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Lewis for Austin American-Statesman, “How better politics make a stronger and more open Internet”

Posted on June 5, 2017 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Americans don’t agree on much these days — but everyone knows our politics isn’t working.

Even the simplest of issues are no match for the spinmeisters, and policy argument has been replaced by viral meme. It’s a plague that undermines the very idea of meeting in the middle that has been fundamental to our progress.

And the open internet appears to be its next target.

Internet openness – or neutrality – is a foundation of the economic, social and cultural success of the online ecosystem. It ensures broadband providers don’t block access to lawful websites, throttle traffic, or harmfully discriminate against apps or services online.

Two years ago, the FCC enshrined these basic principles into law. And while there was a healthy debate over the need for regulation – since the internet was already open and working well – the basic principles of openness and neutrality were not controversial.

Continue Reading at Austin American-Statesman.

Berg for Washington Monthly, “Trump’s Betrayal of the Hungry Working Class”

Posted on June 5, 2017 by The Progressive Policy Institute

With Trump’s proposal to gut federal food assistance by $192 billion — much of which would come out of the shopping carts of the working class — the president is once again proving his willingness to shaft those who supported him most.

Contrary to the racially-tinged stereotype that Americans who rely upon the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) program — formerly known as food stamps — are primarily “inner city,” liberal people of color, the reality is that many SNAP recipients are white, rural and suburban Americans who voted for Trump; the president won eight of the ten states with the highest percentage of SNAP recipients.

Not surprisingly, the parts of the nation with the highest rates of SNAP usage tend to be those with the highest levels of poverty, hunger, and food insecurity. In 2015, 42 million Americans lived in households classified by the federal government as “food insecure,” meaning they could not always afford the food they needed. Of those, more lived in rural areas and suburbs areas than in cities.

Continue reading at Washington Monthly.

Marshall & Bledsoe for Real Clear Energy, “Colorado Blazes Low-Emissions, High-Employment Energy Pathway”

Posted on June 2, 2017 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Donald Trump made political hay in Appalachian and industrial states by running as an ardent booster of coal. Yet what’s really powered America’s remarkable energy boom over the last decade is shale oil and natural gas, renewable solar and wind, clean-tech and energy efficiency.

Energy innovation, in short, is the key to creating more good jobs and lowering U.S. carbon emissions. But given the Trump administration’s animus toward energy technology funding and low-carbon approaches generally, much of the political leadership for America’s next energy revolution will have to come from states where Democrats are in charge.

Take Colorado, which is aggressively pursuing energy innovation across the full spectrum of fuels and technologies. Governor John Hickenlooper has crafted a pro-growth, low-emissions agenda that should be a model to other states and to national policymakers. It emphasizes shale gas, wind, solar, hydropower, efficiency and advanced technology in everything from zero emissions electric cars to home net electricity metering.

Continue read at Real Clear Energy.

Rotherham for US News, “What Trump’s Playing at With Paris”

Posted on June 2, 2017 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Here we go again. You can’t find a single person at Whole Foods who thinks it’s a good idea for President Donald Trump to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord! Substantively, they’re probably right. But on the politics? There, Trump is winning.

Why? Pittsburgh, not Paris. Democrats confuse the two at their political peril.

Just as with “Make America Great Again,” Trump’s “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris” is easy to mock. Here’s Vox rushing to show the world just how much smarter they are than Trump – what a fool, he didn’t even win Pittsburgh!

Continue reading at US News.

Connecticut’s Embarrassing Anti-Innovation Law

Posted on June 2, 2017September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Innovation is the foundation of growth. As innovation spreads to the physical industries, the result is higher wages, lower costs, and a more dynamic economy, as we showed in our recent report, The Coming Productivity Boom.

But innovation in physical industries has proceeded slower than we might have wanted, In part, that’s because promising technologies are being hindered at the state and local level. Consider the humble eye refraction. Some companies are rolling out technologies that enable ordinary people to do eye refractions remotely, using computers or smartphones. Such a technology has the potential to greatly reduce the cost of updating and renewing contact lens prescriptions, while enabling people to check their eyes more often.

Unfortunately, in Connecticut, the state legislature is now considering a bill that would undercut the use of remote eye refractions. The bill says, in part:

No provider shall issue an initial prescription to or renew an initial prescription for a patient without having performed an in-person evaluation and an eye examination of the patient.

In other words, everyone has to make an expensive and time-consuming in-person trip to an eye doctor to get a prescription renewal for contact lens, even if the remote refraction says no change. This requirement could be especially costly in Connecticut, where optometrists make $192,870 per year on average, the highest in the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.* Indeed, Connecticut is the only state where optometrists make more than family and general practitioners, based on BLS data.

Remote refraction can and should never replace in-person visits to optometrists and ophthalmologists. But in a world where health care costs are increasingly squeezed, it seems silly and downright embarrassing for a forward-looking state like Connecticut to inhibit a technology that could make people better off at a lower cost.

*These figures are based on the May 2016 Occupational Employment Statistics from the BLS. See this page for a list of top-paying states for optometrists. This data does not cover self-employed workers.

Bledsoe for the Economist, “Whither the world after America’s retreat?”

Posted on June 1, 2017 by The Progressive Policy Institute

…The risks posed by a changing climate require action. Last year was the hottest since records began, and 16 of the 17 warmest years have occurred since 2001. Sea level is rising and the polar regions are melting. Extreme storms, droughts and winds already threaten the safety and livelihood of millions. Despite all this, America is now attempting to leave. It will be a complex process that could take years. Renegotiating the Paris accord, or replacing it, could be even harder. Reaching the deal took decades in the first place. Countries which “bent over backwards” to please America—by ensuring the deal was not legally binding among other measures—are hardly likely to start again from scratch points out Paul Bledsoe, a climate policy expert from American University in Washington, DC.

Continue reading at The Economist.

Sweeney for Morning Consult, “Federal Agencies Should Stop, Not Facilitate, Litigation Abuse”

Posted on May 31, 2017 by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Rob Sweeney, PPI Center for Civil Justice Contributor

As a small business owner, I often hear about abusive litigation threats but never thought they would affect me – until now. I own a small technology business based in Kansas City called TextCaster that provides text-messaging services for educational, civic, nonprofit and corporate organizations. Over the past 18 months, my company has been hit hard by plaintiffs’ lawyers who have mastered the art of the legal “shake down.” They demand money from our clients over their perfectly legal texting practices, and in return for a payoff promise not to file the threatened lawsuit.

The ammunition for these abusive litigation tactics is the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the related regulations promulgated by the Federal Communications Commission, which are ostensibly intended to protect consumers from unsolicited texts. But TextCaster’s clients have no desire to text those who do not want to receive texts. They send only non-commercial alerts that people affirmatively sign up to receive. And unfortunately, instead of providing clarity about how people who have asked for texts can later opt out, the FCC’s actions of late have just created uncertainty.

Continue reading at Morning Consult.

Marshall for The Daily Beast, “How Liberals Are Blowing It Worldwide-and How Macron Might Not”

Posted on May 30, 2017 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Nearly everywhere you look, parties of the left are on the skids. That’s a big part of why Macron won in France. If he delivers, it’ll point the new direction.

Europe seems to be containing the fever of resurgent nationalism that propelled last year’s Brexit vote as well as Donald Trump’s improbable election here. Emmanuel Macron’s landslide victory over Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential election is just the latest sign that continental Europe isn’t catching the populist bug.

Not yet, anyway. Nativist and illiberal nationalist movements continue to make headway in many democratic countries. They could break through and take power—as they did in the United States last November—if mainstream parties can’t channel popular grievances toward constructive change.

As populists push political debate to the right, however, center-left parties are floundering on both sides of the Atlantic. Yoked to stale ideas and change-averse constituencies, they are failing to offer restive voters a radically pragmatic alternative to populist panaceas like cutting off immigration, seceding from the global economy and reverting to zero-sum nationalism.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast.

Pharmaceuticals Accounted for Only 11% of the Rise in Health Care Costs in 2016

Posted on May 29, 2017September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

For the past several years, PPI has analyzed the key drivers of health care costs. This year, as the Senate considers repealing the ACA, it’s especially important to correctly attribute the causes of rising health care costs.

Our main result is that rising labor compensation for health care workers accounted for 44% of the increase in personal health care spending in 2016. This preliminary analysis is based on compensation data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, wage and employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and projected health care expenditures from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In dollars, estimated labor compensation for health care workers rose by $61,5 billion in 2016, compared to a total increase of $139.1 billion in personal health care spending. (We will update these estimates after the BEA publishes its annual revision in July).

The rise in labor compensation was driven by a 2.5% increase in private and public health care employment in 2016, the biggest increase since 2008, and far in excess of population growth.

What about pharmaceutical costs? According to the latest report from the QuintilesIMS Institute, spending on ‘medicines’ (pharmaceuticals) rose by $14.8 billion in 2016, net of estimated rebates and other price concessions by manufacturers. Consequently, net spending on pharmaceuticals only accounted for 11% of the increase in personal health care spending in 2016.

All told, the increase in labor compensation for health care workers is 4x the increase in net spending on pharmaceuticals. To put it another way, any savings on drugs will be very quickly eaten up by increased labor costs. As a result, the only sustainable way to control health care costs is to restrain the growth of health care employment.

Weinstein for The Hill, “How CEOs could help pay for tax reform”

Posted on May 23, 2017 by The Progressive Policy Institute

When Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act, it included a requirement that U.S. companies annually report the ratio between their CEO and median worker pay. This modest provision takes effect this year, but it’s unlikely to reverse America’s widening pay gap.

In fact, if President Trump has his way on tax reform, the earnings gap will get much worse courtesy of the federal government.

That’s not to say tax reform isn’t needed; in fact, it’s long overdue. But tax reform needs to put working families first, not overpaid CEOs and top executives. Furthermore, it shouldn’t add to the national debt, which means that lower corporate rates must be paid for by eliminating some of the trillion dollars in tax breaks handed out each year.

One way to ensure that CEOs and their firms don’t gouge the American taxpayer under the guise of tax reform – and offset the cost of lowering the corporate tax rate – would be for Congress to take a simple, straightforward step: eliminate the tax break for excessively high CEO pay.

Continue Reading at The Hill.

Bledsoe for RCP, “How Democrats Can Hasten Trump’s Departure”

Posted on May 23, 2017 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Washington can hardly keep up with the unprecedented pace at which Donald Trump’s presidency is cascading out of control. Ironically, the appointment last week of Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election may slow White House hemorrhaging, taking pressure off GOP congressional leaders and their weak investigations and temporarily shoring up support for Trump on Capitol Hill.

For Democrats and independents concerned about the safety and well-being of the country, however, the priority must be getting Trump out of the White House as quickly as possible. He is simply too great a threat to America’s security and integrity, and his departure from power should take precedence over all other objectives.

To help accomplish this goal, Democrats must develop and deliver such powerful political and economic messages — and recruit enough strong candidates — that congressional Republicans feel compelled to abandon Trump for fear of losing their majority in 2018. Unlike a normal presidency, there is a genuine possibility that Trump, who is certain to be both perpetually dogged by scandal and tired of the “harder than I thought” stresses of the job, might resign before his term is completed. A strong Democratic Party could have a key role in hastening the process. If Republicans fear going into the 2018 midterms that Trump could cost them their seats, his GOP support will start to erode. If Trump does not leave voluntarily, Democratic capture of the House and perhaps even the Senate in 2018 increases the likelihood of successful impeachment proceedings.

Continue reading at RealClearPolitics.

Will America First Make the United States Last in Asia-Pacific Trade?

Posted on May 22, 2017 by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI Statement on Recent APEC and TPP Developments

Recent developments in the Trump Administration’s “America First” trade policy are hardly encouraging for American manufacturers, farmers, ranchers, service providers, and workers who want to prosper and grow through increased Asia-Pacific trade.

At this weekend’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade minsters’ meeting, U.S. officials reportedly wasted vital negotiating capital in an unsuccessful attempt to amend the meeting’s joint statement reflect the Administration’s retrograde approach to trade. The 20 other APEC members scrapped a joint statement after rejecting U.S. efforts to remove APEC warnings against “protectionist trends” and to add references to “unbalanced trade.” In the end, the Chairman’s statement noted that APEC would continue to “fight against all forms of protectionism.”

Meanwhile, the 11 remaining members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreed to continue efforts to advance the agreement without the United States, which withdrew from the TPP in January. That’s potentially very good news for producers and traders in those countries—including many small businesses traders—which would benefit significantly from extensive reductions in tariff and nontariff barriers in the region and important new mechanisms to level the playing field for their trade. If the TPP-11 conclude the agreement without the United States, American exporters of goods, farm products, and services, on the other hand, would face significantly greater competition for business in TPP markets as these countries progressively reduce their barriers to each other’s trade.

Supporters of open, rules-based trade should at least be encouraged by APEC’s continued commitment to fight protectionism and by the TTP-11’s efforts to advance an agreement that includes important new trade rules in key areas like digital commerce, small business, labor and environmental protection, and state-owned enterprises. However, if the Trump Administration continues to distance the United States from global efforts to reduce barriers to trade, America will lose considerable influence in writing trade rules that reflect our values and interests, and American producers, traders, and workers will be left behind as other countries open up new opportunities for inclusive growth through trade.

Open Internet: Time for Congress to Act

Posted on May 18, 2017September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

The FCC, under Chairman Ajit Pai, voted today to start the process of eliminating Title II rules on ISPs. We applaud his move. As we have said before, the Internet was thriving under the light-touch regulatory regime that preceded Title II. Indeed, government data shows that the telecom industry was one of the top contributors to US productivity growth from 2000 to 2014, before Title II was put in place. *

Our belief is that the economy could be entering into a renewed period of productivity growth, propelled by the application of digital technology to the physical industries (see The Coming Productivity Boom). That transition would have been much more difficult under the antiquated regulatory structure that comes with Title II.

But as we have also said before, smart regulations are essential for a well-functioning economy. There’s no doubt in our mind that open internet rules are needed to govern the Internet. We think now is the right time for Congress to codify the open internet principles into law–that’s the best way to get a consistent regulatory structure that will produce faster growth for us all.

*Contribution to multifactor productivity growth, as calculated from the BEA-BLS Integrated Production Accounts.

Rotherham for US News, “Don’t Ban For-Profit Charters”

Posted on May 18, 2017 by The Progressive Policy Institute

A ban might clean up bad actors, but it would throw out the working options, too.

Marshall Tuck, a candidate for state superintendent in California, grabbed headlines in late April when he announced his opposition to for-profit charter schools. The move cut against type because Tuck made his name as the successful operator of a well-regarded network of nonprofit charter schools. It’s a smart political move – for-profit charter schools are barely more popular than cancer among the education crowd. So it will be at least a little harder to paint Tuck as a zealot – though that won’t stop his detractors from trying. But is it good policy? That’s a more complicated question.

While only about 16 percent of charter schools across the country are operated by for-profit entities that figure is higher in a few states. In Michigan, for example, more than 7 in 10 charters are for-profit, higher than anywhere else. For-profits make up only a small percentage of charter schools in California. Some states ban them outright.

There is no way around it: For-profit charter schools are the bottom feeders of the education world. They have powerful lobbying muscle in state capitals but lousy results in the classroom. It’s not by coincidence that states with a lot of them tend to fare more poorly in comparison to other states when it comes to measuring the performance of their charter school sector. Studies of online charter schools point to consistent problems. And because online charter schools tend to enroll a lot of students, their subpar – or worse – performance skews the data even more. Politically, for-profit schools are toxic and an added drag on an already politically challenging environment for public charter schools. All of this is why a lot of people in the charter school sector are ready to toss for-profits over the side.

Continue reading at US News.

Osborne for EducationNext Podcast: Indianapolis’ Unique Pursuit of Choice

Posted on May 17, 2017 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Over the past decade, a growing number of urban school districts have responded to the presence of charter schools by providing some of their own schools the same flexibilities that charters enjoy. But few have gone as far as Indianapolis, where the district is now authorizing what it calls innovation network schools: districts schools that are run by outside contractors, with their own independent boards and full charter-style autonomy.

In this episode of the Ed Next podcast, Marty West talks with David Osborne about what is happening in Indianapolis and how it could be a potential model for the reform of large city school districts.

David Osborne is director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s Reinventing America’s Schools Project and the author of a new article on the Ed Next website: “More Options in Indianapolis.”

Listen here at EducationNext.