Weekly Writers Round-Up: Defense Spending, Soda Taxes, and Taxpayer Shaming

Each week, we’ll be featuring the work of the alumni and current participants of AF’s Writing Fellows Program. A few highlights from the past week are below. For more information on the program, see here. Applications for the fall session are now open, but register soon! The deadline for application is September 1.

Throwing More Money at the Pentagon Doesn’t Make America Safer by Jake Grant (Summer 2017) in The National Interest
On August 13, President Trump traveled to Fort Drum, a U.S. military base in upstate New York to sign the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This legislation authorizes $717 billion in defense spending, an increase of more than $20 billion from the 2018 NDAA passed in December of last year. In fiscal year 2017, defense spending totaled just north of $600 billion, a nearly 20 percent increase in funding in the past few years…

The Moratorium on Soda Taxes Puts California on the Right Track by Josh T. Smith (Summer 2015) in The Orange County Register
California recently banned future local soda taxes until 2031 as part of a compromise bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown. Places like Berkeley and Oakland, where taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages already are in place, can keep them, but other cities and counties cannot enact new ones…

Are You in the Tax Hall of Shame? by Andrew Wilford (Spring 2017) in Reason
Revenue departments around the country routinely publish lists of taxpayers whose bills are past due. The explicit purpose of these lists is to invite friends, family, and acquaintances to shame tax delinquents into paying. Unsubtle program names such as Colorado’s “Hall of Shame” (since renamed) and Louisiana’s “CyberShame” (since discontinued) gave away the game. To ensure that law-abiding taxpayers have all the tools necessary to shame tax evaders effectively, states release some highly personal information…

The Only Escape from Afghanistan’s Cycle of Violence Is to Leave by Jerrod A. Laber (Fall 2017) in The National Interest
Afghanistan has experienced an especially deadly level of violence in recent weeks, as a suicide bomber killed forty-eight people in an attack in Kabul, and Taliban insurgents killed thirty-nine soldiers and police in attacks on a military base and a police checkpoint in the northern part of the country. On Monday, August 13, Taliban captured or killed another 106 soldiers in an attack on another Afghan military base…