Federal Budgeting After September 11th: A Whole New Ballgame,or Is It Déjà Vu All Over Again?

Federal budgeting has undergone some profound changes since the tragic events of September 11th, 2001. Large surpluses that existed prior to September 11th and were forecast to continue have been replaced by equally large and intractable deficits. The consensus around a macro‐level norm for federal budgeting has completely broken down. In other ways, the federal budget process has not changed at all. Despite the emphasis on defense and homeland security, domestic discretionary spending is still continuing unabated, as it has since the late 1980s. Further, the federal government continues to have chronic difficulty adopting its budget in a timely fashion.     

The China–asean Free Trade Agreement And Taiwan

While China's move toward a FTA with ASEAN reflects Beijing's most recent foreign economic policy adjustment and represents a new stage in the nation's open-door policy, it inevitably produces significant impact on cross-Taiwan Straits relations. This recent development in China's foreign economic relations brings not only substantial psychological and real effects and pressure on Taiwan for its possible isolation and marginalization from the ongoing process of regional integration in East Asia, but also growing pressure exerted by the island's business community that fears being pushed into a disadvantageous position in competition with ASEAN companies in the ever expanding and lucrative market of the mainland. For strategic, diplomatic, and economic considerations in the face of this new challenge, Taiwan is pursuing counter-measures by searching for its own FTAs with other countries within and beyond the region.     

‘Them’ and ‘us’: demonising politicians by moral double standards

The distance between politicians and those they are supposed to represent is substantial. Almost invariably, it is politicians themselves who are made to shoulder the responsibility for this ‘gap’, their actions being demonised. This paper assesses some ‘ordinary’ ethical lapses that politicians are often accused of: lying, breaking promises and being self-serving. It is argued that the public tend to apply double standards when it comes to the moral expectations that they have of their representatives, inasmuch as they far more readily accept ethically dubious actions when they apply to other social and public roles. The moral singularity of the political sphere is called into question, with the effect of helping to narrow the gap between the two categories, and encourage more empathy on the part of the public.