Katie Kirchner
@katie-kirchner.bsky.social
Probably talking about social justice, pop culture, or my cat. Roosevelter—Vice President of Field Building Programs at Roosevelt Institute & Roosevelt Forward—but opinions are my own.
Really important, exciting policy from @mayor.seattle.gov and the Seattle City Council.
Roosevelt Institute@rooseveltinstitute.org · yesterdaySeattle just said no. It's the first U.S. city to bar big grocers from using your data and AI to charge you more than your neighbor, while keeping coupons and senior and veteran discounts intact. Congratulations to @mayor.seattle.gov and the City Council on setting the standard.
Today, NYC's first-in-the-nation click-to-cancel rule goes live. A basic rule with big implications: sign up with one click, cancel with one click. Here’s @hellodcwp.bsky.social Commissioner @saalevine.bsky.social citing our research: it'll save New Yorkers up to $160M and 600,000 hours a year 👇
Given today's news about the NY state lawsuit against Polymarket, I am reupping this piece (part of a series!) by my @rooseveltinstitute.org colleagues @bradlipton.bsky.social and @todusola.bsky.social rooseveltinstitute.org/blog/since-k...
Since Kalshi's Launch, Ordinary Users Have Lost Half a Billion Dollars
Prediction markets claim to outperform traditional gambling by matching users against each other instead of a house. However, most participants end up competing against professional traders, and evide...
rooseveltinstitute.org
The US ranks 40th out of 41 comparably wealthy nations on accessible, affordable, quality childcare. But even with the federal government stalled, some states have been showing what's possible. Our new brief from @lbilik.bsky.social looks at what a national system should learn from them:
Where States Are Innovating on Childcare: Lessons for a National Universal Childcare Policy - Roosevelt Institute
States are expanding public childcare through broader subsidies, investments in the childcare workforce, coordinated governance, capital funding, and community engagement. This brief examines Connecti...
rooseveltinstitute.org
New from @grahamsteele.bsky.social: DC’s leading idea for AI oversight is a self-regulatory org modeled on FINRA. But finance's track record—see: credit ratings agencies, paid by the banks they rated—shows self-regulation invites capture. It can play a narrow role, but can't replace real oversight:
Financial Crises Teach Us That AI Self-Regulation Must Not Replace a Broader Regulatory Framework - Roosevelt Institute
Graham Steele looks to lessons from financial regulation to examine whether self-regulatory organizations can help govern AI—and where democratic oversight must take the lead.
rooseveltinstitute.org
New: The federal income tax has 7 brackets today. That may seem normal, but it’s a historical anomaly. There were once 56 brackets, and there were 14 as recently as the 1980s. But, like it did much else, Reaganism broke our brackets. @samarthgupta.bsky.social has a new brief on how to fix them: 🧵
Reaganism Broke US Tax Brackets. It’s Time To Fix Them.
The US once had dozens of income tax brackets. Samarth Gupta argues that restoring more brackets at the top would better address today’s extreme income inequality, raise revenue, and give policymakers...
rooseveltinstitute.org
Too many retirees. Not enough money. Cut benefits. That’s the story we’re told about Social Security. @rooseveltinstitute.org's Rey Fuentes says we should ask a different question: How did we get here? 🎧 ➡️ bit.ly/3UIuf3B
In NYC, Mayor Mamdani has launched the Office of Worker Power, designed to connect workers who want to unionize with education and resources. Former US Labor Sec Julie Su is overseeing the effort & the executive director comes from the UAW. "When workers can organize, everything changes," said Su.
Mamdani Opens Office of Worker Power - The American Prospect
The new city agency intends to connect workers who want to unionize with resources and organizing contacts, and use worker stories of exploitation to inform policy.
prospect.org
This bill goes after both boycotts and divestment, two of the most important tactics of student movements. Not good!!!
Guardian US@us.theguardian.com · last mo.The Republican-backed bill mandates institutions receiving federal funds not impose restrictions on programs related to Israel
Bogotá, Colombia found a smart way to give caregivers time back: put the services they need in the same place. In our latest Fireside Stack, @suzmkahn.bsky.social speaks with Care Blocks creator Diana Rodriguez Franco about how this program works and what US cities can learn from it:
We should copy this time-saving Bogotá policy (with Diana Rodriguez Franco)
How Care Blocks are reshaping space and giving people time back.
firesidestacks.com
Corporate profits are at an all-time high. So why are we still told we can’t afford to tax corporations more? In a new brief, @zorkamilin.bsky.social takes on a core argument for keeping corporate taxes low: that doing so is necessary for US competitiveness. The evidence tells a different story 🧵
Why Doesn’t the US Tax Its Big Corporations More?: The Myth of “Global Tax Competitiveness”
Low corporate taxes are sold as the price of competitiveness. The evidence shows otherwise and points toward stronger corporate taxes and international cooperation.
rooseveltinstitute.org
New from @shahrzadshams.bsky.social: Prediction markets are becoming increasingly entrenched in major American institutions. Across sports, media and finance, these once-niche platforms are being woven into institutional infrastructure, data and marketing. That creates a problem for regulation. 🧵
Prediction Markets Across Sports, Media, and Finance: Institutional Entrenchment and the Risk of Path Dependence - Roosevelt Institute
In just a few years, prediction markets have gone from obscure tools concentrated in the niche corners of elite policy, academia, intelligence, and analytics communities to rapidly expanding fixtures ...
rooseveltinstitute.org
Majority Black Gary, Indiana lost electricity for 2 weeks. @sarahlazare.bsky.social visited the city, finding buildings reeking of rotten food, elderly residents trapped in their homes, & mass chaos. This is what happens when climate disaster meets institutional neglect: prospect.org/2026/08/28/g...
Gary, Indiana, Is America’s Latest Climate Victim - The American Prospect
This community has already faced structural racism and disinvestment. A two-week blackout unleashed a humanitarian disaster.
prospect.org
The US has an economy exceptionally good at invention, but less good at turning these breakthroughs into competitive industrial ecosystems. In her latest report, @betonyjones.bsky.social argues the opportunity is here, but only if we address the structural failures holding industrial policy back. 🧵
3 Failures Threatening US Climate Industrial Policy
Capital markets, labor markets, and fragmented government policy are weakening America’s industrial capacity. This brief offers 15 reforms for a high-road clean energy economy.
rooseveltinstitute.org
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Boston Review@bostonreview.bsky.social · 2mo agoNext week! Join us for @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social @adambonica.bsky.social in conversation with @ositanwanevu.com about the primaries, the midterms, and the future of the Democratic Party. Wednesday, September 2 at 12pm ET via Zoom Register here: tinyurl.com/y53z7b9e
The Washington Post published another misleading opinion piece yesterday, which made the case for a bipartisan commission to push Congress toward a Social Security “compromise.” We don’t need a Social Security commission to do the obvious. 🧵
Opinion | The best way toward a Social Security fix? This one is tried and true.
All the most significant Social Security laws were developed with the help of outside boards.
washingtonpost.com
NEW: Our @toddntucker.com interviews @bearerfriend.bsky.social and @polcz.bsky.social on how their research helped inspire Bernie Sanders’s AI tax proposal. They make the case for public ownership of AI and explain what it could mean for workers, creators, and the public. ⬇️
How Bernie’s AI tax idea came to be (with Jeremy Bearer-Friend + Sarah Polcz)
Meet the experts who put AI public equity stakes on the map.
firesidestacks.com
Tech policy is only as strong as government’s ability to make it work. In our latest in Building the Future: Meet the Roosevelt Society, @asad09.bsky.social reflects on his path from Silicon Valley to the White House and why he works at “the scale of affecting the public.”
The Race to Regulate New Tech: Q&A with Asad Ramzanali
Asad Ramzanali discusses AI and tech policy, regulatory reform, and how government can deliver bold solutions in this Building the Future: Meet the Roosevelt Society interview.
rooseveltinstitute.org
Don't get me wrong, I lift every morning. But being a man is not really about how you show up in the gym. It's how you show up for your family. It's about how you show up for your community.
"If not for Frances Perkins, Social Security, as Americans understand the program today, would not have been created." A timely reminder from @prospect.org that Social Security was built through intentional political choices and can be strengthened through them, too.
Frances Perkins: The Architect of Social Security - The American Prospect
In her words, Frances Perkins, the first woman cabinet secretary, ‘came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain, common workingmen.’
prospect.org
We are living up to our goal of facilitating intergenerational learning at @rooseveltinstitute.org! 😂
Stephen Nuñez@socio-steve.bsky.social · 2mo agoLearning that "!!" and "!" just mean "I agree" is a good ego check. Before I thought I was dropping surprising and insightful bangers in chat/slack/DMs. Now I know I am mostly just repeating common wisdom.
In 1983, Congress rescued Social Security with reforms projected to keep the program solvent for 75 years. Instead, the trust fund is now projected to be depleted in 2032. What happened? The latest research from @kedseconomist.com breaks it down: 🧵
It feels so classically Gen-Z for a joke on the internet to become a rallying cry for a new generation of student activists, and a renewed sense of hope for India’s democratic future.
Mehdi Hasan@mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 2mo ago"‘Cockroach’ Protests Signal Young India’s Growing Impatience With Modi’s Ways" The successful protests may have ended for now, but Gen Z Indians have made clear they don't revere the prime minister as previous generations have. For Zeteo:
Public equity stakes have gone from a fringe idea to the center of economic policy debates. In a new @thenation.com op-ed, @elizabethwwilkins.bsky.social and @toddntucker.com argue equity stakes should be about giving the public a voice in how AI companies are run, not just a return on investment.
How Public Equity Can Promote a Revived American Democracy
Critics are assailing deals to give the government stakes in major companies—but they’re overlooking their civic dividends.
thenation.com
Every year, Roosevelt publishes a set of policy ideas from our student leaders that are radical, practical, and creative ways to govern their communities differently. Check out this year's collection below ⬇️ ✨
Roosevelt Institute@rooseveltinstitute.org · 3mo agoWe tasked the next generation of policy thinkers with coming up with bold policy ideas for today's biggest challenges, and they delivered. This collection from our undergraduate fellows features work on AI, labor, housing and more.
Why does the rent keep going up? It's not just the housing shortage. In @time.com, our Fellow @asteephen.bsky.social argues that today's housing market is increasingly organized around Wall Street's expectation that rents will keep rising, making higher rents part of the business model.
Why Rent Keeps Rising Because of Wall Street
“Apartment buildings are bought, sold, and borrowed against on the expectation that rents will keep rising,” writes Anisha Steephen.
time.com
Exclusive: Three men who were alongside Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was killed in an immigration operation, said a federal officer fired at them almost immediately after exiting his vehicle and that at no point did the driver veer in his direction.
Migrants who saw man killed by ICE in Houston say he did not ram officers
Three men who were in the vehicle alongside Lorenzo Salgado Araujo are contesting the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the fatal shooting.
washingtonpost.com
Prediction markets may look like a level playing field, but the data tells a vastly different story. Thanks to @moreperfectunion.bsky.social for featuring our research, courtesy of @bradlipton.bsky.social and @todusola.bsky.social! Watch below 📹⬇️
