President Obama announced the first five cities chosen for his new "Promise Zone" poverty-fighting initiative. What does this mean for Los Angeles and the other "Promise Zone" cities? New Jersey Governor Chris Christie faces a scandal surrounding fake-lane closures. How will this impact Christie's political ambitions? And, is the California high speed rail plan green enough to use cap-and-trade funds?
President Obama pledges to fight LA poverty in designated 'Promise Zone'
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson launched a War on Poverty in America, and a half century later, President Obama is using the anniversary to establish poverty-fighting “Promise Zones” in a handful of cities across the across the country.
The first five cities chosen for the new initiative are San Antonio, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Southeastern Kentucky and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. LA’s zone, which includes the Koreatown, Hollywood, Westlake and Pico-Union area, is set to receive tens of millions of federal improvement dollars, up to $500 million in the next decade.
The concept of “place-based subsidy,” which the “Promise Zone” program embodies, isn’t new, and economists have long debated the approach’s efficacy in eradicating poverty in any given idea. And Los Angeles already has its work cut out for it. According to a new report from the L.A. 2020 Commission, the city is economic as well as a leadership crisis, having failed to tackle both economic and standard-of-living issues.
What does money from this new program mean for some of the most poverty-stricken urban areas in the nation? How are legislators planning to use the money if the total amount has yet to be decided, and how will the inevitable brawl over where to spend the federal money play out?
Guests:
Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles Mayor
Matthew Kahn, Professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment, the Department of Economics, and the Department of Public Policy. He was trained as an economist at the University of Chicago
Enrico Moretti, Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of “The New Geography of Jobs” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012)
Austin Beutner, Co-Chair, Los Angeles 2020 Commission; Former First Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles
NJ Governor Christie mired in fake lane-closure scandal AKA 'Bridge-gate'
"I was blindsided," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said at a lengthy news conference Thursday morning as he apologized for a political scandal that could affect his future political ambitions.
Christie said he knew nothing of a plan by some of his closest aides to create traffic jams as political playback to a town mayor. Christie said he fired one of the aides involved after texts and emails showed that she arranged lane closings on the George Washington Bridge to punish the town's mayor who refused to endorse Christie.
The closings created gridlock for several days in September and surely ticked off the residents of Fort Lee, New Jersey. A federal prosecutor has announced an investigation into the highway shutdown and the town’s mayor Mark Sokolich publicly told Christie not to bother visiting and to apologize to the town’s residents instead.
The political fallout could harm Christie's second term and likely run for president in 2016. Will this scandal wreck his national political ambitions? How did he handle the apology? Do you believe him that he had no knowledge of the lane closures? Is this incident more evidence that Christie has bullied political rivals?
Guests:
Bob Ingle, Senior Political Columnist for Gannett New Jersey newspapers and co-author of “Chris Christie: The Inside Story of His Rise to Power” (St Martin’s Press, 2012)
Lisa Gritzner, President of Cerrell Associates public relations firm
Is the high speed rail plan 'green' enough to use cap-and-trade funds?
California's beleaguered high speed rail project may be getting a breath of new life if Governor Jerry Brown's new budget is passed. The Governor is expected to propose a portion of the state's cap-and-trade revenue to be used to fund the first phase of the $68 billion rail project.
The Los Angeles - San Francisco high speed rail line has been plagued with setbacks and political opposition since voters first approved a referendum to build the train in 2008. In November, a judge blocked the state from using $8.6 billion in bond money to finance the first part of the rail line, putting both the train's future and $3 billion in federal funds in jeopardy.
Now, Brown wants to use nearly a third of the $850 million in revenue that the state expects to collect next year from cap-and-trade funds. The funds are earned from "carbon credits" bought by businesses who exceed the cap on carbon dioxide emissions.
The money may help rescue the project but some environmentalists are concerned that the train won't show any environmental benefits for 20 to 30 years. They argue the money should be spent on projects that will immediately reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions.
Is the high speed rail project 'green' enough to warrant using cap-and-trade funds? If the proposal is rejected will it kill the high speed rail project? What other funding options are out there? What could be a better use of cap-and-trade funds?
Guests:
David Siders, reporter for the Sacramento Bee covering state politics
Rod Diridon, former chair of the High Speed Rail Authority and executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute
Kathryn Phillips, Director of the Sierra Club of California
Flirting with new faiths: Christian pastor goes atheist for a year
For his 2014 new year’s resolution, former pastor Ryan Bell decided to give up the Christian faith for a year and “try on atheism,” a move that cost him teaching jobs at two Christian universities and has spurred conversation and debate among Christian and atheist communities.
For the next year, the former senior pastor at Hollywood Adventist Church says he will live as if there is no God, refraining from prayer, worship and his many roles in the Christian community. Instead, he’ll be reading texts by prominent atheist thinkers, communing with non-believers and blogging about his insights.
Bell’s project highlights a trend of Americans abandoning their religious affiliations or switching to new belief systems. A 2009 Pew Research report found that half of American adults have changed their religious affiliation at least once during their lives. The fastest growing religious group in recent decades is those unaffiliated with any particular religion.
What do you make of Bell’s project? Can someone really “try on” a belief system for a year? Have you left one religious tradition to dabble in another? How do these sorts of faith transformations impact your life?
Guests:
Ryan Bell, former pastor, Hollywood Adventist Church, blogging at http://yearwithoutgod.com
Brie Loskota, Managing Director, USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture