What A Clinton And Ryan Compromise Might Look Like

Hillary Clinton won’t be the only winner when Donald Trump and his fellow haters are defeated on Election Day (as looks increasingly likely). Another will be Paul Ryan, who will rule the Republican roost.

Democrats may take back the Senate but they won’t take back the House. Gerrymandering has given House Republicans an impregnable fortress of safe seats.

This means that in order for President Hillary Clinton to get anything done, she’ll have to make deals with Speaker Paul Ryan.

While the Clinton-Ryan years won’t be marked by the same kind of petulant gridlock we’ve witnessed over the last eight, the ascendance of Ryan and Clinton will mark a win for big business and Wall Street over the strongest anti-establishment surge America has witnessed since Great Depression.

Clinton might be able to summon Ryan’s support on a “Buffet rule” for the highest-income taxpayers – an effective minimum tax of 30 percent on top incomes. She might also be able to wangle some additional spending on infrastructure and paid family leave.


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But the price Ryan can be expected to exact will be lower corporate tax rates, along with a tax amnesty on corporate profits repatriated to the United States. And to offset the added spending and tax cuts, Ryan will probably want Clinton to trim Social Security (perhaps reviving the terrible idea of a “chained” CPI for determining cost of living increases), and slow the growth of Medicare.

None of this will do much to remedy the central economic challenge of our era – reversing the declining incomes and wealth of most Americans.

Although incomes rose in 2015, the typical household is still worse off today than it was in 2000, adjusted for inflation. The assets of the typical family today are worth 14 percent less than the assets of the typical family in 1984. And the typical job is less secure than at any time since the Great Depression.

These trends are not sustainable – neither economically nor politically. They generated the fury that’s undergirded Trump’s ugly campaign, and fueled the anger that propelled Bernie Sanders’s insurgency.

They’ve fed a growing sense that the political-economic system is rigged in favor of those at the top.

And it is. Big money has corrupted our democracy, resulting in laws and rules that systematically favor big corporations, Wall Street, and the very rich over everyone else.

Consider, for example, the growing market power of leading pharmaceutical companies, private health insurers, the biggest Wall Street banks, giant cable providers, four major airlines, and five largest high-tech companies. And the decreasing market power of unions. 

The resulting imbalance is transferring money out of the pockets of average Americans directly into the pockets of major shareholders and top executives.

A similar upward distribution is occurring through bankruptcy laws that allow giant corporations and billionaires to avoid paying what they owe, yet don’t allow average people overburdened with mortgage or student debt to renegotiate those obligations.

Mandatory arbitration clauses in contracts with giant corporations are forcing people to give up rights under a wide variety of consumer and employment laws. Meanwhile, workers classified as “independent contractors” are losing whatever rights they once had under the nation’s labor laws.

In all these respects, the American political economy has become radically imbalanced.

The reforms Hillary Clinton and Paul Ryan are likely to agree to are miniscule compared with the scale of this imbalance.

Hopefully, the leaders of big business and Wall Street – the true winners of the 2016 election – will realize that although they avoided Trump’s authoritarian populism and Sanders’s “political revolution” this time around, they won’t for much longer.

The forces that gave rise to both will grow unless our political economy is rebalanced to work for everyone and not just for those at the top.

There is precedent. In the first decades of the twentieth century, enlightened business leaders joined with progressive reformers to rebalance American capitalism – thereby rescuing it from the savage inequalities and corruption of the Gilded Age.  

If they understand what happened in the 2016 election, enlightened business leaders will do so once again.

About the Author

Robert ReichROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock" and “The Work of Nations." His latest, "Beyond Outrage," is now out in paperback. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

Books by Robert Reich

Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few -- by Robert B. Reich

0345806220America was once celebrated for and defined by its large and prosperous middle class. Now, this middle class is shrinking, a new oligarchy is rising, and the country faces its greatest wealth disparity in eighty years. Why is the economic system that made America strong suddenly failing us, and how can it be fixed?

Click here for more info or to order this book on Amazon.

 

Beyond Outrage: What has gone wrong with our economy and our democracy, and how to fix it -- by Robert B. Reich

Beyond OutrageIn this timely book, Robert B. Reich argues that nothing good happens in Washington unless citizens are energized and organized to make sure Washington acts in the public good. The first step is to see the big picture. Beyond Outrage connects the dots, showing why the increasing share of income and wealth going to the top has hobbled jobs and growth for everyone else, undermining our democracy; caused Americans to become increasingly cynical about public life; and turned many Americans against one another. He also explains why the proposals of the “regressive right” are dead wrong and provides a clear roadmap of what must be done instead. Here’s a plan for action for everyone who cares about the future of America.

Click here for more info or to order this book on Amazon.