Robert B. Reich's Blog, page 46
March 12, 2019
THE YUGE REPUBLICAN LIE ABOUT THE DEFICITWhen asked...
THE YUGE REPUBLICAN LIE ABOUT THE DEFICIT
When asked about
America’s soaring debt and deficits, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
lamented “It’s disappointing, but it’s not a Republican problem,” and he
blames Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Rubbish. It’s not
social spending that’s causing the federal deficit to soar. It’s Republican tax
cuts, especially on corporations and the wealthy.
Look at the evidence.
Of all 35 advanced economies, America’s spending on social programs like
Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid is among the lowest, as you can see.
Also, Americans pay
into Social Security and Medicare throughout their entire working lives.
The biggest reason
America has the highest deficit relative to our total economy among all 35
advanced economies is because of a shortage of tax revenue. Of all these
countries, we’re bringing in the fifth-lowest total revenue as a share of GDP.
And why is that?
Mainly because of Republican tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy. The big
Trump Republican tax cut is already breaking the bank. It will cost us 1.9
trillion dollars over the next decade. Let me repeat that: 1.9 trillion
dollars.
Remember, Trump
and Republicans in Congress claimed that their tax cuts for the wealthy and
corporations would pay for themselves by boosting economic growth. It’s the
same trickle-down fairy tale they’ve been telling for decades. But according to
the Congressional Budget Office, they haven’t paid for themselves, and the
deficit continues to balloon.
If there’s one area
where America spends too much, it’s the military. Since taking office, Trump
has increased military spending by more than $200 billion a year, straining the
federal budget even further. The United States already spends more on the
military than the next 10 nations combined.
Mitch McConnell,
Donald Trump, and other Republicans in Washington want to cut Social Security,
Medicare, and Medicaid. That’s been the Republican goal for decades. And they
want to use the deficit to justify these cuts.
They also argue that
we can’t afford a comprehensive healthcare system that the rest of the advanced
world has figured out how to afford.
Baloney. If the rich
and corporations pay their fair share and we rein in defense spending, America
can afford what we need.
Know the truth. Spread
the truth about the deficit.
March 11, 2019
Warren is Correct about Busting Up Big Tech
March 5, 2019
What’s the Real American Story? Donald Trump has perfected...
What’s the Real American Story?
Donald Trump has perfected the art of telling a fake story about America. The only way to counter that is to tell the real story of America.
Trump’s story is by now familiar: he alone will rescue average Americans from powerful alien forces – immigrants, foreign traders, foreign politicians and their international agreements – that have undermined the wellbeing of Americans.
These forces have been successful largely because Democrats, liberals, “socialists,” cultural elites, the Washington establishment, the media and “deep state” bureaucrats have helped them, in order to enrich themselves and boost their power. Not surprisingly, according to Trump, these forces seek to remove him from office.
What makes Trump’s story powerful to some Americans despite its utter phoniness is that it echoes the four tales Americans have been telling ourselves since before the founding of the Republic.
To combat Trump’s fake story, we need a true story based on facts, logic and history. But in order for that true story to resonate with Americans, it must also echo the same four tales.
The first tale: The Triumphant Individual.
It’s the little guy or gal who works hard, takes risks, believes in him or herself, and eventually gains wealth, fame and honor. The tale is epitomized in the life of Abe Lincoln, born in a log cabin, who believed that “the value of life is to improve one’s condition.” The moral: with enough effort and courage, anyone can make it in America.
Trump wants us to believe he’s the Triumphant Individual. But in fact he’s a conman who inherited his wealth and then spent his career shafting his employees, contractors and creditors.
In truth, America has many potential Triumphant Individuals. But in order for them to do well in the new economy they depend on three things that Trump doesn’t want them to have: a good education, good medical care, and the right to join together to demand better pay and better working conditions.
The second tale: The Benevolent Community
This is the story of neighbors and friends who pitch in for the common good. It goes back to John Winthrop’s A Model of Christian Charity, delivered onboard a ship in Salem Harbor in 1630. Similar ideals of community were found among the abolitionists, suffragettes and civil rights activists of the 1950s and 1960s. The moral: we all do better by caring for one another.
Trump’s fake benevolent community is a nationalism that requires no sacrifice from anyone. But today’s real benevolent community necessitates all of us doing our parts for the common good. The most fortunate among us, for example, must pay their fair share of taxes so that everyone can have what’s needed to triumph. A rising tide of productivity and wealth will lift all Americans.
The third tale: The Mob at the Gates
This is the story of threatening forces beyond our borders. Daniel Boone fought Indians, described then in racist terms as “savages.” Davy Crockett battled Mexicans. Much the same tale gave force to cold war tales during the 1950s of international communist plots to undermine American democracy. The moral: we must be vigilant against external threats.
As with the other tales, this one has an important element of truth. America battled Hitler and other fascists in the second world war. The Soviet danger was real.
But Trump wants Americans to believe that today’s Mob at the Gates consists of immigrants, foreign traders and democratically elected governments that have been our allies for decades or more.
Wrong. These days the real Mob at our gates are thugs like Vladimir Putin and other tyrants around the world who are antagonistic toward democratic institutions, intolerant of ethnic minorities, hostile toward the free press and eager to use government to benefit themselves and those who support them.
The fourth and final tale: The Rot at the Top.
This one is about the malevolence of powerful elites – their corruption and irresponsibility, and tendency to conspire against the rest of us.
This tale has given force to the populist movements of American history, from William Jennings Bryan’s prairie populism of the 1890s through Bernie Sanders’ progressive populist campaign in 2016, as well as Trump’s authoritarian version.
Trump wants us to believe that today’s Rot at the Top are cultural elites, the media and “deep state” bureaucrats.
But the real Rot at the Top consists of concentrated wealth and power to a degree this nation hasn’t witnessed since the late 19th century. Billionaires, powerful corporations, and Wall Street have gained control over much of our economy and political system, padding their nests with special tax breaks and corporate welfare while holding down the wages of average workers.
In this, the rich have been helped by Republicans in Congress and the White House whose guiding ideology seems less capitalism than cronyism, as shown time and again through legislative and regulatory gifts to Big Pharma, Wall Street, Big Oil and Coal, Big Agriculture, and giant military contractors.
America’s true story shouldn’t end with Trump’s authoritarianism and nativism.
An end that’s far truer to America’s ideals is a reinvigorated democracy. This will require a benevolent community free from the crony capitalists who have corrupted America.
That chapter is up to us.
March 2, 2019
A Bold New Idea to Boost WagesThe challenges are well known:...
A Bold New Idea to Boost Wages
The challenges are well known: Working Americans are struggling to keep up with the increasing cost of living. Unemployment is low, but wages of most Americans have remained flat. More than three-quarters of Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck. Most can’t afford a $500 emergency.
There’s a simple and bold solution that would cost about as much as the Trump tax cut. But instead of helping corporations and the rich, it would help millions of working and middle-class Americans by putting money directly in their pockets.
I’m talking about expanding something called the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC. And although it’s been around for decades, it can be the basis of a revolutionary change in the lives of millions of people.
As it now stands, the EITC gives thousands of dollars to the working poor, with the amount of money they receive gradually decreasing as their earnings rise until they reach a cap, which is now a little over $50,000.
It works so well because it directly boosts the incomes of people who need it the most. Cash gives people freedom and dignity— the power to decide, for example, whether to have their car repaired or buy new shoes for their kids or save for a rainy day.
When working people have money to spend, they spend most of it in the communities they live in. This, in turn, causes businesses to hire more people to meet the demand. It’s a virtuous cycle that lessens poverty, makes the tax code fairer, and boosts the overall economy.
A bold new idea would be to expand this successful program in 4 simple ways:
First: Raise the maximum amount that very poor Americans receive from the Earned Income Tax Credit by several thousand dollars. This would dramatically reduce poverty in all families with someone who works full time.
Right now, a job at a $15 minimum wage plus Medicaid and food stamps still doesn’t meet basic needs in much of America. Raising the Earned Income Tax Credit would ensure that every family with a full-time worker is out of poverty.
Second: Extend the Earned Income Tax Credit into the middle class, so even families earning the median family income – which was just about $76,000 in 2017 – will benefit. This would be a huge help to working-class families, many of whom are now one paycheck away from poverty.
Third: Expand the benefits of the Earned Income Tax Credit to two groups of Americans who are working hard, but not necessarily collecting paychecks: people (most of whom are women) who are caring for a child or for a senior in their family, and low-income students.
Fourth: Let people receive this money each month rather than in a lump-sum once a year at tax time, so it helps with monthly expenses – rent, food, education – or can be saved to build a financial cushion.
Presto. We create a kind of cost-of-living refund to lift the incomes of a third of Americans, the people who need it most, and we also include the working class and lower middle class.
At the same time, we begin to rewrite the tax code in favor of ordinary Americans, instead of large corporations and the wealthy.
Eighty-three percent of the benefits of the Trump tax cuts will go to the top 1 percent of Americans by 2027. Expanding and modernizing the Earned Income Tax Credit can help put things back in balance.
It’s simple. It’s fair. It’s necessary. It’s big and bold. Enlarge and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit.
February 25, 2019
America Has Already Fired Trump
February 20, 2019
Howard’s End
February 19, 2019
WHO WILL BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT?
The presidential primaries will...
WHO WILL BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT?
The presidential primaries will soon be heating up, and the betting has already begun over which Democrat has the “money advantage,” who’s sufficiently “moderate,” and who can “beat Trump” (assuming he’ll be running again).
Pardon me, but if you want to know who will be the next president, these are exactly the wrong criteria.
First: raising money from big donors is far less important than it used to be. In recent campaigns, Democratic challengers have drawn in millions from small donors — just look at Bernie Sanders in 2016 and Beto O'Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018.
Grassroots activism has also become critical to getting out the vote.
The next president will be the candidate best able to inspire such activism. After years of Trump, voters will be especially inspired by someone with the character and temperament to lead the nation – a person of modesty, honesty and integrity, who puts the country’s interests above his or her own, and above the interests of Wall Street and big corporations. Someone who will honor and protect our democracy, who will restore America’s moral authority in the world.
Second: Labels like “moderate” have become meaningless. Over the last several decades the Republican Party has pushed the playing field of American politics so far to the right that the new moderate “center” is now where the old conservative goalposts used to be.
Today’s biggest political divide doesn’t fit on the old playing field, anyway. In both parties, it’s between the establishment and anti-establishment. And almost all the political energy is anti-establishment.
If you want to know who will be the next president, look to who can best harness that energy across the political spectrum. Someone capable of reversing the forces that created Trump. I’m not referring just to racism and xenophobia, but also the widening chasm between the few who are succeeding and the many who have been left behind.
Someone who will take on the profound imbalance of wealth and power that has grown in recent decades not just under Republican administrations but also under Democrats. Who will mobilize the poor, working class, and middle class into a countervailing power to change that system.
Who will unite races and creeds and ethnic groups to attack concentrated political and economic privilege. Who will get big money out of politics. Who will demand that the wealthy pay their fair share to keep American going. Who will empower ordinary workers to get a better deal, and expand prosperity and political rights to the many instead of the privileged few.
The third criterion of the early presidential handicappers is who can beat Trump. Should the candidate go low by imitating him, or go high by appealing to the best in America?
It’s a meaningless and endless inquiry. In reality, the person who will beat Trump will possess the two attributes mentioned above: the character, integrity, vision to lead the nation, and the ability to mobilize the many who have been left behind.
No more will be needed, but also no less.
Bernie is Back
easy to forget the condescension and amusement that greeted him when he announced
his first...
February 15, 2019
Dictator Trump
February 13, 2019
Trump’s Assault on Elizabeth Warren
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