Update 544 — Cart and Horse:SOP on Bipartisan, Budget Deals After two-weeks off, both Congressional chambers are back in session, with two-track negotiations on big-ticket infrastructure bills topping the agenda. Eleven legislative days remain in the House and 17 in the Senate before recesses are slated to start. Democratic leadership has its sights on passing both a …
Update 526 — Biden Economic Policy PlanOutline of a New Social Contract on Offer? In his first address before a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, President Biden proposed an ambitious and progressive domestic economic policy agenda for the months ahead. He declared trickle-down economics dead and offered what amounts to a redefinition of the …
Update 501 – H.R. 1/S. 1’s Case for Primacy:Democracy Distorted, Thwarted is Denied The gold standard in democracy is one person one vote and a legislature where 50 percent-plus rules. But recent outcomes in our elections have violated these principles with distorted consequences. In the most egregious case, House Democratic candidates won more than a …
Update 499 – Biden’s $1.9 Tr. Rescue Plan:Sound in Scope and Scale, but Ambitious Last night, President-Elect Joe Biden announced the details of his $1.9 trillion ‘American Rescue Plan’ — an appropriately constructed and comprehensive rescue package designed to meet the needs of the moment and launch a robust recovery. An ambitious plan, it will …
Update 497 – GA Delivers Senate to Ds:The Meaning of the Majority in the 117th After the dust settles on the inchoate, dog-catches-bus occupation of the U.S. Capitol by a ragtag set of disparate malcontents turned vandals on Wednesday, a propitious moment in American political history the day before may ultimately carry far greater political …
Update 457– Third Rail Alive and WellSo Social Security Insolvency is Soluble For all of Donald Trump’s disruptions of economic norms, from tariffs to monetary policy, he has stayed far away from entitlement reform. George W. Bush attempted the last structural reform in 2005 when he proposed privatizing a third of Social Security. No hearings …
Update 397 — Democratic Debate in Atlanta:Will Candidates Tussle over Taxes and Trade? If you can tear yourself away from the limelight of the House impeachment hearings, we can move to the sublime light of the Democratic presidential debate, 9-11 pm ET tonight in Atlanta. Sans late entries Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Deval Patrick, …
Update 335 — The Labor Participation Rate: After the Shouting, What Have We Learned? We tear ourselves away from the House floor debate on H.R. 1 — the anti-corruption political reform package scheduled for a vote on final passage at 11 a.m. on Friday — to provide a labor market update focused on the labor …
Update 308 — FSOC: Prudential off SIFI List; Too Big to Fail “Solved” in Shadow Markets? This Wednesday, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) did what many have been expecting for a while and voted to de-designate Prudential, the last of the nonbank systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs). Its decision eliminated from this list all …
Update 306: Economic Generational Justice Salient Issues for Millennials in the Midterms The generation of millennials, Americans born between 1983 and 2000, consists of 80 million people and accounts for 25 percent of the population, 35 percent of the workforce. Millennials receive lower relative wages, take on more debt, face higher housing costs, and pay …
