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PPI President: Override This Odious Order

Posted on January 30, 2017September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

President Trump evidently believes many things that have no basis in fact. Only a week into his presidency, his make-believe world is colliding with reality – to the detriment and even shame of our country.

There’s no better example than his order temporarily preventing citizens of seven Muslim countries from entering our country. It is an affront to American ideals that has sparked protests here and around the world, embarrassed our friends and handed our Islamist enemies a propaganda windfall.

Trump says the temporary ban is necessary to give the Administration time to set up an “extreme” vetting regime for visitors and immigrants from countries where terrorists operate. But we already have a rigorous system for screening immigrants, and the White House order falls heavily on refugees – many of them fleeing terrorist fanaticism and violence.

Notes Blake Houndshell in Politico, “Since 1990, of the 182 radical Islamic terrorists who plotted attacks in the United States or on inbound airplanes, just two entered the U.S. as refugees. Little wonder-since refugees are among the most carefully vetted immigrant groups, and the bulk of them are women and children.” Oddly, the White House list of proscribed countries includes Iraq, our partner in the fight to destroy the Islamic State’s homicidal “caliphate,” but not Saudi Arabia, where most of the 9/11 attackers came from.

Making life more miserable for refugees won’t make America safer. It’s impossible to listen to the heartrending stories of legal migrants being denied entry, detained and separated from their families without wondering whether the nation’s new political leaders have any idea what they are doing.

The Trump policy – or more likely, the Bannon policy – is unnecessary, cruel and strategically stupid. The word that America is now slamming its doors to Muslims while welcoming Christians is burning up jihadist websites, bolstering their claim to be defending Muslims against U.S. and Western “crusaders.” Our two previous presidents have understood that reinforcing the jihadists’ apocalyptic narrative can only alienate America’s Muslim allies around the world. It’s unsettling that this obvious point eludes Trump’s grasp.

But it’s heartening to see Americans protesting Trump’s order and going to airports to welcome people from Muslim countries. Lawyers have volunteered to help refugees and some judges have issued staying orders.

So is Trump’s policy really America’s policy? That’s for Congress to decide. For Republicans particularly it’s a moment of truth. Will they abet Trump in traducing America’s core values of religious freedom and pluralism? They will if they don’t join Democrats in overriding this odious presidential decree.

Killing Immigration Reform Hurts the Housing Recovery

Posted on July 17, 2013 by The Progressive Policy Institute

It is looking more likely that the comprehensive immigration bill the Senate passed last month will end up stalling in the GOP-controlled House. Although Republican partisans probably don’t realize it, killing immigration reform could do serious collateral damage to the housing recovery.

Most economists believe that bringing 11 million undocumented immigrants out of the shadows would be a boon to the economy, and boost tax revenues in the bargain. It could also put as many as three million legalized immigrants in the market for a home, according to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals.

The housing market has seen such a sharp and furious rebound in the last year that many experts are now wondering if we are repeating the crazy go–go days of 2007. That’s not likely with rates still at historic lows thanks to the Federal Reserve. We could see some corrections, but nothing like the sickening 30 to 40 percent plunge housing prices took when the bubble burst last time.

One troubling sign, however, is the dearth of first–time homebuyers. In normal times, first–time homebuyers account for about 40 percent of new home sales. In May, that number fell to just 28 percent, down from 36 percent two years ago. The decline was due to cash–heavy investors, a tepid job recovery and tighter credit. That number won’t sustain growth in housing.

Continue reading the article at U.S. News & World Report.

Immigration Reform and the Growing Asian-American Vote

Posted on June 14, 2013September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

The poor showing of the G.O.P. among Latino voters in 2012 is the political subtext for much of the immigration debate in Congress this week. But Republicans also consider the impact of their words and deeds on the nation’ s fastest growing demographic: Asian-American voters, who are at least as invested in the immigration issue as Latinos.

As recently as the early 1990s, many Republicans considered the Asian-American population to be a “natural constituency” for their party, given the traditionalist social views, entrepreneurial orientation, and relatively high socioeconomic status of many Asian Americans. At the time, this was borne out by vote tallies: in the three-way presidential race of 1992, George H.W. Bush received 38% of the national electorate but 55% of the Asian-American vote.

By 2012, however, Mitt Romney drew the support of just 28% of Asian Americans. In every category of age, citizenship, ethnicity, and nativity, Asian Americans (here taken to include people of Pacific Islander ancestry) now report a preference for the Democrats.

The two-decade long collapse in Republican support among Asian-American voters towards the Democrats has been ascribed to multiple causes, including the end of the Cold War, changes in the demographic composition of the Asian-American population, and broader shifts towards the Democratic party in the heavily-Asian West Coast states and Hawaii, where nearly half of Asian Americans reside. But the politics of immigration has also been key. Continue reading “Immigration Reform and the Growing Asian-American Vote” →

Young People Can’t Get a Summer Job – But Don’t Blame Immigration

Posted on June 13, 2013 by The Progressive Policy Institute

ABC News’ Emily Deruy quotes Diana Carew on immigration and unemployment:

According to the Department of Labor, just half of young people between 16 and 24 had jobs in July 2012, which is typically the peak for youth employment. That’s up just slightly from 2011.

Anti-immigration organizations like the Center for Immigration Studies allege that immigrants are partially to blame.

But it’s not that simple, according to the liberal Progressive Policy Institute.

Diana Carew, an economist with the think tank, thinks immigration is actually a good thing.

Immigration brings in the highly skilled tech workers that employers simply cannot find enough of in the United States right now. Middle-skill, middle-wage jobs have really “been hollowed out,” she said, and it’s actually American workers that used to occupy those positions who have transitioned into lower-skilled, lower-wage jobs that teens typically apply for each summer.

Immigrants, on the other hand, are more likely to apply for hotel cleaning jobs or agriculture jobs that American young people simply aren’t willing to take, she said.

Read the entire article here.

Forging Consensus on Immigration

Posted on March 25, 2013 by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Bipartisan Framework for Comprehensive Immigration Reform released earlier this year by four Democratic and four Republican senators has been the basis of virtually all the serious discussions about immigration reform going on in Washington these past several weeks. Substantial disagreement has now surfaced over proposed limits on family-based visas as well as over ways to bring in greater numbers of unskilled workers. Yet one topic that may prove to be one of the more nettlesome has thus far received little attention: While the Framework links legalization and eventual naturalization of undocumented immigrants almost entirely to border controls, it neglects what has long been the weakest aspect of immigration enforcement—the workplace. Surprisingly, the Gang of Eight’s many critics have yet to focus on this aspect of their Framework.

Four years ago, as immigration reform fell off the congressional agenda, the Brookings-Duke Immigration Policy Roundtable grappled with precisely these issues. Ours was a deliberative effort involving twenty individuals from the left, right and center—think tank analysts, academics, political and policy entrepreneurs, former government officials, and community leaders—who saw immigration from divergent, even conflicting perspectives. Over the course of a year, we convened regularly and explored our differences in order to determine where we could come together on specific policy proposals. In October 2009 we issued our report, Breaking the Immigration Stalemate. Its findings and recommendations are highly relevant to the Senators’ new push to forge consensus behind comprehensive immigration reform.

When their Bipartisan Framework asserts that “the United States must do a better job of attracting and keeping the world’s best and brightest,” it comes to the same conclusion as did the Brookings-Duke Roundtable—America’s economy demands a policy that supports high-skill immigration. Yet unlike the Senators, we took the next step and considered how to “pay for” those additional newcomers in a political environment where any increase in overall numbers of immigrants meets entrenched resistance. So while the Roundtable called for an additional 150,000 permanent resident visas for skilled workers, we also urged elimination of the controversial Diversity Visa Program, which each year awards 50,000 green cards to the winners of a lottery that the GAO has concluded is vulnerable to fraud.

Download the policy brief.

Election Watch: All Eyes on Supreme Court, Obama Pushes GOP on Immigration

Posted on June 22, 2012September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online

This week’s skirmishing in the presidential campaign revolved around the president’s immigration initiative and preparations for the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act, due to be handed down next week.

The executive order (technically issued by the Department of Homeland Security) offered the children of undocumented workers a two-year, renewable immunity from prosecution if they had entered the country prior to the age of 16 and are currently under 30; have a high-school diploma or GED or a record of military service; and have no serious criminal record. It’s basically a “Lite” version of the DREAM Act, which Obama also supports, in that it provides no path to citizenship. And most importantly, from a political point of view, the administration initiative is very close to what Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has reportedly been working on in the form of legislation that could free Republicans (and the Republican presidential candidate in particular) from the taint of being hostile to any remedial action to help children here illegally.

Continue reading “Election Watch: All Eyes on Supreme Court, Obama Pushes GOP on Immigration” →

Wingnut Watch: Supercommittee Failure and the Gingrich Surge

Posted on December 14, 2011September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

The official failure of the congressional “supercommittee” came and went without much hand-wringing in Wingnut World; indeed, the prevailing sentiment was quiet satisfaction that Republicans had not “caved” by accepting tax increases as part of any deficit reduction package. It was all a reminder that most conservative activists are not, as advertised, obsessed with reducing deficits or debts, but only with deficits and debts as a lever to obtain a vast reduction in the size and scope of the federal government, and the elimination of progressive taxation. For the most part, the very same people wearing tricorner hats and wailing about the terrible burden we are placing on our grandchildren were just a few years ago agreeing with Dick Cheney’s casual assertion that deficits did not actually matter at all.

It is interesting that throughout the Kabuki Theater of the supercommittee’s “negotiations,” the GOP’s congressional leadership came to largely accept the Tea Party fundamental rejection of any compromise between the two parties’ very different concepts of the deficit problem. From the get-go, Democrats were offering both non-defense-discretionary and entitlement cuts in exchange for restoring tax rates for the very wealthy to levels a bit closer to (though still lower than) their historic position. The maximum Republican offer was to engage in some small-change loophole closing accompanied by an actual lowering of the top rates in incomes, plus extension of the Bush tax cuts to infinity. Conservatives are perfectly happy to let an on-paper “sequestration” of spending take place, with the expectation that a Republican victory in 2012 will put them in a position to brush aside the defense cuts so authorized and then go after their federal spending targets with a real vengeance.

The GOP presidential candidates have offered two opportunities during the last week for wingnuts of a particular flavor to assess their views and character. The much-awaited Thanksgiving Family Forum in Des Moines was perhaps the first candidate forum of the cycle in which no one even pretended to set aside cultural issues in favor of an obsessive focus on the economy or the federal budget. The format, involving not a debate but a serial interrogation of candidates by focus group master Frank Luntz, was explicitly aimed at getting to each contender’s “worldview,” the classic Christian Right buzzword for one’s willingness to subordinate any and all secular considerations and choose positions on the issues of the day via a conservative-literalist interpretation of the Bible (i.e., one in which phantom references to abortion are somehow found everywhere, and Jesus’ many injunctions to social activism are treated as demands for private charity rather than redistributive efforts by government).

According to The Iowa Republican’s Craig Robinson in his assessment of the event, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry were the only candidates who succeeded in articulating a “biblical worldview” under Luntz’s questioning. Newt Gingrich got secular media attention for his Archie Bunkerish “take a bath and get a job” shot at the dirty hippies of OWS, but inside the megachurch where the event was held, the star was probably Santorum, whose slim presidential hopes strictly depend on Iowa social conservatives adopting him as their candidate much as they united around Mike Huckabee in 2008.

It is interesting that immediately after the event, Rick Perry joined Santorum and Bachmann as the only candidates willing to sign the radical “marriage vow” pledge document released back in July by the FAMiLY Leader organization, the primary sponsor of the Thanksgiving Family Forum. This makes him eligible for an endorsement by FL and its would-be kingmaking founder, Bob Vander Plaats. It appears a battle has been going on for some time in Iowa’s influential social conservative circles between those wanting to get behind a “true believer” like Santorum or Bachmann and those preferring to give a crucial boost to acceptable if less fervent candidates like Perry or Gingrich. The outcome of this internal debate, which was apparently discussed in a private “summit” meeting on Monday, will play a very important role in shaping the endgame of the Iowa caucus contest—as will the decision by Mitt Romney as to whether or not he will fully commit to an Iowa campaign (he is opening a shiny new HQ in Des Moines, which some observers are interpreting as an “all-in” gesture).

Without question, it became abundantly clear during the last week that the “Gingrich surge” in the nomination contest is real, or at least as real as earlier booms for Bachmann, Perry and Cain. The last five big national polls of Republicans (PPP, Fox, USAToday/Gallup, Quinnipiac and CNN) have all showed Gingrich in the lead. The big question is whether and when his rivals choose to unleash a massive attack on the former Speaker based on their bulging oppo research files featuring whole decades of flip-flops, gaffes, failures and personal “issues.”

Interestingly, though, Gingrich may have already opened the door to suspicious wingnut scrutiny without any overt encouragement from his rivals. During the last week’s second major multi-candidate event, the CNN/AEI/Heritage “national security” debate last night, Gingrich may have ignored the lessons of the Perry campaign by risking his own moment of heresy on the hot-button issue of immigration, calling for a Selective Service model whereby some undocumented workers with exemplary records could obtain legal permanent status if not citizenship. He was immediately rapped by Romney and Bachmann for supporting “amnesty.” We’ll soon see if Newt’s long identification with the conservative movement and his more recent savagery towards “secular socialists” will give him protection from such attacks, or if his signature vice of hubris is once again about to smite him now that he’s finally become a viable candidate for president.

Wingnut Watch: End-of-the-Year Standoff

Posted on December 14, 2011September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

The end of the calendar year always means an assortment of “temporary” policies are approaching expiration, including some (e.g., upward revision of reimbursement rates for Medicare providers, and a “patch” to avoid imposition of the Alternative Minimum Tax on new classes of taxpayers) that happen every year. And then there are other expiring provisions central to the Obama administration’s efforts to deal with the recession, most notably unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed, and last year’s major “stimulus” measure, a temporary Social Security payroll tax cut.

With the collapse of the deficit reduction supercommittee and an uncertain future ahead for the “automatic sequestrations” of spending that are supposed to subsequently occur, leaders in both parties are especially sensitive at the moment about taking steps on either the spending or revenue side of the budget ledger that add to deficits. But some of the “fixes” mentioned above are political musts, while others are highly popular or scratch particular ideological itches. It will be interesting to see whether conservative activists wind up taking a hard line against deficit increasing measures, and indeed, against any cooperation with Democrats so long as their own demands for “entitlement reform” and high-end tax cuts are ignored.

The payroll tax cut is an especially difficult subject for conservatives. While it will be easy for them to reject Senate Democratic proposals to pay for an extension of the cut with a surtax on millionaires, it is certainly possible, as Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has acknowledged, to “pay for” this tax cut with spending cuts, perhaps even some that Democrats would consider supporting.

Some conservatives, however, view any deal with Democrats on this and any other fiscal issues as a deal with the devil. One of McConnell’s deputies, Sen. John Kyl, has argued that the payroll tax cut hasn’t boosted the economy (i.e., it is not targeted to “job creators,” the wealthy) and should be subordinated to tax cut ideas that supposedly do. In an argument that is getting echoed across Wingnut World, RedState regular Daniel Horowitz suggests that GOPers make any payroll tax cut extension conditional on a major restructuring of Social Security, which of course ain’t happening.

Since virtually all the end-of-year measures under discussion will boost the budget deficit, and there are limited noncontroversial “offsets” available (mainly “distribution” of new savings attributed to the drawdown of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan), the key question will be which ones conservatives choose to pick a fight over and which ones slide quietly past the furor on unrecorded voice votes and last-minute agreements. If congressional Republicans seem to be acting in too accommodating a manner, it would not be surprising to see GOP presidential candidates using them as foils for their own claims to the “true conservative” vote as the January 3 Iowa caucuses grow ever nearer.

For the umpteenth consecutive week, the presidential contest remained full of surprises and volatility. Herman Cain’s campaign, already losing steam after his poor handling of both sexual harassment/assault allegations and the most recent debates, took perhaps a terminal blow from a new, credible-sounding allegation (made, interestingly enough, via a local Fox station in Atlanta, not some precinct of the “liberal media”) of a long-term adulterous affair. While Cain is again denying he did anything wrong, conservatives are not rushing to his defense this time, and the general feeling is that his campaign is done.

If Cain actually withdraws, it has long been assumed he would endorse Mitt Romney. But as a new analysis by Public Policy Polling showed, Cain’s supporters are very, very likely to move virtually en masse to Newt Gingrich, whose star continued to rise last week. His big news was an endorsement by the New Hampshire (formerly Manchester) Union-Leader, that sturdy right-wing warhorse of GOP politics. This step immediately makes Gingrich the most formidable rival to Mitt Romney in the Granite State: the Union-Leader does not simply endorse and ignore candidates; it can now be expected to undertake a virtually-daily bombardment of front-page editorials defending its candidate and treating his intraparty opponents (particularly Romney) as godless liberal RINOs.

But the impact of the endorsement goes far beyond New Hampshire, given the Union-Leader’s reputation for the most abrasive sort of wingnuttery. It materially helps him solidify his reputation for conservative ideological regularity, which is about to be brought into serious question by all the other campaigns, which are doubtless sorting through their bulging oppo research files on the talkative former Speaker, trying to decide which lines of attack are most lethal.

So far the he’s-not-a-true-conservative attack on Gingrich has been largely limited to his new, dangerous positioning on immigration, unveiled in a recent debate. Gingrich has been quick to stress that his proposal for a “path to legalization” for some undocumented workers does not involve citizenship, and denies its beneficiaries any government benefits whatsoever. But Iowa’s highly influential nativist champion Steve King has already branded Newt’s plan with the scarlet A-word of “amnesty,” and Michele Bachmann is trying to draw a new line in the sand suggesting that true conservatives favor deportation of every single “illegal.”

At this point, the presidential contest appears to be something of a race between Gingrich and his past words and deeds. There is a small window between now and the period immediately before and after Christmas (when something of a truce is imposed) when his opponents can try to bury him as a flip-flopper, an inveterate bipartisan, and a guy whose personal life (not just his marriages and divorces, but his finances) has been less than godly. If they don’t get their act together to do so, he’s looking very strong in Iowa, and even if he loses to Romney in New Hampshire, Gingrich is currently sporting large polling leads in South Carolina and Florida. Particularly for those candidates (Perry, Bachmann, Santorum; Ron Paul is in something of a class by himself) still hoping to seize the mantle of the true-conservative-challenger-to-Romney after Iowa, it’s getting close to desperation time.

Photo credit: FNS/cc

Wingnut Watch: The Power of Wingnut World

Posted on September 7, 2011September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

If you really want to understand the psychology and the power of Wingnut World, the Palmetto Freedom Forum event in South Carolina on Labor Day was a real eye-opener.

Set up by South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, Iowa Rep. Steve King, and social ultraconservative Robert George of Princeton University, the event was designed to remove the “soundbite” and horse-race mentality of conventional candidate debates, and present 2012 GOP presidentials with the opportunity and the challenge of making major statements of “first principles” before a murder board of ideological inquisitors.

The event was spoiled a bit by Rick Perry’s last-minute cancellation to go home to look over the shoulders of professional emergency managers and first responders dealing with the recent rash of Texas wildfires. Even if you give Perry full credit for doing the right thing, it’s clear he benefitted by avoiding a probable grilling from inquisitor Steve King over immigration policy (King asked other candidates not only about illegal immigration but about appropriate levels of legal immigration). And actually, it’s doubtful Perry would have done that well under questioning from Robert George about the constitutional issues involved in abortion policy, since the Texan has flip-flopped on the subject quite recently.

The other candidates (for a full video, go here) performed pretty much as demanded. They all bellied up to the bar of “constitutional conservatism,” the belief that right-wing policy prescriptions are the only way to remain faithful to the fundamental design of the Republic. Everyone vibrated at the idea of “American exceptionalism,” the notion that this country is not only exempt from any concept of universal norms of behavior and cooperation, but is divinely appointed to keep alive laissez-faire capitalism and conservative Christianity as models for the rest of the world.

Even though Perry was absent, Steve King dutifully quizzed the candidates not only on how they would deal with illegal immigrants, but whether they agreed with him that it was time to cut back on legal immigration as well (Herman Cain was the only—perhaps naïve—protester against that proposition).

The sheer zaniness of the event was probably best evidenced by Robert George’s extended interaction with several candidates over their willingness to engage in a constitutional confrontation with the U.S. Supreme Court in the event that Congress passed legislation seeking to outlaw or significantly restrict abortion. Bachmann and Gingrich eagerly agreed with George’s suggestion that a Republican president should fight to deny federal courts jurisdiction over abortion policy; Mitt Romney allowed as how he would not go quite that far.

But George also backed Michele Bachmann into a corner by getting her to admit she had no specific basis for her repeated argument that a state-imposed personal health care purchasing mandate—i.e., what Mitt Romney had helped create in Massachusetts—violated the U.S. Constitution.

For observers of the hyper-conservative mutation of the GOP over the last few years, the most startling development in Columbia was probably Mitt Romney’s agreement with his inquisitors that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be privatized and the Community Reinvestment Act repealed. This series of steps reflects the wingnut belief that federal efforts to increase homeownership by poor and minority families caused the housing and financial meltdowns of 2008. He didn’t start babbling about ACORN or William Ayers or the president’s birth certificate, or engage in a Santelli-style rant about “losers” and “parasites” stealing from virtuous rich people. But the fact that a sober character like Romney is buying into Tea Party conspiracy theories is not a good sign.

The presidential candidates will get together again Wednesday night in a more conventional setting and format: the Ronald Reagan presidential library in California. It appears Perry will show up this time, having pretty firmly established himself as the front-runner in the race (the latest token is a poll showing him leading among Republicans in Nevada, a state thought to be totally in the bag for Mitt Romney). The venue may discourage sharp elbows given the certainty that someone will invoke Reagan’s so-called “Eleventh Commandment” against personal attacks between Republicans. But Ron Paul has already taken the initiative to go negative on Perry with a broadcast TV ad, timed to coincide with (and perhaps air during) the debate, comparing Paul’s 1980 endorsement of Reagan with the Texan’s endorsement of Al Gore in 1988 (when he was still a Democrat and Gore was considered a moderate and defense hawk). It will be interesting to see if Michele Bachmann or one of the lesser candidates picks up the opportunity that Steve King missed in South Carolina to grill Perry on his immigration stance. The one certainty tonight is that everyone will kneel at the altar of St. Ronald, and it’s doubtful anyone will recall that he signed two tax increases as president, sought to negotiate nuclear disarmament with the Soviets, and cut a deal with Tip O’Neill to avoid cuts in Social Security—that RINO!

Photo credit: outtacontext

Stimulus for Entrepreneurs

Posted on July 28, 2011September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

The debt-ceiling stalemate is distracting policymakers’ attention from what should be their number one economic priority: putting Americans back to work. Big jolts of conventional stimulus, through public spending or tax cuts, are off the table for now, but Washington could try a different tack — stimulating entrepreneurship.

So says economist Robert Litan of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, who unveiled last week a creative menu of proposals for rebooting America’s entrepreneurial spirit. These ideas have been incorporated into the Startup Act, a bipartisan proposal endorsed by an unlikely pair of political bedfellows, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.)

Litan’s offering came on the heels of a new Kauffman study that shows why Congress should be thinking about ways to spur entrepreneurship. Startup job growth, which Kauffman says is the main engine behind net job growth in the United States, has been slowly declining. This drop began before the Great Recession. What’s more, the survival rate of new firms is declining, along with the number of jobs created on average by new startups.

No one seems to know why start-ups have been losing momentum. But Litan, also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, argued that public policy can be a catalyst for new business creation, just as it can also put obstacles in the way of entrepreneurs. The Startup bill’s provisions fall in four main baskets: selective immigration reform, easier access to capitol, streamlining the commercialization of new ideas, and resetting the regulatory burden on businesses.

Immigration reform: The bill advocates green cards for any foreign student that completes a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) degree at a U.S university and more easily available visas for non-American future entrepreneurs. Litan specifically suggested targeting talented individuals currently working in America on 6-year H-1 visas, a demographic that starts new firms at a higher rate than the rest of the workforce, as an easy starting point for reform.

Financing startups: At a time when credit is tight, the bill would generate capital to finance new startups from two sources: tax breaks and easier access to public markets. It proposes a capital gains exemption for long-term investments (those held over five years) in startups with a market value of less than $50 million. To give more startups a fighting chance to survive, the bill also would exempt them from the corporate income tax for the first five years. In addition, the act suggests would allow shareholders of startups under $1 billion in market value to decide whether or not to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, arguing that the cost of compliance for startups far outweighed any benefits compliance could provide.

Patent Reform: The bill also endorsed recent patent reform passed by both the House and Senate designed to make the process more efficient. Under this approach, smaller startups would be allowed to pay less for a priority patent review.

Regulatory Reset: Finally the plan calls for regulatory reform as well as data collection on individual states – ranking them on how well they create a favorable climate for startups. It would require a cost-benefit analysis for all proposed rules and subject them to automatic, 10-year sunset requirements. State rankings would provide states with the motivation to decrease their regulatory burden and attract more new business.

At a recent forum, Litan noted that the government seems to be out of fiscal policy bullets to jolt the economy back to life. By creating a climate more conducive to the birth and survival of new firms, however, the U.S. could spur job creation at a relatively modest cost that won’t break the bank.

Photo Credit: Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

Can Immigration Benefit Dems?

Posted on May 10, 2011September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Immigration isn’t a winning issue for either party. Republicans, under the tea party’s spell, are gravitating toward a purely restrictionist stance, which will complicate their party’s efforts to make inroads among Latinos, the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. electorate. President Obama and the Democrats favor “comprehensive reform,” which includes legalizing millions of workers. With joblessness stuck at twice normal levels, and wages stagnant at best for average workers, that’s a hard sell.

Since there’s obviously no way today’s divided Congress will pass a comprehensive bill, people naturally wonder why Obama keeps returning to the theme. No doubt his advisers want to galvanize another big Latino turnout in 2012, with similarly lopsided Democratic margins. But it’s also true that Obama never stops looking for ways to advance his core campaign promises – just ask the bin Ladens.

Latino advocacy groups are pressing Obama to use his executive powers to slow down deportations. That also will be difficult, because stronger enforcement of U.S. immigration laws constitutes the only common ground in this debate. If you are weak on enforcement, you won’t get a hearing on anything else.

In any case, balanced immigration reform will have to await full economic recovery. In the meantime Obama and progressives should focus on a more modest goal: beginning to align U.S. immigration policy with America’s economic needs. This means expanding the number of high skill visas, stapling green cards to the diplomas of foreign students so they can put what they’ve learned to work in the United States, and opening a pathway to citizenship for the children of illegal aliens who get into college.

cross-posted at The Arena at Politico

Grading the State of The Union: A Solid B+

Posted on January 26, 2011September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Last week, the Progressive Policy Institute released a Memo to President Obama, which contained 10 Big Ideas for Getting America Moving Again. How did the President’s speech match up to our recommendations?

Overall, he did quite well. Eight of our ten ideas were largely consonant with proposals included in the address, and the future-oriented rhetoric echoes the language in our memo. We also appreciate his willingness to look to both sides of the aisle to find solutions.

However, we were disappointed that he did not discuss the sluggish housing market, and that he did offer any ideas to address the roots of the partisan rancor in Washington.

Our overall grade: B+

Here’s a proposal-by-proposal scorecard:

1. Removing Obstacles to Growth: A Regulatory Improvement Commission

We proposed: A periodic review process conducted by a Regulatory Improvement Commission, modeled loosely on the BRAC Commissions for military base closures.

The President said: “To reduce barriers to growth and investment, I’ve ordered a review of government regulations.”

Analysis: The President clearly understands that we need to prune obsolete and ineffective regulations and stimulate economic innovation and entrepreneurship. But agency self-review is inadequate.

Grade: A-

2. Internal National Building: A National Infrastructure Bank

We proposed: Smart, innovative financing solutions that enable us to restore the backbone of our economy. A well-structured National Infrastructure Bank can play this role by leveraging public dollars with the participation of private-sector investors.

The President said: “The third step in winning the future is rebuilding America. To attract new businesses to our shores, we need the fastest, most reliable ways to move people, goods, and information — from high-speed rail to high-speed Internet.”

Analysis: Making infrastructure one of five sections of the speech gave it real prominence. But the President needs to do more than just propose “that we redouble those efforts.” He needs to lay out a mechanism to do that rationally, and to identify clear funding for it. A National Infrastucture Bank could accomplish that.

Grade: A-

3. A Way to Pay for High-Speed Rail

We proposed: Restructuring the Highway Trust Fund into a Surface Transportation Trust Fund that recaptures its original mission—to build and maintain an efficient national transportation network—and updates that mission to reflect 21st-century priorities, including upgrades to our passenger and freight rail systems.

The President said: “Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail. “

Analysis: We applaud the President’s full-throated commitment to high-speed rail. However, he’s going to need to figure out a way to pay for it. We suggest he read Mark Reutter’s excellent memo on how to finance high-speed rail.

Grade: A-

4. Restoring Fiscal Discipline in Washington

We proposed: Restoring fiscal discipline in Washington by trimming the $1.1 trillion in outdated tax expenditures, capping domestic spending (including defense), eliminating supplemental defense budgets, and slowing mandatory expenditures by reducing benefits for affluent retirees.

The President said: “Starting this year, we freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years… we cut excessive spending wherever we find it –- in domestic spending, defense spending, health care spending, and spending through tax breaks and loopholes… we should also find a bipartisan solution to strengthen Social Security for future generations…we simply can’t afford a permanent extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.”

Analysis: The President clearly gets the seriousness of the looming debt crisis, but understands the difference between smart cuts and needed investments. But he could have come out more strongly in favor the Fiscal Commission’s work, and he only paid lip service to entitlements.

Grade: B+

5. Setting National Targets: A Balanced Energy Portfolio

We proposed: A national Balanced Energy Portfolio with a target fuel mix allocated into thirds by 2040: one third of our electricity generated by renewable resources, one third by nuclear power, and one third from traditional fossil fuels.

The President said: “By 2035, 80 percent of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources. Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all — and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen.”

Analysis: The President is thinking big, but also recognizing that nuclear and natural gas need to be part of any energy mix.

Grade: A

6. Greening the Pentagon: An Energy Security Innovation Fund

We proposed: An Energy Security Innovation Fund, housed in the Pentagon, to help companies bridge the gap. Such a fund would leverage public dollars with private money to support research and deployment of the most promising green products.

The President said: “We’re telling America’s scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we’ll fund the Apollo projects of our time.”

Analysis: The next clean energy breakthrough is going to require support from the government. But Obaa should look beyond the Department of Energy and recognize that the military can be a fertile source of innovation, too.

Grade: A-

7. Bringing Public Education into the 21st Century

We proposed: To radically transform public education by growing charter schools, ending teacher tenure as we know it, spurring a network of “Innovation Zones”, and creating a “Digital Teacher Corps”.

The President said: “Our schools share this responsibility. When a child walks into a classroom, it should be a place of high expectations and high performance. But too many schools don’t meet this test.”

Analysis: Education is clearly the key to our ability to “win the future,” and the President understands this. We support his Race to the Top program and the call for more bright young people to go into education. But we also hope he thinks more creatively about radical new ideas for 21^st century education, embracing the possibilities of charter schools, digital education, and “innovation zones.”

Grade: A-

8. Lifting Housing Markets: One Million Homeowner Vouchers

We proposed: An innovative way to jump-start the housing market would be for the federal government to provide a million vouchers that allow low-income renters to become homeowners.

The President said: (Nothing)

Analysis: Surprisingly, the President failed to mention the sluggish housing market, which many economists believe is one of the leading factors holding back an economic recovery.

Grade: F

9. Align Innovation and Immigration

We proposed: Aligning innovation and immigration by providing a citizenship path for foreign students with advanced technical degrees and illegal immigrants’ children who are interested in national service.

The President said: “I strongly believe that we should take on, once and for all, the issue of illegal immigration… I know that debate will be difficult. I know it will take time. But tonight, let’s agree to make that effort. And let’s stop expelling talented, responsible young people who could be staffing our research labs or starting a new business, who could be further enriching this nation. “

Analysis: The President deserves points for having the courage to bring up immigration reform. But he clearly gets it: our global competitiveness depends on continuing to be a magnet for the world’s best and brightest.

Grade: A

10. Taking Power from Special Interests: A Fair Way to Finance Elections

We proposed: A hybrid Fair Elections system introduced by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to allow federal candidates to choose to run for office without relying on large contributions by using federal money to match small donations.

The President said: (Nothing)

Analysis: Campaign finance reform is not on the agenda, and the President does not seem particularly interested in putting it there. This is too bad. A great way to break the partisan rancor in Washington would be change the way politicians get elected to office. As long as congressional campaigns are privately funded, and as long as the big donations come primarily from ideologues and special interests, pragmatic candidates are going to have a tough time raising the resources they need to get started, and a difficult time winning in all-important low-turnout primaries.

Grade: F

Conclusion:

Overall, it was a great speech. It laid out the problems that we face as a nation, and provided a vision of an America that invests smartly in the future, building infrastructure, providing educational opportunities, and remaining a magnet for the best and brightest in the world, and all in a way that could move us past partisan divides.

Impossible DREAM

Posted on December 20, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

One of Barack Obama’s finest moments as President came this past September, when he gave a speech to Congress urging passage of the health-care reform bill. In his closing remarks, he invoked the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, and what Kennedy had written him in his final days: “What we face is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.” Those words resonated with Obama. “I’ve thought about that phrase quite a bit in recent days – the character of our country,” he told the country that night.

Those same words stung with relevance this weekend. Overshadowed by the landmark repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, a triumph of social justice, was a cruel development: the Senate’s failure to break the filibuster to pass the DREAM Act.

In more reasonable days, the DREAM Act would have been a no-brainer. The bill paves a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. by their parents. It would grant permanent residency status to immigrants who graduate from high school and complete two years of college or enter the military. In other words, young men and women who were brought to this country illegally by their parents and who want to become more integrated into our national life would finally have the means to do so.

A good idea, and a bipartisan one too – once upon a time. In a period when our nation is in need of as many achievers and public servants it can get its arms around, the DREAM Act would seem to be a common-sense solution (not to mention a deficit-reducing one, as the CBO found).

But those days are long gone, and when the vote to cut off debate came up, the bill fell five short of 60. Three Republicans – Richard Lugar, Robert Bennett, and Lisa Murkowski – voted in favor, while five Democrats voted against. All this despite the fact that, under the Obama administration, there have been a record number of deportations, part of Obama’s effort to convince the bill’s holdouts that it is serious on enforcement.

The pictures that accompanied the news stories of the bill’s failure tell the story. Here’s how the Times described the scene:

Young Hispanic men and women filled the spectator galleries of the Senate, many of them wearing graduation caps and tassels in a symbol of their support for the bill. They held hands in a prayerful gesture as the clerk called the roll and many looked stricken as its defeat was announced.

For those young men and women, the rebuff must have been unfathomable: Why would this country explicitly deny them the opportunity to be productive contributors to our national life?

That the DREAM Act has gone from a pragmatic, consensus policy to anathema to not just the right but even a handful of Democrats speaks to a worrisome shift in American attitudes. Demagoguery is rife; resentments are in full bloom. It makes one worry for the character of our country.

On Immigration, Obama Ready to Lead — But Will the Public Follow?

Posted on July 9, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s puzzling that President Obama keeps returning to the combustible subject of immigration. You’d think that, with big financial reform and energy/climate bills hanging fire, he’d have his hands full. And with unemployment stuck at nearly 10 percent, it’s not exactly a propitious time for a national debate over legalizing millions of immigrants who are living and working illegally in this country.

So what gives? Maybe it’s simply that Obama is the son of an immigrant father. Republicans, of course, have a more cynical explanation. They say Obama is throwing a bone to Latino advocacy groups disappointed by his failure to redeem a campaign pledge to move comprehensive immigration reform. Facing a very difficult midterm election, Democrats can’t afford to give Latino voters reasons to stay home.

After the Justice Department sued Arizona this week over a controversial immigration law, the Wall Street Journal accused Obama of being “more focused on branding the GOP anti-immigrant than he is on signing a reform bill.”

It’s true that immigration has opened up a fault line between Republican restrictionists and moderates like former President Bush, who won a substantial chunk of the Latino vote in 2000 and 2004. But give Obama some credit: He’s consistently ignored advice from Washington wise men to postpone politically risky undertakings – like health care and the climate bill – until the economy turns up again. His determination to take on the nation’s biggest problems, rather than “kick the can down the road,” is admirable, if impolitic.

But while Obama may be ready to lead, it’s not clear the public is ready to follow. A new Gallup poll finds Americans closely divided on immigration reform. By a 50-45 margin, they favor halting the flow of illegal immigrants over “developing a plan to deal with immigrants now in the U.S. illegally.” The survey also found that immigration is far from uppermost in voters’ list of concerns.

In a major speech on immigration last week at American University, Obama once again showed a fine instinct for the middle ground. He chided restrictionists who imagine that all 11 million illegal immigrants can simply be rounded up and sent home. But he also criticized immigrant advocates who call for a blanket amnesty for all people here illegally. “It would suggest to those thinking about coming here illegally that there will be no repercussions for such a decision. And this could lead to a surge in more illegal immigration. And it would also ignore the millions of people around the world who are waiting in line to come here legally,” Obama said. And he added: “Ultimately, our nation, like all nations, has the right and obligation to control its borders and set laws for residency and citizenship. And no matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be held accountable.”

That kind of moral clarity has been missing from liberal discourse on immigration, and it gives Obama a chance to be heard by Americans worried that the flow of undocumented immigrants across our southern border have eroded U.S. sovereignty and made a mockery of our laws. Once that has been stipulated, it’s easier to engage people in rational discussion about a compassionate way to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants working in our communities.

So far, so good. But Obama’s speech contained two large blind spots. One has to do with developing our capacity to enforce immigration laws in the workplace. After all, what attracts undocumented immigrants is the opportunity to work in the U.S. Until we have reliable systems for establishing the identity and legal status of workers, it will be difficult to hold employers accountable for hiring those who came here illegally.

Second, and even more important, the president seemed oblivious to the fundamental mismatch between U.S. immigration laws and our economy. America needs to import more skilled labor to plug gaps for scientists, engineers and technicians throughout our high-tech, high-wage economy. Our immigration system, however, gives priority not to skills, but to family unification.

Rather than simply urge Congress to take up comprehensive immigration reform where it left off back in 2006, the administration needs to think more creatively about modernizing immigration policy, and aligning it more closely with the requirements of U.S. economic innovation and competitiveness. I’ve offered some ideas along these lines, but more fundamental change is needed.

President Obama’s instincts on immigration are sound, but he needs to bring our policies and laws up-to-date in addition to finding a fair and compassionate way of dealing with people who came here illegally to find a better life.

Southern Republican Focus on Immigration Intensifies

Posted on July 8, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

As regular readers might recall, back in May I did an analysis which predicted that the furor over immigration policy touched off in Arizona would have its greatest political impact not in the southwest or west coast, but in the Deep South, where a combination of new and highly visible Hispanic populations, low Hispanic voting levels, and red-hot Republican primaries would likely bring the issue to the forefront.

Nothing that’s happened since then has made me change my mind about that, though southern Republican unanimity on backing the Arizona law and replicating it everywhere has reduced the salience of immigration as a differentiator in some GOP primaries, most notably in South Carolina (where in any event the Nikki Haley saga eclipsed everything else).

But in Georgia, whose primary is on July 20, immigration is indeed a big issue in the gubernatorial contest, as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jim Galloway:

For the next 13 days, all stops are off when it comes to debating the issue of illegal immigration.

The Obama administration’s court challenge to the Arizona law that gives its peace officers the authority to stop and impound undocumented residents is already serving as a stick to a wasp nest in Georgia’s race for governor.

Former congressman Nathan Deal’s first TV ad of the primary season on Wednesday focused on illegal immigration and a promise that Georgia would soon have an Arizona-style law.

On the answering machines of tens of thousands of GOP voters, former secretary of state Karen Handel left a message of endorsement from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. Expect to see Brewer at Handel’s side before the July 20 vote.

The climate doesn’t brook dissent. Democrats have been uniformly silent on the Arizona issue.

As it happens, Deal and Handel are battling for a runoff spot. Handel and long-time Republican front-runner John Oxendine are also proposing radical changes in the state tax code, abolishing income taxes entirely, but so far that momentous issue is not getting the kind of attention generated by the action of another state on immigration three time zones away.

Photo credit: Th.omas’ Photostream

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.