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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. If you've consumed a lot of mainstream press over the last two days, you might think the only debate over President Biden's multi-trillion dollar infrastructure plan is between Republicans who think it's too big, and Democrats who think it's just right, but truth is, there's another debate that's also emerging between Biden Democrats who do think the plan is right-sized, and more Progressive Democrats who think it's too small in the number of dollars and not as transformational as Biden likes to portray it as in climate terms and in human terms. Here is Bronx and Queens, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, on MSNBC.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: First of all, this is $2.25 trillion over eight years. For context, because these huge numbers are hard to understand. For context, we passed an almost $2 trillion COVID relief package that's supposed to last us one year with some provisions lasting up to two years. So the $1,400 stimulus checks, that big package that we felt in our lives, were deployed on a shorter timeline. I think that we need to really have some shorter timelines, some urgency, greater urgency in this package, and I think that some of these investments need to be greater.

Brian: AOC with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, she also uses an example from her own backyard to put the scope of the spending and what she sees as the scope of the need into context.

Alexandria: This plan, let's built back better plan. Advocates for a total national investment, $40 billion in public housing nationwide sounds great, right? Except when you consider the fact that the New York City public housing system needs $40 billion alone just to get up to code.

Brian: If Biden has his American jobs plan, as he calls the bill he introduced Wednesday, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has its own bill which they call the THRIVE Act. With that as a starting point, we'll welcome now a leading voice for as progressive and infrastructure package as possible, including the THRIVE Act, and that means both physical infrastructure in the American jobs plan, as he calls it unveiled this week, and the human infrastructure spending that Biden will officially unveil later this month, including free community college, more family leave, and other things aimed at fighting long term economic inequality, as well as the so-called "She-cession." Have you heard that word, "She-cession?"

People are calling this the pandemic downturn in the economy that has hit women much harder than men. Our guest is Nelini Stamp, the Brooklyn-based National Director of Strategy and Partnerships for the Working Families Party. She's been an economic justice activist since the great recession of 2008, that was more of a "mancession," a leader in the Occupy Movement that followed thereafter and more. She and the rest of the Working Families Party are holding events this weekend, next week as part of what they call recovery recess, to tell members of Congress to at least vote for the Biden bills, and to push for more. There will be one in New York a week from today, and we'll get to that too. Nelini, thanks so much for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Nelini Stamp: Thank you for having me on, Brian. It's lovely to be here.

Brian: Would you start by telling us in general terms what you like about the Biden jobs plan the party unveiled this week and what you think misses the mark?

Nelini: Absolutely. The American jobs plan is a great start. There are some great pieces in there, the protection for labor unions, and the right to organize, the investment in the caring economy, so domestic workers, care workers, health care workers, those are really great things, but Biden's plan is wrong on the scale. It's the absolute floor, not the ceiling. $2.3 trillion over eight years, won't create enough jobs to put people back to work because we're still living in the aftermath of the 2008 recession or men-session, and we continue to live crisis to crisis.

We know that we need a plan that creates 15 million jobs for people across the country, that'll create at least 400,000 jobs for New Yorkers alone. It takes a plan that's going to invest enough money to actually avert the climate crisis and make the people most affected by our country's past harms that are not just cared for but are actually prioritized.

Brian: These numbers can be mind-boggling. $2 trillion, then with the part two rollout that's expected $4 trillion, the THRIVE Act that you're advocating 10 trillion, kind of abstract also, would you give us a sense of some specifics of The THRIVE Act? What are some of the most important things in there that aren't in the Biden bill?

Nelini: Absolutely. There's some obvious ones like electric vehicles, modernizing and retrofitting buildings that are in the Biden plan, and clean energy generation and transmission, but they're also ones that don't get talked about as much, like a regenerative agriculture, forest and wetland restoration, and actually investing even more in our care infrastructure. Those are pivotal parts of The THRIVE Act.

We have lots of people, more than 300 unions, racial justice, indigenous climate, progressive, and grassroots organizations that joined forces for The THRIVE Act, and it matches the best parts of Biden's package, like the setting of new standards of workers rights with the proact, making sure Black and brown people across the country finally have clean water to drink, but what it feels is the massive gaps left in Biden's package. It's $1 trillion a year for the next 10 years, to put people back to work. We need to actually get to full employment, which is what The THRIVE Act is trying to do and puts in the plan as a center.

Biden's plan will not get us to full employment. We need to get there, again, not just because of what we've lost in the pandemic, but to actually recover and right the wrongs of our past of economic inequality that has been on the burden, on the backs of working people. Our people have to always continue to be first responders. They continue to have to start GoFundMes for funerals. We want to correct that, and those are the key pieces that are in The THRIVE Act.

Brian: Listeners, it's day two of our coverage of Biden's infrastructure plan. Yesterday, we had a reporter from Politico who's just describing what was in it, so much of it was new, it's still obviously very new to all of us. Today, we're getting a critique and some advocacy from Nelini Stamp from the Working Families Party. What aspects are you looking at listeners as too big or too small? Or if he's president Goldilocks on infrastructure, just right, 646-435-7280.

Or any questions about the plan or the progressive caucuses $10 trillion-dollar throwback, or anything related for my guest Nelini Stamp, National Director of Strategy and Partnerships for the Working Families Party. 646-435-7280, or you can tweet a comment or question @BrianLehrer. Nelini, you used the term that I know is being talked about in this context, but that might be new to a lot of listeners. I wonder if you could expound on it a little bit, and that is the term the care infrastructure. What is the care infrastructure?

Nelini: Absolutely. We've always looked at infrastructure as bridges, roads, public necessities, and utilities that we need for our communities. One of the things that-- And the National Domestic Workers have led on this for a really long time is the care infrastructure. What that means is investing in our caring economy.

Our health care workers and our home aides, we need to make sure that people are getting good pay, union jobs, in our caring economy. This means making sure that our hospitals, nurses, all of the folks who have been the frontline workers, taking care of our communities throughout this crisis, don't have to feel like they have nothing. They were struggling for PPE in the beginning. I remember when folks were wearing garbage bags. I remember when my uncle who, unfortunately, passed away from COVID was in and out of the hospital, and talking about the conditions when he still could about what he was seeing.

Investing in a care infrastructure and a care economy means to make sure that our hospitals are good, that we have elderly care, in-home care, all of the things that the burden has been on women, in particular, in this crisis, in this last year. That is what caring infrastructure looks like. What does it look like to have child care for everyone? What does it look like to make sure we prioritize care as a public and common good? That's what we mean by the care infrastructure.

Brian: On jobs, the monthly report came out this morning as it does on the first Friday of every month. It showed a whopping net gain of 916,000 jobs in March, credited largely to the vaccines, making people feel it's safer to reopen more of the economy. Some economists say a big jobs plan per se, isn't really needed because the demand and desire are there on the part of employers. To the extent that we succeed against the pandemic, the job market will largely take care of itself. That's the argument. How much do you agree or disagree with that?

Nelini: This goes back to what was normal before the pandemic and taking away the previous administration, Trump's administration. We can't go back to normal, millions of people will still suffer, like trying to survive paycheck to paycheck. We have still millions of people who are unemployed, lots of folks who are struggling to pay their rent before this pandemic hits, before this crisis hit, it has been a long time coming that economic inequality has been brutal to our communities, to working people across the country.

For us, and for me, we actually need to invest in jobs, not just because of what happened in the pandemic. It is a big part of it, but not just because-- We can actually go back and repair historic harms, the historic harms of Black and brown people and Indigenous people continuously suffering from economic crisis. The historic harm that in the 2008 financial crisis, 60% of the wealth was taken from Black and brown communities through that crisis. Sorry, 60% of what was taken from the Black community in specificity. It is important that we don't treat this as, "Oh, we can go back to normal because normal was not working for millions of working people in this country."

Brian: Let's take a phone call. Here is En, in Long Branch, you're on WNYC. Hello, En.

En: Oh, hi. My comment is that Democrats are wasting our time. This bill is not going to pass the Senate. What they need to do, what AOC needs to do and Squad is to organize a sitting at Schumer's office to make him restore the pre-1975 filibuster so that they can start passing bills. It's past time that these Democrats stopped wasting our time. We need to get things done, get that voting rights bill passed, get the against gun violence bills passed, get the climate change bills passed, don't waste our time with this crap. Get it going, what is this? That's my comment.

Brian: Thank you very much. I'm sure Nelini that you're for-- Well, I'm guessing that you're for abolition of the filibuster, but my understanding is that at least parts of this infrastructure plan could get through the Senate, getting around the filibuster, like the COVID Relief Act did because it has budget implications, and so that's an exception to the filibuster. What's your sense of that if you have one?

Nelini: Yes, we object and want to end the filibuster as an organization, and it's something that is a draconian policy that must end. Here's the thing, what we want to see is Democrats do whatever it takes. So whether that's through having to do reconciliation, whether that is passing bills outright, ending the filibuster, the fear is of Democrats going too small, and not going big enough and not meeting the needs. We saw what happened after the 2008 financial crisis when Democrats didn't step up to the plate to meet the needs to actually recover. This is their shot again. They are starting at a very good place.

I commend the place that we are starting, but we really want to go to the ceiling. I think it's really, really important that we should not shrink it by a dime or wait for Republican votes. We have to have tens of thousands come across the country to support THRIVE and call on Congress to go bigger and bolder, so we know we have the support, and it's on Democrats and it's on the House and it's on the Senate to get the work done.

Brian: Here's another clip of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responding to the Biden proposal on Rachel Maddow on MSNBC Wednesday night, and then I want to ask you about a particular piece of this coming out of it.

Alexandria: If we're looking at ideals and what we think is the actual investment that can create tens of millions of good union jobs in this country that can shore up our health care, our infrastructure, our housing, and doing it in a way that draws down our carbon emissions to help us get in line with IPCC standards, we're talking about realistically $10 trillion over 10 years. I know that may be an eye-popping figure for some people, but we need to understand that we are in a devastating economic moment, millions of people in the United States are unemployed, we have a truly crippled healthcare system, and a planetary crisis on our hands, and we're the wealthiest nation in the history of the world.

Brian: There's that $10 trillion figure again over 10 years, but what I really want to ask you about next, is the very beginning of that clip, where she talked about it, creating a lot of union jobs. Biden is very much a pro-union guy. There are pro-union elements in his Jobs Act. Are you familiar with those? Because obviously the Working Families Party, your party, very much a function of the labor movement, very related to the labor movement, so what do you see here that's important that's union-related?

Nelini: Absolutely. There are key elements of the proact in the American jobs plan, and we have them in the thrive act. The PRO ACT means the protect the right to organize, which is so critical. We're seeing it unfold in Bessemer, Alabama now, where workers are trying to unionize, again, in a Amazon facility, and because of the state's right-to-work laws, because of these right-to-work laws that have expanded across the country. Workers don't have the dignity to demand bathroom breaks. That is the level of where we're at, and so the protections, like protecting the right to organize, like making sure that workers can't get retaliated against.

These are really, really important because unions are the fabric of our country, and the Working Families Party and Joe Biden, we agree on this point. Unions have built this country. They have made standards for workers across this country so good for our day-to-day lives. The elements of making sure that there's a right to organize, making sure that workers can actually live with dignity in the workplace. Those are key elements of the American jobs plan and the THRIVE agenda, and that is why we need to pass the PRO ACT, it is so so critical and important. That's what we have and I think that the bill, the American Jobs Plan is actually one of the best labor bills we've seen in a really long time.

Brian: Peter and Huntington, you're on WNYC. Hi, Peter.

Peter: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. My question from the middle here is, how do you pay for all of this? How do you pay for the infrastructure for the jobs bill? These are tremendous, tremendous costs, that obviously we don't have the money for leveraging our children's future, and you're heading down a path, essentially, of socialism. I'm very familiar with this, my family escaped the socialist beast in Europe, which turns into communism. What that leads to is just shared misery, and you see that in every socialist country around the world. How do you pay for this without heading down a path of just making everybody equally miserable?

Brian: Before we get an answer from our guests? I'm curious, Peter, from your family's perspective, with the experience that you were mentioning, how you view Western Europe, democratic socialism, or social democrats, where there's less poverty than the United States, they're still capitalist countries, they're still democracies, and happiness level "in global surveys" seem to be higher?

Peter: Yes. I tend to agree with that except for we forget one piece that they still have rationing in their medical programs, so there's not a panacea. My family having come from Eastern Europe, where, again, it was devastating what happened under socialism and communism, but in Western Europe, there's sort of a hybrid, but they still have the same issues, they still grapple with the medical programs, and the answer to that is rationing. We don't like to talk about that too much here, but in Europe, that's what happens.

Your medical programs are all rationed and we want to pick the best of the best and come up with a hybrid, almost like the Prime Minister of Canada had spoken about when he was down here in the US on that topic, but it's not a panacea there either. They pay a hell of a lot in taxes, but they ration their medicine.

Brian: Peter, thank you so much. Call us again. Of course, we ration health care too through the market and other means. A lot of people don't have health care because the market rations in its own way. Nelini, there is a widespread concern in the United States, when people hear figures like $4 trillion, nevermind $10 trillion, and the implications for debts and deficits and our children's tax rates. There certainly are countries around the world that have debt crises.

Nelini: Yes. Here's the thing, we spend trillions upon trillions, I believe $10 trillion even more on war and the war economy. We've rolled back taxes on the wealthiest and corporations in the United States over the last half a century. We actually have a history of having massive public investment. When we had the New Deal, we had a massive public investment because we had a massive, massive, massive crisis. Here's the thing, the stakes are just too high.

I am continuously tired of seeing, I remember being there in the early days in New York, of the pandemic, where our neighbors had to step up and make sure that some of us who got COVID, like myself, had food. I had to see people start GoFundMe for funerals because our stimulus checks stopped coming in, but our jobs never came back.

We had to see people of Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria giving each other clean water because Congress didn't take this chance to make our neighborhoods resilient. So the climate disasters we know are coming. We have a history of public investment in our communities. This is nothing new. This is something that we actually have to do for everyone because back then Black, brown, Indigenous people were not included, but we gave people housing, we gave people opportunities. If this is supposed to be the land of opportunity, we need to prove that by making investments in our communities.

I think it is quite strange to me that in the year that women in December, women accounted Black, Asian, Latino women, accounted for 100% of job loss, but Jeff Bezos became a trillionaire in the same year. That is the level and the stakes that we are at, and that's why we have to have massive investment. That is what we are focused on because the consequences are too dire.

Brian: We'll continue in a minute. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

Speaker: Georgia lawmakers supported the Election Integrity Act of 2021 to fight election fraud that didn't actually happen. It's already facing several legal challenges and we'll look at how those efforts could backfire and motivate Democrats to the polls. What's next in the fight over voting rights in the Peach State, that's next time on The Takeaway weekday afternoons at 3:00 on 93.9 FM.

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Brian: Coming up starting Monday, April is Ask The Mayor tryouts month on the Brian Lehrer Show. In other words, we're starting our next round of New York City mayoral hopeful interviews, and we're going to do it in the format of a weekly Ask The Mayor segments. In fact, this being Friday, we're going to have Mayor de Blasio right after the eleven o'clock News. For this week's Ask The Mayor, and we're going to Ask The Mayor tryouts with the mayoral primary hopeful starting Monday with Maya Wiley and continuing through the month of April. Tune in Monday for that.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're getting a view from the left, from the Working Families Party of the big Biden infrastructure bill from Nelini Stamp, the Brooklyn-based National Director of Strategy and Partnerships for the Working Families Party. She's been an economic justice advocate since the great recession of 2008. She's part of a coalition that includes the Congressional Progressive Caucus members that's pushing for what they call The THRIVE Act, which is a $10 trillion series of bills. Biden is proposing a $4 trillion and I know you heard $2 trillion with the Jobs Act that he rolled out on Wednesday.

There's another $2 trillion piece coming later this month, that's more about human infrastructure or the care infrastructure, as we've been describing. We'll take a few more phone calls for Nelini as we go. I just want to make sure we bring out the environmental aspects of this, the climate aspects of the bill because that's certainly a big part for Biden and a big part for you. I wonder if you could get specific about how you see the climate portion of the jobs plan, what's good in it, and what might you think is missing?

Nelini: Absolutely. Biden's plan has good gains, but again, it's just wrong in scale. In order to cut climate pollution in half by 2030, we need massive investments across to the tune of $1 trillion per year as we say, for the next 10 years. There's obvious ones that have been written in the plan, electric vehicles, modernizing and retrofitting buildings, which is great to be climate-resilient, clean energy generation and transmission.

There's also a critical piece so that we don't have crises like the Flint water crisis again, where in the plan it says that we will actually get rid of the lead pipes, make sure that people have access to clean water. Those are great parts of the plan. It is great, great gains, but again, just wrong and scale because we also have to have forest and wetland restoration. We have to make sure that we have regenerative agriculture, we need to put lots of people to work to take care, so our communities are climate-resilient.

Those are really important things. We have to learn from the original stewards of the land, indigenous people who have actually asked and demanded that we are in a relationship of consent, and not just consultation with indigenous folks. For us, it is just critical that the extent of the climate crisis because we are seeing a superstorm or a blizzard every-- It's happening like clockwork. We need to make sure that we're addressing these things at a level of scale that the climate crisis has been happening.

Brian: On environmental justice, Biden says the jobs plan targets 40% of the clean infrastructure and other climate aspects to disadvantaged communities. I hear you, you're saying that's a start that's good, but you want more. I want to mention one other climate aspect before we move on. One thing that the environmentalist Sunrise Movement likes, I saw one of their leaders quoted on BuzzFeed is Biden's Climate conservation Corps, which would involve hiring as you know, a lot of people to perform pro-climate work like plugging abandoned oil and gas wells and many other things.

For people who know FDR's New Deal, this recalls his Civilian Conservation Corps and other CCC, which did a lot of environmental work in the 1930s, as well as employed people in the Great Depression. I'm curious if you have any thoughts about the Climate Conservation Corps, in particular, or how you'd like to see it used?

Nelini: Yes. I think this is something that is a big win for organizations that we work with, like the Sunrise Movement that demanded a Climate Conservation Corps. We commend the administration for including it in there I think, again, we have to just make sure that it goes bigger and bolder because we just cannot continue to live climate crisis to climate crisis. If we saw anything like we did just a month ago or two months ago, what we saw in Texas, we need these jobs. We need the infrastructure now and immediately.

Brian: Marjorie, in Manhattan you're on WNYC. Hi, Marjorie.

Marjorie: Good morning. I'm calling in from the Caring Majority and we are a coalition of organizations that want to have fair pay for our home care workers. Currently, in New York, we are trying to have a bill passed called Fair Pay for Home Care. The purpose of this bill is to provide a living wage for our home care workers in New York state. We have a huge shortage of home care workers and one of the reasons is the current minimum wage that they are receiving.

We believe they should receive 150% of the minimum wage. We are trying to get this bill passed this year. We've made fantastic progress, it's already in the Senate. I am asking your callers to please call their assembly members and Senate representatives and ask them to support this bill which will increase our home care workforce and give them a life of dignity.

Brian: Marjorie, should I assume that this is not part of the budget package that they're in the final stages of negotiating in Albany right now, today, in fact and that this would have to be dealt with separately in the next few months, or might it actually come out this weekend?

Marjorie: It is the bill. We are currently putting a lot of support to our assembly members and Senate members who have already supported the bill. We want to get the money into the assembly bill. It's in the Senate. We just need a little more support from constituents of New York state to get this into the initial bill. Of course, the final bill will be negotiated with Governor Cuomo, Speaker Heastie, and Senate leader Stewart-Cousins, but it's something we can have passed in this year's budget.

Brian: Minimum wage plus 50% for home care workers. I hear you. Thank you very much. Let's end on that note, Nelini. Sort of changing topics for this last question before you go. I know you worked to support Cynthia Nixon's New York state gubernatorial campaign against Andrew Cuomo in 2018. Now we see Cuomo engulfed in all these scandals. A new one broke yesterday involving possibly using government employees on government work time to help Cuomo write his book that he reportedly got a $4 million advance on.

That's in addition to the sexual harassment and nursing homes and cover up aspects of the scandals. I imagine you're among those calling for him to resign, but I'm curious how you see the impact of all of this on the progressive agenda that you're interested in from Albany for the people of New York. The thing that Marjorie just called in about or anything else. Is a weaker Cuomo leading to more progressive policies from the state, so he doesn't knock heads with your wing of his party.?

Nelini: Here's the thing, we have been able to build a lot of power in the state of New York with electing real and true progressives that are going to fight for working families. That is the biggest threat to Andrew Cuomo and the administration. It is that we have people like assembly member Yuh-Line, we have Gustavo Rivera, Jabari Brisport, all of these folks who are fighting day in and day out for us in the halls of Albany.

I think that our focus is continuing to organize folks, which is why we're having an event tomorrow and a whole week of action around Climate, Jobs, and Justice Action Week organized by the New York Renews coalition and individual groups across the state to fight for both the statewide climate bill and the Climate and Community Investment Act. With everything that is going on, I am just really grateful that we have progressive champions that are not stopping to get the wins that we need for our communities that we have fought for decades.

Brian: You want to just mention the April 9th New York event? I know you have one local event as part of this recovery recess-

Nelini: Absolutely.

Brian: -where you're approaching members of Congress.

Nelini: Absolutely. We have a day of action on April 7th across the state of New York and we have an action tomorrow, a Jammin for Jobs action where we have Congress Member Adriano Espaillat, Comptroller candidate Brad Lander, and Manhattan DA candidate Tahanie Aboushi who will be joining us tomorrow for Jammin for Jobs. Folks can text New York jobs, NY jobs to 30403 to get involved. Again, NY jobs to 30403.

Brian: Nelini Stamp, the Brooklyn-based National Director of Strategy and Partnerships for the Working Families Party. Thank you so much for coming on with us.

Nelini: Thank you so much for having me. Take care.

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