Congressional Laws Research Articles

A Century of Progress: U.S. Government Accountability Office Procedures, Reports, and Performance Measures

SYNOPSIS In 2021, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) celebrated its 100th anniversary, and its mission has never been more critical. This study documents the 100-year history of GAO, examining how Congressional law changes and leadership influences of the Comptroller General of the United States have shaped GAO’s role, services, and products. GAO has transformed from focusing on providing oversight through its audits of federal government expenditures during its early years (e.g., to assess legality) to emerging as a leader in providing insights to Congress through program evaluation audits and, more recently, to providing Congress the foresight necessary to confront the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Congressional Laws Provide Resources to Support Family Caregivers.

Approximately 70% of adults aged ≥65 years will need some type of long-term care services, including unpaid care from relatives, friends, or partners. More than 53 million American adults provide upwards of $500 billion in unpaid health care as family caregivers. In 2018, Congress enacted two laws supporting family caregiving: the Recognize, Assist, Include, Support, and Engage (RAISE) Family Caregivers Act and the Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren (SGRG) Act, directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to develop a national caregiving strategy. Advisory Councils for these two acts developed a total of 48 recommendations as the foundation for this strategy. Resources collected to inform these recommendations are now catalogued and publicly available. This opportunity for gerontological nurses to gain additional knowledge and access to services to support family caregivers and grandparents raising grandchildren will advance their work in assessing, documenting, and coordinating care for family caregivers and care recipients. [Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 48(9), 5-7.].

Pathologist-Patient Visits-Revisited.

Direct pathologist-patient encounters are infrequent, but there has been a modest movement toward such interactions in the past 2 decades. The present article places that movement in perspective. It includes a discussion of diverse factors-including congressional laws, the views of department chairs, and progress in artificial intelligence-that could promote pathologist-patient interactions and also reviews factors that might deter such encounters.

Practical lessons from a general dentist of more than 50 years private practice plus 2 years of United States Air Force practice

Having practiced over 54 years the art and science of general dentistry, many changes in philosophy and performance have occurred. Some are minor while others very major. This series of observations will treat some in detail while others very briefly. The physical locations have been in the Dallas, Texas area of the USA. Definitions of terms set the stage for discussion of the basis of dentistry. Support for the scientific as well as evidence-based approaches is laid forth. Filling materials have transitioned from amalgam to composite being most prevalent. Fluoride added to local water supplies has decreased the number of decayed/sensitive teeth, the timing of initial decay, and the prognosis for remediation. pH is a major player in the deterioration of tooth structure. New understandings of tooth brushing and oral hygiene have significantly improved the future for continuing dental health. Absence of fluoride in bottled water has taken a front-center stage for helping/hurting chances of keeping teeth free of decay. Fluoride varnishes have widespread acceptance in America. Failure to seek routine dental care has influenced the outcomes for many younger patients, especially those who have graduated high school, gone off to college or into the workforce. Such lack of routine preventive influence raises the costs of care when it is received, often leading to complaints from patients about the high costs of repair. The alternative is prevention with ongoing consistent 6-month recalls/repairs when problems initiate, rather than allowing problems of long duration. The USA dental insurance industry adverse impact on practicing dentists is a vital monologue. Revealing the dental insurance industry as a number one concern of many surveys of practicing dentists is a way of preparing international countries for learning from the flawed USA models. Recent Congressional law, HR 1418, the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act, will address some of the most critical wrongs by placing the dental insurance industry into antitrust restraints. Current concerns about digital X-ray’s diagnostic potential are revealed. Conservative dentistry is promoted. Results of conservative practice from nearly 50 years are documented with photos and X-rays. Bonded bridge technology is highlighted for its valued impact.

Review of Pharmacotherapy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Disorders, 3rd ed., by David R. Rosenberg and Samuel Gershon

Review of Pharmacotherapy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Disorders, 3rd ed., by David R. Rosenberg and Samuel Gershon

Politics, faith, and the making of American Judaism

Politics, Faith, and the Making of American Judaism. By Peter Adams. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014. Pp. x, 207, notes, index. Paper, $70.00.)Varying degrees of crisis and response move Peter Adams's study of American Jewish political and religious development over the second half of the nineteenth century. While international emergencies bookend the work-ranging from the 1840 Damascus blood libel to turn-of-the-century persecution of eastern European Jews-episodic discrimination in America also receives much attention. Here Adams focuses on anti-Jewish expressions during the Civil War and in subsequent decades characterized as state-sanctioned limitations on their freedom imposed by military commanders or discreet-and not so discreet-discrimination in employment and public accommodations (p. 5). Some instances are familiar, such as depictions of Jewish merchants as wartime profiteers or Ulysses S. Grant's order expelling Jews from his military district. Others are less known like an early congressional law barring Jewish chaplains from army camps or hospitals. Postwar incidents include Jewish discrimination in employment and commercial insurance, exclusion from certain schools or social clubs, or refusal of Jewish patrons at the Grand Union and Manhattan Beach hotels. Ultimately, Adams argues, events at home and abroad taught American Jews an important and difficult lesson. The United States could be a welcoming haven for Jewish immigrants, but it could also pose social and political challenges all its own.Against this backdrop, Adams surveys a generation of American Jewish elites promoting security and acceptance in the United States. Isaac Leeser, Isaac Mayer Wise, Simon Wolf, Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, Jacob Schiff, Oscar Strauss, and Louis Marshall are just a few of the familiar-and noticeably male-intellectuals, religious leaders, philanthropists, and diplomats on whom the study centers. Despite these figures' varied affiliations, Adams argues that they shared a common goal to better integrate Jews into the nation's social and religious landscape. In this light he seeks to tie key nineteenth-century matters of Jewish faith and politics to broader efforts at Americanization. In the book's long view, the seminaries, congregational alliances, political skills, and networks that American Jews developed throughout the late nineteenth century represented both an outgrowth of contemporary posturing as much as an important foundation for robust-albeit factional-Jewish defense groups and denominationalism that would characterize the twentieth century. …

United States Federal Policies Towards Indigenous Peoples – A Comparative Summary

Throughout the last three hundred years the indigenous Native peoples of the United States have been subjected to a number of differing policies by the U.S. federal government. Beginning in 1787 with the creation of the U.S. Constitution, federal policies towards indigenous Native peoples have not followed a single policy track toward a specific goal. Rather, they have been marked by dramatic shifts in both the policy goals and the means by which to achieve those results. The history of such shifting policies can best be compared and framed by examining them across three broad periods: the Isolation and Removal period between 1789 and 1887, the Acculturation and Assimilation period between 1887 and 1934, and the Self-Determination and Sovereignty period between 1934 and the present. Each of these periods are characterized by a specific set of federal policies towards Native peoples, primarily enacted by Congressional laws and acts. While helpful in identifying the comparative trends in federal policy towards Native peoples, these periods should not be viewed in isolation from one another, since only when they are compared do the overall policy shifts become apparent. Furthermore, these periods have not been unanimously accepted by all scholars, and other periods are often defined depending on the situation.

Insecurity and Economic Inequality in the United States

In recent memory, the United States has lived under a heightened sense of insecurity. This sense of insecurity, which initially emanated from the terrorist attacks in September 2001, subsequently has been extended to the employment and financial sectors. As a response to terrorism, multiple Congressional laws have put added restrictions on the movement of humans, capital, and goods and services. On the whole, such policy changes have contributed to a climate of securitization of the major areas of American life. The sense of insecurity has been correlated with a level of economic inequality previously unseen in American history. It is argued that to address both issues simultaneously, the United States should foster improved relations with both Mexico and Canada. The pending legislation in the US Congress on comprehensive immigration reform may hold one of the keys to addressing the problems of both insecurity and inequality in a meaningful way.

Northeast Asian Security: Perspectives, Bargaining, and Issues in the Us Alliances

United States security relations with its allies in Northeast Asia Japan, South Korea and Taiwan underwritten by US mutual defense treaties, or Congressional law, are changing. Each alliance, or security partnership, also reveals instances of strong bargaining between the members. However these partnerships also show continuity Each alliance is now over a half century old and continues in a period of obvious US financial difficulties, and ongoing combat commitments elsewhere. Therefore this paper explores several questions: What are the principal issues, and their background, that are currently challenging each alliance? Could any of these alliances be outmoded now? Or, where utility continues, what adjustments seem appropriate?

"No Defectives Need Apply": Disability and Immigration

Lazarus's verse suggested that all types of immigrants were welcome no matter how poor, tired, or wretched. But that was simply not true when it came to immigrants with certain contagious diseases or with disabilities. Beginning with the first major congressional law to regulate immigration, the Immigration Act of 1882, Congress excluded individuals having mental and physical defects a threat to the nation (2). Over the next four decades as the number of immigrants reached record levels, Congress repeatedly passed legislation excluding individuals with disabilities from entering the United States as immigrants. In both introductory and advanced history classes, I have found that juxtaposing Emma Lazarus's hopeful and inspiring words against the regulations specifying who was to be excluded on the basis of medical conditions has produced excellent discussions and essays on what it means to be an American and on the role of disability in American history. In this essay I will sketch briefly the history of exclusion on the basis of disability and provide some suggestions for classroom use of both the Lazarus poem and the regulations specifying excludable conditions.

Pulling Punches: Congressional Constraints on the Supreme Court's Constitutional Rulings, 1987–2000

To date, no study has found evidence that the U.S. Supreme Court is constrained by Congress in its constitutional decisions. We addressed the selection bias inherent in previous studies with a statute‐centered, rather than a case‐centered, analysis, following all congressional laws enacted between 1987 and 2000. We uncovered considerable congressional constraint in the Court's constitutional rulings. In particular, we found that the probability that the Rehnquist Court would strike a liberal congressional law rose between 47% and 288% as a result of the 1994 congressional elections, depending on the legislative model used.

Student's guide to landmark congressional laws on the First Amendment

Series Foreword Preface Introduction Timeline of Events Related to Congress and the First Amendment Internal Security Symbolic Speech Election Campaign Activities Obscenity Intellectual Property: The Copyright Act of 1976 Labor-Management Relations Federally Funded Programs Freedom of Religion Appendix A: List of Statutes Appendix B: List of Cases Index

DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research Into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences

DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research Into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences

‘‘With the greatest respect and fidelity:’ a Cherokee vision of the ‘Trust’ doctrine”

The trust relationship is the conceptual/philosophical framework against which all relations between the federal government and indigenous groups are conducted. Yet despite the centrality of this concept, federal policymakers have no consistent or agreed upon definition of what the trust relationship actually entails (Wilkins, 1997). And, more importantly, indigenous conceptions of trust have rarely been assessed. This article analyzes and advances one tribe's—the Cherokee—perspective on trust. In focusing on how the Cherokee perceive trust, this section emphasizes that from an indigenous viewpoint the trust relationship embodies a complex and sophisticated understanding that both the tribe and the United States have reciprocal responsibilities to maintain positive relations towards one another. The leaders of the Cherokee people—one of the more diverse indigenous groups— understood in the federal government's actions, whether these were expressed in treaties, policy statements, congressional laws, or court decisions, that the federal government was pledged to protect Cherokee property and sovereignty, would act with utmost integrity in its legal and political dealings with the people, and would insure that the United States political and judicial representatives would act in a moral manner regarding the tribe's rights. Notwithstanding the federal government's tremendous variety of treaty and trust violations, the Cherokee conception of trust is regenerative from generation to generation. This breathes new life into a seasoned concept and offers hope for the often difficult political/legal relations between the federal, state, and tribal governments. And here we beg leave to ask of our father that, in future transactions of a public nature between the United States and our nation, the American Government will not require of our nation any thing which, as our protectors and guardians, they will not, after due deliberation, advise us to comply with; and having no doubt of the magnanimity and benignity of the Government, we shall return home satisfied, and report to our nation the result of our mission to this. With the greatest respect and fidelity, we subscribe our names (Going Snake, et al., 1817, p. 147)

The effect of the Medicare regulations on hospice practice: enhancing staff performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the federal hospice regulations (42 CFR 418.50-.100) and identify from these standards key characteristics that help define important aspects of palliative hospice care. The other purpose will be to examine these requirements to determine what these standards say or imply about the functioning of the hospice staff within the certified program. We assert that in order for a certified program to function in the capacity outlined in the federal hospice requirements, both the administration and staff need to understand, and then practice, the complex role delineated within the Congressional Law and ensuing regulations. The Medicare hospice regulations are a recognized program standard throughout the nation. These requirements, finalized in 1983, were developed by the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) as a result of the Congressional Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA, 1982). Since the promulgation of these regulations, hospices wishing to gain certification have had to adapt and mold their program focus and clinical procedures to meet this legislative mandate. Although some hospice administrators may perceive the Medicare requirements simply as hoops to be jumped through in order to gain funding, in truth, these regulations stand as a benchmark in the history of American hospice care. In their totality, the rules set forth a system of health care that is singular in program design.

The Kennedy administration and economic warfare against communism

Trying to establish what the policy of an American administration is on a particular matter is not always easy. Especially in foreign policy, there are often a large number of departments and agencies involved, with overlapping authority and conflicting policies, which can obfuscate things both for the public and for historians. Policies can get locked into the bureaucratic system and continue long after the espousal of a different policy by the executive. Congressional laws governing foreign policy may originally be passed with ready approval from the White House, but then subsequently prove difficult to alter when changes of political disposition in the executive run ahead of changes in Congress (or vice versa). In addition to these complexities the United States, like other countries, has foreign obligations and a need to cooperate with allies, which further complicate its foreign affairs. This article sketches the growth of America's embargo policy and indicates the direction in which it was heading when Kennedy came to power so that we can assess the political, legal and bureaucratic problems with which he had to contend in attempting to change America's trade relations with communist states. It then proceeds to explain his administration's views about embargo policy and how they developed from 1961 to 1963. In recounting this story special reference will be made to Anglo-American relations, which cast considerable light on the operation of American policy; and we shall also consider political developments which affected what Kennedy did and what he could do regarding America's strategic embargo. The article ends with some general remarks about Kennedy as president.

The Need to Restrain the Treaty–Making Power of the United States within Constitutional Limits

“The treaty-making power is an extraordinary power liable to abuse. Treaties make international law and also they make domestic law. Under our Constitution treaties become the supreme law of the land. They are indeed more supreme than ordinary laws, for congressional laws are invalid if they do not conform to the Constitution, whereas treaty law can override the Constitution. Treaties, for example, can take powers away from the Congress and give them to the President; they can take powers from the States and give them to the Federal Government or to some international body, and they can cut across the rights given the people by their constitutional Bill of Rights.”