issue: Politics

The Hill: How ‘Brexit’ would inflame populism abroad – and here in the US

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The ‘Brexit’ tide at last seems to have hit the sturdy seawall of British common sense. Heading into today’s national referendum, polls show rising support for staying in the European Union.

True, the contest remains a dead heat and could go either way. But the momentum apparently shifted after last week’s shocking murder of Labour Member of Parliament Jo Cox by a man spouting ultra-nationalist slogans. It’s also possible that the impending vote has concentrated U.K. voters’ minds on the sheer implausibility of going it alone in today’s interconnected world.

There’s little doubt where global markets stand on the question. Stocks surged everywhere early this week and the British pound rose as word of the new polls spread. That reaction can only reinforce the “Remain” camp’s argument that detaching from Europe would, on balance, weaken Britain’s economy.

Continue reading at The Hill.

The Hill: Trade is popular in swing states, among Democrats

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Hill’s Vicki Needham cited a PPI poll and quoted both PPI President Will Marshall and Senior Fellow for Trade and Global Opportunity Ed Gerwin in an article on how voter’s opinions on trade will impact the election.

Voters in four battleground states — Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and Ohio — expressed positive views about the U.S. expanding trade, even while Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump call for major changes to the nation’s global commercial outreach.

A new Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) poll on Wednesday shows that by a 55 to 32 percent margin swing-state voters say that new high-standard trade deals can help the U.S. economy and support good paying jobs.”

Read the entirety of the article at The Hill.

Does ‘Deadbeat Donald’ Have Any Money?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

On Saturday, Donald Trump issued an “emergency” appeal seeking $100,000 for his campaign “to help get our ads on the air.”

This was odd for three reasons. First, according to his own commercials, the main premise of Trump’s campaign was that he would pay for it himself. Second, Trump’s campaign disclosure forms allege that his total net worth is ten billion dollars. To be clear, this is 100,000 times larger than his $100,000 urgent appeal. If Trump told the truth about his wealth, $100,000 for him would be the same as about 2 or 3 dollars for an average American. Third, his near-bankrupt campaign has paid out millions of dollars to Trump businesses and family members.

These facts add to mounting evidence that Trump has lied about his wealth. As Forbes recently wrote, “The Occam’s razor explanation is that he’s not worth $10 billion.” Forbes should know, given the magazine’s long track record of assessing the relative wealth of various billionaires. Just last year, Forbes concluded that Trump’s $10 billion claim was “a whopper” of a lie. Indeed, experts suggest that the reason Trump refuses to release his tax returns because they will reveal the extent of his lies.

So how has Trump gotten away with lying about his business record?

In part, he’s used lawsuits to deter people from poking around in his affairs. For instance, in 2009, Timothy O’Brien published a book reporting that Trump was a millionaire, not a billionaire, who had amassed less money than prior presidential nominees such as Ross Perot (roughly $3.9 billion) or Mitt Romney (roughly $330 million if you include the separate trust for his children). Trump sued O’Brien for defamation, as part of a broader legal campaign to ward off critics.

Unfortunately for Trump, he lost his lawsuit against O’Brien both at trial and on appeal, and in the process was forced to give depositions and even privately share his tax returns with O’Brien.

So, when the lies are pulled away, what information do we have about Trump as a businessman and a candidate?

First, Trump inherited his money.

Over four decades ago, in 1974, Trump’s father gave him control of a company that was worth $200 million, and then provided additional loans and assistance over time. A finance professor at the University of Texas, who analyzed Trump’s holdings since 1976, concluded that: “Trump has underperformed the real estate market by approximately $13.2 billion, or 57%.” That bears repeating. Compared with average business performance in the real estate sector, Trump squandered billions of dollars over the course of his career.

Second, Trump is more grifter than a business leader.

As The Atlantic reported in 2011: “In financial circles, it’s pretty well known that Trump is a deadbeat.” While Trump has paid himself and family members out of campaign funds, he has repeatedly stiffed smaller vendors, destroying some mom-and-pop businesses that had previously survived for generations. He’s also destroyed wealth by urging people to invest in failing businesses, such as Trump Mortgages; Trump Tower Tampa; Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico; Trump Taj Mahal; Trump Magazine; Trump World Magazine; Trump Steaks; the Trump Shuttle; and Trump University. In several of these projects, Trump was sued. He settled out-of-court with investors in some cases. With Trump University, tuition-paying students allege that Trump used fraud to dupe them into becoming customers. Each time a Trump company declares bankruptcy, his partners and investors are left holding the bag.

Third, Trump had strong ties to the Mafia when he was a real estate developer.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, who has written a book about organized crime and gambling, has spent many years investigating the ties between Trump and the Mafia. In a lengthy story for Politico, Johnston “encountered multiple threads linking Trump to organized crime.” These threads included openly seeking mob support to compete against real estate developers who refused to do so. This seems astonishing for a mainstream presidential candidate, but recall that unlike Trump’s political rivals, Trump has aggressively used libel laws to prevent prior journalistic investigations of his money. Johnston’s Politico story is well worth a close read.

Fourth, Trump’s only “legitimate” money came from promoting gambling, sex, and violence.

When you take away the inheritance, the mob ties, the contract breaches, bankruptcy court, litigation threats, eminent domain, and fraud, what’s left is Trump’s role as a huckster. In 1992, Trump blamed Mike Tyson’s rape victim for her rape, when Tyson’s release would have boosted Trump’s boxing-related revenues. In 1994, Trump spoke with Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and speculated as to whether his then-infant daughter would develop attractive breasts. From the late 1990s onward, Trump built his name as a “reality star” by repeatedly demeaning women first on Howard Stern’s radio show, then later on his television show The Apprentice. As the Washington Post summed it up, “Trump has made flippant misogyny as much a part of his trademark as his ostentatious lifestyle.” Apparently, this brand appealed to the roughly 5 percent of eligible American voters who voted for Trump in the GOP primaries, but sleaze marketing is not much of a blueprint from which to strengthen America.

Finally, Trump’s proposals would be a disaster for the American economy.

So what are the policy ideas of this so-called “businessman” whose only clean money comes from reality television? For starters, Trump has made it clear that he intends to extend the philosophy of “Deadbeat Donald” to the full faith and credit of the United States Treasury. During a recent interview with CNBC, Trump literally suggested that the United States should threaten bankruptcy to stiff owners of Treasury bonds. As analysts from the left, right, and center pointed out, this idea would trigger an immediate global economic crisis. This is because the world economy relies upon Treasury bonds as risk-free securities, to the benefit of global financial markets and the enormous benefit of the United States.

This is not the only economically catastrophic idea that Trump has proposed. Actual business leader Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee four years ago, explained that: “If Donald Trump’s plans were ever implemented, the country would sink into a prolonged recession” by triggering a trade war with other nations. Trump’s budget math does not remotely add up. His famous wall with Mexico would cost tens of billions of dollars to build and maintain, and no, Mexico will not pay for it.

Americans have roughly five months to learn about the “Deadbeat Donald” aspect of Trump’s track record and policy ideas. If we do not learn that lesson by November 4, unfortunately we will learn it the hard way shortly thereafter.

Cross-posted from Huffington Post. A version of this post originally appeared on Medium.

RealClearPolicy: Trump’s Wrong on Trade Policy & Maybe Trade Politics, Too

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell recently detailed the economic carnage that would result from Donald Trump’s reckless approach to trade — including likely recessions, millions of lost jobs, and higher prices for American consumers.

As we’ve detailed, protectionism is bad economics. But, apparently, it’s been good politics for Trump as well as Bernie Sanders, both of whom used trade-bashing populism to energize angry voters during primary elections, where extreme partisans often play an outsized role. And Trump promises to double down on opposition to trade as he pivots toward November.

As America moves from interminable primaries to the general election, however, Trump — and Hillary Clinton — will face a different political calculus on trade. A new Progressive Policy Institute poll shows that Democratic voters in key battleground states have a broadly positive view on trade — and a more positive one than do Republicans. Crucially, so do the swing voters, who will ultimately determine whether these states go red or blue in November.

Swing voters and voters in battleground states played a decisive role in reelecting Barack Obama in 2012 — and in sending a large Republican majority to Congress in 2014. As detailed in our new poll, conducted by veteran Democratic pollster Peter Brodnitz, these voters also have decidedly different attitudes about trade and America’s role in the global economy.

Continue reading at RealClearPolicy.

Financial Times: Who will be Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential pick?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI President Will Marshall was quoted in the Financial Times about his thoughts on who Hillary Clinton should choose for her running mate.

The improbable elevation of Trump to the GOP nomination leaves open a vast swath of political terrain across the middle. It puts in play all kinds of moderate Republicans, particularly suburbanites, particularly women,” says Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think-tank close to the Bill Clinton administration. “So if I were in her shoes, I’d say you want to pick somebody who has crossover appeal, somebody who appeals to the moderate, middle America.”

Read the rest of the article at the Financial Times.

The News & Observer: The new Edsels? The hard selling of Clinton and Trump

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI President Will Marshall was quoted in an article from The News & Observer, which discussed the unpopularity of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and how that will affect undecided voters.

Somehow a brand is needed that will woo the swing voters, whose top priority is seeing their economic situation improve. That doesn’t lend itself to easy branding.

“They don’t believe the economic deck is stacked against them,” said Will Marshall, the president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a Democratic-leaning research group. “But they reject the Trumpian view that the economy is broken.”

Read the rest of the article at The News & Observer.

Charlotte Observer: How swing voters could swing – to Trump

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

David Lightman of The Charlotte Observer cited a PPI survey in his article on general election swing voters.

One survey in battlegrounds Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Ohio finds that swing voters are 21 percent of the electorate and voted for different parties in the last two elections, 2012 and 2014.

They largely call themselves independents (84 percent), have less college education than the broader electorate and include fewer African-Americans, the same percentage of Latinos and fewer liberals, according to the poll for the Progressive Policy Institute, a moderate Democratic-leaning research group. They are mostly concerned about the economy, and are more concerned with growth than fairness.”

Read the rest of the article at The Charlotte Observer.

Beware the Trump Inflation Balloon

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Since entering the presidential race, Donald Trump has been all over the economic map, with fantasy plans like getting Mexico to pay for a wall between the two countries.

But when Trump starts talking about how the U.S. never has to default because we “print the money,” he’s finally pointing to an economic strategy he could actually execute: The Trump ‘inflation balloon.’ If elected, Trump—the king of reneging on debt–would likely do everything he could to pump up the money supply. His goal: To create a rapid and unexpected inflationary surge that would transfer wealth from creditors to debtors.

Trump has already said that he would likely replace Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen, as well as auditing the Fed and running bigger deficits. Taken together, President Trump could engineer an inflationary spiral with little difficulty compared to fixing basic economic problems.

Unexpected inflation makes it easier for debtors to pay back debt, especially when interest rates are fixed and the debt is in the national currency. As a result, in the short-term, the Trump inflation balloon would temporarily help the United States, the world’s biggest debtor country, and hurt China, Germany, and Japan, all creditor nations.

However, history shows that a Trump inflation balloon would end disastrously, sending interest rates soaring, impoverishing the next generation, and potentially leading to global conflict.

Politically, progressives need to be wary of the Trump inflation balloon. The idea of higher inflation will appeal to millions of Americans who have seen their student debt and auto loans soar by 81% since 2007, while their wages have stagnated. To a new graduate struggling to pay back a fixed-rate student loan, a burst of inflation would seem mighty attractive right now.

To fight back, progressive candidates need to stress the importance of growth and innovation for reducing the burden of debt. Rising real wages, propelled by higher productivity, would raise living standards for today’s voters and their children without the need to borrow.

By contrast, a Trump inflation balloon would bring the U.S. back to the 1970s, a time when the misery index—the inflation rate plus the unemployment rate—was sky-high. That would be a disaster.

The Washington Post: Why Trump and Clinton should name their entire Cabinets right now

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Now that Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has announced Carly Fiorina as his vice presidential pick — an unusual move for a presidential candidate trailing in the polls and weeks out from his party’s convention — speculation will inevitably follow about who front-runners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump might select as running mates. Not only should they follow Cruz’s lead, they should go a step further and, well before Election Day, publicly name the individuals they’d appoint as Cabinet members.

That Cruz’s approach isn’t already the norm is a weakness in the way we choose our chief executive.

The American public deserves to have at least a sense, before ballots are cast, of those who would hold the most powerful positions within the next administration. This is particularly true for the departments of State, Treasury, Defense and Justice, whose leaders are invested with authority over many of the core activities of the country — everything from negotiating treaties to overseeing federal criminal investigations at the highest level.

But not just the big four: the secretary of Health and Human Services oversees the single-largest slice of total federal spending; and the need for a competent and experienced secretary of Homeland Security is self-evident in an era when border security and the threat of terrorism weigh on citizens’ minds. Even the seemingly smaller Cabinet portfolios can wield influence over major areas of public policy, including Energy, Transportation and Labor. And all Cabinet members, by statute, are in the line of succession to the presidency.

Continue reading at The Washington Post.

U.S. News: The Unpopular Winners

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI President Will Marshall was quoted in a piece from U.S. News & World Report on the unpopularity of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Clinton has a golden resume in conventional terms, having served as secretary of state, U.S. senator from New York and first lady when her husband Bill was president. She is intelligent, tough and level-headed, and knows how government works. But she doesn’t inspire much passion even among Democrats. However, Will Marshall, leader of the Progressive Policy Institute, told me, “Her emphasis on experience and steady leadership could be shown best against someone as volatile and unpredictable as Donald Trump.”

Continue the article at U.S. News.

The Daily Beast – Clinton’s Key: Never Mind the Bernie Bros, Here Come the Swing Voters

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The nominating contest grinds on, but the Acela primary set the stage for a general election faceoff between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Trump’s solid majorities mean that GOP voters, in their inscrutable wisdom, have spoken, choosing a political neophyte who’s never held any public office, has no discernable governing philosophy, and whose campaign consists mainly of bigoted outbursts and vicious personal attacks on anyone who gets in his way.

In contrast, the Democratic center seems to have held. Bernie Sanders’ call for an anti-capitalist “revolution” enthralled millenials, but his dream of turning America into a European-style welfare state—a colossal Denmark—struck out with black and Latino voters, and with women, who preferred the pragmatic Clinton.

What’s more, Clinton now has a cause that can galvanize a campaign that’s been criticized for lacking passion and inspiration—saving America from Donald Trump. Although some diehard Bernie Bros may decide to sit out the November election, she should have little difficulty uniting her party around the goal of keeping the billionaire bully out of the White House.

Continue reading at the Daily Beast.

Politico: Purple Reign?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

A PPI survey was one of the topics of discussion in Politico’s Morning Trade.

Veteran Democratic pollster Peter Brodnitz says there’s a big misconception about how voters view trade, noting a new Progressive Policy Institute poll that shows 65 percent of swing voters in four battleground states think manufacturing jobs have been lost to cheap labor competition overseas, not bad trade deals.

“There’s a very big difference between the perception of where the electorate is [on trade] and where the electorate actually is,” Brodnitz said. He added that respondents favored trade deals with strong labor and environmental standards.”

Read the rest of the article at Politico.

PPI Poll: Swing Voters In Swing States Hold Balance In 2016

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In this era of political polarization, it is tempting to assume the political center no longer exists. If this were true, it would certainly simplify things for political candidates and their strategists. They could stop worrying about how to persuade unaligned voters and concentrate exclusively on mobilizing their core partisans. However, this is not the case. As this new Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) poll by veteran Democratic pollster Peter Brodnitz shows, Swing voters exist, and they hold the balance of power in key 2016 battleground states. For Democrats especially, this survey yields a clear lesson: To hold the White House, recapture the Senate, and reduce the Republican House majority, candidates must craft messages that appeal beyond the party’s base to a substantial body of voters who are not in a fixed ideological camp.

This survey examined the outlook and attitudes of Swing voters in four critical Swing states: Florida, Ohio, Colorado, and Nevada. Constituting about a fifth of the electorate in those states, Swing voters come at today’s major challenges with a perspective different from that of either party. In general, they are less ideological, less partisan, and less angry than base voters. They are pragmatists who are focused mainly on economic growth and competitiveness.

Swing voters give low approval ratings to both parties in Congress, but slightly higher approval ratings to Democrats (32% approve, 59% disapprove), than to Republicans (28% approve, 65% disapprove). While Republicans give their own Members of Congress better marks than Democrats, Republicans in Congress are underwater among their own voters by eleven points (43% approve, 54% disapprove). Democrats, on the other hand, largely approve of the jobs their Members of Congress are doing (73% approve, 24% disapprove).

There is widespread agreement among battleground voters on a number of matters:

  • Most battleground voters rate the economy as fair or poor as opposed to excellent or good. They believe that improving the economy should be the priority, that moving jobs overseas is a key economic problem, and that increasing access to education and job training is essential.
  • Most of them also believe that America’s economy is still strong, and that if people work hard, they can get ahead.
  • Almost all believe it is essential that American companies can compete globally and that workers benefit from that competition and success.
  • While Democrats are the most likely to believe the United States is the strongest economic power in the world (81% agree), most Swing voters (58% agree) and Republicans (61%) hold this view.
  • Despite all the populist rhetoric deployed in both parties’ nominating contests, the voters we interviewed don’t seem particularly angry. Swing voters tend to be worried about the economy and Democrats tend to be optimistic, but few described themselves as angry.

Most believe global competition – more than trade agreements – is the force driving away jobs. There is little support among Swing voters for ending trade agreements, and most believe the benefits of trade agreements outweigh the costs.

  • Almost all believe “most” Americans are not prepared for retirement.
  • Almost all believe increased investments in infrastructure, like roads and bridges, would improve the U.S. economy.

In general, Swing voters are attracted to new ideas for stimulating growth — regulatory improvement, low corporate taxes intended to increase competitiveness and keep jobs from moving overseas, and a robust career pathways system that’s always there to help workers acquire marketable skills.

 

Download “2016.04-PPI-Poll_Swing-Voters-in-Swing-States.pdf”

Financial Times: White House Countdown – Toilet talk

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Financial Times referenced a PPI survey in an article about the American presidential primaries.

As the campaigns inch towards the general election, new polling suggests that the eventual Republican and Democratic nominees will have to perform some nimble adjustments to their policy messages if they are to successfully lure swing voters, my colleague Sam Fleming reports.

In interviews with swing voters in the four big swing states, Florida, Ohio, Colorado and Nevada, Peter Brodnitz, a Democratic pollster for the Progressive Policy Institute, found that despite the populist rhetoric, voters did not seem particularly angry about the economy. Worried, yes. Angry, no.”

Continue the article at The Financial Times.

McClatchy: Who will win over the voters who aren’t angry?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

A recent poll conducted by the PPI was cited in this McClatchy article on swing voters in the upcoming election.

Swing voters aren’t angry. But they’re tired of nasty, strident partisan rhetoric, and they don’t believe the economy is rigged against them.

Those are among the findings of a survey of swing voters in four states that are expected to be crucial to winning the November presidential election: Florida, Colorado, Nevada and Ohio.

The survey, conducted by Democratic pollster Peter Brodnitz for the Progressive Policy Institute, a center-left group that develops pro-growth ideas, illustrates how centrists crucial to a White House victory are not the voices being spotlighted throughout the primary season.”

Read the full article at McClatchy.

The Daily Beast: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders Are Delusional on Trade Policy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In this campaign season of populist anger and demagoguery, bad ideas are bubbling to the surface like marsh gas. Among the worst is protectionism, which would wreak havoc on a U.S. economy that’s finally picking up steam.

Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have seized on trade as a convenient scapegoat for the nation’s economic woes. There’s deep irony here. The popular frustrations on which they feed stem mainly from the productivity and wage slump America has experienced since 2000. Yet their proposed fix—shredding international treaties and walling off the U.S. economy—is a textbook formula for economic stagnation.

It’s a perfect negative feedback loop. And it won’t be the “one percent” who suffer if the populists get their way; it will be U.S. companies with global supply chains and millions of middle-class American workers and consumers.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast.