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By October 1st Congress must pass legislation to fund the annual expenses of the federal government for the next fiscal year. If it does not, a government shutdown will ensue where many government operations will cease, although programs that do not receive their funding directly from the Treasury, provide for national defense, or conduct essential services will continue. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) hoped to avoid a showdown with the White House in what would be the first fiscal showdown since 2011, but Tea Party Republicans have pressured he and other members of the House Republican leadership to pass a spending measure that would fund the government in the short-term and deny funding for Obamacare, which is set to begin on October 1st with the opening of signups on state insurance exchanges. President Obama and Senate Democrats argue that the spending measure passed by the House is a non-starter and if a compromise is not reached by October 1st it would result in the first government shutdown since 1995-1996. The battle over the shutdown also touches on the nation’s credit rating, since the debt ceiling will have to be raised to avoid a potentially damaging default.
This topic brief will explore the issues behind the latest fiscal battle between House Republicans and President Obama, public opinion on the subject, and some of the implications for this battle for both sides of the aisle.
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Last Thursday, thousands of fast food workers in sixty cities went on a one-day strike to protest their inability to form unions and low wages. Organized by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and community organizing groups and taking place a day after the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington, the protests captured the interest of the national media and sparked a discussion about the state of the nation’s economy, what constitutes a living wage, and the possibilities of unionizing a sector of the economy that has thus far resisted such efforts.
Since 1979, when Egypt was a signatory to the Camp David Accords with Israel, whereby Egypt normalized its relations with Israel in exchange for the Sinai Peninsula, the United States has maintained strong military and diplomatic ties with the Egypt. Today, the United States government provides an estimated $1.5 billion in aid to the Egyptian military. American foreign policy views Egypt as a bulwark against unrest in the Middle East and a constructive player in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. However, that foreign policy view left the United States backing Egyptian strongmen like former President Hosni Mubarak, who ruled the country under a state of emergency for nearly thirty years. The Arab Spring in Egypt in 2011 ousted Mubarak and brought to power the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political organization and religious social organization, which had been declared an illegal organization after it was accused of trying to assassinate Egyptian Prime Minister Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954. After being unable to stabilize the country politically or economically, protests against the Brotherhood’s rule were launched in June, which culminated in a military coup on July 3rd that installed a provisional government headed by Supreme Constitutional Court Chief Justice Adly Mansour. In light of the military government’s recent crackdown on sit-ins launched by the Brotherhood six weeks ago to pressure the provisional government to step down, which caused the deaths of at least 600 people, the United States and the Egyptian governments are in a tricky situation. Should the U.S. end its military aid to Egypt and risk alienating its governing authorities? How would that affect the geopolitical situation in the Middle East? Also, what is the effect of this unrest on Egyptian society and is there a way for the Egyptian provisional government to put the country on the path towards peace, prosperity, and political reconciliation?
On July 18th, Detroit filed for bankruptcy, making it the biggest municipal default in American history. Contemporary observers of the city would be hard pressed to tell that it was once one of the fourth most populated cities in the country and produced three-quarters of America’s war machine in the Second World War. Detroit’s bankruptcy has been decades in the making, a consequence of political corruption, deindustrialization, globalization, “white flight,” and poor budgeting. Given that Detroit’s tenure in bankruptcy court will likely last until the end of 2014, if not beyond, extempers will face a host of questions this season about how Detroit got to this point, how it can fix its debt, whether the federal government should come the assistance of the beleaguered city, and what impact its bankruptcy may have on the rest of the United States, namely those cities who are approaching the same fiscal cliff that Detroit has already driven off of.