Es tiempo que reconsideremos lo que significa la seguridad en nuestras comunidades
Es tiempo que reconsideremos lo que significa la seguridad en nuestras comunidades
La extrema vigilancia policial y la criminalización masiva de nuestras comunidades de color es la crisis moral de nuestros tiempos.
Estados Unidos tiene la población más grande de personas...
La extrema vigilancia policial y la criminalización masiva de nuestras comunidades de color es la crisis moral de nuestros tiempos.
Estados Unidos tiene la población más grande de personas encarceladas con aproximadamente 2.2 millones personas en prisión (21 por ciento de los prisioneros del mundo). Mientras, varios departamentos de policía a través del país se encuentran bajo investigación por cargos de brutalidad policial, faltas graves y violaciones a los derechos civiles.
Lea el artículo completo aquí.
Dying to Entertain Us: Celebrities Keep ODing on Opioids and No One Cares
Dying to Entertain Us: Celebrities Keep ODing on Opioids and No One Cares
Repeating the success of the Ryan White Act on the opioid front would require a massive advocacy movement in the coming years. Longtime activist Jennifer Flynn Walker, director of mobilization and...
Repeating the success of the Ryan White Act on the opioid front would require a massive advocacy movement in the coming years. Longtime activist Jennifer Flynn Walker, director of mobilization and advocacy at the Center for Popular Democracy, argues that with a continued accumulation of grassroots organizing against the epidemic, such a corps of foot soldiers could harness the publicity generated by a future celebrity overdose and channel it into considerable progress.
Read the full article here.
5 Questions to Ask During School Choice Week
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 21, 2015
Contact:Ricardo A. Ramírez, rramirez@populardemocracy.org, 202-464-7376
5 Questions to Ask During School Choice Week
Charter school leaders are about to launch School Choice Week. But with essential gaps in accountability and fraud looming over the charter sector, education advocates are demanding a response from political figures and charter school proponents. The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), which hasdocumented state-level charter school fraud, is releasing five key questions on charter school accountability during School Choice Week.
Members of the press interested in further background information or quotes from our researchers should write to rramirez@populardemocracy.org.
With approximately 2.57 million students enrolled in more than 6,000 charter schools nationwide, the charter sector is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in our children’s education. The problem: While there is much room for fraud in this taxpayer-funded, privately managed charter industry, oversight is just not keeping up – and taxpayers are being left holding the bag.
Major reports have documented wasteful spending, fraud, and other practices that undermine the public trust in charter schools and the industry. But given the lack of regulation, CPD believes that these reports are merely the tip of the iceberg. At a time when resources for public education are scarce and student services are threatened, taxpayers deserve transparency. Our questions – and answers – for charter school advocates and the politicians supporting them are:
How much money has your state lost to charter waste, fraud and abuse?With at least $100 million tax dollars lost to fraud, waste, or abuse by charter operators in the United States, there is significant progress needed before the charter sector can claim best practices on fraud and abuse. What’s worse, given the scant auditing and little regulation, the fraud uncovered so far might only be scratching the surface. The types of fraud fall into six major categories: [Reference: CPD report, May 2014]
Charter operators using public funds illegally for personal gain;
School revenue used to illegally support other charter operator businesses;
Mismanagement that puts children in actual or potential danger;
Charters illegally requesting public dollars for services not provided;
Charter operators illegally inflating enrollment to boost revenues; and,
Charter operators mismanaging public funds and schools.
Are charter operators required to establish strong business practices that guard against fraud, waste, mismanagement, and abuse? Do regulators in your state have the authority and resources to regularly assess charter school business practices? Despite millions of dollars lost to shady practices, charter operators are overwhelmingly not required by law to establish strong business practices that protect against fraud and waste. We need change: Charter schools should institute an internal fraud risk management program, including an annual fraud risk assessment.
Oversight agencies should regularly audit charter schools and use methodologies that are specifically designed to assess the effectiveness of charter school business practices and uncover fraud.
Does your state require charter school operators and their boards of directors to provide adequate documentation to regulators ensuring funds are spent on student success? Across the country, investigations led by attorneys general, state auditors and charter authorizers have found significant cases of waste, fraud and abuse in our nation’s charter schools. The majority of investigations are initiated by whistleblowers because most regulators do not have the resources to proactively search for fraud, waste, or abuse of public tax dollars. [References:CPD report, December 2014; CPD report, October 2014]
Can your state adequately monitor the way charters spend public dollars including who charter operators are subcontracting with for public services? Because most charter schools laws do not adequately empower state regulators, regulators are often unable to monitor the legality of the operations of companies that provide educational services to charter schools. For example, Pete Grannis, New York State's First Deputy Comptroller, reported recently that charter school audits by his office have found "practices that are questionable at best, illegal at worst" at some charter schools.[1] While his office would like to investigate all aspects of a charter operators business practices, they do not have the authority. To reform the system, he believes that “as a condition for agreeing to approve a new charter school or renew an existing one, charter regulators could require schools and their management companies to agree to provide any and all financial records related to the school. “[2]
This example typifies the lack of authority given to charter oversight bodies. Lawmakers should act to amend their charter school laws to give charter oversight bodies the powers to audit all levels of a charter schools operations, including their parent companies and the companies they contract out their educational services to.
Are online charter operators audited for quality of services provided to students and financial transparency? Online charter schools represent another rapidly growing sector. The rapid growth has made the online charter school industry susceptible to similar pitfalls facing the poorly regulated charter industry as whole. As one longtime academic researcher puts it, “The current climate of elementary and secondary school reform that promotes uncritical acceptance of any and all virtual education innovations is not supported by educational research. A model that is built around churn is not sustainable; the unchecked growth of virtual schools is essentially an education tech bubble.”[3]
Given the poor outcomes being generated by most online charter schools, state regulators should be empowered with more authority to ensure these schools are not violating state laws or their charter agreements.
[1]https://www.propublica.org/article/ny-state-official-raises-alarm-on-charter-schools-and-gets-ignored
[2] https://www.propublica.org/article/ny-state-official-raises-alarm-on-charter-schools-and-gets-ignored
[3]http://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2013/05/virtual-schools-annual-2013
Más obreros hispanos de la construcción mueren en el trabajo a nivel nacional
Univision National – October 25, 2013 -
Los activista y expertos están poniendo en tela de juicio la seguridad de los trabajadores de la construcción en Nueva York, además, un...
Univision National – October 25, 2013 -
Los activista y expertos están poniendo en tela de juicio la seguridad de los trabajadores de la construcción en Nueva York, además, un estudio revela que los hispanos tienen el mayor porcentaje de accidentes de trabajo en ese sector de la ‘gran manzana’.
¿Qué opinas sobre la situación de los hispanos que se dedican a la construcción?
En Nueva York, anualmente 75 trabajadores de construcción mueren por accidentes, una cifra que a nivel nacional supera los 4 mil, reportó Blanca Rosa Vílchez a Univision.
El 41 por ciento de los trabajadores de construcción en Nueva York son latinos; sin embargo, cuando se habla de accidentes, significan el 74% de los muertos, una estadística que en sí refleja la magnitud del problema.
Líderes comunitarios exigen soluciones
En el mismo lugar en el que un trabajador de construcción fue la última víctima mortal de un accidente, la organización que realizó el estudio y líderes comunitarios discutieron los grandes riesgos a los que se exponen diariamente estos trabajadores.
“Había momentos en que el jefe le decía que tenía que subir a una determinada altura y él no estaba acostumbrado a eso y tenía que hacerlo porque eran órdenes del jefe”, aseguró Elsa Ramos, madre de un trabajador.
Una multa para los contratistas no supera los 2 mil dólares y la muerte de un trabajador los 12 mil, además se presentó un proyecto para eliminar lo que se conoce como la “ley del andamio”.
Muchos casos no se denuncian
“Quieren hacer ese cambio para que los trabajadores no puedan seguir juicio contra una compañía de construcción aunque haya violaciones, nosotros tenemos que seguir previniendo que se haga ese cambio”, mencionó Francisco Moya, asambleísta.
Sin embargo, muchos casos ni siquiera se reportan por temor de los trabajadores.
“Ya me hicieron cirugía de la nuca en 2010 y me hicieron cirugía de la espalda en diciembre de 2012, todavía tengo dolor, ese dolor lo voy a tener toda mi vida”, afirmó Pedro Corchado, trabajador accidentado.
Otro caso es el de Francisco, quien no ha vuelto a trabajar desde que se cayó de una altura de 11 pies, la compañía para la que trabajaba dice que le dio sólo horas de entrenamiento.
Source
Immigration Advocates on SB 4: We’re Resisting in Texas
Grassroots leaders and local officials wasted little time organizing a coordinated campaign to fight SB 4, a new Texas law that targets cities, towns and sheriffs that don’t cooperate with federal...
Grassroots leaders and local officials wasted little time organizing a coordinated campaign to fight SB 4, a new Texas law that targets cities, towns and sheriffs that don’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
Only nine days after Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed the legislation, formally known as Senate Bill 4, into law, grassroots advocates announced a “Summer of Resistance” campaign May 16. The statute allows police officers, sheriff deputies and Texas state troopers to ask about a person’s immigration status – whether they are here legally – during a routine stop.
Read the full article here.
The ALS Activist Who Thinks He Can Flip a Deep Red Arizona District
The ALS Activist Who Thinks He Can Flip a Deep Red Arizona District
Last week, Barkan and a host of progressive activists announced the launch of the Be a Hero initiative, created in part by the Center for Popular Democracy Action, a group that has consistently...
Last week, Barkan and a host of progressive activists announced the launch of the Be a Hero initiative, created in part by the Center for Popular Democracy Action, a group that has consistently protested efforts at health care repeal and the GOP tax plan.
Along with their launch, organizers put out a heart-tugging video of Barkan talking about his struggle with ALS over the past year and addressing his young son Carl.
Read the full article here.
One vote will turn America’s path away from liberal socialism
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2015 – What difference will my vote make? Too many will say: I am only one person. When asked why they do not exercise our constitutional...
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2015 – What difference will my vote make? Too many will say: I am only one person. When asked why they do not exercise our constitutional right to vote for our governmental representatives they wonder if their one vote makes a difference.
But that is foolish as history has shown that “one person” can prevail.
It was one brave soldier standing alone during a mass protest who stopped a column of armed tanks in China on Tiananmen Square in 1989; one frail man named Mahatmas Gandhi who was the driving force behind banishing the British Empire from India; one conservative, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, who was the black community’s conscience when it needed someone to articulate the horrors inflicted upon blacks by a racist Democratic South.
Even before these 20th century [peaceful] activists, back in the 1860s, there was one conservative black Frederick Douglass. Douglas stood out as a champion of an enslaved people, the fight for their civil rights.
Frederick Douglass made it his life’s mission to rally others to join in with him in the liberation of his oppressed people. Born a slave, he died a millionaire in today’s terms.
Other men and women of courage, conviction and destiny have made a difference: Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Booker T. Washington, Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner.
Today America is in need of such sons and daughters, born of virtue, courage and conviction to take the smallest action. They need to vote.
Many see that the United States is drifting towards the edge of ruination. At the helm is a president who happens to preside over our moral and economic collapse while pressing on relentlessly with the left-wing agenda. Same-sex marriages, illegal aliens, an under-employed America and a potential $19 trillion deficit do not bode well for our future and this country’s stability.
Barack Hussein Obama has met with numerous world leaders, many of them not so friendly to this country, either then or now.
Yet, in his adopted home city of Chicago, where gangland shootings take place regularly, where body bags fill up, by the hour, where black on black crime runs rampant, this president has yet to seriously address the issue.
As the first black president, he could have met these gang leaders at a presidential sponsored summit to appeal to them on a personal level, and to impress upon them how dangerous and detrimental their life of crime is impacting their own neighborhoods in a negative way.
How bad is it in Chicago? Just over the Fourth of July weekend of this year, alone, 10 people were killed and 55 wounded by gunfire. Shootings rose by about 40 percent during the first three months of this year, according to March statistics released by Chicago Police Department. The mayor, Rahm Emanuel, seems clueless on how to decrease these figures.
Make no mistake; this is largely black on black crime. Yet, when a white person, or a white cop, kills a black anywhere in America, the president cannot get to the podium fast enough to denounce it; neither can race baiters such as Jackson and Sharpton.
This is when the clueless come out with signs chanting “Black Lives Matter.” They ignore the subject of innocent black fetuses being aborted, thanks largely to the efforts of Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger and uninformed blacks who work for and support this organization.
Though serving his last year in office, the president has opted to focus on, and press for, immigration reform. This is an agenda that will further impact the black community in a negative way in terms of employment opportunity.
African-Americans who have achieved higher-education degrees, a key investment leading to the middle class, still find themselves more likely to face long-term unemployment than their white, Hispanic and Asian counterparts, according to the Center for Popular Democracy.
Some believe the president’s end game is granting amnesty for over 30 million illegals and resettling hundreds of thousands of Muslims here in the United States. Not surprisingly, his party supports this president’s efforts while the Republican leadership does not.
And the Supreme Court — they have been missing in action for the past three years when it comes to defending, preserving and upholding the United States Constitution and the laws of the land.
So you ask, What can we do about it?
Americans can express their dismay and anger by voting in the next primary and election. Only then can we make a difference. History has shown that one man can effect positive change. Conservatives in this country number around 45 million strong, so if all would step up and vote, there’s immense power in those numbers.
Up until now, politicians, Sunday morning news pundits and Washington bureaucrats have an open microphone to sway voters, thanks to 24-hour news programs.
It’s time for Americans to really listen to what is being said and recognizing what is unrealistic, not sell low-information voters a bad bill-of-goods.
Forbes writes (We’ve Crossed The Tipping Point; Most Americans Now Receive Government Benefits):
..perhaps 52 percent of U.S. households—more than half—now receive benefits from the government, thanks to President Obama. And Mr. Entitlement is just getting started. If Obamacare is not repealed millions more will join the swelling rolls of those dependent on government handouts.
Conservatives have long dreaded the day when the U.S. crossed the halfway mark because of all the implications for individual and fiscal responsibility. As Benjamin Franklin reportedly said, “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” They learned that from the 2008 election and turned out in big numbers again in 2012.
One popular agenda being pushed by Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton is free college tuition – Bernie wants it at every academic institution, Clinton is calling for free public colleges.
Remember what Franklin said above:
“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
And college tuition is off the charts, most can agree. So maybe free college tuition is a great idea; however, no one is explaining who is going to pay for the professor’s salary, buildings, campus maintenance, food, books and the necessary technology infrastructure necessary to support a child seeking the college experience.
Look at the reasons parents choose private over public schools. They want a better eduction, higher test scores, smaller class size and more. If parents see that many [not all] public schools fail their children, why would we want to see college follow that same model?
And how many of those students taking that free college will be looking not for education but a continuation of the high school experience and a delay of entering the work force. College should be something a student works for with grades, service participation, sports and learning to be a well-rounded person – a lesson that begins in the home.
Now it is our turn to voice our opinions at the ballot box, for conservatives, independents and libertarians to band together to make a difference in saving this republic. Even if the person presented by the GOP is not the person you want over others,
…we still need to vote for the party otherwise, liberals and progressives continue to rule the day.
The path will not always be smooth and easy. Most things worthwhile ever are. Just remember this.
As former military men, George Washington fought the good fight, Andrew Jackson fought the good fight, Ulysses S. Grant fought the good fight and Theodore Roosevelt fought the good fight while serving in the armed forces.
Professional military leaders such as Adm. Chester Nimitz and Gen. George S. Patton fought the good fight, as well, and all of these men did it against overwhelming odds and all of them prevailed.
Some say, and truly believe, that the American political system is rigged, that the powers that be, like powerful fathom puppet masters, have often manipulated the results of elections so that it does not matter what the voter does, they still pull the strings.
It doesn’t matter who the president is when Valerie Jarrett is pulling the strings.
There is some truth in every urban legend, but it will take voters to weed out these myths and uproot these puppet masters and make the necessary changes to insure the integrity of our political system and our republic. We must all make a stand.
This is a nation with a history of breeding courageous fighters, and right now America needs fighters.
The next generation is counting on you showing up at the polls. including your children and grandchildren. Your decision to get involved and vote will impact their future in many ways.
That is why now is the time America. Not next time, but now!
Unless conservatives from all corners vote to change the ownership of the White House, there may not be a next opportunity to save America.
Source: Communities Digital News
Stringer nails contractor who stole $1.7 million from immigrant workers
Stringer nails contractor who stole $1.7 million from immigrant workers
After getting away with stealing money from his immigrant employees’ paychecks for years, a major contractor who worked city projects across the five boroughs was slapped on Monday with a $3.2...
After getting away with stealing money from his immigrant employees’ paychecks for years, a major contractor who worked city projects across the five boroughs was slapped on Monday with a $3.2 million fine and barred from doing business with the city and state for five years.
A six-year investigation carried out by the New York City Comptroller’s Office used undercover video, subpoenas, union records and a city agency paper trail to uncover the kickback scheme, Comptroller Scott Stringer said in a statement on Monday.
Stringer said K.S. Contracting Corporation and its owner, Paresh Shah, cheated dozens of immigrant workers out of their pay and benefits.
Shah told the city he was paying his workers the prevailing wages required under the New York State Labor Law. In reality, however, only about half of the workers received paychecks. Those who did were required to cash the checks and then surrender the money to company supervisors. Those supervisors would take a cut and then redistribute the leftover cash to employees , including those who did not receive paychecks, paying them at rates significantly below prevailing wages.
Before getting their money, many of the workers were required to sign a paper stating that they were, in fact, being paid the prevailing wage.
One supervisor was surreptitiously filmed in the act of counting workers’ surrendered cash in the front seat of his car. (See video at brooklyneagle.com.)
K.S. Contracting reported that it paid its workers combined wage and benefit rates starting at $50 per hour (or roughly $400 a day plus benefits) but actually paid daily cash salaries starting at just $90 per day and going, in some cases, as high as $200.
Part of the paper trail the Comptroller’s Office investigators uncovered in building a case against K.S. Contracting Corporation. Photo courtesy of the Office of the ComptrollerPart of the paper trail the Comptroller’s Office investigators uncovered in building a case against K.S. Contracting Corporation. Photo courtesy of the Office of the Comptroller
Between August 2008 and November 2011, the company cheated at least 36 workers out of $1.7 million in wages and benefits on seven New York City public works projects. The majority of the workers were immigrants of Latino, South Asian, or West Indian descent.
Stringer said that the need to stand up for immigrants was especially important in the time of President Trump.
“Contractors might think they can take advantage of immigrants, but today we’re sending a strong message: my office will fight for every worker in New York City,” he said.
The brazen scheme had gone on for years; an employee first filed a complaint with the office in May 2010.
K.S. Contracting was named as one of the worst wage theft violators in New York in a report by the Center for Popular Democracy in 2015. The full details of what was going on came out at a four-day administrative trial in May 2016.
The company, incorporated in New Jersey, was awarded more than $21 million in contracts by the city’s Departments of Design and Construction, Parks and Recreation and Sanitation between 2007 and 2010. Projects included the District 15 Sanitation Garage and the Barbara S. Kleinman Men’s Residence in Brooklyn, the Morrisania Health Center in the Bronx, the 122 Community Center in Manhattan, the North Infirmary Command Building on Rikers Island, Bronx River Park, and various city sidewalks in Queens.
K.S. Contracting is not the only contractor to rip off its immigrant employees. Since taking office in 2014, Comptroller Scott M. Stringer’s Bureau of Labor Law has assessed more than $20 million and barred 40 contractors from state and city contracts due to prevailing wage violations, according to the Comptroller’s Office.
A number of workers’ rights groups and immigrant organizations praised the comptroller’s investigation.
"At a time when exploitative employers are feeling increasingly emboldened by Trump’s hateful rhetoric, it is imperative that our city's leaders are taking a strong stance in defense of immigrant workers,” Deborah Axt, executive director of Make the Road New York, said in a statement.
“Too many employers in New York City exploit minority and immigrant workers. And it’s no secret that many immigrant workers are fearful of retaliation for standing up for their rights, especially in an environment where they are afraid of being deported,” said Lowell Barton, organizing director of Laborers Local 1010, LiUNA!
By Mary Frost
Source
Demonstrators bring Dreamers, TPS cause to Trump’s doorstep
Demonstrators bring Dreamers, TPS cause to Trump’s doorstep
Several dozen demonstrators, organized by progressive groups and chanting in Spanish, brought the cause of the Dreamers and Temporary Protected Status refugees—both groups targeted for eviction...
Several dozen demonstrators, organized by progressive groups and chanting in Spanish, brought the cause of the Dreamers and Temporary Protected Status refugees—both groups targeted for eviction from the U.S. by Donald Trump—to the doorstep of the GOP president and his Republican backers on the evening of Feb. 1.
Read the full article here.
What The Federal Reserve Would Look Like If Progressives Had Their Way
What The Federal Reserve Would Look Like If Progressives Had Their Way
The progressive Fed Up coalition released an ambitious Federal Reserve reform plan on Monday designed to increase discussion of Fed policy in the presidential campaign.
The reforms, which...
The progressive Fed Up coalition released an ambitious Federal Reserve reform plan on Monday designed to increase discussion of Fed policy in the presidential campaign.
The reforms, which would require the passage of new legislation, would turn the Federal Reserve into a public entity akin to other federal agencies, with the goal of dramatically increasing the accountability of the world’s most powerful financial body.
Currently, the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks are owned by private commercial banks. As a result, financial executives dominate the regional Fed banks’ boards of directors, giving them an outsized role in key decisions like the selection of the banks’ influential presidents.
Four of the current presidents are alumni of Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs.
Fed Up and other progressives argue that the present governance structure undermines the Fed’s role as a regulator of the country’s financial institutions. These critics also argue that the influence of big banks tends to make Fed officials more sensitive to concerns about inflation, even as they hear little from ordinary workers affected by nominal changes in the unemployment rate.
Andrew Levin, a Dartmouth economist and former adviser to the Fed chair, who authored the proposal, said on a call with reporters that the changes would bring the Fed’s structure into line with major central banks in other countries. He mocked the plain conflict of interest inherent in giving the financial industry so much power over an institution charged with regulating it.
“It should be amazing for people in the public that banks actually own shares in the Fed. A lot of people would be shocked to hear that,” Levin said.
“It would be like if lawyers owned shares in the FBI,” he added.
In the new system Levin devised, the selection process of the regional banks’ directors would be supervised by the Washington-based Federal Reserve Board of Governors, with involvement from individual governors and members of Congress in the relevant Fed bank’s jurisdiction. The majority of each bank’s directors would need to come from small businesses and nonprofits. These more diverse boards, in turn, would have to make public their process for selecting a bank president.
Members of the Fed Board of Governors, unlike the regional Fed banks, are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, which is one reason why Fed reform advocates consider them more accountable to the public.
Levin and Fed Up made clear that they view the new governance structure as a way of generating greater ethnic and racial diversity among Fed officials as well. Levin noted that in the Fed’s existence of more than a century, not one of the regional Fed presidents has been African American.
Levin called the statistic “clear evidence that something is broken.”
In making the Fed a public institution, the modified system envisioned by Levin would subject the regional Fed banks to the Freedom of Information Act and the oversight of the Fed Board of Governors’ inspector general.
The entire Fed, including the Fed Board of Governors, would also undergo an annual review by the Government Accountability Office, a government body tasked with evaluating the efficacy and accountability of federal agencies.
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors declined to comment on the new plan, but chairwoman Janet Yellen has opposed past efforts to audit the Fed.
In addition, Levin’s plan changes the terms of both regional Fed bank presidents and Fed governors to seven years. Currently, regional Fed presidents serve for five years, and can be reappointed to a second term — which almost always occurs, thanks to a process that Levin and Fed Up say is typically no more than a formality. Fed Board governors now serve 14-year terms.
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors declined to comment on the reform plan. But Fed chair Janet Yellen has condemned legislation in the past that would audit the Fed’s finances, claiming it would “politicize” the institution’s decisionmaking. Yellen’s stance suggests she would likely oppose the even broader GAO review.
Joseph Gagnon, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who was a top economist at the Fed for many years, said of the reform plan that he is “more concerned that there are already too many limits on the Fed’s power to help the economy.”
Gagnon nonetheless said he views most of the new proposals favorably. His biggest specific objection is to the plan’s seven-year term limits, which he worries would open the Fed up to more political pressure by allowing a single president to decide its makeup.
The rollout of the Fed Up-backed proposal is timed — and packaged — to encourage presidential candidates to speak out. The coalition sent out model questions for the candidates to accompany the release of the reform proposal.
“It is important that we have a president who sees the need for sensible, pragmatic, nonpartisan reforms that will put the Fed on a path to serve the public for the next hundred years,” Levin said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has released his own plan to make the Fed more accountable to the public. His campaign expressed support for the spirit of Fed Up’s reform proposal.
Warren Gunnels, top policy adviser for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), joined the call to express support for the spirit of Fed Up’s proposed reforms.
Sanders “believes we need to structurally reform the Fed so that it is a democratic institution that is responsive to ordinary Americans not just CEOs on Wall Street,” Gunnels said.
Gunnels would not say if Sanders endorsed the proposal, however, claiming the senator needed more time to review it.
He instead pointed to the Federal Reserve platform Sanders laid out in a Dec. 23 New York Times op-ed. In the column, Sanders says he would bar financial industry executives from serving on the boards of regional Fed banks altogether, make Fed assistance to banks contingent on concrete measures of service to the public, such as lending to low-income workers, and preclude the Fed from raising its benchmark interest rate until unemployment is below 4 percent.
Ady Barkan, Fed Up’s campaign director, said that the coalition had invited all five presidential candidates to join the press call, but only Sanders’ campaign had agreed to participate.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign did not respond to a HuffPost request for comment on Fed Up’s proposal, nor did the remaining Republican presidential candidates Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and Donald Trump.
Getting Democratic politicians, in particular, to make the Fed a policy cause could prove a difficult task for a number of reasons.
In recent years, Fed reform has tended to be the province of conservative lawmakers eager to rein in the Fed’s unprecedented efforts to aid financial institutions and stimulate economic demand in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Democrats have cast themselves as defenders of the Fed in those circumstances, since the central bank’s actions were viewed as crucial to the recovery.
It doesn’t help matters that the Fed is an issue that’s simply not on the public’s radar.
And there is also the risk of being seen as breaching protocol by commenting on an independent, nonpartisan institution.
“I don’t think many voters understand enough to care about it,” Ari Rabin-Havt, a progressive radio host and onetime aide to Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said in an interview earlier this month. “The people who do care about it somewhat, view it as a ‘temple.’”
But economists and policy experts argue that it would be a mistake for Democrats to ignore the Fed. “Central banks became and still are the only game in town” when governments want to boost economic demand and employment, according a column by New York University economist Nouriel Roubini. That’s partly as a result of the ideological backlash across the developed world against using public spending as a fiscal stimulus, and the delayed effect of other reforms.
And the Fed is especially important in the American context, because the government is likely to remain divided regardless of who wins the presidency, narrowing the possibilities of ameliorative fiscal measures.
“If the economy starts to weaken again, we cannot trust Congress to act,” Mike Konczal, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, said earlier this month. “We will need a Fed that is ahead of the curve.”
Short of embracing reforms to the Federal Reserve’s governance, Democrats could make a bigger issue out of the two empty Fed governor seats. President Barack Obama named nominees for the positions many months ago, but Senate Republicans have failed to give them hearings.
Tim Duy, an economist at the University of Oregon, said he is “wary” of the candidates even articulating what kind of people they would nominate to the Fed Board of Governors lest they jeopardize the central bank’s independence. But he said calling for filling the empty governor seats is fair game.
“I would like [the presidential candidates] to at least say that we should have a Fed at full power, because that’s what makes for effective monetary policy,” Duy said earlier this month. “That should be a priority for Democrats and Republicans.”
By Daniel Marans
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2 months ago
2 months ago