By Sarah Anderson
This holiday season, struggling families and businesses came close to getting a lump of coal from Congress. Only just before Christmas, as critical relief programs were about to expire, did lawmakers manage to pass a $900 billion aid package.
The deal is a welcome stopgap, but it’s not nearly enough. As the House was preparing to vote on the modest relief package, Rep. Pramila Jayapal was leading a virtual town hall to unveil The People’s Agenda, legislative priorities for the House Progressive Congress that would go far beyond what Congress has passed so far.
The People’s Agenda begins with aggressive COVID-19 relief — starting with monthly stimulus checks of $2,000, significantly more than the $600 one-time payouts the new deal offers. It also demands hazard pay and strong workplace protections for frontline workers, as well as proposals to cancel student and medical debt, which were left out altogether.
I helped research the potential benefits of this agenda for the Institute for Policy Studies and the Poor People’s Campaign. We produced a joint fact sheet showing that a robust response to the overlapping crises of COVID-19 could pave the way for a more equitable economy.
We highlighted, for example, that canceling up to $50,000 in student debt would erase all debt for more than three-quarters of student loan borrowers and significantly narrow racial and gender wealth divides. The just-passed deal did not extend a moratorium on student debt payments, leaving millions of families facing painful decisions between making loan payments or buying food and other essentials.
Meanwhile, the pandemic recession is raging on and could worsen if infection rates continue to surge. The official unemployed numbered 10.7 million in November 2020, and the vast majority of jobless Americans are low-income.
That’s not even counting the millions who’ve left the job market altogether. Women, who shoulder more responsibility than men for pandemic-related challenges to family health, school closures, and other disruptions, have been especially hard hit.
Providing emergency relief for these Americans remains the top priority. But the People’s Agenda also aims to jumpstart a bigger recovery that creates good jobs, gives workers more power, and accelerates the transformation to a renewable energy economy.
As our joint fact sheet points out, investing in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and public transit could help the country achieve a full employment economy while reducing energy insecurity and making it easier for low-income workers to get to work.
The wealthy, corporations, and Wall Street firms that have seen their wealth skyrocket during the pandemic must contribute their fair share to the recovery.
My IPS colleagues have calculated that the collective wealth of America’s 651 billionaires jumped by over $1 trillion between the beginning of the pandemic and December. And under the current tax code, they’ll pay steeply discounted tax rates on their stock market earnings. Restructuring our tax code would free up hundreds of billions to support a pandemic recovery.
So would cutting military spending. For example, a 10 percent cut to the Pentagon could purchase enough N95 face masks for all 55 million essential workers for more than a year, other colleagues found. Ending the U.S. wars in Yemen and Afghanistan would be a great place to start.
Congress and the Biden administration will need to use every tool in the toolbox to combat the challenges of our time — and make our country stronger in the face of future crises.
“The price of inequality is too high and the deaths from unjust policies are too many to not address,” said Poor People’s Campaign co-chair William J. Barber II. “The only way to heal the nation and have domestic tranquility is to first establish justice. This agenda sets us on the path towards doing just that.”
Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. She is a co-author of the IPS fact sheet Congressional Progressive Caucus Priorities: The Stakes for Women, People of Color, and Poor and Low-Income Families. This op-ed was adapted from Inequality.org and distributed by OtherWords.org.
FlaglerLive relies on a strong core of donors. But they’re just a fraction of the 25,000 readers who daily depend on FlaglerLive for reliable, fearless reporting and analysis you cannot get anywhere else. If you’re still on the sidelines, we need you to join the Friends of FlaglerLive today. Elections, storms, the latest catastrophe - when dependable and factual local reporting will be more essential than ever, take a stand for integrity and have a direct voice in fostering serious journalism in your community. As little as $10 makes a difference, or better still, become a monthly donor: Become a "Friend of" FlaglerLive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit news organization. Donations are tax deductible. Think of it as buying a "scoop", in every sense of the term!
Reader Interactions
Comments
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Richard says
The millions of dollars that Bloomberg wasted on his presidential campaign along with the millions he supposedly sent to Florida so that felons could vote for Biden could have instead gone to each and every man, woman and child in this country, $1,000,000 each and still have some left over. Now that would have been a real “stimulus” versus the scraps that congress keeps throwing at us. What a joke!
Trump/Covid2020 says
$1,000,000 x 331 million people would be $331 trillion dollars. He’s worth no where near that. Education….it matters.
coyote says
Well, let’s see how that works out ….
a) 328.24 million U.S. population [328,240,000] (as of 2019)
b) times a million dollars each ($1,000,000.00)
equals
c) 328.24 TRILLION dollars ($328,240,000,000,000.00)
only about 328 times the Entire 2020 budget for the United States (actual budgeted amount [1.08 trillion] prior to the Covid costs)
Please tell me you don’t work as a cashier ….
Fredrick says
You lost me at “Canceling Student Debt”. There is no such thing. Someone is paying for it. No such thing as canceling or free….. That you even believe such a thing shows your ignorance. Why not focus on turning the entire bill to helping Americans and get rid of all the special interest and sending money to other countries. I know that is how politics works these days. It’s part of the negotiations by both sides. But you would think just once wouldn’t it be nice for the swamp to do what is right for the people of this country. But no they play their games. They play games while our governors shut down and put family owned business out of business. They are causing people to lose everything they own. Their homes, their businesses, everything they have worked all their lives for. Whyt are you not outraged at that?
Outsider says
Donald Trump already initiated the $2,000 per person stimulus check, but for some reason this person is talking about Biden; Trump already did it and that is why it is happening. He also is calling for elimination of the pork in the bill to pay for it. Let’s see if Congress is willing to eliminate the ten million dollars for gender aid to Pakistan, 12 million to refurbish a boat in Sri Lanka, and cut 500 million to aid to Latin American countries so we can take care of our Americans first; I doubt it. They will just throw it all on top of the disgusting spending on helping foreign countries. Fact check: there should be no “energy insecurity.” Thanks to Donald Trump, we are already energy independent; we are the largest producer of energy in the world to the point we are exporting oil. The only “energy insecurity” we will have to face is when Biden takes office and caves to the squad and bans fracking and generally eliminates production of energy so he can once again demonstrate the renewable energy fantasy is not going to provide enough energy for our economy. And seriously, the “pandemic recession” is about to come to an end as the vaccines, produced in record time under Operation Warp Speed are distributed and administered, unless of course liberals decide that we have to distribute vaccines “fairly” and start putting our citizens behind those of other countries. In spite of the left’s ridiculing Trump’s early declaration we would have a vaccine by the end of the year, we have one. You are already full speed ahead with erasing history regarding Trump as he’s not even mentioned in this article, but somehow Biden, who broke his leg petting his dog is touted as the savior. Give me a f’ing break!
I vote for redistribution says
I say we put a cap on the maximum wealth a person can have. I say $500,000. Anything above $500,000 is taken and redistributed so everyone has the same amount of money. Even if someone never went to college, worked hard, sacrificed, failed only to come back stronger… it doesn’t matter… wealth should be capped… and those with no ambition, skill, drive, dedication, work ethic should get the same amount of money. Except athletes and celebrities… they shouldn’t have a cap on their wealth since they contribute more to the betterment of civilization than anyone.
mark101 says
You have got to be kidding. Why not just go ahead and put a BIG RED flag with a hammer and sickle on it. Why not also ensure that anyone not working today, must enlist in the military, for the better good of the protecting the mother land. . Again you got to be kidding
deb says
Do people understand that we will pay for this in tax increase in the coming year and after. This is NOT FREE. We get relief sure, but we all pay for it later.
Sherry says
The plan is that the same wealthy (over 400K income per year) that got the biggest tax cut during the trump administration will be the only ones who will be asked to start paying their “fair share” of taxes.
Right now, the millionaire/billionaires almost ZERO due to tax loopholes and by keep their millions off shore. . . while we “suckers” take up the slack. The “cult” would even tell you that they are OK with “billionaire??” trump paying zilch. . . meanwhile the cult members are still giving him their hard earned cash. . . for what? More partying, more rounds of golf? Talk about SUCKERS!
BTW. . . Moscow Mitch has STOPPED the $2,000 passed by the “Democrats and Republicans” in the House of Representatives. Mitch is going to add “poison pills” instead of allowing a straight up vote in the Senate. Yep, still up to his old obstructive tricks! He cares NOTHING for the plight of those struggling. . . it’s all about “POWER”!