Democracy Depends on the Senate
January 13, 2022
The Filibuster Must Go
Just passed by the House, the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act is now off to the Senate.
The stakes for our democracy—and economy—could not be higher. And the 52 senators still defending the filibuster are endangering both.
As Roosevelt’s Shahrzad Shams and Trisha Maharaj argue, some of those senators are directly contradicting their previous filibuster stances.
“Any senator who believed the filibuster should not be allowed to undermine our economy when it came to the debt ceiling should apply that same logic not only to protect voting rights but to counter all antidemocratic policies,” they write.
“They should not allow this archaic procedural tool to continue obstructing a truly multiracial democracy.”
Combating Today’s Rent Crisis
This week’s inflation numbers confirmed trends Roosevelt experts have noted throughout 2021.
“Continued COVID disruptions on the supply and demand sides continue to drive the major contributions to inflation this month as we’ve seen over the past year,” Roosevelt’s Lauren Melodia explains.
Among the biggest contributors this month: housing.
The solutions, as Sammi Aibinder and Lindsay Owens wrote in a Roosevelt brief: massive investment in affordable housing and rent stabilization policies.
“This approach must start with, at the bare minimum, passing the Build Back Better agenda with its proposed investments in housing supply.”
What We’re Reading
The US Economy Has Been “More than Fine” without Your Student Debt – Business Insider
A New Era for the American Worker – Vox
Why Interest Rates Aren’t Really the Right Tool to Control Inflation – MarketWatch