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The Stakeholder Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Weblog
Sensenbrenner
Posted by jesselee
Monday, June 13, 2005 at 10:12 AM
Democrats Slam Sensenbrenner [Roll Call]
For the second time in a month, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) has outraged Democrats on his panel with what they described as heavy-handed tactics, but GOP aides countered that the minority was deliberately distorting the facts.
On Friday morning, Sensenbrenner suddenly ended a Democratic-called hearing on reauthorizing the USA PATRIOT Act, an anti-terrorism law enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. President Bush and GOP leaders have made permanent reauthorization of the legislation a top priority.
Some House Democrats, led by Rep. John Conyers (Mich.), ranking member on Judiciary, have complained that they have not been allowed to present witnesses who have concerns about reauthorizing expiring provisions of the act. Conyers used committee rules to force a hearing last week, but Sensenbrenner gave the minority just two days to put it together.
But after less than two hours of testimony on Friday morning, Sensenbrenner declared the hearing over. Several Democrats continued talking, however, and GOP staffers on the committee retaliated by turning off their microphones. When the Democrats still wouldn’t give up, the TV feed to C-SPAN was cut off, and then at least some of the lights in the hearing room were turned off.
James Zogby of the Arab American Institute, one of the witnesses at the hearing, said he was stunned by the display of partisan rancor.
"I have never seen anything like this happen," said Zogby. Zogby claimed that "it was obvious that [Sensenbrenner] didn't like any of the Democratic Members" on Judiciary, and clearly wasn't pleased the hearing was taking place at all.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) slammed Sensenbrenner for his handling of the hearing in a statement released Friday. She urged Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to make Sensenbrenner apologize to Democrats for his "shameful behavior" on Friday.
"This incident is the latest in a series of disgraceful conduct by Mr. Sensenbrenner," Pelosi said. "Last month, he misused an official committee report to mischaracterize in a derogatory manner amendments offered by three Democrats. As a result, the House was required to authorize the filing of a supplemental report, which contained significant changes, to correct the record."
Pelosi was referring to language used recently by Judiciary Committee majority staff to describe two amendments offered by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) to the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act. The committee report described the amendments as an exemption for "sexual predators" from the bill. After Democrats and some Republicans complained, the language was revised.
Pelosi added that she was going to seek Hastert's help in reining in Sensenbrenner: "As House Democratic Leader, I expect all Members to be treated by the majority with dignity and respect. I will ask Speaker Hastert to order Mr. Sensenbrenner to apologize for his behavior to the witnesses at the hearing today, and to promise this will never happen again."
June 13, 2005
F. James Sensenbrenner. And I mean that.
by Kagro X
It's not something I feel about Murray Abraham, Scott Fitzgerald, or even Lee Bailey. But when it comes to Sensenbrenner, I'm certain. F. James Sensenbrenner, Junior. And you, too, Dad. F. James Sensenbrenner, because he's already trying to F. you.
At the end of last week, liberal talk radio and the blogosphere exploded with outrage over the nearly unbelievable scene that unfolded live on C-SPAN, when House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner abruptly gaveled the minority-called hearing on the USA PATRIOT Act to a close and stormed out, ordering the witnesses dismissed, the microphones turned off, the record closed, and even had the official stenographer threatened for continuing to take notes on what the stunned Democrats he left behind were saying.
Or rather, liberal talk radio did. The blogosphere was still tearing its hair out over Howard Dean and those who would have him watch his mouth. And so we mostly missed the strange saga of F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. and his "tactical nuclear option."
Many of you will recall that Sensenbrenner just last month was forced to correct House Report 109-51,
in which he ordered rewritten the descriptions of Democratic amendments that had been offered during the Committee markup of H.R. 748, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA). For those of you who don't remember, a sampling:
The author's description:
A Nadler amendment allows an adult who could be prosecuted under the bill to go to a Federal district court and seek a waiver to the state’s parental notice laws if this remedy is not available in the state court. (no 11-16)
Which Sensenbrenner changed to read:
Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have created an additional layer of Federal court review that could be used by sexual predators to escape conviction under the bill. By a roll call vote of 11 yeas to 16 nays, the amendment was defeated.
Judiciary Committee Democrats, not surprisingly, demanded a retraction of the report and an apology frmo Sensenbrenner. The Chairman refused, and Democrats took to the floor in a series of "points of personal privilege," under which any Member may claim an hour of time when he or she feels she has been personally wronged and wishes to offer a defense or correction. Sensenbrenner eventually had to back down and correct the report.
Now we find ourselves, barely a month later, with Chairman Sensenbrenner once again out of control, flouting House rules, and robbing the minority of its right to be heard. The hearing he shut down was properly demanded under Rule XI, clause 2(j)(1) -- demanded because he had refused otherwise to permit Committee Democrats to call their own witnesses on the PATRIOT Act. Reminded that the Rules of the House entitle the minority to that right, he called the hearing for 8:30 am on Friday -- a day when the House was out of session and most other Members had returned home to their districts. So, with barely a half day's notice, witnesses were flown in from all across the country, Judiciary Committee Democrats rejiggered their schedules, and all were told by the Chairman that the hearing would be cancelled if anyone were late.
Running an extraordinarily tight ship, Sensenbrenner held close (after his own fashion) to the five minute rule. Normally, Members are given five minutes in which to pose questions to witnesses and receive their answers. Commonly, so long as they are mindful of time restrictions, witnesses are permitted to complete their answers even if they run over on time. But Sensenbrenner was having none of it that morning. Witnesses were gaveled down and cut off in mid-sentence, at five minutes on the dot. In one case, a Republican Member reportedly posed a five minute "question" to a witness, the representative of Amnesty International, which consisted of little more than a rant and berating of the witness and the organization he represented. At the end of the five minute tirade, time being up, Sensenbrenner moved on, refusing all requests that he be permitted to reply, until Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) was able to needle him into allowing a brief response.
In the end, though, Sensenbrenner had his way. In this video of the end of the hearing, available from Dembloggers.com, the Chairman is seen melting down, gaveling the hearing to a close unilaterally (as opposed to say, making a motion to adjourn in regular order), and storming out. In the minutes that followed, the video documents that Democrats soldiered on, though Committee staff turned off the microphones, and even allegedly attempted to insist that C-SPAN camera crews be removed. Perhaps even more informative were the interviews conducted by Air America Radio host Randi Rhodes with Judiciary Committee Democrats Sheila Jackson Lee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jerry Nadler, audio of which is available here. In these interviews, the Members give us details not visible on the C-SPAN video. I recommend giving them a listen. And so, in his attempt to bury objections to the PATRIOT Act with an 8:30 hearing on a Friday, Sensenbrenner in fact created a sensation.
So what's next?
Well, Nancy Pelosi has already called for an apology, but Democrats shouldn't even consider stopping there.
Like any employee with an attitude problem, Jim Sensenbrenner has simply run out of chances. It was only a month ago that he was called out on his last ridiculous temper tantrum, and he got away with a warning. Now, though, it's time for probation. House Democrats must demand his formal censure, and stake out the position that another such abuse will result in demands for his removal as Judiciary Chairman.
Just as they did in calling attention to Sensenbrenner's last breach of decorum, Democrats should exercise their right to points of personal privilege on the House floor to make their demands, and Leader Pelosi should offer another question of the privileges of the House as a vehicle for moving for Sensenbrenner's formal censure.
This has gone on long enough. At a time when Congressional Republicans are already at a low ebb in terms of how the public views their mismangagement of power (see also: Terri Schiavo, the nuclear option, etc.), Sensenbrenner's continued misbehavior is an embarrassment now beyond a simple collegial intervention.
June 13, 2005 at 10:29 in Congress, Contributor--Kagro X, Public Policy Process, Republicans | Permalink
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» Sensenbrenner from The Stakeholder
Democrats Slam Sensenbrenner [Roll Call] For the second time in a month, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) has outraged Democrats on his panel with what they described as heavy-handed tactics, but GOP aides countered that the minority... [Read More]
Tracked on June 13, 2005 at 10:34
Comments
did anyone else notice that this was on Drudge? What does THAT mean?
Posted by: bluesteel | June 13, 2005 at 10:35
It means that the groundwork for "Sensenbrenner's come undone, and even Republicans know he needs some 'time out at the farm'" is already laid.
Democrats were able to extract an ounce of flesh last time Sensenbrenner went off the deep end, simply by keeping up the pressure and using their points of personal privilege to embarrass Republicans. They ought to do the same this time, but get the rest of the pound they were owed from last time.
Posted by: Kagro X | June 13, 2005 at 11:08
Thank God for C-Span!
Regarding Drudge, I also noticed that he mentioned it. He knows he needs to maintain his relevance. And there's an amusing bit on Drudge this morning. The headline is Hillary hysterics, but right below it, first column, is this interesting juxtiposition:
Dem Chair Dean: 'FOXNEWS Is A Propaganda Outlet For The Republican Party'...
Cheney: Dean 'over the top'...
For stating the obvious?
-- Rick Robinson
Posted by: al-Fubar | June 13, 2005 at 11:55
Remember this is the guy who held up the intelligence bill in order to get some restrictive measures against immigrants. His anti-immigrant stand is on a par with Tom Tancredo. He is truly an embarrassment to the Congress and to his home state, although in his case it is hard to tell if it is ideology or chemical imbalance or something else entirely.
Posted by: Mimikatz | June 13, 2005 at 12:00
Oh, I won't forget. He held up emergency appropriations for Iraq, as well. He's been as much an embarrassment to Congress as a whole as he has been a problem child for his own party. They ought to be glad to be rid of him.
Posted by: Kagro X | June 13, 2005 at 12:30
If only he could be censured but we could continue to have him throw his temper tantrums for the cameras. One thing Democrats need these days is the best of both worlds.
Posted by: Meteor Blades | June 13, 2005 at 13:50
Sensenbrenner travel = almost $177,000
http://nytimes.com/2005/06/13/politics/13travel.html?pagewanted=all "Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican elected in 1978, has accepted more money in privately financed trips than any other member of Congress since 2000, according to PoliticalMoneyLine.
Interest groups have spent almost $177,000 on Mr. Sensenbrenner's travels, including trips to Japan, Thailand, France, Germany, Belgium, Liechtenstein, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Bahrain and Dubai."
Posted by: fnord | June 13, 2005 at 18:48
Lots to learn in Liechtenstein.
Posted by: Kagro X | June 13, 2005 at 19:04
Lichtenstein ...?
Kazakhstan was actually the one that caught my eye.
Some interesting details from
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/congtravel/member_report.php?member=411 "Sponsor - Youth Movement for the Future of KazKHATn
Purpose - To meet with officials from the Kazakhstan government and to view the launch of a rocket"
And from the same site, here's another fun one:
"Sponsor - Recording Industry Association of America
Dates - January 10, 2003 - January 17, 2003 (8 days)
Location - Taipei, Taiwan - Bangkok, Thailand
Purpose - judiciary committee fact-finding trip
Notes - spouse, Cheryl W. Sensen
Total Cost - $11,685.09
Additional family members - Yes"
Posted by: fnord | June 13, 2005 at 20:41
Democrats furious over GOP efforts to rewrite amendments
RAW STORY
Democrats in the House are furious over what they see as a deliberate attempt by Republicans to rewrite Democratic amendments to make the Democrats amendments look preposterous, RAW STORY has learned.
The Republican-written rewrites, along with the Democratic description of the amendments, follows. RAW STORY has also learned that Republicans have not rewritten similar amendments in the past. A copy from the Congressional record in 2002 is included below, showing the "neutral" language used in a previous Congress.
###
The following amendments were offered and voted down by recorded votes in the Judiciary Committee markup of H.R. 748-The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA):
DESCRIPTION OF AMENDMENT
AMENDMENT DESCRIPTION IN HOUSE REPORT 109-51
DEMS: a Nadler amendment allows an adult who could be prosecuted under the bill to go to a Federal district court and seek a waiver to the state’s parental notice laws if this remedy is not available in the state court. (no 11-16)
GOP REWRITE:. Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have created an additional layer of Federal court review that could be used by sexual predators to escape conviction under the bill. By a roll call vote of 11 yeas to 16 nays, the amendment was defeated.
DEMS: a Nadler amendment to exempt a grandparent or adult sibling from the criminal and civil provisions in the bill (no 12-19)
GOP REWRITE: . Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution under the bill if they were grandparents or adult siblings of a minor. By a roll call vote of 12 yeas to 19 nays, the amendment was defeated.
DEMS: a Scott amendment to exempt cab drivers, bus drivers and others in the business transportation profession from the criminal provisions in the bill (no 13-17):
GOP REWRITE. Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution if they are taxicab drivers, bus drivers, or others in the business of professional transport. By a roll call vote of 13 yeas to 17 nays, the amendment was defeated.
DEMS: a Scott amendment that would have limited criminal liability to the person committing the offense in the first degree (no 12-18)
GOP REWRITE:. Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted from prosecution under the bill those who aid and abet criminals who could be prosecuted under the bill. By a roll call vote of 12 yeas to 18 nays, the amendment was defeated
DEMS: a Jackson-Lee amendment to exempt clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles or first cousins from the penalties in the bill (no 13-20)
GOP REWRITE. Ms. Jackson-Lee offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution under the bill if they were clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles, or first cousins of a minor, and would require a study by the Government Accounting Office. By a roll call vote of 13 yeas to 20 nays, the amendment was defeated.
###
The following statement was issued by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on the House Rules Committee.
"The Rules Committee discovered yesterday that the Judiciary Committee Report on this very bill, which was authored by the Majority Staff, contained amendment summaries which had been re-written by committee staff for the sole purpose of distorting the original intent of the authors.
"This Committee Report took liberty to mischaracterize and even falsify the intent of several amendments offered in Committee by Democratic Members of this body.
"At least five amendments to this bill, which were designed to protect the rights of family members and innocent bystanders from prosecution under this bill, were rewritten as amendments designed to protect sexual predators from prosecution and were then included in the committee report as if that was the original intent of the authors. The thing is, sexual predators were not mentioned anywhere in any of these amendments.
I asked the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee about this deception yesterday afternoon at the Rules Committee hearing.
"And instead of decrying what I certainly expected would be revealed as a mistake by an overzealous staffer...The Chairman stood by those altered
amendment descriptions.
"He made very clear to the Rules Committee that the alterations to these members' amendments were deliberate.When pressed as to why his committee staff took such an unprecedented action, the Chairman immediately offered up his own anger over the manner in which Democrats had chosen to debate and oppose this unfortunate piece of legislation we have before us today.
"In fact...He said, and I quote..."You don't like what we wrote about your amendments, and we don't like what you said about our bill."
###
Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Democrat from New York, said:
“This is truly outrageous, and a gross abuse of power. The authors of this report suggest that they described my amendment in accordance with its possible effect, but if that’s true, consider this:
“Under CIANA, a father who rapes and impregnates his own daughter can go and sue the doctor or the grandparent or the clergyman who transported his child across state lines for the purpose of getting an abortion. Maybe that wasn’t exactly the intent of this legislation. But according to the descriptive guidelines now laid out by the majority, it would therefore be fair to call this entire bill the Rapists and Sexual Predators Right to Sue Act.
“The Republicans are trying to determine which words the Democrats get to use to describe their own amendments. What next – they get to write our speeches?”
###
The following is a copy of a page from the Congressional record as regards amendments put forth when the interstate abortion bill came up in 2002. The record, also written under a Republican majority, reflects a neutral tone with regards to the Democrats' amendments.
Opinion pieces and speeches by EPI staff and associates.
[ THIS LETTER WAS POSTED TO VIEWPOINTS ON SEPTEMBER 22, 2004 ]
Letter to Representative F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. on balanced budget
September 21, 2004
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary
House of Representatives
108th Congress
Dear Mr. Chairman,
As it completes work on a budget that could be in deficit to the tune of $300 billion, your committee and the U.S. House of Representatives will consider a joint resolution in support of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The proposed text of the amendment invites a multitude of questions as to implementation and enforcement, and the timing of the proposal’s reincarnation evokes wonder. But the crux of the matter is whether a routinely balanced budget makes good economic sense. It does not, either from the standpoint of long-term fiscal discipline or short-run anti-recession policy.
Over the past three years, the U.S. Congress has repeatedly made decisions that worsen the long term budget outlook. The proposed amendment seeks to require a balanced budget, beginning in Fiscal Year 2010. In January 2001, the Congressional Budget Office projected a budget baseline for FY 2010 that boasted a $796 billion surplus. Several weeks ago, the Congressional Budget Office issued a new baseline for FY2010 that is $298 billion in deficit.
If the tax cuts are extended through 2010, including a low-cost reduction in the Alternative Minimum Tax, CBO estimates an addition to the deficit of $193 billion, for a total of $491 billion, or more than three percent of GDP. Voting now for some future Congress to somehow balance the budget is an unseemly distraction from current tax legislation that would make such a task inordinately difficult, as well as damage the nation’s economy.
In January of 1997, more than a thousand economists – including 11 Nobel Prize winners – signed a statement condemning a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. The rationale in their statement – appended below – remains valid today. Two central economic arguments against an amendment pertain to long- and short-run policy, respectively.
Long-term fiscal discipline
In popular debate, the alternative to budget balance is often depicted as wretched excess – undisciplined borrowing, leading to out-of-control tax cuts and spending increasing, compounded by spiraling interest costs.
But such persistent exponents of fiscal discipline as the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office have asserted that moderate deficits can be sustained indefinitely:
“Other approaches could also create sustainable budgetary conditions. For instance, a budget that was permanently balanced would freeze the level of federal debt. Thus, as the economy grew, debt would gradually fall as a share of GDP. However, sustainable policies do not require balanced budgets. As long as deficits do not grow relative to the economy, the government could in principle keep the budget in deficit forever. Under the assumptions of CBO's long-term simulations, if the government stabilized the NIPA deficit at its current share of GDP (about 1.7 percent), the debt would remain close to its current share of GDP indefinitely.” (Congressional Budget Office, March 1997)
“Q. What are the key issues in evaluating the overall level of debt for the future?
A. In assessing debt levels, it is important to focus on the right indicator of the burden of the debt. As we have noted earlier, comparing the debt to GDP provides a better indicator of the debt burden than the debt’s nominal dollar value, because it captures the capacity of the economy to sustain the debt.”
(U.S. General Accounting Office, November 1996)
Moderate deficit levels are tolerable for an indefinite period of time. The Federal government’s solvency is at risk when deficits are so large that debt persistently rises more rapidly than GDP. Unfortunately, that is the current outlook for the Federal budget if the tax cuts of the past three years are made permanent. Adherence to PAYGO rules that have been ignored in the past three budgets would have blocked tax cuts with such deleterious long-run implications.
Another concern gathering some force is that the retirement of the Baby Boom will put unprecedented strain on the budget, due to automatic increases in entitlement spending. A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (2003) makes clear that the overwhelming bulk of the anticipated problem in this vein is due to health care spending in Medicare and Medicaid.
It is naïve to think that “we can’t afford” health care spending under Medicaid and Medicare, but we can afford it if program benefits are cut and privatized in some fashioned. A recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation (2004) reports that health insurance premiums in the private sector are rising at double-digit annual rates. In light of the fact that median family incomes since 1970 grew at roughly five percent a year (and less in more recent years), private sector health insurance is no more sustainable in the long run. Benefits no longer financed by Medicare or Medicaid would be financed by out-of-pocket spending or private sector health insurance premiums. Alternatively, people would “pay” by foregoing medical care. There is a heavy burden of health care policy reform that a balanced budget amendment cannot solve and could make more difficult.
If deficits are tolerable, would we still profit from eliminating them altogether? The principal argument made by some economists is that Federal borrowing precludes private sector investment and reduces economic growth. The explanation is that when the Federal government increases its demand for credit, the market rates of interest increase, making business borrowing more expensive.
In and of itself the argument makes sense, but it opens to question the magnitude of the impact on investment, the net effect on the performance of the U.S. economy. Business investment is not motivated solely by the cost of borrowing. It also depends on expected sales. Even though the recession officially ended in 2001 and was followed by persistently low interest rates, private investment did not recover until the third quarter of 2003.
The Federal deficit outlook has undergone a stark turnaround since January of 2001, when ten-year budget surpluses totaling $5.6 trillion were projected. One might have expected a violent rise in interest rates as a result, since projections are now for trillions in deficits. Thus far, interest rates have remained low.
What might limit the impact of deficits on interest rates? Because capital markets have become increasingly global, the pool of potential lenders to the U.S. Government and private citizens has grown. A significant portion of the budget deficit is financed by foreign lenders.
Empirical research on the deficit-interest rate link is mixed. Two leading proponents of the link, Bill Gale and Peter Orszag (2004), caution that an effect of current deficits on observed interest rates is unlikely. Their concern centers on expected future deficits. A question is the extent to which current business decisions are affected by changes in long-term deficit trends. It is certain that explosive growth in debt would be a concern. If the growth in debt were sustainable, however, the import of smaller changes is a different matter.
What is not in question is that deficit reduction implies some sacrifice in public benefits and services, including public investment, itself an essential component of economic growth. As noted above, under current trends and with extension of the tax cuts, the deficit in 2010 would be $491 billion. 2010 is when budget balance is required under the proposed amendment. The Congressional Budget Office (2004) projects baseline non-defense discretionary spending in 2010 at $497 billion (after excluding outlays for homeland security). So if the politically daunting baseline levels of entitlement spending, defense, and homeland security are held harmless, balancing the budget in 2010 implies the elimination of nearly all non-defense discretionary spending. From this standpoint, a balanced budget requirement implies a completely dysfunctional, not to say whimsical budget policy. Surely the costs of achieving a balanced budget in 2010 would exceed the benefits of such a policy.
Short-Run Anti-Recession Fiscal Policy
It is generally accepted that deficits are tolerable in times of recession and sluggish recoveries. There is a strong consensus among economists that efforts by President Herbert Hoover to balance the budget from 1929 to 1932 contributed to the depth of the Great Depression. Even though the recent recession of 2001 was relatively mild, the recovery has been weak. Employment continued to fall until August of 2003. Balanced budgets in 2002 or 2003 could have choked the turnaround in the economy, such as it was. Even now, an unemployment rate that has risen by 1-1/2 points in four years masks a significant loss of job opportunities for millions of uncounted workers who have left the labor force.
In the latter half of the 1990s, unemployment fell to much lower levels than presently – under four percent, the Federal government retired $559 billion in debt, and spending grew more slowly than it has since 2000. Well-designed budget rules and responsible legislation, not a balanced budget amendment, made that result possible.
What has changed since 2000, as far as economic policy-making is concerned? Only the leadership of the Executive branch of government and the irresponsible choices of the Congressional majority. Evidently, the authors of the balanced budget amendment are the villains in their own tale.
Sincerely yours,
Max B. Sawicky, Ph.D.
Economic Policy Institute
References
Congressional Budget Office, Long Budgetary Pressures and Policy Options, March 1997.
Congressional Budget Office, The Long-Term Budget Outlook, December 2003.
Congressional Budget Office, The Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update, September 2004.
Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust, Employer Health Benefits: 2004 Annual Survey.
Gale, William G. and Peter R. Orszag, “The Economic Effects of Long-Term Fiscal Discipline,” The Brookings Institution, 2002.
U.S. General Accounting Office, Federal Debt: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions, November 1996.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Max Sawicky is a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
[ POSTED TO VIEWPOINTS ON SEPTEMBER 22, 2004 ]
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