Robert B. Reich's Blog, page 23

Why Strongmen are Losing the Fight Against Covid

A hospital in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, is being charged under the country’s...

Democrats are Running Out of TimeThe political window of...

Democrats are Running Out of Time
The political window of opportunity for Joe Biden and Democrats to deliver on their promises to the American people and pass the legislation the country needs, could close at any time. 

We must understand how rare it is that the Senate and the House and the presidency are all under the control of the Democratic Party.

That’s happened in only 4 of the past 28 years

The Democrats’ current Senate majority would end with the shift of a single seat from Democrats to the Republicans. That could happen even during this session of Congress. In 27 of the 38 Congresses since World War II, the party in control of the Senate has changed during the session.

Not to be morbid, but we also need to consider that this Senate has six Democratic senators, over the age of 70, who are from states where a Republican governor would be free to replace them with a Republican should a vacancy occur.

Five other Democratic senators are from states in which a Democratic vacancy would go unfilled for months until a special election was held to fill the seat — which itself would hand the G.O.P. control of the Senate at least until that special election.

It would be foolish to count on the Democrats increasing their numbers in the Senate or the House in the midterm elections of 2022. The president’s party rarely, if ever, picks up more seats during midterm elections. The last time a Democratic president has not lost Democratic seats in Congress in his first midterm election was 1934.

Meanwhile, state Republicans — who, not incidentally, control a majority of state governments — are proposing an avalanche of bills to make it harder for likely Democratic constituencies to vote, including people of color, young people, and low-income people. Some states, like Georgia, have already put these voter suppression measures into place.

And with these state Republicans in control of the upcoming once-in-a-decade redistricting process, we could see even more gerrymandering in these states — meaning an even greater likelihood that Republicans gain ground in the House.

If Joe Biden and the Democrats are going to accomplish what a majority of Americans want them to — such as raising the minimum wage, expanding health care, strengthening unions, raising taxes on big corporations and the wealthy, providing free public higher education, and strengthening voting rights with the For the People Act — they’ve got to get it done, now. 

That means Democrats have to get rid of the Senate filibuster and stop worrying about bipartisanship. 

The window of opportunity is already tiny. And it’s closing fast.

Republicans Tried to Overturn the Election. We Must Not Forget

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The Republican Rebrand, ExposedThe Republican Party is trying to...

The Republican Rebrand, ExposedThe Republican Party is trying to rebrand itself as the party of the working class.Rubbish. Republicans can spout off all the catchy slogans about blue jeans and beer they want, but actions speak louder than words. But let’s look at what they’re actually doing.

Did they vote for the American Rescue Plan? No. Not a single Republican in Congress voted for stimulus checks and extra unemployment benefits needed by millions of American workers.

So what have they voted for? Well, every single one of them voted for Trump’s 2017 tax cut for the wealthy and corporations, of which 83 percent of the benefits go to the richest 1 percent over a decade. 

They claimed corporations would use the savings from the tax cut to invest in their workers. In reality, corporations used their tax savings to buy back shares of their own stock in order to boost share values. And some corporations then fired large portions of their workforce. Not very pro-worker, if you ask me.

Have they voted for any taxes on the wealthy? No. Quite the opposite. Republicans refuse to tax the rich. They’ve even been trying to get rid of the estate tax, which only applies to estates worth at least $11.7 million for individuals and $23.4 million for married couples. Working class my foot.

Have they backed a bill to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, which a majority of Americans favor? No. Republicans refuse to raise the minimum wage even though it would give 32 million workers a raise. That’s about a fifth of the entire U.S. workforce.

Do they support unions, which empower workers to get better pay and benefits? No again. To the contrary: Republicans have enacted right-to-work laws in 28 states, decimating unions’ bargaining power and enabling businesses to exploit their workers. 

And when it comes to strengthening labor laws, only five out of 211 Republicans voted for the PRO Act in the House – the toughest labor law legislation in a generation. 

How about the historic union drive at the Bessemer, Alabama Amazon warehouse, which Joe Biden and almost all Democrats have strongly backed? Just one Republican spoke out in support. All others have been dead silent.

What about backing regulations that keep workers safe? Nope. In fact, they didn’t bat an eye when Trump rolled back child labor protections, undid worker safeguards from exposure to cancerous radiation, and gutted measures that shield workers from wage theft.

Do they support overtime? No. They allowed Trump to eliminate overtime for 8 million workers, and continue to repeat the corporate lie about “job-killing regulations.”

What about expanding access to healthcare to all working people? Not a chance. Republicans at the state level have blocked Medicaid expansion and enacted Medicaid work requirements, while Republicans in Congress have tried for years to repeal the entirety of the Affordable Care Act. If they succeeded, they would have stripped healthcare away from more than 20 million working Americans.

So don’t fall for the Republican Party’s “working class” rebrand. It’s a cruel hoax. The GOP doesn’t give a fig about working people. It is, and always will be, the party of big business and billionaires.

Biden’s First 100 Days and the GOP’s First 100 Days Without Trump

By almost any measure, Joe Biden’s first 100 days have been hugely successful. Getting millions of...

How to Stop Republicans from Stealing...

How to Stop Republicans from Stealing Elections

Republican-controlled state legislatures have introduced over 361 voter suppression bills in 47 states, and some states, like Georgia, have already enacted them into law. 

There’s only one way to stop this assault on our democracy. It’s called the FOR THE PEOPLE ACT, and the window for Congress to pass it is closing.

These Republican voter suppression bills are egregious —they shrink early voting periods, add onerous voter ID requirements, limit eligibility for mail-in ballots, ban ballot drop boxes and drive-through voting, and even make it a crime to give voters in line water.

The FOR THE PEOPLE ACT, on the other hand, would prevent these tactics and make it easier to vote. In addition, gerrymandering would be reduced and the power of small political donors would be amplified.

It could not come at a more critical time.

The Republican assault on our democracy is based on the lie that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. Multiple recounts in battleground states like Georgia found nothing. Investigations by the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department found nothing. 61 out of 62 courts found nothing.

Republicans claim they’re just listening to the concerns of their voters and restoring “trust” in our elections. Rubbish. The real purpose of these restrictions is to hamper voting by Black people, people of color, young people, and lower-income Americans. 

After Black voters and organizers in Georgia flipped the state blue for the first time in decades, the GOP is pulling out all the stops to prevent the same from happening in other states. The situation is even more dire given the upcoming once-in-a-decade redistricting process, allowing Republican-controlled states to further gerrymander congressional districts.

Their assault on the right to vote is a coordinated, national strategy led by top party leaders and outside dark-money advocacy groups like the Heritage Foundation. That group is working directly with state legislatures to provide them with “model legislation” and gearing up to spend $24 million in eight states to advance these bills ahead of the midterms.

Unless the FOR THE PEOPLE ACT becomes law, these restrictive state bills will go into effect before the upcoming 2022 midterm elections, and entrench Republican power for  years to come. So it’s essential we protect voting rights now, while we still can. 

This is not a partisan fight. It’s a battle between forces that want to go backward to an era of Jim Crow, and the majority of Americans who want to build a more inclusive democracy.

Yet the FOR THE PEOPLE ACT faces an uphill battle in the Senate because of the archaic filibuster rule that requires a 60-vote supermajority to pass legislation.

The good news is Senate Democrats have the power to end the filibuster and thereby allow the FOR THE PEOPLE ACT to become law. It’s time for Democrats to unite on this, without hesitation. 

The stakes could not be higher. Simply put, it’s democracy or authoritarianism.

Musk’s and Bezos’s Great Escape

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Biden’s Industrial Policy

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Does Trickle-Down Economics Actually Work?To the extent the...

Does Trickle-Down Economics Actually Work?

To the extent the Republican Party has any economic platform at all, it’s trickle-down economics. Unfortunately for the GOP, it’s based on three giant myths. It’s time to debunk them once and for all.

Myth #1: Tax cuts for corporations and the rich create more and better jobs. 

Wrong. Corporations used Trump’s giant tax cut to buy back shares of their own stock and boost share prices. From 2017 to 2018, stock buybacks increased by a staggering 50 percent. Lowe’s spent $10 billion on stock buybacks in 2018, and then fired thousands of workers with no notice or severance. Walmart and AT&T also laid off thousands of workers. 

And contrary to the claim that the tax cut would boost wages by $4,000 a year, a recent analysis found that in the year after the Trump tax cut, wages increased by about the same as they did before it, and then slowed. 

Tax cuts for rich individuals don’t trickle down, either. The rich simply get richer. Two years before Ronald Reagan’s first tax cut, the richest 1 percent of Americans owned less than 23 percent of the nation’s wealth. A decade later, after two rounds of tax cuts for the rich, they owned over 28 percent. By 2019, after more tax cuts for the rich by George W. Bush and Donald Trump, people at the top owned almost 35 percent of America’s wealth. Meanwhile, average wealth barely budged for the middle class, and went negative for the bottom 10 percent.

It gets worse. During this pandemic alone, America’s 664 billionaires have added $1.3 trillion to their collective wealth and now own over $4 trillion. That’s almost double the wealth of the bottom half  — 165 million Americans.

But nothing has trickled down. Even before the pandemic, wages stagnated.

Myth #2: Tax cuts for big corporations and the rich spur economic growth.

Baloney. Not even Ronald Reagan’s surging economic growth rate was driven by tax cuts. It was driven by low interest rates and humongous government spending. 

George W. Bush promised his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts would pay for themselves (sound familiar?) by spurring economic growth. That didn’t happen. A 2017 study led by one of Bush’s former chief economists found that the tax cuts had no significant effect on growth. In fact, growth declined, slowing to just 2.8 percent from over 3 percent during the Clinton years. The economic expansion under Bush was one of the weakest expansions since World War II.

Donald Trump claimed his tax cut would be like “rocket fuel” for the economy, and would spur annual growth of 3 percent. After its first year, growth slowed to 1.9  percent.

Finally, a recent study analyzing tax data spanning 50 years from 18 advanced economies found that tax cuts for the rich only benefited the rich and had no effect on job creation or economic growth. I, for one, am shocked.

Myth #3: Deregulation spurs economic growth.

More rubbish. The cost savings from deregulation go to corporate executives and major investors, while the costs and risks land on the rest of us. 

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency rolled back regulations on everything from clean air and water standards to dangerous chemicals in products — benefiting chemical and fossil fuel executives and investors while forcing everyone else to deal with polluted air and toxins. 

His Labor Department loosened child labor laws and scaled back the number of workers eligible for overtime pay. Companies raked in savings, while workers were exploited. 

And with the help of Congress, he rolled back banking regulations put in place after the 2008 financial crisis — to the benefit of rich Wall Streeters and the detriment of everyone else.

Don’t forget Ronald Reagan’s deregulatory agenda allowed for-profit healthcare companies to flourish, contributing to the out-of-control health care costs we’re saddled with today. And that deregulation of the financial sector was a major cause of the 2008 crash, as it allowed banks to make risky bets.

In other words, the Republican trickle-down claim that deregulation helps us all is baloney. Regulations that protect you and me from being harmed, fleeced, shafted, injured, or sickened by corporate products and services are clearly worth the cost.

So don’t fall for trickle-down nonsense. Making big corporations and the rich even richer through tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks doesn’t make the rest of us better off. It just makes big corporations and the rich even richer.

The Basic Deal Between Corporate America and the GOP is Alive and Well

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