Category: Kathryn Koch
In Uncertain Times, Colleges Rethink Private Lenders’ Role in Financing Education
LOANS
New London Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
April 23, 2009
WASHINGTON – In the midst of rising tuition, dried-up consumer credit and a grim job market, the University of Connecticut has begun a campaign this spring to let students know that at least one aspect of their finances is secure: their federal student loans.
In December, the university announced it would no longer back students’ federal loans provided by approved lenders, but instead would guarantee only those direct loans from the federal government itself.
Throughout the spring semester, students were bombarded with letters, signs on buses and ads in the Daily Campus student newspaper signaling the change.
Now, as students returning in the fall receive their financial aid packages in the mail, UConn hopes they will find their 2009-10 loan awards—a projected $150 million in total—easier to understand and, ultimately, to pay back.
“We are promoting, promoting, promoting,” Jean Main, director of financial aid at UConn, said of the program. “The response has been positive so far.”
UConn’s switch to the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program, as it is called, is what President Barack Obama’s proposed budget would eventually mandate for all universities as a way to reroute the savings to grants for needy students.
The plan has faced opposition in Congress and from the private banks and state-run nonprofit groups that currently provide government-subsidized loans through the Federal Family Education Loan program.
In light of the financial turmoil of the past two years, however, many colleges, like UConn, are abandoning that program on their own to ensure that their cash-strapped students get the loans they need.
At UConn, the decision to switch to the new direct-loan program was in large part based on recent trends in the student lending markets, Main said.
In 2007, Congress passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which ended many attractive subsidies that provided incentives for private lenders to lend to students.
After the crisis in the capital markets began to spread early in 2008, Main said, lenders started dropping out of the federal program altogether, leaving loan availability for the 2008-09 academic year in limbo.
“We sat back and assessed and said, ‘This is a little volatile for our taste,’ ” Main said. With the new program, “benefits are comparable if not better, and there’s less potential uncertainty.”
Those benefits include lower late fees and interest rates and the option to choose an income-based repayment plan to keep payments manageable, Main said.
The changes would apply to Federal Stafford, Federal Parent Plus and Graduate Plus loans. UConn students borrowed roughly $102.7 million under these programs in 2008, and the number could very well increase, Main said.
A growing trend
UConn isn’t the only university to make the switch voluntarily. Colleges around the country are banking more heavily on increased support from the federal government to help students weather the financial aid storm.
A new survey by the research firm Student Lending Analytics found that 10.7 percent of colleges in the subsidized program are switching to direct federal lending for the 2009-10 academic year and that 15 percent were still considering a switch as of early March.
As a result, the share of federal loans provided through direct lending could grow to 40-45 percent from the 26 percent in the current academic year, the survey estimated.
The trend is spread evenly among public, private and two-year colleges, the study found. Of the financial aid administrators surveyed at each type of institution, 25.7, 27.9 and 27.5 percent are making or considering a switch, respectively.
Schools are switching for a variety of reasons, said Pat Smith, a policy analyst for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
“Some of them are just nervous because they read in the paper about the credit markets,” Smith said. “For others, the lenders that they’ve dealt with have said they’re not going to make any more loans. Rather than go out and shop for a new [federally backed] lender, they’ve decided to go that way.”
Smith also attributed the sudden shift to direct lending to the Department of Education’s effort to make switching easy for colleges, whose financial aid processes often involve mounds of paperwork and complex algorithms for calculating aid.
“It uses the basic software approach that the institutions use with the Department of Education in disbursing Pell grants,” Smith said. “Nobody’s complained about it, and the Department of Education’s been responsive.”
Struggling with student need
Colleges’ desire to secure loans for their students is especially critical this year, as institutional aid awards have to be balanced with other pressing financial concerns.
The University of Connecticut faces a $34 million budget deficit for the coming year and has already made $12 million in cuts elsewhere.
The university’s board of trustees voted in March to increase tuition at the main campus by 6 percent, with corresponding increases in housing and fees—$1,150 more for in-state students and $2,038 more for out-of-state students.
While it’s still too early to predict whether a tuition increase coupled economic downturn will increase students’ financial need, Main said. Three-quarters of the student body qualified for some form of assistance for the current academic year, totaling $290 million, and UConn has budgeted a $34 million increase for next year.
“We’ve seen an increase in FAFSA [Free Application for Federal Student Aid] applications, which is an indicator that more people feel like they need aid,” Main said. But “it doesn’t give you any indication of how needy they truly are.”
Private colleges face similar worries. A December 2008 study by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities found that 87 percent of college presidents surveyed were greatly or moderately concerned about securing enough student loan availability.
All but 2 percent said a $500 increase in Pell grants or any increase in federal student loan limits would be helpful as they struggle during tough economic times.
Connecticut College, a private college in New London, has increased its financial aid budget by $1.5 million this year to accommodate an uptick in need, according to Elaine Solinga, the college’s director of financial aid.
“The economy has had a major impact on how our families can pay for college,” Solinga said. “Their home equity that they had used in the past has declined… and they’ve seen their retirement portfolio decline in value, so they’re very nervous about the whole process.”
Mitchell College in New London has seen an increase in the number of families requesting that their 2009 income rather than 2008 be considered to determine their financial aid awards for next year, according to Renee Fournier, a spokeswoman for the small private college.
“We have prioritized our award decisions for our current students and families who have been adversely affected by the downturn in the economy,” she said.
In addition, Connecticut, like other states, has struggled to find money for financial aid in its strained budget.
In her proposed 2010-11 budget, Gov. M. Jodi Rell has proposed freezing the amount of money for state-financed aid programs, such as the Capitol Scholarship, Connecticut Aid for Public College Students and the Connecticut Independent College Student Grant program.
A federal solution
With states and schools cutting back, President Barack Obama in his budget has proposed sweeping changes in federal student assistance that would greatly increase the federal government’s role in how students borrow and manage their debt.
Most notably, his plan would increase Pell Grant awards, which do not have to be repaid, by ending the federal subsidy program, which has provided more than $600 billion in subsidized education loans since it began in 1965.
This would save more than $4 billion a year, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and would allow the government to make Pell grant spending mandatory, rather than set by Congress.
Congress increased the maximum Pell grant award by $619, raising it to $5,350 for the coming academic year as part of the stimulus package it passed earlier this year. If Obama’s plan passes, Pell grant awards will be priced to increase with inflation—something many higher education advocacy groups applaud.
“There’s a marked difference between what Pell grants used to provide to low-income students who don’t have the resources”—77 percent of the cost of attendance in the late 1970s—and now, when they cover only 35 percent, said Jeffrey Czerwiec, the UConn campus organizer for the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group.
“We’re thinking if we can increase Pell grants we can increase access” to higher education, Czerwiec said.
But lenders and the organizations that represent them are gearing up to fight the president’s proposal.
Brett Lief, president of the National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs, said the $4 billion in savings the White House projects for the switch is not as ideal as it sounds. The government would benefit from students paying off loans, which carry higher interest rates, especially since Treasury interest rates are currently so low.
“They’re having Peter and Pauline pay for the Pell grant increases,” Lief said. “The savings that come from the program result from the fact that [the student] would be paying it off.”
Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, who supports Obama’s plan, said Congress must balance priorities in paying for higher education and that, in his view, increases to grants should come first.
“It’s really important to try to diminish the size of debt financing that students have to rely on,” he said.
According to Courtney, the savings from eliminating the subsidized loan program are a practical necessity.
“The president’s proposal… at a basic level is about trying to more efficiently allocate higher-education dollars,” Courtney said. “These needs, whether it’s grants, loans or repayment, [are] going to be expensive.”
Critics also warn that while students may have more stable access to loans under a direct-lending program, the quality of financial services, from financial literacy classes to debt management counseling, would decrease.
“If you switch to the government, you lose that kind of personal touch,” said Krista Cole, a spokeswoman for the Education Finance Council, which represents lenders. “Instead of calling the local provider, you’re going to have to call the government.”
Lief acknowledged that many colleges are leaving the subsidized loan program and said that the volume of loans distributed through the direct federal program may double in the next academic year.
But he warned that relying so heavily on the government will decrease competition in the lending market, stifling affordable loan options down the road when the economy recovers.
“I certainly understand and respect schools like UConn, but they need to just keep both eyes open,” he said. “Nothing works forever.”
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Feminist Turned Cherry Blossom Princess Represents Connecticut in D.C. Festival
PRINCESS
The Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
April 4, 2009
WASHINGTON—Liz Malerba, a self-proclaimed feminist with a women’s studies degree, came to Washington two years ago to work in government and make a difference for women.
But on Friday night, as she filed in to the ballroom of a downtown Washington hotel dressed in a long white gown and elbow-length gloves, she was filling a more unexpected role: princess.
“Yes, the feminist does enjoy dressing up,” she joked.
As Connecticut’s Cherry Blossom Princess, Malerba was the Nutmeg State’s representative in the annual Cherry Blossom Festival, a 74-year-old celebration of the blossoming of the pink-budded trees and of American and Japanese friendship.
The two-week festival commemorates Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki’s gift of 3,000 cherry trees to Washington in 1912. The festival was started in April of 1935 to correspond with the short peak blooming period of the trees, which surround the Tidal Basin south of the White House near the Jefferson Memorial.
The princesses’ tight schedule ensured that the congressional staffer, who until two weeks ago was the scheduler for Rep. John B. Larson, D-1st District, got to experience the micromanaged life for herself.
Malerba spent last week hustling back and forth between her job on Capitol Hill and a whirlwind series of events, from an afternoon at a food bank in industrial northeast Washington to glamorous receptions in some of the city’s swankiest neighborhoods.
Even more than the busy schedule, the princess program’s strict rules kept Malerba on her toes. Before the week’s events began, she said, the princesses received etiquette lessons and clear wardrobe instructions: no dark colors, all pastels.
“I shouldn’t even be sitting like this right now,” she joked on Thursday afternoon, gracefully repositioning herself as she enjoyed a moment of relaxation on the subway commuting between events.
“This is my first taste of pageantry, if you will,” Malerba said. “But this isn’t really a beauty pageant. It’s an opportunity…to represent your state, to experience what it means to be an ambassador of your state culture and your state values in D.C.”
The princesses are chosen by their respective state societies—social and networking clubs that allow home-state persons the keep in touch—to attend a week of educational and networking events. This year the group visited the Japanese and Lithuanian ambassadors’ homes, watched a Russian fashion show, met with women in the military and heard from a panel of women in government.
On Saturday, the princesses walked in the Cherry Blossom Parade, escorted by Naval Academy cadets carrying their home state’s flag.
The program maintains a somewhat old-fashioned feel, which culminated in Friday evening’s Grand Ball, a cultural celebration-meets-debutante ball complete with sushi buffet, a Color Guard salute and a princess procession. The princesses even have a handler, Princess Chair Trippi Penland, whose objective “is to take care of all my chickadees,” as Penland put it.
While the festival does crown a Cherry Blossom Queen, there’s no cutthroat competition involved: At the ball on Friday night, Miss New Mexico was chosen the winner by the spinning of a wheel with the princesses’ names on it.
The princesses are typically between 18 and 24 years old, and many are college students or congressional staffers. At 25—her birthday was a week before the festival started—Malerba is the oldest princess this year.
“They had to fill out an age waiver for me,” she said, laughing.
Malerba’s stint as a princess was something of a fluke. Her softball teammate Brian Mahar, the president of the Connecticut State Society, approached her and convinced her to fill out the “Princess Papers,” as the application is known.
“Liz was the first person to come to mind for several people on the board,” Mahar said of the society’s decision to sponsor Malerba, the first Connecticut princess since 2003. “She has a great personality, she’s always smiling. She definitely represents herself very well, and she has a great background with the state.”
Malerba’s sister, Angela Malerba, said she was a bit surprised when she found out about the princess program: “I would never picture Liz as the pageant girl.” But after she learned about the program’s professional nature, “I felt like she fit the bill perfectly.
“She was probably a natural-born leader,” Angela Malerba, 22, said. “She’s so passionate about everything she does. She loves where she works. She belongs in D.C, on Capitol Hill.”
Her main passions—tribal rights and women’s equality—are largely a byproduct of her upbringing, Malerba said.
An Uncasville, Conn., native, Malerba grew up enmeshed in both the small town community and tribal life. She attended Montville High School for two years and finished high school at the Pomfret School, a private day school in nearby Pomfret.
Her most formative experiences, though, were with the Mohegan Tribe. Her great-great-grandfather, Chief Matahga, led the tribe from 1937 to 1952, and the family’s tradition of leadership in the tribe remains strong. Her grandmother served on the tribal council for more than 30 years, and her mother, Lynn Malerba, is currently vice chair of the tribe. Her father, although not a member of the tribe, works as a plumber at Mohegan Sun.
Growing up one-sixteenth Mohegan at a time when tribes around the country were fighting for recognition was a formative experience, Malerba said.
“I remember the phone call, I remember everybody in tears,” she said of the day in 1994 when the tribe learned it would be recognized by the federal government. “It’s something that was a very long time coming. My great-great-grandfather tried to get us recognized, and we tried in the ’70s. This was a triumph and also a tribute to all those who had attempted to do this before us.”
After graduating from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., in 2007, Malerba moved to Washington to intern with Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District. She worked on finding cosponsors and supporters for a bill to mitigate wage discrimination against women, a cause DeLauro has long championed.
“She’s a feminist, I’m a feminist—it just worked out really well,” Malerba said.
In the fall of 2007, Malerba took a job as a staff assistant for Larson. After nine months, she became Larson’s scheduler, a position, she said, that gave her the people skills the Cherry Blossom Festival coordinators prize in a princess.
“You take care of your member of Congress first, but you’re also there for your constituents,” she said. “You learn to find a way to tell people no but also to make them feel that they’re being taken care of.”
Last month, after Larson was elected chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Malerba switched positions again. She now works in his leadership office performing outreach to members of the women’s, progressive and New England caucuses within the party.
While she enjoys Washington, the pull of the family business and tribal culture is strong.
“I owe a lot of my personality and a lot of my successes to the tribe,” Malerba said. “My end goal is to give back in any way I can.”
Malerba’s sentiments aren’t surprising, according to her mother.
“She’s been involved ever since she was born,” Lynn Malerba said. “We would hope that she would follow in our footsteps.”
Someday, Malerba said, she might want to fill her mother’s shoes as the Mohegan government’s envoy to Washington and Hartford. But for now, armed with no more diplomatic power than a pastel wardrobe and a can-do attitude, she’ll have to settle for being the ambassador from Connecticut.
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Congress Considers Effects of Supreme Court Decision on Tribal Land Annexation
TRIBES
The Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
4/1/09
WASHINGTON—A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that could have major implications for Southeastern Connecticut’s Indian tribes has prompted Congress to launch an investigation into the annexation of tribal lands—and could result in a law overturning the decision.
In a Feb. 24 ruling, the court determined that the U.S. Department of Interior cannot annex land for Indian tribes that were federally recognized after 1934. While the original decision applied only to Rhode Island’s Narragansett Tribe, it also would prevent tribes such as the Mashantucket Pequots, recognized in 1983, and the Mohegans, recognized in 1994, from annexing more land in the future.
The House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing Wednesday to consider whether Congress should modify the existing law and effectively overturn the high court’s decision.
The effects of the court’s decision are still unclear, according to committee chairman. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.
Despite the confusion still surrounding the decision, Rahall said, “there is one thing that we are certain of: This decision may result in many frivolous lawsuits being filed to challenge the status of virtually every tribe.”
At the oversight hearing on the ruling, a panel of experts warned the committee—and a packed house of tribal representatives from around the country—that a change in the status of tribal land could affect money for schools, hospitals and businesses on tribal lands.
Challenges to the status of a tribe’s land could also make it hard for tribes to secure their current or future loans, according to the testimony of Michael J. Anderson, former deputy assistant Interior secretary for Indian affairs and now a lawyer representing several tribes.
That predicament has already arisen for the Mohegans, who are in talks to build a gambling casino near La Center, Wash., with Washington’s Cowlitz Tribe, whose application to create a 152-acre land trust has not yet been approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
But many congressmen and speakers at the hearing emphasized that the annexation issue was about more than gaming.
Allowing the Supreme Court decision to stand would effectively create two classes of tribes, said Colette Routel, a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School and former tribal-issues attorney. She told the committee that newly recognized and still-unrecognized tribes would be even further disadvantaged.
“Often these tribes are the hardest hit,” Routel said. “There’s no reason to further that injustice by now deciding that they’re going to be permanent second-class citizens.”
Since the decision was announced, tribes in Connecticut have stressed that although they will not be affected by the ruling, they were discouraged by the potential setbacks it could create for other tribes seeking federal recognition or annexation.
“We support congressional action to reverse this decision and recommend an amendment to the Indian Reorganization Act to clarify that the benefits of the [act] are available to all federally recognized tribes,” Lori Potter, a spokeswoman for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, said in an interview.
One potential complication of the decision, Anderson said, is that prisoners who had committed crimes on tribal land could appeal their convictions if the status of the land changed.
“Clever criminal attorneys around the country would look at this and mount challenges,” Anderson said.
Underscoring the confusing and sometimes arbitrary nature of tribal recognition, much of the debate Wednesday focused on the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the meaning of a single word in the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. The court decided that in the law’s language—“any recognized Indian tribe now under federal jurisdiction”—the word “now” indicated that only tribes recognized by 1934 would be eligible to have land placed in trust by the federal government.
“When Congress uses undefined terms in a statute, Congress intends to mean the common dictionary meaning,” said Donald Mitchell, a Native American legal affairs expert, who testified.
“One little word, a three-letter word—now—has upset the whole basis of 75 years of all that has been done. You’re saying that isn’t just a bunch of baloney?” asked Del. Eni Faleomavaega, D-American Samoa.
“I’m saying, as a lawyer, that words have consequences,” Mitchell responded.
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Conservatives Rethink Defense Spending Reform as Budget Debate Looms
HERITAGE
The Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
3/26/09
WASHINGTON—The Defense Department must reform how it acquires its weapons and other military goods, a leading conservative group said Thursday. But these reforms, the Heritage Foundation said, should give the military more freedom to pursue new projects, not less.
“The defense acquisition process is probably overregulated, not underregulated,” said Baker Spring, a research fellow at the foundation.
Speaking at a Heritage panel on procurement reform, Spring criticized Congress for its “excessive micromanagement” of the defense budget. He also targeted the military for its “risk-averse mentality,” a result of the “layers of bureaucracy” governing the acquisition process.
Spring said Congress must abandon its “illusory goal of a one-size-fits-all, rules-based acquisition process” and allow the Pentagon more leeway in acquiring and developing new technologies.
“Congress needs to restrain itself and do what is really best for the country instead of balkanizing this issue,” he said.
In the fight to preserve costly defense projects—and in many cases, to shield such projects from extensive oversight—conservatives have often been the military’s closest allies. They have been more inclined to support long-term, expensive defense projects such as the Navy’s Virginia-class submarines, which are contracted through Groton’s Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corp.
Yet as defense spending has come under harsher scrutiny in recent months, conservative institutions like Heritage and their Republican counterparts in Congress may be readjusting to the new debate. In the current economic climate, military supporters say, all spending must be justified.
During the Cold War, “it was a dangerous world, but it was pretty easy” to secure funds for defense projects, said Gen. Dennis Reimer, former Army chief of staff, who spoke at the Heritage panel.
“Now we’re in a capabilities-based world, and we’re in an economic crisis,” he said. “We can’t afford to have as inefficient a system as we have today and still get the best bang for our buck.”
In his press conference on Tuesday, President Barack Obama called for a “more disciplined” defense budget. His proposed budget would leave defense spending roughly equivalent to what it was under President George W. Bush after adjusting for inflation.
“Where the savings should come in,” Obama said, “is how do we reform our procurement system so that it keeps America safe and we’re not wasting taxpayer dollars?”
Conservatives, however, worry that the President will ask Congress for less supplemental spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which they say will drain the defense budget and cause long-term military projects to suffer.
“It’s really a peacetime budget,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior national security policy analyst at Heritage. “The notion that cuts can be made without a subsequent change in our defense strategy is unwise and risky.”
On Wednesday, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and 13 other Republican senators sent a letter to the President criticizing his proposed defense budget. The senators warned against allowing the military to go on a weapons “procurement holiday,” which they said happened during the Clinton administration.
“Obama’s budget will decrease the overall defense spending, with cuts likely coming from defense acquisition,” a spokeswoman for Cornyn said.
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who also served under President George W. Bush, has echoed Obama’s call for defense spending reform.
“Secretary Gates has a much larger mandate [under this administration], and will be tackling these issues,” Eaglen said.
Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow in policy at the Brookings Institution, said in an interview Thursday afternoon he does not believe that Congress is causing unnecessary problems for military programs.
“The problem is not that good programs get canceled [by Congress], it’s that there may be inefficiencies in the way bureaucracies work that drive up costs,” O’Hanlon said.
He also said that talk of another “procurement holiday” is overblown.
“We can’t afford it in terms of [the military’s] equipment stocks,” he said. “But there may be selective cuts to certain programs.”
At Thursday’s panel, speakers outlined various ways to reform the military’s acquisition programs.
“Congress has a tendency to second guess…and intervene in the acquisition process,” Michael Wynne, former secretary of the Air Force, said.
Therefore, “we need to keep the acquisition criteria simple,” he said. “We need to minimize the kind of criteria that have been fertile ground for protest.”
Spring argued that no reform would be possible without a higher budget to provide for the military’s needs in Iraq and Afghanistan and at home.
“If you don’t have an adequate defense budget, no amount of reform is going to get you the force that you want,” Spring said.
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Military Brass Answer to Congress on Suicides
SUICIDES
The New London Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
3/18/09
WASHINGTON—In response to what a senator called an “alarming” increase in the number of military suicides over the past year, several top military officials gathered to defend their efforts to prevent suicides before a Senate Armed Services subcommittee Wednesday.
“The numbers in every service have increased in the past two years, and that trend must not continue,” said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., the chairman of the Personnel Subcommittee.
“We know that more is needed, and it’s needed now,” Nelson said.
The hearing included testimony from military branches’ “number twos”: Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army; Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, vice chief of naval operations; Gen. James F. Amos, Marine Corps assistant commandant; and Gen. William M. Frazer III, vice chief of staff of the Air Force.
The group was quick to stress that realistic declines in the suicide rate would not occur until external pressures on the overburdened forces are relieved. They emphasized that active-duty deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan, which has remained relatively steady over the past year, has an effect on the stress levels of all military personnel, not just soldiers stationed abroad.
“You could say it’s not entirely dependent on [combat-related] stress, because one-third of those [who committed suicide] don’t have any deployments at all; but I don’t buy that,” Chiarelli said.
“The reality is we are dealing with a tired and stretched force,” he said. “We must find some ways of relieving this stress.”
All the officers present agreed the military’s culture played a role in hindering their efforts’ success. The armed forces’ perceived attitude of “don’t ask, don’t tell” often extends to mental health problems and personal troubles, they said, preventing soldiers from seeking help.
“We must eliminate the perceived stigma and shame and dishonor of asking for help,” Walsh said.
The Army has taken the most criticism since it released its 2008 data on suicides Jan. 30. Those figures revealed that 140 active-duty soldiers committed suicide last year, an all-time high for the Army.
It also marked the first time the Army’s suicide rate—20.2 per 100,000 soldiers—surpassed the public’s, according to 2005 statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most recent national figures available.
While the Navy’s 2008 suicide rate of 11.6 per 100,000 sailors was much lower than the Army’s, the Navy still faces a challenge in locating the root causes of the problem.
Unlike the Army, the Navy has found no correlation between serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and increased risk for committing suicide. Since 2003, veterans of the two wars accounted for only 3 percent of Navy suicides.
Maj. Gen. David A. Rubenstein, deputy surgeon general of the Army, underscored the difficulty targeting which soldiers could be at risk for suicide. Just hours before the hearing, he said, he learned that a former soldier who suffered a traumatic brain injury more than two years ago—and who had been a model patient since, even giving motivational speeches to groups of wounded veterans—had committed suicide Tuesday.
“This solder was treated, was compliant and was supported in every way,” Rubenstein said. “And yet, he’s dead today.”
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As Congress Prepares Budget, Sub Suppliers Descend on Capitol to Secure Funding
SUBMARINE
The Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
3/5/09
WASHINGTON—It was hard to miss the victorious mood at Thursday’s Submarine Industrial Base Council breakfast, where submarine builders and suppliers from across the country mingled with members of Congress to kick off a day of visits to members’ offices on Capitol Hill.
Last year’s record-breaking $14 billion contract for eight new Virginia-class submarines, to be built in part by Groton’s Electric Boat, was cause for celebration and record-breaking turnout at the council’s 17th annual meeting, organizers said.
“The feeling in the room was definitely much more upbeat,” said Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, who spoke to the nearly 200 attendees.
But there wasn’t much time to rest on their laurels. With President Obama’s proposed budget still vague on defense spending—and with more-immediate priorities looming in the midst of the economic crisis—industry representatives came to Washington prepared to push for two new priorities: increased funds for research and development and a program to design a replacement for the aging Ohio-class Trident submarine.
“Even though awards have been made…the new administration has put a hold on everything,” said the council’s co-chairman, Dan DePompei of DRS Power Technology in Fitchburg, Mass. “Block 3 funding [for the Virginia-class subs] is pretty safe, but R&D could be questioned.”
Obama’s budget outline would set the Defense Department’s basic budget, which excludes war costs, at $533.7 billion—a 4 percent increase over this year that barely keeps pace with inflation. By contrast, George W. Bush increased the department’s budget by 74 percent from 2001 to 2008.
After an era of heightened spending and ambitious defense projects, council members said, they must now market their services as long-term investments in the country’s economic prosperity and national security.
“There is an economic impact across the country for what we do, and we need to reinforce that message with Congress,” Electric Boat president John P. Casey said in an interview.
He said Congress and the Navy need to start thinking now about replacing the Ohio-class submarines, the first of which is set to be retired in 2029.
“We’re not early, we’re not late, but we need to start now,” Casey said.
Courtney said an Ohio-class redesign program would bring more entry-level design jobs to Electric Boat. In the past year, the company has added about 200 engineers and 400 designers to its workforce, many of them younger employees whose ranks had thinned at Electric Boat over the years.
“It’s really been exciting to see, on the design side, younger workers going through the doors in the morning,” Courtney said in an interview. “Trying to hold onto our young people is a profoundly significant issue in our state.”
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., stressed the urgency of keeping research-and-development funding levels high to keep pace with emerging naval powers like China.
“If you have any doubts about whether this is Cold War technology, just ask other nations that are eager for this technology,” Dodd said after speaking to the council. “It would be awfully shortsighted to find out the whole world was right and we were wrong.”
Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., the senior Republican on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, assured the council audience that Navy procurement programs would not face the chopping block when Congress starts debating the budget in April.
“The Appropriations Committee will be supporting these programs, and we’re looking forward to that Trident submarine,” Young said to applause.
Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., cautioned that as the Navy falls behind in the number of submarines in its fleet, the submarine industry must work even harder to ensure that Congress will pay for the “complex engineering and precise craftsmanship” necessary for an updated fleet.
“We can’t take it for granted that other members of Congress are as passionate and knowledgeable as we are about submarines,” said Langevin, co-chairman of the Congressional Submarine Caucus.
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Adm. Allen Stresses need for Modernization in Annual Address
Photos by Caroline Bridges
COAST GUARD
The Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
March 3, 2009
WASHINGTON—Anticipating a tight budget in the midst of the current fiscal crisis, Adm. Thad W. Allen, Coast Guard commandant, said Tuesday that the Coast Guard must focus on modernizing its communications and processes before upgrading its fleet.
Modernization remains “job one” for the Guard, Allen said. But, he emphasized, the process “is not budget driven. It is driven by the motivation to change and adapt to ensure future readiness.”
Allen’s remarks came as Congress debates the federal budget submitted last Thursday by President Barack Obama, who vowed to streamline the defense budget in his address before Congress last week.
Allen pointed to increased use of the web to communicate both within the Coast Guard and with the public as an important area of modernization.
He mentioned the Guard’s new partnerships with Google, YouTube and other major Web sites, as well as a new Facebook page, that are part of his goal to build an “effective and secure presence in cyberspace.”
“While funding levels set general limits on what is possible,” Allen said, “our internal organizational structure, our ability to create effective doctrine and our ability to plan and execute operations must be optimized to make the best use of every dollar appropriated.”
Still, Allen did not downplay the “deteriorating condition” of the Coast Guard’s fleet. Cutter availability for missions is decreasing, he said, as older vessels like the Dallas and the Gallatin are removed from active duty to repair structural decay. Meanwhile, the cost of operating the Guard’s major cutters is increasing.
“Time is a merciless thief, and it is stealing readiness with each passing year,” he said.
The recently passed stimulus package allocated $98 million for the Coast Guard to replace some aging equipment and upgrade older facilities. But despite that additional funding, Allen warned, high demand for the Guard’s services could ultimately strain it to a breaking point.
“The good news…and bad news is there’s never been a greater demand for our services,” he said.
In the meantime, Allen acknowledged, manpower shortages in the Guard must be addressed to meet high demand for the Guard’s services.
“This notion of doing more with less needs to leave our lexicon,” Allen said in a question-and-answer period after the speech.
“One of our combatant commanders recently told me, ‘You know, the Coast Guard is like a great fighter that punches above his weight,’ ” Allen said. “I appreciated his comment, but it’d really be nice to move to a higher weight class.”
Allen was aggressive in asserting that, despite the formidable budgetary and logistical challenges the Coast Guard still faces, it has made significant progress in his two-and-a-half years at the helm.
“This is not the same Coast Guard that existed even one year ago,” Allen said.
Allen emphasized that the Coast Guard has begun to implement acquisition reforms “not only for Deepwater but for all initiatives,” and that the progress made in that area over the past two years “needs to be recognized.”
He said the Coast Guard took the lead in streamlining communication between planners, technical experts and acquirers for the recently completed USCG Cutter Bertholf and will do so for future cutters, boats and aircraft.
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No Longer an Underdog, Courtney had Support From Business Interests in 2008
COURTNEY
The New London Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
2/26/09
WASHINGTON—What a difference two years can make in politics.
Rep. Joe Courtney’s win in his first reelection campaign last November—he trounced Republican challenger Sean Sullivan by a 33-point margin—proved he could muster the broad majorities his 2nd District predecessor, Republican Rob Simmons, once commanded.
Now, recently released fundraising data shows Courtney was able to move not just votes, but dollars—especially from the business interests that shied away from the staunchly liberal Democrat in 2006. Although Courtney raised slightly less in this election cycle—$2.37 million in 2008 versus $2.46 million in 2006—his contributions from business interests went up.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics, four of the top five sources for contributions to his 2008 campaign were employees and political action committees of the area’s largest corporations: General Dynamics, Northeast Utilities, Pfizer Inc. and United Technologies.
Employees and PACs affiliated with these four companies gave Courtney $73,506. While that does not yet match the $111,050 Simmons raised from those four companies in 2006, it far exceeds what they contributed to Courtney when he ran as a challenger that year.
For instance, Courtney received 70 contributions of $200 or more from General Dynamics Electric Boat employees over the last two years, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. When he ran as a challenger in 2006, he received none.
Although big business tends to favor Republican candidates on ideological grounds, last year major corporations could see they needed to curry favor with the increasingly powerful Democrats, according to Kenneth Dautrich, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Connecticut.
“They were purely reading the tea leaves,” Dautrich said. “Obama was going to win, Democrats were going to retain their margins in Congress, and once they got into office, they were going to spend a trillion dollars on the economy.”
For instance, Pfizer employees and political action committees contributed more than twice as much nationally to Republicans as they did to Democrats in the 2006 election cycle. By contrast, they gave roughly the same—$901,067 to Democrats, $908,343 to Republicans—in the 2008 cycle, Center for Responsive Politics data shows.
“Pfizer and others saw the writing on the wall, and right now they’re working as hard as they can to get the [federal] money,” Dautrich said.
As the representative of a district housing several large corporations, Courtney benefited even more from business’s increased generosity toward Democrats. He was the fourth-highest recipient of campaign funds from General Dynamics and the second-highest from Pfizer among all House candidates in 2008, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
According to Dautrich, Courtney’s sway with major donors—despite his relative lack of power or seniority in the House—shows the degree to which companies’ major donors take their home base into consideration when choosing where to give.
“They can depend on him more, because he’s more interested in their success,” Dautrich said.
Brian Farber, a spokesman for Courtney, said Courtney’s donors weren’t buying influence but rather expressing their approval of Courtney’s performance for the district.
“You don’t work for donations, you work for respect,” Farber said. “At the end of the day…you have to show that you’re someone they can trust.”
Peter Halvordson, vice president of engineering at Electric Boat, gave $450 to the Simmons campaign in 2006. In the most recent election cycle, he contributed $750 to Courtney. He said he is more pragmatic than partisan when deciding which candidate he will support.
Halvordson said his quick turnaround on Courtney—to whose campaign he contributed fewer than five months after he gave to Simmons—was a result of Courtney’s impressive ability to fight for the district’s needs and concerns, including his efforts to save the Navy submarine base in New London from closure in 2007.
“Since he was elected, I think his understanding, depth of knowledge and intellect have been astounding,” he said.
Courtney’s increased campaign receipts from the business community filled a void left by more issue-oriented groups, which contributed heavily to his 2006 campaign.
Ideological and single-issue groups gave Courtney $517,323 to help fuel his exceptionally narrow win in 2006—which was more than twice as much as any other sector, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In 2008, this sector still gave the most to Courtney, but the overall total was much less: $293,872.
For instance, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaigning arm of the House Democrats, gave $97,563 to Courtney in the 2006 election cycle, but only $10,550 in the last cycle, the Center reports.
Shripal Shah, the committee’s Northeast regional spokesman, said the committee did not make any independent expenditures on behalf of Courtney’s most recent campaign. In competitive races, the committee will often spend many thousands of dollars to run advertisements or otherwise bolster support in the district.
Farber, Courtney’s spokesman, said the drop-off in Courtney’s contributions from some liberal interest groups does not indicate their waning support for the congressman. Instead, he said, it had more to do with the high number of races in play around the country.
“In such a historic and unprecedented year, resources were probably stretched a little more thinly,” Farber said.
Courtney’s ability to raise money from Simmons’ old supporters isn’t too unusual, according to Scott McLean, a political science professor at Quinnipiac University. In historically competitive districts like Connecticut’s 2nd, he said, groups will often give to both candidates to ensure they have some influence regardless of who wins.
“In the 2nd District it seems that nobody’s advantages are insurmountable,” McLean said.
Farber agreed, saying Courtney was not overconfident about 2010 despite the $625,253 left in his campaign treasury after his easy win over Sullivan.
“This is a district that you can never let your guard down,” he said. “We know that this is always a challenge, that it’s always a fight to the finish.”
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Dodd, DeLauro Introduce Service Bills to Reach Volunteers Young and Old
SERVICE
The Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
2/24/09
WASHINGTON—Responding to what he called “a moment for national service,” Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., introduced four bills Tuesday that would increase federal spending for community volunteer initiatives.
The ambitious legislation would “create the architecture and the structure that will serve as the invitation for everyone to serve,” Dodd said. The bills would target everyone from schoolchildren to the elderly and aim to create new bases of volunteers beyond the usual young-adult pool of service program participants.
Two bills, the Summer of Service Act and the Semester of Service Act, would allow middle-school and high-school students to earn credits or stipends for their community service programs.
The Encore Service Act would provide stipends and education awards to Americans 50 and older in exchange for service in their communities.
The Action Act would raise the amount awarded to AmeriCorps volunteers to pay for college tuition from the current $4,725 to $6,585 to reflect the current average tuition at a four-year college.
The legislation was met with hope and some trepidation by those familiar with Connecticut’s financially strapped schools and departments, who say that federal dollars could jump-start some stalled community service initiatives in the state.
Robert Rader, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, said federal dollars for such programs could give a boost to education initiatives that the state has been considering for years. In its 2006 secondary school reform plan, known as the Connecticut Plan, the State Department of Education considered a capstone project requirement for graduating seniors that could be fulfilled by a service project, but the plan has not been implemented because of its cost.
“Many of the aspects of that secondary school reform bill were being held for now because of the economic climate,” Rader said.
“Many boards have required students to take part in service activities and have found that these are very positive for the students as well as for the communities,” Rader said. “But under the present financial difficulties, schools would have to look very carefully” at adding volunteer projects to their graduation requirements.
The Encore Act for volunteers 50 or older could also help the state’s social services agencies, according to Robert J. Norton, director of communications for the Connecticut Commission on Aging.
One provision would give volunteers $1,000 for 250 to 500 hours of service in a year. Another would create a fellowship for older Americans to serve in management positions at nonprofit or public institutions.
With large numbers of young people leaving Connecticut and the average age in the state climbing rapidly, the state should welcome federal programs that help older workers, Norton said.
“We have a million people who are baby boomers, almost a third of the overall population of the state,” Norton said. “Keeping them engaged in the workforce either full or part-time or in volunteer pursuits is critical.”
Dodd said he was reintroducing the bills—which he sponsored but failed to bring to a vote in 2007—in response to President Obama’s call in his inaugural address for national service. He said it echoed John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech that inspired him to serve in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic from 1966 to 1968.
“People ask me why I joined—I joined because the President asked,” Dodd said. “We’ve got a President who’s asking.”
The Senate bills, co-sponsored by Thad Cochran, R-Miss., are companion legislation to bills Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, introduced Tuesday in the House.
DeLauro praised the bills for providing volunteer opportunities that would both improve communities and give Americans eager to serve the financial means to do so.
“If we are serious about getting this nation back on track, we need to give everyone the opportunity to do their part,” DeLauro said.
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As Senate Debates Stimulus, Dodd and Lieberman Demand Help for Housing Market
SENATE STIMULUS
The Day
Katie Koch
Boston University Washington News Service
2/4/09
WASHINGTON – As the Senate debated its economic stimulus package this week, Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn., spoke out for increased funds to get the housing market back on track—a key component, both said, of America’s economic recovery.
Meanwhile, the White House, with its American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, focused on job creation. The administration’s plan would create 43,700 jobs in Connecticut over the next two years, 90 percent in the private sector, according to the White House.
“There are millions of Americans who need work and there is an enormous amount of work that needs to be done in the country,” Lawrence H. Summers, director of the National Economic Council, said Wednesday. “And what this temporary funding does is bring the people without work together with the work that needs to be done.”
The debates underscore the challenges that face Congress and the new administration as the Senate struggles to craft an economic recovery plan that will please both political parties while addressing the nation’s many pressing needs.
Lieberman threw his support behind increased tax breaks for homebuyers, which, he said, would bolster the economy by jump-starting the ailing housing market.
On Wednesday he introduced with Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., an amendment that would increase the homebuyer tax credit to $15,000 from its current $7,500. The amendment, which passed Wednesday night, would extend the tax credit to all homebuyers, not just first-time homeowners, and would not have to be paid back.
“Real economic growth will not resume until housing values stabilize and American families once again have faith and confidence that the most valuable asset they own—their home—is safe and secure,” Lieberman said in a statement.
A Lieberman aide said the tax credit, combined with a proposed mortgage-rate incentive from the federal government, would be likely to cost $18.9 billion over the next 10 years. But Lieberman said he believes such aggressive jolts to the housing market would put even more money back into the economy.
Economists have predicted the tax credit could spur 1.1 million home purchases in 2009, he said on the Senate floor. It would generate $14 billion in federal tax revenues and create 539,000 new jobs, mostly in construction, he added.
Dodd also said he sees weaknesses in how the Senate stimulus bill addresses the financial problems that have contributed to the current economic downturn. In addition to modifying the bill, he said he wants to see $50 billion of the funds allocated through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, the so-called bailout package that passed last fall, dedicated to preventing foreclosures.
“We had over 2,000 foreclosures in Connecticut in the month of December,” Dodd said in an interview. “You’ve got 8 million homes under water, that is, where the mortgages exceed the value of the homes, in the United States. Obviously foreclosure mitigation is a huge issue.”
“Whether it’s foreclosure mitigation or ideas that will get the credit markets moving again, I think [these issues] are very important,” Dodd said Tuesday. “The House [bill] does a bit better, I think, in those two areas.”
Dodd said the White House’s plan for job creation was a “positive step,” but far from sufficient.
“For every job you’re creating you hear about two that get lost,” Dodd said. “My state’s lost 125,000 over the last year or so.”
In addition to its job creation estimates, the White House Wednesday released a breakdown of benefits Connecticut would receive from some of its key stimulus proposals:
- 278,000 Connecticut workers who have lost jobs would be eligible for an extra $100 a month in unemployment insurance benefits.
- 30,000 Connecticut families would be eligible for a $2,500 tax credit for four years of college tuition.
- At least 80 Connecticut schools would receive money for renovations and technology upgrades.
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