Editor's Note: During an appearance on the Platts Energy Week program, Mark Muro discussed jobs in the green sector, using findings from the "Sizing the Clean Economy" report.

Host BILL LOVELESS: Green jobs – what are they? And can they make much of a contribution to the economy? It’s an ongoing debate in Washington, and the rest of the U.S. for that matter, and it’s a knotty one because defining the term “green jobs” is difficult.

But now the Brookings Institution has taken a crack at it with a new report, “Sizing the Clean Economy.” One of the authors, Mark Muro, with the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, joins me now. Mark, do you think you’ve defined, once and for all, what the clean economy is?

MARK MURO: The answer to that is “no.” This has been an ongoing discussion for decades, really. On the other hand, I do think that we have done is tried to embrace good precedents, good sensible precedents from Europe. The European Statistical Agency comes at it similar to the way we did. But we’ve also anticipated where the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here in the U.S., will be next year when it offers our first U.S. official definition.

LOVELESS: A summer preview, maybe. I know the Bureau of Labor Statistics is working on that. Should this report ... tell me a little bit about this report — where the jobs are and should this in any way change the way we look at green jobs.

MURO: I think one thing that comes from this is that it’s a broad swath of, sometimes not very glamorous, industries that are very familiar. Wastewater, mass transit – those are properly viewed as green jobs because they take pressure off the environment. They keep our environment clean.

Watch Mark Muro's full interview with Platts Energy Week »

At the very heart of the American idea is the notion that, unlike in other places, we can start from nothing and through hard work have everything. That nothing we can imagine is beyond our reach. That we will pull up stakes, go anywhere, do anything to make our dreams come true. But what if that's just a myth? What if the truth is something very different? What if we are…stuck?

I. What does it mean to be an American?

Full disclosure: I'm British. Partial defense: I was born on the Fourth of July. I also have made my home here, because I want my teenage sons to feel more American. What does that mean? I don't just mean waving flags and watching football and drinking bad beer. (Okay, yes, the beer is excellent now; otherwise, it would have been a harder migration.) I'm talking about the essence of Americanism. It is a question on which much ink—and blood—has been spent. But I think it can be answered very simply: To be American is to be free to make something of yourself. An everyday phrase that's used to admire another ("She's really made something of herself") or as a proud boast ("I'm a self-made man!"), it also expresses a theological truth. The most important American-manufactured products are Americans themselves. The spirit of self-creation offers a strong and inspiring contrast with English identity, which is based on social class. In my old country, people are supposed to know their place. British people, still constitutionally subjects of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, can say things like "Oh, no, that's not for people like me." Infuriating.

Americans do not know their place in society; they make their place. American social structures and hierarchies are open, fluid, and dynamic. Mobility, not nobility. Or at least that's the theory. Here's President Obama, in his second inaugural address: "We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own."

Politicians of the left in Europe would lament the existence of bleak poverty. Obama instead attacks the idea that a child born to poor parents will inherit their status. "The same chance to succeed as anybody else because she is an American…."

Americanism is a unique and powerful cocktail, blending radical egalitarianism (born equal) with fierce individualism (it's up to you): equal parts Thomas Paine and Horatio Alger. Egalitarian individualism is in America's DNA. In his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that "men are created equal and independent," a sentiment that remained even though the last two words were ultimately cut. It was a declaration not only of national independence but also of a nation of independents.

The problem lately is not the American Dream in the abstract. It is the growing failure to realize it. Two necessary ingredients of Americanism—meritocracy and momentum—are now sorely lacking.

America is stuck.

Almost everywhere you look—at class structures, Congress, the economy, race gaps, residential mobility, even the roads—progress is slowing. Gridlock has already become a useful term for political inactivity in Washington, D. C. But it goes much deeper than that. American society itself has become stuck, with weak circulation and mobility across class lines. The economy has lost its postwar dynamism. Racial gaps, illuminated by the burning of churches and urban unrest, stubbornly persist.

In a nation where progress was once unquestioned, stasis threatens. Many Americans I talk to sense that things just aren't moving the way they once were. They are right. Right now this prevailing feeling of stuckness, of limited possibilities and uncertain futures, is fueling a growing contempt for institutions, from the banks and Congress to the media and big business, and a wave of antipolitics on both left and right. It is an impotent anger that has yet to take coherent shape. But even if the American people don't know what to do about it, they know that something is profoundly wrong.

II. How stuck are we?

Let's start with the most important symptom: a lack of social mobility. For all the boasts of meritocracy—only in America!—Americans born at the bottom of the ladder are in fact now less likely to rise to the top than those situated similarly in most other nations, and only half as likely as their Canadian counterparts. The proportion of children born on the bottom rung of the ladder who rise to the top as adults in the U.S. is 7.5 percent—lower than in the U.K. (9 percent), Denmark (11.7), and Canada (13.5). Horatio Alger has a funny Canadian accent now.

It is not just poverty that is inherited. Affluent Americans are solidifying their own status and passing it on to their children more than the affluent in other nations and more than they did in the past. Boys born in 1948 to a high-earning father (in the top quarter of wage distribution) had a 33 percent chance of becoming a top earner themselves; for those born in 1980, the chance of staying at the top rose sharply to 44 percent, according to calculations by Manhattan Institute economist Scott Winship. The sons of fathers with really high earnings—in the top 5 percent—are much less likely to tumble down the ladder in the U. S. than in Canada (44 percent versus 59 percent). A "glass floor" prevents even the least talented offspring of the affluent from falling. There is a blockage in the circulation of the American elite as well, a system-wide hardening of the arteries.

Exhibit A in the case against the American political elites: the U. S. tax code. To call it Byzantine is an insult to medieval Roman administrative prowess. There is one good reason for this complexity: The American tax system is a major instrument of social policy, especially in terms of tax credits to lower-income families, health-care subsidies, incentives for retirement savings, and so on. But there are plenty of bad reasons, too—above all, the billions of dollars' worth of breaks and exceptions resulting from lobbying efforts by the very people the tax system favors.

So fragile is the American political ego that we can't go five minutes without congratulating ourselves on the greatness of our system, yet policy choices exacerbate stuckness.

The American system is also a weak reed when it comes to redistribution. You will have read and heard many times that the United States is one of the most unequal nations in the world. That is true, but only after the impact of taxes and benefits is taken into account. What economists call "market inequality," which exists before any government intervention at all, is much lower—in fact it's about the same as in Germany and France. There is a lot going on under the hood here, but the key point is clear enough: America is unequal because American policy moves less money from rich to poor. Inequality is not fate or an act of nature. Inequality is a choice.

These are facts that should shock America into action. For a nation organized principally around the ideas of opportunity and openness, social stickiness of this order amounts to an existential threat. Although political leaders declare their dedication to openness, the hard issues raised by social inertia are receiving insufficient attention in terms of actual policy solutions. Most American politicians remain cheerleaders for the American Dream, merely offering loud encouragement from the sidelines, as if that were their role. So fragile is the American political ego that we can't go five minutes without congratulating ourselves on the greatness of our system, yet policy choices exacerbate stuckness and ensure decline.

In Britain (where stickiness has historically been an accepted social condition), by contrast, the issues of social mobility and class stickiness have risen to the top of the political and policy agenda. In the previous U.K. government (in which I served as director of strategy to Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister), we devoted whole Cabinet meetings to the problems of intergenerational mobility and the development of a new national strategy. (One result has been a dramatic expansion in pre-K education and care: Every 3- and 4-year-old will soon be entitled to 30 hours a week for free.) Many of the Cabinet members were schooled at the nation's finest private high schools. A few had hereditary titles. But they pored over data and argued over remedies—posh people worrying over intergenerational income quintiles.

Why is social mobility a hotter topic in the old country? Here is my theory: Brits are acutely aware that they live in a class-divided society. Cues and clues of accent, dress, education, and comportment are constantly calibrated. But this awareness increases political pressure to reduce these divisions. In America, by contrast, the myth of classlessness stands in the way of progress. The everyday folksiness of Americans—which, to be clear, I love—serves as a social camouflage for deep economic inequality. Americans tell themselves and one another that they live in a classless land of open opportunity. But it is starting to ring hollow, isn't it?

III. For black Americans, claims of equal opportunity have, of course, been false from the founding.

They remain false today. The chances of being stuck in poverty are far, far greater for black kids. Half of those born on the bottom rung of the income ladder (the bottom fifth) will stay there as adults. Perhaps even more disturbing, seven out of ten black kids raised in middle-income homes (i.e., the middle fifth) will end up lower down as adults. A boy who grows up in Baltimore will earn 28 percent less simply because he grew up in Baltimore: In other words, this supersedes all other factors. Sixty-six percent of black children live in America's poorest neighborhoods, compared with six percent of white children.

Recent events have shone a light on the black experience in dozens of U. S. cities.

Behind the riots and the rage, the statistics tell a simple, damning story. Progress toward equality for black Americans has essentially halted. The average black family has an income that is 59 percent of the average white family's, down from 65 percent in 2000. In the job market, race gaps are immobile, too. In the 1950s, black Americans were twice as likely to be unemployed as whites. And today? Still twice as likely.

From heeding the call "Go west, young man" to loading up the U-Haul in search of a better job, the instinctive restlessness of America has always matched skills to work, people to opportunities, labor to capital.

Race gaps in wealth are perhaps the most striking of all. The average white household is now thirteen times wealthier than the average black one. This is the widest gap in a quarter of a century. The recession hit families of all races, but it resulted in a wealth wipeout for black families. In 2007, the average black family had a net worth of $19,200, almost entirely in housing stock, typically at the cheap, fragile end of the market. By 2010, this had fallen to $16,600. By 2013—by which point white wealth levels had started to recover—it was down to $11,000. In national economic terms, black wealth is now essentially nonexistent.

Half a century after the passing of the Civil Rights Act, the arc of history is no longer bending toward justice. A few years ago, it was reasonable to hope that changing attitudes, increasing education, and a growing economy would surely, if slowly, bring black America and white America closer together. No longer. America is stuck.

IV. The economy is also getting stuck.

Labor productivity growth, measured as growth in output per hour, has averaged 1.6 percent since 1973. Male earning power is flatlining. In 2014, the median full-time male wage was $50,000, down from $53,000 in 1973 (in the dollar equivalent of 2014). Capital is being hoarded rather than invested in the businesses of the future. U. S. corporations have almost $1.5 trillion sitting on their balance sheets, and many are busily buying up their own stock. But capital expenditure lags, hindering the economic recovery.

New-business creation and entrepreneurial activity are declining, too. As economist Robert Litan has shown, the proportion of "baby businesses" (firms less than a year old) has almost halved since the late 1970s, decreasing from 15 percent to 8 percent—the hallmark of "a steady, secular decline in business dynamism." It is significant that this downward trend set in long before the Great Recession hit. There is less movement between jobs as well, another symptom of declining economic vigor.

Americans are settling behind their desks—and also into their neighborhoods. The proportion of American adults moving house each year has decreased by almost half since the postwar years, to around 12 percent. Long-distance moves across state lines have as well. This is partly due to technological advances, which have weakened the link between location and job prospects, and partly to the growth of economic diversity in cities; there are few "one industry" towns today. But it is also due to a less vibrant housing market, slower rates of new business creation, and a lessening in Americans' appetite for disruption, change, and risk.

This geographic settling is at odds with historic American geographic mobility. From heeding the call "Go west, young man" to loading up the U-Haul in search of a better job, the instinctive restlessness of America has always matched skills to work, people to opportunities, labor to capital. Rather than waiting for help from the government, or for the economic tide to turn back in their favor, millions of Americans changed their life prospects by changing their address. Now they are more likely to stay put and wait. Others, especially black Americans, are unable to escape the poor neighborhoods of their childhood. They are, as the title of an influential book by sociologist Patrick Sharkey puts it, Stuck in Place.

There are everyday symptoms of stuckness, too. Take transport. In 2014, Americans collectively spent almost seven billion hours stuck motionless in traffic—that's a couple days each. The roads get more jammed every year. But money for infrastructure improvements is stuck in a failing road fund, and the railophobia of politicians hampers investment in public transport.

Whose job is it to do something about this? The most visible symptom of our disease is the glue slowly hardening in the machinery of national government. The last two Congresses have been the least productive in history by almost any measure chosen, just when we need them to be the most productive. The U. S. political system, with its strong separation among competing centers of power, relies on a spirit of cross-party compromise and trust in order to work. Good luck there.

V. So what is to be done?

As with anything, the first step is to admit the problem. Americans have to stop convincing themselves they live in a society of opportunity. It is a painful admission, of course, especially for the most successful. The most fervent believers in meritocracy are naturally those who have enjoyed success. It is hard to acknowledge the role of good fortune, including the lottery of birth, when describing your own path to greatness.

There is a general reckoning needed. In the golden years following World War II, the economy grew at 4 percent per annum and wages surged. Wealth accumulated. The federal government, at the zenith of its powers, built interstates and the welfare system, sent GIs to college and men to the moon. But here's the thing: Those days are gone, and they're not coming back. Opportunity and growth will no longer be delivered, almost automatically, by a buoyant and largely unchallenged economy. Now it will take work.

The future success of the American idea must now be intentional.

Entrepreneurial, mobile, aspirational: New Americans are true Americans. We need a lot more of them.

There are plenty of ideas for reform that simply require will and a functioning political system. At the heart of them is the determination to think big again and to vigorously engage in public investment. And we need to put money into future generations like our lives depended on it, because they do: Access to affordable, effective contraception dramatically cuts rates of unplanned pregnancy and gives kids a better start in life. Done well, pre-K education closes learning gaps and prepares children for school. More generous income benefits stabilize homes and help kids. Reading programs for new parents improve literacy levels. Strong school principals attract good teachers and raise standards. College coaches help get nontraditional students to and through college. And so on. We are not lacking ideas. We are lacking a necessary sense of political urgency. We are stuck.

But we can move again if we choose.

In addition to a rejuvenation of policy in all these fields, there are two big shifts required for an American twenty-first-century renaissance: becoming open to more immigration and shifting power from Washington to the cities.

VI. America needs another wave of immigration.

This is in part just basic math: We need more young workers to fund the old age of the baby boomers. But there is more to it than that. Immigrants also provide a shot in the arm to American vitality itself. Always have, always will. Immigrants are now twice as likely to start a new business as native-born Americans. Rates of entrepreneurialism are declining among natives but rising among immigrants.

Immigrant children show extraordinary upward-mobility rates, shooting up the income-distribution ladder like rockets, yet by the third or fourth generation, the rates go down, reflecting indigenous norms. Among children born in Los Angeles to poorly educated Chinese immigrants, for example, an astonishing 70 percent complete a four-year-college degree. As the work of my Brookings colleague William Frey shows, immigrants are migrants within the U. S., too, moving on from traditional immigrant cities—New York, Los Angeles—to other towns and cities in search of a better future. Entrepreneurial, mobile, aspirational: New Americans are true Americans. We need a lot more of them.

This makes a mockery of our contemporary political "debates" about immigration reform, which have become intertwined with race and racism. Some Republicans tap directly into white fears of an America growing steadily browner. More than four in ten white seniors say that a growing population of immigrants is a "change for the worse"; half of white boomers believe immigration is "a threat to traditional American customs and values." But immigration delves deeper into the question of American identity than it does even issues of race. Immigrants generate more dynamism and aspiration, but they are also unsettling and challenging. Where this debate ends will therefore tell us a great deal about the trajectory of the nation. An America that closes its doors will be an America that has chosen to settle rather than grow, that has allowed security to trump dynamism.

VII. The second big shift needed to get America unstuck is a revival of city and state governance.

Since the American Dream is part of the national identity, it seems natural to look to the national government to help make it a reality. But cities are now where the American Dream will live or die. America's hundred biggest metros are home to 67 percent of the nation's population and 75 percent of its economy. Americans love the iconography of the small town, even at the movies—but they watch those movies in big cities.

Powerful mayors in those cities have greater room for maneuvering and making an impact than the average U. S. senator. Even smaller cities and towns can be strongly influenced by their mayor.

There are choices to be made. Class divisions are hardening. Upward mobility has a very weak pulse. Race gaps are widening.

The new federalism in part is being born of necessity. National politics is in ruins, and national institutions are weakened by years of short-termism and partisanship. Power, finding a vacuum in D. C., is diffusive. But it may also be that many of the big domestic-policy challenges will be better answered at a subnational level, because that is where many of the levers of change are to be found: education, family planning, housing, desegregation, job creation, transport, and training. Amid the furor over Common Core and federal standards, it is important to remember that for every hundred dollars spent on education, just nine come from the federal government.

We may be witnessing the end of many decades of national-government dominance in domestic policy-making (the New Deal, Social Security, Medicare, welfare reform, Obamacare). The Affordable Care Act is important in itself, but it may also come to have a place in history as the legislative bookend to a long period of national-policy virtuosity.

The case for the new federalism need not be overstated. There will still be plenty of problems for the national government to fix, including, among the most urgent, infrastructure and nuclear waste. The main tools of macroeconomic policy will remain the Federal Reserve and the federal tax code. But the twentieth-century model of big federal social-policy reforms is in decline. Mayors and governors are starting to notice, and because they don't have the luxury of being stuck, they are forced to be entrepreneurs of a new politics simply to survive.

VIII. It is possible for America to recover its earlier dynamism, but it won't be easy.

The big question for Americans is: Do you really want to? Societies, like people, age. They might also settle down, lose some dynamism, trade a little less openness for a little more security, get a bit stuck in their ways. Many of the settled nations of old Europe have largely come to terms with their middle age. They are wary of immigration but enthusiastic about generous welfare systems and income redistribution. Less dynamism, maybe, but more security in exchange.

America, it seems to me, is not made to be a settled society. Such a notion runs counter to the story we tell ourselves about who we are. (That's right, we. We've all come from somewhere else, haven't we? I just got here a bit more recently.) But over time, our narratives become myths, insulating us from the truth. For we are surely stuck, if not settled. And so America needs to decide one way or the other. There are choices to be made. Class divisions are hardening. Upward mobility has a very weak pulse. Race gaps are widening. The worst of all worlds threatens: a European class structure without European welfare systems to dull the pain.

Americans tell themselves and the world that theirs is a society in which each and all can rise, an inspiring contrast to the hereditary cultures from which it sprang. It's one of the reasons I'm here. But have I arrived to raise my children here just in time to be stuck, too? Or will America be America again?

Editor's note: This piece originally appeared in Esquire.

Editor's Note: This blog post is part of The Primaries Project series, where veteran political journalists Jill Lawrence and Walter Shapiro, along with scholars in Governance Studies, examine the congressional primaries and ask what they reveal about the future of each political party and the future of American politics.

Even though they have come to dominate political campaigns, Super PACs and their shadowy counterparts are barely old enough to qualify for pre-kindergarten. Since these big-bucks independent groups have only been legal since 2010, we are still groping to understand the long-term role that Super PACs are apt to play in congressional politics—especially primaries.

With the demonization of the Koch Brothers by the Democrats and the attacks on liberal givers like Tom Steyer from the right, it is easy to assume that Super PAC donors are ideologues. Scorched-earth contests like the Mississippi Republican Senate primary further fuel this impression. Thad Cochran versus Chris McDaniel could be viewed as a proxy war between the GOP establishment (personified by Karl Rove's Super PAC American Crossroads) and the Tea Party (working through groups like Club for Growth Action).

But there is another very important, but far less publicized, role that Super PACs are playing in this year's congressional primaries. And when the internecine warfare in the Republican Party dies down, this type of Super PAC involvement in party primaries may become the norm.

Two recent GOP House primaries in winnable districts in New York illustrate this alternative model. In both cases, Super PACs took on the role—once left to the political parties—of vetting the candidates. Super PAC donors and their campaign consultants made their own decisions about who is electable and who has the right political pedigree. And in these New York primary contests without any clear ideological markers, heavy spending by Super PACs made all the difference.

Twenty-nine-year-old Elise Stefanik was a major beneficiary of Super PAC spending in her primary in New York's rural 21st District that runs from the Saratoga racetrack to the Canadian border. Stefanik has never run for public office before, but she boasts all of the right credentials to appeal to Washington Republican politicos. Even though she calls herself a "small businesswoman" in her TV ads, Stefanik served on the White House domestic policy staff under George W. Bush and was in charge of 2012 debate preparation for Paul Ryan.

Small wonder that American Crossroads and Karl Rove invested heavily in Stefanik's primary race, spending  $772,000 in attack ads excoriating her GOP rival, Matt Doheny. This was, by the way, the only House primary in the nation in which American Crossroads has made a significant investment to distinguish between Republicans. And the Super PAC's involvement was certainly not motivated by ideology. As the Watertown Daily Times put it on the eve of the Stefanik-Doheny primary, "It's difficult to point to a single issue on which a big divide exists between the two."

Yes, Doheny—a largely self-funding investment banker who had lost two prior races for the House—was a flawed Republican candidate. And Stefanik was the embodiment of the kind of message discipline beloved by campaign consultants. But it is hard to believe that electability alone prompted attack ads with tag lines like: "Matt Doheny—it would be a big mistake to send him to Congress."

American Crossroads, which spent more than either the Stefanik or Doheny campaigns, prevailed in the June 24th primary. Stefanik romped home with 61 percent of the primary vote.

The same pattern emerged in the Republican primary in New York's 1st District on the tip of Long Island. The major player this time was the US Jobs Council, which is heavily funded by hedge-fund mogul Robert Mercer, whose home is in the district. As Mother Jones reported in an article by Molly Redden, Mercer's Ahab-like obsession has been defeating Democratic incumbent Tim Bishop ever since the congressman voted for the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation.

Both candidates in the Republican primary to oppose Bishop had their weaknesses in appealing to a conservative electorate. State Senator Lee Zeldin carried the burden of votes in Albany that could be interpreted as raising taxes. George Demos, a former SEC lawyer, was heavily supported by his wife's in-laws who, in normal times, are liberal California Democrats.

In truth, there were scant philosophical differences between the two conservative Republicans. Newsday columnist Lane Filler wrote, "Both oppose abortion, think taxes are too high, support gun rights, hate Common Core, favor a strong national defense, are against 'amnesty' for immigrants here illegally...I have not turned up any meaningful difference between them on policy."

But that didn't prevent the US Jobs Council from spending more than $200,000 on attack ads that portrayed Demos, who had been endorsed by Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki, as a creature of "Nancy Pelosi's people." A typical ad charged that Demos "is trying to use the Pelosi cash machine to buy a seat in Congress."

Even though Demos donated $2 million to his own campaign, it was not enough to hold off the onslaught of Super PAC attacks. In the end, Zeldin defeated Demos in the primary by a 62-to-38 percent margin.

Politico reporter Ken Vogel in his praiseworthy new book, Big Money, likens Super PAC donors to meddlesome "sports junkies who plunk down hundreds of millions of dollars to buy a professional team." Often the motivation of these mega-givers is the arrogant belief that because they are rich, they know more about politics than the pros. With it comes the certainty that they can pick winners and losers in primaries just like they do with stocks on Wall Street.

And that is why the heavy Super PAC influence in these two little-covered New York House primaries may represent the wave of the future in party politics.

When California passed its 2016 budget late last month, it joined a growing list of states that have recently adopted or expanded state versions of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). First enacted in 1975, the EITC has become one of the country’s most effective antipoverty programs. We estimate that the federal EITC keeps millions of individuals and children out of poverty each year, reducing the national poverty rate by several percentage points. Others have shown how the EITC creates a strong incentive to work and works as a powerful tool for reducing income inequality.

For an unmarried worker with one child in 2015, the federal EITC works like this: Up to her first $9,880 earned, the worker receives a tax credit equal to 34 cents on the dollar, for a maximum credit value of $3,359. The credit is reduced by 16 cents for each dollar earned beginning at $18,110, eventually phasing out at $39,100 in earnings. Phase-in and phase-out rates and ranges depend on a worker’s filing status and number of dependents claimed. Importantly, the EITC is refundable; a filer can still claim any credit in excess of her tax liability, contributing to refunds that can represent double-digit shares of annual income for lower-paid workers.

Of the 26 states and the District of Columbia with their own EITCs, most have structured their programs to mirror the federal EITC, by simply matching some percentage of the federal credit in a given tax year (see map). This year, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island all increased their state EITCs’ matching percentages. In three states, the EITC is non-refundable, making it a less effective incentive for very low-income workers (Maine this year made its credit refundable). California’s EITC joins a couple of others that, while still refundable, vary in the degree to which they mirror the federal credit based on filing status and income.

Through our work maintaining Brookings’ EITC Interactive, we hear regularly from stakeholders around the country engaged in efforts to expand the EITC and increase local participation to strengthen low-income families and communities. Although it is difficult to determine uptake rates locally, there are several factors associated with participation. Self-employed workers are less likely to claim the credit, as are workers with low English proficiency, and those who do not claim any dependents. The availability of tax preparation assistance tends to increase participation rates. For groups who hope to expand access to the EITC in their communities, these considerations are a good place to start.

To be sure, the EITC is not a silver bullet. Because it is explicitly tied to work effort, the credit does not support low-income families who can’t find work. And because states must balance their budgets, many have had difficulty sustaining their EITCs during periods of economic downturn. (Several of the recent state EITC expansions actually represent the restoration of benefits following drastic cuts during the Great Recession.) Additionally, the federal EITC and its state analogues provide only modest support to workers who do not claim any dependents on their tax return. As such, policy makers should consider state EITCs strong complements to other interventions, such as the growing number of increases in the minimum wage occurring in states and cities.

Nevertheless, the EITC remains one of the best tools we have to fight poverty. Despite bipartisan support for the federal EITC, it is unlikely to be expanded anytime soon. In that light, recent state EITC expansions may be helping to create a more responsive, sub-national safety net that better reflects a large and diverse nation where local priorities and needs differ markedly.

After years of irresponsible fiscal management, Puerto Rico has few good options to address its growing debt crisis. But in most tales of bad behavior, there comes a point where continued punishment for past mistakes becomes counterproductive. We're reaching that point on Puerto Rico, and the Barack Obama administration has put forward a sensible new approach. 

(Citigroup, my employer, has various business relationships with Puerto Rico, including serving as underwriter and market maker in various securities. I've had no involvement in those activities, and this column represents my personal views, not those of Citi.)

Puerto Rico's population and its economy are about 10 percent smaller than they were a decade ago. The poverty rate is 45 percent, only about 40 percent of adults are in the labor force, and unemployment is more than 11 percent. 

Given these dire economic indicators, it's not surprising that Puerto Rico has a serious debt problem. At this point, the territory's total liabilities amount to more than 160 percent of the economy, and debt service is projected to be more than a third of government revenue. Over the next five years, the fiscal deficit looks to be $28 billion, and although the Puerto Rican government has proposed aggressive policy actions, these could, at best, only cut the deficit in half. Because the territory's fiscal dynamic is unsustainable, its uninsured debt is selling at discounts of 30 to 70 percent. 

Something has to give. Which brings us to the White House's plan.

The first imperative is to restore economic growth. For this, there are no magic bullets, but one useful strategy is to extend the Earned Income Tax Credit to Puerto Rico. The EITC is one of the most powerful, market-friendly mechanisms for encouraging labor force participation, and its absence in Puerto Rico makes no sense.

The Obama administration also proposes removing an anomaly in the Medicaid system. If Medicaid treated Puerto Rico in the same way as it does the 50 states, the federal government would pay for an estimated 83 percent of its Medicaid costs. But because Medicaid payments to the territory are capped, the federal government has generally paid only 15 to 20 percent. In addition, temporary Medicaid payments enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act are almost exhausted, posing a near-term threat to Puerto Rico's Medicaid program.

Establishing an EITC in Puerto Rico and adjusting the share of Medicaid payments paid by the federal government make sense from a fairness perspective. The EITC piece would encourage work, and the Medicaid component would attenuate fiscal pressure on the island. These steps would, though, come at a cost to the federal budget, probably in the billions of dollars per year. The administration should clarify both the amounts involved and how they would be financed. 

The island's fiscal governance also needs to be strengthened. Its accounting systems have been shoddy, and revenue estimates have been overly rosy. A period of external oversight is appropriate, to improve transparency and budgetary rigor. 

Finally, there's the hard question of what to do about the existing overhang of debt. Write-offs are inevitable; the only question is how to do them in a structured and timely way. We have bankruptcy laws precisely to handle this sort of situation, which would otherwise involve overlapping negotiations with multiple creditors (Puerto Rico has 18 different debt issuers and 20 creditor committees) and probably extended lawsuits. 

At the very least, Congress should extend Chapter 9 bankruptcy laws to Puerto Rico's cities and public corporations. Municipalities in the states enjoy this protection, and there's no reason to treat cities in Puerto Rico differently than those in Florida or Texas. This step would cover about a third of the territory's debt. 

The more controversial question, though, is whether Puerto Rico's government should also have access to bankruptcy protection. State governments do not, but the administration proposes that territories such as Puerto Rico should. 

Bankruptcy would not necessarily mean that less debt would be repaid. So it is not clear that the traditional argument against bankruptcy protection -- that it would raise future borrowing costs -- carries much force. Negotiated write-offs and default would have largely the same effect, but would probably take longer and be messier. Among the options left, the administration's is the least bad. 

The plan requires legislation, and in today's polarized Congress, that's a daunting prospect. But as former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner once emphasized, in a crisis, "plan beats no plan." the administration has one. Its congressional opponents don't.

Editor's Note: this op-ed originally appeared on Bloomberg View.

Why is Springfield's economy proving so resilient?

Several reasons come to mind: You're a manageably sized regional hub. You've got a university and important hospital assets. And you stand at the brink of an enormously attractive natural area -- the Ozarks.

More and more in today's footloose economy, jobs and people flock to livable places with affordable housing, vibrant downtowns, cultural amenities and lots of close-by outdoor recreation.

And Springfield's got all that. Well, OK: Downtown hardly buzzes with "24-7" meeting and living as yet. But the university keeps students around, and meanwhile, nearby Branson remains one of the nation's foremost "drive-to" cultural attractions. Likewise, the beautiful "lake country" draws visitors and second-home buyers from all over the Midwest. In this case natural beauty really is natural capital: The famous Ozarks ambience continues to support a $1-billion-a-year tourist sector to cushion the blows of any national economic downturn.

No wonder the region paced the state's growth in the 1990s and now holds on better in bad times. Greater Springfield has service jobs, rolling hills, lakes, Andy Williams, retirees and their pensions, and reasonably priced new subdivisions. What's not to like?

But here's the harder question: Can Springfield stay attractive? Can it stay resilient? The worry is that signs of strain have now appeared after a decade of fast growth.

Many of these strains my colleagues and I detailed in a recent Brookings Institution report I co-authored, titled "Growth in the Heartland: Challenges and Opportunities for Missouri."

Springfield, we demonstrated, sprawled in the 1990s. Yes, the city proper grew by 8 percent. But mostly population moved ever outward during the decade, and that, we said, has brought problems.

Thousands of people flocked to smaller outlying towns like Willard, Strafford, Republic, Clever, Nixa and Ozark, which hit "hypergrowth" in the 1990s and struggled to keep up. Christian and Webster counties grew unsustainably by 66 and 31 percent, respectively. And even more disturbing some 28,000 people settled in unincorporated fringe areas ill-equipped to accommodate them with modern sewers and good services.

The result: Septic and fertilizer seepage from scattered new homes exacerbates the water-quality problems that have fouled Lake Taneycomo and Table Rock Lake. Taxes are increasing as local governments strain to provide the necessary roads, services or sewer lines in places that never needed them. And with more sprawl coming, more traffic and more mini-malls could cost the region its reputation as the heartland of rural America -- quaint, scenic and friendly. The bottom line: Highly dispersed, low-density development may well be undermining the durability of its growth.

In that sense, the real test of Springfield's resilience lies ahead and turns on its ability to manage its growth to make it sustainable. What is more, the best way for Springfield to continue to grow in high-quality ways would seem to be to continue to set the standard for land-use and environmental reform in Missouri -- a state that has lagged on promoting sensible land use and planning.

As a state, after all, Missouri needs to update its badly outmoded planning statutes to provide its regions more tools to manage change.

It needs to promote regional solutions among its many localities. And it needs to better align its transportation and infrastructure investment policies with the principles of sound land use and sensible planning.

In this regard, what the state does -- or doesn't do -- to manage growth matters for Springfield because, ultimately, it is the state that sets the rules for what type of growth occurs all over. By remaining virtually laissez-faire on growth and development topics, the state of Missouri may well be undercutting its future competitiveness.

Given that, Springfield should take seriously the fact that with its strong growth, fresh voice and signature environmental assets, it is well positioned to lead the state in promoting reform.

So Springfield should step forward on these issues -- as the state's new economic driver, and as its most progressive region.

Already southwest Missouri business leaders have come together to protect the lakes. Now the region should show the way in other ways, by hammering out a regional system for managing fast growth; rationalizing local government competition; and insisting on state action to allow all regions to make headway.

For that is the way for the Springfield region to prosper: To help itself, it must help nudge the entire state along. Only in that fashion will a distinctive region maintain its distinctive vitality.

*A slightly modified version of this commentary appeared in The Springfield News-Leader on October 24, 2004.

The Missouri gubernatorial race is going down to the wire, and guess what? Contentious social and moral issues are predominating.

Last week Republican Matt Blunt questioned McCaskill's values, saying his stand against gay marriage matched the values of mainstream Missourians.

For her part, McCaskill, the Democratic state auditor, has parried Blunt on gays, guns, and abortion by insisting that Republicans don't have a lock on values just because Democrats like her don't wear religion on their sleeves.

Look for more sniping on gays, guns, and abortion as the campaigns careen toward election day.

Which would be too bad.

Missouri—and particularly the Springfield region—needs to talk about some other things this fall.

In a major statewide report, "Growth in the Heartland: Challenges and Opportunities for Missouri," after all, we argued that Missouri today faces an outright land-use, environmental, and competitive crisis that has little to do with gay marriage or concealed-carry gun rules.

The crisis is not new—we described it two years ago—but the fact remains that Missouri's chaotic style of low-density development is gobbling up the state's rural heritage, gutting towns and cities, and exacting a heavy toll on Missourians' pocketbooks and quality of life just when the state needs to compete at a higher level on exactly those factors.

Just look around the Springfield area:

Forty-five percent of the region's growth in the 1990s took place in the unincorporated "open country," the exurban places often least equipped to manage it.

Strip malls and home sites are chewing up the region's beautiful Ozarks scenery.

And all the while newcomers are flocking to small outlying towns like Willard, Republic, Clever, Niza, and Ozark—all of which hit "hypergrowth" in the 1990s and struggle to keep up.

As to the results, they have been predictably mixed: New jobs and vitality have been accompanied by the water-quality problems that have fouled Lake Taneycomo and Table Rock Lake. Taxes are increasing as local governments strain to provide the necessary roads, services, or sewer hook-ups. And with more sprawl coming, more traffic and mini-malls could soon undercut the region's reputation as the quaint heartland of rural America.

Why do these trends matter? For some the concern is cultural. They fear the state is losing its rural heritage. For others the threat is environmental. They are disturbed by the degradation of the Ozark lakes and other nearby natural areas.

However, for us the concern is mostly economic: By remaining virtually laissez faire on growth and development issues, we fear the Show Me State is undercutting its ability to parlay its very real assets into a broader prosperity.

Spread-out development patterns, for example, raise costs in the state for businesses and individual taxpayers. That's because highly dispersed development often increases the capital and operations costs of roads, sewer lines, schools, and police or fire services.

Similarly, Missouri's dispersed development adds to the size of the state's enormous—and crumbling—highway system. Missouri taxpayers consequently struggle with a maintenance backlog that will require half a billion dollars a year over the next 10 years—some $200 million more than current finding will provide.

And likewise, we suspect that the state's spread-out, low-quality development diminishes Missouri's appeal to highly educated workers—that critical factor if the state is going to appeal to entrepreneurs, well-educated retirees, and leading-edge techies and scientists.

This is especially important in the Springfield region, where the recent boom has clearly been built on the appeal of the region's improving downtown and cultural facilities, high quality of life, and stunning natural beauty.

And so we say it again—Missouri and the gubernatorial candidates need to face up to some tough realities this fall:

• Missouri can't afford to keep sprawling, even with tax revenues stronger this year. So Blunt and McCaskill need to tell Missourians how they will foster more efficient, less chaotic growth that doesn't break the bank

Missouri, in sum, stands at a crossroads.

Other heartland states, like Michigan and Pennsylvania, now recognize the links between educated workers, strong urban and rural centers, and economic competitiveness—and are taking action. Missouri needs to face up to the challenge.

Similarly, other states are moving to reap the fiscal benefits of nudging development into more sensible patterns, so Missouri should think about that too.

As to the agitations of wedge issues like abortion and concealed weapons or gay marriage, Missourians should take them in stride. "Values" are important, sure, but at the same time, there's a land-use and competitive crisis underway in Missouri that both the candidates and voters ignore at their peril this election.

Earlier this month, Missouri voters overwhelmingly rejected a 10-year, 3/4 cent sales tax increase to boost statewide transportation investment. With local referendums an increasingly popular method to raise transportation funding in an era of federal uncertainty, the result has lessons for Missouri’s transportation interests and the country as a whole.

Like many states, Missouri has a clear infrastructure deficit. A legislatively-mandated citizens committee found the state needs an additional $600 million to $1 billion in investment per year. The problem is finding the money. Outside of federal funds, the state primarily relies on a 17.3 cent gasoline tax and local property taxes to fund transportation projects, plus location-specific revenue streams like a half-cent sales tax in St. Louis city and county. Yet with Missouri residents driving less in recent years—down 5 percent per capita between 2000 and 2012-—there is less money available to fund critical projects.

This vote offered one remedy. The statewide bump in sales tax would’ve generated upwards of $5 billion over the ten-year period. The new monies would go to 800 projects across Missouri, primarily for roadways. The governance was a similarly unequal split, with the state department of transportation directly controlling all but 10 percent of the new revenue.

And this is where the referendum’s problems become clear. While each of the state’s seven transportation districts managed their own project list, there was no guarantee local sales taxes would be spent on local projects. There were also legitimate questions whether a heightened focus on roadways made sense in the face of falling statewide driving. This was at the heart of the opposition argument, led by Missourians for Better Transportation Solutions.

In many ways, the Missouri results reflect what happened in a failed 2012 Atlanta referendum. That transportation package contained a hodgepodge of road and rail projects, barely increased connectivity across the sprawling metro region and couldn’t align local interest groups. Much like Missouri, Atlanta has clear transportation needs—but voters sensed the current plan wouldn’t do enough to adequately improve their commutes and livability.

As Missouri’s transportation leaders regroup, they’d be wise to follow the “economy-first” lesson of successful referendums in places like Los Angeles, Denver and Oklahoma City. The common thread in all three was a great job proving the need for greater infrastructure investment. But as my colleagues outlined in a recent report, they also captured how transportation could support industrial growth and metro-wide economic health. Americans have proven time and again they’ll pay for transportation projects, but they want to know what they’re getting and how it will benefit their communities.

In this sense, I’m heartened by a recent Kansas City Star editorial related to their failed streetcar vote the same day. Even with a failed vote, the metro area still needs a better infrastructure network. The key is for public, private and civic leaders to continue working with the public to determine which transportation investments will best support regional economic growth for decades to come.

Ballot measures may fail, but they’ll always provide lessons to improve the plans that will pass.

Event Information

As part of ongoing cooperative work with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform has formed a council to bring together expert perspectives on the challenges facing antibacterial drug development. Designed to include representatives from academia, patient advocacy groups, industry, providers, and government agencies, the Brookings Council on Antibacterial Drug Development (BCADD), will convene twice a year to discuss pressing issues in the treatment of infectious diseases and potential steps to address them.  

The first BCADD meeting, held on August 30, 2012, brought stakeholders together to discuss the following:

• Ongoing antibacterial initiatives at FDA and the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative
• Statistical and methodological approaches that could be harnessed to improve the efficiency of antibacterial drug development
• Balancing benefit-risk and uncertainty considerations with public health needs
• Next steps for council action

For more information on FDA’s Antibacterial Drug Development Task Force, click here.

Event Materials

• 30 antibacterial drug development summary
• Presentation Slides
• FINAL BCADD Discussion Guide 20120828
• FINAL May 9 Summary 20120828
• Participant List_Final

On Thursday, July 7, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revised its economic outlook for South Africa. Despite “considerable economic and social progress” since 1994, the IMF report cited high income inequality, among other factors, in its projection of slow growth and increased unemployment in the medium term. Earlier this year, in the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative’s Foresight Africa 2016, we explored this pressing problem—high income inequality—across the continent. The initial takeaway was that sub-Saharan Africa has greater in-country income inequality than other developing countries around the world. However, after separating seven outlier economies—Angola, the Central African Republic, Botswana, Zambia, Namibia, Comoros, and South Africa—we noted that income inequality, measured by the Gini coefficient, in the rest of the region actually mirrors the rest of the developing world, which currently stands at 0.39. All seven outlier economies have Gini coefficients above 0.55, a level reached by only four other countries worldwide: Suriname, Haiti, Colombia, and Honduras. 

It is important to explore precisely why this disparity exists. Notably, sub-Saharan Africa is not only an outlier in income inequality, but also in the relationship between economic growth and poverty reduction. Generally, in the developing world, every 1 percent of growth reduces poverty 4 percent. In sub-Saharan Africa, however, every 1 percent of growth only reduces poverty by 3 percent. In Foresight Africa 2016, Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Haroon Bhorat suggests that this disparity may be because of the commodity booms that have sustained growth periods in African economies, which bring extraordinary returns to capital but limited job growth. Alternatively, these commodity booms may have accompanied a fall in manufacturing output; growth is thus concentrated in the low-productivity services sector. In any case, this graph forces us to consider exactly what type of structural transformation is necessary for continued economic growth and acknowledge that inequality in sub-Saharan Africa might require different solutions in different countries.

For a more in-depth discussion on this issue, see Foresight Africa 2016 and Bhorat’s discussion of African inequality in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Omid Abrishamchian contributed to this post.

While Israeli and Palestinian interests are best served by a negotiated two-state state solution, the peace plan that Sam Bahour proposed in his February post disregards Israel's demographic and security concerns and is tantamount to a Palestinian veto on a negotiated solution. His insistence on the right of return for Palestinian refugees and rejection of security limitations on Palestinian sovereignty in effect asks Israel to become a binational state while creating a militarized Palestinian state alongside it. Bahour rejects the notion of unilateral action, but his case only reinforces my belief that Israel may need to act independently to protect its interests.

The logic behind the Clinton parameters and President Obama’s peace plan was that in return for the creation of a Palestinian state, Palestinian refugees would relinquish their claim to Israel; the hope was that this would allow for the "two states for two peoples" to exist side-by-side. Yet Bahour rejects compromise on the refugee issue as the forfeiture of “basic components of statehood and basic principles of Israeli-Palestinian peace that are enshrined in international law.” Any peace agreement that both establishes a Palestinian state and recognizes the rights of millions of Palestinians to enter Israel would hasten the end of Israel's Jewish identity.

Israel's interest in the creation of a Palestinian state is also built upon the assumption that a sound agreement would improve its security rather than threaten it. To this end, Israel has called for a demilitarized Palestinian state, and this has been echoed by the United States, France, the Czech Republic, the European Union, and Australia’s Labor Party. Even Mahmoud Abbas accepted the premise of demilitarization, saying, “We don’t need planes or missiles. All we need is a strong police force.” Nevertheless, Bahour’s piece declares any limitations on the sovereignty of Palestine unacceptable. For Israel, a peace deal that grants one’s adversaries access to more deadly weaponry would be absurd.

Bahour argues that my strategies for reaching a two-state solution are doomed because they do not meet the "mutual interests" of the parties to the conflict, but his plan does not offer incentives for Israel to make peace.

Bahour argues that my strategies for reaching a two-state solution are doomed because they do not meet the "mutual interests" of the parties to the conflict, but his plan does not offer incentives for Israel to make peace. His proposal not only fails to improve Israel's situation in any tangible sense, but further endangers it. Rejectionist Palestinian positions like Bahour's (and Abbas's recent dismissal of Biden's initiative) would veto the two-state solution as a means to move towards a single binational state. That is precisely why Israel may need to act independently to keep a two-state solution viable.

While much of the outside world has focused on the current wave of violence in Israel and the West Bank, far less attention is paid to the causes behind it and the context in which it is occurring. In meetings last month in Ramallah and Jerusalem with a range of Palestinian politicians, journalists, and analysts, as well as with senior U.S. officials, it was clear that the attacks reflect the deepening anger and despondency among Palestinians.

The current violence is largely despair-driven, but remains individualistic and politically directionless. Palestinians use different terms to describe the current violence. Popularly, and in most local media, it is known as the “Jerusalem Intifada.” But unlike previous Palestinian uprisings, this latest wave of violence lacks both political organization and clear political demands. 

The fact that so many young Palestinians are willing to risk almost certain death in order to carry out otherwise ineffective stabbing attacks on Israelis points to a deep sense of hopelessness and despair. It’s not only that Israeli settlement expansion, home demolitions, land confiscations, and movement restrictions continue to rob Palestinians of their land, livelihoods, and dignity; it’s that Palestinians now must endure Israel’s seemingly endless occupation without any of the “safety nets” they traditionally have fallen back on: the peace process is dead, Arab regional support and solidarity has evaporated, and their political leaders (both secular and Islamist) are ineffective and increasingly discredited. 

In short, Palestinians feel a deep sense of abandonment by the international community, their fellow Arabs, and even their own leaders. Although domestic political considerations as well as Abbas’ own waning credibility have constrained the leadership’s ability to disavow the violence outright, the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to work quietly with the Israelis to keep the situation under control. The main question now, particularly for U.S. officials, is how long this PA security coordination with Israel can continue given mounting public opposition and the precipitous decline in international aid, which according to the World Bank is down by roughly 60 percent.

As confidence in Abbas’ leadership declines, Palestinian political stagnation and dysfunction is likely to continue. Since a public opinion poll published last September found that an unprecedented two-thirds of Palestinians wanted Abbas to resign, popular frustration with the Palestinian leader seems only to have grown. Many Palestinians lament what they see as the transformation of their national movement from groups and leaders dedicated to national liberation to a ruling class with special privileges (VIP status, travel, etc.) and a stake in the status quo. Even American officials seemed alarmed by the extent to which the PA is now perceived as a “collaborationist” government by ordinary Palestinians. 

At the same time, Abbas’ leadership style and decision-making are also alienating much of the political elite, including within his own Fatah movement. Several Palestinian officials were privately critical of Abbas. Others have been more open in their criticism, including former West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub, who recently railed against Abbas and his inner clique in a lengthy interview on Palestinian TV. 

Much of the internal frustration with Abbas has to do with recent leadership appointments as well as what many see as his growing paranoia and personal vendettas against perceived rivals like Salam Fayyad, Yasser Abed-Rabbo, and his arch-nemesis, Mohamed Dahlan, the now-exiled former Gaza security chief. Both of these underscore the growing anxiety over the lack of clarity regarding a future succession process (on which I will have more to say in a subsequent post). Many also voiced skepticism about Abbas’ current diplomatic strategy, which is focused on building support for an international peace conference. While most Palestinians support internationalization, and virtually no one supports a return to U.S.-led peace negotiations, there are doubts as to whether Abbas’ international efforts are rooted in a broader strategy. 

The lack of strategic thinking is also fueling frustration over the ongoing stalemate with Hamas in Gaza. Indeed, many view Abbas as the primary obstacle to Gaza reconstruction and progress toward reconciliation with Hamas. Despite Hamas’ clear weakness since 2013, Abbas has been loath to give Hamas anything it could claim as a political concession and is equally reluctant to inherit responsibility for Gaza’s myriad social, economic, and security problems, for which he currently has no solutions. 

[T]here is a growing feeling, both within Fatah and beyond, that things are unlikely to change internally (and perhaps even diplomatically) until Abbas has left the scene.

Consequently, there is a growing feeling, both within Fatah and beyond, that things are unlikely to change internally (and perhaps even diplomatically) until Abbas has left the scene. At the same time, despite the growing frustration with Abbas, most are not eager to accelerate his departure. As I have written elsewhere, the absence of credible alternatives has given Abbas a sort of “legitimacy by default.” This may explain Abbas’ otherwise inexplicable complacency and his sense, as I was repeatedly told, that time is on his side.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers face their own set of equally daunting political, economic, and security challenges. Although I did not visit Gaza or meet with any Hamas representatives, both figured prominently in most of my discussions. Hamas continues to face serious financial problems as a result of the virtual elimination of its tunnels network and the closure of the Rafah border crossing. The scarcity of resources, a major factor in Hamas’ decision to pursue reconciliation with the PA in 2014, is also fueling tensions within the movement. Whereas Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, seeks to rebuild its military capabilities and restore its ties with Iran, its political leadership is equally keen to avoid another military confrontation with Israel and hopes to capitalize on diplomatic openings with Turkey and Saudi Arabia. 

The main security threat to Hamas rule comes from jihadi groups, most notably Jaysh al-Islam in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai-based Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, both of which have pledged allegiance to ISIS and regard Hamas (as well as its parent, the Muslim Brotherhood) as apostates. Despite occasional tit-for-tat attacks, at the moment neither Hamas nor the jihadis appear eager for a major fight. The potential for escalation remains, however, particularly if jihadi groups decide to exploit internal discontent within Hamas or force its hand militarily by launching rocket attacks on Israel. Such internal instability, along with the slow pace of reconstruction and already abysmal economic and humanitarian conditions in Gaza, highlights the ever-present danger of yet another devastating war between Israel and Hamas. 

In the end, while the outside world’s preoccupation with the current wave of violence is understandable, merely condemning ad hoc violence by Palestinians while failing to address the deeper, institutionalized violence of the Israeli occupation is both morally dishonest and politically untenable.

“We are not buildings artists; we are buildings leaders in society.” 

These stirring words of Juliano Mer Khamis, the charismatic founder of The Freedom Theatre (TFT) in Jenin refugee camp in Palestine, are coming true, despite his assassination five years ago. 

Against all odds, The Freedom Theatre, a beacon of creativity, discipline, and vision located in the heart of Jenin refugee camp, recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. Known for its fierce fighters and its conservatism, Jenin refugee camp, where over 16,000 live on one square kilometer, increasingly is known as well for its art. 

Juliano Mer Khamis returned to Jenin during the second Intifada to find his mother’s Stone Theatre (Arna’s Children tells her story) reduced - like so much of the camp—to rubble by Israeli tanks, and many of his mother’s student actors killed. In 2005 he joined forces with Jonatan Stanczak, currently Managing Director of TFT and Zakaria Zbeidi, a “Stone Theatre child” turned head of the Al-Aqsa brigades in Jenin, who later renounced militancy for cultural resistance. Together they rebuilt a theater in the camp, which evolved into The Freedom Theatre. 

Mer Khamis urged his acting students to wage a cultural intifada, warning that the occupation of the mind was more dangerous than the occupation of the body. Unlike many charismatic leaders, Mer Khamis developed an institution, not a cult of personality (even though he was adored). Following Juliano’s untimely and unsolved murder in 2011 — he was shot sitting in his car just outside the theater, with his infant son in his lap - the devastated theater soldiered on, a living testament to the powerful impact of his teaching and vision.

“When Juliano died he gave us the strength to continue and he showed us the strength we had in ourselves, so we kept going,”

Ahmad Matahen, age 24, a typical “child of The Freedom Theatre”, explained to me. Matahen joined in 2006; first as an actor, then as Juliano encouraged him to discover and exploit his individual talents, he moved into technology, engineering and stage design. He now studies stage design in Bethlehem, with the support of TFT, where he hopes eventually to work.

What a different future than Matahen might have had, if Mer Khamis had not invited in this street youth who had mocked the theater, and expressed his anger and frustration by throwing rocks at Israeli tanks. Matahen described the common attitude in Jenin:

“When you go to the camp and ask people what they want, they say they want to die. They have no jobs, no hope.”

When asked what he missed most after Juliano’s death, Matahen said “hugs”, something no one besides Juliano gave him. As a teenager, Ahmad, like so many of his contemporaries, saw his friends killed by the invading/occupying Israelis. Considered against the backdrop of trauma that pervades the camp, hugs are no small thing. They form the foundation for the self-confidence and sense of purpose that Matahen has gained from The Freedom Theatre.

High school dropout Ameer Abu Alrob defied his family and left his village to live and work at The Freedom Theatre. He traveled to India last year with a TFT group that also included two female acting students, for a ground-breaking, three-month Palestinian-Indian collaboration and tour with Janam Theater. Ameer and half of the other Palestinian student actors had never previously traveled outside Palestine, much less flown in a plane.

Through his experiences Ameer is not only broadening the horizons of his family and village, but, importantly, also introducing them to their own history through The Freedom Theatre productions such as The Siege. (One of the reasons Ameer dropped out was that school taught him nothing about his own environment and history).

Performed to date in Palestine and Great Britain, The Siege brings to life on stage the incident in 2002 during the second Intifada when armed Palestinian fighters along with some two hundred Palestinian civilians escaped the onslaught of Israeli gunfire and tanks by taking refuge in Bethlehem’s renowned Church of the Nativity. The trapped Palestinians - without food, water, or medical supplies - struggled to remain “steadfast”. After thirty-nine days, they surrendered, responding to the plea of a young mother whose baby’s life was at risk because the siege prevented her taking the infant to the hospital.

This decision, which reflected the fighters’ firm belief that the goal of their struggle was to help the Palestinian people, cost the insurgents dearly. In a European-brokered deal, they were exiled immediately upon exiting the Church — some to Europe and some to Gaza — with no hope of return (even though the European exile was supposed to last one year).

Nabil Al-Raee, The Freedom Theatre’s artistic director, explained that he wanted to re-open this important incident to present the Palestinian side, absent in the media. “This is the first time that we speak about these freedom fighters and tell their stories.” One and a half years of research, with travel to Europe and skype conversations with Gaza to interview those in exile, including personal friends of Al-Raee’s, were distilled into a visually stunning and dramatically taut production.

“The lesson of The Siege was putting weapons down,” 

according to one of the actors, Faisal Abu Alhayjaa, referring to the essential humanity of the Palestinian fighters, who would not harm a sick child for the sake of their cause.

This powerful message apparently was lost on New York’s acclaimed Public Theater which cancelled the production scheduled for this May. This alarming trend of performances cancelled/censored (take your pick) for political reasons will be examined at a conference at Georgetown University this June, where Al-Raee will speak.

Undeterred, The Freedom Theatre and its resolute supporters currently are seeking other American venues for The Siege. While some may see Palestinians on stage with machine guns, others, including sold-out audiences during The Siege‘s recent British tour, see, in the words of the Guardian review, “an unexpectedly compelling theatrical experience with a rough and ready energy, and in the very act of its telling, speaks for the voiceless and forgotten”.

In the tinderbox that is Israel-Palestine, The Freedom Theatre defies its seemingly hopeless environment, and is making a tangible difference in Jenin camp and beyond. Another child of the Theatre, an actor in The Siege and in the forthcoming feature film The Idol, Ahmed Al Rokh, described the change.

“We can feel the difference in the camp. Our audience is growing because the kids who first came now have families, and bring them. Now they understand that the theatre works for us and with us.”

In contrast to the situation in the developed world, where art is often considered discretionary, Faisal Abu Alhayjaa described art and culture in Palestine as “essential like water and bread”. Inspiring as it is, The Freedom Theatre’s story is not unique. The Palestinian Performing Arts Network (PPAN) includes many ensembles and organizations striving for dignity and agency through art.

Abu Alhayjaa sees the education and empowerment that comes through working in the arts generally, and The Freedom Theatre specifically, as vital to Palestine’s future.

“If there will be a liberation for Palestine, it will come with a generation that knows what they want, and that knows to think critically.”

That generation is being trained at The Freedom Theatre.

This piece was originally published by The Huffington Post.

In a lively and wide-ranging debate that aired earlier this month on Al Jazeera English, Brookings Executive Vice President Martin Indyk sparred with Head to Head presenter Mehdi Hasan about American efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the United States’ relationship with Israel.

Indyk began by stressing that American support for Israel is what gives the United States an influential role in the peace process and the leverage to encourage Israel to move towards peace. Indyk added that this does not mean that the United States should act as “Israel’s attorney” in the negotiations, and cited a promise he made to Palestinian leaders during the 2013-2014 peace talks led by Secretary of State John Kerry that Washington would not coordinate positions with Israel in advance. 

Brookings Executive Vice President Martin Indyk in a Head to Head interview with Al Jazeera English's Mehdi Hassan.

He pointed out that the United States has traditionally relied on its close relationship with Israel to encourage its leaders to take steps for peace and make offers to the Palestinians, and that no other potential mediator has been able to produce serious offers from Israel. “[The United States is] not neutral, we don't claim to be neutral. We have an alliance with Israel,” Indyk said. “But in order to achieve another interest that we have, which is peace in the region…and a settlement that provides for the legitimate national rights of the Palestinians, we need to be able to influence Israel.”

In responding to questions from Hasan and the audience, Indyk explained that he believes that both Israelis and Palestinians had made important concessions for peace, citing Israel’s acceptance of the Clinton Parameters in 2000, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s historic recognition of Israel as part of the Oslo Accords. Indyk also described the dramatic shifts in the way the United States has addressed the Palestinian issue over the past few decades, “from treating it only as a refugee issue and insisting that it be dealt with through Jordan to recognizing Palestinian national rights.” 

When asked about U.S. support for Israel at the United Nations, Indyk responded that this support is definitely warranted given the history of hostility towards Israel at the UN. However, he added that he personally wouldn’t oppose a carefully-worded resolution condemning Israeli settlements “so that the settlers in Israel understand that [settlement expansion] isn’t cost free.” Indyk rejected the notion that Israel has turned from a U.S. strategic asset in the Middle East into a burden, but explained that “making progress on the Palestinian issue enhances America’s credibility in the region and failing to make progress…hurts America’s credibility in the region.” 

Indyk concluded the discussion by reiterating his commitment to achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace and emphasizing that he would “never give up on trying to resolve this conflict in a way that meets Palestinian legitimate national aspirations to an independent and viable contiguous state living alongside Israel, a Jewish state, in peace.” 

Editor's note: This article appears in the April 2015 issue of Global Forum. Click here to view the full publication.

Since passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the last several years have seen a groundswell in physician payment and delivery reforms designed to achieve higher value health care through incentivizing higher quality care and lower overall costs. Accountable care models, for example, are achieving marked progress by realigning provider incentives toward greater risk-sharing and increased payments and shared savings with measured improvements in quality and cost containment. Medical homes are introducing greater care coordination and team-based care management, while the use of episode-based or bundled payments is removing perverse incentives that reward volume and intensity.

These reforms are coming just as the number of highly targeted, highly priced treatments continues to expand. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a decade-high 41 novel new drugs in 2014, many of them targeted therapies approved on the basis of increasingly sophisticated progress in genomics and the understanding of disease progression. In areas like oncology, such targeted treatments have grown as a percentage of global oncology market size from 11% in 2003 to 46% in 2013. New brand specialty drug spending in the U.S. is estimated to have been $7.5 billion in 2013, or 69% of total new drug spending. The growing prevalence of these drugs and their cost to the health system are setting the stage for significant flashpoints between industry, payers, and providers, seen most clearly in the debate over hepatitis C treatment costs that roiled stakeholder interactions for most of the past year. 

More of these targeted treatments are in the development pipeline, and a growing number of public policy efforts taking shape in 2015 are focused on accelerating their availability. The House of Representatives' 21st Century Cures Initiative, for example, has released a slew of legislative proposals aimed at promoting breakthrough innovation by increasing the efficiency of drug development and regulatory review. These efforts have significant downstream implications for the pace at which targeted and specialty therapies will become available, their associated costs, and the growing importance of demonstrating value in the postmarket setting.

As payers and providers continue their push toward increased value-based care, more innovative models for connecting such reforms to drug development are needed. Earlier collaboration with industry could enable more efficient identification of unmet need, opportunities to add value through drug development, and clearer input on the value proposition and evidentiary thresholds needed for coverage. Equally important will be unique public-private collaborations that invest in developing a better postmarket data infrastructure that can more effectively identify high value uses of new treatments and support achieving value through new payment reforms.

Stronger collaboration could also improve evidence development and the coverage determination process after a targeted  treatment has gained regulatory approval. Facilitated drug access programs like those proposed by the Medicare Administrative Contractor Palmetto GBA create access points for patients to receive targeted anti-cancer agents off-label while payers and industry gather important additional outcomes data in patient registries. More systematic and efficient use of policies like Medicare's Coverage with Evidence Development (CED), which allows for provisional coverage for promising technologies or treatments while evidence continues to be collected, could enable industry and payers to work together to learn about a medical product's performance in patient populations not typically represented in clinical studies. A CED-type model could be especially useful for certain specialty drugs: data collected as a condition of payment could help payers and providers develop evidence from actual practice to improve treatment algorithms, increase adherence, and improve outcomes. 

Finally, collaborations that support stronger postmarket data collection can also support novel drug payment models that further reward value. Bundled payments that include physician-administered drugs, for example, could encourage providers to increase quality while also incentivizing manufacturers to help promote evidence-based drug use and lower costs for uses that generate low value. Outcomes-based purchasing contracts that tie price paid to a medical product's performance could be another promising approach for high-expense treatment with clearly defined and feasibly measured outcomes.

Many of these ideas are not new, but as manufacturers, payers, providers, and patients move into an increasingly value-focused era of health care, it is clear that they must work together to find new ways to both promote development of promising new treatments while also making good on the promise of value-based health care reforms.

Overview

Increasing educational attainment is likely to reduce conflict risk, especially in countries like Pakistan that have very low levels of primary and secondary school enrollment. Education quality, relevance and content also have a role to play in mitigating violence. Education reform must therefore be a higher priority for all stakeholders interested in a more peaceful and stable Pakistan. Debate within the country about education reform should not be left only to education policymakers and experts, but ought to figure front and center in national dialogues about how to foster security. The price of ignoring Pakistan’s education challenges is simply too great in a country where half the population is under the age of 17.

There has been much debate concerning the roots of militancy in Pakistan, and multiple factors clearly come into play. One risk factor that has attracted much attention both inside Pakistan and abroad is the dismal state of the national education sector. Despite recent progress, current school attainment and literacy levels remain strikingly low, as does education spending. The Pakistani education sector, like much of the country’s public infrastructure, has been in decline over recent decades. The question of how limited access to quality education may contribute to militancy in Pakistan is more salient now than ever, given the rising national and international security implications of continued violence.

The second half of 2009 witnessed not only the Pakistani government stepping up action against insurgents but also the release of a new Pakistan National Education Policy that aspires to far-reaching and important reforms, including a commitment to increase investment in education—from 2 to 7 percent of gross domestic product. Hundreds of millions of dollars in international education aid have been newly pledged by donor countries. This renewed emphasis on education represents a substantial opportunity to seek to improve security in Pakistan and potentially also globally over the medium to long term. Policymakers both inside and outside Pakistan should give careful consideration to whether and how education investments can promote peace and stability, taking into account what we now know about the state of the education sector and the roots of militancy.

This report takes a fresh look at the connection between schools, including but not limited to Pakistan’s religious seminaries, known as “madrasas,” and the rising militancy across the country. Poor school performance across Pakistan would seem an obvious area of inquiry as a risk factor for conflict. Yet to date, the focus has been almost exclusively on madrasas and their role in the mounting violence. Outside Pakistan, relatively little attention has been given to whether and how the education sector as a whole may be fueling violence, over and above the role of the minority of militant madrasas.

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Issuing work permits to refugees in return for donor support for jobs is seen as a “win-win-win” for refugees, host countries, and the international community. It would stem the flow of refugees to Europe, decrease the dangers of radicalization, and prevent the exploitation of refugees as a source of cheap labor. At last February’s “Supporting Syria and the Region” conference co-hosted by the U.K., Germany, Kuwait, Norway, and the United Nations, former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called for a million work permits to be made available to Syrians, 200,000 each in Jordan and Lebanon and 600,000 in Turkey.

Turkey issued a decree in January 2016 allowing work permits for Syrians. Jordan also agreed to provide work permits for up to 200,000 Syrians over a number of years in exchange for aid and the opening of European markets to goods produced or special economic zones—all this to lead to jobs for one million Jordanians as well when other aid and spending is added in. Lebanon, whose fragile confessional politics makes the one million plus Sunni refugees a more palpable threat, has chosen not to issue work permits. Yet, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO), “around half of (working age) Syrian refugees are economically active and just one-third have access to overwhelmingly informal and low-skilled employment.” That’s around 165, 000 employed informally. The number is around 160,000 in Jordan  with 1.3 million Syrians and over 400,000 in Turkey with 2.7 million Syrian refugees.  

In Turkey and Jordan, as elsewhere, work permits are tied to employers who apply on behalf of employees once residency, registration, and health requirements are met. In both countries, employers must pay the legal minimum wage and social security payments. The permits are renewed annually. But, for the majority of Syrians working in labor markets with an abundance of local and foreign low-skill, low-wage workers, the pay is nowhere near the minimum wage. As to the promised jobs in the special zones, those will take time to materialize, and we already know that, at least in the garment sector, up to 80 percent of the workers are young women from South Asia, largely residing in dorms but at least receiving the minimum wage. Whether Syrians can adapt to this model remains to be seen. In both Jordan and Turkey, there are certain limits on the percentage of Syrians versus locals in many manufacturing and services jobs; in Jordan there is some evidence that “ghost” Jordanian workers are used to get around this requirement.

Jordan already has over 240,000 foreign workers, mainly Egyptians and Asians, who have work permits, with the total number including those working illegally may be as high as a million. There is a move to get Syrians to replace the foreign workers with permits but that seems a bit uncertain. It seems unlikely that employers will be eager to replace employees, often of long standing and for whom they have gone to the expense of getting work permits.  In Turkey, with fewer foreign workers, many locals work informally, though they tend to get paid significantly more than Syrians. The chances of employers hiking up wages to legalize Syrian employees, whether in Jordan or Turkey, are slim and the record to date appears to confirm this.   

In Jordan, the government provided a three-month grace period for workers to receive permits free of charge. Less than 2,000 permits had been granted by April. An ILO survey in Jordan, which looked at workers in the construction and agriculture sectors, noted that while 90 percent of workers had heard about the grace period, none in the agriculture sector and only 85 percent in construction had work permits, though almost all knew that getting caught might mean detention at the Azraq refugee camp. And an inability to pay social security constituted a major barrier. Often a concern is to go through employers to get the permit.  

In Turkey, the numbers are not encouraging either: By May, only 10,000 had actually registered for work permits. Refugees International reports that Turkey’s work permit program may end up benefitting 40,000 Syrians or roughly 10 percent of those actually working. The government, though, thinks that the program will eventually help all those currently working informally.

The ILO, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Refugees’ International have praised the Jordanian and Turkish governments for granting work permits. The decision was not easy and was politically charged in both countries. But the political and psychological significance of providing an opening for Syrians to slowly integrate themselves and move towards a stable future is certainly worth pursuing, even if it doesn’t bring immediate rewards. Already, Turkey allows Syrian doctors and medical personnel to work in health centers serving refugees. Over 4000 Syrian teachers have received stipends from a Ministry of Education program funded by UNICEF and western donors. And agricultural workers no longer need work permits so long as provincial governors give their approval.

Eventually delinking work permits from employers will help, and the ILO urges Jordan to do so for agricultural and construction workers. In both Jordan and Turkey, lowering social security payments would also smooth the transition. More support to vocational training, health care, education for children are other ideas being pursued. While making work permits available is not the same as a blanket “right-to-work” law for refugees, a right protected under the U.N. 1951 Refugee Convention but accepted in full neither by Jordan nor Turkey (however, the key international treaty that protects the right to work in binding form is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to which Jordan and Turkey are signatories), this is an opening and one that the international community should monitor and support. Aside from the February conference, other agreements—such as the one between the EU and Turkey and the upcoming EU deal with Lebanon and Jordan—provide suitable platforms towards improving on this initial phase.   

On Monday, July 18, 2016, the world celebrated Nelson Mandela International Day, a day recognizing the former president of South Africa’s commitment to fostering peace and freedom. Every year the Nelson Mandela Foundation hosts a lecture, inviting prominent individuals to discuss significant social issues affecting the African continent. For this year’s lecture, Bill Gates was selected to speak on the theme of “Living Together” in front of a packed stadium in Pretoria. Gates focused on a topic Mandela returned to repeatedly throughout his life—the power of the youth. In the words of Gates, “…young people are better than old at driving innovation because they are not locked in by the limits of the past… we must clear away the obstacles standing in young people’s way so that they can seize all of their potential.”

Unfortunately, South Africa, the second-largest economy on the continent, has the highest youth unemployment rate at 54 percent, as seen in the figure below. Surprisingly, according to the figure the highest rates of youth unemployment lie in the upper-middle-income countries as classified by GNI per capita. Additionally, these unemployment rates might be depressed due to the fact that unemployment refers to people looking for jobs, and many of Africa’s youth are forced into the informal sector after giving up on their search for employment.

Although youth unemployment in Africa is often seen as a growing challenge, a number of experts interpret the large youth population as an opportunity, as long as the youth have access to the economic opportunities through which they can channel their energy into progress. As Africa’s youth is predicted to grow exponentially, achieving broad-based economic growth and development will rely on breaking down the barriers to economic opportunity, by investing in human capital (through education) and in improving business environments. 

Figure 2.3. Youth unemployment will continue to be a growing challenge in 2016

Interestingly, GDP and income classification have little correlation with youth unemployment rates. For example, South Africa, which has the second-largest economy on the continent and is considered an upper-middle-income country based on its GNI per capita, has the highest youth unemployment rate at nearly 54 percent. Meanwhile, the Liberian economy, which is nearly 200 times smaller than South Africa’s, has a youth unemployment rate 10 times smaller. Youth unemployment is measured as the share of the labor force (ages 15-24) without work but available for and seeking employment. Estimates may be low in some low-income countries like Liberia because many young people cannot afford not to work to seek employment and as a result, end up in low-paying jobs.

Source: Youth unemployment figures from World Development Indicators and GDP data from the World Bank databank.

See the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative’s Foresight Africa 2016 report, from which the figure below comes, for more highlights on the growing challenge of youth unemployment in Africa. In addition, earlier this month the Brookings Institution hosted an Africa Policy Dialogue on the Hill on jobs in Africa, alluding to the shortcomings of the educational systems and the importance of infrastructure and electricity to support business and attract investment. For a summary of the conversation, see here.

Tor Syvrud contributed to this post.

During his presentation at the University of Michigan/Urban Land Institute Real Estate Forum, Christopher B. Leinberger discusses the impact walkable urbane places has and will have on metropolitan development patterns, the market reasons for this change and how to strategically manage it.

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Demand for more walkable, mixed use neighborhoods is growing across the United States. However, the challenges associated with fi nancing these developments are allowing much of this demand to go unmet. This paper discusses how more, and more upfront, patient equity in walkable projects—from various sources and providers—would facilitate their development, and yield high returns over the long term. The paper also examines how patient equity contributed to the success of several such developments built over the past 15 years, illustrating untapped potential. Finally, it notes the role the public sector can play in providing patient equity investments.

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Introduction

The post-World War II era has witnessed the nearly exclusive building of low density suburbia, here termed “drivable sub-urban” development, as the American metropolitan built environment. However, over the past 15 years, there has been a gradual shift in how Americans have created their built environment (defined as the real estate, which is generally privately owned, and the infrastructure that supports real estate, majority publicly owned), as demonstrated by the success of the many downtown revitalizations, new urbanism, and transit-oriented development. This has been the result of the re-introduction and expansion of higher density “walkable urban” places. This new trend is the focus of the recently published book, The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream (Island Press, November 2007).

This field survey attempts to identify the number and location of “regional-serving” walkable urban places in the 30 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., where 138 million, or 46 percent, of the U.S. population lives. This field survey determines where these walkable urban places are most prevalent on a per capita basis, where they are generally located within the metro area, and the extent to which rail transit service is associated with walkable urban development.

The first section defines the key concepts used in the survey, providing relevant background information for those who have not read The Option of Urbanism. The second section outlines the methodology. The third section, which is the heart of the report, outlines the findings and conclusions of the survey.

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In the three months since the EU-Turkey migrant pact came into force, the number of migrants arriving on Greek shores has dropped precipitously. But the number of migrants making the even more dangerous crossing to Italy has increased substantially. After months of chaos, Rome—having adopted a variety of measures in partnership with European authorities—is now much better prepared than last summer to deal with a new migrant surge. But, despite its efforts, Italy—like its peers—cannot possibly cope on its own with a new wave of migration on the order of magnitude as the one witnessed last summer.

Yet that possibility is real. With almost 19,000 arriving from Libya in the first three months of this year, an EU-Libya migration compact is urgently needed. But for it to work, Europe as a whole must engage with Libya comprehensively and across policy areas. That will require time—and an interim solution in the meantime. 

Fewer arrivals in Greece, more in Italy

Notwithstanding its many flaws, the EU-Turkey deal appears to be working at deterring people from making the treacherous crossing from Turkey to Greece. Although weather conditions have improved, the number of migrants reaching Greece dropped by 90 percent in April, to less than 2,700. Syrians, Pakistanis, Afghans, and Iraqis made up the bulk of new arrivals, as has been the case for the last few months. Further north, along the Western Balkans route, the number of migrants reaching Europe’s borders in April dropped by 25 percent, down to 3,830. In this case, Macedonia’s de facto closure of its southern border with Greece clearly contributed to stemming the flow. 

With the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Balkans routes sealed, the Central Mediterranean pathway presents new and worrying trends. In the month of April alone, 9,149 migrants arrived in Italy. As in the past, they were overwhelmingly from Sub-Saharan Africa (mostly Nigeria), many of them economic migrants unlikely to be granted asylum. For the first time since May 2015, more migrants are now reaching Italy than Greece. Many more are likely to have lost their lives trying to do so. 

For the first time since May 2015, more migrants are now reaching Italy than Greece.

Learning from past mistakes 

Italy is doing its homework. A revamped headquarters for the European Union Regional Task Force (EURTF) overseeing migrant arrivals across the Central Mediterranean opened at the end of April in the town of Catania. Five of its six hotspots—first reception centers fully equipped to process new arrivals—are now in place, with a combined reception capacity for 2,100 people and the involvement of Frontex, the European Asylum Support Office, Europol, Eurojust, the International Organization for Migration, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Fingerprinting rates have now reached virtually 100 percent at all active hotspots. Long-term reception capacity across the country is currently at 111,081, and plans are in place to boost this to 124,579. This would probably not be enough to host the share that the country could be expected to take under a permanent and fair pan-European relocation mechanism. And yet, at least for the time being, the European Commission judged the Italian reception system to be more than sufficient.

Within this context, European partners seem to be slowly becoming more confident in Rome’s willingness to take up its responsibilities. It is no coincidence that on the same day that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble invited Vienna to support Italy in its efforts to control migrant movements within the Schengen area, Austria’s Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka announced that work on building a “migrants protection fence” at the Italy-Austria border was halted. 

A sustainable solution before it’s too late

Still, should a new massive migrant wave reach its shores, Italy could not cope on its own. Indeed, no single European country could. Should such a new wave materialize, Libya would be by far the most likely country of origin. Italy is the key to fighting ISIS and stabilizing Libya, but it would be unrealistic to expect Italy to do so on its own. 

The current European migrant crisis is part of a broader global refugee crisis and Europe has a shared interest and responsibility in dealing with it. Because of that, an EU-Libya deal is now necessary. This must—and can—be better than the agreement between the EU and Turkey. But a strategic pan-European approach is urgently needed. As Mattia Toaldo recently highlighted, a joint EU-Libya migration plan would be one of five priority areas for Libya. These would also include supporting a Libyan joint command to fight ISIS, a diplomatic offensive in support of the recently-established unity government, a reconciliation of local militias through power devolution, and the re-launch of the country’s economy. In April, Italy shared proposals with its European partners for a new migration compact with Libya but which also involves the broader region. That might be wise: since Europe is certainly unable to stabilize Libya in the short term, its leaders should start thinking about the country as a variable within a far broader equation. 

What can Italy do in the meantime?

The European Union should step up its support for Italy and an interim solution to migrant crisis in the Central Mediterranean must be found. Meanwhile, Italy has to brace itself for the potential arrival of over 800,000 migrants currently in Libya and waiting to cross the Mediterranean. While Rome could never cope with such a surge in migrant flows on its own, it still can—and must—plan for such an eventuality.

Three measures could be taken to address this challenge. First of all, Italy could consider setting up a seventh—and possibly even an eight—hotspot. This would be an important step given that an idea Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano floated—to set up “hotspots at sea”–is unlikely to be viable on both legal and humanitarian grounds. Second, Italy should increase its long-term reception capacity to around 150,000 people. The exact number would depend on the calculations that the European Commission is currently finalizing. Crucially, this should mirror the number of individuals beyond which an emergency relocation mechanism would be activated to re-distribute asylum seekers from Italy to another EU member state. Finally and should a sudden surge in the number of arrivals materialize, Italy could prepare contingency plans to mobilize virtually its entire navy to support ongoing EU efforts with its Operation Sophia. These policy proposals involve a significant effort in terms of state capacity. Yet, Italy has both a moral responsibility as well as a vested interest in implementing them. 

In the three months since the EU-Turkey migrant pact came into force, the number of migrants arriving on Greek shores has dropped precipitously. But the number of migrants making the even more dangerous crossing to Italy has increased substantially. After months of chaos, Rome—having adopted a variety of measures in partnership with European authorities—is now much better prepared than last summer to deal with a new migrant surge. But, despite its efforts, Italy—like its peers—cannot possibly cope on its own with a new wave of migration on the order of magnitude as the one witnessed last summer.

Yet that possibility is real. With almost 19,000 arriving from Libya in the first three months of this year, an EU-Libya migration compact is urgently needed. But for it to work, Europe as a whole must engage with Libya comprehensively and across policy areas. That will require time—and an interim solution in the meantime. 

Fewer arrivals in Greece, more in Italy

Notwithstanding its many flaws, the EU-Turkey deal appears to be working at deterring people from making the treacherous crossing from Turkey to Greece. Although weather conditions have improved, the number of migrants reaching Greece dropped by 90 percent in April, to less than 2,700. Syrians, Pakistanis, Afghans, and Iraqis made up the bulk of new arrivals, as has been the case for the last few months. Further north, along the Western Balkans route, the number of migrants reaching Europe’s borders in April dropped by 25 percent, down to 3,830. In this case, Macedonia’s de facto closure of its southern border with Greece clearly contributed to stemming the flow. 

With the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Balkans routes sealed, the Central Mediterranean pathway presents new and worrying trends. In the month of April alone, 9,149 migrants arrived in Italy. As in the past, they were overwhelmingly from Sub-Saharan Africa (mostly Nigeria), many of them economic migrants unlikely to be granted asylum. For the first time since May 2015, more migrants are now reaching Italy than Greece. Many more are likely to have lost their lives trying to do so. 

For the first time since May 2015, more migrants are now reaching Italy than Greece.

Learning from past mistakes 

Italy is doing its homework. A revamped headquarters for the European Union Regional Task Force (EURTF) overseeing migrant arrivals across the Central Mediterranean opened at the end of April in the town of Catania. Five of its six hotspots—first reception centers fully equipped to process new arrivals—are now in place, with a combined reception capacity for 2,100 people and the involvement of Frontex, the European Asylum Support Office, Europol, Eurojust, the International Organization for Migration, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Fingerprinting rates have now reached virtually 100 percent at all active hotspots. Long-term reception capacity across the country is currently at 111,081, and plans are in place to boost this to 124,579. This would probably not be enough to host the share that the country could be expected to take under a permanent and fair pan-European relocation mechanism. And yet, at least for the time being, the European Commission judged the Italian reception system to be more than sufficient.

Within this context, European partners seem to be slowly becoming more confident in Rome’s willingness to take up its responsibilities. It is no coincidence that on the same day that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble invited Vienna to support Italy in its efforts to control migrant movements within the Schengen area, Austria’s Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka announced that work on building a “migrants protection fence” at the Italy-Austria border was halted. 

A sustainable solution before it’s too late

Still, should a new massive migrant wave reach its shores, Italy could not cope on its own. Indeed, no single European country could. Should such a new wave materialize, Libya would be by far the most likely country of origin. Italy is the key to fighting ISIS and stabilizing Libya, but it would be unrealistic to expect Italy to do so on its own. 

The current European migrant crisis is part of a broader global refugee crisis and Europe has a shared interest and responsibility in dealing with it. Because of that, an EU-Libya deal is now necessary. This must—and can—be better than the agreement between the EU and Turkey. But a strategic pan-European approach is urgently needed. As Mattia Toaldo recently highlighted, a joint EU-Libya migration plan would be one of five priority areas for Libya. These would also include supporting a Libyan joint command to fight ISIS, a diplomatic offensive in support of the recently-established unity government, a reconciliation of local militias through power devolution, and the re-launch of the country’s economy. In April, Italy shared proposals with its European partners for a new migration compact with Libya but which also involves the broader region. That might be wise: since Europe is certainly unable to stabilize Libya in the short term, its leaders should start thinking about the country as a variable within a far broader equation. 

What can Italy do in the meantime?

The European Union should step up its support for Italy and an interim solution to migrant crisis in the Central Mediterranean must be found. Meanwhile, Italy has to brace itself for the potential arrival of over 800,000 migrants currently in Libya and waiting to cross the Mediterranean. While Rome could never cope with such a surge in migrant flows on its own, it still can—and must—plan for such an eventuality.

Three measures could be taken to address this challenge. First of all, Italy could consider setting up a seventh—and possibly even an eight—hotspot. This would be an important step given that an idea Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano floated—to set up “hotspots at sea”–is unlikely to be viable on both legal and humanitarian grounds. Second, Italy should increase its long-term reception capacity to around 150,000 people. The exact number would depend on the calculations that the European Commission is currently finalizing. Crucially, this should mirror the number of individuals beyond which an emergency relocation mechanism would be activated to re-distribute asylum seekers from Italy to another EU member state. Finally and should a sudden surge in the number of arrivals materialize, Italy could prepare contingency plans to mobilize virtually its entire navy to support ongoing EU efforts with its Operation Sophia. These policy proposals involve a significant effort in terms of state capacity. Yet, Italy has both a moral responsibility as well as a vested interest in implementing them. 

With conflicts in the Middle East continuing unabated, refugees continue to flow out of several war-torn countries in massive numbers. The question of whether to admit more refugees into the United States has not only been a source of debate among Washington policymakers, it has also become a central question within the U.S. presidential race. Nonresident Senior Fellow Shibley Telhami conducted a survey on American public attitudes toward refugees from the Middle East, in particular from Syria, Iraq, and Libya. Below are several key findings from the poll and a download link to the survey's full results.

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• Poll: American attitudes on refugees from the Middle East
• Poll Presentation
• Key Findings
• Refugee Questionnaire

A wave of retrenchment by global financial institutions may be undermining years of progress in providing the world’s poor with financial services.

What appeared to be only a vague concern a year ago is now front and center in discussions regarding global financial regulation. The reason: new regulatory and legal uncertainty regarding financial services, stemming from record fines levied on a handful of banks for failures to comply with international sanctions and anti-money laundering rules. A recent successful civil action in the U.S. against Arab Bank has further increased banks’ worries about their possible civil liability. Rightly or wrongly, the financial industry is reading these actions as raising the bar for compliance. As a result, we are seeing key and vocal market players use these developments to justify a wholesale retreat from services that are a lifeline for millions of people at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

For example, late last year a big bank in Australia sent letters to companies providing remittance services laying out a stark choice: close their accounts, or the bank would unilaterally shut them down. Accounts held by remittance companies have also been closed by banks in the U.K., the U.S., and New Zealand. If these remittances providers do not find alternatives, we may experience a global reduction in remittance services, and—due to reduced competition—increased cost to use those that remain in operation.

Remittance services are not the only targets. Trade finance and civil society organizations have also been affected. For instance, in the Netherlands an NGO involved in supporting the peace-building work of women's groups and women leaders in the Middle East and North Africa was recently refused a bank account by a large international bank. After the NGO explained to the bank that its work entails working with partners in the region, the bank decided not to provide a bank account in order to avoid any risk of funds (indirectly) ending up in Syria. And there are many examples like this, hampering the work of NGOs and humanitarian organizations, particularly in areas of conflict where they are most needed. In recent months, stories like this have become too numerous—and too widespread geographically—to be ignored; this is a global phenomenon.

This trend of account closures has become known as “de-risking”—a term that confuses more than it clarifies. Risk management, when properly carried out, is an essential and healthy component of running a bank. Under international financial industry norms, banks are expected to use a risk-based approach to evaluate whether to do business with a potential customer, and to monitor transactions for signs of suspicious activity. If there is a reasonable basis to believe a particular client creates significant risks regarding money laundering (ML) or terrorist financing (TF), a bank is fully justified in ultimately refusing to offer services.

 “De-risking,” however, is very different. The influential Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the standard setter for combating money laundering and terrorist financing, noted in an October 2014 statement that “de-risking refers to the phenomenon of financial institutions terminating or restricting business relationships with clients or categories of clients to avoid, rather than manage, risk.” The result, criticized by FATF, is the “wholesale cutting loose of entire classes of customers.”

Our concern lies not with the principle that some clients may be too risky for banks. Rather, the problem is the magnitude of de-risking. Current de-risking measures are excluding many clients that conduct legitimate transactions. And, because de-risking ends up pushing clients and transactions towards the informal and shadow financial system, it can actually increase global risks in this area.

It is therefore urgent for the international community to act. We need to better grasp what is really happening, and why. We believe that the solutions going forward will have to build on three pillars:

1. Public authorities need to provide more meaningful information on ML/TF risks to the financial industry, clarify their regulatory expectations, and adopt a genuinely risk-based approach in their supervisory and enforcement actions.
2. Financial institutions need to step up their understanding of the risks of their customer base, and direct internal control efforts accordingly. Risk management approaches should focus more on individual clients, and not write off entire sectors.
3. Countries with significant inflows of remittances need to improve the effectiveness of their regulatory regimes to combat ML/TF, and to provide more comfort to global financial institutions with banking relationships with clients in the developing world.

Millions of people in developing countries depend on remittances to help pay for basic necessities like food and shelter. In recent years we have seen important progress with banks and mobile network operators introducing innovative ways to serve the poor—including “mobile money” solutions that have enormous potential for enabling cross-border transactions. It would be a shame to see that trend reversed. Let’s not have those at the bottom of the economic pyramid pay for the criminal behavior of a few, and let’s make sure that enforcement action really targets the “bad guys.” Preserving access to the global financial system for the poorest and most vulnerable is a critical imperative, both economically and ethically.

President Obama's announcement last month that earlier this year a “U.S. counterterrorism operation” had killed two hostages, including an American citizen, has become a fresh occasion for questioning the rationales for continuing attacks from unmanned aerial vehicles aimed at presumed, suspected, or even confirmed terrorists. This questioning is desirable, although not mainly for hostage-related reasons connected to this incident. Sometimes an incident has a sufficient element of controversy to stoke debate even though what most needs to be debated is not an issue specific to the incident itself. More fundamental issues about the entire drone program need more attention than they are getting.

The plight of hostages held by terrorists has a long and sometimes tragic history, almost all of which has had nothing to do with drones. Hostage-taking has been an attractive terrorist tool for so long partly because of the inherent advantages that the hostage-holders always will have over counterterrorist forces. Those advantages include not only the ability to conceal the location of hostages—evidently a successful concealment in the case of the hostages mentioned in the president's announcement—but also the ability of terrorists to kill the hostages themselves and to do so quickly enough to make any rescue operation extraordinarily difficult. Even states highly skilled at such operations, most notably Israel, have for this reason suffered failed rescue attempts.

It is not obvious what the net effect of operations with armed drones is likely to be on the fate of other current or future hostages. The incident in Pakistan demonstrates one of the direct negative possibilities. Possibly an offsetting consideration is that fearing aerial attack and being kept on the run may make, for some terrorists, the taking of hostages less attractive and the management of their custody more difficult. But a hostage known to be in the same location as a terrorist may have the attraction to the latter of serving as a human shield.

The drone program overall has had both pluses and minuses, as anyone who is either a confirmed supporter or opponent of the program should admit. There is no question that a significant number of certified bad guys have been removed as a direct and immediate consequence of the attacks. But offsetting, and probably more than offsetting, that result are the anger and resentment from collateral casualties and damage and the stimulus to radicalization that the anger and resentment provide. There is a good chance that the aerial strikes have created more new terrorists bent on exacting revenge on the United States than the number of old terrorists the strikes have killed.

This possibility is all the more disturbing in light of what appears to be a significant discrepancy between the official U.S. posture regarding collateral casualties and the picture that comes from nonofficial sources of reporting and expertise. The public is at a disadvantage in trying to judge this subject and to assess who is right and who is wrong, but what has been pointed out by respected specialists such as Micah Zenko is enough to raise serious doubt about official versions both of the efforts made to avoid casualties among innocents and of how many innocents have become victims of the strikes.

The geographic areas in which the drone strikes are most feasible and most common are not necessarily the same places from which future terrorist attacks against the United States are most likely to originate. The core Al-Qaeda group, which has been the primary target and concern in northwest Pakistan, is but a shadow of its former self and not the threat it once was. Defenders of the drone strikes are entitled to claim that this development is in large part due to the strikes. But that leaves the question: why keep doing it now?

The principal explanation, as recognized in the relevant government circles, for the drone program has been that it is the only way to reach terrorists who cannot be reached by other tools or methods. It has been seen as the only counterterrorist game that could be played in some places. That still leaves more fundamental questions about the motivations for playing the game.

Policy-makers do not use a counterterrorist tool just because the tool is nifty—although that may be a contributing factor regarding the drones—but rather because they feel obligated to use every available tool to strike at terrorists as long as there are any terrorists against whom to strike. In the back of their minds is the thought of the next Big One, or maybe even a not so big terrorist attack on U.S. soil, occurring on their watch after not having done everything they could to prevent it, or doing what would later be seen in hindsight as having had the chance to prevent it.

The principal driver of such thoughts is the American public's zero tolerance attitude toward terrorism, in which every terrorist attack is seen as a preventable tragedy that should have been prevented, without fully factoring in the costs and risks of prevention or of attempted prevention. Presidents and the people who work for them will continue to fire missiles from drones and to do some other risky, costly, or even counterproductive things in the cause of counterterrorism because of the prospect of getting politically pilloried for not being seen to make the maximum effort on behalf of that cause.

This piece was originally published by The National Interest.

Good morning and welcome to the "future." At approximately 4:29 p.m. Hill Valley time on Oct. 21, Doc Brown and Marty McFly arrive at the present day. For many millennials especially, the 1985 film series Back to the Future represented the far-flung fantastical future that many dreamed would come. But how does the Reagan-era vision of a future where we don't need roads compare to our daily lives today?

Sadly, you probably came to work today on the same street you may have trodden as a child back in 1985 without a hover board. But our future is still pretty fantastic, and many of the outlandish futuristic devices you saw in the 1989 film Back to the Future II are closer than you think—or already here. Here are three predictions that the film made that today might actually turn the head of an ‘80s time traveler

Drone proliferation

When Doc Brown and Marty McFly arrived in 2015, the sky was filled with more flying cars than the drones that sometimes dot our skies, but the film did point to some potential uses for unmanned remote flying devices. In the future, the film envisioned drones for walking the dog and even remote photography drones reporting on the day's news. While drones today don't exactly fill these roles, that future is perhaps closer than you think.

"Private actors will soon operate drones in equal if not greater numbers than the government," Brookings Fellow Wells Bennett wrote in a report on civilian use of drones last year. Amazon has tested drones to aid in home and business delivery. CNN has been given clearance by the government to explore the use of drones for reporting. Even law enforcement and public safety officials have used drones to aid in policing and fighting fires.

The widespread use of drones in daily life is probably still part of our future rather than our present in 2015, but regulations for this future are being written today. Federal regulators just this week announced that recreational drones will need to be registered. Last year as part of our project on civilian robotics, Gregory McNeal offered his own suggestions for federal and state regulators on how best to tackle civilian drone regulations.

Cybernetic humans and wearable technology

In the 1989 film, Marty faces off against his son's cybernetic bully, Griff Tannen. The bullies of the present don't exactly resemble Griff or Locutus of Borg, but cybernetics is closer than you think—even resting in your palm right now.

Taking a walk through Hill Valley in the real 2015, a time traveler might see several pedestrians immersed in their smartphones or glancing at notifications on their wearable devices. In our homes, virtual reality is becoming more prominent as well. Systems like Oculus and Google Cardboard resemble very closely the remote television visors worn by Marty's kids in the future.

"The proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude that [cell phones] were an important feature of human anatomy," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a 2014 opinion referencing the cybernetic future we are living today. Benjamin Wittes and Jane Chong acknowledge in their report on the emerging cyborg future that the connection we have with technology is becoming more personal. While surveillance laws of the past might make distinctions between human tissue and the devices we use in our daily lives, Wittes and Chong argue that perhaps the separation between the human being and technology in some cases is no longer there—and the law should adapt to acknowledge this.

Flying cars and the transportation of the future

The most-often panned prediction of the film is admittedly the most disappointing—there are no flying cars in our future. This has been a fantasy for even Baby Boomers who were thrilled by the Jetsons' view of the 21st Century. Flying cars do exist in a limited form, but they are more accurately described as ultra-portable planes that require a pilot’s license to fly. However, the future of transportation is even better than Marty or Doc Brown ever realized; they just needed to travel a few more years in the future to see it happen.

Driverless cars have the potential to be the biggest seismic shift in transportation that many of us will experience in our lifetime. Numerous automotive makers and even Google are preparing for the autonomous future. Imagine your vehicle circling the parking lot to pick you up after a film; traversing rush hour traffic to deliver your daughter to softball practice; even serving as designated driver on Friday night after drinks at the bar.

The future seems like a fantasy, but liability concerns about whom to sue when an automated vehicle gets in a fender bender—or worse—clouds this would-be future.

"While liability will always be important with respect to motor vehicle operation, automation will dramatically increase safety on the highways by reducing both the number and severity of accidents," writes John Villasenor in his report on how to tackle liability in the driverless era. Despite many reservations about driverless cars, Villasenor argues that current liability law frameworks would be well equipped to address concerns.

Of course, whether the DeLorean Motor Company will come out of mothballs and produce a driverless DeLorean remains to be seen.

Discuss the future's impact on the modern workforce

At least according to Robert Zemeckis, we've arrived in the future. Not that you’re here, join us at 2 p.m. Oct. 26 when we'll discuss one of the important consequences of all of this technological automation: its impact on the workforce and the availability of social benefits.