The DMV issued proposed rules last week giving the go-ahead to road-test self-driving cars - would you feel comfortable with driverless cars on CA roads as soon as 2018?; plus, we look at Trump's "America First" budget proposal, as well as the H-1B visa under Trump; and more.
Federal budget watchers dive into President Trump’s ‘America First’ budget proposal
President Trump’s first federal budget proposal is out and, as many following its release expected, it calls for a major increase in defense spending while slashing the budgets of a number of government agencies, including 12 of the 15 Cabinet-level departments.
The plan, titled “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again,” calls for a $54 billion increase in spending on defense and national security, making the U.S. military and the Department of Homeland Security the big winners. The Departments of Labor, State, and Agriculture would all see cuts of more than 20 percent and the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget would be slashed by 30 percent. President Trump also asks for a $1.7 billion infusion this year, increasing to $2.6 billion next year, to start building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, so despite his campaign promise that Mexico would pay for the wall, it appears that U.S. taxpayers will foot the bill for the time being. Major themes absent from the budget include increases in infrastructure spending, a departure from Trump’s campaign promise to create a $1 trillion infrastructure program. Despite saying during his campaign that he wanted to eliminate disease, he’s also cutting the National Institutes of Health’s budget by almost $6 billion. As expected, future federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been eliminated.
What do you think of the spending priorities as set forth by the Trump Administration in his budget proposal? What are you happy to see?
Guests:
Roberta Rampton, White House correspondent for Reuters; she wrote the article, “Military wins in first Trump budget; environment, aid lose big;” she tweets
Romina Boccia, leading fiscal and economic expert at The Heritage Foundation, focuses on government spending and the national debt
Harry Stein, director of fiscal policy at the Center for American Progress
Conservatives debate ACA replacement as plan clears key committee
The GOP plan to replace the Affordable Care Act cleared a major hurdle this morning, as the House Budget Committee voted to advance the bill.
Three Republicans voted against the Trump-backed bill, joining all 14 Democrats in the committee. But that wasn’t enough to stop the bill from moving on to the next phase.
Conservatives are not unified their support for the replacement proposal. Noting split, both President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan have come out and said that they are open to revising the plan to gain wider support.
Guests:
Jen Haberkorn, senior healthcare reporter at POLITICO
Avik Roy, opinion editor at Forbes, and former policy advisor to Marco Rubio, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney; his piece on the CBO report has been published in Forbes
Doug Badger, senior fellow at the Galen Institute, a nonprofit public policy research organization on healthcare issues; he was a senior White House adviser to President George W. Bush on health-related issues; his piece on the CBO report is published today in the National Review
Ex-LA County Sheriff Lee Baca found guilty in federal corruption scheme
With President Trump’s crackdown on immigration, what will happen to H-1B visa workers?
The Wall Street Journal reported on a recent study out of UC San Diego and the University of Michigan that looked at the impact of the H-1B visa program on wages and employment.
Researchers focused on a period between 1994 and 2001, which is the longest period on record of maximum H-1B claims (total of 85,000 per year) made by employers:
"[Researchers] found that, while the visa program bolstered the U.S. economy and corporate profits, tech-industry wages would have been as much as 5.1% higher in the absence of the H-1B visa program and employment of U.S. workers in the field would have been as much as 10.8% higher in 2001."
Critics of the study say other research has shown the immigration of highly skilled workers--not specifically H-1B recipients--has an overall positive effect on wages and employment. While the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) under the Trump administration recently announced it is suspending for six months the fast-track visa processing option for H-1B applications, it's unclear if the President is sticking by his hard line campaign rhetoric on foreign workers. Supporters who want President Trump to fulfill his promise to "end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program" say by simply suspending the $1,225 premium processing option, he's not doing enough to protect American workers.
What's the future of H-1B's under the Trump administration? How is the uncertainty impacting businesses that rely on the visa program to find skilled workers? For employees or students about to graduate and enter the labor market, do you think you are unfairly expected to compete against foreign workers?
Guests:
Gaurav Khanna, co-author of the study, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Global Development
Dick Burke, president and CEO of Envoy, a Chicago-based immigration services provider
John Miano, Center for Immigration Studies
California DMV gives potential green light to self-driving cars
Paying attention to the road may be optional starting as early as next year.
That is, if a California Department of Motor Vehicles proposal goes through. As reported by the Associated Press, the DMV issued proposed rules last week to road-test self-driving cars. This applies to truly driverless vehicles, without a wheel or any other way for the person inside to operate it.
According to DMV rules, the cars could be road-tested starting late 2017, and become commercially available by 2018. The rules are also subject to a public comment period and federal approval would still be needed before the people could hit the road in fully autonomous vehicles.
Do you think these cars are almost ready for prime-time? Would you feel safe in driverless technology by 2018?
Guests:
Ashley Z. Hand, co-founder of CityFi, a company that focuses on the integration of technology in the urban environment. She recently served as the Transportation Technology Strategist for the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation, and developed public policy for shared mobility, automated vehicles and other technologies; she tweets
Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog; the organization has raised concerns about the safety of driverless vehicles