I think this is a good initiative. But: - I think it's a shame to wait until 2015 to intervene. I think that's late in the game. Sanders, for example, has said that he'll decide by March if he'll run. That means that by April, it might be the case that Sanders is out. By Fall, it make be the case that both Sanders and Warren are out. The more that plausible people on the left-liberal side of things take themselves out of consideration, the more that the Hillary inevitability thing gets re-consolidated, the less pressure there will be on Hillary from the left, the less political space there will be in mainstream debate for alternative progressive economic ideas. (I'm not saying that path is a foregone conclusion, just that it is a likely path.) I think with the Warren boomlet and Sanders publicly mooting running, things are more open now than they may be in Fall 2015. If that may be so, it is a shame to completely miss the window of now.
- You remember how at the end of the Communist Manifesto, M & E, after all the big picture blah-blah, said ok, here is a "minimum transitional program." I think it would be very important to have something similar, which is possibly different than an executive summary of a document that re-fights Reagan and Bill Clinton. There should be a short part that can be free-standing that says regardless of everything else we all sign off on this minimum program for economic reform in the interest of the majority, and all Democratic Presidential candidates should adopt it. Such as: - raise the minimum wage and the earned income credit so the after-tax minimum wage is a living wage - expand Social Security - bust up the big banks - college students borrow at the same rate as the big banks, expand college loan forgiveness for public service - diversify appointments to economic policymaking positions so they're not all coming from Wall Street - reduce the trade deficit by lowering the dollar - make it easier to form unions - expand tax credits and other federal support for child care, home health care - speculation tax (financial transactions tax) Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected] (202) 448-2898 x1 On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 6:39 PM, Michael Meeropol <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Penners: > > I attach a proposal that will require a lot of people to agree with it > before it becomes anything more than a figment of my imagination.' > > It is MOST REFORMIST -- hardly radical at all .... (so it goes!) > > I sent this to a few friends but I figured I'd send it to a larger group. > > (and since the AEA convention is occurring right now, maybe folks can talk > about it ...) > > Cheers, Mike > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > >
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