Bernie Sanders' New Bill Would Wipe Out Union-Busting 'Right-to-Work' Laws

[ehrnst]

28. When has the Democratic party not been the leader in economic issues?

Hillary especially:

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/9/15/12923528/liberal-economics-great-recession-policy-clinton

The Democratic primary, and now the general election, have provided a sense of the degree to which the policy baseline has been reset. The shift is evident in the way Hillary Clinton has not only engaged with these ideas but incorporated them into her platform.

The new liberal economics makes several claims:

Inequality is not a regrettable but inevitable byproduct of an efficient economy, nor a temporary, self-correcting trend. It’s driven by policy choices, and new choices can make a difference.

The economy will not simply bounce back from any weaknesses, as was assumed under Alan Greenspan’s Great Moderation. Rather, there are deep structural problems that include a global savings glut and unwillingness by US companies to make investments.
"Nudging" the private market is not always the best way to deliver core goods and economic security. Deploying government services directly can be more effective.

Hillary Clinton has adjusted to the new economic realities

President Obama was caught in the middle of these changes. Though his presidency evolved to embrace much of them, the foundations of his approach were rooted in the old regime. Hillary Clinton is the first Democratic nominee to have to put forward a new agenda in light of the Great Recession and the policy revolution, and her agenda energetically incorporates these ideas.

On inequality, her proposals build on Dodd-Frank and seek to regulate financial activities more broadly. She would increase taxes on top earners, building on Obama’s successful efforts to push back on after-tax inequality with his 2013 tax increases on the rich.

Somewhat under the radar is Clinton’s focus on "steps to stop corporate concentration in any industry where it’s unfairly limiting competition," while also preventing "concentration in the first place by beefing up the antitrust enforcement." She has specifically mentioned high-speed broadband, airlines, and pharmaceutical companies. In the aftermath of the EpiPen price hikes, Clinton announced an expansive plan to tackle rents — unearned unjustifiable profits — in drug prices.

When it comes to investment and full employment, Clinton herself has said that she will "also defend the Fed's so-called dual mandate," including full employment, with her appointments. Clinton has highlighted short-term financial pressures blocking long-term productive investment in innovation by calling out "quarterly capitalism," the obsessive focus on quarterly earnings reports.

From the 2012 platform:

Rebuilding Middle Class Security

We’ve come a long way since 2008. The President took office in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the
Great Depression; that month 800,000 Americans lost their jobs – more than in any single month in the previous 60
years. On Day One, he took immediate action to stop the free fall and put Americans back to work. In the midst of the
crisis, President Obama knew what Democrats have always known: that American workers are tougher than tough
times. Since early 2010, the private sector has created 4.5 million jobs, and American manufacturing is growing for
the first time since the 1990s.
The President knew from the start that to rebuild true middle class security, we can’t just cut our way to prosperity.
We must out-educate, out-innovate, and out-build the world. We need an economy that creates the jobs of the future
and makes things the rest of the world buys – not one built on outsourcing, loopholes, or risky financial deals that
jeopardize everyone, especially the middle class.
We’ve already made historic progress. States have more flexibility to raise standards and reform schools, more
students are receiving grants and scholarships, and young adults can stay on their parents’ health insurance plans as
they finish their education and enter the workforce. More working families than ever before have received tax cuts,
and fuel-efficiency standards are doubling. The President cracked down on Wall Street recklessness and abuses by
health insurance, credit card, and mortgage companies.

Our work is far from done. A crisis this deep didn’t happen overnight and it won’t be solved overnight.
Too many parents sit around their kitchen tables at night after they’ve put their kids to bed, worrying about how they
will make a mortgage payment or pay the rent, or how they will put their children through college. We now stand at a
make-or-break moment for families, and America faces a clear choice in this election: move forward toward a nation
built from the middle class out where everyone has the chance to get ahead, or go back to the same failed ideas that
created the crisis in the first place.

The Republicans in Congress and Mitt Romney have a very different idea about where they want to take this country.
To pay for their trillions in additional tax cuts weighted towards millionaires and billionaires, they’ll raise taxes on the
middle class and gut our investments in education, research and technology, and new roads, bridges, and airports.
They’ll end Medicare as we know it. They want to let Wall Street write its own rules again and allow insurance
companies to once again deny health care to working families. Their troubling and familiar economic scheme doubles
down on the same bad ideas of the last decade while arguing that, somehow, this time, they’ll lead to a different
result. We can’t afford to go back or abandon the change we’ve fought so hard for. We have to move forward