volume vi, issue iii

JHU POLITIKISSUE III, 2/21/11

Volume VI, Issue IIIFebruary 21, 2011

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JOHNS HOPKINS’s Only Weekly-Published Political Magazine

Also in this Week’s Edition:

THE UNCERTAIN FUTUREOF HIGH-SPEED RAIL

By Alex Clearfield, ‘14-Page 3

OPINION

www.JHUPOLITIK.com

TUNISIAN IMMIGRANTSFLEE

By Megan Augustine, ‘13-Page 2

BIG NUMBER 2: STILL ADEVLEOPING COUNTRY

By Ari Schaffer, ‘14-Page 6

REAL BUDGET REFORM

By Matt Varvaro, ‘13

-Page 5

(Continued on Page 2)

PROTESTS SPREAD TOBAHRAIN

his week, pro-democracyprotests spread to the tiny

island kingdom of Bahrain, sparkinga harsh response from military andpolice forces. Protestors who havegathered in Pearl Square, the mainsquare in the capital, Manama, wereassaulted in the early hours ofThursday morning with tanks, teargas, and police batons. The govern-ment’s iron-fisted response followsin the wake of weeks of regional un-rest that has already led to the oust-ing of autocratic leaders in Tunisiaand Egypt, as well as the sacking ofthe prime minister’s cabinet in Jor-dan.

Home to the U.S. Navy’s FifthFleet, Bahrain is seen as a criticalpartner in a region that has served

as the focal point of America’s for-eign policy for much of the lastdecade. During a visit in December,Secretary of State Hillary Clintoncalled Bahrain and its monarch-ledgovernment a “model partner” forAmerica’s Middle East strategy,much of which has been focused oncounterbalancing the influence ofnearby Iran and battling the rise ofAl-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.In recent months, Washington has

been at pains to strike a balanced re-sponse to the wave of pro-democ-racy demonstrations that has sweptthe Arab world from the Maghreb tothe Persian Gulf. Faced with sup-porting traditional government al-lies, many of whom are autocraticand deeply unpopular, or encourag-

byMatt Garland, ‘11Contributing Writer

ing the demands of aggrieved Arabcitizens, the Obama administrationhas struggled to settle on a responsethat both satisfies both its officialdiplomatic loyalties and the flaredpopulist yearnings of the Arabstreet. To side too much with theformer begs criticism of hypocrisy,while showing solidarity with thelatter greatly threatens the existingMiddle East policy framework.President Obama appeared to be

on the defensive last Tuesday, dur-ing his first news conference of theyear after receiving criticism overhis administration’s cautious ap-proach in offering support to the

INTERNATIONAL

T

NATIONAL

(Linsey Addario/NY Times)

Egyptian protestors. “History will end up recording thatat every juncture in the situation in Egypt, that we wereon the right side of history....What we didn’t do is pre-tend that we could dictate the outcome in Egypt, becausewe can’t,” says Obama.Though seen as a domestic victory by many Egyptians

citizens, the resignation of long-time Egyptian presidentHosni Mubarak on February 11th was judged by many inWashington to be a monumental challenge to the MiddleEast strategy that has dominated American foreign pol-icy for decades. Mubarak’s government upheld one ofonly two official Arab peace treaties with Israel, Amer-ica’s chief ally in the region. The other is maintained byJordan, which is also governed by an unpopular author-itarian regime. Jordan, like Egypt, has been a traditionalally of the United States and saw similar demonstrationsin January, which resulted in the sacking of Prime Min-ister Samir Rifai’s cabinet by King Abdullah II.In what appears to be a watershed moment in Arab

history, Washington is being challenged to move beyondits habitual posturing in support of undemocratic, re-pressive governments. Indeed, to navigate this changewithout compromising its existing security strategypresents a formidable challenge to the Obama adminis-tration and its foreign policy. On Tuesday, the presidentsaid that regional governments “can’t maintain powerthrough coercion,” arguing that Arab leaders must intro-

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duce freedom and reform before their citizens obtain itby force. Eager to avoid criticism of giving democracy adouble standard, the president said, “You have a young,vibrant generation within the Middle East that is lookingfor greater opportunity.... You can’t be behind the curve.”Given the continued surge of protests in the region,

which has now reached the shores of the Gulf States (in-cluding the counterterrorism hot-point, Yemen), the U.S.is being faced with a rapidly shifting Middle Eastern par-adigm. Indeed, whether its foreign policy succeeds inweathering this transition may now rest on how well itbalances the interests of its traditional allies in govern-ment and those of an embittered and newly assertiveArab populace. s

Tunisian Immigrants Flee

byMegan Augustine, ‘13 and Talene Bilazarian, ‘13Staff Writer and Contributing Writer

In the past two weeks, thousands of Tunisian immi-grants have flooded the island of Lampedusa off thecoast of Italy, creating what the Italian government hascalled a “humanitarian crisis.” As of last Wednesday,

The POLITIKEDITOR-In-Chief

Joshua AyalEditor-in-Chief

Harry BlackEditor-in-Chief

Sam Lichtenstein

Executive Editors

Will DentonMorgan HitzigHannah Holliday

Managing Editor

Matt Varvaro

Staff Writers

Randy BellAlex ClearfieldRachel CohenRohit DasguptaEric FeinbergBecca FishbeinConor FoleyCary Glynn

Benjamin GoldbergPaul GrossingerDan HochmanJordan KalmsAnna KochutBriana Last

Hilary MatfessDaniel RoettgerAri Schaffer

Faculty Advisor

Steven R. David

JHU POLITIK is a student-run politicalpublication. Please note that the opin-ions expressed within JHU POLITIK arethose solely of the author.

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INTERNATIONAL REPORT

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(Continued from Page 1)

PRODUCTION MANAGERS

Casey NavinNeil O’Donnell


States. According to an article published by FarsiNet, “Inthe United States alone the Iranian population grewfrom about 15,000 in 1965 to about 121,000 in 1980.”But the emigration that results from revolution is not

a challenge for the receiving country alone. Emigrationfollowing a revolution can drain a country of its most ed-ucated and wealthiest citizens, thereby leaving it withoutmuch needed resources at a critical time of rebuilding. For instance, as a result of a corrupt government com-

prised of the military elite who led Algeria’s revolution,the younger, educated generations seek ways to use theirskills. Emigration to Europe is often the most realisticpossibility for such achievements. Similarly, in the wake of the revolution in Iran, the ma-

jority of Iranian students studying abroad found ways toremain there and bring their families out of Iran, as well.The fear and uncertainty accompanying a radical politi-cal overthrow, coupled with a history of untrustworthygovernance, acts as a trigger, setting off waves of emigra-tion.Boats carrying Egyptians are also now beginning to

arrive on the shores of Lampedusa. NATO authoritieshave cautioned European governments to be preparedfor continuing emigration waves as revolution continuesto spread. While this sort of emigration may only be asymptom of a much larger problem, European countriesbordering the Mediterranean have historically taken ahard line against illegal immigration through their na-tions. As a result, those same countries will now have tochoose between strictly enforcing the law and bowing tohumanitarian pressure to allow these migrants to safelyflee turmoil in their homelands. s

The Uncertain Future of High-Speed Rail

by Alex Clearfield, ‘14Staff Writer

President Barack Obama’s 2012 budget proposal, in-troduced last Monday, includes $8 billion for a nationalhigh-speed rail project, which would extend service tonearly 80% of Americans over the next 25 years. Cur-rently, there is only one true high-speed rail service inthe country: Amtrak’s Acela route, which serves theNortheast from Boston to Washington, D.C. Overall,President Obama’s proposal pledges a total of $53 billion

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February 16th, the BBC reported 5,000 immigrants hadarrived at the island, which is located only 70 milesnorth of Tunisia. Due to its central location between Africa and Italy,

Lampedusa is a natural entry point into the EuropeanUnion for those seeking asylum in Europe. The islandhas seen waves of immigrants before from Libya andEgypt, among other African nations, but Italian InteriorMinister Robert Maroni has called this an “unprece-dented Biblical exodus.” Lampedusa formerly operatedan immigrant holding center and has now reopened it todeal with the influx. This sudden upsurge is a result of the recent revolu-

tion and continuing political turmoil in Tunisia. How-ever, massive immigration numbers followingrevolutions is not an unseen historical trend.In fact, domestic conflict, and especially entire revolu-tions, have a historical precedent for increasing concernover immigration and border control policies. In thisway, the revolution of one nation affects the political re-alities of nearly every surrounding country.

While the French-Algerian relationship revolvesaround far more complicated and deeply-rooted mattersthan simply the transfer of people from one nation to theother, it also exemplifies this immigration pattern. Asreferenced in the “International Journal of Peace Stud-ies” in 1980 one-quarter of the total population of innerParis, and 14% of the metropolitan area, were foreigners,the majority of whom came from Algeria. Despite a rev-olution to overthrow French authority ending in 1962,Algerian immigrants headed to France to seek employ-ment opportunities and higher standards of living.The Iranian Revolution of 1979 caused similar prob-

lems with a mass exodus of the country’s elite fleeing toother Middle Eastern countries, Europe, and the United

INTERNATIONAL REPORT / NATIONAL REPORT

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Tunisian immigrants under guard by policemen on the Italian island ofLampedusa. (AFP)

not already use existing rail services.Vice President Joe Biden, a supporter of Amtrak who

has, by his own estimate, ridden it nearly 8,000 times,has said that high-speed rail would represent a “downpayment” on an important infrastructure improvement,much in the way that the Interstate Highway Systemchanged intercity travel in the 1950s. However, even inthe 1950s cars were an integral part of daily life; passen-ger trains were not then, and are still not today for mostAmericans.Last Wednesday, Florida Governor Rick Scott, a Re-

publican, announced that he was going to reject $2.4 bil-lion in federal funding for the Florida high-speed railline. Many have attacked the move, especially SenatorBill Nelson (D-FL), who said that nearly 24,000 jobswould be created by undertaking the project. If Floridadecides not to accept the money, the Department ofTransportation will disburse it to other states for theirhigh-speed rail projects. The Republican governors ofboth Ohio and Wisconsin had previously rejectedsmaller sums of money for high-speed rail projects. The Democrats have a quandary on their hands. While

in theory an efficient high-speed rail system would payhuge dividends in the future, it would cost an enormoussum now. It is politically convenient that the two projectsclosest to starting are in two areas in dire need of im-proved rail systems, as opposed to one in a less populatedarea or a revamping of the already well-served NortheastCorridor. The Obama administration and the Depart-ment of Transportation have a lot of work to do to con-vince the public that high-speed rail can be a viablecompetitor to automobiles. The question remains: if it isthere, will it be used? s

Real Budget Reform

byMatt Varvaro, ‘13Managing Editor

As the power of the purse shifts hands to a new HouseRepublican majority, President Obama stands with vetopen firmly in hand in what is shaping up to be a bitterlypartisan battle over the federal budget. As this debate un-folds, however, the American people should be aware ofone very important reality: namely, that the budget cuts

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for high-speed rail over the next six years.The proposal differentiates between three types of rail

service. Core Express Corridors would serve as the mainarteries of the high-speed rail service, operating electri-fied trains that would service major cities. Next, Re-gional Corridors would serve mid-sized cities and sharetrack with other rail lines. Finally, Emerging Routeswould serve smaller, less populated areas. Trains on theCore Express Corridors are projected to travel up to 250miles per hour, twice Acela’s current speed. There are currently two high-speed rail projects in

planning stages. Construction on a Florida route willbegin later this year; it would connect Tampa, Orlando,and Miami, and operate at speeds faster than Acela does.The other project, arguably the most important, wouldconnect California. The current plan is for one line tostart in Sacramento and another to start in San Fran-cisco, with both terminating in San Diego by way of LosAngeles. It is hoped that this rail line would help weanCalifornia from its notorious car dependence. The Cali-fornia project is expected to start construction in Sep-tember 2012. Both projects were awarded federal grantsin 2010.There are many obstacles to a national high-speed rail

program: new track, right-of-way issues with freighttrains, and, perhaps most importantly, Republican oppo-sition. Republicans oppose the current Amtrak system,which has been subsidized for nearly 40 years. The Re-publican argument is that the private sector can operaterail lines more efficiently than the government can andthat the high-speed rail service would not be popularenough to make its high investment costs effective.To be sure, rail ridership in the U.S. is astoundingly

low compared to that of other developed countries. TheMidwest and West are mostly dependent on the Inter-state Highway System, as it can link major cities sur-rounded by sparsely populated areas fairly quickly. Railridership is highest in the Northeast, which is served byAcela and the slower Northeast Regional train. TheNortheast also enjoys a large number of daily departures;there are significantly less in other areas of the country.In 2010, Amtrak carried 29.1 million passengers for atotal of just 0.1% of passenger-miles traveled in the coun-try.Republicans are opposed to the project, which repre-

sents the second major attempt by the federal govern-ment to revitalize public rail. Republicans cite the lowridership of Amtrak as a main factor, reasoning that peo-ple will not be willing to use high-speed rail if they do

NATIONAL REPORT / OPINION

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that each side is proposing are not nearly enough to ad-dress the looming fiscal crisis in a meaningful way. Consider the supposedly bold budget initiative that

the president released last week, which reduces pro-jected deficits over the next decade by about $1.1 trillion.To put this in perspective, now consider that this $1.1trillion in ten-year deficit reduction is virtually equiva-lent to next year’s projected deficit alone. Even the $100billion cuts that House Republicans promised to enactin their first year in the majority do not amount to verymuch in the context of annual deficits of over $1 trillion.In order to truly tackle the deficit problem, it is im-

portant to keep in mind a couple of key points: first, thesheer magnitude of the deficit is quite dramatic and itsexplosion is a relatively recent phenomenon. Rememberthat, as recently as 2006, the federal deficit was about$250 billion, or slightly less than 2% of GDP. In 2007, thedeficit’s share of the economy shrunk to just over 1%,which, although still unacceptable from the point ofview of a budget hawk, was manageable. Compare thatto the past two years’ federal deficits, which have hov-ered around an astonishing 10% of GDP, or about $1.5trillion annually. Deficits this high are simply unaccept-able and unsustainable, and could pose a serious threatto long-term economic growth.Second, it is important to identify the source of this

deficit problem. Contrary to popular claims made on theeditorial page of the New York Times, this very recentdeficit explosion cannot be attributed to “tax cuts for therich” or spending on wars in the Middle East, both ofwhich have been in place throughout the past decade.Rather, the obvious source of the ballooning deficit is thedramatic increase in discretionary domestic spending,which has risen by over 27% in just the past two years –and that figure has been widely disputed as many arguethat the real increase, including stimulus spending, hasbeen even greater. The federal government today spendstwice as much money in nominal terms as it did just adecade ago and total federal spending has reached one-quarter of GDP. This represents an astounding 25% in-crease in the size of government relative to the economyfrom 2007, when federal spending totaled less than one-fifth of GDP, just about the post-World War II average.Entitlement programs pose the greatest threat to fiscal

stability going forward and each of the so-called “bigthree” – Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid –should undergo dramatic reform. The precise nature ofthese reforms is a discussion for another article, butsome possibilities include means testing and raising the

retirement age of Social Security while expanding per-sonal retirement accounts, converting Medicare to avoucher program, and block granting Medicaid funds tothe states. It is also true that defense spending can be re-duced, although given that it happens to be one of thefederal government’s only explicitly constitutionally-au-thorized and legitimate responsibilities, it should gener-ally be the last area to see major cuts.Recognizing the need to address these programs

should not, however, preclude reforms to the spendingthat got us into this fiscal mess in the first place and nowis a better time than ever to reevaluate the federal rolein many domestic programs. For instance, perhaps thetime has come to end the federal government’s involve-ment in agriculture and discontinue the price supportsand subsidies that raise food prices for every singleAmerican consumer to the benefit of a few largeagribusinesses. Likewise, perhaps the federal govern-ment should return education policy and funding backto the states, rather than continue the current practiceof having taxpayers send money to Washington, lose asignificant portion to the federal bureaucracy, and thenhave the remainder sent back to school districts. Federaleducation policy should particularly be called into ques-tion considering the utter failure of skyrocketing federaleducation spending to bring any improvements to edu-cation whatsoever, by any measurable criteria, such astest scores. Similar questions can be asked about a scoreof other wasteful and ineffective – and, in many cases,counterproductive – federal programs like housing andurban development policy and the War on Drugs.Individuals of the Keynesian persuasion argue that

such cuts would be irresponsible, particularly in themidst of a weak economy. Instead, they call on the fed-eral government to run huge deficits now, spur aggre-gate demand and job growth, and then use thegrowth-induced funds to pay down the deficit. This pol-icy is akin to taking water out of one side of a lake, dump-ing it into the other side, and claiming that the overallwater level has risen.A more effective solution would be to reduce spending

by reforming entitlements and trimming down the fed-eral welfare bureaucracy, while enacting common sensetax reform that ideally eliminates unfair means of dou-ble-taxation like the capital gains, dividends, and estatetaxes, dramatically reduces the corporate tax rate (nowthe single highest in the world), and enacts a low, broad-based flat tax. This pro-growth agenda would spur

OPINION

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(AP)




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booming business investment and activity in the Amer-ican economy, and would more than make up for any lostgovernment jobs, all while flooding the government withnew tax revenue that could be used to balance thebudget. Enacting this agenda would take bold new lead-ership in Washington, certainly far more than eitherparty has exhibited thus far. Ultimately, in order to bothavoid a European-style debt crisis and to remain com-petitive in the global economy, it may simply be done outof necessity. s

Big Number 2: Still a Developing Country

by Ari Schaffer, ‘14Staff Writer

Oftentimes the news media and its avid readers andwatchers alike take small problems and blow them outof proportion. China recently became the second largesteconomy by GDP in the world, surpassing long laggingJapan, but despite a few newspaper articles here andthere, there has not been that much buzz about this de-velopment. Despite the general concern over an increas-ingly wealthy, powerful and aggressive China,Americans just do not seem worried. Even the Chinese,who are the first to show national pride, are not celebrat-ing in the streets. It seems as if no one is really interested.

The news that China had surpassed Japan came onValentine’s Day, but economists had been expecting itfor a long time. The Japanese economy has been in a

malaise for almost twenty years. Ever since the eco-nomic miracle came to a halt with the Tokyo Stock Ex-change crash in the early 1990s, Japan has experiencedvery low, or even negative, economic growth. China onthe other hand, has continued to flourish, reaching re-markable levels of annual growth, as high as 10%. Thisyear, China finally outstripped Japan by reaching $5.88trillion in GDP. Economists had been predicting thisswap for months and when the news finally came, noone was surprised.

Regardless, should this news have caused more up-roar and concern? By becoming the second largest econ-omy in the world, China has seemingly made animportant step forward and has solidified its position asa world power. The fact is, however, that the change isnot as momentous as it might sound. With a populationof 1.33 billion people, it was only a matter of time beforeChina overtook its more lightly populated economic ri-vals. Having a large workforce and low labor costs hasboosted China’s economic viability, allowing it to supplythe world with the cheap production that it is famousfor doing. How many American goods, clothing, foodand toys, are made in China? The Chinese contributionto world trade is unparalleled by any other country.However, cheap labor is the sign of a weak economy,

not a strong one. Chinese citizens and journalists alike,from the Wall Street JournalChinese edition to the Chi-nese newspaper The People’s Daily, recognize that Chinahas a long way to go. Still trailing the United Stated byalmost double its current GDP, the prospect that Chinawill surpass the U.S. and become the world’s numberone economy seem at most a far off dream. AlthoughChina ranks second in GDP, its income per capita lagsmuch farther behind in the rankings at number 95 in theworld with just $4,283 per person. By contrast, Amer-ica’s GDP per capita is $46,500 per person, over tentimes higher. Clearly, despite their incredible economic gains, the

Chinese have a long way to go to reach the level of eco-nomic development of countries such as Britain andGermany, whose gross domestic products they sur-passed years ago. Even if China were to surpass theUnited States, the per capita income would still lag farbehind that of any of the other major industrialized na-tions. The standard of living in China is much lower thanthe other industrialized countries. Due to corruptionand a very hierarchal societal structure, the Chinese atthe bottom of the ladder do not share in the success oftheir country.

OPINION

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Fireworks display to celebrate the Chinese New Year in Dalian, China. (FengLi/Getty Images)


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Seen in this light, the news of China’s recent successisn’t all that special. A recent Wall Street Journal poll ofits Chinese reader’s revealed that 67% of its readers arenot proud of the change. Chinese, Americans, and peoplearound the world realize that although China’s economyis growing, the numbers belie the true state of the Chi-nese people. Although China’s footprint on the worldeconomy is continuously expanding, the chances that itwill overtake the United States where it truly matters, inthe standard of living, are very dim. While some maygrumble about the ever growing power of the East orpoint to the most recent economic numbers as a sign ofthe future Chinese dominance over the world economy,the majority has it right. There really is nothing to beworried about. s

OPINION

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presents

FRANKLIN RAINES

Former Chairman and CEO of

Frannie Mae

Thursday, February 24th7 PM in Hodson 110

www.jhu.edu/fas

Hopkins This Week

volume vi, issue iii

Documents

tunisiaand egypt

president obama

tinyisland kingdom of

wake of weeks

weeks edition

middleeast strategy

eign policy

criticism of hypocrisy