issue: Politics

The Iran deal and collective security

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

A buoyant President Obama announced on April 2 “a historic understanding with Iran” to defang its nuclear program. Chalk one up for the president’s oft-criticized Middle East diplomacy.

If it holds, the deal will indeed be a major foreign policy accomplishment for a president who badly needs one. But equally, if not more important, it could breathe new life into collective security.

That’s the vision of liberal internationalists like Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. After the colossal failure of balance-of-power politics to keep peace in Europe, they envisioned a new order upheld by great powers acting through legitimizing organizations like the United Nations and formal alliances like NATO.

Continue reading at the Hill.

Rotherham: No Congressional District Left Behind

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In an op-ed today for U.S. News & World Report, Andrew Rotherham, cofounder and partner at Bellwether Education Partners, intriguingly argues that the best school reform idea is to fix the gerrymandering of legislative districts:

One of the interesting things about my job is that wealthy people ask me for ideas about how best to use their resources to improve America’s schools. There are plenty of important issues demanding attention: overhauling the sorry state of teacher preparation and teacher policy (I wrote an entire guidebook about that), giving low-income Americans more educational choice and improving educational finance are three obvious ones. But, to the consternation of colleagues in the education world, I don’t first suggest those or other specific education issues. Instead, I urge donors to support efforts to reform congressional redistricting. We won’t be able to genuinely improve our schools (or address a host of other issues) until we create legislative districts based on geography rather than gerrymandering.

Read the op-ed in its entirety at U.S. News & World Report. 

The Hill: With Schumer likely next Senate Dem leader, a trend is broken

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The announcement that Harry Reid will be retiring from the Senate in 2016, and likely succeeded by Chuck Schumer of New York as Democratic leader, would break a long streak in which floor leaders of the Senate — both majority and minority leaders — have predominantly hailed from smaller states. It’s a little-recognized pattern that for several decades has expanded the influence of small states that are already greatly overrepresented in the Senate by virtue of the equal-representation principle that allocates two senators to each state.

he pattern is undeniable: No Senate floor leader since Republican Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania left the minority leadership in 1977 has been from one of the nine largest states, which cumulatively make up more than half of the U.S. population. Indeed, nearly all Senate leaders have been from the bottom half of the states when ranked by population, including some of the very smallest in the Union.

To wit: Over the past three decades, the Republican leaders in the Senate have been Howard Baker of Tennessee (17th-largest state today), Bob Dole of Kansas (34th), Trent Lott of Mississippi (31st), Bill Frist of Tennessee (17th) and currently Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (26th).

Continue reading at the Hill.

The Hill: Obama trade agenda

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI President Will Marshall was quoted by Kevin Cirilli in The Hill on the growing tensions in the Democratic party over President Obama’s trade agenda:

Will Marshall, president of centrist Democratic think tank the Progressive Policy Institute, said that “Democratic candidates in 2016 aren’t going to get into trouble for supporting” the trade agreements.

“Most voters understand that America can’t prosper in isolation and they have little interest in yet another reenactment of the long-ago battle of NAFTA,” he said.

Continue reading at The Hill.

CNN: Why liberals should get behind marriage

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The collapse of marriage in our poorest communities — and its tragic impact — is a familiar story. But increasingly, marriage is becoming a marker of class privilege in America, something increasingly reserved for the affluent. If progressives want to tackle the scourge of inequality, then the retreat from marriage is an issue they can’t ignore.

The reality is that the retreat from marriage is pervading the working middle class — the two-thirds of Americans without a college degree. This is occurring even as in upscale America, marital bonds remain comparatively strong.

“This is the marriage gap, and it’s something new in America,” declares a manifesto on “marriage opportunity” unveiled in a recent Washington Monthly cover story. It was penned by four astute social and political analysts, David Blankenhorn, Jonathan Rauch, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and Bill Galston. (Full disclosure: I’m a signer of their statement.)

“Over the past several decades, the norm of marriage has eroded across all economic and educational classes, but much less among the elite,” they write. “But for millions of middle- and lower-class Americans, marriage is increasingly beyond reach, creating more fractured and difficult family lives, more economic insecurity for single parents, less social mobility for those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, more childhood stress, and a fraying of our common culture.”

True, overall U.S. marriage rates have fallen from 72% of U.S. adults in 1960 to just 51% in 2012, according to The Economist. But drill a little deeper into the data, and a marital class divide emerges. Less than half of men with high school degrees are married, compared with 76% of men with college degrees. The pattern is similar among women, except that those with graduate degrees have somewhat lower marriage rates than those with four-year college degrees. And because the college-educated tend to look for mates with similar education and earning power, their unions push them even higher up the income scale — further widening the economic gulf between marital haves and have-nots.

Continue reading at CNN.

House New Democrat Coalition Unveils Pro-growth Policy Agenda

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Today, the House New Democrat Coalition unveiled a comprehensive, pro-growth policy agenda. 

After suffering enormous losses in the last two midterm elections, Democrats need a new strategy for recapturing Congress.  Such a strategy should aim at winning back competitive districts, largely in suburban America, and it would target moderate voters, without whom the party cannot build electoral majorities.

The New Democrat Coalition’s prosperity agenda is an important step toward crafting a winning strategy. It presents a new policy blueprint for pragmatic Democrats, who want to break the political stalemate in Washington and get things done. Most important, it outlines a progressive, pro-growth alternative to a polarizing populism that can only narrow the party’s appeal.

This agenda aims squarely at lifting and expanding the middle class. It puts growth before redistribution, and builds on America’s strengths in rapid innovation and entrepreneurship. It seeks to expand vital investments in infrastructure and a skilled workforce, but it also recognizes that tax reform and regulatory improvement are also key catalysts of growth.  And, crucially, the NDC recognizes that the right way to restore public confidence in government is not simply to enlarge it, but to reform and modernize it.

With this document, the NDC is assuming a position of intellectual and political leadership in the party.  It’s important that its voice be heard, because its members know how to compete and win in precisely the kind of competitive districts Democrats need to retake.

Roll Call: Centrist New Democrats Want Bigger Role in Party’s Message

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI President Will Marshall was quoted in a piece by Roll Call laying out the role of pragmatic progressives this Congress and their hope to make their centrist message heard in the larger, and distinctly more left-leaning, House Democratic Caucus:

Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, said that House Democratic leaders ultimately have a responsibility to represent the ideology of the majority of their members.

“The leaders have to reflect the caucus, right? And numerically speaking, the people in the caucus now have the lefter-tilt,” Marshall explained. “To the extent that there’s resistance [to the New Democrats], I don’t think it comes from the leaders as it does from the left wing of the party. Folks that are in very safe Democratic districts, very urban districts that produce supermajorities, people who are not vulnerable, they’re just under a different set of incentives and frankly they have closer ties to groups that are happier with the party’s status quo than the moderates are.”

Read the piece in its entirety on Roll Call.

The Hill: Centrist Dems ready strike against Warren wing

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI President Will Marshall was quoted today in a story by The Hill on the role of pragmatic progressives in the 114th Congress:

“Democrats ought to avoid the danger of talking about only redistribution and not enough about economic growth,” said PPI President and founder Will Marshall, who addressed House Democrats during their Philadelphia retreat in January. “Economic growth is a precondition to reducing inequality. You can’t redistribute wealth that you’re not generating.

“There’s a lot of sympathy for that view in the pragmatic-wing of the party,” he added.

Read the piece in its entirety on The Hill.

Will a strict privacy bill of rights hurt growth?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The White House has come out with a discussion draft of a consumer privacy bill of rights. I’m not going to discuss the details of the proposal, which has already come under attack from both sides.

Instead, let me make a broader point: The advocacy of a strict privacy standard has the potential of harming the one sector that has been driving growth in consumer living standards. To summarize:

  • The living standard of Americans is stuck in slow gear. Per capita real consumption has only risen by 3.2% since 2007, in total.
  • More than half of the gain in living standards since 2007 has come from the rapid growth of data-related goods and services.*
  • A strict privacy bill of rights will almost certainly slow the growth of data-related goods and services.
  • Conclusion: A strict privacy bill of rights, if enacted, will inevitably further drag down the already slow growth in living standards.

Do Democrats who support a strict privacy standard understand the economic consequences of imposing more regulations on the sector which has been the main force for lifting living standards since the bust?  Do they understand the political consequences of being anti-growth?  And does the Administration realize that its proposal effectively gives the Europeans and others the ok to go over the top with regulation of US tech companies?

I don’t know the answer to these questions.

*This figure comes from an upcoming PPI policy memo,  “The Tech/Info Sector: Economic Hero or Market Predator?”  The upcoming policy memo defines the ‘consumer data ecosystem’ as including all data-related goods and services—that is, personal consumption of all types of goods and services that involve the transmission, delivery, and consumption of data. This includes personal computing devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops. It also includes video and audio equipment, such as televisions and iPods, newspaper and periodicals, movie theater revenues, books, live entertainment such as music performances, cable and satellite subscriptions, cell phone and data plans, and Internet access.

Other results from the policy memo:

  •  Average prices in the consumer data ecosystem have fallen by 16% since 2007, and by 31% since 2000.
  • The consumer data ecosystem’s share of consumer spending is the same as it was in 2000.

These figures may be revised slightly as the government updates its statistics.

 

 

 

Politico Pro: Report urges progressives to reconsider Obama trade agenda

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI Senior Fellow Ed Gerwin’s latest report was featured in a trade story by Politico Pro‘s Doug Palmer:

A new report urges progressive Democrats opposed to President Barack Obama’s trade agenda with countries in the Asia-Pacific to give it another look, arguing that trade deals support progressive goals in a variety of ways, including by helping economic growth.

“Trade-skeptical progressives … should take a thoughtful look at the details of the Obama trade agenda and how it might better position America in the modern global economy,” Ed Gerwin, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, said in the report. “If they do, they’re likely to find important policies and initiatives for progressives to like.”

“A progressive society that is both prosperous and fair requires strong and inclusive economic growth. The Administration’s trade agenda can play an important role in assuring that America can tap into one key source of economic vitality — surging demand in key foreign markets,” Gerwin said.

The report comes as Congress is gearing up for action on trade promotion authority, also known as fast-track trade legislation because it would allow the White House to submit trade agreements to Congress for straight up-or-down votes without any amendments.

 

The Obama Trade Agenda: Five Things for Progressives to Like

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama went all in on international trade.

The Administration has already been aggressively pursuing the most ambitious set of trade agreements in decades—including potentially groundbreaking deals with 11 Asian-Pacific countries (the Trans Pacific Partnership, or TPP), and the European Union (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or T-TIP), as well as agreements in key sectors like services, information technology, and environmental products.

Now, to set the stage for eventual Congressional approval for these deals, the President has launched an Administration-wide effort to obtain Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) from Congress. Under TPA, Congress sets detailed priorities and extensive consultation requirements for U.S. trade negotiators, and agrees to follow special expedited procedures for agreements that meet these rules.

Congressional Republicans largely support TPA and the Administration’s trade agenda. There is less support, however, among Congressional Democrats, many of whom have doubts about new trade deals. And, because trade has long been a difficult political issue, it’s quite tempting for these trade skeptics to readily side with those who have consistently opposed trade agreements.

Download “2015.02-Gerwin_The-Obama-Free-Trade-Agenda”

 

Reuters: One last chance to save the Internet – from the FCC

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As the Federal Communications Commission readies new net-neutrality rules this week, congressional Democrats face a choice: Should they work with the Republicans who control Congress to help pass new rules, or should they stay on the sidelines and leave the matter to a volatile regulatory process, subject to possible undoing in the courts?

I disagree with neutrality — the idea that everything on the Internet should travel at the same speed, whether it’s the remote monitoring of a cardiac device or a video of a cat. But both critics and advocates of neutrality would likely agree that a new law is the best way to set new policy — not regulatory decrees.

Let’s start with some history. The Communications Act of 1934 says phone companies are like public utilities and should be strongly regulated. But the 1996 Telecommunications Act, championed by President Bill Clinton, labeled the Internet as an “information service” that should be lightly regulated. That seems like a good decision: The Internet has grown spectacularly in this unregulated format.

But last month, Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, proposed treating the Internet like a public utility, run for the public good. He said that the Web should be regulated much like the Ma Bell telephone companies of generations ago. Why this sudden turnaround?

Continue reading at Reuters.

The Hill: Ukraine crisis tests the West

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Thanks to determined diplomacy by Germany and France, Russia agreed Wednesday to a new cease-fire in Ukraine, to begin Sunday. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel was anything but triumphant, calling the deal a mere “glimmer of hope” for peace.

Merkel has good reasons for curbing her enthusiasm. The previous cease-fire agreement reached last September didn’t hold for long. And Russian strongman Vladimir Putin still holds the high cards in any peace negotiation with Ukraine and the West.

Under the new truce, both pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces are to pull back heavy weapons from the front. But the deal still leaves separatists in control of a big chunk of territory in eastern Ukraine. If the cease-fire is violated and fighting resumes, Ukraine will again find itself in an unequal fight with rebels amply supplied with Russian weapons and, Kiev says, regular Russian troops.

Continue reading at The Hill.

CNN: The problem with Obama’s budget

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The $4 trillion budget President Barack Obama sent Congress on Monday is his blueprint for reviving “middle class opportunity.” Liberals are thrilled by the redistributive thrust of the president’s budget — it would hit affluent Americans with a battery of new tax hikes, totaling $2 trillion over the next decade, and use the proceeds to finance substantial tax cuts for low and middle income families.

However, this has, of course, scandalized tax-averse congressional Republicans, who echo House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan in denouncing the Obama budget as an exercise in “envy economics.”

Given the partisan stalemate in Washington, many pundits therefore view the White House budget as a purely political statement intended to frame the 2016 presidential debate. Next, the GOP Congress will produce a conservative alternative, and each side will spend the next two years accusing the other of waging class warfare.

Except that the federal government actually does need a budget, especially one that reinforces the economy’s gathering momentum. The one thing both parties seem to agree on is that reversing middle class stagnation is the nation’s top priority. What America needs more than anything else is a long stretch of robust economic growth, something we have not seen since the 1990s, when both the growth and unemployment rates averaged about 4 percent a year.

Continue reading at CNN.

The Hill: For free community college, completion is key

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

President Obama’s proposal for free community college is an ambitious effort to address critical gaps in America’s post-secondary education and career training systems. However, it may fall flat before it even gets off the ground, and that’s not just because of its high price tag. It’s because community college success depends not on how many students enroll, but how many complete.

Under President Obama’s proposal, all Americans will have access to two years of free tuition at our nation’s public community colleges. The only requirements are to maintain at least C+ grades and to be making “steady progress” toward a degree. It calls for the federal government to cover three-quarters of the estimated $60 billion cost, with states covering the rest.

Certainly, increasing community college enrollment is a good start for boosting youth employment prospects. Young Americans without a post-secondary degree are not faring well in today’s workforce. My own research shows how they have been gradually pushed down and out of the labor market, in a phenomenon I call the “Great Squeeze.”

Continue reading at The Hill.

Politico: Barack Obama nears limit of executive powers

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

PPI President Will Marshall was quoted by David Nather in Politico on President Obama’s upcoming State of the Union speech:

Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, said Obama can still “set the terms of the debate” through executive orders, but what’s at stake is broader than a few executive actions: “Nothing is more important to his legacy than making sure that economic growth works for everyone.”

Continue reading at Politico.