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Heather Cox Richardson: Good News for Biden, Bad News for Trump

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2023 //
37

Heather Cox Richardson applies her excellent skills as a historian to analyze the news. Open the link to finish reading and to read footnotes.

More good news today for Bidenomics, as the gross domestic product report for the second quarter showed annualized growth of 2.4%, higher than projected, and inflation rose at a slower pace of 2.6%, down from last quarter and well below projections. Economic analyst Steven Rattner noted that as of the second quarter, “the US economy is over 6% larger than it was before COVID (after adjusting for inflation). At this point in the recovery from the Great Recession, 2011, the economy was just 0.7% larger than it had been in 2007.”

Both consumer spending and business investment, which is up 7.7% in real annualized terms, drove this growth. Business spending makes up a much smaller share of gross domestic product, but it drives future jobs and growth, and much of this growth is in manufacturing facilities. In keeping with that trend, the nation’s largest solar panel manufacturer, First Solar, announced today that it will build a fifth factory in the U.S. as alternative energy technology takes off. This commitment brings to more than $2.8 billion the amount First Solar has invested in the U.S. to ramp up production…

While many of us were watching the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., to see if an indictment was forthcoming against former president Trump for his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, a different set of charges appeared tonight. Special counsel Jack Smith brought additional charges against Trump in connection with his retention of classified documents.

The new indictment alleges that Trump plotted to delete video from security cameras near the storage room where he had stored boxes containing classified documents, and did so after the Department of Justice subpoenaed that footage. That effort to delete the video involved a third co-conspirator, Carlos De Oliveira, who has been added to the case.

De Oliveira is a former valet at the Trump Organization’s Mar-a-Lago property who became property manager there in January 2022. Allegedly, he told another Trump employee that “the boss” wanted the server deleted and that the conversation should stay between the two of them.

In the Washington Post, legal columnist Ruth Marcus wrote, “The alleged conduct—yes, even after all these years of watching Trump flagrantly flout norms—is nothing short of jaw-dropping: Trump allegedly conspired with others to destroy evidence.” If the allegations hold up, “the former president is a common criminal—and an uncommonly stupid one.”

This superseding indictment reiterates the material from the original indictment, and as I reread it, it still blows my mind that Trump allegedly compromised national security documents from the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (surveillance imagery), the National Reconnaissance Office (surveillance and maps), the Department of Energy (nuclear weapons), and the Department of State and Bureau of Intelligence and Research (diplomatic intelligence).

It sounds like he was a one-man wrecking ball, aimed at our national security.

The Justice Department has asked again for a protective order to protect the classified information at the heart of this case. In their request, they explained that, among other things, Trump wanted to be able to discuss that classified information with his lawyers outside a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, a room protected against electronic surveillance and data leakage.

Former deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division Peter Strzok noted that there is “[n]o better demonstration of Trump’s abject lack of understanding of—and disregard for—classified info and national security. He is *asking the Court* to waive the requirements for classified info that EVERY OTHER SINGLE CLEARANCE HOLDER IN THE UNITED STATES must follow.”

The Senate today passed the $886 billion annual defense bill by a strong bipartisan margin of 86 to 11 after refusing to load it up with all the partisan measures Republican extremists added to the House bill. Now negotiators from the House and the Senate will try to hash out a compromise measure, but the bills are so far apart it is not clear they will be able to create a bipartisan compromise. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has passed on a bipartisan basis for more than 60 years.

The extremists in the House Republican conference continue to revolt against House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) deal with the administration to raise the debt ceiling. They insist the future cuts to which McCarthy agreed are not steep enough, and demand more. This has sparked fighting among House Republicans; Emine Yücel of Talking Points Memo suggests that McCarthy’s new willingness to consider impeaching President Biden might be an attempt to cut a deal with the extremists.

As the Senate is controlled by Democrats, the fight among the House Republicans threatens a much larger fight between the chambers because Democratic senators will not accept the demands of the extremist Republican representatives.

The House left for its August recess today without passing 11 of the 12 appropriations bills necessary to fund the government after September, setting up the conditions for a government shutdown this fall if they cannot pass the bills and negotiate with the Senate in the short time frame they’ve left. Far-right Republicans don’t much care, apparently. Representative Bob Good (R-VA) told reporters this week, “We should not fear a government shutdown… Most of what we do up here is bad anyway.”

Representative Katherine Clark (D-MA), the second ranking Democrat in the House, disagreed. “The Republican conference is saying they are sending us home for six weeks without funding the government? That we have one bill…out of 12 completed because extremists are holding your conference hostage, and that’s not the full story: the extremists are holding the American people hostage. We will have twelve days…when we return to fund the government, to live up to the job the American people sent us here to do. This is a reckless march to a MAGA shutdown, and for what? In pursuit of a national abortion ban? Is that what we are doing here?

Categories Accountability, Biden, Democrats, Economy, Environment, Extremism, Funding, Republicans, Trump

Iowa Dismantles Child Labor Laws, with 14 Other States

By dianeravitch
June 21, 2023 //
13

Iowa recently enacted legislation that rolls back the clock on child labor laws. The Economic Policy Institute reports on the Republican-led effort to put young children to work in hazardous industries, which conflicts with federal law.

What a disgrace these laws are! Are the red states lowering the age of employment because they don’t have enough immigrants to take these jobs? Are they ready to sacrifice the well-being of their children to keep immigrants out? All of the jobs opening for children under 18 appear to be the kind that are usually filled by minimum-wage adult workers.

EPI writes:

Last Friday, this concerted attack on child labor safeguards further expanded. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed an expansive bill enacting numerous changes to the state’s child labor laws, including:

  • allowing employers to hire teens as young as 14 for previously prohibited hazardous jobs in industrial laundries or as young as 15 in light assembly work;
  • allowing state agencies to waive restrictions on hazardous work for 16–17-year-olds in a long list of dangerous occupations, including demolition, roofing, excavation, and power-driven machine operation;
  • extending hours to allow teens as young as 14 to work six-hour nightly shifts during the school year;
  • allowing restaurants to have teens as young as 16 serve alcohol; and
  • limiting state agencies’ ability to impose penalties for future employer violations.

Multiple provisions in the new state law conflict with federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) prohibitions on “oppressive child labor”involving hazardous conditions or excessive hours that interfere with teens’ schooling or health and well-being.

In Arkansas, Governor Sarah Sanders signed a law in March that eliminated youth work permits. Under the law, 14- and 15-year-olds will no longer need an employment certificate from the state Division of Labor verifying proof of their age and parental consent to work.

At a moment when exploitative child labor is on the rise, such changes are dangerous, removing an important paper trail intended to provide “proof that the companies that hire children at least acknowledge—in writing—that they’re following the law.”

In intervening weeks, the U.S. Department of Labor has cited employers for hundreds more serious child labor violations, while additional state legislatures have advanced proposals to weaken child labor standards…

Iowa’s extreme new child labor law violates federal prohibitions on hazardous occupations and excessive work hours

Iowa labor unions and their allies organized significant opposition to weakening the state’s child labor laws, compelling lawmakers to remove some of the original bill’s most egregious proposals—including language allowing teens to work in some areas of meatpacking plants and granting employers blanket immunity from liability for deaths or injuries caused by negligence while employing teens in “work-based learning programs.”

Yet even after several amendments, the final bill(passed with only Republican support) remains one of the most dangerous rollbacks of child labor protections in decades.

Many aspects of the newly enacted Iowa law contradict federal child labor law. In a May 10 letter to Iowa lawmakers, U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda and Wage and Hour Division Principal Deputy Administrator Jessica Looman clarify that “the FLSA establishes federal standards with respect to child labor, and states cannot nullify federal requirements by enacting less protective standards.”

Because most employment situations are covered by the FLSA, employers who follow weaker new state rules in Iowa will be violating federal child labor law. Enforcing federal standards that the state no longer maintains will, however, now be solely up to the federal government.

In their letter, Nanda and Looman report that “the Department currently has over 600 child labor investigations underway nationwide, including in Iowa” and detail the ways in which Iowa’s proposed bill (most of which has now been enacted) contradicts prohibitions on hazardous work or excessive work hours considered “oppressive” forms of child labor under federal law.

Federal law generally prohibits the employment of children in hazardous occupations. The new Iowa law allows several forms of hazardous child labor that are expressly prohibited under DOL regulations on work permitted for 14–15-year-olds or are banned for all youth under 18 under “Hazardous Occupations Orders” (HOs). These are specific types of work the DOL prohibits based on National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health findings that certain jobs have proven particularly dangerous for teens.

The article lists the details of the Iowa law, showing the age at which children as young as 14 are allowed to work in previously forbidden jobs.

Categories Childhood, Cruelty, Economy, Iowa

Gavin Newsom: Inconvenient Truths About the Red-Blue Divide

By dianeravitch
June 20, 2023 //
31

California Governor Gavin Newsom recently had a debate with FOX host Sean Hannity, where he schooled him on the issues.

Gavin just sent out this newsletter:

Dear Diane,

Want the truth? Here’s the truth:

Tweet from Gavin Newsom: Red States vs. Blue States by the numbers

But that is not all.

8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates are red and gun deaths are almost 2x as high in red states.

The Supreme Court has stripped women of their liberty and let red states replace it with mandated birth.

They ban books, silence teachers and make it harder to vote in red states.

The reason Republicans like Ron DeSantis are fanning the flames of culture wars is to distract from the fact that Florida has higher murder rates, worse education and worse health care outcomes than states like California.

That’s the truth.

– Gavin

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, California, Democracy, DeSantis, Economy, Elections, Extremism, Failure, Florida

Heather Cox Richardson: The GOP Wants to Turn Back the Clock to 1931

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2023 //
96

Historian Heather Cox Richardson brilliantly contrasts the views of Republicans and Democrats on the role of government. Republicans want it to be as minimal as possible. Democrats want it to use its powers and resources to improve people’s lives. Understanding this difference helps illuminate why Republicans want to get rid of public schools and why billionaires like Charles Koch and Betsy DeVos support vouchers and libertarianism in a society where everyone is on their own.

Yesterday, the Republican Study Committee, a 175-member group of far-right House members, released their 2024 “Blueprint to Save America” budget plan. It calls for slashing the federal budget by raising the age at which retirees can start claiming Social Security benefits from 67 to 69, privatizing Medicare, and enacting dramatic tax cuts that will starve the federal government.

I’m actually not going to rehash the 122-page plan. Let’s take a look at the larger picture.

This budget dismisses the plans of “President Joe Biden and the left” as a “march toward socialism.” It says that “[t]he left’s calls to increase taxes to close the deficit would be…catastrophic for our nation.” Asserting that “the path to prosperity does not come from the Democrats’ approach of expanding government,” it claims that “[o]ver the past year and a half, the American people have seen that experiment fail firsthand.”

Instead, it says, “the key to growth, innovation, and flourishing communities” is “[i]ndividuals, free from the burdens of a burdensome government.” 

It is?

Our history actually tells us how these two contrasting visions of the government play out.

Grover Norquist, one of the key architects of the Republican argument that the solution to societal ills is tax cuts, in 2010 described to Rebecca Elliott of the Harvard Crimson how he sees the role of government. “Government should enforce [the] rule of law,” he said. “It should enforce contracts, it should protect people bodily from being attacked by criminals. And when the government does those things, it is facilitating liberty. When it goes beyond those things, it becomes destructive to both human happiness and human liberty.”

Norquist vehemently opposed taxation, saying that “it’s not any of the government’s business who earns what, as long as they earn it legitimately,” and proposed cutting government spending down to 8% of gross national product, or GDP, the value of the final goods and services produced in the United States. 

The last time the level of government spending was at that 8% of GDP was 1933, before the New Deal. In that year, after years of extraordinary corporate profits, the banking system had collapsed, the unemployment rate was nearly 25%, prices and productivity were plummeting, wages were cratering, factories had shut down, farmers were losing their land to foreclosure. Children worked in the fields and factories, elderly and disabled people ate from garbage cans, unregulated banks gambled away people’s money, business owners treated their workers as they wished. Within a year the Great Plains would be blowing away as extensive deep plowing had damaged the land, making it vulnerable to drought. Republican leaders insisted the primary solution to the crisis was individual enterprise and private charity. 

When he accepted the Democratic nomination for president in July 1932, New York governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt vowed to steer between the radical extremes of fascism and communism to deliver a “New Deal” to the American people. 

The so-called alphabet soup of the New Deal gave us the regulation of banks and businesses, protections for workers, an end to child labor in factories, repair of the damage to the Great Plains, new municipal buildings and roads and airports, rural electrification, investment in painters and writers, and Social Security for workers who were injured or unemployed. Government outlays as a percentage of GDP began to rise. World War II shot them off the charts, to more than 40% of GDP, as the United States helped the world fight fascism. 

That number dropped again after the war, and in 1975, federal expenditures settled in at about 20% of GDP. Except for short-term spikes after financial crises (spending shot up to 24% after the 2008 crash, for example, and to 31% during the 2020 pandemic, a high from which it is still coming down), the spending-to-GDP ratio has remained at about that set point.

So why is there a growing debt?

Because tax revenues have plummeted. Tax cuts under the George W. Bush and Trump administrations are responsible for 57% of the increase in the ratio of the debt to the economy, 90% if you exclude the emergency expenditures of the pandemic. The United States is nowhere close to the average tax burden of the 38 other nations in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), all of which are market-oriented democracies. And those cuts have gone primarily to the wealthy and corporations. 

Republicans who backed those tax cuts now insist that the only way to deal with the growing debt is to get rid of the government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, promoted infrastructure, and eventually promoted civil rights, all elements that stabilized the nation after the older system gave us the Depression. Indeed, the Republican Study Committee calls for making the Trump tax cuts, scheduled to expire in 2025, permanent. 

“There are two ways of viewing the government’s duty in matters affecting economic and social life,” FDR said in his acceptance speech. “The first sees to it that a favored few are helped and hopes that some of their prosperity will leak through, sift through, to labor, to the farmer, to the small businessman.” The other “is based upon the simple moral principle: the welfare and the soundness of a nation depend first upon what the great mass of the people wish and need; and second, whether or not they are getting it.”

When the Republican Study Committee calls Biden’s policies—which have led to record employment, a booming economy, and a narrowing gap between rich and poor— “leftist,” they have lost the thread of our history. The system that restored the nation after 1933 and held the nation stable until 1981 is not socialism or radicalism; it is one of the strongest parts of our American tradition.

—

Notes:

Click to access rsc_2023_budget_final_version.pdf

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/11/18/nbsp-government-percent-fm/
https://www.fdrlibrary.org/great-depression-facts
https://publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/academics/research/faculty-research/new-deal/roosevelt-speeches/fr070232.htm
Tax Cuts Are Primarily Responsible for the Increasing Debt Ratio
https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historical-tables/
https://rollcall.com/2023/06/14/conservatives-budget-plan-renews-battle-over-seniors-benefits/
Categories Biden, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Democracy, Democrats, Deregulation, Economy, Education Industry, Elections, For-Profit, Freedom, Guns, History, Hope, Inequality, Inequity, Injustice, Koch Brothers, Pensions, Propaganda, Racism, Segregation, U.S. education, Unions, Vouchers

Florida Paradox: Immigrants Fearful of Deportation, Farmers Need Workers

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2023 //
54

Ron DeSantis got the Florida legislature to pass strong legislation that puts undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation and puts anyone who helps them at risk of arrest.

Meanwhile, the agriculture industry—a key driver of the state’s economy—is worried about finding enough workers to harvest the crops.

Immigrant advocates warned them to stay home.

But farmers are pleading with immigrants not to leave the state. Even Republican legislators worry that the anti-immigrant law was a mistake.

Republican lawmakers in Florida concerned about the state’s new anti-immigration law and its possible economic consequences begged Latinos to not leave the state in clips from a Monday morning meeting.

The footage, which provides evidence of the law’s “downstream impacts on the state economy” according to MSNBC, shows two conservative Florida legislators attempting to minimize the harm that the law, Senate Bill 1718, could cause, with one asking attendees to advise Latinos against leaving Florida.

“This bill is 100% supposed to scare you,” Republican state Rep. Rick Roth said in a clip shared on Twitter by Democratic activist Tom Kennedy. “I’m a farmer, and the farmers are mad as hell. We are losing employees. They’re already starting to move to Georgia and other states. It’s urgent that you talk to all your people and convince them that you have resources — state representatives and other people — that can explain the bill to you.”

But no one blames DeSantis, who needed to prove his contempt for immigrants.

Agriculture is a big part of Florida’s economy. Who will bring in the crops?

Before the bill passed, the Farmworkers Association warned that about 300,000 of the state’s 500,000 farmworkers are likely undocumented.

Here’s a chance for DeSantis to create jobs for his fervent white supporters. They can pick oranges and grapefruit and other crops in the blazing sun. At minimum wage.

Categories DeSantis, Disruption, Economy, Ethics, Extremism, Florida

Biden Vetoes GOP Plan to Block College Student Loans

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2023 //
41

Millions of Americans are saddled with debt due to the cost of their college education. I have met adults who were still paying for their college education years after they graduated. As a society, we send mixed messages to young people: we want you to get a college education, but you will have to spend years paying for it.

When I visited Finland a decade ago, I was amazed to learn that all higher education there is tuition-free. My guide explained the Finnish view: education is a human right, and it’s immoral to make people pay for a human right.

We as a nation know that investing in education is good for the nation’s future. We all benefit when more people are better educated and have more skills and knowledge. To the extent that young people are reluctant to assume the high cost of a college education, they will choose not to go to college. This is not good for them or for our society.

President Biden understands the dilemma and developed a plan to help college students pay down their college student loans. “Unveiled in August, Biden’s loan forgiveness plan would eliminate $10,000 of federal student debt for borrowers earning up to $125,000 annually, or $250,000 for married couples. Recipients of Pell Grants, a form of financial aid for low- and middle-income students, are eligible for an additional $10,000 in forgiveness.”

The GOP is unanimously opposed to helping relieve students of their debt. They reason that others have paid their debt, so no one should get relief. This is penurious and hard-hearted.

Aided by a few Democratic votes (three Senators— Manchin, Sinema, and Tester of Montana—and two members of the House), Republicans passed a bill to kill Biden’s plan for student debt relief. The President vetoed their bill.

The Supreme Court will soon rule on whether it’s constitutional to relieve students of their debt, and that’s another peril for Biden’s plan.

The stubborn opposition of the GOP to any student debt relief is another reason to vote Blue in 2024.

President Biden on Wednesday vetoed a Republican-led resolution that would have struck down his controversial plan to forgive more than $400 billion in student loans.

In a statement on Wednesday, the president said the resolution — which the Senate approved on a 52-46 vote Thursday under the Congressional Review Act, a week after the House passed the measure — would have kept millions of Americans from receiving “the essential relief they need as they recover from the economic strains associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.” The resolution called for a restart of loan payments for millions of borrowers that have been on pause since early in the coronavirus pandemic. It also would have prevented the Education Department from pursuing similar policies in the future.

In his statement, the president said it is “a shame for working families across the country that lawmakers continue to pursue this unprecedented attempt to deny critical relief to millions of their own constituents, even as several of these same lawmakers have had tens of thousands of dollars of their own business loans forgiven by the Federal Government.”

(It wasn’t the first time the White House has highlighted that lawmakers received financial relief from the government during the pandemic through the Payment Protection Program loans.)
The student loan forgiveness program has faced legal challenges, and the Supreme Court is set to issue a ruling on its legality before the end of June.

“I remain committed to continuing to make college affordable and providing this critical relief to borrowers as they work to recover from a once-in-a-century pandemic,” Biden said in his statement Wednesday.

Is it possible for us one day to be a nation that sees the importance of investing in the future and restoring a sense of common purpose? Could we begin to care for everyone’s children as if they were our own?

Categories Biden, Cruelty, Economy, Funding, Higher Education

Robert Hubbell: How Did Biden Do It?

By dianeravitch
May 31, 2023 //
29

There is a growing awareness that Biden managed to outsmart Kevin McCarthy in the debt negotiations. Robert Hubbell thinks so. Biden is a lot smarter than he gets credit for. Fifty years in Congress counts for something.

Hubbell writes:

A key part of the Republican mythology heading into 2024 is that Joe Biden is addled to the point of incoherence and incompetence. So, on the eve of the House vote on the debt ceiling legislation, Republicans are struggling with the reality that Biden bested them in a high-stakes negotiation in which they were holding a nuclear bomb they were willing to detonate. 

As Rep. Lauren Boebert admitted on Twitter, “We got absolutely destroyed in this negotiation.” Or, as former-adult-in-the-room GOP Rep. Nancy Mace tweeted, “Republicans got outsmarted by a President who can’t find his pants.” [See my criticism of Rep. Mace in Concluding Thoughts.]

          As Charlie Sykes aptly noted, Republicans are experiencing “cognitive dissonance” as they struggle to digest their defeat. In the Orwellian logic of the GOP, Kevin McCarthy is declaring “total victory” for negotiating a deal that has ignited calls for his removal as Speaker. As Freedom Caucus member GOP Rep. Chip Roy said,

I want to be very clear: Not one Republican should vote for this deal. Not one. It is a bad deal. No one sent us here to borrow an additional $4 trillion to get absolutely nothing in return. . . . [The deal is] a complete and total sellout . . . and a betrayal of the House power-sharing arrangement.

          While McCarthy is attempting to convince his caucus that the sow’s ear compromise bill is a silk purse for Republicans, Biden is being praised in the political press for his Ninja-like negotiating skills. See Jennifer Rubin in Washington Post, Opinion | The debt ceiling shows Biden’s underrated deal-making prowess. Or, as Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo put it, How the “F” Did Joe Biden Do That? For a comprehensive analysis of Biden’s negotiating strategy, see Daily Kos, The many levels of genius in Pres. Biden’s negotiating strategy.

          It may take a few days for Republicans to understand what just happened to them, but here is an example. One of McCarthy’s proudest achievements is that he imposed new work requirements for SNAP food assistance for recipients between 50 and 54 years old. But Biden negotiated “carve-outs” to that expanded work requirement that will actually increase the amount of SNAP funding by expanding the pool of eligible recipients. Per the NYTimes,

[The Congressional Business Office] said a series of changes in work requirements for food stamp eligibility — tightening them for some adults, but loosening them for others including veterans — would actually increase federal spending on the program by $2 billion.

While Republicans demanded stricter work requirements be a part of the compromise, the White House bargained to lessen the impact, and the budget office estimated that overall, the deal would increase the ranks of the program, making an additional 78,000 people eligible for nutrition assistance.

          Got that? The signature achievement of Republicans designed to kick people off SNAP will instead increase funding for the program (by $1.8 billion) and expand the number of eligible recipients. As Josh Marshall said, “How the “F” did Biden to that?” Democrats should help pass the bill through Congress before more such details emerge.

         The “good” news is that a floor vote in the House will likely occur on Wednesday—five days before the US will not have sufficient cash to pay all of its bills.  Late on Tuesday evening, the legislation cleared a key hurdle in the House, passing out of the House Rules Committee. As a result, the bill will be put to a vote on Wednesday. See NYTimes, Debt Ceiling Deal Moves Toward House Vote Despite GOP Revolt.

          But . . . many Democrats are unhappy with compromises made by Biden to avoid default. Two of the leading criticisms involve the age-based increased work requirements for SNAP recipients and changes to the permitting process for energy projects.

          As to SNAP, Biden agreed to increase the existing work requirements to include beneficiaries 50 to 54 years old. But as noted above, carve-outs to those increased work requirements have the effect of increasing the total number of Americans eligible for SNAP benefits. Still, the precedent of using a debt-ceiling negotiation to target the poorest and most vulnerable Americans is a bad one. See Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, Hiltzik: Debt ceiling deal is all about punishing the poor.

          A corollary to the GOP’s effort to punish the poor is their effort to protect the rich. By reducing funding for the IRS and leaving tax rates untouched, the two groups unaffected by the debt-ceiling compromise are ultra-wealthy Americans and large corporations. See Raw Story, Progressives condemn Biden-GOP debt ceiling deal as ‘cruel and shortsighted’.

A second major point of criticism is the concession to “fast track” future energy projects, thereby limiting environmental review. And the deal expressly grants special consideration for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a Joe Manchin pet project. See The Guardian, ‘An egregious act’: debt ceiling deal imperils the environment, critics say | Environment.

Per The Guardian,

Environmental groups, already angered by Biden’s ongoing embrace of large fossil fuel projects, such as the recently approved Willow oil drilling operation in Alaska, said these provisions mean that Democrats should block the debt deal when it is voted upon in Congress this week.

“President Biden made a colossal error in negotiating a deal that sacrifices the climate and working families,” said Jean Su, energy justice program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Congress should reject these poison pills and pass a clean debt ceiling bill.”

          But apart from the permitting concessions, Biden managed to protect the massive investments in climate and clean energy achieved in the infrastructure bill and Inflation Reduction Act passed during the last session of Congress. The Inflation Reduction Act alone invested $369 billion in climate protection and clean energy—the largest investment in protecting the environment by an order of magnitude. That investment will reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2030. See CNBC, Inflation Reduction Act: Climate change provisions.

          The criticisms over cruelty targeting the poor and special accommodations for a pipeline that will make Joe Manchin richer are well-taken. But as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Shalanda Young, said in defense of the bill:

We are in divided government. This is what happens in divided government. They get to have an opinion and we get to have an opinion, and all things equal, I think this compromise agreement is reasonable for both sides.

And we must remember that as we evaluate the provisions of the bill, the implied question is always, “Compared to what?” Here, the relevant comparison is to a national default that would have injured hundreds of millions of Americans and millions of American businesses. Retirement savings would have been decimated, and monthly benefit checks would have been diminished or halted. It is legitimate and reasonable to evaluate (and criticize) the proposed bill, but to do so without recognizing the alternative outcome is an incomplete analysis.

*****************************************

Hubbell goes on to chastise former moderate Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who has gone full-MAGA in her cruel taunts aimed at Biden, who apparently negotiated the pants off McCarthy.

Categories Biden, Budget Cuts, Democracy, Economy, Ethics, Funding, Hope

Free Kevin McCarthy!

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2023 //
62

As everyone, I hope, remembers, Kevin McCarthy wanted to be Speaker of the House. He wanted it so badly that he had to wheel and deal to get the votes he needed from the Republican Caucus. Even though the Caucus had a slim majority, the most rightwing members withheld their votes, denying him victory. Ultimately, the so-called Freedom Caucus was able to deny him what he wanted until he made multiple concessions, like putting its members on important committees and agreeing that he could be ousted by a simple majority vote. To win the Speakership on the 15th round of balloting, he had to agree to their demands.

Now his hands are tied in the debt negotiations with President Biden because the Freedom Caucus wants deep budget cuts and no compromise. Basically, everything but defense, Social Security and Medicare would be slashed by some 22%, and Biden’s efforts to address climate change would be gutted.

The Freedom Caucus doesn’t care if the federal government defaults on its debts. The public doesn’t follow details closely, and it would likely blame Biden, because he is President.

Kevin McCarthy needs a way to escape the chokehold of the Freedom Caucus so he can negotiate a compromise.

Here’s a plan to free him. The number of Republicans who are aligned with the Freedom Caucus is between 20-50 (they don’t publicize their numbers). That’s how many votes McCarthy needs to hold on to his job.

Why don’t Democrats offer him enough votes so he doesn’t need the Freedom Caucus? Since the Democrats can never win the Speakership in this session, why shouldn’t they all vote for McCarthy in exchange for his agreement to negotiate to raise the debt ceiling? Why shouldn’t he win bipartisan support for doing the right thing?

The Democrats have it within their power to free McCarthy from the extremists in his party who have no qualms about crashing the world economy.

Categories Accountability, Biden, Budget Cuts, Courage, Democracy, Democrats, Economy, Extremism, Politics, Republicans

Florida: DeSantis Signs Law to Stop Public Investment in Funds with ESG Standards

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2023 //
20

Ron DeSantis is using government to stamp out ideas he doesn’t like. He doesn’t like investing public money into corporations that take into account climate change and diversity. Such standards are called ESG, or “environmental, social, and governance” standards.

So today he signed a law to block investment in funds with ESG standards. Anyone who cares about such things as climate change, he believes, is “WOKE.”

Florida is one of the most environmentally threatened states in the nation, but DeFascist opposes corporations that care about climate change.

Just last fall, the west coast of Florida was devastated by Hurricane Ian, a category 5 that caused more than $100 billion in damages, in addition to more than 150 deaths.

But DeSantis doesn’t want the state to invest its funds in corporations that want to act against climate change. Maybe he should take a public pledge not to ask for federal relief money when the next big hurricane hits Florida. Put the state’s money where his mouth is instead of sending us the bill for his bull.

The Orlando Sentinel reported:

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Tuesday a bill banning state agencies and local governments from taking climate change and diversity factors into account when investing money.

The Government and Corporate Activism Act targets ESG, or environmental, social and governance standards, derided as “woke” by DeSantis and the GOP-led Legislature in their culture war battles.

Democrats and some business owners say the law could cost the state money and impact municipal bonds.

At an event in Jacksonville, DeSantis called ESG “an attempt by elites to impose ideology through business institutions, financial institutions, and our economy writ large. … They want to use economic power to impose this agenda on our society. And we think in Florida, that is not going to fly here.”

The bill, which passed both the House and Senate along mostly party lines, also bans banks from applying a “social credit score” and denying services to people based on political opinions or speech, which is defined to include religion, ownership of a firearm, being involved in “fuel-based energy, timber, mining, or agriculture,” or supporting the “combating illegal immigration.”

“You’ll actually hear from some folks today who’ve kind of been caught up in this morass where they’ve been discriminated against by financial institutions, just basically because they’re not toeing the ideological line,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis introduced Laura DiBenedetto, the owner of firearms store Sovereign Ammo in Flagler County, who quoted from George Orwell’s 1984 and claimed her industry was “already under totalitarian rule” because they were denied funding by lenders “because our profession didn’t pass muster for an acceptable business.”

The state pension fund has already started pulling out of investments in companies with ESG practices, including $2 billion from BlackRock, the largest asset-management firm in the world. The money was dispersed to other asset managers that also support ESG, however.

Categories DeSantis, Economy, Environment, Hypocrisy

The “Godfather of AI” Is Afraid of His Creation

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2023 //
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Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, widely credited as the “godfather of artificial intelligence,” quit his job at Google and let the world know that he regrets what he launched. where once he thought that AI had great potential to improve our lives, he now worries that it might be a grave danger to human civilization.

The New York Times reports:

Geoffrey Hinton was an artificial intelligence pioneer. In 2012, Dr. Hinton and two of his graduate students at the University of Toronto created technologythat became the intellectual foundation for the A.I. systems that the tech industry’s biggest companies believe is a key to their future.

On Monday, however, he officially joined a growing chorus of critics who say those companies are racing toward danger with their aggressive campaign to create products based on generative artificial intelligence, the technology that powers popular chatbots like ChatGPT.

Dr. Hinton said he has quit his job at Google, where he has worked for more than a decade and became one of the most respected voices in the field, so he can freely speak out about the risks of A.I. A part of him, he said, now regrets his life’s work…

Dr. Hinton’s journey from A.I. groundbreaker to doomsayer marks a remarkable moment for the technology industry at perhaps its most important inflection point in decades. Industry leaders believe the new A.I. systems could be as important as the introduction of the web browser in the early 1990s and could lead to breakthroughs in areas ranging from drug research to education.

But gnawing at many industry insiders is a fear that they are releasing something dangerous into the wild. Generative A.I. can already be a tool for misinformation. Soon, it could be a risk to jobs. Somewhere down the line, tech’s biggest worriers say, it could be a risk to humanity…

After the San Francisco start-up OpenAI released a new version of ChatGPT in March, more than 1,000 technology leaders and researchers signed an open lettercalling for a six-month moratorium on the development of new systems because A.I. technologies pose “profound risks to society and humanity.”

Several days later, 19 current and former leaders of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, a 40-year-old academic society, released their own letter warning of the risks of A.I. That group included Eric Horvitz, chief scientific officer at Microsoft, which has deployed OpenAI’s technology across a wide range of products, including its Bing search engine.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Disruption, Economy, Evil, Failure, Fake, Fraud, Hoax, Lies, Technology
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