robertreichauthor

It's a bad deal for most Americans. It's designed mainly to protect the foreign investments of global American-based corporations (no surprise, since it was designed in large part by lawyers and lobbyists working for large U.S. based corporations), not to increase the number or quality of American jobs. And its investment dispute-settlement procedures enable global corporations (except for tobacco companies) to get damages from nations whose health, safety, or environmental regulations reduce corporate profits.

I worry about the same thing. Cynicism about politics is a self-fulfilling prophesy because, ultimately, it allows the moneyed interests to take over our democracy even more than they have already. If Bernie doesn't get the nomination, we have to continue to work very hard -- and set our sights beyond 2016 or even 2020, and work at the state and local levels as well. This has to be a movement that extends beyond a single candidate or a single election.

I only know what's been leaked -- which raises another issue for me. I don't see how the American people can instruct their representatives in Congress on how to vote on such a critical agreement without having had an opportunity to see the whole of it.

State and local judges shouldn't be elected. They should be appointed, with the advice and consent of the legislature. Electing them opens the door to campaigning, which invites big donors, and ends up threatening the impartiality of the judiciary and undermining public trust.

I endorse a basic universal income in my new book ("Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few"), financed by levy on patents. I argue that it shouldn't be generous -- most people would still have to or certainly want to work -- but that it will be necessary as technological advances continue to erode the amount and the incomes of most working people.