Beginning on June 2nd, Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) moved to Wednesdays at 11AM on KPFT HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:
- Live online at KPFT.org
- Podcast on your phone’s Podcast App
- Visiting Archive.KPFT.ORG
Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig on 90.1 KPFT- HD2, Where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories.
My co-host and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.
Listen live on the radio, or on the internet from anywhere in the world! Please take a moment to visit Pledge.KPFT.org and choose THINKWING RADIO from the drop-down list when you donate.
For the purposes of this show, I operate on two mottoes:
- An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
- You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
“There’s a reason why you separate military and police. One fights the enemy of the State. The other serves and protects the People. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the State tend t become the People.” ~ Commander Adama, “Battlestar Galactica” (“WATER”, Season 1 episode 2, at the 28 minute mark.)
POSSIBLE TOPICS: Voting info; Bellaire City Council considers new Church of Christ parking lot; HISD approves $2,500 pay raise for teachers with another bump possibly coming in August; Cy-Fair ISD proposes employee pay raises in FY 2021-22 budget; Texas Supreme Court declines to review high-speed rail case, freeing company up to use eminent domain; Gov. Greg Abbott vetoes criminal justice bills, legislation to protect dogs, teach kids about domestic violence; Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sets July 8 date for special legislative session on voting bill, other issues; Texas congressional Democrats propose bill to let local governments expand Medicaid without state consent; NYC Democratic mayoral primary to proceed to ranked-choice counting after no candidate wins majority outright, CNN projects; Buffalo’s Walton on verge of becoming first big city socialist mayor in 60 years; The Federal Reserve chair says the United States needs ‘more inclusive prosperity.’; More
Pledge to support KPFT by Text: Listeners can now text “GIVE” to 713-526-5738 and they’ll receive a text message back with a link to KPFT’s donation page, with which they can make their pledge on-line at their convenience.
- Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter InformationTEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
-
- Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2021
- Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
- GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
- Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX) <– UPDATED LINK
- Montgomery County (TX) Elections
- Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
- Waller County (TX) Elections
- Chambers County (TX) Elections
- For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG. Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
- If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
- HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting CentersHARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
-
- Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
- A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
- Current utility bill
- Bank statement
- Government check
- Paycheck
- A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
- You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
- Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
- Sick or disabled;
- 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
- Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
- Make sure you are registered:
- Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
- CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
- CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
- Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
-
-
- As always, be sure you’re registered to vote, and VOTE! (And try not to let these off-off-off elections sneak past you. Constant vigilance is required.)
- Bellaire City Council considers new Church of Christ parking lot; By Hunter Marrow | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 12:45 PM, Jun 22, 2021 CDT | Updated 12:45 PM Jun 22, 2021 CDT
- The Bellaire City Council is considering a specific use permit that will give the Bellaire Church of Christ the green light to construct additional church parking on the northern portion of 8001 South Rice Ave.
- The deliberation on the lot comes not only as Bellaire Church of Christ looks to expand its parking from 70 spaces to 102 spaces—a necessity for the church that would help it meet a 100-space minimum required by the city’s zoning ordinances—but also as it looks to construct a new building. …
- According to church officials, however, building a lot to meet the needs of its growing congregation was the priority; coming into compliance with the city code was a bonus. …
- The move to build a new parking lot, which was formerly located at 7911 South Rice Ave., is multifaceted. Not only would the church work to construct the lot, but it would also install an underground water detention and drainage system that covers 50% of the lot and 30% of an acre to help offset drainage concerns caused by the additional lot coverage, according to the agenda report.
- Should the specific use permit be approved, the church would then remove a portion of its parking lot located at 1012 Pauline St. within 90 days of constructing the new parking lot and sell the property for single-family residential use in order to help defray the purchase cost of the land where the new parking lot will go.
- A petition in opposition to the specific use permit has been signed by several homeowners surrounding the church property. The petition has been reviewed and validated by city staff.
- Council members Catherine Lewis and Jim Hotze raised questions about why those neighbors were concerned. Lewis, specifically, requested access to the petition in order to not only see those concerns, but also to identify those neighbors.
- [Council members Catherine Lewis said,] “The one thing I would ask is: Those who signed the written protest, did they know that the church was giving up that Pauline parking lot? … I don’t even know if they knew.”
- Because of the written protest, in order for the specific use permit to be approved, a minimum of six of the seven-member city council will be required to vote favorably, as opposed to a simple majority.
- July 19 is the anticipated date of deliberation for the permit.
- DISCUSSION: Church/State interface; Conversion of Church property (old parking lot) to tax-paying residential; If someone signs a petition, it becomes a pubic document (John Doe No. 1, John Doe No. 2 and Protect Marriage Washington v. Sam Reed. SCOTUS 2010), but is it troubling, and perhaps chilling, that a City Council member wants to specifically identify the signers?
- ANDREW: Far as I can tell, unavoidable interaction of church and state, not necessarily interface. Unavoidable as long as you want churches to follow zoning laws; Land gets reused for different purposes all the time; Knowing data about petition signers helps local governments know how broad the appeal of an idea is. Perhaps knowing names– or any information that could be used to identify a person or group who are particularly passionate or have a very specific problem– is a bit much, though.
- HISD approves $2,500 pay raise for teachers with another bump possibly coming in August; By Shawn Arrajj | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 1:01 PM Jun 12, 2021 CDT | Updated 11:01 AM Jun 16, 2021 CDT
- The Houston ISD board of education approved a $2.2 billion budget at its June 10 meeting, including a $2,500 raise for the roughly 12,000 employees on its teacher salary schedule. That raise could be boosted further at the board’s Aug. 12 meeting.
- The move passed unanimously, but only after board member Elizabeth Santos initially called for a $5,000 raise, an amount that Chief Financial Officer Glenn Reed said could put the district in a challenging position with regard to its reserve funding. Though not required by law, the Houston ISD board follows a policy requiring the district to keep at least three months’ worth of operating revenue—or roughly $469 million—in its unassigned reserve fund at all times in case of emergency.
- The budget amendment from Santos was itself amended by Trustee Anne Sung, who lowered the amount to $2,500 and required the district’s budget staff to come back at its August meeting with a recommendation on whether teachers should get an additional boost. …
- Santos said she called for the raise because she believed it was time for the district to bring its teacher salaries up to make them more competitive with surrounding districts. HISD teachers were paid a competitive starting salary of $54,369 in the 2020-21 school year, according to district information. By contract, starting teacher salaries in Cy-Fair ISD, Katy ISD and Spring Branch ISD were $56,000, $55,525 and $58,000, respectively.
- MIKE: You get the government (and government employees) you pay for.
- … [Also,] The tax rate in the budget is slated to be a maximum of $1.1284 per $100 of property valuation, down from last year’s $1.1331, according to a press release from the district. However, the district will not adopt a tax rate until later in the year, after appraisal values are confirmed by the Harris County Appraisal District.
- The district is projecting an enrollment of roughly 197,000 students in the 2021-22 year, down about 10,000 students from the previous year, Reed said. The district will pay about $213 million in recapture payments back to the state.
- Cy-Fair ISD proposes employee pay raises in FY 2021-22 budget; By Emily Jaroszewski | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 2:56 PM, Jun 22, 2021 CDT | Updated 2:56 PM Jun 22, 2021 CDT
- Cy-Fair ISD board members are considering 3% pay raises for employees districtwide and increasing starting teacher salaries from $56,000 to $58,000 in the fiscal year 2021-22 budget. …
- CFISD teachers, including Donna Lord, Cy-Fair Texas State Teachers Association president, said the fiscal year 2020-21 salary is not enough considering what teachers have had to work through in the pandemic. She said the district increased work days by 15 minutes in 2020-21, equating to 47 additional hours by the end of the school year, with no additional compensation.
- “You are exploiting your teaching staff,” she said at the meeting. “It’s time to step up and show us the respect we deserve.”
- ANDREW: Pay teachers. Fund learning materials. Raise taxes if you have to, but for God’s sake, let these poor folks have a proper meal for once, and not have to buy their own classroom crayons. Lord is right that they’re being exploited, although they’ll still be being exploited no matter how well they’re paid, because labor is entitled to all it creates, but profit is made by taking what labor creates away from labor. That will still happen. Still, though, increased pay will improve teachers’ material conditions and put them in a better bargaining (and maybe even overthrowing!) position. So, again, pay teachers.
- Texas Supreme Court declines to review high-speed rail case, freeing company up to use eminent domain; By Shawn Arrajj | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 5:01 PM, Jun 18, 2021 CDT | Updated 4:26 PM Jun 21, 2021 CDT
- Texas Central, the company looking to build a 236-mile high-speed rail line connecting Houston and Dallas, has been given a big win in an ongoing legal battle over whether the company is legally recognized as a “railroad company” under state law.
- The Texas Supreme Court denied the review of a case June 18 that was part of a legal challenge first launched by landowners Jim and Barbara Miles in 2016. The decision frees up Texas Central to use eminent domain, if necessary, to acquire tracts of land needed to construct the project.
- “The Court’s denial of review should put an end to over five years of contentious litigation and clear the path for Texas Central to bring the high-speed train to Texas,” Texas Central CEO Carlos Aguilar said in a statement.
- Jim Miles and his team won a trial court case in 2019 arguing that Texas Central is not operating a railroad because it does not own any trains and has not constructed any tracks, among other issues. That decision was reversed in an appeals court last May, which ruled that Texas Central was a railroad company and an interurban electric railway.
- In a statement, opposition group Texas Against High Speed Rail said they were disappointed in the Texas Supreme Court’s denial of review and that Jim and Barbara Miles would be filing a motion for a rehearing.
- Officials with Texas Central have previously said eminent domain would only be used as a last resort. However, Miles and other landowners along the route have refused to sell to the company, meaning eminent domain could end up coming into play. …
- DISCUSS: High Speed Rail: Benefit/Drawbacks; Eminent Domain.
- ANDREW: Train good, car bad, but not if train environmentally and/or socially destructive, and I don’t trust a private company to care about the environment or communities, so how about we all agree to keep a close eye on this one, huh?; Eminent domain is misused all the damn time by police who see something in a suspect’s car and go “mine now”, but I recognize that sometimes individual property should be given up for public good. I just think we should consider limiting it to private property (land, machines, means of production) for infrastructure purposes rather than personal property (your toothbrush) for any purposes.
- Greg Abbott vetoes criminal justice bills, legislation to protect dogs, teach kids about domestic violence; Abbott vetoed 13 bills authored by Democrats and seven by Republicans. Twelve of the vetoes targeted bills that originated in the House, and eight were from the Senate. by Heidi Pérez-Moreno and Farah Eltohamy | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | June 21, 2021 Updated: 10 hours ago
- [Abbotts veto explanations are not included in these excerpts but can be found in the linked article.]
- … His most explosive veto came Friday when he signed the state budget but used his line-item veto to reject funding for the Texas Legislature, its staffers and legislative agencies. The move was retribution after Democrats broke quorum in the final days of the session to block the passage of Senate Bill 7, a GOP elections bill that would have overhauled voting rights in the state. Abbott‘s office declined comment for this story.
- Among the bills Abbott vetoed over the weekend was House Bill 686, which would have allowed for earlier parole eligibility for inmates convicted of certain crimes if they were younger than 18 years old when the crime was committed. The bill would have required parole panels to consider the inmate’s age and mental state at the time of the crime, among other factors, when determining parole eligibility.
- HB 686 was authored by Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, and included in Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan’s bipartisan criminal justice priority package called “Smarter Justice, Safer Texas.” …
- Another House criminal justice priority bill vetoed was Senate Bill 281 by state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, which called for the ban on using statements obtained through hypnosis in a criminal court. If passed, the bill would have helped bring an end to a controversial practice that law enforcement in Texas used close to 1,800 times over the course of 40 years, according to a Dallas Morning News investigation. …
- Another bill that fell victim to Abbott’s veto was Senate Bill 474, known as the Safe Outdoor Dogs Act. The bill would have made it illegal to chain up dogs and leave them without drinkable water, adequate shade or shelter. It also called for a ban on tethering dogs with heavy chains.
- “I’m disappointed in the governor,” said Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville. “I don’t agree with everything [Abbott] does, but I respect him when it comes to quality of life and protecting life. I want to include dogs in that issue.”
- Abbott said Texas already has the statutes in place to protect dogs from animal cruelty, and the penalties proposed in Lucio’s bill seemed excessive. …
- A key issue of the legislative session was protecting and expanding broadband access particularly in rural Texas. House Bill 2667 would have provided universal service fund assistance for Texans.
- Abbott named broadband access as one of his priority items for the legislative session, but he shot down the bill, saying it would’ve imposed more taxes on Texans everywhere. …
- MIKE: You get the government you pay for. As a state, we need to support each of our citizens in certain things, even if it means taxing you for something that doesn’t (at some point in time) directly benefit you.
- “What a lot of people don’t understand is that there are still parts of Texas, including parts of the rural district that I represent, where you don’t have access to internet, some areas don’t have access to cell service and even some areas don’t have access to landline phones,” said state Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo. …
- Abbott also vetoed Senate Bill 1109, which would have required middle school and high school students to learn about child abuse prevention, family violence and dating violence. He said in his veto explanation that he opposed the legislation because it doesn’t give parents the option to opt out of instruction.
- He also vetoed Senate Bill 237, which would have reduced penalties for criminal trespassing by allowing police to “cite and release” individuals instead of arresting them. …
- All of Abbott’s veto statements that were released Monday are available here.
- MIKE: Let’s discuss the idea of a Line Item Veto by and executive (in this case, the governor).
- ANDREW: Line Item Veto is like the filibuster, in that it can be used to your benefit and to your detriment, depending on who has the power to use it. I like LIV because I think it makes for a more flexible legislative process, and reduces the chance that a bill the public likes will get torpedoed by an unreasonable rider. Just make sure that the legislature still has to sign off on the executive’s line-item-ed version.
- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sets July 8 date for special legislative session on voting bill, other issues; Abbott’s office did not specify what legislative priorities will be included on the special session agenda and said in an advisory that such items “will be announced prior to the convening of the special session.” by Cassandra Pollock | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | June 22, 2021 Updated: 2 hours ago
- Abbott’s office did not specify what legislative priorities will be included on the special session agenda and said in an advisory that such items “will be announced prior to the convening of the special session.”
- Abbott has already said that he plans to ask state lawmakers to work on two priority elections and bail bills that died in the final hours of the regular legislative session after House Democrats walked out of the chamber. More recently, Abbott has said the agenda for the Legislature’s overtime round will also include further restricting in schools the teaching of critical race theory, which refers to an academic discipline that explores the role racism plays in institutions and structures of governance. …
- … After the Legislature adjourned in May, some Republicans said they planned to change at least one controversial provision in the bill that dealt with the window for early voting on Sundays. The last-minute addition to the bill had raised concerns that it would harm get-out-the-vote efforts by Black churches.
- Abbott’s other priority legislation that died, known as House Bill 20 during the regular session, would have made it harder for people arrested to bond out of jail without cash. That bill was also killed after House Democrats broke quorum to block passage of SB 7. …
- Republicans, including Patrick, the lieutenant governor, have asked the governor to include legislation that would ban the practice known as taxpayer-funded lobbying and another that would restrict the participation of transgender student athletes in school sports — two items that failed to pass during the regular session.
- Meanwhile, Democrats and left-leaning groups have called on Abbott to include items such as fixing the state’s electric grid and expanding health care.
- “We’re not going to go down without a fight and we will never stop fighting to protect the rights of all Texans to cast a ballot,” said Carisa Lopez, political director of the left-leaning Texas Freedom Network, in a statement Tuesday
- DISCUSS: Cash Bail Bond issues, Electric Grid (ERCOT), Transgender (Male-to-Female) Athletes
- ANDREW: Abolish cash bail. If you’re rich, it’s not a deterrent, if you’re not, it makes it harder for you to maintain your job, which can make you lose your job, which will destabilize your life, even if you’re found innocent and can get another job, to say nothing of the emotional impact being separated from your family has; The Texas electric grid is a mess and that mess has a body count. Any politician postponing the fixing of that mess has blood on their hands; There is no reputable evidence to suggest that people assigned male at birth have any advantage when competing in sports or any other circumstance over people not assigned male at birth. There’s an NPR source that goes over this (https://www.npr.org/2021/03/18/978716732/wave-of-new-bills-say-trans-athletes-have-an-unfair-edge-what-does-the-science-s), there are other sources that go over this, there are sources that disagree and if you compare them you’ll have a very educational lesson in what sources are trustworthy. The fact remains, these laws are just discrimination, and in a long and storied tradition, they use protecting children to justify that discrimination. Students, this is your cue to tell your lawmakers you oppose these bills. College, high school, junior high, elementary, whatever level: you have trans classmates. If you care about other people, stand up for them.
- Texas congressional Democrats propose bill to let local governments expand Medicaid without state consent; The bill would let counties and cities apply to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for funds that were declined by their states. by Karen Brooks Harper | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | June 21, 2021 Updated: 11 AM Central
- Local governments would be able to bypass conservative state leaders and implement their own Medicaid expansion programs for working poor Texans with federal funds under federal legislation announced Monday by U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin.
- Dubbed the “Cover Outstanding Vulnerable Expansion-Eligible Residents Now Act,” the legislation is a “homegrown solution” to a decade of resistance by a handful of red states to allow more people who are struggling financially to access the federal health care program, said Doggett, chairman of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee and lead sponsor of the bill, which has more than 40 cosponsors.
- In Texas, that could be as many as 1 million newly eligible residents — most of them people of color — who currently fall into that gap because they can’t afford private health insurance and can’t qualify for subsidies, but make too much to qualify for Medicaid.
- The bill sponsors include all of the Texas congressional Democrats and most Democrats from 12 other states that have refused to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act. It is the first time local governments have been able to directly contract with the federal government for Medicaid funds. …
- The bill allows counties, cities and other political subdivisions to apply directly to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for funds that were declined by their states, including Texas. States would be required to cooperate and authorize access to state Medicaid systems for those entities, with incentives for cooperation and potential penalties otherwise.
- That amounts to 100% federal funding for three years and tapering to 90% federal funding by year seven and beyond, Doggett said. …
- DISCUSS: Is this a conflict of federal supremacy vs. State’s Rights (10th Amendment States’ Rights: The Tenth Amendment’s simple language —“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”—emphasizes that the inclusion of a bill of rights does not change the fundamental character of the national government.
- ANDREW: Good. It is a conflict of federal power vs state power, but frankly the states have been intentionally dragging their feet while people die, so I welcome federal power in this case.
- NYC Democratic mayoral primary to proceed to ranked-choice counting after no candidate wins majority outright, CNN projects; By Gregory Krieg and Ethan Cohen, | CNN| Updated 12:48 AM ET, Wed June 23, 2021
- Since no candidate will win a majority of the first-choice votes, tabulation will continue in rounds. The candidate with the fewest votes after the initial count will be eliminated and all ballots for that candidate will be reallocated to the next highest-ranked candidate selected. That process will continue with the remaining candidates until two are left with the winner determined by who has the most votes in that final round.
- New York City’s Board of Elections plans to release the first set of results from this ranked-choice voting process on June 29, but those results will only include votes from early in-person and election day voters, not absentee ballots.
- The board will release the results of the ranked-choice voting process again on July 6, this time including as many absentee ballots as they’ve been able to process. They’ll report results again every Tuesday until all the ballots have been counted.
- DISCUSS: RANKED CHOICE VOTING IN A PLACE WITH AS LARGE A POPULATION AS NYC. Most people voting in a “ranked choice” election (Maine has about 1.3 million people.) RACHEL: “1-2-3 VOTING”. Democrats need someone like Republican pollster and focus-group expert Frank Luntz for their policy pitches.
- ANDREW: I love Ranked-Choice Voting. It’s the only voting system I’ve seen yet that actually lets a voter make their thoughts about the entire election heard, rather than a specific candidate. Calculation is a little tricky, but math people understand it, and the average voter never engages with that part of the process. I believe it is the best way to hold an election. I believe it can work at any scale. I’ll be very interested to see how well it works here, and who ends up winning.
- Buffalo’s Walton on verge of becoming first big city socialist mayor in 60 years; By BILL MAHONEYCOM | 06/22/2021 11:17 PM EDT
- Political newcomer and unabashed socialist India Walton is on the verge of defeating Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown in a Democratic primary on Tuesday night. It would be a stunning loss for one of the most prominent figures in New York’s Democratic establishment.
- If Walton holds onto her lead and goes on to win the general election, she would become the first socialist mayor of a large American city since Milwaukee’s Frank Zeidler, who left office in 1960.
- As the state’s progressives struggled to drive the narrative in New York City’s mayoral election, organizations such as the left-leaning Working Families Party made Walton’s campaign a major priority. Still, she had scant resources compared with her well-established opponent, an ally of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
- With over 99 percent of in-person votes counted, Walton led Brown 52 percent to 45 percent.
- Brown said that he would not immediately concede.
- The Democratic nominee is always the overwhelming favorite in a Buffalo mayoral election. Voters haven’t sent a Republican to City Hall since John F. Kennedy was in the White House. …
- Long-struggling Buffalo has undergone something of a renaissance during Brown’s tenure. Major projects have been built downtown, and the city is poised to gain population in a census for the first time in generations.
- But there’s always been some criticism that those gains have not benefited all of the city.
- This article tagged under: Ride-Hailing, New York, Ride-Hailing
- DISCUSS: THIRD PARTIES (AS FACTIONS OF MAJOR PARTIES); POLITICAL EXPERIMENTATION; THIS IS NOT THE GENERAL ELECTION; CHOICES FOR TAGS
- ANDREW: In my opinion, the fusion voting strategy of the Working Families Party makes them essentially a Democratic Party front. I have a gut reaction against this, because I believe that the function of third parties in a democracy is to challenge the major parties, both in ideas and in running for office. Having a third party tie itself to a duopoly candidate essentially aligns that party with the major party’s ideas, in my mind, and I think in most voters’ minds. I don’t know much about Ms. Walton, other than she is running as a Democrat, and thus I’d say at best she’s a social small-D democrat and not a socialist. But I will say that I think even a social democrat will make more material improvements to people’s lives than a corporate capital-D Democrat will. So, given the choice between her and her Democratic establishment incumbent opponent, I wish her luck.
- The Federal Reserve chair says the United States needs ‘more inclusive prosperity.’ By Jeanna Smialek | NYTIMES.COM | June 22, 2021
- Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said on Tuesday that the central bank was focused on returning the economy to full strength, and he emphasized that the Fed would be more ambitious and expansive in its understanding of what that meant. …
- [Powell also said,] “There’s a growing realization, really across the political spectrum, that we need to achieve more inclusive prosperity,” Mr. Powell said in response to a question, citing lagging economic mobility in the United States. “These things hold us back as an economy and as a country. The Fed cannot solve issues of economic inequality itself,” he said. Congress would need to play a role in establishing “a much broader set of policies.”
- DISCUSS: “…Across the political spectrum.” Really? (Polling suggests a split between Republican voters and Republican political elites/establishment.)
- ANDREW: Yeah, I’m calling that one. Republicans are absolutely not concerned with inclusion or prosperity for anyone except themselves and their donors. The Democratic establishment is only concerned with it for image’s sake, and the few Democrats who genuinely care are limited in what they can do. Besides, there’s a fundamental problem with this idea of making “prosperity” more inclusive. Just having more disabled, Black, gay, and women CEOs is not going to resolve issues of inequality that are fundamental to how capitalist societies like the U.S. operate. If those people can get to the top without taking the usual advancement path of stealing the labor of others, then great, more power to them, maybe they can spread their methods and improve workers’ lives, but if they can’t or choose not to and end up at the top anyway, then they’re just another capitalist, reinforcing the system and its flaws.
Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig 