. air and naval power (combined with that of their NATO peers) fighting to overthrow ... Read More

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If Postal Service Diversifies, It Can Deliver

September 7, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

When U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe told a Senate committee this week that the U.S. Postal Service had some pretty big bills coming up and no money to pay them, he really just updated an old story with new facts. The USPS has been pretty much in "check in the mail" mode for years, and the current liquidity crunch just caps years of declining volume (especially in the most profitable niches), greater competition on the delivery front and online, and higher operating costs. To banish an estimated $20 billion shortfall by 2015, Donahoe asked the legislators to let the ... Read More

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Bridging the Budget Gap With Stolen Lunch Money

August 25, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
School Budget Cuts Graphic From AASA Survey

As the United States attempts to regain footing in its most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression, locally funded schools are left to shoulder the burden. Spending cuts are enacted to diminish the budget gap, while resources to core services, like education, slow to a trickle. The American Association of School Administrators published data from a recent survey detailing how K-12 school administrators across the country made cuts to their schools' programs. Click the image below to view the info graphic that appears in the September-October 2011 issue of Miller-McCune. It ... Read More

More like this: Education, Graphic Art, September-October 2011
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Budget Hawks, Enviro Doves Offer Budget Cuts

August 24, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

The Heartland Institute and Friends of the Earth don't agree on much of anything. Heartland, based in Chicago, is a free-market think tank widely viewed with suspicion by environmentalists. Friends, as its name suggests, is a progressive environmental advocacy group that's fought for action on climate change. Neither of them, though, can stand the federal government's flood insurance program. It spends billions of dollars offering insurance to property owners at rates much kinder than they'd find on the private market. And it encourages the development of watersheds where no one should be ... Read More

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State Budget Cuts Hurting Quality of Research

May 28, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

State budget cuts pose a significant threat to the quality of research in the United States, a panel of educators said earlier this month at an American Association for the Advancement of Science conference. While federal grants support 60 percent of university research, AAAS senior policy adviser Albert Teich said, America’s diverse and decentralized education system depends heavily on state funds as well. Two-thirds of U.S. universities with “very high research activity” are state-supported, according to the Carnegie Foundation. That in turn represents a big chunk of the total ... Read More

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Family Planning Subsidies Save Taxpayer Money

April 22, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

After Congress finally settled on a budget at the 11th hour two weeks ago, it turned out much of the drama had come down to a fine point absurd even by Washington standards: The fate of the entire government, apparently, turned on a dispute over Planned Parenthood. This odd quid pro quo pairing — of national budgets and family planning policy — seems destined to infect much of Congress’ squabbles to come. But what, it seems worth asking, does the one have anything to do with the other? Much, in fact — but not quite in the way Planned Parenthood foes have been ... Read More

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Budget Idea: Divert Money From Prisons to Schools

April 13, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Click the graphic for a large version of the map, which details Los Angeles County prison admissions per 1,000 adults by zip code of home residence. The graphic also shows the zip codes with high and low high school math proficiency rates.

Solving state and national budget woes is going to demand a painful set of decisions on where to carve out money — from public services, public safety, environmental protection? — no matter where legislators look. But an unlikely coalition of organizations, including the NAACP, ACLU and Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform,* is rallying around a common target: Why, they ask, are we spending so much money on prisons? Over the last 40 years, America's inmate population has quadrupled, from 500,000 to 2.3 million, giving the U.S. 5 percent of the world's population, but 25 percent ... Read More

More like this: Education, Politics, The Idea Lobby
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