"Affordability" is the new progressive

Maybe now more than ever.

But what do they actually mean? And is there a difference between what it means to the elected officials and what it means to the people? Today, I'm going to talk to the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to give his answer. And then, we're going to go to one of the most progressive districts in the country to see what people actually think. Last week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, one of the largest blocks of Democrats on the hill, released their new affordability agenda.

That's ten planks meant to make Americans live cheaper in areas like utility bills, child care, or prescription drugs.

“And I'll highlight some of the biggest policies included in the list because I think it's important.”

Like requiring companies to pay double wages for over time, not just time and a half, banning surveillance pricing. Where companies use personal data to raise prices through AI.

And offering every first time homeowner $20,000 in down payment assistance and expanding rental assistance.

But if you ask me, I think the most interesting thing about this proposal is the timing of it all. Democrats aren't in control of Congress. Donald Trump will still be the president for the next couple years. And it doesn't feel as if these policies have any kind of short term viability on the hill. Why is this happening now?

I think we should see it as an effort in flag planting and lit miss test creation. And progressives in Congress are trying to define what affordability means to them. A head of the 2026 midterms and a head of a 2028 presidential election that will define the party's future.

And so as we think about a post-Trump America, this feels to me like a good place to start.

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That's OdoO.com. Joining me now is Congressman Gregg Kesar. He's the head of the congressional progressive caucus and a member from Texas. Thank you for joining us. I mean, as we talked about, we won this talk about the new affordability agenda that the progressive caucus released.

“And my first question was kind of why released this agenda now?”

Democrats are obviously not in the congressional majority. Why at this moment? Look, the new affordability agenda is the progressive caucus's 10-point plan to bring down costs for everyday people, especially by taking on the big corporations and the ultra-rich that are screwing you over and making their money jacking up your prices. And the reason that we put this agenda out now is because we want candidates campaigning on this agenda and their primaries. We want people to win their elections by going and connecting with their voters about driving down costs.

And then here's the radical part. If we take the majority, I want us to pass these kinds of policies to bring down your utility bill. 500 dollars next year to pass policies to cap your child care cost or reduce the cost to that prescription drug cost. And then day or Donald Trump to try to block it. If they pass it, great. If they block it, then voters will know who to blame. But right now, the idea here from a lot of voters is, okay, they know who Trump is.

They might be really pissed off at his lies and how he is. But they want to know what Democrats stand for, especially when it comes to these day-to-day economic issues. It sounds like you find these planks achievable in, you know, the ability to kind of keep Democrats together and kind of unify the caucus around them. Can you explain that to me because, you know, Congress hasn't necessarily gotten itself a reputation for passing big bills over the last couple years. How achievable is this, though?

Voters are so upset and rightfully pissed off right now at the way their costs keep going up and up and up.

And so I think this is a key opportunity to finally beat Big Pharma and start producing tons of our own generic drugs as a country and collapse the prices of so many of the drugs people rely on for their health care.

“Right now is a moment to finally take on these super packs that are trying to buy politicians and elections.”

And policies. And so I smell blood in the water in this moment while voters are upset to forge a new consensus in the Democratic Party.

If I hear you right, it sounds like you're saying some of this agenda should be seen as a signal to fellow Democrats in 2016-2028 saying this is what affordability means to us. Yeah, look, as a progressive and a progressive district, I could put forward an economic agenda that polls really well in Austin, Texas, but maybe has more trouble say some rural parts of the country. We chose strategically not to do that and instead put out an agenda that polls very well with two out of three Trump voters. Seven out of ten independence. And I didn't just do that for political reasons. We did that because we want to get this agenda passed.

This is a kind of no excuses agenda. It plays well in every district and helps voters with the thing we hear.

“Number one from every day, especially this engaged voters about which is how damn expensive life is getting in this country.”

To that point, is that the reason that I don't see things like climate change or even Medicare for all listed amongst these plans? You're mentioning that you wanted to focus on things that have consensus across the party and across kind of an achievable group of people. Is that the reason I feel like some progressive priorities that of the past I remember hearing things like the Green New Deal, for example, aren't on this list? So as a progressive caucus, we have things called our flagship agenda. That includes Medicare for all and the Green New Deal. We keep on fighting for those flagship bills and to bring more parts of the party together around on those ideas.

But you're right. It is not the overwhelming number of Democratic members of Congress. That's part of my job is to keep convincing folks on those issues. But these are not our flagships. This new slate are our battleships that go in addition to our flagships. These are the kinds of issues. Yeah, these battleships man, we've got in some cases 80% support of voters, not just right now, but consistently. And so let's move that stuff since we can have consensus on it while still pushing for the big ideas.

It does feel a little bit though that Democrats are talking about climate less. Is that true? I think that what we need to make sure we do in the climate movement is connected to everyday people's lives. The moment that Republicans tried to make it seem that tackling the climate crisis was about buying more expensive products or was kind of an elite luxury.

“We took a big hit and so I think that it's very important. If we care about having the livable climate agenda, we need to talk about how electrification is going to make things cheaper.”

Let's get this restarted by taking on the insane price of your electric bill, earn people's trust and then show folks how a agenda on climate can actually make your life more affordable instead of more expensive. I hear the connection between climate and affordability that maybe wasn't front in center of five or six years ago. I wanted to also ask about the ban on surveillance pricing in particular. I know you introduced the bill on that policy and your bill would prohibit the use of surveillance based pricing and wage setting.

It would also prevent the use of AI to set wages and personal data like an individual's finance history rather than their performance. This all makes sense to me. But I wanted to ask that it feels kind of downstream from a bigger question of tech and AI regulation that we've heard from members of the house who have called for a moratorium on data centers overall. I was wondering why isn't something like that on this list and instead of focus on surveillance pricing and that more narrow issue.

We need AI regulations big time, but let's get started with in my view taking on the AI lobby on something that makes sense to basically everybody watching at home.

So this is still a priority of that achievability. It sounds like. Yeah, yeah, but let's just talk about the surveillance pricing just for a second. She rightly pisses people off. We had the other day. Somebody on Twitter tweet at JetBlue and trying to get to a funeral somebody just died. And in the last day, the price on this light has gone up like $250. And the customer service rep responded from JetBlue saying clear your cash, clear your cookies. And this is the thing that people know is going on. You're getting your private data scooped up.

They run it through AI and they figure out how to set a price for you. That is the kind of thing that should unite Democrats, but also tons of independent Republican voters to say, yeah, these folks are using AI to screw us.

What is being a progressive mean to you in 2026? And how would you distinguish it from just being a Democrat?

“For me being a progressive means at least two things. One being willing to unite lots and lots of people all of the folks that are getting screwed over against the powers that be that are making your life worse.”

Whether that is oppressing you on a civil rights issue or jacking up your costs like we just talked about. It's about bringing the everyday person that may not have money power, but should have political power together to take them on. I think it being progressive is an essentially a hopeful enterprise that you think I think that the world can be much better that we don't have to settle for crumbs or settle for the status quo. How does that differentiate you from what we're seeing an establishment democratic politics today?

Yeah, if we want to talk about AI, which we just asked you a question on AI, I think a lot of the establishment traditional democratic politics, this is happening in Washington, you see right now are telling candidates don't even say the words AI, you know, and if you, if you do say they're needs to be safety but innovation and then shut up, right, the traditional democratic politics is don't step out there don't take a risk because maybe AI lobbyists are going to spend tons of money against you in a campaign.

For there's a lot of sort of democratic politics that says we've got to be in this race against China on AI and so we can't have guardrails against surveillance, we can't have guardrails against it taking your job because we've got to be China and my view being progressive means let's unite all the people that are getting their costs jacked up and have them vote for a politician even if the AI industry spends against them that's the uniting working people part of being progressive.

“And then the hopeful part of being progressive is saying, well look, I don't want to become a surveillance state and there's race against China.”

I don't want us to have to lose our jobs, we can ask for more than the status quo and I think the hopeful part of being progressive is that we can all come together and figure out how it doesn't make us poorer and how it doesn't actually make us an authoritarian state that starts seeming similar to the countries we're racing against. I want to ask you maybe that same question though and flip it if we asked most Americans what they think being a progressive mean what issues do you think they would come back with like if we asked them to define the progressive member of Congress.

Do you think that they would say the same thing?

You get all different kinds of answers but if I am willing to be critical of our own movement or critical of we always got to be self-critical because I want to win and in many ways we had some very significant losses especially against Donald Trump just last presidential election.

“What I think is really important is for people to know that we care about your everyday ability to pay for your child care and your housing and save some for retire.”

Lots of folks who think that a general civil rights might be our very first idea or ideal and I of course believe in that deeply but I think we will continue to lose immigrant rights continue to lose LGBT rights. We'll continue to lose on those if we do not regain people's trust on your day to day economics and I think once we reclaim that I think we will be able to restore a lot of those civil rights that we've lost.

The point about we're probably can branding obviously Donald Trump did a lot of that in the last election and to your point did it somewhat successfully.

You know as most effective at of the 2024 cycle at least if you believe the numbers was the spot that declare common hair was for they them not you. The reports taxpayer funded sex changes for prisoners surgery for prisoners for prisoners every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access and I've been across the country as people have used that ad or even just the progressive focus on cultural issues to your point to kind of say that the party had been the pulled away from its core concerns.

Those things no longer a priority for progressives we should of course defend groups that are being attacked by Donald Trump trans folks immigrants whoever might be. What we also need to do is point out who the real villains are because Donald Trump told this complete story he said your rent is going up let's blame it on some Venezuelan immigrants your health care is getting worse let's blame it on wokeness. That raised your rent it was a Wall Street hedge fund right it was not trans folks that made your health care worse it's a health care CEO but I don't think we told that story I think what we need to do is make sure we're targeting the real villains in the story because there's a lot of people here in Texas who go.

10 20 hours of overtime every single week you know what I'll be for you even if we may have our differences on that this issue or that and that's the kind of coalition I think we need to be able to build. I want to ask about what more let's talk about the fund the police because I've read in 2020 that you are one of the elected officials that kind of stood with Austin's movement and they were one of the few cities that successfully reallocated funds from the police budget to other issues like housing.

“He's days even folks like so I'm done here in New York have reversed their support for that idea largely I wondered what you thought about that what two progressive think about crime and public safety now as opposed to that.”

I was always wary of the slogan even in those times because that meant that people didn't hear what I had to say next which is you know what what if we move our DNA labs out from under police departments and have them run scientifically what if. If some of the money that we are spending just throwing money at the police association and police unions let's take some of that set up domestic violence shelters so that people aren't having to call 911 over and over and over again because they can't get out of an abusive situation so I think we need to claim public safety and civil rights and I think we can't just abandon.

The movement for police reform but I do think that we've got to get people to understand beyond the slogans that we care about not just civil rights we care about civil rights but also their safety.

I guess I wanted to ask that question more specifically word democrats are specifically progressives over the last election cycle to deferential to slogan hearing to deferential to certain interest or public groups that didn't want them to be as explicit or maybe saying where there was a disconnect between. Progressive class and the working class like why wasn't that said at the time like couldn't you have said I don't like the slogan.

“Here's what I think is so important is that I think people need to know that we're going to put your interest as a working person.”

I know and I'll tell you a story from the Harris campaign you know I went out to Nevada to campaign for the vice president who I was a strong supporter of in that election and it's when I knew we were very likely going to lose. I went and sat in rooms with all these Latino voters so many people who said look I voted for Obama I voted for Clinton lots of folks who said I voted for Joe but this time I'm going to vote for Trump. I asked them why I got answers like I feel like y'all are focused on other stuff and when I pushed them on what other stuff meant they brought up the cultural issues and I think that that is the mistake that we've made.

And just the vice president in her short campaign it is I think a democratic party brand issue and we've got to change the brand now and out the election season because if all people learn about our brand is that where the anti Trump party and they never learn what we're for the not will have been a big mistake in a huge failure.

Congressman Kesar thank you so much for joining us I really appreciate your time.

Next up we're headed to Queens home of one of the most progressive districts in the country and we're going to go to the streets to ask people directly what do you actually want from progressives. Support for the show comes from Odo running a business is hard enough so why make it harder with it doesn't different apps that don't talk to each other. Introducing Odo it's the only business software you'll ever need it's an all in one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM accounting inventory e-commerce and more and the best part Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch so why not you try Odo for free at Odo.com that's Odo.com support for the show comes from Odo running a business is hard enough.

So why make it harder with it doesn't different apps that don't talk to each other introducing Odo. It's the only business software you'll ever need it's an all in one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM accounting inventory e-commerce and more and the best part Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

“That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch so why not you try Odo for free at Odo.com that's Odo Odo.com.”

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which is statistically one of the most progressive areas in the country. It's actually so progressive in fact. They got nicknamed a comedy corridor. So we're going to talk to some voters here and see what progressive means to them. Let's go.

“When you think of the word progressive what does that mean to you?”

Um, more modern. More modern. Less tradition more. I know. There's just new things around here.

New ideas. Do you have any issue that comes up like us on the top of the list? If someone said, I'm a progressive, is there something you expect of them? Ooh. I guess in quality in the portability.

A quality in the portability means read top of the list. Yeah. We talked to the congressional progressive caucus of the progressive group in Congress. And they have a new pinpoint plan about affordability about how to make people's lives more affordable. I want to show you it and get your reaction.

Okay. So these are the different planks that they are trying to focus on.

And I guess for you, I would love to know what you find the most important out of that list.

And is there something on that list you wish was there? Oh, wow. Vacation time people need for money. The truck is getting big and they have a quality. Wow.

Is that even a possibility?

“I mean, that's I think a lot of people's questions is like,”

Is that even viable? I know. I was like saying, I don't even think that was I thought that was non-existent. I guess, you know, I think, you know, you want people to live well. I don't want them to just survive.

So you live in the seventh district? I'll feel a little bad. This makes me feel exciting, real sporty. You see, you live in the seventh congressional district? I do.

I live up on Deadborne. If someone's the cause of the progressive Democrat, what do you think that means? Wow. I've got to stay. I'm from Kansas a reason.

I've never dreamed about 10 years ago.

So I'm from a very red state. My parents are hog farmers. So that's how I was born and raised. So moving out here was a bit of a culture shock. Progressive has a negative connotation in Kansas.

You know, they actually laid out a 10-point plan of what they said was there. I got it actually right down for you. Because you are in love. You are in love. You are in love because right there is a congressional progressive caucus.

10-point plan. I've got to make calls. I am not. I'm actually here because I want folks to read over spots to it. You can love it.

You can hate it. It's up to you. Prescription drugs. I do not know enough about that. So there are actually, so some of these are like a man out there of cost cutting.

So they're saying that imposing a corporate tax and refunding that money to consumers. So we don't tax corporations enough? There are argument with that. They should tax them more. They should just drive them out.

So when we think about all the priorities that Democrats have requested. They're talking about.

It doesn't always sound like cost a living.

Sometimes it's been LGBT rights, abortion rights, immigrant rights. Like, you know, they've been thinking more about social cultural issues.

“I mean, how much did they focus on that versus things like cost a living?”

That. Oh, you think that? You're saying focus on the money. Focus on the affordable. Because that is what all humans can relate to.

We all work. If you work, that means you want a better life. Not even if you want a roof over your head. And if you work, it's because you want to not walk around naked. You need clothes.

You need to eat. You need to be healthy. You need health. That means groceries. That means money.

So money is essentially the root of everything. I don't care if you're gay. I don't care if you have all that. That's like secondary. Third, like that doesn't.

That's not a priority. So yeah, that should have been the main focus. So here's a little secret. I actually live in New York, seven congressional districts. So it doesn't surprise me at all that when you ask people about the progressive nature of this community.

Or about the diverse nature of this community. They have a lot to say. And when we talk to people, they really help us understand buzz words like affordability and progressive a lot clear. I feel like I heard people say that they wanted their members of Congress to prioritize cost of living above everything else. Even if that means depryorizing some of the cultural issues that progressives have focused on in the last four or five years.

In fact, it's how that pretty close to what congressmen case are told me in our interview that these are connected issues. And then a politician gains credibility on one by leading on the other. America actually will be in your feeds every Saturday with an interesting interview in politics and culture. And you can of course listen to America actually in the today explain feed or wherever you get your podcasts. Support the show by going to box.com/members.

See you next week. A cute amusement.

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