Elaine Kamarck, Alexander Podkul, and Nicholas Zeppos for the Brookings Institution: As the 2018 primary season moved into high gear this month with contests in Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia, both wings of the Democratic Party have reason to celebrate.
The progressive wing of the Democratic Party, most recently associated with the presidential candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders, is providing a boost of activism and energy to the Democrats. In a year when we are seeing a large increase in the number of Democratic candidates, we also are seeing a very large increase in the percentage of self-identified progressive Democrats running in primaries.
Compared to 2016 and 2014, the number of progressive candidates … has increased sharply in all of the states that have had primaries, with the exception of West Virginia.
The fact that these candidates are not usually engaging in a civil war within the Democratic Party is also good news for the left side of the aisle. To take control of the House, Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats. If the newly energized progressive candidates were challenging Democrats in safe seats, their actions would probably not lose the seat for the Democrats but they could weaken the incumbent and prompt the need for more resources in what was a safe district. Even more concerning, was the possibility that progressives would challenge Democrats in Democratic-leaning districts on the grounds that they were insufficiently liberal. This kind of challenge could cost Democrats seats in a year when they should be gaining seats.
Instead of forming a circular firing squad and endangering Democratic incumbents, progressive challengers have tended to run in districts where there are Republican incumbents or open seats where Republican incumbents have retired. Only eight progressive challengers have run against a sitting Democratic incumbent, compared to more than 60 who have entered a primary for the opportunity to take on a Republican representative this fall.
The case for federal paid leave
Aparna Mathur and Andrew Biggs for the American Enterprise Institute: Labor force participation rates have stalled for American women since the 1990s relative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 35 developed countries. This can be partially attributed to the relative lack of family-friendly workplace policies, including paid parental leave. There are many obvious advantages to having access to paid parental leave, and these are important because there are economic implications for families, but also because we value the ability to balance work and family needs …
While it is vital to experiment with paid leave policies at the state level, having a federal policy will allow for uniformity in access to leave for workers in every state. Even today, 25 years after the Family and Medical Leave Act, only five states and the District of Columbia have adopted paid leave programs. And each state differs in the type of coverage it offers. California does not offer job protection as part of its paid leave program but offers six weeks of paid leave. Rhode Island does include job protection but only offers four weeks.
As a result, even today, access to leave varies dramatically across income groups, regions and industries. Despite some progress at the state level, as of March 2017, only 15 percent of workers have access to defined paid parental and family care leave. …
So there is a clear need for a paid parental leave benefit, especially at the federal level, to guarantee a basic minimum level of coverage for all workers, regardless of which states adopt such policies and the forms that they may take.
How to toll trucks
Robert Poole for the Reason Foundation: The trucking industry depends critically on the Interstate highway system, which has massive needs for reconstruction and for widening dozens of truck-intensive corridors. The American Trucking Association’s incessant calls for a major increase in the federal diesel tax to address this need continue to fail. But to convince the industry that the best (or least bad) way forward is toll financing and public-private partnerships requires a much-improved version of tolling.
The most important provision is that the new tolls would be dedicated — by law — solely to the capital and operating costs of the rebuilt and modernized interstates. This should be included in the federal statute that removes the long-standing federal ban on interstate tolls, as well as in state enabling legislation to permit a state to make use of this new freedom. Since all vehicles using the rebuilt Interstates would benefit, all would pay the new tolls, not just trucks.
The value for trucking could be improved by adding several other provisions. My suggested list includes the following:
• No “double taxation” as occurs today on tolled highways, where customers pay both fuel taxes and tolls. Instead, the electronic tolling system would calculate the amount of fuel consumed on the tolled facility to calculate a rebate of the fuel taxes incurred for those miles.
• Dedicated truck-only lanes in corridors … [that are] truck-intensive. On these barrier-separated lanes, trucking companies could operate more productive longer combination vehicles, which are currently banned in most states on safety grounds.
• Safe overnight parking areas.
• Convenient refueling-recharging services for the coming generation of non-diesel trucks.
• Compiled by Joseph Lawler from research by the various think tanks.
