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Part One:
We chat with David Dayen, investigative fellow with In These Times’ Institute for Investigative Reporting, the Intercept, the New Republic, and the American Prospect, about the harmful effects of a bank deregulation bill, passed in 2018 by Trumpist Republicans with support from a large group of Democratic Senators. The bill — promoted as merely being about regulatory relief for community banks — instead is now being used to permit a merger of two large regional banks that resulted in the sixth largest bank.
We also discussed how the Trump administration has misrepresented the effects of the 2017 tax “cut,” in an effort to win the midterm elections. Even though our tax burdens had in fact been increased, working people were led to believe the opposite. How? Because our takehome incomes had gone up. But this increase was due to some regulatory sleight-of-hand, not to a cut in taxes. The administration changed the rules governing how much money is withheld from our paychecks (to cover the taxes we’re expected to owe). Our eyes will be opened when we see smaller tax refunds starting in the next few weeks.
Part Two:
We speak with Mandy Manning, the 2018 National Teacher of the Year, about her new group: Teachers Against Child Detention (TACD). They have organized a Teach-In on Feb. 17 in El Paso, TX, to protest the Border Patrol’s continuing detention of children who are trying to immigrate to the US. Teachers have a duty to report child abuse, so these teachers will come together and present information about a series of related topics: the reasons why so many children and their families have fled and sought protection in the US; the inhumane conditions to which our country subjects these young human beings; and the long-term traumatic impact of such conditions on children’s physical and emotional well-being. TACD urges as many people as possible either to join them in El Paso; to send messages of support to be read at the teach-in; to gather in their own communities and watch the live-stream; and afterward to continue speaking out and sharing information about this tragic US policy and demanding that it end.
