WhoWhatWhy's Podcasts

RAND senior economist Dr. Howard Shatz gives us a primer on trade and globalization.

RAND senior economist Dr. Howard Shatz gives us a primer on trade and globalization.

As the new chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) is being showered with campaign contributions — more than a half million dollars in the first quarter of 2019.

Journalist David Daley, who lives in Neal's district, reviewed the fundraising and spending reports in a recent column in the Boston Globe (see link below). He found contributions from lobbyists and the corporate interests they work for, like Amazon, GE, Deloitte, Eastman Chemical — and most of those corporations paid no federal taxes last year.

One donor, H&R Block, saw progress on a longtime legislative goal: banning the IRS from providing its own online tax preparation system.

Federal Election Commission filings show that Neal spent over $467,000 in the first quarter, much of it for big-dollar fundraising events at five-star restaurants, extravagant hotels — including a Ritz-Carlton — and on luxury suites at sporting events and concerts.

Neal is leading the Democrats' effort to get the Internal Revenue Service to deliver President Donald Trump's tax returns to him, as required by law. A recent news report also notes that Neal has declined to release his own tax returns.

David Daley is the former editor of Salon.com, the author of Ratfucked: Why Your Vote Doesn't Count and the forthcomingUnrigged: How Americans Fought Back, Slayed the Gerrymander and Reinvented Democracy. Access his Boston Globecolumn hereand a second report here.

Technical note: Skype produced some uneven levels that produced distortion in the last few minutes of this podcast, and we apologize to your ears.

As the new chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) is being showered with campaign contributions — more than a half million dollars in the first quarter of 2019.

Journalist David Daley, who lives in Neal’s district, reviewed the fundraising and spending reports in a recent column in the Boston Globe (see link below). He found contributions from lobbyists and the corporate interests they work for, like Amazon, GE, Deloitte, Eastman Chemical — and most of those corporations paid no federal taxes last year.

One donor, H&R Block, saw progress on a longtime legislative goal: banning the IRS from providing its own online tax preparation system.

Federal Election Commission filings show that Neal spent over $467,000 in the first quarter, much of it for big-dollar fundraising events at five-star restaurants, extravagant hotels — including a Ritz-Carlton — and on luxury suites at sporting events and concerts.

Neal is leading the Democrats’ effort to get the Internal Revenue Service to deliver President Donald Trump’s tax returns to him, as required by law. A recent news report also notes that Neal has declined to release his own tax returns.

David Daley is the former editor of Salon.com, the author of Ratfucked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count and the forthcomingUnrigged: How Americans Fought Back, Slayed the Gerrymander and Reinvented Democracy. Access his Boston Globecolumn hereand a second report here. 

Technical note: Skype produced some uneven levels that produced distortion in the last few minutes of this podcast, and we apologize to your ears.

Can tasers and electric pulse technology replace the need for traditional guns?

Can tasers and electric pulse technology replace the need for traditional guns?

We keep trying to reform our political system to make it more "democratic." Grassroots organizations across the world are pushing reforms, trying to bring politics closer to the people. Parties have turned to primaries and local caucuses to select candidates. Ballot initiatives and referenda allow citizens to enact laws directly.

Many democracies now use proportional representation, encouraging smaller, more issue-focussed parties, rather than two dominant,"big tent" ones. At the same time, voters keep getting angrier.

It appears that popular democracy has paradoxically eroded trust in political systems worldwide. What if we are going in the totally wrong direction?

In this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, we talk to Ian Shapiro, a professor of political science and the director of the MacMillan Center at Yale University. He is the co-author of Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself.

Shapiro argues that the devolving power of political parties — and the evolving power of grassroots — is at the core of the problem. To revive confidence in governance, he says, we must restore power to the core institution of representative democracy: the political party.

Shapiro explains that when voters have too much control, it often sets the system up for failure and disappointment. Instead, we should look at political parties as teams that bundle lots of issues and put many programs in front of voters that are not based on single-issue constituencies.

Voters need to understand, Shapiro tells Jeff Schechtman, that there is an opportunity-cost to everything, and that we have to approach all issues with moderation.

Comparing the political process to "last best offer arbitration," he explains why moderation is even more important than compromise, which often leads to extreme positions as a starting point.

In the end, Shapiro shows how and why political parties have gotten weaker — and that many of our problems of governance stem from exactly that.

We keep trying to reform our political system to make it more “democratic.” Grassroots organizations across the world are pushing reforms, trying to bring politics closer to the people. Parties have turned to primaries and local caucuses to select candidates. Ballot initiatives and referenda allow citizens to enact laws directly.

Many democracies now use proportional representation, encouraging smaller, more issue-focussed parties, rather than two dominant,“big tent” ones. At the same time, voters keep getting angrier.

It appears that popular democracy has paradoxically eroded trust in political systems worldwide. What if we are going in the totally wrong direction?

In this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast, we talk to Ian Shapiro, a professor of political science and the director of the MacMillan Center at Yale University. He is the co-author of Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself.

Shapiro argues that the devolving power of political parties — and the evolving power of grassroots — is at the core of the problem. To revive confidence in governance, he says, we must restore power to the core institution of representative democracy: the political party.

Shapiro explains that when voters have too much control, it often sets the system up for failure and disappointment. Instead, we should look at political parties as teams that bundle lots of issues and put many programs in front of voters that are not based on single-issue constituencies.

Voters need to understand, Shapiro tells Jeff Schechtman, that there is an opportunity-cost to everything, and that we have to approach all issues with moderation.  

Comparing the political process to “last best offer arbitration,” he explains why moderation is even more important than compromise, which often leads to extreme positions as a starting point.

In the end, Shapiro shows how and why political parties have gotten weaker — and that many of our problems of governance stem from exactly that.

Martin Sheil, a former IRS investigator, walks us through what we know about Trump's taxes.

Martin Sheil, a former IRS investigator, walks us through what we know about Trump’s taxes.