Reform: Four Smart State Laws Set to Move in 2012

Congress may be deadlocked, but practical, popular solutions are gaining momentum at the state level.

by Charles Monaco (Yes! 2012-01-13)

In the year since conservatives took control of the U.S. House of Representatives and legislative bodies in states across the nation, we’ve seen them move their agenda with alarming disregard for both democracy and the economic security of the nation. From the irresponsibly provoked debt ceiling “crisis” to the wholesale obstruction of job creation efforts, conservatives on the national stage took an approach of reckless political brinksmanship over the past year that put the entire economy at risk. And from Wisconsin to Alabama and beyond, 2011 saw conservatives in the states—buoyed by support from their corporate allies in the 1%—launch attack after attack on workers, women, voters, and immigrants.

But the new year brings new hope for progressives looking to turn the tide—hope that, for the time being, largely resides not in the halls of Congress but in the 50 states. Elections in every corner of the country last November—from Arizona to Maine to Ohio—saw voters decisively reject a range of right-wing legislative attacks. The shady practice of corporations writing state laws to benefit their own bottom lines (through organizations such as the American Legislative Exchange Council) has been subject to an increasing amount of sunlight and public attention. And the public sentiment behind the explosive growth of the Occupy movement last fall has remained, even as many physical occupations have been forcibly dismantled. On issue after issue, public opinion remains firmly in favor of policies that will begin to address the needs of the 99 percent.

While progressives in the states will be focused on a range of economic priorities, here are four specific policies that state lawmakers are advancing in 2012 that are practical, popular, and are set to gain real momentum as new legislative sessions kick off starting this month:

1. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: Proposals that Can Pass in Red and Blue States Alike:

When President Obama introduced the American Jobs Act last fall, he included in it a handful of elements that had already been passed with bipartisan support—and proven successful—in many states. These included the banning of employer discrimination against the long-term unemployed, saving jobs by allowing work-sharing as part of unemployment insurance programs, and requiring that states “Buy American” in their contracting practices in order to create jobs here at home. These measures have shown both that they work and that they can pass even in conservative-controlled chambers.

Public opinion remains firmly in favor of policies that will begin to address the needs of the 99 percent.

In 2011, New Jersey passed a bill prohibiting employers from discriminating against job applicants based on their current employment status, and similar bills are set to move across the nation in 2012. Likewise, work-sharing—a pro-worker measure currently in place in 23 states that allows workers to keep their jobs and gives employers flexibility to weather a downturn by allowing workers to earn partial UI benefits while working part-time—passed in states, including Pennsylvania and Maine, with conservative legislatures. And “Buy American” provisions are also set to move in a slew of states (such as Nebraska) this year.

2. Creating State Banks to Foster Local Economic Growth:

With revenue and budget crises certain to be in the headlines once again in many states in 2012, lawmakers are increasingly looking towards structural changes that will ensure they can rebuild and sustain prosperity—even as conservatives once again look to cut much needed public services to the bone.

While demanding corporate transparency and accountability—and requiring that the 1 percent and corporations pay their fair share in taxes—will continue to be a priority for progressive state lawmakers in 2012, they will also be attempting to capitalize on widespread public frustration with big banks by proposing the creation of state development banks similar to the one in place for over 90 years in North Dakota. The creation of state banks would allow states to invest dollars in their local communities rather than line the pockets of Wall Street CEOs. Additionally, according to one study, state banks have the potential to close some current state deficits by anywhere from 10 - 20 percent. The measure will be hotly debated in Oregon this year, where it has the potential to pass, and introduced in many other states as well.

3. Restoring the Minimum Wage to Grow the Economy:

One of the simplest ways for states to jumpstart their economies and address the needs of the 99 percent—all without increasing spending—is through restoring the minimum wage. Studies have shown that raising the minimum wage provides a direct boost to economies by giving lower-income workers more purchasing power.

The basic principle that no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty clearly resonates with the public.

While proposals are under consideration in many states, including New York and Missouri, perhaps the most exciting development is in Illinois, where legislation is under consideration that would restore the minimum wage to its historic 1968 value: $10.50 per hour, after adjusting for inflation. Other states are considering measures that would index the minimum wage so that it rises with inflation, or to boost it by lower amounts. In 8 states, automatic increases took effect on January 1st, providing much needed economic stimulus; in Washington, the rate is now at $9 an hour.

Regardless of the specific proposals, raising the minimum wage has proven incredibly popular, with approval for the policy ranging from 75 to 90 percent in recent polls. The basic principle that no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty clearly resonates with the public, and bodes well for continuing efforts to raise the minimum wage and grow state economies in 2012.

4. Rejecting Arizona’s Immigration Approach, Businesses Line Up Behind Tuition Equity

After Arizona enacted SB1070, its controversial “show me your papers bill,” in the summer of 2010, conventional wisdom had it that states would be lining up to copy this destructive, enforcement-only approach to immigration. Prominent copycat bills in states like Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina notwithstanding, the vast majority of states have rejected similar bills. This widespread rejection has been due in no small part to the efforts of the business community, which is acutely aware that the deep economic pain and social upheaval that has accompanied the passage of SB1070 copycats is simply not good for business, or for a state’s economic prospects.

Over the last two years, states have increasingly turned towards common-sense legislation that welcomes the economic contributions of (and taxes paid by) immigrants and non-immigrants alike. One of the chief ways they are doing so is by advancing tuition equity measures. Already enacted in 14 states, these laws allow talented undocumented students to attend state universities and colleges at the same tuition rate as their U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident classmates. Many are on the agenda again in 2012, including in Colorado, Hawaii, and New Mexico. Colorado State Sen. Mike Johnston, a former high school principal, reflected on the reason such laws see growing support: “Colorado’s future depends on forward-thinking approaches to immigration—ones that focus on nurturing talented youth and putting our tax dollars to better use than destroying immigrant families.”
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Charles Monaco wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Charles is director of Communications and New Media with the Progressive States Network.

This article is reprinted under the the Creative Commons license.

The Financial Mess: Self-regulation is a joke

Damage from the bursting of the housing bubble was vastly compounded by an industry-wide conspiracy of Wall Street bankers to create a market for worthless financial products, in particular collections of mortgage bonds known as collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs.

According to the non-profit investigative news organization ProPublica, when faced with increasing difficulty in selling the mortgage-backed securities that had been among their most lucrative products, the banks -- primarily Merrill Lynch, but also Citigroup, UBS and others -- "hit on a solution that preserved their quarterly earnings and huge bonuses: They created fake demand," buying and trading their own products to crank up an assembly line that in a prudently regulated economy would have been flagged to a stop.

As the housing boom began to slow in mid-2006, investors became skittish about the riskier parts of those investments. So the banks created -- and ultimately provided most of the money for -- new CDOs. Those new CDOs bought the hard-to-sell pieces of the original CDOs. The result was a daisy chain that solved one problem but created another: Each new CDO had its own risky pieces. Banks created yet other CDOs to buy those.

Individual instances of these questionable trades have been reported before, but ProPublica's investigation, done in partnership with NPR's Planet Money, shows that by late 2006 they had become common industry practice.

In the last years of the boom, CDOs had become the dominant purchaser of CDOs and CDO slices, in deals organized by the banks themselves that largely replaced legitimate investors like pension funds. For example, "[i]n the last two years of the boom, nearly half of all CDOs sponsored by market leader Merrill Lynch bought significant portions of other Merrill CDOs."

ProPublica also found 85 instances during 2006 and 2007 in which two CDOs bought pieces of each other's unsold inventory. These trades, which involved $107 billion worth of CDOs, underscore the extent to which the market lacked real buyers. Often the CDOs that swapped purchases closed within days of each other, the analysis shows.

There were supposed to be protections against this sort of double dealing, of course. The CDOs were overseen by managers who, though selected by the banks, were legally bound to protect the interests of the CDOs. Paid by the CDOs, not the banks, the "independent" managers were supposed to serve as a bulwark against self-dealing by the financial institutions, the only ones with even an inkling of how the complex and virtually unregulated mortgage bonds worked.

It rarely worked out that way. The managers were beholden to the banks that sent them the business. On a billion-dollar deal, managers could earn a million dollars in fees, with little risk. Some small firms did several billion dollars of CDOs in a matter of months.

Unfortunately for us, nothing in the Wall Street-dominated federal financial reforms will prevent it from happening again. What a laugh.

The rest of the story: Banks’ Self-Dealing Super-Charged Financial Crisis by Jake Bernstein and Jesse Eisinger (ProPublica 2010-08-27).

See, also: Wall Street's Big Win by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone 2010-08-04); Misnamed Financial Services “Reform” Bill Passes, Systemic Risk is Alive and Well by Yves Smith (Naked Capitalism 2010-07-26).

Clip File: the next Big Fight in Congress will be over the proposed creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency

"...The House Financial Services Committee hopes to approve the CFPA the week after next. On Wednesday, the committee held a hearing to discuss Chairman Barney Frank's draft proposal. The best case for a CFPA was made by those offering their reasons for opposing it.

"Those arguments ranged from the bizarre: 'If [this] had been in effect a number of years ago we probably wouldn't have ATM machines, frequent flyer miles, and the list goes on,' said Texas Congressman Jeb Hensarling. Ranking Member Spencer Bachus of Alabama claimed that the CFPA would lead to 'less consumer protection.'

"To the inane: 'Could you clarify to me the extent of [SEIU's] financial and programmatic ties to ACORN?' Congressman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina demanded of witness Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union. David John, senior research fellow, at the Heritage Foundation, said, 'When you establish a new agency of this type... you're going to find yourself with people who are supposedly regulating but in reality they're far more concerned about finding things like where their desk is, and who their new reporting relationship is, etc., etc.'" -- Do They Take Us for Schmucks? by Greg Kaufmann (The Nation 2009-10-02

The Fed: Geithner wants to let the fox run the henhouse

A New Way Forward is a citizens' action group formed last spring that aims to transform the public's relationship to the monetary and economic policies that govern our lives by pushing for structural reform of the financial industry. They

demand an end to taxpayer bailouts without solutions for working-class America; policies that address the problem of too big to fail; reorganization so that the financial elite who managed us into this crisis are not in charge as we try to fix it, and we believe banks should be broken up — decentralized — and sold back to the private market with strong new regulatory and antitrust rules in place.

To keep your irritation with the bailout finely tuned, watch this video of the Federal Reserve's so-called internal watchdog being questioned by Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida. Like Mafia bookmakers, the nation's bookkeepers are apparently determined not to leave a paper trail, claiming to have no clue where the trillions of dollars in public money they have transferred to private hands have actually gone. $9 trillion in Fed off-balance sheet transactions this year? Don't know. Lost from the Fed's $2 trillion portfolio? Can't say. The Congress not only needs to get back the $ trillions. They should ask these hacks to return whatever they've been overpaid for not doing their jobs.

"I am shocked," Grayson tells the committee chairman, "to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve is keeping track of anything." He's shocked. How about you?

A New Way Forward has a petition to back up efforts of reformers in Congress to block the plan by Obama's treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, to expand the Fed's control over the banking system:

Let's get at the root problems of the crisis. The seat of power, the Federal Reserve, is corrupt. With the banks, the Fed co-founded the biggest crash since the Great Depression. The banks have become political giants on the backs of working America, receiving trillions of dollars they don't deserve. Do we want the banks to continue to watch over themselves? To restore our economy for all, we demand the Fed stop operating in secret and Geithner drop his attempts at giving the Fed new powers to be the "supercop."

It's time to break up the big banks.  If an industry is too big to fail, it's too big to exist. A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.  Old Ev must be turning in his grave.

Clip File: Old Banks, New Lending Tricks

Lenders haven't sworn off risky financial products. They've come up with a slew of new ones (Business Week).

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