Choosing Democracy: The Schools are Underfunded

Choosing Democracy: The Schools are Underfunded: As you consider the Sacramento City Unified Budget Crisis: Consider the Source. It is the state budget. Tell the legislature.  D...

Rev. William Barber

William Barber—60 minutes.

First 3 minutes.  Then start at 38  minutes. Go to 1:05.1

https://archive.org/details/MediaEdge655

https://archive.org/details/SavingTheHeartAndSoulOfOurDemocracy

Joseph Stiglitz: Elizabeth Warren & Bernie Sanders Want to Make the Econ...

Economist Joseph Stiglitz: Capitalism Hasn’t Been Working for Most Peopl...

How Corporations Abuse Tax System

Leo Gerard

How Big Corporations Take Your Tax Dollars

Big corporations claim to hate socialism if it means Medicare for All, but they sure as hell love socialism when it’s welfare for them. Sixty profitable corporations paid no federal taxes in 2018, twice the number that typically paid nothing in the years before the 2017 tax breaks took effect. In fact, it’s worse than that. Fifty-seven of these corporations demanded rebates from the government – which means taxpayers like you and me paid them to exist. These are corporations on the dole. Amazon, the online marketplace, made nearly $11 billion last year and instead of paying the current, low 21 percent corporate tax rate on that income, it demanded that taxpayers give it $129 million. Which they did. It wasn’t a rebate since Amazon paid no taxes. It was a big fat, gift withdrawn involuntarily from workers’ pockets, wrapped in a fuzzy, flocked Amazon smiley bag, and deposited directly into corporate coffers. This is perverse wealth transfer, from the poor and middle class to the rich and corporations. And taxpayers didn’t even get Amazon Prime in exchange.

Social Security Funding.

The Social Security Board of Trustees has just released its annual report to Congress. And with the report comes the expected headlines predicting doom for our Social Security system. Thankfully, these headlines couldn’t be further from the truth. Social Security is in strong financial shape.

These scary headlines are the product of a decades-long, billionaire-funded, campaign to undermine confidence in Social Security.

Social Security Works was formed to counter that campaign. Thanks to your support, we bring the truth about Social Security far and wide. But this year’s reporting shows that we still have a lot of work to do. Can you chip in to spread the word?

The just-released Trustees Report shows that Social Security has an accumulated surplus of roughly $2.9 trillion. It further shows that at the end of the century, it will cost just 6.07% of GDP. That is a considerably smaller percentage of GDP than Germany, Austria, France and most other industrialized countries spend on their retirement, survivors and disability programs.

Unsurprisingly, because Social Security’s income and outgo are projected out so far—three quarters of a century—the Report projects a modest shortfall. (This is a much longer projection period than private pensions use and even more than most other countries use for their Social Security programs.)

According to the new report, Social Security is 100% funded for the next sixteen years, 93% funded for the next 25 years, 87% funded over the next 50 years and 84% funded for the next three-quarters of a century. There is no question that Congress can raise enough revenue to eliminate the projected shortfall. Indeed, we can afford to expand Social Security.

That brings us to the second misreporting we are likely to see. Along with that modest, unsurprising shortfall being the cause for breathless media reports about supposed collapse, the report was greeted with lamentations from many observers that Congress has no plan to address Social Security’s projected shortfall. That is incorrect.

Democrats have specific concrete plans that they stand behind. They plan not just to ensure that all promised benefits will be paid in full and on time for the foreseeable future, but to address our nation’s retirement income crisis by increasing Social Security’s modest benefits.

It is only Congressional Republicans who have no plans—at least that they are willing to publicly embrace. That is perhaps because (given that they reject requiring the wealthiest to pay more) their preferred “solutions” involve benefit cuts, which are overwhelmingly opposed by voters across the political spectrum, including Tea Partiers and the most conservative Republicans.

Democrats are moving forward with their plans. The Social Security 2100 Act, introduced by Rep. John Larson (D-CT), is one such bill. It has 203 cosponsors in the House of Representatives—over 85% of all Democratic representatives. Larson has held several hearings on the bill and intends to bring it to the House floor this spring.

Several other bills to protect and expand Social Security benefits have been introduced in the House and Senate, andnearly every 2020 presidential candidate serving in Congress is a member of the bicameral Expand Social Security Caucus.

Again, it is Republican politicians who have no plans that they are willing to stand behind. Not a single Republican this Congress has cosponsored any of the Social Security bills introduced by Democrats nor introduced one of their own.

Notwithstanding that none of the bills have Republican cosponsors, they are totally bipartisan—at least, by the measure that matters most. As divided as the American people are over many issues, we are not divided about our deep support for Social Security.

Just last month, on March 21, the Pew Research Center released a poll showing that 68% of those identified as Republican/Lean Republican believe that Congress should make no cuts to Social Security whatsoever. A year ago, in the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections, Public Policy Polling found that 56% of those who voted for Donald Trump and 55% of those who identify as Republican would be more likely to vote for a candidate who “supported expanding and increasing Social Security.”

Furthermore, a 2014 National Academy of Social Insurance survey found that 80% of Republicans believe that Social Security is more important than ever; 72% of Republicans responded that they “don’t/didn’t mind paying Social Security taxes;” and 65% of Republicans agreed that “we should consider increasing Social Security benefits.” You wouldn’t know the truth if you’re just listening to the corporate media.

And this bipartisan, consensus view of the American people is the right one. Social Security is a solution. It is a solution to our looming retirement income crisis, which threatens the retirement of so many of today’s working families. Social Security is a solution to the increasing economic squeeze on middle-class families, a squeeze which jeopardizes the economic security of all generations. And Social Security is a solution to the destabilizing and immoral income and wealth inequality, which has resulted in a handful of Americans richer than Midas, while most Americans find their economic security crumbling.

In light of these challenges and Social Security’s important role in addressing them, Democratic leaders—and the American people—are asking the right question: Not how can we afford Social Security, but, rather, how can we afford not to expand it?

It’s this mismatch between where the American people stand and the Wall Street-funded public debate that Social Security Works was founded to combat. Can you chip in to help us bring the American peoples’ voices to Washington DC?

Republican politicians are standing in the way. For those for whom Social Security provides basic economic security now or promises to do so in the future—that is, virtually all of us—what we must do is clear. In 2020, we must make our voices heard. Those office seekers who support expanding Social Security and restoring it to long-range actuarial balance must be voted into office. Those who don’t should be retired. Fortunately for them (and thanks to the rest of us) they will have their Social Security to fall back on.

Thank you,

Nancy Altman
President and co-founder
Social Security Works

DONATE NOW

Republican Economics

So all the “fake news” was true. A hostile foreign power intervened in the presidential election, hoping to install Donald Trump in the White House. The Trump campaign was aware of this intervention and welcomed it. And once in power, Trump tried to block any inquiry into what happened.

Never mind attempts to spin this story as somehow not meeting some definitions of collusion or obstruction of justice. The fact is that the occupant of the White House betrayed his country. And the question everyone is asking is, what will Democrats do about it?

Paul Krugman.

Republican economics 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/opinion/trump-republican-party.html?searchResultPosition=2

See John Oliver's report below. 

How Tariffs Work

WASHER-DRYER SURCHARGE: President Trump's tariffs on imported washing machines cost U.S. consumers about $1.5 billion a year, according to a paper released Monday by economists at the Federal Reserve and the University of Chicago, David Harrison reports for the Wall Street Journal. The Trump administration announced in January 2018 a 20 percent duty on the first 1.2 million washing machine imports per year; the duty rises to 50 percent after that. Foreign appliance makers such as Samsung and LG Electronics Inc. responded by saying they'd boost production in the U.S. and hire up to 1,600 new workers following the tariff. Whirlpool, based in Michigan, announced that the actions would allow the company to add 200 new positions at its Ohio plant.

But consumers footed the bill for those 1800 new jobs, at a cost, the paper said, of $817,000 per job. The price of washers in the U.S. rose at about 12 percent due to the tariffs, and dragged up the price of dryers, which are frequently sold with washers in a single bundle, by the same amount. "The tariffs also produced $82.2 million in new government revenue between February 2018 and January 2019," Harrison writes. More here.

Social Security is Not Going Broke !

Donald Trump ran on a promise to protect our earned benefits. And yet, each budget proposal released by his administration reads more like a Tea Party wish list written by his Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney: Massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- all to pay for Trump’s tax scam for the rich and corporations.

Today, the Social Security Trustees released their annual report, and instead of the need to cut our earned benefits, the report shows that when millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share, we can afford to EXPAND Social Security benefits for millions of Americans.

We have the evidence. Now it’s time for action!

Click here to demand Congress act to expand Social Security and increase its modest benefits for current and future recipients.

The new report shows that:

• Social Security has a large surplus―projected to reach roughly $2.9 trillion next year;
• Social Security continues to be extremely affordable with less than one penny of every dollar spent on administrative costs (this is a fraction of what other industrialized countries pay for similar programs);
• Social Security can pay out ALL benefits owed for the next 16 years―until 2035―at which point it can still pay 80% of benefits owed.
• All we need is for millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share and we can extend the lifespan of the trust fund and expand benefits for millions of Americans.

Mueller Report: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Is there a Progressive Capitalism ?

Neoliberalism or progressive capitalism.
Joseph Stiglitz
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/opinion/sunday/progressive-capitalism.html?

Companies Paying 0 taxes under Trump tax plan.

Companies paying 0 taxes under Trump's Tax Plan

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/twice-many-companies-paying-zero-taxes-under-trump-tax-plan-n993046

https://itep.org/notadime/

Green New Deal or Medicare for All ?

Right now there are two big progressive ideas out there: the Green New Deal on climate change and “Medicare for all” on health reform. Both would move U.S. policy significantly to the left. Each is sponsored by a self-proclaimed socialist: the Green New Deal by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Medicare for all by Bernie Sanders. (Of course, neither of them is a socialist in the traditional sense.) Both ideas horrify not just conservatives but also many self-proclaimed centrists.

Yet while they may seem similar if you think of everything as left versus right, they’re very different on another dimension, which you might call purity versus pragmatism. And that difference is why I believe progressives should enthusiastically embrace the G.N.D. while being much more cautious about M4A.

Purity v Pragmatism.  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/opinion/green-new-deal-medicare-for-all.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage  

Paul Krugman

California Immigrants

https://calbudgetcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Data-Hit_Half-of-All-California-Workers-Are-Immigrants-or-Children-of-Immigrants.pdf

Why Capitalism Needs to be Reformed

Billionair Dalio claims we must reform capitalism.

As seen on 60 minutes.

https://economicprinciples.org/Why-and-How-Capitalism-Needs-To-Be-Reformed/?

I think that most capitalists don’t know how to divide the economic pie well and most socialists don’t know how to grow it well, yet we are now at a juncture in which either a) people of different ideological inclinations will work together to skillfully re-engineer the system so that the pie is both divided and grown well or b) we will have great conflict and some form of revolution that will hurt most everyone and will shrink the pie.

Trump and the China Deal

Trump and China.

https://prospect.org/article/trump-and-china-art-desperate-deal

trade.

What is the Green New Deal?

The rise of China economically : and trade war

Climate Change. War. Poverty. How the U.S.-China Relationship Will Shape Humanity’s Path.
https://portside.org/2019-04-04/climate-change-war-poverty-how-us-china-relationship-will-shape-humanitys-path

Europe and neoliberal capitalism.

As EU Elections Approach, Europe Confronts a Cliff
https://portside.org/2019-04-04/eu-elections-approach-europe-confronts-cliff

Ahem—Not All of US Were Wrong About China (or About Wall Street, Either). 

In various ways, the Who Lost China debate is back with us again, with any number of commentators now realizing that China’s rise in global power and influence and its model of authoritarian rule (a kind of capitalist Leninism) pose a genuine threat to democratic values and to the well being of millions of workers in Western economies, particularly workers in the manufacturing sector.

A representative such commentary is that of the Brooking Institution’s William Galston, who in his Wall Street Journal column this Wednesday laments how America slept while China was eating its lunch. A number of nations, including some now in Europe, he notes, are welcoming greater Chinese investment in and ownership of key infrastructure, while the U.S., under Donald Trump, seems somnolently uninterested in any comparable investment, or even involvement. The American model, with its various virtues and warts, is in retreat. “However you look at it,” Galston writes, “the past 20 years have been a geopolitical catastrophe for the U.S.”

For this decline, Galston blames the diversion of our attention to Afghanistan and Iraq in the post 9/11 period, while the far more serious threat to American power and democratic values was gathering in China. (To his credit, Galston was one of the relatively few centrist Democrats who opposed—powerfully and articulately—our going to war in Iraq.) But he also says that we made two additional unforced errors. “Leaders of both parties dramatically underestimated the impact on the U.S. economy of China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001,” he writes. “Over the next decade, a surge of Chinese imports wiped out millions of manufacturing jobs.” The second mistake was the accompanying belief that as China entered the global economy, welcomed foreign investment and became more capitalistic, “it would become a less autocratic society that posed no systemic threat to liberal democracy.”

We all made that mistake? Who’s “we,” Bill?

Only some “leaders of both parties” supported granting China “Permanent Normal Trade Relations” status in 2001, which paved the way for its entry into the WTO. The measure barely passed in the House, with the overwhelming majority of Democrats voting No. The labor movement foresaw the evisceration of American manufacturing quite clearly, and formed the core of liberal opposition to PNTR. For this, labor and liberals were condemned in the mainstream media for their backward-looking “protectionism.” 

As well, even as the PNTR debate raged, a number of China scholars and other liberals predicted that China’s new capitalist turn didn’t augur the nation’s transformation to liberal democracy. In 2001, Jim Mann authored a piece for the Prospect—the first of several he was to write for us over the years—explaining why a more capitalist China wasn’t likely to become a more democratic China. 

Democratic Socialists Win in Chicago Elections

America's Socialist Surge is Going Well in Chicago
https://portside.org/2019-04-03/americas-socialist-surge-going-well-chicago

The Green New Deal With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez | All In | MSNBC

The crisis last time

Simone Johnson explains what happened in the crisis.

View the digital version here:

https://read.nxtbook.com/tap/theamericanprospect/theamericanprospectspring2019/the_crisis_last_time.html

State of Working America Wages 2018: Wage inequality marches on—and is even threatening data reliability

State of Working America Wages 2018: Wage inequality marches on—and is even threatening data reliability: Analysis of 2018 wage data shows not only rising inequality in general, but also the persistence, and in some cases worsening, of wage gaps by gender and race. What also stands out in this last year of data is that, while wages are growing for most workers, wage growth continues to be slower than would be expected in an economy with relatively low unemployment.