On this week’s PPI Podcast, Arielle Kane, PPI’s Director of Health Care sits down with Rep. Ami Bera (CA-7), a leader of the New Democrat Coalition. They discuss National Public Health Week, the critical funding within the American Rescue Plan Act, and the state of health care after the COVID-19 pandemic. Representative Bera also discussed the intersection of health care and infrastructure, and the work Congress and the Biden Administration is doing to improve access to care for all Americans.
President Biden’s bold plan to give America a shot at overtaking China in the race to electric cars and trucks is hitting a couple of speed bumps.
The first is China’s dominance of the raw materials needed to scale up electric battery production for U.S.-made cars and trucks. The second is a standoff between two South Korean battery makers for pole position in the burgeoning U.S. electric vehicle market.
Biden’s proposed American Jobs Plan throws a lot of good ideas and money at the first problem. It may take some presidential jawboning to resolve the second.
China is by far the world’s biggest maker and consumer of electric vehicles (EVs), with sales of over one million a year. (America lags well behind, but it’s some consolation that Tesla, a U.S. company, ranks second in EV sales in China.) With the aid of generous government subsidies and ample supplies of key ingredients like lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite, China also accounts for 75 percent of global EV battery production.
The president’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan shows his administration is serious about challenging Beijing for economic leadership. Included in this amazingly ambitious package is $174 billion to galvanize the U.S. EV industry. That money would be used to create incentives for state, local and private efforts to build 500,000 EV charging stations around the country over the next decade, retool gas-burning auto plants to build EVs, and create a more robust domestic supply chain for EV equipment and batteries.
It will take a strong push from Washington for the United States to catch China. Although U.S. and foreign automakers are duly pledging to step up U.S. EV production, only two percent of the 270 million vehicles on our roads are electric. Biden says the federal government can set a brisker pace by converting its enormous fleet of 650,000 vehicles from gasoline to electric engines. His plan also will replace 50,000 diesel transit vehicles and switch at least 20 percent of the nation’s school buses to electricity. Crucially, as PPI has long advocated, it boosts consumers’ incentives for buying EVs.
In addition to creating thousands of well-paid manufacturing jobs, the White House plan is intended to help the United States meet its commitments under the Paris climate accords to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Since cars and trucks are responsible for 60 percent of U.S. emissions, a wholesale shift to EVs is essential to reach Biden’s audacious goal of decarbonizing the U.S. economy by 2050.
But the president’s vision of a U.S. manufacturing revival built around clean energy fuels and technologies depends on ramping up domestic electric battery production, which is where a simmering intellectual property dispute between South Korean rivals LG Energy Solutions and SK Innovation comes into play.
In February, LG won a ruling at the U.S. International Trade Commission that SK Innovation had stolen and copied elements of its battery technology. The ITC ordered SK to stop importing battery components into the U.S. The company, which is building a $2.6 factory in Commerce, Georgia to supply hundreds of thousands of batteries to Ford and Volkswagen, says it will have to abandon the plant unless President Biden overrules the ITC decision.
LG Energy, which already manufactures batteries in Michigan as well as South Korea, has launched a joint venture with General Motors, which is converting its shuttered Lordstown, Ohio auto plant to EV production.
The feud between the two big battery makers confronts Biden with a Hobson’s choice between abandoning America’s commitment to protecting intellectual property rights around the world, or losing thousands of jobs in Georgia, a formerly red state he won by less than 12,000 votes in 2020. Arguing that the nation’s interest in revving up battery and EV production should take precedence over a foreign company’s IP rights, lobbyists for SK, as well as Georgia’s two Democratic Senators, reportedly are pressuring Biden to override the ITC ruling before the April 11 deadline for doing so expires.
Biden, however, may have other options. One is to bring all the parties to the White House for a presidential jawboning session. The goal would be to convince Ford and Volkswagen to abide by the ITC’s decision, which would put irresistible pressure on SK Innovation to settle the dispute with LG Energy, lest it be excluded from the nascent U.S. EV market. A solution might entail direct compensation to LG or a licensing agreement to use its technology.
A successful exercise of moral suasion by President Biden could yield the best of all outcomes. It would buttress intellectual property protections, which are essential to U.S. technological innovation and entrepreneurship, while allowing both LG and SK to join Tesla and other U.S. firms to compete in supplying high-quality batteries to U.S.-made EVs.
By shifting EV battery production from Asia to the United States, the president would let China know it can no longer coast to the finish line in an intensifying global race to dominate electric cars, trucks and buses.
You can also read this blog on PPI’s Medium.
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Charles E. Schumer
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer,
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) commends President Biden’s push to fund long-neglected public investments like transportation, research and development, clean energy infrastructure, and a highly skilled workforce in the next phase of his “Build Back Better” agenda. We also applaud the president and his team for acknowledging the need for raising revenue to offset most of the costs of his American Jobs Plan and offering concrete proposals to do so.
The federal budget deficit will top $3 trillion for the second consecutive year in 2021, leaving the federal government owing more money than the economy produces annually for the first time since World War II. Although borrowing whatever sums were necessary to combat the covid recession was justified, structural deficits will persist and continue growing larger after the economy has recovered. Moreover, our recovery has thus far been “K-shaped”: those who entered this crisis flush with wealth in stocks and real estate are emerging wealthier than ever before, while lower-income workers and the unemployed are falling farther behind. Americans deserve a recovery package that is substantially funded by progressive adjustments to our tax code.
We understand that the administration’s ambitious blueprint has controversial features and will trigger robust debate in Congress. Our view is that Congress should consider a wider array of tax changes to offset the costs of whatever it eventually passes. Building off of discussions with moderate lawmakers who have expressed similar desires, PPI has developed a menu of radically pragmatic options for strengthening the government’s fiscal infrastructure and sustainably financing strategic investments in America’s future growth.
We respectfully encourage you to consider the following tax reforms, which would largely tax wealth instead of work and make federal taxes more progressive:
Now is the time to pass a big, bold recovery package that funds America’s future. With your leadership, we can set our country on the path to sustainable and equitable growth.
Sincerely,
Will Marshall
President, Progressive Policy Institute
Ben Ritz,
Director, PPI Center for Funding America’s Future
The Biden administration released its American Jobs Plan yesterday – a bold package with critical investments in infrastructure and America’s workers. Among its more ambitious aims is $100 billion set aside for workforce development. This includes a long overdue investment to diversify career pathways, through approaches such as apprenticeship programs, a focus on sector partnerships, and a new and robust program for dislocated workers. There is a lot to cheer for in the AJP—here are five ways it gets it right in pairing job creation with next-generation training programs.
The Covid recession has left over 10 million Americans out of a job and millions of workers might not have a job to return to when the pandemic is over. For them, the AJP would create a diverse set of pathways to connect them with quality jobs offering livable wages. We hope that when Congress takes up this package in the coming months, they will pursue equity not just for underrepresented groups in workforce development, but also for those who lack a college degree yet make up a majority of the labor market. For them, access to pathways that do not require a four-year degree will be critical to help them regain their economic footing. Overall, the AJP meets the moment to address historic job losses and infrastructure in need of significant public investment.
When President Biden unveils the next phase of his Build Back Better recovery agenda in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, he’s expected to propose a $3 trillion spending plan broken into two major components. The first consists of investments in “traditional” infrastructure, such as transportation, waterways, broadband, and clean energy. The second component will consist of what the administration calls “human infrastructure,” such as investments in early childhood education and community college. President Biden should be commended for his commitment to bolster these two categories of public goods that have been neglected for far too long by federal policymakers. But to raise American standards of living and outcompete our adversaries, Biden should prioritize a third category that is equally (if not more) important in fueling the engines of human progress: research and development (R&D).
Every technology that powers our modern economy, from the cars that we drive to the phones in our pockets, is the culmination of years or even decades of R&D. When it comes time to commercialize new technologies based on such discoveries, the countries that maintained and cultivated their scientific community have a head start on the competition. The United States was once the indisputable global leader in R&D, but our leadership has faltered in recent years. In 2018, China spent more money on R&D than any other country, dethroning the United States for the first time in decades. Meanwhile, other countries including Japan and South Korea are spending substantially more on R&D as a percent of their gross domestic product than the United States is. America must renew its commitment to investment in R&D so we can attract top talent and remain the leader of innovation in the 21st century.
Read the full piece on Forbes.
Regulation is much in the news these days. But even as we look towards the future, the 40th anniversary of the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 on October 14 gives us an opportunity to consider how light touch regulation can benefit industry, customers, and the economy as a whole. That law, enacted under President Jimmy Carter, took a heavily regulated freight rail industry and moved it into the modern era.
Prior to the passage of the Staggers Act, freight railroads were regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which exercised strict authority over minimum and maximum rates, firm entry, and firm exit. Carriers were required to maintain networks, even if they were redundant or unprofitable. The lack of flexibility of the nearly-century old regime had left the industry in poor shape. Nine carriers were bankrupt, including Pennsylvania Railroad which had been in business since 1846. Return on investment had fallen from a 4.1 percent average in the 1940s to just 2 percent by the 1970s. Railroad market share had also declined by 33 percent from 1950 to 1980 as trucks and airlines became common shipping options. As a result, freight railroads were unable to raise capital to invest in their networks and compete.
By contrast, the Staggers Act:
This light touch regulation helped the freight railroad industry become far more financially healthy and competitive. Return on net investment has increased more than 170 percent since the 1980s. Freight carriers have invested more than $710 billion since Staggers on capital expenditures and maintenance including locomotives and tracks. Importantly, this capital investment was privately funded by the industry, unlike airports and highways which receive major financing from taxpayers. Due to capital investment and technological advancements, accident rates among major rail carriers plummeted 73 percent between 1981 and 2019, good news for workers. All the while, shipping rates have risen at roughly the rate of inflation since 1981.
Now, freight rail is not the same as tech or broadband, but there are important historical lessons to learn. In particular, finding the right balance with light touch regulation isn’t always the easiest thing, but it can generate new investment and growth and pay off big for the whole economy.
In 1901, a Colorado Springs dentist named Frederick McKay noticed many of his patients had peculiarly mottled brown teeth — but far fewer cavities than the norm. The cause, Dr. McKay determined after years of investigation, was high levels of natural fluoride in the town’s water. His discovery eventually led to the widespread fluoridation of public water systems across America and a dramatic decline in tooth decay over the past 70 years.
Numerous studies have shown the protective effects of adding fluoride to water, especially for kids, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hails community water fluoridation as one of the 20th century’s top 10 public health achievements. State and local budgets have benefited too, thanks to lower public expenditures for dental care.
Read the full piece on Governing by clicking here.
For many Americans, one traffic ticket could be all it takes to derail their financial security — and perhaps even their livelihood.
Loathe to raise taxes, many states and cities are increasingly relying on fines and fees — whether for traffic offenses, court costs or misdemeanors such as littering — to fill their coffers. The amounts demanded are often exorbitant, and fall disproportionately on low-and moderate-income Americans who can least afford to pay. In California, for instance, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights found that a $100 traffic ticket can ultimately cost a motorist as much as $815 after various surcharges, “administrative” fees and late penalties are factored in — a cripplingly large figure even for someone who is relatively wealthy.
Read the full piece on Medium by clicking here.
Unlike such polarizing issues as health care, immigration and climate change, repairing and updating our economic infrastructure is something both parties say they are for. Yet somehow our political leaders can’t get the job done.
President Trump often complains about the shabby state of America’s airports, highways and railways. “The only one to fix the infrastructure of our country is me — roads, airports, bridges,” he tweeted just before launching his 2016 presidential bid. “I know how to build, pols only know how to talk!”
Yet Trump’s lack of focus and discipline, along with his clownish political antics, keep sabotaging bipartisan progress on infrastructure. In a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer in April, Trump proposed to spend $2 trillion on infrastructure. But the deal quickly unraveled as Republican Senators made clear they wouldn’t support gas or other tax increases to pay for it.
Read the full piece on Medium by clicking here.
As Congress begins to turn toward tax policies to help clean energy manufacturing, electric vehicle tax credits aimed directly at more affordable vehicles are gaining speed, just as a previous Forbes column and a Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) white paper urged several months ago.
The question now is will EV advocates in Congress, the U.S. auto industry and labor unions get the message and reform tax incentives to benefit middle-income Americans. Such revised tax credits focused on more affordable EVs will increase the chances new incentives become law, and will better allow the U.S. to reap the remarkable economic, health, manufacturing and environmental benefits of EVs. Yet as of now, new EV tax credits have been left entirely out of a so-called “tax extenders” outline circulating among House Ways and Means Committee members.
But a series of new developments are demonstrating that tax credits focused on affordable vehicles are gaining momentum.
Read the full piece on Forbes by clicking here.
Republicans despise federal micromanagement, but that hasn’t kept Rep. Don Young of Alaska from hopping aboard the Washington-Knows-Best Express. He recently introduced a bill mandating that freight trains have a minimum of two crew members on board trains at all times.
While Young justifies his bill on safety grounds, the bill also appears to reflect pressure from rail workers’ unions fearful that automation is putting their members out of jobs.
Here’s the backstory: Following the fatal 2008 Chatsworth train collision in Los Angeles, President Bush signed the Rail Safety Improvement Act into law. The law required freight railroads, by the end of 2020, to integrate Positive Train Control (PTC) — a nationwide system of technologies that constantly process thousands of data points to stop a train before human error-caused accidents occur. One of the benefits of PTC was that it was a win-win for consumers and the railroads, enhancing safety and allowing railroads to boost productivity by moving to one-person crews somewhere down the road.
Read the full piece on Medium by clicking here.
On Donald Trump’s watch, America is losing what is probably the most important new manufacturing opportunity in the world–the global race to produce affordable electric vehicles that people want to drive. The United States currently accounts for just 20 percent of global electric vehicle production, far behind China.
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.
THE CHALLENGE: THE US ELECTRIC VEHICLE INDUSTRY IS FALLING BEHIND ITS GLOBAL COMPETITORS
Leading experts predict (1) that electric vehicles will be the key to global auto industry growth over the next years and decade—from about 1.1 million EVs last year to 30 million by 2030. Ominously, however, China is already dominating (2) the emerging EV market, with about 40 percent of global production, and plans to expand even more rapidly over the next few years. The United States, on the other hand, currently produces only about 20 percent of the world’s EVs and is moving too slowly on the EV transition.
Electric vehicles account for just 0.3 percent of the total U.S. fleet
U.S. EV production is small – fewer than 200,000 were manufactured (3) here last year, accounting for less than 0.3 percent of the total U.S. fleet. Production is also not growing nearly fast enough. Out of the roughly 350 million vehicles on the road today, a little more than 1 million are electric.
Electric vehicles are too pricey for most consumers or are not offered in models consumers want
Most Americans cannot afford more expensive EVs—like the high-end Tesla models—that have dominated (4) the market so far. For example, two of the top three selling models in 2017 cost well over $80,000 a vehicle. The second selling model, the more affordable Chevy Bolt (still more than $36,000), sold only about 25,000 units in 2017. And the EVs that are affordable are not available in the models—especially SUVs, minivans and light trucks—that most consumers prefer, and that provide higher profit margins for automakers. As a consequence, fewer than 2 percent of the more than 17.3 million new American car purchases in 2017 were of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles or battery-electric vehicles.
THE GOAL: MAKE AMERICA THE GLOBAL LEADER IN EV MANUFACTURING, PRODUCTION, AND DEPLOYMENT
The aim of America’s EV policy should be to quickly gain by far the largest part of the global EV market penetration by reaching the mass market of average domestic and international consumers of high volume models. Doing this can rapidly help lower consumer costs, cut emissions, end oil imports, reduce pollution, and prompt a resurgence of domestic auto manufacturing. Specifically, the United States should set a goal of producing more than 50 percent of the global EV production—or 15 million vehicles a year–by 2030.
Fifteen years ago, the U.S. allowed Chinese subsidies to displace U.S manufacturers and dominate the global race for solar panel manufacturing—and today China owns more than (5) 60 percent of the global market. America cannot allow that to happen with EVs, which under any scenario will be an essential part of the next generation of global clean energy technology and auto manufacturing.
Electric Vehicles at scale will bring America remarkable, one of a kind benefits. For instance, EVs can dramatically reduce air pollution, which is among the leading causes of lung disease, lower life expectancy and asthma among Americans. Transitioning to EVs will also reduce America’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions—transportation. EVs have less than half the GHG emissions of gasoline-powered cars, and are getting even cleaner every year (6). An average U.S. EV today has greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to a gasoline car getting 80 MPG (7). EVs will only get higher gasoline equivalent mileage over time.
At the same time, EVs will save U.S. consumers money because of much lower fuel and vehicle operating costs (8). The total cost of owning and operating an EV is already cheaper than oil-fueled cars (9). The U.S. average price per gallon of gasoline is $2.50 while it costs less than half that–$1.10 per eGallon–to charge an electric car, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (10).
Finally, widescale deployment of EVs will also help end America’s reliance on imported oil. Today, the US imports about 20 percent of its oil, including from non-Democratic petro-states like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
Gaining American global leadership in one of the world’s the fastest growing major manufacturing sectors will provide the United States a huge economic boost and create an export market for U.S. EVs around the world. Boosting the American EV industry will also bring ancillary benefits to the nation’s overall efforts for a clean-energy transition. For example, large scale EV deployment will enable the creation of a huge distributed network of electricity storage units—that is, car batteries themselves plugged into the electricity grid, especially at night. This network will allow greater electricity storage at scale that in turn will allow major electric grids around the country to integrate higher percentages of clean solar and wind energy. In essence, electrifying transport will therefore help reduce emissions from both the transport and electricity sectors, the two highest emitters in the U.S. economy.
THE SOLUTION: DRAMATICALLY EXPAND AND IMPROVE TAX CREDITS FOR CONSUMER PURCHASES OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES
There is no doubt America has the capacity to lead the EV revolution. America has unrivaled technical expertise, a skilled work force, and innovative entrepreneurs and investors (11). But current half-hearted U.S. tax policies on EVs are not coming anywhere near immediately seizing this massive opportunity as other countries threaten to pull so far ahead that we cannot catch up.
One powerful way to speed the revolution is through more robust tax incentives that can boost the pace of technological evolution of U.S. companies and adoption of EVs by the transportation sector as a whole.
For example, existing federal tax credits are not nearly enough to drive the change and scale of EVs that are needed to gain full benefits. The current federal tax credit system, while well intended, has so far been ineffective. It offers $7,500 for the purchase of any all-electric vehicle, but caps the credit at 200,000 vehicles per manufacture, with rapidly reduced credit amounts after that threshold. Several Members of Congress have proposed (12) extending the existing $7,500 credit with no cap per manufacturer, but do not propose changing the overall structure of the credit. These changes are highly unlikely to drive large rapid electrification of the US fleet.
What Congress should do instead is provide American consumers with much more generous tax credits for the purchase of more affordable EV models that Americans actually want and can afford, including minivans, SUVs, and light trucks.
In particular, Congress should provide a consumer tax credit that is the more generous for cheaper vehicles than for expensive ones, thereby encouraging the sale of more affordable electric vehicles. For instance, this credit could be structured on a graduated scale as follows: $7,500 for vehicles priced under $35,000; $5,000 for those under $50,000; $2,500 for those under $75,000; $1,500 under $100,000.
Opinion polls find that nearly three quarters of consumers say a tax credit would affect their decision to buy an EV, and 63 percent say a credit is an important measure to support EV adoption. However, the tax credit must be applicable to cars Americans want to buy to achieve volume and scale (13).
In addition to the graduated tax credit described above, Congress should also provide an extra consumer tax incentives for “trading-in” low mileage “gas guzzlers” for the purchase of an EV to quickly turn over fleet and eliminate the most inefficient, polluting vehicles. Moreover, Congress should provide manufacturer tax credits within each class of vehicle, including SUVs, minivans and light trucks, to drive rapid production and demand for popular models. Finally, to encourage rapid growth and large-scale production, the manufacturer tax credit should become greater for production over a certain high total threshold of vehicles produced.
The tax credits described above can go a long way toward speeding the nation’s transition to EVs while boosting U.S. EV leadership. Nevertheless, these tax credits cannot be effective if offered alone. Rather, they must be offered in concert with a robust, comprehensive agenda to accelerate electric vehicle adoption.
Crucially, the federal government and the states will need to invest in public and private incentives for building out a network of electric charging stations through much needed infrastructure modernizing legislation. Congress should also require that the federal government purchase US-made EVs for most purposes (and other alternative vehicles like Compressed Natural Gas or Fuel Cells as needed for other uses like buses and heavy-duty trucks);
The federal government could also raise Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards for an added push toward EVs. And in order to gain the full reductions in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, Congress will need to make sure that the electricity sector relies on increasingly clean energy sources.
America cannot afford to lose the EV race, the most important manufacturing opportunity of our time. By creating a comprehensive program to jumpstart the production and purchase of the electric cars and trucks Americans want and can afford, Congress can help the nation take a dramatic, yet pragmatic, step forward toward growing the economy, cutting oil use and consumer costs, improving air quality and combatting climate change.
ENDNOTES
1) “Electric Vehicle Outlook 2018 | Bloomberg New Energy Finance.” Bloomberg NEF. https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/.
2) Niu, Isabelle. “Your next Car Could Be Electric-and Chinese.” Quartz. November 15, 2018.
3) Kane, Mark. “US All-Electric Car Sales Charted: November 2018.” Inside EVs. December 30, 2018.
4) “Top-selling Electric Cars in the United States 2017 | Statistic.” Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/257966/best-selling-electric-cars-in-the-united-states/.
5) Beinhart, Larry. “Why China, and Not the US, Is the Leader in Solar Power.” Al Jazeera. August 22, 2018.
6) Nealer, Rachael, David Reichmuth, and Don Anair. “Cleaner cars from cradle to grave: How electric cars beat gasoline cars on lifetime global warming emissions.” Union of concerned scientists report (2015).
7) Reichmuth, David. “New Data Show Electric Vehicles Continue to Get Cleaner.” Union of Concerned Scientists (blog), March 8, 2018. https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electric-vehicles-continue-to-get-cleaner.
8) Richardson, Jake. “Electric Vehicles Reduce Toxic Air Pollution – Pollution That Hurts & Kills Humans.” CleanTechnica. May 12, 2018.
9) “Electric Vehicles Have Lowest Total Cost Of Ownership, Study Finds.” CleanTechnica. February 05, 2018.
10) “EGallon: Compare the Costs of Driving with Electricity.” Energy.gov. February 9, 2019. https://www.energy.gov/maps/egallon.
11) Kljaic, Vanja. “U.S. Electric Car Battery Production Is Lacking, Says Expert.” Inside EVs. October 7, 2018. https://insideevs.com/us-electric-battery-production-lack/.
12) U.S. Senate. Jeff Merkley. “MERKLEY, HEINRICH, CORTEZ MASTO INTRODUCE LEGISLATION TO EXTEND ELECTRIC VEHICLE TAX CREDIT FOR 10 YEARS.” News release, September 17, 2018. U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon. https://www.merkley.senate.gov/news/press-releases/merkley-heinrich-cortez-masto-introduce-legislation-to-extend-electric-vehicle-tax-credit-for-10-years.
13) “EV Statistics of the Week: Range, Price and Battery Size of Currently Available (in the US) BEVs.” EVAdoption. January 21, 2018. https://evadoption.com/ev-statistics-of-the-week-range-price-and-battery-size-of-currently-available-in-the-us-bevs/.
After the president’s budget was released on Monday, House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-KY) called it “A Budget for a Declining America.” Unfortunately, that might be an understatement.
The Trump administration’s Fiscal Year 2020 budget proposal is a compilation of the worst ideas to come out of the Republican Party over the last decade. It would dismantle public investments that lay the foundation for economic growth, resulting in less innovation. It would shred the social safety net, resulting in more poverty. It would rip away access to affordable health care, resulting in more disease. It would cut taxes for the rich, resulting in more income inequality. It would bloat the defense budget, resulting in more wasteful spending. And all this would add up to a higher national debt than the policies in President Obama’s final budget proposal.
The most harmful aspect of Trump’s fiscal blueprint is its scheme for gutting investments in public goods that are core responsibilities of government. The administration proposes to reduce the share of gross domestic product devoted to non-defense (domestic) discretionary spending – the category of the budget that is annually appropriated by Congress and includes most federal spending on infrastructure, education, and scientific research – by more than half over the next decade. The result is deep cuts to all three of these important investments that provide the foundation for long-term economic growth.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The big tech platforms get all the attention these days. But the biggest tech news of 2019 may turn out to be the rise of the manufacturing platforms—companies that rewrite the rules of production and product development, and in the process create new opportunities for local manufacturing.
The economic backdrop is the looming threat of an all-out U.S-China trade war, which places a new premium on domestic sourcing. If trade tensions get worse, highly-scaleable manufacturing platforms will make it much easier for companies and entrepreneurs to open up new factories in the United States and plug them right into the platform.
In many ways manufacturing platforms are the logical outgrowth of existing trends towards outsourcing and factoryless production. Manufacturers have been increasingly separating product design and marketing from the actual production process for years.
The U.S. economy almost certainly has a problem with rising market power. A bevy of recent economic studies show that concentration in many sectors of the economy has increased over the past 20-30 years. These increases in concentration have been convincingly linked to such economic ills as rising prices, weak productivity growth, stagnant real wages, slower job growth, weak investment, and falling labor share.
Indeed, there is little doubt that strong and consistent competition policy plays an important role in a market economy. Longstanding incumbents in a wide range of industries can exercise market power to choke off innovation and growth, protecting the status quo and driving up prices rather than benefiting workers and consumers.
