Month: July 2022

Background Briefing: July 28, 2022

 

Manchin’s Surprise Agreement to a $369 Billion Climate and Tax Increase Deal

We begin with the surprise deal Senator Schumer struck with Senator Manchin to include $369 billion for climate and energy programs along with tax increases on corporations in a package to subsidize healthcare and lower the cost of prescription drugs. Joining us is Tyson Slocum, the Research Director for Public Citizen’s Energy Program, where he works to promote stronger regulation of energy markets, examine the impact of mergers and lax regulations over electricity, petroleum and natural gas, and monitor federal legislation on energy issues. He conducts extensive research on the influence of corporate special interests on our political system and works to promote corporate and government accountability and we examine the proposed investments in solar, wind, batteries, electric vehicles, addressing pollution in low-income communities and cutting emissions in the agricultural sector.

 

While the Fed Frets Over Inflation, Everyone Else Worries About Recession Which the Fed’s Actions Make More Likely

Then with both President Biden and Treasury Secretary Yellen in TV appearances today talking down the threat of recession while talking up the economy, we explore how the Fed, in raising interest rates yesterday to fight inflation which is their top concern while everyone else is worried about recession, is in fact by its actions making a recession more likely. Joining us is Robert Hockett, who has first-hand experience working at the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and continues to consult for a number of US federal, state and local legislators and regulators. He drafted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal” resolution for the House of Representatives and officially advises her on economic policy. He is the Edward Cornell Professor of Law and a Professor of Public Policy at Cornell University and his latest books are Money from Nothing Or, Why We Should Stop Worrying About Debt and Learn to Love the Federal Reserve, Financing the Green New Deal: A Plan of Action and Renewal, and The Citizens’ Ledger: Digitizing Our Money, Democratizing Our Finance.

 

Orban Quotes “Pure Nazi Text Worthy of Goebbels” But CPAC Still Wants Him in Dallas Next Week

Then finally we investigate the backlash to the Hungarian autocrat Orban’s recent speech in Romania where he used the word “fag” in talking about keeping out people of mixed race which is the word the Hungarian Nazi Party the Arrow Cross Party used to call Jews as a lesser species. This prompted a long-time advisor of Orban’s to quit calling Orban’s speech “pure Nazi text worthy of Geobbels” but it has not stopped CPAC from hosting Orban next week in Dallas on stage with Trump. Joining us is Kim Lane Scheppele, a Professor of Sociology at International Affairs and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. From 1994-1998, she lived in Budapest, doing research at the Constitutional Court of Hungary and teaching at both the University of Budapest and at Central European University and after 1989, she studied the emergence of constitutional law in Hungary and Russia, living in both places for extended periods.