Robert B. Reich's Blog, page 32

The Post Office Crisis to ComeIt’s no secret Donald Trump will...

The Post Office Crisis to Come

It’s no secret Donald Trump will do anything to hold on to power. His latest strategy is to sabotage the United States Postal Service, courtesy of his handpicked Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

A Republican mega donor with no postal experience, DeJoy instituted sweeping measures that have caused massive mail delays across the country. As national outrage reached a fever pitch, DeJoy announced he would delay policy changes that slow down mail delivery, until after the election. 

But the USPS is still very much under attack.

DeJoy’s statement is nothing more than empty rhetoric. He didn’t even list which policies he would postpone. One of the few policies he did mention was overtime pay, which he said would be paid “as needed,” but guess who decides what’s needed? He does.

DeJoy also needs to repair the damage he’s already done. He told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi he has “no intention” of replacing removed mailboxes and sorting machines, and instructed USPS employees to not reconnect or reinstall the sorting machines.

And nothing is forcing DeJoy to follow through even on his weak promises. If the past three and a half years have shown us anything, it’s that we can never count on Trump officials to follow through on their promises.

Trump openly admitted he was sabotaging the post office to stop people from voting. Now his political stooge postmaster general is basically saying “trust me.”

Sorry, Mr. DeJoy, we don’t trust you.

Congress must step in and do four things to protect the Postal Service and the integrity of mail-in voting before it’s too late:

1. Provide needed funding for the Postal Service in the next COVID-19 relief bill.

2. Force DeJoy to repair all the damage he’s already caused, returning the USPS back to full capacity.

3. Fully investigate DeJoy‘s conflicts of interest. DeJoy still has at least a $30 million stake in his former company XPO Logistics, which directly competes with the Postal Service — putting him in a position to profit directly from any loss of Postal Service customers.

4. Pass legislation specifically blocking the Postal Service from instituting any changes that would slow mail delivery in the lead-up to November.

Trump and DeJoy will stop at nothing to sabotage the USPS and steal the election — and there’s no telling the damage Trump will wreak if he’s able to swindle a second term. 

Call your members of Congress at (202) 224-3121 and demand your representatives take these urgent steps to save the USPS and protect the election. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

Trump’s “Law and Order” Campaign is a DistractionTrump has...

Trump’s “Law and Order” Campaign is a Distraction

Trump has refused to act to contain the coronavirus, opting to sit on the sidelines as the pandemic ravages the country. But when it comes to waging violence against his own people, he’s quickly risen to the occasion.

Here are 6 ways Donald Trump has failed to attack the coronavirus, but instead has attacked Americans.

1. LEADERSHIP? 

Trump has said he has “no responsibility” for the coronavirus pandemic, fobbing it off on governors and mayors whose repeated requests for federal help he’s denied. 

But when it comes to assaulting Americans exercising their right to protest in defense of Black lives, Trump is quick to assert strong “leadership.” He called the NYC Black Lives Matter mural a “symbol of hate” and has sent federal agents to terrorize protestors even as mayors and governors urged him to stay out.

2. STRATEGY? 

Trump has never offered a national strategy for testing, contact tracing, and isolating those who have the virus. He has provided insufficient funding for the schools he’s trying to force open, abysmal standards for reopening the economy, purchasing critical supplies, or helping the unemployed, and no clear message about what people and businesses should do. 

But he has a strategy for attacking Americans. He deployed unidentified federal agents against protesters in Portland, Oregon, where his secret police pulled them into unmarked vans, and detained them without charges. Federal agents have since left the city, causing violence to go down almost immediately, but Trump has threatened to send agents to Kansas City, Albuquerque and Chicago. He also said he’ll send them to New York City, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland – not incidentally, all cities with Democratic mayors, large Black populations, and little violent unrest.

3. PERSONNEL? 

Trump can’t find enough federal personnel to do contact tracing for the coronavirus.

But Trump has had no problem finding thousands of agents for his secret police, drawn from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.

4. EQUIPMENT? 

Public health authorities don’t have adequate medical equipment to quickly analyze coronavirus tests. 

But Trump’s police have everything they need to injure protesters, including military style armored vehicles, teargas, and tactical assault weapons – “the best equipment,” Trump boasted obnoxiously.

5. LEGAL AUTHORITY? 

There is ample legal authority for Trump to contain the coronavirus.

But he’s likely exceeded the legal authority for him to send federal troops into cities where mayors don’t want them. The framers of the Constitution denied police power to the national government. The local officials in charge of public safety have rejected Trump’s troops. (The mayor of Portland was tear-gassed. The mayor of Kansas City called them “disgraceful.” Albuquerque’s mayor announced: “There’s no place for Trump’s secret police in our city.” Chicago’s mayor said she does “not welcome dictatorship.”)

6. THE TRUTH? 

Trump has tried to suppress the truth about the coronavirus. The White House instructed hospitals to report cases to the Department of Health and Human Services rather than to the CDC. Trump muzzled the federal government’s most prominent and trusted immunologist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, while the White House tried to discredit him. 

But the Trump campaign ran fictitious ads portraying cities as overrun by violent leftwing mobs, and Trump’s shameless Fox News lackeys have consistently depicted protesters as “rioters” and the “armed wing of the Democratic party.”

** 

More than 160,000 Americans have already died from the coronavirus — tens of thousands more than would have died had Trump acted responsibly to contain it. And the economy is in freefall.

No matter how hard he tries, we can’t let Trump shift public attention from his failure to attack the virus to his attacks on Americans protesting to create an America where Black lives matter and everyone can thrive.

In fewer than 90 days, we must hold him accountable at the ballot box.

Unlike Republicans, Democrats Can Govern. But Can They Fight?

As America heads into its quadrennial circus of nominating conventions (this year’s even more...

Profiteering off the Pandemic

Since the start of the pandemic, American billionaires have been cleaning up. As more than 50...

Betsy DeVos’ Deadly Plan to Reopen SchoolsTrump education...

Betsy DeVos’ Deadly Plan to Reopen Schools
Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos is heading the administration’s effort to force schools to reopen in the fall for in-person instruction. What’s her plan to reopen safely? She doesn’t have one. 

Rather than seeking additional federal funds, she’s using this pandemic to further her ploy to privatize education — threatening to withhold federal funds from public schools that don’t reopen.

Repeatedly pressed by journalists during TV appearances, DeVos can’t come up with a single mechanism or guideline for reopening schools safely. She can’t even articulate what authority the federal government has to unilaterally withhold funds from school districts — a decision that’s made at the state and local level, or by Congress. But when has the Constitution stopped the Trump administration from trying to do whatever it wants? 

DeVos is following Trump’s lead — prematurely reopening the economy, which he sees as key to his re-election but is causing a resurgence of the virus.

Let’s get something straight: Every single parent, teacher, and student wants to be able to return to in-person instruction in the fall — but only if no one’s life is put at risk. 

Districts need more funding, not less, to implement the CDC’s guidelines. Given that state and local governments are already cash-strapped, it’s estimated that K-12 schools need at least $245 billion in additional funding to put safety precautions in place — funding that Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration refuse to give.

One might think an education secretary would be studying what kind of safety precautions would work best, and seeking emergency funding for those safeguards. Not DeVos. Just like her boss in the Oval Office, she’s been hard at work shafting working families to advance her personal agenda.

In late April, she issued rules for how states should use the $13 billion allocated in the CARES Act for schools. Her rules would divert millions of dollars away from low-income schools into the coffers of wealthy private schools. It’s such a blatant violation of federal law that several states are suing her and her department.

DeVos’ entire tenure has centered on shafting low-income students and their families — the very people she’s supposed to protect.

She has repeatedly empowered the predatory for-profit college industry at the expense of the students they prey upon. Why? She has considerable financial stakes that are rife with conflicts of interest. Her financial investments are a web of holdings in for-profit colleges and student loan collectors.

When DeVos took office, she repealed an Obama-era rule imposing stricter regulations and higher standards on for-profit colleges. She also stopped canceling the debts of students defrauded by these institutions — a move that has prompted 23 states to bring a lawsuit against her. In the process, she was even held in contempt of court for violating a federal court order.

Now, in the middle of the worst public health crisis in more than a century, she’s jeopardizing the safety of our students, teachers, parents, bus drivers, and custodians, while rerouting desperately needed public school funds towards the private schools she’s always championed.

Remember, when you vote against Trump this November — you’re voting against her, too. It’s a win-win.

Trump’s Dangerous Lies About the Covid Economy

“The recovery has been very strong,” Donald Trump said last week. Then the Commerce Department...

How Mitch McConnell’s Republicans are Destroying AmericaSenate...

How Mitch McConnell’s Republicans are Destroying America
Senate Republicans’ shameful priorities are on full display as the nation continues to grapple with an unprecedented health and economic crisis.

Mitch McConnell and the GOP refuse to take up the HEROES Act, passed by the House in early May to help Americans survive the pandemic and fortify the upcoming election. 

Senate Republicans don’t want to extend the extra $600 a week in unemployment benefits, even though unemployment has soared to the highest levels since the Great Depression.

Even before the pandemic, nearly 80 percent of Americans lived paycheck to paycheck. Now many are desperate, as revealed by lengthening food lines and growing delinquencies in rent payments.    

McConnell’s response? He urges lawmakers to be “cautious” about helping struggling Americans, warning that “the amount of debt that we’re adding up is a matter of genuine concern.” 

McConnell seems to forget the $1.9 trillion tax cut he engineered in December 2017 for big corporations and the super-rich, which blew up the debtdeficit.  

That’s just the beginning of the GOP’s handouts for corporations and the wealthy. As soon as the pandemic hit, McConnell and Senate Republicans were quick to give mega-corporations a $500 billion blank check, while only sending Americans a paltry one-time $1,200 check.

The GOP seems to believe that the rich will work harder if they receive more money while people of modest means work harder if they receive less. In reality, the rich contribute more to Republican campaigns when they get bailed out.

That’s precisely why the GOP put into the last Covid relief bill a $170 billion windfall to Jared Kushner and other real estate moguls, who line the GOP’s campaign coffers. Another $454 billion of the package went to backing up a Federal Reserve program that benefits big business by buying up their debt.

And although the bill was also intended to help small businesses, lobbyists connected to Trump – including current donors and fundraisers for his reelection – helped their clients rake in over $10 billion of the aid, while an estimated 90 percent of small businesses owned by people of color and women got nothing.

The GOP’s shameful priorities have left countless small businesses with no choice but to close. They’ve also left 22 million Americans unemployed, and 28 million at risk of being evicted by September. 

For the bulk of this crisis, McConnell called the Senate back into session only to confirm more of Trump’s extremist judges and advance a $740 billion defense spending bill. 

Throughout it all, McConnell has insisted his priority is to shield businesses from Covid-related lawsuits by customers and employees who have contracted the virus.

The inept and overwhelmingly corrupt reign of Trump, McConnell, and Senate Republicans will come to an end next January if enough Americans vote this coming November.

But will enough people vote during a pandemic? The HEROES Act provides $3.6 billion for states to expand mail-in and early voting, but McConnell and his GOP lackeys aren’t interested. They’re well aware that more voters increase the likelihood Republicans will be booted out.

Time and again, they’ve shown that they only care about their wealthy donors and corporate backers. If they had an ounce of concern for the nation, their priority would be to shield Americans from the ravages of Covid and American democracy from the ravages of Trump. But we know where their priorities lie.

5 Key Demands for the New Coronavirus BillCOVID-19 has left the...

5 Key Demands for the New Coronavirus BillCOVID-19 has left the economy in tatters, put millions of people on the brink of financial devastation, and taken the lives of over 145,000 Americans. Congress has just days left to pass legislation that will keep struggling Americans afloat and stave off economic catastrophe. 

Here are five key demands for the new bill.

1. Contain COVID-19. Its catastrophic rates of sickness and death, as well as tragic economic consequences, require the boldest remedies this country is capable of mustering. There will be no economic recovery until the virus is contained.

Other nations – among them, Germany, South Korea, and Italy – have contained the pandemic with comprehensive testing, contact tracing, and isolation. The House of Representatives wants to provide $75 billion for these measures in addition to free access to coronavirus treatment and support for hospitals and other providers. This is the absolute minimum of what’s needed.

2. Extend unemployment benefits to help people survive the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Previous coronavirus relief legislation added $600 to weekly unemployment and extended coverage to gig workers and others not normally eligible. But those payments are about to end for roughly 25 million people. If they do, we can expect more human suffering, and more joblessness because the extra purchasing power has helped sustain the economy. The payments should be continued at least through the end of the year, as the House bill provides.

Some say the extra unemployment benefits have discouraged recipients from seeking jobs. That’s highly unlikely. Given the size of the economic collapse, few jobs are available anyway. And normal unemployment benefits typically pay a small fraction of the wages of jobs that were lost. 

Even with the extra benefits, working people will have a strong economic incentive to return to work once COVID is contained and these benefits expire. Not to mention it’s good for the economy when people have extra money to spend to sustain remaining economic activity. Finally, it is beneficial to the public’s health that as many people as possible avoid workplaces that pose any risk of infection. Keeping people home to contain the virus is the only way we get the economy back on track.

3. Prevent a potential wave of evictions and foreclosures. 32 percent of households missed their July rent or mortgage payments. The bill must extend the federal eviction moratorium, and provide assistance for renters and homeowners to pay rent, mortgages, utilities, and other related costs. Substantial additional resources for housing assistance is a no-brainer.

4. Shore up state and local budgets. State and local governments are facing huge budget shortfalls over the next three years. Without federal aid, vital public services will be on the chopping block – schools, childcare, supplemental nutrition, mental health services, low-income housing, healthcare – at a time when the public needs them more than ever. 

For public schools, the issue isn’t so much whether to reopen but how to do so in a way that doesn’t risk the health of students, teachers, and other school personnel. This will require substantial additional resources. If we could afford to give corporations a $500 billion blank check in the last round of relief legislation, we can surely afford to help struggling state and local governments. The House Bill provides nearly $1 trillion to state and local governments, which is minimally adequate.  

5. Don’t compromise what’s needed in the bill out of concern about the national debt. The real issue is the ratio of debt to the size of the economy. The government must spend large sums now to help the economy recover faster – thereby reducing the ratio of debt to the overall economy over the long term. Besides, as we learned during the Great Depression and World War II, large spending to reduce human suffering and promote economic wellbeing is well worth the cost. It’s what almost every other nation is doing.

None of this should be controversial. This bill is perhaps our only chance to get COVID-19 under control, Americans fed, and the economy back up and running. 

Call your senators at (202) 224-3121 and demand they fight to protect the American people. The window to act is closing, so raise your voice now.

Trump’s Worst Attacks on WorkersDonald Trump campaigned as an...

Trump’s Worst Attacks on WorkersDonald Trump campaigned as an insurgent outside of the political establishment who would restore the long-neglected working class. That was a lie. As president, he’s turned his back on working people, governing instead as a lackey for billionaires, CEOs, and corporations. Even during a public health and economic crisis, Trump has left working people in the dust.

Consider his signature tax law, sold as a benefit to working people. More than 60 percent of its benefits have gone to people in the top 20 percent of the income ladder. In 2018, for the first time in American history, billionaires paid a lower tax rate than the working class.

Trump said every worker would get a $4,000 raise, but nothing trickled down. Instead, corporations spent their tax savings buying back shares of their own stock, boosting executive bonuses and doing nothing for workers. To make matters worse, some of the richest corporations are paying nothing in federal income taxes, despite making billions in profits.

Meanwhile, Trump’s corporate lobbyists and industry shills have systematically dismantled worker protections – rolling back child labor protections, undoing worker safeguards from exposure to cancerous radiation, gutting measures that shield workers from wage theft, and eliminating overtime for 8 million workers.

Trump has even asked the Supreme Court to take away the health insurance of 23 million American workers by invalidating the Affordable Care Act –  in the middle of a global health crisis, no less! If Trump gets his way, protections for people with pre-existing conditions will be eliminated.

Oh, and remember his promise to rein in drug prices so working people can afford the meds they need? Well, forget it. Remdesivir, a drug to reduce the severity of COVID-19, from pharma giant Gilead, was developed with $70 million of taxpayer funding, yet Trump is letting the company charge $3,000 per treatment. And he is omitting pricing protections from federal contracts to develop drugs for Covid-19 – making it likely that life-saving treatments and vaccines will be out of reach for people in need.

Donald Trump doesn’t give a fig for working-class Americans. He even wants to end the extra unemployment benefits that countless Americans are depending on to get through this crisis.

So whose side is Trump really on? 

Well, here’s a clue: Tucked away on page 203 of the COVID stimulus package backed by Trump, is an obscure provision that delivers a whopping $135 billion in tax breaks to millionaire real estate developers and hedge fund managers. One real estate tycoon who stands to profit handsomely from the provision is none other than the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.
In total, the cash secretly spent on tax cuts for millionaires in the COVID-19 package is more than three times as much money as was included for emergency housing and food relief.

Kushner isn’t the only Trump insider getting paid off during the pandemic. Forty lobbyists with ties to Donald Trump have helped clients secure more than $10 billion in federal COVID aid. And if Trump succeeds in getting the Supreme Court to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the richest 0.1 percent of Americans will get an average additional tax cut of $198,000 each per year.

Donald Trump is no working-class champion. He’s a corporate con man – the culmination of a rigged-for-the-rich system that’s shafting working Americans at every turn.

The Real Choice: Social Control or Social InvestmentSome...

The Real Choice: Social Control or Social Investment

Some societies center on social control, others on social investment.

Social-control societies put substantial resources into police, prisons, surveillance, immigration enforcement, and the military. Their purpose is to utilize fear, punishment, and violence to divide people and keep the status quo in place — perpetuating the systemic oppression of Black and brown people, and benefiting no one but wealthy elites.

Social-investment societies put more resources into healthcare, education, affordable housing, jobless benefits, and children. Their purpose is to free people from the risks and anxieties of daily life and give everyone a fair shot at making it.

Donald Trump epitomizes the former. He calls himself the “law and order” president. He even wants to sic the military on Americans protesting horrific police killings. 

He has created an unaccountable army of federal agents who go into cities like Portland, Oregon – without showing their identities – and assault innocent Americans. 

Trump is the culmination of forty years of increasing social control in the United States and decreasing social investment – a trend which, given the deep-seated history of racism in the United States, falls disproportionately on Black people, indigeneous people, and people of color.

Spending on policing in the United States has almost tripled, from $42.3 billion in 1977 to $114.5 billion in 2017.

America now locks away 2.2 million people in prisons and jails. That’s a 500 percent increase from 40 years ago. The nation now has the largest incarcerated population in the world.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has exploded. More people are now in ICE detention than ever in its history.

Total military spending in the U.S. has soared from $437 billion in 2003 to $935.8 billion this fiscal year.

The more societies spend on social controls, the less they have left for social investment. More police means fewer social services. American taxpayers spend $107.5 billion more on police than on public housing.

More prisons means fewer dollars for education. In fact, America is now spending more money on prisons than on public schools. Fifteen states now spend $27,000 more per person in prison than they do per student.

As spending on controls has increased, spending on public assistance has shrunk. Fewer people are receiving food stamps. Outlays for public health have declined.

America can’t even seem to find money to extend unemployment benefits during this pandemic.

Societies that skimp on social investment end up spending more on social controls that perpetuate violence and oppression. This trend is a deep-seated part of our history.

The United States began as a control society. Slavery – America’s original sin – depended on the harshest conceivable controls. Jim Crow and redlining continued that legacy.

But in the decades following World War II, the nation began inching toward social investment – the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, and substantial investments in health and education.

Then America swung backward to social control.

Since Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” four times as many people have been arrested for possessing drugs as for selling them. 

Of those arrested for possession, half have been charged with possessing cannabis for their own use. Nixon’s strategy had a devastating effect on Black people that is still felt today: a Black person is nearly 4 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than a white person, even though they use it at similar rates.

Bill Clinton put 88,000 additional police on the streets and got Congress to mandate life sentences for people convicted of a felony after two or more prior convictions, including drug offenses. 

This so-called “three strikes you’re out” law was replicated by many states, and, yet again, disproportionately impacted Black Americans. In California, for instance, Black people were 12 times more likely than white people to be incarcerated under three-strikes laws, until the state reformed the law in 2012. Clinton also “reformed” welfare into a restrictive program that does little for families in poverty today. 

Why did America swing back to social control?

Part of the answer has to do with widening inequality. As the middle class collapsed and the ranks of the poor grew, those in power viewed social controls as cheaper than social investment, which would require additional taxes and a massive redistribution of both wealth and power.

Meanwhile, politicians whose power depends on maintaining the status quo, used racism – from Nixon’s “law and order” and Reagan’s “welfare queens” to Trump’s blatantly racist rhetoric – to deflect the anxieties of an increasingly overwhelmed white working class. It’s the same old strategy. So long as racial animosity exists, the poor and working class won’t join together to topple the system that keeps so many Americans in poverty, and Black Americans oppressed.

The last weeks of protests and demonstrations have exposed what’s always been true: social controls are both deadly and unsustainable. They require more and more oppressive means of terrorizing communities and they drain resources that would ensure Black people not only survive, but thrive. 

This moment calls on us to relinquish social control and ramp up our commitment to social investment.

It’s time we invest in affordable housing and education, not tear gas, batons, and state-sanctioned murder. It’s time we invest in keeping children fed and out of poverty, not putting their parents behind bars. It’s time to defund the police, and invest in communities. We have no time to waste.