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The first budget in decades from a Labour majority government will be unveiled on Thursday and all signs point to restrained spending. Council of Trade Unions economist Craig Renney dreams big and considers what a transformative budget would look like. Luckily, one already exists.

Picture this.

The finance minister (and deputy prime minister) stands up in the house and delivers a budget that truly seizes on growing international calls to build back better. Its a budget aimed at long-standing issues facing the country and squarely addresses them.

The minister acknowledges that the Covid-19 recovery runs the risk of leaving some groups of people behind and provides funding to address their problems. The opposition is left flat-footed and focuses on the amount of spending, rather than the people who need it and who will benefit.

The minister, standing in the house, is in command of their portfolio and in command of the real issues.

Using wellbeing analysis, the budget doesnt force groups to compete with one another for funding. Instead, it highlights the needs of the community and provides mechanisms to tackle their problems.

The budget provides significant support for programmes to address the historically unmet needs of some vulnerable communities, especially women. Life-changing amounts of money are invested to prevent family and sexual violence.

The government also extends income support, particularly to those who have recently lost their job. And the budget ensures unprecedented investments in delivering the greener economy that we all need. That includes targeted support to significantly boost social housing construction and to insulate properties for those on the lowest incomes.

To write that budget, the government agrees to work closely with unions to ensure that working people have better retirement savings. There is additional assistance for students who have had to study during some of the most difficult circumstances that anyone can remember. The minister also commits the government to better protect those working in the gig economy.

To pay for all this, the minister of finance says those who are the most able should contribute a little more. There will be an additional surcharge on luxury cars, boats and private aircraft. Overseas owners who leave their properties vacant will pay an annual 1% levy on the value of that property.

Digital service companies will now need to pay a small tax on their overall revenue until a multinational approach can be delivered.

Tax inspectors will be given additional resources to properly tackle tax avoidance and evasion, so that everyone is paying their fair share. Changes to transparency rules will help, so that the true owners of assets can be identified and complex tax avoidance schemes are cut through.

You dont need to be day-dreaming to make this vision a reality. Instead, just pick up a copy of the 2021 Canadian budget, recently tabled by deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland.

The Canadian budget shows why these changes in spending are needed. It reveals that those with the lowest income in Canada have faced the highest rates of job loss during Covid-19.

The clearest demonstration of need is the $30 billion (all figures in Canadian dollars) being provided to make childcare more affordable. By 2026, childcare in Canada will cost $10 a day. It currently costs $1,500 a month in Toronto about $70 a day. That number will be cut in half next year.

Back here in New Zealand, the debate surrounding budget 2021 has instead been about the governments decision to balance spending needs with the need to maintain fiscal control. Deputy prime minister and finance minister Grant Robertson has vowed to tackle a non-existent debt crisis. That was used to justify a decision to restrain pay rises for much of the public workforce while property prices go through the roof and the banks make record profits.

The budget provides an opportunity for setting out a credible long-term plan for the Covid-19 recovery. Its focus should be on how to create a more productive, sustainable and inclusive economy.

Theres much to applaud in Robertsons recent statement on the budget: In our view, an investment-focused recovery that supports all New Zealanders is the way to ensure that our finances remain sustainable. It is also the way in which the government will continue to tackle the long-standing issues that we were elected to address. Well said.

New Zealands budget will be released tomorrow and with it, the government risks falling behind other progressive governments around the world. The US is re-equipping its economy and has a task force led by vice president Kamala Harris to increase union membership. Even Australias government has chosen not to follow the path of austerity, prioritising getting people into jobs rather than chasing a surplus.

Budgets are about choices.

We made choices during Covid that saw the country come together and defeat the virus. We made choices at the election to spend money so that we could continue that fight. Thanks to our efforts we now have choices about what to do with the resources that victory has freed-up. Do we choose a K-shaped recovery where there is an increasing disparity in who is benefitting from growth? Or do we grasp that now is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do the right thing and support all New Zealanders to live better lives?

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The dream budget for NZ progressives already exists across the Pacific - The Spinoff

On this edition of Your Call, were discussing the massive Pentagon budget. As the Biden administration announces plans for big dollar projects like improving the crumbling US infrastructure and funding desperately needed social services, the question is: How are we going to pay for it? But that question is never asked about military spending.

Fifty Democratic politicians and a wide range of progressive groups recently sent a letter to the administration urging President Biden to reevaluate our spending priorities, starting with the Department of Defense. Hundreds of billions of dollars now directed to the military would have greater return if invested in diplomacy, humanitarian aid, global public health, sustainability initiatives, and basic research. We could cut the Pentagon budget by more than 10 percent and still spend more than the next 10 largest militaries combined.

Guest:Lindsay Koshgarian, program director with the National Priorities Project

Web Resources:

MarketWatch: Biden Is Thinking Big on Jobs. On the Pentagon, He Should Think Smaller.

Institute for Policy Studies: Bidens Pentagon is Still Trumps Pentagon

Truthout: Pentagon and Tax Cheats Already Cost Taxpayers Far More Than Bidens Job Plan

Institute for Policy Studies: 18 Years of Invasion in Iraq

The rest is here:
Progressives Call On The Biden Administration To Cut The Massive Pentagon Budget - KALW

President Joe Bidens Republican critics charge that he has foisted a bait and switch on voters that he campaigned as a moderate but veered abruptly to the left after he arrived at the White House.

The bait was he was going to govern as bipartisan, but the switch is hes governed as a socialist, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of California complained last month.

He talks like a moderate but is governing to satisfy the far left, Senate Republican chief Mitch McConnell of Kentucky chimed in.

Theyre right on one count: Biden is pushing an ambitious progressive program while making it sound, well, moderate.

But their charge of false advertising is bogus. Biden never concealed his big-government goals; they were all in plain sight in his platform.

Its still on the campaign website for anyone who wants to check. Candidate Biden called for more than $4 trillion in new federal spending, beginning with an immediate stimulus to help the economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. It included massive proposals to combat climate change, rebuild infrastructure, reduce poverty, subsidize child care and provide universal pre-K education.

Sound familiar? All those planks resurfaced in Bidens proposals this year: his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, his $2 trillion-plus jobs plan and his $1.8 trillion family policy plan.

To be fair, McCarthy and McConnell may have been too busy to read up on their opponents long and detailed program. Their party saved time by not having a platform at all.

But surely they noticed when former President Barack Obama released a video last year praising Biden for the most progressive platform of any major party nominee in history. Or when Biden, in his last big campaign speech, compared his program to Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal and promised a pandemic plan, a health care plan, a climate plan and an economic plan to give working people a fair shot again.

None of this should have come as a surprise, Greg Schultz, Bidens campaign manager during last years primary season, told me. My only surprise is that people werent listening.

McCarthy and McConnell werent the only ones who underestimated Bidens commitments. Plenty of progressives didnt quite believe it, either.

After all, during the primaries Biden had presented himself as a moderate, pragmatic alternative to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Bidens Democratic rivals chastised him for centrist positions he took decades ago: his 1970s opposition to mandatory busing to desegregate schools, his 1994 vote for then-President Bill Clintons punitive crime bill. Those ancient controversies made him sound like an out-of-touch relic.

But they were forgetting one of Bidens most striking features: his adaptability. He is as critics used to say about FDR something of a political chameleon.

Over 51 years in politics, Biden has always positioned himself at his partys center which has required a steady evolution toward the left.

The Biden of 2008 who ran as Obamas running mate was more progressive than the Biden of 1994 who voted for Clintons crime bill. The Biden of 2012 who declared himself a fan of same-sex marriage was more progressive than the Biden of 2008.

When he pondered entering the 2016 presidential race, he intended to run to Hillary Clintons left and Bernie Sanders right a classic Biden gambit to seek his partys center point.

Biden for President was going to go big, Biden wrote of the plans for that never-launched campaign in his 2017 memoir. A $15 minimum wage. Free tuition at our public colleges and universities. Real job training. On-site affordable child care. Equal pay for women. Strengthening the Affordable Care Act. A job creation program built on investing in and modernizing our roads and bridges. ... We needed what I called an American Renewal Project.

By the time Biden ran in 2020, two things happened to push him even further.

One was the COVID-19 pandemic, which made it clear to both parties that big spending would be needed to rescue the economy. After Republican leaders, including then-President Donald Trump, approved more than $3.8 trillion in coronavirus relief last year, GOP complaints about big-money requests from the new president sounded hollow.

The second was Democrats unexpected capture of 50 seats in the Senate, which meant the new president could pass much of his program without Republican votes. Yes, Biden had promised to seek bipartisan compromises but now he no longer had to worry about obstructionist Republicans whose only goal was to stop his program in its tracks.

And that not spurious charges of a bait and switch on policy is probably what makes Mitch McConnell so grouchy.

The rest is here:
MCMANUS: Yes, Biden is governing as a progressive. But that shouldn't surprise you - shorelinemedia.net

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Rather than trivializing COVID, they tend to catastrophize it

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After over a year of uncertainty and sacrifice, the pandemic is finally coming to an end. Most people are hopeful, but there is a sizable contingent of progressives who see lockdowns as an expression of their political identity and continue to advocate for harsh restrictions, even when theyre not necessary. As Canada completes its vaccination campaign and reopens its economy, it will be important to curtail this groups influence.

Excessive partisanship has been one of this pandemics great tragedies, consistently undermining evidence-based policy-making to everyones detriment. Attention has been focused on how conservatives tend to underestimate the risks of COVID-19, but data shows that progressives are subject to their own biases, as well. Rather than trivializing COVID, they tend to catastrophize it.

If you want a concrete example of progressive bias, consider that progressives tend to grossly overestimate how often COVID-19 infections result in hospitalization. In the United States, a recent Gallup survey showed that only 10 per cent of Democrats correctly guessed the hospitalization rate, compared to 26 per cent of Republicans.

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To be fair, most people overestimated the hospitalization rate, regardless of where they fell on the political spectrum, with a majority thinking that the virus hospitalizes at least 20 per cent of its victims (the actual number is between one and five per cent). However, after accounting for this, Democrats still have a noticeable habit of exaggerating the dangers. Similarly, Democrats were more likely to overestimate the risk to young people.

Though most people tend to overestimate risks, these numbers suggest that Americans on the left are more likely to overestimate the risks posed by the pandemic, and this can be clearly seen in their policy preferences. Research that specifically examines progressive biases in Canada is lacking, but its possible to make extrapolations.

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A study published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science last May suggested that Canadians are less divided about COVID-19, owing to the consensus among our political leaders about the virus dangers, but that partisanship still affects political assessments related to COVID. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that the progressive bias we see south of the border has at least some impact on left-leaning Canadians.

The existence of this progressive bias can be partially attributed to Trumpian politics. Presiding over a national emergency that he lacked the leadership skills to manage, U.S. President Donald Trump politicized the pandemic, minimizing its dangers and pulling it into the muck of Americas culture wars.

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Taking the bait, Americans pulled back into their partisan camps, reflexively supporting or opposing pandemic restrictions based on how they felt about Trump. For many progressives, supporting public health restrictions became a partisan necessity.

This is a legacy that has continued post-Trump, as the pandemic is still a useful wedge issue for many politicians. In Florida, for example, Republican state senators blocked legislation that would have prohibited schools from banning vaccinated teachers from working. Pandering to the worst of their base, the senators legitimized dangerous conspiracy theories insinuating that vaccinated individuals pose a health risk to those around them.

In this context, its no surprise that some progressives have been committed to seeing the worst in things, despite evidence to the contrary. Research has shown that, with appropriate precautions, in-school learning may be safe. Though returning kids to school is contentious, it is at least worth discussing, especially given that 70 per cent of youth have reported deteriorating mental health due to remote learning and isolation.

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Instead, parents who support reopening schools report being ridiculed and silenced; teachers unions in Massachusetts and Washington state have even gone as far as to accuse those who want to reopen schools of being white supremacists. Instead of allowing constructive debate, some progressive school administrators preoccupy themselves with hygiene theatre: reopening schools is off-limits, but investment in extravagant sanitation infrastructure, such as UV disinfection units, is seen as perfectly reasonable.

Other examples of bad policies include restricting outdoor activities (such as closing beaches and playgrounds) and pushing for outdoor mask usage, despite overwhelming evidence showing that outdoor transmission is incredibly rare. While the rise of more dangerous variants has complicated risk calculations, their impact seems overblown. Outdoor activities remain safe, continue to account for a small minority of new cases and ought to be exempt from onerous public health restrictions.

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Progressive hygiene theatre also includes extending lockdowns beyond their shelf life and stigmatizing jurisdictions that carefully open up early. Just look at the widespread condemnation, including accusations of neanderthal thinking by President Joe Biden, after Texas lifted its pandemic restrictions. Despite all the progressive rhetoric, cases have continued to drop in the Lone Star State.

This type of hyper-vigilance was useful earlier in the pandemic. When health-care systems were buckling and the virus wasnt well understood, being overly cautious was the prudent thing to do. In retrospect, we know that it was silly to Lysol our groceries, but when in doubt, its sometimes better to be safe than sorry.

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Conservative misconceptions about mask efficacy, vaccine safety, asymptomatic transmission, fatality rates and so on were the danger at that time, as they undermined public health compliance when it was needed the most. But now, the situation has changed.

As things return to normal, it will be important to ensure that reopening plans are governed by science, rather than fear. It will be crucial to find ways to communicate with people who feel the need, consciously or not, to cultivate the pessimism that has provided so many doomers with easy moral, social and political capital.

Thankfully, relative to Americans, Canadians arent as bitterly divided by political tribe. And in Canada, there is not such a clear divide between the restrictions imposed by provincial governments of different political stripes.

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Ontario and Manitoba, which are both run by Conservative governments, have tried to impose unscientific, overreaching restrictions on outdoor activities: Ontario temporarily closed playgrounds, while Manitoba continues to push for more outdoor mask usage. Meanwhile, British Columbias NDP government has been notably laissez-faire about outdoor dining. Compared to the United States, its the opposite of what youd expect.

Were also not as far down the road with vaccinations as the Americans are, with many parts of the country still in the tail end of a third wave. Relative to the U.S., our experiences are behind schedule. Progressive over-vigilance is not a major problem for us yet, but its likely something well have to start grappling with in the coming weeks and months. Maybe a successful American reopening will nip that in the bud, but, if not, its better to start thinking about solutions now rather than later.

National Post

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Adam Zivo: Progressives are now the ones ignoring pandemic science - National Post

Pushing back on the right-wing narrative about the reason for real or perceived labor shortages in some markets nationwide, progressives on Friday told corporations that if they want to hire more people, theyll need to start paying better wages.

Soon after the Labor Department released its April jobs report, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce blamed last months weak employment growth on the existence of a $300 weekly supplemental jobless benefit and began urging lawmakers to eliminate the federally enhanced unemployment payments that were extended through early September when congressional Democrats passed President Joe Bidens American Rescue Plan.

No. We dont need to end [the additional] $300 a week in emergency unemployment benefits that workers desperately need, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in response to the grumbles of the nations largest business lobbying group. We need to end starvation wages in America.

If $300 a week is preventing employers from hiring low-wage workers theres a simple solution, Sanders added. Raise your wages. Pay decent benefits.

According to the Chambers analysis, the extra $300 unemployment insurance (UI) benefit results in roughly one in four recipients taking home more pay than they earned working.

In response to that claim, Sanders staff director Warren Gunnels said: If one in four recipients are making more off unemployment than they did working, thats not an indictment of $300 a week in UI benefits. Its an indictment of corporations paying starvation wages.

Raise your wages and benefits or flip your own damn burgers and sweep your own damn floors, Gunnels added.

Other progressives like former labor secretary Robert Reich and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) also chimed in.

We do not have a shortage of willing workers in this country, Morris Pearl of the Patriotic Millionaires said in a Friday afternoon statement responding to the Chamber. We have a shortage of employers who are willing to pay workers enough to live.

Claiming that todays disappointing jobs report is a result of expanded unemployment insurance is nothing more than a cruel tactic to pressure the administration into helping companies that they represent to continue to underpay and exploit their workforce, Pearl continued. Our leaders are supposed to be helping to increase wages for low paid workers, not helping employers to keep wages down.

Instead of blaming struggling workers, Pearl continued, large corporations that do not pay their employees a liveable wage should take this moment to self-reflect. Maybe just maybe paying their workers more than starvation wages would incentivize workers to reenter the workforce.

Writing for Jacobin earlier this week, Sandy Barnard noted that another overlooked factor is the increased morbidity rates among food and agricultural workers, which increased more than any other occupation during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a recent study from the University of CaliforniaSan Francisco.

Living, breathing people have decided they do not want to risk their lives for $7.25 per hour and no health benefits, Barnard wrote.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) responded to the Chambers call for an end to enhanced unemployment benefits by arguing that the interests of big business are at war with the interests of the working class.

They will spend millions of dollars to take $300 a [week] away from you and your family, to force you to work for them for pennies, she added. Their greed has no bounds.

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Progressives to Corporations: If You Want to Keep Workers, Pay Living Wages - Truthout