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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone, and happy March 4th. The day that some diehard Trump conspiracy theorists believe that he really will be inaugurated for a second term March 4th, not January 20th.

Congress in case you haven't heard has canceled in-person sessions at the Capitol for today with reports that another attempt to invade it might actually take place. Capitol Police are presumably, at least, ready for whatever this time, and maybe it'll be a big online nothing. One way or another, let's hope nobody gets hurt. Happy March 4th.

It's two days now since Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced he is lifting all COVID-related limits on businesses. Did you in our New York area audience hear that yet? Everything can reopen next week in Texas at 100% capacity. Massachusetts is about to open indoor dining at 100% too. We will do a segment later this hour on these new social experiments, and that's really what they are, social experiments in the face of thousands of daily deaths persisting in the United States and the new variants, and what it means for people in our listening area, that's coming up.

For New York, once the time is seen to be right in this area, how does the city come back? We're planning series for next week on various arts and entertainment sectors, movies on Monday, music on Wednesday, and some others that are still coming together for next week. We know so many of you, not just as patrons of the arts, but as unemployed people wondering if you'll ever be able to make a living again, really might want to hang on this. So we will do that and serve some of you next week.

Joining us right now is New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, he will be giving a virtual speech tonight open to all via your phone or computer about a set of proposals that he's calling a renewed deal for New York City released as part of a renewed deal report from his office that came out yesterday. If renewed deal sounds a lot like New Deal, well, that's on purpose. The Public Advocate wants to make New York bill back in that way. The Public Advocate has agreed to join us here right now for a preview of tonight's speech. Public Advocate, always great to have you with us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Jumaane: Thanks so much. Always glad to be on. Thank you.

Brian: Want to set the stage for us, what is the speech, and what is the renewed deal for New York City?

Jumaane: Well, today we have a huge amount of events from 10:00 to 6:00, actually, my speeches start at 6:00, where people are discussing and talking about all these topics. Basically, we presented a renewed deal. We really base it on 90 years ago when FDR was trying to figure out how to get us through that economic crisis and put forth a New Deal. It was based on investment, not austerity, that we try to him out. It was ambitious, then, this one is ambitious now, but it's not hypothetical, it's not theoretical. It's based on what we know, and risky work.

We saw that investment in our infrastructure work. We made sure that people had jobs, probably one of the hallmarks people remember the most, a lot of it based on creating the infrastructure that we're getting. We see now the intersection of public safety and public health, and so we should take that format, that work, and just update it. We haven't had an updated renewed deal in quite some time, so that's what we're presenting really courage to push forth boldly to move forward the city and the state.

Brian: Let's go down some of your categories, the items on your list of renew deal priorities. In each case, I will ask how are you proposing to pay for it, where spending is involved since you're likening this to the New Deal of President Roosevelt 90 years ago. One of your categories and you just refer to this is infrastructure and the environment, which includes in your words, the vast revitalization of the city's transportation infrastructure, and a reduction in cost to those using it. Is that utopian to think you can lower bus and subway fares, I assume those are the lower costs you're referring to and undertake vast infrastructure revitalization of those things at the same time?

Jumaane: I don't think it is. Again, it is ambitious, but it's not theoretical, especially if we think about everything together. We have a tendency to think about this thing over here and that thing over here, but understanding how transportation should be used to make sure that people can go to and from work, even if they can't afford to pay. What that means that they can afford to pay is not to send police to arrest them, or for this.

If you think about how everything is connected, then no, it's about the entire budget, and what we put that budget toward. The same thing could have been said while we're trying to get past the Great Depression, "How are we going to pay for these things?" The same thing applies now. We actually have the funding is, "Where is it going?"

We have actually people who have made billions of dollars more now than before the pandemic. We have to decide, where are we going to have the conversation of what civic engagement is? What is civic responsibility? Everybody doing what they can with what they have, where they are, and these are things that we have to do, something like QE. The greatest expansion of QE happened during the Great Depression because people understood what was needed to get out of that. This is the kind of thing that we have to get back to, and not believe that it's some theoretical utopia because it's really not. It's just really about what we invest in, what we have the courage to invest in, and then waiting for those dividends.

Brian: Listeners, we can take some phone calls for New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams at 646-435-7280. Do you like the idea of a New Deal, a renewed deal, as he calls it, but modeling on the FDR New Deal at the municipal level for New York City. 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. We'll get back to the financing question as we go, but I want to pick up on something you said a second ago, Public Advocate about not looking at these things in pieces, in silos like infrastructure here and public health there and things like that.

I noticed that in your report, you have a section on justice, health equity, and safety. I thought, "Wow, that's a lot to bite off in one category." Why do you put health like medical access, for example, in the same bucket as police reform?

Jumaane: Well, we really have to remember why we're in this situation here, and what has caused certain communities to be hit the hardest during the pandemic. We see all these things intersect. What we also have been trying to push is a discussion on reimagine what public safety is, what is public safety needs, what makes a community feel safe, and then realize what we've done so often is some police to try to fill in all of those buckets.

As I said before, actually not fair to the police officer who can't fill all those buckets, and it's obviously not fair to the community that is not getting those buckets filled. We have seen the intersection of communities that were not safe, that were hit the hardest, that have people die, and that lead to a number of things, including access to health care, access to a whole bunch of things that if they had access to, they would have felt safe, they would have been safe. We have to talk about that in those ways and stop putting public safety just in the silo of what police are here, what police are there. You really have to broaden that discussion.

Brian: Another of your categories is education and opportunity. Do you have a plan for getting more kids through high school, let's say with real career or college readiness?

Jumaane: Oh, this one is a hot topic now. It's really freaking out how we get through, see these kids through the system, and replace what people commonly call school to prison pipeline, and really focus on their education, really putting a new model now that's not based on the arcane surveillance of some of these communities, from the minute they walk out their house to the minute they go back to school.

Again, what is not being serviced there? We have a tendency to pick up again, how police play a role in these schools, instead of truly funding the schools. You have schools that have no sports programs at all, no arts programs at all. How can you allow a system to exist like that? That enhances all factors and additional schools and additional police, that's unfair. Let's start reversing that model that's pulling the healing center model, the restorative justice model, which doesn't take away accountability for behavior that's bad, but it really starts focusing on how we correct that behavior.

It doesn't instantaneously criminalize young people. Also, when you look at something like the summer youth program, which was decimated in the last budget, even as we were able to hire additional officers, the number one way to cut violent crime in half in young people, prove it, these are proven metrics, is an eight-week job. If you had 75,000 youth slots and you cut it to less than 30,000, what do you think the impact is going to be? Again, we have to stop thinking about these things in silos, and we start showing the connectivity.

Brian: I noticed that education and opportunity section includes limiting the influence of giant corporations and billionaires. Lay this out for us. How do you see their influence being most destructive in New York right now, and what do you say to those as we bring the finances back into it, who warned that you want those Wall Street firms to stay on Wall Street, for example, and not move to Charlotte, North Carolina, which would love to have them?

Jumaane: One, I believe absolutely that people who are successful in finance, people who are millionaires in business, shouldn't be shut out of the conversation. They have a lot of input that they can give and they've been successful in business and we should figure out how we spread that knowledge around, but what we found is that they have dominated the conversation. If there's task force put in place, or if they have the err of the people who are making the decision, they have tended to push models that further make people who already have money, get more money.

We need to make sure that people have the same opportunities, who are not as rich and maybe have a different aspect in life and come from a different place and have been successful in other areas and can really figure out how to make communities safe and healthy and another point of view in those tables, in those rooms, so we have to take away the dominance of what money does to these conversations, because pre-pandemic, we saw how bad it was. If we had stopped and paused for a second and said, "We don't need to cut Medicaid. We do need to fully fund our schools."

The governor put budgets in the state that looked like they were balanced, but what they did was forced municipalities to cut services that made things worse. If we can move the impact of what those big checks and donor checks mean, I think it will be very helpful. I don't think anyone can disagree with that. Again, when we say that there is income that we can raise from some of these financially successful folks, it's not an act of necessarily revenge, it's an act of, we all have to be civically engaged now.

You have group called Patriotic Millionaires, who very much support the progressive bills and suggestions to raise income. They need to be more at the table. They need to be really sought after and discuss how this happens. It's not a removal of anyone from the discussion, it's a removal of a dominance of one part of the feather.

Brian: Is that your description by the way, or is that the formal name of a group, Patriotic Millionaires?

Jumaane: That is the formal name of a group that they call themselves Patriotic Millionaires. They have been supportive of many of these policies and a little bit of before. It's unfortunate that people don't even know they're there. What has happened is they have been not given the same platform as other folks who have been pushing back on this simply because they want to be able to make as much money as possible, irrespective of who's harmed and how community is suffering because of it. That's the balance that we have to bring back.

Brian: What are the bottom line finances of this? Again, if you're likening a renewed deal for New York City post-COVID to the new deal, post-depression from FDR way back then, the federal government has the ability to literally print money. The city obviously does not and is facing a fiscal crisis as is the state pandemic economy caused. If you're proposing at this particular moment to expand spending on transportation infrastructure, on housing infrastructure, on education, what's the total price tag if you have one of the renewed deal and where does the extra money come from?

Jumaane: One, we do know now that thankfully we'll be getting assistance from the federal government. We're getting information now that the hit even without the federal government may not be as bad as we thought it may have been, so all those things, all positive, but to be clear, that doesn't mean we stop pushing on these issues. We don't have the specific price point for the entire thing, we do know right now, but this is a discussion that we have to have. We're pushing forward these ideas and we should find out what the price tag is, but we also shouldn't leave billions of dollars on the table.

We can have a progressive income tax right now that could raise $12 to $18 billion. That's before we even get to the stock transfer tax that seems to cause the most of the [unintelligible 00:15:43], but we have taxes that's just a billionaire tax, that can raise $23 billion and billion dollars a year after. There's funding out there to do the things that people have been pushing to do.

By the way, when I ran for Lieutenant governor, two or three years ago now, these are things that I was running on. If we had funded those things then with the billions of dollars we leave on the table every single year, when the pandemic hit, we may not have been the epicenter of the epicenter because we would have had a network all across the city and even up the state that would have helped us sustain things, that would have helped people get the healthcare that they need, get the job that were desperately needed. This conversation had been going on for such a long time.

We don't want to go back to normal because "normal" before the pandemic really didn't work. You had the governor trying to cut Medicaid, again, under-funding schools. It didn't work for the vast majority of people, but if there was ever an opportunity to do something new, to lay a new system down, it's now as we're coming out of this pandemic, so let's do that. Let's do something. Let's push for this renewed deal in a way that focuses on justice and equity.

By the way, even when FDR put forth new deal, there was some very questionable policy they put forth there, one that dealt with equity and what families were focused on in terms of who was getting housing and who wasn't. It's not a perfect situation, but we have to review what worked, updated it, and put in that lens of equity, so we're not leaving anyone behind.

Brian: With New York City Public Advocate, Jumaane Williams, for a few more minutes, 643-657-280. If you want to call in 646-435-7280. Then we're going to look at Texas announcing the 100% lifting of capacity restrictions on businesses right now. That means 100% at restaurants, 100% in the Houston Rockets Basketball Arena, think of Madison Square Garden, all full of people right now, or the Barkley Center, and the implications for us all of the social experiment that Texas is about to undertake. That's coming up in about 10 minutes. Right now, Amy in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Public Advocate, Jumaane Williams. Hi, Amy?

Amy: Hi Brian. What I'm asking is [inaudible 00:18:27] Green New Deal

Brian: We have a terrible connection, Amy, but I think I've got your question. With respect, I'm going to have to go because of your line, but she's asking a great question, which is if you're modeling something on the new deal, we know that other way that the phrase is being invoked these days and that's with Green New Deal, so how green would your renewed deal for New York City be?

Jumaane: Well, one I support the Green New Deal. I firmly believe that even when it comes to things like infrastructure, green is a way that we need to be going. There's a whole wave of green new jobs that haven't really manifested. That's because we keep reinvesting in energy infrastructure. That's based on the old way of coal and using energy that is not healthy for the environment. If we dedicate ourselves to change this infrastructure, not only will you be doing green, not only will you be helping the environment, but you'll be creating a massive amount of ability for jobs the same way that we did when this was put forth 90 years ago.

Again, we just have to have the courage to do it. We just have to have the vision to do it, but it seems like we're so wedded in what we have now that we don't want to make any investments. The people who make money off of energy, don't want to put the investments into changing the infrastructure because the model they have just makes tons of money for them, even at the expense of the environment. Believe it or not, as you might imagine the communities that get hit the worst when it comes to climate change are Black and brown communities.

Brian: Joshua in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. Hi, Joshua.

Joshua: Hey, awesome to be here. Thanks so much. Advocate Williams, given your widespread popularity and name recognition, why haven't you made a bid to run for mayor? I believe you'd make a great contender and would receive stronger support.

Jumaane: Thank you for that. Appreciate the question. I'm not sure of the definition of popularity, I'm sure there's a lot of folks who may have a different opinion. I appreciate that very much. I think we presented something different for the Public Advocate's office, I believe from this perch we're able to push on conversations in a way that we might not be if everyone assumes that everything you're doing is to go to a higher office. We decide to run for re-election and do our best to push the conversation for the people who are applying for the mayoral job. I really appreciate that question.

Brian: Will you endorse in the mayoral primary? I think yours is one of the endorsements that actually might carry some weight.

Jumaane: It's a weird space to be in. 10 years ago, I looked at it a little differently. Some of it is [unintelligible 00:21:36] thinks that people may even be pushing to get my endorsement. I think people often think that endorsements hit a lot more than they do. It's an honor for folks to ask, but the endorsement, I think that to put boots on the ground are even better, but the short answer is I don't know. I'm speaking to everyone that reaches out, giving any policy ideas that folks want to hear, and really trying to push this conversation because it's important. Gun Violence is [inaudible 00:22:11] we're seeing certain crimes trend up.

We also see suicides in trains and subways up. There's a real conversation that needs to be had about how we address public safety, and that we don't have a knee jerk reaction we had 30 years ago, that people are actually apologizing because it didn't have the effect that folks thought it would and it had long-term detrimental effects. We're really trying to push that narrative and that discussion and we have a new deal that we put forward is part of that. We don't know yet, but we definitely want to impact the conversation.

Brian: One other political question, you ran in 2018, as some listeners know, some listeners may not remember in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor against Governor Cuomo's running mate, Kathy Hochul, having run against that ticket, do you view the governor's current troubles through a certain critical lens? You know his defenders are saying, "Slow this down. This push for his political head, he deserves the due process of the investigation now underway, at very least first," what's your position?

Jumaane: First, what he's accused of is appalling. You have to be clear about that. To your question, I do put additional framing onto it because the behavior we saw-- The behavior that he's accused of and that abhorrent accusation or sexual harassment. We see that behavior in how the governor had governed, and many of us have been saying that for quite some time, whether it's pay to play from real estate to nursing homes, whether it's bullying, whether it's retaliation, we've seen those governance styles for quite some time.

Again, they happened before the pandemic and this pandemic hasn't created new issues, they've exposed issues that have been there for so long and that's no different when it comes to the governor. I think it's finally coming to the fore, but from reporters to elected, to staff, everybody knows who this governor was. I do think it's important for the investigation to go forth. The due process is important. Also, I think it will expose other things. We had asked the DOJ, and the Attorney General to investigate the executive orders that were made through this pandemic, even before this.

I've been saying for a while I didn't think that this was the governor we should've had during this pandemic, and even as he ran for re-election. I'm focused on that, I'm focused on this budget right now. I'm worried that having this governance style that's really based on toxic bullying and retaliation, it might be troublesome for April budget, in one of the most consequential budgets that we've ever seen.

Brian: I know you got to go in 30 seconds. How can people attend the speech and conference tonight where you will be talking to a virtual audience about your renewed deal for New York City?

Jumaane: The conference has started. At ten o'clock, people can go to advocate.nyc.gov, advocate.nyc.gov it's a whole day of conferences on the very issues we spoke about today then some. We have Dr. Gounder from President Biden's team on the COVID vaccinations reading some of those sections. We have some great speakers and at 6:00 PM, I'll be giving my state of the people address. People can go to that same website [unintelligible 00:25:53]

Brian: Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, we always appreciate it. Good luck tonight.

Jumaane: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I always appreciate the conversation.

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