By Robert Reich – With the Democratic primaries grinding to a bitter end, I have suggestions for both Clinton and Sanders supporters that neither will like. First, my advice to Clinton supporters: Don’t try to drum Bernie Sanders out of the race before Hillary Clinton officially gets the nomination (if she in fact does get…
By Robert Reich – A new Washington Post/ABC News poll released Sunday finds Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in a statistical tie, with Trump leading Clinton 46 percent to 44 percent among registered voters. That’s an 11 percent swing against Clinton since March. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, also released Sunday, shows Clinton…
By Robert Reich – Wealth inequality is even more of a problem than income inequality. That’s because you have to have enough savings from income to begin to accumulate wealth – buying a house or investing in stocks and bonds, or saving up to send a child to college. But many Americans have almost no…
By Robert Reich – Will Bernie Sanders’s supporters rally behind Hillary Clinton if she gets the nomination? Likewise, if Donald Trump is denied the Republican nomination, will his supporters back whoever gets the Republican nod? If 2008 is any guide, the answer is unambiguously yes to both. About 90 percent of people who backed Hillary…
By Robert Reich – A crowning achievement of the historic March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King gave his “I have a dream” speech, was pushing through the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. Recognizing the history of racist attempts to prevent black people from voting, that federal law forced a number of southern…
By Robert Reich – “Bernie is doing well but he can’t possibly win the nomination,” a friend told me for what seemed like the thousandth time, attaching an article from one of the nation’s leading newspapers showing how far behind Bernie remains in delegates. Wait a minute. Sanders won 78 percent of the vote in…
By Robert Reich – The Constitution of the United States is clear: Article II Section 2 says the President “shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint … judges to the Supreme Court.” It doesn’t say the President can’t appoint in the final year of his term of…
By Robert Reich – I’ve been reluctant to use the “f†word to describe Donald Trump because it’s especially harsh, and it’s too often used carelessly. But Trump has finally reached a point where parallels between his presidential campaign and the fascists of the first half of the 20th century – lurid figures such as…
By Robert Reich – Step back from the campaign fray for just a moment and consider the enormity of what’s already occurred. A 74-year-old Jew from Vermont who describes himself as a democratic socialist, who wasn’t even a Democrat until recently, has come within a whisker of beating Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucus, routed…
By Robert Reich – A few days ago, Neel Kashkari – now president of the Federal Reserve Bank in Minneapolis, who was the senior Treasury Department official in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations helping to save the big Wall Street banks – said “I believe the biggest banks are still too big to…
By Robert Reich – I’m writing to you today to announce the death of the Republican Party. It is no longer a living, vital, animate organization. It died in 2016. RIP. It has been replaced by warring tribes: Evangelicals opposed to abortion, gay marriage, and science. Libertarians opposed to any government constraint on private behavior.…
By Robert Reich – In 2008, when then-Senator Barack Obama promised progressive change if elected President, his primary opponent, then-Senator Hillary Clinton, derided him. “The skies will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect,†she…
By Robert Reich – The Democratic contest has repeatedly been characterized as a choice between Hillary Clinton’s “pragmatism†and Bernie Sanders’s “idealism†– with the not-so-subtle message that realists choose pragmatism over idealism. But this way of framing the choice ignores the biggest reality of all: the unprecedented, and increasing, concentration of income, wealth and…
By Robert Reich – Economic forecasters exist to make astrologers look good, but I’ll hazard a guess. I expect the U.S. economy to sputter in 2016. That’s because the economy faces a deep structural problem: not enough demand for all the goods and services it’s capable of producing. American consumers account for almost 70 percent…
By Robert Reich – What’s at stake this election year? Let me put as directly as I can. America has succumbed to a vicious cycle in which great wealth translates into political power, which generates even more wealth, and even more power. This spiral is most apparent is declining tax rates on corporations and on…
By Robert Reich – Martin Shkreli, the former hedge-fund manager turned pharmaceutical CEO who was arrested last week, has been described as a sociopath and worse. In reality, he’s a brasher and larger version of what others in finance and corporate suites do all the time. Federal prosecutors are charging him with conning wealthy investors.…
By Robert Reich – The great American middle class has become an anxious class – and it’s in revolt. Before I explain how that revolt is playing out, you need to understand the sources of the anxiety. Start with the fact that the middle class is shrinking, according to a new Pew survey. The odds…
By Robert Reich – In this holiday season it’s especially appropriate to acknowledge how many Americans don’t have steady work. The so-called “share economy” includes independent contractors, temporary workers, the self-employed, part-timers, freelancers, and free agents. Most file 1099s rather than W2s, for tax purposes. It’s estimated that in five years over 40 percent of…
By Robert Reich – The next president of the United States will confront a virulent jihadist threat, mounting effects of climate change, and an economy becoming ever more unequal. We’re going to need an especially wise and able leader. Yet our process for choosing that person is a circus, and several leading candidates are clowns.…
By Robert Reich – The other night I phoned a former Republican member of Congress with whom I’d worked in the 1990s on various pieces of legislation. I consider him a friend. I wanted his take on the Republican candidates because I felt I needed a reality check. Was I becoming excessively crotchety and partisan,…
