UBI or Die
Nicholas Powers, writing for Truthout:
“I thought Universal Basic Income was a good idea,” said 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang to Bloomberg QuickTake. “But it’s more urgent than ever. It’s literally life and death.”
During the presidential campaign, Yang generated buzz by UBI on talk shows, speeches and town halls. He called it the Freedom Dividend in which each citizen got $1,000 a month. The idea of UBI goes back to Thomas Paine’s 1797 pamphlet “Agrarian Justice” that called for money to be given to all citizens, and to the fiery Sen. Huey Long’s Share the Wealth program in the 1930s. In 1966, it was the capstone of the civil rights movement when Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph proposed the Freedom Budget. The right-wing eugenicist Charles Murray has also advocated UBI to replace welfare programs, a position shared in part by Yang. Murray and Yang’s position is a cynical one that would leave individuals with cash but not enough to replace the social support taken away.
What drove UBI from the margins to the center of politics are the crises each generation has faced. The oldest one is poverty, whether in Appalachia or Harlem. Even before the pandemic, wage stagnation had since the 1970s eroded the lives of workers who faced international competition and high-tech machines cutting the need for human labor. Now the long-term economic effect of COVID-19 could be millions desperate for work, who will accept low wages, and internalize rage at failing the “American Dream.” The previous factor of mechanization will pick up speed and hit a tipping point.
A report by McKinsey & Company said that by 2030, a moderate rate of automation could lead to 400 million jobs displaced by robots or 800 million at a fast rate. How are the masses of people going to live when the work they can get is low paying and part time? Another existential danger is climate change, which will bring rising seas, droughts and fires that will cause interrupted supply chains, damaged infrastructure and more expensive food. How are people to work when train tracks are flooded or fiber optic cables are damaged by higher tides?
Is the solution to the crisis-filled future stimulus bill after stimulus bill? How many are passed before a society stumbles into UBI? Without waiting for a catastrophe, some municipalities have begun experimenting with small-scale versions. The cities of Hamilton in Canada, Barcelona in Spain and Stockton in California led the way, and now nine mayors of U.S. cities from Los Angeles to Newark joined Mayors for a Guaranteed Income to push for pilot programs and share data.
“The pandemic exposed just how fragile the economic underpinnings of our society are,” said Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs. “COVID-19 has put us in the midst of another Great Depression which necessitates bold, New Deal-type investments in our people.”
The rest of the story:
One-Time Stimulus Checks Aren’t Good Enough. We Need Universal Basic Income by Nicholas Powers (Truthout)
Extra credit:
Which countries have experimented with basic income — and what were the results?: Everywhere basic income has been tried, in one map by Sigal Samuel (VOX)
“I thought Universal Basic Income was a good idea,” said 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang to Bloomberg QuickTake. “But it’s more urgent than ever. It’s literally life and death.”
During the presidential campaign, Yang generated buzz by UBI on talk shows, speeches and town halls. He called it the Freedom Dividend in which each citizen got $1,000 a month. The idea of UBI goes back to Thomas Paine’s 1797 pamphlet “Agrarian Justice” that called for money to be given to all citizens, and to the fiery Sen. Huey Long’s Share the Wealth program in the 1930s. In 1966, it was the capstone of the civil rights movement when Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph proposed the Freedom Budget. The right-wing eugenicist Charles Murray has also advocated UBI to replace welfare programs, a position shared in part by Yang. Murray and Yang’s position is a cynical one that would leave individuals with cash but not enough to replace the social support taken away.
What drove UBI from the margins to the center of politics are the crises each generation has faced. The oldest one is poverty, whether in Appalachia or Harlem. Even before the pandemic, wage stagnation had since the 1970s eroded the lives of workers who faced international competition and high-tech machines cutting the need for human labor. Now the long-term economic effect of COVID-19 could be millions desperate for work, who will accept low wages, and internalize rage at failing the “American Dream.” The previous factor of mechanization will pick up speed and hit a tipping point.
A report by McKinsey & Company said that by 2030, a moderate rate of automation could lead to 400 million jobs displaced by robots or 800 million at a fast rate. How are the masses of people going to live when the work they can get is low paying and part time? Another existential danger is climate change, which will bring rising seas, droughts and fires that will cause interrupted supply chains, damaged infrastructure and more expensive food. How are people to work when train tracks are flooded or fiber optic cables are damaged by higher tides?
Is the solution to the crisis-filled future stimulus bill after stimulus bill? How many are passed before a society stumbles into UBI? Without waiting for a catastrophe, some municipalities have begun experimenting with small-scale versions. The cities of Hamilton in Canada, Barcelona in Spain and Stockton in California led the way, and now nine mayors of U.S. cities from Los Angeles to Newark joined Mayors for a Guaranteed Income to push for pilot programs and share data.
“The pandemic exposed just how fragile the economic underpinnings of our society are,” said Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs. “COVID-19 has put us in the midst of another Great Depression which necessitates bold, New Deal-type investments in our people.”
The rest of the story:
One-Time Stimulus Checks Aren’t Good Enough. We Need Universal Basic Income by Nicholas Powers (Truthout)
Extra credit:
Which countries have experimented with basic income — and what were the results?: Everywhere basic income has been tried, in one map by Sigal Samuel (VOX)
Dear Joe, It's Mitch McConnell or Your Base. You Can't Have Both.
by Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News
Near the end of his well-crafted victory speech Saturday night, Joe Biden decried “the refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another.” He went on to say that “we can decide to cooperate. And I believe that this is part of the mandate from the American people. They want us to cooperate. That’s the choice I’ll make. And I call on the Congress – Democrats and Republicans alike – to make that choice with me.”
If Biden chooses to “cooperate” with Mitch McConnell, that choice is likely to set off a political war between the new administration and the Democratic Party’s progressive base.
After the election, citing “people familiar with the matter,” Axios reported that “Republicans’ likely hold on the Senate is forcing Joe Biden’s transition team to consider limiting its prospective Cabinet nominees to those who Mitch McConnell can live with.” Yet this spin flies in the face of usual procedures for Senate confirmation of Cabinet nominees.
“Traditionally, an incoming president is given wide berth to pick his desired team,” Axios noted. But “a source close to McConnell tells Axios a Republican Senate would work with Biden on centrist nominees but no ‘radical progressives’ or ones who are controversial with conservatives.... This political reality could result in Biden having a more centrist Cabinet. It also gives Biden a ready excuse to reject left-of-center candidates, like Senators Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, who have the enthusiastic backing of progressives.”
Let’s be clear: The extent to which Biden goes along with such a scenario of craven capitulation will be the extent to which he has shafted progressives before his presidency has even begun.
And let’s be clear about something else: Biden doesn’t have to defer to Mitch McConnell on Cabinet appointees. Biden has powerful leverage – if he wants to use it. As outlined in a memo released days ago by Demand Progress and the Revolving Door Project, “President Biden will be under no obligation to hand Mitch McConnell the keys to his Cabinet.”
The memo explains that Biden could fill his Cabinet by using the Vacancies Act – which “provides an indisputably legal channel to fill Senate-confirmed positions on a temporary basis when confirmations are delayed.”
In addition, “Biden can adjourn Congress and make recess appointments” – since Article II Section 3 of the Constitution “gives the President the power to adjourn Congress ‘to such time as he shall think proper’ whenever the House and Senate disagree on adjournment” – and after 10 days of recess, Biden could appoint Cabinet members.
In other words, if there’s a political will, there would be ways to overcome the anti-democratic obstructionism of Mitch McConnell. But does Biden really have the political will?
McConnell is the foremost practitioner of ruthless right-wing hardball on Capitol Hill. During the last two administrations, the Senate’s majority leader has done enormous damage to democracy and the lives of many millions of people. Why in the hell should Biden be vowing to cooperate with the likes of McConnell?
Eighteen months ago, campaigning in New Hampshire, Biden proclaimed: “The thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House. Not a joke. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends.”
It was an absurd statement back then. Now, it’s an ominous one.
Anyone who’s expecting an epiphany from McConnell after Trump leaves the White House is ignoring how the Senate majority leader behaved before Trump was in the White House – doing things like refusing to allow any Senate consideration of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland during the last 10 months of the Obama administration.
McConnell has made it crystal clear that he’s a no-holds-barred ideologue who’ll stoop as low as he can to thwart democracy and social progress. Cooperating with him would be either a fool’s errand or an exercise in capitulation. And, when it comes to Congressional workings, Biden is no fool.
Yes, Republicans are likely to have a Senate majority for at least the next two years. But President Biden will have a profound choice: to either fight them or “cooperate” with them. If Biden’s idea of the art of the deal is to shaft progressives, he and Kamala Harris are going to have a colossal party insurrection on their hands.
The young voters and African-American voters who were largely responsible for Biden’s win did not turn out in such big numbers so he could turn around and cave in to the same extremist Republican Party that propelled much of their enthusiasm for voting Biden in the first place. Overall, as polling has made clear, it was abhorrence of Trump – more than enthusiasm for Biden – that captivated Biden voters.
A CNBC poll, released last week, found that 54 percent of swing-state Biden voters “said they are primarily voting against Trump” rather than in favor of Biden. For Biden to embark on his presidency by collaborating with the party of Trump would be more than tone-deaf. It would be a refusal to put up a fight against the very forces that so many Biden voters were highly motivated to defeat.
Progressives are disgusted when Democratic leaders set out to ask Republicans for part of a loaf and end up getting crumbs. If Joe Biden is willing to toss aside the progressive base of his own party in order to cooperate with the likes of Mitch McConnell, the new president will be starting a fierce civil war inside his own party.
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books, including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California for the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
This essay first appeared in Reader Supported News.
Near the end of his well-crafted victory speech Saturday night, Joe Biden decried “the refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another.” He went on to say that “we can decide to cooperate. And I believe that this is part of the mandate from the American people. They want us to cooperate. That’s the choice I’ll make. And I call on the Congress – Democrats and Republicans alike – to make that choice with me.”
If Biden chooses to “cooperate” with Mitch McConnell, that choice is likely to set off a political war between the new administration and the Democratic Party’s progressive base.
After the election, citing “people familiar with the matter,” Axios reported that “Republicans’ likely hold on the Senate is forcing Joe Biden’s transition team to consider limiting its prospective Cabinet nominees to those who Mitch McConnell can live with.” Yet this spin flies in the face of usual procedures for Senate confirmation of Cabinet nominees.
“Traditionally, an incoming president is given wide berth to pick his desired team,” Axios noted. But “a source close to McConnell tells Axios a Republican Senate would work with Biden on centrist nominees but no ‘radical progressives’ or ones who are controversial with conservatives.... This political reality could result in Biden having a more centrist Cabinet. It also gives Biden a ready excuse to reject left-of-center candidates, like Senators Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, who have the enthusiastic backing of progressives.”
Let’s be clear: The extent to which Biden goes along with such a scenario of craven capitulation will be the extent to which he has shafted progressives before his presidency has even begun.
And let’s be clear about something else: Biden doesn’t have to defer to Mitch McConnell on Cabinet appointees. Biden has powerful leverage – if he wants to use it. As outlined in a memo released days ago by Demand Progress and the Revolving Door Project, “President Biden will be under no obligation to hand Mitch McConnell the keys to his Cabinet.”
The memo explains that Biden could fill his Cabinet by using the Vacancies Act – which “provides an indisputably legal channel to fill Senate-confirmed positions on a temporary basis when confirmations are delayed.”
In addition, “Biden can adjourn Congress and make recess appointments” – since Article II Section 3 of the Constitution “gives the President the power to adjourn Congress ‘to such time as he shall think proper’ whenever the House and Senate disagree on adjournment” – and after 10 days of recess, Biden could appoint Cabinet members.
In other words, if there’s a political will, there would be ways to overcome the anti-democratic obstructionism of Mitch McConnell. But does Biden really have the political will?
McConnell is the foremost practitioner of ruthless right-wing hardball on Capitol Hill. During the last two administrations, the Senate’s majority leader has done enormous damage to democracy and the lives of many millions of people. Why in the hell should Biden be vowing to cooperate with the likes of McConnell?
Eighteen months ago, campaigning in New Hampshire, Biden proclaimed: “The thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House. Not a joke. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends.”
It was an absurd statement back then. Now, it’s an ominous one.
Anyone who’s expecting an epiphany from McConnell after Trump leaves the White House is ignoring how the Senate majority leader behaved before Trump was in the White House – doing things like refusing to allow any Senate consideration of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland during the last 10 months of the Obama administration.
McConnell has made it crystal clear that he’s a no-holds-barred ideologue who’ll stoop as low as he can to thwart democracy and social progress. Cooperating with him would be either a fool’s errand or an exercise in capitulation. And, when it comes to Congressional workings, Biden is no fool.
Yes, Republicans are likely to have a Senate majority for at least the next two years. But President Biden will have a profound choice: to either fight them or “cooperate” with them. If Biden’s idea of the art of the deal is to shaft progressives, he and Kamala Harris are going to have a colossal party insurrection on their hands.
The young voters and African-American voters who were largely responsible for Biden’s win did not turn out in such big numbers so he could turn around and cave in to the same extremist Republican Party that propelled much of their enthusiasm for voting Biden in the first place. Overall, as polling has made clear, it was abhorrence of Trump – more than enthusiasm for Biden – that captivated Biden voters.
A CNBC poll, released last week, found that 54 percent of swing-state Biden voters “said they are primarily voting against Trump” rather than in favor of Biden. For Biden to embark on his presidency by collaborating with the party of Trump would be more than tone-deaf. It would be a refusal to put up a fight against the very forces that so many Biden voters were highly motivated to defeat.
Progressives are disgusted when Democratic leaders set out to ask Republicans for part of a loaf and end up getting crumbs. If Joe Biden is willing to toss aside the progressive base of his own party in order to cooperate with the likes of Mitch McConnell, the new president will be starting a fierce civil war inside his own party.
-30-
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books, including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California for the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
This essay first appeared in Reader Supported News.
Where are James Comey and the Russians when you need 'em?
"Apart from barely squeezing through the swing states to defeat corrupt, incompetent, lying, corporatist Donald Trump, the Democratic Party had a bad election.
"Loaded with nearly twice as much money as the Republican Party, the Democratic Party showed that weak candidates with no robust agendas for people where they live, work, and raise their families, is a losing formula. And lose they did against the worst, cruelest, ignorant, lawbreaking, reality-denying GOP in its 166-year history.
"The Democrats failed to win the Senate, despite nearly having twice the number of Senators up for re-election than the Republicans. In addition, the Democratic Party lost seats in the House of Representatives. The Democrats did not flip a single Republican state legislature, leaving the GOP to again gerrymander Congressional and state legislative districts for the next decade!
"Will all this lead to serious introspection by the Democratic Party? Don’t bet on it. The GOP tried to learn from their losses in 2012, which led to their big rebound. Already, the Democratic Party is looking for scapegoats, like third party candidates."
The rest of the story:
Loaded with nearly twice as much money as the GOP, the Democrats showed that weak candidates with no robust agendas for people where they live, work, and raise their families, is a losing formula: Biden Has Ousted a Lying and Corrupt Trump—But That Doesn't Mean Democrats Had a Great Election Day by Ralph Nader (Common Dreams)
"Loaded with nearly twice as much money as the Republican Party, the Democratic Party showed that weak candidates with no robust agendas for people where they live, work, and raise their families, is a losing formula. And lose they did against the worst, cruelest, ignorant, lawbreaking, reality-denying GOP in its 166-year history.
"The Democrats failed to win the Senate, despite nearly having twice the number of Senators up for re-election than the Republicans. In addition, the Democratic Party lost seats in the House of Representatives. The Democrats did not flip a single Republican state legislature, leaving the GOP to again gerrymander Congressional and state legislative districts for the next decade!
"Will all this lead to serious introspection by the Democratic Party? Don’t bet on it. The GOP tried to learn from their losses in 2012, which led to their big rebound. Already, the Democratic Party is looking for scapegoats, like third party candidates."
The rest of the story:
Loaded with nearly twice as much money as the GOP, the Democrats showed that weak candidates with no robust agendas for people where they live, work, and raise their families, is a losing formula: Biden Has Ousted a Lying and Corrupt Trump—But That Doesn't Mean Democrats Had a Great Election Day by Ralph Nader (Common Dreams)
Music Break
In my Chicago days, the soulful pianist John Wright, who never broke through as a natonal star despite four or five albums on Prestige, was a club mainstay, worth a drive or a train ride anytime he played.
Full Court Press
A letter to the editor of the London Review of Books:
Frederick Wilmot-Smith writes about prospects for the Supreme Court in the wake of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death (RBG’s Big Mistake, LRB, 8 October). The immediate worry is that the radical conservatives on the court will now decide that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional and overturn Roe v. Wade. But this is only the beginning. Republicans have been packing the federal judiciary for decades with judges who can be counted on to undermine the power of government in order to advance the agenda of the Republican Party.
Congress should enact laws overriding anti-democratic decisions made by the Supreme Court and codifying the rights of the people. It could, for example, pass a National Voting Rights Act giving every citizen over the age of 18 the right to vote, requiring uniform voting procedures for every state and every election, making each federal election day a national holiday, controlling partisan gerrymandering, extending the time available to complete the 2020 census, and putting in place procedures to protect the voting process. It could also pass a National Policing Code to establish uniform policing procedures and standards throughout the US, and to guarantee every person in the country fair treatment by the police; a National Gun Control Act that would implement reasonable regulations for gun ownership and usage, and ban automatic weapons; a National Marriage Act, guaranteeing the right of two people to marry in every state; and a National Reproductive Rights Act.(Emphasis mine - JG)
All of these could be ruled unconstitutional by activist conservative justices on the grounds that Congress does not have the power to enact such laws. Many incorrectly believe that it would be necessary to amend the constitution in order to change the balance of power between Congress and the Supreme Court. Congress, however, has at its disposal many methods, expressly authorized by the constitution, that would enable it to confront the court, including restructuring the federal judiciary and limiting the types of case that may be heard by the courts. Perhaps the most important tool is the assertion of its own power to interpret the constitution, particularly under the post-Civil War 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. Each of these expressly grants Congress ‘the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article’.
If the Democrats win an emphatic victory in November and then Congress takes strong action to define and enforce the rights of the people, some fear that the Republican Party will just undo or counteract those actions when they return to power. To that I say, don’t be afraid. Once rights are granted to the people, whether by the judiciary or Congress, they do not willingly give them up. Living in a democracy requires every generation to fight for its rights.
Ray Kwasnick
Boston, Massachusetts
Frederick Wilmot-Smith writes about prospects for the Supreme Court in the wake of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death (RBG’s Big Mistake, LRB, 8 October). The immediate worry is that the radical conservatives on the court will now decide that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional and overturn Roe v. Wade. But this is only the beginning. Republicans have been packing the federal judiciary for decades with judges who can be counted on to undermine the power of government in order to advance the agenda of the Republican Party.
Congress should enact laws overriding anti-democratic decisions made by the Supreme Court and codifying the rights of the people. It could, for example, pass a National Voting Rights Act giving every citizen over the age of 18 the right to vote, requiring uniform voting procedures for every state and every election, making each federal election day a national holiday, controlling partisan gerrymandering, extending the time available to complete the 2020 census, and putting in place procedures to protect the voting process. It could also pass a National Policing Code to establish uniform policing procedures and standards throughout the US, and to guarantee every person in the country fair treatment by the police; a National Gun Control Act that would implement reasonable regulations for gun ownership and usage, and ban automatic weapons; a National Marriage Act, guaranteeing the right of two people to marry in every state; and a National Reproductive Rights Act.(Emphasis mine - JG)
All of these could be ruled unconstitutional by activist conservative justices on the grounds that Congress does not have the power to enact such laws. Many incorrectly believe that it would be necessary to amend the constitution in order to change the balance of power between Congress and the Supreme Court. Congress, however, has at its disposal many methods, expressly authorized by the constitution, that would enable it to confront the court, including restructuring the federal judiciary and limiting the types of case that may be heard by the courts. Perhaps the most important tool is the assertion of its own power to interpret the constitution, particularly under the post-Civil War 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. Each of these expressly grants Congress ‘the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article’.
If the Democrats win an emphatic victory in November and then Congress takes strong action to define and enforce the rights of the people, some fear that the Republican Party will just undo or counteract those actions when they return to power. To that I say, don’t be afraid. Once rights are granted to the people, whether by the judiciary or Congress, they do not willingly give them up. Living in a democracy requires every generation to fight for its rights.
Ray Kwasnick
Boston, Massachusetts
Seven? Eight? Ten?
Who's counting?
Certainly not Aaron Sorkin.
Sidebar:
✓ Was Bobby Seale really bound and gagged in court? Did the anti-war activists actually dress up in police uniforms? We break down Aaron Sorkin’s new movie: What’s Fact and What’s Fiction in The Trial of the Chicago 7 by Matthew Dessem (Slate)
Certainly not Aaron Sorkin.
Sidebar:
✓ Was Bobby Seale really bound and gagged in court? Did the anti-war activists actually dress up in police uniforms? We break down Aaron Sorkin’s new movie: What’s Fact and What’s Fiction in The Trial of the Chicago 7 by Matthew Dessem (Slate)
✓ Sorkin’s film plays fast and loose with characters and facts, but he got one thing right: Retrying the Chicago Seven by Todd Gitlin (American Prospect)
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