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While the last iteration of the Senate bill did not have any co-sponsors, the effort has recently picked up steam. Sanders now has nine co-sponsors including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). The House bill, sponsored by Omar, has also garnered support from Democrats in the House. Neither bill has any Republican backers.

It's one of those things that's been really surprising to me, as a child who's known real hunger, to see that there are folks here in the United States who are experiencing it, Omar told POLITICO.

The lefts pitch for universal free meals comes after a year of relaxed rules that have allowed schools to serve free meals to all students, regardless of whether they normally qualify for help. It was one way the Agriculture Department responded to the crisis last spring.

At the end of April, the Biden administration announced that schools across the country will be able to keep serving free meals to all students through June 2022 a major expansion of access.

School leaders and some anti-hunger advocates are increasingly making the case that the policy should continue after the pandemic because it is easier to administer, increases revenue for school nutrition programs and reduces stigma for children from low-income households who need help. School nutrition programs have been hammered by school closures and hybrid schedules during the pandemic.

Whats in the bill: The bill, named the Universal School Meals Program Act, is the same as the measure introduced in the last session and would remove reduced-price meals. It would make all meals given in schools free to all students regardless of income or whether their families participate in other safety net programs. It would also increase reimbursement rates to schools for each free meal.

The measure would also provide an incentive of up to 30 cents per meal to schools that get 25 percent of their food from local sources. The bill would define that as food produced within state lines or within 250 miles of the school or school district.

Such an incentive would provide local farmers with up to $3.3 billion in additional income per year and increase local food sales by up to 28 percent, proponents of the bill predict.

The bill would also mandate that schools stop collecting and assigning school meal debt and would have the Agriculture secretary establish a program to reimburse outstanding debt. The goal is to stop lunch shaming, where schools try to collect owed debt like withholding grades, canceling school dance privileges or marking students with an I Need Lunch Money stamp tactics that have sparked broad public outrage.

The bill would also increase the payments of Summer EBT and expand the Child and Adult Care Food Program.

Is the price right? Omars bill does not allocate any specific funding and has not received a score from the Congressional Budget Office. The potential high price tag of a universal free meals program has received criticism from Republicans, including Senate Agriculture ranking member Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas.

School meals programs cost nearly $14 billion in fiscal year 2020, down nearly $19 billion in 2019, largely because fewer meals were served when schools were closed.

But Omar said the need for providing meals is too great to be concerned about the cost, though she expects it wont break the bank.

When you make programs universal, you get rid of a lot of administrative costs, Omar said

Comparing Biden's plan: Biden recently announced his American Families Plan as the second half of his suite of infrastructure proposals. In the package, he urges Congress to expand some nutritional assistance programs.

However, Bidens proposal, which would need congressional approval, is more limited in scale. Biden suggests investing $17 billion to expand free meals for students by increasing the reimbursement rates for schools participating in the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows high-poverty schools to provide meals free of charge to all of their students. It would also make far more elementary schools eligible for universal free meals.

Bidens plan also proposes making the summer Pandemic EBT program permanent. But it would remain only available to those already receiving free and reduced-price meals.

Whats next: Proponents of the bill say the goal is to introduce the measure now to push efforts to go further in the next reconciliation package. But they are not ruling out other options, such with a stand-alone bill or child nutrition reauthorization.

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Progressives want to go bigger than Biden on free school meals - POLITICO

The Senate Rules and Administration Committee is expected to have a contentious hearing Tuesday as it begins work on the Democrat-backed For The People Act, the new bill designed to counter Republican vote suppression.

Democrats lack the votes to beat back an expected Republican filibuster when the bill reaches the Senate floor, so progressives have mounted a multi-million-dollar push for the bill. End Citizens United and Let America Vote are running ads in West Virginia and elsewhere to pressure Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) to support ending the filibuster.

If passed, the bill would mandate new standards of voting access -- such as allowing same-day registration. It would also block some voter-suppression methods at the state level, impose new limits on dark money, and create new ethical standards for lobbying.

What Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) described in March as a bill to stand up to voter suppression, to end dark money in politics, and re-invigorate American democracy in the 21st Century, is also what Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called a federal takeover of the way we conduct elections."

Many of the bill's measures have had Democratic support for years. But the issue has new urgency in light of Republican-passed state-level voter suppression around the country. The Brennan Centers latest research shows state legislators have introduced 361 bills with restrictive provisions in 47 states, as of March 24.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has told reporters that the For The people Act, is a priority to the president, something hell be working with members of Congress to move up move forward on.

Activists around the country continue to rally and raise awareness against voter suppression laws. Saturday's nationwide demonstration honored John Lewis and his commitment to expanding voting rights. Ads using his likeness, such as Your Vote Is Precious from Just Democracy, are pushing the Senate to pass the For The People Act. With Republicans on record opposing it, that pressure is being focused on Democrats.

Manchin has been vocal about his belief that the bill can pass the Senate, pledging to work with Republicans on it. If that effort fails, however, Manchin has said he will under no circumstance [vote to] eliminate or weaken the filibuster.

But progressives are pushing to change that. Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, told Roll Call that the PCCC is working with local leaders in West Virginia to [incentivize] Manchin. Green called the bill "a high-water mark of coordination among progressive groups and political allies.

Green went on to note that When [the For the People Act] was written, it was a beautiful thing, but the authors could not imagine all of the evil weve since seen in Georgia, Texas and elsewhere, so some fixes around the edges will likely need to be made."

The House's version of the act passed with all Republicans and one Democrat voting against it. Although the Senate Rules Committee is evenly split, with nine members from each party, a tie could still bring the proposed legislation to the floor.

Schumer took to Twitter on Monday night to vow that the For The People Act is not dead, writing, I am committed to bringing this bill to the floor of the United States Senate.

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Progressives Push as Historic Voting Rights Battle Begins in the Senate - The Young Turks

This week the Biden Administration caved to pressure from progressives and tentatively embraced an effort led by India and South Africa to permit widespread international violations of intellectual property (IP) rights related to COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics. The effort, however, will not advance the global fight against COVID-19, as the Biden Administration is surely aware. IP protections are not limiting vaccine availability, but waiving them could have long-term implications for innovation.

Over 100 developing nations along with progressive activists and many Democratic lawmakers in the United States have been pushing for a waiver of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)one of the key founding agreements of the World Trade Organizationarguing that IP protections are preventing developing countries from accessing COVID-19 vaccines. In theory, waiving IP protections for vaccines and other assorted products will allow countries such as India and South Africa to begin manufacturing vaccines themselves, thus speeding up the effort to reach global herd immunity. Given the ongoing public health tragedy in India in particular, any action that would speed access to vaccines and treatment would appear worthwhile. The proposed TRIPS waiver, however, wont help.

The issue is that there is little underutilized manufacturing capacity that can easily be activated if only those manufacturers had the access to patent information about the various vaccines. Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of Indiacurrently the largest producer of COVID-19 vaccine doses in the worldhas argued that access to IP is not limiting vaccine production; rather it is the time involved in scaling up manufacturing capacity. Similarly, Sai Prasadpresident of the Developing Countries Vaccine Manufactures Network and an executive at Bharat Biotech, and Indian company specializing in vaccine manufacturingtold Reuters that waiving IP will not increase vaccine access because it is the capacity to manufacture the vaccines that is the obstacle, not access to IP.

In reality, vaccine developers have already been contracting with their competitors to make use of any excess manufacturing capacity available. In fact, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Novavax have all licensed their IP to Indian-based manufacturers. And for all the concern about IP preventing access to vaccines, India has yet to approve vaccines developed by Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, or Moderna for emergency use within the country. Whats more, the Biden Administration knows that IP is not a barrier to vaccine access. Just this last Sunday White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said in an interview with CBS News that really, manufacturing is the biggest problem. We have a factory here in the U.S. that has the full intellectual property rights to make the vaccine. They arent making doses because the factory has problems.

President Biden has clearly calculated that standing up to progressive demands to undercut IP rights isnt worth the political price, even though he knows that waiving IP will not address the vaccine shortfall. Unfortunately, waiving IP will have downstream impacts. Once the IP has been waived, there is no way to put the knowledge back in the bottle after the pandemic, and the investments in innovation these patent holders made will be much harder to recoup. The Indian government also knows that waiving IP wont fix the problem; instead this push is simply another front in a global fight against the basic idea of IP. But if we allow erosion of IP rights on this issue, its an open question if companies will continue to make the investments needed to address future public health threats.

Tara ONeill Hayes, Director of Human Welfare Policy

Over the past three years, overallhealth care priceshave gradually increased, rising 1.3 percent between March 2018 and March 2019 and 2.5 percent from March 2020 to March of this year. There are, however, noticeably different rates of growth across the various health care product and service lines.For example, hospital prices grew 1.8 percent and 2.5 percent year-over-year by March 2019 and March 2020, respectively, before jumping 4.8 percent by March 2021. Prices for physician and clinical services followed the same trend, but at a slower rate, rising 0.5 percent, 1.2 percent, and 2.9 percent in each of the past three years.Prescription drug prices, on the other hand, have declined in two of the past three years: down 0.4 percent from March 2018 to 2019, rising just 1.5 percent by March 2020, and declining 2.3 percent by March 2021. These figures indicate that health care price growth is not being driven by prescription drug prices, but rather by ever-risinghospital pricesprimarily, particularly given that hospital care accounts for nearly 40 percent of all health care expenditures while prescription drugs account for less than 20 percent.

Christopher Holt, Director of Health Care Policy

To track the progress in vaccinations, the Weekly Checkup will compile the most relevant statistics for the week, with the seven-day period ending on the Wednesday of each week.

Sources: Centers for Disease Control and PreventionTrends in COVID-19 Cases and Deaths in the US, andTrends in COVID-19 Vaccinations in the US

Note: The U.S. population is 330,252,151.

Testimony: Lower Drug Costs Now Expanding Access to Affordable Health Care AAF President Douglas Holtz-EakinThe phrase rising drug costs is riddled with ambiguity, and some recent proposals for government negotiationare instead pushing for government price setting.

Axios:Lawmakers seek COVID-19 money for opioid treatment

Kaiser Health News:In Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta, Millions Face Long Drives to Stroke Care

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Biden Sides with Progressives in Fight Against Intellectual Property - AAF - American Action Forum

Progressive lawmakers pushed back hard after some Republicans and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called for ending extra $300 weekly unemployment payments to jobless workers amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

GOP lawmakers and the Chamber of Congress, a pro-business lobby group that generally backs Republican candidates, blamed extra federal unemployment payments approved by Congress in the American Rescue Plan for the significantly less than expected job growth in April. The Department of Labor released the April jobs report on Friday, showing that the economy added just 266,000 jobs last month despite predictions that it would be closer to 1 million.

But progressives and officials from President Joe Biden's administration were quick to push back against the calls for ending the extra payments, as millions of workers remain unemployed.

"Providing an extra $300 a week in unemployment benefits to low-income families living in desperation is not radical. What's radical is that 719 billionaires became $1.6 trillion richer during the pandemic while the $7.25 federal minimum wage has not been increased in 12 years," Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent and prominent progressive, tweeted on Saturday.

Sanders pushed back against the Republicans' criticism of the supplemental unemployment on Friday as well.

"No. We don't need to end $300 a week in emergency unemployment benefits that workers desperately need. We need to end starvation wages in America. If $300 a week is preventing employers from hiring low-wage workers there's a simple solution: Raise your wages. Pay decent benefits," Sanders wrote on Twitter.

Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, shared similar sentiments on social media.

"The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009. For tipped workers, it's been $2.13 for 30 years. The problem is NOT expanded unemployment assistance," Jayapal tweeted.

Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who serves as the Congressional Progressive Caucus whip, blasted the calls to end supplemental payments.

"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 month away from you and your family, to force you to work for them for pennies. Their greed has no bounds," Omar tweeted.

"Businesses that pay their workers fairly aren't having trouble finding workers," Omar added. "And if your business can't turn a profit without paying people starvation wages, like the $7.50 an hour federal minimum wage, you shouldn't be in business." Continuing, the progressive congresswoman said "we wouldn't need to have this conversation" if businesses shifted the money they spent on lobbying the government to paying workers higher wages.

After the release of the latest jobs report, the Chamber of Commerce was quick to weigh in with criticism of the extra $300 weekly unemployment payments on Friday.

"The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market," Neil Bradley, the lobby's executive vice president and chief policy officer, said. "We need a comprehensive approach to dealing with our workforce issues and the very real threat unfilled positions poses to our economic recovery from the pandemic."

In a statement emailed to Newsweek, Kasper Zeuthen, vice president of communications for the Chamber of Commerce, argued that his organization is taking into account the best interests of businesses and workers.

"It is no secret that our focus is on what is best for America's companies and their workersand we should all be focused on how we can help our country's recovery and create more jobs," Zeuthen said.

Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, called Biden "delusional" on Twitter after he told reporters he did not believe the extra unemployment benefits were the cause of the lackluster job numbers. Representative Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican, tweeted that the news in the report was "no surprise," writing that "paying people not to work is bad policy."

"While Dems trap people in a cycle of fear & pay them NOT to work, it's clear the best thing to do is end the crisis-era policies & get Americans back to work," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, wrote on Twitter, slamming Biden over the job figures.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh disputed the Republicans' assessment. They pointed to strong job gains in the leisure and hospitality sectors, which generally hire lower wage workers that would be most likely to be paid more on unemployment than to work.

"This month's report, as far as leisure and hospitalitywhich includes restaurantssaw the most significant gains," Walsh told Fox News on Friday. "Lots of restaurants weren't open full time until recently," he added, saying that restaurants are only open at full capacity in about three-quarters of the country.

Yellen shared a similar perspective with reporters. "If the unemployment bonus was slowing down hiring, one would expect lower job growth in states and sectors where unemployment insurance is particularly high. In fact, what one sees is the exact opposite," the treasury secretary explained.

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Progressives Blast GOP Calls to End $300 Weekly Unemployment: 'Greed Has No Bounds' - Newsweek

Many progressives have been pleasantly surprised by President Joe Bidens sweeping proposals to repair the United States failing infrastructure, expand health care coverage and address the climate crisis. Some have suggested that one way to pay for such things would be to cut the military budget, especially since Biden has announced that he is ending U.S. involvement in the Afghan war.

Were dumping billions of dollars into a bloated Pentagon budget. Dont increase defense spending. Cut it and invest that money into our communities.

But hopes for a peace dividend were dashed when Biden came out in April with a proposed military budget of $753 billion a $13 billion increase to Trumps already gargantuan sum and one that includes more than $30 billion for new nuclear weapons.

Congressional progressives have long complained about runaway military spending. In 2020, 93 members in the House and 23 in the Senate voted to cut the Pentagon budget by 10% and invest those funds in critical human needs. A House Spending Reduction Caucus, co-chaired by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), emerged with 22 members on board, including all four members of the Squad but also more moderate or mainstream Democrats.

Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, one of the largest caucuses in Congress with almost 100 members, also want reductions in the military budget.

Were in the midst of a crisis that has left millions of families unable to afford food, rent and bills, Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) told The Nation magazine. But at the same time, were dumping billions of dollars into a bloated Pentagon budget. Dont increase defense spending. Cut it and invest that money into our communities.

Bidens military and non-military budget resolution, a package deal, is expected to hit the floor in June or July. If Republicans refuse to support it, the president would need every Democrat in the Senate and almost all Democrats in the House to win approval.

In the House, Biden needs at least 212 of the 218 Democratic seats (allowing for current vacancies in both parties. But what if at least seven members of the House voted no or even just threatened to put their foot down because the budget calls for increased military spending and a plan to modernize U.S. nuclear weapons and maintain 800 overseas bases?

Now is the time for congressional progressives like the Squad Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Presley (D-Mass.) to unite with Jayapal, Lee, Pocan and others in the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus, to stand as a block against a bloated military budget.

During a pandemic, it makes no sense to approve a military budget that is 95 times the budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The billions saved from right-sizing the Pentagon could also provide critical funds for addressing the climate crisis.

And it would be applauded by the Democrats base. Polls show that 70% of Democrats favor not just cutting nuclear weapons, but actually eliminating them. This is in line with the newly passed U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, as well as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires nuclear states to pursue disarmament to avoid a catastrophic accident or intentional nuclear holocaust.

Will progressives in Congress play hardball to threaten Bidens entire budget by insisting he reduce military spending and scrap plans for a new nuclear arsenal? Will they have the courage to unite behind such a noble cause as saving the planet from an existential nuclear threat?

Odds will improve if their constituents flood them with messages insisting that now is the time to finally put an end to the cycle of exponential military spending and invest, instead, in the needs of the people.

This column was produced for The Progressive magazine and distributed by Tribune News Service.

Marcy Winograd of Progressive Democrats of America is a coordinator for CODEPINKCONGRESS, where she spearheads Capitol Hill calling parties to mobilize votes for peace.

May 10, 2021

9:32 AM

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Let's Unite to Cut Military Spending - Progressive.org - Progressive.org - Progressive.org