Depends on your definition of progressive, I'm sure. According to The Nation, CAP is a DC think tank founded by John Podesta and now run by Neera Tanden. Yes, that Podesta, The Man Behind the Clinton Campaign. Tanden took over from Podesta, although he is still associated with the group. CAP used to be focused on helping Hillary win, so obviously they have needed a new mission for quite some time. They keep their donors secret, as they are not required by law to disclose donors. As The Nation sees it:
“The only thing more damaging than disclosing your donors and having questions raised about the independence of your work is not disclosing them and have the information come to light and undermine your work”
- snip -
Nowadays, many Washington think tanks effectively serve as unregistered lobbyists for corporate donors, and companies strategically contribute to them... think tanks are not subject to financial disclosure requirements, so they reveal their donors only if they choose to. That makes it impossible for the public and lawmakers to know if a think tank is putting out an impartial study or one that’s been shaped by a donor’s political agenda.
- snip -
Most think tanks are nonprofit organizations, so a donor can even get a nice tax break for contributing. But it’s their reputation for impartiality and their web of contacts that makes them especially useful as policy advocates.
Reputations for impartiality, yet far from impartial. Nice PR if you can get it.
We found out what CAP didn’t want us to know about them after the leaked emails were released, in October of 2016. According to The Intercept:
“Substantively, we have not supported $15 — you will get a fair number of liberal economists who will say it will lose jobs,” she [Neera Tanden] wrote back. “Most of rest seems fine (obviously trade sticks out). Politically, we are not getting any pressure to join this from our end. I leave it to you guys to judge what that means for you. But I’m not sweating it.”
Bear in mind this was only two weeks after thousands of workers in over 200 U.S. cities took part in demonstrations asking for $15 an hour.
And here we thought it was only Trumpsters who pretended protests didn’t mean anything.
I posted this in a comment and ban nock let me know that Tanden has had “a come to Jesus” moment and now not only supports a “living wage” of $15/hour, but advocates that we support it with millions of government jobs. Thank you, ban nock! Sure enough, she writes about it at the CAP website here:
We propose a large-scale, permanent program of public employment and infrastructure investment—similar to the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression but modernized for the 21st century….
Such an expanded public employment program could, for example, have a target of maintaining the employment rate for prime-age workers without a bachelor’s degree at the 2000 level of 79 percent. Currently, this would require the creation of 4.4 million jobs. At a living wage—which we can approximate as $15 per hour plus the cost of contributions to Social Security and Medicare via payroll taxes—the direct cost of each job would be approximately $36,000 annually. Thus, a rough estimate of the costs of this employment program would be about $158 billion in the current year. This is approximately one-quarter of Trump’s proposed tax cut for the wealthy on an annual basis.
This is close to advocating for a living wage for every full-time worker, as we should. She concludes:
A bold jobs plan will not come at the expense of the civil rights of any group—in fact, it will buttress these rights. To make progress on both fronts, we need far-reaching policy solutions to create family-sustaining jobs and better prepare workers to fill them, particularly in communities hit hard by offshoring, automation, and growing market concentration. Additionally, these solutions and jobs need to reach the communities that were left behind long ago. These areas should be our top priority over the next few years.
Note how Tanden combines economic rights and civil rights and communities left behind. Many here want to deemphasize economic priorities in favor of civil rights priorities, but I think Tanden has the right idea here — they are inextricably linked.
By the way, if you’re going to refuse to invite Bernie because the conference is all about “the new generation,” I don’t have a problem with that. But it might be a good idea also to not invite Nancy Pelosi, who when thinking of a person of great humility can only come up with King Solomon!
But I’m not sure that a lot of what went on at the conference will matter. This was an establishment Democratic conference trying to maintain the establishment in the face of newer, younger Democrats and independents who are pushing for policies that are more progressive than ever. As such, in time it is likely to be irrelevant and, fortunately for those who said stupid stuff there, little remembered. Unlike, say, Kos, Neera Tanden at least pays lip service to our ideals. Now. Finally. But I suspect the CAP conference was just another pained roar as the dinosaurs diminish in power, whilst the young grassroots dissed by Kos take over one local election at a time.
Please discuss. Let’s call this an open thread, so you can broaden the topic as you choose.