Medicare Part D #03 - Pelosi Plan - Sept. 2019

If you want to understand what's wrong with the economic debate in this country, start with Elizabeth Warren's magic Medicare For All and worse, her plan for “Accountability Capitalism.” Then add in the pronouncements of Adam Neumann, who was the messianic CEO of the office-sharing company WeWork until he was exposed as a snake oil salesman.

Pacific Gas and Electric of San Francisco began public safety power shutoffs to prevent equipment from starting wildfires. Deadly fires in the last few years have resulted in PG&E being sued for billions of dollars and the company is now bankrupt. These blackouts have left up to nearly three million people without electricity for up to five days.

The House and Senate are in session this week.

The First Step Act has seen success since its passage in December 2018, but much more work remains to be be done at the federal level on criminal justice reform. Several bipartisan bills have been introduced to bring second chances to the formerly incarcerated, including the Fair Chance Act, S. 387 and H.R. 1076; the Clean Slate Act, H.R. 2348; and legislation to expand apprenticeships, H.R. 4369.

Budget process reform has been a frequent discussion in the halls of Congress, with members from both sides of the aisle realizing that something needs to be done to address this problem. In fact, even the disastrous Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 created the Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform to explore ways to fix the broken process and make recommendations for consideration in the Senate. Unfortunately, the joint select committee wasn’t able to produce formal recommendations.