Category: Uncategorized

Concerns with Trump’s Secretary of Education Pick

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s pick to be his Secretary of Education, is often described as a champion of school choice. Progressives should know that she defines “school choice” in ways that undermine public accountability and blur the crucial distinction between public and private education.

“We think of the educational choice movement as involving many parts: vouchers and tax credits, certainly, but also virtual schools, magnet schools, homeschooling, and charter schools,” DeVos said in 2013 interview.

DeVos grew up in Michigan, where she met her husband Dick DeVos, an heir to the Amway direct-sales fortune. Together they helped pass Michigan’s charter school law in 1993, which has failed to hold charter authorizers accountable for the quality of their schools. Michigan’s charters are some of the least regulated in the country, and about 80 percent are run by for-profit companies. If one authorizer denies a charter or tries to close a failing charter, the school often simply shops for a more laissez-faire authorizer. Hence failing charters are often allowed to stay open, which has helped create an estimated 30,000 empty seats in Detroit.

The DeVos’s own children attend private Christian schools. Betsy DeVos founded and serves as chairwoman of the American Federation of Children and its associated political arm. She has used this political platform to vigorously support candidates who endorse vouchers. The DeVos family has also made political donations to discourage lawmakers from increasing oversight on charter schools.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) helped to pioneer the charter school concept in the early 1990s. But it has always drawn a sharp distinction between charter schools, which are public, and vouchers, which allow students to attend private schools at public expense. The problem is, those private schools are not accountable to the taxpayers in any way. All too often, they aren’t very good schools. Even in states that do hold them accountable, like Louisiana, research has shown that students who participated in the voucher program experienced declines in achievement test scores of eight to 16 percentile points.

Another big problem with vouchers is that if we give them to poor children, eventually the middle class will want them, too. Already, several states have passed laws allowing the majority of families to access vouchers. (Fortunately, Nevada’s was found unconstitutional.) When this happens, any semblance of equal opportunity will fly out the window.

Let’s say the voucher is worth $10,000 per child. Poor and working class parents will send their kids to $10,000 schools. Middle class parents may send their kids to $15,000 schools, adding some of their own money to the voucher. More affluent parents will send their kids to $20,000 schools, $25,000 schools, and beyond. I’m not blaming them: We all love our children, and we want what’s best for them. But public policy should protect the common good as well as private goods. And public education, despite all its inequality, is perhaps the only place left in American society where we even make an effort to create equal opportunity. If we lose that, we lose something precious–and we kick the growing inequality undermining our society into high gear.

We should push for more integration of public schools by race and class, because research shows that it helps low-income students without harming higher-income students. Beyond that, in a multi-racial, multi-cultural nation, we need to promote experiences that help people rub elbows with those from different races and classes. That experience teaches people that underneath our skins we are all alike. It builds tolerance into our society. After the elections we’ve just experienced, it should be abundantly clear that we need more tolerance in America, not less.

Betsy DeVos’s goal is different — to radically diminish public oversight of public schools, and to steer more dollars into unaccountable private schools.

That’s not the kind of “school choice” progressives should support.

Press Release: New PPI Report Proposes Grand Political Bargain on Climate & Energy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

WASHINGTON—The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) today released a new policy report, “Long-Term Carbon Pricing: The Great Swap,” at a packed public forum featuring a cross-partisan roundtable discussion with moderator Hannah Hess of E&E News and panelists John Larsen, Director of the Rhodium Group, Jerry Taylor, President of the Niskanen Center, Catrina Rorke, Director of energy policy at R Street and Todd Wooten, Senior Counsel on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

The report proposes an economy-wide carbon tax as the most effective and efficient way to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, while also encouraging investment in clean fuels and technologies. The report also explores the intriguing possibility of a “great swap”—a carbon tax and regulatory streamlining as a part of tax reform—that could create the basis for bipartisan negotiating and compromise to break the current impasse in climate and energy policy.

“The rationale for coupling a carbon tax and tax reform are twofold,” writes Joe Aldy, author of the report and Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. “First, the climate policy and tax reform benefit from each other in terms of economics. Tax reform lowers the costs to the economy—and potentially eliminates the net costs of a carbon tax—while the carbon tax provides the revenues to finance the tax reform.

“Second, such an approach can neutralize the difficult politics that characterize each issue by broadening the political coalition that would derive a ‘win’ from at least some element of the policy package. Such a broad coalition would ensure the durability of the carbon tax and tax reform, and is consistent with major policy efforts in the past that have coupled policy initiatives to draw broader support, such as under the regular farm bill and transportation bill processes.”

America urgently needs a balanced energy policy that supports both strong economic growth and a healthy climate. Yet many observers fear that with Republicans in charge of both the White House and Congress, our country’s transition toward a low-carbon economy will stall.

Nonetheless, there is bipartisan interest in linking an economy-wide carbon tax to other goals Republicans strongly favor, namely tax and regulatory reform. This could create unexpected opportunities for bargaining and compromise should “normal” politics break out in 2017.

The report comprehensively outlines the political challenge of climate policy, the political support for the great swap (including what both Republicans and progressives would gain, and why both business and labor would support it), the case for an economy-wide carbon tax, carbon price certainty, how to design a carbon tax, and how to use the carbon tax revenues.

Download, “Long-Term Carbon Pricing: The Great Swap“.
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Long-Term Carbon Policy: The Great Swap

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In the past two decades, the mounting risks posed by climate change have motivated businesses, cities, states, national governments, and the international community to pledge to take action to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Given the scale of the problem, the breadth of action must be effective and must set the foundation for increasing mitigation efforts over time. Thus, delivering on these pledges will require effective policies to drive the deployment of low-carbon technologies today and technological innovation in the future to ramp ambition up on par with the risks of climate change.

Climate change is a problem no country can solve by itself. Since the mid-1990s, the United States has advocated for developed and developing countries to work together in combating climate change and, with the United States’ leadership, the 2015 Paris Agreement delivered unprecedented commitments by virtually every country on the planet to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Now, the election of Donald J. Trump, an avowed global warming skeptic, has thrown America’s commitment to global leadership in doubt. If the United States quits the fight against climate change, this risks unraveling the global coalition and could result in other countries following suit. This would be a tragic mistake with incalculable consequences for the entire planet. Moreover, some nations may retaliate against the United States by imposing tariffs on American-manufactured goods based on the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their production.

 

The-Great-Swap-1

 

Digital vs Physical Manufacturing: What the Numbers Show

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Everyone has seen this chart, or something similar, recently. It tracks the production of the manufacturing sector over the past twenty years. Looks pretty good, doesn’t it? Since 1996 manufacturing industrial production has risen almost 40%, despite intense global competition.

original-manufacturing

 

But now let’s add another line to the chart–this time, manufacturing industrial production after we remove tech manufacturing.  That’s the blue line in the chart below.

What’s changed? It turns out that once we have taken out tech manufacturing–computers, communication equipment, and semiconductors–the output of the rest of manufacturing has only risen by 5% over the past 20 years, and is well below its 2007 peak.

manufacturing-production

Over the same period, the output of tech manufacturing has risen by a factor of 20, or 2000%, as least according to Federal Reserve Board estimates (and they have some of the best economists around).

The same divergence shows up in productivity growth. I do a simple calculation, dividing manufacturing industrial production by the number of fulltime equivalent workers in manufacturing, and then I do the same for non-tech manufacturing.  Over this twenty year period, it looks like this:

productivity-2

The top line–the manufacturing industrial production per worker–shows that productivity in manufacturing has almost doubled over the past twenty years. But roughly half of that gain is due to the tech sector. Once we remove  tech production from manufacturing, the 20-year productivity gain falls from 93% to 45%. And while that 45% gain in productivity is nothing to sneeze at, it amounts to only 1.9% annually.

Let’s break down manufacturing labor productivity growth  by industry. These figures come from the BLS.

industry-productivity

We see that computer and electronic products are far and away the best performing manufacturing industry, in terms of productivity growth. Then it falls off quickly to transportation equipment (motor vehicles and aircraft), which is the main user of robots. Then productivity growth across the rest of manufacturing ranges from mediocre to downright uninspiring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pete Brodnitz for Zeit: How Democrats defeated themselves

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The white working class in America is worried about change and afraid of economic decline. The Democrats further stoked those fears.

What fueled Trump’s improbable victory was a profound sense among working class White voters that the United States is losing control of its borders, its basic identity and its ability to generate good jobs that deliver decent wages to ordinary Americans. Trump engaged with voters on the topic of how global economic forces are changing America. Trump’s recognition that this is a major concern for many Americans gave him a powerful message that allowed him to win states that have traditionally voted Democratic for President, and it allowed him to overcome significant concerns Americans have about his judgement, qualifications and even character.

Trump’s victory should be a major wake-up call for the Democratic Party because it demonstrated deep-seated hunger among American voters for leaders who will address voter concerns about their future – and their ability to get good jobs in the future. While there are clearly uglier aspects to Trump’s appeal, I believe this core appeal will continue to win support for Trump (and by extension other Republicans) if Democrats fail to engage in this conversation with voters.

Trump did not win the most votes; Hillary Clinton won at least 1,5 million more votes than Trump. And Trump did not win over the public on many of his signature issue positions per the election day exit polls. But Trump won the most votes in three traditionally Democratic states, while Clinton won the most votes in three states that are traditionally “swing states” (she won Colorado, Virginia and New Mexico – states that are not traditionally reliable for Democrats). Why did these states shift? The answer lies in their demographics. Among the electoral “battleground” states, Trump won three states that are low on diversity and high on non-college White voters while Clinton won states that are high on both diversity and on college-educated White voters. In short, the American electorate divided significantly by both racial lines and by education level.

There were other changes in the electorate if you compare 2016 with the Obama-Romney contest of 2012 but they are less significant. For instance, the percentage of the electorate that identify as “liberal” did not change – it was 21% of the electorate in both 2012 and 2016 and Clinton won the same share of the liberal vote as had Obama.

That raises the question – why would the electorate divide along educational level lines? What would make a White voter in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or Michigan who supported Obama (twice) vote for Trump?

One theory about what happened in the elections is that in the three states Trump added to his column, voters supported him because of their “anger” about economic policy such as tax breaks for wealthy people and corporations. If this is true, the path forward for Democrats would be clear: recognize the anger, address the causes of the anger such as a “rigged” or “stacked” political system and a tax system that favors the wealthy. The problem is that if we listen to voters, it’s clear that this is not what they voted for in this election.

Twice last year I polled voters to ask their state of mind. I did this in a general election poll of voters in battleground states (conducted for Progressive Policy Institute, or PPI) and in a national poll of non-college White voters (done jointly with Jill Normington for House majority PAC). In both cases, voters overwhelmingly said they described their frame of mind as worried, not angry or optimistic: in the late June survey of White non-college voters, 65% said they are worried about the future of the U.S. economy while 13% said they are angry and 23% said they are optimistic. This data is consistent with what I have been hearing voters say for the past ten years – that they are worried about how changes taking place in the world are leaving them behind. These concerns are most acute among non-college voters.

Continue Reading at Zeit Online.

How the Physical Nation Is Failing American Consumers

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In a post-election  post we showed how American workers are being failed by the physical industries, which had dramatically underperformed the digital industries across a wide range of metrics, including productivity, compensation, and job growth.  This sharp and growing economic gap between the Digital Nation and the Physical Nation had profound political consequences, since the Physical Nation is still triple the size of the Digital Nation.

In this post we look at the economy from the consumer side.

1. Per capita real consumption of physical goods and services, outside of housing and health care,  has grown by only 10% since 2000, or an average of 0.6% annually.  By comparison, per capita real consumption of digital goods and services has skyrocketed, growing by 64%, or  3.4% annually.

digital-consumption

2. In other words, to the extent that consumer living standards have been rising, the gains have been mainly driven by digital goods and services. For example, per capita real consumption of communication services–including internet, wireless, and cable–is up by 60% since 2000. This calculation is based only on government data, without taking into effect possible unmeasured gains in consumer surplus.

3..  By contrast, in the physical sector  per capita real purchases of motor vehicles and parts has risen by only 6% since 2000, or only 0.4% per year.  Similarly, per capita real purchases  of food and beverages for  home use has risen by only 4%, or 0.3% annually. It should be noted that food processing is a manufacturing industry which has shown no labor productivity growth in the past ten years, .

 

digital-prices-2

4. The Digital Nation is mainly characterized by falling or flat consumer prices, while the Physical  Nation is mainly characterized by rising consumer prices.  In the digital sector, consumers spend less to get more, while in the physical sector, consumers spend more to get less. The price of communication services is basically flat since 2000, allowing even low and middle-income households to participate in the App Economy.

5.On the other hand, low- and middle-class households have battled with the rising price of food,  housing, healthcare, and transportation. The nominal incomes of middle class households (middle quintile) have risen 34% since 2000. But food prices have risen 41%; the price of housing, fuels and utilities (except phone and cable) is up 50%; and the price of food services and accommodations is up 50%. And while the price of new motor vehicles has been relatively flat since 2000, the price of gasoline is up 65%; the price of auto maintenance and repair is up 53%, and the price of taxicabs is up a stunning 74%.

6. The rate of inflation has actually accelerated in the Physical Nation. As the chart above shows, the price of physical goods and services, outside of health and housing, rose at a 1.9% rate in the period 2000-2015, compared to a 1.3% rate in the 1990s.

7. The digital sector has performed extremely well for consumers over the past 15 years. From the policy and political perspective, our focus should be on why prices rose so fast in the physical sector since 2000 compared to the previous decade. The price increases for physical goods and services helps explain why low- and middle-class households have been struggling, and why they are so angry.

 

 

 

 

 

Yarrow for San Francisco Chronicle: Trump administration must base policy on science

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute
There is a widespread, hardly unfounded, belief that government regulators and business are in perpetual, bitter conflict over regulations concerning environmental, food and drug, transportation and workplace safety. Government wants tough standards and businesses say they will cut into profits or drive them out of business, or so the story goes.
That story is not entirely true.
When business and government collaborate on matters of science, it is better for public well-being and the economy, and it generally results in more efficient and less antagonistic public policy and regulatory outcomes. America’s successes have so often depended on scientific innovations that have been funded by government and then spurred economic growth. Reinvigorating this collaborative approach, more in vogue from the FDR to Johnson administrations, has been a significant achievement of the Obama administration and one that needs to be continued and expanded under the Trump administration.
Continue reading at San Francisco Chronicle

Japan’s Mobile Policy: Path to the Future or Obstacle to Economic Growth?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Japan has the potential to play a key role in the next global economic boom, which will be based around the application of new mobile networks to physical industries such as manufacturing and transportation to boost consumer welfare, and increase productivity, real wages and job growth.

Indeed, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s emphasis on structural reform as the “third arrow” of
Abenomics can help lead the way to such a transformation. However, the government’s increased willingness to intervene in the mobile sector—such as issuing guidelines on how carriers should price handsets–runs the risk of going against the spirit of Abenomics and structural reform.

In this paper we lay out the reasons why increased Japanese government intervention in the mobile sector will likely hurt consumers in the long run, rather than help them, and slow down the innovation and investment needed to be a global technology leader.

 



 


			


	

			




			
				


	

		
Japan’s App Economy

				

			Posted on  by The Progressive Policy Institute		

			


	

		
The introduction of Apple’s iPhone in 2007 initiated a profound and transformative new economic innovation. Today, less than a decade later, there are 4 billion smartphone subscriptions globally, an unprecedented rate of adoption for a new technology. Mobile data usage is rising at 55% per year, a stunning number that shows its revolutionary impact.


More than just hardware, the smartphone also inaugurated up a new era for software developers around the world. Apple’s launch of the App Store in 2008, followed by Android Market (now Google Play) and other app stores, created a way for iOS and Android developers to write mobile applications from anywhere in the world, with the ability to sell and distribute them globally.


This paper examines the economic impact of the App Economy in Japan. We estimate that App Economy employment in Japan totaled 579,000 as of April 2016.


 




 


			


	

			




			
				


	

		
The Physical Nation vs The Digital Nation

				

			Posted on  by The Progressive Policy Institute		

			


	

		
Here are some bullet points on the economics of the election:


    

  1. America is divided between the Digital Nation and the Physical Nation. The Digital Nation includes tech, entertainment, publishing, telecom, finance, and professional services such as management consulting, accounting, computer programming, design. The Physical Nation includes manufacturing, mining, construction, retail, transportation, health care, and the rest of the economy The Digital Nation makes up about 25% of private sector employment, the Physical Nation 75% (we first laid out this division of the economy in a March 2016 report).
    2. 

  2. While there are many factors going into Trump’s election, on the economic side, there was one reality:  The members of the Physical Nation finally got tired of suffering  while the Digital Nation soared. And since the Physical Nation outnumbers the Digital Nation 3-1, that’s the election.
    3. 

  3. For the past fifteen years, the Digital Nation enjoyed strong productivity growth, stable prices, high investment in IT, rising employment, and higher (and rising) incomes. By contrast, the Physical Nation has suffered from weak productivity growth, rising prices, weak investment in IT, weak employment growth (outside of healthcare), and lower (and barely rising) incomes.
    4. 







Digital Nation vs Physical Nation





Digital Nation
Physical Nation




Productivity growth rate (2000-2015)
2.7%
0.7%




 


Real compensation per worker,  growth rate (2000-2015)

1.3%
0.8%




Employment growth rate (2000-2015)
1.3%
1.4%


0.1% (without healthcare)





Share of private sector employment (2015)
25%
75%




Share of private sector compensation (2015)
35%
 


65%


 





Share of IT investment (2015)
75%
 


25%


 





Annual price change
0.8%
 


2.4%


 





Data: BEA, BLS, author calculations


The split between the digital and the physical sector was first described in Mandel (2016). Numbers may differ slightly from earlier calculations.







 


4. The Digital Nation is concentrated in blue states. States that voted for Clinton in this election averaged 35% digital, while states that voted for Trump are 23% digital on average. Here are the top states, measured by share of private sector GDP coming from the digital sector.


 






Top Digital States





Share of private economy that is digital




DC
49.9%




Delaware
47.8%




New York
43.8%




Massachusetts
37.7%




Oregon
37.4%




Connecticut
34.3%




Virginia
33.5%




California
33.5%




Colorado
32.5%




Rhode Island
31.5%




Maryland
31.1%




Georgia
30.8%




NH
30.4%




Illinois
30.1%




New Jersey
29.8%




Minnesota
29.8%




Washington
29.4%




Missouri
28.0%




North Carolina
27.7%




Utah
27.6%




Pennsylvania
27.2%




Arizona
26.8%




Florida
26.5%




South Dakota
26.3%




Ohio
25.8%




Nebraska
23.5%




Kansas
23.3%




Michigan
23.3%




Wisconsin
23.2%




Data: BEA, author calculations






 


 


Next: How trade and productivity growth have affected the Physical Nation


			


	

			




			
				


	

		
Report: Android Helps Create 1.2 million App Economy Jobs in Europe

				

			Posted on  by The Progressive Policy Institute		

			


	

		
BRUSSELS—According to research by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), the Android mobile operating system has helped create 1.2 million App Economy jobs in Europe. The figure comes from a PPI policy memo, “The App Economy in Europe: Leading Countries and Cities,” which covers the 28 EU countries plus Norway and Switzerland. Android-related App Economy jobs are found in every European country, led by the United Kingdom and Germany. Indeed, Europe has more Android-related App Economy jobs than the United States.


“App Economy jobs have been growing at a rapid pace, even as the overall European labor market is still weak,” says Dr. Michael Mandel, PPI’s Chief Economic Strategist, who wrote the report and developed the research methodology. “These App Economy jobs didn’t exist 8 years ago.”


“Most European policymakers and regulators don’t have a good grasp of the importance of App Economy employment,” says Michael Quigley, director of PPI’s European office in Brussels. “The latest election results tell us that voters don’t want more regulation–they want a chance to participate in New Economy growth.”


App Economy employment includes jobs involved with building, maintaining, and supporting mobile apps, plus a conservative estimate of spillover jobs. These jobs are estimated using a methodology based on analyzing the universe of online jobs postings.


PPI recently announced the opening of an office in Brussels to serve as its European base, a sign of its commitment to strengthening the transatlantic dialogue between the U.S. and our European partners on data-driven innovation, competition policy, trade, taxation and other issues at the center of the transatlantic relationship.


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Gerwin for U.S News: Populists Like Trump and Sanders Ignore How Trade Benefits Workers

				

			Posted on  by The Progressive Policy Institute		

			


	

		
Jobs have been the focal point of 2016’s populist campaign against trade.


Trade skeptics like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have railed against open trade and deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as schemes to benefit global elites at the cost of millions of jobs for hardworking Americans. They claim that American workers would be better served by upending NAFTA, rejecting the TPP, and—in Trump’s case—slapping import taxes of 35 percent or more on trade from China and Mexico.


But populists’ single-minded focus on trade and “lost” jobs has obscured a larger and often-ignored reality: the fact that trade supports—both directly and indirectly—tens of millions of good jobs for middle class Americans. And protectionist policies would put many of these jobs at risk, while offering only the cruel illusion of support to many workers who need greater help.


Continue reading at U.S. News.


			


	

			




			
				


	

		
Trump Has Vandalized American Democracy

				

			Posted on  by The Progressive Policy Institute		

			


	

		
Even if he loses today, Donald Trump already has vandalized American democracy. That someone so plainly unfit for public office could come anywhere close to winning the highest one in the land shows that our experiment in self-government has veered badly off course.


Forget about ideology or party for a moment. There’s a lot more at stake than whether our county moves left or right, or which tribe of partisans wins the election, or who gets to make the next Supreme Court pick. America’s success ultimately depends on effective governance – our collective ability to solve common problems and adapt to change – which in turn depends on the moral qualities and character of the people we choose to govern us.


As a Virginian reared on Jeffersonian tenets, I’ve always shared his faith that the people are a safer repository of our liberties than monarchs, aristocrats or technocrats. That nearly half of U.S. voters seem willing to put a shameless demagogue like Trump in the White House, however, suggests that “we the people” are losing the ability to recognize and pick good leaders.


Apart from some holier-than-thou lefties who want to kick Jefferson himself out of the national pantheon, Americans don’t expect their political leaders to be plaster saints. But we do expect them to possess some basic traits that are essential to making our democracy work: thoughtfulness, pragmatism, empathy, an even temper, sound judgment and simple human decency.


Trump fails on every count. A textbook sociopath, he cares nothing for others and views the world solely through the prism of his wants and insatiable need for attention. He constantly makes things up and keeps lying even he’s been found out and corrected. He insults and taunts, playground style, anyone who criticizes or disagrees with him. His towering self-regard is matched only by his ignorance of the issues he’d have to deal with as president. And far from surrounding himself with the “best people,” as he’s promised, Trump takes counsel from a motley entourage of toadies, conspiracy theorists and “alt-right” bigots.


Trump, in short, is the antithesis of an effective political leader. In fact, he’s made his contempt for democratic politics perfectly clear, denouncing the nation’s elected leaders as uniformly corrupt and incompetent and informing the Republican National Convention that “I alone can fix it.”


That so many white, working class voters have accepted this invitation to strongman rule is shocking. It shows how deeply estranged they are from the multi-ethnic democracy America is becoming. Trump’s appeal to these voters lies in his willingness to offend liberal sensibilities – mocking the disabled, vowing to ban Muslims, conflating immigrants with “criminal aliens,” dismissing his bragging about sexual assault as harmless locker room talk, etc. – as well as his fanciful promise to recreate the relatively closed U.S. economy and social hierarchies of the 1950s. It’s a radically reactionary outlook that threatens to move an already polarized society toward civil strife.


There is certainly nothing conservative about Trump’s wanton violation of the normal rules of electoral competition, which have evolved over more than two centuries of U.S. democracy. Unable to engage his opponents in civil debate on the issues, he slurs and tries to delegitimize them. Deeply unpopular himself, Trump’s campaign “strategy” is to demonize Hillary Clinton. This plays out in the Nuremberg-style rallies where the maestro leads his rapt followers in chanting “lock her up” (while also inviting them to spew venom at political reporters). These ugly scenes are chillingly evocative of the “Two Minutes Hate” sessions organized by Big Brother in George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984.


Criminalizing political differences, treating political opponents as enemies rather than competitors, and attacking a free press are hallmarks of dictators and one-party states, not democracies. Our system of government, with its many checks and balances, was built for bargaining and compromise. What lawmaker wants to do business with ideologues that think they are evil and see politics as a holy war? Beyond destroying comity and good will between the parties, Trump’s paranoid style of politics – including alibiing his likely defeat by claiming that elites are rigging the election against him – corrodes public confidence in the legitimacy of our Constitutional order.


If Trump wins, he’s threatened to use his power as president to prosecute his defeated presidential rival. If he loses, millions of his followers will be left thinking their new President is a crook. Either way, U.S. democracy loses.


There’s a word for this kind of behavior: unpatriotic. But it’s just an extreme version of what we have already seen from the Republican Party as the Tea Party and Freedom Caucus arose during the Obama years – the “birther” lie, the blind obstructionism, the government shutdowns and refusal to fill court vacancies, and the neverending Congressional inquisitions. Even now, some House conservatives are talking about impeaching Clinton if she wins.


This is not the kind of politics that made America great. More than the usual partisan choices, the healthy functioning of our system of self-government is on the ballot today. Now it’s time for the voters to rise to their responsibility to protect and strengthen American democracy.


			


	

			




			
				


	

		
China Poised to Fill Economic Void Left by U.S.

				

			Posted on  by The Progressive Policy Institute		

			


	

		
Few Americans paid attention last week as Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak traveled to China to witness the signing of a host of business agreements between Chinese and Malaysian companies. They should have, because Razak’s pilgrimage to Beijing is likely to be repeated by other Asian Pacific leaders if Washington lets President Obama’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership die.


In addition to more than 20 agreements covering a range of activities including e-commerce, solar panel manufacturing, agriculture and education, Malaysia wants to buy 10 littoral warships from China for $300 million. Just last month, Malaysia announced it was scraping joint development of an amphibious force with the help of the U.S. Marine Corps as part of a big defense budget cut.


This would be the first major defense contract between China and Malaysia, despite continuing tensions in the South China Sea. And it’s not an isolated incident. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte recently rankled Washington by calling for a “separation” between the long-time allies. He called for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the Philippines within two years, despite his country’s contentious dispute with China over its actions in the South China see. In July of this year an international tribunal declared China’s military development of a Philippine island illegal.


Both of these developments suggest America’s standing in the region is waning, leaving Pacific Rim countries to be sucked into Beijing’s orbit. But as U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter has said, the United States does have a potent “soft power” option to counter China’s flexing of its economic and military muscles. It’s the TPP agreement, which he has called the commercial equivalent of having another U.S. carrier in the region. Other Asia leaders have echoed this assessment.


Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said economic investments are inseparable from defensive commitments. In March, he told the Wall Street Journal “if you are not prepared to deal when it comes to cars and services and agriculture, can we depend on you when it comes to security and military arrangements?” New Zealand Prime Minister John Key agreed, warning that if the United States “abdicates leadership in the region” by failing to sign the TPP regional governments will have to pursue other options. China is already prepared to offer a replacement called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that includes all Asian TPP signatories in its ongoing negotiations.


Our friends and allies in Southeast Asia are actively seeking increased economic opportunities in the form long term commitments. Through the TPP they have signaled our government, businesses, and ideals as their first choice. If the U.S. does not follow through with this commitment that enforces open competition, higher labor standards, and better environmental protections, these governments have demonstrated clear evidence they will be forced to pursue options with a power that respects none of these ideals while it actively infringes upon their sovereignty. The TPP opens up not just fair economic opportunities, but demonstrates the U.S.’s commitment to the welfare of the region.


			


	

			




			
				


	

		
The Strain of Excessive Litigation on Municipal Budgets

				

			Posted on  by The Progressive Policy Institute		

			


	

		
In this month’s issue, Governing magazine highlighted the costs of civil litigation on American cities. The magazine found that New York City spends $720 million on lawsuits every year, more than the next nineteen other cities combined. The city that never sleeps is often sued, handling 9,500 cases in the last fiscal year. The fact that New York City far out paces all other American cities in litigation volume and costs may not be a surprise, but what is alarming to many New Yorkers is that this cost is more than the combined budgets of the Parks and Recreation Department and the Department of Buildings.


For progressives who care about government services – including Mayor Bill de Blasio – the strained budgets these lawsuits cause has become a serious governing problem.  Picture how much good even just a fraction of that $720 million would do if properly allocated towards schools, affordable housing, and the homeless. While some of this litigation may have merit, not all of it does.  As quoted in the Governing magazine article, the progressive Mayor de Blasio expressed the importance of working in a bi-partisan fashion to “end the madness of these frivolous lawsuits.”


Addressing frivolous lawsuits is only half the problem, though.  Mayor de Blasio and others should also look at laws that New York has that allow people to sue and receive excessive payments – payments that people do not deserve because the city did not wrongfully injure them or payments far in excess of what would it takes to make people whole for their losses.


New York State’s civil justice laws are among the most antiquated in the nation, leading to more lawsuits and higher costs.  And, these costs extend far beyond the City.  According to a study by the Rockefeller Institute for Government, Upstate New York’s municipalities spend more than a billion dollars a year on lawsuits and litigation.


A primary reason for New York’s lax civil justice laws is the influence of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association (who declined to comment for the Governing magazine article). Personal injury lawyers have a vested interest in making lawsuits against municipalities easy and lucrative. Governor Cuomo once called the trial lawyers “the single most powerful political force in Albany,” and for good reason. They spend millions of dollars on lobbying and millions of dollars on political contributions.


Make no mistake: if anyone has been injured by the negligence of the city, that person is entitled to compensation. However, this study illustrates how a state’s civil justice climate can be a drain on the budget of one of the world’s major cities and take away from important services and infrastructure needs of its people.


The trial lawyers who block legal reform in New York often claim that reforms, even when focused only on excessive liability, would bar the courthouse doors. This report shows that is not the case – civil justice reform is needed to open the doors to more schools, parks, and libraries.


Tom Stebbins is a member of the PPI Center for Civil Justice Advisory Board and the Executive Director of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York.


			


	

			




			
				


	

		
Weinstein for RCP: Making “Fiscal Space” for the Clinton Agenda

				

			Posted on  by The Progressive Policy Institute		

			


	

		
POLICIES FOR THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION. PART 8: FEDERAL BUDGET


This is the eighth in a series on the major policy ideas — from Left and Right — that should guide the next presidential administration’s agenda. (For the opposing view, see James C. Capretta, “Fiscal Policy After the Election.“)


Hillary Clinton’s agenda of investing in people and infrastructure is an important step to righting America’s economic ship. And, to her credit, her agenda is generally offset by proposals to close tax loopholes and tax hikes on higher income individuals. But it is very unlikely that Congress will sign on to over a trillion in new spending to be paid for solely with new taxes and a small increase in the deficit, even if Democrats somehow regain control not only of the Senate, but also the House. That’s why, if elected, Mrs. Clinton will need to embrace the moment and work to enact a comprehensive deficit reduction package (including tax and entitlement reform) that will create the “fiscal space” for her investment agenda.


Fortunately, once this election is over, the fiscal policy debate is likely to reignite and get a lot hotter, creating a window for a big budget deal that could also serve as a vehicle for her policy agenda. The continuing resolution keeping the federal government open will expire in early December, likely to be followed by another short-term extension to get the government through the Inauguration. In February, the new president will submit the administration’s annual budget for 2018. Then comes March and the expiration date for the debt-ceiling deal cut in 2015. Finally, come October 1 2017, sequestration will rear its ugly head again when the two-year budget cap increase runs out.


Continue Reading at RealClearPolicy.