issue: Politics

America’s Skills Gap: Why it’s Real, And Why it Matters

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

A common view among the left is that the “skills gap” – a shortage of workers with the skills employers want – is a mirage.

A new PPI report decisively debunks this myth. As author Ryan Craig explains, the skills gap is real: employers are having trouble finding enough workers with digital skills and “soft skills.”

Craig attributes these shortages to two factors: “Education friction” – the failure of higher education institutions to turn out job-ready graduates — and “hiring friction” – digital screening practices that cause employers to overlook qualified workers.

Craig offers a fresh take on why skills gaps persist, the consequences for economic growth and what he calls “economic alienation” among workers feeling left behind in today’s economy.

Sen. Warren’s Tech-Bashing Populism Misses the Mark

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The last time we checked, the United States was locked in a high-stakes race with China to lead the world on digital innovation.  So we’re mystified by Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s call today to break up Google, Amazon and Facebook. These are not only America’s most creative companies, but they and other large tech platforms have pioneered a global digital revolution.

They’ve grown big because they’ve been successful. That doesn’t make them perfect and, like any private enterprise large or small, they need strong public oversight and regulation. But breaking them up, absent compelling evidence that they are systematically gouging consumers or stifling competition, would be an act of stupendous economic folly.

To be sure, business consolidation and concentrated market power are real concerns.  But as PPI economist Michael Mandel has demonstrated, such worries apply less to the dynamic and fiercely competitive digital ecosystem than to America’s older and more static physical industries.

Perhaps Sen. Warren is jockeying to enter a very crowded populist “lane” in the 2020 presidential nomination contest.  But if she believes that anti-tech populism is broadly popular with U.S. voters, she’s mistaken. In fact, as a recent PPI poll makes clear,  most Americans have a favorable view of the big tech companies, and oppose breaking them up.

Our poll found that 67 percent of likely voters view the tech companies positively, as shown in Figure 1, and 55 percent oppose breaking them up. While 60 percent of voters acknowledge they are concerned about tech companies’ handling of privacy and data protection, 71 percent of voters view tech companies as “a sign that the American economy is working.” In contrast, just 32 percent view Big Tech as “too powerful.”

Sen. Warren’s call to break up America’s tech leaders may go down well with her party’s “democratic socialist” faction. It will no doubt be applauded by European regulators, who have also drawn a bead on U.S. tech companies. But to most voters, they symbolize American ingenuity and entrepreneurial prowess. Are those qualities progressives really should oppose?

 

Gerwin for Medium: “Trump Thinks ‘Trade Isn’t Tricky'”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

When economic historians recount U.S. trade policy under Donald Trump, they’ll tell a cautionary tale. Like the current consensus that the Smoot-Hawley tariffs worsened the Great Depression and tanked global trade, future analysts will detail the negative economic effects of Trump’s go-it-alone trade policies. And historians will draw from a treasure trove of quotes from the “Tariff Man,” who famously said that “trade wars are good and easy to win.”

Perhaps no quote better captures the essence — and dysfunction — of Trump’s trade policies than his claim that “trade isn’t tricky.” Trump sees trade as a straightforward, black-and-white issue. As a result, he’s pursued simplistic — often blunt-force — solutions. Trump’s failure to appreciate the complexity of the interconnected global economy is perhaps the greatest source of the long-term damage that his policies are causing to America’s economy and global standing.

 

Read the full piece on Medium by clicking here. 

New Ideas for a Do Something Congress No. 6: Break America’s Regulatory Log-jam

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Regulation plays a critical role in refereeing competition in a free market economy. But there’s a problem: Each year, Congress piles new rules upon old, creating a thick sludge of regulations – some obsolete, repetitive, and even contradictory – that weighs down citizens and businesses. In 2017, the Code of Federal Regulations swelled to a record 186,374 pages, up 19 percent from just a decade before.

The steady accumulation of regulations raises compliance and opportunity costs for businesses, especially small enterprises, putting obstacles in the way of economic innovation. Dozens of agencies in Washington issue new rules, but not one is dedicated to retiring old ones. To fill this institutional vacuum, PPI proposes a Regulatory Improvement Commission (RIC), modeled on the highly successful Defense Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process for closing obsolete military installations. Like the BRAC process, the proposed RIC would examine old rules and present Congress with a package of recommendations for an up-or-down vote to eliminate or modify outdated rules.

 

THE CHALLENGE: REGULATORY ACCUMULATION DAMPENS AMERICA’S ECONOMIC VITALITY

Wise regulation is essential to facilitate market competition, protect public health and safety, and keep powerful economic actors honest. But as PPI has pointed out in a series of reports, even if any particular regulation is defensible, the sheer accumulation of rules over time can dampen economic vitality (1). New regulations can interact with old ones in unintended ways, and business owners end up spending more time trying to navigate and comply with proliferating rules rather than on growing their companies.

  • Federal regulations hardly ever die, resulting in a dense thicket of rules that raise costs for America’s entrepreneurs and economy.

As shown in Figure 1, the Code of Federal Regulations has steadily grown in size over time, swelling to a record 186,374 pages in 2017 (2). Because the extent of regulation can be difficult to measure, the Code of Federal Regulations’ size is commonly used to provide a sense of the scope of regulations businesses and consumers must comply with. Measured another way, the Federal Register (where the federal government prints new rules) published 61,950 pages in 2017 alone, including proposed rules, final rules, and notices.

Spread across every sector, regulatory accumulation acts as a drag on the economy. One often-cited 2010 study for the Small Business Administration placed just the direct cost of compliance with all federal regulations at $1.7 trillion in 2008, or $15,584 per household (3). A 2012 consulting study for the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation estimated the cumulative cost of major regulations for manufacturers to be $164 billion in 2011 (in constant dollars), double the cost just 10 years earlier. More recently, a 2017 National Small Business Association survey estimated that the average small business owner spends at least $12,000 every year on compliance, with nearly one in three spending more than 80 hours every year dealing with federal regulation (4).

The Trump Administration’s “2-for-1” approach to deregulation fails to distinguish between vital rules and those that tax innovation and growth.

  • President Trump frequently brags about his efforts to provide business with regulatory relief, but his 2017 executive order requiring the elimination of two regulations for each new regulation is the wrong approach. It raises the bar for issuing new regulations without creating a rigorous mechanism for pruning old ones (5).

In addition, Trump’s 2-for-1 scheme fails to distinguish between the kinds of regulations that are reasonable for public health and economic stability or would enhance market competition and those that might be unnecessary or harmful to innovation and growth. Setting aside its conceptual flaws, Trump’s approach has so far not had much practical effect either. According to a Brookings Institute analysis, the Administration’s approach to regulation has largely been one of inaction, and the most consequential “deregulatory” maneuvers have actually been undertaken by the GOP Congress through the wholesale legislative reversal of important Obama-era rules, such as on environmental protection (6). Neither outcome leads to the sort of effective regulatory framework our economy needs.

 

THE GOAL: IMPROVE THE REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT TO UNLOCK ENTREPRENEURIAL GROWTH

Washington needs a mechanism for systematically eliminating regulatory obstacles to economic innovation and entrepreneurship while protecting public safety and ensuring fair competition. Improving the regulatory climate would help inventors and entrepreneurs spend less time and resources on regulatory compliance and focus instead on delivering goods and services and growing their enterprises. A smarter regulatory regime would also realize savings for taxpayers, as less money would need to be spent on enforcement.

While Democrats see the value in responsible regulation that has an important societal function, Republicans take the general view that less regulation is always preferred to more, and that too many regulations of any kind hamper economic growth and potential business investment. These differences in opinion result in incompatible ideas for what regulatory reform should look like.

The answer to outdated, conflicting, or costly rules isn’t deregulation, but the constant updating, streamlining, and improving of our regulatory system. PPI’s proposal for a Regulatory Improvement Commission (RIC) bridges the stale, gridlocked debate on the merits of regulation between Democrats and Republicans, presenting a measured and bipartisan mechanism for improving the regulatory environment to catalyze innovation while also protecting public interests. The RIC would fill an institutional vacuum in regulation policy by creating a mechanism for the periodic clearing out of obsolete rules. Importantly, the RIC has no mechanism by which it can inhibit policymakers’ ability to create critical new rules to address threats to competition or public health and safety. Rather, the RIC would be designed to address only existing regulations that have accumulated over time and are now obsolete.

 

THE PLAN: ESTABLISH REGULATORY IMPROVEMENT COMMISSION TO DEAL PERIODICALLY WITH THE BUILD-UP OF OLD RULES

Washington has dozens of agencies that issue new rules, but not one institution dedicated to streamlining the accumulated body of regulations. To fill that vacuum, Congress should set up a regulatory version of the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC), which has resulted in the successful closure of more than 350 obsolete installations since the late 1980s. That panel offers a rare example of bipartisan success in accomplishing a politically difficult mission – shutting down old military bases that the Pentagon deemed no longer necessary, but which had influential constituencies in communities around the country.

The RIC would be an independent commission of eight members, appointed by the President and Congress, with regulatory expertise across industry and government. It would meet as authorized by Congress to review and, following a public comment period of 60 days, draw up a list of 15 to 20 rules for elimination or modification. The package would be sent to Congress for an up-or-down vote, and the RIC would be disbanded. If the proposed changes pass Congress, they would go to the president’s desk for signature or veto. The RIC would need to be re-authorized each time Congress would like to repeat this process. Such continued re-authorization is important, as it provides an inexpensive method to solve the problem of regulatory accumulation compared to a standing committee and avoids the creation of a new government bureaucracy.

In 2015, bipartisan groups of lawmakers introduced bills in the House and Senate to establish a Regulatory Improvement Commission based on the BRAC model. House cosponsors included Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), now acting White House Chief of Staff, and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), now a Democratic Senator from Arizona. Unfortunately, the incoming Trump administration ignored the bipartisan RIC bills in favor of anti-regulation bills supported only by Republicans.

The RIC offers an alternative to the witless binary approach to regulation poised by extreme partisans on both ends of the spectrum. Obviously, America’s massive and complex economy needs smart regulation to function properly, and we need institutions charged with constantly improving our regulatory environment, rather than simply piling new rules atop old ones.

In this way, the RIC would fill a vacuum in Washington for a politically viable regulatory improvement mechanism that can inspire confidence across our partisan and ideological divides. And it would create a court of appeal where anyone—business, consumers, labor, civic groups—could challenge existing rules and propose changes.

[gview file=”https://www.progressivepolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/PPI_Break-Americas-Regulatory-Log-jam_V4-1.pdf” title=”PPI_Break America’s Regulatory Log-jam_V4 (1)”]

 

ENDNOTES

1) Michael Mandel, “A Progressive Approach to Regulation”, Progressive Policy Institute, February 2011: https://www.progressivepolicy.org/2011/02/reviving-jobsand-innovation-a-progressive-approach-to-improving-regulation/

2) Federal Register: The Daily Journal of the United States Government, “Federal Register and CFR Publication Statistics – Aggregated Charts (XLS)”: https://www.federalregister.gov/reader-aids/understanding-the-federal-register/federal-register-statistics

3) Small Business Administration, “The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms,” September 2010: https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/The%20Impact%20of%20Regulatory%20Costs%20on%20Small%20Firms%20(Full).pdf.

4) “2017 NSBA Small Business Regulations Survey,” National Small Business Association, 2017. https://www.nsba.biz/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Regulatory-Survey-2017.pdf

5) “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs,” Executive Order 13771, Federal Register, January 30, 2017. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/02/03/2017-02451/reducing-regulation-and-controlling-regulatory-costs

6) Jennifer Erin Brown, Joelle Saad-Lessler and Diane Oakley, “Retirement in America: Out of Reach for Working Americans?” National Institute on Retirement Security, September 2018, https://www.nirsonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/FINAL-Report-.pdf.

7) Connor Raso, “How has Trump’s deregulatory order worked in practice?,” Brookings Institute, September 6, 2018. https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-has-trumps-deregulatory-order-worked-in-practice/.

Kim for Medium: “The Dangers of Big Ideas and Small Tent Politics for House Democrats”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Emboldened by their conviction that the national zeitgeist is on their side, the progressive left is taking a harder line against House Democrats reluctant to embrace their agenda.

Groups like the Justice Democrats, for instance, have signaled their intent to primary moderate members who don’t espouse signature liberal efforts such as the “Green New Deal” or the abolition of private insurance in favor of single-payer health care. And last week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reportedly warned her colleagues in a closed-door meeting of House Democrats that they could find themselves “on a list” of primary targets if they bucked the party on certain votes.

These tactics will do the party no favors as it works to maintain a relatively fragile majority. And as the findings of a pre-election poll by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) show, liberals are wrong to assume that most Americans share their desire for sweeping government intervention in the economy.

 

Read the full piece on Medium by clicking here.

Trump Gets It Half Right on PBMs

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In searching for ways to satisfy public demand for lower drug prices, President Trump has found rare common ground with Democrats. The White House recently released a plan to reform the way pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) negotiate prices with drugmakers on behalf of health insurance companies. Specifically, the proposal takes aim at special discounts or rebates negotiated by PBMs that create a perverse incentive for drugmakers to push up the list price of their products.

The idea is to get rid of these incentives in order to bring down drug prices, which would mean lower out-of-pocket expenses for patients. Democrats like Senator Ron Wyden have long pushed for changes to the rebate structure. However, Trump’s plan has drawn fire from critics who say it could become a boon for big drug companies by shifting more costs to the federal government. The truth is, the rebate proposal is a good first step to help Medicare beneficiaries at the drug counter; but, without further action to increase transparency around drug pricing and encourage competition, costs could be shifted from drug companies to taxpayers.

 

New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 5: Make Rural America’s Higher Education Deserts Bloom

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As many as 41 million Americans live in “higher education deserts” – at least half an hour’s drive from the nearest college or university and with limited access to community college. Many of these deserts are in rural America, which is one reason so much of rural America is less prosperous than it deserves to be.

The lack of higher education access means fewer opportunities for going back to school or improving skills. A less educated workforce in turn means communities have a tougher time attracting businesses and creating new jobs.

Congress should work to eradicate higher education deserts. In particular, it can encourage new models of higher education – such as “higher education centers” and virtual colleges – that can fill this gap and bring more opportunity to workers and their communities. Rural higher education innovation grants are one potential way to help states pilot new approaches.

 

THE CHALLENGE: HIGHER EDUCATION “DESERTS” ARE HANDICAPPING RURAL AMERICA

For millions of Americans, distance is as big or bigger a barrier to higher education access as finances. According to the Urban Institute, nearly one in five American adults—as many as 41 million people—lives twenty-five miles or more from the nearest college or university, or in areas where a single community college is the only source of broad-access public higher education within that distance. Three million of the Americans in these so-called “higher education deserts” also lack broadband internet, which means they are cut off from online education opportunities as well (1).

Rural students have lower rates of college-going and completion.

More than four in five people in higher education deserts – 82 percent – live in rural areas. This could be one reason why fewer rural Americans attend or finish college.

In 2016, 61 percent of rural public school seniors went on to college the following year, according to the National Student Clearinghouse, compared to 67 percent for suburban students (2). Only 20 percent of rural young adults between 25 and 34 have four-year degrees, says the USDA’s Economic Research Service, compared to 37 percent of young adults in urban areas (3). Moreover, the urban-rural gap in college degree attainment is growing. From 2000 to 2015, the share of college-educated adults rose by 7-points in urban locales compared to 4-points in rural areas.

Less-educated rural areas are falling behind while better educated cities leap ahead.

With more and more jobs demanding ever higher levels of skill, disparities in access to higher education are translating to vast disparities in the distribution of jobs and opportunity throughout the United States, including a widening urban-rural divide. Wealthy urban areas are getting richer, while rural areas are increasingly lagging.

The Economic Innovation Group (EIG), for instance, reports that of the 6.8 million net new jobs created between 2000 and 2015, 6.5 million were created in the top 20 percent of zip codes, which were predominantly urban (4). These prosperous, job-creating zip codes are also the best-educated. EIG further finds that 43 percent of residents in the top 10 percent of zip codes has a bachelor’s degree or better, compared to just 11 percent in the bottom 10 percent. While a four-year degree is of course not a prerequisite for a good living, the heavy concentration of highly-educated workers is indicative of the imbalance in economic opportunities between rural and urban areas.

Most of the nation’s least educated and most impoverished counties are rural. 

If education and prosperity are linked, so conversely are poverty and the lack of educational attainment.

Out of 467 U.S. counties identified by the USDA as “low education” counties – places where 20 percent or more of the population has less than a high school diploma – 79 percent are rural (5). These counties tend to be clustered in the rural South, Appalachia, along the Texas border and in Native American reservations and also suffer from higher rates of poverty, child poverty and unemployment.

 

THE GOAL: ERADICATE HIGHER EDUCATION DESERTS AND ENSURE EVERY RURAL AMERICAN HAS HIGHER EDUCATION ACCESS

Better access to higher education in rural areas, especially for the many millions of “nontraditional” students who are now increasingly the norm (6), can help close the gulf in opportunity between urban and rural areas. Greater opportunities for convenient, affordable higher education would allow more rural Americans to finish their degrees or pursue occupational credentials, qualifying them for higher-skilled, better-paid jobs. Rural students would also benefit by not being forced to leave home for school – not only lowering costs for students but potentially slowing or even reversing the population declines plaguing rural areas. Institutions of higher education can also serve as engines of economic development in the communities they serve. They can work with businesses to turn out the skilled talent they need and provide research or other support.

 

THE PLAN: CREATE RURAL HIGHER EDUCATION INNOVATION GRANTS TO ENCOURAGE NEW MODELS OF HIGHER EDUCATION REACHING RURAL AMERICA

While it’s unrealistic to establish a new college, community college or university in every rural area that needs one, emerging models for delivering higher education potentially offer a creative, cost-effective and effective alternative. These new models can also expand the ability of workers to obtain high-quality occupational credentials, which in many instances are likely to be more practical, affordable and desirable than pursuing a two-year or four-year degree.

Some states, such as Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland, are pioneering new approaches, such as “higher education centers” and virtual colleges, that use technology to broaden students’ options for both traditional college education and occupational training (7). The Northern Pennsylvania Regional College, for instance, operates six different “hubs” scattered throughout the 7,000 square miles it serves, plus numerous “classrooms” using borrowed space from local high schools, public libraries and other community buildings. In addition to conferring its own degrees, it provides the infrastructure for other accredited institutions to extend their reach through “blended” offerings combining virtual and in-person teaching.

Similarly, Virginia’s five higher education centers provide physical infrastructure for colleges and community colleges offering classes as well as occupational training in fields such as welding, mechatronics and IT certification. In Maryland, the Southern Maryland Higher Education Center offers specific courses from ten different institutions, including Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland. Though relatively new, these institutions are already establishing a track record of success. In South Boston, Virginia, for instance, the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center worked with more than 30 area industries and entrepreneurs in 2017, developed customized training for nearly 150 workers in local companies and placed 173 students into new jobs (8).

Congress should encourage all states to make rural higher education a priority and help more states experiment with new models for accessing higher education in remote areas. One way to do this is to provide seed money in the form of Rural Higher Education Innovation Grants so that states can stand up pilots, evaluate the effectiveness of new models and scale up promising approaches. These grants moreover do not need to be large – the Pennsylvania legislature initially appropriated just $1.2 million to launch what is now NPRC.

As a start, Congress should set aside $10 million in competitive grant funding for states. Funding for these grants could come from an earmark of the money collected from the 1.4 percent excise tax on large university endowments included in the 2017 tax legislation (9).

 

Read Here: New Ideas For a Do Something Congress No. 5

Bledsoe for USA Today, “Trump border emergency is fake and climate crisis is real. Guess which just got funded?”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Donald Trump funds ’emergency’ border wall but relief for victims of wildfires, storms and other climate change-fueled catastrophes must wait.

One emergency, the border wall, is fake, invented by a rogue president desperate for a political win no matter the price. Another, the climate crisis, is real, with tens of millions of citizen victims around the country. Guess which one got funded?

President Donald Trump is risking a constitutional crisis by declaring a false national emergency to fund a border wall that his own government experts say isn’t needed and won’t work, and of which he himself says, “I didn’t need to do this.”

Meanwhile, the bill Trump signed last week to keep the government open leaves out tens of billions of dollars of relief for American citizens who are victims of hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters made worse by climate change.

This should not be a shock to anyone paying close attention. Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, reacting to earlier reports, last week pointedly denied that the administration would raid relief funds designated for victims of storms and wildfires to get money for Trump’s dubious border wall.

The president, who denies basic climate science and is rolling back key climate protections, would have been taking money from its victims to escape the consequences of his own manufactured government-shutdown crisis — all to build a wall that will be ineffective and even counterproductive in improving border security.

A firestorm of criticism prevented that. Yet here we are about a month later with much the same outcome.

Continue reading at USA Today.

Marshall for Medium: “Will the Senate Defend Our Constitution?”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By declaring a national emergency to build a border wall, President Trump has crossed the Rubicon. He has turned a cheap partisan stunt into a bona fide Constitutional crisis.

Congress this week declined to give Trump all the money he demanded to wall off Mexico from the United States. The president has declared an emergency explicitly to defy the will of Congress and usurp its Constitutional power to raise and spend public money. In his contempt for democratic norms, Trump makes no effort to conceal the fact that the alleged ‘emergency’ on the border is a political contrivance to assert his will. Having failed to extort wall funding from Congress through the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, he is willing to violate the Constitution to get a political ‘win.’

 

Read the full piece on Medium by clicking here.

Press Release: Will the Senate Defend Our Constitution?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

WASHINGTON—Will Marshall, President of the Progressive Policy Institute, today released the followed statement after President Trump declared a national emergency to fund the border wall:

“By declaring a national emergency to build a border wall, President Trump has crossed the Rubicon. He has turned a cheap partisan stunt into a bona fide Constitutional crisis.

“Congress this week declined to give Trump all the money he demanded to wall off Mexico from the United States. The president has declared an emergency explicitly to defy the will of Congress and usurp its Constitutional power to raise and spend public money. In his contempt for democratic norms, Trump makes no effort to conceal the fact that the alleged ’emergency’ on the border is a political contrivance to assert his will. Having failed to extort wall funding from Congress through the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, he is willing to violate the Constitution to get a political ‘win.’

“This is a clear and cynical abuse of presidential power. Trump seems not to understand or care that U.S. presidents aren’t medieval monarchs, who can demand money from parliaments. Now he’s willing to politicize and trivialize presidential authority to declare national emergencies to fulfill a demagogic campaign promise. The White House will now seek to shift funds Congress has appropriated for national defense and other legitimate purposes to finance a stupid ‘solution’ to a non-existent problem.

“All friends of American democracy, regardless of outlook or party, must rally to the defense of the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers. Shamefully, Senate Republicans have yet to stand up for the Constitution they’ve sworn to defend. Their supine unwillingness to put patriotism above partisanship means that Americans must trust to the courts to stop a rogue president.

“Trump’s power grab will no doubt give fresh impetus to efforts to impeach him. That’s understandable, but for now the wiser course for progressives is to keep the pressure on the Senate to defend its Constitutional powers and institutional prerogatives, and to use all legal means to prevent Trump from spending public money without Congressional authority. We need to keep the public focused clearly on how deeply Trump is damaging not just our political system, but now also the Constitutional framework that has enabled American democracy to endure through genuine national emergencies.”

###

Bledsoe for Forbes, “Green New Deal Must Grow Up Fast To Influence Bills Congress is Already Writing”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Little noticed in the media circus surrounding the mere introduction of a non-binding Congressional resolution on the Green New Deal was the deletion of much-criticized and plainly unachievable mandates contained in previous GND versions.

Gone was the impossible diktat requiring 100% renewable energy for the entire economy by 2030. Missing was the politically suicidal and practically infeasible flat-out prohibition on fossil fuels in little more than a decade. Even extraneous language on guaranteed jobs in the resolution had been watered down from earlier texts, and would of course never be a legal requirement in actual climate legislation that passes Congress in any event.

In fact, the more extreme provisions in the GND have served largely to provide Trump and other Republican anti-climate action forces with irresistible political fodder. Republicans hope to scare the American people into opposing sensible climate actions by invoking GND extremism, and have already produced ads with these themes.

Continue reading at Forbes.

Telehealth and vision tests in Washington State

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Washington has long been a leader in both innovation and health care. Telehealth, which lays at the intersection of the two, is an innovative, cost-effective way to deliver health care to underserved populations. Seeing the value of telehealth, Washington State requires health insurance companies, Medicaid managed care plans, and health plans offered to Washington State employees to reimburse health care providers who provide health care services via telehealth technology.

The rules apply to both real-time transmitted appointments and to “store-and-forward” services which involve information, including images, data and labs, reviewed at a later time – though reimbursement for those services must be explicitly outlined in provider agreements. Telehealth shows particular promise at reducing the costs and hassle associated with renewing contact lens prescriptions.

 



			


	

			




			
				


	

		
Marshall for The Hill, “Donald Trump has zero faith in the power of American ideas”

				

			Posted on  by The Progressive Policy Institute		

			


	

		
Let’s hope special counsel Robert Mueller gets to the bottom soon of Donald Trump’s strange dalliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin.


The plot thickened last week as the GOP-led Senate narrowly rejected a Democratic bid to prevent the administration from lifting sanctions on Russian oligarch and Putin crony Oleg Deripaska, who also did business with Paul Manafort, Trump’s disgraced former campaign manager.


Once again, President Trump appears to be bending over backward to curry favor with Putin. His infinite tolerance of Russia’s interference in U.S. politics and its well-documented online “malign influence” campaign stands in weird contrast to his churlish behavior toward America’s actual friends.


Trump routinely denigrates America’s oldest and strongest allies in Europe as trade cheaters and security freeloaders. A small but telling example has recently come to light: The State Department last year quietly downgraded the diplomatic status of the Delegation of the European Union to the United States.


Continue reading at The Hill.


			


	

			




			
				


	

		
PPI Launches Series of New Ideas for a ‘Do-Something’ Congress

				

			Posted on  by The Progressive Policy Institute		

			


	

		
Dear Democratic Class of 2018,


Congratulations on your election to the U.S. House of Representatives! In addition to winning your own race, you are part of something larger – the first wave of a progressive resurgence in U.S. politics.


The midterm elections gave U.S. voters their first opportunity to react to the way Donald Trump has conducted himself in America’s highest office. Their verdict was an emphatic thumbs down. That’s an encouraging sign that our democracy’s antibodies are working to suppress the populist virus of demagoguery and extremism.


Now that Democrats have reclaimed the people’s House, what should they do with it? Some are tempted to use it mainly as a platform for resisting Trump and airing “unapologetically progressive” ideas that have no chance of advancing before the 2020 elections. We here at the Progressive Policy Institute think that would be huge missed opportunity. 


If the voters increasingly are disgusted with their dissembling and divisive president, they seem even more fed up with Washington’s tribalism and broken politics. For pragmatic progressives, the urgent matter at hand is not to impeach Trump or to embroil the House in multiple and endless investigations. It’s to show Democrats are determined to put the federal government back in the business of helping Americans solve their problems.


We think the House Democratic Class of 2018 should adopt this simple mantra: “Get things done.” Tackle the backlog of big national problems that Washington has ignored: exploding deficits and debt; run-down, second-rate infrastructure; soaring health and retirement costs; climate change and more. And yes, getting things done should include slamming the brakes on Trump’s reckless trade wars, blocking GOP efforts to strip Americans of health care, as well as repealing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.


PPI, a leading center for policy analysis and innovation, stands ready to help. We’re developing an extensive “Do Something” Agenda. Today, we are releasing the first in a series of concrete, actionable ideas designed expressly for Democrats who come to Washington to solve problems, not just to raise money and smite political enemies.


As you get settled into your new office, we’ll look for opportunities to acquaint you and your staff with these pragmatic, common-sense initiatives, and to discuss other ways we might be of service to you. That’s what we’re here for.


Regards,




 


 


Will Marshall

President

Progressive Policy Institute




New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 1: “A Check on Trump’s Reckless Tariffs”


First and foremost, it’s time for Congress to start doing its job on trade. A key step is enacting the Trade Authority Protection (TAP) Act. This balanced legislation would rein in Trump’s abuse of delegated trade powers, require greater presidential accountability, and enable Congress to nullify irresponsible tariffs and trade restrictions.




A Radically Pragmatic Idea for the 116th Congress: Take “Yes” for an Answer on Net Neutrality




For the last two decades, different versions of net neutrality have bounced between Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, the courts – and most recently the states – but the issue remains unresolved.


It is time for Congress to solve this problem for good by enacting a strong, pro-consumer net neutrality law – an outcome that is politically possible even in this era of maximalist gridlock and deeply divided government, given the broad consensus that has formed around the vital issue of ensuring an open internet.




New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 2: “Jumpstart a New Generation of Manufacturing Entrepreneurs”


The number of large U.S. manufacturing facilities has dropped by more than a third since 2000, devastating many communities where factories were the lifeblood of the local economy.


One promising way to revive America’s manufacturing might is not by going big but by going small – and going local. Digitally-assisted manufacturing technologies, such as 3D printing, have the potential to launch a new generation of manufacturing startups producing customized, locally-designed goods in a way overseas mega-factories can’t match. To jumpstart this revolution, we need to provide local manufacturing entrepreneurs with access to the latest technologies to test out their ideas. The Grassroots Manufacturing Act would create federally-supported centers offering budding entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized firms access to the latest 3D printing and robotics equipment.




New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 3: “End The Federal Bias Against Career Education”


As many as 4.4 million U.S. jobs are going unfilled due to shortages of workers with the right skills. Many of these opportunities are in so-called “middle-skill” occupations, such as IT or advanced manufacturing, where workers need some sort of post-secondary credential but not a four-year degree.


Expanding access to high-quality career education and training is one way to help close this “skills gap.” Under current law, however, many students pursuing short-term career programs are ineligible for federal financial aid that could help them afford their education. Pell grants, for instance, are geared primarily toward traditional college, which means older and displaced workers – for whom college is neither practicable nor desirable – lose out. Broadening the scope of the Pell grant program to shorter-term, high-quality career education would help more Americans afford the chance to upgrade their skills and grow the number of highly trained workers U.S. businesses need.




New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 4: “Expand Access to Telehealth Services in Medicare”


America’s massive health care industry faces three major challenges: how to cover everyone, reduce costs, and increase productivity. Telehealth – the use of technology to help treat patients remotely – may help address all three. Telehealth reduces the need for expensive real estate and enables providers to better leverage their current medical personnel to provide improved care to more people.


Despite its enormous potential, however, telehealth has hit legal snags over basic questions: who can practice it, what services can be delivered, and how it should be reimbursed. As is the case with any innovation, policymakers are looking to find the right balance between encouraging new technologies and protecting consumers – or, in this case, the health of patients.


Telehealth policy has come a long way in recent years, with major advances in the kinds of services that are delivered. Yet a simple change in Medicare policy could take the next step to increase access and encourage adoption of telehealth services. Currently, there are strict rules around where the patient and provider must be located at the time of service – these are known as “originating site” requirements – and patients are not allowed to be treated in their homes except in very special circumstances. To expand access to Telehealth, Congress could add the patient’s home as an originating site and allow Medicare beneficiaries in both urban and rural settings to access telehealth services in their homes.




New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 5: Make Rural America’s “Higher Education Deserts” Bloom


As many as 41 million Americans live in “higher education deserts” – at least half an hour’s drive from the nearest college or university and with limited access to community college. Many of these deserts are in rural America, which is one reason so much of rural America is less prosperous than it deserves to be.


The lack of higher education access means fewer opportunities for going back to school or improving skills. A less educated workforce in turn means communities have a tougher time attracting businesses and creating new jobs. Congress should work to eradicate higher education deserts. In particular, it can encourage new models of higher education – such as “higher education centers” and virtual colleges – that can fill this gap and bring more opportunity to workers and their communities. Rural higher education innovation grants are one potential way to help states pilot new approaches.




New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 6: Break America’s Regulatory Log-jam


Regulation plays a critical role in refereeing competition in a free market economy. But there’s a problem: Each year, Congress piles new rules upon old, creating a thick sludge of regulations – some obsolete, repetitive, and even contradictory – that weighs down citizens and businesses. In 2017, the Code of Federal Regulations swelled to a record 186,374 pages, up 19 percent from just a decade before. PPI proposes a Regulatory Improvement Commission (RIC), modeled on the highly successful Defense Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process for closing obsolete military installations. Like the BRAC process, the proposed RIC would examine old rules and present Congress with a package of recommendations for an up-or-down vote to eliminate or modify outdated rules.




New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 7: Winning the Global Race on Electric Cars


Jumpstarting U.S. production and purchase of Electric Vehicles (EVs) would produce an unprecedented set of benefits, including cleaner air and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; a resurgence of the U.S. auto industry and American manufacturing; the creation of millions of new, good, middle class manufacturing jobs; lower consumer costs for owning and operating vehicles; and the elimination of U.S. dependence on foreign oil. U.S. automakers are already moving toward EVs, but the pace of this transition is lagging behind our foreign competitors. A dramatic expansion of tax credits for EV purchases could go a long way toward boosting the U.S. EV industry as part of a broader agenda to promote the evolution of the transportation industry away from carbon-intensive fuels.




New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 8: Enable More Workers to Become Owners through Employee Stock Ownership


More American workers would benefit directly from economic growth if they had an ownership in the companies where they work. To help achieve this goal, Congress should encourage more companies to adopt employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), which provide opportunities for workers to participate in a company’s profits and share in its growth. Firms with ESOPs enjoy higher productivity growth and stronger resilience during downturns, and employees enjoy a direct stake in that growth. ESOP firms also generate higher levels of retirement savings for workers, thereby addressing another crucial priority for American workers.


 




New Ideas for a Do-Something Congress No. 9: Reserve corporate tax cuts for the companies that deserve it


Americans are fed up seeing corporate profits soaring even as their paychecks inch upward by comparison. Companies need stronger incentives to share their prosperity with workers – something the 2017 GOP tax package should have included.


Though President Donald Trump promised higher wages as one result of his corporate tax cuts, the biggest winners were executives and shareholders, not workers. Nevertheless, a growing number of firms are doing right by their workers, taking the high road as “triple-bottom line” concerns committed to worker welfare, environmental stewardship and responsible corporate governance. Many of these are so-called “benefit corporations,” legally chartered to pursue goals beyond maximizing profits and often “certified” as living up to their multiple missions. Congress should encourage more companies to follow this example. One way is to offer tax breaks only for high-road companies with a proven track record of good corporate citizenship, including better wages and benefits for their workers.


			


	

			




			
				


	

		
Bledsoe for Forbes, “As U.S. Emissions Spike Under Trump, Democrats Will Pursue Real Climate Policies-Not Just Green Talk”

				

			Posted on  by The Progressive Policy Institute		

			


	

		
Leading researchers today released a report finding that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rose by more than 3.4% in 2018, the first annual increase since 2006 and the largest rise in 20 years. This news comes both as President Trump continues to rollback greenhouse gas reduction policies for power plants, vehicles and other sectors—and as domestic climate change-related impacts, from hurricanes, floods, fires and sea-level rise, cost US consumers and taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars a year.


The data clearly show that additional measures will be needed to cut long-term US greenhouse gas emissions, above and beyond overturning Trump’s rollbacks of  auto fuel efficiency rules and regulations on power plants emissions. These additional policies must include some combination of a zero-carbon energy standard for the electricity sector, renewed incentives to electrify the US vehicle sector, funding for clean energy technology breakthroughs, and the reduction of super greenhouse pollutants like methane and HFCs.  In time, they will also require a carbon tax.


House Democrats are entirely aware of this imperative. Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone has indicated that he will take up a series of measures aimed at cutting US emissions, likely to include most importantly a zero-carbon energy standard that will require greater amounts of clean energy in the economy. Such a standard should include all types of zero-carbon electricity production, including not only wind, solar and hydro-power, but also nuclear generation and coal and natural gas with carbon capture.


House Democrats should also consider a series of tax and other measures aimed at dramatically speeding up the transition to electric vehicles by providing more robust and reliable consumer and industry incentives.


In addition, Democrats must advance a clean energy infrastructure plan that provides the charging stations necessary to support tens of millions of clean electric vehicles that will be appearing on American roads, and many other features aimed at using advanced technology to cut emissions, and increase energy efficiency in every sector. And the House Appropriations Committee must at least double funding for clean energy technology breakthroughs like large scale electricity storage that could be game changers, allowing the U.S. to deeply cut its domestic emissions while creating new jobs and lucrative export markets for American industry.


Continue reading at Forbes.


			


	

			




			
				


	

		
Ritz for Forbes, “A Fitting End For Disgraceful House Republicans”

				

			Posted on  by The Progressive Policy Institute		

			


	

		
This year concludes the same way it began: with a partial shutdown of the federal government. There is no doubt that President Donald Trump is primarily responsible for this shutdown – less than two weeks ago, during a nationally televised meeting in the Oval Office, he explicitly said so himself.


“If we don’t get what we want,” said Trump, “I will shut down the government. And I’ll tell you what, I am proud to shut down the government for border security, [Sen. Chuck Schumer]… I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it … I will take the mantle of shutting down.”


Not a whole lot of wiggle room there: this is clearly a Trump Shutdown. But the president was bolstered by support from his allies in the House Republican Conference and their retiring leader, House Speaker Paul Ryan. While the Senate did its job and unanimously passed a continuing resolution that would have kept the government open and prevented the shutdown, Ryan refused to allow a vote on similar legislation, allowing the electorally-disgraced House Republican majority to create one last pointless budget crisis on its way out the door.


Continue reading at Forbes.