Robert Reich
With Ellis Island behind them, a group of immigrant rights advocates march in Liberty State Park, Jersey City, N.J. Immigration reform and entitlement reform have a lot to do with one another, Reich writes. (Mel Evans/AP/File)
Entitlement reform and immigration reform: How are they connected?
I was born in 1946, just when the boomer wave began. Bill Clinton was born that year, too. So was George W. Bush, as was Laura Bush. And Ken Starr (remember him?) And then, the next year, Hillary Rodham was born. And soon Newt Gingrich (known as “Newty” as a boy). And Cher (Every time I begin feeling old I remind myself she’s not that much younger.)
Why did so many of us begin coming into the world in 1946? Demographers have given this question a great deal of attention.
My father, for example, was in World War II — as were the fathers of many other early boomers. Ed Reich came home from the war, as did they. My mother was waiting for him, as were their mothers.
When it comes down to it, demographics is not all that complicated.
Fast-forward. Most of us early boomers had planned to retire around now. Those born a few years later had planned to retire in a few years. ( Continue… )
Gun dealer Mel Bernstein takes down an AK-47 assault rifle from a sales rack at a shooting range and gun store, east of Colorado Springs, Colo. Every society must necessarily decide for itself what decency requires, Reich writes. (Brennan Linsley/AP/File)
Guns, healthcare, and the meaning of a decent society
Raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 should be a no-brainer. Republicans say it will cause employers to shed jobs, but that’s baloney. Employers won’t outsource the jobs abroad or substitute machines for them because jobs at this low level of pay are all in the local personal service sector (retail, restaurant, hotel, and so on), where employers pass on any small wage hikes to customers as pennies more on their bills. States that have a minimum wage closer to $9 than the current federal minimum don’t have higher rates of unemployment than do states still at the federal minimum.
A mere $9 an hour translates into about $18,000 a year — still under the poverty line. When you add in the Earned Income Tax Credit and food stamps it’s possible to barely rise above poverty at this wage, but even the poverty line of about $23,000 understates the true cost of living in most areas of the country.
Besides, the proposed increase would put more money into the hands of families that desperately need it, allowing them to buy a bit more and thereby keep others working.
A decent society should do no less. ( Continue… )
Senate Republican Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday. Reich argues that the budget deficit and cumulative debt are not, in McConnell's words, the “transcendent issue of our time.” (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
Why the budget deficit is not 'the transcendent issue of our time'
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) says Senate Republicans will unanimously support a balanced-budget amendment, to be unveiled Wednesday as the core of the GOP’s fiscal agenda.
There’s no chance of passage so why are Republicans pushing it now? “Just because something may not pass doesn’t mean that the American people don’t expect us to stand up and be counted for the things that we believe in,” says McConnnell.
The more honest explanation is that a fight over a balanced-budget amendment could get the GOP back on the same page — reuniting Republican government-haters with the Party’s fiscal conservatives. And it could change the subject away from social issues — women’s reproductive rights, immigration, gay marriage – that have split the Party and cost it many votes.
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It also gives the Party something to be for, in contrast to the upcoming fights in which its members will be voting againstcompromises to avoid the next fiscal cliff, continue funding the government, and raising the debt ceiling. ( Continue… )
A pothole in the middle of the road remains unfilled in Mt. Sterling, Ohio. Studies show a public return on infrastructure investment to average $1.92 for every public dollar invested, Reich writes. (Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor/File)
Why we need an investment budget
Part of the President’s State of the Union message and of his second term agenda apparently will focus on public investments in education, infrastructure, and basic R&D.
That’s good news. But how do we fund these investments when discretionary spending is being cut to the bone in order to reduce the budget deficit?
Answer: By treating public investments differently from current spending.
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No rational family would borrow to pay for a vacation but not borrow to send a kid to college. No rational business would borrow to finance current salaries but not to pay for critical new machinery. ( Continue… )
President Barack Obama applauds after introducing outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta during a Farewell Tribute for Panetta at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va. In his State of the Union address, President Obama must acknowledge that most Americans are not experiencing a recovery, Reich writes. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP/File)
State of the Union address: Why Obama should focus on the economy
If you’re sitting in the well of the House when a president gives a State of the Union address (as I’ve had the privilege of doing five times), the hardest part is on the knees. You’re required to stand and applaud every applause line, which means, if you’re in the cabinet or an elected official of the president’s party, an extraordinary amount of standing and sitting.
But for a president himself, the State of the Union provides a unique opportunity to focus the entire nation’s attention on the central issue you want the nation to help you take action on.
President Obama has been focusing his (and therefore America’s) attention on immigration, guns, and the environment. All are important. But in my view none of these should be the central theme of his address Tuesday evening.
His focus should be on the joblessness, falling real wages, economic insecurity, and widening inequality that continue to dog the nation. These are the overriding concerns of most Americans. All will grow worse if the deficit hawks, austerity mavens, trickle-down charlatans, and government-haters who have commanded center stage for too long continue to get their way. ( Continue… )
A man looks over employment opportunities at a jobs center in San Francisco, Calif. The national discussion should be about should be how to bring back good jobs and economic growth, Reich writes. (Robert Galbraith/Reuters/File)
Jobs and growth over deficit reduction
Can we just keep things in perspective? On Tuesday, the President asked Republicans to join him in finding more spending cuts and revenues before the next fiscal cliff whacks the economy at the end of the month.
Yet that same day, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the federal budget deficit will drop to 5.3 percent of the nation’s total output by the end of this year.
This is roughly half what the deficit was relative to the size of the economy in 2009. It’s about the same share of the economy as it was when Bill Clinton became president in 1992. The deficit wasn’t a problem then, and it’s not an immediate problem now.
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Yes, the deficit becomes larger later in the decade. But that’s mainly due to the last-ditch fiscal cliff deal in December. ( Continue… )
The Statue of Liberty peeks through thick morning fog in New York City. The greatness of our nation lies in our overriding tendency to enlarge and fulfill the promise of immigration and US citizenship, Reich writes. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters/File)
Immigration, corporations, and the real debate over US citizenship
Sometimes we have a national conversation without realizing it. We talk about different aspects of the same larger issue without connecting the dots.
That’s what’s happening now with regard to the meaning of American citizenship and the basic rights that come with it.
On one side are those who think of citizenship as a matter of exclusion and privilege — of protecting the nation by keeping out those who are undesirable, and putting strict limits on who is allowed to exercise the full rights of citizenship.
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On the other are those who think of citizenship inclusively — as an ongoing process of helping people become full participants in America. ( Continue… )
US Sen. Charles Schumer (D) of New York discusses House Speaker John Boehner's Plan B on fiscal reform at the Capitol in Washington this past December. A century ago, progressives instituted a national income tax with the idea that those who made more would pay a higher rate than those who made less. (Gary Cameron/Reuters/File)
National income tax: a century of progressive taxes. More ahead?
Exactly a century ago, on February 3, 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, authorizing a federal income tax. Congress turned it into a graduated tax, based on “capacity to pay.”
It was among the signal victories of the progressive movement — the first constitutional amendment in 40 years (the first 10 had been included in the Bill of Rights, the 11th and 12th in 1789 and 1804, and three others in consequence of the Civil War), reflecting a great political transformation in America.
The 1880s and 1890s had been the Gilded Age, the time of robber barons, when a small number controlled almost all the nation’s wealth as well as our democracy, when poverty had risen to record levels, and when it looked as though the country was destined to become a moneyed aristocracy.
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But almost without warning, progressives reversed the tide. Teddy Roosevelt became president in 1901, pledging to break up the giant trusts and end the reign of the “malefactors of great wealth.” Laws were enacted protecting the public from impure foods and drugs, and from corrupt legislators. ( Continue… )
Perspective job seekers talk with employers during a job fair in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Close to 20 million Americans remain unemployed or underemployed, Reich writes. (Tony Dejak/AP/File)
Jobs report: why the recovery has stalled
We are in the most anemic recovery in modern history, yet our political leaders in Washington aren’t doing squat about it.
In fact, apart from the Fed – which continues to hold interest rates down in the quixotic hope that banks will begin lending again to average people – the government is heading in exactly the wrong direction: raising taxes on the middle class, and cutting spending.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that American employers added only 157,000 jobs in January. That’s fewer than they added in December (196,000 jobs, as revised by the Bureau of Labor Statistics). The overall unemployment rate remains stuck at 7.9 percent, just about where it’s been since September.
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The share of people of working age either who are working or looking for jobs also remains dismal – close to a 30-year low. (Yes, older boomers are retiring, but the major cause for this near-record low is simply the lack of jobs.) ( Continue… )
A couple descend an escalator while shopping at an H&M store in Atlanta. When consumers are this glum, austerity economics is particularly dangerous, Reich writes. (David Goldman/AP/File)
Why consumers are so glum
The Conference Board reported Tuesday that the preliminary January figure for consumer confidence in the United States fell to its lowest level in more than a year.
The last time consumers were this bummed out was October 2011, when there was widespread talk of a double-dip recession.
But this time business news is buoyant. The stock market is bullish. The housing market seems to have rebounded a bit.
So why are consumers so glum?
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Because they’re deeply worried about their jobs and their incomes – as they have every right to be. ( Continue… )
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