Social-justice news
February 2000

New financing for Colombia's drug war
The survey says: consumers don't want sweatshop products
Death penalty moratorium declared in Illinois
Are candidates just whistling dixie on the budget surplus?

Death penalty moratorium declared in Illinois
All executions in Illinois will be halted until a special panel can be convened to investigate the state's capital punishment system. Illinois Governor George Ryan called the system "fraught with errors" and admited that Illinois has come "close to the nightmare" of executing an innocent person.

Ryan said he was unwilling to sign off on executions ordered under the existing capital punishment regime in Illinois after 13 condemned inmates were freed from Illinois' death row over the past several years. More people have been found innocent and released from death row than have been executed since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1977.

For more information: Catholic catechism on the death penalty Statements by the church on the death penalty Catholics Against Capital Punishment News on capital punishment Statistics from Illinois' Death Row (you will need an Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this file) Illinois Death Penalty Moratorim (Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty) Moratorium 2000 Other useful links

Ryan told reporters: "Until I can be sure that everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty, until I can be sure with moral certainty that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection, no one will meet that fate."

Ryan's decision has been hailed by death penalty opponents, even by some supporters of the death penalty who worry that state protocols for capital punishment may lead to the execution of innocent people. "When a conservative Republican governor in a large state with a large death row recognizes that there are so many systemic questions about the death penalty, it strongly buttresses the need for a moratorium in all the other states," New York attorney Ronald Tabak told the Chicago Tribune. Tabak heads a death penalty committee for the American Bar Association. The ABA called for a national death penalty moratorium three years ago.

Ryan's decision makes Illinois the first of the country's 38 states with a death penalty to formally suspend the process pending a review. At least six other states are considering similar moratoriums.

Of the 285 people placed on Illinois' death row since reinstatment; 12 have been executed; 99 have had their sentences reversed; two had their sentences reversed and were discharged; nine died in custody; three are in federal or other custody; one has been pardoned, and one has had the death penalty commuted. Illinois currently houses 162 people with Illinois death sentences and three with federal death sentences.

 

Are candidates just whistling dixie on the budget surplus?
Presidential candidates are whistling a happy tune this election season because of projected federal budget surpluses that may run as high as $1.9 trillion over the next decade. The figure the Congressional Budget Committee calculated in January is more than enough to finance even the most grandiose schemes offered so far in the run to the White House, but before the campaign music swells too loudly, voters might want to take a more realistic look at the numbers.

For more information: Public debt—to the penny Congressional Budget Office Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' analysis of CBC report (you will need an Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this file) Economic Policy Network American Prospect on Clinton's state-of-the-union proposals

First, it is important to note that the nearly $2 trillion projection holds up only if Congress stays within spending caps set in 1997. There are few that think this is likely considering the caps were already broken this past year. Figuring for that likelihood, the committee also presented a more modest surplus projection of $838 billion. This amount is based on an inflation model, which anticipates that Congressional discretionary spending will grow at the rate of inflation.

Yet even that number may be too high. According to Robert D. Reischauer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1995, there are many factors that could shrink the projected surplus. In a New York Times column, Reischauer points out that in the past ten years non-defense discretionary spending has grown by 20 percent. If that trend continues into the next decade, the surplus would be reduced to about $300 billion.

Other tax provision changes expected to take place could cut into the surplus by as much as $130 to $200 billion. Reischauer also predicts that at least $50 billion will go to groups who have been hurt by past budget cuts, such as farmers and Medicare providers. That brings the surplus down to about $100 billion—a sobering figure considering some of the plans the presidential candidates are touting.

George W. Bush has gone further than his father and is not only promising not to raise taxes but has called for a $1 trillion tax cut. Bill Bradley's plan to provide something approaching universal health insurance in the next ten years amounts to $650 billion to be paid for by the surplus. Even Al Gore, although more fiscally conservative than his opponents, said he envisions a tax cut between $250 billion and $295 billion.

In reality the surplus may not cover either the proposed tax cuts or social program spending. This election cycle's happy tune could end on a sour note for Americans if they find in four years that the surplus has been squandered while the country remains deeply in debt.—Maria Hickey

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