Washington, D.C. — As the Democratic Party begins to chart its path forward following President Joe Biden’s historic decision to end his re-election campaign, a new report from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) argues Democrats must adopt new ideas in addition to a new candidate at the top of the ticket.
The report, titled “Paying for Progress: A Pragmatic Blueprint to Cut Costs, Boost Growth, and Expand American Opportunity,” was compiled by PPI’s Center for Funding America’s Future with contributions from more than a dozen PPI experts covering a wide variety of policy areas. The report argues that, although President Biden successfully led the country in revitalizing major public investments and bringing unemployment to historic lows, failure to tackle the federal government’s $2 trillion annual budget deficit and the inflationary pressures it creates puts those successes in jeopardy.
“Voters are unlikely to support expanding the role of any government that they believe can’t even pay for the promises it’s already making,” said Ben Ritz, PPI’s Vice President of Policy Development and lead author of the report. “Demonstrating to the American people that we have an ambitious vision to cut costs, boost growth, and expand American opportunity — along with an economically pragmatic plan to pay for it — would help progressives restore confidence in the government’s ability to tackle big problems and build a more prosperous society for all.”
PPI’s report proposes a comprehensive blueprint for achieving many of the uncompleted goals from the Biden administration’s Build Back Better agenda while simultaneously putting the federal budget on a path to balance within 20 years. The report also offers the next administration a series of ideas to address major upcoming fiscal deadlines, including the reinstatement of the federal debt limit, the expiration of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and the impending exhaustion of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.
The roughly six dozen federal policy recommendations in the report are organized into 12 overarching priorities:
I. Replace Taxes on Work with Taxes on Consumption and Unearned Income II. Make the Individual Income Tax Code Simpler and More Progressive III. Reform the Business Tax Code to Promote Growth and International Competitiveness
IV. Secure America’s Global Leadership
V. Strengthen Social Security’s Intergenerational Compact
VI. Modernize Medicare
VII. Cut Health-Care Costs and Improve Outcomes
VIII. Support Working Families and Economic Opportunity
IX. Make Housing Affordable for All
X. Rationalize Safety-Net Programs
XI. Improve Public Administration
XII. Manage Public Debt Responsibly
An abridged version of PPI’s blueprint was featured this morning by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s 2024 Solutions Initiative alongside comprehensive budget plans by six other think tanks from across the political spectrum. Of all the proposals, PPI’s would achieve the most deficit reduction while maintaining the highest level of discretionary spending, demonstrating that fiscal responsibility and robust public investment can be complementary rather than contradictory policy objectives.
See how PPI’s plan compares to those of six other think tanks here.
Launched in 2018, the Progressive Policy Institute’s Center for Funding America’s Future works to promote a fiscally responsible public investment agenda that fosters robust and inclusive economic growth. To that end, the Center develops fiscally responsible policy proposals to strengthen public investments in the foundation of our economy, modernize health and retirement programs to reflect an aging society, transform our tax code to reward work over wealth, and put the national debt on a downward trajectory.
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on Twitter.
###
Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe — iokeefe@ppionline.org
The next administration must confront the consequences that the American people are finally facing from more than two decades of fiscal mismanagement in Washington. Annual deficits in excess of $2 trillion during a time when the unemployment rate hovers near a historically low 4% have put upward pressure on prices and strained family budgets. Annual interest payments on the national debt, now the highest they’ve ever been in history, are crowding out public investments into our collective future, which have fallen near historic lows. Working families face a future with lower incomes and diminished opportunities if we continue on our current path.
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) believes that the best way to promote opportunity for all Americans and tackle the nation’s many problems is to reorient our public budgets away from subsidizing short-term consumption and towards investments that lay the foundation for long-term economic abundance. Rather than eviscerating government in the name of fiscal probity, as many on the right seek to do, our “Paying for Progress” Blueprint offers a visionary framework for a fairer and more prosperous society.
Our blueprint would raise enough revenue to fund our government through a tax code that is simpler, more progressive, and more pro-growth than current policy. We offer innovative ideas to modernize our nation’s health-care and retirement programs so they better reflect the needs of our aging population. We would invest in the engines of American innovation and expand access to affordable housing, education, and child care to cut the cost of living for working families. And we propose changes to rationalize federal programs and institutions so that our government spends smarter rather than merely spending more.
Many of these transformative policies are politically popular — the kind of bold, aspirational ideas a presidential candidate could build a campaign around — while others are more controversial because they would require some sacrifice from politically influential constituencies. But the reality is that both kinds of policies must be on the table, because public programs can only work if the vast majority of Americans that benefit from them are willing to contribute to them. Unlike many on the left, we recognize that progressive policies must be fiscally sound and grounded in economic pragmatism to make government work for working Americans now and in the future.
If fully enacted during the first year of the next president’s administration, the recommendations in this report would put the federal budget on a path to balance within 20 years. But we do not see actually balancing the budget as a necessary end. Rather, PPI seeks to put the budget on a healthy trajectory so that future policymakers have the fiscal freedom to address emergencies and other unforeseen needs. Moreover, because PPI’s blueprint meets such an ambitious fiscal target, we ensure that adopting even half of our recommended savings would be enough to stabilize the debt as a percent of GDP. Thus, our proposals to cut costs, boost growth, and expand American opportunity will remain a strong menu of options for policymakers to draw upon for years to come, even if they are unlikely to be enacted in their entirety any time soon.
The roughly six dozen federal policy recommendations in this report are organized into 12 overarching priorities:
I. Replace Taxes on Work with Taxes on Consumption and Unearned Income II. Make the Individual Income Tax Code Simpler and More Progressive III. Reform the Business Tax Code to Promote Growth and International Competitiveness
IV. Secure America’s Global Leadership
V. Strengthen Social Security’s Intergenerational Compact
VI. Modernize Medicare
VII. Cut Health-Care Costs and Improve Outcomes
VIII. Support Working Families and Economic Opportunity
IX. Make Housing Affordable for All
X. Rationalize Safety-Net Programs
XI. Improve Public Administration
XII. Manage Public Debt Responsibly
On this episode of Radically Pragmatic’s Mosaic Moment, Mosaic alumna Talila Millman joins PPI’s Sarah Paden to discuss her new book, “The TRIUMPH Framework.” Millman draws upon her decades of experience in high-level Fortune 500 roles to provide her seven keys to leadership for the next generation of women leaders.
Washington, D.C. — Today, WillMarshall, President of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), issued the following statement in response to President Joe Biden’s decision to not seek re-election.
“It was a wrenching decision for a proud and deeply accomplished veteran of public service, but President Joe Biden made the right call yesterday by ending his re-election campaign.
“In putting his country’s interests over his personal ambitions, Biden has shown Americans what real patriotism looks like. Contrast his conduct to Donald Trump’s treacherous coup attempt after losing badly to Biden in 2020.
“What forced Biden’s hand was not the fact that he is running behind Trump in national and battleground state polls. He might have remedied that with a vigorous general election campaign.
“But Biden’s June 27 debate performance left nearly three-quarters of Americans worried about his ability to withstand the incredible rigors and stresses of the world’s toughest job for another four years.
“Biden’s departure from the race comes late — in truth, too late. This was a decision that should have been made in January.
“Nonetheless, it removes a daunting obstacle to Democrats’ prospects and shifts public attention to the 78-year-old Trump’s mental state. He’s never had a firm grasp on reality, and his meandering nomination speech in Milwaukee last week showed it’s getting even weaker.
“Contrary to Trump’s over-the-top insults, Joe Biden has been a good president with many significant accomplishments to his credit. The U.S. economy is the strongest in the free world, and Biden deserves enormous credit for rededicating America to the defense of freedom and democracy abroad after Trump’s detour into a selfish and insular jingoism.
“More fundamentally, though, Biden restored decency, dignity, and integrity to a White House defaced by Trump. When Democrats needed an experienced national leader to unite the party and the country against Trump’s political vandalism, the old pro from Delaware rose to the occasion.
“That’s something that can never be taken away from Joe Biden, regardless of what happens in November.”
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on Twitter.
Last month, prices fell to their lowest levels almost two years. The June Consumer Price Index (CPI) dropped to 3.0% annually–down from 3.4% the prior month—and is now on the verge of hitting the Federal Reserve’s inflation target of 2%.
Almost immediately after the release of the CPI data, Republicans warned the Federal Reserve not to cut rates prior to the election in November. After Fed Chair Jerome Powell testified before the Senate Banking Committee Senator Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) argued that “I personally don’t think they should…anything they do before November would be rightfully—would raise the question of their own independence.”
But will the Fed heed the call from Republicans to keep rates at their current level when its Federal Open Markets Committee meets on July 31 and September 18? Based on past history, the answer is a resounding no (assuming economic conditions require action).
In a modern economy, monitoring and supervising worker safety is a key function of government. From this perspective, it is completely appropriate for government regulators to pay special attention to Amazon’s worker safety record, given that the company has been the biggest creator of new jobs in recent years. It even makes sense that Senator Bernie Sanders should issue a report about Amazon’s worker safety record.
But speaking as an economist, the just-released Sanders report is weird and unhelpful. In particular, the report focuses on 2019, the equivalent of ancient history at this point. Not only did the pandemic dramatically transform e-commerce and fulfillment centers, but in the years since 2019, Amazon greatly improved its objectively measured safety performance. According to data officially reported to the government, Amazon reduced its U.S. “lost time incident rate” (which only includes more significant injuries that require an employee to miss at least one day of work) by 75% since 2019. Other safety indicators have improved as well.
The truth is thatAmazon is a safety success story. The ability to create hundreds of thousands of jobs while raising wages and improving worker safety at the same time is an example that should be emulated, not attacked.
The 2024 Republican platform is full of references to the “weaponization” of government by the “radical left.” Alleged Democratic weaponization has similarly been featured by speakers at the Republican convention this week in Milwaukee. Yet despite this consistent Republican rhetoric of victimization, it is their own nominee who has promised to radically politicize the federal government for his own ends.
In its waning days, the Trump White House issued an executive order establishing a new employment classification for civil servants, “Schedule F.” This new classification would allow many traditional civil servants, who are supposed to be non-partisan and hired by merit, to be reclassified as political appointees, who are selected by the president. This would give presidents the power to stock key executive branch agencies with people whose only qualification for the job is political loyalty. While the incoming Biden administration quickly rescinded the order, former President Trump has made restoring Schedule F a centerpiece of his campaign to “shatter the deep state,” promising to “wield [it] very aggressively” if reelected.
Implementing Schedule F would take America back to the patronage system that dominated in the early days of the republic. Under this so-called “spoils system,” incoming presidents replaced executive branch employees en masse at the start of every term based on their partisan loyalties rather than their performance in office. The transition to the modern civil service emerged through a series of significant reforms, starting with the Pendleton Act of 1883, which mandated that government positions be awarded based on merit rather than patronage. Subsequent legislation like the Hatch Act (1939) and Civil Service Reform Act (1978) established the system we now know today.
This system remains far from perfect. Meaningful reforms are needed to improve the quality of the civil service and make government agencies more swift, nimble, and responsive to citizens. Solutions to many 21st-century problems, such as climate change, are often as inhibited by government regulation as they are helped by it. To combat corroding public trust in government, civil servants must have the flexibility to reduce this type of procedural red tape when it is preventing viable solutions to public problems, rather than be incentivized to embrace it. In addition, the civil service needs to better promote meritocracy and attract talent by streamlining its personnel decisions and hiring process. Agencies need to hire, develop, and retain young talent in particular, given the aging federal workforce.
Schedule F is anything but a reasonable reform. If reimplemented, it would take a sledgehammer to the civil service, politicizing, and destabilizing federal agencies in the process. Imagine what might have happened if, instead of impartial and technical experts, scores of political loyalists staffed public health agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic, or controlled the release of unemployment and inflation numbers. Some estimates claim that at least 50,000 senior civil servants would be subject to this order, likely representing the longest-tenured and most experienced officials. However, this likely underestimates how aggressively a second Trump administration might seek to reclassify employees. For example, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), one of the few agencies that began implementing the order, was prepared to transition nearly 70% of its workforce to Schedule F positions. Despite the executive order’s claim to focus on more senior officials, administration officials showed no hesitancy to completely politicize agencies. Implementing Schedule F would allow the Trump administration to exert its control over many traditionally independent agencies, including the Department of Justice, the Federal Reserve, and the IRS.
Maintaining an impartial and merit-based civil service is essential to good governance. While policy changes across administrations, the implementation of any policy requires a neutral set of skills and expertise. Take energy regulation as an example. Whether the president favors long-distance transmission lines or drilling on public lands, the implementation requires the same understanding of existing systems, thorough consultation with stakeholders, and robust analysis of outcomes.
It is essential that the government be able to hire staff with these skills and retain them across administrations. Evidence confirms this: a review of 96 studies found that governments that rank higher on impartiality or professionalism are associated with higher economic growth, performance, and public trust. Conservatives argue that the civil service is undemocratic because it is accountable to the merit system and not the president. But precisely because the civil service faces different incentives, it can speak truth to power, particularly if the president tries to obtain an electoral advantage (e.g., by corruptly allocating spending) at the expense of the national interest. On this front, five different studies have found more meritocratic recruitment is associated with less corruption.
Trump’s promise to reinstate Schedule F would upend the modern civil service. Rather than engage in any real reform of the federal workforce, it would massively politicize federal jobs and turn back the clock to an antiquated patronage system. As the presidential campaign kicks into high gear, voters should not underestimate the radical nature of this proposal, or the consequences it would have for the basic functioning of government they might take for granted.
FACT: Kung Fu Panda 4’s Chinese box office earnings are down 65% from the Kung Fu Panda 3 record.
THE NUMBERS: Kung Fu Panda series box office –
World
U.S.
China
KFP1:
$632 million
$215 million
$26 million
KFP2:
$665 million
$165 million
$92 million
KFP3:
$520 million
$143 million
$154 million
KFP4:
$544 million
$193 million
$50 million*
* As of end-June 2024.
WHAT THEY MEAN:
Here’s the Smithsonian’s National Zoo happily joining First Lady Dr. Jill Biden last May to announce the coming arrival of a new pair of giant pandas — Bao Li and Qing Bao — this fall. As the bears prepared for the flight east from their suburban Sichuan home to Connecticut Avenue NW, their cartoon cousin Po from the Kung Fu Panda series’ fourth installment was crossing the Pacific in the other direction. His reception in China was a bit lukewarm though, with box office down nearly two-thirds from the third KFP film. Why the drop? Some possibilities …but some background [minor spoiler alert] first:
Set in an animated version of ancient China, DreamWorks Animation’s 4-film Kung Fu Panda series centers on martial arts enthusiast panda Po. Something of a bumbler as KFP1 opens, Po to everyone’s surprise turns out to be an incarnation of the legendary “Dragon Warrior.” Trained by elderly Master Shifu, Po leads other martial arts adepts to defeat evil, foil villains, and emerge as hero of the Valley of Peace and leader of the Panda Village. KFP’s first installment drew its largest audience in the United States. Chinese interest, with the incorporation of traditional wuxia storylines and qi themes, escalated over the first three films to the point at which KFP3’s $154 million Chinese box office was nearly a third of global revenue and outdid U.S. sales by $11 million. But eight years later, interest seems off. What happened?
1. Reviews not so good: One very simple explanation: Chinese viewers liked the earlier movies more. The major fan-sites rated each of the first three KPF’s above 70% (“enjoyable and well-made”), while KFP4 dropped to about 60% (“average and passable”). Among more formal reviewers, China Youth groans — “how surprised the audience was 16 years ago, how disappointed they are now” — and Xinhua concurs: “[T]he movie’s absorption and application of Chinese elements seems to have reached the end of its rope. … Po’s adventures have become less exciting.”
2. Growing preference for local films: There’s also a bigger picture, with Chinese-made films in general gaining relative to foreign productions. Chinese box-office revenue is up from $6.6 billion in 2016 to $7.3 billion in 2023, and from 17% to 23% of global box office. As the audience has grown, viewers’ tastes have changed noticeably though not drastically. While foreign films continue to draw, local productions have caught up over the past decade. Among the 423 films China screened in 2016, the 31 U.S. productions averaged $79 million, five times the $15.6 million average for Chinese-made films. By 2023, the Chinese-film average had jumped to $28 million, and the U.S. average dropped to an equal $28 million. From this perspective, KFP4’s lower earnings might illustrate local films’ rising entertainment value, and consequently diminishing passion for foreign movies. A table has the figures:
Year
# of movies shown in China
Total box office
Average box
office per movie
# of U.S.
movies*
Average box office
per U.S. movie
2016
423
$6.6 billion
$15.6 million
31
$79 million
2023
510
$7.3 billion
$14.3 million
35
$25 million
2024
YTD
104
$3.0 billion
$28.0 million
10
$28 million
3. Co-production and Cultural Match: A third explanation looks to some unique advantages for KFP3 as a U.S.-China co-production by DreamWorks and its joint venture with the China Film Group Corporation. (Oddly named Oriental DreamWorks; since updated to Pearl Studio after a buyout by the Chinese partner.) This appears to have given KFP3 special technical and cultural cachet, through work by the Chinese partner’s staff on costumes, hairstyles, etiquette, and lip-movement. One example is the female panda and ribbon dancer Mei Mei, for whom the Shanghai animation team corrected dynastic inconsistencies in clothing articles. Another is the production of a Mandarin version with new lip animation synchronized with Chinese words, to avoid ‘uncanny valley’ and dubbing issues and improve viewing. This anecdote got picked up by the U.S.-China Economics and Security Review Commission, as a relatively unobjectionable case of “Directed by Hollywood, Edited by China (as opposed to a more political “Made in Hollywood, Censored by Beijing”).
4. Co-production and Policy Advantage: Maybe a bit less subtly, official co-production status gave KFP3 a boost KFP4 lacked, with a prized launch-date and avoidance of revenue-sharing systems imposed on foreign content. The Chinese government now allows 34 foreign films in per year — up under WTO rules from quotas of 10 in 1994 and 20 in 2002 — and also regulates release dates. KFP3 got a great opening night during the blackout period before Chinese New Year and the subsequent Golden Week. (Lunar New Year often falls in February, and the vacation week afterwards means February often gets China’s largest box office.) Foreign films rarely if ever get this window; KFP4’s March 22, for example, wasn’t nearly so good.
So: Some mixed reviews, some changing tastes, some particularly good animation quality in KFP3, and some policy favoritism. All this noted, KFP4 still drew double the box office for this year’s Chinese films and topped all others during its opening weekend. So, not a rapturous but still a polite Chinese reception for animated Po, and by no means a bomb. Bao Li and Qing Bao will probably do better this fall at the Zoo, though.
Special Note: Research and drafting for this week’s Trade Fact by Ruowei Yu, a Google Public Policy Fellow with PPI this summer. Ms. Yu is a junior at Georgetown University, concentrating in Government and Economics.
The U.S.-China Security and Economic Commission’s Directed by Hollywood, Edited by China looks from Hollywood to Beijing and back, & asks who is changing whom?
Looking at 2023 global box office, trade journal Deadline feels pessimistic about future foreign-film growth in China.
And some prequels:
Three book recommendations on Chinese & American high and pop culture, film and TV, and their past collisions:
Jianying Zha’s China Pop (2000); a bit dated but lots of insight and human detail on high-end Chinese cinema, popular culture, and politics in the 1990s.
A little later, Rachel DeWoskin’s Foreign Babes in Beijing (2006) on expatriate life in the boom era, a well-deserved plug for the 1st-century BCE classic Biographies of Famous Women, and DeWoskin’s own experience starring in a “blonde home wrecker” role in a mass-market Chinese TV soap-opera.
And Yunte Huang’s Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective (2011) looks back at the Chan character’s long career, from the original real-world model (1890s Honolulu policeman Chang Apana) to the 1920s novels, the 1930s films and their reception in Nationalist China, Asian roles in old Hollywood, and more recent Asian-American community intellectual debate.
ABOUT ED
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
As the Republican Convention continues this week, candidate Donald Trump’s ideas for a second-term trade policy look remarkably similar to those of his long-gone but never-quite-forgotten Republican predecessor: Herbert Hoover.
Hoover’s 1928 program — a higher tariff across the board — is the obvious ancestor of Trump’s proposed 2024 program of 10 percent tariffs on goods from all countries and 60 percent on Chinese-made products. This would mean a national rate of around 12.5 percent, the highest U.S. tariff since the late 1930s.
Would a Trump tariff in 2025 bring the same results Hoover’s Smoot-Hawley Act got then?
Surprisingly, President Biden and former President Trump have common ground on a key workforce policy: more apprenticeships. Both presidents support “earn while you learn” opportunities by incentivizing apprenticeships with employers and using their executive powers to expand them. Earlier this year, President Biden issued an executive order focused on expanding Registered Apprenticeship programs in the federal government, while former President Trump established an apprenticeship advisory committee — led by notable CEOs — aimed at broadening their availability across the country.
A bipartisan policy of “more apprenticeships” is especially relevant now, when most good-paying jobs require at least some postsecondary education and employers report a serious shortage of skilled workers. It’s a policy that meets two needs with one deed — apprenticeships help reduce student debt and address employers’ workforce needs in a tight labor market. Tax incentives for apprenticeships have even gained bipartisan support in Congress, uniting conservatives and progressives. They have been successfully implemented in countries like Canada, the U.K., and Australia, where they have far more employer-sponsored apprenticeships on a per-capita basis.
Amidst this need and interest, many Americans still view a four-year degree as the only path to economic security. Yet the reality is that the majority, 62% of American adults, don’t have one. What’s more, the college earnings premium is declining due to skyrocketing tuition costs and low completion rates, and fewer young people attend college now than in 2018.
The theme of the Republican National Convention’s opening night in Milwaukee was “Make America Wealthy Again.” Speakers one after the other blamed the Biden administration and Democratic policies for the high inflation rates that plagued the country for much of the last three years. But at the same time, delegates approved a new party platform crafted by former President Donald Trump that would actually make inflation worse.
One of the first planks of the GOP’s new platform is “End Inflation and Make America Affordable Again.” Although Republicans want to place the blame for rising prices on President Biden, much of the inflation experienced over the past three years was due to factors entirely outside the president’s control, such as supply-chain bottlenecks and the residual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The primary mechanism by which the president can worsen inflation is by adding to the federal budget deficit: if the federal government pumps more money into the economy through spending than it removes in taxes, those extra dollars help bid up the prices of goods and services. And on this measure, Republicans could make a decent argument: policies enacted during the Biden administration added more than $4 trillion to deficits over the 10-year window conventionally used for fiscal estimates by the Congressional Budget Office.
Britain’s Labour Party celebrated July Fourth with an overwhelming victory. It will hold at least 411 of the 650 seats in Parliament, taking power after 14 years of Conservative rule with a clear mandate for change.
Its Manifesto, or party platform, describes five national missions, including one on education and workforce training named “Break down barriers to opportunity.” Details are provided in a companion 130-page reportfocused on “Learning and Skills.“
Labour’s education and workforce training agenda for working families in the United Kingdom is similar to those numerous states and communities in the U.S. are creating under the banner of career pathways programs. It also has similarities to the bipartisan bill reauthorizing the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives and is under consideration by the Senate.
When attacks like this happen, the first and most obvious thing that every political figure does is to condemn the violence. I think this is the morally correct choice, but it’s worth unpacking why.
It’s not a secret that in my day job I am quite liberal and vocally anti-Trump. I think he’s a genuinely dangerous person, far beyond the typical partisan disagreements I have with other Republicans. I think given the opportunity, he would gladly seize authoritarian power. He has little respect for human rights, democracy, the rule of law, or anything else other than his own profit and power. He has a history of encouraging political violence himself. I’d even say that if he were to drop dead of a heart attack tomorrow, the world would be a better place for it. So why exactly, ask some voices, should we be concerned for Trump? If he’s so awful, if he’s such a danger to democracy, if he promotes violence himself… why do we need to condemn violence against him?
When I try to wrap my head around difficult or painful topics, I tend to fall back on my core values. Before I am anything else – a Democrat, a New Yorker, an American – I am a liberal. I condemn political violence because I’m a liberal, and because I remember the purpose of liberalism.
Lost in the deluge of campaign coverage these days is any meaningful coverage of one of the Biden administration’s signal achievements.
Less than a year ago, the president made history by walking a United Auto Workers (UAW) picket line demanding that General Motors give the nation’s blue-collar workers a raise. The union’s president, Shawn Fain,declared at the time, “We know the president will do right by the working class.”
When the UAW prevailed, anyone paying attention could see the outlines of the old progressive coalition emerging through a political fog — the Democratic Party, organized labor and working-class voters all rowing in the same direction.
It is a quirk of the British political system that the leader of the opposition goes from inhabiting cramped parliamentary offices to rubbing shoulders with leaders of the free world within such a short time. Sir Keir Starmer looked at ease at the Nato summit this week. But he faces a difficult new role as champion of a troubled global centre-left.
Political parties love a winner. And centre-left parties around the world are hungry to learn how Labour defeated the long-dominant Conservative party. Next week, the European contingent will gather at Blenheim Palace for the European Political Community meeting. Starmer would do well to use the time to learn from the problems besetting his global colleagues.
In many other countries, centre-left parties are incumbents facing difficult re-elections under pressure from a revived far right. Opposition is high: a majority of voters in every EU country except Poland, which changed government in 2023, think that their country is headed in the wrong direction, according to research by Datapraxis for the Progressive Governance summit in Berlin recently.
2024 has been one of the busiest years yet thus far for PPI internationally.
From our work with the UK Labour Party & Claire Ainsley Project on Center-Left Renewal to Tamar Jacoby’s impactful New Ukraine Project, to attending the Progressive Governance Summit in Berlin, PPI Down Under and much more.
