Federal Government

Across-the-board federal spending cuts called “sequestration” were put in place March 1st.  They've already caused layoffs in Maryland. We talk with a federal public defender dealing with furloughs, and a government contractor that has laid workers off due to spending cuts at Fort Meade.

Then, Erika Robuck blends history into fiction in novels about famous authors. Her latest imagines an intense friendship between Zelda Fitzgerald and a psychiatric nurse in Baltimore.  We talk with Robuck ahead of her appearance Saturday at the Annapolis Book Festival.

April 10, 2013

The across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration went into effect more than a month ago.  Some have been delayed—the Federal Aviation Administration announced it’s waiting until mid-June to close air traffic control towers around the country, including five in Maryland.  And the number of furlough days for civilian employees of the Department of Defense has been reduced by about a third.

March 26, 2013

Future jobs in Maryland for Tom Perez.mp3

The Justice Policy Institute, a Washington-based organization that supports lowering the nation's incarceration rate, says five states have reduced youth confinement by more than 50 percent over the last decade. What practices did they implement to achieve these results, and what's being done in Maryland? Our guests: Spike Bradford, senior research analyst for the Justice Policy Institute; and Scott Beal, executive director of community services for the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services.

In the midst of partisan stalemate, the budget sequester and a renewed debate over guns, here comes legal scholar Louis Michael Seidman with a provocative idea: Ending our disobedience to the 225-year-old Constitution. Seidman says the time has come to acknowledge the failings of our treasured legal document and its archaic, idiosyncratic and harmful provisions. Seidman has taught constitutional law at Georgetown University for nearly 40 years. He is the author of "On Constitutional Disobedience."

House Speaker John Boehner says there is no easy way to stop the budget cuts -- known as the “sequester” -- that began taking effect Friday, and he voiced uncertainty about how Washington can solve the fiscal problems that have consumed the nation’s politics for more than two years. Sequester threatens nearly 50,000 jobs and many programs in Maryland. Andrea Seabrook, former NPR congressional correspondent and now the host of her podcast, DecodeDC, explains how this whole thing began and how it might end.

March 1, 2013

As you’ve been hearing all morning, today is March 1st – the day major across the board cuts known as sequestration are set to take effect.   President Obama is meeting with congressional leaders today in an effort to avoid the $85 billion in scheduled cuts.

Sheilah talks with Maryland’s only Republican Congressman, Andy Harris, who represents Maryland's 1st district, on the Eastern Shore.

February 27, 2013

The series of federal budget cuts known as sequester are set to  begin on Friday effecting millions of Americans and threatening the jobs of nearly 50-thousand Maryland residents. We discuss the scope of sequester with our guests: Melissa Deckman, chair and professor of Political Science and the Louis L. Goldstein Professor of Public Affairs at Washington College and Barry Rascovar political columnist for the Gazette and a communications consultant.

Curious about Curiosity? We hear what the Mars rover has found, and how scientists discovered a former underground lake on the red planet.

Erskine Bowles,half the Simpson-Bowles deficit-cutting duo,says so far we’ve made the “easy, stupid” cuts.He explains what needs to be done.

We speaks with Poet Jehanne Dubrow, whose new book, "Red Army Red,” is based on her experience as a child of diplomats in Communist Eastern Europe.