Transcripts For CSPAN2 Sen. Sherrod Brown On The Governments Role During COVID-19 20240712

Accountable lacks we are honored to have as the guests today the senior United States senator from the state of ohio and the Ranking Member of the committee somebody that cares passionately about the issues that we focus on and care about. Almost a decade ago in the aftermath of the Global Financial crisis in fact myself and my colleagues testified about from 2011 to 2015. Once again we face a great many challenges from those in the 2007 and 2009 financial crisis. I look forward to hearing the senators perspectives on how we got here and where we can go from here. Senator brown dedicated his career to restoring the words of doctor Martin Luther king jr. Called the dignity of work and a few examples of how he puts this into practice. The senator often wears a pin of a canary in a cage from the days when minors but a canary into them and protecting Workers Health and safety. If the canary dies, the minor knew that there were Dangerous Levels and it was time for them to get out. He said its an important reminder of just how far the country has come from the day the workers could only depend on one another for protection but also how much needs to be done. Senator brown also notes it has the most foreclosures than any omanyof the nation leading up ts financial crisis. This symbolizes a predatory lending practices and the fragile Manufacturing Base in the cities of the industrial midwest. It also encapsulates the connection between the various economic policies of trade and labor to housing. In the Committee Hearings you can often find him recommending the banking regulators the color of law the forgotten history of how the government a segregated america until the workers received a raise. All of this is to say despite being the member of an elite club the senator maintained a level of empathy to working people that is still all too rare in the most powerful leaders and institutions. They are again honored and grateful to host you today. To discuss the role of the federal government in these related issues we will be joined by a one of the chairs of the offense kennedy. After a conversation we will open up to some questions for all of you that you can sub in p using the qanda function. With that i will turn over to susanna and the senator brown. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for being here with us today and forgetting all of us an excuse to put on real clothes for a change. Thank you. I hope that you are all well. I know we dont have a lot of time so theres about to discuss. If you dont mind, i would love to just dive right in. We heard that youve been a longtime advocate and youve been vocal about the need to raise wages and benefits across america and of course in the context of the current pandemic youve also been advocating for stronger protections for workers. I was particularly moved by statements you made just one week ago with the secretary and Federal Reserve chair powell expressing outrage that the senate is still in session putting workers at risk on capitol hill. Id like to start the discussion hearing from you what you think the longterm impact of the pandemic will be on the labor rights and policy in the United States. Thank you for your work. You mentioned and i would recommend other books to understand better our society and mistreatment of the good fortune of the most privileged and also the bankers new clothes written by a stanford professor. Of those books together told you what the 21st century america. The its so much of the insideout strategy, but after the financial crisis, and in our office not that long he and i advanced the idea members of the senate and house and the ownership of any corporate stock is always a conflict of interest when you consider the panoply of things we vote on. That amendment was defeated about 21 for the former chairman and he resigned over this in the intelligence. He is believed to have used information that we all got about the coronavirus earlier. He got it even earlier because of his Intelligence Briefings he may have bought and sold stock in. It is interesting the responsibility we are entrusted with that that would be a step that you would take. I know the temptation from many of my colleagues and we are not giving up on the idea for almost a decade on that. How things look different i think i do Conference Calls all day and so many of the privileged people as you may say those of us that are lucky enough to stay home and 3 million i suppose in california that are unemployed and boos those that go to work everyday. They put themselves at risk because they are not protected well enough and then go on with the anxiety. We call those people essential workers. Basically i am expendable. They do security. That in a nutshell is who we a are. I will try to get to a broad view when you look at this pandemic youve see the great revealer shows the Racial Disparity in the day are the ones most disadvantaged by the economy. When hundreds of workers after a couple of weeks its something weve tried to gewe tried to geo scale up the testing and production of the equipment. He used it to be open and said youre going back to work and he said nothing about protecting the workers or protective equipment. The thing about slowing down the line if you know anything about manufacturing, you know that a faster means more workplace illness and injury so understand that is where we are as a nation. What happens in the future is what we make happen. The whole country recognizes to make more money but its like you said, to want to make social change and recognize this. The number of people dying from this virus. Many of the discomfort practices into the occur in housing and all of those things, so that is what we make of that. Speaking about ten years ago what do you think we failed to learn during that crisis in 2008 that you hope that we can learn and particularly act on today . The first big recovery act in stimulus package introduced in the senate essentially by the president and secretary of the treasury and Mitch Mcconnell was the same kind of Corporate Bailout for the airlines it is good for wall street and good for bankers generally a candidate pennies on the dollars. It did a little bi is a little p people from being evicted. It did nothing for the state and local government. I dont know that we didnt know that ten years ago. I do know that we have a new president that was under the gun to get the economy back on its feet as we began to do what we should have done and not in the quantities at the tea party form is basically phony turfs, grassroots when we spend money on tax cuts for the rich thats the wall street way. It was soon to come. It should be a required reading for the Senate Banking Committee Members but i will say it a different way. The committee does very little in housing we have a financial waste economy we should learn from what happened ten years ago that thats the case but what we are doing differently this time is we are putting real dollars into the pockets 600 a week the largest ever done. It might have had a different political outcome of a. It wasnt a good economy for so many people our focus has to be on the wages and workers and putting money in peoples pockets and you go from there. In addressing this concern of getting relief directly to the consumers and those that need it most. Can you talk about the prevention and protection that n of protection that you think is most important to ensure the stimulus funding its two main street and not just wall street . We know that they try to garnish the wages we know that whenever there is a big transfer of money as there has been in the last several but for the great majority of the public as it should be a window that gets the payday lenders and Check Cashing people excited and those are just the ones it gets people that are going to prey on them just like if you go to a military base you see these financial vultures right outside the base of the day are struggling, they dont have a lot of money, they are lonely, does debate for the financial cl predators, that is why it is so important. We were working on legislation to protect the workers weve got to do many other things to talk about later if you want to keep the dollars in peoples pockets so many dont have the wherewithal to be able to be themselves because of this pandemic. There is so much that we need to do. They make there certainly is so much that we need to do. What are your biggest priorities for securing these as we think about what the next stimulus bill is going to look like and in the very near term, what do you think is the biggest opportunity for the government to act within the next few months. Its coming up on the first of april we saw a number of people that could we thought we had that in the stimulus in the states next to mine they also are a rich country still. We will be in the future. We need a tax system that works for the families better and one of the things we hope that we can do in this legislation is expand the earned income tax credit again so i think we were the major sponsors to expand and we also need to do refundable tax credits. Right now if you are making 80,000 you get a bigger tax credit for your children so we needed to be fully refundable. I noticed this over the years they love to talk about local control and they fundamentally dont really trust people to trust local governments to do the right thing. That is why senator mcconnell doesnt want to send money to the local governments. The its the same with poor people come he doesnt want it to go to the low income people, but if it does, it does. He wants it to be spent on this or that. If we believe in the human spirit and freedom to help them financially and allow them to make the decisions if you get an extra 3,000 we trust you to spend it to do the best thing to give your children a Better Future whether it is close or a better usedcar so your car doesnt break down and you miss work to many days. A they might surprise mcconnell and trump by doing the right thing. There is a repeated question that camrelated questionthat cae that is a perfect segue and theres another i would like to discuss can we expand benefits to essential workers and what are your thoughts on the opportunity that we might have now with this pandemic to sort of change that . Separating health care from employment altogether. One of the things ive advocated it was on the stage with senator kennedy and we announced with senator kennedy and senator moynihan be unveiled a i admit a woman once who told me she was in a small town in Youngstown Ohio and said im 63yearsold and my goal in life is to live to more jeers by goal was to go to london or to help raise my grandchildren so i can finally get insurance. She had been working to do debate coach jobs and low wages. Often when they lose their jobs they have so few options those are the people that we most want to focus on a so we actually had that in the Affordable Care act. We need 60 votes and we lost it. That would have changed everything and it would have meant people got insurance and political opposition to the act would have been cut off at the knees frankly. But in terms of healthcare or the pandemic i think one of the most important things we do we talked earlier they may make 12 or 15 an hour we have in our legislation they get 13 per hour for additional pay up to 10,000 for the year. If we are going to call them essential we ought to treat them as essential. If youre going to continue to say that they are only worth 12 or 15 an hour, and i know that is even less where you live and i lived, let alone in rural ohio, then weve got to actually act like they mean it. A few are giving bonuses, hazard pay, whatever you call it but there are minimal and we all need to do better. A topic that comes up all the time here is the business roundtables stated commitment and we see now they are calling for the response to covid19 it appears they might be in a moment for a different direction but im not showing my own handle too much. Im trying to be an unbiased interviewer. Im curious about your thoughts on this and what can and should businesses due to put money where their mouth is for the capitalism and how can we turn this into a moment of change in the Corporate Community . Guest the fact that you are talking about stakeholder capitalism is a good sign. And for whatever the reason and it is selfinterest the whole idea that the manager and the executives oh something to the community other than their stockholders so really this is the way we did capitalism in those days your employees were important, your community and customers are important. Maybe not the environment. But some executives dead and today bill on blame it on Milton Friedman but just of the agreed of unrestricted capitalism were unleashed capitalism where why should you think of anybody else if you dont have to and that has become the mantra eyeing courage when jamie dimon says that he says many things that i like but i only thing to his credit was one of the first big operations that they did raise their pay including food service and custodial staff at 15 keep in mind a lot of Companies Contract out here is our average pay but then a contract out custodial and food service the janitorial they say i know i contract will if you sign the contract it really is holding them and i am glad they are saying that stakeholder capitalism it would change the country if they really believed to be environmentally responsible to workers and responsible to the communities. Those comments dont slow down the lobbying efforts to get more so we will see but i dont count on them to do what i thank you make them do it. Your point about contract workers make me think about the gig economy and the myriad of companies that are here in our backyard to promote the new mode of working as a contract worker what are some of your biggest concerns or ideas how we can better protect workers who are part of the less formal parts of the economy with those less formal protections you have been advocating for quick. Its been a battle forever theres all kinds of companies especially construction that many businesses allow their employees to work off the clock, they pay cash. To a 22 yearold that sounds okay but now im not paying into unemployment or her retirement or healthcare but im 22 and i live forever i need it. They have gotten away with it. What we did to fix that a temporary fix but it is important because it can be a template for the future making january we will have a different president and senate and if we do there is really big things we need to think about especially climate and Racial Disparity income wealth and race and class disparity. We address that with the Unemployment Compensation bill workers laid off get 600 per week that is in addition to the state but the states relatively few workers are eligible for unemployment maybe this is a bit too much for congress over the last 100 years has passed three major social Insurance Programs Social Security medicare and Unemployment Insurance medicare and Social Security are run out of washington it is onesizefitsall you pay in a certain amount you are eligible and get this much out. Unemployment on the other hand was turned over to the state so alabama minimum payment is 250 a week new jersey is three times and ohio is in the middle not just the payment has been ratcheted down but the number of weeks you can get unemployment has been shrunk and the eligibility is narrowed. Gig workers dont get unemployment parttime workers, selfemployed salon owners dont get it with a 600 a week we include all of them. If you have regular unemployment you get that plus the 600 in one of the other categories you will get just the 600 but that comes out , 15 an hour essentially it isnt nothing and more generous than i believe government has ever been. We need to start thinking that way what we need to do to upend the devolution of these benefits and we do this with unemployment i dont know if he will ever get 600 permanent that may be a broadening of eligibility more permanent and thats a good thing and in ohio right now only 25 percent of people who are unemployed get Unemployment Insurance. We are not an outlier but an average thats not what fdr and people that pushed Unemployment Insurance 100 years ago were thinking of. That makes sense i will switch to questions from the audience but theres one more topic that you already brought up the 2020 president ial election i am curious how you think of the 19 and its Ripple Effect will change the dynamics of the general election in november and specifically questions around how we can bolster Democratic Institutions in this time when they are constantly challenged and undermined. We have a lot of external challenges to democracy. It changes things in unpredictable ways the pundits on television speaking to stanford classes that speak with some certainty about predicting the future i dont know. I think it is increasingly likely the president ial outcome is a referendum on the presidency and the virus said let me give two examples. We are 5 percent of the worlds population and now we account about 31 percent of coronavirus death in the world even more illuminating example is the last time i got on an airplane was midmarch i flew out of dulles almost nobody had on a mask within days the governor of ohio shut down the schools republican governor the first to do in the country. He handled this pretty well the republican president clearly has killed people because of his action and inaction but in midmarch the republic of south korea and about 90 diagnose cases the United States had 90. They had experience with stars and a Good Public Health system they have better doctors and better leaders and they went to work with very extensive testing and Contact Tracing 265 koreans have died as of today 100,100 americans have died the Unemployment Rate in korea is under three. 5 percent unemployment this country we dont know maybe 15 percent. That tells you about trumps lack of leadership. I talked about in the introduction but where most of my colleagues and i wear this because it means so much to me. One of the best things about this country is we led the charge and those that killed hundreds of millions of people in the first half of the 20th century leading the effort to eradicate almost polio. Im old enough to remember kids i went to school with that were partially crippled by polio. Some died that they would have died before i went to school with them. We eliminated diphtheria and kept it out of the country and to keep the ball a in check as we have the best Public Health system in the world is the best thing about our country one of the great fields is to take your mba or the mph or whatever you do with your degrees from yale to stanford. But i think about president obama hired an admiral that used to work for bush his job was to essentially help eradicate malaria around the world to people million per year die from malaria and much better control than it used to be then President Trump took the same admiral and running in office of 40 people of Public Health experts his job to survey all the whole world and look for illness outbreaks whether in france or nigeria or new zealand or cambodia for potential Health Outbreaks and then marshal the forces of the who the cdc and the United States and france and britain to figure out how to eradicate that disease or contain it his job was to look for potential epidemics before they became pandemics he was fired in the spring of 2018 i sent a letter to trump the next week asking why and ask them to reinstate him we have no answer the last ten years we also saw not exactly cuts but flatlined budgets which is a cut we went from the worlds best most admired and principle Public Health country i say in the history of the world to the back of the bus. Look at the cdc. What are they doing . They should be leading. Whose they are . I dont know. He should be better known than bill gates because of what bill gates is doing his job. It breaks my heart because Public Health it just shows the heart of our country and who we are or we were before trump in this pandemic. I could just talk to about that all day. Fascinating topics but the audience would be remiss if i ask they are terrific questions. So heres a great question can you talk about any companies or industries that are modeled for how you would like to see the private sector engage with Public Institutions or the responsible Business Leadership would like to see Stanford Graduate School of business leading organizations . I dont want to call the individual companies or names or embarrass the ones that i mentioned but there are all kinds of companies doing the right thing going back stakeholder versus shareholder that realize there are Better Things out there i will do one name this guy is a really good friend of mine hes a political friend he is in ohio he runs a company that makes prl. He has devoted much of his life to Public Health and what to do and is a big figure i know how he runs that company also is very famous because Everybody Knows what prl is now bad there are plenty of companies that serve those purposes as the stanford students do to study those really good cases to see where they take you and to learn how you can do the right thing and align with shareholders not just stakeholders to run a Successful Company starting from the top where you set the stage and set the tone. Heres a question from the audience you have supported tariffs in the past but has been critical of President Trumps implementation. What is your ideal tariff regime look like . I think it is our trade policy. I have fought with every president since ive been office clinton and a senior bush, bush for eight years and then obama and now trump i have disagreed with every president on trade. Because frankly none of them put workers first. Going against every trade agreement what our trade policy has done is important for Stanford Business students come it essentially has said shut down production because of trade policy you should adopt this Business Plan and shut down production and cleveland lay off workers , explained on exploit week laws and then sell the product back into United States essentially that is what the trade policy has done i blame it on government and my colleagues in congress and the media and frankly schools like the Stanford Business school who all say free trade is the greatest in the world. With all about business never about workers. So when you pass the trade agreement and the result is i have to move overseas i cant compete unless i shut down production here. Thats one reason we were illprepared for the pandemic we didnt have enough companies that make masks or swabs or the things that you need we do that for National Defense and figured out we really dont want Foreign Countries making your planes and tanks but we need to figure out Foreign Countries particularly the lowest wage most exploited workers like a country like china you dont want them making the equipment you need to combat a pandemic. So we are simply said its all about the shareholders Buchanan Pass the trade agreements if it wasnt like from stakeholders. The last point the first trade agreement ever voted on was last year that renegotiated nafta and adopted the language that senator wyden and i wrote in this language essentially said workers come first in these trade agreements and needs to be a real minimum wage, protections for workers , not a race to the bottom where workers are exploited in the environment and it is contaminated. Its interesting i was just doing that reading last night for one of my classes talking about freetrade has essentially exported deflation from Different Countries as the Global Economy he comes up and we are running out of places to outsource this labor so your points are very well taken particularly in the context of a business school. Heres another question that brings us back to the 2020 election, can you talk about ohio specifically in the countrys efforts to have a safe and Fair Election in 2020 . I am convinced that a majority of the country will vote against donald trump. I am convinced of that i am also convinced that this president will try to cheat. It will be the russians are those republicans that have institutionalized Voter Suppression through redistricting and gerrymandering in the court system always by a vote of five for the most partisan in history. With come down the powerful against workers against Voting Rights and the opposite side of people of color think we win anyway because we organize them there are more of us than there are of them. We need to shine a light on what they are doing with Voter Suppression to make sure everybody can vote by mail we need three things people can vote by mail they will just say trump is a liar he just makes set up about voting by mail. It is safe the polls open we should have early voting at least three weeks or one month before the election to go to the local Voting Center at least one in every county and in big cities there should be more than the polls up on election day. If we do those things, we went and i think we will win anyway but we will win by a big enough margin and then we still have free press to shine the light on any type of shenanigans or misbehavior the people that dont think Voting Rights are sacred. Vote by mail just triggered the thought of the u. S. Postal service that has been in the headlines recently. I understand it is a sticky topic in congress so what are your thoughts to bailout the Postal Service with the continued operation . It is had financial problems for years because congress did something to the Postal Service it did not do anywhere else in our economy. They forced them to finance its Pension System way more generously than they needed to for next number of years. That put them in a financial bind to begin with from under which they cannot recover. We know the competition now from companies from package delivers and as a public utility and must deliver to the most deliver medicine but the most dangerous neighborhoods that privatization always has the most profitable routes and businesses and entities and thats why privatization of prisons and medicare and up hurting the public and enriching the companies to privatize and now with pandemic the post office is in big trouble there is simply no reason theres two reasons Mitch Mcconnell doesnt want to put money into the Postal Service. Number one, he really does think the Postal Service will make vote by mail even more treacherous and difficult and there are hundreds of thousands of postal workers and letter carriers and mail sorters that hundreds of thousands of Postal Worker Union employees and one of his goals is to attack the Union Movement and the Community Movement because he knows they pushback with the Interest Groups like the nra and Drugs Companies and wall street he has sworn to obey. That makes sense. We are coming up on time this our flu lot on by thank you for taking the time to speak with us this afternoon and have an opportunity any thoughts for the audience before we leave . Thank you. I applied to stanford long time ago and got waitlisted but i got over it sort of but its an honor to speak to all of you. I hope so much that you listen to some of the questions clearly from the viewpoint to pursue a life and occupational life of justice and there are so many things to have the privilege of going to stanford and not knowing your background and to earn that privilege for a great majority of you. And to make that a fair and better place with Racial Disparities in your some of the best situated to do that. Thank you for having me especially. Clearly it was stanfords loss we didnt get you but thank you again everyone for joining us have a great rest of your wednesday