#CAPIdeas
Conversations from the CAP Ideas conference with NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and Rep. Ted Lieu; PLUS: Rep. Rosa DeLauro on the House Republican Farm Bill; and the poverty news of the week in ICYMI. Subscribe to Off-Kilter on iTunes.
This week Off-Kilter broadcast from the Center for American Progress’s Ideas Conference (aka the CPAC of the left). So we bring you a couple of the conversations Rebecca and Jeremy had with progressive leaders who spoke there, including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has championed the right to counsel for low-income tenants facing eviction — and who made some news this week on marijuana enforcement reform — and Congressman Ted Lieu, who shares some thoughts on how to walk and chew gum at the same time as we fight to address widespread economic challenges even as we fight to save our democracy. Later in the show, switching with House Republicans’ draconian Farm Bill poised to hit the House floor for a vote later this week, Rebecca talks with Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, one of the Democrats in Congress fighting to kill the bill, which would take food assistance away from 2 million Americans. But first, Rebecca and Jeremy walk through the poverty news of the week in another edition of In Case You Missed It.
This week’s guests:
- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio
- Rep. Ted Lieu of California’s 33rd district
- Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut’s 3rd district
For more on this week’s topics:
- Join the fight to kill the cruel House GOP Farm Bill with CAP Action’s #HandsOffSNAP toolkit and share your story of what nutrition assistance has meant to you/your family at handsoff.org
- Watch the full #CAPIdeas conference at capideas.org
- Learn more about NYC’s policy guaranteeing a lawyer for low-income residents facing eviction
For more on the headlines from this week’s ICYMI segment:
- Trump admits his infrastructure plan isn’t going anywhere… and how many “infrastructure weeks” have there been at this point?
- A Mother’s Day two-fer: New time use data reveal single moms in college do a crushing 9 hours of housework per day; and black moms in the U.S. — regardless of wealth or educational background — are three to four times more likely to die during and after childbirth
- Read @LOLGOP’s op-ed in USA Today, “If people on food stamps made Jared Kushner’s paperwork mistakes, they might starve”
This week’s transcript:
REBECCA VALLAS (HOST): Welcome to Off Kilter, the show about poverty, inequality and everything they intersect with, powered by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. I’m Rebecca Vallas. This week, Off Kilter broadcasts from CAP’s Ideas Conference, A.K.A the CPAC of the left, so we bring you a couple of the conversations that Jeremy, the Slevinator and I had with progressive leaders who spoke there including New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio who has championed the right to counsel for low income tenants facing eviction and who made some news this week on marijuana enforcement reform. Also, Congressman Ted Lieu on how to walk and chew gum at the same time as we fight to address wide spread economic challenges even as we fight to save our very democracy. And then switching gears a big with House Republican’s draconian farm bill scheduled to hit the House floor later this week I talk with Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, one of the Democrats in congress fighting to kill the bill, which would take food assistance away from 2 million Americans. But first, Jeremy Slevin, the Slevinator, we took a break at the Ideas conference in between sessions and cut class, I sort of feel like we’re cutting class right now.
JEREMY SLEVIN: Oh yeah, we’ve been cutting class all day, don’t tell anyone.
VALLAS: I was listening to some of the stuff.
SLEVIN: Me too, yeah.
VALLAS: But we have things to do.
SLEVIN: We’ve been cutting class regularly.
VALLAS: We’ve been cutting class to have hard-hitting conversations with news makers about the issues that matter most. I’m nauseating myself. [LAUGHTER] Alright, anyway, and you’re knocking the microphone off.
SLEVIN: If Bill DeBlasio did it, I figured I can kick the microphone.
VALLAS: Slevs I can’t take you anywhere. [LAUGHTER] Also you’re right, Bill De Blasio did it so I think you’re fine, I think you’re fine, I think you’re fine. So we’re hanging out at the Ideas conference and I figured this week I would give away the day we were taping so that you didn’t have to.
SLEVIN: OK. This is now, I think it’s catching on that we just spoil each episode with the day we’re taping.
VALLAS: It’s certainly something you do a lot so if that’s what defines catching on these days I’ll take it. Anyway, we wanted to do an ‘In Case You Missed It’ this week because obviously a lot being talked about at the Ideas conference, we’ll get to all of that later in the show but there’s also a lot else going on this week.
SLEVIN: Yeah, a lot going on in the real world.
VALLAS: And for starters, yet again it seems to be infrastructure week.
SLEVIN: Of couse we should be celebrating because I can’t believe it’s been a year since the official infrastructure week.
VALLAS: Wait, wait, wait, hasn’t it been infrastructure week like fourteen times?
SLEVIN: So apparently infrastructure week is an actual thing that like the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of [Commerce] dedicate each week.
VALLAS: So this is not one of the White House’s infrastructure weeks because they’ve tried to have infrastructure week like fourteen times.
SLEVIN: Right, rthe joke is that they announce it’s infrastructure week and then there’s some, of course, tweet or scandal that happens.
VALLAS: But of course it’s not a joke because what happened with infrastructure week this week, I felt like this was an ‘Onion’ headline but it’s not is it turns out that, oh my God I’m spoiling the news, I should be letting you do this. This is your job.
SLEVIN: That’s ok, that’s ok, well —
VALLAS: You want to give it? It’s good.
SLEVIN: The spoiler is they announced infrastructure week or ahead of infrastructure week their infrastructure plan is dead.
VALLAS: Yeah.
SLEVIN: Of course this was a core campaign promise of Donald Trump’s and even as recently as this year the White House put forward an infrastructure plan. This comes after a tax plan —
VALLAS: Wait, wait, wait you can’t actually say they came out with an infrastructure plan. Because what they came out with —
SLEVIN: I mean I’m being generous.
VALLAS: — was glorious, over formatted bullets, over formatted bullets is effectively what they came out with. But back to infrastructure week.
SLEVIN: But they really like, tweaked the margins, you know when you get the font to like the 18-point font, double spaced so it looks like you filled the whole page.
VALLAS: Yeah is that like recalling sixth grade right now?
SLEVIN: No, I never did that, I never do that with memos.
VALLAS: Definitely not how the things you write for me look. Hey Rebecca, here are those 750 words you asked for that fill up a page with 18-point font with huge margins.
SLEVIN: I put a space between each letter so it looks like more words.
VALLAS: But so on actual infrastructure week the White House came out and said just kidding it’s no infrastructure week!
SLEVIN: Yeah, and the sub text here is it had actually been the kind of populist alt-right wing in the White House, the Steve Bannons who had been pushing for an infrastructure plan to appeal to the white base. And Bannon himself had said I’m pushing for a $1 trillion infrastructure plan. Of course the administration passed, signed into law a $1.5 trillion tax plan so they showed where their true priorities lie.
VALLAS: So happy no infrastructure week to you Jeremy.
SLEVIN: Yes.
VALLAS: And instead we can start talking about other things, I guess?
[LAUGHTER]
SLEVIN: As our infrastructure crumbles unabated because the White House isn’t doing anything.
VALLAS: As our segment crumbles because, oh no just kidding, it’s not crumbling yet you still have more.
SLEVIN: Oh I have much more.
VALLAS: So why don’t we, we just had Mother’s Day and there’s a couple of things that have emerged since Mother’s Day, also by the way happy Mother’s Day to my mom and my grandma who I was really fortunate to get to be with over this weekend. Are you waving at them?
SLEVIN: Yeah.
VALLAS: Hi mom! Hi grandma! Also Jeremy’s waving at you. And I love them very much and so happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers, also happy Mother’s Day to people who are not mothers and also what is the news here, Jeremy, help me, I’m falling, I’m trying to fill time and you’re not stepping in and saying anything.
SLEVIN: [INAUDIBLE]
VALLAS: I was filling time too and you started emerging with a headline.
SLEVIN: All the mothers on a not as encouraging note, a lot of news came out around Mother’s Day on just how much many mothers struggle. For example, there was a report in The Atlantic, reported on in The Atlantic that single mothers in college which is a very common phenomenon spend about nine hours a day on housework while they are also juggling school work in some cases, low wage labor as well. Of course this is shocking statistic given that many people in college are also on food assistance or are in poverty is under discussed phenomenon in this country.
VALLAS: So not exactly what gets talked about most of the time people are wishing mothers a happy Mother’s Day but a lot of struggling moms out there who are trying to put food on the table and who are actually also the, some folks started to pay attention to this around mothers day being targeted by the Farm Bill which could get as I mentioned a vote as soon as this week in the House because that bill specifically targets parents with kids who are over age six as though caregiving obligations disappear after your kid magically turns six. I don’t really know what that’s about. So lots of reasons why this is a really startling new piece of research.
SLEVIN: Yeah and another report from our own Rejane Frederick at the Center for American Progress talked about a chasm disparity between black mothers and white mothers. According to her report, regardless of wealth or educational background black mothers are 3 to 4 times more likely to die during or after childbirth. In the wealthiest country on earth we still have sky-high levels of not only infant mortality but mortality of mothers.
VALLAS: And it is, there are a lot fo reasons, there are a lot of things out there that we talk about on the show pretty regularly in a way where folks may even get somewhat inured to this but I feel like this is one of those topics where it’s worth taking a step back, taking a deep breath and just reflecting on the fact that we are the wealthiest nation in the world and yet we face maternal and infant mortality rates that look a lot more like the developing world that our peer nations and this particularly the case for mothers of color, what a heartbreaking statistic.
SLEVIN: Yes, and this is true of their children as well. Babies born to black mothers are twice as likely to die in infancy as their white non-Hispanic counter parts. And I’ll add, we’re recording in Washington DC, which has some of the wealthiest counties surrounding it, nonetheless DC has some of the highest infant mortality in the country.
VALLAS: Absolutely shameful and something where we already know what it takes to make sure that people are healthier and it starts with access to health insurance, something that the adminisration and leaders in congress have reminded us yet again, as recently as this week, they’re not done trying to take away from tens of millions of Americans.
SLEVIN: Not only health insurance but making sure we adequately fund housing assistance and food assistance because they are all predictors of infant mortality.
VALLAS: That’s exactly right so going back to the Farm Bill for a second because it’s so much on my mind and I know I can’t stop talking about it but I think that’s what everyone should be feeling right now particularly in this crunch time moment where we really do have an opportunity potentially to kill this bill as Rosa DeLauro will talk about later in this episode. There was an op-ed in USA Today that actually really deserves some kudos for telling the truth but also highlighting pretty amazing contrasts and it talks about Jared Kushner but what does Jared Kushner have to do with the food stamp program?
SLEVIN: So Jared Kushner as many people know has repeatedly failed to adequately disclose his financial ties that he was obligated to report as a member of the White House. He has had to update his financial disclosure at least 40 times.
VALLAS: 40, four zero.
SLEVIN: That’s even including —
VALLAS: Did you see my hands? That was not a four and not a zero but that’s what I did for 40.
SLEVIN: 40, 40.
VALLAS: Jeremy’s got it right there. 40.
SLEVIN: This is apparently 41 and not 5 according to our producer Will.
VALLAS: Don’t get Will started.
SLEVIN: Also had to add over 100 foreign contact that he did not report. He has faced virtually no consequences, he’s had a security clearance downgraded but of course he’s continued to be the point on everything from Middle East peace to infrastructure to you name it. One of the most heartless new policies of the proposed Farm Bill is to add, as we’ve talked about, these so called ‘work requirements.’
VALLAS: Or to make them a lot harsher.
SLEVIN: To make them a lot harsher. Additional work requirements on top of what exist in SNAP. And what this does, effectively is say if you mess up your paperwork you could lose your food stamps which could be life or death, and this story highlights —
VALLAS: And it gets worse, you could lose your food stamps for a year just for screwing up your paper and in fact if you do it twice you could lose your food stamps for three years. So the point the piece makes is if Jared Kushner were in the position of needing to access the food stamp program and he made even one of the errors he’s made 40 that we know of and that you just described he’d be in the position of maybe never having food for the rest of his life at that rate.
SLEVIN: Yeah and I want to highlight the story they mention of Matthew Cortland who also wrote for Talk Poverty, a blog powered by the Center for American Progress who has chronic, incurable bowel disease and because they did not ask to include his middle name on the form he filled out he was unable to get food assistance, basically putting his life at risk.
VALLAS: And part of what makes Matt’s story so unbelievable and yet so believable so folks who know how hard these programs can be to access is he’s a lawyer. He’s trained as a lawyer and so the title of the piece, deservingly so is, or is it “deservedly” I’m not sure, someone will tweet me about this, is “You shouldn’t have to be a lawyer to get food assistance” and that’s the way the program already operates, house Republicans are trying to make this even more the case in ways that would massively backfire for them and their friends if they actually came into contact with these kinds of policies in their world. So hat tip and kudos to LOLGOP for that fabulous USA Today op-ed and also to Medicaid Matt as he’s known on Twitter who is very much worth a follow, @MedicaidMattBC and we’ll have his fabulous and really powerful and really terrifying essay at TalkPoverty on our nerdy syllabus page. We had more to talk about, Jeremy, but Will is really angry at us and is wildly gesticulating that we have to wrpa it up, we have to end, we have to end, we’ll end up somewhere, we’ll find out but I want to just say that Jeremy, you are someone who week after week brings us the news and this week it was a nice blend of good news and bad news.
SLEVIN: That’s an optimistic way to put it.
VALLAS: That’s how I’m feeling. Don’t go away more Off Kilter after the break including some of our interviews for the Ideas conference.
[MUSIC]
Rebecca Vallas here with Off Kilter, the show about poverty and inequality and we’re broadcasting live from the Ideas conference that the Center for American Progress is hosting in Washington DC. I am so thrilled to speak with one of the people who just came off the stage, one of the progressive leaders who is here with us at the conference today. And that person as you can see is New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, mayor thank you so much for being here.
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO: I am thrilled to be here, Rebecca and I want to thank you for having a show that focuses on inequality which is the issue that is wracking this nation but not enough people are still talking about so thank you for focusing on it.
VALLAS: And you are consistently one of those people who has talked about inequality. In fact it was at the center of your platform —
DE BLASIO: Yes.
VALLAS: When you were running for mayor. Would love to hear you talk a little bit about some of the initiatives that you’ve championed since you were elected.
DE BLASIO: Well I’ll start by saying it’s a classic thing they say in psychiatry, you can’t solve a problem if you don’t identify it first. My message in the first election was we were living a tale of two cities and we had to do something very different. I’ve tried to bring that full circle going into my second term by saying our goal is to be the fairest big city in America and to look at all elements of our society and ask how can we make things more fair and more equal? And so that goes from everything from trying to get people better wages and benefits in their work to reducing the price of housing, creating more affordable housing, protecting affordable housing and we have and to something that is very near and dear to my heart, number one initiative was to create pre-K for all the kids in New York City now that is a universal right. We basically added another grade to our public schools. We are doing the same now for three year olds, we call it ‘three-K’, we had pre-K, now ‘three-K’ and that will be universal next year as well and that really goes to heart of inequality that you’re literally talking now about a generation of kids who will all be at the same starting line educationally and a generation of families that will not have to pay for that privilege which has been the great divider. So a lot more to do but those are examples of trying to really across the board go at inequality in our city.
VALLAS: And we know obviously that high quality education in those critical early years of life pays dividends later on in terms of kid’s eventually educational outcomes, their employment outcomes so a huge step in the right direction that also, as you point out, helps parents because they have a safe place for their kids to be so that they can be at work. But you mentioned housing and we’ve talked a lot on Off Kilter about how we’re in the middle of a national affordable housing crisis where in no state in this country New York is unfortunately on this list as one of the states in this country can a minimum wage worker earning $7.25 an hour afford even a one bedroom apartment at market rent. Your administration has taken on the issue of housing in a creative way but a big part of it has to do with recognizing that folks often face a stacked deck if they’re facing eviction and they don’t have a lawyer.
DE BLASIO: Well look, when you looked at this problem, you’re exactly right we start with an equation that is backwards to begin with, a huge number of people not making enough money to live in their own city. This is happening all over the country. This unfortunately also comes with an incentive to a lot of the wrong kind of landlords, those who are unscrupulous who are not the majority but are still numerous enough to force people out and open up those spaces to those who could pay more. We recognize it’s becoming an epidemic problem in the city so we decide to do something bold, working with our city council and provide access to counsel for all New Yorkers facing eviction. And what it means is if you make $50,000 or less you get a free lawyer, if you make more than $50,000 you still have access to legal advice and support. It is having a huge impact as this program has been built out. Evictions are down 27% already in the last few years. We’re reaching 10s of thousands of people with legal services. And look, it also changes dynamics. If you’ve got an unscrupulous landlord they think they can get away with an eviction, they’re going to go for it, sadly but if more and more the word is the tenant’s going to have a lawyer it has a great preventative impact as well. That’s one of a bunch of things we’ve done. We’re mandating affordable housing and the creation of new development, wherever there’s a need for a city permit we say you can have the permit if you can guarantee affordable housing on a substantial scale. We are making sure that there’s been a rent freeze or a low rent increase levels over the last few years for folks who are in regulated housing. A lot of things that just get to the basic reality of a society that’s not affordable for working people. And if you add them up it really has changed ultimately hundreds of thousands of lives. We got to do even more now going forward.
VALLAS: I think folks who maybe watching — we’ve got mic issues there, sorry folks!
DE BLASIO: I’m too big for this table.
VALLAS: Your powerful words are knocking the mic right off.
DE BLASIO: I’m knocking over the microphone.
VALLAS: Right off the table, I’ll hold it up, that’s teamwork here.
DE BLASIO: Teamwork.
VALLAS: But you were just talking about how so many folks don’t have lawyers when they head into the court room and I think a lot of folks who maybe watching Law and Order or they’re familiar with criminal courts they go oh wait, don’t people have a right to a lawyer? Well, not in civil cases and that’s why it’s such a big deal what you guys have done to say no, we’re going to change that and we’re going to do that here at the local level.
DE BLASIO: When you think about it this is not like some small claims court. Housing court is basically you’re either going to have a place to live or you’re not. If you don’t have a lawyer and you lose you could end up literally homeless and in shelter. That apartment that you’re forced to leave will probably never be affordable again to anyone but families that stay in that apartment it’s probably going to be affordable for longer term and that’s good for everything, right? It was amazing to me when I finally saw from my team just how big an impact this would make to recognize how virtuous what is a really small investment in the scheme of things is because you can try and build more affordable housing and you do a certain amount of that but it’s a hell of a lot more humane and efficient to keep people in the housing they have and the cost of that lawyer is pretty small in the scheme of things.
VALLAS: That’s exactly right and I want to let the number you shared before sink in with folks because having evictions down 27% in New York City is huge, it’s absolutely huge so congratulation on that and here’s my call to other cities to do what you guys are doing.
DE BLASIO: Well Newark just did. I was just with the mayor of Newark Ras Baraka and they’re taking the same approach and applying it there and I think mayors like to nobally borrow from each other. Sometimes we steal but we ask permission first the good ideas and apply them. And I think this is an idea that can work in a lot of different places because that same pressure on housing, that’s happening all over the country.
VALLAS: It is. So I want to shift course just a little bit because you were just on stage talking a lot about how mayors like yourself are fairing in the Trump era and what you guys are doing to continue to move forward progressive priorities in the face of a reactionary agenda that risks setting us back probably 50 years, centuries in some cases in terms of peoples’ rights and civil liberties.
DE BLASIO: Well and part of the reality is that we at the local level have to not just resist but blow by that agenda and I can tell you from the perspective of New York City we have a very strong local government. We have some real resources but most of what’s happened in the Trump administration has not stood in our way. There’s been threats, but we’ve stood up to those threats and the classic bully dynamic, if you stand up to the threats sometimes they go away, that’s what we’ve found. It’s really incumbent upon progressives to keep moving forward at the local level. That counts for an immense amount. If you create a new standard local in enough places it deeply effects the national reality. And I think there’s sometimes a bit of a feeling of powerlessness because it’s natural. We all have a reference point to Washington and what the national government does. I think that’s a little bit dated. The national government has been paralyzed for a long time. Trump is bellicose and negative but a lot of his agenda can’t move either because the national government is paralyzed. But meanwhile, there’s tremendous creative capacity at the local level and just the things I’ve talked about. We never have to turn to Washington to achieve pre-K for all our kids or to come up with affordable housing rules that were fair for our city or most of the big initiative. Neighborhood policing, we’ve instituted to create a fairer relationship between police and community. There was nothing Washington could do to stop that in the past there hasn’t been much that Washington would have done to help it either for quite a while. You have to go back several decades. I think we need to recognize that we’re on our own and that’s not all bad at the local level. And create relentlessly and set the bar higher and help each other to be more audacious. I think, and my message to progressives is don’t undercount what we’re capable of. Don’t talk ourselves out of our own power. See the possibilities and go relentlessly for them and in New York City, I got to say, that works. Everytime we achieve something we don’t say let’s go home now we say what’s the next thing we can achieve.
VALLAS: So I would love to give you the opportunity to also share some news that you just broke here at CAP’s Ideas conference and it has to do with criminal justice reform and also marijuana.
DE BLASIO: Yeah what I talked about today was neighborhood policing in general and how we’re trying to create a better bond between police and community which we find to be not only more a matter of fairness and effective policy for fairness but also helping us to drive down crime. But where there still are some obvious disparities that we have to address is in the area of marijuana enforcement. So I announced that the NYPD in the next 30 days will revise it’s marijuana policies, will overhaul them and reform them because we want to avoid any disparities in the way neighborhoods are policed. We do not want a situation where one community feels over policed and another feels policed properly. That’s not the right way to do things. We want to end those disparities, we do not want unnecessary arrests, one of the things that we did in this administration was we ended arrests for low-level marijuana possession. We want to make sure that is applied very consistently and that in other instances where arrests can be avoided where it’s not the go-to, maybe it was presumed to be in the past, I always say, we’ve got crime down four years in a row, 100,000 fewer arrests in 2017 than in 2013. It’s a different type of policing. It works and simultaneously improves relationships with the community but we’ve got to do better on the question of marijuana.
VALLAS: And in the last couple of minutes that I have with you, I’m going to apologize but not apologize for this next question.
DE BLASIO: OK, I like that.
VALLAS: Because I’m curious what you’re going to say. What is it like being a New Yorker when we know it’s New York that gave us Trump?
DE BLASIO: It’s painful. There is something very real about that point. I don’t think it’s about the people of New York. I think the people of New York are wonderful and obviously one of the places that most opposes the policies of Donald Trump. But there’s something about the New York political and media culture that is a problem. Let’s be clear, tabloid culture which I think is very outdated but still around, that’s what bred Donald Trump. And he was a child of a blaring headline. And look, New York is such a progressive place in so many ways and such a humane place and a city where all sorts of different cultures come together in relative harmony. There’s so many things to love about it. But there has also been another side of New York that has been hyper-profit focused and very materialistic and obviously too tabloid journalism oriented. All of that is the water that Trump swam in and he learned a lot of bad lessons from that and he’s applying them now. But the good news is it does not reflect the reality of most New Yorkers and New Yorkers have been so strong in their opposite. A lot of the strongest resistance has come from New York. I’m very proud of that. And I said from the beginning we’re going to challenge him on a whole host of issues and I’ve got to say, everyday people were right there with it. Some people in the media might have said well, is it dangerous to the city’s interest to take on the president? But everyday New Yorkers were quite clear, that his policies could not be allowed to go unchallenged. And I got a lot of support from everyday people that it was the right thing to do to stand up to him.
VALLAS: Mayor thank you so much —
DE BLASIO: Thank you.
VALLAS: — for what you’re doing to fight poverty, to fight inequality in New York City and I’m really excited to see other mayors, I’m looking at you mayors, take on what you have especially when it comes to the right to counsel in housing cases and more. Mayor De Blasio of New York City, I don’t have to tell you that, you know that because he’s the guy. So thank you so much for taking some time and being here.
DE BLASIO: Thank you and thanks for your wonderful show, appreciate it.
VALLAS: Appreciate it.
Don’t go away, more Off Kilter after the break, Jeremy Slevin’s conversation with Congressman Ted Lieu at the Ideas conference about how progressives can fight to address wide spread economic challenges even as we fight to save our very democracy.
[MUSIC]
SLEVIN: Thank you for tuning in, we are live at CAP’s Idea conference, I am Jeremy Slevin filling in for the esteeming Rebecca Vallas and I’m so honored to be joined now by Congressman Ted Lieu, congressman from California’s 33rd congressional district. Thank you so much for joining me, congressman.
REPRESENTATIVE TED LIEU: Thank you, Jeremy, honored to be here.
SLEVIN: So you just got off of a great panel about basically the strength of our democracy but I want to take it in a little different direction because the tension in this panel was while we need to make sure our democracy is not fundamentally at risk, a lot of people are still struggling and the things people are tuning into day to day doesn’t necessarily reflect what’s going on in their lives. And even though the economy is on paper doing well, wages are stagnant and people are really struggling to get by. So I want to start by asking you how you resolve the tension between focusing on this big threat to our rule of law and simultaneously communicating to your constituents that we’re working to stop the real life economic threats day to day.
LIEU: The national message from Democrats is on the economy based on “A Better Deal” for the middle class family, “Better Wages, Better Skills, Better Jobs” and if people want to in addition talk about the assault on the rule of law that’s great and we do have people doing that including me, I think it’s important to talk about both but the main message from Democrats in on the economy and even though we do have good unemployment numbers, we also had good unemployment numbers under Obama. You had this huge reaction in the election of Donald Trump because for a lot of those people who are currently employed, they’re seeing their paychecks remain stagnant like you said. They’re not seeing the fruits of the economy and the Republican policies have actually made it worse. They passed this Republican tax law of which 83% of the benefits go to the top 1% and to corporations so we’re making a point that Democrats have a better deal for you, not the raw deal that Republicans are giving you.
SLEVIN: Do you feel like that’s breaking through? Do you feel like people understand what a threat the Trump administration is to their daily life?
LIEU: Yes because if you just look at what’s happened since Donald Trump got elected Democrats have flipped about 40 special elections. Let’s just think about this for a moment. A Democrat won the U.S. Senate in Alabama, deep red state. We went into rural Wisconsin this year and flipped the state senate district by 27 points. And then Conor Lamb had that amazing victory in Western Pennsylvania, flipping that district by 20 points. So I think that people understand what a threat the Trump administration is.
SLEVIN: I want to focus even more specifically, you of course served in the Air Force, are a veteran and have been a powerful voice for veterans. And one of the features I think great ironies of this administration someone who campaigned, I love the vets and did honestly have support among veterans has now turned around and passed or attempted to pass a piece of legislation that really, really harms veterans. Start with the big picture, do you think this administration is good for veterans?
LIEU: I do not, you can just look at the most recent thing that happened when Donald Trump nominated his own doctor be head of the VA. A person with zero qualifications to run the second largest federal agency in America and that was a very disrespectful act to veterans. Donald Trump was basically putting this person in because he happened to be his own doctor, not because he thought he could do a good job for veterans. And then it turned out that he had all these scandals, that he didn’t do any due diligence on Ronny Jackson. The president basically just stuck him in because he felt like it. That’s not what you do if you really want to care about veterans. I happen to have the largest VA in my district, the West Los Angeles VA and we’ve been working with stakeholders to make it better. It was dysfunctional for many decades but Obama signed a law that I authored to put in a whole new master plan that at it’s full build out will allow about 1,200 veterans who are homeless to have housing.
SLEVIN: And of course, veteran homelessness, a very serious issue. The Trump administration has not been friendly for affordable housing. Ben Carson, as recently as a few weeks ago proposed legislation to triple the rent for low-income homeowners which would affect veterans. What do you think specifically when it comes to veterans as an elected official, what Democrats can do to communicate to veterans that this guy’s not on your side? Whether it’s the healthcare law or the tax law, what can Democrats do?
LIEU: There are great organizations like Vote Vets that do that every day. But in November, people will know if you’re a middle class family and you don’t see your paychecks increase, if you don’t see your future getting any brighter, if you see health care costs increasing you’re going to vote appropriately. And that’s why the party who controls the White House generally loses seats in midterms because it really doesn’t matter what the president says by then, the voters will know is your life better or not? And for many people in America the answer’s going to be no. because they see everybody else doing better except them because again, the GOP policies are favoring the super rich. And then in terms of the poor and veterans and homelessness, you see really an assault by the Trump administration on the poor. As you noted you’ve Ben Carson raising rents and there’s so much irony in that because he’s also saying Ben Carson, that order a $31,000 dining table for his office. And I think the voters are going to understand that in November.
SLEVIN: That’s a great point not lost on many people and whether it’s Ben Carson or whether it’s Scott Pruitt that the same people launching an assault on people’s basic needs are in many cases benefiting themselves. I want to pick up on something you said about the tax law. Obviously it’s their biggest supposedly legislative victory, the Koch brothers are spending millions of dollars to sell this law, Paul Ryan has said that if we are able to hold the House even though I’m jumping ship that the tax law is going to be the reason is it working? Is the tax law the great hope that they claim it is?
LIEU: Not at all, you just have to look at the Conor Lamb victory. The Republicans actually in the beginning few weeks spent heavily advertising about the GOP tax law. And then in the second half of the campaign they stopped because they realized that it wasn’t moving the needle because people in Conor Lamb’s district could see from their paychecks it wasn’t helping them.
SLEVIN: Again, reality —
LIEU: Reality.
SLEVIN: — has a way of getting in the way of rhetoric.
LIEU: So the people understood that this Republican tax law was a massive giveaway to large corporations and the super rich. Basically if you owned a lot of property and you wanted to have this massive exemption for your heirs, you get a benefit from the tax law. Most people don’t have that and so you have just things like that that really annoy your middle class ordinary voter. They’re seeing all these benefits going to corporations and to the super rich. I’ll give you another example, in states in New Jersey, New York, California, other large states you have this deduction on your state and local taxes that are now capped. But you know what’s not capped? Corporations, they can have unlimited deductions on that issue and again that’s very offensive to your ordinary voter.
SLEVIN: I think as you mentioned the fairness quality is even if people as Paul Ryan would say get a dollar fifty in their paycheck they’re losing their healthcare because of the individual mandate premiums are going to go up. On the other hand, these corporations and these ultra rich are getting all these benefits. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention because we focus a lot on inequality and people in poverty and low-income folks on this [show], the House this week is scheduled to vote on a Farm Bill. Normally a bipartisan bill and this year of course Republican proposed a bill that would take away food assistance from two million people it’s estimated. I want to hear your thoughts on this proposal and kind of where it fits in with the broader Trump agenda.
LIEU: It’s deeply un-American. As a country we’ve always taken the policy that we’re not going to let people starve, we’re not going to let children starve, we’re not going to let women and men starve. And that’s what food assistance is. But in addition to not letting people starve it also helps agriculture so if you’re going to cut food assistance, if you’re going to cut the SNAP program, make it harder to get, that’s actually going to effect a lot of these agricultural district because less of their products are going to be consumed. So it is just a really dumb idea all the way around.
SLEVIN: It’s not only as you point out the people who are consuming the food, it’s the people who are making the food and it effects the whole system. I think that’s a somewhat depressing but important mention nonetheless to end on. Of course if folks want to get engaged on the Farm Bill we have launched a campaign, handsoffSNAP.org. People can contact their members because we are trying to stop this house vote. Congressman Ted Lieu, thank you so much for joining me, appreciate that.
LIEU: Thank you.
VALLAS: Don’t go away, more Off Kilter after the break, I’m Rebecca Vallas.
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You’re listening to Off Kilter, I’m Rebecca Vallas. As we speak, House Republicans’ plan for mass starvation A.K.A. their Farm bill is being debated in the House Rules Committee, setting it up for a vote that could come as soon as this Thursday or Friday. News reports indicate that House Agriculture Chair Mike Conaway is whipping feverishly because he doesn’t have the votes yet to pass the bill which Democrats are unified in opposing which leaves him unable to lose many more than a dozen Republican votes. I spoke with one of the House Democrats leading the effort to kill the bill, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro who represents Connecticut’s 3rd congressional district. Congresswoman, thanks so much for joining the show.
CONGERSSWOMAN ROSA DELAURO: I’m delighted to join you, thank you this is a critical issue that we’re facing.
VALLAS: So for folks who are just catching up there’s a lot of talk this week about the farm bill which as I mentioned may actually end up getting pushed to the house floor for a vote as soon as this week. We’re talking now before that vote happens, if that vote happens but for folks who are getting up to speed on what’s in this farm bill and what it means for nutrition assistance, what’s the overview of why you’re so opposed to this bill?
DELAURO: Thank you and I thank you for the question, let me just put it in context. Today the biggest economic challenge of our time is that so many people who play by the rules, their jobs do not pay them enough money to live on. We have wages not keeping up with the rising cost of health care, child care, housing and in fact families struggle to make ends meet and to put food on the table. This is a reality. There is hunger in the United States of America. And what Donald Trump and the congressional Republicans partisan farm bill would only exacerbate that problem. What they do is they betray working families and our most vulnerable. What it does, it would impose onerous requirements on up to 5 million people who get help from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, it’s known as the food stamp program. The most incredible thing is they’re going to cut SNAP benefits by more than $23 billion, $23 billion. And what that means is a million households, two million people will be directly kicked off the program. And as I mentioned 5 million subject to onerous work requirements. Another couple of things that they do is they are going to cut $5 billion from individuals who could potentially, their families be eligible for school meals. We’re going to see almost 300,000 kids who are going to lose free school meals.
You know I have to think back on this, Rebecca, because I was in the congress when Newt Gingrich wanted to cut the school lunch program. And [INAUDIBLE] nothing else consistent. This part of this farm bill would cut off school lunches for kids all over the United States. It really is pretty outrageous and cruel because there is a real hunger problem in the United States today. You’ve got over 15 million kids, nearly 1 in 4 live in it’s heavy shadow. My district in Connecticut, you know Connecticut is statistically the richest state in the nation. But one out of 7 in my third congressional district does not know where their next meal is coming from. People like to say it’s food insecurity but you know Rebecca we are talking about hunger. There is hunger not only in my state but in every state in this nation.
All over this country, I’ll just add one more thing here before is before [INAUDIBLE] go on, what they are talking about and it’s [INAUDIBLE] they want to say people need to work but the proposal, what it does is it creates what they call state run training programs that have not been evaluated. It will not meet the need of the number of people that they are going to throw off the food stamp program. It’s not going to be, for the number of people that they are going to jettison, it’s impossible to scale up and enroll hundreds of thousands if not millions of new participants so that we’re going to look at, people are not going to have any way in which to access food. There isn’t enough money [INAUDIBLE] adequate jobs training and I know from being on the corporation committee, those folks who talk about job training program, skills training programs, they are the first ones who want to cut the funding in the 2019 budget for skills training and job training.
VALLAS: And of course it’s not just your opinion that they’re not going to be able to scale up these programs, that’s actually something that we’ve learned from the congressional budget office, the non partisan CBO which came out after evaluating this proposal and said nope we can tell you right now we don’t think that these state run bureaucracies in the name of workforce development as you just described are going to be able to be up and running not only within the period of time that the legislation says they will be or should be but actually within ten years of the legislation going into effect. A lot of hand waving there not just in terms of the massive underfunding you describe but even the fact of being about to get up and running the programs that Chairman Conaway on the Agriculture Committee, the architect of this bill has claimed are the reasons people aren’t going to lose nutrition assistance if they’re quote, “willing to work” or undergo job training. But Congresswoman, you mentioned that you’ve been in congress going back to the Gingrich years when we saw all kinds of proposals just like these in many ways starting to really gain traction in the halls of the modern Republican Party. Would love to hear you talk a little bit about whether you feel that this particular Farm Bill is in keeping with that tradition and where we’ve seen Republicans head in recent years or is this actually different in some way? Is this even perhaps more extreme?
DELAURO: You know you bring up an interesting point because in my research on the food stamp program what I found over the years and I can go back to George McGovern, Bob Dole, Robert Kennedy who took a bipartisan commission across the country as did McGovern and Dole to explore the issue of hunger in the United States. And they found that there was a serious problem of hunger in the United States, which was the genesis of the nutrition program. And by the way, the school lunch program comes directly, this comes out of President Truman when they were recruiting for World War II they found that our recruits were undernourished, malnourished, had malnutrition, et cetera, so we’re in the beginning of the school lunch program. But these are programs that have been over the years supported by Democrats and Republicans. Understanding that the scope of the problem was so big and such a challenge in the Untied States and that we shouldn’t have people in the United States, in the land of abundance going hungry. And so what is, what you say, we fought this battle in the 2008 farm bill when I was on the conference committee at that time. And you rarely get appropriators on conference committee; we’re like an invasive species here. So I was there for the nutrition portion of it, Leader Pelosi asked me what to do. We were able to come together that was the northeast, the west coast, the mid-Atlantic states to focus on conservation, on specialty crop, on fruits and vegetables and on nutrition.
And we were able at that time again we voted and the part of the 2008 farm bill increased the benefits for food stamps, indexed the food stamp benefit to inflation, expanded the asset level so that people could own a bit more and still be eligible. So we came together, we have seen over the last several years a mean-spiritedness surrounding the nutrition program and that is really culminated in the bill we are seeing today. I can recall in the 2014 farm bill where there was the attempt to separate out the nutrition program from the other farm programs which was unheard of because this was quite frankly because our farmers rely on the food stamp program for people to purchase their products. So what we were able to come together on that effort though there was a $20 billion cut the food stamps in the 2014 bill. But this is probably the most mean-spirited bill that I have seen on the one hand, and in terms of the people who are going to be hurt by the legislation and you pointed out this notion that everybody is going to be able to get a job is just nonsense and Center For American Progress as well as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities say it’s not just us speaking about this, this is for sure. But what is interesting is who are the beneficiaries of the farm bill?
VALLAS: And I think that’s exactly where we should go next because we’ve talked a lot on this show over the course of the past several months about obviously the Republican tax plan, which overwhelmingly benefited the richest people in this country and wealthy corporations as well. Now we’ve got Republicans turning around and saying that they cann’t afford food assistance that provides $1.40 per person per meal, that’s effectively what they’re saying in trying to cut the SNAP program in all the draconian ways that you just describe. But there are actually some winners in this bill as well.
DELAURO: Oh, there’s a very, very big winner and on 83% of the tax cuts went to the richest 1% of people in this nation. For millionaires, billionaires and corporations with a tax cut scam that was rigged by the president and the Republican congress, rigged for the rich. And now let’s take a look at the farm bill. And you will once again see that the farm bill is rigged for the rich. This is a consistent pattern. They can’t help themselves in many ways. You’re looking at the top 3% of farms, the wealthiest Americans and Big Agri-business with get the biggest break. So the top 3% of farms receive 40% of all farm subsidies. And now we’re going to see the benefits even more concentrated. One of the things that they have, several of the things that they have done really quite interesting. You know, viewers need to know that the food stamp program is means tested. You have to be poverty level or below the poverty level to be eligible for food stamps. You mentioned $1.40 a meal, now what we’re going to look at here is, so there was a means test for the food stamp program.
What the farm bill does in terms of subsidies of agri-business and farmers in the nation, what they will do is they are going to allow millionaires and billionaires to get the subsidies, they are going to eliminate means testing so that currently people who are now making $900,000 and couples that are making $1.8 million per year are not eligible for farm subisidies. But that is going to change with this farm bill. What they’re doing as well is they are going to make cousins, nieces and nephews eligible for subsidies where today only family members, siblings, adult children are eligible for subsidies. They are going to not limit subsidies to one person per farm. There are no work requirements for farm subsidy recipients. There’s no limit on the number of partners who can receive subsidies. Under the current law, each member of a farm partnership is treated as a separate person in making the subsidy payments. So they are going to open that door.
You can live in Manhattan and you can own a farm somewhere in the country, you never have to till the soil, you never have to put a plow in the field and you can get a subsidy. It is outrageous when they are going to tell people who are poverty level or below, who get a $1.40 per meal that they are going to lose these benefits and what’s more they are going to make sure that the food stamp program, most of the people are disabled, they are seniors or they are children. And most work and some that don’t work are doing it for medical reasons. They are going to tell folks who have to work for whatever but there aren’t any work requirements attached to those who get subsidies who are off the land. There are no asset limitations, there are no income thresholds and the [INAUDIBLE] on this is with regards to the crop insurance.
VALLAS: So tightening the screws massively —
DELAURO: This bill continues to provide $1.5 billion dollars in subsidies to crop insurance insurance agents. And the crop insurance companies are guaranteed a 14% rate of return. And most of these folks are not even in the US. They are subsidiaries of foreign corporations. It is obscene what this farm bill does which is why all the Democrats have opposed it in committee and all Democrats will not support it on the floor of the house. And the Republicans and Donald Trump have put together a partisan farm bill that only won committee on a party line vote.
VALLAS: So lots of similarities there between the tax law and actually this bill which doesn’t just tighten the screws on people who need food assistance but it’s actually making, as you describe farm subsidies easier to access for some of the people who are some of the richest in ‘Big Ag’ as it’s often called. In the last minute or so that I have with you Congresswoman, just a candid question. I’m curious what it’s like to be in congress right now as a Democrat and as one of the most progressive Democrats that we have in either chamber of congress. When you are working day to day with people who are working with people who are literally lying to your face and to the faces of their constituents on a basis that I think we never have seen before in modern politics.
DELAURO: Rebecca, fundamentally what I believe is about a government and its ability to provide opportunity for people. This is about where our values are, our shared values that [INAUDIBLE] for himself or herself. They’re accountable for [INAUDIBLE] social responsibility; we have a moral responsibility to be there for when people are in need. All of those fundamental values are not present in this congress. And every single day what you can’t do is you can’t get tired, you cannot get frustrated you have to keep going because the stakes are very high for the people of this nation. The way I describe this fight that we are having is for the soul of our country, for the values that have made this country great. Because what Donald Trump and the congressional Republicans is hollowing out the federal agencies and from this particular point of view, the Department of Agriculture and it’s ability to provide services for people in this country and these services are when they need it. So we need to double our efforts, redouble our efforts and make the fight because we have to win back the soul of this country for the people here. It’s not about members of congress, we’ll do fine, we are going to do fine. But it’s going to be able the millions of people who are going to be finding themselves without any recourse with regards in this instance to food or the ability to take care of their families. That’s not who we are as a nation.
VALLAS: Congresswoman DeLauro is the congresswoman from the 3rd district of Connecticut, she is, as I said, one of the fiercest defenders of SNAP out there. Congresswoman thank you so much for what you’re doing to kill this bill, to make sure that families have enough to eat and for taking the time to come on this show.
DELAURO: Thank you so much and thank you for getting the word out. This is critical, really very, very critical for the issue of hunger in America. There shouldn’t be anyone in this land of abundance who goes to bed hungry at night. Particularly our children and that’s what will happen if this bill passes. Thank you.
VALLAS: And that does it for this week’s episode of Off Kilter, powered by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. I’m your host, Rebecca Vallas, the show is produced each week by Will Urquhart. Find us on Facebook and Twitter @offkiltershow and you can find us on the airwaves on the Progressive Voices Network and the WeAct Radio Network or anytime as a podcast on iTunes. See you next week.
This program aired on May 17th, 2018
