Category Archives: Public Policy and Governance

The Rent Is Too Damn High!!

Remember the candidate who ran for Mayor of New York some years back whose single-issue political party and campaign slogan were both “the rent is too damn high”?”

What made me think about him was a recent meeting I sat in on, with Senate candidate Marc Carmichael and a couple of local experts on housing. Marc wanted to be brought up to speed with what has become a significant national issue: the cost of housing (and especially the lack of housing for low-income renters) and the range of national policies that might address the problem. (The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Jim Banks, has been too busy waging culture war against abortion and trans children to bother with legislation that might actually help people; Carmichael actually wants to “do the job.”)

Marc wasn’t the only one who learned a lot in that meeting. I did, too. So I was interested in a recent publication by the Brookings Institution titled “Ten Economic Facts About Rental Housing.”

The publication reports what most of us know: rental housing has become considerably less affordable over the past several years. We have low vacancy rates and high rent inflation, resulting in housing costs that strain the budgets of lower-income households.

The very low unemployment rate and recent strength in wages makes clear that housing instability in the U.S. is, in large part, a structural problem, one that will not be fully solved by a strong economy. Fiscal support for federal housing benefits is inadequate, eligible households wait years for benefits, and the number of single individuals experiencing homelessness has risen. Any effective solution will require policy actions by lawmakers.

Brookings research shows that approximately one-third of U.S. households rent, although the share of renters varies considerably by age of the head of household, ranging from 21 percent of households headed by someone 65 and older to 58 percent of households headed by someone ages 25 to 34. Renting also varies depending upon the head of household’s education, income, and race or ethnicity.

The paper identifies the ten facts that influence housing costs, and the link includes explanations of each. The explanations are well worth pondering, and if you want to gain a broader understanding of these complex issues, I encourage you to click through and read the entire report. But here, in brief, are the factors Brookings identifies:

  • 1. Households are more likely to rent if the household head has no college degree, is in a lower income quintile, or is Black.

  • 2. One-third of rental units are single-family rentals.

  • 3. Rental vacancies have returned to pre-pandemic levels, while multifamily housing starts have leveled off.

  • 4. Rental housing vacancy rates are highest in the Southeast.

  • 5. Rental price inflation is declining to pre-pandemic levels.

  • 6. Rent inflation looks similar across U.S. metropolitan statistical areas.

  • 7. For renting households with low earnings, rent is consistently more than one-third of their total expenditures.

  • 8. Federal housing assistance consistently falls short of housing needs.

  • 9. Single adults are driving the rise in unsheltered homelessness.

  • 10. Families wait years to receive a housing choice voucher.

A number of these structural causes are related to policy choices at both the state and federal levels. Housing assistance is part of America’s tattered and bureaucratic social safety net–and the failure of that assistance to materially address the problem is one more “data point” that should be considered in a much longer-range discussion about the holes in that net. That said, there are clearly areas where a renewed focus on actual governance would ameliorate at least some of the problems renters face.

At the end of the day, voters need to recognize the differences between culture warriors and policymakers–between candidates focused on the often-boring, day-to-day “grunt work” of actual governance, and the antics of the rabid Christian Nationalists who have neither the knowledge of nor interest in the mundane but incredibly important details of economic and social policy.

The embarrassing television ads being run in Indiana’s primary contests tell me that–at least on the Republican side–candidates are confident that voters fail to recognize that distinction–or, for that matter, the distinction between genuinely local issues and those requiring a national response.

In November, Americans will choose between serious candidates who are willing to educate themselves on the issues and committed to actual governance–to doing the job– and performative buffoons like Banks whose messaging is intended to inflame and divide– the culture warriors who have absolutely no interest in the complexities of the day-to-day issues with which so many Americans struggle.

It is said that in Indiana, an R next to a candidate’s name is sufficient to elect a turnip.

I am cautiously optimistic that this year will be different.

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Cultivating Solidarity

A few years before I retired, I attended an academic conference in Sweden on “Social Citizenship,” a concept commonplace in Europe and utterly foreign to Americans. I came away with a far better understanding of both the concept of “social citizenship” and the importance of a robust social infrastructure.

What do I mean by “social infrastructure”?

The dictionary defines infrastructure as the “basic physical and organizational structures and facilities needed for the operation of a society or enterprise.” Most of us are familiar with this definition in the context of physical infrastructure: roads, bridges, sewers, the electrical grid, public transportation, etc. Within the category of physical infrastructure I’d also include physical amenities like parks and bike lanes. Schools, libraries and museums probably fall somewhere between physical and social infrastructure. Purely social infrastructure includes laws that prevent the strong from preying on the weak, and–importantly– the various programs that make up what we call the social safety net.

What made me think about that conference was a recent essay in the New York Times on the concept of solidarity. It began:

These days, we often hear that democracy is on the ballot. And there’s a truth to that: Winning elections is critical, especially as liberal and progressive forces try to fend off radical right-wing movements. But the democratic crisis that our society faces will not be solved by voting alone. We need to do more than defeat Donald Trump and his allies — we need to make cultivating solidarity a national priority.

For years, solidarity’s strongest associations have been with the left and the labor movement — a term invoked at protests and on picket lines. But its roots are much deeper, and its potential implications far more profound, than we typically assume. Though we rarely speak about it as such, solidarity is a concept as fundamental to democracy as its better-known cousins: equality, freedom and justice. Solidarity is simultaneously a bond that holds society together and a force that propels it forward. After all, when people feel connected, they are more willing to work together, to share resources and to have one another’s backs. Solidarity weaves us into a larger and more resilient “we” through the precious and powerful sense that even though we are different, our lives and our fates are connected.

Social solidarity is the antithesis of the tribalism that is tearing America apart. The essay goes into considerable detail about the efforts of the political Right to undermine connections between groups, and also faults leftists who downplay the important role of policy in shaping public sensibilities. 

Laws and social programs not only shape material outcomes; they also shape us, informing public perceptions and preferences, and generating what scholars call policy feedback loops….. Policies can either foster solidarity and help repair the divides that separate us or deepen the fissures.

I have repeatedly argued that American solidarity depends upon the allegiance of our diverse tribes to what I call the “American Idea”–the governing philosophy underpinning the Constitution and Bill of Rights. E Pluribus Unum envisions that philosophy as an overarching belief system that unifies Americans while respecting our differences.

I have also argued that America’s inadequate and bureaucratic social safety net ignores a fundamental precept of social solidarity: the concept of membership.

Remember that American Express commercial proclaiming that “membership has its privileges”? Several  countries, not just those in Scandinavia, base their social programs on the theory citizens are “members.” 

In today’s America, the Right is intent upon excluding disfavored minorities from “membership,” insisting that only White Christians can be “real Americans”–aka members.

The widespread belief that not everyone is entitled to be considered a “member” is one of the central flaws of America’s social welfare system. You can see it in the dramatic differences in attitudes about means-tested welfare (negative) versus Social Security and Medicare (positive). When a benefit is universal, it unifies rather than exacerbating tribal animosities. I’ve never heard anyone complain “those people are driving on roads paid for with my tax dollars!”

One of the great virtues of a Universal Basic Income is that it would be universal. Not only would it eliminate the costs of America’s enormous welfare bureaucracy and the manifest inequities and humiliations of the present programs, it would avoid the stereotyping of recipients that deprives them of human dignity and excludes them from “membership.”

What if government provided a social infrastructure within which all members would be guaranteed a subsistence livelihood, access to health care, a substantive education and an equal place at the civic table, and in return, would exact “dues:” higher taxes and the discharge of civic duties like voting, jury service and a stint of public service?

A girl can dream….

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About That Plan…

An increasing number of media outlets are reporting on Project 2025–a plan by the Heritage Foundation together with other right-wing organizations intended to be a road map for a second Trump presidency.

Pundits have noted Project 2025’s similarity to Victor Orbán’s “illiberal” democracy in Hungary, where Orban has gutted the civil service and filled government positions with loyalists who support his attacks on immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ+ community, and his efforts to distance Hungary from other NATO nations. Orban’s recent trip to Mar-A-Lago was followed by a less-publicized meeting at Heritage.

So–what is in the Project 2025 plan for a second Trump Administration? Heather Cox Richardson recently spelled it out:

Project 2025 stands on four principles that it says the country must embrace. In their vision, the U.S. must “[r]estore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children”; “[d]ismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people”; “[d]efend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats”; and “[s]ecure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls ‘the Blessings of Liberty.’”

In almost 1,000 pages, the document explains what these policies mean for ordinary Americans. Restoring the family and protecting children means making “family authority, formation, and cohesion” a top priority and using “government power…to restore the American family.” That, the document says, means eliminating any words associated with sexual orientation or gender identity, gender, abortion, reproductive health, or reproductive rights from any government rule, regulation, or law. Any reference to transgenderism is “pornography” and must be banned.

The overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the right to abortion must be gratefully celebrated, but the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision accomplishing that end “is just the beginning.”

Dismantling the administrative state in this document starts from the premise that “people are policy.” Frustrated because nonpartisan civil employees thwarted much of Trump’s agenda in his first term, the authors of Project 2025 call for firing much of the current government workforce—about 2 million people work for the U.S. government—and replacing it with loyalists who will carry out a right-wing president’s demands.

The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism describes Project 2025 as a significant threat to democracy. Spearheaded by Heritage and supported by more than 80 extremist organizations, the plan aims to “rescue the country from elite rule and woke cultural warriors.” The Global Project notes reports of internal discussions centered around a proposal that the next “conservative” President invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, in order to allow use of the military to quell civil unrest.

Project 2025 plans what it calls a “robust governing agenda,” with all of the hallmarks of authoritarianism.

It threatens Americans’ civil and human rights and our very democracy. The America that Project 2025 wants to create would involve a fundamental reordering of our society. It would greatly enhance the executive branch’s powers and impose on all Americans policies favored by Christian nationalists regarding issues such as sexual health and reproductive rights, education, the family, and the role of religion in our society and government. It would strip rights protections from LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, women, and people of color. It would dismantle much of the federal government and replace our apolitical civil service with far-right partisans it is already training in anticipation of a power shift. It would end attempts to enhance equity and racial justice throughout the government and shut down agencies that track progress on this front. Efforts to tackle issues such as climate change would be ended, and politicized research produced to back the project’s views on environmental policy, the evils of “transgenderism,” and women’s health would take priority.

There is more, obviously, in a thousand-page document, and it’s all very chilling, but what strikes me is how explicit and professional it is.

Project 2025 represents a very troubling step up from the tracts and manifestos produced by the disaffected and generally disturbed members of militias and groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. This is a professional document, produced and endorsed by people and organizations that already wield considerable power and influence–extremists who have already massively infiltrated the courts, completely taken over of one of America’s major political parties, and who “own” numerous lawmakers in Congress and in a number of states. Those “fellow travelers” are easily identifiable: we need only look at the GOP Representatives who oppose aid to Ukraine, attack trans children, and advocate for a national abortion ban. (Here in Indiana, that includes far-Right Congressman Jim Banks, currently running for the Senate, among others.)

The fact that Heritage felt free to put it in writing tells us the takeover is well underway. That should terrify us all…..

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A Bill Passes. Then What Happens?

Making policy–passing laws–requires a series of decisions. It begins with (and is often stymied by failure to reach) an agreement on the existence, nature and extent of the problem to be solved. When lawmakers do see the same problem, and agree on why something is a problem, they then have to come to some consensus on what action is needed to solve or ameliorate that problem. Then–in our age of “privatization”–they need to determine who should enforce the agreed-upon remedy. Should those empowered to deliver the new service or oversee compliance with the newly-passed regulation be government employees, or should that obligation be vested in the private or non-profit sector?

And finally, once the problem has been identified, a solution agreed upon, the means of enforcement determined, and the law passed, a sound policy process will vet how the new law performs–evaluate its effectiveness in actually addressing the original problem, and noting–and ideally correcting–any negative unanticipated effects.

This process will inevitably involve debate and discussion, and in an era of technological and social complexity, creating sound policy increasingly requires careful attention to sources of specialized expertise in the matter at hand.

Unfortunately, today’s Republicans and Democrats can’t even agree on what time it is, let alone what our actual problems are. The GOP buffoons who increasingly dominate America’s legislative chambers ignore virtually all the “grunt work” needed for sound policymaking. When they aren’t fundraising, preening for Faux News cameras or producing television ads blaming “others” for real and imagined social problems, they are using legislative tactics to block rather than produce policies.

(This is frustrating for all serious citizens, of course, but I spent the last 21 years of my career teaching policy, and watching the total abandonment of actual governance in favor of performative antics is beyond painful.)

It’s one thing to outline the steps of the policy process, as I’ve done above. But just as a (non-AI) picture can be worth a thousand words, a real-life example can be more illustrative than an abstract process outline. So let’s look at a tax bill that Trump still touts as evidence of…something.

As the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy explains:

The tax overhaul signed into law by former President Donald Trump in 2017 cut the federal corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, but during the first five years it has been in effect, most profitable corporations paid considerably less than that. This is mainly due to loopholes and special breaks that the 2017 tax law left in place and, in some cases, introduced. Corporate tax avoidance occurs because Congress allows it to occur, and the Trump tax law in many ways made it worse.

Tax policy is one of many intractable dividing lines between Republicans and Democrats, and it is a given that the tax overhaul of 2017 was not a product of agreement over the nature of the problem. Republicans think the problem is that businesses have to pay too much; Democrats think the problem is that wealthy folks aren’t paying their fair share. Clearly, a tax cut for profitable businesses is not the result of agreement on the nature of the problem. But the linked report focuses on the part of the policy process that both parties–and the Keystone Kops in Congress–routinely ignore.

How is it working?

The Institute looked at taxes paid by profitable corporations.

  • The 342 companies included in this study paid an average effective income tax rate of just 14.1 percent during this five-year period, almost a third less than the statutory rate of 21 percent.
  • Nearly a quarter of the corporations in this study (87 companies) paid effective tax rates in the single digits or less during this five-year period.
  • Of these, 55 (16 percent of the total 342 companies) paid effective rates of less than 5 percent. This is particularly striking given that all these companies were profitable for at least five years consecutively. Companies paying less than 5 percent include T-Mobile, DISH Network, Netflix, General Motors, AT&T, Bank of America, Citigroup, FedEx, Molson Coors, Nike, and many others.
  • Twenty-three corporations paid zero federal tax over the five-year period despite being profitable in every single year. And 109 corporations paid zero federal tax in at least one of the five years.
  • At the other end of the spectrum, 50 corporations paid effective tax rates of more than 21 percent, but most of these companies were also the beneficiaries of large tax breaks because they were paying taxes from previous years that they delayed using depreciation breaks.

One obvious “fix” for this would be passage of the global minimum tax negotiated by the Biden administration that’s currently being blocked by GOP lawmakers more interested in currying favor with special interests than engaging in the policy process.

Americans deserve better.

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A Moment Of Clarity

I have previously cited and linked to Heather Cox Richardson’s daily Letters from an American, but a recent one deserves more than a passing mention. In it, Richardson does a masterful job of clarifying the stakes of November’s election.

She begins by reminding us of the events leading up to the choice we will face, reminding readers that–once it had become clear Trump had lost the 2020 election– he’d given up “all pretense of normal presidential behavior.” Not only did he try to overturn the election, ignoring the will of the voters, “his attack on the fundamental principle of democracy ended the tradition of the peaceful transfer of power established in 1797 when our first president, George Washington, deliberately walked behind his successor, John Adams, after Adams was sworn into office.”

Trump has continued to push the Big Lie, and his loyalists in the states have embraced that lie, undermining faith in our electoral system. His theft of enormous amounts of classified materials has compromised national security.

We know all this, although the recitation/reminder is important. But–as historians like Richardson are well aware–past is truly prologue.

Trump is not the same as he was in 2020, and in the past three years he has transformed the Republican Party into a vehicle for Christian nationalism.

In 2016 the Republican Party was still dominated by leaders who promoted supply-side economics. They were determined to use the government to cut taxes and regulations to concentrate money and power among a few individuals, who would, theoretically, use that money and power to invest in the economy far more efficiently than they could if the government intervened. Before 2016 that Reaganesque party had stayed in office thanks to the votes of a base interested in advancing patriarchal, racist, and religious values.

But Trump flipped the power structure in the party, giving control to the reactionary base. In the years since 2020, the Republican Party has become openly opposed to democracy, embracing the Christian nationalism of leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who maintains that the tenets of democracy weaken a nation by giving immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and women the same rights as heterosexual, native-born white men.

Richardson then underscores what most of us who follow politics know–that today’s GOP looks absolutely nothing like the Republican party of the past.

Rather than calling for a small federal government that stays out of the way of market forces, as Republicans have advocated since 1980, the new Trump Party calls for a strong government that enforces religious rules and bans abortion; books; diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; and so on. In 2022, thanks to the three extremists Trump put on the Supreme Court, the government ceased to recognize a constitutional right that Americans had enjoyed since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision: the right to abortion.

The far-right Trumpers have paralyzed the House of Representatives.

Republican members who actually want to pass laws are either leaving or declining to run for reelection. The conference has become so toxic that fewer than 100 members agreed to attend their annual retreat that began today. “I’d rather sit down with Hannibal Lecter and eat my own liver,” a Republican member of Congress told Juliegrace Brufke of Axios.

Richardson ticks off some of the actions Trump has promised if he wins in November: purging the nonpartisan civil service created in 1883, in order to replace career employees with Trump loyalists; weaponizing the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense; rounding up 10 million people– “not just undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers but also those with birthright citizenship,” and putting them in camps, ignoring a “right that has been enshrined in the Constitution since 1868;” cutting Social Security and Medicare; and being a “dictator on Day One.”

She then enumerates many of the achievements of the Biden Administration, drawing a stark contrast between an incredibly consequential President who has worked within the traditions of this country and an autocratic madman.

Every American following the news can probably point to policies of the Biden administration with which they disagree. That’s par for the course in every administration. Liz Cheney probably said it best: we can survive what we consider bad policy, we cannot survive a president who torches the Constitution.

It is incredibly disheartening to realize that millions of our fellow-Americans harbor resentments and hatreds that this repulsive buffoon has exploited–grievances for which he serves as a vehicle. But I refuse to believe that those angry and limited people represent anything close to a majority. If they did, Republicans wouldn’t be so frantic to suppress the vote.

Click through, read Richardson’s entire Letter–and VOTE as if your life depended upon it, because in a very real sense, it does.

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