Poverty in Philly

Philly Mayor Jim Kenney on how he’s fighting poverty in the poorest big city in the U.S. — and Indivisible’s Chad Bolt returns with yet another harrowing update on Trump’s shutdown and other news of the week ICYMI. Subscribe to Off-Kilter on iTunes.

With 26 percent of the city’s residents living below the federal poverty line — twice the national average — Philadelphia ranks as the poorest big city in the country. Philly is also home to the nation’s highest deep poverty rate of any major city: 14 percent of Philadelphians have incomes less than half the federal poverty line (roughly $6,000 or less a year for a single individual or $12,500 or less for a family of 4). So this week for Off-Kilter, Rebecca sat down with Philly Mayor Jim Kenney, who vocally campaigned on dramatically reducing the city’s poverty rate, to dig in to what he’s been able to accomplish so far, the work that lies ahead, and how the Trump administration has been standing in the way.

But first: as Trump’s shutdown drags on (and on)… Rebecca brings back Chad Bolt for another update on the toll the orange man’s temper tantrum is taking on the families and communities who can least afford it — and how the Trump administration is picking favorites in terms of whom to provide relief to (cough, Big Oil) and whom to leave out in the cold (cough, domestic violence survivors). Believe it or not, there are other things going on in the world too, so they run through some of the biggest stories getting drowned out amid the shutdown — from more exciting committee assignments (oversight is back, y’all….) to Maine’s new governor throwing her evil predecessor’s Medicaid cuts in the trash to DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s attempt to veto a measure to decriminalize poverty, and much much more.

This week’s guests:

• Jim Kenney, Mayor of Philadelphia
• Chad Bolt, associate policy director, Indivisible

For more on the shutdown:

• Here’s more via WaPo on how the Trump admin is picking favorites when it comes to shutdown relief — and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney terrifyingly asking for a list of programs that would be impacted if the shutdown drags into March
• If you haven’t seen it already, here’s the Trump admin’s unbelievably callous letter advising furloughed workers to “barter handyman services” for rent and to “consult with your personal attorney” on how to tell their creditors why they can’t pay your bills
• Here are some of the harrowing stories profiling furloughed federal workers forced to choose between paying rent and accessing chemo, lining up around the block at pop-up food banks, and more (though as Linda Tirado reminds, no it’s not new for people *with jobs* to need food assistance (ahem, that’s most folks who receive SNAP thanks to poverty wages…)
• Here’s the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ handy analysis putting numbers to how long SNAP households are going to have to stretch their early-disbursed February benefits due to the shutdown (and that’s assuming they even get March benefits…)
• Trying to wrap your head around 40 million people losing food assistance overnight? That’s like cutting off food for the entire populations of New York State, Michigan, and Ohio combined.
• Get up to speed on the growing number of low-income households at risk of eviction as federal rental assistance programs run short on funds due to the shutdown with this handy fact sheet from our friends at the National Low-Income Housing Coalition
• And finally: take action and find an event near you to join the “Shut Down the Wall, Open the Government” National Day of Action next Tuesday, Jan. 29, convened by MoveOn, Indivisible (and about a bajillion awesome partners).

For more on everything else:

• Get excited about: the new members named to the House Oversight Committee (AOC! Ayanna Pressley! Rasheeda Tlaib! and more!)
• This is what democracy looks like: Maine’s incoming Dem governor Janet Mills listening to the state’s voters and expanding Medicaid instead of cutting it like her predecessor Paul LePage was hell-bent on doing
• In our own backyard: SHAME on DC Mayor Bowser for trying to veto a fare evasion decriminalization measure (and THANK YOU to the members of DC Council who voted to override her ugly veto)
• What we’re reading this week: This great op-ed by Emanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman on why progressive taxation is necessary for a healthy democracy
• Tweet (thread) of the week: Vanessa Williamson of Brookings provides some helpful historical contexttracing limits on the federal government’s taxing power all the way back to…. slavery
• Job posting of the week: Calling all aspiring poverty lawyers…. UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty, who wrote that fiery report on poverty in America last year, is looking for legal interns!
• And finally: if you’re going to read or RT anything on the MAGA hat kids goat rodeo, make it this interview with Nathan Phillips for Indian Country Today.

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. Philadelphia has for years held the not so glamorous distinction of being the poorest big city in the U.S. with a poverty rate twice the national average and one in six of the city’s residents living in deep poverty, meaning they have incomes less than half the federal poverty line. So this week for Off Kilter I sat down with Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney who made dramatically reducing the city’s poverty rate a signature part of his campaign to hear what he’s been able to accomplish so far, the work that lies ahead and how the Trump administration has been standing in the way. But first, Chad Bolt, associate director of policy and shameless plugs at Indivisible, thank you so much Chad for coming back.

CHAD BOLT: So excited to be back here.

VALLAS: So it is day 34 of the longest government shutdown in United States’ history.

BOLT: Indeed.

VALLAS: And there’s actually a lot going on today as we’re taping, we’re taping on Thursday and you and I actually talked a little bit about whether we should go ahead and have this conversation and tape this conversation before some scheduled votes in congress today around whether to open the government. And we decided let’s go ahead and have this conversation because to be honest, no matter what happens with these votes today and I think most people, many analysts are guessing that we’re not going to see these votes succeed, I mean honestly who knows what happens but you and I both agreed that it’s not the horse race that really matters right of oh my God, are they going to open, who’s going to continue to play chicken, it’s the broader context around who this shutdown is hurting, the damage that is being done in ways that even whenever the government does reopen, people are facing all kinds of long term negative consequences as a result of this continue, prolonged temper tantrum by the president of the United States over his racist border wall. And so we decided let’s go ahead and have this conversation anyway and try and set some of that broader context up so that people have it as we continue to watch the horse race move forward.

BOLT: Yeah, that’s exactly right. There are two votes planned in the Senate later today as you said Rebecca, both of them expected to fail although who knows what could happen. The first is a proposal from the White House, which has over $5 billion for the wall, which is exactly what Democrats said they would not support. But it also has a lot of other terrible stuff in it too. Increases beds to house immigrants, up to 52,000 that’s an increase, almost 3,000 additional border agents, effectively barring Central American kids from claiming asylum. This is just garbage stuff coming from the White House, not expected to get the votes needed to pass in the Senate. The other vote in the Senate is on clean CR for DHS and the other parts of the government that are closed.

VALLAS: CR being a Continuing Resolution, so basically it would be a funding bill.

BOLT: Yes, thank you for that jargon giraffe.

VALLAS: What I do, what I do.

BOLT: That’s important. yes, that is a no strings attached way of opening the government into February but that is not expected to get enough Republican votes to pass and so no matter what happens in the Senate today everything that we’re talking about here on this show, the real life impact to real life people is going to continue to be true and it’s only going to get worse the longer this shutdown drags on.

VALLAS: Now Chad, let’s play a few clips that we have hanging out there to set the tone for some of how the Trump administration feels about the people who are facing significant uncertainty around missing another paycheck or struggling to afford their bills to keep the lights on. We’ve been talking about the real life impacts on everyday Americans every week on this show. Let’s hear what the Trump administration and their conservative backers think about these kinds of consequences.

[START CLIP]

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Local people know who they are, where they go for groceries and everything else. They will work along, I know banks are working along if you have mortgages, the mortgagees, the mortgage, the folks collecting the interest and all of those things, they work along. And that’s what happens in time like this, they know the people, they’ve been dealing with that for years and they work along.

[END CLIP]

[START CLIP]

UNKNOWN REPORTER: Mr. President, can you relate to the pain of federal workers who can’t pay their bills?

TRUMP: I can relate and I’m doing it, the people that are on the receiving ends will make adjustments, they always do.

[END CLIP]

[START CLIP]

CARRIE SHEFFIELD: So in terms of the workers who are coming to work and not getting paid, what would you say to them?

LARA TRUMP: Listen, this is, it’s not fair to you, and we all get that but this is so much bigger than any one person. It is a little bit of pain but it is going to be for the future of our country.

[END CLIP]

[START CLIP]

KEVIN HASSETT: Huge share of government workers were going to take vacation days say between Christmas and New Year’s, and then we have a shutdown and so they can’t go to work and so then they have the vacation but they don’t have to use their vacation days. And then they come back and then they get their back pay, then they’re in some sense, they’re better off.

[END CLIP]

[START CLIP]

ROSS SORKIN: There are reports that some federal workers are going to homeless shelters to get food.

WILBUR ROSS: Well I know they are and I don’t quite understand why.

[END CLIP]

VALLAS: I have to say all of those are terrible like all of those are absolutely abominably terrible.

BOLT: Yeah it is the level of deep empathy and respect for human dignity that you would expect from the Trump administration, right?

VALLAS: But I have to say of all of them, the Wilbur Ross one to me is the most astounding. So let’s provide a little bit of context for why Wilbur Ross might not understand why people would I don’t know, have trouble missing a paycheck and might need to say go to a food bank to stay afloat and feed their families. Wilbur Ross, depending on who you ask and which financial reportings you look at has a net worth, a personal net worth of somewhere between $700 million and $2.5 billion, that is Wilbur Ross. Also right before we started taping our dear producer David Ballard was just sharing a story he had found about Wilbur Ross in which he is described as padding around the West Wing in velvet loafers that he had custom made with the Department of Commerce seal on them. So ladies and gentlemen, that is why Wilbur Ross might not be aware that say, four in ten Americans don’t even have $400 in the bank and are not able to just miss paychecks without consequence.

BOLT: I mean seriously, bro pads around the White House in custom made commerce department velvet loafers. What is this? He’s a literal billionaire and he’s saying I can’t understand why people might need to visit a food bank after they’ve missed two going on three paychecks.

VALLAS: And I want to also, there’s no sound for this but I want to point out and we’ll have the full thing for anyone who wants to read it on our nerdy syllabus page but OPM, the Office of Personnel Management actually sent out a letter, a truly unbelievable letter, you can’t make this stuff up. Two furloughed federal workers basically laying out, the Trump administration’s advice to them during the shutdown and how to whether missed paychecks and their advice was quote, “barter with your landlord and consult your personal attorney,” Trump doubled down on this one too, “Consult your personal attorney and talk to your creditors.” This is their advice, their quote, unquote “advice” for people who are either having to work without pay or being told not to show up for work at all.

BOLT: It’s just absurd. I try even in this environment not to paint with too broad a brush but you have to think that giving out advice like that to your employees who are working without pay in many cases, these people could have never experienced a day of financial hardship in their life if their advice is barter with your landlord and consult your personal attorney. Right, yes, of course, because federal employees just have personal attorneys on retainer.

VALLAS: I mean that is the level of connectedness that we see from this administration with the so called forgotten man and forgotten woman that Trump pledged to fight for during his presidential campaign which we know at this point was full of not just broken promises but really false promises that were false from the day that he said them. But Chad I want to get into some of the updates that we have here about the toll that the shutdown is taking on people across this country and particularly and disproportionately people who can afford it the least, low income folks in particular. And as we move through some of this I want to note that as you said and I think this bears repeating no matter what happens with the votes today, even if somehow one of those votes does actually get the votes it needs and the government does reopen either on the short term basis or a longer term basis, serious long lasting damage has been done to people across this country in ways that will not be rectified even when the government reopens and a lot of what we’re going to talk about is really going to help put a face on what I mean when I say that. So Chad walk us through some of the updates about the specific toll the shutdown is taking.

BOLT: Well we just talked about how disconnected the Trump administration and officials in the Trump administration are from everyday folks who are feeling the impact but it’s worth noting that they’re still well connected to some people because they are playing favorites during this shutdown with what government activities are allowed to continue and what activities have to shutter. So may be worth taking a step back for just a second to underscore why we are in a shutdown in the first place. It’s because of a law called the Anti-Deficiency Act, which Congress passed for the first time actually in the 1800s. And it says that the government can’t spend money that congress hasn’t appropriated unless it’s to protect life or property, so that is the exception. Now the Trump administration is coming up with all kinds of new exceptions and the list keeps getting longer but to no surprise to anyone what’s going on that list benefits their friends. So first, big pork, the National Pork Producers’ Council, they’ve got some friends in the Trump administration and Sonny Perdue in particular. Apparently, they’re tight. So the USDA, it’s continued buying commodities, it’s publishing its’ livestock pricing data which the pork industry relies on and this is a direct quote from the spokesperson for the Pork Council, “they’ve listened to our concerns and we’re very pleased.”

VALLAS: So life, property, and pork? Wow Chad, you’re like, by the way as I’m watching you discuss this you’re very proud that you found this one, you’re grinning because this is so absurd. But it’s not just big pork, there’s other friends and cronies of this administration who are also similarly being protected. Who else is on that list?

BOLT: Well big cod, the fish. [LAUGHTER] So there are folks in Alaska, and look, this isn’t necessarily a laughing matter, folks, particularly fishermen in Alaska rely on this for their livelihood but it goes to show that if you are well connected you can get what you want during this shutdown. So cod fisherman in Alaska were able to arrange what they needed from NOAA in order to keep their boats going out on time.

VALLAS: I think that’s the National Ocean Administration?

BOLT: Yes … and atmostpheric.

VALLAS: “O” is for ocean in that one, I’m going to go with that.

BOLT: Yes, so Alaska thanks to their connections to the administration, the fishermen there are able to keep things running relatively smoothly but scallop fishermen in Massachusetts are still waiting for their approvals coming out of NOAA that they need to keep their boats running and they could lose up to a million and a half dollars in seafood.

VALLAS: So to be clear, I’m a fan of cod, I’m a fan of scallops, I’m glad that the cod folks are being helped out and fishermen are not suffering pain during this shutdown but I think what you’re describing is this incredible arbitrariness that even within the seafood industry there are favorites being picked. The one I thought you were going to lead off with was big oil but maybe that’s your big finish.

BOLT: I’m going to leave that one for you.

VALLAS: The contrast to me that jumped out in terms of just how absurd and lopsided and also totally predictable the favorites that this administration is picking and potentially illegally by the way as Sam Berger, who we had on a couple of weeks ago on this show pointed out, a lot of this might not actually stand up to legal scrutiny how the Trump administration is responding here and picking favorites. But just the contrast that jumped out to me when it came out earlier this week was the Trump administration has been incredibly concerned about protecting big oil’s massive, massive profits and so that is relief that they have jumped to extend to that industry but meanwhile they apparently are completely unconcerned about the fact that domestic violence shelters and clinics across this country are actually starting to close their doors and turn women and children away from in many cases what are lifesaving services, leaving survivors who in many cases are facing life threatening violence and abuse at home to chose between remaining with their abuser and in many cases keeping their kids at home with the abuser where they’re in jeopardy and living on the streets because they’re unable to get these kinds of services. So big oil, totally, totally cool right, totally fine and important in that list of life, property and other things the administration is really, really, concerned with protecting, domestic violence survivors, not so much.

BOLT: Yeah and it just goes to show if you’ve got a well-moneyed constituency and a line of communication into the White House you can see the wheels turning during this shutdown. But a population like domestic violence survivors does not have that kind of well moneyed well connected line of communication into the White House and so the services they need are shuttered.

VALLAS: Meanwhile, there have been stories that have been coming out as reporters have been talking to more and more furloughed federal workers and hearing what’s going on in their lives and it’s like every time I open Twitter I’m just like my eyes start to fill up with tears reading some of these stories. Last week we talked a little bit about friend of the show Kings Floyd and having to choose between literally paying her electric bill and being able to afford her epilepsy medication, now stories are popping up about federal workers who are struggling to beat cancer, having to literally choose between paying their rent and paying for their chemo, this is the kind of stuff that people are having to choose between on top of needing to, lines are wrapping around blocks for pop up food banks, even though Wilbur Ross doesn’t understand why.

BOLT: And this is all in service to a monument to xenophobia that Trump wants to build on our southern border. It’s just appalling.

VALLAS: Now I want to give a quick shout out since I mentioned the food banks to Linda Tirado, a friend who I am way overdue in having back on the show, it’s been too long Linda. She tweeted and this was I think well taken and something that folks would be well advised to retweet and help spread the word on, a lot of folks in seeing these long lines at food banks, many of them pop-up food banks for federal workers, people have been tweeting wow, look at this shutdown breadlines for people who have jobs, obviously a reference to unemployment being the traditional vision for people who are in line for food assistance for their families. Linda Tirado tweets, “I am so tired of explaining that actually most people on food stamps or WIC,” the supplemental nutrition assistance program for women, infants, and children, “have jobs and that actually it’s not new at all to see people with jobs at food banks and Jesus Christ why even bother at this point.” Linda, I feel your frustration, a really important reminder for a lot of the folks who are in well-intentioned ways, tweeting about the horrific state of this shutdown and the far reaching impacts in terms of the hunger it’s causing for federal workers. But Chad, there are a whole bunch of programs that we actually have talked about on this show but that it’s worth sharing brief updates about as well. Some of that is actually nutrition assistance itself.

BOLT: And I should start by saying too that Mick Mulvaney the acting chief of staff in the White House and the head of the Office of Management and Budget has now asked agencies to provide a list of programs in jeopardy if the shutdown drags into March and April and that’s alarming for two reasons. It signals that one, even though they’ve said otherwise it signals that they are preparing for a shutdown that goes on way longer than I think anyone would’ve expect and two that the list of programs in jeopardy is just going to get bigger and bigger. And so right now we’re concerned about SNAP for example, the administration was able to get February SNAP out the door but they did it early. So in practice what that actually means is that families who rely on SNAP typically have to stretch out their SNAP benefits for four or five weeks but because they dispersed it early now families have to try to stretch it out for up to seven weeks and that’s if everything goes according to plan, getting the March disbursement out the door which is I think in question. And keep in mind that families generally can’t rely on SNAP to last the whole month, as it is, generally only lasts maybe three weeks. So now imagining having to stretch it out to over double that length of time just really puts families in a bind, and again just for no reason.

VALLAS: So Wilbur Ross, if you’re listening in your velvet loafers somewhere, I understand you might be having trouble wrapping your head around why anyone would possibly have trouble eating during the month but wanted to remind you that food stamps provide just a $1.40 per person, per meal, that is why they don’t last for most families throughout the entire month and as you said Chad, run out typically after about three weeks for the average household. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, our friends over at CBPP actually did some number crunching to take a look at how many families are going to be in the kinds of dire straits that you just described Chad and they found that 30 million food stamp beneficiaries are going to be in the position of having to stretch their February benefits 40 days or longer about 8 million are having to stretch their benefits 50 days or longer, why is this people might be wondering? Wilbur Ross I’m sure not least among them, it’s because most states have rolling dates on which families get their food stamp benefits and so that’s what’s actually putting families in this bind because of the chaos of that early disbursement. And what does that really mean? It means skipping meals. Let’s get real about this. We are literally going to have millions upon millions of families across this country who are already struggling to afford adequate nutrition literally skipping meals or figuring which bills they can’t pay so that their kids can eat.

BOLT: And I want to take a second to talk about how all of this compounds because these same families that we’re talking about right now relying on SNAP also typically rely on the tax refund that they get in February or early March to keep themselves afloat in the first part of the year, particularly families who get a larger tax refund because they’re eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit and/or the Child Tax Credit. They really need that financial boost at tax time to make ends meet and they rely on it. And another effect of the shutdown could be that tax returns are delayed going out the door. And so it’s just another source of financial security for families who are living on the margins that is interfered with because of this unnecessary shutdown.

VALLAS: I also wanted to make one more point about SNAP just because as you pointed out Chad, there is the very real chance that if the shutdown drags on through February we might not see March food assistance benefits at all for the 40 million Americans who rely on nutrition assistance to be able to put food on table. And so again, Wilbur if you’re still listening just to help you wrap your head around what 40 million SNAP beneficiaries losing their benefits overnight would mean, that is like cutting off the entire food supply to New York state, Michigan, and Ohio, the combined population of those three states. That is what we’re talking about if this program grinds to a halt, which is what will happen if this shutdown continues so far is what we’re hearing. So Chad, we talked a little bit last week but maybe not in great depth about also, we mentioned housing before and the great advice that federal workers are getting from OPM about bartering with their landlords. But there are real risks to housing assistance programs, rental assistance programs as well because of the shutdown.

BOLT: Yeah I think a good example of this and to underscore what’s going on at USDA is, I said earlier that big pork is having no trouble getting through but another program out of USDA is the Rural Housing Service. And that wing of the department is mostly shutdown still and that means loans and guarantees can’t be processed and finalized, it means rental assistance is in jeopardy next month and it really drives home that it’s the rural poor that are some of the hardest hit populations here.

VALLAS: As well as seniors and people with disabilities who have specific rental assistance programs that are seeing contracts expire left and right, putting thousands upon thousands at risk of eviction.

BOLT: Yeah, there are HUD subsidized apartment buildings across the country who is seeing that flow of federal money cut off and what it could mean in real terms for people who live in those buildings is an eviction notice on the door.

VALLAS: So Chad we’ve spent a lot of time talking this week, last week, the week before about the shutdown in large because obviously it is dominating not just the headlines but also really so many families’ current mental state and kitchen table conversations as people try to figure out how to pay the bills. But I would love to hear you talk a little bit about some of how people are fighting back. We are poised to see how these votes turn out today, again not super expecting them to produce the government reopening. But we’ve seen all kinds of outpourings of outrage from people taking to the streets, taking to their members of congress, part of that has been Indivisible groups.

BOLT: Yeah, so we were really excited, this week we had a national call in day on Wednesday where we asked everybody in our Indivisible groups and just everybody generally to call their senators and ask them to pass legislation to reopen the government without funding the wall. This is a extremely possible thing to do the house has already passed that legislation, the senate can pass it and send it to Trump’s desk. But what we need, keep in mind, is that Mitch McConnell is running interference for Donald Trump. He refuses, or has refused up to this point to put the house legislation on the floor. So what he did this week, he wasted another week on the legislative calendar. It was a trick this time. He finally agreed to put the house legislation to a voter in the senate but he also provided an alternative bill that the White House immigration proposal that gave all of his Republican senators something to vote for. So now they’re all voting for this garbage White House package that would be terrible for immigrants and it fully funds Trump’s five billion plus request for the wall instead of making them vote for the house passed legislation.

VALLAS: Which so many in the media just to call this out are totally framing in this BS both sides kind of thing, where it’s like well, we need to come agreement and everyone needs to come to the table and everyone’s bearing some sort of blame for this shutdown. Let’s be really clear, I think we’ve said it on every episode in 2019 so far where we’ve talked about the shutdown but it just bears repeating at every turn because so many in the media are doing this both sides thing in such unforgivable ways. This has always been Trump’s shutdown and he said it even before he shutdown the government, how gleeful he would be, how prepared he was to do it and how he would own this if it was to come to pass.

BOLT: And without getting too far into the details, I think it’s worth underscoring that the legislation that has passed the house is compromise legislation. It does have another $1.3 billion for fencing along the border. A lot of progressive groups are not happy about that and yet it’s in there. The proposal coming out of the White House is not a compromise. It is $5.7 billion for the wall, it’s more agent, more detention beds, effectively barring Central American kids from claiming asylum, that’s not compromise and so I agree Rebecca, there’s so much in the media particularly this week saying well both sides just need to come together here, we have a both sides product, it’s the bill that passed the house. And the senate should pass it. so what we’ve done, like I said we had the national call in day on Wednesday we drove over 10,000 phone calls in one day, it’s the single biggest day of advocacy calling since we got the tools to track it at Indivisible and already we’re seeing that it’s working. Just before we taped the show we heard that Cory Gardner, senator from Colorado, a Republican senator said he’ll break with Trump and vote with Democrats to open the government without wall funding. We expect to pick up maybe a few more, Senator Murkowski, Senator Collins, not enough for the legislation to pass but it is a positive sign we’re seeing that this advocacy is working and that Republicans are starting to move and not only saying the right things but also vote the right way. And we’re not done, we had the call-in day Wednesday but we also have a national day of action next week on Tuesday, we’re partnering with our friends at MoveOn and others to have events around the country, distributed events, saying we’ve got to get the government open, shutdown the wall, open the government, you can go to indivisible.org and find your nearest event so you can join in.

VALLAS: That’s January 29th is that national day of action, shout out to MoveOn as you said, one of the lead organizations joining with you guys and others and driving that national day of action. People might be going January 29th, I feel like that was a day that had something else scheduled to happen, oh right Chad, that was going to be the State of the Union.

BOLT: Yes.

VALLAS: But it’s not going to be the State of the Union because Nancy Pelosi is really good at her job. Speaker Pelosi said Trump if you don’t open the friggin’ government and do your job, I’m not going to let you come to the house floor to give this speech and Trump played some brinksmanship, tried to find other venues, scrambled thought he would maybe do it over in the Senate where he has some more friends and ultimately gave in and said fine, fine, I’ll wait to give my speech until I reopen the government, womp, womp, with his Eeyore voice.

BOLT: Some back and forth on this this week, so to really quickly get into the nerdy details. So technically a president has to be invited by congress to come give this joint address, the State of the Union and fans of the West Wing will remember this came up on the show, season 1, episode 12, “He Shall from Time to Time”.

VALLAS: God I can’t believe you know which episode it is but Chad I have to say, for all of the shit that I have given you over the years about the TV you have not seen you just earned so much back by actually having been a West Wing watcher although some of the things that Aaron Sorkin has said recently aside, he’s not exact on my good list this week, that’s a separate conversation. But please continue West Wing.

BOLT: Look, your fave is problematic. But so fans of the show will remember this, thank you Rebecca I brought receipts so I could get some credit back for TV that I never watched.

VALLAS: Deeply needed receipts.

BOLT: So congress has to technically invite the president and Nancy Pelosi in her last correspondence to Trump said we will not pass the usually pro forma resolution that invites you until the government reopens. And Trump responded and said womp, womp. Alright, I’ll come after the government reopens. So that’s the latest on that, so the 29th, not the day of the State of the Union but it is out national day of action so indivisible.org is where you can find an event, check out our map and find out how you can plug in.

VALLAS: Lots more on all on all this on the nerdy syllabus page. Don’t go away, more Off Kilter after this very short break, still talking with Chad Bolt but about all the other stuff going on this week that is not to do with the shutdown.

[MUSIC]

You’re listening to Off Kilter, I’m Rebecca Vallas, still talking with Chad Bolt of Indivisible. Chad, in the last few minutes that we have there are actually other things going on besides the shutdown.

BOLT: Boom.

VALLAS: I feel like we need to mention a few of them, some of them are good news, some of them are other things we’re reading but let’s tick through some of those to give people a little bit of a break and an antidote to some of the shutdown horse racing. So let’s go to some good news coming out of congress, we have some committee assignments that are totally worth adding to our oh my God, we’re so excited and fangirling over these committee assignments list that we started last week. Because boom, the House Financial Services Committee announced its’ assignments and now it’s going to be on boom, House Oversight.

BOLT: Yes this is the committee in the house that is formally charged with oversight over government and that’s across government. So they can get into whatever oversight they want, no matter what the issue is. They’re not limited to a certain jurisdiction.

VALLAS: Really important check in particularly on the president, right?

BOLT: Yes, absolutely. I mean when the house was controlled by Republicans it’s like the pretended that they had no oversight responsibilities. The activities were not taking place in any meaningful way. So oversight is back, boom, and we’ve got some really exciting names added to the list of members who are going to be on the Oversight Committee chaired by Elijah Cummings from Maryland who really is just so good at this. He’s been doing oversight for a number of years in congress, he’s been the ranking member on the committee, folks may remember he was the top Democrat on the shame Benghazi committee that Republicans put together under dweeby Trey Gowdy. So we’ve got Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez —

VALLAS: Woo!

BOLT: Rashida Thlaib —

VALLAS: Woo!

BOLT: Ayanna Pressley —

VALLAS: Yes!

BOLT: These are really, really impressive women who are not afraid to take on this administration. We’ve seen that already without getting into specifics.

VALLAS: Boom oversight is back and I am so frickin’ excited for it.

BOLT: And just to give you a preview, Elijah Cummings at late last year when he knew that he would be taking over this committee previewed the kinds of things he’d be investigating and so I’m just going to give you a top six.

VALLAS: Oh do it, give us a teaser.

BOLT: So we’ve got response to hurricanes in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin islands, family separations, the Flint water crisis, security clearances given out to Trump administration officials, White House and cabinet member travel, remember that’s been a problem.

VALLAS: Oh yeah!

BOLT: For a number of different folks. Misconduct at the EPA, whistleblower protections and compliance the Federal Records Act, the Presidential Records Act and more, I hope that they decide to look into ACA sabotage, there’s any number of things that they could look into but it sounds like they are really going to hit the ground running.

VALLAS: Do you hope that they look into Trump’s tax returns, Chad?

BOLT: I sure do hope that they look at Trump’s tax returns. And there is one committee in particular who has unique authority to seek Trump’s tax returns, that’s the House Ways and Means Committee, Hello Richie Neal, we need you boyfriend. We need Richie Neal to use his existing authority to obtain the tax returns because there’s so much we can learn. Find out to what degree Trump has paid the taxes he legally owes, find out to what extent he has foreign business entanglements that present a conflict of interest when he’s conducting foreign policy on behalf of the United States. Figure out how much he personally is benefiting from the tax law that he pushed through congress with his Republican enablers. This really gets at a norm of our democracy that Trump has broken, he broke decades of precedent by not releasing his tax returns. And the American people have a right to know everything that we could learn from seeing them, so I do hope Richie Neal will make quick work of using the authority he’s got to help us.

VALLAS: And while Chad is carefully dismounting from his soap box there I will just let you known that that weekly why Trump’s tax returns need to be released minute was brought to you by Indivisible. So other good news and actually good news for a change on the healthcare front that I am really, really excited to share with our listeners comes to us from Maine where we have a new Democratic governor who was very quick to throw former Maine Governor Paul LePage’s agenda in the trash when it comes to Medicaid and instead to listen to her state’s voters who said loudly and clearly we want to see this program expanded, not cut. Chad, what did we just learn that Governor Janet Mills is going to do?

BOLT: I think this is where we use the hashtag #ElectionsHaveConsequences, back in 2016 by ballot Maine voters wanted to expand Medicaid but the Republican Governor LePage just refused to it, finally he said he’d do some version of it but he wanted to implement measures that he calls work requirements that we call measures to take healthcare away from people who can’t get enough hours at work.

VALLAS: Because that’s what they actually are.

BOLT: Janet Mills came in and said no we’re not going to implement these measures instead we’re going to expand job training programs but we recognize that the first thing that people need to do when they’re trying to get back to work is have stable health care. And so she is implementing the will of the voters, expanding Medicaid in Maine, really exciting stuff.

VALLAS: Meanwhile, I feel like we need to ring the shame bell here for a little bit for someone in our own backyard, that is Mayor Muriel Bowser, DC mayor and so a little bit of an in our own backyard moment here. There has been movement on the front to decriminalize poverty here in DC and one of those specific initiatives was actually a measure that would have decriminalized so-called fare evasion on the Metro, so hoping over the subway dividers without paying. And that was a measure that had succeeded, Muriel Bowser turned around and vetoed it and now we’ve actually watched DC Council step up and overturn her veto. What was going on there, Chad?

BOLT: Yeah Rebecca I wish I could tell you. I have no idea what was going through her head it was clear that the votes were there to override her veto but for some reason she felt like it was a good idea to make a political statement about criminalizing people over two dollar bus fare, three dollar metro fare. I was really pleased to see the council send such a strong message that this should be a civil offense and not a criminal one. There’s no need to give somebody a criminal record over this level of offense.

VALLAS: Hey Will, can we ring the shame bell, is that a sound effect that we have? OK, good we have one now, so let’s ring that shame bell, shame!

[GONG]

[“SHAME”]

Shame to Bowser. Ok so Chad we are running so short on time because there was so much to talk about on this shutdown but we would be remiss if we did not do a quick moment on one of the big stories that we’re reading today which was actually an op-ed in The New York Times on progressive taxation and why it matters to a healthy democracy.

BOLT: Yeah we talked a little bit last week about a proposal from Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez to raise marginal tax rates, that’s tax rates on extremely high incomes.

VALLAS: People who make more than $10 million a year, which might be Wilbur Ross and his velvet loafer clad friends.

BOLT: God, you took the words right out of my mouth.

VALLAS: Did I? Sorry but not sorry.

BOLT: So raising taxes on the extremely wealthy, that is a measure that restores a degree of economic fairness to the tax code but it’s also good for our democracy because keep in mind that because of the relationship, the strong relationship between wealth and power, taxing the wealthy actually guards against oligarchy, taxing the wealth reduces the concentration of wealth in this country and by extension reduces the concentration of power. And it actually makes me think back to what we were talking about earlier about how the powerful in this country, the wealthy have access to this administration. And so the alcohol industry can call up their friends in the Treasury Department with whom they have a direct line of communication and say hey, we need some approvals even though the government is shutdown so can you call back the workers that we need to give to give our industry the approvals we need and Mnuchin says yeah sure, we’ll take a look, we’ll figure out how to get them back. That is not the case with native populations who are seeing their flow of support from the government cut off that they rely on to keep their police forces going, their road maintenance going, it was not the case as Rebecca you said earlier for domestic violence survivors, it’s not the case for folks who rely on housing from federally subsidized rental programs. All of these folks, it’s not a coincidence that the government is ignoring them and isn’t doing anything about the effects of the shutdown for them, it’s because they are not wealthy and therefore they are not powerful but as you reduce the concentration of wealth by taxing the wealthy and other measures you reduce the concentration of power, that’s good for democracy.

VALLAS: And I want to give a shoutout to Vanessa Williamson, senior fellow at Brookings who is also the author of “Read My Lips: Why Americans are Proud to Pay Taxes”, I’ve had her on the show before actually talking about the massive popularity of raising taxes on the wealthiest people in this country and she had a really, really important Twitter thread that we’ll have on our nerdy syllabus page actually talking about and putting in broader context, historical context the great fear on the part of conservatives to raising taxes on the wealthy or to systems of progressive taxation overall because they understand the role that that plays in a healthy democracy and their inability to engage in pay for play. I’m going to actually point out and Vanessa, I would love to have you back on the show talking especially about some of these nerdier historical pieces that you point out in this thread, but she points out that looking back quite some time here. Used to be a federal income tax required a constitutional amendment because an entire earlier generation of oligarchs feared taxes on their wealth, she also points out that slaveholders limited the federal government’s taxing power, not because taxes endangered liberty but because taxes endangered slavery. So check out her thread on our syllabus page and Vanessa let’s get you back on the show talking about some of this stuff. Chad I want to close out with the job posting of the week, which I am particularly excited about.

BOLT: Oo, new feature.

VALLAS: one that I think is definitely worth keeping as a usual so let’s make this a thing. So this week really excited to share that Philip Alston the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights is hiring legal interns to work with him this summer over with him on his portfolio working on poverty and human rights across the global including in the United States. You guys may remember why I am so excited about this particular legal internship opportunity for you aspiring public interest lawyers who care about poverty and that’s because Philip Alston is the UN Special Rapporteur who wrote that really fire emoji, fire emoji, fire emoji, fire emoji report last year, had him on the show talking about it about poverty and inequality in the United States in which he laid bare how the U.S. has third world conditions of poverty in many communities while also taking aim at the Trump agenda to make the rich richer and make the poor poorer. Special rapporteur Alston I am very excited to share this fantastic opportunity with listeners in case they are people who or know people who might be interested in going to work with you. So Chad I wish we had a lot more time because there’s other things we didn’t get to.

BOLT: There’s so much more to talk about.

VALLAS: But good thing I’ll have you back next week, folks may have noticed, one thing we didn’t talk about at all was the MAGA hat kids and that whole kerfuffle and you know what? We did that on purpose, we did that on purpose and for anyone who’s curious to read or retweet anything about that whole incident we have put an item on our nerdy syllabus page which is an interview with Nathan Phillips the Native American elder who was accosted and treated massively disrespectfully by a mob of MAGA hat kids. Really, really fantastic interview with him over in Indian Country Today that to me is the only thing that is worth reading and retweet about the entire incident.

BOLT: Couldn’t have said it better myself.

VALLAS: Chad, see you next week.

BOLT: Rebecca I thought you were going to say we got through this whole segment without mentioning Jeremy Slevin.

VALLAS: Oh, yeah, that too, well.

BOLT: Hey Slevs.

VALLAS: I guess we still miss you because Chad just mentioned you but we found other stuff to talk about this week, hope that’s ok with you. Chad, see you next week.

BOLT: See you next week.

[MUSIC]

VALLAS: You’re listening to Off Kilter, I’m Rebecca Vallas. With more than one in five of the cities residents living below the federal poverty line, twice the national average, Philadelphia ranks at the poorest big city in the country. Philly is also home to the nation’s highest deep poverty rate of any major city: 14 percent of Philadelphians live in deep poverty, meaning income of less than half the federal poverty line, that’s below $6,000 a year for a single individual or about $12,000 a year for a family of four. Dramatically reducing poverty in Philly featured prominently in Jim Kenney’s campaign for mayor and has been a major priority of his administration since he took office in 2016. Folks who listen to this show know I’m not just a recovering legal aid lawyer but a Philly legal aid lawyer so it’s my great pleasure to sit down with Mayor Kenney about what some his administration has been able to accomplish so far and the work that lies ahead. Mayor Kenney, thanks so much for taking the time to join the show.

MAYOR JIM KENNEY: Thank you, my pleasure.

VALLAS: So addressing poverty as I said was a major rallying cry, not just in your campaign but actually in your victory speech in November 2015, and that’s what really put you on my radar, many other anti-poverty radar early in your time as mayor of Philly. So take us back a little bit in time to when you were elected. What emerged to you as the challenges ahead as you were taking office as the mayor of poorest big city in the U.S.?

KENNEY: The fact that too many of our children when they graduate, if they graduate from high school, they don’t get to college, many of them, if they graduate from high school are not prepared to work in a job that can sustain a family or sustain themselves. And then they wind up going in directions that we don’t want to see them go, down the route of drug sales and drug use, getting themselves into situations where they can wind up incarcerated or dead or at least not living a fulfilled life. So we decided to, even though it’s going to be a long haul, we need to have our children ready for school. And that’s pre-K and it’s quality pre-K and we passed the only beverage tax in the nation and the soda guys are still at it trying to preempt us in Harrisburg and trying to maybe run somebody against me in this years election so they can get their soda tax money back. We believe that that is an appropriate way to raise revenue for early education and we believe that it’s not an item, it’s not a product that you need to have or need to drink. As a matter of fact, it’s probably better off if you don’t drink it. And the soda companies have been advertising in low income neighborhoods for generations and overadvertise and we have higher incidents of diabetes and obesity. And we thought that that was a win-win for everyone. We now have 4,000 children in quality pre-K, we created over 300 jobs in the early childhood education space. We’ve allowed mostly women owned and women of color owned businesses in the pre-K case and daycare space to expand, to hire more people. And it’s working well. We’re also concentrating on our schools, our elementary and high schools by creating community school models inside their schools so that the issues facing families and neighbors around the school, kids that go to the school can be addressed like food insecurity, dental issues, mental health issues, physical health issues, clothing, you name it, whatever the community school, people who live around the school and go to the school say that they need, we try to find those resources. We put community school coordinators in twelve schools now throughout the city, we’re going to expand that to 25 and try to address the base problems that people have growing up in poor neighborhoods. So that by the time they’re getting out of high school with a good education, have been prepared for third and fourth grade reading levels and they’re moving on through elementary school and into high school, they’ll have an opportunity to go to college. They’ll have an opportunity to go to a training program to get a job, whether it’s with their hands or with their head or with both to make a living that is appropriate for raising a family and buying a home and doing the things we all want to see people do.

VALLAS: Now a big part of why you’re actually at the Center for American Progress today and you and I are talking after you just came off of CAP’s event stage, you were here talking about affordable housing and homelessness. This has been a big part of what your administration has prioritized with the affordable housing crisis touching Philadelphia among many other cities across this country. Would you talk a little bit about how you have sought to address the affordable housing crisis in Philly?

KENNEY: One of the things I’ve learn is that we have an affordable housing crisis in Philadelphia but it’s the level of crisis that a city like San Francisco or Oakland or cities in California are facing because of the high number of jobs that were created in the tech sector and non-investment in building housing adequate enough to house everybody affordably. We’ve been working with our Philadelphia Housing Authority which is the largest landlord in Pennsylvania to come up with new facilities for veterans, for seniors, for families, workforce housing and also working with our CDCs and our private non-profits along with our for-profit development folks to have more inclusionary housing, to have incentives for setbacks and for density, to include affordable housing in market rate development we’ve raised revenue streams, we have a tax abatement in Philadelphia for commercial and residential real estate. The properties are coming off those tax abatements, the money being paid in real estate taxes from then on will go into a housing trust fund, I think we project $53, $54 million this year. We’ve committed another $20 million into that pot of money to build affordable housing and we’ve raised the transfer tax in Philadelphia and use those proceeds for that revenue to go into the housing trust fund for rehabilitation of existing housing so people’s roofs are leaking or heaters don’t work anymore, the basic repair system, basic system of repair to keep people from losing their homes or having to move out because it’s not livable.

VALLAS: A big part of that last part of what you were just talking about, helping people make sure that they can stay in their homes if they already are in safe and stable homes is about preventing eviction, that’s a big part of what your administration has done as well.

KENNEY: We just signed a bill this week which would, good cause, I think it’s a good cause, eviction requirements so that landlords can’t simply tell everybody that their lease is broken now because they neighbors are gentrifying and he can get more rent in that building as opposed to letting the people who are there stay there. So you have to have a good cause to end a lease. And those kinds of, we also have a pretty robust intervention system when it comes to mortgage foreclosure and eviction. Our mortgage court does a good job in bringing together the creditor and the owner of the house to work out their issues so they don’t have to foreclose and put people on the street.

VALLAS: And an eviction task force is part of what you’ve led as well.

KENNEY: Correct, we just want, we need to build more houses, we need to build more affordable housing but we also need to keep people, when they are in an apartment or in a home, keep them from being evicted from there.

VALLAS: Now something that people might now think of as a traditional poverty issue but which your administration has prioritized tremendously and actually really showcased as a poverty issue is the challenge of improving public spaces. What has that been about?

KENNEY: Well we looked at a lot of our infrastructure went it comes to recreation centers and libraries for example in neighborhoods that are struggling that have been, they’re old centers, they’ve been 60, 70, 80 years old, they haven’t really seen any type of major renovations or reconstruction in decades and we felt it was an issue of equity that if you live in a struggling neighborhood and you’re going to a struggling school that we’re trying to correct, and after school you have to go to a library where the roof leaks and the heat don’t work or a rec center that’s falling down around you, there’s a sense of hopelessness the children have that no one really cares about them and their facilities are terrible and they grow up with that feeling that life doesn’t really matter and what I do or how long I live isn’t an issue. And we want to change that mindset.

VALLAS: Workforce development, you talked a little bit before about the importance of investing in programs and schools and policies that enable our nation’s future workforce to enter the workforce ready but workforce development for people who are already in adulthood has also been a major priority.

KENNEY: We’ve revamped our workforce development group and are concentrating on job training for industries that are expecting to hire folks, there’s no sense, I also say if you have a college degree in history unless you teach or write, there’s not much you can do with that degree so we want to make sure we give people the training necessary. We work with the building trades to expand the compliment of people of color within the building trades and get them the training they need to apprentice and then to become journey folks in those unions and they’ve been very cooperative and helpful. We’ve increased the numbers already in a short period of time. We’re working with other industries like long shore, unloading ships and the like where you really don’t need a college education but you can make $25, $30 an hour with benefits and healthcare, teaching people the skills to operate the equipment and the cranes and those kinds of things so that they’re ready. Working with our community college to revamp the curriculum there to teach and to train for the jobs of the next 20, 30, 40 years. Getting more access to IT, to technology, which is extremely important, those are the jobs of the future. So we’re working, at every level we’re working with people coming back from incarcertation. We have a program in our prison now where we have a group of folks that teach the young men and women to write code so that they can leave the facility with a portfolio of work to do a job interview. So we’re paying attention to the things that we need to pay attention to get people the skills and training they need to actually have a job that matters.

VALLAS: I really appreciate you mentioning criminal justice reform, and in particular removing barriers to employment for people with records as really part and parcel of what your city’s workforce development strategy has been and a big part of what I’ve really appreciated from your leadership in the city has been your support of clean slate, which now put Pennsylvania on the map as the first state with automatic record clearing for certain people.

KENNEY: I started out, when I was still in city council by decriminalizing possession of marijuana for personal use, small amounts because our kids were being arrested, there were 4,200 people arrested on average a year. 83% of those were people of color and you wind up with an arrest record and it’s almost impossible to get a job when you have an arrest record. So cleaning up those old charges and the like is important and I think that we’ve over incarcerated our communities in general. And specifically people of color we need to stop doing that, we actually closed a prison this year which is something that I’m very proud of and was accused, when I was running in 2015 of looking to buy land to build a new prison and told them that I swore I wasn’t going to do that, we’re going to close the house of correction and we did. So we’re 3,000 plus less in our prison system than it has been. We’re looking at the work with the court system and the DA to get rid of cash bail to get rid of the fees and fines that people have to pay when they get out of jail, because they have to work and they wind up getting their wages garnished on fees and fines and they leave the job and go back to their old ways because it’s not worth it. looking to raise the minimum wage in Philadelphia, we’ve done it with our contractors, the employees of our contractors, I talked to a young man who got out of prison, got a job at $8 an hour and after two weeks he looked at his paycheck and he said why am I going to work, I’m not making $8 an hour I’m probably making $4 an hour once the taxes are taken out of it and you get frustrated and go back to the way to make some quick cash but in a dangerous way.

VALLAS: So I want to back up for a second and ask you a couple of questions about some of the things that maybe have stood in your way as you’ve been seeking to accomplish these goals and you’ve described a lot of incredible progress that’s been made just in a couple of years but the challenges that really were facing you as you took office some were known, some were Philadelphia specific, some were actually the broader political climate that you were taking office during. And of course, big elephant in the room there, Trump in the White House, what has been like being the mayor of a progressive city with an ambitious set of priorities on these issues when you’ve got Trump in the White House actively trying to undermine everything that you’re doing?

KENNEY: It’s been a struggle. We’ve from immigration and undocumented residents of our city, ICE and their shenanigans and scaring the be-Jesus out of people, our immigrant community, whether they’re documented or not, not wanting to come forward to cooperate with the police in investigations of crime that they may have witnessed or may have been a victim of. Just the general unwelcoming attitude of this country now towards people who are different than the white Anglo-Saxon protestant Europeans that took the land away from the Native Americans in the first place but I always say even the pilgrims were refugees and if it weren’t for the Native Americans teaching them how to grow corn and farm, they would have starved to death the first couple of winters they were here. So this attitude that somehow this is our country and we’re going to make America great again and we’re going to take our country back, it was never your country in the first place. So that whole attitude is terrible, the whole attitude of this clear racist, misogynist attitude the president foments, puts out there in the public realm, giving people who think that way but never would say those things. Now giving them license to say and act in a racist or rude way. I just think overall it’s been a struggle. They’ve given us a hard time on issues that we’re trying to do relative to the opioid crisis. The discussion of safe injection sites which in Europe and Canada, Toronto and Montreal, Vancouver keep people alive which I think is one of our major responsibilities is to keep people from killing themselves or dying. Threatening to lock people up and come down on the city, on the narcotics stuff, just everything that comes out of there, there’s nothing positive that comes out of there. When he was running, he was talking about infrastructure and all this other, I haven’t heard infrastructure other than a stupid wall. That’s the only infrastructure he’s interested in building. So we have lots of needs, we’re not getting help from them and honestly we’re not getting a lot of help from our state government either. Our governor is a wonderful person and he works hard and he cares about Philadelphia, he cares about other cities in the state but for some reason there’s this attitude among too many legislators that we don’t want to fund education. And that’s the craziest thing. Even China, a totalitarian country has free universities to teach STEM and engineering and science and technology and they know and that’s why they’re cleaning our clocks because it’s too expensive for many kids to go to college these days or if you do go you come out with so much debt you can’t swim. So I believe, my aspirational goal if I were governor of Pennsylvania or president of the United States would be for all public educational institutions to be free. That would be an aspirational goal but certainly not going up, up, up every year. Kids decide they can’t go and then they wind up settling for a job that they really didn’t have to settle for if they had a higher education.

VALLAS: We’re talking on day 34 of the longest government shutdown in United States history. the shutdown is in ways that we’ve talked about extensively on this show taking a toll on the communities least able to afford it. how is the shutdown playing out in Philly?

KENNEY: There’s about 10,000 federal workers in Philadelphia and they’re struggling and suffering and not only are they struggling to pay their bills and to eat but there’s long term impact for these folks. Their credit ratings are going to be in the tank, they’re not going to be able to borrow money, they’re not going to be able to get a car loan. All these things that this guy Trump doesn’t think about because he’s never had to fend for himself. He’s always had his daddy to take care of him, keep him out of Vietnam like people in our city during the Vietnam war we lost 64 men from one high school, Thomas Edison high school and 27 from two other Catholic high schools. So Philadelphia gave a lot to the Vietnam war and Trump just doesn’t get it but what working people have to go through because he never was a working person and never had to struggle for a meal.

VALLAS: What’s the work that you see as lying ahead for your administration that you haven’t been able to get over the finish line yet but that you want to be prioritizing in the next couple of years?

KENNEY: Well I need to get reelected so that I don’t get beat by someone that’s going to repeal the beverage tax, which I don’t think is going to happen. And we have to fight off the state legislature with a preemption bill and we have to fight off the beverage industry with their nonsense and misdirection and misinformation that they put out there to gin people up. That’s one continued fight. We have to continue to find ways to fund our public schools and we’re not waiting for superman or superwoman to fly in and save us. We’re actually putting city money up, new money up for our schools. We respect our teachers, we have a solid teachers contract that has been good for both sides and we’ve had pretty much labor peace in our city because I treat workers with respect. I’m not looking to nickel and dime them every year so that they need to expand their families and give their families a better life and they work hard. I would say if you don’t think city workers work hard then you should stand behind a sanitation truck for five or six days a week in the winter and in the summer and see how that job is so we need to treat our city workers with respect and our labor unions with respect. I’m very much a pro-labor union person and I think that’s the best way to ensure your best wages and working conditions possible. Healthcare, pension, the labor movement in this country has brought us really far, we have a five day work week because of that. We don’t have children working in factories. We have health care, we have pension and I think that that’s been a great opportunity for middle class people, for poor people to go into the middle class and that’s what we struggle with everyday.

VALLAS: I’ve been speaking with Mayor Jim Kenney, he is the mayor of Philadelphia, the poorest big city in the United States.

KENNEY: We’re not poor in spirit though.

VALLAS: Oh no you’re not and you’re the city city I miss living in every single day. A bunch of mayors are all in DC right now talking to each other about what they’re all working on. What are you hearing? What’s the buzz among mayors and what are you hoping they take away from Philly and what they’ve done?

KENNEY: It’s the Trump administration, it’s the midterm elections that took back the house, it’s how tough Nancy Pelosi is and how awesome she is.

VALLAS: Amen.

KENNEY: She’s something and what do we have to do in 2020 to take back the senate and boot this guy out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and get back to a normal America again. I’ve had, and this is not partisan. I think one of the greatest Americans who ever lived is Dwight Eisenhower. I think he was a better president then he got credit for and he kept us from speaking German by picking June 6th as the day as opposed to June 5th or June 7th so I’m not partisan in that regard. I respect conservative values, I can respect wanting to be conservative with public finances and stuff and we can argue about that and we can have that tug of war but this guy is beyond the pale and we’re losing our credibility around the world, we’re losing our concern and care for each other, becoming more vocally angry and vocally mean and it’s not the America that I want to live in.

VALLAS: Me either and it’s part of why I’ve been really excited to sit down with you and hear about some of the fantastic stuff that you’ve been able to get done in just a couple of short years.

KENNEY: We’ve still got a way to go and we’re working on it everyday and we’re trying to create employment, trying to create programs for people to be able to be trained to be able to take those jobs and we need to get our babies educated. We need to have that child at 3 or 4 years old have a positive, high level experience in pre-K so that they were ready for kindergarten and there’s been great stories about these kids that have had two years of pre-K and are really blooming in kindergarten and first grade and you can see the difference in them, they’re prepared now.

VALLAS: I’ve been speaking with Mayor Jim Kenney of Philadelphia, Mayor Kenney thank you so much for taking the time.

KENNEY: Thank you, my pleasure, nice to see 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.