Robert B. Reich's Blog, page 22
June 9, 2021
7 Lessons We Need to Learn From Covid-19Maybe it’s wishful...
7 Lessons We Need to Learn From Covid-19
Maybe it’s wishful thinking to declare the pandemic over in the US, and presumptuous to conclude what lessons we’ve learned. So consider this a first draft.
1. Workers are always essential
We couldn’t have survived without millions of warehouse, delivery, grocery and hospital workers literally risking their lives. Yet most of these workers are paid squat. Amazon touts its $15 minimum wage but it totals only about $30,000 a year. Many essential workers don’t have health insurance or paid leave.
Lesson: Essential workers deserve far better.
2. Healthcare is a basic right
You know how you got your vaccine without paying a dime? That’s how all healthcare could be. Yet too many Americans who contracted Covid-19 got walloped with humongous hospital bills. People with chronic disease, Black Americans and low-income children were most likely to have delayed or foregone care during the pandemic.Lesson: The U.S. must join the rest of the industrialized world and provide universal health coverage.
3. Conspiracy theories can be deadly
Last June, about one in four Americans believed the pandemic was “definitely” or “probably” created intentionally. Other conspiracy theories have caused some people to avoid wearing masks or getting vaccinated, resulting in unnecessary illness or death. Lesson: An informed public is essential. Some of the responsibility falls on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms that allowed misinformation to flourish — and on the government for enabling them.
4. Wages are too low to get by on
Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck. So once the pandemic hit, many didn’t have any savings to fall back on. Conservative lawmakers complain that the extra $300 a week unemployment benefit Congress enacted in March discourages people from working. What’s really discouraging them is lack of childcare and lousy wages. Lesson: Raise the minimum wage, provide universal childcare, strengthen labor unions and push companies to share profits with their workers.
5. Remote work is now baked into the economy
The percentage of workers punching in from home hit a high of 70% in April 2020. A majority still work remotely. Some 40% want to continue working from home. Two lessons: Companies will have to adjust. And much commercial real estate will remain vacant. Why not convert it into affordable housing?
6. It’s past time for a wealth tax.
The combined wealth of America’s 657 billionaires grew by $1.3 trillion – or 44.6% – during the pandemic. Yet billionaires’ taxes are lower than ever. Wealthy Americans today pay one-sixth the rate of taxes their counterparts paid in 1953. Lesson: To afford everything the nation needs, raise taxes at the top.
7. Government can be the solution
Ronald Reagan’s famous quip – “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem” – can now officially be retired. Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” succeeded in readying vaccines faster than most experts thought possible. Biden got them into more arms more quickly than any vaccination program in history.
Furthermore, the $1.9 trillion Democrats pushed through in March will help the US achieve something it failed to achieve after the 2008-09 recession: a robust recovery. Lesson: The federal government did not just help beat the pandemic. It also did more to keep the nation afloat than in any previous recession. It must be prepared to do so again.
The Wealth Supremacists
June 8, 2021
The Beginning of the End of Democracy as We Know It?
June 6, 2021
The Beginning of the End of Democracy as We Know it?
June 2, 2021
Why the PRO Act is Critical
The Unchecked Power of Police UnionsPolice unions abuse...
The Unchecked Power of Police Unions
Police unions abuse collective bargaining to shield their members from accountability for the killings of unarmed Black people and other heinous misconduct. No progress can be made without reining in the unchecked power of police unions.
Look, I was Secretary of Labor. I’m in favor of unions. But police unionizing can have deadly consequences.
One study found that extending collective bargaining rights to Florida sheriffs’ offices led to an estimated 40 percent increase in violent police misconduct.
found that the protections built into the police union contracts in America’s 100 largest cities were significantly correlated with the killing of unarmed civilians.
Another study suggests that the increase in police unionization from the 1950s through the 1980s resulted in “about 60 to 70” additional civilians killed by police each year — the majority of whom were people of color.
Experts believe the protections in police union contracts give too many officers the sense they can abuse their power.
Police contracts often have provisions allowing departments to erase disciplinary records within a few years, enabling officers with histories of misconduct to clear their records.
Others allow accused officers to access their investigative files before being questioned, letting them manipulate their story. Others set strict time limits for citizens to file complaints about officers; some prevent anonymous complaints from being investigated at all.
All these provisions allow officers with histories of misconduct to stay on the force.
Derek Chauvin, for instance, had at least 17 complaints lodged against him, and never faced any discipline beyond two letters of reprimand. Needless to say, other public sector employees are not afforded these extraordinary protections.
Even if an officer is fired, there’s an extensive appeals process that usually works out in their favor.
In Philadelphia, 62 percent of officers fired from 2006 to 2017 were reinstated. In San Antonio, 70 percent were. When New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo was finally fired, five years after choking Eric Garner to death, the NYPD’s largest union responded by threatening a work slowdown.
Police unions fight cities that enact even mild reforms, like establishing civilian review boards. The result? Review boards are notoriously ineffective by design.
Some police union contracts with cities forbid them even creating a review board. In the tragic case of Breonna Taylor, Louisville’s review board could not start an investigation, take complaints from citizens, or recommend discipline for the officers. All it could do was make recommendations for policy or training changes.
It’s the same in other cities: oversight boards have no investigative power, no subpoena power, and no discipline power.
Police unions also wield enormous political clout. A Guardian investigation found police unions spent about $87 million influencing state and local legislation over the past two decades, and at least $47.3 million on campaign contributions and lobbying at the federal level. In 2017, police unions spent $2 million to influence legislation in California alone.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Stopping the abuses of police unions must not become a stalking horse for attacking public sector unions generally. But the unchecked powers of police unions urgently need to be addressed.
To start, lawmakers must change state labor laws to restrict the subjects police unions can bargain over.
They should limit negotiations to pay and benefits, not how police do their jobs, how and when they use force, and how and when they are disciplined.
For decades, police unions have shielded officers from accountability, bullied cities into doing their bidding, and attacked lawmakers who took them on. It’s past time to ensure they can no longer block accountability under the guise of collective bargaining.
May 31, 2021
The Greatest Danger to American Democracy
May 24, 2021
The Danger of Collective AmnesiaAt the risk of being the skunk...
The Danger of Collective Amnesia
At the risk of being the skunk at the picnic, I feel compelled to warn you that if we forget and move on from the tragedies of this past year, we’re setting ourselves on a dangerous path. Of course I understand the desire to forget all the unpleasantness and start a new chapter. But if we do, we’re inviting greater tragedies in the future.
Let me remind you: Donald Trump lied about the results of the last election. And then – you remember, don’t you? – he tried to overturn the results.
Trump twisted the arms of state election officials. He held a rally to stop Congress from certifying the election, followed by the violent attack on the Capitol. Five people died. Senators and representatives could have been slaughtered.
Several Republican members of Congress encouraged the attempted coup by joining him in the big lie and refusing to certify the election — even after the mob desecrated the halls of our democracy.
This was in January of this year, yet we seem to be doing everything we can to blot it out of our memory. Meanwhile, those responsible for instigating the attack haven’t been held accountable in any respect — including by the media.
The Washington Post hosted a live video chat with Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley, a ringleader in the attempt to overturn the results of the election. Hawley had even made a fist-pump gesture toward the mob at the Capitol before the attack.
But the Post billed the interview as being about Hawley’s new book on big tech. It even posted a biography of Hawley that made no mention of Hawley’s sedition, referring instead to his supposed reputation “for taking on the big and the powerful to protect Missouri workers” and as “a fierce defender of the Constitution.”
CBS This Morning interviewed Florida Republican Rick Scott, another senator who tried to overturn the election by not certifying the results. But there was no mention of his sedition, either. The CBS interviewer confined his questions to Biden’s spending plans, which Scott unsurprisingly opposed.
Senators Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy also repeatedly appear on major news programs without being questioned about their attempts to undo the results of the election, or their continued promotion of Trump’s lies.
The media is supposed to serve as a crucial check on those in power. But in its breathless desire to cover the “news” it is failing to remind us of our recent past.
The consequences of this failure are dire.
Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and that President Biden is not legitimate, is not disappearing. A majority of Republican voters believe him.
That big lie is being used by Republican state legislatures to justify an all-out assault on the right to vote.
Hours after Florida enacted new voting restrictions, Texas’s Republican-led legislature pushed ahead with its own bill that would make it one of the hardest states in which to cast a ballot.
The Republican-controlled Arizona Senate launched a private recount of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County – farming out 2.1 million ballots to GOP partisans with no experience in ballot counting or election monitoring. At least one person involved in the recount participated in the Capitol attack.
The Republican Party even purged one of its leaders, Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, for telling the truth about the election.
Meanwhile, Republican state legislatures are muscling their way into election administration, as they attempt to dislodge or bully local election officials who have always run our voting systems.
Trump’s big lie will continue to flourish unless the lawmakers who went along with it and have failed to renounce it face real consequences.
That means no book promotions, no cushy interviews, no guest op-eds in the Sunday paper.
What possible excuse is there for booking them if they have not publicly retracted their election lies? If they must appear, they should be asked if they continue to deny the election results and precisely why.
It also means a thorough independent 9-11 type inquiry into what happened, whether members of Congress were involved, how Donald Trump and others were involved.
Republican leaders must not duck this. History is watching.
They must be held accountable to the truth. Otherwise the trauma of 2020 will return — perhaps in even more terrifying form.
May 23, 2021
Workers Matter and Government Works: Eight Lessons from the Pandemic
May 17, 2021
The Secret Tax Loophole Making the Rich Even RicherHow do we...
The Secret Tax Loophole Making the Rich Even Richer
How do we prevent America from becoming an aristocracy, while also funding the programs that Americans desperately need?
One way is to get rid of a tax loophole you’ve probably never heard of. It’s known as the “stepped-up basis" rule.
Here’s how the stepped-up-basis loophole now works. Take a man named Jeff. At his death, Jeff owns $30 million-worth of stocks he originally bought for a total of $10 million. Under existing law, neither Jeff nor his heirs would owe federal tax on the $20 million of gains because they’re automatically “stepped up” to their value when he dies — $30 million.
Under Biden’s proposal, Jeff’s $20 million of gains would be taxed. And don’t worry: Biden’s proposal doesn’t touch tax-favored retirement accounts, such as 401-Ks, and it only applies to the very richest Americans.
As it is now, the stepped-up basis loophole enables the super-rich, like Jeff, to avoid paying more than $40 billion in taxes each year. It has allowed them to skip taxes on the increased values of mansions and artworks as well as shares of stock.
In fact, it’s one of the chief means by which dynastic wealth has grown and been passed from generation to generation, enabling subsequent generations to live off that growing wealth and never pay a dime of taxes on it.
Unless the stepped-up basis loophole is closed, we will soon have a large class of hugely rich people who have never worked a day in their lives.
Over the next decades, rich baby boomers will pass on an estimated $58 trillion of wealth to their millennial children — the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history.
Closing this giant tax loophole for the super-rich is how Biden intends to fund part of his American Families Plan, which would provide every child with 2 years of pre-school and every student with 2 years of free community college, as well as provide paid family and medical leave to every worker.
Close this stepped-up basis loophole, and we help finance the programs the vast majority of Americans desperately need and deserve. We also end the explosion of dynastic wealth. It should be a no-brainer.
Robert B. Reich's Blog
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