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A Two-Step Solution Can Defuse the Debt-Ceiling Crisis
By Ben Ritz
Director of PPI's Center for Funding America’s Future
For Forbes
In his speech on Monday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said, “Debt limit negotiations are an opportunity to examine our nation’s finances.” Although such an “opportunity” is sorely needed at a time when many leaders in both parties are peddling fiscal fantasy, it shouldn’t involve holding the full faith and credit of the United States government hostage. A two-step solution built around a near-term deal negotiated through the normal budget process and a fiscal commission that develops comprehensive recommendations to tackle the long-term drivers of our debt makes far more sense.
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New from the Experts
Tressa Pankovits, Co-Director of PPI's Reinventing America's schools: Lawmakers are considering two charter school bills; one is better
⮕ Billings Gazette
Conservatives need a bold domestic agenda to win in 2024, ft. PPI
⮕ The Daily Northwestern
Granholm backs Mountain Valley pipeline, ft. Paul Bledsoe, Strategic Advisor for PPI
⮕ E&E News
Ellen Gracia, PPI Policy Fellow: Is Early Education a Great Equalizer? We Have to Create National Standards First
⮕ PPI Blog
Trade Fact of the Week: Natural disaster death rates fell by over 90% in the last century
⮕ PPI's Trade Fact of the Week
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President Biden’s Earth Day promise: The incumbent has a real plan for a greener future, unlike Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis
By Paul Bledsoe
Strategic Advisor for the Progressive Policy Institute
For New York Daily News
Difficult issues like climate change cannot be solved with empty political slogans or blatant attempts to pit Americans against each other. Yet these are what Trump and DeSantis offer. Instead, solving our challenges requires hard work creating policies that boost our economy, protect our safety, reduce emissions, create jobs and preserve our environment. This Earth Day 2023, Americans should reflect carefully on the stark choice they will face in 2024, because that choice will affect our nation and the world for centuries to come.
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Statement from PPI's Mosaic Project on Biden's Reelection Campaign
Jasmine Stoughton, Project Director of the Mosaic Project at the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), released the following response in reaction to President Biden’s reelection campaign:
“President Biden has led our country out of chaos, bigotry, and destruction from the Trump Administration, fighting to protect our democracy at every turn. As extremists across the country are working to take away our fundamental freedoms, President Biden continues to fight back.
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RAS REPORTS:
WHAT'S NEXT: The Future is Now! ft. Jay Artis-Wright
PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools (RAS) Project has a new podcast series on titled "WHAT NEXT: The Future is Now!" recorded at the SXSW Education conference in Austin, Texas. In the fourth episode of this five-part series, RAS co-director sits down with Jay Artis-Wright.
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THE NEOLIBERAL PODCAST:
Georgism and Liberalism, ft. Chris England
What role did Henry George play in the development of liberalism? Chris England is a lecturer at Georgetown University and author of the new book "Land and Liberty: Henry George and the Crafting of Modern Liberalism", and he joins the show to discuss George's place in American history and the history of liberalism.
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ICYMI: Permitting reform can cut consumer energy costs and emissions
By Paul Bledsoe, PPI's Strategic Advisor; and Elan Sykes, PPI's Energy Policy Analyst
for The Hill
America could have cleaner, cheaper energy if only we could agree to get out of our own way. The obstacle we have created is a thicket of federal and state regulations requiring energy projects to undergo lengthy, expensive, one-by-one government studies, in theory, to determine their environmental impact. But as Earth Day approaches, it’s time we align these regulations with the need to rapidly build clean energy infrastructure to both address the climate crisis and reduce consumer energy costs.
This regulatory process is termed “permitting” because of more than 60 types of federal government permits that can be required for projects, and it stems primarily from the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Initially conceived as a quick and simple examination for most routine projects, the combination of project siting, NEPA review and issuing permits has morphed into a many-years-long process rife with opportunities for narrow interests to block projects even where they demonstrably serve consumer and public interests and cut emissions. Perversely, clean energy projects, especially low-cost solar power, are most often the projects facing the longest delays.
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Don't Miss These PPI Reports
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Staff Spotlight: Paul Bledsoe
Paul Bledsoe
Strategic Advisor
Paul Bledsoe is a Strategic Advisor for PPI, working on energy, climate, economic policy and related issues. He is also a Professorial Lecturer at American University’s Center for Environmental Policy, and President of Bledsoe & Associates, LLC, a strategic public policy firm specializing in tax policy, energy, natural resources and climate change.
Paul served as director of communications of the White House Climate Change Task Force under President Clinton from 1998-2000, and special assistant to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt from 1995 to 1998. He was communications director of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance under the chairmanship of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a legislative assistant and press secretary for several members of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was senior advisor to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a leading centrist think tank, co-founded by former Senate Majority Leaders Bob Dole, Tom Daschle, Howard Baker and George Mitchell, from 2007-2012. From 2002 to 2010, he was Director of Strategy for the National Commission on Energy Policy. Paul was formerly Senior Policy Advisor to the Presidential Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, and Teaching Fellow at Oxford University’s School of Geography and the Environment.
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