The article argues that recent executive overreach and politicization have severely undermined established norms of U.S. civil-military relations. To restore professional standards, the incoming Congress must actively exercise its oversight powers, moving beyond mere criticism to demanding transparency in defense policy and personnel decisions. Key reforms include enforcing meritocratic promotion processes, requiring documented justification for senior officer removals, and preventing the partisan use of the military. These actions are crucial for bolstering public trust and ensuring the military remains a nonpartisan instrument of civilian control.
The SNAP state cost-shift policy leaves the program’s existence to chance
English Summary
The proposed SNAP state cost-shift policy ties a state's required contribution to benefits to its estimated payment error rate, a measure based on small statistical samples. The analysis argues that this reliance on sample data means the resulting penalty is determined by random chance and statistical uncertainty, not actual program administration quality. Because the confidence intervals are wider than the mandated cost-shift tiers, states face unpredictable financial penalties that could force them to restrict or abandon SNAP services during economic downturns. Policy analysts conclude that this unstable mechanism risks increasing poverty and hardship, recommending that the federal government maintain full funding guarantees for the program.
中文摘要
所提議的SNAP州級成本轉移政策，將一個州必須對福利提供的貢獻比例與其估算的支付錯誤率掛鉤；而此錯誤率是基於小型統計樣本得出的衡量指標。分析指出，這種依賴樣本數據的做法意味著產生的罰款取決於隨機性及統計不確定性，而非實際的計畫管理品質。由於信賴區間（confidence intervals）比規定的成本轉移級別更寬泛，各州面臨不可預測的財政懲處，這可能迫使它們在經濟衰退期間限制甚至放棄SNAP服務。政策分析師總結認為，這種不穩定的機制有增加貧困和生活困苦的風險，因此建議聯邦政府應維持對該計畫的全額資金保障。
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