Robert B. Reich's Blog, page 91

#10. END MASS INCARCERATION...

#10. END MASS INCARCERATION NOW

Imprisoning a staggering number of our people is
wrong. The way our nation does it is even worse.
We must end mass incarceration, now.

If I'm walking down the street with a Black
or Latino friend, my friend is way more likely to be stopped by the police, questioned, and even arrested. Even if we're doing the exact same thing—he or she is more likely to be convicted and sent to jail.

Unless we recognize the racism and abuse of our criminal justice system and tackle the dehumanizing stereotypes that underlie it, our nation – and our economy – will never be as strong as it could be.

Please take a
moment to watch the accompanying video, and please share it so others can understand what’s
at stake for so many Americans.

Here are the facts: 

Today, the United States has 5
percent of the world’s population, but has 25 percent of its prisoners, and we spend more than $80 billion each year on prisons.

The major culprit is
the so-called War on Drugs. There were fewer than 200,000 Americans behind bars as recently as the mid-70’s. Then, a racially-tinged drug hysteria swept our nation, and we saw a wave of
increasingly militant policing that targeted communities of color and poorer
neighborhoods.

With “mandatory minimums” and “three strikes out” laws,
the number of Americans behind bars soon ballooned
to nearly 2.5 million today, despite widespread evidence that locking people up doesn't make us
safer.

Unconscious bias and
cultural stereotypes lead to discriminatory enforcement of the laws – from who
gets pulled over to where police conduct drug sweeps. 

Even though Blacks, whites, and Latinos use drugs at similar rates, people with black and brown skin are more likely to be pulled over, searched, arrested, charged with a crime, convicted, and sent to jails and prisons where they can be subject to some of the worst human rights abuses. 

As a result, black people incarcerated at a rate five times that of whites,
and Latinos incarcerated at a rate double that of white Americans.

Even if you’ve “served your time,” you never escape the label.

A felony conviction can bar you from getting a student loan, putting a roof over your head, or even from voting. It might even disqualify you from getting a job which can make it impossible for people with felony convictions to pull themselves out of poverty. And many who end up in prison were living in chronic poverty to begin with.

All of this means a lot of potential human talent is going to waste. We’re spending a fortune locking people up who could fuel our economy and build strong communities, in some cases just to increase the profits of private prison corporations.

So what do we do?

First, enact smarter sentencing laws that end mandatory minimums and transform the way we treat people who enter the criminal justice system. Instead of prisons and jails, we need well-paying jobs, and to invest in proven and cost-effective alternatives to incarceration, like job training and mental health and drug treatment programs.

Second, stop the militarized policing and end discriminatory policing practices such as "stop and frisk" and "broken windows" that disproportionately target communities of color. 

Third, stop building new jails, start closing some existing ones, and begin to invest in schools, public transit, and housing assistance or local jobs programs. States are spending more and more on prisons, while cutting funding for schools. That’s crazy.

Finally, “ban the box” – the box on job applications that asks  whether you have ever been convicted of a felony on a job application. Already, dozens of states cities, and counties have passed bills requiring that employers consider what you can do in the future, not what you might have done in the past.

Instead of locking people up unjustly, and then locking them out of the economy for the rest of their lives, we need to stop wasting human talent and start opening doors of opportunity – to everyone.

Making the Economy Work for The Many and Not the Few #10: End...

Making the Economy Work for The Many and Not the Few #10: End Mass Incarceration, Now.

Imprisoning a staggering number of our people is
wrong. The way our nation does it is even worse.
We must end mass incarceration, now.

If I'm walking down the street with a Black
or Latino friend, my friend is way more likely to be stopped by the police, questioned, and even arrested. Even if we're doing the exact same thing—he or she is more likely to be convicted and sent to jail.

Unless we recognize the racism and abuse of our criminal justice system and tackle the dehumanizing stereotypes that underlie it, our nation – and our economy – will never be as strong as it could be.

Please take a
moment to watch the accompanying video, and please share it so others can understand what’s
at stake for so many Americans.

Here are the facts: 

Today, the United States has 5
percent of the world’s population, but has 25 percent of its prisoners, and we spend more than $80 billion each year on prisons.

The major culprit is
the so-called War on Drugs. There were fewer than 200,000 Americans behind bars as recently as the mid-70’s. Then, a racially-tinged drug hysteria swept our nation, and we saw a wave of
increasingly militant policing that targeted communities of color and poorer
neighborhoods.

With “mandatory minimums” and “three strikes out” laws,
the number of Americans behind bars soon ballooned
to nearly 2.5 million today, despite widespread evidence that locking people up doesn't make us
safer.

Unconscious bias and
cultural stereotypes lead to discriminatory enforcement of the laws – from who
gets pulled over to where police conduct drug sweeps. 

Even though Blacks, whites, and Latinos use drugs at similar rates, people with black and brown skin are more likely to be pulled over, searched, arrested, charged with a crime, convicted, and sent to jails and prisons where they can be subject to some of the worst human rights abuses. 

As a result, black people incarcerated at a rate five times that of whites,
and Latinos incarcerated at a rate double that of white Americans.

Even if you’ve “served your time,” you never escape the label.

A felony conviction can bar you from getting a student loan, putting a roof over your head, or even from voting. It might even disqualify you from getting a job which can make it impossible for people with felony convictions to pull themselves out of poverty. And many who end up in prison were living in chronic poverty to begin with.

All of this means a lot of potential human talent is going to waste. We’re spending a fortune locking people up who could fuel our economy and build strong communities, in some cases just to increase the profits of private prison corporations.

So what do we do?

First, enact smarter sentencing laws that end mandatory minimums and transform the way we treat people who enter the criminal justice system. Instead of prisons and jails, we need well-paying jobs, and to invest in proven and cost-effective alternatives to incarceration, like job training and mental health and drug treatment programs.

Second, stop the militarized policing and end discriminatory policing practices such as "stop and frisk" and "broken windows" that disproportionately target communities of color. 

Third, stop building new jails, start closing some existing ones, and begin to invest in schools, public transit, and housing assistance or local jobs programs. States are spending more and more on prisons, while cutting funding for schools. That’s crazy.

Finally, “ban the box” – the box on job applications that asks  whether you have ever been convicted of a felony on a job application. Already, dozens of states cities, and counties have passed bills requiring that employers consider what you can do in the future, not what you might have done in the past.

Instead of locking people up unjustly, and then locking them out of the economy for the rest of their lives, we need to stop wasting human talent and start opening doors of opportunity – to everyone.

Why the Trans Pacific Partnership is Nearly Dead

How can it be
that the largest pending trade deal in history – a deal backed both by a
Democratic...

#9. MAKE POLLUTERS PAY USInstead of investing in dirty...

#9. MAKE POLLUTERS PAY US

Instead of investing in dirty fuels,
let’s start charging polluters for poisoning our skies – and then invest the
revenue so that it benefits everyone.

Each ton of carbon that’s released into the atmosphere costs
our nation between $40 and $100, and we release millions tons of it every year. 

Businesses don’t pay
that cost. They pass it along to the rest of us—in the form of more extreme
weather and all the costs to our economy and health resulting from it. 

We’ve actually invested more than $6 trillion in fossil fuels since 2007. The money has been laundered through our savings and tax dollars.

This has got to be reversed.

We can clean our environment and strengthen the economy if we (1) divest from carbon polluters, (2) make the polluters pay a price to
pollute, and (3) then collect the money. 

Please see the accompanying video, and share. 

Anticipatory Bribery

Washington has been rocked by the
scandal of J. Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican...

#8. RAISE THEESTATE TAX ON THE VERY RICH At a time of historic...

#8. RAISE THE
ESTATE TAX ON THE VERY RICH

 At a time of historic economic inequality, it should be a
no-brainer to raise a tax on inherited wealth for the very rich. Yet there’s a
move among some members of Congress to abolish it altogether.

If you’re as horrified at the prospect of abolishing the estate
tax as I am, I hope you’ll watch and share the accompanying video. 

Today the estate tax reaches only the richest two-tenths of one
percent, and applies only to dollars in excess of $10.86 million for married
couples or $5.43 million for individuals. 

That means if a couple leaves to their heirs $10,860,001, they
now pay the estate tax on $1. The current estate tax rate is 40%, so that would
be 40 cents.

Yet according to these members of Congress, that’s still too
much. 

Abolishing the estate tax would give each of the wealthiest
two-tenths of 1 percent of American households an average tax cut of $3
million, and the 318 largest estates would get an average tax cut of $20
million.

It would also reduce tax revenues by $269 billion over ten
years. The result would be either larger federal deficits or higher taxes on
the rest of us to fill the gap.

This is nuts. The richest 1 percent of Americans now have 42
percent of the nation’s entire wealth, while the bottom 90 percent has just 23
percent. 

That’s the greatest concentration of wealth at the top than at any
time since the Gilded Age of the 1890s.

Instead of eliminating the tax on inherited wealth, we should
increase it – back to the level it was in the late 1990s. The economy did
wonderfully well in the late 1990s, by the way. 

Adjusted for inflation, the estate tax restored to its level in
1998 would begin to touch estates valued at $1,748,000 per couple.

That would yield approximately $448 billion over the next ten
years – way
more than enough to finance ten years of universal preschool and two free years
of community college for all eligible students.

Our democracy’s Founding Fathers did not want a privileged
aristocracy. Yet that’s the direction we’re going in. The tax on inherited
wealth is one of the major bulwarks against it. That tax should be increased
and strengthened.

It’s
time to rein in America’s surging inequality. It’s time to raise the estate
tax.

#8 RAISE THEESTATE TAX ON THE VERY RICH At a time of historic...

#8 RAISE THE
ESTATE TAX ON THE VERY RICH

 At a time of historic economic inequality, it should be a
no-brainer to raise a tax on inherited wealth for the very rich. Yet there’s a
move among some members of Congress to abolish it altogether.

If you’re as horrified at the prospect of abolishing the estate
tax as I am, I hope you’ll watch and share the accompanying video. 

Today the estate tax reaches only the richest two-tenths of one
percent, and applies only to dollars in excess of $10.86 million for married
couples or $5.43 million for individuals. 

That means if a couple leaves to their heirs $10,860,001, they
now pay the estate tax on $1. The current estate tax rate is 40%, so that would
be 40 cents.

Yet according to these members of Congress, that’s still too
much. 

Abolishing the estate tax would give each of the wealthiest
two-tenths of 1 percent of American households an average tax cut of $3
million, and the 318 largest estates would get an average tax cut of $20
million.

It would also reduce tax revenues by $269 billion over ten
years. The result would be either larger federal deficits or higher taxes on
the rest of us to fill the gap.

This is nuts. The richest 1 percent of Americans now have 42
percent of the nation’s entire wealth, while the bottom 90 percent has just 23
percent. 

That’s the greatest concentration of wealth at the top than at any
time since the Gilded Age of the 1890s.

Instead of eliminating the tax on inherited wealth, we should
increase it – back to the level it was in the late 1990s. The economy did
wonderfully well in the late 1990s, by the way. 

Adjusted for inflation, the estate tax restored to its level in
1998 would begin to touch estates valued at $1,748,000 per couple.

That would yield approximately $448 billion over the next ten
years – way
more than enough to finance ten years of universal preschool and two free years
of community college for all eligible students.

Our democracy’s Founding Fathers did not want a privileged
aristocracy. Yet that’s the direction we’re going in. The tax on inherited
wealth is one of the major bulwarks against it. That tax should be increased
and strengthened.

It’s
time to rein in America’s surging inequality. It’s time to raise the estate
tax.

MAKING THE ECONOMY WORK FOR THE MANY, NOT THE FEW: #8 RAISE...

MAKING THE ECONOMY WORK FOR THE MANY, NOT THE FEW: #8 RAISE THE
ESTATE TAX ON THE VERY RICH.

 At a time of historic economic inequality, it should be a
no-brainer to raise a tax on inherited wealth for the very rich. Yet there’s a
move among some members of Congress to abolish it altogether.

If you’re as horrified at the prospect of abolishing the estate
tax as I am, I hope you’ll watch and share the accompanying video. 

Today the estate tax reaches only the richest two-tenths of one
percent, and applies only to dollars in excess of $10.86 million for married
couples or $5.43 million for individuals. 

That means if a couple leaves to their heirs $10,860,001, they
now pay the estate tax on $1. The current estate tax rate is 40%, so that would
be 40 cents.

Yet according to these members of Congress, that’s still too
much. 

Abolishing the estate tax would give each of the wealthiest
two-tenths of 1 percent of American households an average tax cut of $3
million, and the 318 largest estates would get an average tax cut of $20
million.

It would also reduce tax revenues by $269 billion over ten
years. The result would be either larger federal deficits or higher taxes on
the rest of us to fill the gap.

This is nuts. The richest 1 percent of Americans now have 42
percent of the nation’s entire wealth, while the bottom 90 percent has just 23
percent. 

That’s the greatest concentration of wealth at the top than at any
time since the Gilded Age of the 1890s.

Instead of eliminating the tax on inherited wealth, we should
increase it – back to the level it was in the late 1990s. The economy did
wonderfully well in the late 1990s, by the way. 

Adjusted for inflation, the estate tax restored to its level in
1998 would begin to touch estates valued at $1,748,000 per couple.

That would yield approximately $448 billion over the next ten
years – way
more than enough to finance ten years of universal preschool and two free years
of community college for all eligible students.

Our democracy’s Founding Fathers did not want a privileged
aristocracy. Yet that’s the direction we’re going in. The tax on inherited
wealth is one of the major bulwarks against it. That tax should be increased
and strengthened.

It’s
time to rein in America’s surging inequality. It’s time to raise the estate
tax.

State of Disaster

As extreme weather marked by tornadoes and flooding continues to sweep across Texas, Gov. Greg...

#7. STRENGTHEN UNIONS One big reason America was far more equal...

#7. STRENGTHEN UNIONS 

One big reason America was far more equal in the 1950s and 1960s than
now is unions were stronger then. That gave workers bargaining power to get a fair share of the economy’s gains – and unions helped improve wages and working
conditions for everyone.

But as union membership has weakened – from more than a third of all
private-sector workers belonging unions in the 1950s to fewer than 7 percent
today – the bargaining power of average workers has all but disappeared. 

In fact, the decline of the American middle class mirrors almost exactly the decline of American labor union membership. 

So how do we strengthen unions?

First, make it easier to form a union, with a simple majority of
workers voting up or down. 

Right now, long delays and procedural hurdles give
big employers plenty of time to whip up campaigns against unions, even
threatening they’ll close down and move somewhere else if a union is voted in.

Second, build in real penalties on companies that violate labor laws
by firing workers who try to organize a union or intimidating others. 

These
moves are illegal, but nowadays the worst that can happen is employers get
slapped on the wrist. If found guilty they have to repay lost wages to the
workers they fire. Some employers treat this as a cost of doing business. That must be stopped.  Penalties should be large enough to stop this illegality.

Finally – this one has been in the news lately, and if you only
remember one thing, remember this: We must enact a federal law that pre-empts
so-called state “right-to-work” laws. 

Don’t be fooled by the “right to work” name. These laws
allow workers to get all the benefits of having a union without paying union
dues. It’s a back door destroying unions. If no one pays dues, unions have no
way to provide any union benefits. And that means lower wages.

In fact, wages in right-to-work states are lower
on average than wages in non-right-to-work states, by an average of about $1500
a year. Workers in right-to-work states are also less likely to have
employer-sponsored health insurance and pension coverage. 

When unions are
weakened by right-to-work laws, all of a state’s workers are hurt.

American workers need a union to bargain on their behalf. Low-wage
workers in big-box retail stores and fast-food chains need a union even more. 

If
we want average Americans to get a fair share of the gains from economic
growth, they need to be able to unionize.