Salon.com > Next New Deal http://www.salon.com Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:45:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 America’s credit system is broken http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/americas_credit_system_is_broken/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/americas_credit_system_is_broken/#comments Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:48:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13160862 Next New Deal My (early) New Year’s resolution was to get a credit card. You may remember that I have never had a credit card. And thus if I were on the dating market, my OKCupid inquiries would be flatly rejected. It’s not that I have a bad score. I just don’t have one. I had a good score when I was dutifully paying off my student loan after I graduated, but then through paying dirt-cheap rent in Harlem and never paying for cable I was able to pay off the loan. Since then I haven’t owned any credit products. I’ve paid my rent on time every month and paid every bill before the due date. But those things don’t make their way over to FICO. I’ve thus landed myself in quite the Catch-22 that speaks volumes about the lending industry and our reliance on it.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/americas_credit_system_is_broken/feed/ 35 The real way to fix the deficit: Stop coddling the rich http://www.salon.com/2013/01/02/the_real_way_to_fix_the_deficit_stop_coddling_the_rich/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/02/the_real_way_to_fix_the_deficit_stop_coddling_the_rich/#comments Wed, 02 Jan 2013 22:58:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13160261 Next New Deal While we often hear critics decrying the redistributive effects of American social spending, government aid does not always benefit households of limited means. Often, aid looks more like a million-dollar vacation home or a luxury health insurance plan than housing vouchers and food stamps. American social spending is more complex than a simple redistribution from high- to low-income households. Over time, the country’s tax and transfer system has adopted provisions that reward specific high-income households. These programs contribute to deficit growth and detract from spending targeted at alleviating poverty among working families.

The most generous social welfare programs are currently administered through the tax code. A list of itemized deductions on households’ income tax returns serves as the only indication of these benefits. Income tax deductions, exclusions, deferrals, and credits, known collectively as “tax expenditures,” amount to more than $1 trillion of federal spending (according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center), not including lower tax rates on capital gains and dividends to encourage investment.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/02/the_real_way_to_fix_the_deficit_stop_coddling_the_rich/feed/ 25 Don’t sell out progressives, Barack! http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/dont_sell_out_progressives_barack/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/dont_sell_out_progressives_barack/#comments Tue, 18 Dec 2012 21:06:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13148978 Next New Deal That didn’t last nearly as long as I had hoped. I put on my Obama baseball cap – the one I picked up from a street vendor walking to the inauguration four years ago – a few weeks before the November election. I’ve worn it every day since, to both celebrate his victory and cheer on the president for keeping to a progressive promise in the fiscal negotiations. Part of that promise was telling the DesMoines Register that Social Security benefits should not be cut. But it looks like my cap is going back on the shelf if reports that Obama is willing to cut Social Security benefits prove to be true.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/dont_sell_out_progressives_barack/feed/ 15 Obama needs to channel FDR on the “fiscal cliff” http://www.salon.com/2012/12/03/obama_needs_to_channel_fdr_on_the_fiscal_cliff/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/03/obama_needs_to_channel_fdr_on_the_fiscal_cliff/#comments Mon, 03 Dec 2012 22:39:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13113893 Next New Deal

It has been well said that "the freest government, if it could exist, would not be long acceptable, if the tendency of the laws were to create a rapid accumulation of property in few hands, and to render the great mass of the population dependent and penniless…"

We believe in a way of living in which political democracy and free private enterprise for profit should serve and protect each other—to ensure a maximum of human liberty not for a few but for all…

Today many Americans ask the uneasy question: Is the vociferation that our liberties are in danger justified by the facts?

...Their answer is that if there is that danger it comes from that concentrated private economic power which is struggling so hard to master our democratic government.—Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1938

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/03/obama_needs_to_channel_fdr_on_the_fiscal_cliff/feed/ 9 The Simpson-Bowles consensus makes no sense http://www.salon.com/2012/11/28/the_simpson_bowles_consensus_makes_no_sense/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/28/the_simpson_bowles_consensus_makes_no_sense/#comments Wed, 28 Nov 2012 23:51:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13109793 Next New Deal The Simpson-Bowles budget balancing plan seems to have become the common-sense standard for dealing with America’s future budget deficits. I’d say this move toward the right is dangerous to the future of the nation and essentially cruel—far more dangerous than the level of the deficit over the next 15 years. The commission, formally known as the Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, appointed by President Obama, achieves its deficit reduction by reducing government spending to do two-thirds of the job and raising taxes to do only one-third of the job. Even 50-50 would not be fair in such a low-tax nation. The commission proposed cuts in Social Security benefits of 15 percent for medium earners, for example.

But easily the most short-sighted objective is to hold federal spending to 21 percent of Gross Domestic Product into the future. How did they get this number? It is roughly the average level of federal spending since 1970. This is not a reasonable standard—it is not even a way to think about the issue. So where did the idea originally come from? The answer: the right-wing Heritage Foundation.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/28/the_simpson_bowles_consensus_makes_no_sense/feed/ 30 When did “Fix the Debt” become “protect Bush tax cuts”? http://www.salon.com/2012/11/27/when_did_fix_the_debt_become_protect_bush_tax_cuts/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/27/when_did_fix_the_debt_become_protect_bush_tax_cuts/#comments Tue, 27 Nov 2012 21:52:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13108624 Next New Deal “Fix the Debt,” as you've probably noticed from the Internet ads that are now as ubiquitous as the old Netflix pop-ups, is the newest high-profile effort by Peter G. Peterson and allies to build a public movement for long-term deficit reduction. Fix the Debt appears to be an ambitious public relations and grassroots lobbying effort layered on top of the other major Peterson-funded anti-deficit groups, all of them pushing for a “grand bargain” on taxes and spending, ideally before the “fiscal cliff” (or what I prefer to call the “fiscal reset,” because it's a chance to start over and reconsider bad choices from the 2000s). These include the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Concord Coalition, the Comeback America Initiative (former Peterson Foundation president David Walker's new project), as well as groups such as the Business-Industry Political Action Committee.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/27/when_did_fix_the_debt_become_protect_bush_tax_cuts/feed/ 4 Will Obama pursue a more progressive foreign policy? http://www.salon.com/2012/11/26/will_obama_pursue_a_more_progressive_foreign_policy/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/26/will_obama_pursue_a_more_progressive_foreign_policy/#comments Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:23:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13107788 Next New Deal

Even though we come from different places, we share common dreams: to choose our leaders; to live together in peace; to get an education and make a good living; to love our families and our communities. That’s why freedom is not an abstract idea; freedom is the very thing that makes human progress possible — not just at the ballot box, but in our daily lives.

One of our greatest Presidents in the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, understood this truth. He defined America’s cause as more than the right to cast a ballot. He understood democracy was not just voting. He called upon the world to embrace four fundamental freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. These four freedoms reinforce one another, and you cannot fully realize one without realizing them all.—Barack H. Obama, University of Yangon, November 19, 2012

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/26/will_obama_pursue_a_more_progressive_foreign_policy/feed/ 3 4 ways to improve America’s labor market http://www.salon.com/2012/11/25/4_ways_to_improve_americas_labor_market/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/25/4_ways_to_improve_americas_labor_market/#comments Sun, 25 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13106238 Next New Deal Now that the election is over, our hope is that we can finally move beyond the vacuous invocations of an imaginary middle class where everyone is in the same boat. It’s time to get real about the concrete policies needed to take on the multiple inequalities that run deep through the U.S. labor market. And we’re not talking about the “skills mismatch,” another red herring routinely flung into this debate by both sides (including by President Obama as recently as the last week of the campaign).

What we’re talking about is a broad, multi-year agenda to give America’s workers a living wage and voice on the job and to take on the continuing exclusion of workers of color, immigrants, and women from good jobs. The media may have discovered inequality last year with the surprise emergence of Occupy Wall Street, but in truth, there is a 30-year backlog of policies to fix the extreme maldistribution of wages and opportunity in the labor market.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/25/4_ways_to_improve_americas_labor_market/feed/ 12 Making progressivism last http://www.salon.com/2012/11/24/making_progressivism_last/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/24/making_progressivism_last/#comments Sat, 24 Nov 2012 20:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13106206 Next New Deal Young voters surprised pundits and Republicans again this year as we turned out in record numbers to vote, joining key constituencies including African Americans, Hispanics, and women to reelect President Obama. Composing 19 percent of the electorate, up from 18 percent in 2008 and 12 percent in 2004, young Americans demonstrated their importance to a growing progressive coalition.

Many question, however, whether our diverse and unprecedented coalition will be able to build on this foundation and sustain the power of our ideas and values throughout our lifetimes. Or, like the Reagan coalition after 1990, are we fated to fracture as a political force by 2016? Some suggest that the strong generational power of today’s 18-30-year-olds will become inconsequential as the hype dies down and we grow up. Our next steps are critical.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/24/making_progressivism_last/feed/ 19 Dark money obscures Congress http://www.salon.com/2012/11/20/dark_money_obscures_congress/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/20/dark_money_obscures_congress/#comments Tue, 20 Nov 2012 19:52:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13104024 Next New Deal It's been tempting to treat the 2012 election as proof that money in politics doesn't matter as much as commonly believed, or that Citizens United and the emergence of Super PACs and political non-profits didn't change things as much as predicted. “Effect of 'super PACs' proved to be less than expected,” the Los Angeles Times declared in a post-election headline.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/20/dark_money_obscures_congress/feed/ 7 3 ways to restore progressive taxation http://www.salon.com/2012/11/19/3_principles_for_restoring_progressive_taxation/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/19/3_principles_for_restoring_progressive_taxation/#comments Mon, 19 Nov 2012 16:39:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13102798 Next New Deal Our current tax system is a toxic legacy of the George W. Bush years. It loomed over Obama's first four years, bearing deficits that limited the scope of economic stimulus, drove inequality to astonishing levels, and led directly to the debt limit showdown of the summer of 2011 that forced us into even more dangerous policies. President Obama's second term offers a long overdue opportunity to restore the promise of progressive taxation and revenues that are adequate to our long-term economic priorities. It requires both short-term and long-term action.

The greatest failure of the tax system is not that it’s too complicated or inefficient or that there are too many “special-interest loopholes,” as House Speaker John Boehner put it on the day after the election. It's that it doesn't raise enough money and it encourages all sorts of manipulation because of the differential rates for investment income and income from work. These are not things that developed over time, as if by some natural process – they are the product of specific decisions made in 2001 and 2003 by Republican-controlled Congresses that used the budget reconciliation process to avoid any bipartisan compromise.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/19/3_principles_for_restoring_progressive_taxation/feed/ 57 Obama’s blueprint for strengthening financial reform http://www.salon.com/2012/11/18/obamas_blueprint_for_strengthening_financial_reform/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/18/obamas_blueprint_for_strengthening_financial_reform/#comments Sun, 18 Nov 2012 15:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13101567 Next New Deal One of the Obama administration’s biggest vulnerabilities when it comes to its first term policy legacy was that the roots of the legislation it ushered through wouldn’t take hold until around 2014. Thus if a Republican president took office in 2013, there was a real chance that he could dismantle, or at least strongly interfere with, the new framework for health care and financial regulations. And it was clear by 2010 that movement conservatives would make the repeal or collapse of both bills a litmus test for all Republicans in office.

But with President Obama’s victory last week, the core framework of Dodd-Frank, the financial reform bill he signed in 2010, will become the law of the land. The question now is how to best push it forward in the coming months and years.

The most sensible, immediate reform would be to give regulators the adequate resources necessary to do their jobs. The CFTC had its funding cut by both parties last year in a move that will make their crucial work even harder to accomplish. The GOP is aiming to remove the independent funding stream for the CFPB. Without decent resources, it is unlikely that financial reform will be carried out effectively.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/18/obamas_blueprint_for_strengthening_financial_reform/feed/ 0 4 key issues in the “fiscal cliff” showdown http://www.salon.com/2012/11/16/4_key_issues_in_the_fiscal_cliff_showdown/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/16/4_key_issues_in_the_fiscal_cliff_showdown/#comments Fri, 16 Nov 2012 17:34:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13100854 Next New Deal The very next day after the election, congressional leaders held dueling press conferences in Washington to start the stampede to the fiscal cliff. But December 31st is not a cliff; it’s a slope. Actually, the better metaphor is a showdown between two different visions for the country – a showdown that will not only take place over the next four months, but will dominate debate about the economy for the next four years.

It is true that if Congress allows the tax hikes and spending cuts to be fully implemented, the economy will go into a tailspin, with four million people forced out of their jobs. But that won’t happen on January 1st. The impact of both tax hikes and spending cuts take time to accumulate. If Congress acts on taxes early in the year, it can make lower tax rates retroactive to the beginning of the year. Between federal contracts already in place and the time it takes to implement program cuts, budget cuts too will take a while before they slow down the economy. Better for Congress to walk down and back up the slope early in the year than be stampeded into bad decisions.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/16/4_key_issues_in_the_fiscal_cliff_showdown/feed/ 4 Obama’s biggest challenge: Job creation http://www.salon.com/2012/11/14/obamas_biggest_challenge_job_creation/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/14/obamas_biggest_challenge_job_creation/#comments Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:04:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13072741 Next New Deal
 The presidential victory of Barack Obama was an important vindication for the uses of government. The small-government ideologues were defeated, but now the nation must go farther and recognize government is indeed a job creator.

Let’s begin with the harsh facts: Neither policymakers nor the media fully understand or communicate that America has a jobs emergency. In his victory speech last Tuesday, President Obama did not even cite job creation as one of his four main goals for the new term. Not only is unemployment high, but wages are stagnant and poverty is rising in an economic recovery. The evidence on the creation of low-wage jobs rather than high-wage jobs is almost frightening; the Roosevelt Institute’s own Annette Bernhardt has been a leader on this.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/14/obamas_biggest_challenge_job_creation/feed/ 12 6 practical solutions for climate change http://www.salon.com/2012/11/13/6_practical_solutions_for_climate_change/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/13/6_practical_solutions_for_climate_change/#comments Tue, 13 Nov 2012 21:23:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13071688 Next New Deal When Hurricane Sandy decimated the East Coast, laying waste to coastal towns, flooding main streets, and shutting down power for 8 million people, the U.S.’s 40-year inaction on climate change slapped us in the face. If there was ever a wake-up call, this is it. We can no longer afford to argue whether or not global climate change will affect us. It can, it will, and it already has.

With our climate at a crossroads, I call upon newly re-elected President Obama to take necessary, bold action. We must prepare ourselves for the effects of the climate change we’ve already committed and, most importantly, we must revolutionize the way we operate. The Millennial generation will not accept the status quo, and we will not watch the newly re-elected Congress and president squander the viability of our future resources. We demand that our future not be short-changed for the political profits of today.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/13/6_practical_solutions_for_climate_change/feed/ 15 America’s secret pro-tax history http://www.salon.com/2012/11/12/americas_secret_pro_tax_history/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/12/americas_secret_pro_tax_history/#comments Mon, 12 Nov 2012 18:38:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13069551 Next New Deal How do Americans really feel about taxes? Anti-tax groups and limited-government activists are quick to invoke a long American tradition of tax revolt and resistance in making the case that aversion to taxes is as American as apple pie. But this simple narrative gets the story wrong. The most recent such indication came on Election Day, when voters rejected tax limitation measures and supermajority requirements in Florida and Michigan and Californians strongly endorsed increases in the sales tax and income taxes for high earners in order to fund public education. Though notable in a political environment dominated by anti-tax rhetoric, such support is actually not as exceptional as it seems. It’s worth remembering, now that the election is over and we turn to the looming fiscal problems that confront state and federal governments, that Americans also have a long history of embracing and defending higher taxes.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/12/americas_secret_pro_tax_history/feed/ 4 Obama’s foreign policy needs to get ambitious http://www.salon.com/2012/11/10/obamas_foreign_policy_needs_to_get_ambitious/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/10/obamas_foreign_policy_needs_to_get_ambitious/#comments Sat, 10 Nov 2012 13:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13068075 Next New Deal Tuesday night’s election results were a powerful endorsement of President Obama’s leadership. Though exit polls seem to indicate that foreign affairs played only a minor role in the decisions of most voters, the president has a remarkable opportunity to reassert American leadership in his second term by outlining and executing an ambitious global agenda.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/10/obamas_foreign_policy_needs_to_get_ambitious/feed/ 8 Sandy: Proof positive government aid matters http://www.salon.com/2012/11/02/sandy_proof_positive_government_matters/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/02/sandy_proof_positive_government_matters/#comments Fri, 02 Nov 2012 18:03:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13060848 Next New Deal The chorus is now loud in defense of government. The New York Times even used that forbidden phrase "big government" in its editorial earlier this week. Eduardo Porter, the economics writer for the Times, wrote a column about how the election is a choice between a limited-government candidate and a president who would use government to provide a safety net for the less advantaged. He seemed to side with pro-government philosophy. “Government matters,” wrote the New Republic this week.

The Rediscovering Government Initiative has been dedicated to restoring faith in government through publicizing the best scholarship, clarifying the nation’s true history and countering the prevailing and widely prevalent myths about government. So it is encouraging to see the growing chorus, even if there is a Johnny-come-lately feel to some of it.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/02/sandy_proof_positive_government_matters/feed/ 11 America’s most disenfranchised population? http://www.salon.com/2012/10/25/americas_most_disenfranchised_population/ http://www.salon.com/2012/10/25/americas_most_disenfranchised_population/#comments Thu, 25 Oct 2012 02:28:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13051399 Next New Deal This November, the presidential election may hinge on a few thousand votes. This same November, nearly 6 million Americans will be kept from the polls, disenfranchised under a number of ever more aggressive state laws barring felons and ex-felons from the voting booth. This is detrimental to our justice system and a vicious threat to our democracy.

A report by The Sentencing Project estimates that these laws currently disenfranchise 5.85 million Americans. Of them, a whopping 75 percent are no longer inmates in prison or jail. Instead, they are serving parole, probation, or, in the case of 2.63 million individuals (nearly half of the entire population measured), are living in their communities freely, having already completed their sentences in full. Eleven states require a waiting period before voting after one’s sentence is complete; a lifetime ban awaits those with a felony record. The diagnosis is even grimmer when looked at by race. The report estimates that felony disenfranchisement laws in Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia each disenfranchise over 20 percent of their respective adult black American populations.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/10/25/americas_most_disenfranchised_population/feed/ 15 Obama’s still vulnerable on the economy http://www.salon.com/2012/10/18/obamas_still_vulnerable_on_the_economy/ http://www.salon.com/2012/10/18/obamas_still_vulnerable_on_the_economy/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:54:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13045349 Next New Deal There has been entirely too much celebrating about President Obama’s debate performance on Tuesday. He did very well, without a doubt. He won hands down. He didn’t get into the ring cold, and he showed that he knew his stuff—and that Romney really didn’t.

But the economy remains the ace in the hole for Romney and Ryan. We haven’t nearly recovered in terms of jobs, and that’s a tough fact to slide by. The unemployment rate rose rapidly in Bush’s last term to around 8 percent, then peaked in 2009 at 10 percent and slowly came down to its current level. So we are only back to the start of the Obama term. No one ever won the presidency with a 7.8 percent unemployment rate. And we know, as Romney keeps reminding us, that median family income is awful and that poverty is up.

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