The AT&T Merger, Corporate Taxes, Repeating History, and More

1. When Telecom Giants Cross the Line

In a new brief, Marshall Steinbaum and Andrew Hwang examine why the proposed merger of AT&T and Time Warner could resurrect the Ma Bell monopoly, and why the deal demands a higher standard of antitrust scrutiny. Read more from Hwang on the Roosevelt Forward blog.

2. Talking Corporate Taxation

Following the release of our report on the GOP’s corporate tax plan, Marshall Steinbaum tells NBC News that Trump’s math doesn’t add up, while Program Manager Eric Harris Bernstein discusses the report’s findings with Philadelphia’s 900AM-WURD and The American Prospect highlights it in their Trickle Downer of the Week series.

3. Letting Fear Trump Our Values

Seventy-five years after FDR’s executive order forcing Japanese Americans into concentration camps, Trump’s Muslim ban and crackdown on undocumented immigrants are creating new scapegoats. Roosevelt Digital Manager Amy Chen and Program Associate Eugenia Kim write that we must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

4. Swindled On Demand

Roosevelt VP Nell Abernathy and NELP’s Rebecca Smith write in the Albany Times-Union that a proposed portable benefits bill being circulated by the online-based cleaning company Handy is a bait-and-switch for workers, who would have to give up their claim to being employees and sacrifice the core labor rights that come with it.

5. A Bad Deal for Higher Ed

Roosevelt @ American University Policy Coordinator Erin Thomas writes in her campus newspaper that, as with many other colleges around the country, the risky financial deals her school made are costing students at both ends: The school is losing millions, and as tuition rises, banks are making interest off the private loans they’re taking out.

What We’re Reading:

The New York Times Magazine profiles nine members of the modern working class, who have left behind the stereotypical hardhat and factory jobs to join the ranks of the growing service-sector economy.

The Advocate highlights how the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau puts LGBTQ people at risk for increased credit discrimination.