In 2021, we can’t afford to limit our ambitions. View this in your browser and share with your friends. <[link removed]>
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The Case for a True New Deal
President-elect Joe Biden’s newly unveiled $1.9 trillion stimulus plan <[link removed]> would be a major leap forward, and an immediate salve for those who’ve suffered the worst of this pandemic.
In the coming months, millions of people—including tipped workers—could receive a higher minimum wage. They could receive their COVID vaccine soon, and for free. They could receive the funds they need to sustain their livelihoods and take paid leave when they need to. And state and local governments could get the relief necessary to function and maintain payrolls.
More durable and structural changes—automatic stabilizers, heavier investment in green stimulus, recurring cash payments—could and should be on the horizon.
As Biden noted last week, we can’t afford to spend too little. "Every major economist thinks we should be investing in deficit spending in order to generate economic growth," he told reporters. "If we don't act now, things will get much worse and harder to get out of the hole later. So we have to invest now . . . There's a dire, dire need to act now."
This moment demands big thoughts, bold solutions, and equitable systems. It demands new policy frameworks and real transformation: in short, a True New Deal.
On Pitchfork Economics, Bharat Ramamurti—incoming deputy director of the Biden administration’s National Economic Council—chatted with Nick Hanauer and David Goldstein about Roosevelt’s True New Deal report, which proposesnine essential policies <[link removed]>to address the COVID crisis and restructure our economy.Listen here. <[link removed]>
End the Filibuster
Achieving the necessary scale of change won’t be possible <[link removed]> if the historically racist <[link removed]> and anti-worker filibuster is preserved. In a new issue brief, Roosevelt Program Manager Emily DiVito examines nearly 700 failed cloture votes since 1947, and identifies a set of bills—aimed at boosting worker power or checking corporate misconduct—that would likely have passed if not for the filibuster.
Read more in“How the Filibuster Has Hurt Workers and Protected Corporate Influence.” <[link removed]>
Freedom from the Market
In his just-released book, Freedom from the Market: America’s Fight to Liberate Itself from the Grip of the Invisible Hand <[link removed]>, Roosevelt Director of Progressive Thought Mike Konczal traces the history of the US relationship with markets and charts the path to freedom.
“This book argues that true freedom requires keeping us free from the market. In some places this will require the government to provide key services directly and universally, rather than requiring citizens to rely on the marketplace,” Konczal writes.
“Elsewhere it will mean suppressing the extent of the market, such as the number of hours we work or the ability of business to discriminate against their customers . . . But in all cases market dependency is a profound state of unfreedom, and freedom requires checks and hard boundaries on the ways markets exist in our society and in our lives.”
In a Boston Review op-ed, Konczal explains whytime is the universal measure of freedom <[link removed]>.
What We’re Reading
Whither America? [by Roosevelt’s Joseph Stiglitz] <[link removed]> - Project Syndicate
The Capitol Rioters Weren’t “Low Class” <[link removed]> - The Atlantic
Biden Can Fight Climate Change, Guarantee Housing, and Halve Poverty—without the GOP <[link removed]> - Vox
Voters Support Massive Deficit Financed Investments in the Economy [feat. Konczal] <[link removed]> - Data for Progress
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