Commerce, Justice, Science FY2022

House Appropriations: Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, April 29, 2021

Report Language and the Budget Process

Let me now address spending priorities in Commerce, Justice, Science.

In the best of all worlds, the Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics would reside in one division of the Department of the Treasury. I suggest this based on our proposal to fund domestic military and civil appropriations with a credit invoice value added tax on goods and services. Movement of these agencies to a Department of Treasury and Commerce would be essential to informing the government as to appropriate tax rates. 

The Securities and Exchange Commission could also be moved to an expanded Department of Treasury and Commerce to collect an Asset Value Added Tax on all trades (including those made by mutual funds) and capital returns (save for sales to qualified Employee Stock Ownership Plans.

This brings us back to the utility of a regional analysis of spending. Spending priorities would be compared with VAT revenues collected in each region, with the goal of achieving balance. 

If the Appropriations Subcommittees were organized, in part, by region, such an exercise would be natural. VAT rates could be regionalized with the goal of a regionally balanced budget, although a constitutional amendment would be necessary for this to occur (such taxes are considered an excise, which must currently be uniform nationwide).

Trade related agencies, including those related to work related visas, could be moved to the Department of Homeland Security.

The remaining agencies of the Department of Commerce and related agencies could become a Department of Science. This includes such agencies as NASA.

NASA funding should be increased at the expense of advanced research, RDT&E and Procurement spending by the Department of Defense. DoD spending cannot easily be converted to just any sort of program. It must fund a similar industrial base or spending for war cannot be reduced. 

One such effort is research on Closed Loop Environmental Support Systems. Doing so could provide alternate means of agriculture, water treatment and home building. It ends the problem of population, conceivably on a worldwide basis. 

Environmental research (as opposed to regionally relevant clean water grants), could be moved to a Department of Science. Transportation research (as opposed to those which are regionally based - such as highway construction and FAA facilities) could also be shifted here. A project that would benefit from such research is development of automated cars with central control (rather than its own AI) and energy distribution (rather than being hampered by economically damaging battery development). The latter is old technology, i.e., electric trains and buses.

The most important spending programs in the Subcommittee’s purview are in the area of justice and care for the mentally ill and less educated.

Job one is to shift from correctional modalities to new methods featuring mental health, education (including ESL programs) and addiction medicine. Warehousing young males of any race, but particularly African-Americans multiplies societal pathologies. While some forms of illness, such as sexual violence and physical violence or murder may require higher security, others can be treated as patients rather than criminals.

The Department of Justice can take the lead in both practice and in developing best practices for state correctional systems. Part of this would be specialized facilities based on the type of crime committed. 

For example, sex offenders would be in facilities of their own. Those who remain dangerous post-sentence would still be detained until they are no longer dangerous. Such decisions must be based on science, not the desire for further punitive measures.

This change would migrate to local law enforcement, i.e., policing. 

A pilot program could be developed to respond to certain incidents (especially those involving mental illness or alcohol) with immediate dispatch of emergency medical teams. This would require more ambulances, more mental health facilities and a pause in applying restraints until medical personnel arrive.

Funding more hospitals and ambulances would be part of this, possibly with some form of federal grant program. Private corrections facilities can also be transformed into contracted medical facilities with security contracting provided as a subcontract to mental health systems, both secular and religious. Catholic Health Association members come to mind. Both public and private educational systems would be an integral part of such facilities and be treated as an essential function, rather than the first item cut when states wish to minimize their spending by essentially torturing (and dehumanizing) inmates.

Such programs would require change outside the scope of appropriations measures. Still, they are worthy of mention.

Job one is to legalize the production, sale and use of cannabis. The war on drugs was always a war on people of color, with youth added to the mix in the 1970s. It is past time to end this, at least regarding these substances (let us not forget hashish or other hallucinogenic drugs).

Stronger drugs, particularly methamphetamines, cocaine and other narcotics, should be treated as mental health issues rather than crimes. To deal with these drugs, as well as untreated mental illness, neither criminality nor catch and release programs (i.e., releasing people when they are no longer a short-term danger to themselves rather than until long term stability is reached) are appropriate. 

New standards of individual and societal protection must be developed. Improved standards of care and security will require much more funding than state and local governments are willing to commit to. This simply drives the problem to the correctional system, which is the largest provider of mental healthcare in this nation. the term for this practice is pennywise and pound-foolish.

A final reform, which will save money and resources, is to create a plea in criminal cases of guilty by reason of insanity. Those who enter this plea would be confined in the facilities detailed above for at least the minimum sentence for their offences, with no release after that if the subject remains a danger to society. 

If relapse occurs or treatment protocols are evaded after release, rehospitalization must be automatic and last until a treatment program is more deeply ingrained. There should, of course, be protections on both sides in the decision to release subjects - both for the protection of the rights of subjects who made be held for punitive, rather than hygienic reasons and, as importantly, the interests of the victims of crime, including but not limited to the possibility of physical danger. Sometimes, exile should be a part of release.