This week, he’ll talk about economics. Trump is slated to lay out his economic vision in a speech to the Detroit Economic Club this afternoon. He is expected to call for a moratorium on all new regulations and reviving the Keystone XL pipeline, give more details on his incredibly costly tax plan, and announce a plan to make child care fully deductible. Here are a few things to keep in mind before today’s speech:
Trump’s reckless economic plans could cost the economy millions of jobs— more than 3 million jobs to be exact.
Trump’s current tax plan is a reckless and costly giveaway to the wealthiest few. It would also cost $9.5 trillion over the next decade and could increase the national debt by nearly 80 percent of GDP by 2036.
Steves. Trump’s team of 13 economic advisers doesn’t include any women or people of color–but it does include five Steves. His team includes lots of billionaires (and Trump donors) and only one real economist. We found seven other ‘Steves’ who are more qualified than his existing team.
Climate change: Every party has a pooper and at Friday’s opening ceremonies in Rio that pooper was climate change. In a short film narrated by Dame Judi Dench, viewers saw how melting ice sheets will inundate coastal cities, including the coast of Rio de Janeiro, which could see up to 1.5 meters of sea level rise by the end of the century, putting 80,000 people at risk of coastal flooding. And speaking of climate change, it has helped the spread of Zika in the U.S.
Honoring Khan: Charles Cowherd, whose identical twin brother 2nd Lt. Leonard M. Cowherd III is buried three headstones from Capt. Humayan Khan in Arlington National Cemetery, honors Cap. Khan.
ISIS: All signs suggest that ISIS’s days are numbered in Iraq. The group has been pushed out of more than half of the territory it used to control. But are we ready for the day after they’re defeated?
Immigration activists demonstrate at the Supreme Court in Washington in support of President Barack Obama’s executive order to grant relief from deportation in order to keep immigrant families together, March 18, 2016. The U.S. Capitol is in the background.
On April 18, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in a lawsuit, United States v. Texas, brought by more than two dozen states challenging an immigration enforcement policy by the secretary of homeland security. If successful, the lawsuit could tear apart millions of American families, while at the same time greatly undercutting the U.S. economy.
Twenty-six states filed a lawsuit challenging the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA, initiative along with the expansion of the existing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, initiative. Under DAPA, DACA, and expanded DACA, certain unauthorized immigrants who have lived in the United States for many years and who either came to the country as children or are the parents of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents can come forward, register with the government, pass background checks, and request deferred action—a temporary protection from the threat of deportation. With deferred action, such people are also eligible to request permission to work in the country legally. The implementation of both DAPA and expanded DACA has been temporarily placed on hold while the case works its way through the courts.
In suing to freeze DAPA and expanded DACA, these 26 states have chosen to forgo tens of billions of dollars in increased state gross domestic product, or GDP, not to mention the additional earnings of their own residents, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars each year in increased state and local tax revenue. This is significant in part because the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the plaintiff states had standing to bring this lawsuit based upon the district court’s finding that the state of Texas may end up spending “several million dollars” to issue driver’s licenses to some of the people who receive deferred action. In addition to these monetary losses, the plaintiff states are also threatening to tear fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters away from the more than 2.6 million U.S. citizen family members with whom they live in these states. (see Table 2)
Here are four key facts you should know about the states that are suing to freeze DAPA and expanded DACA.
1. The plaintiff states stand to lose at least $91.9 billion in increased state GDP
Nationally, the three deferred action initiatives—DAPA, DACA, and expanded DACA—are estimated to grow the U.S. economy cumulatively by $230 billion over 10 years. The reasons for this are fairly simple. As professional economists and scholars in related fields recently explained in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, when unauthorized immigrants gain work authorization and protection from deportation—even temporarily—they are able to find jobs that make full use of their skills and abilities, earn higher wages, and become even more economically productive.
What’s more, individual states can expect to see their economies grow as a result of these initiatives. Together, 18 of the 26 states suing to freeze DAPA and expanded DACA stand to lose an estimated $91.9 billion in increased state GDP over 10 years if the three deferred action initiatives are not fully implemented. And while the original DACA initiative is not under review in United States v. Texas, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision places a cloud over it as well.
2. Residents of the plaintiff states stand to lose an estimated $48.4 billion in increased earnings
Because of the enormous economic activity that would be generated by these initiatives, the cumulative earnings of American workers would increase by an estimated $124 billion nationally. In the 18 plaintiff states for which CAP has data, we estimate that implementing DAPA, DACA, and expanded DACA would raise the earnings of these states’ residents by more than $48.4 billion over 10 years.
3. The plaintiff states stand to lose nearly $272 million annually in increased state and local tax revenue
Unauthorized immigrants contribute enormous sums to state and local coffers through taxes:$11.64 billion annually, according to a new report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Full implementation of the three deferred action initiatives would increase state and local tax contributions by unauthorized immigrants by an estimated $805 million each year.
The 26 states that are suing to block DAPA and expanded DACA would stand to gain an estimated $271.7 million annually in state and local tax revenue. Texas leads the way with the nearly $59 million it is estimated to gain each year in such revenue through the implementation of DAPA, DACA, and expanded DACA. (see Table 1)
And it’s not just states and localities that would stand to lose additional tax revenues: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation studied the budgetary effects of legislation to block DAPA, DACA, and expanded DACA and found that the bill would reduce federal tax revenues by $22.3 billion over a 10-year period, leading to a $7.5 billion increase in the deficit over that same period.
4. More than 2.6 million U.S. citizens live with a DAPA-eligible family member in the plaintiff states
By definition, the parents of American citizens or lawful permanent residents who would be eligible to apply for DAPA have deep roots in the United States. Nearly 70 percent of anticipated DAPA beneficiaries have lived in the United States for at least 10 years, and a full one-quarter have lived here for at least 20 years.
According to an estimate prepared for CAP by the University of Southern California’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration, there are more than 6.1 million U.S. citizens around the country who live in the same household as a DAPA-eligible family member. California leads the pack with an estimated 1.8 million individuals, but Texas comes in a close second at nearly 1.1 million. And in the 21 plaintiff states for which CAP has data, there are more than 2.6 million U.S. citizens living with a DAPA-eligible family member.
Conclusion
Given the facts presented above, it is little wonder that the largest cities and counties in many of the plaintiff states filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court arguing in support of DAPA and expanded DACA. If the Supreme Court overturns the lower court’s decision and permits these policies to take effect—as it should—not only will the nation as a whole benefit from the implementation of these sensible policies, but the plaintiff states will benefit as well.
Tom Jawetz is the Vice President of Immigration Policy at the Center for American Progress.
Maryland’s government is embracing an alternative way to monitor the state’s well-being called the Genuine Progress Indicator, which brings depth to the analysis of the state’s economic growth.
Tent cities and shacks sprung up on empty lots across the country. Food lines at soup kitchens wrapped around city blocks. Unemployment soared to 25 percent. Farmers watched helplessly as crop prices plummeted, then lost their land. The evidence was clear, yet at the height of the Great Depression, Congress lacked the tools to accurately measure just how the economy as a whole was faring. With no commonly accepted national income data, they had no guideposts upon which to base sound economic policy.
And so Congress turned to a young and promising Russian-American economist. U.S. lawmakers asked Professor Simon Kuznets of the National Bureau of Economic Research, who would go on to win the Nobel Prize in economics, to develop a data set to assess the state of the national economy. In 1937, Kuznets presented a vast volume of data on income to Congress. It became the Gross National Product (GNP).
With remarkable foresight and humility, Kuznets warned that his newly minted GNP shouldn’t be used as an instrument of social policy. It could never adequately measure the things we value, he said, such as housework or caring for elderly parents. Nor, he warned, could the GNP distinguish between the growth of good and bad jobs. The data would be the same if workers earned their pay from employers who endangered their lives or guarded their health and safety. “Goals for more growth should be more growth of what and for what,” Kuznets said.
Alas, Kuznets’ warnings on the GNP — later renamed the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — went unheeded. Instead, the GDP became the barometer of health not only for the U.S. economy, but for the entire global economy.
More than 70 years later, the desirability of GDP growth is so entrenched in our national and international discourse that it’s hard to imagine it any other way. The revered indicator’s expansion or contraction can swing national elections. Conversely, talk of GDP declines can drive a country to war.
During tough economic times such as these, it’s particularly surprising to have a leader bucking the tide. Yet Martin O’Malley is doing just that. Maryland’s governor is the first in the United States to embrace a set of alternative indicators that bring depth to the analysis of his state’s economic growth. Under O’Malley’s leadership, the state’s officials are now gathering and annually updating economic, social, and environmental data that help measure the overall wellbeing of Maryland’s citizens.
The 26 underlying indicators, which collectively comprise the “Genuine Progress Indicator,” are a more meaningful gauge of the overall economic health and wellbeing of Maryland residents than standard economic measuring sticks. For example, the state tracks things like volunteerism, time spent with family and loved ones, and air quality in its quest to gauge its real progress. These indicators may lack concrete economic value, but studies show they help make a society more healthy and vibrant.
GPI assesses what’s left behind when the “gross product” expands. Is the landscape more or less toxic than before? Is the air and water cleaner or dirtier? How well-educated is the populace? Is public transportation decent? Is crime more common? Are too many people spending more time commuting to jobs than at home with their kids?
Maryland leads the nation in measuring overall societal wellbeing through the GPI, but there are similar efforts underway elsewhere in the United States, as well as in Canada, France, and even Bhutan. Yes, Bhutan, a tiny country nestled in the Himalayan mountains. There, “gross domestic happiness” carries more weight than the gross domestic product.
It’s time to recall Kuznets’ warnings about the limitations of the GDP and to pick up where he left off by embracing a new set of tools that will help shape good social, environmental, and economic policy — not just for Maryland, but for our entire country and the world.
Daphne Wysham is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, where she’s conducting research around ways in which alternative metrics to the GDP, such as Maryland’s "Genuine Progress Indicator," can be used to build a more sustainable society. www.ips-dc.orgDistributed via OtherWords (OtherWords.org)
Humboldt County Democrats 