Max Sawicky
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Articles by Max Sawicky
Sawicky: Fear Not the S Word
Much excitement—of very different types—has followed the electoral victories in New York City and elsewhere of folks describing themselves as “democratic socialists.” Truth is, there are multiple definitions of it, like varieties of Christianity. Even within the “Democratic Socialists of America” (DSA) organization, of which I am a member, but not one nominated to speak for it, there are diverse views.
What a Democratic Socialist Economic Agenda Looks Like
It’s increasingly difficult for U.S. political commentators to neglect the centrality of socialism to the country’s affairs. We now see a spate of polling results and other commentary testifying to the popularity of socialist ideas, if not the label, as well as to the prospects of rising political stars like Mayors Zohran Mamdani in New York City and Katie Wilson in Seattle, as well as State Senator Omar Fateh in Minneapolis.
Socialists Need a Distinctive Economic Policy Agenda
It’s increasingly difficult for US political commentators to neglect the centrality of socialism to the country’s affairs. We now see a spate of polling results and other commentary testifying to the popularity of socialist ideas, if not the label, as well as to the prospects of rising political stars like Zohran Mamdani in New York City, Katie Wilson in Seattle, and Omar Fateh in Minneapolis.
Socialists Need a Distinctive Economic Policy Agenda
It’s increasingly difficult for US political commentators to neglect the centrality of socialism to the country’s affairs. We now see a spate of polling results and other commentary testifying to the popularity of socialist ideas, if not the label, as well as to the prospects of rising political stars like Zohran Mamdani in New York City, Katie Wilson in Seattle, and Omar Fateh in Minneapolis.
U.S. Democratic Socialism Has A Future
I wouldn’t have thought so, but now I think I can see a path. The recent electoral successes are attracting thousands of supporters to Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to join its most famous member, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. I’m told just the New York City chapter is up to 13,000 members. It begins with the reality that DSA is a two-headed creature. It has the socialist brand, which matters, but it is of two minds, charitably speaking.
How to Fix Public School Financing
As the carnage wreaked by the Trump administration on the federal government continues apace, the relevance of progress by other means assumes greater importance. The United States happens to be blessed, or saddled, with the most decentralized public sector among relatively rich nations. So the time of state and local governments is coming to the fore. The hope for “municipal socialism” in New York City under a Mayor Zohran Mamdani is only the most dramatic example.
Will Russell Vought Be the Grim Reaper of the Government Shutdown?
Economy / October 6, 2025 Trump’s OMB director has suggested he’ll institute mass firings and agency closures, but no one in the White House seems to grasp the economic impact of such moves. In one of my favorite videos on YouTube, a group of African mercenaries are sitting around a campfire with a chimpanzee. One of them thinks it would be amusing to hand the chimp a loaded AK-47.
Will Russell Vought Be the Grim Reaper of the Government Shutdown?
Economy / October 6, 2025 Will Russell Vought Be the Grim Reaper of the Government Shutdown? Trump’s OMB director has suggested he’ll institute mass firings and agency closures, but no one in the White House seems to grasp the economic impact of such moves. Ad Policy A grimly determined Russell Vought in an AI video circulated by President Donald Trump In one of my favorite videos on YouTube, a group of African mercenaries are sitting around a campfire with a chimpanzee.
No, Elon Musk, Social Security Isn’t a “Ponzi Scheme”
Right-wing billionaires have long wanted to shred the safety net. Under Trump, they’re using lies and fears over the deficit to debilitate Social Security. In Fiscal Year 2024, which ended last October, the U.S. government spent $6.75 trillion. People tend to be impressed by big numbers when it comes to federal spending, but this larger context is important.
No Elon Musk, Social Security Isn’t a “Ponzi Scheme”
In Fiscal Year 2024, which ended last October, the U.S. government spent $6.75 trillion. People tend to be impressed by big numbers when it comes to federal spending, but this larger context is important. For instance, the provision of foreign aid, including by the reviled U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), would cost, which is a lot of money for any individual, even for Elon Musk, but small potatoes in the grand scheme of the federal budget.
The Phony Argument Behind Medicaid Work Requirements
House Republicans have put Medicaid at the top of their federal government chopping block. Their budget plan that passed on February 25 would direct the Energy and Commerce Committee (which has responsibility for Medicaid and other health programs) to come up with at least $880 billion in savings to pay for extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts. Medicaid is at the greatest risk of facing cuts.
Will Trump's FEMA Review Force States to Take on More Disaster Relief?
The Trump Administration’s approach to governing so far appears to be to “nuke it from orbit,” which will have a detrimental effect on how the federal government provides aid. While the administration’s early focus was on USAID and foreign aid, in late January, Trump issued an executive order to establish the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Review Council. It has drawn far less attention but could prove to be massively disruptive.
As Wildfires Rage On, Federal Investment in Fire Protection Declines
As job cuts at the US Forest Service and National Park Service become one of the latest casualties in the Department of Government Efficiency’s attack on the federal workforce, questions turn to how this will affect efforts to prevent and battle wildfires. Sadly, both agencies have been underfunded and understaffed for quite some time.
Medicaid Under the Gun: The Block Grant Scam
Since its inception in 1965, the Medicaid program has provided health care to millions of low-income families. In 1997 it was expanded with the establishment of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and again in 2010 with an extension under the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. “ObamaCare.” Now it is all under grave threat from the Trump Administration and the new Congress.
Medicaid Under the Gun
Since its inception in 1965, the Medicaid program has provided health care to millions of low-income families. In 1997 it was expanded with the establishment of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and again in 2010 with an extension under the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. “ObamaCare.” Now it is all under grave threat from the Trump Administration and the new Congress.
Harris Is No Socialist-But Her Economic Plans Are Far Better Than Trump’s
Modern U.S. presidential campaigns seem to have less and less to do with substance, a development spearheaded most recently by former President Donald Trump. As climate writer David Roberts has pointed out, trying to analyze Trump’s statements as policy commitments is a “category error.” Trump presses upon his followers the delusion that he can command the federal bureaucracy, corporations and foreign countries to do whatever he wants, even before taking office as president.
Kamala Harris Can Do Better Than This
Max B. Sawicky August 21, 2024 In a speech in North Carolina last week, Vice President Kamala Harris put forward a raft of economic policy proposals which offer a first look at what the domestic agenda of a Harris administration could look like. With the Democratic National Convention in full swing in Chicago, now is a chance to take stock of what her platform could mean for the future economic direction of the country.
Courting Disaster
Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections by David Daley. Mariner Books, 432 pages. 2024. I initially thought agreeing to review this book was a mistake. Did I need a treatise on the nation’s sickening slide toward one-party rule, thanks to the devolution of a judiciary that rigs our elections while routinely violating ethics standards, among other egregious offenses? After all, I get an hour of MSNBC every weeknight.
The World’s Richest Just Got Extraordinarily More Wealthy
Above hoto: The Monaco Yacht Show in Monte Carlo on September 30, 2022. Mandoga Media/picture alliance via Getty Images. Taxing Them Doesn’t Go Nearly Far Enough. Lessening inequality isn’t the only reason to tax the super rich. We also need to decrease their political power while spending on social programs that benefit the working class. In every measurement of economic inequality, personal wealth is found to be more unequal than income.
The World’s Richest Just Got Extraordinarily More Wealthy-Taxing Them Doesn’t Go Nearly Far Enough
In every measurement of economic inequality, personal wealth is found to be more unequal than income. Naturally, this state of affairs invites attention and criticism, along with demands for a reduction of that inequality by various means, including to reduce the stubborn racial wealth gap. The latest World Wealth Report for 2024, published last month by The Capgemini Research Institute, brings this level of inequality into stark relief.
Woke Like Me
I issued some throwaway remarks trashing “Left Is Not Woke” by Susan Neiman that surprisingly aroused a lot of flak, both pro and con. I had only read the first 30 pages and put it aside. Now I’ve read enough. I should first confess that it is a work of philosophy (though I would say it’s just a polemic), not a field in which I am well-endowed. The Rutgers College library had these huge leather chairs. I tried to read Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind in one of those chairs and fell asleep.
How Israel Is Destroying the World
It works like this. Israel helps elect Trump, Trump reverses any initiatives pertaining to climate change, allows Putin a free hand in Central Europe, allows Bibi and his psycho colleagues a free hand in Palestine threatening regional peace, Iran responds to Israeli attacks, Trump attacks Iran. Waging war on Iran, the latter responds to the U.S. with one of their numerous military capabilities, then it’s 9-11 time again. Watch what you say, etc. How would Israel elect Trump?
"Every Man A Speculator": Closing Thoughts
(See Parts I and II on this topic.) Finished Steve Fraser’s big book, one of them at any rate. I find cultural history a difficult thing to evaluate. Everything is a generalization, subject to argument. Even if you have replicated the author’s monumental catalog of sources, it can be hard to have confidence in endless assertions that do not hinge on simple facts or quantitative data.
Unpacking Biden’s Second Term Economic Plan
President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech and his recently released 2025 budget provide a window into how Democrats will run this year. Campaign promises may not carry a lot of weight, but in light of Biden’s domestic record when Democrats held razor-thin majorities in Congress in 2021 and 2022, perhaps they should.
OPINION: A second Trump presidency would make the U.S. economy far worse for working people
By MAX B. SAWICKY In These Times What could we have to look forward to, or dread, in economic policy if Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025? The challenge here is separating whatever might germinate in his brain or that of his advisers and which long-standing priorities of the Republican Party remain. We saw the difference between 2017 and 2020. In important cases, Trump deferred to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the Republicans in Congress.
Holocausts In Prospect
There are a lot of gaps in my reading, and Hannah Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem” was one of them. I’ve finally gotten through it. My interest is in parallels between Nazi Germany and the U.S., which I will get to in a moment, though that is not the focus of the book.
A Second Trump Term Could Spell Economic Disaster
A Second Trump Term Could Spell Economic Disaster Published January 11, 2024 What could we have to look forward to, or dread, in economic policy if Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025? The challenge here is separating whatever might germinate in his brain or that of his advisers and which long-standing priorities of the Republican Party remain. We saw the difference between 2017 and 2020.
A Second Trump Term Will Stack The Economy Against Working People
From trade wars to border policy, Trump’s plans if he wins the presidency again are set to make the U.S. economy far worse for working people. by Max B. Sawicky, In These Times What could we have to look forward to, or dread, in economic policy if Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025? The challenge here is separating whatever might germinate in his brain or that of his advisers and which long-standing priorities of the Republican Party remain. We saw the difference between 2017 and 2020.
Economic Disaster for Working People Awaits If Trump Reelected
What could we have to look forward to, or dread, in economic policy if Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025? The challenge here is separating whatever might germinate in his brain or that of his advisers and which long-standing priorities of the Republican Party remain. We saw the difference between 2017 and 2020. In important cases, Trump deferred to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the Republicans in Congress.
Economic Disaster for Working People Awaits If Trump Reelected
Liberal View 21 hours ago In 41 US States, Richest 1% Pay Lower Tax Rates Than Everyone Else commondreams.org - Jake Johnson • 21h Nearly every state and local tax system in the U.S. is fueling the nation's inequality crisis by forcing lower- and middle-class families to … Ecuador 1 hour ago Chaos in Ecuador as gang violence soars Semafor - Caroline Anders • 1h South America Semafor Signals Insights from El País, The Cuenca Dispatch, and The Economist The News Ecuador has been rocked this...
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A Second Trump Term Could Spell Economic Disaster
From trade wars to border policy, Trump’s plans if he wins the presidency again are set to make the U.S. economy far worse for working people. What could we have to look forward to, or dread, in economic policy if Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025? The challenge here is separating whatever might germinate in his brain or that of his advisers and which long-standing priorities of the Republican Party remain. We saw the difference between 2017 and 2020.
A Second Trump Term Would Spell Economic Disaster
What could we have to look forward to, or dread, in economic policy if Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025? The challenge here is separating whatever might germinate in his brain or that of his advisers and which long-standing priorities of the Republican Party remain. We saw the difference between 2017 and 2020. In important cases, Trump deferred to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the Republicans in Congress.
How a MAGA School-Board Racial “Scandal” in Virginia Belly Flopped
A year ago, Fox News and other Fox-adjacent outlets broke a story alleging reverse discrimination in Virginia high school admissions, with Asians as the purported victims. It was based on complaints by a parent of a student at the elite Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology in Fairfax. The beef was that the school had failed to notify families of their students’ receipt of National Merit Scholarship awards in time for the awards to be reported on college early admission forms.
Progressives Must Step Into Biden’s Vision Vacuum
Comment / In the absence of a serious insurgent challenger for the presidency, we must mobilize independently. Ad Policy This article appears in the October 16/23, 2023 issue, with the headline “Insurgency Needed.” Joe Biden’s plan to coast to a second term isn’t working. As the 2024 election season gears up, the Democratic establishment is lurching from complacency to panic.
What’s at Stake in the MAGA Shutdown Threats
The federal budget is back on life support after the passage of an 11th-hour continuing resolution holding government spending at par. This measure is the “clean” spending bill that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had formerly vowed he would never pass.
It’s Time to Reclaim the Promise of Economic Rights in the U.S.
Remember Bernie Sanders? Given the likely upcoming clash of Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race, it might be easy to forget all that the democratic socialist senator has stood for. But Sanders is still around and the ranks of his allies in the U.S. Congress are growing. Moreover, the influence of Sanders and “the Squad” can be seen in the often hesitant progressive initiatives of the Biden administration.
One Weird Trick to Help Solve the U.S. Housing Crisis
Back in the early 20th Century, the United States enforced legal obstacles to housing purchase by African-Americans through such policies as restrictive covenants. As documented by writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, to buy a house under these terms required the purchaser to refrain from selling to an African-American. Such practices, as well as explicit, legal barriers to racial integration, have been substantially swept away.
Democrats Shouldn’t Fall for McCarthy’s Debt Limit Ransom Attempt
ontrary to some expectations, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has managed to unite his caucus around an austerity plan dubbed the “Limit, Save, Grow Act,” which is being used as ransom for not blowing up the economy with a debt default by the U.S. government. Democrats are charging that the plan would cut benefits to veterans and food stamp recipients, among others, while Republicans have issued outraged denials. So what’s really going on?
Democrats Shouldn’t Fall for McCarthy’s Debt Limit Ransom Attempt
Contrary to some expectations, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has managed to unite his caucus around an austerity plan dubbed the “Limit, Save, Grow Act,” which is being used as ransom for not blowing up the economy with a debt default by the U.S. government. Democrats are charging that the plan would cut benefits to veterans and food stamp recipients, among others, while Republicans have issued outraged denials. So what’s really going on?
Politicizing Public Education in Virginia
News you can use about politics, culture, media, and higher education. Hundreds of paid subscribers Today’s guest author is my friend Max Sawicky, an economist and writer who has worked at the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Government Accountability Office.
As Virginia goes . . .
I’ve been noticing something odd in the behavior of three of our local MAGA worthies, in ascending order of prominence: Geary Higgins, running for the lower house of the state legislature in my own neck of the woods, Loudoun County, Va.; Hung Cao, failed contestant for Congress in the state’s CD10 and rumored contender for Senator Tim Kaine’s seat, which is up next year; and Governor Glenn Youngkin.
No election for me
I have to face the music. I am not going to get on the ballot to run for the Va. state legislature. Getting the required petition signatures is beyond me. I want to thank all my donors, and I will refund anybody's donation upon request. You have two weeks to request, no hard feelings. Otherwise the proceeds will go to the successful Democratic nominee, Rob Banse. (His campaign website is here.) He’s a retired Episcopalian minister. We had a pleasant lunch, a couple of months ago.
A Reader Writes
My letter to the editor in the Loudoun Times-Mirror. I actually documented all my claims with links, and you’d think that since this is online, the links might be retained, but you would be wrong. They also stripped out the bit at the end identifying me as a candidate for office. Oh well. That’s show business. The nation’s workers are restless. In 2022 the number of people involved in strike activity jumped fifty percent.
Left-Wing TwitterGasms: If you don’t stop, you’ll go blind
(This popped up in one of those Facebook memories things from 2018, and I think it is worth a second life here.) Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has been growing by leaps and bounds. Of course, that is from a microscopic base, relative to national politics ‘in the large.’ And it is still small in that sense, but the volume and energy of activism is moving in the right direction.
Free-Market Idolatry and Hatred of Democracy Go Hand in Hand
After reading historian Quinn Slobodian’s new book, you are not likely to think about capitalism the same way. As one blurb aptly put it, the story is “head-spinning,” and, by the way, great fun to read. Slobodian is a professor of the history of ideas at Wellesley College and bearer of one of my favorite Pynchonesque names on the internet, along with Match Esperloque and Con Skordilis. His style and subject matter call to mind the recently departed Mike Davis.
Set It Off!
I’ll be handing this out tomorrow at Northern Virginia Community College in Loudoun, in front of the Learning Commons/Cafeteria, noon to 1. If you’re in the neighborhood, come by and say hello. Help us make some waves. If you go to Laurel Ridge, we can do it there too. In Virginia, community colleges like NOVA are affordable for a broad range of families, but state university costs remain financially out of reach for many.
Damn Finance
My two cents on SVB and Signature Bank closings. There are at least two different ways to think about this episode. The popular one is rich people got bailed out, the rest of us (e.g., student loan holders, debtors) don't, WTF. That's fine for agitational purposes. A bit deeper, though, is that under this version of capitalism, when the financial system suffers a crisis, fixing it inevitably entails making wealthy people and institutions whole.
Biden’s New Budget Is a Progressive Opening Gambit
When members of the Biden administration sat down to compose their federal budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2024, they faced some confounding problems. The economic situation in the United States is dogged by inflation fears, with an out-of-control Federal Reserve playing whack-a-mole with employment growth. The war in Ukraine, a source of global disruption in commodities and of general market instability, shows no signs of winding down.
Campaign Report
To date I've raised $6,348 for my campaign, most in amounts under $50. Two-thirds of it is still unspent. I'm told I will need about twenty times that to be dangerous, so keep it coming. My online newspaper ads will start popping up in a week or so. Other than that I've bought the Democratic Party online voter list (almost $1K), yard signs, paper handouts, and a staple gun. If the ads do well (raise money) I'll keep buying them. The website is getting a remodel.
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