Robert B. Reich's Blog, page 37
March 5, 2020
A Heartfelt thanks to Elizabeth Warren
March 4, 2020
Bernie vs. Biden
March 3, 2020
Mitch McConnell’s Do-Nothing Republicans.Led by the...
Mitch McConnell’s Do-Nothing Republicans.
Led by the self-proclaimed Grim Reaper, the Republican-controlled Senate has refused to take up nearly 400 bills passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.
Here are just some of the bills dying in McConnell’s legislative graveyard:
House Democrats’ first major legislative initiative, the For the People Act, has been languishing on McConnell’s desk since March 2019. The bill tackles a host of corrupting influences in our democracy. It aims to reform campaign finance laws to curb the influence of big money, strengthen ethics laws for federal officials, and bolster voting rights by enacting automatic voter registration and ending partisan gerrymandering.
Before the bill even passed the House, McConnell declared he would not take it up in the Senate, decrying it as a “power grab that’s smelling more and more like exactly what it is.” It is a power grab — it grabs power back for the people. But McConnell is the one grabbing power away from the majority of voters, who elected members of the House to tackle real issues.
Here’s another: The Bipartisan Background Checks Act has been wasting away in McConnell’s graveyard for almost a year now. It tightens background checks on all gun sales, including private firearm purchases, online purchases, and purchases made at gun shows. McConnell also pronounced this bill dead on arrival in the Senate. Since passed in the House in February 2019, there were 371 more mass shootings that year alone. Mitch McConnell and his spineless Republican colleagues are too afraid to stand up to their NRA backers, and it’s costing Americans their lives. This is in spite of the measures having support of a vast majority of the American public.
A third item in the McConnell graveyard: House Democrats passed the Raise the Wage Act, which would lift the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, phasing in increases over seven years. This would raise the pay of 27 million Americans and lift 1.3 million households out of poverty. But as soon as the bill was passed, Mitch McConnell took to Fox News to declare, “We’re not going to be doing that in the Senate,” claiming that raising the minimum wage would hurt jobs and businesses.
Mitch McConnell and his gang of do-nothing Republican senators have also blocked legislation on climate change, the Dream Act, net neutrality, protections for the LGBTQIA community, tribal sovereignty, AND election security — the list goes on and on.
Even the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act is stalled in the Senate.
They do all this without even a debate. Remember how you learned in school that one house passes legislation and the other considers it? McConnell is throwing those civics lessons out the window.
So what is McConnell really doing in the Senate? Ramming through a spate of unqualified, hyperpartisan judges who will shape the courts for decades to come.
Trump has so far installed 187 judges to lifetime positions on the federal bench – many with fringe, extremist views. One in four court of appeals judges are now Trump appointees, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down. Who’s the architect behind this full-blown takeover of the judiciary system? Mitch McConnell, of course.
Let’s not forget that it’s thanks to McConnell that Trump was able to install two Supreme Court justices. McConnell single-handedly blocked Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland in 2016, refusing even to hold a confirmation hearing for him and keeping the seat open until Donald Trump took office. McConnell and Senate Republicans then invoked the “nuclear option” – requiring only a simple majority to confirm Supreme Court justices, and steamrolling the Democrats.
Even before Democrats gained control of the House and began passing hundreds of bills to benefit the American people, Congressional Republicans’ only significant achievement was a massive tax cut for the wealthy and corporations. Despite all their claims, their tax cut has not spurred the growth it promised, it’s added to the national debt, business investment is contracting, manufacturing is shrinking, and wages are barely rising.
As usual, nothing has trickled down. The only winners are people who were already winners. Everyone else has been shafted. But none of that matters to McConnell and his do-nothing Republicans as long as Trump and the Party’s billionaire donors and corporate backers stay happy.
Oh, and McConnell’s do-nothing Senate Republicans refused to hold a fair and impartial impeachment trial for Trump. McConnell – who is supposed to act in the role of impartial jury foreman for the Senate – said, “And everything I do during this I’m coordinating with White House Counsel.” While Trump continues to break the law and seize power from Congress, the Senate refuses to serve as a check on his power.
America used to have a Senate that served the people. But under Mitch McConnell’s leadership, what was once the world’s greatest deliberative body has become a partisan circus. He and his Republican colleagues have done nothing to benefit the American people, ignoring the voices of their constituents to serve the will of Donald Trump and Republican fat cats. History will not be kind to them. Hopefully, come November, American voters won’t either.
SIX RESPONSES TO BERNIE SKEPTICSAfter decisive victories in New...
SIX RESPONSES TO BERNIE SKEPTICS
After decisive victories in New Hampshire and Nevada, and a second place finish in South Carolina, Senator Bernie Sanders has emerged as the clear front runner. Right on cue, the establishment on both sides of the aisle has raised a four-alarm fire about Bernie’s electability and his chances against Trump. Here are 6 responses to these Bernie skeptics.
1. “America would never elect a socialist.”
P-l-e-a-s-e. America’s most successful and beloved government programs are social insurance – Social Security and Medicare. A highway is a shared social expenditure, as is the military and public parks and schools. The truth is we have already have socialism… for the rich (bailouts of Wall Street, subsidies for Big Ag and Big Pharma, monopolization by cable companies and giant health insurers, giant tax-deductible CEO bonuses) – all of which Bernie wants to end or prevent. And Bernie is not a socialist, he’s a Democratic Socialist, which is very different and very American. FDR was a democratic socialist, just not in name. Democratic socialism, as practiced in Europe, hinges on the same three core principles that used to be practiced in America, before big corporations undermined them – strong safety nets; public investment in healthcare, childcare, and education; and tough regulation of Big Business.
2. “He’d never beat Trump in the general election.”
Wrong. The best way for Democrats to defeat Trump’s fake anti-establishment populism is with the real thing, coupled with an agenda of systemic reform. This is what Bernie Sanders offers, and it’s what the polls are reflecting. All of the pundits proclaiming that Bernie has no chance against Trump are using a political framework that may have been correct decades ago when America still had a growing middle class, but it’s obsolete today, as more and more Americans feel politically disempowered and economically insecure. The real political divide today isn’t left versus right. It’s democracy versus oligarchy.
In the latest polling average from RealClearPolitics, Bernie beats Trump by the widest margin of all candidates. After his decisive victory in Nevada, a Morning Consult survey found that Democratic voters view Bernie as the best candidate to take on Trump. And recent polls show Bernie beating Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two crucial battleground states Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016. If you’re a moderate Democrat whose chief concern is beating Trump, Bernie is the clear choice.
3. “But how would he pay for it?”
Nearly every time the media discusses Bernie’s transformative plans, they ask the same tired question: How will he pay for it? Funny that they never ask how we’ll pay for endless wars or bailouts, tax cuts, and subsidies for the top 1 percent.
Nonetheless, Bernie’s campaign just released a detailed memo outlining how they plan to pay for his policy ideas. Take college for all and canceling student debt. Sanders will fund the $2.2 trillion proposals with a modest tax on the very Wall Street speculation that crashed our economy in 2008. 40 countries throughout the world have imposed a similar tax, including Britain, South Korea, Hong Kong, Brazil, Germany, France, Switzerland and China.
Sanders’s wealth tax would also go a long way toward paying for his other ambitious plans, like Medicare for All.
Speaking of Medicare for All, it will leave us spending less over time.
Single-payer systems in other rich nations have proven cheaper than private for-profit health insurers because they don’t spend huge sums on advertising, marketing, executive pay, and billing. Multiple studies have found that Medicare for All will save us billions in the long run, including a recent study which found that Bernie’s plan would save $458 billion annually and more than 68,500 lives every year. The nation already pays more for healthcare per person and has worse health outcomes than any other advanced country. Leaving our cruel, for-profit system in place will eventually become more expensive than implementing Medicare for All.
At the end of the day, the question shouldn’t be how will we pay for it. As long as proposed spending will be less than the future costs of insufficient public investment in education, climate change, and inadequate healthcare, it makes logical sense to enact these plans.
4. “He couldn’t get any of his ideas implemented because Congress would reject them.”
First of all, Bernie has served on Capitol Hill for nearly 30 years – working across the aisle to advance a host of legislative priorities. He worked alongside Republican Senator John McCain to reform the veterans’ health care system, and has co-sponsored bills with Senator Mike Lee of Utah, one of the most conservatives members of Congress, to restrict executive war powers in Yemen and Iran.
He’s stood staunchly behind his bold ideas while still delivering Democrats key legislative victories when his vote was sorely needed, like when he voted to pass the Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank.
And here’s the most important reality of all: If Republicans maintain their majority in the Senate, no Democratic president will be able to get much legislation through Congress, and will have to rely instead on executive orders and regulations. But we have a better chance of flipping the Senate if Bernie’s political revolution continues to surge around America, bringing with it millions of young people and other first-time voters, and keeping them politically engaged.
5. “He’s too old.”
Untrue. Have you seen how agile and forceful he is as he campaigns around the country? He bounced back with ten times the energy after he had a minor heart attack. These days, 70s are the new 60s.
(Just look at me.)
In any event, the issue isn’t age; it’s having the right values. FDR was paralyzed and JFK had Crohn’s disease, but they were great presidents because they fought adamantly for social and economic justice.
6. “He can’t unite the Democratic Party.”
Wrong. The establishment keeps mistakenly assuming that moderates appeal to a broader swath of the electorate. Their analysis is woefully out-of-touch, and they’re operating within an echo chamber with an outdated mental framework of how politics is supposed to work.
As shown by his dominant win in Nevada, Bernie’s brand of populist politics unites people from all walks of life. He won with 29 percent of whites, 51 percent of Hispanics, and 27 percent of blacks, according to entrance polls of Democratic caucus-goers. He won a staggering 65 percent of caucus-goers under 30 years old, and he carried every other age group except for caucus-goers over 65. This is precisely the kind of multiracial, multi-generational coalition that is needed to defeat Trump in November. And as I mentioned, Bernie beats Trump in multiple polls by the widest margin of any of the candidates, including in key swing states. No other candidate has this kind of data to back up their electability case.
The Democratic establishment is wrong to think Sanders is too liberal to win a general election. To the contrary, he’s the Democrats’ best shot at taking back the White House.
March 2, 2020
Bernie or Biden?
February 27, 2020
The Democratic Establishment is Freaking Out About Bernie. It should Calm Down.
February 25, 2020
5 Ways William Barr is Turning America into a...
5 Ways William Barr is Turning America into a Dictatorship
William Barr was installed as Attorney General specifically to turn the Department of Justice into an arm of the Trump Coverup. And we’ve seen him do exactly that. Barr has corrupted and politicized the Department of Justice, working hand in hand with Donald Trump to bend federal law enforcement to the president’s will. Here are some of the ways Barr is helping Trump turn our democracy into a dictatorship:
1. He intervened in the sentencing of Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime confidant and advisor, who faced a prison sentence for obstructing Congress and witness tampering in connection with the Russia investigation. The day prosecutors announced they were seeking seven to nine years for Stone’s sentencing, Trump called the sentence “a horrible aberration,” and said that the prosecutors “ought to be ashamed of themselves” and were “an insult to our country.” A mere 24 hours later, after Trump’s public tantrum, the Department of Justice announced it would change its sentencing recommendation for Stone [CUT TO NEWS CLIP]. Showing more backbone than Barr, four career prosecutors then withdrew from the case, and one resigned.
The incident caused such an uproar that Barr was forced to declare that he wouldn’t be “bullied” and that Trump’s tweets “make it impossible to do my job.” But anyone who has watched Barr repeatedly roll over for Trump saw this as a minimal face-saving gesture. For example:
2. Barr has green-lit an “intake process” for any information that Trump stooge Rudy Giuliani may dig up about Ukraine and the elections. That’s right. Barr has given Trump’s personal lawyer, who is under a Justice Department investigation that has led to charges against two of his associates, a direct line to the Justice Department to funnel dirt about Trump’s political rivals.
3. Barr misled the public about the contents of the Mueller report. Before the report was released, Barr sent a memo to Congress “summarizing” its findings. In his memo, Barr claimed there was insufficient evidence for an obstruction of justice case and supported Trump’s claims of “total exoneration”. Robert Mueller was so infuriated by Barr’s misrepresentation of his findings that he wrote a letter complaining that Barr’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of Mueller’s investigation. Barr nonetheless held a press conference reiterating his own claims, bolstering Trump’s narrative of “total exoneration,” and shifting the media coverage of the report.
4. Barr refused to accept the findings of the Inspector General report investigating the origins of the Russia probe. In December, Inspector General Michael Horowitz released his report, finding that while the Russia probe was flawed in some aspects, there was no evidence of political bias and it was justified. This, of course, contradicts Trump’s narrative that the Russia probe was launched by deep-state partisan hacks determined to take him down. The day the report was released, Barr called the Russia investigation a “travesty” and claimed that there were “gross abuses …and inexplicable behavior that is intolerable in the FBI” and that he thought “there was bad faith" in the investigation. It’s unprecedented for the Attorney General to so vehemently disagree with the findings of an impartial Inspector General.
5. Barr buried the whistleblower complaint that kick-started the impeachment inquiry and tried to keep it from reaching Congress. His Justice Department investigated the contents of the complaint within a narrow scope and wrapped up its investigation within a mere three weeks, finding no evidence of wrongdoing. Yet again, Barr was running interference to shield Trump from accountability.
Trump says he has the “legal right” to meddle in cases handled by the Justice Department.
That’s wrong. If a president can punish enemies and reward friends through the administration of justice, there can be no justice. Justice requires impartial and equal treatment under the law. Partiality or inequality in deciding whom to prosecute and how to punish is tyranny. Plain and simple.
A half-century ago I witnessed the near dissolution of justice under President Nixon. I served in the Justice Department when a bipartisan Congress resolved that what had occurred would never happen again. But what occurred under Nixon is happening again. Like Nixon, Trump has usurped the independence of the Department of Justice for his own ends.
But unlike Nixon, Trump won’t resign. He has too many enablers – not just a shameful Attorney General but also shameless congressional Republicans – who place a lower priority on justice than on satisfying the most vindictive and paranoid occupant of the White House in modern American history.
One ABC News interview, conducted only to give the appearance of impartiality, doesn’t make up for the myriad ways Attorney General Bill Barr has corrupted the Justice Department and willfully abetted Trump’s lawlessness. For the sake of our democracy, he must resign immediately.
February 24, 2020
The Humongous Costs of Inaction
mayor Pete Buttigieg charged that...
February 18, 2020
How Democrats Clean Up the Messes Left By RepublicansFor...
How Democrats Clean Up the Messes Left By Republicans
For decades, Democratic administrations have been cleaning up economic messes left to them by Republican administrations. Thanks to Donald Trump, they’ll have to do so again.
Before diving in, we need to understand this one concept: the debt-to-GDP ratio.
The national debt is a meaningless number on its own. It’s meaningful only as a percentage of the total economy, the GDP. Even if the debt grows, that’s okay so long as the economy grows even faster. But if the reverse is true — if the economy is growing more slowly than the debt — we’re in trouble.
With this in mind, let’s go back to the 1980s. When Ronald Reagan took office, the national debt equaled just a little over 30 percent of the total economy. Then Reagan began cutting taxes and spending a huge amount on the military. By the time he left the White House, the debt-to-GDP ratio was nearly 50 percent. He viewed it as a way of “starving the beast” so future Democratic administrations would find it harder to fund programs for the poor and average working people.
Reagan’s Republican successor, George H. W. Bush, raised the debt-to-GDP ratio even higher — to 62 percent. Between 1981 and 1992, Reagan and Bush together doubled the debt-to-GDP ratio.
So by the time Bill Clinton took office, he had to spend his first term cleaning up the mess, finally balancing the budget and even leaving America with a budget surplus — and getting the national debt-to-GDP ratio back down to 54 percent. (I know. I was there.)
Then Clinton’s Republican successor, George W. Bush, went back to the Reagan playbook. W passed massive tax cuts that gave the top 1 percent of households an average of over $570,000 each during the next 8 years. He also launched expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Altogether, George W. Bush added a whopping $5 trillion to the national debt, leaving Barack Obama with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 73 percent — as well as a financial sector in the process of melting down, threatening the entire economy. Talk about an economic mess.
Obama had to bail out Wall Street and stimulate the economy in order to get us out of the deepest recession since the Great Depression. In other words, the GDP shrank. These two factors pushed the debt-to-GDP ratio to 100 percent by the end of Obama’s first term. By the time Obama handed off the economy to Trump, the economy was growing again, and the ratio of debt to GDP had stabilized at around 103 percent.
But now Trump and Senate Republicans are repeating history. In 2016, when Trump was asked about the debt, he claimed “We pay it back so easily.” Then he blew up the debt by passing a giant tax cut for corporations and the wealthy.
So even though Trump inherited the longest economic expansion in history, he increased the ratio of debt to GDP to over 105 percent. And Republicans have reverted to the same, old playbook – threatening to cut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare because, they say, “we can’t afford” these programs.
Time and again, Republicans scream about the national debt when a Democrat is in the White House, cleaning up the mess they caused. But when there’s a Republican administration, they couldn’t care less about the debt. When Mitch McConnell was asked about soaring debt and deficits his response was, “It’s disappointing, but it’s not a Republican problem.”
So the next Democratic administration will have to deal with it.
In addition to solving the climate crisis that’s become worse under Trump, passing universal health care that’s become more urgent under Trump, and tackling myriad other problems that have grown larger under Trump, Democrats will once again have to clean up the economic mess left by their Republican predecessor in order to preserve and expand programs that help average Americans survive.
Republicans accuse Democrats of being fiscally irresponsible. But time and again, it’s the Republicans who have created economic messes that Democrats have to clean up.
February 17, 2020
Why Trump Justice is an Oxymoron
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