Day: November 22, 2021

Democrats’ Tax Bill Helps Blue State Millionaires While Leaving Billionaires Unscathed

We begin with the irony of Senator Mitch McConnell accusing the Democrats of giving tax breaks to the rich which is actually happening with the so-called SALT (State And Local Tax) deduction limit of $10,000 being raised in the Build Back Better bill since the Republicans enacted it to punish wealthy donors to Democrats in coastal blue states. Joining us to discuss how the Democrats have mishandled tax issues is Edward McCaffery, the Robert C. Packard trustee chair in law and a professor of law, economics and political science at the University of Southern California. The author of Fair Not Flat: How to Make the Tax System Better and Simpler and the founder of the People’s Tax Page, he joins us to discuss how billionaires who have doubled their collective net worth to more than $5 trillion in just five years, are largely unscathed thanks to protection from Senator Sinema and the House Ways and Means Chairman Neal.

Anti-vaxxer Violence in Europe and Mandatory Vaccination in Austria

Then we go to Berlin to speak with Georg Diez, a journalist and columnist who has written for Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine and Süddeutsche Zeitung, among others. He currently is the Editor-in-Chief at The New Institute and the co-author, most recently, of Power To The People: How We Use Technology to Reinvent Democracy and we discuss the worsening Covid pandemic in Europe with violent anti-vaxxer demonstrations in Belgium and The Netherlands and a nationwide lockdown in Austria with mandatory vaccination required by February 1st.

Fears of a War Between Russia and Ukraine as the U.S. Ignores Putin’s Red Lines

Then finally with the financial markets in Moscow plunging today on fears that war may break out between Russia and Ukraine, we speak with Samuel Charap, senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation whose research interests include the foreign policies of Russia and the former Soviet states, U.S.-Russia deterrence, strategic stability, and arms control. Previously he served at the U.S. Department of State as senior advisor to the undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security and on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff, covering Russia and Eurasia. He is the co-author of Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia and he joins us to discuss his op-ed at Politico, “The U.S. Approach to Ukraine’s Border War Isn’t Working. Here’s What Biden Should Do Instead.”