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Photo: The Hill
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by Will Marshall, PPI President, and Ben Ritz, Director of the Center for Funding America's Future
To achieve his policy goals, Biden will need champions in the House and Senate. Moderate Democrats, Will Marshall and Ben Ritz say, are Biden's secret to success. A pragmatic, collaborative approach to Biden's first big relief bill will deliver common-sense results, and to prove it, Will and Ben broke down key facets of the relief measures.
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> New Policy Brief: Un-Burdening Higher Education
Outstanding student debt amounts to a total of $1.6 trillion in the United States. One more time: $1.6 trillion. The problem with providing education debt relief is that, without targeting, the majority of aid benefits the highest earners, rather than the lowest. PPI's Social Policy Director Veronica Goodman argues Biden can help ease the burden, fairly and progressively.
→ Memo to President Biden: The Progressive Way to Ease Student Debt Burdens
> Raising the Bar for American Cars
GM made headlines this week when it announced plans to reach carbon neutrality by 2040, and to end the sale of gas and diesel-light duty cars and SUVs by 2035. Transportation is the largest source of emissions in the U.S., and GM is the country's largest car manufacturer. "When America’s most iconic manufacturer commits to carbon neutrality that’s a huge signal to the rest of the economy,” PPI's Paul Bledsoe said in the Washington Post's coverage on the announcement.
→ "General Motors to eliminate gasoline and diesel light-duty cars and SUVs by 2035," by Steven Mufson, The Washington Post
> A Can't-Miss Conversation: Is Parent Choice a Civil Right?
Reinventing America's Schools Deputy Director Curtis Valentine will host this webinar on Tuesday, February 2 at noon ET, moderating a conversation on the right of parents to choose where their children attend school. Expert panelists will explore the law, history and morality of parent choice, as well as recent civil action.
→ WEBINAR: Parent Choice... Is It a Civil Right?
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Photo: The Hill
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Realistic Expectations
Biden has tee'd himself up as America's climate president, adding emphasis to the importance of his environmental cabinet picks. Among them, former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm who is set to take over as Secretary of Energy says her, "commitment to clean energy was forged in the fire." A new op-ed in The Hill urges Granholm to be realistic about the role natural gas will play in America's clean energy transition, citing this PPI report.
→ "Granholm should take a realistic approach at Energy Department," by Jeffrey Kupfer, The Hill
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A Path to Better Public Health Approach to Tobacco
In a new episode of the Progressive Policy Institute podcast, host Colin Mortimer chats with Nkechi Taifa of the Justice Roundtable and PPI's Crystal Swann about the new wave of state bans on flavored tobacco products. Considering that 80% of Black smokers use flavored tobacco products,Taifa and Swann warn against the consequences of criminalization. Is this the next chapter in America's mistaken War on Drugs?
→ A Better Public Health Approach to Tobacco with Crystal Swann (Podcast)
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How to Restore Equal Opportunity, According to Economists
The inequality gap is larger in the U.S. than any other OECD country, a problem that worries economists, lawmakers, and everyday-citizens alike. A new piece in The International Economy cites PPI's Dane Stangler's argument that workers should benefit from employee stock ownership plans, among other options to shrink the income gap.
→ "America's Inequality Time Bomb," by Owen Ullman, The International Economy
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