Feet to the Fire

Not the pandemic. Not inflation. Not the global supply chain. The deep problem, says Peter Barnes, is a set of property rules that fails to recognize our co-inherited wealth.

With Congress weighing a host of plans to curb the social-media giant, Ethan Zuckerman and his colleagues are laying the technological foundation of a whole new social-media universe. (Originally recorded in May 2021.)

Handicapping and mobilizing for the midterms after a tough summer. 

Congress will soon decide the fate and shape of legislation to (among many other things) create a modern-day CCC. The historian Neil Maher looks back at the profound political as well as environmental benefits of the original corps. (This episode was first cast in March 2021.) 

The Republicans have rendered one chamber of Congress dysfunctional. What do we do about it?

The Biden administration has packed much of its domestic agenda into one giant package of legislation. The next few weeks could decide its fate.   

We've learned a thing or two about how to build support for progressive values and candidates in Trump country. (Originally recorded in May 2021.)

The author, activist and NBC News commentator spent three years exploring the costs of racism and mapping a path to economic justice for "The Sum of Us." (Originally cast on 1/25/21)

America was headed that way, not so long ago. What if we had stayed on course? A conversation with Sam Pizzigati, Sarah Anderson and Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies.

The challenge of protecting students and taxpayers against predatory for-profit colleges.

They're in Congress. They're in the Biden Administration. They're Republicans as well as Democrats. And they're making a powerful case with voters.

And should political realism be a goal for American progressives right now?  

Deciphering the President's executive order on "promoting competition."

Reviving the will and capacity to go after white-collar crime.

The ACA survives another Republican lawsuit. Where does that leave us?

Corporate law firms have become the default breeding ground for federal judges and prosecutors. Will the Biden administration and its Attorney General do enough to change that?

The novelist and activist explores the ways of digital monopoly and charts a path to digital democracy.

Make heaps of money and send a pittance to Uncle Sam - David Cay Johnston explains how it's done, and how to deal with it.

Anyway, better than some of his current doubters and doomsayers. Robert Kuttner makes the case for Biden's political acumen, assesses the Manchin-Synema problem, and lays out the administration's strategy for accomplishing big things in dicey circumstances.

Do we need an income ceiling as well as a floor? Sam Pizzigati makes the case.

Building support for progressive policies and candidates in hostile country. George Goehl explains how it's done. 

Facebook and Google have taken charge of the way we communicate online. Are we stuck with them?

Alongside the magic, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple have make America nastier and more unequal.   

A crash course in tax policy with Erica Payne, the founder of Patriotic Millionaires.    

... while Main Street gets trashed. Oren Cass has taken the measure of our top-heavy, speculator-driven economy, and he has a few simple fixes in mind.

The Republican Party and its Big Money backers have stacked the bench with free-market ideologues. Former Senator Russ Feingold lays out an agenda of progressive counter-measures.  

The rich nations have jumped the line. Joshua Sarnoff explains why that turns out not to be very good for anybody. 

Is America finally in a mood to do something about crazed corporate compensation? Sarah Anderson outlines an agenda for reform.

The economist Robert H. Frank says America can learn a lot from the pandemic about how to spend our money. And how not to spend it.

Cofounders Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin carry the lessons of the Tea Party and the Trump Resistance into Biden times.

Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen talks about what the new House and Senate have accomplished so far, and what it will take – beginning with filibuster reform – to get action on climate change, infrastructure, democracy reform, and other high-priority issues.

Giant, market-dominating companies shape our lives from cradle to grave - literally! Have we arrived at a moment for action?

Looking back at the C.C.C. of the 1930s – and forward to the C.C.C. of the 2020s. A conversation with Neil Maher.

Trump and his gang tried to destroy this agency, but it outlasted them. Longtime consumer advocate Ed Mierzwinski talks about what the CFPB accomplished before Trump, and what it needs to do next.

The leader of the House impeachment team talks about the way forward.

R.L. Miller, Political Director of Climate Hawks Vote, reviews the first month of Joe Biden's presidency. 

The costs of the pandemic will be huge, and they will fall most heavily on Americans who were already up against it. Daniel Markovits makes the case for an emergency tax on wealth to help set things right. 

The private sector will never take us to full employment and broad economic security. The Democratic Party needs to get over that idea, says economist John Harvey. And a modern-day Civilian Conservation Corps could be a good first step.

Can America gets Its multiracial act together? What's still stopping us? Heather McGhee spent three years traveling around the country and looking for answers.

A look at the booming fortunes of America's billionaires and others who have done conspicuously well for themselves since the virus reached our shores. Chuck Collins talks about how they did it and what we might want to do about it.

America has turned them into one story, not two, says the co-founder of an organization with both words in its name. But what will it t take to get more white, black and brown Americans onto the same page and committed to a common struggle? A conversation with Maurice Weeks of the Center for Race and the Economy.    

A coalition of progressive groups has come forward with a jobs-and-infrastructure plan for the Ohio River Valley. It could be a defining opportunity for Joe Biden, the Democratic Party and the nation.

Could this be a moment of unusual opportunity as well as need for higher taxes on the wealthy? How about a serious tax on wealth itself? We put those questions to Amy Hanauer of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. 

More Americans than ever (and a century-high proportion of the eligible) voted this year. Miles Rapoport and Allegra Chapman make the case for a practice with the potential to lift that figure above 90 percent, and, they argue, change the nature of American politics much for the better.

How do we communicate with the nearly half the electorate that was ready to give him four more years. Is it even worth trying? Today's guest, who knows a thing or two about Trump voters, answers in the affirmative.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is way more important than it sounds. It didn't serve the Clinton or Obama adminstrations (or the country) well, says James Goodwin of the Center for Progressive Reform.  If Joe Biden aspires to a successful presidency, he should steer clear of those footsteps. 

The United States, she argues, has fallen into a trap frighteningly similar to what we see in places like Afghanistan or Nigeria. And getting rid of Donald Trump will not save us.

There is growing (dare we even say bipartisan?) support for measures to rein in the power and abusive ractices of Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google. Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance analyzes the problems they present, the remedies that have been proposed, and the benefits that might ensue. 

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama fell into the common presidential habit of appointing once-and-future Wall Streeters or corporate lawyers or executives to key government jobs. It didn't go very well. What can Joe Biden learn from that experience?

Giant, market-dominating companies shape our lives from cradle to grave - literally! Have we arrived at a moment for action?   

In our latest episode, the Maryland Congressman talks about the election results and the way forward on democracy reform, and winds up at the piano playing Georgia On My Mind."