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      in US Politics

      National debt: critics cry hypocrisy as Republicans oppose Biden spending

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      The response was as uniform as it was predictable.When Joe Biden unveiled an audacious $1.9tn coronavirus relief package, Senator Rick Scott of Florida warned: “I think one thing the Biden administration really has to focus on is the risk of what all this debt is going to do to us.”When the president followed up with $2tn for infrastructure, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, made clear his opposition: “If it’s going to have massive tax increases and trillions more added to the national debt, it’s not likely.”Republicans are beating the drum of small government and fiscal responsibility. Critics say they are only doing so because Democrats control the purse strings. They argue that past Republican administrations have shown little regard for the spiralling national debt.The charge of hypocrisy could hamper efforts to stall or pare down Biden’s ambitions. After Donald Trump’s cavalier spending, and tax cuts for the rich, the GOP faces a battle for credibility.“Republicans spent the better part of the Obama presidency talking about ‘tax and spend liberals’ and ‘living within our means’ and balancing budgets and debt and deficits and then, as soon as they got the reins of power, all of that went out the window and they spent money like drunken sailors,” said Kurt Bardella, a former Republican aide, now a Democrat.“…They spent it on the rich, on the wealthy, on corporate interests. The hypocrisy of the Republican party when it comes to spending and deficits is just another example of how almost every facet of traditional conservatism has been abandoned during this Trump era … if Donald Trump released the same plan Joe Biden did, they would be all for it.”Republicans talk a good game on debt but their record tells a different story. Ronald Reagan, worshipped by many as the patron saint of “responsible” spending, left office having almost tripled the national debt and having cut taxes for the rich. George W Bush doubled the debt with military spending after 9/11 – and more tax cuts.In 2016, Trump promised to eliminate the debt within eight years. It was then about $20tn. By October 2020 it had reached $27tn – up almost 36% – thanks in large part to more tax cuts for the rich.This reality, combined with Biden’s plans, has stirred debate over whether the national debt actually matters. Experts disagree over how much debt is too much. Last year the debt exceeded GDP, but interest rates remain low.Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, is most concerned about the need to stimulate recovery. She told Congress: “Right now, short-term, I feel we can afford what it takes to get the economy back on its feet, to get us through the pandemic, and to relieve the burdens that it is placing on households and small businesses.”Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Bank, agrees.“We have been through an unprecedented crisis, it makes sense that we would spend heavily to get out of it and the interest costs are so low right now it makes sense to spend heavily now so that we can return to normal,” he said.The debt does need to be addressed, he said, and hopefully better economic activity will bring it down: “We still need to figure out how to pay for the retirement of the baby boomers over the longer run but that’s a longer issue.”If rates move up quickly or if financial markets grow concerned about ability to pay back the debt “that would be a big concern”, Faucher added. “But I don’t see that on the horizon. I don’t think it’s a crisis right now.”For Maya MacGuineas, president of the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the national debt is a crisis waiting to happen.“Our debt is the highest it has been relative to the economy since the second world war and it is about to be the highest it has been ever,” she said. “It’s growing faster than the economy, that’s the definition of unsustainable.”That leaves the US “dangerously vulnerable” to economic and geopolitical challenges, she added, arguing that spending is not the problem so much as how borrowing is paid for. Washington has increasingly attempted to enact an agenda that is not paid for. Biden’s infrastructure plan is an exception, said MacGuineas, with a plan to pay in part by increasing corporate taxes.But too often the politics of borrowing are “dangerously shortsighted and there is always a political justification not to deal with it because paying for your priorities is much harder than pretending they pay for themselves”.The situation has been exacerbated by polarization that has left Washington “unable to do anything hard … the hypocrisy during the Trump era, where we massively grew the debt, massively grew spending and refused to deal with social security and Medicare challenges, was truly problematic.“Both sides see it so differently and they need to talk to each other. Republicans keep putting in irresponsible tax cuts pretending that they will pay for themselves, which they won’t. On the Democrat side there is a denial that we have a number of programs that are growing faster than the overall economy … for seniors, retirement and healthcare. There is an unwillingness to even acknowledge that those programs have to be fixed.”It is a situation that is unlikely to change in an era when “bipartisan” is a dirty word. “They have completely different stories they tell themselves,” she said.Biden has insisted he is open to talks on infrastructure and will meet Democrats and Republicans. But if Republicans attempt to play the national debt card, they are likely to be given short shrift.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: “Nobody even takes it seriously. When I see it, and I think there are millions of people like me, I just laugh. Do they really think our memories are that short?” More

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      in World Politics

      A New European Financial Landscape Is Emerging

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      The United Kingdom’s exit from the European single market on January 1 has sent trade in goods plummeting amid much confusion. By contrast, Brexit was carried out in an orderly manner in the financial sector, despite significant movement of trading in shares and derivatives away from the City of London.

      The Brexit Deal Presents Opportunities for a New Partnership

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      After five years of radical uncertainty, it has become clear that the European Union and the United Kingdom will be taking separate paths on financial regulations — a financial “decoupling” that means a significant loss of business for the City. Whether the EU financial sector can gain much of what London loses will depend on the EU’s willingness to embrace further financial market integration.

      Smart Sequencing Ensured an Orderly Brexit

      As with the Y2K problem, the Brexit transition could have gone worse. It took more than luck to avoid financial instability along the way.

      First, financial firms on both sides of the English Channel (and of the Irish Sea) worked hard and were able to preempt most of the operational challenges.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Second, despite all the recurring high-stakes drama between the UK government and the European Commission, the technical cooperation between the authorities actually in charge of financial stability, primarily the Bank of England and the European Central Bank (ECB), appears to have run smoothly.

      Third, the negotiators phased the process in a smart way. The Brexit Withdrawal Agreement of January 2020 helped reduce uncertainty by ensuring that the UK government would meet its financial obligations to the EU, avoiding what would have been akin to selective default. That agreement kept the United Kingdom in the single market during the transition period beyond the country’s formal exit from the European Union on January 31, 2020. It also set a late-June deadline for the British government to extend the transition period beyond December 31, 2020. As London decided not to do so, that left six months of effective preparation.

      To be sure, whether an EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) would be concluded remained unknown until late December. But that mattered comparatively little for financial services, since trade agreements typically do not cover them much. By one count, the 1,259-page TCA (which is still unratified by the European Union) contains only six pages relevant for the financial sector.

      The resulting legal environment for financial services between the European Union and the United Kingdom is unlikely to change much any time soon. Contrary to occasional portrayals in the United Kingdom, no bilateral negotiations on financial services are going on, except for a memorandum of understanding expected this month that is not expected to bind the parties on substance.

      From the EU perspective, the United Kingdom is now a “third country,” in other words an offshore financial center, following decades of onshore status. UK-registered financial firms have lost the right, or “passport,” to offer their services seamlessly anywhere in the EU single market. From a regulatory standpoint, they have no better access to that market than their peers in other third nations such as Japan, Singapore or the United States.

      Equivalence Status for UK Financial Market Segments

      Some segments of the financial sector in these other third countries actually have better single market access than British ones, because they are covered by a category in EU law allowing direct service provision by firms under a regulatory framework deemed “equivalent” to that in the European Union. The equivalence decision is at the European Commission’s discretion, even though it is based on a technical assessment. As a privilege and not a right, equivalence can be revoked on short notice.

      So far, the European Commission has not granted the UK any such segment-specific equivalence, except in a time-limited manner for securities depositories until mid-2021 and clearing services until mid-2022. For the moment, the commission appears to be leaning against making the latter permanent. In most other market segments, the commission will not likely grant equivalence to the United Kingdom in the foreseeable future. This may appear inconsistent with the fact that almost all current UK regulations stem from the existing EU body of law. But the UK authorities (including the Bank of England) have declined to commit to keeping that alignment intact.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The commission’s inclination to reduce EU dependence on the City of London is understandable. No comparable dependence on an offshore financial center has existed anywhere in recent financial history. Such dependence entails financial stability risk. In a crisis, UK authorities would not necessarily respond in a way that preserves vital EU interests. Think of the Icelandic crisis of 2008, when Reykjavik protected the failing banks’ domestic depositors but not foreign ones. It is hardly absurd for the European Union to try to reduce such a risk, even if — as appears to happen with derivatives — some of the activity migrates from the United Kingdom to the United States or other third countries as a consequence, and not to the European Union.

      At the same time, the argument that keeping EU liquidity pooled in London is more efficient than any alternative is unpersuasive given the European Union’s own vast size. In addition, the European Commission also follows mercantilist impulses to lure activity away from London, even though these generally do not make economic sense. Added up, these factors provide little incentive for the commission to grant equivalence status to more UK financial market segments, unless some other high-level political motives come into play. None are apparent right now.

      The UK Is Unlikely to Regain Lost Advantage

      How the European Union and the United Kingdom will decouple will not be uniform across all parts of the financial system. Regulatory competition between them may become a “race to the bottom” or “to the top,” depending on market segments and the circumstances of the moment, without a uniform pattern. In any case, such labels are more a matter of judgment in financial regulation than in, say, tax competition.

      In some areas, the European Union will be laxer, while in others, it will be the United Kingdom, as is presently the case between the EU and the US. For example, the European Union is more demanding than the United States on curbing bankers’ compensation but easier when it comes to enforcing securities laws or setting capital requirements for banks. At least some forthcoming UK financial regulatory decisions may be aimed at keeping or attracting financial institutions in London, but they are still not likely to offset the loss of passport to the EU single market.

      All these permutations suggest that the medium-term outlook for the City of London is unpromising, although the COVID-19 situation makes all quantitative observations more difficult to interpret. Once an onshore financial center for the entire EU single market, and a competitive offshore center for the rest of the world, the City has been reduced to an onshore center for the United Kingdom only and has become offshore for the European Union. That implies a different, in all likelihood less powerful, set of synergies across the City of London’s financial activities.

      The few relevant quantitative data points available reinforce this bleak view. Job offerings in British finance, as tracked by consultancy Morgan McKinley, have declined alarmingly since the 2016 Brexit referendum. The ECB (as bank supervisor) and national securities regulators coordinated by the European Securities and Markets Authority are tightening requirements for key personnel to reside mainly on EU territory rather than in the United Kingdom.

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      As noted by Financial Times columnist Simon Kuper, many financial firms’ Brexit policy until this year had been to “sit tight and do nothing until post-Brexit arrangements for finance forced [their] hand.” That phase has ended. Firms that drag their feet face regulatory disruption, as happened to broker TP ICAP in late January. Tussles between regulators and regulated entities, rather than between the European Commission and the UK government, are where most of the financial-sector Brexit action is likely to be in 2021. These disputes typically happen behind closed doors, and the regulators typically hold most of the cards.

      For all the optimistic talk in London of “Big Bang 2.0 or whatever,” the United Kingdom’s comparative advantage as the best location for financial business in the European time zone is unlikely to recover to its pre-Brexit level. The macroeconomic losses could be moderated or offset by cheaper currency and less expensive real estate in London, making the city a more attractive place to do nonfinancial business. Even so, a gap will likely remain for the UK government, which has for years depended heavily on financial sector–related tax revenue.

      The European Union stands to gain financial activity as a consequence of Brexit. How much and where is not clear yet. As some analysts had predicted, Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt, Luxembourg and Paris are the leaders for the relocation of international (non-EU) firms. Dublin and Luxembourg specialize in asset management, Frankfurt in investment banking and Amsterdam in trading. But EU success in terms of financial services competitiveness and stability will depend on further market integration, the pace of which remains hard to predict.

      The European banking union is still only half-built because it lacks a consistent framework for bank crisis management and deposit insurance. The grand EU rhetoric on “capital markets union” has yielded little actual reform since its start in 2014. Events like the still-unfolding Wirecard saga may force additional steps toward market integration, even though a proactive approach would be preferable.

      The one near certainty is that London’s position in the European financial sector will be less than it used to be.

      *[This article was originally published by Bruegel and the Peterson Institute.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Biden promises 'historic' $2tn spending in infrastructure – but Capitol Hill fight awaits

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      Joe Biden will unveil an expansive $2tn proposal to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, confront climate change and curb wealth inequality, part of a sweeping spending package that could define the president’s economic legacy.Biden’s plan, which he will lay out at a speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday afternoon, includes “historic and galvanizing” investments in traditional infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges and highways, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars to fortify the electricity grid, expand high-speed broadband and rebuild water systems to ensure access to clean drinking water, an administration official said on Tuesday. It also seeks to expand access to community care facilities for seniors and people with disabilities and invest in research and development and workplace training.He will propose paying for the new spending with a substantial increase on corporate taxes that would offset eight years of spending over the course of 15 years, officials said. Among the changes, Biden will call for a rise in the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% and measures to force multinational corporations to pay more taxes in the US on profits earned abroad. The tax plan would unwind major pieces of Donald Trump’s tax-cut law, which lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.The package, known as the American jobs plan, is only the first part of the president’s sprawling infrastructure agenda. Aides say he will present a second legislative package next month that will focus on investments in healthcare, childcare and education. That package is expected to be paid for, at least in part, by raising taxes on the nation’s highest earners.As a candidate, Biden promised not to raise individual taxes on those earning less than $400,000.The scale of the proposals, together expected to cost as much as $4tn, has been compared to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal or Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. A memo outlining its ambition states: “Like great projects of the past, the president’s plan will unify and mobilize the country to meet the great challenges of our time: the climate crisis and the ambitions of an autocratic China.”Biden’s allies on Capitol Hill are gearing up for a fight over the infrastructure legislation that will likely prove to be significantly more contentious than the swift passage of Biden’s $1.9tn economic aid bill, which was enacted earlier this month with only Democratic votes.While the urgency of the pandemic helped Democrats overcome a handful of objections to pass Biden’s coronavirus relief plan, there is infighting over what belongs in the package – and whether the administration should spend time attempting to forge a bipartisan consensus.Both Democrats and Republicans share a goal of fixing the nation’s ageing roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure. Yet they disagree sharply on the details – how much to spend, what constitutes “infrastructure” and how to pay for the investments. This chasm was too big for either Barack Obama or Trump to overcome and both failed to make progress after promising to rebuild the country’s infrastructure.In a briefing with reporters on Tuesday night, the administration official said Biden believed the current moment offered a rare opportunity “to demonstrate that the United States and democracies can deliver for the people that they serve”.“The stakes of this moment are high,” the official continued, adding that the president was confident this package would prove once again that massive public investment programs have the ability to not only create millions of new jobs but “revive and revitalize our national imagination”.“We think that these are investments that as a country we cannot afford not to make,” the official said.But congressional Republicans are already balking at the scope of the project, warning that the tax rises will hurt American competitiveness and slow the nation’s economic growth as it struggles to rebound from the pandemic. Their opposition could force Democrats to pass the bill through reconciliation, a parliamentary process that would allow them to bypass Republicans in the Senate.Even then, rank-and-file Democrats are far from aligned. With a narrow majority in the House and an evenly divided Senate, Biden has little room for error and the jockeying is already well underway as Democrats push an array of competing policy demands and ultimatums.On Tuesday, congressman Josh Gottheimer, a centrist Democrat from New Jersey, said he would oppose any tax proposals that did not include a repeal of the cap on state and local tax deductions implemented as part of the Republican’s 2017 GOP tax-cut plan.Meanwhile, liberal lawmakers want to see Biden go even bigger. On Monday, senator Edward Markey and congresswoman Debbie Dingell proposed a climate and infrastructure plan that would spend $10tn over the next decade.There is also an internal debate over how to proceed. Moderate Democrats say the package should be targeted to attract Republicans, fulfilling a campaign promise Biden made to work with members of both parties. But many progressives see little value in compromise.Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, urged the administration not to waste precious time attempting to woo Republicans.“We can’t wait for Republicans to have some awakening on climate change here – we’ll be waiting forever if we do that,” she said on Tuesday “We’ve got a window to get this done and we have to move with the urgency and the boldness that this moment calls for.” More

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      in World Politics

      The COVID-19 Crisis Has Catalyzed Vision 2030

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      A look back at history shows that desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures. After all, it was not until Saudi officials watched in horror as oil prices plummeted by 70% that, in 2016, Vision 2030 was born. While other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members presented their own initiatives, true to form, Saudi Arabia’s economic reform agenda is the most ambitious yet. 2020 was set to mark the agenda’s first benchmark achievement. Instead, an oil price war, a disastrous bombing campaign against Yemen and a 5.4% contraction in GDP set a different tone than the kingdom may have intended.

      The Line: Mohammed bin Salman’s Green Blockbuster

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      The disruption ensued by the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on economies and markets worldwide, but none saw the eye-watering lows experienced by the oil industry. This was exacerbated by Saudi Arabia and Russia going head-to-head in a price war that brought about further carnage. Despite production cuts being eventually agreed upon, the global downturn and persistent oversupply of oil reached its crescendo with US oil dropping spectacularly into negative for the first time in history.

      Progress Overview

      As the dust began to settle, a sense of urgency set in among leaders as they were faced with the aftermath of the crisis. Not only did COVID-19 highlight the risk of oil dependency, but it has further exposed oil-exporting economies to fiscal vulnerabilities. With growth contractions across the MENA region, the current price of oil is far below the break-even level required to balance the budgets. With the exception of the UAE, oil represents over 50% of GCC budgets, highlighting the urgency to diversify in order to pay off the fiscal bill. While the impact of COVID-19 on Vision 2030 is unclear, an analysis of existing achievements and overall aims can paint a clearer picture of how Saudi Arabia should reassess its grand plan in light of the pandemic.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Only a year after the announcement, it seemed that Vision 2030 was not enough to satiate the Saudi appetite for grandiose ideas. So, in 2017, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the construction of a $500-billion smart city of NEOM. Aside from talk of a fake moon and flying cars, the Saudis managed to hit a more palpable note with investors with the city’s $5-billion green hydrogen plant. By 2025, the facility will supposedly produce 650 tons of hydrogen daily and 1.2 million tons of green ammonia for export.

      Despite the challenges hydrogen fuel presents, this project offers Saudi Arabia an unparalleled opportunity to pioneer a market gaining “unprecedented political and business momentum,” according to the International Energy Agency. Beyond this, while there is little publicly available information on the kingdom’s key performance indictor achievements, visible progress has been made in the one thing it does best — state-managed tasks. Notable regulatory reforms in 2018-19 earned Saudi Arabia a spot in the World Bank’s top 10 global business-climate improvers.

      Strong development has also been observed in capital markets and the banking system, whereby the growth of Tadawul, the Saudi stock exchange, has been the standout achievement. Such praiseworthy steps have also been accompanied by progress in the realm of digitization and social reforms. Yet this is not enough.

      While the kingdom is certainly achieving its goal of being an ambitious nation, less can be said for its key pillar — a thriving economy. Job creation, foreign direct investment (FDI), entrepreneurship and private sector growth are all core areas where Saudi Arabia has fallen short. A recent string of PR disasters, like the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 and the 2017 high-profile purge that included the arrest of 11 senior princes, have further tainted the kingdom’s image, harming investor confidence. At mere 0.57% of GDP, current FDI levels are simply not enough to fund the diversification plan.

      Needless to say, the economic challenges spurred by the pandemic will require a tightening of the Saudi purse strings to rein in the growing budget deficit. Such fiscal prudence will inevitably impact the ever-more necessary reform agenda, indicating that a stringent revaluation of the Vision 2030 objectives will be needed to deliver on its promises.

      The To-Do List

      To lay the foundations of their revised plan, the kingdom must first reprioritize spending and maximize income from existing revenue streams while attracting and retaining investor funding. This will require boosting FDI through greater transparency, accountability and generally better self-conduct on the international stage. In the longer term, focusing on strategically sound, high-impact projects while delaying those with little real-time value will be an integral step in the agenda’s revaluation.

      Much to Saudi Arabia’s dismay, this will mean moving away from the likes of NEOM to the less glamourous task of actual economic reform. Yet if NEOM were not enough, within it there is now The Line — a linear, AI-run city free of carbon, cars and any sense of realism. Regardless of its supposed economic benefits, the fact of the matter remains that problems are not solved through procrastination, even if it costs billions.

      Arguably the hardest yet most important step for Saudi Arabia will be to cede state control to make room for a diverse, competitive and independent private sector. The kingdom’s strategy of spreading itself thin across all sectors is not only inefficient, but unattractive. A more market-based approach will stimulate entrepreneurship, competition and, most importantly, draw in foreign investment.

      This ties into the second key step: optimizing the business environment. This means pushing for greater access to capital, greater ease of doing business and greater stringency and transparency in the legal system, encouraging entrepreneurship both at home and from abroad. The third and most important step is human capital development. In a country where 67% of the population is below the age of 34, disregarding the youth would mean neglecting Saudi’s greatest asset.

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      Quality of education and upskilling the youth must be prioritized alongside creating jobs suited to the existing workforce. The importance of human capital cannot be overstated: In order to create a successful economy that best serves the people, investing in its citizens must be the crux of Vision 2030.

      Finally, to reinvent itself as the business hub of the Middle East, the kingdom must rein in its regional military interventions, a massive burden on both its budget and international image. In order to truly convince investors, Saudi must actively channel its efforts away from conflict and toward long-term economic reform.

      On the whole, despite some notable achievements, progress is slow, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a long journey ahead. However, COVID-19 has prompted a much-needed agenda revaluation, revealing some shortcuts and pushing Saudi leaders to move with a greater sense of urgency. The Word Bank itself warns that “higher than expected oil and gas revenues could reduce the pressure for [GCC] governments to reform,” exemplified in Vision 2030 itself being the result of such a price shock. However, with the eye-watering oil price drops of 2020, COVID-19 may have been the rude awakening Saudi leaders needed.

      The challenge now lies in both pioneering change while stimulating an economy in a world experiencing the greatest recession since the Second World War. This, of course, is no easy feat, but the key to success will lie in focusing on projects that truly add value. This will mean ceding control to facilitate private sector growth, optimizing the business environment and committing to its citizens by investing in the youth. Only then can Saudi Arabia unlock its potential and become, as it envisions, the “epicenter of trade and the gateway to the world.”

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      House set to approve $1.9tn Covid aid bill despite minimum wage setback

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      The US House of Representatives is aiming to pass Joe Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus aid bill on Friday in what would be his first big legislative win, although marred by the news that a favored minimum wage hike would have to be tossed out.A spirited and potentially long debate was expected, as most Republicans oppose the cost of the bill that would pay for vaccines and other medical supplies to battle a Covid-19 pandemic that has killed more than 500,000 Americans and thrown millions out of work.The measure would also send a new round of emergency financial aid to households, small businesses and state and local governments.A group of Senate Republicans had offered Biden a slimmed-down alternative, but the White House and some economists insist a big package is needed.Biden has focused his first weeks in office on tackling the greatest public health crisis in a century, which has upended most aspects of American life.Democrats control the House by a 221-211 margin, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi is counting on nearly all of her rank and file to get the bill passed before sending it to a 50-50 Senate, where the Democratic vice-president, Kamala Harris, holds the tie-breaking vote.Embedded in the House bill is a federal minimum wage increase, which would be the first since 2009 and would gradually bump it up to $15 an hour in 2025 from the current $7.25 rate.But the future of the wage hike was dealt a serious blow on Thursday, when the Senate parliamentarian ruled that it could not be allowed in the Senate version of the coronavirus bill under that chamber’s “reconciliation” rules.The special rules allow the legislation to advance in the Senate with a simple majority of the 100 senators, instead of the 60 needed for most legislation.Biden has not given up on raising the minimum wage to $15, a top White House economic adviser said on Friday.A higher wage “is the right thing to do”, White House national economic council director, Brian Deese, said in an interview on MSNBC.“We’re going to consult with our congressional allies, congressional leaders today to talk about a path forward, about how we can make progress urgently on what is an urgent issue.”Meanwhile, lawmakers must also act on the coronavirus stimulus package, Deese said.The $15 minimum wage figure had already faced opposition in the Senate from most Republicans and at least two Democrats, which would have been enough to sink the plan. An array of senators are talking about a smaller increase, in the range of $10 to $12 an hour.In a statement after the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling, Pelosi said: “House Democrats believe that the minimum wage hike is necessary.”She said it would stay in the House version of the coronavirus bill.In arguing for passage of the relief bill, Pelosi cited opinion polls indicating the support of a significant majority of Americans who have been battered by the yearlong pandemic.“It’s about putting vaccinations in the arm, money in the pocket, children in the schools, workers in their jobs,” Pelosi told reporters on Thursday. “It’s what this country needs.“Among the big-ticket items in the bill are $1,400 direct payments to individuals, a $400-per-week federal unemployment benefit through 29 August and help for those having difficulties paying their rent and home mortgages during the pandemic.An array of business interests also have weighed in behind Biden’s America Rescue Plan Act, as the bill is called.Republicans have criticized the legislation as a “liberal wishlist giveaway” that fails to dedicate enough money to reopening schools that have been partially operating with “virtual” learning during the pandemic.The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, complained it was “too costly, too corrupt”. While Republicans for months have blocked a new round of aid to state and local governments, McCarthy said he was open to his home state of California getting some of the bill’s $350bn in funding, despite a one-time $15bn budget surplus.Efforts to craft a bipartisan coronavirus aid bill fizzled early on, shortly after Biden was sworn in as president on 20 January, following a series of bipartisan bills enacted in 2020 that totaled around $4tn. More

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      A $15 minimum wage isn't just about justice. It's good economics | Steven Greenhouse

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      There’s one important aspect of the fight for a $15 minimum wage that is little understood: the fight isn’t so much about raising pay for a few million workers. Rather it’s about the far more ambitious goal of putting the US economy on a higher road, on a different track from being a low-wage economy. In Europe, many people scoff at the US as a country of low-wage McJobs with paltry benefits – often no paid sick days, no paid vacation and no health insurance. In Denmark, a McDonald’s hamburger flipper averages $22 an hour (with six weeks’ paid vacation), while in the US, fast-food jobs pay half that on average.You might wonder: how can the United States, the world’s wealthiest nation, be a low-wage economy? Of the 37 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the unofficial club of rich and near-rich nations, the US has the third-highest percentage of low-wage workers, with nearly one in four workers defined as low-wage. Only Latvia and Romania are worse. (That study defines low-wage as earning less than two-thirds of a nation’s median wage.) In another study, Brookings found that 53 million Americans hold low-wage jobs, with a median pay of $10.22 an hour and median annual earnings of $17,950.The US also has the lowest minimum wage among the G7 industrial nations in terms of purchasing power. America’s $7.25-an-hour federal minimum is 38% lower than Germany’s and 30% lower than Britain’s, Canada’s and France’s. This helps explain why the US has among the worst income inequality of the 37 OECD nations – only Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica and Bulgaria have greater inequality. And the US has the third highest poverty rate; only Hungary and Costa Rica are worse.The US didn’t always have a low-road economy. In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, it had a high-road economy: labor unions were at their strongest, American businesses were booming (for the most part), and corporations shared their profits and prosperity with their workers as never before, helping build the world’s largest and richest middle class. But beginning in the 1980s, many corporations pushed the US economy and American workers on to a lower road, as corporate America felt the sting of global competition, as Wall Street pushed companies ever harder to maximize profits, as labor unions grew weaker and as President Reagan and other Republicans weakened worker protections and did little to raise the minimum wage.The US also has the lowest minimum wage among the G7 industrial nations in terms of purchasing powerBecause of persistent Republican opposition, the federal minimum wage hasn’t increased since July 2009 – the longest stretch without an increase since Congress first enacted a minimum wage in 1938. Franklin Roosevelt signed the minimum wage into law during the Great Depression because he thought workers had far too little bargaining power and consumers far too little purchasing power. Roosevelt urged companies to pay fair wages, saying, “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”Today’s federal minimum wage is just $7.25 an hour –  try maintaining a decent living at that pay level. The minimum wage is down 18% since it was last raised in 2009, after factoring in inflation, and down over 30%, after inflation, since 1968, during Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society years.America’s business community has staunchly opposed any minimum wage increases, warning that they would push up prices and force some companies out of business. Those leading the charge against a higher minimum – corporate executives and well-paid lobbyists and thinktank fellows – repeatedly say that raising the wage floor would be a job killer. They note that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently estimated that increasing the minimum to $15 by 2025 would reduce employment by 1.4 million, although the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, echoing many economic studies, said a $15 minimum’s effect on jobs would be “very minimal, if anything”. The CBO also predicted that increasing the minimum to $15 would raise the pay of 27 million workers nationwide and increase worker pay overall by $333bn – a step that would stimulate the struggling economy.Corporations, along with their Republican allies, overwhelmingly oppose a $15 minimum; in doing so, however, they ignore the will of the vast majority of Americans. According to a Pew poll, Americans favor a $15 minimum by 67% to 33%. While low-wage workers would be most vulnerable to any job losses caused by a higher minimum, lower-income Americans shows even greater support for a $15 minimum. Pew found that 74% of Americans making under $40,000 a year support a $15 minimum wage, as do 56% of Republicans making under $40,000. Last November, Floridians – even as their state went for Trump – voted 61% to 39% in favor of raising their state’s minimum to $15, joining eight other states that have approved a $15 minimum.Despite such strong public backing for a $15 minimum, it looks doubtful that even one Republican senator – even though the Republican party now describes itself as the party of workers – will vote for a $15 minimum. President Biden has championed a $15 minimum: “No matter where you work in America, if you work full time or 40 hours a week, you should not live in poverty,” he has said. “A $15 minimum wage accomplishes that.” A full-time worker making $7.25 an hour earns $15,080 a year; in contrast, a full-time worker earning $15 will make $31,200. In the face of opposition from Republicans and some congressional Democrats, however, Biden has hinted he might compromise on a lower number.The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive research group, predicts that if the minimum rises to $15, nearly one-third (31%) of African Americans and one-quarter (26%) of Latinos will receive a pay increase. Those pushing for a $15 minimum are carrying on a fight that Martin Luther King Jr, championed: the fight for decent pay and dignity at work. In 1967, the year before he died while fighting for higher wages for sanitation workers in Memphis, King wrote, “There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American whether he [or she] is a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid or day laborer.”Millions of low-wage workers are still waiting for America to heed King’s social vision. More

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      US minimum wage activists face their toughest foe: Democrat Joe Manchin

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      Hopes that the US will finally increase the federal minimum wage for the first time in nearly 12 years face a seemingly unlikely opponent: a Democrat senator from one of the poorest states in the union.Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the state’s former governor and the Democrats’ most conservative senator, has long opposed his party’s progressive wing and is on record saying he does not support increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour, the first increase since 2009. “I’m supportive of basically having something that’s responsible and reasonable,” he told the Hill. He has advocated for a rise to $11.None of this has found favor with some low-wage workers in a state where an estimated 278,734 West Virginians lived in poverty in 2019, 16% of the population and the sixth highest poverty rate in the US.Last Thursday Manchin reaffirmed his stance during a virtual meeting with members of the West Virginia Poor People’s Campaign (WVPPC), a group pushing for an increased minimum wage and other policy changes that would benefit the working class.That meeting was closed to the media but at an online press conference immediately afterward, participants said Manchin refused to budge. “He was kind of copping out,” said WVPPC member Brianna Griffith, a restaurant worker and whitewater rafting guide who, due to exemptions for tipped workers, only makes $2.62 an hour.As a result of her sub-minimum wage job, Griffith received only $67 a week in unemployment benefits until that ran out in August. She lost her house and was forced to move in with her grandmother. Although she has now returned to work, business is slow and she estimates tips have fallen by 75%.When Griffith told Manchin about her plight on Thursday, she said he asked about the $600 stimulus check approved by Congress in December. “He seemed to think that $600 … was enough to get me by,” she said. “I feel like he’s got his head in the clouds and he doesn’t understand what’s happening to poor people in West Virginia.”Despite Manchin’s insistence on an $11 minimum wage, according to MIT’s living wage calculator, even a $15 minimum wage would only provide a living wage for single West Virginians without children. For a West Virginia family with two working parents and two children, both parents would need to be making at least $20.14 an hour to make ends meet.Griffith said if the minimum wage was increased to $15 an hour, “I could afford to live on my own. I could afford a car that’s not 25 years old.”The Rev Dr William Barber, co-chair of the national Poor People’s Campaign, was in last week’s meeting and said Manchin agreed the current $7.25 minimum wage was “not enough”.But Barber said he was “amazed” Manchin could hear from people like Griffith and still oppose increasing the minimum wage to $15.“What he is suggesting would just further keep people in poverty and hurting,” he said.Raising the minimum wage was a key part of Democrats’ 2020 platform. The former presidential candidate and now Senate budget committee chairman, Bernie Sanders, has referred to the current $7.25 rate as “a starvation wage”.The wage hike, formally known as the Raise the Wage Act of 2021, is now part of a proposed $1.9tn Covid-19 relief bill. The measure would incrementally raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 over the next four years.With only a razor-thin majority in the Senate, all 50 Democrat senators need to be onboard for the bill to pass. But in addition to Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona has told Politico she does not want the minimum wage increase to be part of the Covid relief package.There are some reasons to be hesitant about increasing the minimum wage. A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report detailing the economic impact of the Raise the Wage Act has estimated the legislation would eliminate an estimated 1.4m jobs and would swell the national debt by $54bn over the next decade.But the report also estimates a $15 minimum wage would lift 900,000 people out of poverty nationwide and inject $333m into the US economy.Other economists have disputed the CBO report. Estimates by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute predict 32 million US workers would benefit from the minimum wage increase, which includes a quarter-million workers in Manchin’s home state of West Virginia.WVPPC member Pam Garrison was also on Thursday’s call with Manchin. Garrison is 55 years old and says she has earned minimum wage her entire working life and makes ends meet by taking side jobs cleaning houses. She spoke of the mental, physical and emotional toll that living in poverty has on people like her.“You’re just frazzled,” she said. “If you’ve never lived in poverty, you have no idea what it does to you.”If you’ve never lived in poverty, you have no idea what it does to youGarrison said Manchin ‘heard our side” but is reluctant to embrace a $15 minimum wage because he is worried small businesses could not absorb the increased labor costs. But she said giving low-wage workers more money would also benefit small businesses.“If you give us a decent pay, we’re going to put the money back into the economy [and] we’re going to be able to feed our families,” she said.Members of the WVPPC plan to continue lobbying Manchin on the Raise the Wage Act despite his seeming unwillingness to change his stance on the legislation.The group will hold a masked, socially distanced rally outside his office in Charleston, West Virginia, on Monday. A similar rally will be held at . Sinema’s office in Pheonix, Arizona.Manchin’s office denied multiple requests for comment.Zack Harold is a freelance writer and radio producer in Charleston, West Virginia. He is a regular contributor for West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and formerly served as the Charleston Daily Mail’s entertainment editor and managing editor for WV Living, Wonderful West Virginia and WV Focus magazines More

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      in World Politics

      The Italian Job: Can Mario Draghi Master It?

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      A political crisis was the last thing Italy needed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet a personal conflict between the leader of Italia Viva, Matteo Renzi, and the previous prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, led to the collapse of the coalition in mid-January. President Sergio Mattarella then commissioned 73-year-old Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank (ECB), to form a technocratic government, which he will preside over as prime minister.

      According to Mattarella, it would have been risky to organize early elections during the pandemic. Indeed, new elections would have delayed the fight against the pandemic. In addition, the prospect of a right-wing populist government would also probably have had a negative impact on the financial markets — a risk that had to be avoided in an already challenging situation.

      Will Britain Become Scot-Free?

      READ MORE

      Draghi is inheriting a difficult situation. In Italy, the health, economic and social crises triggered by the pandemic have exacerbated the country’s enormous structural problems. Italy’s “seven deadly sins” — as Italian economist Carlo Cottarelli called them — are tax evasion, corruption, excessive bureaucracy, an inefficient judicial system, demographic problems, the north-south divide and difficulty in functioning within the eurozone. As a result of the pandemic, gross domestic product (GDP) fell by almost 9% in 2020, public debt rose to around 160% of GDP and more than 400,000 jobs were lost. The inability of the traditional parties to find solutions for the economic problems keeps support for the right-wing populist coalition (Lega, Fratelli d’Italia, Forza Italia) at almost 50%.

      Even though almost all major political forces have declared their intent to cooperate with the Draghi government, the framework of a technocratic government offers the right-wing populists a target. It is quite conceivable that they will accuse Draghi of lacking democratic legitimacy. It will also be a challenge for the new head of government to govern without his own parliamentary majority.

      Managing the Health Crisis Without Austerity

      The top priority of the new leadership will be to manage the health crisis. This includes speeding up vaccinations and supporting schools and the labor market. This means applying for — and successfully using — funds from the financial assistance plan of the European Union to mitigate the economic and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The expected €200 billion ($243 billion) or so from this fund could benefit the economic recovery as well as the planned structural reforms in public administration, taxation and the judiciary, which will give the new government more room for maneuver in economic policy.

      Unlike the last technocratic government under Mario Monti between 2011 and 2013, the fact that Draghi will not have to enact politically-costly fiscal consolidation with possible negative effects on GDP growth can also be seen as an opportunity. This is mainly due to broad market confidence in Draghi and the fact that his government is operating from the outset under the protective umbrella of the ECB, which will not allow the cost for servicing public debt to rise excessively. The eurozone’s fiscal rules have also been temporarily suspended; this makes it possible to support the economy through fiscal policy measures.

      Finally, it should not be forgotten that, despite the structural problems, the Italian economy has many strengths: Italy is one of the most industrialized countries in Europe and the second-largest exporter after Germany. If some obstacles to growth are removed and, for example, credit is released by the Italian banking sector, the pace of recovery could pick up significantly. Draghi’s experience from the finance ministry and in central banking could help him set a decisive course.

      Who Will Succeed Mario Draghi?

      Nevertheless, given the major challenges facing Draghi’s technocratic government, one should be cautious about expectations. The next general election is less than two and a half years away, and it cannot be ruled out that it will be brought forward. That is very little time to address structural problems that have existed for decades.

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      To avert a victory for the right-wing populists, the new head of government will do everything he can to prevent early parliamentary elections until the current moderate majority in parliament has elected President Mattarella’s successor. The latter’s term ends in February 2022, and it cannot be ruled out that Draghi himself will succeed Mattarella. He could use his authority and power as president to stabilize politics, as is the traditional role of the Italian president.

      In 2012, Draghi saved the eurozone as head of Europe’s most important financial institution. In the current crisis, even if supported by figures from across a broad political spectrum, he will act as head of one of Europe’s most politically-fragile governments — an incomparably less favorable starting position.

      Draghi will make the best possible use of his time as head of government. That much is certain. However, given the massive level of support for the populists, the most important question is: After Draghi, will someone take the helm who will continue his reforms or reverse them? Not only Italy’s future but also that of the entire eurozone depends on it.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions relating to foreign and security policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More