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❄ Happy Holidays from the
Progressive Policy Institute! ❄
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Dear PPI friends,
It was a year of ups and downs, but 2022 ended on a high note as U.S. voters last month rebuffed both right-wing attempts to ban abortion and Trump-backed election deniers. It was a big win for American democracy.
In partisan terms, however, the election confirmed that U.S. politics remains stuck in a virtual tie, with Republicans taking narrow control of the House and Democrats holding the Senate by a slender margin. That’s a formula for perpetuating the long political stalemate that’s holding our country back.
PPI is focused intently on breaking that stalemate by developing a new and radically pragmatic governing blueprint. Over the past year, we’ve added substantially to PPI’s intellectual firepower, political outreach, and ability to communicate with an expanding audience here and abroad.
Here are some highlights from a year of innovative work with public impact:
- PPI Senior Advisor Paul Bledsoe continued to warn Europe of the dangers of its excessive reliance on Russian natural gas and oil. His late-2021 report proved prescient when Russia again invaded Ukraine this past February, and European countries began to look to other sources — including the United States — for natural gas. Bledsoe, and PPI's new energy expert Elan Sykes, have made a compelling case that by substituting cleaner (i.e., less methane intensive) U.S. for Russian gas, those countries can help Europe stand up to Russia’s attempt to weaponize its energy resources while also meeting their greenhouse gas reduction goals.
- PPI’s Center for Funding America’s Future, led by Ben Ritz, helped pragmatic Democrats in Congress shape their anti-inflation package in the run-up to passage of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The Center also warned against the inflationary impact of public spending that’s not paid for, issued a definitive rebuttal to Modern Monetary Theory, and offered a principled critique of the administration’s misguided attempts to enact costly and regressive student debt forgiveness by executive order.
- PPI’s Reinventing Public Schools project, headed by Curtis Valentine and Tressa Pankovits, played a key role in stopping a bureaucratic sneak attack within the U.S. Department of Education against the federal charter school program pioneered by President Bill Clinton. In partnership with the wider public school choice community, PPI issued forceful critiques of the department’s proposed anti-charter rules, which were subsequently abandoned or watered down.
- PPI Vice President Ed Gresser’s deep dives into the intricacies of U.S. tariff and trade policies continued to attract wide attention from U.S. policymakers and international economics experts. If you haven’t already subscribed to Ed’s engaging “Trade Fact of the Week” feature, do yourself a favor and sign up.
- On the economic front, PPI chief economist Michael Mandel and analyst Jordan Shapiro documented robust job growth in the tech and e-commerce sector, the strong link between private investment by U.S. companies and higher productivity and lower prices, and the threat that declining investment in science and technology poses to our America’s ability to stay in the vanguard of innovation and outcompete China. With PPI technology analyst Malena Dailey, our economic team also highlighted the harmful impact of a left-wing push to pass bills breaking up or hobbling the U.S. tech sector in the competition with China.
- The Center for New Liberalism, our affiliated grass-roots network of young activists, continued to grow at an extraordinary pace. The New Liberals now have over 80 chapters in 18 countries. Their “Neoliberal Podcast” has had over a million downloads, and they’ve hosted in-person events from New York to Los Angeles — and everywhere in-between.
- PPI’s international engagement also picked up pace in 2022, with trips to Liverpool, London, Berlin, Brussels, and South Korea. In October, PPI cosponsored with Das Progressive Zentrum the annual Progressive Governance Summit in Berlin. It focused on defending democracy against illiberal nationalist movements as well as center-left solidarity in opposing Russia’s brutal war of conquest in Ukraine. The international conference featured a virtual appearance by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, as well as appearances by leading center-left figures from across Europe and North America. PPI leaders and members of our Mosaic Project had prominent roles, as did our guest, Rep. Conor Lamb.
- In December, we were delighted to announce a new partnership with Claire Ainsely, until recently Executive Director of Policy for U.K. Labour Party leader Keir Starmer. Ainsely will lead a new PPI Project on Center-Left Renewal, which will focus on the common challenges facing center-left parties — inflation, uneven prosperity, cultural backlash and the alienation of working class voters from the parties that traditionally had been their home.
- PPI’s Mosaic Project, which aims to expand the voices of women in the fields of economics and technology, had another banner year of growth, including adding 20 new cohort members to their impressive roster of professionals. Under the direction of Jasmine Stoughton, Mosaic hosted 14 events — including an international trip to Europe — published op-eds, podcasts and publications, and helped to grow the portfolios and toolkits of Mosaic alumnae.
PPI’s institutional capacity and reach continued to expand in 2022. Here are some key initiatives and new faces:
- A vigorous campaign of outreach to state and local as well as federal policymakers, and important national organizations representing governors, attorneys general, state legislators, and mayors and local government leaders. It’s led by Sarah Paden, Stu Malec, and Markose Butler.
- Taylor Maag, a leading expert on workforce development and career pathways, joined PPI to launch our New Skills for a New Economy project.
- Jordan Shapiro started with the economic policy team early this year, and is providing her deft policy analysis on everything from digital privacy to the long-term future of tech.
- Malena Dailey is a new addition covering the technology policy portfolio, and is spearheading efforts to advance pro-innovation policy.
- Elan Sykes came on board to work with Paul Bledsoe to manage PPI’s growing portfolio of energy and climate policy work.
- Nick Buffie came over from the Center for American Progress to work with Ben Ritz on fiscal, budget, and tax policy.
In this busy holiday season, we hope that you’ll take the time to explore PPI’s work — a small sample of which is included below. Our reports and policy analysis have caught the eye of major outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, and our events and podcasts have reached thousands of eyes around the world. We also encourage you to sign up for our newsletters and follow PPI on social media so you can stay in-the-know about the newest “radically pragmatic” policy.
We are so grateful for those who generously supported PPI throughout 2022. Your commitment to pragmatic, innovative ideas has helped shape the fight for progress. As we see a power shift in Washington D.C., it couldn’t be more important to strengthen the center-left and lean on the radically pragmatic ideas that have been the focus of PPI’s work for 33 years. If you’re interested in supporting PPI’s mission, please donate or visit our website.
We wish you and your loved ones a happy holiday season!
Will Marshall and the entire PPI Family
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PPI IN THE NEWS
Highlights from 2022
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6.1.22
By Jason Zengerle
"Over the last decade, the Democratic Party has moved significantly to the left on almost every salient political issue. Some of these shifts in a more ambitiously progressive direction, especially as they pertain to economic issues, have largely tracked with public opinion: While socialism might not poll well with voters, Democratic proposals to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy, increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and lower the age of Medicare eligibility do.
But on social, cultural and religious issues, particularly those related to criminal justice, race, abortion and gender identity, the Democrats have taken up ideological stances that many of the college-educated voters who now make up a sizable portion of the party’s base cheer but the rest of the electorate does not. 'The Democratic Party moved left,' says Will Marshall, the president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute, a moderate Democratic think tank, 'but the country as a whole hasn’t.'"
5.5.22
By Clifford Krauss
"'Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has hastened the globalization of gas markets and has complicated them significantly,'" said Paul Bledsoe, a climate adviser under President Bill Clinton."
9.13.22
By Krista Mahr and Daniel Payne
"Today, a new report released by the Progressive Policy Institute and shared exclusively with Pulse recommends additional concrete steps the federal government can take to reign in the AMR problem before it spirals further out of control. Here are a few...
6.18.22
By Will Weissert and Zeke Miller
“'I don’t expect any president to go out and say, ’You know what, ‘We’re going to lose the next election,’' said Will Marshall, president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute, which is in regular contact with the White House’s policy team. What might serve Biden well instead, Marshall said, would be 'a sober sense of, ’Look, we’re probably in for a rough night in November and our strategy should be to remind the country what’s at stake.’'”
4.7.22
By Macy Gordon
“Because the imports from Russia are mostly natural resources, they generally will face little to no increase in tariffs as a result of the lost MFN status, Ed Gresser, director for trade and global markets at the left-leaning Progressive Policy Institute, noted in an online posting.
To replace the current tariff rates, U.S. buyers of Russian goods would pay import taxes established under a 1930 U.S. law that disrupted trade during the Great Depression. It would still be zero for the metals. But the rates would soar — to levels considered punitive — for unwrought aluminum, plywood and semi-finished steel, among other products."
9.11.22
By Tim Mullaney
"The trend toward more investment has been building for a decade, but was catalyzed by the Covid pandemic, Progressive Policy Institute economist Michael Mandel said.
'Even before the pandemic, retailers were shifting from investments in structures to active investments in equipment, technology and software,' Mandel said. 'Between 2010 and 2020], software investment in the retail sector rose by 123%, compared to a 16% gain in manufacturing.'"
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2.21.22
By Dan Balz
"Galston and Kamarck served in the Clinton administration, and Kamarck is a long-standing member of the Democratic National Committee. Both are scholars at the Brookings Institution, and their new study is published on the website of the Progressive Policy Institute, where they are contributing authors."
11.8.22
By Graham Vyse
"PPI’s president and founder, Will Marshall, has made clear that the institute isn’t advocating a return to the Clintonite policies of the DLC — but it is hoping that Mortimer, Johnson and their network of young people can help generate new ideas and create new influence for today’s Democratic moderates.
As Mortimer explained it to me, his cohort of neoliberals is enthusiastic about “deregulation to achieve progressive goals,” but also committed to a strong social safety net."
 3.28.22
By Amara Omeokwe and Andrew Duehren
"Ben Ritz, director of the Center for Funding America’s Future at the Progressive Policy Institute, said the budget missed an opportunity to provide more direction to Congress about what the bill should look like.
'I can understand why the administration would want to have some distance from the negotiations to let them play out, but the decision to not have detailed policies on Build Back Better creates this big blind spot,' he said 'That makes it very difficult to analyze the aggregate fiscal impact of his agenda.'”
 4.21.22
By Josh Wingrove
"The president’s recent focus on the deficit issue 'is very clearly a Manchin play,”'said Ben Ritz, director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s Center for Funding America’s Future. 'But I think Manchin’s concern about it is rooted in a reality that deficits do matter.'"
 7.29.22
By Aime Williams and Justin Jacobs
"'This was really no clean energy left behind and that is really good,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former White House climate adviser under president Bill Clinton. 'It’s trying to allow consumers and businesses to decide which of these technologies make most sense in the marketplace.'
Bledsoe estimated that while about a third of the tax credits were already in existence, the majority were new and the wide 10-year horizon would provide businesses with the certainty to invest."
 2.15.22
By Ronald Brownstein
"Will Marshall, founder and president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank long critical of teachers’ unions, sees the same dual-edged message for Democrats in the broadening conflicts over education.
'Republicans are tapping into frustrations real and imagined, but we have left a vacuum,' he says. 'We have no reform agenda. Our party is seen as propping up a bureaucratic status quo that many parents thought didn’t perform well during the pandemic. You can’t just point to Republican demagoguery about race and books and win the argument. You have to make voters a counteroffer.'"
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Ed Gresser, PPI's Vice President and Director of Trade and Global Markets, dives deep into the trade policies that impact our every-day life in his hit Trade Fact of the Week newsletter. Check out a few highlights from 2022, and be sure to subscribe if you're not already on the list!
→ U.S. trade with Russia is down by 80% since February | 9.28.22
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PPI Opinions
Highlights from 2022
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Could Ignoring Swing Voters Reopen the Door for Donald Trump?
- In this episode of the Radically Pragmatic podcast, William Galston and Elaine Kamarck sit down with PPI President Will Marshall to unpack the contents of their new report and discuss what changes Democrats should have made in order to stop Republicans from taking back control of Congress.
RAS Reports: Backlash Against the US Department of Education
- PPI's Reinventing America's Schools Co-Director Tressa Pankovits went to the White House to speak with protestors about why public charter schools are so important to them, and how newly proposed rules would make it more difficult for public charter schools to win federal start-up grants.
MOSAIC MOMENT: Can Big Tech Save Us from Algorithmic Bias?
- On this episode of the Radically Pragmatic podcast, Dr. Kalinda Ukanwa sits down with Jordan Shapiro, PPI’s Data and Economic Policy Analyst, and dive into what algorithms really are and how they’re simultaneously helping and harming consumers.
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Debating Congress' Big Bills with Ben Ritz
- Jeremiah is joined by Ben Ritz to debate the politics and policy behind Congress's recent slew of big bills — the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the PACT Act. Will the IRA actually reduce inflation? Did Chuck Schumer pull a fast one on Mitch McConnell? Is the CHIPS Act as good as its proponents claim it is, or as bad as its detractors say?
Breaking Up with Russia's Oil and Gas, ft. Paul Bledsoe
- Paul Bledsoe joins the podcast to talk about how Europe is dependent on Russian natural gas and what can be done about it. How badly does Europe need the fossil fuels that Russia exports? What alternatives exist, and how quickly could they be deployed?
Anti-Trust or Anti-Tech? ft. Michael Mandel and Malena Dailey
- PPI's Michael Mandel and Malena Dailey join the show to discuss tech platforms, the consumer welfare standard, all things antitrust. Does Big Tech need to be more regulated, and if so how? are there other industries more deserving of antitrust enforcement?
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