In discussion with Sharmini Peries, Dr. West discusses the fall of the American imperial project and the role of international solidarity in transforming our society.
Author: telegraph
Start With Why – How Great Leaders Inspire Action
In this Ted Talk, Simon Sinek breaks down how great leaders approach any task, company, or even running for office. He demonstrates how they do not begin with “what” they will do, he demonstrates how they “Start with why.”
Turning Brexit Into A Celebration Of Democracy
Paradoxically, while the current Brexit impasse is pregnant with risk, the British should welcome it. Their discontent with the choices before them is an opportunity, not a curse, and more democracy is the antidote, not the disease.
Discontent without end looms over Britain. Leavers and Remainers are equally despondent. Her Majesty’s Government and the Labour opposition are equally divided. The United Kingdom is deeply divided between a Europhile Scotland and a Euroskeptic England, between pro-EU English cities (including London) and anti-EU coastal and northern towns. Neither the working nor the ruling class can unite behind any of the Brexit options making the rounds in the House of Commons. Is it any wonder that so many Britons feel anxious and let down by their political system?
And yet, paradoxically, while the current Brexit impasse is pregnant with risk, the British should welcome it. Since 1945, the Europe question has obscured at least eight other questions fundamental to Britain – about itself, its political institutions, and its place in the world. Brexit is now bringing all of them to the fore, and the prevailing discontent is the first condition of addressing them. Indeed, Brexit may empower British democracy to resolve several of the country’s long-standing crises.
First, there is the Irish question. Though partly settled by the Good Friday Agreement a generation ago, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party is re-opening it by insisting that the province, which is part of the UK, must not in any way be distinguished from, say, Wales or the Home Counties.
The Scottish question has been revived as well. Just two years after Scotland’s failed independence referendum in 2014 left nationalists deflated, the 2016 Brexit referendum put wind in their sails again.
There is an English question as well. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s incomplete devolution made the English the UK’s only people not to have their own dedicated assembly or parliament, leaving them dependent on a Westminster parliament that many feel is distant and unrepresentative of their concerns.
Brexit also stress-tested a rigid political party system forged by a first-past-the-post electoral system that limits competition to existing players. As a result, Britain’s parties have come to function like cartels of conflicting agendas.
The 2016 referendum also highlighted the question of direct democracy’s role in British politics. Given growing calls for a second referendum, when and how popular votes should be held must be addressed sooner rather than later.
But the role of representative democracy must be addressed as well. Brexit exposed the myth of the sovereignty of the House of Commons when, in the process of leaving the EU, the government denied Parliament any real say even in how EU legislation should be transcribed into UK law.
Brexit also unleashed pent-up frustration with austerity, which took the form of a moral panic about migration. Free movement of people within the EU obscured the role of domestic budget cuts in curtailing public services and social housing, making an uptick in xenophobia inevitable.
Finally, since the mid-1980s, following Margaret Thatcher’s willful vandalism of British industry, the UK economy has relied on “the kindness of strangers.” No other European economy, except Ireland, has needed such large infusions of foreign capital to make ends meet. This is why Britain relies on cheapness: low taxes, low wages, zero-hour contracts, and unregulated finance. If Britain is to move beyond the troika of low skills, low productivity, and slow growth, its citizens must re-think their place in the global economy. Brexit is a splendid opportunity to do so, while shunning calls for even lower wages, taxes, and regulation.
With weeks left before the UK leaves the EU by default, none of the three main options on offer – a no-deal Brexit, Prime Minister Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement with the EU, and rescinding Article 50 in order to remain in the EU – commands a majority in Parliament or among the population. Each generates maximum discontent: The no-deal scenario strikes most as a dangerous plunge into the unknown. May’s deal appalls Remainers and is seen by most Leavers as the kind of document only a country defeated at war would sign. Lastly, a Brexit reversal would confirm Leavers’ belief that democracy is allowed only when it yields results favored by the London establishment.
The conventional wisdom in Britain is that this impasse is lamentable, and that it proves the failure of British democracy. I disagree on both counts. If any of the three immediately available options were endorsed, say, in a second referendum, discontent would increase and the larger questions plaguing the UK would remain unanswered. Britons’ reluctance to endorse any Brexit option at present is, from this perspective, a sign of collective wisdom and a rare opportunity to come to terms with the country’s great challenges while re-thinking the UK’s relationship with the EU. But to seize it, the UK must invest in a “People’s Debate,” leading, in time, to a “People’s Decision.”
The People’s Debate must address six issues: the British constitution, including the creation of an English parliament or multiple regional English assemblies; the electoral system and the role of referenda; the Irish question, including the possibility of joint UK-Irish sovereignty over Northern Ireland; migration and freedom of movement; Britain’s economic model, particularly the outsize role of finance and the need to boost green investment across the country; and of course the UK-EU relationship.
To be democratic, the People’s Debate must take place in regional assemblies, leading to a national convention, where a menu of options is finalized before the next House of Commons translates them into referendum questions that will enable the People’s Decision by 2022. Thus, the UK government must secure a transition period after the country formally leaves the EU on March 29, lasting at least until the people can decide three years later.
During the transition period, the UK should remain in the EU customs union and the single market, with freedom of movement and full rights for EU nationals in the UK. Then, in 2022, voters can choose whether to stay in the customs union and the single market, exit completely, or apply to re-enter the EU as a full member.
When discontent is as plentiful as in Britain today, abundant democracy is our best bet.
The Shutdown And The Economic Precipice
Trump said Friday “we are totally prepared for a very long shut down.” It was one of his rare uses of the pronoun “we” instead of his preferred—and in this case far more appropriate—“I.”
The shutdown is indubitably his. Congress offered him a way to continue funding the government without the money to build his nonsensical wall along the Mexican border, but Trump caved in to the rabid right-wing media and refused.
I was in Bill Clinton’s cabinet when Newt Gingrich pulled the plug on the federal government in 1996. It wasn’t a pretty picture. A long shutdown hurts millions of people who rely on government for services and paychecks.
Trump’s shutdown also adds to growing worries about the economy. The stock market is on track for the worst December since the Great Depression. World markets have lost nearly $7 trillion in 2018, making it the worst year since the 2008 financial crisis.
The shutdown is stoking fears that Trump could do something even more alarming. He might fail to authorize an increase in government borrowing before the federal debt reaches the current limit, which Congress extended to March 2. A default by the United States on its obligations would be more calamitous than a government shutdown.
All this brings us closer to the economic precipice. It worsens America’s most fundamental economic problem.
Economies depend first and foremost on spending. Otherwise, there’s no reason to produce goods and services. In the United States, consumer spending constitutes about 70 percent of total demand. The rest comes from government and exports.
Export markets are in trouble. Europe’s and China’s economies were already slowing before Trump’s trade wars added to the stresses.
And even before the shutdown, U.S. government spending was hobbled by a large debt, which Trump’s tax cut for big corporations and the wealthy has further enlarged.
Don’t count on American consumers to come to the rescue. Most Americans are still living in the shadow of the Great Recession that started in December 2007 and officially ended in June 2009. More Americans have jobs, to be sure, but their pay has barely risen when adjusted for inflation. Many are worse off due to the escalating costs of housing, healthcare, and education.
Trump has added to their financial burdens by undermining the Affordable Care Act, rolling back overtime pay, restricting labor unions, allowing states to cut Medicaid, and imposing tariffs that increase the prices of many goods.
America’s wealthy, meanwhile, have been taking home a growing portion of the nation’s total income. But the rich spend a small fraction of what they earn. The economy depends on the spending of middle, working-class and poor families.
The only way these Americans have continued to spend is by going deeper into debt. By the third quarter of this year, household debt had reached a record $13.5 trillion. Almost 80 percent of Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck.
This isn’t sustainable. Even if the Fed weren’t raising interest rates—an unwise move under these circumstances—consumers would still be in trouble. Mortgage, auto, and student-debt delinquencies are already mounting.
The last time household debt was nearly this high was in 2007, just before the Great Recession. Similarly, between 1913 and 1928, the ratio of personal debt to the total national economy nearly doubled. Then came the Great Crash
See a pattern?
Robert Pollin Talks Medicare For All, With Money To Spare
In this radio recording, Robert Pollin describes his recent study on Medicare for All – why it would not only work, but cost far less than what healthcare currently costs in America.
$3.5 Trillion On Healthcare Each Year And We’re Still Uninsured, Underinsured, And Unhappy
It’s time for a reality check when it comes to universal healthcare. Usually, that means those with an idealistic vision of equity and justice must give it up in favor a more achievable program. But in this case, the reality of what’s achievable exceeds the low expectations and compromises that have for decades limited the healthcare reform debate.
Providing this reality check on how we turn from our wasteful healthcare industry to a system of guaranteed healthcare is a new study by the PERI at UMass-Amherst whose lead author is noted labor economist Robert Pollin. Through a comprehensive literature review and rigorous empirical work, the study shows the average worker getting a 9% raise, and businesses saving 8% of payroll, as health outcomes improve, costs go lower and the economy benefits.
Through a comprehensive literature review and rigorous empirical work, the study shows the average worker getting a 9% raise, and businesses saving 8% of payroll, as health outcomes improve, costs go lower and the economy benefits.
Contrary to the doom and gloom of the latest healthcare spending numbers for the US—$3.5 Trillion overall annually, $10,739 per person, now exceeding 18% of GDP while providing worse outcomes, lower quality and shorter life expectancy than any other industrialized country—the Pollin study shows we can guarantee healthcare to all US residents by improving Medicare, and expanding it to everybody.
The study answers the proverbial question—“But how do we pay for it?”—by utilizing the existing public sources that account for 60% of current financing, eliminating commercial insurance premiums, co-pays and deductibles, and replacing those with a combination of payroll taxes substantially less than employers are paying now, an upper income tax that makes the wealthy pay their fair share, and a sales tax on non-necessities.
Paying for the new improved healthcare system is easier because of the cost savings achieved by S 1804, Senator Sanders Medicare for All Act of 2017, which the study reviewed. S 1804 eliminates administrative waste and inefficiencies—the claims denial, pre-authorizations, marketing costs, and profits of the insurance companies, and improves service delivery. Through negotiations modeled on other countries and the VA, the bill lowers prescription drug prices by an estimated 40%, and sets rates for providers based on Medicare, saving an additional 3% overall.
The study shows that as we cover everybody with decent benefits, costs will likely rise about 12 percent. This is not surprising. People will seek care once barriers are eliminated since there are 28 million uninsured, and 30 percent of people with insurance coverage find themselves underinsured (nearly half of Americans went without some treatment in the last year because they couldn’t afford it according). But that cost increase is more than offset by the savings achieved under “single-payer” financing.
It’s important to note that these savings are not available under a multi-payer system, under a system of Medicare buy-in, or via proposals that keep tens of millions of workers in commercial insurance plans. In such schemes, the administration costs for providers do not substantially decrease; 20% of the tax subsidies to buy insurance are wasted on overhead, marketing and profits; the leverage to set rates is not as strong; and individual purchase (“buy-in”) undermines the social insurance model that spreads costs. Nor can we expect to just cut prescription drug prices and leave insurance company rates and hospital charges untouched.
A key policy issue is the transition to an improved Medicare for All system. For seniors increasingly burdened by co-pays, or restricted access to providers through Medicare Advantage plans, improvement is urgent. Medicare for All in the first year means the inclusion of dental, vision and hearing, as well as expanded long term care benefits, and no more co-pays. (While Pollin promotes a one year transition, the bill provides for a four year phase-in.)
Most important is to transition those people working in the health insurance industry, and in the administration of health services, out of those jobs in a secure way. The Pollin study addresses the “just transition” for workers through an income guarantee, complete protection of pension benefits, and job training. The estimated cost to the system is $30 billion per year for two years, again reflecting the reality of what it takes to create a restructured health system.
That restructuring cannot happen quickly enough as we head toward a future of fragmented insurance markets, corporate healthcare silos like the CVS-AETNA company, “on your own your own care” via telemedicine, and diminished safety net programs.
Our health is not a commodity to profit from, nor is it a welfare program to be minimized or privatized. The alternative—as the PERI study shows so clearly—is a just, equitable financing system of guaranteed healthcare for all. Yes, we can get more and pay less.
The biggest change that would come is not financial: we can end the anxiety over healthcare. We can win peace of mind!
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz – I Know There’s A Path
The reality of climate change will require leaders like San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz. Hit with Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017, Puerto Rico lost at least 2,975 lives and estimates that it will cost $139 billion to fully recover. Since ascending to a national platform for unabashedly calling out President Donald Trump over his disastrous response to this crisis, Cruz has pushed for a transformation of Puerto Rico that returns autonomy to the island’s people.
This approach also clashes with that of Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rosselló, who in classic “Shock Doctrine” style is using the chaos of the aftermath to open the island up to private development for private gain. As she continues to triage a city still on the mend, Cruz took time out to speak with The Progressive about what climate justice can look like.
How is Puerto Rico grappling with the idea of climate change as it recovers from devastation?
Unfortunately, Maria and Irma opened up a new reality, which was there, but that people had refused to see. No longer is climate change something abstract, but it has concrete effects on the lives of the people of Puerto Rico. Words like “resilience” have also taken on a different meaning.
In San Juan, we have changed our perspective on public policy. Number one: Everything has to be energy efficient or solar-powered. Number two: Everything has to have redundancy. We have to plan for the worst-case scenario. We construct resilience into everything that we build now.
What is your climate-resilient vision for Puerto Rico?
Right now we are continuing to fight the selling of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. Now it’s a public monopoly, but [at least] the resources are in the hands of the Puerto Rican people. When disaster economics comes into play, we have to be very careful and conscious about how the decisions we make today could hinder our ability to provide for a more just and equitable society.
So one of the things we’ve done in San Juan is look for permanent solutions to a recurring problem. And seeing how we can develop, go around, rewrite, and transform all at the same time. We are building what we call Centers for Community Transformation for twenty-one communities that were the most impacted in San Juan by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. One is already complete, and another one is almost ready.
We take an empty building or a municipal building, and we make sure that we have enough solar power, water filtration plants, places for people to keep insulin, places for people to come and have respiratory therapy. We have direct lines to talk to our management information systems and our emergency management systems. The centers have everything needed to open the roads, chainsaws and so forth, and water pumps. We provide them with enough food so that they can have soup kitchens spring up in case of an earthquake, in case of a hurricane, in case of just a regular flood.
It’s available at all times and it’s community run. We empowered the community and trained them so they run it. It also becomes a focal point for community activism. We want to make sure that when I’m not mayor the community knows what their rights are, what their responsibilities are, and that they claim it for themselves. We want to make sure they don’t depend on the government and that the government serves as a structure, a stepping stone if you may, for the community to have their own agenda and not depend on what the mayor wants to do.
Has it been a challenge to convince people that living this way is in their best interest?
Not at all.We pick the communities that are hardest-hit. So people understand. They may not be able to use the word “resilient.” But they know what it means. They don’t want their roof to blow over when the next hurricane comes. We want to make sure that what is happening is community driven, and that there’s a transformation which includes the community. But there hasn’t been any pushback.
Governor Rosselló’s vision for the island is in direct conflict with yours. He has described his post-disaster strategy of encouraging private development as “execution and getting results.” What do you think this means?
Well, there’s an issue of deciding, who is Puerto Rico for? What is the role that communities are going to play in paving the path for a just, fair, equitable, and sustainable agenda? It’s a different ambition: Is Puerto Rico for Puerto Ricans? Or is Puerto Rico for people to come from outside of Puerto Rico to have their own tropical playground? You know, to me, Puerto Rico is for anyone that decides to make Puerto Rico home. It’s first and foremost for the people who live in our communities. And, as a government, we have a responsibility to ensure that the disenfranchised, those that have limited earning capabilities, those that have limited education capabilities, have their capabilities expanded, and have an opportunity to craft their own path.
If we continue to allow strictly market-driven decisions, then we’re condemning our generation and future generations to the lack of upward mobility.
We’ve just been through the midterm elections. What impact do you think Puerto Ricans who have relocated to the U.S. mainland have had or will have on U.S. politics?
I think that as Puerto Ricans, we have to look at ourselves as part of the Latino population. There’s five million Puerto Ricans living in the States and about fifty million Mexicans living in the States. So we need to make sure that as Latinos we all have a shared agenda, a progressive agenda that ensures we are keeping the rights that we have and continuing to expand on those rights.
Was there ever a time that you were afraid to publicly call out the President for fear that aid would be withheld following the hurricane?
No. No. There were people around me who were afraid that would happen. I was cautioned that could be one of the results. But what I was seeing was such a powerful fight of anguish and death and desolation and inhumane treatment to the people of Puerto Rico, that I could not be silenced. I have often said that in a humanitarian crisis, you have two choices: You either speak up, no matter what the consequences are, or you stand down and become an accomplice to a narrative that ends up killing people. You can kill people with neglect or you can kill them with a gun. We were killed with neglect. We were allowed to die. And I have to say that for the most part the political class in Puerto Rico, perhaps because they were scared, allowed President Trump to look the other way.
What do you think is the future for Puerto Rico’s relationship with the States? Are you hopeful?
I’ll continue to fight for the end of colonization. A new partnership, a bold partnership, a progressive partnership, could be the basis of a new relationship between the United States and the people of Puerto Rico.
Those who were supposed to help us did not help. But the American people, the Latino population, the Puerto Rican diaspora, opened their hearts to us. And I don’t have any regrets. I will continue to fight for the rest of my life for the eradication of poverty and ensuring a progressive agenda that creates an equal playing field for all is possible, and that includes Medicare-for-All, and that includes tuition-free college, and that includes Puerto Rico being freed from the shackles of the Jones Act.
Late at night when the bureaucracy and ineffectiveness of government, in all its reality, wear me down, I sit down and I read the postcards, the little pieces of paper, the letters that I got, and I know that there is an opportunity. I know that there’s a path. I don’t know what that path is, completely. But to paraphrase Cesar Chavez, this was never about the grapes, this was always about the people. This was never about politics to me, this was always about saving lives. And in that human solidarity, I saw the present and the present is one.
We Can Pay For A Green New Deal
Across America, calls for climate action are growing louder and more fervent. As Naomi Klein wrote this week, “[we have] been waiting a very long time for there to finally be a critical mass of politicians in power who understand not only the existential urgency of the climate crisis, but also the once-in-a-century opportunity it represents.”
We’re almost there.
We understand the problem – we can’t allow temperatures to rise by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gives the world 12 years to make substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to avoid severe climate effects later this century ? including in the United States. The urgency of the situation can’t be overstated.
We have momentum – incoming Democrats, like Reps.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, are building support for an ambitious climate plan, and more than 15 members of Congress are calling for a select committee with a mandate to draft comprehensive legislation: a Green New Deal. We have the outline of a plan: We need a mass mobilization of people and resources, something not unlike the U.S. involvement in World War II or the Apollo moon missions – but even bigger. We must transform our energy system, transportation, housing, agriculture and more.
What we don’t (yet) have is the final, vital ingredient – a critical mass of politicians prepared to unleash the enormous power of the public purse to save the planet. We need more political courage and less political consternation.
The Benefit, Not The Cost
Sure, it’ll cost a lot of money. That’s likely to rattle the nerves of self-proclaimed deficit hawks, Democrats and Republicans alike, who will ask the same tired questions: “How will we pay for it?” “What about the deficit and debt?” “Won’t it hurt our economy?” In fact, these questions are already coming, with the eager help of the fossil fuel lobby.
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah recently said that “all the proposals I’ve seen so far… would devastate the U.S. economy.” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) says he’s theoretically open to action but adds, “I’m also not going to destroy our economy.”
Democrats risk aiming low if they merely repackage proposals for “pay-go” infrastructure spending that would build more roads and bridges but fail to strengthen resilience to worsening climate hazards. These politicians, and the pundits who echo them, approach the debate all wrong. We can’t afford to let deficit politics stand in the way of an ambitious Green New Deal.
Here’s the good news: Anything that is technically feasible is financially affordable. And it won’t be a drag on the economy – unlike the climate crisis itself, which will cause tens of billions of dollars worth of damage to American homes, communities and infrastructure each year. A Green New Deal will actually help the economy by stimulating productivity, job growth and consumer spending, as government spending has often done. (You don’t have to go back to the original New Deal for evidence of that.)
In fact, a Green New Deal can create good-paying jobs while redressing economic and environmental inequities. One policy vision, by the progressive think tank Data for Progress, is based on a foundation of equity and justice. It proposes a transition to a low-carbon economy using clean and renewable energy, the restoration of forests and wetlands, and the build-up of resilience in both rural and urban communities.
Rethinking The Budget
To save the planet and fix historical inequities, however, we must change the way we approach the federal budget. We must give up our obsession with trying to “pay for” everything with new revenue or spending cuts.
Are taxes an important part of an aggressive climate plan? Sure. Taxes can shape incentives and help change behaviors within the private sector. Taxes should be raised to break up concentrations of wealth and income, and to punish polluters for the cost and consequences of their actions. In a period without federal leadership on the climate crisis, this is how many state and local governments are considering carbon pricing. That’s useful – not because we “need to pay for it” but to end polluters’ harmful behavior.
The federal government can spend money on public priorities without raising revenue, and it won’t wreck the nation’s economy to do so. That may sound radical, but it’s not. It’s how the U.S. economy has been functioning for nearly half a century. That’s the power of the public purse.
As a monopoly supplier of U.S. currency with full financial sovereignty, the federal government is not like a household or even a business. When Congress authorizes spending, it sets off a sequence of actions. Federal agencies, such as the Department of Defense or Department of Energy, enter into contracts and begin spending. As the checks go out, the government’s bank – the Federal Reserve – clears the payments by crediting the seller’s bank account with digital dollars. In other words, Congress can pass any budget it chooses, and our government already pays for everything by creating new money.
This is precisely how we paid for the first New Deal. The government didn’t go out and collect money – by taxing and borrowing – because the economy had collapsed and no one had any money (except the oligarchs). The government hired millions of people across various New Deal programs and paid them with a massive infusion of new spending that Congress authorized in the budget. FDR didn’t need to “find the money,” he needed to find the votes. We can do the same for a Green New Deal.
Despite lawmakers’ stated fears, larger public deficits are not inherently inflationary. As long as government spending doesn’t cap out the full productive capacity of the economy – what economists call “full employment” – it won’t spin prices out of control. Inflation isn’t triggered by the amount of money the government creates but by the availability of biophysical resources that money tries to go out and buy – like land, trees, water, minerals and human labor.
The Deficits That Matter
Instead of talking about a numerical budget deficit, we should be talking about the deficits that matter, like our deficits in biodiversity, fresh water and the capacity of our environment to absorb pollution. We should be sounding the alarm about our deficits in education, in time we can spend with our families, in lifesaving medical care and access to mental health services, and in life expectancy itself. And what about our deficit in freedom from the violence of unemployment and jobs that pay starvation wages?
The shapers of the original New Deal understood this. James McEntree, director of the Civilian Conservation Corps, stated in 1941 that the CCC had “reversed the Nation’s traditional policy of using or wasting our natural resources at a rate faster than they were being replenished and had started the country on the way toward a balanced natural-resources budget.”
The U.S. government can never run out of dollars, but humanity can run out of limited global resources. The climate crisis fundamentally threatens those resources and the very human livelihoods that depend on them.
The Only Conversation Worth Having
Once we understand that money is a legal and social tool, no longer beholden to the false scarcity of the gold standard, we can focus on what matters most: the best use of natural and human resources to meet current social needs and to sustainably increase our productive capacity to improve living standards for future generations.
We can’t afford to let deficit politics stand in the way
This is ultimately how a Green New Deal can also help bridge our political divides. Rural communities in the Midwest have as much to gain economically from a Green New Deal as coastal urban areas. We can ensure Farm Bill subsidies help American farmers earn a good living by simultaneously feeding the nation, generating renewable energy and capturing carbon in soil. We can also boost manufacturing and construction jobs by retrofitting buildings, electrifying transportation and hardening our shoreline communities against sea level rise.
That such a visionary undertaking can align with and support Just Transition efforts – led by communities of color, women and indigenous groups uniquely affected by the climate crisis – should also be viewed as an opportunity rather than a challenge or a burden
Politicians need to reject the urge to ask “How are we going to pay for it?” and avoid the trap when it’s asked of them. A better question is: What’s the best use of public money? Giving it away to the top 1 percent who don’t spend it, widening already dangerous wealth and income gaps? Or investing it in a 21st century, low-carbon economy by rebuilding America’s infrastructure, bolstering resilience, and promoting good-paying jobs across rural and urban communities?
The greatest burden we are passing on to future generations is not the debt but our failure to respond to the climate crisis. We must move beyond the fatalism about paying for a Green New Deal so we can get to the conversation that matters most: How can a Green New Deal protect our finite natural resources, end the climate crisis and build the 21st century economy that works for everyone?
That’s the only conversation the American people should be willing to have.
Foreign Policy Is More Than Just War And Peace
Foreign policy is more than just war and peace, it is a nuanced and complex issue that directly affects us here at home. Jane Sanders sat down with Representative Tulsi Gabbard to talk about foreign policy, starting with her personal experiences serving our country both at home and abroad, through the government’s budget decisions between foreign and domestic spending, and our country’s approaches to some of the most contentious current foreign issues.
The United States Is Facing A Housing Crisis
20.8 million households pay more than 30% of their income on rent, and 11 million pay more than 50% of their income on rent according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. 47.7% of renters in metropolitan areas, and 38% of renters across the U.S. experience rental burden in 2015 (latest numbers available) according to the NYU Furman Center. Individuals and households experience rental burden when more than 30% of the household income is spent on rent each month. This burden is disproportionately experienced by low-income and minority households. On average, low-income families (lowest 20% of income) spend 56% of their income on rent according to the Federal Reserve.
553,742 people experienced homelessness on a single night in 2017 according to a recent report from The Department of Housing and Urban Development. This was a 0.7% increase from 2016. The report found that increasing rates of homelessness were particularly prevalent in high-cost areas, and in areas where rent is rising faster than incomes.
The United States is facing a housing crisis.
There are a number of ways that the federal, state, and local governments have addressed or worked towards addressing this issue including expanding the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, raising the minimum wage, repairing and building more public housing, providing rental assistance, and implementing rent control.
Let’s take a deeper look at rent control: Rent control limits the amount that landlords can charge for rent. It can: limit the frequency of increases in rent, regulate when rents can be increased, regulate the services that are connected to rentals, limit when and how landlords can evict tenants, and mandate arbitration or mediation in the case of disputes. Rent control measures can also allow for decontrol when the rental unit is vacant and permit special rent increases if the unit is changed (e.g. renovation or improvement.)
Rent control works to ensure that low- and extremely low-income households have access to affordable housing. Spending less money on rent allows households to cover basic necessities, and spend money on local businesses thereby boosting local economies. It helps teachers, firefighters, and other civil servants (who, despite their service to their communities, earn less on average than the median pay in America) stay in areas close to their communities and places of work.
Despite these clear benefits, only four states currently allow some form of rent control: California, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York. Eleven states do not have rent control but also do not prohibit it, while 24 states have prohibited it.
Even in the states that do allow rent control, there are rules and limitations that restrict local governments from making rules that fit their local communities and economies. For instance, California’s rent control rules restrict its local governments severely to the detriment of its citizens.
In California, rental burden (households that spend >30% on rent) exceeds 50% of the population in each of the three largest cities. Rental burden is experienced by 61.2% of the population in Los Angeles, 54.3% of the population in San Diego, and 53.3% of the population of San Jose according to BallotPedia.
According to a report by the California Department of Housing and Community Development, “The majority of Californian renters — more than 3 million households — pay more than 30 percent of their income toward rent, and nearly one-third — more than 1.5 million households — pay more than 50% of their income toward rent.” In addition, the report found that “California is home to 12 percent of the nation’s population, but a disproportionate 22 percent of the nation’s homeless population.”
However, this may be about to change.
On November 6th 2018, California voters will vote on a ballot proposal entitled Proposition 10 (Prop 10). Prop 10, also known as the Local Rent Control Initiative would repeal the Costa Hawkings Rental Housing act and remove restrictions on the age and type of buildings that can be controlled by rent control ordinances. However, it also will ensure that those ordinances would not abridge a fair rate of return for landlords.
The Costa-Hawkings Rental Housing Act was passed in 1995. It restricted the types of buildings for which rent control could be implemented. Specifically, it stipulated that cities could not enact rent control on: housing occupied after February 1, 1995, and housing units like condominiums and townhouses where the title is separate from connected units. The act also provided landlords the ability to increase rent prices to market rates, determined by the landlord him or herself, when a tenant moved out (a policy called vacancy decontrol.)
Essentially, it allowed landlords of residential apartments and houses built after the law was passed in 1995 to raise rents as much as they wanted, despite local laws that could and would prevent those increases. Therefore, repealing this act would allow local communities to make decisions that would best benefit those citizens of those communities.
While the housing crisis across the country can feel like a daunting problem to solve, Prop 10 in California is an example where dedicated activists are using ballot initiatives to move our country forward.
Small steps can lead to better housing and better lives for our communities.