Guest: Ryan Cooper of The American Prospect; Also: Trump's Project 2025 in reality, in the U.S. House, and in song!...
The stakes seem high enough on every level that it remains remarkable, as we muse at one point on today's BradCast, that mainstream corporate media barely mentions, much less reports on any of it. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]
Kamala Harris has clawed back a lot of ground that voters were initially giving to Donald Trump when it came to the question of who they trusted most to handle the economy. Recent polling finds the two largely tied on the issue, despite the fact that, under the Biden-Harris Administration, GDP is at record highs, unemployment at 50-year lows, there has been record job creation (above and beyond the restoration of jobs lost during the pandemic), middle-class wages are rising substantively for the first time in decades, inflation is largely back to pre-pandemic levels, interest rates are finally being lowered by the Fed, energy prices are dropping and major Wall Street indexes continue to meet and beat all-time record highs.
Sounds like a pretty good economy. You'd think the incumbent Administration might be rewarded for it. But, oh, well. Trump says nobody can afford to buy back anymore. So there's that.
Harris has already put forward a host of new economic proposals [PDF] in her campaign, including $6,000 child tax credits for families with newborns; $25,000 to help first-time home buyers afford down payments; increasing the amount that new, small businesses can deduct for startup costs from $5,000 to $50,000. She detailed still more plans for what she describes as her "Opportunity Economy" in Pittsburgh today.
By way of contrast, Trump wants to give another trillion dollar tax break to the wealthy and huge corporations, institute and enormous national sales tax for consumers on all imported goods, adopt some gimmicky, ill-defined schemes such as "No Tax on Tips" (which Harris favors as well) and otherwise "Drill, Baby, Drill" to pay for it all (even though oil and gas drilling, for good or ill, is already at record highs under Biden-Harris). I'd link to those proposals but they don't appear to be detailed anywhere, other than, perhaps, in Project 2025.
Corporate mainstream media does a lousy job of highlighting economic facts and the starkly different visions of the candidates. But they do an even worse job when it comes to educating the electorate about some of the landmark legislation that the Administration was able to get through extraordinarily narrow Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, all of which are transformational for the American economy, American jobs and the global climate.
The poorly-named bill called the Inflation Reduction Act, while including some measures for lower inflation, is also the largest ever single investment in climate action in world history, clocking in at as much as $1.2 trillion in size. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, offers about $500 billion to upgrade our rail and road systems, build out a national EV charging network, upgrade the electric grid and much more. The CHIPS and Science Act authorizes $280 to onshore manufacturing factories and jobs in high-tech industries. All of which, though they are just barely getting started, will amount to millions of new jobs and a cleaner, renewable, electrified future that will slash global warming emissions in half by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050...if they stay on the current trajectory.
Trump has promised to end that trajectory and kill as many of those programs as possible, despite the cost to the economy, jobs and a livable climate for all.
We're joined today by RYAN COOPER, Executive Editor of The American Prospect, to discuss the economic and climate stakes of this year's election, as he recently reported on for The Prospect, as our two potential futures are now starkly divergent, with trillions of dollars, millions of jobs (in all 50 states) and a clean, renewable energy future hanging in the balance.
As Cooper explains at The Prospect, a recent independent analysis comparing best-case scenarios for Harris versus Trump and his Project 2025 plan find that by 2020, "she would actually beat the 50 percent emissions reduction target slightly (and hit net zero by 2050), add 2.2 million jobs, save $7.7 billion in yearly household energy costs, increase GDP by $450 billion per year, and prevent 3,900 early deaths from air pollution."
"For Trump, they estimated that by 2030, he would stall out emission cuts (meaning an increase relative to Harris by 1.75 billion metric tons [of climate choking emissions] per year), destroy 1.7 million jobs, increase household energy spending by $32 billion, decrease GDP by $320 billion per year, and increase early deaths caused by air pollution by 2,100."
And yet, according to pre-election polling, the two candidates are largely tied when it comes to who voters believe will best handle the economy!
Cooper says blame not only falls on mainstream corporate media, but on Democrats who "really haven't been selling" their climate and economic agenda. Also, he tells me, I may be "imagining a much more rational and grounded political party in the Republicans than actually exists. This is a cult of personality," he emphasizes, with members who are "brain-poisoned" at this point. Despite the "overwhelming popularity" of federal government programs that help assure clean air and water, "the idea that [millions of renewable energy and manufacturing] jobs are going to cause a realignment among Republicans against liberal, clean energy, Toyota Prius-type stuff, is somewhat wishful thinking. Maybe in five or ten years it may be a different story."
These are, in fact, enormous, economy-shifting projects that take time to fully play out and integrate into society and the American psyche. "Under Biden, only about 17 percent of the $1.6 trillion authorized in his climate bills and the American Rescue Plan had gotten out the door as of this April," Cooper reports at The Prospect. "More has been done since then, but much more remains."
Despite those obstacles, the media really are failing to educate the electorate on this, failing to explain the extraordinary breadth of the Biden-Harris climate achievements which would likely be exceedingly popular if Americans fully understood them. "Nobody wants their air and water polluted outside of hard-core 'rolling coal' truck owners. Nobody wants to give their kid brain cancer so a chemical company can make more money," Cooper says, chalking up much of the lack of understanding among the electorate to "the incredibly biased information space in political media. Ordinary people are just not hearing about this stuff. When you tell swing voter panels about this stuff, most of them refuse to believe you!"
"We are talking about the industries of the 21st century," he stresses. "The whole world is re-gearing everything around renewable energy --- the cheapest energy in most of the world that has ever been produced. The whole industrial supply chain, everything, how we live, is being transformed. It's significant. I think it will be seen as the Industrial Revolution was."
True. Unless America elects Donald Trump, who has promised to gut it all. There is much more worth tuning in for in my conversation with Cooper today.
ALSO TODAY... Speaking of Trump's Project 2025, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) explains how Team Trump's promise to "dismantle the administrative state” includes dismantling and/or privatizing dozens of federal agencies, putting as many as one million jobs at risk; Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) cites the menace of Project 2025 in a U.S. House subcommittee hearing on whistleblowers today; And Jason Kravits wraps it all together in a brilliant Schoolhouse Rock-style satirical tune to end today's BradCast on a high note...
CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...
* * *While we post The BradCast
here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Pandora, TuneIn, Google, Amazon or our native RSS feed!
* * *
Trump EPA Guts Enviro Justice Office: 'BradCast' 4/24/25
'Green News Report' 4/24/25
Previous GNRs:
Nation's Largest Broadcaster Mandates News Outlets Hoax Viewers to Help Gut FCC Rules: 'BradCast' 4/23/25
Trump's FCC on Precipice of Ending All Limits on Corporate Control of Local TV Stations
GOP Earth Day 2025 Hypocrisies and Dilemmas: 'BradCast' 4/22/25
'Green News Report' 4/22/25
Pope Francis Dies,
Sunday 
Sunday 'Zero Day' Toons
Soc. Sec. Expert Warns DOGE Hastening Collapse, Privati-zation: 'BradCast' 4/10/2025
Trump Blinks, Chaos Reigns, Markets Spike as Many Tariffs Remain Despite 90-Day 'Pause': 'BradCast' 4/9/25
SCOTUS Deportation Ruling Grimmer Than First Appears: 'BradCast' 4/8/25
'Green News Report' 4/8/25
Cliff Diving with Donald: 'BradCast' 4/7/25
Sunday 'Don't Look Down' Toons
'Green News Report' 4/3/25
'Mob Boss' Trump's Trade Sanctions Tank U.S., World Markets: 'BradCast' 4/3/25
Crawford Landslide in WI; Booker Makes History in U.S. Senate: 'BradCast' 4/2/25
Judge Ends Challenge to GA's Unverifiable, Insecure Vote System: 'BradCast' 4/1/25
Bad Court, Election News for Trump is Good News for U.S.: 'BradCast' 3/31
Vets Push Back at Plan to Slash Health Care, 80K V.A. Jobs: 'BradCast' 3/27/25
Signal Scandal Worsens for Trump, GOP; Big Dem Election Wins in PA: 'BradCast' 3/26
'Emptywheel': Trump NatSec Team Should 'Resign in Disgrace': 'BradCast' 3/25/25
USPS 'Belongs to the People, Not the Billionaires': 'BradCast' 3/24/25
VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
Criminal GOP Voter Registration Fraud Probe Expanding in VA
DOJ PROBE SOUGHT AFTER VA ARREST
Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
ALL TOGETHER: ROVE, SPROUL, KOCHS, RNC
LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
'Fired' Sproul Group 'Cloned', Still Working for Republicans in At Least 10 States
FINALLY: FOX ON GOP REG FRAUD SCANDAL
COLORADO FOLLOWS FLORIDA WITH GOP CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
CRIMINAL PROBE LAUNCHED INTO GOP VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL IN FL
Brad Breaks PA Photo ID & GOP Registration Fraud Scandal News on Hartmann TV 
CAUGHT ON TAPE: COORDINATED NATIONWIDE GOP VOTER REG SCAM
CRIMINAL ELECTION FRAUD COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST GOP 'FRAUD' FIRM
RICK SCOTT GETS ROLLED IN GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL
VIDEO: Brad Breaks GOP Reg Fraud Scandal on Hartmann TV
RNC FIRES NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION FIRM FOR FRAUD
EXCLUSIVE: Intvw w/ FL Official Who First Discovered GOP Reg Fraud
GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD FOUND IN FL
( 1 so far... )
Incredibly, many Trump-supporting MAGA dupes still believe any of this is being done in the name cutting government "waste, fraud and abuse" --- much less "efficiency" in the federal government. As discussed on today's 
