New evidence confirms what many suspected: the Supreme Court increasingly rules for the rich.
What’s driving the shift and what it means for democracy.
The latest #FiresideStacks 🔥 from @andreaprat.bsky.social, @proffionasm.bsky.social and Jacob Spitz: https://bit.ly/4cFUY7U
Bezos’ layoffs at the Washington Post are a warning: the extremely wealthy buy essential institutions and reshape them to extract more from all of us. Taxing billionaires is about breaking that power.
Read more from @igorvolsky.bsky.social in this week's #FiresideStacks🔥 : https://bit.ly/4rCLlLE
Filing your taxes shouldn't be this hard.
The IRS built a free filing tool that worked.
This administration killed it.
Tax prep companies are cashing in.
This is how complexity become a profit strategy, Noa Rosinplotz in this week's #FiresideStacks🔥 : https://bit.ly/3NNVCFZ
An image featuring a quote from Elizabeth Wilkins about Zohran Mamdani's approach to people-centered policymaking, presented by Roosevelt Forward: "What truly distinguishes this approach is that Mamdani treats people-centered policymaking as a source of governing power, not just popular appeal. He has invested in building a sense of belonging that is now translating into sustained civic engagement."
New from our President and CEO @elizabethwwilkins.bsky.social: @mayor.nyc.gov is reshaping the city's affordability approach, from multibillion-dollar childcare to rent freezes, wage floors, and people-led policy engagement.
Read more in our latest #FiresideStacks🔥
https://bit.ly/4rfYtWD
States know the federal minimum wage is too low—that’s why 19 raised theirs.
So why do most still rely on outdated federal overtime rules?
If wages must keep up with inflation, overtime should too. Patrick Oakford in this week’s #FiresideStacks🔥
https://bit.ly/49NboIG
So much of what we’re told is “personal failure” is actually public policy failure. Shame keeps people silent and that silence protects the billionaire class.
@kristencrowell.bsky.social of @fairshareamerica.bsky.social in this week's #FiresideStacks🔥
https://bit.ly/4jwQW2T
79 million Americans already struggle with medical bills or medical debt. Telling them to “pay up front and deduct it later” isn’t reform—it’s denial. @mirandayaver.bsky.social takes on Sen. Hawley's new proposal in the latest #FiresideStacks🔥 : https://bit.ly/4p6sren
A 50-year mortgage won’t fix the housing crisis.
It turns today’s financial pressure into generational debt—especially for Black families already navigating unequal markets.
Read last week’s analysis in #FiresideStacks🔥: https://bit.ly/4qavdQJ
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads: A 50-year mortgage is a death pledge that follows a family to the grave instead of building something they can pass on. With a 50-year mortgage, someone buying a first home at 40 would most likely die still owing at least a decade of payments without passing down the generational wealth the American Dream promises to homeowners.
Stretching a mortgage to half a century doesn’t expand opportunity—it extends vulnerability.
In this week’s #FiresideStacks🔥, Portia Allen-Kyle breaks down how a “death pledge” is not housing policy for a fair economy.
https://bit.ly/4oTzLtJ
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads: A 50-year mortgage is a death pledge that follows a family to the grave instead of building something they can pass on. With a 50-year mortgage, someone buying a first home at 40 would most likely die still owing at least a decade of payments without passing down the generational wealth the American Dream promises to homeowners.
Roosevelt fellow Portia Allen-Kyle makes it clear: a fair housing system should expand stability and power.
A 50-year mortgage does the opposite, cementing inequality for another generation. Read more in this week’s #FiresideStacks🔥.
https://bit.ly/3Yo1S9m
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads "Consumer sentiment in October was only exceeded by lows from the worst of the early 1980s recession, the peak of the 2022 inflation, and the months following the “Liberation Day” tariff announcement this year. Since January, consumer sentiment has plunged, giving up essentially all gains from a steady rise after the inflation peak of 2022.”
When consumer sentiment nears historic lows while markets soar, it tells us something deeper: economic power is drifting upward, away from most families.
Last week’s #FiresideStacks🔥 analysis by @mikemadowitz.bsky.social breaks it down.
https://bit.ly/4rINxSv
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads "Overall, the data are on a more even keel than either the awful vibes most Americans are feeling from an affordability crisis or the anxiously warm vibes of investors. We’re not living through the economic boom tech investors see everywhere, nor the near-term dystopia consumers are feeling. The economy is weaker than last year and likely to continue to soften a bit more over the first part of next year, but the good news is at least for now things are not as bad in the data as in the headlines. The bad news is…that’s the good news."
The US economy is “OK” on paper, painful in reality, and exuberant for a tiny elite.
This week, @mikemadowitz.bsky.social shows that understanding the divide is essential to building an economy that works for everyone. #FiresideStacks🔥
https://bit.ly/4iO6RcT
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads "Americans know that it’s not that we lack the resources to deliver economic security. It’s that lawmakers appear to lack the will to collect those resources."
When families can’t afford care but billionaires grow richer, the system isn’t working.
In #FiresideStacks🔥, @lbilik.bsky.social highlights how voters nationwide are pushing for a different path—one rooted in collective care.
www.firesidestacks.com/p/care-over-concentrated...
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads "Time and again, the American people have told almost anyone who will listen that they are deeply concerned about the fact that households in the top 10 percent hold over two-thirds of the country’s wealth, while many families can’t afford childcare or eldercare, children go hungry, and so many live in tenuous precarity because we lack a true social safety net."
People want a government that helps everyone build a stable life.
This week, @lbilik.bsky.social discusses the nationwide momentum behind taxing concentrated wealth to fund care—the new mainstream for progressive policy. #FiresideStacks🔥
https://bit.ly/4i7SgIU
“The myth of millionaire mobility has done its job: it’s made policymakers nervous and kept billionaires comfortable.”
In #FiresideStacks🔥 , Jacob Spitz shows how the fear of tax flight is hindering progress on the reforms we need.
www.firesidestacks.com/p/the-rich-dont-flee-the...
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads "The myth of millionaire mobility has done its job: It’s made policymakers nervous and kept billionaires comfortable. The evidence tells a simpler story—most of them stay put."
Wealth inequality continues to widen while the tax code favors the top 0.1%.
In this week’s #FiresideStacks🔥, Jacob Spitz discusses why it’s time to stop letting billionaire threats shape public policy.
https://bit.ly/4hZo2YE
When the government can’t act decisively, democracy is at risk.
In #FiresideStacks🔥, Hannah Garden-Monheit shares insights from former Biden-Harris senior officials on how we can build a more responsive government that works for everyone.
https://bit.ly/3Xh9biB
“If the government can’t deliver quickly and visibly for ordinary people, its legitimacy erodes.”
In our inaugural #FiresideStacks🔥 video interview, Hannah Garden-Monheit offers a clear-eyed blueprint for rebuilding public capacity.
https://bit.ly/3Xh9biB
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads "As in generations past, the student left remains “the most reliably correct constituency in America.” Over and over—often at great personal sacrifice—they’ve held the line on what is moral, only to see institutions and leaders catch up. Columbia University is one example: It once worked to crush its 1968 student uprising, and now it markets that same protest as a symbol of its “activist Ivy” legacy."
When students speak, history tells us to listen. They often hold the line on justice while institutions maintain the status quo.
In #FiresideStacks🔥, @katie-kirchner.bsky.social argues that their activism should be the standard.
www.firesidestacks.com/p/we-c...
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads "This time, instead of treating students’ moral conviction as a challenge to pragmatic politics, what if we saw it as the foundation of any civic movement capable of meeting this moment?"
Young progressives aren’t “the future”—they’re the moral compass of the present.
Ignoring them isn’t just shortsighted. It’s a threat to progress.
This week’s #FiresideStacks🔥 is a wake-up call from @katie-kirchner.bsky.social.
www.firesidestacks.com/p/we-c...
![Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads “[Employee Retirement Income Security Act] not only discourages patients from suing—shielding insurers from consequences for wrongful denials—but also disproportionately harms lower-income and marginalized workers.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:7n5gvji5xg73aoarzadmkpw3/bafkreigswkzcjdqnt725twnzrcuwwyh3mcl6j37mjc6y4therzblliudsa)
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads “[Employee Retirement Income Security Act] not only discourages patients from suing—shielding insurers from consequences for wrongful denials—but also disproportionately harms lower-income and marginalized workers.”
AI is speeding up health insurance denials, and ERISA makes them nearly impossible to fight.
In this week’s #FiresideStacks🔥, @mirandayaver.bsky.social unpacks the law that prevents 100M Americans from holding insurers accountable.
www.firesidestacks.com/p/ai-p...
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads “With few lawsuits and no real penalty for wrongful denials, insurers face little incentive to change, especially as AI promises faster, cheaper claim reviews at the patients’ expense.”
A majority of insured workers are on ERISA plans. That means no state oversight, no damages, and little legal recourse.
In #FiresideStacks🔥, @mirandayaver.bsky.social exposes the risks of a system working as designed to protect insurers.
www.firesidestacks.com/p/ai-p...
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads “AI-assisted claims are error-prone: In some cases, up to 90 percent of AI-related denials are reversed on appeal to the insurer— if patients can manage the onerous process to appeal, which many do not.”
AI tools can deny insurance claims in seconds, while appeals can take months.
ERISA ensures there’s no accountability in between.
In this week’s #FiresideStacks🔥, @mirandayaver.bsky.social exposes the true cost of “efficiency” in health care.
www.firesidestacks.com/p/ai-p...
![Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads “Insurers are hardly alone in using AI as a cheap substitute for labor-intensive procedures, but when these tools wrongly deny coverage, patients have little legal recourse. Without the ability to recover damages for pain and suffering, insurers face almost no serious penalty for error—errors that are likely to only increase given such tools’ imperfect track record. And because [Employee Retirement Income Security Act] preempts state law, even the most ambitious state reforms can’t protect most workers.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:7n5gvji5xg73aoarzadmkpw3/bafkreie67ezkvjv4vv3ee5at5coqo4piarwt354lfuaedffd2jdpznphcq)
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads “Insurers are hardly alone in using AI as a cheap substitute for labor-intensive procedures, but when these tools wrongly deny coverage, patients have little legal recourse. Without the ability to recover damages for pain and suffering, insurers face almost no serious penalty for error—errors that are likely to only increase given such tools’ imperfect track record. And because [Employee Retirement Income Security Act] preempts state law, even the most ambitious state reforms can’t protect most workers.”
AI claims to make health care more efficient, but it’s making denials faster and appeals harder.
In #FiresideStacks🔥, @mirandayaver.bsky.social shows how ERISA ensures no one is held accountable when AI gets it wrong.
www.firesidestacks.com/p/ai-p...
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads "This data blackout, however, should be a wake-up call. Even under stress, federal economic data remain a crucial piece of our economic foundation and one of the last objective truths in America. Building on the legacy of statistics introduced to monitor the Great Depression and war mobilization, the US has the institutional knowledge and professionalism to expand and improve its open access federal statistics."
With the government shutdown halting vital data collection, we’re flying blind in an uneven, fragile economy.
For #FiresideStacks🔥, @mikemadowitz.bsky.social explains the risks without public data and why we must push to restore a foundation of our economy.
bit.ly/4726aag
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic reads "It’s not just that private data depends on federal data; it’s that no one—no matter how smart— can match the work of a capable state."
📉 The economic dashboard has gone dark.
With families struggling and inflation rising, shutting down data is reckless leadership.
In this week’s #FiresideStacks🔥, @mikemadowitz.bsky.social unpacks what’s lost when we shut down public data.
bit.ly/4726aag
Roosevelt Forward quote graphic which reads "While local conditions can explain some of the wins, a consistent theme is that YIMBY groups have a knack for hosting fun social gatherings where they can, and often do, persuade skeptics and convert sympathizers into activists."
YIMBYs are winning reforms that defy political norms, proving community can be a key driver to success.
In #FiresideStacks🔥, @resnikoff.bsky.social explores lessons from the housing policy movement that prioritizes connection.
www.firesidestacks.com/p/yimb...
A key lesson from YIMBYtown: movements thrive on meaning and momentum.
In #FiresideStacks🔥, @resnikoff.bsky.social highlights how joy, scrappiness, and social bonds have been overlooked in the infrastructure of democracy.
www.firesidestacks.com/p/yimb...
Roosevelt Forward quote image stating: 'Each new standoff reinforces a sense that the government is unstable, which serves the agenda of those eager to discredit public power.' - Reynaldo Fuentes, from 'Shutdown by Design: How State-Capacity Sabotage Stalls Industrial Renewal, Shreds Public Trust, and Hurts Families.'
“Shutdowns may start as political gambits, but they end as human harm.”
Stalled factories = lost jobs
Frozen disability checks
A health coverage cliff impacting millions
In #FiresideStacks🔥, Rey Fuentes highlights the need to end shutdown politics.
https://bit.ly/48rICOL
A system where corporations rewrite the rules while voters’ priorities stall is not a healthy democracy.
In the latest #FiresideStacks 🔥 Brad Lipton explores why progressives need to fight back with urgency + conviction. www.firesidestacks.com/p/corporatio...
