Federal Money Research Articles

The Future of Indonesia Islamic Banking Industry: Bankruptcy Analyzing the Second Wave of Global Financial Crisis

This study aims to analyze the resilience of the Indonesia Islamic banking industry from bankruptcy risk in times of financial crisis. This study use binary regression as dependent variable. The Islamic banking industry bankruptcy risk generated from capital buffering changes in accordance with POJK No. 11 / POJK.03 / 2016. Economic Growth, BI rate, Inflation rate and Islamic Money Market O/N rate as independent variables. To anticipate the unobserved heterogeneity, Bank Profitability, USD Exchange Rate, Federal Reserves Interest Rate and Money Supply (M2) are used as control variables. Data analysis to predict bankruptcy uses logistic regression model of the global financial crisis in Indonesia. Data obtained from monthly statistics report of Bank Indonesia and the Financial Services Authority from Januari 2008 until December 2019 by the structural break which impacted the Islamic banking capital on December 2012. Our analysis divide indonesia financial condition into two difference time, before and after the structural break. By Probit Logit Regression Model, it was concluded that USD exchange rate is independent variable which is consistently influence the probability of islamic banking bankruptcy risks in all period. BI rate not significantly affected the probability of Islamic banking bankruptcy because profit and loss sharing method applied in Islamic banking. Before the structural break the probability of bankruptcy significantly affected by Money Supply, USD exchange rate and economic growth. But after the structural break, the probability of bankruptcy significantly affected by Bank Profitability, USD exchange rate, BI rate and Islamic Money Market rate. This model precisely predicted by Count R Squared of 75.81% - 86.67%.

The Making of Appalachian Mississippi

In October 1967, Mississippi joined the Appalachian Regional Commission (arc), a Great Society program that distributed federal money to local governments across mountainous states like West Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. There’s just one problem: Mississippi lacks mountains. This article explores how segregationist Southern Democrats came together with northern liberals to reimagine and remap Mississippi as a place not reeling from the legacies of plantation slavery but merely suffering from a lack of economic development. I argue that this movement to invent “Appalachian Mississippi” countered the liberal War on Poverty’s economic empowerment of rural Black communities and tapped into larger currents of color-blind popular music. In considering the first hit song from a native of Appalachian Mississippi, Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe,” this article suggests that popular culture resonated with political intrigue to redistribute American wealth through the South’s white powerbrokers.

Factors of interethnic conflicts in the Russian Federation

The article considers the conflict factors of interethnic relations in the Russian Federation. The survey of experts, qualified professionals in the spheres of ethno-extremism and interethnic conflicts, the data of opinion polls, analysis of academic papers and relevant mass media allowed the author to identify factors that can have a negative impact on interethnic relations and provoke ethnic conflicts in the next five to seven years. The first group of factors that are highly dangerous in terms of their impact includes economic crisis, low living standards, corruption, migration, proliferation of international Islamic extremism, activities of foreign states, struggles for power and access to federal money between governing elites and ethnic groups in national republics, ineffective educational and cultural policies. The second group of negative factors with a medium impact on interethnic situation consists of activities of interethnic and ethno-religious organizations, organized crime (including ethnic), decrease in the share of Russians in the population, ineffective ethnic policy and poor performance of law enforcement agencies. The third group of factors with a modest impact consists of foreign policy and systematic violations of the rights and freedoms of citizens.

Texas Arguments Lead Heavy ACA Action.

Arguments in Texas raise questions about the ACA's fate as enrollment holds steady and new state reinsurance waivers are approved.

Kansas chemist indicted on fraud charges

University of Kansas chemist Feng “Franklin” Tao was indicted on Aug. 21 on US federal charges alleging he concealed working for a Chinese university since May 2018. “Tao is alleged to have defrauded the U.S. government by unlawfully receiving federal grant money at the same time that he was employed and paid by a Chinese research university—a fact that he hid from his university and federal agencies,” says John C. Demers, US assistant attorney general for national security, in a Department of Justice statement. Tao is charged with one count of wire fraud and three counts of program fraud, according to the indictment. For the program fraud, the indictment cites $37,566 in salary that Tao received through grant funding from the US National Science Foundation and US Department of Energy for research on heterogeneous catalysis. Tao pleaded not guilty to the charges at a hearing on Aug. 23. He has

Our Non-Christian Nation: How Atheists, Satanists, Pagans, and Others Are Demanding Their Rightful Place in Public Life. By Jay Wexler

In this book, law professor and humorist Jay Wexler argues that the Supreme Court has moved toward a looser understanding of the separation of church and state, now cemented with the appointments of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh; and that, in response, religious minorities have increasingly come forward demanding their place alongside the Christian majority in the public square through such activities as requesting to give prayer invocations before city council meetings, attempting to place religious monuments on government property, receiving school vouchers and other forms of federal money, and organizing religious clubs that meet in public schools. Wexler’s primary purpose is simply to explain and explore this wave of public activity from minority religions. To research this book, he travelled the country and conducted participant observation with Muslims, Pagans, Satanists, and even Summum, a little-known new religious movement based in Salt Lake City. Wexler notes that when these minority religions claim the same rights as Christians, the response from the religious majority has frequently been “distressingly hostile, ignorant, and hateful” (8). In several cases, government bodies decided to close open forums to religion entirely rather than allow Satanists or other maligned religions to participate. Wexler concludes that as the Supreme Court loosens its interpretation of the Establishment Clause, it is now more important than ever for religious minorities to demand equal footing with Christians. He writes, “Only by insisting on exercising these rights can Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, and everybody else ensure that the Court’s new religious jurisprudence does not result in a public space occupied exclusively by Christian messages and symbols. At stake is nothing less than our national public life” (10).

Penny Wise But Pound Foolish: How Permanent Supportive Housing Can Prevent a World of Hurt

People experiencing chronic homelessness are trapped in a cycle of homelessness and trauma. Traditional approaches to homelessness attempt to address people’s trauma first and use housing as a reward for complying with treatment; such approaches fail because people cannot improve physically or psychologically while they are actively experiencing the trauma of homelessness. Our current responses to chronic homelessness do not work, but cities often justify the status quo as the only fiscally responsible option. Instead, these approaches are among the most expensive and least effective. Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) flips the traditional order in which homelessness and trauma are addressed by providing non-time limited, low barrier housing, and offering — but not mandating — supportive services. Once housed, people formerly experiencing chronic homelessness can then improve their physical and mental health, address substance use, and seek education or employment. Research shows that PSH results in better housing stability than housing interventions that require sobriety or treatment compliance. Further, PSH is associated with better outcomes related to quality of life, emergency services, physical and psychiatric hospitalizations, and substance use. Better outcomes for residents also save money, making PSH the most cost-effective, long-term solution to chronic homelessness. When people experiencing chronic homelessness receive PSH, they are less likely to use emergency departments, hospitals, detoxification facilities, and shelters. PSH residents are also less likely to interact with law enforcement, get arrested, and be incarcerated. The decreased use of these expensive services is dramatic and results in savings. Often, cost savings equal or exceed the cost of PSH. PSH is a front-loaded investment that can replace ineffective traditional programming, show significant and persistent results, and save cities, states, and the federal government money over time. Although PSH is proven to be most cost-effective solution to chronic homelessness, existing studies radically underestimate the benefits. Most studies focus on just one or a few typical cost drivers associated with chronic homelessness, such as emergency services. No study accounts for the millions of dollars cities spend on sweeping encampments; the substantial costs for the entire criminal justice system process (from arrest through probation); the extraordinary demand for police and outreach services that do not result in issuing citations or criminal charges; the drag on each entity within the emergency response system (fire departments, EMTs, police, emergency rooms); the overtaxing of volunteers, members of the faith community, and community service providers; the clear economic impacts on local businesses, tourism, and travel; and the significant psychological and emotional tolls exacted from unsheltered people as well as the surrounding community. Thus, even the already impressive evaluations of PSH’s cost-effectiveness are vast underestimations of its impact. PSH is the most humane and cost-effective solution to chronic homelessness. Indeed, it is the most studied intervention in all of homelessness policy. Federal, state, and local governments must stop being pennywise but pound foolish, and instead take bold steps to bring PSH to scale to finally stem the crisis.

North Carolina proposed budget would cut BH funding by millions

The fractured relationship between North Carolina legislative leaders and the state's seven behavioral health managed care organizations (MCOs) surfaced again May 28 with the release of the state Senate budget plan, the Winston‐Salem Journal reported. The MCOs would lose $51.4 million in single‐stream funding in the 2019–20 and 2020–21 fiscal years in the Senate proposal, while the House budget cuts would total $36.4 million each fiscal year. The Senate cut would be just under $25 million each year for Cardinal Innovations, the state's largest behavioral health MCO, while the House would reduce Cardinal by $9.64 million each year. Cardinal handles more than $675 million in annual federal and state Medicaid money. It said it served about 26,000 individuals with single‐stream funds in fiscal year 2017–18. “New services or projects that require on‐going, non‐Medicaid investments will not be possible. Continuing to reduce single‐stream behavioral health funds is a huge risk for our state — the need for addiction and mental health services is greater today in North Carolina than it has ever been,” said Cardinal CEO Trey Sutten.

Valuing the Death Penalty

This article addresses the problems of the death penalty, including a lack of oversight, extreme costs and rampant misuse, by arguing for a federal law capping the amount of money states spend on the death penalty. This proposal uses the conditional spending clause to encourage compliance by providing federal money for state law enforcement agencies. This proposal incentivizes state governments to find creative ways to stay beneath the cap without violating defendants’ rights and to take an active approach to imposing the death penalty instead of entrusting the power to localities. Part I examines the disparity in cost between the death penalty and life without parole, looking at state data from regions across the nation and the federal government. After exploring the larger picture, Part II specifies the death penalty procedures that make it more expensive than life imprisonment. Part III advances the proposal for capping death penalty spending in exchange for federal money to state law enforcement agencies. Additionally, this part examines the constitutionality of the proposal utilizing case law. Part IV explains the benefits of the restriction and redistribution of funds, including funding issues the people want, increasing funding for state law enforcement, scrutinizing capital punishment cases more closely, and furthering the exercise of federal power.

Political Entrepreneurs and Pork-Barrel Spending

Pork-barrel spending is the use of federal money for localized projects that yield only a narrow geographic benefit. It is a commonly held belief that politicians use this spending to improve their chances of re-election. One way that an incumbent can increase their chances of re-election is through increased fundraising. Political entrepreneurs see this opportunity and attempt to benefit from these projects in exchange for campaign contributions. This paper investigates whether incumbents are able to use their position to bolster their campaign contributions. I find pork-barrel spending and political contributions to be positively related, but this effect is only present when the incumbent properly times the project. I also find that general federal appropriations do not have the same impact. This supports the claim that pork-barrel spending can be used as a currency in the marketplace for political capital.

Speaker Jim Wright: Power, Scandal, and the Birth of Modern Politics by J. Brooks Flippen

Reviewed by: Speaker Jim Wright: Power, Scandal, and the Birth of Modern Politics by J. Brooks Flippen Daniel K. Williams Speaker Jim Wright: Power, Scandal, and the Birth of Modern Politics. By J. Brooks Flippen. Jess and Betty Jo Hay Series. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018. Pp. vi, 527. $35.00, ISBN 978-1-4773-1514-9.) J. Brooks Flippen's definitive biography of James Claude "Jim" Wright Jr., the Texas Democratic congressman who served as Speaker of the House in the late 1980s before he was toppled by Newt Gingrich, offers a detailed, thoroughly researched account of a lost political species: the moderate southern Democrat. For three decades, Wright, an admirer of both Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, served as a bridge between his conservative, increasingly Republican constituents in Fort Worth, Texas, and the national Democratic Party, whose liberal principles of equality and commitment to social welfare Wright continued to champion even after conservative "Boll Weevil" Democrats converted to the party of Ronald Reagan (p. 104). Flippen's book, which is based on extensive archival research and interviews with many of Wright's associates (and with Wright himself before his death in 2015), sheds important light not only on Wright's own achievements but also on the era of centrist liberalism of which Wright and other moderate southern Democrats were a part. Although Wright began his political career in the 1940s with a reputation as a progressive, he quickly learned to moderate his inclinations toward large government social programs and racial integration when they conflicted with the conservative leanings of his constituents. For thirty years, from the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower to that of Reagan, Wright practiced the politics of compromise, using his growing influence in Congress to pass centrist legislation on health care, civil rights, and the environment. His skill at channeling federal money to his district while simultaneously calling for fiscal responsibility warded off conservative challengers at home, and his ability to shepherd Great Society legislation through Congress (albeit at times in watered-down form) pacified northern liberals in his congressional caucus. His record on civil rights was mixed, reflecting the conflict between his liberal inclinations and conservative constituency. He voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and in general, he supported moderate civil rights legislation, but only after it had been weakened by conservative amendments. On the environment, he was more progressive, but still not [End Page 508] sufficiently opposed to Texas oil interests to earn the support of national environmental activists. By the 1970s, Wright's cultural conservatism was out of step with the liberal wing of his party. He supported the Vietnam War long after it had become unpopular with progressives and took moderately conservative stances on abortion and school prayer. In the 1980s, when Wright had reached the top echelons of congressional Democratic leadership, some liberal Democrats in Congress treated him as an opponent and tried unsuccessfully to block him from becoming Speaker of the House. But if Wright found the Democratic Party's cultural move to the left discomforting, he considered the rightward shift of the Republican Party under Reagan far more objectionable. As Speaker, Wright tried—often unsuccessfully—to block Reagan's cuts to social programs and to counter Reagan's defense spending increases with tax hikes. Even as the parties shifted around him, Wright remained a southern liberal in the mold of the early 1960s: a man who believed in expanded government programs and a strong social safety net coupled with balanced budgets, moderate social conservatism, and a strong defense. At the end of the 1980s, Wright saw this dream collapse. After giving his life to congressional service—and sacrificing his first marriage, his extracurricular activities, and, to a certain extent, his health for the sake of his political career—he had to leave Congress in disgrace because of allegations of financial improprieties that he believed were unfair and politically motivated. Worse, the politics of moderation, civility, and consensus that Wright had pursued for decades disappeared, as did the centrist southern wing of the Democratic Party. Since 1997, Wright's Fort Worth district has been represented in...

Using tax dollars for re-election: the impact of pork-barrel spending on electoral success

Pork-barrel spending is the appropriation of federal money for use in projects that only benefit narrowly defined groups. In the past, researchers have attempted to show that pork-barrel spending increases the likelihood of an incumbent being reelected but empirical evidence has been hard to find. I hypothesize that pork-barrel spending does not directly increase the likelihood of reelection; instead, pork-barrel spending can be used to increase fundraising and the additional campaign funds are then used to increase the likelihood of being reelected. I find that a $10 million increase in pork-barrel spending will lead to a 0.10% increase in the share of the vote in an election. While this may not seem like a major advantage to some, several elections over the past few years have been decided by < 1%. Therefore, legislators in tightly contested races may be able to use pork-barrel spending to gain some degree of separation from their challenger.

Temporary rules in place for N.H. Medicaid to Schools expansion

New Hampshire schools can now start getting federal money to provide mental health counseling, speech therapy and other services to more students, The Associated Press reported Sept. 1. In the past, the Medicaid to Schools program applied only to students with Individual Education Plans. But after the federal government revised its guidance, lawmakers expanded the program last year to cover any Medicaid‐eligible student with medical needs. The bill required the state Department of Health and Human Services to start working on the changes by Sept. 1, 2017. Parents and advocates expressed frustration in late July that the expansion hadn't been implemented. A few weeks later, Commissioner Jeffrey Meyers said temporary rules are now in place that will allow schools to begin billing early in the 2018–19 school year. “The expanded program will allow school districts to better support children and their families by enabling the districts to be reimbursed for providing medically necessary services to all Medicaid‐eligible students,” said Becky Whitley, policy coordinator for the Children's Behavioral Health Collaborative.

Beyond FMV: Commercial Reasonableness of Physician Compensation Post-MACRA

The influx of federal money over the past several decades to healthcare providers, and the allocation of those dollars, drastically transformed the healthcare delivery system in a way that has had dramatic impact on the economic and financial value of healthcare enterprises, assets, and services. The recent paradigm shift in the reimbursement environment, from volume to value, has had perhaps the greatest impact on the processes and outcomes of valuation assignments, as the reimbursement environment significantly affects the flow of revenue to healthcare providers. The emergence of value-based reimbursement (VBR) (most recently manifested through the implementation of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 [MACRA]), has driven the pursuit of closer relationships between hospitals and physicians. Corresponding with this growing trend toward hospital-physician alignment, and specifically toward vertical integration, increased regulatory oversight regarding the legal permissibility of these...

For People With Disabilities, A Fight For Access To Housing.

The City of Los Angeles continues to struggle to make available housing that is both affordable and accessible.

Fighting Westway: Environmental Law, Citizen Activism, and the Regulatory War That Transformed New York City by William W. Buzbee

Reviewed by: Fighting Westway: Environmental Law, Citizen Activism, and the Regulatory War That Transformed New York City by William W. Buzbee Robert D. Lifset Fighting Westway: Environmental Law, Citizen Activism, and the Regulatory War That Transformed New York City. By William W. Buzbee. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014, 292 pages, $24.95 Cloth. In 1973 a truck fell through the West Side Highway, landing on the road below. The highway, running from 42nd Street to the Battery along the west side of Manhattan Island, was in serious disrepair rendering it unusable. In response, state and city planners devised a clever and creative solution: extend the western boundary of Manhattan into the Hudson, rebuild the highway under this landfill and above it place a large park. By adding this new highway to the federal interstate highway map, ninety percent of the costs of the project would be paid for by the federal government. Westway would provide a large infusion of federal money (estimated initial costs of $1–2 billion for a 4.2-mile highway, making it the most expensive highway in the nation) to solve a transportation problem. But the larger purpose of the project was to spark the redevelopment of New York City's Lower West Side. The landfill and buried highway would create new land the city could sell or lease at a time of fiscal crisis. Ironically, the decision to bury the road under landfill in the Hudson River emerged from the lessons learned by decades of community activism opposing the destruction and dislocation caused by Robert Moses' many highway projects. The road would displace no one and have only a slight impact on nearby neighborhoods. Between 1970 and 1985 every New York City mayor and New York State governor, both US Senators, the city unions and banking establishment supported Westway. Westway was never built. Now, we have in William Buzbee's new book a full understanding of precisely how and why this project was stopped. In the process it clears away what Buzbee describes as the myths surrounding Westway's defeat. Buzbee guides the reader through the legal strategy, court cases, regulatory decisions, briefs, and judicial decisions that marked the many twists and turns of the Westway fight. By examining all the relevant primary sources while conducting an impressive number of oral history interviews, Buzbee has produced an impressive history. [End Page 130] Buzbee advances three primary factors for Westway's demise. First, Westway's opponents benefitted from the leadership provided by a consistent and savvy group, none of whom was more important than Marcy Benstock of the Clean Air Alliance. In contrast, Westway's supporters, while consisting of much of the city and state's economic and political elite, often had no single individual planning strategy to push the project forward. Second, a change in federal law allowed for trading in highway money for mass transit funding expanding the ranks of Westway opponents to include advocates for mass transportation. It also helps explain why many city, state, and federal legislators from New York were against Westway. What sense did it make to spend billions (estimates of the cost grew and the final price tag may have been in the tens of billions) on a highway while the subway was falling apart? Westway could never escape the impression that it was largely designed as a means to use federal money to disproportionately benefit the city's powerful real estate and financial interests. Finally, Westway ran into the high legal barrier created by section 404 of the Clean Water Act (1972). Section 404 required the Army Corps of Engineers (the federal authority responsible for granting permits to dump fill into navigable waters) to deny a permit if a proposed project does not need to dump fill material into those waters; or if that fill were to cause significant degradation of an aquatic resource, especially harm to important fishery breeding grounds and habitat; or if an action's impacts were uncertain. Westway supporters found a reliably compliant partner in the Army Corps of Engineers, which twice issued permits only to see them overturned by a federal judge whose injunctions were upheld by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals...

Who Speaks? Thirtieth Anniversary Dossier: Interventions

Who Speaks? Thirtieth Anniversary Dossier: Interventions

The Federal Spending Paradox: Economic Self-Interest and Symbolic Racism in Contemporary Fiscal Politics

We show how symbolic politics condition public opinion on federal spending and how this helps to explain an important puzzle in contemporary American politics. Using multilevel regression and poststratification to estimate state-level opinion on federal spending, we show that, curiously, opposition to federal spending is higher in states receiving more federal money, per tax dollar paid. Belying the popular narrative surrounding so-called “red state socialism,” we find that simple hypocrisy does not explain this paradox—individuals who are likely to benefit from spending tend to support it. But, income is a more powerful predictor of opinion on spending in “taker” states than “giver” states, heightening state-level opposition in the former. There is also more to the story than economic self-interest. Symbolic racism is four times more powerful than income in explaining opposition to spending, and there are more people with such attitudes in states receiving more federal money.

Can States Take Over and Turn Around School Districts? Evidence From Lawrence, Massachusetts

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to identify and turn around struggling schools, with federal school improvement money required to fund evidence-based policies. Most research on turnarounds has focused on individual schools, whereas studies of district-wide turnarounds have come from relatively exceptional settings and interventions. We study a district-wide turnaround of a type that may become more common under ESSA, an accountability-driven state takeover of Massachusetts’s Lawrence Public Schools (LPS). A differences-in-differences framework comparing LPS to demographically similar districts not subject to state takeover shows that the turnaround’s first 2 years produced sizable achievement gains in math and modest gains in reading. We also find no evidence that the turnaround resulted in slippage on nontest score outcomes and suggestive evidence of positive effects on grade progression among high school students. Intensive small-group instruction over vacation breaks may have led to particularly large achievement gains for participating students.

Barriers to the Implementation of Lipoprotein Apheresis in Canada

This article details the effectiveness of using lipoprotein apheresis (LA) rather than plasmapheresis in patients with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH), using results from the first HoFH pediatric patient treated with LA in Ontario. We further detail the barriers involved in adhering to international guidelines by implementing this as a first-line treatment for this condition in Ontario, and the potential savings that would be gained with treating the remaining HoFH patients in this province with LA. A primary barrier has been the division of responsibility that exists in Canada, where the delivery of medical services and the delivery of blood products are separated, artificially discounting the price of plasmapheresis and making it seem like the less expensive option. We would like to implement LA as a first-line therapy, to not only improve patient quality of life and outcomes, but to also to potentially save our federal and provincial governments' taxpayer money.