Digital_Weekly_Multimedia_Edition_March_29_2013

1. 1 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe NEXT PAGE »PRINT eklyWeMarch 29, 2013 Volume 5 • Number 13 SAUL LOEB—AFP / GETTY IMAGES This Week in Washington WASHINGTON WHISPERS 2 An English-only agenda; Napolitano’s email time suck; Newt’s plea for cash; Obama’s monumental authority NATIONAL MARRIAGE COUNSELING 4 The Supreme Court will decide two cases about same-sex unions NO LONGER A DIRTY WORD 6 Recent tax hikes have had less impact than economists expected BRIDGING THE SKILLS GAP 7 U.S. workers are overeducated for many jobs, but lack specific, in-demand skills PRESSURE FROM BELOW 8 Obama calls for a grass-roots push on gun control laws SPECIAL REPORT | EMERGING FROM THE SHADOWS 11 Enforcement of immigration laws could be making human trafficking tougher to detect Commentary and Features THE PRESIDENCY | KENNETH T. WALSH 9 A party faces up to trouble QUIZ The bunny hops to the White House 10 COMMENTARY | DENNIS BLAIR 15 A sound energy policy CAPITAL NOTIONS | ROBERT SCHLESINGER 16 States of nuttiness WASHINGTON BOOK CLUB 17 Andrew Smith’s “Sand in the Gears: How Public Policy Has Crippled American Manufacturing” BLOG BUZZ 19 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 20 MORTIMER B. ZUCKERMAN | EDITORIAL 23 The growing risk of an America in decline THE BIG PICTURE 26 A same-sex marriage supporter in front of the Supreme Court STATE OF THE UNIONS STAYING ON THE MARKET 21 Discover seven reasons your house isn’t selling News You Can Use

2. 2 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT WashingtonWhispers ByElizabeth Flock L egislation making English the official language of the United States has failed repeatedly in the past. But two Republican lawmakers, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Rep. Steve King of Iowa, reintroduced the English Language Unity Act earlier this month. And while GovTrack.us, which tracks legislation, gives the bills between 1 and 6 percent chance of passing committee or being enacted, one group says current talk of immigration reform in Washington means the effort has more of a chance now than ever before. ProEnglish, a Virginia-based advocacy group, has been opposing bilingual education, arguing for employers to have the right to instate English on-the-job rules, and pushing for immigrants to be required to learn English before naturalizing as citizens since 1994. In the past year, they’ve ramped up their campaign by reaching out through robocalls, mail, social media and lobbying on the Hill, according to Phil Kent, spokesman for the group. They’ve had some local success – three Maryland counties have recently made English the official language of the county government – and are optimistic about the prospects of including their agenda in immigration legislation. “Members of Congress may try to put on an amendment that would say that any legalized portion would have to have stringent English requirements and testing as part of any legalization process,” says Kent. An English-Only Agenda JACK OHMAN – TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES A Gallup poll recently asked U.S. adults in each state and Washington, D.C., if they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). D.C. reported the highest percentage of LGBT residents. 1. District of Columbia. 10.0% 2. Hawaii. 5.1% 3. Vermont. 4.9% 3. Oregon. 4.9% 5. Maine. 4.8% 6. Rhode Island. 4.5% 7. Massachusetts. 4.4% 7. South Dakota. 4.4% 9. Nevada. 4.2% 10. California. 4.0% The List: States With the Most LGBT Residents Keep up with the latest Washington buzz at www.usnews. com/whispers

3. 3 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT WASHINGTON WHISPERS But some groups are suspicious of ProEnglish’s intentions. The left-leaning Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, for one, has drawn attention to the group’s executive director, Robert Vandervoort’s past ties to the Chicago branch of the white nationalist group American Renaissance. Vandervoort says he attended some meetings in Chicago with “a variety of conservative groups” years ago and “didn’t keep track of all the meetings and who attended.” A post on the ProEnglish website is entitled “Supporting English Does Not Mean Racist,” and Vandervoort insists their goal is to unite, not divide. “The message [we want to] send is: we have 300 different languages spoken in this country,” he says. “It’s how you bring different people together, in one common language.” Fighting the Email Time Suck Janet Napolitano is no fan of electronic communication, she told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Sci- ence Monitor this week. The Home- land Security chief said she doesn’t use email, text messages, or Twitter. “I stopped using email when I was the at- torney general of Arizona because I was just getting, I was starting to get hundreds and hundreds of things all the time, and I was like: ‘Why I am spending the time scrolling through this and responding to stuff that doesn’t really need to be responded to?’” Napolitano said. “I think email just sucks up time.” Newt’s Plea for Cash Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is launching a new political action committee to pay off his presidential primary campaign debt, which totals nearly $5 million, according to Citizens for Re- sponsibility and Ethics in Washington. The Committee for America will “advance conservative candidates and conservatism,” but also “[retire] outstanding financial obligations of Newt 2012,” a press release said. CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said the PAC appeared to her to be “Newt’s effort to creatively come up with a new way to persuade people to give him money.” The FBI’s Exploitation Training A Federal Bureau of Investigation memo from 1947, published Monday by MuckRock, a government trans- parency news organization that frequently files Freedom of Information Act requests, reveals that FBI agents were once trained to exploit the supposed weaknesses of various minority groups. Catholics were easier to extract confessions from after they confess to a priest, the document says, noting that contacting suspects when they leave a confessional booth “has expedited obtaining of confessions.” Also, according to the FBI, African-Americans could be duped into providing information by phony insurance sales calls, “particularly from salesmen representing burial companies,” noted the memo. Obama’s Monumental Authority President Obama has bypassed Congress and designated land in five states as new national monuments. The new monuments include the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Ohio; the First State National Monument in Delaware; the Harriet Tubman Under- ground Railroad National Monument in Maryland; the Rio Grande del Norte Na- tional Monument in New Mexico; and the San Juan Islands National Monu- ment in Washington state. Obama advisers say he is making the moves because Congress has failed to act on the president’s recommendations. He derives this power from the Antiquities Act, which for more than a century has allowed presidents to unilaterally protect natural and historic sites. But Utah Republican Rep. Rob Bishop, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, blasts Obama for going too far. “The use of the Antiquities Act cuts out public participation,” Bishop says. “There is a right way to designate federal lands, and there is a wrong way. Executive fiat is unquestionably the wrong way and is an abuse of executive privilege.” l With Kenneth T. Walsh MOUTHING OFF Has President Obama overused his prerogative to exercise executive power? Everyone has an opinion. Send yours to editor@usnews.com.

4. 4 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT ThisWeekInWashington S tates have radically different laws on how to treat same-sex couples. Several Supreme Court justices were visibly irritated with the executive branch for appealing to the high court on a case the administration had already won in a lower court. A pivotal justice wondered aloud whether the Supreme Court should even be considering a state marriage law. The Obama administration continues to enforce a law it says is unconstitutional. Conservative Republicans are annoyed at a Republican National Committee study that predicts a grim political future for the party if the GOP continues its stance against gay marriage. That there’s a need for some sort of marriage counseling among governmental and political players was clear during the Supreme Court arguments on two cases challenging gay marriage laws. But the public acceptance of officially-recognized same-sex unions is moving at warp speed, and experts say the high court appears ready to go along – at least in part. The two cases before the Supreme Court could change the legal landscape for same-sex couples in America. One involves a struck-down California ballot referendum, called Proposition 8, banning gay marriage. The high court could invoke the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and issue a sweeping ruling declaring a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry, but court observers don’t think that is the likely outcome. More likely, specialists believe, the court will punt, leaving in place one of the lower-court invalidations of Proposition 8. That would not force any other state to OK gay marriage, but it would still be an enormous victory for those who endorse same-sex unions. The second case questions the constitutionality of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which de- nies federal benefits to same-sex spouses. While the intentions of the justices can never be certain during questioning, experts see a 5-4 majority for striking down the law. That would also be a huge win for gay marriage advocates, although it would not force any state » No Longer a Dirty Word » Bridging the Skills Gap » Pressure From Below on Guns » A Party Faces Up to Trouble National Marriage Counseling The Supreme Court will decide two cases about same sex unions By Susan Milligan Demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. Supreme Court as it considered two same-sex marriage cases this week. MARK WILSON—GETTY IMAGES

5. 5 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT to change its laws on marriage. And that is the underlying argument before the court, and one that promises to play out in several arenas: what role does the federal government have in controlling what states do? States have been going their own way on a slew of controversial issues, rang- ing from abortion to marijuana laws and from immigration to gun control. Indi- vidual states have asserted their rights to run themselves as they see fit, but in cases where a national interest is at stake, where is the line? “We may see a little bit of a shift in where the energy is in American government, with states asking ‘why is the federal government so dominant now?’” says Ernest Young, a professor at Duke University School of Law and an expert on federalism issues. States “were perceived to be unequal to the task in the ’30s and the ’60s,’’ Young says, and the federal government stepped in to deal with matters such as the Great Depres- sion, civil rights and pollution control. James Madison noted that “power fills a vacuum,’’ Young observes, and the divided and endlessly feuding branches of the federal government are “not covering themselves in glory these days,’’ spurring states to strike out on their own. No matter what the high court de- cides, advocates and lawmakers say, the environment for gays and lesbians has changed dramatically in recent years and even in recent weeks. U.S. senators previously cool to the idea of gay marriage have been flipping like dominoes, endors- ing the idea publicly. Public opinion polls show a majority of Americans – including an overwhelming majority of young people in both political parties – back gay marriage. Even lawyers David Boies and Ted Olson, famously in opposition during the 2000 presidential recount case before the Supreme Court, stood in front of the court, arms around each other’s shoul- ders, in support of gay marriage. “It feels like there was this huge shift over the past year in particular. It feels like something really transformative has happened in the country,’’ says Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Demo- crat who is one of six openly gay House members. Cicilline attributes the shift to the fact that more people – neighbors, relatives, friends and colleagues – are coming out as gay. “When it becomes about real people, and the impact dis- crimination is having on real people, it’s easier to change the hearts and minds,’’ he adds. The Supreme Court, too, is not im- mune from the lower court of public opinion, legal experts say. Sometimes, the court is a bit ahead of the rest of the nation – as it was with civil rights in the 1960s. In the gay marriage cases, the justices in their questioning indi- cated a concern about the fundamental fairness of marriage inequality, but also a hesitancy to move swiftly on a trend when the impact is unknown. “[Do] you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cell phones or the Internet? I mean we, we are not, we do not have the ability to see the future,’’ Justice Samuel Alito said during oral arguments. Justice An- thony Kennedy, seen as the swing vote on the issue, also wondered about ven- turing into “uncharted waters.’’ Still, “they live in the same milieu as the rest of us, and they feel the same types of pressures. They have the exact same experiences as the rest of us,’’ says Cor- nell Clayton, a political science professor and director of the Thomas S. Foley In- stitute for Public Policy & Public Service at Washington State University. Justices are supposed to rule on the law, Clayton and others note, but they do not do so in a vacuum. Electoral politics, too, are driving the dialogue. The Republicans made a wedge issue out of gay marriage a decade ago, and it worked to their advantage. But now that public opinion has moved speedily in the other direction – especially among those under 30 – the GOP is setting itself up to lose the culture war it provoked earlier. Young Republicans in particular tend to lean more libertarian than social- ly conservative, says Bruce Cain, a political science professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and don’t ap- prove of government denying people the right to marry. “I think they are digging themselves into a hole with respect to the generation of younger voters,’’ Cain says of the GOP. The Supreme Court, should it resolve the issue legally, could provide them with a ladder. l THIS WEEK IN WASHINGTON U.S. senators previously cool to the idea of gay marriage have been flipping like dominoes. What Do You Think?Will the Supreme Court’s decisions speed the trend toward marriage equality for same-sex couples? Email your thoughts to editor@usnews.com.

6. 6 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT in the payroll tax shrunk paychecks by an average of about $80 per month. Other tax increases, on wealthy earners, took more money out of the economy, with seemingly little effect. All told, tax hikes will reduce GDP by about $150 billion this year. That’s a small slice of a $16 trillion economy, yet economists expected that the political battles woulddepressconfidence,restrainspend- ing, and perhaps threaten another recession. That hasn’t happened. “There is no readilyapparenteffectonoverallconsum- erspendingfromthetaxincreasesthatoc- curred in January,” forecasting firm Mac- roeconomicAdvisersrecentlydeclared.As a result, the firm has raised its estimate of first-quarterGDPgrowthfrom2.3percent to 3.2 percent, a sizeable jump. There are several reasons Americans have become somewhat desensitized to tax hikes. The housing rebound is a big one. With homes now appreciating in value once again, household wealth is rising, and home owners simply feel better off. Low interest rates, engineered by the Federal Reserve, have sharply decreased the debt burden borne by typical families. The rising stock market helps, too, since it conveys the impression—accurate or not—that good times are on the way back. There may also be a swelling under- ground economy—people working for cash, even at a professional level—that’s putting more untaxed income into people’s pockets. As Washington’s budget problems have worsened, support for tax hikes has ticked upward, according to polls. Yet most people, not surprisingly, favor tax increases on somebody else while opposing higher taxes for themselves. So it would be a mistake to assume that voters are willing to absorb further tax hikes as the sole way to fix Washington’s finances. Strong majorities, however, support tax hikes when combined with cuts in government spending, such as those that just went into effect under the sequester. So if those cuts stick, it might strengthen President Barack Obama’s case for additional tax hikes, mostly on the wealthy, to help pay down the national debt. It’s worth pointing out that both Re- publicans and Democrats have miscon- strued voter attitudes toward different ways of solving Washington’s budget problems. Republicans characterized the January tax hikes as the end of free market democracy, yet consumers mostly yawned. Obama predicted widespread doom if the sequester went into effect, while Americans kept spending, and the stock market reached new highs. l P oliticians assume that raising taxes is one of the surest ways to get voted out of office. But this bit of conventional wisdom is turning out to be wrong because tax hikes this year have been far less dis- ruptive than anybody imagined. In a new survey by Bankrate.com, 48 percent of Amer- icans say they haven’t even noticed the increase in payroll taxes that went into effect at the start of the year. Another 7 percent said they’ve noticed the tax hikes but haven’t been affected. That leaves about 30 percent of Americans who have cut back spending as tax hikes have reduced their take-home pay – a far lower percentage than many economists predicted. Those findings amplify other evidence that the tax hikes, which went into effect as part of the “fiscal cliff” deal in January, have had surprisingly little impact on the overall economy. Retail sales this year have been strong, for instance, even though the two-percentage-point hike No Longer a Dirty Word Recent tax hikes have had less impact than economists expected By Rick Newman Retail sales have been strong despite the payroll tax hike. MARIO TAMA—GETTY IMAGES THIS WEEK IN WASHINGTON

7. 7 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT THIS WEEK IN WASHINGTON “since there is more talent on the market, we are going to raise the standards.” A glut of college graduates makes it seem like employers have a surplus of really smart, well-rounded applicants to fill their empty positions. Only they don’t. A recentsurveyfromtheSocietyforHuman Resource Management shows that 66 percent of firms that are hiring are having trouble finding workers for specific positions. That’s a significant bump from 2011, when it was just 52 percent. The positions that employers are having trouble filling are the usual suspects from the STEM fields that are often cited in discussions of skills gaps. More than 80 percent of employers looking for scientists, engineers, high-skilled technical workers like programmers, and highly trained medical personnel reported having difficulty finding good candidates for those positions. The SHRM survey and plenty of other evidence suggest that workers with STEM skills, for example, will pur- sue – and be pursued by – employers who need their specialized skills. Know- ing HTML or how to operate compli- cated manufacturing equipment means a better job outlook, as those skills are in high demand. Workers with skills that are not sought after, meanwhile, might end up underemployed. And even as the unemployment rate improves, that may not translate into a parallel improvement for these people. Still, employers say they’ve gained significantly from putting college graduates into historically high-school-graduate- level positions. According to the Career- Builder survey, 64 percent reported a higher quality of work; 45 percent reported higher productivity; and 22 percent reported greater revenue. That means that even college-educat- ed workers who do not have in-demand skills, for example, still bring added value toemployers.Inshort,educationpaysoff. But it pays off to a greater degree depend- ing on what you learn – particularly if it’s in a math or science field. “The education system does do quite a bit in terms of pre- paring the types of professionals that we need,” says Alexander Alonso, SHRM’s director for thought leadership. “The big- ger issue in my mind is how do we get folks to take on those majors?” l A merican workers are overeducated and under- skilled. That’s the lesson from two new surveys that shed light on this contradiction at the center of the American job crisis. The first is a survey from the jobs site CareerBuilder, showing that nearly one-third of employers say they are hiring more employees with college degrees for positions that were in the past chiefly held by high school graduates. In some fields, that share is much higher: 38 percent of manufacturers, 40 percent of health care employers, and 53 percent of financial services firms report hiring college graduates for formerly high-school-level work. “We’re talking to these organizations, and what they’re saying is the company is raising their performance expec- tations for all their roles,” says Rosemary Haefner, global vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder. She adds that companies are essentially saying to themselves, Bridging the Skills Gap American workers are overeducated for many positions yet still lack specific, in-demand skills By Danielle Kurtzleben Workers with STEM skills are in high demand now. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI—AFP / GETTY IMAGES Workers with skills that are not in high demand, meanwhile, might end up underemployed.

8. 8 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT “Tears aren’t enough; expressions of sympathy aren’t enough; speeches aren’t enough. We’ve cried enough. We’ve known enough heartbreak,” he said. “What we are proposing is not radical. It’s not taking away anybody’s gun rights. It’s something that, if we are serious, we will do. Now’s the time to turn that heartbreak into something real.” Obamasaidherecentlyreadanewsar- ticle questioning whether or not the time had passed for gun control legislation, in part because of the seemingly successful effort by the National Rifle Association to rally its supporters against further gun restrictions. “There are some powerful voices on the other side that are interested in running out the clock or changing the subjectordrowningoutthemajorityofthe American people to prevent any of these reforms from happening at all,” the president said. “They are doing everything they can to make all our progress collapse out of fear and frustration.” Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the idea behind background checks is flawed. “Criminals aren’t going to be checked; they are not going to do this,” he said. He also en- couraged lawmakers to work to improve the mental health system and to beef up school security, both of which are included in developing legislation, as a means of reducing gun violence. Jon Vernick, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Re- search, says pushing for universal background checks should be a top legislative priority. “It’s just sort of a bedrock thing. If we want to make it harder [for guns to] get into the hands of high-risk, dangerous people, then we have to have a background check for every sale,” he says. “It’s absurd not to.” About 40 percent of gun sales are currently made without background checks, he says. Obama’s latest plea is in line with other emotional addresses he’s made on gun violence, including after an ap- pearance at a vigil in Connecticut com- memorating the Newtown massacre that left 26 children and adults dead, and in his State of the Union address when he called on lawmakers to at least vote on gun proposals. “I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten,” he said Thursday. Gun reform proponents are hoping a grass-roots push from the public can help move Congress towards legislation, even as the details of proposals remain unclear and the likelihood of a bipartisan package appears remote. l A s the Senate prepares to vote next month on a gun control package, President Obama on Thursday made an impassioned plea to the public to make their feelings about restrictions on high-capaci- ty ammunition clips and universal background checks known to members of Congress. “How often do 90 percent of Americans agree on anything? It never happens,” Obama said, citing polling data showing that many Americans support universal background checks. That provision has been a point of contention in Congress as Republicans express concern about the government creating a database of gun owners. Senate Democrats have put together a reform package that does not include a so-called assault weapons ban much to the chagrin of some liberals, but it still is unlikely to win passage in the Republican-controlled House. But despite the daunting prospects, Obama told lawmakers to not “get squishy.” Pressure From Below Obama calls for a grass-roots push on gun control laws By Rebekah Metzler President Obama seeks grass-roots support for gun control. MANDEL NGAN—AFP / GETTY IMAGES THIS WEEK IN WASHINGTON

9. 9 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT PLAY The Presidency A Party Faces Up to Trouble ByKennethT.Walsh ing American Electorate – persons of color, unmarried women and young voters 18 to 29 years old. The survey also found that nearly 6 in 10 voters give the economy a negative rating and “pocketbook-level in- dicators” have not improved in recent weeks. More than half of the Rising American Electorate has been forced to cut back spending at the grocery store, and nearly 40 percent of them have “had to move in with family or had someone move in to save money.” Nearly 60 percent of unmarried women “do not feel the national political debate is raising issues important to them, which include social insurance benefits, child care and economic support,” the firm added. Democratic The Republican Party remains in dire straits. Consider the analysis of Andrew Kohut, the founding director and former president of the Pew Research Center. Recently, in the Washington Post, Kohut wrote that he can recall only “one moment when a party had been driven as far from the center as the Republican Party has been today.” That was the Democrats in the late 1960s and early 1970s when liberals succeeded in “radicalizing” the party’s image, he noted. The overzealous left turned much of the public against the Democrats as the party of “acid, abortion and amnesty” for Vietnam draft dodgers. Yet, today, he continued, “The GOP has come to be seen as the more extreme party, the side unwilling to compromise or nego- tiate seriously to tackle the economic turmoil that chal- lenges the nation.” The ongoing debate over same-sex marriage, rein- forced by the current Supreme Court case on the issue, is an example of the GOP’s plight. Same-sex marriage used to be a wedge issue that divided the country. And Re- publican opposition to gay marriage worked to the GOP’s advantage politically. No more. Most Americans now support the idea, leaving the Republicans out of sync. A new poll underscores the GOP’s problem. Two- thirds of voters disapprove of the Republicans in Con- gress and nearly half give negative ratings to the Repub- lican Party overall. The survey, conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a Democratic research firm, found a “deep disconnect” with the GOP that’s particularly strong within the Ris- RNC Chair Priebus acknowledges that the GOP has problems. WIN MCNAMEE—GETTY IMAGES

10. 10 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT pollster Stan Greenberg, CEO of Green- berg Quinlan Rosner, says the economy is still tough for unmarried women, and many of these women have “pulled back” from their previous political en- gagement and their commitment to the Democrats because they don’t see their issues being addressed in Washington. Unmarried women’s support for Democrats has dropped from a 32-point advantage last November to 23 points today. But their dislike for the Republi- cans is even more intense, says Green- berg, the former pollster for President Bill Clinton. The poll was conducted for the Women’s Voices Women Vote Ac- tion Fund and Democracy Corps. The positive side for the GOP is that many party leaders recognize the problem. Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, released a party “autopsy” earlier this month acknowledging that the GOP has deep problems. But, as Kohut points out, one problem that Priebus didn’t dis- cuss was “the emergence of a staunch conservative bloc that has undermined the GOP’s national image.” “The party’s base is increasingly dominated by a highly energized bloc of voters with extremely conservative positions on nearly all issues: the size and role of government, foreign policy, social issues and moral concerns,” Kohut noted in his Washington Post piece. “They stand with the tea party on taxes and spending and with Christian conservatives on key social questions, such as abortion rights and same-sex marriage.” These staunch conservatives now represent 45 percent of the GOP base, Kohut estimated. And they have a huge, sometimes controlling, influence on the Republican nomination process for president and other offices. It’s a rough road for the GOP. But they can take solace in the fact that the Democrats managed to make a strong comeback. They pulled themselves together, moved to the center, and won the presidential elections in 1992 and 1996 with Bill Clinton, and the presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 with Barack Obama. American politics tend to swing like a pendulum, and at some point GOP fortunes are likely to improve if they spruce up their image and broaden their appeal. l THE PRESIDENCY The Bunny Hops to the White House QUIZ OF THE WEEK 1. How long has the White House Easter Egg Roll been a tradition? A. 55 years B. 95 years C. 115 years D. 135 years 2. Who was the first president to allow egg rollers inside the White House? A. Benjamin Harrison B. William Howard Taft C. Grover Cleveland D. Calvin Coolidge 3. Which president allowed the egg roll to be held on the South Lawn of the White House after Congress forbade it on the grounds of the Capitol? A. Rutherford B. Hayes B. Franklin D. Roosevelt C. Lyndon B. Johnson D. Ulysses S. Grant 4. First Lady Lou Hoover unsuccessfully tried to replace the egg roll with which activity? A. Folk Dancing B. Races C. Croquet D. Tug-of-war 5. Approximately how many people are expected to attend this year’s White House Easter Egg Roll? A. 5,000 B. 35,000 C. 75,000 D. 100,000 6. True or false: YouTube sensation “Kid President” Robbie Novak will preside at the egg roll. True False 7. Which presidential family started the tradition of giving egg roll participants a commemorative wooden egg? A. Ford B. Carter C. Reagan D. Clinton 8. Which first lady introduced the White House Easter Bunny, usually a White House staffer in a suit, to the eggrolling festivities? A. Jackie Kennedy B. Nancy Reagan C. Pat Nixon D. Mamie Eisenhower By Brooke Berger These staunch conservatives now represent 45 percent of the GOP base, Kohut estimated. ANSWERS ON PAGE 18 »

11. 11 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT SPECIAL REPORT Emerging From the Shadows Enforcement of immigration laws could be making human trafficking tougher to detect By Kira Zalan I ma Matul sat under the bright exami- nation light in a Los Angeles hospital, whileanemergencyroomdoctorstared suspiciouslyatthewoundonherhead. Shewonderedifthedoctorcouldreallysee her brain, like her employer said he could when he first saw the wound. “Tell them that you fell in the backyard and bumped yourheadonarock,”sherecallsbeingtold as a condition of being taken to the hospital to get stitches. Now, the doctor was sayingsomethingshedidn’tunderstandin English, and her employer was answering forher.Ima,anIndonesiannational,knew the employer probably wasn’t telling the truth, that it was his wife who had split COALITION TO ABOLISH SLAVERY AND TRAFFICKING Ima Matul (center) at a march against human trafficking

12. 12 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT SPECIAL REPORT Ima’s head open that morning during another rage-filled tirade about her cleaning skills.Bythen,Imahadenduredtwoyears of emotional and physical abuse, while working in the family’s home without pay. Soon after that incident, Ima wrote a plea in her limited English on a piece of paper: “Please help me. I cannot take it anymore.” She kept it hidden for months before overcoming her fear and handing thenotetoanannywhoworkednextdoor. The nanny told her employer, who then contacted the Coalition to Abolish Slav- ery & Trafficking, which would arrange Ima’s desperate escape a few days later. While the family slept, Ima snuck out of thehouseandrantoagetawaycarwaiting down the street, carrying a small bag of clothes she had brought from Indonesia. An estimated 21 million people are subjected to forced labor worldwide, according to the International Labor Or- ganization. In the United States, Ameri- can citizens and foreign nationals are trafficked – subjected to forced labor, debt bondage and involuntary servitude through the use of force, fraud or coer- cion – in brothels and factories, in hotels and restaurants, on farms and in homes. In a speech where he acknowledged how widespread the problem is, President Obama called human trafficking “modern slavery” and announced additional anti-trafficking efforts in September. But despite increased efforts by the administration, service providers worry that stronger enforcement of immigration laws is keeping foreign victims silent. Foreign nationals that become trafficking victims in the United States, like Ima, have a commonly exploited vulnerability: their immigration status. Victims’ advocacy groups say increased immigration enforcement has had a chilling effect on anti-trafficking efforts by fostering a climate of fear among the most vulnerable immigrant populations. Common story. Whilethereareasmany differentnarrativesastherearetrafficking cases, Ima’s tale is a familiar one, experts say. She was 16 years old and living in her nativeIndonesiawhensheheardaboutthe jobopportunity – workingas anannyfora family in Los Angeles. The $150 monthly salary she was promised would be enough to support her parents and two younger siblings back home. Millions of Indone- sians leave home to work abroad, mostly inAsiaandtheMiddleEast,sendinghome remittances. Ima’s recruiter arranged her passport, visa and transportation to Los Angeles. Ima didn’t know that the tourist visashetraveledonmeantthatworkingin the United States was illegal. The first week in America, Ima and her cousin, who also came in search of work, stayed in a transition house, learning which American brand cleaning products touseonwhichsurfaces.Thenthewoman who would be Ima’s employer, an interior designermarriedtoabusinessman,picked her up. Soon after Ima began her job as a nanny, the conditions changed. She was made to work 18-hour days, seven days a week, without pay. When Ima was caught trying to send a letter to her cousin, who wasplacedtoworkinanotherLosAngeles home, the employer began to physically abuse her and said she’d be arrested or worse if she tried to leave. Ima didn’t know her visa status or American laws. She had no one to turn to and didn’t speak English. She believed the threats. Thethreatofarrestanddeportationisa commontooltraffickersusetocontroltheir victims, experts say. Often, they’ll confis- cate the victim’s immigration documents, as Ima’s employer did. In another case, last November, the Justice Department secured a life sentence in the conviction of Alex Campbell, a 45-year-old massage parlor owner in suburban Illinois. Besides usingviolencetocoercethreewomenfrom UkraineandonewomanfromBelarusinto forced labor and commercial sex, he had confiscated their passports and visas. At the trial, prosecutors showed that Camp- bell targeted foreign women without legal status in the United States. Ima’s traffickers were never prosecuted. But even those immigrants who arrive on a legitimate work-related visa have become trafficking victims. These visas usually bind the worker to an employer, who can hold that requirement over their head and even become their trafficker. “If employment ends, then so does visa status,” says Avaloy Lanning, senior director of the anti-trafficking program at Safe Horizon, a New York-based victim’s services agency. “The trafficker uses that against them, [saying], if you run then you’re going to be illegal, then immigra- Foreign trafficking victims in the United States, like Ima, have a commonly exploited vulnerability: their immigration status.

13. 13 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT SPECIAL REPORT tion is going to pick you up, arrest you and deport you.” Because of the vulnerability for exploitation and abuse this creates, victims’ advocates are now pushing for comprehensive reform of the temporary worker program to be included in the anticipated immigration legislation. Immigration connection. While there are no reliable numbers to gauge the full scope of human trafficking in the United States, Immigration and Customs En- forcement’s Homeland Security Investi- gations directorate in fiscal 2012 initiated 894 human trafficking investigations, made 967 arrests and 559 indictments, and secured 381 convictions. The Fed- eral Bureau of Investigation had about 450 pending human trafficking investigations at the end of last year. The National Human Trafficking Resource Center, a hotline funded in part by the federal government and operated by the nonprofit Polaris Project, received 20,639 calls last year, referencing 2,333 potential victims—1,367 of them placed by potentially trafficked persons. Forty-one percent of calls received in past years referenced foreign nationals, 43 percent referenced U.S. citizens, and the rest were unknown. In 2004, the last time such an estimate was made, the federal government estimated that between 14,500 and 17,500 people were trafficked into the United States. According to the State Department, most foreign victims identified in 2011 came from Mexico, the Philippines, Thailand, Guatemala, Honduras and India. In 2000, Congress passed landmark legislation called the Trafficking Victims ProtectionAct,which,amongotherthings, authorized the government to provide temporary immigration relief for foreign victims. In recent years, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies have launched global, national and local outreach campaigns to inform vulnerable communities about their rights. More federal, state and local law enforcement officials are being trained in recognizing signs of trafficking and taking on a victim- centered approach. “No matter where a person’s from or what their immigration status is, they should come forward to law enforcement,” says Angie Salazar, who is inchargeofICE’sSmugglingandTraffick- ing division. “We will always investigate a case; and, if they are identified as a victim of human trafficking, they have rights under the law regardless.” Still,lawenforcementofficialssaymost trafficking victims are identified through nonprofit and local service providers. In- creased enforcement, including the deportation of more than almost 1.6 million people since 2009, has made it less likely that victims will come forward, service providers say. “There is a heightened resistance among exploited immigrants to seek protection from law enforcement, to access social services and health care, or to seek assistance related to exploitation or viola- tions of legal rights,” states a policy paper published by Freedom Network USA, a national alliance of 30 anti-trafficking organizations. “Any effort to reach out for help brings a risk of disclosure of their lack of status and related immigration enforcement measures. The resulting de- tention, even if minimal, reinforces the exploitative employer’s threats of law enforcement and the immigration system.” “If our government’s perceived [to have] these increased enforcement schemes, the traffickers will essentially have a point,” says Ivy Suriyopas, policy co-chair at Freedom Network and head of the anti-trafficking initiative at the Asian American Legal Defense and Edu- cation Fund. “Immigrant victims are not going to come forward if they fear that the NYPD or the LAPD are not going to come help them but might label them a criminal first and ask questions later. Or maybe never ask questions at all.” TiffanyWilliams,advocacydirectorfor the Institute for Policy Studies’ Break the Chain Campaign, a D.C.-based migrant workers’ rights organization that’s also part of Freedom Network, says she and other social workers are seeing “more fear and reluctance” about coming forward, particularly in states with aggressive immigration enforcement laws, like Arizona and Georgia, and since the expansion of the Secure Communities initiative, a federal fingerprinting program to identify undocumented immigrants. “What we’ve seen on the ground is that the more ag- gressivetheyarewiththese[enforcement] programs, where they’re allowing local police to arrest people for being undocumented,themorethattheSecureCommu- nities programs and others are growing, Law enforcement officials say most trafficking victims are identified through nonprofit and local service providers.

14. 14 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT SPECIAL REPORT thelesslikelyitisthatanimmigrantsurvi- vor would be willing to come forward and ask for help,” Williams says, referring to victims of trafficking and other crimes. “It impedes our work significantly,” she adds. More immigrants have been deported since 2009 than during eight years of the Bush administration. In 2012, the Obama administration spent 24 percent more on immigration enforcement agencies than on all other federal law enforcement agencies combined, according to the Mi- gration Policy Institute. The Secure Com- munities program, which began in 2008 by offering states and localities voluntary participation, has become mandatory. At the end of last year, ICE had 39 agree- ments with local law enforcement agencies in 19 states, delegating federal im- migrationenforcementauthoritytothem. A chilling effect. The consequences are detrimental to both immigrant communities and law enforcement, victim advocates say. “I know it’s true from talking to people from immigrant communities and fromtalkingtolawenforcement[officers] who aren’t really supportive of acting in this way. Because if we’re talking about the NYPD or the Dallas Police Depart- ment or whoever that has to go into immigrant communities to investigate crime, they can say, ‘I’m not immigration, I’m not here to deport you ... I’m here to hear about what’s happened to you, to make it better; there’s justice for you.’ And if they had to act as an arm of immigration, they couldn’tsaythatanymore,andtheywould lose the trust of those immigrant communities,” says Lanning. Alongside the growing mandate to enforce immigration regulations, law enforcement agencies are increasingly trained to deal with trafficking cases. “We have to ensure that if someone is here ille- gally that we uphold the law and do whatever it takes to ensure that we are fair to that person,” says Salazar, the DHS official.“Dependingonwhywe’veintercepted them, different courses of action can happen. But when it comes to human trafficking investigations, and any of the investigations we do when there’s a human being at the center of our investigation, they are of the utmost priority, regardless of their immigrationstatus.”Salazardoesn’tthink the agency’s dual mandates are at odds, but admits there is a challenge. Getting victims to come forward, she says, “is a challenge for law enforcement in general. Probably a little more [for us] because we are an immigration law enforcement agency. But a lot of these victims come from these countries where corrupt law enforcement is common,” she says, referring to many immigrants’ inherent lack of trust of law enforcement. Traffickers range from opportunistic individuals to criminal organizations to employment recruiting companies, experts say. Victims don’t fit a single profile, varying in gender, age, education level, origin and other factors. The control exercised over a victim by a trafficker is sometimes physical and always psychological. “Many times the trafficker is keeping them in a state of limbo and hope, that this will somehow get better if they just comply with a set of demands or requirements or obligations,” says Gary Haugen, a former Justice Department official and founder of International Justice Mission, a U.S.-based nonprofit that rescues victims of trafficking and violence overseas. “And so the victim is frequently trying to calculate, ‘Okay, am I going to get out of this situation by maybe just doing the next thing that’s asked of me – pay a little more money, do this thing I tell you, don’t make me mad – or do I really try to go against my trafficker and seek outside help?” Service providers are rooting for immigration reforms that might make the choice of seeking help more viable. Re- moving the trafficker’s ability to hold a victim’s immigration status over their head would arm them with the ability to complain about working conditions, to change employers, or come to a social service agency without fear of being arrested, Williams says. Ima now works as a survivor organizer for CAST, the Los Angeles organization that rescued her. She has met President Obama and testified before Congress on human trafficking. l Call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center to report a tip or request information or assistance: 1-888-373-7888. Traffickers range from opportunistic individuals to criminal organizations to employment recruiting companies, experts say.

15. 15 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT If Americans had confidence in the security of the energy extraction and transportation operations, then it would ease some of their environmental concerns. gas prices – they are set by the world market – nor the global environment since 80 percent of the greenhouse gases from a barrel of oil come out of the vehicles burning the gas it produces, not the extraction process. Thus, this seemstobeadecisionthatcanbemadeonabusinessbasis. Unfortunately, the debates over both natural gas and Keystonehavefailedtodiscusssafetyadequately.IfAmeri- canshadconfidenceinthesecurityoftheenergyextraction and transportation operations, then it would ease some of their environmental concerns. The history of fracking and deepwater wells has given them little cause for confidence. Dangerous materials and activities can be managed safely. The armed forces have been doing so for generations.Thekeysare:mandatoryuseofthesafestequipment and procedures continually improved by research; certi- fied training for operators who must follow strict procedures that emphasize safety above all; and, independent and competent inspection teams that continually check on operations and have the authority to halt them if conditions are unsafe. Regulatory bodies, whether governmental or independent, must enforce these standards and be funded to do so. No industry can regulate itself. This safety-minded approach should be applied to both the Keystone and the natural gas export decisions. If the pipeline is approved, very high standards should be set for both its construction and operation. A tax on exported natural gas can be used to fund both competent regulatory agencies and research on safer and cleaner technologies for natural gas. We will always pay later the recovery costs fromanenergydisaster.Weshouldpaynowthemoremod- est upfront costs required to prevent such a calamity. l It is time for American policymakers to think comprehensively about energy and environmentalsecurity.TheUnitedStates isonapathtoproducingasmuchtotalen- ergy as it consumes, thanks to increasing levels of efficiency throughout the energy economy and technological advances in domestic oil and naturalgasproduction.Meanwhile,globalenergydemand will increase by a third in the next 20 years, with 60 percent of that additional demand coming from China, India and the Middle East. Sound national energy policies bal- ance four parameters – security of supply, affordability, sustainability and safety. Abundant and inexpensive natural gas (costing as little as one-fifth the price in Asia) has increased U.S. global competitiveness, especially for the manufacturing sector. According to an American Chemistry Council study, this price advantage will spur an estimated $72 billion in new investment in eight primary gas-consuming indus- tries over the next couple of years. Moreover, exports of natural gas to Asia would bring economic benefits to the United States. To sustain their rapid growth and domestic demand, the Asian Tiger economies require fuel. Meeting Asia’s needs would generate billions of dollars in direct investment in the United States. This, in turn, would cre- atedomesticjobsinenergyextraction,processing,refinery infrastructure, trade and financial services. The Keystone pipeline has assumed a symbolic im- portance far beyond its reality. Approval would decrease American oil imports from volatile and hostile regions like the Middle East, a good thing. It will not affect American COMMENTARY A Sound Energy Policy The U.S. can stake out a safe path to self-sufficiency By Dennis Blair Dennis Blair is co-chair of the Pacific Energy Summit and the former director of national intelligence and a retired Navy admiral.

16. 16 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT T hisweek’sdiscussionaboutwhether the Supreme Court should legalize gay marriage was attended by the usual romanticizing of the special role of state legislatures as democracy’s laboratories.Thequestionoflegalizinggay marriageshould beresolved on astate-by- state basis (never mind equal protection underthelaw),theanti-marriage-equality casegoes,becausetheymorepurelyreflect voters’ will than that of unelected federal justices. Well, if states are the laboratories of democracy then a few state legislators qualify as the mad scientists of same. Which brings me to the calendar: Monday is April Fools’ Day and to mark its passing here is some of the more exotic workproducedbythesepoliticalmadmen – see if you can guess which of these bills arerealandwhicharejustjokesoftheday. The end is near. Texas state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione is truly this year’s goldstandardforproducingquixoticlegis- lation.Thefreshmanlawmakerissponsor- ing a bill, with Gov. Rick Perry’s support, which would move the Lone Star state’s gold holdings from the Federal Reserve in New York back to Texas and store it in a new Texas Bullion Depository. Perry told Glenn Beck this week that his state is as capable of protecting its “physical gold” as well as the Fed. Capriglione told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that he wants the gold back in Texas as a sign of financial security in the event of national financial calamity. “This cures a problem before it can happen,” he told the paper. That problem – an economic collapse of such scope as to leave the states to fi- nancially fend for themselves – exists more as an apocalyptic vision on the right than a real world imminent possibility, but that doesn’t stop legislators from trying to cure it. Back in 2011, Utah enacted a law making gold and silver legal tender. And last month, the Arizona state Senate passed a similar bill, which is now sitting in that state’s House. Indiana and Kansas are considering similar bills, while Vir- ginia, South Dakota and Wyoming have alreadykilledlegislationalongtheselines. Night of the living 10th-ers. Nullifica- tionisback,again.Citingthe10thAmend- ment, activists on the far right continue to push the notion that the U.S. government has overstepped its bounds and that states therefore have the right to unilaterally declare specific laws or actions unconstitutional. So far this year there have been nullification efforts in at least a half- dozen states. Mississippi’s House, for example, is considering a resolution calling for a joint committee to propose legislation “nullifying specific federal laws and regulations which are outside the scope of the powers delegated by the people to the federal government in the Constitution.” A bill in the West Virginia House would declare that the U.S. Environmen- tal Protection Agency may not regulate coal mined in West Virginia that doesn’t cross state lines (never mind that pollution pays no mind to such boundaries). The Alaska House passed a bill in Febru- ary that would exempt guns in the Last Frontier from federal gun control laws and make federal agents trying to enforce gun control laws liable for prosecution. Texas – no surprise – and Missouri are consideringsimilarlegislation,whileTen- nesseeandWyomingkilledtheirversions. Meanwhile Oklahoma’s House and Kan- sas’ House last month both passed bills that would exempt firearms and ammunition manufactured and kept within those states from federal gun control laws. Montana’s legislature passed a bill this State legislatures are dealing with gold bullion, nullification, and human- animal hybrids. Seriously. States of Nuttiness CAPITAL NOTIONS By Robert Schlesinger

17. 17 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT week that would prohibit state and local law enforcement officials from enforcing any new federal bans on semi-automatic weapons or oversized magazines. Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, vetoed the bill on Thursday on the grounds that it was “unnecessary political theatre” and wouldrequireMontanalawenforcement to violate federal law. What the proponents of all of these laws fail to understand is that the nullification debate is long settled: States can’t declare federal laws unconstitutional or inoperative today any more than in the 1830s, the 1860s or the 1960s. The legislation of Dr. Moreau. While overshadowed by the gay marriage debate, another front in the culture wars – abortion – has seen significant recent action. Two of the most restrictive anti- abortion laws in the country were enacted in March. First Arkansas’ Repub- lican-controlled legislature overrode Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe’s veto to enact a law which would ban abortions at 12 weeks if a heartbeat could be detect- ed. The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Jason Rapert, has compared abortion to the holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Not to be outdone, North Da- kota Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed a law a few weeks later which bans abortions if a fetal heartbeat is detectable at all, which can be as early as six weeks into the preg- nancy (Roe v. Wade protects abortions untilviability,whichisaround24weeks). Other states – including Ohio and Kan- sas – are considering similar bills. But for sheer weirdness, no anti- abortion bill can beat the one proffered by Mississippi state Rep. William “Tracy” Arnold. His bill – which died in committee–notonlywouldhavedeclaredfetuses tobepeople(withtheattendantcriminal- ization of abortion) but would also make it a crime to “create or attempt to create a human-animalhybrid.”Becausethat’sap- parently a problem down in Mississippi. I’m running out of space and I haven’t evengottentotheMontanabillthatwould letcriminalsreceivecorporalpunishment ratherthanjailtime;ortheTennesseebill which would give the legislature control ofmajorpartySenatenominations;orthe Missouri bill which would make it a fel- ony to introduce gun control legislation. Which of these bills is a joke? They’re all real – joke’s on the rest of us. l I n its glory days, the manufacturing sector made up about one-third of the American economy. Today, just 10 percent of American workers work in manufacturing. In “Sand in the Gears: How Public Policy Has Crippled American Manufacturing,” Andrew Smith, a manufacturing executive, argues that health care and worker’s compensation are responsible for the industry’s decline. Smith recently spoke with U.S. News about the manufacturing sector, how public policy has failed, and what he says should be done to keep America com- petitive. Excerpts: Who is to blame for the downfall of American manufacturing? So the conventional wisdom about what happened to U.S. manufacturing is that companies in the U.S. went offshore to chase cheaper labor, lower operating costs and forces of globalization, which are emerging mar- kets and supply chains developing in other parts of the world. These three factors contributed to the job loss, and that’s certainly true, but they don’t explain the entire story. The rest of the story is that we did this to ourselves. “Sand in the Gears” examines the tax system, the health care system, the legal system, the worker’s compensation programs, government regulations, and labor policy that together have created a hostile environment for manufacturers. How do health care policies affect manufacturers? Eighty percent of manufacturers offer health insurance to their employees, versus 50 percent for the rest of the economy. And 80 percent of those employees will take it up from their manufacturer employers, versus about 60 The Story of an Industry’s Downfall By Brooke Berger BOOKCLUBTheWashington CAPITAL NOTIONS What’s the craziest bill you’ve heard of? Send your thoughts to editor@usnews.com.

18. 18 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT percent for the service sector. [American health care is] almost three times more costly than the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Develop- ment] average. That creates a tremen- dous headwind for the cost structures of manufacturers. And under Obamacare it’s going to be worse. Spending is going to be worse; it’s going to get more expensive, not less costly, I predict. What does this mean for U.S. competitiveness globally? We’ve got the most expensive health care system in the world. We’ve allowed unions to exert destructive power over the workplace. We have excessive regulations at all levels of government, which are both costly and inefficient. Our tax system is dysfunctional and complex, and our disabilities systems are feather- bedded, and they really have been used for purposes that do not relate to taking care of people who are truly disabled. Now the rest of the world is looking at the United States as not that fierce a competitor. They’ve been very successful in taking market share from us, and it’s because we allow these policies to develop. Why is manufacturing important to the American economy? National security is a key factor. Manu- facturing has also been a driver of innovation and research and development, historically. Manufacturing has a very large multiplier effect. It has more linkages to other parts of the economy than any other sector that we can identify. Wherever you have strong manufacturers, you have prosperity. For many people, you can have a very good living without a college education by working in manufacturing. What is the “new social compact”? The new social compact is my [proposed] package of reforms. When I look across these policy areas, what joins them together is the fact that it’s all about taking care of people who are injured or sick. [The compact’s] central feature is to pro- mote individually-owned, all-risk insurance products for every citizen that would cover all injuries, all illnesses, even death from whatever cause, wherever it occurs. This insurance would be funded by the government by means of a fixed subsidy or fixed credit, which allows market forces to work. And as a result you wouldn’t need numerous existing programs. How would the social compact be funded? I propose eliminating the current income tax system and replacing it in its entire- ty with the value-added tax. Economists have studied this, and they estimate that we would have approximately $1 trillion a year more in economic output if we used a consumption tax like the VAT instead of the income tax system, which is what we have. Will American manufacturing ever get back to its glory days? Should it? In the glory days, [manufacturing] was about a third of our economy, both in out- putandinworkforce,andit’sunlikelythat we will return to that. In about 1980 we had21millionjobsinmanufacturing.And today, even with the substantial recovery since the bottom of the meltdown period, we’reonlyat12million.We’vereallygotan interlockingseriesofpoliciesthathavecre- ated huge headwinds for the manufacturing sector. And, if we care about manufacturing, and I think we should, then we’ve got to address all these areas at once. l Manufacturing has more linkages to other parts of the economy than any other sector that we can identify. 1. D. 135 years 2. C. Grover Cleveland 3. A. Rutherford B. Hayes 4. A. Folk dancing 5. B. 35,000 6. True. 7. C. Reagan 8. C. Pat Nixon Answers to Quiz « BACK TO PAGE 10 Is there a future for American manufacturing? Weigh in at editor@usnews.com. THE WASHINGTON BOOK CLUB LOG IN TO YOUR ACCOUNT www.usnews.com/usnewsweekly LETTERS TO THE EDITOR E-mail: editor@usnews.com SUBSCRIPTIONS www.usnews.com/subscribe SPECIAL EDITIONS Best Colleges and more www.usnews.com/store REPRINTS AND PERMISSIONS Custom reprints: usnews@wrightsreprints.com All other permissions: permissions@usnews.com ADVERTISING AND CORPORATE http://mediakit.usnews.com Copyright @ 2013 by U.S.News & World Report Inc. All rights reserved. U.S.News Weekly is currently published weekly by U.S.News & World Report Inc., 4 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004. Double issues, when published, count as two issues.

19. 19 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT Recent chatter from the Thomas Jefferson Street bloggers, who weigh in on current events at usnews.com While the Democrats may have celebrated passing their first budget in four years, Washington Sen. Patty Murray’s plan is the budget to nowhere. The $100 billion in stimulus money, $1 trillion in additional tax increases, and the absence of entitlement reform does absolutely nothing to address the growing budget deficits or to slow down federal government spending. Sens. Harry Reid and Patty Murray could not even garner the unanimous support of their own party, as four Senate Democrats from red states voted against her plan. Let’s face it: the reason the Democrats avoided a budget for four years is that when Americans see their spending priorities, it makes the politics tougher for their vulnerable incum- bents. We are all waiting for the release of President Obama’s budget, which will likely reflect much of the same: no real path to a balanced budget, more federal spending, more taxes and stimulus money. It’s all highly predictable, boring and unhelpful. The Supreme Court is considering two cases on gay marriage and each case has distinct constitutional issues. But people in power love to get things done by not doing anything. The court could get rid of this political hot po- tato by ruling on technical grounds that the supporters of Proposition 8 and DOMA don’t have the legal standing to be a party in the suits. Gay rights activists hope the court openly nullifies Prop 8 and DOMA on constitutional grounds. But if the court rules that defendants in both cases don’t have legal standing to defend the laws, supporters of gay marriage would benefit. In the Prop 8 case, the ruling of the 9th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals would stand, which nullified the California law. If the court refuses to decide the DOMA case, the anti-gay marriage federal law would stand, but the Obama administration would not enforce it. The justices may reason that if the parties of record don’t want to defend the laws, there’s no legal dispute and no case. With Sen. Tim Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat, officially headed for retirement, speculation regarding who will replace him as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee is well underway. And one option report- edly has Wall Street quaking in its boots: Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Since the financial crisis of 2008, Brown has been one of the foremost crit- ics of Wall Street’s mega-financial institutions. During the debate over the Dodd- Frank financial reform law, Brown tried unsuccessfully to secure passage of the SAFE Banking Act, which would have gone much further than anything that ulti- mately wound up in Dodd-Frank. And recently, Brown has joined with Republican Sen. David Vitter to once again call for breaking up big banks. President Obama’s disregard for the constitutional prerogatives of the U.S. Congress is becoming so obvious, so blatant, that even the major media can no longer ignore it. The latest example is the administration’s failure to deliver a budget for fiscal 2014 to Capitol Hill by the statutory deadline, the first Monday in February. Increasingly, as Anita Kumar wrote for McClatchy Newspapers, Obama is “turning to executive power to get what he wants.” Among the actions he’s taken unilaterally, Obama has delayed the deportation of young illegal immigrants when Congress wouldn’t agree; ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research gun violence, which Congress halted 15 years ago; and told the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, deciding that the 1996 law defining marriage as between a man and a woman was unconstitutional. BLOGBUZZ MERCEDES SCHLAPP Obama and Democrats Offer No Real Budget Path BRAD BANNON The Supreme Court May Decide Not to Decide PAT GAROFALO Watch Out Wall Street, Sherrod’s Coming PETER ROFF Executive-Orderer-in-Chief? More wit and insight from Thomas Jefferson Street are at www.usnews.com/opinion.

20. 20 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT The Cost of War By every measure, the Iraq War was a failure [Editor’s Note, March 22]. We went to war on false information, which I still find hard to believe. It was poorly executed. By disbanding the Iraqi army, we created an armed insurgency. There was an immediate power vacuum since there was no real opposition in Iraq and, of course, no exit strategy. Iran was the big winner; we eliminated their mor- tal enemy and allowed them to create problems in the Middle East. The cost of the war drained our treasury, and the loss of over 4,000 men and woman with over 30,000 wounded can never be mea- sured. In the end, Iraq is an economic and political basket case. What did Dick Cheney say? Our troops will be home in six months, and we will be “welcomed as liberators.” The Iraq War will go down as one of the worst mistakes in the history of the United States. Joseph Marra Seaside Park, N.J. The question is not whether it was worth the fight – that is still to be determined. The question is how the Bush administra- tioncouldhavemisjudgedsomanythings so badly (single-source intelligence, bud- gets off by a factor of 10, etc.) that it led us to invade a sovereign country thinking they would welcome us with rose petals. I asked somebody the day of the invasion, “What if we don’t find WMD?” I wonder if the neocon brain trust ever asked that question. If that administration had been realistic in their planning and been hon- est with the American public and told us we had to pay hundreds of billions not $600 million and required sacrifices of new taxes to pay for it, would we have been so nonchalant in going off to war? The best way to support the troops is to not be foolhardy when putting them in harm’s way. Jim Sandstrom San Diego The Proposition 8 Fight Strike down Prop 8 [“Should California’s Proposition 8 Be Struck Down?” March 22]. A couple of Peter Sprigg’s arguments obviously fall flat. First, the United States redefined marriage rather recently. Only a few generations ago, marriage was de- fined as a union between one man and one woman of the same race, not simply as one man and one woman, as he states. Second, since “the public purpose of mar- riageisprocreation,”thentheextensionof his argument also proposes that childless marriages, like mine, should not enjoy any of the federally mandated benefits. B.J. Reed Lexington, Ky. The United States Constitution says nothing about same-sex couples having the right to marry. When California voters legally pass a law stating that they don’t recognize same-sex marriage in their state, liberals can count on activ- ist judges to come to their rescue. Alan Wood Honolulu If banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, then surely banning polyga- my is just as unconstitutional. Or maybe even banning marriage to a minor, which is permissible in some cultures. If all cultures and beliefs and practices are equal in our attempt to be politically correct, where does it stop? Bev Wiley Coulterville, Ill. Have something to say about the stories in this week’s issue? Join the discussion. Send your thoughts to editor@usnews.com. LETTERS@USNEWS.COM LUCAS JACKSON—AFP / GETTY IMAGES

21. « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT21 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT NewsYouCanUse H ousing is back. The market is starting to hum again – even roar in some areas, with demand outstripping supply. A new report from the Na- tional Association of Realtors shows that sales of existing homes in February saw the most growth in more than three years. But a stronger market isn’t a guarantee that you can sell your house. There will always be reasons why people won’t buy what you’re offering. If you’ve been having bad luck on the market, you may want to cross the street, hold up a mirror, and take a good, long look. According to numerous housing experts, the most common reasons your house isn’t selling are the following: 1. You’re pricing it too high. “Without question, the No. 1 reason a home doesn’t sell is price,” says Bill Golden, an independent, Atlanta-based realtor who sells for ReMax and has been in the real estate market for 26 years. “Sell- ers have an emotional attachment to their homes and tend not to be objective about the true value.” 2. Your house is kind of run-down. This doesn’t mean you need to spend $40,000 on a new kitchen. “Some- times it’s as easy as doing some fresh landscaping or a fresh coat of paint in certain areas,” says Golden. And you may think your house is a fixer-upper, and that you’re likely to attract some handy do-it-yourselfers, but Alix Prince, a vice president and broker at Julia B. Fee Sotheby’s International Realty, in Rye, N.Y., is skeptical. “Today’s buyers are busy,” she says. “They are looking for properties where they can ‘unpack’ without doing a lot in renovations or decorating. Properties that are in need of TLC are at a disadvantage since two-income families would prefer to spend their weekend relaxing rather than redecorating.” 3. Your house isn’t run-down, but it looks like it might be. “Any signs of water damage can be a huge turn off to potential buyers. Take a water spot on the ceiling. The offending roof might have been fixed 15 years ago, but if the evidence is still there, buyers will assume there’s still a problem,” says Jessi Hall, a real estate writer for the Staying on the Market Here are seven reasons your house isn’t selling By Geoff Williams ISTOCKPHOTO Money

22. « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT22 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT Columbia, Mo.-based Veterans United Home Loans, which provides loans to veterans. “Water damage makes buyers understandably jumpy and can keep a home on the market indefinitely.” 4. There’s too much “you” in the house. It sounds cruel, but you want to sell your home to other people, who can imagine themselves living in your house. Simply put, you are not them. “This is perhaps the most common problem of all,” says Joshua Mogal, founder of eco+historical homes, a San Francisco-based company that specializes in renovating historic houses using eco-friendly materials. “Buyers rarely have the same tastes as sellers.” Jessica Edwards, a Coldwell Banker Real Estate consumer specialist and agent in Wilmington, N.C., agrees, saying, “If you love the beach and palm trees, putting a palm tree in every single room may not be a fit for everyone.” What to do? Mogal and Edwards rec- ommend moving your stuff, or at least some of it, out of the house and painting the rooms neutral colors so the buyer’s imagination can start taking flight. 5. You are inflexible. Maybe you aren’t showing your house off enough. If you aren’t using a real estate agent and work away from your home, your time might be limited, of course. But you should try to make your house as accessible and available as possible for a realtor and a potential homebuyer to easily drop by and take a tour (which means having the place clean, too). “Having your home be shown only by appointment or only at designated times will severely cut down on the number of showings you get,” says Golden, “and if the house isn’t getting shown, it isn’t going to get sold.” 6. You aren’t advertising your home properly. If you aren’t a photographer or much of a writer, you may be giving your potential buyers an underwhelm- ing idea of what it would be like to live where you live, according to Edwards. Conversely, she adds that you don’t want your photos and prose to blow away homebuyers too much, if your house can’t live up to what you’re post- ing online or in brochures. “A descrip- tion that doesn’t meet a homebuyer’s expectation when visiting the property in person may also contribute to a failed site,” Edwards says. 7. Your house is poorly located or poorly planned. As you suspect, there’s really not much you can do about either problem. It’s just a reality that some homeown- ers have to deal with, says Mogal, who adds that one problem you may be able to fix relatively easily is if the lot has a major drawback. Maybe the yard is extremely small, or there’s an awkward hill that makes it challenging to mow a lawn. In that case, “great landscaping could be helpful,” says Mogal. If you are having trouble selling your home, and you don’t think it’s due to any of the afore- mentioned reasons, then Golden recommends bringing in a neutral, objective third party to take a look at your house and to make suggestions. “There are things such as a bad odor in the home, a dog or cat smell, or mildew or untidiness” that can affect how a potential buyer is going to view your property, says Golden. Even little fixes, he says, like keeping the blinds open to let in more light or adjusting the temperature so it’s less cold or warm can make a buyer more optimistic that they could have a future where you live. If you don’t, or can’t, do that, then you might as well pull up a chair and get comfortable. You aren’t going anywhere. l MONEY NEWS YOU CAN USE Try to make your house as accessible and available as possible for a realtor to easily drop by. Find more articles on buying or selling a house at www.usnews.com/money. ISTOCKPHOTO

23. 23 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT W hich way are we going? The stock market has revived, though it still is off a high in real terms. There’s suddenly good news about housing demand, which is showing signs of life after six years of stagnation. Yet Federal Reserve Chair- man Ben Bernanke warns that the package of fiscal cutbacks – the fiscal cliff, sequester, and other cuts – is set to reduce growth by 1.5 percentage points. He calls that “very significant” and adds that “job creation is slower than it would be oth- erwise.” This is the key to where we are. New research from the Brookings Insti- tution concludes that rising inequality in the United States is not something that will vanish with a real recovery. It is here to stay, a reflection of an increasingly cal- cified society and a whole crisis in itself. The present phase of our Great Reces- sion might be called the Grand Illusion, because all the happy talk and statistics that go with it, especially on the key indi- cator of jobs, give a rosier picture than the facts justify. We are not really advancing. We are, by comparison with earlier recessions, going backward. We have a $1.3 trillion budget deficit. And despite the most stimulative fiscal policy in our history and the most stimulative monetary policy, with a trillion-dollar expansion to our money supply, our economy over the last three years has been declining or stagnant. From growth in annual GDP of 2.4 percent 2010, we bumped down to only 1.8 percent in 2011 and were still down at 2.2 percent in 2012. The cumula- tive growth for the last 12 quarters was just 6.2 percent, less than half the 15.2 percent average after previous recessions over a similar period of time. It is the slowest growth rate of all the 11 post- World War II recessions. What has gone wrong? There seems to be a weakness in the investment of private capital. Today, corporate spending on investments is the weakest it has been in six decades. The billions invested in the Internet, spreading its application andcominglingthetechnologywithlabor, boosted multifactor productivity but, as David Rosenberg of wealth-management firm Gluskin Sheff points out, most of that occurred several years ago. As he has writ- ten, a capex-led business recovery that breeds sustained productivity growth and decent job creation is what underscores the best and longest economic expansions since the end of WWII. Anemic growth looks likely to continue because of various downers implicit in Bernanke’s caution. Sequestration will take $600 billion of government expenditures out of the economy over the next 10 years. Payroll taxes up 2 percent hit about 160 million workers and will drain $110 billion in aggregate demand. The Obama health care tax will be a $30 billion-plus drag. The surge in gasoline prices by some 50 cents recently may be temporary, as Bernanke suggests, but meanwhile represents another $65 billion of consumer cash flow. Conserva- tively, these nasties add up to roughly a 2 percent hit to baseline GDP growth when we are barely able to muster 2 percent growth. Then there’s housing. Yes, it is nice to see a surge in some areas. But millions of homes are owned by banks or are in the foreclosure process. The New York Times noted last week that the home where Bernanke was raised, in a small town in South Carolina whose unemployment rate was recently 15 percent, had just been foreclosed upon the last time he visited, and one of his relatives was un- employed. Talk about symbolism. Single- family home sales and starts are barely off their depressed levels, and have only recouped 17 percent of recession losses. The housing market is mostly driven by The Growing Risk of an America in Decline EDITORIAL By Mortimer B. Zuckerman

24. 24 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT investor-based, rental-related, multifam- ily buying activity, reflected in the fact that multiple housing units have reversed more than 70 percent of the damage they sustained from the recession. Our economy’s most important play- er, the consumer, offers no relief from this cascade of downers. About 70 percent of national expenditures come from consumers, but their confidence level has dropped to only 58.6 percent. Restaurant traffic, one of the most reliable trend in- dicators, has slipped to a three-year low. In fact, the only reason that real consumer spending is not shown as contracting is because personal savings rates since November 2007 have declined from 6.4 percent to around 2.5 percent of incomes. Still, can’t we take comfort in head- lines celebrating the decline in unemployment to 7.7 percent? Not really. If you add in all the unique categories of people not included in that number, such as “discouraged workers” no longer looking for a job, involuntary part-time workers, and others who are “marginally attached” to the labor force, the real unemployment rate is somewhere between 14 and 15 percent. No wonder it has been harder to find work during this recession than in previous downturns. Though last month we theoretically added 236,000 jobs, these numbers are misleading, too, because so many of the jobs are in the part-time, low-wage cat- egory. So the backdrop to the most recent job numbers is the fact that multiple job- holdersareupby340,000to7.26million. In essence then, all of the “new” positions are going to people who already are working, mostly part time. It is clearly more important to create jobs for people who aren’t. Other aspects of the jobs picture deteriorated, too. The pool of people un- employed for six months or longer went up by 89,000 to a total of 4.8 million, and the average duration of unemployment rose to 36.9 weeks, up from 35.3 weeks. Moreover, the decline in the unemployment rate to 7.7 percent is shaky. It reflects the departure from the workforce of some 130,000 individuals. A change in the denominator makes the unemployment numbers look better than they are. The labor force participation rate, which measures the number of people in the workforce, also dropped to around 63.5 percent, the lowest in more than 30 years. The workweek remains short at 34.5 hours. Quite simply, employers are shortening the workweek or asking employees to take unpaid leave in un- precedented numbers, and these people are not included in the unemployment numbers. Clearly, the rate of job recovery has slowed drastically. Typically it takes 25 months to reach a new post-recession peak in employment, but today we are over 60 months away from that previous high, and we are still down 3.2 million jobs. We need between 1.8 million and 3 million new jobs every year just to absorb the labor force’s new entrants. At the current rate, we will have to wait seven years to restore the jobs lost in the Great Recession, and we will need 300,000 or more hires every month to recover sub- stantially above the current levels. The prospects for that are gloomy, since employers now feel they can do with fewer workers. Over 20 percent of companies say that employment in their firms will not return to pre-recession levels. In the face of these figures, the government is just whistling in the dark. The programs it has announced are sen- sible, but don’t do anywhere near enough to plug the gap in workers needed with skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics – the best way to deal with the threat of a big permanent under- class. Nor is there any sense of a vigor- ous follow-through on multiple well-in- tentioned programs. We are told we live in an accelerated world, and so we do in communications. But when will we see reform of a patent system that imposes long delays on innovators and inventors and entrepreneurs seeking approvals? It often takes two years to obtain the environmental health and safety permits to build a modern electronic plant, a life- time in the tech world. A dramatic consequence of the inertia is that our trade in high-tech products has gone from a $29 billion surplus to a $60 billion-plus deficit. When employers can’t expand or develop new lines because of the shortage of certain skills, the employment oppor- tunities for the less skilled are restricted. Government must restore and multiply funds for training programs, especially vocational training and postsecondary education. And it must support every EDITORIAL Is America less powerful than it was five years ago? Email editor@usnews.com. It is astounding that we attract the best brains to our universities, and then send them packing.

25. 25 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE »CONTENTSPRINT program to strengthen science, technology, engineering and math in high schools and at the university level, as well as broadening access to computer science. Until we get such programs properly underway, we should increase the number of annual visas for foreigners skilled in science and technology. They are not job destroyers, as nativist senti- ment suggests. They are job creators, and not only that. They are job multipliers. Barring their entry or residence means they will compete against us in the indus- tries that are both growing and competi- tive. It is astounding that we attract the brightest and the best brains to our universities, the world’s best, and then send them packing. We must re-conceptualize immigration as a recruiting tool and open the door to the skilled and the educat- ed. It is disappointing that so soon in a new administration, decisively elected, both party leaderships seem still stuck in a campaigning mode. It isn’t just that agricultural companies lack the labor to pick crops of citrus fruits and onions, but that we are stupidly cutting off one of the great sources of innovation. About half the companies in the Fortune 500 owe their origins to the ideas and enterprise of immigrants. Diversity breeds ideas. Look at the history of America. What we get from the administration instead of pragmatism is politics; instead of constructive strategies shed of ideol- ogy, we get steady attacks demonizing the wealth creators and discrediting the private sector, along with rhetoric that seeks to exploit divisions by blaming the rich and positioning them against the rest, as if government is not part of the problem. No wonder Fox News found earlier this year that 48 percent of us believe America is weaker than it was five years ago, while just 24 percent think the nation is stronger. Have we really so lost our mojo?Havewelostourway?As18th-century economist and writer Adam Smith once observed, “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” Indeed there is. One serious recession does not mean the begin- ning of the end of a great power. But the risks will multiply so long as we remain locked in a rancorous political culture, and have a leadership more inclined to public relations than hard-headed prag- matic recognition of what must be done to restore America’s classic vitality. l EDITORIAL We need between 1.8 million and 3 million new jobs every year just to absorb the labor force’s new entrants.

26. 26 U.S.NEWS WEEKLY | MARCH 29, 2013 | www.usnews.com/subscribe « PREVIOUS PAGECONTENTSPRINT MARK WILSON—GETTY IMAGES Demonstrators outside of the Supreme Court THE BIG PICTURE

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