“American oligarchs have used their wealth to accumulate an unprecedented level of political power, which they’ve used to amass even greater wealth. We must stop this cycle.

By Jake Johnson | –

( Commondreams) – A group of progressive U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday proposed a wealth tax that would automatically rise during periods of surging inequality and fall once inequality moderates.

The tax is at the heart of new legislation called the Oppose Limitless Inequality Growth and Reverse Community Harms (OLIGARCH) Act, which was introduced by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.).

“Inequality in the United States is worse in 2023 than it was during the Gilded Age,” Lee of California said in a statement. “It is unacceptable that millions of hardworking people remain impoverished, while the top 0.1% hold over 20% of the nation’s wealth.”

“The OLIGARCH Act is the solution we need to close the exorbitant wealth gap in America and create a tax system where everyone pays their fair share,” she added. “This level of wealth is not just a source of economic injustice, but a major threat to democracy.”

According to a summary of the bill released by the Patriotic Millionaires—an advocacy group that helped craft the measure—the wealth tax would have four brackets:

• 2% for all wealth between 1,000 and 10,000 times median household wealth;
• 4% for all wealth between 10,000 and 100,000 times median household wealth;
• 6% for all wealth between 100,000 and 1,000,000 times median household wealth; and
• 8% for all wealth over 1,000,000 times median household wealth;

“In the unlikely event median household wealth fell below $50,000 from its current level of about $120,000, the thresholds would be fixed at $50 million, $500 million, $5 billion, and $50 billion respectively,” the summary states. “Otherwise, the tax is not pegged to a specified dollar threshold. By design, this causes the tax to wax and wane with wealth concentration, intensifying during periods of rising inequality, but tapering off to near non-existence when median household wealth increases and inequality moderates to an acceptable level.”

The legislation would also require at least a 30% IRS audit rate on households affected by the new wealth tax, according to the summary. One recent estimate indicated that the richest Americans dodge taxes on more than 20% of their earnings, costing the federal government around $175 billion in revenue each year.

And yet low-income households have been targeted by IRS audits at a far higher rate than rich households in recent years.

In 2022, according to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, “the taxpayer class with unbelievably high audit rates—five and a half times virtually everyone else—were low-income wage-earners taking the earned income tax credit.”

“Extreme wealth inequality has become an existential threat to our country.”

During the coronavirus pandemic—which killed more than a million Americans and threw the country into economic turmoil—U.S. billionaires added trillions of dollars to their collective fortunes largely tax-free.

In the first half of this year, the 500 richest people on the planet added a combined $852 billion to their net worth—an average of $14 million each day.

Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, warned in a statement Wednesday that “extreme wealth inequality has become an existential threat to our country.” The advocacy group pointed to a 2009 paper by political scientists Jeffrey Winters and Benjamin Page, who estimated that “each of the top 400 or so richest Americans had on average about 22,000 times the political power of the average member of the bottom 90%, and each of the top 100 or so had nearly 60,000 times as much.”

“American oligarchs have used their wealth to accumulate an unprecedented level of political power, which they’ve used to amass even greater wealth,” said Pearl. “We must stop this cycle by passing the OLIGARCH Act as soon as possible.”

This story has been updated to include comment from Rep. Barbara Lee.

Update: See Rep. Jayapal’s clarification below.

Remarks Saturday by Rep. Pramila Jayapal may signal the end of the “liberal except on Palestine” ploy of most Congressional Democrats, who decry police brutality against US minorities but are perfectly all right with Israeli government repression of the Palestinians being kept stateless and without rights. She explicitly denounced Israel as a “racist state.”

The major umbrella for the Israel lobbies in the United States, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), may have picked this fight when it threw its campaign money behind successful attempts to defeat rising members of the Progressive Democratic Caucus, which Jayapal chairs. Game on.

Not only are the Israel lobbies helping keep extremist Republicans in Congress but they are attempting to shape the Democratic Party as a conservative, Blue Dog party and to derail the Progressive Caucus.

At the annual conference in Chicago of the progressive Netroots Nation on Saturday, July 15, Netroots founder Mark Moulitsas of Daily Kos hosted a panel consisting of Rep. Jesus “”Chuy” García, Rep. Jan Schakowski, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal. As noted, Jayapal is the chair of the Democratic Party Progressive Caucus, which has 50 members in the House of Representatives, and who achieved some important legislation during Biden’s first two years, including the Inflation Reduction Act.

Netroots Nation, which I have attended in the past, has grown to become the most important gathering of progressive Democrats. This is the panel discussion:

Netroots Nation 2023 Saturday Keynote, Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos moderates a Panel

Apparently after the discussion, a group of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered in the audience and heckled the panelists. Rep. Jayapal addressed them:

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A post shared by Juan Cole (@jricardocole)

Ben Samuels at Haaretz transcribed her remarks, ““As somebody who’s been in the streets and participated in a lot of demonstrations, I want you to know that we have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state, that the Palestinian people deserve self-determination and autonomy, that the dream of a two-state solution is slipping away from us, that it does not even feel possible,”

Jayapal has pushed for more Congressional oversight of US aid to Israel and how it is used, since it frequently is used in contravention of US policies.

Jayapal will be pilloried for her observations, but their justice is undeniable. In 2018 the Israeli government passed a law specifying that sovereignty in Israel is restricted to the country’s Jews, excluding the 20% of the country that is of Palestinian heritage. It is hard to know what to call that but racism.

Some 65 laws on the books in Israel discriminate against persons of Palestinian heritage. For this and other reasons Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, all respected human rights organizations, have characterized the Israeli treatment of Palestinians as “Apartheid.”

What is that but racism?

Polls have shown that half of the Israeli public agrees that “”Israeli Arabs suffer from discrimination as opposed to Jewish citizens.”

As for the Palestinians being a “race,” what is a race but an ethnic group? And the Palestinians are certainly that.

So there will be a firestorm about Jayapal’s comments, but it will be led by zealots who have blinded themselves to the truth, or by paid political flacks, or by MAGA crazies who have adopted Israel as a symbol of their white nationalism — i.e. by people who wish they could treat Jayapal and other members of minorities in the US the way the current far right wing government treats the Palestinians.

Update:

The next day Rep. Jayapal issued a clarification:

At a conference, I attempted to defuse a tense situation during a panel where fellow members of Congress were being protested. Words do matter and so it is important that I clarify my statement. I do not believe the idea of Israel as a nation is racist. I do, however, believe that Netanyahu’s extreme right-wing government has engaged in discriminatory and outright racist policies and that there are extreme racists driving that policy within the leadership of the current government. I believe it is incumbent on all of us who are striving to make our world a more just and equitable place to call out and condemn these policies and this current Netanyahu government’s role in furthering them.

I have always worked toward a two-state solution that allows both Israelis and Palestinians to live freely, safely, and with self-determination alongside each other and that is still what I am absolutely committed to. I also know that the many policies of the current Israeli government, including rampant settlement expansion, make it extremely difficult for Palestinians who simply want the same rights as their Israeli neighbors to believe such a solution is possible. On a very human level, I was also responding to the deep pain and hopelessness that exists for Palestinians and their diaspora communities when it comes to this debate, but I in no way intended to deny the deep pain and hurt of Israelis and their Jewish diaspora community that still reels from the trauma of pogroms and persecution, the Holocaust, and continuing anti-semitism and hate violence that is rampant today.

As an immigrant woman of color who has fought my whole life against racism, hate, and discrimination of all kinds and viscerally feels when anyone’s very existence is called into question, I am deeply aware of the many challenges we face in our own country to live up to the ideals of our nation here. The only way through these difficult moments is to have real conversations where we develop our own understanding of each other and the traumas we all hold. These are not easy conversations but they are important ones if we are ever to move forward. It is in that spirit that I offer my apologies to those who I have hurt with my words, and offer this clarification.

We know that the status quo is unacceptable, untenable, and unjust. It will take all of us — elected officials, movement activists, advocates, and communities — to work together for real progress.

The African continent is heating up more, and faster, than other regions in the world according to the recently released State of Climate in Africa Report. By 2030, the report says up to 118 million extremely poor people will be subject to the devastating impacts of drought and intense heat.

Many of the temperatures presently being recorded in Africa, and those projected in the next decade, are already close to the limits of human survival, or “liveability”.

The general limit of heat we should live in is 35°C wet-bulb temperature, which is a measure of both air temperature and humidity. Beyond this, the body struggles to cool itself.

In northern Mali, for example, many communities have to make do with a rainy season of just three months, from July to September. For the rest of the year, temperatures approach 50°C. The consequences have been catastrophic, impacting health and agriculture and livestock activities. Younger generations have no option but to leave as they cannot survive in these conditions.

Extreme heat is a serious health hazard. It can have very negative health effects on the human body. The body responds to heat stress by redistributing blood flow to the skin and producing sweat, thus cooling the body. These blood flow changes increase the demand on the heart, making it work harder. Additional sweat production can also lead to dehydration, reducing blood volume which strains the heart further and also causes damage to organs such as the kidney.

Despite this, extreme heat has drawn less attention than other climate risks, such as flooding and drought.

The 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) provides an opportunity to focus in more detail on the health effects of extreme heat in African countries and elsewhere. Particular attention should be paid to how vulnerable groups like women, newborn children and poorer people can be helped to deal with or mitigate against these effects.

How heatwaves affect people

There are various ways in which rising temperatures will affect people.

Heatwaves – generally considered to be several days of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity – worsen the risk of death from heatstroke. This happens when the body is unable to control its temperature which then rises rapidly to 40°C or more causing internal organ damage.

It also means more people with certain ailments – such as kidney or respiratory diseases – are at a higher risk of dying.

As temperatures rise, there’ll be an increased spread of infectious diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever. This is because more areas will become suitable for vectors, like mosquitoes that carry malaria.

Increased heat will also result in more drought which will result in crop failure and livestock deaths. This will lead to under- and malnutrition, especially in children, with higher rates of stunting or worse a result. Projections using temperature changes in sub-Saharan Africa suggest considerable increases in malnutrition. For instance, it’s expected that by 2100 there’ll be an increase in prevalence of wasting in western Africa by 37%, and 25% for central and eastern Africa.

More heat also means more wildfires. Wildfires affect humans in several ways including burns, pollutants from smoke and psychological trauma. Increased vulnerability to wildfires is expected in East Africa due to a combination of temperature change and unsustainable land management practices, such as clearing and setting fire to land to plant crops.

Most at risk

It is important to understand which groups are most at risk from the negative effects of extreme heat.

A review of climate change and health literature earlier this year found a greater mortality risk from heatwaves for children, especially infants. Children are more at risk as they have smaller surface to body ratios than adults (increasing dehydration and heat stress risk) and they are still growing with underdeveloped systems, such as respiratory and immune systems.

Older people are more vulnerable to heat stress because their bodies are less able to adapt to changes in body temperature and they may have chronic medical conditions.

Extreme heat is also a high risk factor for pregnant women and their babies. A summary of evidence on the obstetric risks of heat reported many associated adverse effects including maternal hypertension and placental abruption (the separation of the placenta from the uterus which can cause pregnancy complications), stillbirths, preterm birth, and low birth weight. Some of these complications could be because extreme heat causes dehydration and may lead to contractions and fainting. Exposure to extreme heat in a woman’s first trimester may also cause foetal heart and neural tube defects.

Finally, heat is expected to have worse outcomes for more vulnerable members of society.

A review of the effects of climate change – in low- and middle-income countries found that residents of informal urban settlements are particularly at risk. That’s because of vulnerabilities like limited access to healthcare, poor sanitation and overcrowding. A case study of informal settlements in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, reinforces the review’s findings: it shows that higher temperatures pose a significant risk to health – for instance because tin roofs exacerbate heat stress – even if the city doesn’t reach extreme temperatures.

As for those living in rural areas, such as pastoralists, aside from the stress extreme heat puts on their bodies, pastoralists will be vulnerable to drought and food insecurity.

Moving forward

These are not problems for the future. As the examples above and many others highlight, Africa is already feeling the reality of heat stress. All the projections suggest it will only get worse, yet nearly all heat-related adverse health outcomes and deaths are preventable.

But the continent has limited research capacity to examine these challenges and inform policy. Most of the research has focused on current impacts and that risks will continue to increase with additional climate change. Moving beyond this to identify solutions that are effective in the African context is an essential step.

There’s low scientific growth in publications output and a large evidence gap both in understanding heat stress and relevant interventions to adapt to these changing environmental circumstances.

The research that needs to be done includes vulnerability assessments, urban heat island evaluation and studies that focus on heat adaptation measures that might prevent the worst effects of extreme heat.

In addition to more research, the continent needs immediate financial and technological assistance to adapt to the warming environment and to support research.

Heat risks are complex. They require strong research foundations and integrated planning, for example across health systems and urban planning. Early warning systems are also needed that actively involve communities to avoid or mitigate at least some adverse effects.

It is imperative that people from different disciplinary backgrounds work on climate and health issues together, coordinate, and develop new ideas together. One example is the new network – CHANCE (Climate-Health Africa Network for Collaboration and Engagement) – which is funded by the European Commission. It aims to facilitate interactions and create greater coherence between these, sometimes, siloed communities of practice.

It’s imperative that all of this happens fast. People are already living with the effects of a warming environment, with devastating effects.

_Caroline Gichuki, an emerging researcher in the field of climate change and health, helped in the writing of this article. _

Abdu Mohiddin, Assistant Professor, Aga Khan University ; Christopher Jack, Researcher, University of Cape Town; Evans Kituyi, Director , Aga Khan University Hospital; Kristie Ebi, Professor of Global Health and Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington; Matthew Chersich, Professor, University of the Witwatersrand, and Stanley Luchters, Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Aga Khan University Hospital

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

Good Morning America: “Climate crisis: extreme heat”

( Southside Pride) – You have to wonder how many people actually listened to the allegedly antisemitic comments made by Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib in a speech to a Socialist convention earlier this year. Not many, you can be sure of that. For days those comments were a lead news story, but a Google search for the comments themselves landed you in a media echo chamber. Unless you were very specific with search terms, you’d get pages of results featuring commentators decrying them before you got to the real thing. Right up near the top of the results would be the slanderous oped written by New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. (“Omar, ‘squad,’ launch another anti-Israel strike,” Sept. 24).

“Tlaib,” Stephens wrote, “gave a talk to the Democratic Socialists of America, in which she darkly alluded to certain people ‘behind the curtain’ who ‘make money’ by oppressing people ‘from Gaza to Detroit.’ Wonder who she had in mind? The comment barely registered as a political controversy outside of the narrow precincts of Jewish organizations.”

Not quite true, that last, unless you consider The Washington Post and the Washington Examiner – media outlets that stand like two goal posts at either end of America’s field of acceptable political discourse – to be Jewish organizations. Both featured columnists who were livid about Tlaib’s comments just days after she made them. But Stephens asks a good question: Who did she have in mind?

If you Google “Tlaib Democratic Socialists of America opening speech,” you can find out for yourself, in a 17-minute YouTube clip. The offending behind-the-curtain reference comes a bit more than seven minutes in, part of a thumbnail precis on U.S. politics in which Tlaib lays out a few standard-issue progressive talking points. Among them there is no suggestion – zero – that the forces behind the curtain are “the Jews.”

For most of that one minute she is talking about corporate interests and the interests of the wealthy, the multi-million dollar lobbying machine, and the obscene class disparity in both money and power that have become the hallmark of U.S. politics – all things that Bernie Sanders and tens of thousands of his supporters talk about all the time. What Tlaib says is that our politics is controlled by money, and that control is the key to understanding the direction of U.S. policy, and as a supporter of Palestinians against Israel she is acutely aware that includes U.S. policy on that issue among many others.

“I don’t care,” she says, “if it’s the struggle around global human rights and our fight to free Palestine or to pushing back against those that don’t believe in the minimum wage, or those that [don’t] believe people have a right to healthcare and so much more.”

Tlaib is not saying Jews don’t believe in the minimum wage, or Jews don’t believe people have a right to healthcare. What she is saying is what many people, from progressives to Trumpies and in between, have come to believe, that money controls the political system from A to Z. And, in that alphabet she includes U.S. foreign policy, including its policy vis a vis Israel and the Palestinians.

It’s an informal and at least partially extemporaneous speech, and Tlaib doesn’t get into specifics, but it’s clear enough the metaphorical “curtain” is the one created by Supreme Court decisions, including Citizens United, that allow companies and rich individuals to pour millions of dollars into political campaigns without identifying themselves, and lobbying laws that allow additional millions of dollars to be spent in support of candidates by trade groups like PhRMA, and by the fossil fuel industry.

Tlaib is well within her rights as a conscious human being who lives in a democracy to articulate and promote the cause of Palestinian nationalism. She also would have been within her rights to point out that individuals and groups self-identifying as Jewish have done the same for Israel, and that some of them have also poured millions into a political process that has written that country a blank check. And that’s their right, thanks to a rankly corrupt political system enabled by a conservative Supreme Court and a powerful cadre of Republican politicians – most of whom, for what it’s worth, do not identify as Jews.

But in this speech, Tlaib, perhaps wisely, does not go there. She doesn’t get into the matter of the AIPAC lobby, that notorious third rail for critics like Tlaib. And she doesn’t bring up that original clunk behind the curtain, the late Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who not only spent a fortune influencing U.S. politics, but bankrolled his own free newspaper in Israel, devoted to keeping Netanyahu afloat.

There are some nasty antisemites out there, there always has been, and when you keep finding them and their “dog whistles” where there is nothing but political argument you disagree with (e.g., the argument that swallowing up the West Bank has turned Israel into an apartheid state – something that began to be predicted as inevitable by a vocal left in Israel almost as soon as the occupation began after the 1967 war), you cheapen the currency. (“See! An antisemitic trope! He’s an antisemite!”)

That is why Jews in particular need to be careful about how they sling that term “antisemitism.”

This article was written for and will be published in the Southside Pride, a neighborhood newspaper in Minneapolis, and appears here with permission.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

2021 DSA Convention: Rashida Tlaib (Opening Speaker) 8/1

Last week, Representative Rashida Tlaib rose to explain why she was voting against the proposal to give an extra $1 billion in arms funding for Israel’s so-called Iron Dome missile system. The weapon is a key component of Israel’s siege of Gaza, which helps maintain the apartheid regime’s crushing grip on the coastal strip. Gaza is, in effect, the world’s largest open air prison.

Tlaib is a Palestinian American woman. She said correctly in her very short speech in Congress that Palestinians are living under a “violent apartheid system” and that the Israeli government is an apartheid regime. “Not my words, the words of Human Rights Watch and Israel’s own human rights watch organisation B’Tselem,” she pointed out.

The response to this was nothing less than racist. Ferociously so.

Using a barely concealed dog-whistle, Republican Chuck Fleischmann spat out that Tlaib was a “radical minority” and claimed she was guilty of “anti-Semitism” because she had refused to “stand with me, with Israel” and its allegedly “defensive weapons system.”

Fleischmann claimed that Tlaib is “anti-Israel” and “anti-Semitic” because she described accurately the apartheid regime under which Palestinians live. “As Americans,” he ranted, “we can never stand for that.”

The obvious and intended implication of Fleischmann’s words is that the “minority” Palestinian Arab Muslim Tlaib was not a “real” American like him, a white man. Worse still, even some of Tlaib’s Democrat colleagues joined in the denunciations. The “bipartisan” anti-Palestinian consensus still holds strong in Congress, it seems.

Tlaib’s action in voting against an extra $1 billion of US taxpayers’ money being sent to the violent Israeli apartheid regime – important as her vote is – was little more than symbolic. The proposal was passed overwhelmingly, with 420 lawmakers in favour and only nine voting against. There were two abstentions, one of whom was the untrustworthy “progressive” Democrat, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The bipartisan vitriol hurled against Rashida Tlaib demonstrated in the vilest possible way that the pro-Israel lobby cannot tolerate even the slightest degree of dissent. It will accept nothing less than total capitulation. And once you’ve capitulated, it will carry on kicking you, just to make sure you stay down. The responses to the use of “apartheid” to describe the regime imposed by Israel on the people of occupied Palestine show that appeasing the pro-Israel lobby really is a waste of time. Far better to stand up and be counted in your opposition to injustice and racism.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Via Middle East Monitor

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

TRT World: “Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib speaks out against $1B funding to Israel”

(Mondoweiss) – Rep. Cori Bush’s (D-Missouri) statements in support of Palestinians during the most recent uprising are a significant intervention in the US Israel-Palestine debate. In particular, she references the term apartheid to illustrate comparable structures of oppression at work in both contemporary Israel-Palestine and Ferguson, Missouri, while her support for Palestinians speaks to the organic nature of Black-Palestinian solidarity. Moreover, Rep. Bush’s co-sponsoring bill H.R.2590 represents a legislative way to impose conditions on US military aid to Israel.

Rep. Cori Bush’s Intervention

On May 13, Congresswoman Cori Bush of Missouri’s 1^st District of St. Louis gave a speech on the House floor. In response to the rising violence in Israel-Palestine she stated,

“St. Louis and I today rise in solidarity with the Palestinian people […] The fight for Black lives and the fight for Palestinian liberation are interconnected. We oppose our money going to fund militarized policing, occupation, and systems of violent oppression and trauma. We are anti-war. We are anti-occupation. And we are anti-apartheid. Period.”

Predictably, conservative media outlets roundly criticized Bush for her stance, while representatives from among the collection of Democrats affectionately known as “The Squad,” also spoke out in support of the Palestinians. However, Bush’s contribution to the debate over Israel-Palestine represents a distinct intervention that is significant in its own right.

The fight for Black lives and the fight for Palestinian liberation are interconnected.

We oppose our money going to fund militarized policing, occupation, and systems of violent oppression and trauma.

We are anti-war. We are anti-occupation. And we are anti-apartheid. Period. pic.twitter.com/DO42FEre0W

— Congresswoman Cori Bush (@RepCori) May 13, 2021

In the current US Israel-Palestine debate, what has been most notable is the increasing usage of the term apartheid to describe the situation Palestinians face: be it in the occupied Palestinian territory in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank that fell under Israeli control following the 1967 War, or within Israel itself. Many Israelis bristle at the term apartheid, especially when it used rhetorically to describe the essence of the Israeli state or imply that the Zionist project to build a Jewish state is in itself a racist endeavor. However, it is noteworthy that Rep. Bush does not use the term in that way. In her May 13 speech, Rep. Bush recalled her relationships with Palestinian solidarity activists during the Ferguson Uprising saying,

“I remember sitting in a circle on the grass where Michael Brown Jr. was murdered and I remember them [Palestinians] describing to us what do to when militarized law enforcement shot us with rubber bullets or tear gassed us. I remember learning that the same equipment they use to brutalize us was the same equipment we sent to the Israeli military to police and brutalize Palestinians.”

Here, as Rep. Bush elaborates on her reference to apartheid we can see further that her usage of the term describes a comparable set of structures, laws, and policies that facilitate the domination of one group over another, which could be dismantled given the right conditions and political will. Thus, in Rep. Bush’s argument apartheid is a useful term that sheds light on the situation of structural racism at work in Ferguson (a city within greater St. Louis that rose up following the police killing of Michael Brown Jr. in 2014) and contemporary Israel-Palestine. This reference is similar to that used by B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch to describe the situation of structural racism in contemporary in Israel-Palestine rather than as a means to argue there is an essential similarity with Apartheid South Africa. In Ferguson, though these apartheid structures operate in a distinct way, for Rep. Bush the similarities with Israel-Palestine are clear. As Bush put it in an earlier statement on May 10, “As someone who has been brutalized by police, I continue to stand in strong solidarity with Palestinians rising up against military, police, and state violence.” Bush made that statement in response to the then breaking news that Israeli police had injured hundreds of Palestinian worshipers at the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Occupied East Jerusalem. To Bush, then, the current structure of apartheid in Israel-Palestine facilitates not only expulsions of Palestinians from their homes, which was the legal process unfolding in the East Jerusalem neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah that sparked the most recent violence, but also the “brutalization” of Palestinian worshipers at prayer at the al-Aqsa mosque compound, one of Islam’s holiest sites.

Bassem Masri and Black-Palestinian solidarity

In her May 13 statement, Bush cited Bassem Masri as inspiration for her stance. Masri was a Palestinian from St. Louis and Jerusalem, who had been a leading solidarity activist during the 2014 Ferguson Uprising. In particular, Masri was remembered for his live-streaming of events in Ferguson as they unfolded and giving the protesters a voice to the world. Masri passed away in 2018, and Bush drew on her memory of him saying, “Bassem was one of us. Bassem showed up ready to resist, to rebel, to rise up as St. Louis mourned Michael Brown Jr.’s state-sanctioned murder […] I remember Bassem putting his life on the line for us.” Bush’s memory of Masri and other Palestinian solidarity activists facilitated her comparisons with the Ferguson Uprising and the struggle of the Palestinians, “Palestinians know what occupation of their communities look like […] they know this reality and so much more. So, when heavily militarized police showed up in Ferguson in 2014, Bassem and so many others of our St. Louis Palestinian community, of our Palestinian siblings, showed up too.”

Rep. Bush’s drawing on her experiences and friendships with the Palestinians of St. Louis is significant as it pushes back against efforts to undermine Black-Palestinian solidarity. For example, in 2016 The Moment reported Kenneth Jacobson of the Anti-Defamation League calling this solidarity a “cynical strategy” by Palestinians as he wrote that there is “no rational connection between the challenge of racism in America and the situation facing the Palestinians.” However, in Rep. Bush’s eyes the situations are clearly comparable, and Black-Palestinian solidarity arises naturally from shared experiences of oppression. Her response represents an important rebuttal to those who view Black-Palestinian solidarity as merely a Palestinian tactic to ride the coattails of rising US sympathy for the struggle of Black Americans.

H.R. 2590 and US Aid to Israel

Rep. Bush’s words, “Congress must stop funding human rights abuses by the Israeli military” are backed up by action. She is one of 18 co-sponsors of H.R.2590, a house bill introduced on April 15 by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minnesota). H.R.2590 seeks to impose conditions on US taxpayer aid to Israel. One of these conditions is that US taxpayer aid is not used for, “the unlawful seizure, appropriation, and destruction of Palestinian property,” precisely what was occurring in Sheikh Jarrah and sparked the most recent upsurge in violence. Indeed, the US gives approximately $3.8 billion to Israel every year, most of which is spent on the military. In a context where President Joe Biden’s own staffers have published an open letter calling for accountability for Israel’s use of force, Rep. Bush and her colleagues’ effort the condition US military aid to Israel is an important contribution, and can help bring a negotiated peace a little closer. Indeed, Bush drew a further comparison between the Palestinian situation and that of Black Americans with regard to the call to “defund the police” in cities like Ferguson and greater St. Louis by redirecting funds toward projects that would arguably have a greater impact on public safety. Rep. Bush said,

“That’s what we fund when we send our tax dollars to the Israeli military […] if this body [Congress] is looking for something productive to do with 3 billion dollars instead of funding a military that polices and kills Palestinians, I have some communities in St. Louis City and St. Louis County where that money can go.”

For Bush, then, effectively defunding US military aid to Israel would provide billions of dollars a year for more worthwhile projects. Notably, by all accounts the US debate over Israel-Palestine has shifted in recent weeks, both politically and among the public, a fact evidenced by Sen. Bernie Sanders’s widely-supported resolution to block a $735 million arms sale to Israel on the basis that such sales may be “simply fueling conflict.” The US discussion of Israel-Palestine is increasingly taking place within a new framework under girded by the Black Lives Matter movement, anti-racism, and anti-colonialism. Bush’s interventions are particularly significant for this change, and she will surely continue to be a major figure going forward.

Dr. David Warren is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

Reprinted with the author’s permission from Mondoweiss

The leftist Democratic Socialists of America, which helped congressional star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez get elected in 2018, looks to be a big political player again in New York City’s 2021 municipal elections.

The group has not yet endorsed anyone for mayor – the top prize in New York’s June 22 Democratic primaries. But all 51 city council seats are up for grabs this year, and the DSA has members running for six of them – including Queens public defender Tiffany Cabán and Brooklyn tenant activist Michael Hollingsworth.

With two state senators and five representatives out of 213 lawmakers, the New York State Legislature already has the country’s largest DSA legislative caucus. These Democrats share a leftist platform that includes guaranteeing housing as a human right and ending mass incarceration

The DSA has upended local politics in this Democratic stronghold, and its wins extend well beyond New York – into Virginia, Nevada and beyond. How did socialism jump from the fringes of American politics into its very center?

American socialist history

The DSA’s roots trace back to the Socialist Party of America, which was formed in New York in 1901 to promote such issues as establishing an eight-hour workday and public ownership of utilities like water and electricity.

Writer Upton Sinclair, Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger were prominent early members. But many early American socialists were Jews and Eastern European immigrants – groups that were considered well outside mainstream “white” society at the time.

My research as a historian of American socialists finds that early 20th-century socialists found electoral success by running candidates who represented the economic and racial diversity of their communities and championed the issues that mattered to working-class, immigrant constituencies.

In 1918 – the heyday of New York’s socialist caucus, when socialists held 10 of 121 seats in the State House – socialist politicians were teachers, settlement house lawyers and union leaders. They proposed New York’s first birth control bill, allowing advocates to give women educational pamphlets about contraception, and put forward programs to create old-age insurance and rent control.

The Socialist Party began losing members to the growing Communist Party in the 1930s. By the mid-20th century, it had responded to Americans’ growing anticommunism with a rightward turn. In 1972, party leaders actually renamed the party the Social Democrats, USA because so many people associated the word “socialist” with America’s great antagonist, the Soviet Union.

The DSA, past and present

Disillusioned, the activist and Marxist professor Michael Harrington left the organization and in 1973 formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, which later merged with another leftist group, the New American Movement, to form the Democratic Socialists of America.

Unlike the Socialist Party of America, which was a registered political party and ran candidates on its own ticket, the DSA is a political group. Harrington wanted to create the “left wing of the possible” within the Democratic Party.

For four decades, DSA members have mostly run in Democratic primaries, attempting to push the party leftward – on the Iraq War and NAFTA, for example – while endorsing Democratic presidential nominees from Walter Mondale to Barack Obama.

It had some early local successes. From the 1980s to the early 2000s, DSA members were elected to city councils nationwide and won mayoral races in liberal college towns like Berkeley, California; Ithaca, New York; and Burlington, Vermont, where the openly socialist politician Bernie Sanders was mayor from 1981 to 1989.

In 2016, Sanders ran for president. His campaign, coupled with Donald Trump’s subsequent victory, created a surge in DSA membership among young voters. The group’s median age dropped from 68 in 2013 to 33 by 2017. The DSA now claims over 90,000 dues-paying members, up from 6,000 in 2015.

The DSA’s electoral strategies also changed after 2016, partly due to the influx of new members and partly in frustration with mainstream Democratic candidates.

In Democratic primaries across the country, DSA candidates ran to replace older, centrist, white incumbents with young leftists who promised to fight for “Medicare for all” and to “hold elected officials accountable.”

It was a winning strategy for the Trump era. Since 2016, DSA-backed candidates have won district attorney races from Philadelphia to Travis County, Texas, and hold four seats in Congress. Forty DSA members sit in 21 state legislatures. DSA members hold five of Chicago’s 50 city council seats.

The professional backgrounds of today’s DSA legislators resemble those of their forebears. New York State Sen. Jabari Brisport, elected in 2020, was a teacher and tenant organizer. New York State Rep. Phara Souffrant Forrest was previously a tenant organizer and nurse.

The DSA’s legislative proposals – rent control, free college and reproductive rights – are classic socialist issues, updated for the 21st century. The Democratic Party has now embraced many of these proposals, but moderates like West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin have not.

As in the past, the DSA tends to back candidates from marginalized groups – whether African American, Caribbean, South American or South Asian – who reflect the racial makeup of the neighborhoods they represent.

Angry Dems and DSA infighting

The DSA’s growing political profile has caused tensions within the Democratic Party.

Shortly after DSA-backed candidates in March 2021 swept all five leadership positions in the Nevada Democratic Party, many longtime party staffers quit rather than work under the new leftist leadership. But first, according to the Nevada Independent and other local newspapers, the Democratic staffers transferred US$450,000 from the DSA-controlled Nevada Democratic Party coffers into the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is controlled by the National Democratic Party.

Some DSA policies that diverge sharply from the Democratic party line – such as its support for the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel for its militarized occupation of the Palestinian territories – draw fierce criticism from other Democrats.

The DSA has also been accused of having a “race problem.” Despite running primarily candidates of color, the organization’s leadership is largely white and male. Some DSA members say the group silences the concerns and voices of people of color.

After new groups arose within the DSA to recruit more Black leaders, the DSA’s national committee announced in February 2021 that it would start an initiative to better attract, mentor and retain people of color.

In the 20th century, American socialism cracked under the weight of infighting and social change. Can the modern DSA survive its 21st-century challenges?

Its next test is in New York City on June 22.

This story has been corrected to accurately reflect Bernie Sanders’ political identification. Sanders is a self-described “democratic socialist” and is endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, but is not a member of the group.

Joshua Kluever, Ph.D. Candidate of 20th Century American History, Binghamton University, State University of New York

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

Jacobin: “A Brief History of the Young Democratic Socialists of America”

MODERN MEDICARE THEORY AND PROGRAM: EVERYBODY IN, NOBODY OUT !
HR 1976 upgrades Medicare with a 21st century modern and improved “Medicare for All” health insurance system that covers all age groups, cradle to grave. Newborns will leave the hospital with their new Medicare card, and drop it off years later at life’s end. Benefits of HR 1976 health insurance include the following items and services if medically necessary or appropriate for the maintenance of health or for the diagnosis, treatment or rehabilitation of a health condition:

(1) Hospital services, including inpatient and outpatient hospital care, including 24-hour-a-day emergency services and inpatient prescription drugs.

(2) Ambulatory patient services.

(3) Primary and preventive services, including chronic disease management.

(4) Prescription drugs and medical devices, in- cluding outpatient prescription drugs, medical de- vices, and biological products.

(5) Mental health and substance use treatment services, including inpatient care.

(6) Laboratory and diagnostic services.

(7) Comprehensive reproductive, maternity, and newborn care.

(8) Dentistry/Oral health, audiology, and vision/opthamology services.

(9) Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices.

(10) Emergency services and transportation.

(11) Early and periodic screening, diagnostic, and treatment services.

(12) Necessary transportation to receive health care services for persons with disabilities, older indi- viduals with functional limitations, or low-income in- dividuals (as determined by the Secretary).

(14) Hospice care.

(15) Services provided by a licensed marriage and family therapist or a licensed mental health counselor.(In addition to psychiatrists, licensed clinical psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, psychiatric nurses.)

Co-payments and deductibles paid at health professionals’ offices are ended because payment for health insurance is fully prepaid directly into Medicare, just like pre-payment into Social Security, and covered at first dollar amounts. This means the obsolete 80 percent/20 percent payment split between private health insurance companies and Medicare is eliminated, with Medicare for All 2021 covering 100 percent.

All residents are guaranteed access to quality health care while achieving significant overall savings compared to our existing Medicare system by lowering administrative costs, controlling the prices of prescription drugs and fees for physicians and other health-care professionals and hospitals, reducing unnecessary treatments and expanding preventive care.

Good health care is established as a basic human right, as in almost all other advanced countries. Nobody would have to forego needed treatments because they didn’t have insurance or they couldn’t afford high insurance premiums and co-pays. Nobody would have to fear a financial disaster because they faced a health care crisis in their family. Virtually all families would end up financially better off and most businesses would also experience cost savings compared to what they pay now to cover their employees. Health insurance is based on residence, not employment.

PROFITEERING INDUSTRIES OPPOSE M4A 2021
The real boogeymen opposing M4A 2021 are the profiteering health insurance and pharmaceutical industries who have the most to lose if their profits are redirected to direct patient care. Beholden members of Congress want to protect the interest of Big insurance and Big Pharma — these two industries spent $371 million on lobbying in 2017 alone. Big Pharma and Big Insurance industries have literally bought most of our legislators (both Democrat and Republican). A massive disinformation/fear campaign has promoted the myth that Medicare for All would limit choice of doctors and hospitals, create unsustainable costs, and expansive, uncontrolled bureaucracy. These myths better describe the reality of our present obsolete system based on the private insurance industry.

Our private health insurance system is designed so that the 99% can never free themselves from debt to the 1%. Currently, the richest 1% hold about 38% of all privately held wealth in the United States, while the bottom 90% hold about 73% of all debt. The richest 1% in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom 90%. The 1% impose the intrinsic instability of their system on the entire population, and then get the government to respond with deficits that even further benefit and reward the greed of the very same 1% oligarchs of Big insurance / Big Pharma corporations.

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES LIMITED
Today, America is facing an unprecedented mental health crisis, yet many can’t get needed care. Even though many families are covered by private health insurance, these plans discriminate against mental health care by limiting choice of providers and by routinely denying treatments such as medication, psychotherapy, counseling and hospitalization.

Mental health treatment services in general and talk therapy in particular have been negatively affected by insurance and drug company domination of the U.S. health insurance system. Talk therapy includes psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, counseling, marriage therapy, family therapy, group therapy, psycho-educational groups, addiction treatment groups and programs, parent training groups, anger management programs and many others. There are dozens of effective means to deal with human distress that involve talk between qualified professionals and people seeking help. Talk therapy is not one-size-fits-all. It is focused on emotional problems in relationship with oneself or others. Private insurers, with their focus on profit, seek to spend as little as possible on mental health care and treatment. Talk therapy sessions have been drastically cut by insurers. Privacy has been invaded and is no longer assured. Choice of therapist is no longer under patient control.

Likewise, drug companies with profit motive want to sell expensive drugs. Drug and insurance companies often view talk therapy and qualified practitioners (clinical social workers, clinical psychologists, marriage and family therapists, mental health counselors, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses) as a threat to their control over the health care/insurance system. These companies insist that mental health problems are due to “biological imbalances” which require only expensive medications.

A systematic campaign to discredit the value and competence of talk therapists exists when drug and insurance companies assert, for example, that most types of long-term therapies are not “evidence based.” Insurance coverage for talk therapy has in fact steeply declined and people seeking talk therapy increasingly must pay for those services out of pocket.

Many people with emotional and psychological problems make good progress with talk therapy or with a combination of talk therapy and medication. While drugs can indeed by helpful, they alone do not “cure” emotional distress and sometimes have uncomfortable side effects. Certainly, there are biological aspects to many emotional and psychological problems, but biology is not the only cause (or cure) for these conditions.

Our mental health care system needs to get private health insurance out of it. Little of value is offered by private insurance when 15 percent to 25 percent of the health care dollar is skimmed off for profit and overhead. Our health insurance is being rationed, with care guidelines determined by profitability and secrecy decided in private corporate boardrooms. To realize large profits demanded by Wall Street investors, our private health insurance system must attract the healthy and turn away the sick, disabled, the poor, many of the old, and the mentally ill. A study by the New England Journal of Medicine showed that a large number of Medicare HMOs engaged in favorable selection by “cherry picking” healthier individuals.

MENTAL HEALTH BENEFITS OF MODERN MEDICARE FOR ALL 2021,H.R.1976
1). A trusting relationship with your mental health provider can be built because coverage stays with you for life. Unlike private profit health insurance, you will always have free choice of provider.

2). Medicare for All covers all licensed psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical social workers, mental health counselors, and marriage and family counselors across the nation. You can select any provider in your area who meets your needs.

3). No more surprises at the pharmacy counter — Medicare for All covers all medications prescribed by your doctor, without copays or deductibles.

4). Medicare for All covers everyone for life, regardless of employment status or disability. Medicare for All also fully funds community-based mental and behavioral health programs, which are integral in coordinating care for those with more serious conditions, especially in “provider deserts” — communities that have been historically underserved by large hospitals and private providers.

5). Unlike commercial insurance, Medicare for All doesn’t discriminate against mental health care services or providers. Medicare for All reduces providers’ overhead costs (and headaches) by eliminating the time and money spent on billing multiple insurers and patients, and navigating insurers’ authorization requests and denials. This administrative simplicity means professionals can spend time with patients, not insurance paperwork.

6). Most commercial plans require enrollees to pay a certain amount upfront (called a “deductible”) before they provide coverage; the average deductible for a family plan is nearly $4,000 — totally unaffordable for most families. Unlike commercial plans, Medicare for All provides coverage for all medically necessary care, including hospitalization, prescription drugs, and follow- up care, with no premiums, deductibles, or copays. Medicare for All funds hospitals directly, so patients will never get a medical bill ever again.

7). Private commercial insurers discriminate against mental health care by restricting choice of provider. In contrast, Medicare for All gives patients free choice of hospital and provider, so you can choose someone who is right for you. Medicare for All coverage stays with you for life, so you can build a relationship with a trusted provider and create a long-term plan for care.

8). In today’s Medicare, coverage for mental and behavioral health is not as extensive as coverage for other services — and so-called “Medicare Advantage” plans have all the same problems as commercial insurance. However, under Medicare for All (often called “Improved Medicare for All”), all mental and behavioral health services and medications would be fully covered, without copays or co-insurance. As noted, improved Medicare for All covers psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical social workers, licensed mental health counselors, and licensed marriage and family therapists.

9). Treating mental illness is proven to improve health and reduce costs in the long term, but private profit insurers routinely deny treatments such as medication and therapy just to protect their short-term profits. Unlike commercial insurance, Medicare for All is not-for-profit, and protects you for life. It covers the medically necessary care that your doctor prescribes, without pre-authorizations, denials, or cost-sharing like copays and deductibles.

It is very clear that private health insurance is the problem, and Medicare for All 2021 is the solution because, as noted above, Medicare for All 2021 covers everybody in the U.S. for all medically necessary care, including medications and behavioral and mental health services, with no copays, deductibles, or gaps in coverage. And unlike private insurance, Medicare for All provides free choice of hospital and professional. Everyone in, nobody out!

BIG INSURANCE/BIG PHARMA OPPOSITION TO M4A
To protect and enhance high profits by opposing improved Medicare for All 2021, the private health insurance industry has mounted a huge campaign using myths, scare and fear tactics ever since ‘Obamacare’, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), was enacted in March, 2010. The U.S. health insurance industry lobbied Congress hard at that time to enact a requirement that most non-elderly Americans become compulsory customers of the private insurance industry and approve taxpayer financing of massive subsidies for that industry. The private insurance industry is very happy that with ACA, Americans are forced to purchase the product of their private industry plus give huge tax-financed subsidies to their industry in the amount of a half-trillion dollars per decade.

The expedient health insurance industry seeks to protect high profits using scare/fear tactics against the new and improved Medicare for All 2021,HR-1976. One tactic deliberately confuses the public by not honestly telling individuals what would change if their private insurance is replaced by the new Medicare for All health insurance program. Lack of specificity and avoidance behavior promotes confusion, misunderstanding and great fear because it conflates loss of private health insurance with loss of their own physicians, other health professionals and hospitals. The for-profit health insurance industry knows full well that people are most interested in keeping their own doctors and that the new Medicare for All 2021does not interfere with that. By conflating private health insurance with the direct provision of medical treatment itself, many patients are mislead into thinking they could lose all their health professionals. Fortunately, once folks understand that losing their expensive, for-profit private insurance plans is the only thing that will change, support for Medicare for All sharply increases. The huge profits of Big Insurance and Big Pharma are threatened once folks become aware of this tactic.

Another very effective industry scare tactic is to stoke public fear and confusion by conflating the “socialized medicine” label with single-payer, “socialized (public) health insurance”. Socialized medicine is a system in which doctors and hospitals work for and draw salaries from the government. The U.S. Veterans Administration is an example. In contrast, most European countries, Canada, Australia and Japan have ‘socialized health insurance’, not ‘socialized medicine’.

The term “socialized medicine” is often used by the private insurance industry and politicians to manufacture frightening images of government bureaucratic interference in medical care. In countries with socialized health insurance, health and mental health professionals and patients often have more clinical freedom. This is in sharp contrast to the U.S., where private health insurance bureaucrats attempt to direct/interfere with care .

Manufactured confusion and fear of socialism by the health insurance industry and their political spokesmen impede the public’s ability to differentiate and thereby reduce support for Medicare for All . This allows the private health industry to successfully maintain control of the U.S. health care system for its own profitable purposes.

Opposition to Medicare for All is also based on irrational fears, folklore/myth and general prejudice against government programs. Fear-mongering about waiting lists, bankrupt doctors and hospitals, and socialism is exactly the same fearful/false rhetoric used in the campaign to block LBJ’s original Medicare program in the mid-1960s. The Wall Street Journal then warned about “patient pileups,” and the American Medical Association mounted a campaign featuring Ronald Reagan that smeared Medicare as creeping socialism that would rob Americans’ freedom.

Although many have negative feelings toward government, and examples of government inefficiency exist, the record of private health insurers is far worse. The only thing that exceeds government inefficiency is the private health insurance industry itself. Dozens of financial profiteering scandals have wracked private insurers and HMOs in recent years. Everyone should categorically reject myths about ‘Medicare for All’ that try to frighten seniors and others by telling them they will lose Medicare benefits under a new M4A program, that pointy-headed government bureaucrats will make medical decisions, determine the cost vs benefits of procedures, including age and quality of life considerations and medical personnel will be in short supply.

MODERN MONETARY THEORY-MMT AND MODERN MEDICARE THEORY-MMT
The US healthcare system is notorious for its high costs and below par outcomes. We already spend 18 percent of GDP on healthcare, and that is projected to reach 20 percent soon. This is approximately twice as much as our peers, other rich, developed, capitalist countries with no discernably better health outcomes (and even worse on a number of measures). Our excessive spending when compared to that of our peers can be attributed to the use of for-profit private insurance to pay for healthcare, higher pharmaceutical and provider costs, and higher administrative costs. Study after study has confirmed that prices and administrative costs in the US are out of line with those in the rest of the developed world, and especially compared to countries that have some type of a single-payer.

Playing “as if we can’t afford” M4A with the “ace of fear” card, opponents of M4A 2021 use the scary myth that large, confiscatory tax hikes will be needed to “pay for” M4A. Economists at the Levy Institute of Economics of Bard College alert us how opponents of M4A typically warn of the high financial costs, and hence of prospective dangerously high government deficits. From the perspective of Modern Money Theory (MMT), these fear mongering arguments are beside the point and are a myth. A sovereign government’s finances are not like the budgeting by households and firms; the government uses the monetary system to mobilize the nation’s real resources and to move some of them to pursuit of public purposes, such as social welfare programs, public health, public health insurances etc. Whatever the financial costs, we already have a financial system that can handle them.

MMT economists Wray and Nersisyan at Levy/Bard College maintain that “a sovereign government like the USA is not financially constrained; it spends by fiat, i.e., printing money, and/or through electronic computer entries in bank accounts and can neither run out of them nor save them for the future. What should constrain the spending of a sovereign government is the nation’s available real resources. Excessive spending, therefore, creates problems not in terms of higher government deficits and debt, but in terms of true inflation. Similarly, taxes are used not to finance government spending, but to withdraw demand from the economy, creating space for government spending to move resources to the public sector without causing inflation”.

“The adoption of a single-payer system (replacing for-profit private insurers) would significantly reduce the resources devoted to our unusual way of paying for healthcare. It would eliminate the private insurance sector’s participation, reduce employers’ costs of administering healthcare plans, reduce the costs incurred by doctors and hospitals due to billing insurers as well as pursuing patients for uncovered costs, lower the costs of appealing denials, and cut costs associated with patients avoiding early treatment of diseases (because of the actual or expected out-of-pocket costs) that become chronic and expensive maladies. If M4A could control prices and lower administrative costs, we could spend significantly less on healthcare than we do currently, while expanding coverage to everyone. All else equal, if we were able to reduce our spending on healthcare to the level of our peers, we would be creating deflationary pressures, not inflation”.

Nersisyan and Wray estimate that “in the short term M4A could save about 3.7 percent of GDP while providing healthcare to the whole population. Even if we lowered healthcare spending by 3.7 percent of GDP, we would still be spending more on healthcare than all of our peers. We believe our estimates are just the savings possible in the short term. In the long term, increased use of healthcare could reduce spending on chronic diseases. With universal access, cost controls, and elimination of a highly inefficient private insurance system, the single-payer system could shrink US spending on healthcare by much more, bringing us in line with other rich countries at about 10 percent of GDP.”

“Some will object that the savings largely accrue to the private sector, while the government will face additional costs. While it is true that the distribution of spending between the private and public sectors would change, there is nothing about government spending that necessarily makes it more inflationary than private spending. If private spending on healthcare costs falls by more than the increased government spending, the movement to single payer will be deflationary, not inflationary. Only a net increase in demand for resources would be inflationary.”

The USA is a country where health insurance for medical and mental health care is a function of socio-economic status. Everyone knows that this inhumane system should have been corrected long ago, but the death and illness ravages of the pandemic crisis makes it impossible to any longer avoid reality. We must immediately end our moral crime of having the greatest health system in the world, but only for those who can afford it. In addition to strickly following the basic principles of public health and epidemiology, the very best way to cope with the vast dangers of COVID-19 to everyone is , using our MMT guide, without ambivalence or avoidance behavior, to immediately implement H.R. 1976, MEDICARE FOR ALL ACT 2021.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

The Rational National: House Democrats Introduce Medicare-For-All Act

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Donald Trump embarked on an unorthodox course in economic policy that combined tax cuts for the rich with a protectionist trade policy that was ostensibly aimed at saving the U.S. industrial base and preventing the export of American jobs.

The question is not whether the incoming Biden administration will follow, in reaction, a more centrist, orthodox course. It will. The question is, will such a course be successful?

There seems little doubt that, especially with so many neoliberals and neoconservatives deserting Trump and the Republican Party and supporting Biden, and with the people surrounding Biden coming mainly from the Clinton-Obama wing of the Democratic Party, a Biden presidency will instinctually hew to the center in its political-economic approach.

After Trump’s offensive on free trade, the Biden team will push to recharge globalization, but cautiously — calling off the trade war with China but refraining from pushing new trade agreements, being sensitive to the deindustrialized Midwestern states that had deserted Hillary Clinton in 2016 and barely supported Biden this time around.

There will be no more tax cutting for the rich, but bringing back the pre-Reagan era marginal tax rates on the highest incomes won’t happen. Social policy will focus mainly on expanding safety nets for the middle and lower classes rather than pushing for higher wages for workers via significantly higher minimum wages and political support for more aggressive union organizing. Improvements in social safety nets will, of course, largely depend on what level of tax increases the rich backers of the Democratic Party and centrists under pressure from the party’s left will agree on.

While Biden’s pick as director of the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, has received criticism from progressives for her previous support for social security cuts, former Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen got far less flak from the left when Biden named her as his Treasury Secretary.

Yet it is Yellen who is the more consequential — and possibly more worrisome — appointment. That the Dow and the S&P rallied at the announcement is not surprising since as Fed Chair, she continued Ben Bernanke’s policies of quantitative easing, or buying the big banks’ toxic assets both to keep them afloat and use them to infuse money into the economy in order to ward off a recession.

Fox News said “Wall Street Loves Janet Yellen” since she represents “easy money” for the banks, with one commentator saying, “It’s a sign there won’t be anything extreme.” For both High Finance and Big Tech, having Yellen instead of Elizabeth Warren is a sign that Biden is unlikely to regulate them beyond the weak Obama-era Dodd-Frank legislation.

In sum, a centrist economic policy will soften the hard edges of neoliberalism largely via Keynesian monetary manipulation, but not dissipate the overriding neoliberal policy orientation carried by the Democratic Party establishment. Maintaining the profitability of U.S. capitalism will be a central concern of Biden’s economic pragmatists, owing partly to the influence of Big Tech and Wall Street on the Democratic Party establishment.

Convergence of Elites

But beyond the question of influence of special interests on the Democratic Party, however, is a deeper phenomenon of convergence of interests and ideology between what Thomas Piketty, borrowing from the Indian caste system, calls the highly educated “Brahmin Left” and the “Merchant Right.” It is worth quoting Piketty in full in this regard:

“The Clinton and Obama administrations basically validated and perpetuated the basic thrust of policy under Reagan. This may be because both Democratic presidents… were partly convinced by the Reagan narrative. But it may also be that acceptance of the new fiscal and social agenda was partly due the transformation of the Democratic electorate and to a political and strategic choice to rely more heavily on the party’s new and highly educated supporters, who may have found the turn toward less redistributive policies personally advantageous.”

In other words, the Brahmin Left, which is what Democratic Party had become by the period 1990-2020, basically shares common interests with the Merchant Right, to use Piketty’s terms. The latter had ruled via the Republican Party from Reagan to George W. Bush but key sectors of it have become increasingly disenchanted with Trump’s Wall Street-hating nationalist mass base to which he has assiduously pandered in word if not deed.

Trump attributing his defeat to Big Tech and Wall Street was a wild conspiracy theory, but there was a grain of truth in his ravings: The Democratic candidate and his party have enjoyed significant support, both material and ideological, from the highly educated Silicon Valley elite, the highly educated Wall Street elite, and the technocratic professional classes as a whole. This was one force that allowed Biden to leave Trump in the dust in terms of fundraising throughout the campaign.

An Unstable Center

As Marx said, history first occurs as tragedy, then as farce.

Owing to the erosion of the credibility of globalization and neoliberalism, the return to an anachronistic orthodox centrism is not likely to hold. It will serve at best as an extremely unstable, short-lived interregnum amidst deepening polarization between left and right.

In this struggle, the far right — under the leadership of a charismatic personality who, while he lost the elections, will continue to be the dominant figure in Republican Party politics in the Biden era — is currently far more united politically and ideologically than the left. Trump’s heated mass base and traditional Republican conservatives will combine to make even pallid technocratic centrist initiatives, like Bernanke and Yellen’s quantitative easing, very difficult to push through. The coming Biden era may well be a mere interregnum in a political trajectory of the far right’s rise to power.

Or it can be the antechamber to a new era in progressive politics, an outcome that will depend on whether the left can mobilize the Democratic Party’s base of workers, progressives, and minorities to seize the initiative from a center that is devoid of both ideas and courage to break with the past.

Foreign Policy In Focus columnist Walden Bello is the co-founder of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South and an International Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Via Foreign Policy in Focus