https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/bernie-sanders-interview-trump-biden-1234820998/amp/

A new presidential election cycle is heating up, and Bernie Sanders finds himself in an unfamiliar position: on the sidelines.

The independent senator from Vermont, who rallied millions of progressive supporters behind his bids in 2016 and 2020, is not making a run for the White House in 2024. Instead, he is now talking up his former rival Joe Biden — as well as the dire threat to democracy posed by another Trump term.

Sanders sings Biden’s praises as president, insisting he has plenty to be “proud” of from his first term. But no one would mistake Sanders as a supporter of the status quo. The Democratic socialist has strong ideas about what the incumbent can do — or, as Sanders puts it, “must do” — to transform what now polls like a tossup with Trump into a blowout victory.

Sanders is emphatic that Biden must level with the American people about the seriousness of the crises we face, and call out the true obstacles to change: an extremist GOP; unchecked billionaire power; and “corporate democrats” like Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, whom he blames for blocking legislation that would have “have transformed life for working-class families in this country.”

Rolling Stone spoke to Sanders not only about the sky-high stakes of the 2024 contest, but also his support for the Hollywood writers’ strike, his pipe dream of a 32-hour work week, and even Elon Musk’s meteoric greed.

This following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. Lay out the stakes for the 2024 election, and why you’re backing Biden — rather than challenging him — for the nomination.

A. This is a momentous election. The American people are going to make profound choices about whether they want to bring back into power somebody like a Trump — who has been impeached twice, indicted four times, is a pathological liar, and who has worked to undermine American democracy and move us toward authoritarianism. Do we want somebody like that to be president of the United States?

But what concerns me is that, if you look at the polling right now, you are seeing a more-or-less even situation, Trump versus Biden.

Q. If you were to counsel somebody who has lost faith in the two-party political process — a voter who is considering backing a third-party candidate like Cornel West, for example — what would you say to them to get them on board for Biden ‘24.

A. I am the longest serving independent in the history of the United States of America. So I know something about this issue. I’m not going to argue with Cornel, who is a good friend of mine, about his analysis of what’s going on in America. We have a country where our political system is corrupt, because of Citizens United and billionaires buying elections. We have massive concentration of ownership in this country, a health care system that is broken, et cetera.

On the other hand: We are facing the real possibility that the United States will lose its democratic foundations if Trump once again becomes the president. And that risk is so great that people are going to have to say, “Look, we have to defeat Trump and support Biden.”

But at the same time they can make it clear to Biden that he is going to have to stand up for working-class people in a much stronger way. It’s not good enough for him to rest on his laurels. He’s going to have to take on corporate greed, and we need young people — working-class people — and activists to play a role in that.

Q. How do Biden and Democrats make the case?

A. Here is what the Democrats have got to do — and should do, and must do — in order to win this election, and win it big.

First, what the Democrats are doing now, which is right and important, is making clear that women should be able to control their own bodies, not state government. The vast majority of Americans agree with them. And they have got to stay with that issue. Big time.

Second, we’ve got to make it very, very clear that we are taking on a [Republican] party which increasingly does not believe in democracy, but believes in authoritarianism and right-wing extremism.

And third is to point out that, in Biden’s first three years, there have been massive accomplishments. Three years ago, this country was in desperate condition because of Covid and the economic downturn. The American Rescue Plan got this country back on its feet. We’ve also dealt with infrastructure in an unprecedented way — more investment in clean energy than ever before. We’re beginning to take on the pharmaceutical industry and lower the cost of prescription drugs, [expand] overtime pay, et cetera. There’s a lot that Democrats and the American people are right to be very proud of.

Q. But you think he needs to promise more for 2024?

A. All of that is important. But it is not enough. The White House has got to say: We have a lot more to do. Sixty percent of working people are living paycheck to paycheck, too many seniors have nothing in the bank for retirement, we have an affordable housing crisis, a child care crisis, an education crisis. And Biden needs to be honest with the American people about how we’re going to address these structural crises facing the working class of this country. [He needs to say]: “Give me 50 real Democrats — not Manchin or Sinema — 50 real Democrats in the Senate. Give me majority control in the House.”

Q. What’s challenging here is that in the pandemic-era, we saw a proving ground for remarkable progressive policies like expanded Medicaid enrollment, direct cash to families, the pause in student loan repayments. And all that is all dissipating — and not under Republican president. Some progressives are disillusioned.

A. Here’s how to address it. And this is where it requires people — and the media — to be dealing with reality. [We had a plan to] deal with the structural crises faced by America. That was Build Back Better. I was chairman of the Budget Committee at the time. We started off with a $6 trillion bill, which would have transformed life for working-class families in this country. We had zero support from Republicans, not one. And we lost two corporate Democrats. We had 48 votes; we couldn’t proceed.

So all of those enormous achievements, as you mentioned, during the Covid era, they’re disappearing right and left. We’re seeing millions of people losing their Medicaid, and the reason for that is we don’t have the kind of support we need in the Senate and Republicans are controlling the House. That is the point that has got to be made clear to the American people.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/12/bernie-sanders-support-united-auto-workers-strike

In the United States today, at a time of unprecedented income and wealth inequality, weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower than they were 50 years ago after adjusting for inflation. In other words, despite a massive increase in worker productivity, despite CEOs now making nearly 400 times more than what their employees earn, despite record-breaking corporate profits, dividends and stock buybacks, average American workers are worse off than they were 50 years ago.

That morally grotesque and growing inequality is exactly what has been occurring in the automobile industry for decades. This time, however, under new union leadership, the members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) are fighting back. If the big three automakers (General Motors, Ford and Stellantis) do not provide reasonable contracts to address longstanding inequities in the industry, there will be a strike – and all of us should support the strikers.

The UAW members will be fighting not only for themselves but against a corporate culture of arrogance, cruelty and selfishness causing massive and unnecessary pain for the majority of working families throughout the country. Their fight against corporate greed is our fight. Their victory will resonate all across the economy, impact millions of workers from coast to coast and help create a more just and equitable economy.

What are some of the issues that are pushing UAW members to strike? At the top of the list is the extraordinary level of corporate greed shown by industry leaders.

In the first half of 2023 the big three automakers made a combined $21bn in profits – up 80% from the same time period last year. Over the past decade, these same companies made some $250bn in profits in North America alone.

Yet last year, the big three spent $9bn – not to improve the lives of their workers, not to make their factories safer, but on stock buybacks and dividends to make their wealthy executives and stockholders even richer.

Further, while many of their workers are struggling to survive financially, last year the CEO of General Motors raked in about $29m in total compensation, the CEO of Ford approximately $21m and the CEO of Stellantis over $25m.
Incredibly, over the last four years, CEO pay at the big three has increased by more than 40%.
While auto industry CEOs and stockholders make out like bandits, the workers who build the vehicles earn totally inadequate wages

While auto industry CEOs and stockholders make out like bandits, the workers who build the vehicles earn totally inadequate wages and, over the last several decades, have fallen further and further behind. There was once a time when a union job in the automobile industry was the gold standard for the working class of this country. Those days are long gone.

The average starting wage at the big three today is around $17 an hour – less than a number of non-union auto plants around the country. The top wage is $32.32 an hour. Unbelievably, over the last 20 years, the average wage for American autoworkers has decreased by 30% after adjusting for inflation. The reality is that autoworkers at the big three are earning less today than they did 15 years ago.

What the UAW is fighting for is not radical. It is the totally reasonable demand that autoworkers, who have made enormous financial sacrifices over the past 40 years, finally receive a fair share of the record-breaking profits their labor has generated.
What does that mean? It means that if the big three can afford to give a pay raise of more than 40% to their CEOs, they should be able to provide the same type of pay raise for the autoworkers who make their products.

And let’s be clear. While decent wages are a key demand for the UAW, there are other important contract changes that the union has proposed.

The union, quite appropriately, wants to get rid of the two-tier system under which newer workers earn lower wages and receive less generous benefits than others doing the same exact work. They want to end the use of “temporary workers” who are ruthlessly exploited and treated like second-class citizens.

They want to make sure that all autoworkers receive a decent pension plan and retiree health benefits so that they can retire with the respect and the dignity they deserve.

They want to make sure that autoworkers have the right to strike when the big three announce that they will be shutting down a plant. Over the past 20 years, the big three have shut down 65 factories and shipped tens of thousands of jobs overseas where they can pay workers starvation wages with no benefits.

The union also wants to make sure, as the industry proposes to build 10 new electric vehicle battery plants, that the workers in these plants become part of the UAW and receive the same wages and benefits as union members.

As we transition away from fossil fuels and move toward electric vehicles in the fight to combat the climate crisis, the UAW wants to make sure that the green jobs of the future are well-paying, union jobs.

The CEOs of the big three and their masters on Wall Street must understand they cannot have it all. Decade after decade their greed has decimated the middle class, hollowed out communities throughout our country and caused massive economic suffering for the working class of America. These CEOs have created a destructive race to the bottom in a global quest for cheap labor and lax environmental standards.

Enough is enough! Let us stand together to put an end to corporate greed and start rebuilding our struggling middle class. Let us stand in solidarity with the UAW and create an economy that works for all, not just the privileged few.

https://prospect.org/justice/2023-09-12-stealth-attack-power-to-tax/

The Supreme Court has accepted a sleeper case for review that could cost the Treasury seven trillion dollars over a decade if the justices agree with the most extreme constitutional claims about limiting the government’s power to tax. This is the latest front in the war to kill the modern administrative state by “starving the beast” for revenue.

The case, Moore v. U.S., challenges one of the few provisions in Trump’s massive 2017 tax cuts for the rich that actually collected revenue to offset some of the losses. The offset provision, known as the Mandatory Repatriation Tax, ended the unlimited deferral of foreign earnings from U.S. taxation when investors or corporations kept profits offshore.

At the time, tax avoidance schemes had accumulated about $2 trillion outside the U.S. With the closing of this loophole. the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimated that this new provision would increase federal revenues by $338 billion in the ten fiscal years from 2018 to 2027.

Here’s the rub. The tax applies whether or not the earnings are actually distributed to the investor. But the question of whether unrealized gains can be taxed has been a gray area of tax law. The premise that they should not be taxed is the basis for the capital gains loophole, which allows tax to be deferred indefinitely as long as the stock is not cashed in.

In the case that the Court accepted for review, Charles and Kathleen Moore had made a modest investment in a friend’s company in India. The retained earnings were left in India. Nonetheless, the IRS taxed them $14,729 as the tax on their share of the profits.

The Moores sued. Their suit cited a 1920 Supreme Court case, Eisner v. Macomber, in which the Court held that a gain in asset value qualifies as income only if it is “received or drawn” by the investor. Their suit was rejected by both the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit as being without merit because of long-standing tax collection practices that have been accepted by the courts. But in June, the Supreme Court took the case for review, in an unsigned opinion.

According to the Tax Foundation, if the Court strikes down the foreign repatriation provision, that would cost the government about $346 billion over the next decade. And there are other gray areas. For instance, many partnerships leave income earned by the partnership in the firm, but current practice deems it taxable income.

In the most extreme case, the Court could disallow all taxes on unrealized pass-through income and corporate retained earnings.

Also, if the Court were to hold that the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax, which was just passed in a new form in the Inflation Reduction Act, is an unconstitutional tax on unrealized income, that would reduce government revenues by another estimated $247.8 billion over a decade.

The Court might also strike down other taxes that apply to foreign earnings, such as the regime known as Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI), with a revenue loss of another $352 billion. And in the most extreme case, the Court could disallow all taxes on unrealized pass-through income and corporate retained earnings. The cost of that: $5.7 trillion over ten years, or almost $600 billion a year.

Tax scholar Reuven Avi-Yonah observes that if the ruling were made retroactive, the revenue loss (and the immediate windfall to multinational corporations) could be even higher. And the hit to government revenue could come before the election, creating an immediate fiscal crisis.

To put this in perspective, the Biden budget for FY2024 is $6.9 trillion. The amount of revenue lost over a decade in the worst-case scenario is almost exactly that. In the immediate terms, an extreme Supreme Court ruling would reduce revenue by something like 10 percent, increase the annual deficit by that amount, and create massive pressure for spending cuts. Such a ruling would also prohibit progressive proposals for some kind of wealth tax, because that would be yet another tax on unrealized gains.

What are the odds of this actually happening? Despite Eisner v. Macomber, for more than a hundred years, courts have allowed the government to tax various kinds of income, as noted above, that might be construed as technically unrealized.

Court watchers who have followed this case say, as in so many other cases, that Chief Justice Roberts will be key. The Court’s three liberals will likely uphold the Ninth Circuit. The most extremist justices will likely vote to do as much damage to government’s power to tax. (Justice Alito recently rejected calls to recuse himself from the case because he had participated in a Wall Street Journal interview that included one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs.)

That leaves Roberts, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Kavanaugh. The most likely alliance is Roberts and Kavanaugh plus the three liberals. But the price of such a decision could be a compromise ruling that disallows some currently permitted taxes as impermissible.

All of this mischief and more, of course, is a consequence of the Trump presidency and the most ideological Supreme Court in U.S. history.

From a David Dayen tweet.

Child poverty rate:
2020: 16.1%
2021: 5.2%
2022: 12.4%
There’s a way to call 2020-2022 “slow progress” and a way to call 2021-2022 “a total disaster” after the expiration of the expanded Child Tax Credit.

My Twitter posts are not translating today.

https://x.com/OlufemiOTaiwo/status/1701633848629682588?s=20

Shawn Fain was democratically elected UAW president, the first in the union’s 88-year history to be directly chosen by the rank & file. The demands he’s bringing to the bargaining table are those of the membership, whom he answers to. But the media still calls him a “union boss.”

https://x.com/UAW/status/1701679837524410513?s=20