Informing Americans about their participation in federal social programs

Check out this op-ed I posted on the Sanford Journal of Public Policy:

 

Making Job Corps Work in the 21st Century

Check out this posting from the Sanford Journal of Public Policy site:

 

Does a Nuclear Iran Call for a Change in Policy?

I posted this blog on the Sanford Journal of Public Policy site.  Read and leave a comment.

http://sites.duke.edu/sjpp/2011/does-a-nuclear-iran-call-for-a-change-in-policy/

U.S. Farms Are Growing Money

Check out this blog I posted on the Sanford Journal of Public Policy site.

Taking A Break

To all of you who have been reading Distant Observer over the past few months, I say thank you. It has been fun to share the news with you since I started this project. I’ll be taking an indefinite break from the blog though. I’m starting grad school next week and need to apply myself to that. I assure you however, that as I feel the urge to comment on the world around us, you will find future posts. They will just be infrequent. Thanks again for all of your support

What To Do About Social Security

As most people in the United States know, there is an ongoing debate at the state and national level about the future of government spending.  States like Minnesota are in the middle of drawn-out shutdowns while politicians argue about future budgets in an effort to close funding gaps.  This debate is happening at the federal level as well.  Republicans and democrats have a deadline of early next month to produce a national budget or else the country will go into default.  There seem to be two major planks in this argument about how to fund the government: cut entitlements or increase certain taxes.  What this boils down to in some perspectives is eliminate subsidies and loopholes that are exploited by the well to do (increase taxes) or reduce benefits in such programs as Medicare or Social Security (cut entitlements.  What is interesting is that attempts have been made by both major political parties to reform entitlement programs in such a way that benefits received would have been improved while cost would have been reduced.

RIP US Military

Several pieces of news have arisen in the past weeks which, when coupled with past news developments, reveal a clear trend in US martial policy away from traditional military action toward a covert and highly unregulated tactical structure.  In essence, we are witnessing a transition from war fighting conducted by the branches of the Department of Defense to a system of operations performed by the CIA, DOD (through the guise of Joint Special Operations Command), and through mercenaries.  The reasons for and benefits of such a move are numerous.  The roots of this move date back to the fifties but the largest strides in this transition have occurred in the past ten years.