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Theodore Roosevelt offered Americans a "Square Deal." His fifth cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, gave us "The New Deal." Modern Democrats, who have lost election after election, are now offering the country "A Better Deal."

Speaking in Berryville, Virginia, a small town that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump and is represented by a Republican in Congress, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said, "Too many Americans don't know what we stand for."

Actually, they do know and that's why Democrats don't have the White House, why they lost their congressional majority and the reason they are in the minority in most state legislatures and governorships.

Standing on a platform with other aging, hard-left Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the "Better Deal" sounded like warmed over hash. Here's how The New York Times described it: "The policies combine left-leaning doctrine old and new -- a $15-an-hour minimum wage, a crusade against monopolies, and efforts to lower prescription drug costs -- elevating issues Democrats expect to animate next year's midterm elections and supplying an answer to critics who accuse them of offering nothing but obstruction."

It would be nice if one of those monopolies targeted by Democrats were the public schools and the increasingly popular school choice option, which The Wall Street Journal recently noted is working to improve grades of especially poor and minority children. Don't look for that to happen, as Democrats aren't about to give up campaign donations from the teachers unions.

Wasn't the expansion of the Medicare program under President George W. Bush to include prescription drug payments supposed to have reduced costs? Not so. When the government gets involved in almost anything -- from college tuition, to drugs -- costs go up, not down.

As for the $15-an-hour minimum wage suggestion, we have heard this argument from Democrats in previous calls for its increase. A recent Harvard Business School study of restaurants in San Francisco found that every one-dollar increase in the minimum wage led to a 4 to 10 percent increase in the likelihood of a restaurant closing.

A University of Washington study on the minimum wage law's impact on restaurant workers in Seattle found that while hikes accounted for higher wages, the number of hours low-wage earners were allowed to work declined, producing a net loss in earnings. In other words, the restaurant workers earned more before the government mandated a higher minimum wage. Doesn't anyone in government understand basic economics, not to mention human nature?

Nowhere in the unveiling of their "Better Deal" is there any suggestion by Democrats that low-income Americans can, or should, work for the day when they are independent of government. As the party of government, Democrats have addicted millions of people to the notion that they are owed, or "entitled," to other people's money. Theirs is a party of envy, greed and entitlement, pitting the successful -- and envy of them -- against the less successful with little expectation that those at the bottom of the wage scale can, or should, rise from their current circumstances to embrace a better life.

The Times story called the Democrats' announcement "the battle cry of a party in the wilderness." Question: If a Democrat speaks in the wilderness, will anyone hear?

This latest effort to fool voters into believing Democrats have something new to say, or better policies to try, isn't a better deal, it's a raw deal.

Thomas is a columnist with Chicago Tribune.

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Thomas: Democrats offer a raw deal - Quad City Times

By Jared Bernstein By Jared Bernstein July 27 at 6:00 AM

Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist to Vice President Biden, is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and author of the new book 'The Reconnection Agenda: Reuniting Growth and Prosperity.'

The part of the Democrats Better Deal plan that I find most interesting is the piece that would push back on monopolistic corporate power. Its neither radical nor left. I cant say if its particularly good politics (although their internal polling suggests it is). But assuming this proposal eventually grows into something real, its likely to prove to be increasingly important economic policy with significant benefits for working families.

The broad outlines of the plan are to:

Prevent big mergers that would harm consumers, workers, and competition. Require regulators to review mergers after completion to ensure they continue to promote competition. Create a 21st century Trust Buster to stop abusive corporate conduct and the exploitation of market power where it already exists.

But wait. Dont we already have an antitrust function in the Justice Department? Yes, but based on a wide and growing body of evidence, corporate power is still becoming more concentrated, and thats leading to large chunks of market share in the hands of just a few companies.

Those companies, in turn, are generating the classical problems associated with, if not quite monopolies, then the absence of robust competition. These problems include fat profit margins and their correlate, thinner wage shares; less consumer choice; less innovation; less entrepreneurial activity; and less price competition. Theres even evidence suggesting that one of the biggest economic challenges we face right now slow productivity growth is related to the increased concentration of corporate power.

The evidence is pervasive and persuasive. Barry Lynn at the think tank New America, who dives deeply into these weeds, documents the concentration in retail (e.g., Walmart, Amazon and two other companies that control 60 percent of the mattress market, though I expect their competitors were lying down on the job sorry), health care, pharma and more. Data from Goldman Sachs that are five years old (and, thus, likely understate the problem) find that in general merchandise stores, the share of total sales of the four largest firms increased from 55.9 percent in 1997 to 82.7 percent in 2012; in air transport, the comparable figures are 20.5 percent to 57.0 percent.

By looking at the implications for profits, the figures below take this analysis to the next level. The figure on the left shows that, as fewer firms captured a larger share of their industrys revenue, industry profits rose, as well. In fact, as the scatterplot on the right shows, the change in revenue share explains 71 percent of the change in operating margins. Its a finding that comports with common sense: Concentration correlates with market power and, thus, profitability.

Whats wrong with that? Well, in the Atlantic, Lynn putnot too fine a point on it:

Monopoly is amain driver of inequality, as profits concentrate more wealth in the hands of the few. The effects of monopoly enrage voters in their day-to-day lives, as they face the sky-high prices set bydrug-company cartelsand the abuses ofcable providers,health insurers, andairlines. Monopoly provides much of the funds the wealthy use todistort American politics.

The inequality point is worth elevating in the spirit of the figures above. Think of income as having two sources: profits and wages. When the share going to profits goes up, the wage share falls. Now, inequality has gone up within both shares over time, but profits are far more skewed toward the wealthy than wages. So when more income flows to profits and less to wages, inequality rises. Importantly, numerous academic papers have documented this link between greater concentration, higher profit shares and smaller wage shares.

Why has concentration increased so much? Theres evidence that firms that most effectively tap new technologies and globalization claim the most revenue share. Policy plays a role as well; Dean Baker documents economically large distortions associated with patents, trade policy and financial markets.

But whatever the cause, the fact that Democrats recognize and are showing interest in going after the problem is a good thing. And thats not just my view. David Dayen, a hard-hitting, left-leaning journalist whos often critical of ideas from the center-left, wrote that by going after corporate power, and in particular monopoly concentration, Democrats finally hit the target.

This analysis assumes two things. First, and Dayen is clear on this point, it assumes theyll follow through. Second, because Democrats dont have the votes now to do much of anything, it assumes the issue will resonate with voters. Whether that happens is a function of Democrats credibility on follow-through and how effectively Democrats can connect these broad, macro changes to peoples lives. That may sound hard, but if youve ever flown, filled a prescription or paid a monthly cellphone bill (ouch!), you may be more primed than you think to buy into this idea.

One final point. Above, I noted that theres really nothing lefty about antimonopoly politics. Classical economists since Adam (Smith) have recognized the distortions caused by excessive concentration. This debate thus reveals one of the most pervasive myths in our contemporary political economy: that Republicans are pro-market forces and Democrats are anti-markets. Too often, both sides are all too happy to cash the checks of the corporate monopolists. If Democratstruly get back to trustbusting, theywill be making a powerful, progressive statement about what and for whom they really stand.

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Democrats say they want to go after monopoly power. Here's why that's a great idea. - Washington Post

House Democrats this week are trying to hitch a slate of amendments to the appropriations minibus, all targeting the business, family members and scandals of President Donald Trump.

The amendments, offered in the Rules Committee, are part of the minority partys larger effort to tie their Republicancolleagues to Trumps possible conflicts of interest stemming from his business holdings and the governments probe of alleged collusion by Trump campaign officials with Russia to influence the 2016 elections.

Republicans on the Rules Committee are set to nix some of the proposals Wednesday when they complete a rule for the defense portion of the four-bill spending package.

Its a scenario that has played out on similar Democratic tactics aimed at the president and his ethics, such as resolutions of inquiry. GOP lawmakers have called the Democrats strategy blatantly political and have said the measures are often duplicative of ongoing investigations and existing ethics laws.

But Democrats want to keep the pressure up into the 2018 elections.

Democrats need to use whatever tools are at their disposal, said Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., his partys point man on ethics. Using the appropriations process, he added, is fair game.

Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr.offered an amendment that would prohibit taxpayer funds from being used to reimburse federal employees for travel or other business expenses at Trump properties such as Mar-a-Lago, the presidents club in Florida.

Appropriations bills have to come to the floor, so its much easier to actually have a hearing on it if its an amendment to appropriations, the Virginia Democrattold CQ Roll Call. A standalone measure, by contrast, can disappear from the face of the Earth if it doesnt have bipartisan support, he added.

Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, offered a similar amendment that would bar the Defense Department from spending taxpayer funds at properties owned by the president or his family.

I dont mind if the president wants to go golfing at Mar-a-Lago, Lieu said. The problem is if he brings a whole bunch of staff, Department of Defense personnel its inappropriate for the taxpayers to pay for it.

Another amendment from Rep. Brendan F. Boyle , D-Pa., would block the use of taxpayer money to pay any of the legal bills for Trump and his family members in the Russia investigation.Trump is allowed to use campaign funds for legal fees and has already tapped the committees set up for his re-election to do so.

Other proposals would target Trumps son-in-law and top aide Jared Kushners security clearance. Kushner, who has revised the disclosures required for the security clearance, spoke to Senate Intelligence Committee staff on Monday and denied any collusion with Russian officials.

Democrats are looking for a way to drive a wedge among Republicans over Trump, said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. The appropriations package is an attractive vehicle for Democratic messaging bills, she noted.

Congressional Republicans, of course, used the appropriations process when their party did not control the White House to target the Obama administration on Cuba policy, immigration matters and others.

Appropriations becomes a nice target because, in some form, eventually they are must-pass, Binder said.

Some veteran policy wonks say using the appropriations process for the political measures, though, makes an already difficult slog of funding the government even riskier.

Personally, I dont think that it is a wise use of the energy and resources of legislative counsel or the appropriations process, said longtime lobbyist Mike Fulton, director of public affairs and advocacy for the Asher Agency. We live and die with the appropriations process, and I think that anything that inhibits that process is detrimental to government working smoothly.

The Democratic strategy on Trump goes beyond the must-pass spending bills.

This week, the minority party, using a tactic called a resolution of inquiry, is forcing four committee votes over Trump ethics and business issues. On Wednesday, the House Judiciary and Homeland Security panels have scheduled votes on resolutions in their jurisdiction.

The Judiciary resolution would request documents from the Department of Justice related to former FBI Director James B. Comeys dismissal and Attorney General Jeff Sessions recusal in the Russia probe.

Homeland Securitys vote is on a resolution of inquiry from New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson Colemanand other Democrats, that would direct the Department of Homeland Security to provide the committee with information and documents detailing payments that the department has made that relate to The Trump Organization and travel by Trumps family members for company business.

The House Financial Services Committee rejected a resolution on Tuesday that would have compelled the Treasury Department to provide any documents related to the presidents possible business investments in Russia.

The committees chairman, Jeb Hensarling of Texas, called the resolution blatantly political and added: On this committee, there will be some who wish to focus on Russia and impeachment, but under my chairmanship, this committee will continue to be focused on America and a healthier economy.

Doug Sword contributed to this report.

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House Democrats Want to Use Minibus to Target Trump Ethics - Roll Call

Congressional Democrats, with a new slogan in hand, launched a public campaign Monday to rebrand themselves in the wake of 2016 election losses that handed total control of Washington to the Republicans.

"We are back," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference in Berryville, Va. Democrats will show the country we are the party on the side of working people.

As Democrats tried to rebrand as the party offering "a better deal" for voters, Republicans panned the effort as little more than "recycled" talking points.Their new slogan -- formally titled A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future -- also has faced criticism from Democratic speechwriters.

But many Democrats are now acknowledging their party failed to communicate a winning message to voters last year, and the broader point behind Monday's relaunch is to focus more on jobs and other kitchen-table issues.

New York Sen. Schumer was joined at Monday's event by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, of California, and other rank-and-file Democrats from the House and Senate.

DEMOCRATS' NEW SLOGAN MOCKED

We must have a strong middle class, Pelosi said. Essential to the strength of the middle class is the financial stability of the working family. And essential to that are bigger paychecks.

Democrats held the event in GOP Rep. Barbara Comstocks district, a seat that's a top target in the party's bid to retake the House next year.

Their new slogan follows months of internal debate and analysis involving polling and focus groups. Democrats want to focus on three objectives: increasing Americans wages and creating millions more good-paying jobs; lowering thecost of living for families through efforts like reducing the cost of prescription drugs; and building a better economy by providing better work training and educational opportunities.

Washington Republicans were quick to attack the party makeover.

"After losing to Republicans at the ballot box year-after-year, this is the best they have to offer?" asked Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. "Todaysrecycled Democrat talking points donothing to change the fact that the far-left has taken hold of the Party and continues to push a message of more resistance and obstruction.

The RNC was hardly the first to mock the effort.

After an earlier and abbreviated version of the new slogan leaked on Thursday, Twitter users mocked the similarity to the tagline for Papa John's pizza, "Better Ingredients, Better Pizza."

And on Monday, before Democrats announced the changes, a Republican-aligned super PAC launched an ad campaign that targets Pelosi and argues her party remains mired in the same, old liberal ideas.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, which is behind the digital ad titled Resistance, focuses on Pelosis San Francisco congressional district and 12 other Democrat-leaning districts that President Trump won last fall.

All 435 House seats are up for reelection in 2018.

The Democrats are the party of the resistance, the narrator says in the 33-second ad that includes images of window-smashing and other protester-driven violence surrounding the inauguration.

Radical extremists who destroy buildings, burn cars and divide America. Hollywood celebrities who are blinded by their hatred of the president. Nancy Pelosi and the Washington Democrats answer to them.

SCHUMER TELLS CLINTON, 'BLAME YOURSELF'

Schumer acknowledged on Sunday that Democrats were partially to blame for Americans not knowing what the party stands for.

"When you lose an election with someone who has, say, 40 percent popularity, you look in the mirror and say what did we do wrong? he said on ABCs This Week. And the number one thing that we did wrong is we didn't have -- we didn't tell people what we stood for."

However, Congressional Leadership Fund leaders say the message continues to advance the same, old liberal ideas including single-payer health care, tax increases and military cuts, despite all of the poll testing.

Democrats have already proposed a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan, a $15 minimum wage and paid familyleave legislation.

Other congressional Democrats helping push the better deal message are Sens. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and New Mexico Rep. Ben Ray Lujn, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Democrats rebrand under new slogan will their product ...

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer speaks at an event unveiling the Democrats new Better Deal agenda in Berryville, Virginia, on July 24, 2017. (AP Photo / Cliff Owen)

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Congressional Democrats rolled out an economic agenda for the 2018 elections this week, and despite its bland title, A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future, the agenda reflects the growing strength and influence of the populist movement inside the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, Our Revolution, the group that grew out of Bernie Sanderss presidential campaign, along with the National Nurses Union, Fight for 15, Peoples Action, and others launched the Summer for Progress, an activist push to get at least half of the Democratic House caucus to endorse the Peoples Platform, another stab at an economic agenda for Democrats. The contrast between the two documents reveals the both the scope and the limits of the new Democratic consensus.

Both documents assume that resistance is not enough. Democrats have failed to articulate a strong, bold economic program. We also failed to communicate our values to show that we were on the side of working people, not the special interests. We will not repeat the same mistake, said the Better Deal agenda from Democratic Congressional leadership. The groups pushing the Summer for Progress agreed: Democrats must lay out a bold vision for how we create a country that works for everyonenot just the very wealthy.

Both the Peoples Platform and the Better Deal agenda are designed to offer a small number of bold, clear reforms to put before voters. The Better Deal agenda is focused on the economy; the Peoples Platform includes broader issues. Neither is intended to be a comprehensive platform. Foreign-policy and national-security issues are excluded, as are most social issues.

Both documents are framed in the populist language and analysis championed by Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren. Too many families, the leadership document argued, believe the rules of the economy are rigged against them by special interests lobbyists and large corporations.

A background polling memo by Hart Research for the Better Deal illustrates how popular this analysis is. It found that fully 79 percent of voters in Senate battleground states agree that the rules of the economy today are rigged against average Americans, and Americas working families need a better deal.

The leadership documents milquetoast framing could use some work before the midterms. Compared to the destructive, madcap chaos of the Trump White House and a Republican Congress intent on stripping health insurance from millions of people to pay for tax breaks for millionaires, promising simply a better deal is clearing a very low bar.

But the substance of the Better Deal is better than its framing. Its centerpiece jobs program features public investment of $1 trillion in rebuilding the countrys infrastructure. It also pledges to lift the floor under workers by embracing the movement for a $15 hourly minimum wage and phasing out the special minimum wage for workers who collect tips, which has shamefully been mired at $2.13 since 1991. Bernie Sanders made both of these issues central to his 2016 platform.

The Better Deal agenda also calls for requiring large employers to provide paid family and sick leave. It reaffirms the standard commitment to defend Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Securitywhich is no small matter in these days of Republican rule, and on the heels of a Democratic president who repeatedly proposed cutting Social Security benefits. The Better Deal also promises to make college more affordable, though is vague on the details.

The documents most striking and laudable item is a new initiative to revive antitrust enforcement and break up monopolies: a 21st century trust buster that would challenge market concentration in areas that hit consumers the most, including food, cable fees, beer, airline tickets, and eyeglasses.

Another key proposal would curb the outrageous price gouging of prescription-drug companies, in part by finally empowering Medicare to negotiate bulk discounts on drug prices.

But not everything in the Better Deal is wonderful. It spends a lot of time talking about providing workers with the tools they need to succeed by giving employerswho are already swimming in record profitsa new tax break to train workers and hiring them at a good wage. The embrace of this charade is clearly a nod to the still potent New Democrat forces in the party, and contradicts the general thrust of the Better Deal platform. It reflects the New Democrats unfortunate tendency to assume that globalization is an act of nature rather than a matter of policy and power. This leads too often to blaming workers for not getting the education or skills they need rather than focusing on changing the rules that rig the game against them.

Many popular progressive policies that are not in the Better Deal can be found in the Peoples Platformlike Medicare for all, tuition-free public college for those with family incomes under $125,000 a year, and a financial speculation tax to help pay for it.

One helpful feature of the Peoples Platform is that the proposals are attached to a real piece of legislation that has already been introduced, or will be soon. The College for All Act would implement the documents tuition idea, and the Tax on Wall Street Act outlines the financial-speculation tax.

The Peoples Platform includes other reforms that are outside the boundaries of the leaderships document, including automatic voter registration, elimination of private prisons (Justice is Not for Sale Act), and protection of equal access to abortion in public and private health insurance (the Each Woman Act).

The Peoples Platform lacks the Better Deals initiative on monopoly and antitrust, however. Many of its authors would have surely supported it, but it didnt make it into the document.

Neither agenda is intended to be comprehensive, but what is omitted is still worth noting. Despite Trumps ostensible focus on our failed trade policy, neither document includes a clear initiative on fair and balanced trade. The Better Deal authors pledge to address trade and to initiate a crackdown on corporate outsourcing sometime in the future, but thats about it.

Neither document makes a commitment to full employment with government as the employer of last resort. Democrats increasingly support extension of paid overtime, a crackdown on wage theft and dehumanizing scheduling, but neither document discusses them.

What should be the centerpiece of any progressive economic or political agendaunions and empowering workers to bargain collectivelyis nowhere to be seen in either document. Also omitted is the need to take on plunder by wealthy CEOs by curbing the executive-compensation schemes that are a primary contributor to our massive inequality. The private-debt overhang that impedes growth gets no discussion. Progressive tax reform beyond the financial transaction tax is also absent from both documents.

Pelosi and Schumer hope they have produced a clear agenda that Democratic candidates will champion in the 2018 elections, emulating the infamous Contract with America that Newt Gingrich peddled when Republicans took the House in 1994. The movement behind the Peoples Platform has launched a mass petition and mobilization seeking to gain the endorsement of a majority of House Democrats.

The contrast between the two documents provides some insight into the fault lines within the Democratic Party. Lifting the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024 is increasingly a consensus position, as is a massive public infrastructure program. Medicare for all, tuition-free public college, and the financial-transaction tax are still contested. The leaderships focus on antitrust and breaking up concentrated economic power is new but has a good chance of becoming a shared position. Sadly, the importance of empowering workers and rebuilding unions and collective bargaining remain on the cutting room floors.

Were Democrats to gain majorities that could fulfill the pledges in either of these documentsand have the temerity to overcome the entrenched interests lined up against themmost Americans would in fact get a far better deal than what they will get from Trump and the Republican Congress.

Democrats are moving to address the populist temper of this time. The popular mobilization behind the Peoples Platform may yet push Democrats to add Medicare for all and tuition-free public college to the broad partys agenda. The activist base will surely happily embrace the Better Deals focus on concentrated economic power and antitrust. The chattering classes fret about Democrats and their circular firing squads, but this is a debate that is helping to make Democrats bolder and clearer about where they stand.

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Democrats Are Finally Waking Up - The Nation.