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Biden Shouldn't Rule Out a Social Security Commission
By Ben Ritz
Director of PPI's Center for Funding America’s Future
for The Wall Street Journal
The Biden administration has sensibly rejected attempts by some far-right Republicans to hold the full faith and credit of the U.S. hostage in exchange for spending cuts. The administration now must show it will be open to good-faith budget negotiations after the impasse over the federal debt limit is resolved.
Unfortunately, the White House made a bad call last week, when spokesman Andrew Bates referred to the idea of a bipartisan commission that would make recommendations to shore up the solvency of Social Security and Medicare as “a death panel.” This throwback to Sarah Palin’s 2009 attack on the Affordable Care Act is as wrong now as it was then. President Biden should reconsider his administration’s stance.
Social Security and Medicare are the foundation of American retirement security—and they are in jeopardy if Congress doesn’t act. Both programs spend more on benefits than they raise in dedicated revenue. When their trust funds are exhausted, current law requires that benefits automatically be reduced to the level that can be paid with incoming revenue. That day is coming: According to the Congressional Budget Office and the programs’ trustees, it could be as soon as 2028 for Medicare Part A Hospital Insurance and 2033 for Social Security.
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New from the Experts
What cold war? U.S trade with China hits new high, ft. Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets
⮕ Politico
Save Denali School, ft. PPI
⮕ The Silicon Valley Voice
Collins, King Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Help Maine People Access High-Quality Job Training, ft. PPI
⮕ Susan Collins Press Release
The US government says women’s underwear should cost more than men’s, ft. Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets
⮕ CNN
The "pink tax" on underwear, ft. Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets
⮕ Axios
Thompson, Bonamici Recognize February as Career and Technical Education Month, ft. PPI
⮕ The Leader Vindicator
Trade Fact of the Week: The U.S. Generalized System of Preferences program has been expired for more than two years.
⮕ PPI's Trade Fact of the Week
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Maximizing the climate benefits of natural gas exports
By Paul Bledsoe
Strategic Advisor for PPI
For The Hill
A major question facing American energy and climate policymakers today is what role abundant U.S. natural gas should play in the global clean energy transition. Some environmental activists oppose all gas use. But a new report from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) finds that expanding U.S. liquefied natural gas exports can lower global greenhouse gas emissions significantly, especially if fugitive emissions of methane are deeply reduced.
The climate benefits of America’s shale gas revolution have been evident domestically for years. More than three-fifths of total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions reductions over the period 2005 to 2020 were due to coal-fired power plants being replaced by natural gas plants.
In the last year, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. has also become the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter, more than doubling deliveries to Europe. This has helped the EU’s economy withstand the cutoff of most Russian gas, with clear geopolitical and economic benefits. Less appreciated are the emissions reductions achieved, since American LNG has limited the growth in the EU’s coal and also reduced use of higher methane-leaking Russian gas.
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PPI's Ed Gresser Provides Testimony:
Pacific Islands Trade: Options for U.S. Policy
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released a new report as part of PPI’s Ed Gresser’s testimony to the International Trade Commission’s (ITC) hearing on United States-Pacific Trade. Mr. Gresser spoke in support of the U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai’s request letter to the ITC on the Pacific Islands.
“I strongly endorse the Biden administration’s effort to rethink and upgrade U.S. policy in this region,” writes Ed Gresser in the report. “The administration’s decision to rethink Pacific Islands policy and develop more ambitious goals for these relationships is appropriate and timely. The United States has very substantial economic, human, and political assets in this part of the world, and can use them more effectively than we have in the past several decades, in the interest of both the United States and the Pacific Island countries.”
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What women’s underwear tells us about our trade system
By Catherine Rampell
ft. Ed Gresser, VP and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI
For The Washington Post
Ahead of Valentine’s Day, trade researcher Ed Gresser engaged in the most romantic of exercises: He looked up tariffs on underwear. (No judgment. We all have hobbies.) Lo and behold, he found that ladies’ undergarments are systematically taxed at higher rates than men’s.
The average U.S. tariff rate on men’s underwear is 11.5 percent. The average rate on women’s undies, on the other hand? It’s a few points higher, at 15.5 percent. All things considered — including transportation costs, sales taxes, marketing, different retailer markups — Gresser estimates that on average the U.S. tariff system adds about $1.10 to the cost of each pair of women’s underwear, compared with 75 cents for men’s.
In almost any other context, women’s rights groups would be livid. Yet when it comes to the U.S. trade system, such discrimination gets a pass.
Unfairness on underwear reflects a broader, bizarrely anti-lady pattern in our trade system: With a few exceptions, men’s apparel items are more lightly tariffed than women’s.
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Applications Are NOW OPEN!
PPI’s Mosaic Project recently announced that the application portal for the project’s upcoming “Women Changing Policy Workshop” is now open. The next cohort of women will meet March 27 to March 29, 2023, and will focus exclusively on empowering broadband experts and women working to bridge the digital divide.
This is the sixth Women Changing Policy workshop. Previous workshops have included exclusive and candid conversations with seasoned media professionals, policy leaders, and representatives from the U.S. Congress.
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RADICALLY PRAGMATIC:
Joint Episode: The Neoliberal Podcast Sits down with PPI President Will Marshall to Discuss Common-Sense Immigration Reform
Will Marshall is the president and founder of PPI, and he joins The Neoliberal Podcast this week to discuss immigration policy.
The Neoliberal Podcast discusses how we approach immigration from different angles, and try to find how sensible liberals can find common ground to make immigration reform happen.
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THE NEOLIBERAL PODCAST:
Competition with China and Friend-Shoring in East Asia ft. Noah Smith
Noah Smith joins the podcast for a whirlwind discussion of all things East Asia.
Why did Japan industrialize faster than its neighbors? Why was China so slow to do so? How are current trade tensions affecting China, and what are they doing about it? Should the US do more 'friend-shoring' with allies like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan? And what does the future hold for economies in East Asia?
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Staff Spotlight
 Ed Gresser
Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
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