Cows Don't Fart-- They Belch... And Why Status Quo Joe Isn't a Credible Standard-Bearer For The Democratic Party

Bill McKibben, the country's foremost green energy expert and activist, wrote that Biden "is too stuck in the past to be a credible standard-bearer for the Democratic party." He doesn't understand anything about the climate crisis and thinks the solution is fracking. Like everyone concerned about climate policy, McKibben's internal alarm system went off Friday when Biden's brain trust said they're looking for a "middle ground" on climate. That's identical to what mainstream Republicans say-- and it doesn't exist. Biden likes fracking and nuclear energy and "a return to the all-of-the-above energy strategy that marked the Obama years, and a terrible idea." Biden is now trying to back-peddle and dishonestly blaming the story on a Reuters reporter.

As is now entirely clear, increasing fracking increases the flow of methane to the atmosphere, and since methane is a potent greenhouse gas it drives up the rate of global warming. In the early days of the Obama years, when we knew far less about the chemistry of methane, it was a perhaps-defensible plan; in 2019 it’s embarrassing, the equivalent of idling your muscle car outside the Earth Day picnic. There is no “middle ground” on climate change-- there’s only meeting the demands of physics and chemistry (and justice), or watching the temperature soar.

A few hours after the story, as environmental activists (and primary opponents) tweeted their dismay, the Biden team seemed to blush. Biden’s energy advisor Heather Zichal said that the Reuters reports were wrong, and that instead he planned to “enact a bold policy to tackle climate change in a meaningful and lasting way.” But the fact that it was Zichal making the statement essentially confirmed the accuracy of the original story: in the early Obama years, she’d headed up an interagency working group to promote the development of domestic natural gas.

The working group had been formed after pressure from the American Petroleum Institute, the chief fossil-fuel lobbying group, and Zichal, in a talk to an API gathering, said: “It’s hard to overstate how natural gas—and our ability to access more of it than ever—has become a game changer.” Zichal left her White House job in 2013; one year later, she took a gig on the board of Cheniere Energy, a leading exporter of fracked gas, which has earned her over a million dollars.

And Zichal said Biden was also turning for advice to former energy secretary Ernest Moniz, who oversaw the rise of the United States to its position as the biggest oil and gas producer on the planet and continues to recommend natural gas development, and Frank Verrastro, co-author of a report on fracking that found no “unmanageable risk that would require widespread reconsideration of current recommended practices.” In short, he’s relying on people deeply attached to the status quo. [Note: We don't call him Status Quo Joe for nothing.]

The timing of the gaffe couldn’t have been more stunning—it came just 72 hours after the UN released a report pointing out that climate change would help wipe out a million species in the decades ahead. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo later that day lauded the rapid melt of the Arctic, saying it would increase access to gold and diamonds, not to mention make it easier to ship junk from China. You couldn’t have asked for a much better opportunity to draw a contrast, not search for a “middle ground.”

As recently as 2016, climate was seen as a losing issue. It was a distant problem, with unclear consequences, that would require huge sacrifices to solve. But then California caught fire, Puerto Rico got ravaged by a hurricane, and people woke up to the fact that this was clear and present danger. The IPCC report hammered home the threat. And with ideas like the Green New Deal gaining prominence, people have understood that solving the problem won’t require sacrifice as much as it will create opportunity. Why would we stay in the “middle of the road” when the left lane promises solutions that will not only help the climate, but also our economy, public health, and national security?

But Biden’s team apparently is fixated on the relatively small number of workers in the building trades unions who want to keep on constructing natural gas pipelines (and perhaps, since he hasn’t signed the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge, on big donors from the hydrocarbon sector). This is old-school thinking at its best: throw young voters, overwhelmingly fixated on climate change, under the dirty diesel bus in an effort to win a narrowing pool of union leaders, who gathered in the Oval Office with Trump to celebrate in the early days of his presidency.

Obviously Biden will be better than Trump on this (and every other) issue; obviously everyone who cares about the earth should support him if he’s the nominee. (That paramount need is why I’ve been running the #DemUnityTwitterProject these past weeks). And he’s got time to turn his policies around—I remember when he gave a wink and a nod support to those fighting the Keystone pipeline, well in advance of Obama’s eventual veto of the project. His credibility with union workers is understandably high, which is why he would be the perfect person to push for large-scale retraining programs for clean energy jobs.

But for now Biden has done precisely the thing you’d think he’d be trying his hardest to avoid: showing that he’s stuck in the dirty energy past. If he’s going to mount a serious challenge to Trump, he’s going to need the huge number of Americans for whom climate change has become the issue. On the biggest issue our civilization’s ever faced, we need him thinking like it’s 2030, not 2010.

Clearly, Biden is better than Trump on... everything, as is every other Democrat running for the nomination. That bar is way too low, way too low. Besides, almost any of them can beat Trump, according to just-released Emerson polling. A few days earlier, Intercept reporter David Dayen, noted that despite Biden's bullshit claim that he doesn't support the Green New Deal because he loves unions-- Joe Biden's Union Schtick Is All Performance. His Pollster Just Signed Up To Lobby Against Labor For Trump's NAFTA 2.0. That would be John Anzalone, the head of the Blue Dog polling firm, Anzalone Liszt. Anzalone, wrote Dayen, "is joining Trade Works for America, an organization co-founded by Marc Short, who is now Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff. Funding for the group, which expects to spend $15 million to $20 million, comes from 'the pharmaceutical industry, oil and gas, the automotive and agricultural sectors, and traditional GOP donors.'"

Trade Works has bipartisan co-chairs: former Republican Governors Association Executive Director Phil Cox, and former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat. Last year, when she was in office, Heitkamp declared NAFTA 2.0, which Trump has termed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, "disappointing"... Unions share Heitkamp’s prior assessment. The AFL-CIO formally announced opposition to USMCA in its current form in March. “The NAFTA renegotiation requires strong labor rights provisions and strong enforcement provisions that as of today are not yet in the agreement,” their statement read. The agreement also locks in protections for certain pharmaceuticals, which progressives have loudly opposed.

Biden has sought to position himself as a union stalwart, kicking off his campaign at a Teamsters local and winning the endorsement of the International Association of Fire Fighters. But he also had his first fundraiser hosted by a union-busting lawyer, and this week he held another fundraiser in Los Angeles at the home of a board member of Kaiser Permanente, the hospital chain currently mired in a labor dispute with the National Union of Healthcare Workers. Health care workers picketed the Biden fundraiser on Wednesday. Now, his pollster has joined an organization dedicated to passing a trade agreement labor unions are against.

Biden has also set himself up almost entirely in opposition to Trump, while his pollster pushes to get Trump a win on trade policy, a signature issue for the president.

Owen E. Herrnstadt of the International Association of Machinists has laid out labor’s opposition to USMCA: There is no funding for enforcement or monitoring in the agreement. The labor standards are framed as “principles” rather than actual rights, and fields not involving trade or investment don’t have to abide by them. Also, workers cannot get employers who violate the agreement sanctioned on their own. It’s not even clear whether the murder of a trade union activist would qualify as a USMCA violation, since violations must occur “periodically and repeatedly.”

Mexico did pass amendments to its labor law, which unions had said must be completed before any agreement. The amendments give Mexican workers access to secret-ballot union elections for bargaining and contracts, and ban “protection unions” set up before anyone is hired. However, unions still believe it falls short.

Trade Works for America has been talking up the agreement on Capitol Hill, claiming that it will support 14 million jobs. As economist Dean Baker has noted, an analysis by the U.S. International Trade Commission estimated that USMCA would add 0.02 percent of gross domestic product to the economy per year, “an increment that would be essentially invisible.” And those increases are only secured through “greater certainty” for business investment, which makes no sense since there is already a trade agreement in place with Canada and Mexico and has been for a quarter-century.

The group has already spent nearly $700,000 on digital advertising and television, mostly targeting Democratic House members in swing districts.

Other politicians turned lobbyists working to pass USMCA include former holder of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s seat Joe Crowley, former Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen, and former Obama administration Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

The Elephant In the Room: Addressing Climate Change Means Rationing

World War II rationing posters. If no one questions the goal, no one will question means like these.

by Thomas Neuburger

I could make this complicated or simple. Let's make it simple. We've dithered so long in addressing climate change, that to address it effectively means not just a radical restructuring of the entire economy, it also means energy rationing.

A few writers are starting to get this fact, and get at it in their work. Some "rationing will be needed" articles are of the "let me prove it to you with data" type. I'd like to take a different approach in this piece. This will be an "if you've got a massive water leak, you're going to get wet" type of piece — an appeal to the obvious, in other words. Either approach will have the same result — it will arrive at the r-word despite (and because) of the reaction that word causes.

After all, it's entirely likely that one of the chief reasons people are not addressing climate change effectively — aside from the political and propaganda power of corporate America — is that once people start thinking about the problem, they quickly conclude what we're about to conclude, that a crash conversion to zero-carbon energy means "goodbye big-screen lifestyle," at least for a while.

Let's look at something written in 2016 by Stan Cox, "If There’s a World War II-Style Climate Mobilization, It has to Go All the Way—and Then Some." His intro, which I won't quote, states the obvious: that the climate is deteriorating at an accelerating pace, and addressing this problem will take a "World War II"-style mobilization.

This is true as far as it goes, but the UN and most climate scientists also say that the rate of decarbonization required is greater than can be achieved with just a simple (and comfortably paced) retrofit of the energy economy.

Consider this contradiction, from the Greenpeace info sheet on the latest IPCC Special Report (quoted here: "IPCC Releases Climate Report — First Thoughts").

• With countries’ current climate targets we are heading for well above 3°C.
• To get below 1.5°C global CO2 emissions would need to be halved by 2030 and reach net zero by mid-century at the latest, with substantial reductions in other gases.

According to Dr. Michael Mann and others, our business-as-usual behavior will push global atmospheric warming beyond +2 degrees Celsius in the mid 2030s (my own estimate is much more pessimistic), while UN Paris agreement "promises," or targets, have global carbon emissions rising throughout that period.

As a result, the IPCC Special Report calls for global carbon emissions to, in effect, "fall off a cliff" — end, or at least start to end, almost immediately. This, of course, means ending the fossil fuel industry completely and forever.

But let's forget about the unlikelihood of that happening. Let's say we actually tried to do this — that in 2021 a radical, FDR-style president and an awakened and, yes, panicked public committed to an actual crash conversion to 100% renewable energy. What would that mean for the consumer economy? Would that big screen, smart phone lifestyle, the one the energy industry ads say is at risk, actually be at risk?

This is where the answer gets obvious. Of course it will be at risk. If protecting people's ability to spend endlessly on consumer products is society's highest priority, then a crash-course energy conversion will be slowed to whatever speed it must be. But if averting the global climate crisis is the highest priority, of course the consumer economy will take a back seat, to whatever extent it must.

Which is exactly what occurred during World War II.

Stan Cox on what that implies:

The necessity for the consumer economy to get by on a lower input of energy and other resources while achieving sufficiency for all brings us back to the World War II model. If we’re to emulate the “Greatest Generation,” we can’t do a halfway job of it, focusing solely on “green” production; we have to build a fairer economy as well.

So far, I have seen only one effective strategy for doing that: a “Victory Plan” recently drawn up by Ezra Silk, a co-founder of The Climate Mobilization movement. (It can be downloaded here.) The document, radical and at the same time realistic and practical, calls for reworking the government and economy even more thoroughly than during World War II, in order to cut America’s net greenhouse emissions down to zero by 2025 while also reversing degradation of ecosystems and halting the mass extinction of species.

Necessary steps will include phasing out fossil-fuel use within a decade; directing a large share of our energy, materials, and labor toward building a renewable energy sector and a high speed rail network; restoring our forests, grasslands, and croplands so that we are putting more carbon into the soil and less into the atmosphere; deeply cutting meat and dairy consumption; and converting a large portion of the U.S. military into a kind of climate mobilization force.

All of that will require a national reallocation of resources among sectors of production, one that diverts a significant share of a necessarily declining resource budget into building green infrastructure and leaves the consumer economy a lot less to work with.

And the kicker (emphasis added):

We know from wartime experience that with resources diverted away from the consumer economy, shrinking supply will collide with still-high demand, bringing the threat of runaway inflation. Price controls will be essential, but with goods in short supply at reasonable prices, we will have to move quickly to prevent severe shortages, hoarding, and “rationing by queueing.” As in the 1940s, that will require fair-shares rationing.

I'll let you read the article to see the implications of that last sentence.

The bottom line, of course, is that these are indeed the options — comfort for us now, followed by death and misery for all generations to come. Or rationing and planning now, to secure a safer future for our children and grandchildren. This is the choice this generation is facing, and I firmly believe, in the back of their minds, people do know.

This is a profound moment in human history. What we face today is not just a practical, existential choice, but a deeply moral, almost Dantesque one as well. We're on the verge of committing mass murder, this generation. And for what?
  

There's A Reason The Bible Didn't Include Climate Change As One Of The 10 Plagues

Andrew Wheeler by Nancy Ohanian

This isn't Climate Change:

This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me, or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. You still set yourself against my people and will not let them go. Therefore, at this time tomorrow I will send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded till now. Give an order now to bring your livestock and everything you have in the field to a place of shelter, because the hail will fall on every man and animal that has not been brought in and is still out in the field, and they will die. […] The LORD sent thunder and hail, and lightning flashed down to the ground. So the LORD rained hail on the land of Egypt; hail fell and lightning flashed back and forth. It was the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation.

— Exodus 9:13–24



I'm watching an interesting Norweigian TV series now, Okkupert (in English, Occupied. Although it was made before Trump left the Paris climate accord, the U.S. has left NATO but climate change is so out of control, that Norway has elected a government to shut down its gas and oil industry. The EU freaks out and allows/encourages the Russians to take over the country to restart oil and gas exports. The Norwegian prime minister, Jesper Berg, reminds me of Bill McKibben, a climate expert/activist and founding fellow of the Sanders Institute. This is a video they just released and very much worth watching even before you watch Okkupert.



Here's how the Sanders Institute introduced the video-- almost making me think that they've been watching Okkupert!

There are a number of actions that our country could be taking to reduce our carbon footprint and lessen the progress of climate change, however, there are significant barriers in place that hinder these efforts.

Many of these barriers stem from corporate action. Companies that benefit from the continued use of energy sources that contribute to climate change have a vested interest in hindering the progress of solutions that will move us away from the status quo. Below are a few examples of how corporations have done this:

In the six years prior to 2017, rooftop solar panel installations grew by as much as 900% in the United States. Each year, more and more Americans were taking steps to install solar panels on their roofs, lessen their carbon footprint, and contribute excess energy back into the grid to further diminish the carbon footprint of others who could not afford solar panels. The New York Times reports that in 2017, growth in solar panel installations came “to a shuttering stop.” This was largely because of “a concerted and well-funded lobbying campaign by traditional utilities, which have been working in state capitals across the country to reverse incentives for homeowners to install solar panels.”

In addition, Instead of cutting residents a break for helping solve the climate crisis, the utility companies-- led by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Edison Electric Institute (whose lobbying efforts ratepayers actually underwrite)-- are lobbying for the end of “net-metering” laws that let customers sell excess power they generate back to the grid.

Moreover, lobbying is frequently combined with political contributions to, and coordination with politicians.  Arizona, whose capital lies in the “Valley of the Sun,” has incredible potential for solar power. However, according to Tuscon.com, last year in May, "A federal grand jury has indicted a former state utility regulator and his wife for taking bribes.” The former regulator took those bribes for approving a rate hike for the areas utility company. Despite this indictment, coordination between politicians and utilities in Arizona has not stopped. For instance, environmental groups in Arizona have proposed a constitutional amendment to the Arizona ballot that would require that 50% of Arizona’s energy needs be met with renewable energy sources by 2030.Inside Climate News reports that “a senate committee passed a separate bill—- which an APS spokeswoman said the utility had proposed—- that would add a second ballot initiative with a nearly identical title” The most recent bill has similar language to the one proposed by environmentalists but includes a “safety valve” that would not allow full implementation of the bill. This approach is designed to confuse and halt progress toward renewable energy.

Arizona is not the only state that has experienced corporate lobbying against climate change solutions, nor is net metering the only issue where corporations have succeeded in moving forward with policies and activities that demonstratively harm the environment. For instance, fracking continues despite numerous studies that show significant damage to  the environment and public health.

There are a number of ways that we can hold corporations accountable and stop actions that negatively affect the environment.

• Get Money Out of Politics

Too frequently, our politicians are able to be swayed by campaign contributions that lead to decisions that harm the American people, and put the future of our planet in jeopardy.  It is all too easy to find the enormous contributions made by companies that contribute to our carbon footprint:

According to Open Secrets: Oil and gas companies have so far contributed over $14 million to all candidates in the 2018 election cycle, electric utilities have contributed over $11 million, natural gas pipeline companies have contributed almost $2 million, and coal mining companies have contributed over $800 thousand.

If we get money out of politics legislators might be more likely to vote for policies and ideas that benefit their constituents, the environment, and the world.

• Taxes That Reflect The True Cost of Pollution

A “Carbon Tax” is traditionally considered an “economist’s solution” to fighting climate change. In short, the Carbon Tax Center describes that “A carbon tax is a fee imposed on the burning of carbon-based fuels.” There are two strong arguments for why a carbon tax is both necessary and would work.

1- It holds carbon producers and consumers accountable for the damage that their actions have on the environment. To put that damage in perspective, National Geographic reports that “Extreme weather, made worse by climate change, along with the health impacts of burning fossil fuels, has cost the U.S. economy at least $240 billion a year over the past ten years.”Economics Help describes that “The idea of a tax is to make consumers and producers pay the full social cost of producing pollution.” Money raised by the government from this tax could be used to finance initiatives that will further reduce carbon emissions (e.g. subsidizing renewable energy or carbon capture.)

2- It creates incentives to for both consumers and producers to act in ways that will reduce their carbon footprint. Producers may invest in ideas that will reduce their carbon emissions to avoid paying as much in taxes. Price increases on items or utilities that include this carbon tax may result in consumers looking to alternative energy sources, or consuming less...

• Get the Incentives Right

Each year, the U.S. government subsidizes a range of economic activities. It is important that those subsidies encourage economic activity that will help reduce our carbon footprint and climate change.

Unfortunately, many subsidies support industries that are contributing to climate change. Researchers at Oil Change International recently found that “Government giveaways in the form of permanent tax breaks to the fossil fuel industry-- one of which is over a century old-- are seven times larger than those to the renewable energy sector.” These fossil fuel subsidies, including both federal subsidies and state subsidies, total to $20 billion annually.

That said, the renewable energy industry has also received a number of subsidies through the years (varying though different administrations and not to the level of those for the fossil fuel industry). These subsidies have contributed to substantial growth in the renewable energy sector. Eighteen percent of the United States energy needs are now provided by renewable energy. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute states that the U.S. has reduced its emissions “by about 760 million metric tons since 2005.” The increase in renewable energy usage has contributed significantly to that reduction.

These subsidies for renewable energy There are also other benefits to renewable energy subsidies. Quartz Media reported that “the fossil fuels not burnt because of wind and solar energy helped avoid between 3,000 and 12,700 premature deaths in the US between 2007 and 2015” and that “the US saved between $35 billion and $220 billion in that period because of avoided deaths, fewer sick days, and climate-change mitigation.”

Incentives need to reflect economic activities that will help the environment, Americans, and the world, not harm them.

• Get the Penalties Right

While incentives are important for companies that are working to help the environment, it is equally important to include penalties for companies that are harming the environment.

Most Americans are familiar with the largest oil spills in the United States like the BP oil spill, also called the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in 2010. However, large spills that get covered in the news are only a portion of the problem. According to the latest data from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, excluding the BP oil spill, 287,416 barrels of oil (or 12 million gallons of oil) were spilled in the U.S. between 1964 and 2015. That equals over two hundred thousand gallons of oil a year. The BP oil spill added another 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled, totaling over two hundred million gallons of oil. (There are 42 gallons of oil in a barrel.)

A number of news organizations reported in 2015 that BP would pay more than $20 billion in settlement claims as punishment for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The Justice Department called the settlement historic and quoted Attorney General Loretta Lynch in saying “Building on prior actions against BP and its subsidiaries by the Department of Justice, this historic resolution is a strong and fitting response to the worst environmental disaster in American history...BP is receiving the punishment it deserves, while also providing critical compensation for the injuries it caused to the environment and the economy of the Gulf region.”

However, when you dig deeper into that settlement, that “historic” amount of money isn’t so large when you take into account U.S. tax laws that allow corporations to write off natural resource damage payments, restoration, and reimbursement of government costs. Forbes reports that ultimately “BP should be able to deduct the vast majority, a whopping $15.3 billion, on its U.S. tax return. That means American taxpayers are contributing quite a lot to this settlement, whether they know it or not.”

In other cases, companies are given penalties that can be considered negligible when their annual earnings are taken into account. The Real News reports that “In the last 12 years, Marathon Petroleum Corporation, who manage one of the largest petroleum pipeline networks in the U.S., has had 61 incidents... including recent spill of 42,000 gallons of diesel. In the same week they had to pay A fine of three hundred thousand dollars for another spill last year.” In reference to this three hundred thousand dollar fine, Sierra Club’s Jodi Perras pointed out that Marathon is “a 13.8 billion dollar company.... they will expect to have a 330 million dollar profit this year. And so they are paying $335,000 for that spill in 2016. That's pennies to a company like that.” Ultimately, Marathon Petroleum Corporation is being fined 0.001% of their annual profits.

Penalties should be large enough to encourage constructive steps towards reducing future accidents and harm to the environment, and when they are large enough, the burden to pay them should be placed on the company, not taxpayers.

Alan Grayson (D-FL) backs backs up the Institute's assertions about Big Money and Climate Change. "This is true," he told us. "Here in Florida, the Land of Sunshine, the utilities spent millions of dollars to thwart a rooftop solar initiative. Big Pollution is simply an arm of Big Money, looking to preserve its perks at the expense of everyone else. Also yesterday, writing for the New Republic Emily Atkin asked a simple 21st Century question: Why are some major news outlets still covering extreme weather like it's an act of God? "The science," she wrote, "is clear: Heat-trapping greenhouse gases have artificially increased the average temperature across the globe, making extreme heat events more likely. This has also increased the risk of frequent and more devastating wildfires, as prolonged heat dries soil and turns vegetation into tinder. And yet, despite these facts, there’s no climate connection to be found in much news coverage of extreme weather events across the globe-- even in historically climate-conscious outlets like NPR and the New York Times. These omissions, critics say, can affect how Americans view global warming and its impact on their lives. Major broadcast TV networks are the most glaring offenders.

[T]hough the issue is rising in priority for many young and Hispanic voters, polling experts still don’t think the issue will be an important factor in the November midterm elections. Addressing the crisis will require getting more people to care about it in the first place. The scientific community is doing its part by providing the evidence that climate change is real, and that it’s making extreme storms, droughts, wildfires and other weather more likely. It’s up to journalists to convey those truths to public at large.

Last night J.D. Scholten, the progressive Democrat running for the Iowa seat climate change denier Steven King is occupying, told me that "We saw a scary report come out yesterday from the Des Moines Register: 

By mid-century, projections show five-day heat-wave temperatures in Iowa increasing by about 7 degrees for the average year and by 13 degrees once per decade compared to heat waves in the late 20th century. These are really scary numbers that would have negative consequences for the elderly, the economy, for corn and soybeans, as well as beef, hogs and poultry even under sheltered confinement.

Congress needs to stop kicking the can down the road on climate change and make addressing it an urgent priority before its impacts on our weather and agriculture are irreversible."

Pick A Side: Joe Lieberman Or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Conservatives want members of Congress to look like the mug on the right, never like the young woman on the left

Connecticut Democratic primary voters basically kicked Joe Lieberman out of the party by denying him the 2006 Democratic nomination for the Senate seat he had held since 1994. He ran on the Connecticut for Lieberman Party that year. He would like to see Joe Crowley, who lost the Democratic renomination bid on June 26, do the same thing. Crowley outspent his progressive opponent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez $1,410,228 to $30,94, but she worked harder and smarter and beat him 15,897 (57.48%) to 11,761 (42.52%). Ever since her inspiring victory over an avatar of the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment, the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment and their media lapdogs have gone on the attack against her and other progressive reformers working to displace other incumbents associated with the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment. So, no one should be surprised that Joe Lieberman, now a lobbyist working for the ultimate grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment law firm, Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman, who's best known client is... Don the Con, the illegitimate "president." Lieberman is also the co-chair of the American Internationalism Project, part of the far right American Enterprise Institute.

Lieberman represents a very special kind of bipartisanship-- the opposite of the kind of bipartisanship practiced by legislators like Alan Grayson, Pramila Jayapal, Ted Lieu and Karen Bass (entailing working across the aisle to find issues that both parties can support for the good of their constituents)-- and instead can be defined as selling out your own party's values and principles and embracing those of the other party. That, in fact, sums up Joe Lieberman's entire political career. Example: while actual Democrats were trying to stop the confirmation of anti-education extremist Betsy DeVos of Secretary of Education, it was Lieberman who introduced her to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee. A high ranking staffer for one of the committee members-- hint: not Doug Jones (D-AL)-- told me that members were revolted when Lieberman came into their offices and even more revolted when Trump announced he was likely to replace James Comey as FBI Director with Lieberman.

No one was surprised when Lieberman, writing for the conservative Wall Street Journal-- of which Grason quipped, "the Wall Street Journal: you can always tell whom they fear by whom they smear"-- a couple of days ago went on a vicious, McCarthyite attack against Ocasio-Cortez. "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hurts the party, Congress and even America," he wrote. What he meant by "the party" isn't open to the reader's interpretation, although it should be since the Democratic Party now has the most inspiring weapon in politics since Bernie Sanders-- something that petrifies both of the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment parties. Lieberman, 76 and... tired, defines the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment as "the mainstream," so he isn't reaching when he writes that "Ocasio-Cortez advocates [policies] so far from the mainstream, her election in November would make it harder for Congress to stop fighting and start fixing problems." He didn't acknowledge the dysfunctional state of Congress today, not the role Joe Crowley-- not to mention his own decades-long role-- has played in that dysfunction.

He then went on to try to make a case for Crowley doing what he did-- running as an independent in the general. "On Election Day, his name will be on the ballot as the endorsed candidate of the Working Families Party. But for Mr. Crowley to have a chance at getting re-elected, he will have to decide if he wants to remain an active candidate. I hope he does." The Working Families Party" has pleaded with him not to further disgrace them by running against Ocasio-Cortez. The heart of Lieberman's OpEd, was his attack on policies that benefit anyone other than the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment. Keep in mind, Lieberman was one of the most anti-Bernie "Democrats" in the country during the 2016 election cycle. Here he was on Fox News:

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose platform, like hers, is more Socialist than Democratic. Her dreams of new federal spending would bankrupt the country [wrong] or require very large tax increases [wrong], including on the working class [wrong]. Her approach foresees government ownership of many private companies, which would decimate the economy and put millions out of work.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez didn’t speak much about foreign policy during the primary, but when she did, it was from the DSA policy book-- meaning support for socialist governments, even if they are dictatorial and corrupt (Venezuela), opposition to American leadership in the world, even to alleviate humanitarian disasters (Syria), and reflexive criticism of one of America’s great democratic allies (Israel).

She has received the most attention for calling to “Abolish ICE,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This makes no sense unless you no longer want any rules on immigration or customs to be enforced. I have not heard anyone say that. Nonetheless, at least three credible candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination rushed to endorse Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s position.

Republicans are calling Ms. Ocasio-Cortez the “new face” of the Democratic Party. That’s why Nancy Pelosi has tried to put distance between Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and House Democrats. “They made a choice in one district,” Mrs. Pelosi said. “It is not to be viewed as something that stands for anything else.” She knows that if Democrats are to regain a majority, it will be by winning swing districts with sensible, mainstream candidates. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is making that task harder across America.

Joe Crowley’s re-election would be evidence that Democrats are capable of governing again. His voting record shows that Mr. Crowley is a progressive [laughably wrong]. I know him as a bridge builder and problem solver, which is exactly what Congress needs more of in both parties.

Crowley has refused to remove his name from the Working Families Party ballot slot, despite the Working Families Party asking him to. We asked some of the Blue America-endorsed candidates for their perspectives on this. First to respond was Tom Guild who is running on very similar all-American, working family issues that Ocasio ran on-- in Oklahoma City. They work as well among voters there than they work in the Bronx and Queens. "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a breath of fresh air," he told me. "She prevailed against big money and is not responsible for the problems that others have created-- paralysis, placing our democracy at risk by coveting and hoarding big donor money, and selling out working people and the middle class by doing the bidding of the modern moneychangers in the American political temple. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Crowley is the same old, same old and a charter member of the DC Swamp. Progressive change will make things better for people who are struggling to survive and throw the corrupt moneychangers out of the temple. Alexandria beat the tired and failed political establishment playing by their rules, and may be able (with a little help from her friends) to shake up Washington and get the country moving in a positive direction. Experience makes it crystal clear that for many years Lieberman and Crowley made a functioning national government dysfunctional. Why would we want to go back to that future?

Kansas Democrat James Thompson made an addition after the post was completed: "My first thought is who cares what Lieberman thinks? He is a corporate crony owned by the establishment in both parties. If Ocasio is the breath of fresh air then Lieberman is the dying breath of a decaying establishment that can’t see past its next Corporate PAC endorsement." And then there's this nice video, nice message from the Sanders Institute. I bet you can guess why we're running it here, right?

Why Climate Activists Must Include Supply-Side Restrictions in Their Recommended Policy Mix

Daily average Arctic surface temperature since 1958. The red line is now — 2018 year-to-date (source: Bill McKibben).

by Gaius Publius

Climate policy recommendations, to date, cluster around a very small number of recommendations, all designed to discourage demand for fossil fuels and encourage demand for renewable energy sources. Few policy recommendations address the plentiful, cheap and growing supply of fossil fuels.

This is a major mistake. It may even prove fatal to the great task ahead. And only the climate activist and policy community can fix this error.

Consider the following six points.

The Argument for Restricting the Supply of Fossil Fuels

1. Note the graph above. If it's not already clear that global warming has not just reached truly dangerous proportions, but is accelerating, what's shown in graphs like that should dispel all doubt.

Here's another, from the same series of tweets by climate writer Bill McKibben:

Hmm, something seems a little different this year when it comes to ice in the Bering Sea pic.twitter.com/RwCayhinmt

— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) February 25, 2018

The Chukchi Sea is the region of the Arctic north of the Bering Strait. As you can see, the extent of sea ice is declining precipitously. (See also here and here.) All those tiny lines are measurements from the most recent previous years.

(Both of these graphs come from the website of climate scientist and student Zachary Labe, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Earth System Science at UC Irvine. The site is rich in graphs like these. For more Arctic sea ice figures, see here and also the links at the bottom of the page.)

If this isn't an emergency, what is? The World War II analogy would be: Germany has been arming for war for years and has now massed troops on the Polish border. There's no time to waste in preparing the Polish people for the onslaught.

2. If there's no time to waste in addressing the climate crisis, it's necessary not just to restrict the demand for fossil fuels — for example, via carbon taxes and mandatory emissions standards — but also the supply.

This means, in turn, putting the squeeze on the economy to force a conversion to renewable energy supply, rather than simply put pressure on the economy via more gentle restrictions and encouragements that allow the economy to adjust, if it wishes, in a way that's "comfortable."

Examples of "comfortable" demand restrictions include carbon taxes and mandatory cap-and-trade systems. "Comfortable" demand encouragements include subsidies for renewable energy infrastructure.

Supply restrictions, in contrast, tend to be uncomfortable — for consumers because supply is restricted in advance of changes in buying behavior or availability of alternatives; for suppliers because the flow of profit is artificially constrained; and for segments of the economy as a whole because money is forced out of fully operating sectors (fossil fuel production, delivery and use) and into alternative, less-developed areas.

The purpose of supply restrictions, in fact, is to use that discomfort to force changes in behavior, to force the development of alternatives — and not to settle for waiting until the market or consumers decide to make these changes on their own.

The World War II analogy would be the transfer of money from the consumer part of the U.S. economy via rationing into the war-making part of the economy, in order to force the production of ships, tanks, guns and other materiel needed by the military. The constricting factor, the reason the U.S. couldn't support both parts of the economy at full capacity, is manufacturing capacity. No developed nation can double manufacturing capacity in a year, even with all the money in the world to do it. Capacity to make cars, for example, had to be converted to make tanks. In the same way, overall spending had to be diverted, since a nation's ability to expand government spending, while large, isn't infinite.

3. Restrictions on supply, when coupled with constrictions on demand, work very well in other areas where public policy intervention is needed to create a positive social change. Consider the attempt to limit tobacco use in Australia, from a recent academic study ("Cutting with both arms of the scissors: the economic and political case for restrictive supply-side climate policies" by Fergus Green & Richard Denniss) that looks at the utility of supply-side restriction in the battle to mitigate climate change (emphasis added):

Significantly, many countries rely on complicated and evolving combinations of these measures, wherein restrictive supply-side policies play an important role complementing demand-side policies.

Policies to control tobacco smoking in Australia provide an instructive example. The policy mix includes prohibitions on producing tobacco without a license, selling tobacco without a license, selling tobacco to children, tobacco advertising, tobacco sponsorship, and smoking cigarettes in confined public spaces. It also includes heavy taxation of tobacco consumption, hard-hitting public information campaigns, “plain packaging” laws, mandatory health warnings on cigarette packages, and the subsidisation of certain substitutes for cigarettes such as nicotine patches.

None of these anti-"free market" measures is considered out of bounds by the public in the war on tobacco use:

Far from being derided as an inefficient mire of “red tape”, Australia’s tobacco regulatory environment is lauded as a global model of effective public health policy, with the country seen as an early mover in innovative regulation in the sector (Chapman and Wakefield 2001). The combination of a wide range of policies, rather than an ‘optimal’ policy, is, moreover, endorsed in the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which states that “‘tobacco control’ means a range of supply, demand and harm reduction strategies that aim to improve the health of a population by eliminating or reducing their consumption of tobacco products and their exposure to tobacco smoke…” (article 1(d)).

As the authors also note, supply-side restrictions "have also played an important role in efforts to reduce negative environmental pollution externalities, including chlorofluorocarbons (Haas 1992), asbestos (Kameda et al. 2014), and lead in petroleum products (Needleman 2000)."

4. Restrictions on demand for fossil fuels alone aren't doing the job, certainly not fast enough. The march to a far less human-friendly climate — what I've been calling the Next New Stone Age — is relentless and accelerating. Again, we are now seeing zero degree Celsius days in February in the Arctic. In plain English, that means this: air, warm enough to melt ice, in the Arctic, in winter.

Restrictions on supply are therefore critically needed. Yet restrictions on supply create discomfort, both for producers and consumers. Can counter-arguments that point to "discomfort" as a reason not to address climate change via fossil fuel supply restrictions be overcome?

5. The surprising answer is yes, those arguments can be overcome. The paper cited above notes both economic and political benefits of restricting the supply of fossil fuels, and shows that, controlling for other factors, those arguments can be popular and effective. To my knowledge, it's the first paper to do so.

It points out that the economic benefits of supply-side restrictions include low administrative and transaction costs, higher certainty of abatement outcomes, positive price and efficiency effects, the avoidance of infrastructure "lock in," and others.

On the political side, the authors assert that "supply-side policies are generally likely to attract higher public support than demand-side policies, all else equal."

Scholars have identified various reasons, related to these factors [perceived benefits, distributional fairness, and so on], why people tend to prefer certain kinds of climate policy instruments over others (e.g. command and control regulation over market-based instruments) (Jenkins 2014; Karplus 2011; Rabe 2010) and, within a given class of policy instrument, certain design features (e.g. explicit earmarking of revenue from market-based instruments) (Drews and van den Bergh 2015, 863; Rabe and Borick 2012). What has not been analysed is the effect on public support resulting from whether the instrument targets the supply side or the demand side (controlling for instrument type and relevant design features such as, where applicable, revenue allocation). 

The point of the study is to support that point by "controlling for instrument type and relevant design features such as, where applicable, revenue allocation".

For example, on the "perceived benefits" of demand-side vs. supply-side climate policies, the authors state:

A common conclusion from climate-related public opinion research is that climate science is poorly understood and concern about the problem, though widespread, is shallow, i.e. it tends to be a low-salience, low-priority concern and individuals have a low “willingness to pay” for solutions (Ansolabehere and Konisky 2014; Guber 2003; Jenkins 2014, 470–72; van der Linden et al. 2015). This is unsurprising: the climate benefits of mitigation policies are diffused widely across time and space; they disproportionately accrue (and are perceived accrue) to future generations and people in other countries; and their magnitude is uncertain, meaning they are likely to be strongly discounted by voters (van der Linden et al. 2015).

Supply-side policies suffer none of these disadvantages:

By contrast, supply-side instruments typically target fossil fuels per se. Survey evidence suggests that people more readily link co-costs/co-benefits (environmental, health, security, social, economic) to specific energy sources than to the more abstract concepts of “carbon”/“climate” (e.g., Ansolabehere and Konisky 2014); and fossil fuels are well-understood commodities that many people more readily associate with a range of higher-priority, more localised and more immediate negative (non-climate) impacts, resulting in negative attitudes toward fossil fuels, especially coal (see Green 2018, section 3.1.1 and references there cited). These features give supply-side policies considerable advantages in attracting public support for climate policy. Relatively high public support for fossil fuel severance (resource extraction) taxes, even in climate-ambivalent, tax-averse north-American states and provinces (Rabe and Borick 2012, 377–79), provides circumstantial empirical support for these arguments.

The paper studied similar support for supply-side policies based on perceptions of distributional fairness and lower costs.

6. The bottom line is: This is the first study that controls for other factors in determining support for supply-side climate policies vs. demand-side policies by themselves, and finds much to be encouraged about.

The authors conclude:

In our experience, the climate policy community has for too long been excessively narrow in its preference for certain kinds of policy instruments (carbon taxes, cap-and trade), largely ignoring the characteristics of such instruments that affect their political feasibility and feedback effects. At the very least, then, we hope we have shown that supply-side policies should be in the toolkit, ready to be wielded when circumstances favour.

Better, we think, to cut with both arms of the scissors.

Cutting with "both arms of the scissors" means using both supply-side policies and demand-side policies in addressing the looming climate crisis. It's clearly ineffective to use just one.

Only the Climate Policy Community Can Lead in Making This Change

Note the addressee of the authors' conclusion — the "climate policy community." This recommendation is not addressed primarily to politicians, who in the West are natively "free market" apologists, which means, natively Big Money enablers.

And it's not addressed to the public at large, who fear — and are led to fear — the "discomfort" of supply restrictions. Recent American Petroleum Institute ads, for example, say this in effect to consumers: "Do you like that big-screen, smart-phone lifestyle of yours? Be sure to keep carbon in the energy mix, or you'll lose it." Yet the reality is, if Mr. and Ms. Consumer truly hope to keep their smart-phone lifestyle intact, they better start now to arrest the devolution to Stone Age life that constantly burning carbon will cause — just the opposite of what the API is telling them to do.

It makes sense then, does it not, that a message that clearly explain the benefits of reduction — and destruction — of fossil fuel supply can only be carried at first by leading climate activists and the broader policy community?

I see no one else to offer it. And considering both the existential nature of the coming emergency and its near-suffocational timeline, that leadership needs to start ... well, now.

GP
   

Trump's Gift to the Climate Movement

The warning chart that NOAA issued shows Hurricane Ophelia ending in a straight line at 60 degrees north latitude, because the computer program never anticipated a hurricane so far north (source).

by Gaius Publius

A little while ago I looked at the coming year (and the next few years), saw a "train wreck" coming, and wondered whether it would be more worth writing about the train wreck or about something more interesting:

When we think of economic crossroads, those who don't regret the failed Obama opportunity of 2009 ... think of Sanders, Clinton and Trump; the Failed Revolt of 2016; and the road not allowed to be taken.

Our betters chose another path for us, and the rest, I'm afraid, will merely be consequences, the train wreck mentioned above, easily foreseen. Perhaps we won't write about the train wreck after all, but something less widely anticipated.

This is about the train wreck. It's also about a surprising opportunity from a surprising source, our dimwitted President Trump and his wrecking crew.

In a recent Rolling Stone piece entitled "Winning Slowly Is the Same as Losing," climate writer Bill McKibben said, "If we don't win very quickly on climate change, then we will never win. That's the core truth about global warming. It's what makes it different from every other problem our political systems have faced."

As an example, he cites the ice fields of Antarctica. "The latest models show that with very rapid cuts in emissions, Antarctic ice might remain largely intact for centuries; without them, we might see 11 feet of sea-level rise by century's end, enough to wipe cities like Shanghai and Mumbai 'off the map.'" In this case, "off the map" means literally off the map — non-existent; no where to be found on the earth.

For reference, note that the USGS lists the amount of ice sequestered in the Antarctic ice as the equivalent of 72 meters of sea level rise. That's quite a lot. Think of it as 240 feet — or 80% of an American football field — stood vertically. To see what that means on a map, click through to these speculative National Geographic maps from 2013; note though, as you do, that its numbers are out of date and too low. The situation will very likely be worse.

By any reckoning, the speed of change to our climate is catching most people off guard. For example, consider the map at the top. It shows a storm so far north that the computer programmers didn't consider it necessary to allow it to be fully mapped.

McKibben writes, "Another way of saying this: By 2075 the world will be powered by solar panels and windmills – free energy is a hard business proposition to beat. But on current trajectories, they'll light up a busted planet. The decisions we make in 2075 won't matter; indeed, the decisions we make in 2025 will matter much less than the ones we make in the next few years. The leverage is now."

Which brings us to the Trumpian good news.

Trump Has Taken Business As Usual — "Predatory Delay" — Off the Table

If Trump were not president, we might well be noodling along in that same happy valley where nothing much is being done — but much is made of the fact that much appears to be happening — and that thought comforts us.

The oil industry, of course, wants it this way, wants us in that happy state of seeing incremental change as "good enough." Considered in that light, the Paris Accord on climate is their best friend. They get to look like they're on the right side of history, by supporting climate "progress," while relentlessly digging up all of their buried cash — disguised as unextracted oil and gas — until the last cubic centimeter is sold and burned.

McKibben sees it that way too:

The planetary futurist Alex Steffen calls this tactic "predatory delay, the deliberate slowing of needed change to prolong a profitable but unsustainable status quo that will be paid by other people eventually." It's not confined to the moneybags at the oil companies and the utilities – he's written extensively about the otherwise-liberal urbanites in his home state of California. "A lot of cities are happy to talk about providing their power cleanly, but reducing cars, densifying, spending on bike paths, raising building standards – those things are all so contentious they're not even discussed." Ditto the folks who block windmills out of fear of chopping birds, thus helping lock in the next great mass extinction. ... In careful language that might have been written by a team at Exxon, the union [that builds pipelines] said it supported new pipelines "as part of a comprehensive energy policy that creates jobs, makes the United States more competitive and addresses the threat of climate change." "Comprehensive," "balanced," "measured" are the high cards in this rhetorical deck. "Realistic" is the ace in the hole.

Note that this is an encouraged and well-advertised policy, these reasons for delay. You heard the same arguments when the last administration talked about its "all of the above" energy strategy as a "path to sustainable growth." Growth in industry profit, of course, but death for millions of its victims.

Now all of that "reasonable" incremetalism is off the table, at the same time that data about the possibility of effective emergency action is coming available. McKibben writes that "if we wanted to power the planet on sun and wind and water, we could. It would be extremely hard, at the outer edge of the possible, but it's mathematically achievable. Mark Jacobson, who heads Stanford's Atmosphere/Energy program, has worked to show precisely how it could happen in all 50 U.S. states and 139 foreign countries – how much wind, how much sun, how much hydro it would take to produce 80 percent of our power renewably by 2030."

I said earlier that Trump wasn't the whole problem – in fact, it's just possible that in his know-nothing recklessness, he has upset the ever-so-patient apple cart. You could almost see the oil companies wincing when Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement – for them, the agreement was a pathway to slow and managed change. The promises it contained didn't keep the planet from overheating – indeed, even if everyone had kept them, the Earth would still have gotten 3.5 degrees Celsius hotter, enough to collapse every ecosystem you'd like to name. The accords did ensure that we'd still be burning significant amounts of hydrocarbons by 2050, and that the Exxons of the world would be able to recover most of the reserves they've so carefully mapped and explored.

But now some of those bets are off. ... [W]ith Washington effectively gridlocked, the fight has moved elsewhere. When Trump pulled out of the climate accords, for instance, he explained that he'd been elected to govern "Pittsburgh, not Paris." The next day the mayor of Pittsburgh said his town was now planning on 100 percent renewable energy, a pledge that's been made by places as diverse as Atlanta, San Diego and Salt Lake City. Next year, representatives of thousands of regions, provinces, cities, parishes, arrondissements, districts and counties will descend on San Francisco for a Paris-like gathering of subnational actors[.]

This is the Trump opportunity. By sweeping the incrementalism so beloved of Establishment regulars off the table, and by forcing people at the state and local level to solve the problem themselves, Trump has handed the climate movement a gift he should be thanked for.

We were never going to win the climate war with "reasonable" people in charge, no matter their party. In real terms, if Clinton were president, we'd have been no better off. McKibben's title is deadly accurate — in this fight, winning slowly is exactly the same as losing. The only road to success involves sustained and forceful bursts of emergency action.

Will Americans take the opportunity they've been handed — freed of the handcuffs of the incrementalist Democratic Party — to start to win quickly? It's entirely possible. After all, no one in the climate movement today thinks our government offers even a shred of hope. They're moving on without it.

We may still watch much of our virtual village go under the waves, but at least we now may put up a fight to save it.

GP
 

What Sounds Better To You-- Guaranteed Basic Income Or Federal Job Guarantee

I love learning new stuff and this cycle Blue America is backing some really smart candidates with some excellent ideas. Every time I speak with milllennial political leaders like state Rep Kaniela Ing (HI) and former Treasury Department economist Austin Frerick (IA), for example, I feel like I’m learning something new. And because of some of their ideas, I’ve been in touch with economic policy experts Stephanie Kelton and Pavlina Tcherneva. I feel like I get smarter each time I interact with either one of them. It was Kaniela who first raised the question with me about the pros and cons between Universal Basic Income (UBI) and Job Guarantee (JG), something many of the Blue America candidates have been discussing as well. One of them turned me on to a year old Jacobin piece, Why We Need a Federal Job Guarantee by academics Mark Paul, William Darity and Darrick Hamilton.

They never call UBI a trap and they point out many of the positive aspects, like with this Robert Reich video from just before the 2016 election. They don’t even denigrate the idea by pointing out many of the flaws behind Silicon Valley’s enthusiasm for it.



But in the end Paul, Darity and Hamilton come out-- as have Kelton and Tcherneva-- on the side of JG. “A job guarantee,” wrote Paul, Darity and Hamilton, “is not a new idea. It has been part of the American conversation at least since populist governor Huey Long put forth his Share Our Wealth Plan. In 1934, he argued that the United States should use public works to ensure “everybody [is] employed.” These calls were echoed by politicians from Roosevelt in his Economic Bill of Rights to George McGovern during his 1972 presidential bid. Martin Luther King also stumped for a job guarantee, demanding immediate ‘employment for everyone in need of a job.’ He saw ‘a guaranteed annual income at levels that sustain life and decent circumstances’ as the second-best option. Here are five reasons to agree with him.”

1- A Job Guarantee Means Fewer Poor Americans

A job guarantee would reduce poverty more quickly and provide more benefits than a UBI. To ensure a sufficient income, we argue for a FJG that would pay a minimum annual wage of at least $23,000 (the poverty line for a family of four), rising to a mean of $32,500. This would eliminate the “working poor” for full-time working households. In addition to the wage, workers in the FJG program would receive health insurance and pension benefits in line with those that all civil servants and elected federal officials receive.

In comparison, many of the UBI proposals promise around $10,000 annually to every citizen (for an example, see Charles Murray’s proposal here). On the one hand, this plan would break the link between employment and money. But it does so at half the rate that would be available under the FJG, not even considering lifesaving benefits like health insurance.

2- The Robots Haven’t Taken Over Yet. We Still Need Workers.

The dangers of imminent full automation are overstated: there is little evidence that companies are largely replacing human workers with robots. As Dean Baker explains,

If technology were rapidly displacing workers then productivity growth-- the rate of increase in the value of goods and services produced in an hour of work-- should be very high, because machines are more efficient. In the last decade, however, productivity growth has risen at a sluggish 1.4 percent annual rate. In the last two years it has limped along at a pace of less than 1 percent annually. By comparison, in the post–World War II “Golden Age,” from 1947 to 1973, productivity grew at an annual rate of almost 3 percent.

No doubt, stable and high-paid employment opportunities are dwindling, but we shouldn’t blame the robots. Workers aren’t being replaced by automatons; they are being replaced with other workers— ones lower-paid and more precariously employed. Nevertheless, technology, and globalization, have struck fear into American workers.

Not because they are by nature a raw deal, but because the balance of forces over the last few decades has been skewed so dramatically in the favor of capital. Technology, nor globalization, need have negative employment effects on workers-- but they certainly can. It’s time to get the rules right, and ensure workers are provided the dignity of a job. A federal job program would solve the real problem, while UBI would simply treat a side effect.

3- A FJG Could Build An Inclusive Economy.

Conventional wisdom holds s that people dislike work. Introductory economics classes will explain the disutility of labor, which is a direct trade-off with leisure. Granted, employment isn’t always fun, and many forms of employment are dangerous and exploitative. But the UBI misses the way in which employment structurally empowers workers at the point of production and has by its own merits positive dimensions.

This touches on a heated debate on the Left. But for now, there is no doubt that people want jobs, but they want good jobs that provide flexibility and opportunity. They want to contribute, to have a purpose, to participate in the economy and, most importantly, in society. Nevertheless, the private sector continues to leave millions without work, even during supposed “strong” economic times.

The workplace is social, a place where we spend a great deal of our time interacting with others. In addition to the stress associated with limited resources, the loneliness that plagues many unemployed workers can exacerbate mental health problems. Employment-- especially employment that provides added social benefits like communal coffee breaks-- adds to workers’ well-being and productivity. A federal job guarantee can provide workers with socially beneficial employment-- providing the dignity of a job to all that seek it.

The FJG would also act as a de facto wage floor-- private employers will have to offer wages and benefits at least as enticing as the federal government to attract workers. There has been extensive public support for recent increases in the minimum wage, such as the Fight for $15 campaign, demonstrating that most Americans believe workers deserve a living wage. Fighting for a higher minimum wage is an important step to ensure that workers are compensated a living wage rather than a poverty wage, yet let us not forget that the effective minimum wage in this country without a UBI or a job guarantee is $0. This must change.

Finally, some argue that a “skills mismatch” explains why some workers remain unemployed. While we reject that narrative, a well-designed FJG will nevertheless include a training element to build workers’ skills and a jobs ladder to create upward mobility in the workplace.

All of these elements will build an inclusive economy that provides good jobs for all. The UBI, in contrast, could subsidize bad jobs-- allowing low minimum wages and lack of benefits to persist.

4- Federal Jobs Could Provide Socially Useful Goods And Services.

During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) were public employment programs designed to put Americans back to work after the national unemployment rate reached 25 percent. These programs, implemented under the Roosevelt administration, provided socially beneficial goods and services that benefited all Americans. Some of our national parks-- Zion, Glacier, and Shenandoah-- received substantial work contributions from employees of the federal jobs programs. The Blue Ridge Parkway was a federally funded and staffed infrastructure program.

A new federal job guarantee could undertake similarly bold and much-needed public-works projects.

The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the United States a D+ in infrastructure and prices necessary repairs at $3.6 trillion. This lack of investment has lowered employment rates, cost businesses sales, and reduced incomes for American families. Make no mistake, these are government choices. They could choose instead to hire unemployed workers to repair bridges, maintain roadways, and update power grids.

Likewise, Bill McKibben just called for us to “declare war” against climate change. With climate change being perhaps the largest threat to our well-being, bold action is needed. The job guarantee program would create the capacity to do just that. Professor Robert Pollin of the Political Economy Research Institute calls for scaling up the transition to a green economy, which would create millions of new jobs along the way. He and his colleagues estimate what a Green New Deal would look like, and find that a transition to a green economy would amount to an estimated $200 billion in investment annually, resulting in a drop in “US emission by 40 percent within 20 years, while creating a net increase of 2.7 million jobs.” In part, this is due to the labor-intensive nature of energy efficiency and other “green” investments.

Additional services, when combined with a FJG, would save average American households thousands, if not tens of thousands, a year. According to the Economic Policy Institute, for example, tuition-free and universal child care and education-- staffed by FJG workers-- would trim an average of $22,631 annually from families’ budgets in expensive places such as DC while saving households in places like Arkansas a more modest $5,995 on average.

To be sure, a UBI would free up time to volunteer, to care for sick relatives, or to start small businesses. Additionally, the UBI would finally provide greater financial freedom to those that choose to stay at home and engage in care work-- disproportionately provided by women. However, the FJG has the ability to provide high quality services, such as child care and elder care, that would greatly reduce the care burden, providing more choice while building on the current social safety net.

5- It’ll Stabilize The Economy

A FJG would bring us much closer to actual full employment, not the neoclassical full employment that subjectively allows for some optimal frictional unemployment. Most contemporary economists rely on the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) to calculate this less-than-full full employment artificial statistic which functions as a disciplinary tool of the bourgeoisie, but this, according to Roger Farmer is “an idea past its sell-by date.”

By full employment, we mean simply that everyone seeking a job gets one. We’d wager that if you asked the average American what full employment means to them, they’d give you a similar answer-- a job for all. Indeed, a plurality of Americans will also tell you they support a FJG.

The UBI would likely still leave a substantial segment of the population in poverty. As Belgian philosopher Philippe Van Parijs, one of the most prominent UBI advocates, acknowledged, even a large payment through the UBI won’t necessarily secure a comfortable living for all citizens. How about those without jobs, or those who earn below subsistence wages? Of course, a UBI coupled with a non-poverty wage option and strong unionization could seriously combat poverty. The UBI would eliminate the effective minimum wage of $0 currently offered in the United States, though it would fail to provide adequate employment for all that demanded it-- a crucial shortfall of such a program.

A FJG is a sounder mechanism to combat structural inequalities, for instance through closing the persistent unemployment gap experienced by stigmatized groups who face continued discrimination. (Note, since 1972 unemployment has average double digits for black workers and has never fallen below 7 percent-- a level that is only reached during times of economic crisis-- for white workers).

Further, the FJG will have a strong macroeconomic stabilization effect. During economic downturns, it would expand and hire more people; it would then shrink during economic boom periods as people move from public to better-paying private employment. Pavlina R. Tcherneva, a leading voice on the FJG’s macroeconomic effects, argues that policies like the UBI have no counter-cyclical features. Thus, when the economy takes a downturn-- say as it did in 2007-- basic incomes provide no automatic stabilizers to right the sinking ship.

This is good for the economy as a whole. Rather than expanding the unemployment insurance rolls during economic busts, the FJG would put folks to work and moderate the business cycle. Federal workers’ paychecks will increase demand, which will increase economic growth. Many economists agree that today’s secular stagnation-- insufficient demand-- is contributing to continued “lackluster” growth after the Great Recession. Only modest upticks in growth for the foreseeable future will come if we continue the status quo.

Finally, as a less costly program a FJG might be easier for a future left government to enact. Some estimate that basic income could easily cost more than $3 trillion each year, while others say it will only come to $2.7 trillion. The FJG, on the other hand, will cost orders of magnitude less. Even if we conservatively guess that fifteen million unemployed workers need jobs, funding the FJG would take about $750 billion.

We want to build an inclusive economy. The FJG will build an economy that serves the working class more efficiently and effectively than the UBI.

The benefits will be immediately and broadly distributed. The FJG will directly target the unemployed-- remedying a key predictor of poverty. By providing universal employment, it will also counteract employers’ systematic discrimination against ex-offenders, recent military veterans, and certain racial groups. Furthermore, through providing a guaranteed job, workers will be emboldened to take new actions in the private sector. This could be just the policy to reinvigorate the labor movement, spurring unionization drives to improve working conditions. These benefits will result in the federal jobs raising beneficiaries and their families above the poverty line. The UBI can make no such guarantee.

Not only would a federal job guarantee bring justice to the millions who desire work, but it would also address the long-standing unjust barriers that keep large segments of stigmatized populations out of the labor force.

Finally, it would reverse the rising tide of inequality for all workers. By strengthening their bargaining power and eliminating the threat of unemployment once and for all, a federal job guarantee would bring power back to the workers where it belongs.

Tim Canova, a South Florida reformer in a tight contest with status quo Democrat Debbie Wassermann Schultz has been a long time supporter of a federal jobs guarantee. "In the 1990s, at the National Jobs For All Coalition, we called for this approach,” he told me recently. “The need for a federal job guarantee has been even greater since the 2008 financial collapse and the trickle down recovery that has followed. New Deal public works programs helped build so much of the country’s infrastructure while providing hope and dignity to millions of people. Today there are millions of Americans, particularly among our youth, who are unemployed or underemployed in bad part time jobs. We need to provide them with opportunities in public jobs programs, building our crumbling infrastructure, in conservation projects, and in service to others. This is a big part of our agenda."

Kaniela Ing, the cutting edge policy candidate in Hawaii, has been working with Stephanie Kelton on how to make sure Job Guarantee serves the needs Hawaii's working families. A few weeks ago Kaniela told us that "America’s promise has always been clear-- work hard and your family will prosper. Today, too many hard-working Americans feel that our leaders have gone bad on that promise. I talk to folks who tell me everyday, they grind and sweat, but struggle to get by. Wages are stagnant, unemployment and underemployment are rising, the threats of automation and globalization are becoming real, all while costs are skyrocketing. But just take a walk outside and look around at all the work that needs to be done in America. There are bridges to be built, highways needing repair, kids to be taught, aging folks needing care, oceans to be cleaned, trees to be planted. But private markets fall short. For every job opening in America, four people are gunning for it. This pits worker against worker and creates a power imbalance between workers and their bosses. It’s too risky for a worker to stand up to wage theft, inhumane working conditions, or sexual harassment, when they know there’s nowhere else to go. Our elected representatives must stop pretending that everything is okay, and that the job market will some home fix itself. It’s time for real solutions that will actually help working families across America. It’s time for a new New deal. Since the start of my campaign, I’ve been leading with a universal job guarantee, and I ask other progressive candidates to join me. Let’s remind the establishment that the ability to work for a livable wage is a human right that should be afforded to all. In these uncertain times, progressives will lead with real solutions that offer hope to the many, and just the privileged few."