|
The Roosevelt Rundown features our
top stories of the week.
View
this in your browser and share with your
friends.
A More Equitable Monetary
Policy
In March and April of 2020, at the
beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Reserve began to
explore avenues to stabilize financial markets, including
establishing bond purchasing and emergency lending
programs.
Those programs had flaws; they were
designed in ways that disproportionately harmed Black and brown
communities. But as Roosevelt’s Mike Konczal testified on the Hill
yesterday, we can also examine and build on what they did well to
guide future Fed lending practices.
Speaking before the House Committee
on Financial Services Subcommittee on National Security, International
Development, and Monetary Policy, Konczal explained that these programs had “ . . . dramatic effects if we look not just
at their level of activity, but at their overall impact on interest
rates.”
But moving forward, Konczal
says, these kinds of programs should be designed
to prioritize equity: “There should be preparation for future
municipal lending facilities designed with more broad-based
eligibility that are credible enough to reduce rates yet can
sufficiently reach smaller municipalities and Black and brown
communities most at risk from lack of access to funding,” he explains
in written testimony.
Read
on.
The Fight for Clean Energy
Must Be a Fight for Justice
The clean energy standard currently
included in the reconciliation bill has the potential to vastly reduce
emissions and take steps toward decarbonizing our economy.
However, if it’s not structured
with environmental justice goals in mind, the Clean Energy Performance
Program could actually harm frontline communities, as Roosevelt’s Lew
Daly and Climate Justice Alliance’s Elizabeth Yeampierre warn in an
op-ed for Grist.
“We cannot lose sight of the
opportunity the proposed clean energy standard presents for repairing
historic racial inequities in the energy system, and ending the
decades-long assault of fossil fuel extraction and pollution—not just
in the atmosphere, but on the ground and in people’s lungs,” they
write.
Read “The Dems’ Clean Energy Plan
Can Do Better on Environmental Justice. Here’s
How.”
Cancel Student Debt,
Prioritize Equity
At this week’s State
of Student Debt Virtual Summit, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and
Rep. Ayanna Pressley joined advocates and experts to discuss the
political fight for student debt cancellation, and how cancellation
can be a tool for racial equity.
“We know the histories of injustice
that have robbed Black and brown families of wealth, but we ignore
that these families have less wealth and therefore have taken on
greater debts for college when we look only at the incomes of those
who have student loans but not at the wealth they don’t have,”
explains Frederick Wherry, co-author of a recent Roosevelt
issue
brief.
“Debt cancellation is not a
handout. It is a move toward justice and should be talked about in
that way.”
Learn more in "Student Debt
Cancellation IS Progressive: Correcting Empirical and Conceptual
Errors."
2021 Four Freedoms
Awards
On October 13, 20, and 27, join us
for the Four Freedoms Awards virtual ceremonies, which will honor
those who embody racial justice through their work and
legacies.
This year’s recipients
are:
-
Freedom of Speech and Expression:
New York
Times journalist
Nikole Hannah-Jones
-
Freedom of Worship:
Senator Raphael Warnock
-
Freedom from Want: Economic justice
advocate Deepak Bhargava
-
Freedom from Fear: Immigrant rights
leaders Sixta Leon Barrita, Rubiela Correa, Sonia
Pérez, and
Maria Isabel Sierra
-
Freedom Medal: Civil rights activist
Fred T. Korematsu (given posthumously, and accepted by his daughter, Dr. Karen
Korematsu)
Learn
more and register.
What We’re
Reading
Why Not Make the Kids
Alright? -
New York
Times
Biden Knows Fate of Spending Plan Will Show
Extent of His Power–and Define His Legacy [feat. Roosevelt’s Suzanne
Kahn] -
The
Guardian
When Public Investments Benefit Black
People, White Elites Historically Work Overtime to Stop It
-
Blavity
Jobless Rates from 15 US Cities Show Racial
Gap Is Widening -
Bloomberg
Reset Labor Markets with a Local Half-Time
Job Guarantee -
The Nation
|
