OMNI
BIDEN’S DOMESTIC POLICIES NEWLETTER #2,
FEBRUARY 18, 2022
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and
Ecology
Omnicenter.org/donate/
BIDEN FAILS TO CANCEL STUDENT DEBT
AOC warns failure to cancel student debt has ‘demoralized’ critical
voters. Editor.
Mronline.org (2-18-22).
"This really isn't a conversation about
providing relief to a small, niche group of people," said the
congresswoman. "It's very much a keystone action politically." –AOC 
BIDEN PART OF THE ANTI-REFUGEE PARTY
The 700,000 Club: Joe Biden’s Deportation Frenzy
Editor. Mronline.org (1-22-22).
In under a year, the Biden regime has
detained and deported more asylum seekers than his predecessor, demonstrating
that there is an alignment among the U.S. political elites–of both parties–when
it comes to creating and enforcing racist, inhumane laws. 
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Pressure Grows On Biden To Shut
Down Trump-Era Medicare Privatization Scheme
 By Jake Johnson,
Commondreams. Popular Resistance.org (1-1-21). Calls are mounting for President
Joe Biden to terminate an under-the-radar Trump-era pilot
program that—if allowed to run its course—could result in the complete
privatization of traditional Medicare by the end of the decade.
A petition recently launched by Physicians for a National Program
(PNHP) has garnered more than 10,000 signatures as doctors and other
advocates work to raise public awareness of the Medicare Direct Contracting
program, which the Trump administration rolled out during its final months
in power. -more-
Retail Workers Are Organizing
And Speaking Out
 By Sydney Pereira,
Prism. In a petition Indianapolis Target employee Andrew Stacy
drafted, one of the key demands is for a minimum $17 per hour, but when
Stacy and their coworker were posting the flyers in the break room and
distributing them, they were caught. Management confiscated the flyers and
human resources held one-on-one meetings with workers about working
conditions and higher-ups at the location—a move that Stacy saw as an
illegal effort to shut down organizing and find out more about the union
activity. In response, they filed a National Labor Review Board
complaint on Dec. 15. -more-
As an independent media source free of advertising, we rely on your
support.
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Ten contradictions that plague Biden’s ‘Democracy Summit’
Medea Benjamin. Mronline.org (12-14-21).
Biden hopes to secure his place at the head
of the “Free World” table by coming out as a champion for human rights and
democratic practices worldwide.
FIRST 100 DAYS JANUARY 20 TO APRIL 29
Right-wing Democrats gut social program budget after Biden refuses to
fight
Editor. Mronline.org (11-2-21).
After spending weeks conducting backroom
negotiations with Sen. Joe Manchin, Sen. Krysten Sinema and other right-wing
Democrats in Congress over the social program budget, the Biden administration
announced yesterday a “framework” that abandons some of the most important
elements of the original proposal.
MIGRANTS
AND REFUGEES
Editor. Mronline.org (9-26-21).
The
Washington Post has a piece on the current deportation of
Haitian migrants from the U.S. and how it is charged with racism.
More
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Haven't been listening or reading 8-31-21
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Bob
Billig via uark.onmicrosoft.com
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10:22 AM (4 hours
ago)
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to
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the news the past
week - call it a fast - but this title caught my eye.
All considerations
of political reform, social justice and environmental catastrophe are
meaningless if ultimate control of our lives (literally) and the future of
the planet are in the hands of a very few astronomically wealthy individuals.
The urgent need to tax billionaires
out of existence
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-urgent-need-to-tax-billionaires-out-of-existen
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Join us | Wednesday, July 28 @ 3pm ET | CVE Series Pt. 3: Fighting
Against the Stalker StatE
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Sue
at Defending Rights & Dissent info@rightsanddissent.org via salsalabs.org
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7-26-21
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4:00 PM (19 minutes
ago)
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to me
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Dick,
For a decade, activists from the
Stop LAPD Spying Coalition have fought on the front lines to oppose
further expansion of what they term the “stalker state.” Members of
the Coalition join us to deconstruct national security mythology
and reappraise the CVE model as a mechanism of social control
instead of safety.
On Wednesday, July 28 at 3pm
ET/12 PST, join us for the third event in our #LunchtimeLive
series focused on the “new” Biden counterterror strategy and what
it means for dissent in America. Moderator Cody Bloomfield will be
joined by members of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition to discuss how
we came to have counterinsurgency tactics in schools, and why no
amount of surveillance can eradicate terrorism and violence. A far
cry from remedying white supremacist violence, CVE deepens
structural racism and eviscerates community resources.
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The Stop LAPD Spying Coalition is a collective of diverse community
members dedicated to dismantling the surveillance state. Since
2011, the coalition has resisted LAPD’s efforts to surveil
communities and sow suspicion. The Stop LAPD Spying Coalition maps
the architecture of surveillance, debunks deceptive counterterror
narratives, and engages in policy advocacy against the national
security state’s characterization of community members as criminals
in the making. In 2016, Stop LAPD Spying banded together with the
United Teachers of Los Angeles to fight back against implementation
of CVE in schools. Since then, they’ve created activist toolkits
and educational materials contextualizing CVE within broader
national security state abuses and history of white supremacy.
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Defending Rights & Dissent
1325 G St. NW Suite 500 | Washington, District
of Columbia 20005
202.552.7408 | info@rightsanddissent.org
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American Rescue Plan created incentives for the 14
states to join the rest of the country and expand Medicaid immediately,
Sign if you agree: We need a Green New Deal for Public Schools
Inbox
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11:40 AM (6 minutes
ago)
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to me
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Dick,
Due to infrastructure collapses and lots
of rain, residents in my majority-Black and low-income district have
faced massive flooding multiple times in the past few weeks.
For decades, right-wing attacks on our
public resources have drained funding for the public infrastructure
that our communities desperately need.
In Detroit for example, many public
schools have had to turn off their water because it was contaminated
with lead and unsafe for students to drink. Over half of the country’s school
districts need major building repairs, just to create safe learning
environments for students, teachers, and staff.
The time is NOW to fix our funding
crisis. And Rep.
Jamaal Bowman’s new bill, the Green New Deal for Public Schools,
would do just that. It would make a transformative federal investment
to fund green retrofits at every K-12 public school facility in
America, provide clean water in schools, hire and train more teachers,
increase funding for low-income and disability-focused federal
programs, and so much more.
Our communities can’t wait:
Please add your name to co-sign the Green New Deal for Public
Schools, so our young people can have the resources they need to
thrive.
Right now in Congress, we’re working on
legislation to fund our country’s infrastructure for the next 10 years.
So this is the perfect time to show your
support for the Green New Deal for Public Schools. The
bill would provide new grant programs for upgrades to every public
school building in the country to create safe, healthy, zero-carbon,
and accessible learning environments for students and staff.
New funding would prioritize the
highest-need districts, like mine, and it would address historic school
funding inequities. Plus, the bill would fund 1.3 million jobs a year
and eliminate 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.
We urgently need bold bills like this
one. In a time of great challenges that intersect with one
another—including the pandemic, the climate crisis, systemic racism,
and extreme inequities—our communities are tired of the bandaids and
incremental change.
It’s time to pass bold, meaningful
legislation that invests directly in our communities and meets the
scale of our problems now. Especially while we have the majority in our
federal government! Can you help push to hold our leaders accountable?
Please add your name now to
co-sign the Green New Deal for Public Schools, so our
communities can have the resources we need to thrive.
Thank you,
Rashida Tlaib
DONATE NOW
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This is a really long email about Biden’s work on infrastructure
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McKenzie
Wilson, Data for Progress <seanm@dataforprogress.org> Unsubscribe
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5-2-2`
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11:16 AM (3 hours ago)
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to me
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This week, Data for Progress is
publishing a series that takes a deep dive into what our country needs,
what we expected based on President Biden’s Senate record, and
President Biden’s actual governance in the first 100 days. It’s long―but we think there’s real
value in taking deep dives like this to show just how much we can
achieve over the next 4 years. If you appreciate this kind
of thing, why not make a monthly donation to Data for Progress today?
It’s no secret that physical
infrastructure in the United States is in dire straits. Years
of neglect from policy-makers means the wealthiest country on Earth is
plagued by decaying roads, dilapidated bridges, and crumbling
buildings.
And there’s the obvious issues of equity
present in U.S. infrastructure, which has both been influenced by and
upheld social inequalities. The climate crisis and its looming
consequences for physical infrastructure make the cause of rebuilding
America all the more important.
We took a look at what our country needs
for infrastructure, where Biden has previously been, and what he’s done
so far in the first 100 days. It’s a long email, but stick with
us! And if you can pitch in $5
to help keep pushing Biden for his next 1,350 days in office, it would
mean a lot to our work.
What we need from Biden on sustainable infrastructure:
To meet the scale of the infrastructure
crisis, it’s crucial that the United States makes a historic investment
in sustainable physical infrastructure. This means constructing
new, environmentally-friendly infrastructure in addition to investing
in hazard mitigation efforts to safeguard already-existing
infrastructure at particular risk of being harmed by climate change.
According to a 2019 report, more than
47,000 “structurally deficient” bridges currently exist in the United
States, an obviously untenable situation that warrants immediate
intervention. In order to secure a just transition, the federal
government should take initiative to invest in rail transportation,
which lags far behind that of many other developed countries. The U.S.
must also work to improve existing infrastructure that presents an
environmental risk, such as dangerous lead pipes.
One ambitious proposal for a federal
sustainable infrastructure program is laid out in THRIVE Agenda,1 a
series of progress initiatives aiming to secure a just recovery from
the coronavirus-induced economic crisis. The proposed federal program
would create millions of jobs upgrading America’s water, energy, and
transportation infrastructure. Proposed initiatives include a plan to
retrofit existing buildings en masse in the interest of costs and
pollution and removing dangerous lead pipes.
Our polling series on THRIVE Agenda
found that the provisions are popular among the voters, with a majority
of swing state voters polled indicating their support for each plank.2 Going forward, the Biden Administration
should pursue a bold program to revamp American infrastructure on the
scale of the THRIVE Agenda.
Can you chip in $5 to help
us keep polling on ambitious policies like creating a sustainable
infrastructure?
Where Biden has stood on sustainable infrastructure:
Biden has long been interested in
infrastructure policy. As Vice President, Biden would regularly appear
publicly to promote the Obama Administration’s push for high-speed
rail, among other infrastructure initiatives. So it’s not surprising
that reinvigorating American infrastructure was among the key planks of
his 2020 platform, especially given that Trump’s inability to make good
on his infrastructure promises was one of the most visible failures of
his Administration.3
Then-candidate Biden released a
comprehensive plan to Build Back Better, by “build[ing] a more
resilient, sustainable economy” through improving American
infrastructure at the federal level. Biden’s program called for the
creation of one million jobs in the American automobile industry, a
massive investment in zero-emissions public transit options to serve
major cities, and the upgrading of four million buildings for
resilience purposes.
There’s a lot of work to do
in order to build a sustainable infrastructure. Can you donate to help
us keep pushing Biden’s infrastructure plans to the left?
How Biden has governed on sustainable infrastructure:
As President, Biden has pushed the historic
American Jobs Plan, which encompasses a wide array of initiatives
traditionally included in the realm of infrastructure (roads,
buildings, and other physical structures) and other issue areas that
affect working people.
In the realm of automobile
transportation, Biden has pushed for $174 billion to be invested in the
American electric vehicle (EV) market. In doing so, the Biden
Administration intends to spur the growth of the domestic EV industry,
which will create well-paying factory jobs and play a part in
transitioning to a clean energy economy. The Biden Administration also
seeks an investment of $115 billion to rebuild roads and bridges that
have decayed due to lack of maintenance.
Biden’s American Jobs Plan further
allocates $50 billion in the interest of improving resilience among
already-existing infrastructure, a much-needed effort, particularly in
frontline communities. The American Jobs Plan also includes provisions
to replace 100% of lead pipes in the United States and end the release
of dangerous levels of methane from so-called “orphan wells.”
All in all, the American Jobs Plan has
proven remarkably popular among voters. Our polling found
widespread support across partisan lines for the American Jobs Plan,
with the provisions to upgrade America’s physical infrastructure
proving most popular.4
The American Jobs Plan
still has a long way to go. Can you chip in $5 so that we can keep tabs
on this popular plan and push it across Biden’s desk?
Thanks, Dick.
McKenzie Wilson
Data for Progress
1 https://www.thriveagenda.com/
2 https://www.filesforprogress.org/memos/voters-support-thrive-agenda.pdf
3 https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/10/18/trump-biden-infrastructure-2020/
4 https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/american-jobs-plan-go-big
Data for Progress is doing some of the most critical public
policy work for the progressive movement today, and it’s all possible
because of grassroots donors like you. Your support helps Data for
Progress keep pushing progressives on issues like Student Debt
Cancellation, the Green New Deal, and Automatic Voter Registration. Can
you chip in today to help fund our work?
DONATE NOW
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Tell Congress: Pass President Biden’s plan to make Corporate
America pay its fair share in taxes
Inbox
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Frank
Clemente <info@americansfortaxfairness.org>
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4-22-21
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10:33 AM (3 hours ago)
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to me
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Tell
Congress:
“President
Biden has proposed to make the largest investment in U.S. jobs, workers
and communities in generations. And he pays for it by making
corporations pay their fair share. Pass the president’s $2.3 trillion
American Jobs Plan and his Made in America Tax Plan to create millions
of jobs for working families, rebuild our communities and invest in our
country’s future.”
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Dick,
It’s time for a massive
investment in our communities and in an equitable pandemic recovery. But
every time Democrats propose investments to create jobs, rebuild
infrastructure, secure a green energy future, make housing more
affordable and more―like President Biden just did in his American Jobs
Plan―Republicans (and some moderate Democrats) ask, “how are you going to
pay for it?”
Biden’s historic $2.3 trillion
American Jobs Plan will create 2.7 million more jobs, rebuild our
communities and begin to create an economy that works for all of us.[1]
To make these investments,
President Biden’s Made in America Tax Plan would raise $2.5 trillion by
making America’s corporations begin to pay their fair share.[2]
Join Americans for Tax
Fairness Action Fund in calling on Congress to pass President Biden’s
American Jobs Plan and his Made in America Tax Plan to create millions of
jobs for working families, rebuild our communities, and invest in our
country’s future.
Biden’s Made in America Tax Plan
raises $2.5 trillion by increasing the corporate tax rate from 21% to
28%, closing loopholes that have incentivized multinational corporations
to outsource jobs and shift profits to offshore tax havens, placing a 15%
minimum tax on corporations so they can’t get away with paying $0 in
taxes, ending fossil fuel tax subsidies and more.
In order to create an equitable
recovery from this pandemic and build an economy that works for all of
us, it’s time for corporations to pay their fair share in taxes.
Sign the petition demanding
Congress invest in our country’s future―paid for by making Corporate
America pay its fair share.
Consider these corporate tax
horror stories:
· In 2020, 55
major U.S. corporations paid ZERO dollars in federal income taxes, even
though they collectively enjoyed almost $40.5 billion in pre-tax
profits.[3]
· In 2018 over
1,500 U.S.-based multinational corporations paid an average U.S. tax rate
of just 7.8% (even though the corporate tax rate is 21%)―a rate much
lower than most middle-class families pay.[4]
· American
corporations dodge an estimated $60 billion a year in U.S. taxes by
shifting profits and production offshore.[5]
Thank you for fighting for a tax
system and economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few.
Frank Clemente
Executive Director
Americans for Tax Fairness Action Fund
[1] “Biden’s pitch that the
economy ‘will create 19 million jobs’ if infrastructure is passed,” The
Washington Post, Apr. 6, 2021
[2] “Biden’s Tax Plan Aims to
Raise $2.5 Trillion and End Profit-Shifting,” The New York Times, Apr. 7,
2021
[3] “55 Corporations Paid $0 in
Federal Taxes on 2020 Profits,” Institute on Taxation and Economic
Policy, Apr. 2, 2021
[4] “Average corporate tax rate
plunged by more than half after GOP overhaul,” Politico, Mar. 22, 2021
[5] “The Made in America Tax
Plan,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, Apr. 2021
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BIDEN
AND CLIMATE
John Kerry needs to challenge Wall
Street — not partner with it
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Stop
the Money Pipeline info@stopthemoneypipeline.com via mcc.mcsv.net
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4-2-21
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11:04 AM (4 hours ago)
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to me
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On Wednesday, 145 groups ― including many members of
Stop the Money Pipeline ― sent a letter to Special Presidential Envoy
for Climate, John Kerry. Together, the organizations are demanding that
John Kerry use his power to end the money pipeline from Wall Street to
the companies responsible for the climate crisis.
Unfortunately, in response, the State
Department, which houses Kerry’s office, spoke only of needing
“engagement” with Wall Street ― and failed to even mention the fact
that Wall Street is a major part of the problem, providing more
than $1.2 trillion to the fossil fuel industry since the Paris
Agreement.
Can you click here to Tweet
at John Kerry and tell him we need climate leaders who are willing to
take on Wall Street?
In one of his first days in office, President Biden
issued an executive order directing Kerry and Treasury-Secretary, Janet
Yellen, to develop a U.S climate finance plan. We were excited when
Kerry stated that the plan would include ending public financing of
fossil fuel projects abroad.
Since then however, Kerry has spoken only of his desire
to “partner” with Wall Street. He’s even said that private companies,
not governments will lead the fight against climate change.
Even worse, Kerry has begun to appoint Wall Street
tycoons to his top climate team. Mark Gallogly is a billionaire who spent sixteen years
at Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity firm and a major
investor in fossil fuels. Gallogly also co-founded Centerbridge
Partners, a private equity firm that pushed austerity in Puerto Rico
and made massive profits off the first climate change bankruptcy, the
collapse of PG&E in California. He’s now heading up “business
engagement” for Kerry’s climate team.
Click here to make sure
that John Kerry gets the message: we need to regulate Wall Street, not
partner with it.
One of the most meaningful things that Kerry could do as
Climate Envoy is fight to end the money pipeline to climate chaos. But
it looks like we’re going to have to push him to do what is necessary ―
you can help us start by sending
Kerry a message on Twitter here.
In solidarity
- Stop the Money Pipeline
P.S. If you want to dive deeper, the full text of the
letter is here, and Bloomberg and The Hill reported on the letter earlier
this week.
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BIDEN
AND EDUCATION
BIDEN
AND WHISTLEBLOWERS (sub-category of Biden and National Security)
Joe Biden Wanted To Lock Up My Father, CIA Whistleblower Philip
Agee—Just Like He Wants To Lock Up Edward Snowden And Julian Assange
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CovertAction
Magazine via gmail.mcsv.net
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Mar 3, 2021, 9:05 PM
(19 hours ago)
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to me
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Joe Biden Wanted To Lock Up
My Father, CIA Whistleblower Philip Agee—Just Like He Wants To Lock Up
Edward Snowden And Julian Assange
By Chris Agee and Jeremy Kuzmarov on Mar 03, 2021
Part 6 in our
Biden Series: A Company Man? - On May 9, 1981, the Senate
Judiciary Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism was debating the
Intelligence Identities Protection Act (S. 391). Their goal:
criminalize the unauthorized identification of U.S. intelligence
agents.
Then-Senator Joe
Biden rose to his feet to denounce my father, Philip Agee, the CIA
whistleblower whose 1975 book, Inside the Company, identified some 250
officers, front companies and foreign agents working for the United
States.
Biden stated: “I
do not think anybody has any doubt about Mr. Agee. We should lock him
away in my opinion.” ...
The post Joe Biden Wanted To Lock Up
My Father, CIA Whistleblower Philip Agee—Just Like He Wants To Lock Up
Edward Snowden And Julian Assange appeared
first on CovertAction Magazine.
Read in browser »
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DRUG WAR
Justice Reform Coalition Urges Biden to Pardon All Non-Violent Marijuana
Convictions by
Andrea Germanos, staff writer. Common
Dreams (2-16-21).
"It is past time for the harm to stop."
Extracting Punishment from Our Civil Systems: Drug Policy Alliance
Launches New Initiative With Series of Reports Illustrating How the Drug War
Has Contaminated Six Critical Systems. Common Dreams (2-16-21).
DEATH PENALTY
Sister Helen Prejean Says Federal Executions
Speak To ...
https://www.wbur.org › trump-death-penalty-abolish
Jan 11, 2021 — Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun and
anti-death-penalty activist, ... on federal executions is just one facet of the president's
violent agenda. ... If Biden's term began eight days earlier, Montgomery
would live, Prejean says, ...
President
Biden Is Our Chance to End the Federal Death ...
https://www.thenation.com › article
› death-penalty-biden
6 days ago — By Sister Helen Prejean ... In those days,
it seemed almost everyone in Louisiana thought the death penalty was a just and appropriate
punishment for murder. ... me that when Lisa learned her death date had been
postponed from December to January, she paused and barely whispered, “Just eight days…
Forget Trump: Biden is undoing harmful rules that have been in place since
Reagan
Ian Reifowitz for Community
Contributors Team
Community
Saturday January 30, 2021 · 8:59 AM CST
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President Biden working for the people, not
the powerful.
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“It has the potential to be the most significant action
Biden took on day one.” That’s what Senior Policy Analyst James Goodwin of the
Center for Progressive Reform said about the executive order called Modernizing
Regulatory Review (MRR)—although he
recognized such a statement might sound “absurd” given everything else the new president did on that day. Goodwin was
talking about an executive order (EO) that got little attention from mainstream
journalists other than the HuffPost reporter who interviewed him. I
initially heard about it thanks to Tim Corrimal’s show, but the Brookings Institute’s in-depth
analysis of the MRR also generally tracks with
the optimistic assessment from Goodwin. Cass Sunstein, who ran the Office
of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) during President Obama’s first
term, also strongly praised the change in a post at Bloomberg.
The memo directs the OIRA, which is housed in the Office
of Management and Budget (OMB), to take a new approach when doing its
job—namely reviewing regulations proposed by the executive branch. I know that
the previous sentence may have left some of you nodding off into a dream about
drowning in alphabet soup. (There are worse ways to
go.) But trust me, if you breathe air, drink water, or buy, well,
anything, there’s a pretty decent chance that what Biden just did will help you
and yours stay safer and healthier—or maybe even just stay alive.
The key section of the document calls for the appropriate offices to “provide
concrete suggestions on how the regulatory review process can promote public
health and safety, economic growth, social welfare, racial justice,
environmental stewardship, human dignity, equity, and the interests of future
generations.”
In addition to those important priorities, this
Biden-Harris EO mandates that the review of regulations “promotes policies that
reflect new developments in scientific and economic understanding, fully
accounts for regulatory benefits that are difficult or impossible to quantify,
and does not have harmful anti-regulatory or deregulatory effects.”
Finally, the memo requires that any such review “ensure[s]
that regulatory initiatives appropriately benefit and do not inappropriately
burden disadvantaged, vulnerable, or marginalized communities.”
One might think all this would be obvious to anyone with a
sense of fairness, an interest in actually getting things right based on the
best available information, and a concern for justice. One who harbors such illusions
clearly hasn’t dealt with Republicans.
Biden’s MRR differs from most of the other executive
actions he has taken thus far in that it doesn’t target rules created by
his immediate predecessor. Instead, the 46th president is going after a
structure created by the godfather of modern conservatism in all its forms
(including virulent race-baiting, although that’s not the topic of this post): Ronald
Reagan.
With EO 12291 on Feb. 17, 1981, Reagan created the OIRA. Its goal was simple: Find ways to block
regulations. The guts of the EO are contained in this section: “(R)egulatory action shall not be
undertaken unless the potential benefits to society from the regulation
outweigh the potential costs to society.” Sounds reasonable ... until it’s
time to define benefits and costs to society. Those definitions have rested
solely on the basis of dollars and cents. If saving lives costs too much money,
well, to paraphrase Col. Jessup from A Few Good Men, “people die.”
At the time, progressives knew what Reagan’s order would
mean. Richard Ayres, a leading environmental activist who co-founded the
Natural Resources Defense Council, called this approach to assessing the value of regulations
“basically fraudulent.” Going further, he noted: “They are trying to put into
numbers something that doesn't fit into numbers, like the value of clean air to
our grandchildren. Cost benefit analysis discounts the future. It allows costs
to flow to small groups and benefits to large groups and vice versa. It is
concerned with efficiency but not with equity. It is deceivingly precise and
ignores ethical and moral choices.''
How’s that for a slogan that sums up an entire movement:
“Conservatism: We’ve been ignoring ethical and moral choices for more than 40
years!”
California Rep. Henry Waxman, a long-time progressive
champion, added: “It is very dangerous to think we can quantify the way
we make policy judgments. We don't know how to measure the true cost of health
or disease.” Waxman was very clear about why this EO was one of the first
actions taken during the Reagan presidency: It would enable Republicans to “use
cost-benefit analysis to reach decisions that will favor business and industry
in this country rather than the public.” Waxman couldn’t have been more right,
either about this specific action Reagan took or about Republican priorities
across the board.
President Bill Clinton issued a change in 1993 that reduced OIRA’s scope, but
unfortunately left the basic framework relatively intact. Other tweaks have
been made, including in 2011 under the Obama-Biden administration. But the order
issued by the new Biden-Harris administration will, hopefully, usher in a new
era for OIRA, one that differs not just by degree, but by kind.
By broadening the definition of costs and benefits beyond
what can be calculated on a balance sheet, Biden’s MMR makes enactment possible
for far-reaching protections likely to be blocked under the old system. Stuart
Shapiro, a public policy professor at Rutgers University who used to work at
OMB, explained that the previous approach to regulatory review
stifled necessary measures: “Because the benefits are harder to measure,
cost-benefit analysis always puts regulation at a disadvantage.” It’s more
concrete to say that a specific environmental rule will cost businesses X
dollars. However, what is the exact benefit in dollars to a life saved—or a
life improved, for that matter? Those benefits are very real to actual people
but were not given the proper weight because of the way the costs and benefits
had been defined—until Biden came along, that is.
Don’t just take the word of progressives on how much of an
impact this new policy will have; listen to how much conservatives despise it.
The so-called Competitive Enterprise Institute is a libertarian think tank
that, for all intents and purposes, never met a regulation it didn’t
hate—especially on the environment. They published a post by Clyde Wayne Crews,
a senior fellow and vice president for
policy, which squealed that Biden’s MMR would end up “gutting the restraint
of the past four years” and “effectively do away with cost-benefit analysis
altogether.” Based on how that analysis operated, I’d say good riddance.
As for the last four years, the core of the
twice-impeached president’s regulatory review policy was typical of the
thoughtlessness of his administration in general. Rather than establish some
kind of objective standards to measure the effectiveness of
regulations—standards that would certainly favor corporate fat cats—the
disgraced despot just said, “If there’s a new regulation, they have to knock
out two.” That’s a direct quote—I’m not kidding. In a nutshell, that really was
his new rule.
More broadly, The Man Who Tried To Overturn An Election He
Lost seriously weakened environmental protections and totally hamstrung our
country’s efforts to combat climate change. Hana V. Vizcarra, who researches
environmental policy at Harvard, characterized what Trump did over four years
as a “very aggressive attempt to rewrite our laws and reinterpret the meaning
of environmental protections.” Trump’s anti-regulation regime went beyond the
environment, including attacks on labor protections, health protections,
education-related protections, and more.
The one wide-ranging piece of legislation enacted by the Republicans under Trump was the Rich Man’s
Tax Cut, and Biden certainly needs to undo that giveaway to millionaires and
billionaires as quickly as possible. But the other major policy
“accomplishments” that need to be undone are in the area of regulation, where
Trump had more room to operate by executive order and other executive branch
actions. Now President Biden has that same authority, and his new MMR makes
clear he knows how to use it.
We’ll likely be seeing one example of the impact of
Biden’s executive order when he issues regulations—which we expect to see very soon—on so-called “forever chemicals.”
The real name for them is per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), but their
nickname derives from the fact that they “never break down in the
environment,” as the Environmental Working Group explained. That’s not all:
Very small doses of PFAS have been linked to
cancer, reproductive and immune system harm, and other diseases.
For decades, chemical companies covered up evidence of
PFAS’ health hazards. Today nearly all Americans, including newborn babies,
have PFAS in their blood, and up to 110
million people may be drinking PFAS-tainted water. What began as a “miracle
of modern chemistry” is now a national
crisis.
During his 2020 campaign, Biden promised to take action on PFAS as part of a wide-ranging
plan to “secure environmental justice and equitable economic opportunity.” This
is the first step among what will be many, but much of his agenda would likely
have been neutered or even blocked under the old regulatory review rules. His
new MMR was thus a vital first step in clearing the path for the specific changes he will carry out to protect all Americans’ health,
safety, and much more.
It’s very important to remember that what Trump did was no
different than what other Republicans have done going back four
decades. Conservatives, over and over,
wrongly decry as “red tape” the very rules that prevent a
relatively small number of immoral, greedy sharks from causing real injury in
the blind pursuit of profit—not to mention making it that much harder for the
honest business owners who act morally to successfully compete.
Since long before the Orange Menace moved into the White
House, his party has been in thrall to corporate interests, and hostile to the
interests of consumers—also known as the American people. Even if Republicans
purge Trumpism and the Trumpists from their party—something they
absolutely must do for the sake of our democracy—the conflict
between the parties on regulatory issues will not go away.
When it comes to
regulations, one party favors the powerful and the wealthy, and the other works
for all of us. It really is as simple as that.
Ian Reifowitz is the author of The
Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the
Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)
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Bill McKibbon, paragraphs 5 & 6
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Jan 30, 2021, 8:23 AM
(1 day ago)
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to LMann2@earthlink.net
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---Forwarded
Message-----
From: Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from
an American
Sent: Jan 30, 2021 3:22 AM
To: LMann2@earthlink.net
Subject: January 29, 2021
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January 29, 2021
While the
anti-democracy crusaders in the Republican Party are drawing headlines,
President Biden has resolutely refused to engage with the craziness and has
instead continued to move forward at a pace that feels remarkable after
years of what seemed to be governmental inaction on matters ordinary people
care about.
Pressed again today
to speak about Republican congress members who are in the news for their
antisocial behavior, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to
comment. “We don’t want to elevate conspiracy theories further in the
briefing room, so I’m going to leave it at that,” she said.
The White House has
also declined to comment on Congress, taking the constitutional position
that the president should stay in the executive branch’s lane and let the
legislative branch handle its own affairs.
Instead, Biden is
moving his agenda forward quickly. He has signed at least 33 executive
actions that direct the members of the executive branch on how they should
implement laws. In addition to the military, the executive branch has more
than 4 million people in it, and it includes the State Department, the Department
of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department
of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Interior Department,
and so on—a lot of people in a lot of positions.
The breadth of the
executive branch is enabling Biden to turn the direction of the government
by coordinating changes across a number of departments. So, for example, in
an article in the New Yorker,
environmentalist Bill McKibben called out Wednesday, January 27, as
“the most remarkable day in the history of America’s official response to
the climate crisis…. The Biden Administration took a series of coordinated
actions that, considered together, may well mark the official beginning of
the end of the fossil-fuel era.”
McKibben notes that Biden
adjusted rules in the Justice Department, the Department of Energy, and the
Environmental Protection Agency, and involved the Pentagon by making
climate change a national-security priority. He also asked the Secretary of
Agriculture to confer with farmers and ranchers on how to encourage
adoption of “climate-smart” agricultural practices. Anticipating the usual
accusations that ending the fossil-fuel industry will cost jobs, he
explicitly tied jobs to the new measures, ordering new, American-made,
electric vehicles for the government and promising “good-paying” union jobs
in construction, manufacturing, engineering and the skilled-trades as the
nation switches to clean energy.
Biden is using
executive orders to undercut the partisanship that has ground Congress to a
halt for the past several years. While Biden’s predecessor tended to use
executive actions to implement quite unpopular policies, Biden is using
them to implement policies that most Americans actually like but which could
never make it through Congress, where Republicans hold power
disproportionate to their actual popularity.
According to a
roundup by polling site FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s executive
actions cover issues that people want to see addressed. Eighty-three percent
of Americans—including 64% of Republicans—support a prohibition on
workplace discrimination over sexual identification, 77% (including 52% of
Republicans) want the government to focus on racial equity, 75% want the
government to require masks on federal property, and 68% like the continued
suspension of federal student loan repayments. A majority of Americans also
favor rejoining the World Health Organization and the Paris climate
accords, and so on.
Republicans are
insisting that Biden is not practicing the unity he promised in his
campaign, but here’s the interesting thing: work by political scientists
Dr. Shana Gadarian and Dr. Bethany Albertson shows that most Americans
actually agree on problems and solutions so long as politicians do not take
on those issues as partisan ones. But as soon as politicians adopt a
partisan stance on an issue, voters polarize over it. So it is possible
that by keeping these issues out of the current partisanship in Congress
and handling them from the White House, Biden is doing exactly what he
promised: creating unity. He is also making Americans feel like the
government is doing something for them again.
This attempt to avoid
partisan polarization will be tested by his determination to pass a new,
$1.9 trillion economic aid package through Congress. Secretary of the
Treasury Janet Yellen, the former chair of the Federal Reserve and the
chair of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, has urged a
fast injection of stimulus into the economy after it slowed down
significantly at the end of 2020. Republicans have expressed concern at the
passage of another large spending bill, but some are willing to negotiate,
especially since the Democrats can pass a bill without them through a
process called reconciliation (it will almost certainly be significantly
pared down from this first version).
Today, as he went to
the Walter Reed hospital to visit wounded soldiers, Biden said, "I
support passing COVID relief with support from Republicans if we can get
it…. But the COVID relief has to pass. No ifs, ands or buts." Psaki
said that the White House would not agree to breaking the package up and
passing only the parts the Republicans like. "But the size and the
scope of the package – this is the legislative process, this is democracy
at work now."
The Democrats’ hand
has likely been strengthened this week by the media frenzy over the
so-called “GameStop short squeeze,” in which hedge fund managers got
squeezed by ordinary investors driving up the price of the stock of a video
game retailer so that the hedge funds could not cover short sales.
Investment firms promptly cried foul, only to be greeted with derision,
since it is not at all clear that their own stock purchases have a better
effect on the markets than those of the smaller investors, and since they
made huge money betting on the Covid-19 crisis. Observers see the short
squeeze as a populist attack on unscrupulous Wall Street types.
While the entire
story behind the short squeeze is not yet clear, it does already have a
political meaning. The GameStop story reinforced the growing sense that the
system has been rigged for the wealthy. People from across the political
spectrum are demanding more thorough regulation of the stock market, a
dramatic cultural change.
It didn’t help that
Leon Cooperman, a hedge fund trader worth $2.5 billion, took to CNBC to
vent his fury. “The reason the market is doing what it’s doing is, people
are sitting at home, getting their checks from the government, basically
trading for no commissions and no interest rates,” he said, referring to
relief for people thrown out of work by the pandemic.
With calls for unity
in the air, Cooperman offered his own definition. Democrats’ suggestion
that the rich should pay their “fair share” of taxes is “bullsh*t,” he
said. “It’s just a way of attacking wealthy people, and you know I think
it’s inappropriate…. We all got to work together and pull together.”
—-
Notes:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/536473-psaki-wont-comment-on-taylor-greene-saying-it-would-elevate
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/64-oppose-trumps-move-build-wall-asylum-30/story?id=62702683
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bidens-initial-batch-of-executive-actions-is-popular/
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-biden-administrations-landmark-day-in-the-fight-for-the-climate
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/01/27/fact-sheet-president-biden-takes-executive-actions-to-tackle-the-climate-crisis-at-home-and-abroad-create-jobs-and-restore-scientific-integrity-across-federal-government/
Shana Kushner
Gadarian and Bethany Albertson, “Anxiety, Immigration, and the Search for
Information,” Political Psychology 35 (April 2014): 133-164.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/business/gdp-report-2020.html
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-01-29/democrats-hope-for-compromise-plan-for-action-on-coronavirus-relief-bill
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01/leon-cooperman-gamestop-rant
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/29/leon-cooperman-gamestop/
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Bulletin Special Issue: Expert advice for the new US president
Inbox
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Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists Unsubscribe
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8:07 AM (3 hours ago)
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to me
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JOHN MECKLIN
Introduction: Advice for a new administration
facing difficult times
For this issue, which publishes
just ahead of the Biden inauguration, Bulletin
editor-in-chief John Mecklin asked top experts to offer their
pinpoint-focus suggestions to the president at shorter-than-usual,
memo-like length. The advice deals with the most important issues
that America and the world face, the existential threats of nuclear
weapons, climate change, and other disruptive technologies. Read free in our
premium magazine.
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PRANAY VADDI
How Biden can advance nuclear arms control and
stability with Russia and China
The Biden administration will need
to decide how to stabilize the deterrence relationships with Russia
and China. Two pragmatic, achievable steps could enhance US
and allied security through arms control policy. Read in our premium
magazine.
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SHARON SQUASSONI
Why Biden should abandon the great power
competition narrative
Aside from a quick extension of
the New START treaty, one important step the Biden administration
should consider in the realm of nuclear policy is to jettison the
“great power competition” narrative that Trump officials and
supporters have popularized. Read free in our
premium magazine.
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RUPAL N. MEHTA
How Biden can say goodbye to “America First”
on nuclear issues
Efforts to renew international
engagement with a deep bench of experts, intergovernmental
organizations, and policy makers will be critical over the next
four years to return to the core tenets of historical American
foreign policy. Read in our premium
magazine.
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JAMES E. GOODBY & DAVID A. KOPLOW
An ambitious arms control agenda requires a
new organization equal to the task
An exceedingly challenging agenda
of urgent, important, and diverse arms control issues awaits the
incoming Biden administration. To address it, the administration
should consider the creation of a new agency to focus on
cooperative threat reduction. Read in our premium
magazine.
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TOGZHAN KASSENOVA
Why Biden should push for ratification of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
President-elect Joe Biden has long
supported the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. But three important
factors have shifted the context in recent years, making US
participation more important than ever. Read in our premium
magazine.
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DAVID N. ZIKUSOKA
Biden should rethink US policy on low-yield
nuclear weapons
The process of assessing the
usefulness of the low-yield warhead could present an opportunity
for Biden to rebalance the US portfolio of non-strategic nuclear
weapons and, in turn, alter nuclear competition with Russia and
China. Read in our premium
magazine.
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Subscribe today to read the full
issue!
Subscribe now to
get this special issue with expert advice for the new US
president on nuclear risks, climate change, and disruptive
technologies.
As a Bulletin magazine subscriber, you’ll get 6 digital
issues a year plus access to 75 years of archives.
Subscribe now!
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BILL MCKIBBEN
Okay, he’s finally in the Oval Office. But
what should Joe Biden do first?
In 2020, the world saw record hurricanes, record
fires, record temperatures. The overarching question is not “Do we
have to act now?” It’s “Have we already waited too long?” But the
pragmatic question is: What is to be done right this minute? Read in our premium
magazine.
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MICHAEL E. MANN
The president needs to hit the ground running
on climate
The first 100 days of the presidency could help
determine the state of our planet’s climate for the next 10,000
years. The president will have to win over potential allies in the
middle, yet remain unafraid to play hardball with the Congress
people who are captured by the fossil fuel industry. Read in our premium
magazine.
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PETER H. GLEICK
Water recommendation for the new
administration
As the new administration strives to recover
from a devastating pandemic and economic downturn, it will have an
opportunity to rebuild our public water system, create hundreds of
thousands of jobs, support our agricultural communities, strengthen
our diplomatic standing and national security, and improve health
and quality of life. Read in our premium
magazine.
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MATT FIELD
What Joe Biden can do to reduce racial health
disparities: A conversation with Juliette Blount
As a nurse practitioner in New York City,
Juliette Blount worked not only to care for patients but also to
confront racism where and when she encountered it. She talked
with associate editor Matt Field about racial health
disparities and what the new presidential administration can do to
address them. Read in our premium
magazine.
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ERIC GOLDMAN
Dear President Biden: You should save, not
revoke, Section 230
Politicians from both major US parties want to
reform a more than 20-year-old law that gives internet companies
broad protection from liability over third-party content. In a
“memo” to the president-elect, law professor Eric Goldman asks Joe
Biden to work to understand Section 230 and ensure future reforms
don’t diminish the society-wide benefits the law has had. Read in our premium
magazine.
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MATT FIELD
How can the Biden administration reduce
scientific disinformation? Slow the high-pressure pace of
scientific publishing.
To tamp down on the flow of flawed science seen
during the pandemic, computer scientist and disinformation
researcher Walter Scheirer believes the Biden administration can
make changes to how the National Institutes of Health awards
grants, reducing the importance of prolific publishing. Read in our premium
magazine.
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DANIEL M. GERSTEIN
Memo to the president: Reimagining public
health preparedness and response
During the COVID-19 crisis, the federal
government was not the backstop many expected it would when states
were desperately competing with each other for emergency supplies.
The Biden administration must re-establish the emergency response
doctrine that proved so fragile during the pandemic. Read in our premium
magazine.
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END
BIDEN’S DOMESTIC POLICIES NEWSLETTER # 2
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