You Decide - Election 2008

Should the United States build more nuclear power plants?

KQED — Monday, 23 Feb 2009 1:00:00 +0900

Over the past decade, an overwhelming majority of scientists has arrived at the dire conclusion that greenhouse gases are causing the earth’s temperature to rise. They warn that if we don’t work quickly to reduce carbon emissions, these higher temperatures may threaten human civilization as we know it.

Researchers already estimate that roughly 160,000 people die each year from the effects of global warming. But the worst may be yet to come: According to a 2006 report issued by the British government, if carbon levels continue to increase, as many as 300,000 people could die annually from the effects of global warming. By mid-century, the report warns, up to 40 percent of all species could be in danger of extinction as higher temperatures cause catastrophic flooding, drought, crop damage and malaria over large swaths of the planet.

In light of this grim prognosis, energy experts and even some environmentalists are giving nuclear power a second look. They argue that like coal—which now provides about 50 percent of the country’s electricity—nuclear reactors can economically supply reliable, round-the-clock power. What’s more, nuclear power is relatively safe. Spent fuel can be safely stored, and a good portion of it can be recycled into usable fuel. While other alternative energy sources remain mired in the development stage, we already know how to build nuclear reactors. Best of all, nuclear power plants, which today supply 20 percent of all U.S. energy, have a major edge over coal: They produce carbon-free power.

Nonetheless, the nuclear industry has not built a new nuclear power plant since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island—and nuclear detractors want to keep it that way. They argue that advertising nuclear power as an environmentally friendly alternative to coal is a disingenuous ploy that ignores the intractable problem of radioactive nuclear waste, which can remain toxic for tens of thousands of years. The horrors of the 1986 nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl in Ukraine have clearly shown that nuclear power is not safe. But even if it were, they argue, building nuclear reactors is a long, difficult and expensive process, the combination of which makes nuclear power an impractical near-term solution.

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Is affirmative action fair?

KQED — Monday, 1 Dec 2008 1:00:00 +0900

Back when it was first articulated in 1961, the term “affirmative action” meant any positive action used to fight discrimination — this was when it was first incorporated into the public lexicon through an Executive Order by President John F. Kennedy. In that broad original context, measures like civil rights and equal employment laws were “affirmative” actions.

For more than three decades, affirmative action policies of various stripes have been on the books. These days the term typically refers not just to the broad original thou-shalt-not-discriminate directives, but also to the range of specific policies and programs that aim to improve and increase educational and economic opportunities for people of color and women. Affirmative action programs include targeted recruitment campaigns and certain types of outreach and might at times call for race- and gender-based considerations, often called preferences. In practice, an example of an affirmative action preference is when a company or government agency, in addition to its nondiscrimination policy, sets a loose goal for hiring minority candidates.

Affirmative action preferences are often challenged in the courts and on ballots, but they have, by and large, remained. But the 2008 presidential race marked a new era, one that some think signaled that the playing field is now officially level: How could it not be with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton vying for their party’s presidential nomination, Sarah Palin running as a vice presidential candidate, and Barack Obama being elected the first black president in American history, in what many even call a landslide victory? When Americans have “hired” a black man for the most powerful position in the world, are affirmative action preferences still necessary? Have we reached the point at which enforcing “fairness” is no longer necessary?

Critics of affirmative action say that it’s a policy whose time is up, for legal and moral reasons. Not only do many maintain that preferences are unconstitutional because they legitimize discrimination, but many believe that affirmative action results in the promotion of mediocre employees in the workplace and actually harm women and minorities by destroying their ability to compete with their peers and exposing them to ridicule. Plus, critics argue that many affirmative action programs don’t actually help the economically vulnerable people they were, in theory, supposed to support.

But supporters of affirmative action say that racism and sexism has shaped America in countless undesirable ways; to them, affirmative action programs that include racial and gender considerations appropriately correct for the systemic bias that will continue no matter who sits in the Oval Office. Antidiscrimination laws still need a little help from preferences that assure that workplaces hire and schools educate more women and people of color, they say, and affirmative action programs actually make organizations and institutions stronger and better, not weaker. Just because we’ve reached the point at which minorities and women are national leaders doesn’t mean affirmative action’s time is up.

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Should the Electoral College be reformed?

KQED — Tues, 14 Oct 2008 12:00:00 +0900

It was one of the country’s greatest political myths: Americans went to the polls every four years to directly elect the country’s president. Then, courtesy of the 2000 election — with its hanging chads, star turn by the Florida Secretary of State and intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court — we received a crash course in the intricacies of living in a constitutional republic.

It turned out that all those years when many thought we were directly selecting a presidential ticket, Americans’ votes were in fact being filtered by the Electoral College, the body of 538 electors that actually chooses the country’s president and vice president. Once the popular vote has been tallied, these electors — often culled from the ranks of state elected officials, party leaders and politically active private citizens — cast their ballots for the candidate who received the most votes in the popular election. The system is winner-take-all in most states, meaning that whichever ticket receives a simple majority of the popular vote wins all of that state’s electoral votes; the minority candidate, by contrast, receives no votes at all. And it is this electoral vote, not the popular vote, that ultimately determines an election’s outcome.

In most years the system provokes little controversy: The winner of the popular vote usually wins the Electoral College vote too. But in 2000, George W. Bush won the presidency after losing the popular election by more than 500,000 votes. How? He garnered 271 electoral votes — one more than the 270 votes needed for a simple majority.

Welcome to the joys of our complicated, brilliant and flawed indirect democracy.

The Electoral College system has had its critics since its inception at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, but the controversy surrounding President George W. Bush’s victory prompted many to intensify their calls to reform the electoral system. To these reformers, the Electoral College, by virtue of its ability to override the popular vote, threatens to undermine the principle of majority rule. They add that our current electoral system adds to voter apathy by forcing candidates to concentrate on a handful of swing states and, their argument continues, that by favoring the country’s two major political parties, it does not accurately represent the will of the people.

On the other side of the ballot box are Electoral College supporters, who argue that the College is vital to our democracy in that it gives us a clear winner and forces candidates to build broad-based coalitions. They add that the College also hews to the intention of the framers of the Constitution by maintaining a balance between states’ rights and the federal government. Significantly, they argue, the Electoral College also protects our two-party system from fringe interests.

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Is NAFTA good for Americans?

KQED — Tues, 14 Oct 2008 12:00:00 +0900

Passed by Congress in 1993, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a trilateral trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico that was designed to allow goods to travel more easily between the three nations. NAFTA’s supporters said it would create jobs, lower consumer prices and bolster the economies of each of the countries involved. Free trade dispenses with tariffs, taxes and regulations that can hinder trade among countries. It’s been argued that since World War II, free trade has been key to worldwide economic growth and a period of relative peace.

When it was designed, NAFTA supporters regarded the policy as a sound strategy to prevent the rapidly growing European Union from surpassing the United States as the world’s largest economic power. Where the European Union promised to be contentious and unwieldy with its common currency, shared customs enforcement and labyrinthine governmental apparatus, NAFTA would be lean, mean and efficient — a way to focus exclusively on trade and making money, rather than on managing the cultural and social repercussions of that trade.

NAFTA was also touted as a way to accomplish for Mexico what preferential trade agreements had done for Japan and Korea decades earlier. In effect, lowered trade barriers were supposed to encourage Mexicans to buy American industrial goods such as trucks and tractors, which would in turn make farms and factories more efficient, thus triggering an increased standard of living and, ultimately, the creation of a huge, consumer-minded Mexican middle class. With plenty of good jobs at home, the problem of illegal migration into the United States and Canada from Mexico would become a thing of the past.

The policy wasn’t without its critics, however. During the 1992 presidential race, candidate Ross Perot swore that the ratification of NAFTA would result in a “giant sucking sound": the sound of work — especially factory jobs — leaving the United States and moving south to Mexico, where it would be cheaper to manufacture goods. Others fussed that the money that international companies would normally invest in the United States would be invested in Mexico instead, now that factories in Mexico could export goods to America inexpensively.

Flash forward 15 years. Since January 1, 1994, when NAFTA first went into effect, the European Union has indeed become the world’s largest economy. Mexico has yet to develop into a Japan or Korea, and illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States has skyrocketed. We now buy more from Mexico than we sell there, a state of affairs known as a trade deficit, which NAFTA was intended to prevent. Meanwhile, Americans have become accustomed to things made possible by NAFTA: ripe tomatoes all year long (a third of the winter tomatoes sold here come from Mexico), enhanced diplomatic cooperation with our neighbors, cheap Canadian natural gas and oil, and markets close to home for all the extra food we grow. The Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement, DR-CAFTA, an agreement that seeks to establish a similar relationship with Central America and the Dominican Republic, passed in Congress in 2005, and three more similar agreements are pending with Panama, Colombia and Peru.

Fourteen years after NAFTA went into effect, it’s hard to distinguish what has been changed by NAFTA and what has been altered by forces beyond the control of a mere treaty. But this hasn’t prevented people from raising a number of thorny questions: Is NAFTA endangering our food supply? Is it threatening our own laws? Is it widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots? Is it increasing illegal immigration? Does NAFTA, indeed, suck? Or is it feeding the working class, maintaining good diplomatic relations with Canada and Mexico, boosting our overall economy, and keeping economic crisis at bay?

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Has No Child Left Behind been successful?

KQED — Fri, 19 Sept 2008 12:00:00 +0900

Few policies have so dramatically charged the educational terrain in this country as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Passed in 2002, the law demands that every child be able to read and compute math at their grade level by 2014, offering free tutoring and new charter schools, among other aids, to help on the path. It also holds schools accountable for their progress, and that’s where the battle begins — pitting teachers, principals, lawmakers and parents against each other.

To NCLB’s detractors, the law does nothing more than enforce rote learning because with schools threatened with closure or staff cuts if students fail to meet academic benchmarks, teachers shift time away from noncore subjects, such as music, art, foreign languages and physical education. Instead, children are drilled on reading comprehension, mathematics tables and test-taking strategies. It begs the question: Should children spend part of their day learning to play the flute or learning how score higher on standardized tests?

Critics of NCLB believe the policy promotes teaching to pass a test, rather than inspiring children to think for themselves, engage and explore. Although no educator or parent would argue against ensuring that all children have a chance to learn, critics believe that the NCLB policies are too standardized and that the law is unrealistic in its goals. The end result, they say, is that students are stifled instead of supported.

Advocates say that our nation’s education system had failed for too long, and NCLB is the solution. They believe that our public schools should be accountable — that money invested in our schools should bring about results in our children. Supporters say that schools should be run no differently than businesses and that we should expect a return on our federal investments: literate children who can read, write, add and subtract. If schools can’t produce results, either they should be closed, new leadership should be brought in or students should be allowed to move to better-performing schools. After all, poor reading skills or the inability to balance a checkbook is tantamount to a handicap. Why should some children soar while others are left behind?

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Should the United States drill for oil in protected offshore waters?

KQED — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:00:00 +0900

In 1981, back when crude oil averaged $35 a barrel and gasoline cost around $1.30 a gallon, Congress prohibited oil drilling off the California shoreline to prevent oil spills and protect tourism. A series of Congressional and presidential actions since then — including a 1990 executive ban by President George H.W. Bush — now prohibits drilling off both coasts as well as in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

But gasoline costs have changed, and so have the times: As crude oil prices wreak havoc on an American economy hooked on foreign oil, pressure is building to lift the moratorium and lower the offshore drill.

The debate centers around oil exploration and production in the still-protected federal areas of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), which extends from three miles to 200 miles offshore. No one knows for sure how much oil may lie in these underwater reservoirs, but based on geologic modeling, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that 18 billion barrels of oil could be hiding there. The figure is for “unproven reserves,” meaning oil companies have not fully explored these areas to see what’s there — we might find more oil, we might find less.

Those who favor lifting the ban argue that oil is a supply-and-demand business, and new sources of crude could help lower gasoline prices and ease foreign oil dependence, or at least displace some imports. They also maintain that oil extraction and shipping from offshore rigs is safe, citing oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico as proof.

But critics stress that the amount of oil that would be found offshore, even by U.S. government estimates, is statistically negligible in a global market and wouldn’t save gasoline consumers more than a few pennies on the gallon, if anything. They also contend that the environmental risks of new drilling, such as oil spills, aren’t worth the small payback to the American pocketbook.

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Does the United States spend too much money on defense?

KQED — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:00:00 +0900

Defense spending is the biggest single expense in the federal budget, costing more than $600 billion annually, or the equivalent of around $5,500 for every U.S. household. In 2008, we will spend as much on defense as the rest of the world combined: just one country’s expenditures equal to that of all the other 191 members of the United Nations put together. Projections indicate that the amounts will continue to increase. Can we justify such a massive expenditure?

But shortages of basic equipment faced by troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan paint a very different picture, one in which the spending needs to be increased, not reduced. Also, we live in a world where vast inequalities of wealth, a growing global population, limited natural resources and widening ideological differences all point to a future of increasing conflict and a need to strengthen our nation’s defenses — and that takes money.

Yet the situation isn’t static. U.S. defense spending has jumped by around 11 percent in the past year alone, but much of the increase is to the result of the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and these won’t go on indefinitely. When the conflicts end, will the defense budget be reduced? Or do these conflicts and many of the failures we have suffered during the course of them point toward a future in which military spending will continue to swell?

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Should gays be allowed to marry?

KQED — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:00:00 +0900

Marriage, that most fundamental of social contracts, has seen better days. Depending on whom you talk to, currently between 40 and 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce. Almost four out of every ten children are born out of wedlock, and less than 62 percent of all married women (and less than 65 percent of all married men) describe their unions as "very happy."

Yet marriage remains a potent symbol of the quality and depth of a couple's relationship. So much so, in fact, that within minutes of the California Supreme Court's May 2008 decision to strike down the state’s same-sex marriage ban, gay couples and their supporters could be seen celebrating outside the San Francisco courthouse. Meanwhile and with equal speed, opponents of same-sex marriage began campaigning for a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex unions.

For many who oppose gay marriage, it comes down to a simple matter of belief: The Bible states unequivocally that homosexuality is variously an "abomination," "unnatural" and even punishable by death. How, then, they argue, can we sanctify such a relationship? In this view, the child-producing marriage between a man and a woman is the bedrock of our culture. It has a stabilizing effect on society, and expanding our definition of marriage to include homosexuality would endanger that stability. Many also argue that if gays are allowed to marry, and the institution's emphasis shifts from procreation to legality, it won't be long before people in other romantic configurations -- bigamists, polygamists, etc. -- are clamoring for equal sanction.

Supporters of same-sex marriage, on the other hand, see the issue through a lens of civil rights. After all, there are more than 1,100 laws in which marital status is a factor, and they argue that to deny gays these rights and benefits without due process is to trample upon their 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the law. What's more, many same-sex marriage proponents argue that far from having a destabilizing effect, allowing gays to marry would actually promote family life. And as for the Bible? Many Biblical scholars maintain that the good book is not nearly so censorious of homosexuality as gay marriage opponents claim. Finally, they argue that the very nature of marriage has changed through the years, and to legalize gay marriage is, at this point, to allow the institution to better reflect and serve the current culture.

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Is torture a legitimate means of combating terrorism?

KQED — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:00:00 +0900

To many, the torture debate begins and ends with the Geneva Conventions: As a signatory to the treaties, it is illegal for agents of the United States to torture. Period. What's more, many view the notion of U.S. operatives resorting to torture as downright un-American. It diminishes our standing in the world, they argue, and doing so potentially exposes our troops, when captured, to retaliatory torture. As if that weren't bad enough, the argument goes, torturing our enemies isn't even worth the potential backlash: Information gleaned by torture is notoriously unreliable.

Nonetheless, other circles view torture as an essential weapon in fighting terrorism. Unlike traditional state aggressors, today's terrorists are undeterred by the threat of massive retaliation against a state's infrastructure. If terrorists cannot be deterred, then our success in this conflict lives and dies with our ability to stop attacks before they occur. That means our operatives need every intelligence-gathering tool at their disposal—including, some argue, torture. As stateless combatants, the argument continues, terrorists do not honor and are not protected by the Geneva Conventions. Further, as nonstate actors who regularly torture and behead their captives, it is laughable to imagine that a terrorist cell—once it knew that the United States had renounced torture—would afford its prisoners the same respect.

Fifty years after their ratification, the Geneva Conventions may still be in effect, but the nature of war has changed. The United States is embroiled in an unconventional conflict with a stateless enemy, prompting many to ask: Should the United States loosen its prohibition on torture?

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Should the United States end its dependence on foreign oil?

KQED — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:00:00 -0700

The United States consumes more oil than any other nation in the world, and about 60 percent of it is imported. Record-high oil prices and growing frustrations over U.S. foreign policy's being driven by oil interests have reignited a years-old debate over whether the United States should be relying on foreign oil. Meanwhile, 2008 presidential candidates, left and right, promise voters "energy independence."

On one side of the debate, there are the arguments that our dependence on foreign oil has turned the U.S. military into an oil security force (particularly in the Middle East); that we're so accustomed to bellying up to gas stations that alternative fuels get short-changed; that importing oil negatively affects our economy; and that no matter what the country source, expenditures on any foreign oil support repression and corruption.

Many look at these figures and worry. Surely we can't afford to accommodate so many new arrivals. Who is going to pay for their education, health care, housing? Where will they find jobs? Where are the food, water and electricity they need going to come from? And how can we be sure that our enemies aren't among them?

But is eliminating foreign oil imports for so-called energy independence strategically smart or even logistically feasible? There are those who maintain that buying and consuming oil helps to maintain our global military and economic prestige. Meanwhile, oil pragmatists argue that reducing our dependence on foreign oil is a chimera: Since the United States has only 3 percent of the world's oil reserves and alternative fuels are in their infancy, cutting back on foreign oil is impossible.

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Are tougher U.S. immigration laws hurting America?

KQED — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:00:00 -0700

The figures are dramatic: There are now 300 million people living in the United States. That’s twice as many as in 1950, four times the total of 1900. And the numbers will only rise going forward.

Why? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population increases by one individual every 30 seconds due to immigration alone: That’s more than a million people per year. The Pew Research Center estimates that 82 percent of population growth between 2005 and 2050 will be caused by immigration, both by people who arrive during that time and by their descendants.

Many look at these figures and worry. Surely we can’t afford to accommodate so many new arrivals. Who is going to pay for their education, health care, housing? Where will they find jobs? Where are the food, water and electricity they need going to come from? And how can we be sure that our enemies aren't among them?

But is increased regulation of who crosses our borders really in our best interests? Where will industry and agriculture find enough workers? What about the valuable contributions immigrants make in terms of culture, ideas, hard work and taxes? And can we ever really keep out those who are determined to harm us, no matter how secure we make our borders?

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Should the federal income tax system be reformed?

KQED — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:00:00 -0700

Since World War II, individual income tax has constituted more than 70 percent of all federal tax revenue. For most Americans, dread of Form 1040 and April 15 are as American as apple pie. But is the federal income tax the best way to generate revenue for the government?

On the one hand, some argue, income taxes and all of the complications that accompany them are a necessary evil: A complex federal government demands a complex tax code, and only a complex tax code can accommodate changes in revenue needs, generate the billions of dollars needed to sustain the government of a nation with more than 300 million people and decrease the deficit. Alter the tax code, some argue, and say "bye-bye" to things that we Americans take for granted: interstates, meat inspection and flak jackets in Fallujah.

But on the other hand, there's the alarming argument that given the demands of a $500 billion war in Iraq and a $9.2 trillion deficit, something's got to give, and that something will likely be taxes as we know them. Others maintain that because the federal tax code is incredibly unwieldy — impenetrable to most Americans and even lawmakers — the current income tax system should be abolished in favor of a nationwide federal sales tax or a flat tax system that would not just simplify our lives, it would boost the economy. Finally, it's hard to dismiss arguments that the current income tax regime punishes savers and encourages greed and corruption in the government and private sector.

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Should the United States adopt a single-payer, universal health care plan?

KQED — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:30:00 +0900

In 2006, the number of Americans without health insurance coverage rose to 47 million -- up from 39.9 million just eight years ago. This includes 9 million children under the age of 19 and 12.6 million women of childbearing age.

To many critics, it's inexcusable that a country as wealthy and powerful as the United States does not provide comprehensive health care, particularly when many other industrialized capitalist democracies have proven that it can be done.

Advocates of a single-payer system -- under which a government-run organization collects all health care fees and pays out all health care costs -- argue that it would provide comprehensive care, improve the doctor-patient relationship and reduce costs.

Opponents argue a single-payer system would increase bureaucracy and taxes while ultimately undermining the quality of health care in the United States. The beleaguered Medicare system, they argue, proves that an American single-payer system is doomed to fail due to bureaucracy and inefficiency.

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