The Bill of Rights has been a central touchstone for Americans throughout history, especially when faced with existential challenges to the legitimacy of American government.
Trump’s recent comments against immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti and Africa are indeed shocking but remember, they are not inconsistent with his policies.
As the Trump Administration takes the unprecedented action of de-legalizing nearly a million residents, a Clean DREAM Act with TPS is urgent—leaders of both parties in Congress must act.
Last year, Americans took over 10 billion trips on public transportation. These were trips to work, to school, to stores, to health care, to places of worship, and elsewhere. For millions of Americans, their quality of life rests on the quality of public transit.
This Tuesday’s election was a mandate for inclusive democracy. Black and Latino voters turned out in record numbers to defeat candidates endorsed by Trump, who ran on his platform of fear and exclusion.
Democrats have all kinds of ways of addressing this problem. One would be to cultivate the class identity of white voters by embracing populist rhetoric that paints “the billionaire class” as an out-group they can define themselves against. Another would be to invest more resources into registering nonwhite voters. According to the Census Bureau, 74 percent of non-Hispanic whites are registered to vote in the United States.
Congress’ job is to tell the American people exactly what happened in 2016, take action to prevent similar interference going forward, and hold publicly accountable anyone who acted illegally or simply counter to the public interest.
Many Americans believe that we have achieved black-white racial economic equality, but the data continue to show that we have a long way to go. For centuries, we have had policies to help white families build wealth at the expense of black families.
Even before the Equifax breach, the integrity of credit reports was murky at best. A Federal Trade Commission report found that as many as one in five consumers had a credit error from one of the top reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion). But the fundamental problem isn’t data integrity—it’s economic justice. According to a survey by the think tank Demos, declining credit was associated more with misfortunes and unforeseeable crises than with a lack of financial responsibility.
The Congressional Black Caucus budget should be implemented because it calls for racial equity in future infrastructure and investments; improving public transit infrastructure, noting that people of color are heavy users of it; and school infrastructure, saying that modernized buildings held reduce achievements gaps.