The Roosevelt Rundown is an email series featuring the Roosevelt
Institute’s top 5 stories of the week.
1. How
We Prioritize Labor in Trade
The Democratic presidential
candidates are increasingly in agreement: Progressive
industrial policy
is the next frontier of trade. As Roosevelt Fellow Todd Tucker writes,
Beto O’Rourke’s “Trade
for America” plan
is the latest evidence that fresh visions of trade are
emerging—with a new focus on workers,
the environment,
and racial
equity. “Trade
policy didn’t come from heaven. It’s built by humans, and we can
choose whose interests it serves,” writes Tucker.
2. Why the Student Debt Crisis Could Get
Worse
The revolving
door spins on: The Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau’s new
student loan watchdog, Robert Cameron, is a former
lawyer for one of the nation’s largest student loan servicers.
Cameron’s appointment comes amidst the rise of incoming sharing
agreements (ISAs), a debt model that could push students’ interest
rates above 18 percent. As loan servicers lobby for ISAs, Roosevelt
Fellow Julie Margetta Morgan is sounding the alarm. “By making the
case to Congress that these agreements are not loans, providers can
essentially charge interest rates higher than many states allow,” she
told CNBC.
3. Rewriting the Rules of Shareholder
Capitalism
4.
The Role of Unconditional Cash
In making the case for his
“freedom
dividend,”
presidential candidate Andrew Yang has often referenced a 2017
Roosevelt
analysis of universal basic income. For the blog, Roosevelt President and CEO
Felicia Wong and Vice President of Policy and Strategy Nell Abernathy
clarify what
that research actually said. Two takeaways: Public
spending can grow the economy, and the way it’s financed is an
essential driver of that growth. “To be clear: The assumption in our 2017 analysis was that
cash payments would augment current social safety net spending. We did
not consider the scenario proposed by Mr. Yang in which existing
social benefits to individuals are cut in exchange for
cash.”
5. How the Fed Can Step
Up
As fears
of an impending recession mount, Roosevelt Fellow JW Mason argues that,
even now, the
Fed can boost an
under-capacity economy. With a relatively
low
labor force participation rate and
still-lagging wage gains, the economy has much more room to
grow, he writes. “We need a
much longer period of strong growth to make up for the very weak
demand in the years after the 2007 financial crisis. This calls for
more expansionary monetary policy—that is, lower rates.”
What We’re
Listening To
On
the latest Business of Giving
podcast,
Roosevelt’s Felicia Wong explains how Roosevelt’s
one-two punch can
curb corporate power and reclaim public power and touts the role of
think tanks in making change: “Think tanks fill really important gaps
in both the development and the transmission of ideas from pure
thinkers, pure academicians, to the public.”
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