Let's Fix This Country

A Government Gone Missing

Part of what drew votes for Donald Trump was the belief that he was a successful businessman who could impart decisiveness and management efficiency to the job, following a president viewed by many as overly professorial and diffident. Instead, the turmoil in the White House has been stunning and Donald Trump’s inattention to the rest of his government even more so.

There are some 1,200 positions in the federal government that require Senate confirmation — far too many, but that’s its own subject. Of those, the
President Trump’s cabinet did not hold its first meeting until June 12th.
Partnership for Public Service names 556 as key to policymaking. On the campaign trail, Trump bragged of his managerial experience repeatedly, so it is puzzling that filling those key posts has been seriously neglected. It is a formidable job, admittedly, but it’s an essential management commandment first to make sure the troops have what they need to move forward, then tend to your own work. The self-absorbed Trump hasn’t shown that he knows that.

By his first 100 days, the president had nominated 66 of those 556 slots with 26 confirmed. At the 100-day mark, Barack Obama had nominated three times as many — 190 — and had 69 confirmed. Trump tweeted the following in early June:
The Washington Post has kept score and shows a longer “average time to confirm” for Trump appointees, but only nine days longer than for Obama. The greater problem is that the Senate can only confirm those formally nominated and almost five months into his administration, Trump has nominated only 103 (with 42 confirmed). There are still 409 positions for which there are no nominees.

On Fox News the president said that leaving open “hundreds and hundreds” of jobs was all to the good “because they’re unnecessary to have”. But this hardly represents much of a savings in a government that has, per the Office of Personnel Management, about 2,633,000 civilian employees. And these empty seats near the top of their organizations leave a management void where decisions are not made and lower employees are left in limbo. “Without their leadership, career civil servants will default to inaction”, said Bush
consigliere Karl Rove, and the changes that Trump has promised will not happen.

Steven Mnuchin, charged with developing tax reform and facing the onrushing debt ceiling, is the lone Senate-confirmed official at Treasury. Rex Tillerson must contend with a 29.1% funding cut for his State Department, at least in the budget the White House wants. Trump wants to cut the Environmental Protection Agency by 31.4%.

Rather than fill empty seats, the president has moved in the opposite direction. In March, the president demanded the immediate resignations of all 46 Obama administration U.S. attorneys still on the job, told to clear out by the close of business that same day, disallowed the customary grace period of a few weeks to make an orderly exit. Three months went by before Trump announced in mid-June the “
first wave” of candidates to fill empty posts — but only eight.

He is now going after the inspectors general at the various agencies, first considering firing them en masse, and instead crimping their budgets as an alternate way to hobble their job of ferreting out waste, misconduct and criminal activity in the bureaucracies. This is one of his more inexplicable reversals. Trump had repeatedly cited “tremendous waste, fraud, and abuse” in government during his campaign and in office. “That we’re
taking care of”, he said. “That we’re taking care of”. He even said the savings from cutting that unholy trinity would be enough to pay for not cutting Social Security. Those savings were mocked as wildly insufficient, but Michael Horowitz, chairman of a group that represents the inspectors, told Congress that in 2015 the inspectors had identified $26 billion in potential savings and a further $10 billion from criminal and civil cases. Cutting the budgets of the few income producing sections of the government is brainless.

rather not

In November, when his business holdings had become a controversy, Trump said, “In theory I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly”. But once on the job he said of the presidency, “I never realized how big it was” to the Associated Press. “Every decision is much harder than you would normally make”. In an interview with Reuters he said, “This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.” He has made it more difficult.

With so many jobs to fill, the growing problem has been the reluctance of qualified people to accept jobs. They have watched the debacle of FBI Director James Comey’s firing and Trump’s tweets and comments that followed (“He was crazy, a real nut job”, said Trump to the Russians visiting the Oval Office). At least five turned down the plum of running the FBI before Christopher Wray apparently acceded to go through the vetting process.

One of the reasons Mnuchin is lonely at Treasury is that his choice for the No. 2 job has dropped out.

Job prospects have heard of the treatment of people in the West Wing. There are perpetual rumors of White House staff shakeups after only five months. Communications Director Mike Dubke quit after only three. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus seems always on shaky ground.

Think what you will of beleaguered Sean Spicer, but he has valiantly gone to absurd lengths to cover for his boss, but his reward for loyalty is to look for his own replacement says the scuttlebutt.

Those sought by Trump to fill posts have seen him turn on allies. His knowledge of the law, which may not extend much beyond bankruptcy protection and lawsuits, seems not to embrace legal principles. He was and continues to be furious at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself quite properly over the Russian matter in compliance with Justice Department rules. He was in conflict with the Russia investigation for having had contact with the Russians himself. Sessions joined the campaign early on and was closely allied with Trump, yet now has reportedly been harassed by an unforgiving president, giving rise to rumors that he offered to resign. Apparently Trump thought Sessions, sitting aside Justice, would throttle the Russia investigations for him.

Job candidates are hesitant having most recently seen Trump go after Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, with this early morning tweet,

Rosenstein says it was Trump who asked him to write a memo setting forth the rationale of why Comey should be terminated. He says he knew before writing that Trump already intended to fire Comey, and, as it turned out, for reasons having nothing to do with what was in Rosenstein’s memo.

But Trump acted on Rosenstein’s recommendations immediately, with the pretext of what else could he do if the Justice Department itself urged him to fire-for-cause one of its own? That wasn’t the first time the president lied to shift blame to others.

Trump’s demand for loyalty, a suggestion that it should override the primary loyalty to the country that is implicit in government service (and explicit in posts that call for sworn allegiance to the Constitution), is off-putting to those now asked to join the administration. Back in February, Christopeher DeMuth, at the Hudson Institute, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed:

“President Trump has not only picked extraordinarily capable men and women, he has self-assuredly encouraged them to speak their minds. ‘I want them to be themselves,’ he tweeted, ‘and express their own thoughts, not mine!’…Most of all, President Trump is comfortable with controversy and dissent, indeed often incites them to advantage”.

Would DeMuth like to have that one back? Anyone who saw his first cabinet meeting on June 12th (not held until almost five months after his inauguration) had reason to wonder about Mr. deMuth’s judgment. Clearly all in the cabinet were told to come with a message of praise and thankfulness for being among the chosen. “We thank you for the opportunity and the blessing you have given us to serve your agenda” was the Priebus offering. From Tom Price we heard:

“What an incredible honor it is to lead the Department of Health and Human Services at this pivotal time under your leadership. I can’t thank you enough for the privilege you have given me and the leadership that you’ve shown.”

The session should not be missed. It can be watched here.

one strike you’re out

In this administration, a “team of rivals” was not to be. As the transition team looked for candidates, anyone who was found to have criticized Trump during the campaign or transition was stricken from the list. Given the reaction of so many to the objectionable conduct of his campaign (“Get him out of here”; “I’d like to punch him in the face”), that served to shred the list. Elliot Abrams, who had served in foreign policy positions under Reagan and the second Bush, was asked to vet possibilities only to see one after another crossed off for some disparaging comment on cable or letter to an editor. Then, when Trump considered Abrams himself for deputy secretary of state, the same problem cut him from the list.

abdication

The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war but then comes right out and unequivocally says in Article II, Section 2, “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States”. As yet another check and balance, the Founders’ intent was to place control over the military in civilian hands to insure that the military does not go off on its own. It is the president’s assignment to decide against what adversary to deploy (or withhold) forces, approve strategy, set limits of engagement, and protect the lives of troops. Does the president have a more important job than that?

And yet in mid-June President Trump absolved himself of a key slice of those responsibilities, effectively turning over the war in Afghanistan to the Pentagon, leaving it to Defense Secretary James Mattis to decide how many troops to deploy. Winning is what the military views as its assignment and that usually translates as more troops. The generals under Mattis want another 5,000 to add to the 9,800 already in country, so we are likely to see an escalation of the 16-year-old war — the longest in American history — but with a president positioning himself as having nothing to do with the outcome. That is, if the results go badly.

The lack of a personnel understructure makes Trump’s Pentagon decision worse. Interviewed on the PBS NewsHour, Lt. Gen Douglas Lute, who focused on Afghanistan while on the national security staff under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said of the Trump administration:

“They’re working with a handicap. And that is, while the National Security Council itself, those who set strategy and overwatch the strategy, is largely in place, the implementers of the strategy are largely not in place, because they have a large number of vacancies among those officials who are yet to be nominated and confirmed by the Senate, especially in the Defense Department and the State Department.”

President Trump needs to realize that he cannot run the government by himself. When he makes decisions he may find himself hearing echoes in the halls of the government if there’s no one there to execute them.

Jun 24 2017 | Posted in Governance | Read More »

Incredibly Shrinking America

In a stunning move with only his re-election in mind, Donald Trump has turned his back on the rest of the world taking another step destined to create hostility with allies and cede world leadership to China. As we have painfully been made
aware, by quitting the Paris climate accord, the remarkable alliance of 195 nations given birth by decades of careful negotiation, we now keep company with only Syria and Nicaragua.

Withdrawal from the climate agreement is the stupidest policy blunder since George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq. It is not even required to believe in global warming to know this. Rejection of a world movement has already triggered ramifications that will erode our leadership position in the world and in turn harm our industries and economy for years. Trump’s first retreat was his outright cancellation of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) of 12 nations that Obama had engineered as a counter to China’s influence. China immediately stepped into the breach to create its own coalition which will now enable them to set the rules of trade for that half of the globe. And at the NATO summit Trump uniquely refrained from voicing the standard pledge that the United States would come to the defense of any member nation if attacked, which has Europe worried that it cannot rely on the U.S. And now comes this.

deaf ears

In January, 630 businesses and investors — major U.S. corporations — signed an open letter to the president-elect and Congress pressing for lowered carbon policies and continued membership in the Paris alliance. In May, 25 companies including Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, bought full-page ads in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post urging the U.S. to remain because the agreement will “generate jobs and economic growth” and “U.S. companies are well positioned to lead in these markets”. George Schultz, secretary of treasury and state under Nixon and Reagan, co-wrote an op-ed citing the remarkable breadth of the coalition, “industries from oil and gas to retail, mining, utilities, agriculture, chemicals, information and automotive” who see with Shultz that participation will “strengthen American competitiveness, create jobs and ensure American access to global markets”. In what was called his first tweet ever, even Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein weighed in with “Today’s decision is a setback for the environment and for the U.S.’s leadership position in the world”. We might well see retaliation that damages our economy.

A Yale Program on climate change that surveys voters found that 70% of Americans wanted to stay in the Paris accord and only 28% of those who voted for Trump agreed that the U.S. should abandon. More than 6 in 10
Trump voters think the pollution that causes warming should be taxed. Off in his corner is Donald Trump, whose approval rating according to the latest Gallup poll has dropped to 36% with 58% disapproving.

Trump’s action in defiance of most of the country has stirred American states, cities and companies to band together to adhere to the Paris pledge on their own. The group, coordinated by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, so far includes 30 mayors, 3 governors, 82 university presidents and more than 100 businesses. The coalition intends to bypass Trump by working directly with European nations. The European Union’s commissioner for climate action and energy said, “We will establish a dialogue…with all the players that in the United States support ambitious climate change policies”. Angela Merkel responded, “I am so moved that so many states and enterprises in the United States of America want to travel this path with us. We will travel it together”.

trumped

Making his announcement in the White House Rose Garden, Trump said,

“We’re getting out, but we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine”.

Trump had listened to no less an authority than Kevin Cramer, public service commissioner of North Dakota for a decade before recent election to Congress, who had been feeding him the nonsense that he could renegotiate a deal, a deal with 195 parties to it. Trump called leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Canada to explain his actions and that he wanted to negotiate a better deal for the United States. A trio of European leaders — Macron of France, Merkel of Germany, and Gentilone of Italy — immediately disabused Trump of the notion that such privileges were available to the United States, saying the accord is “irreversible” and “cannot be renegotiated”. Following his dismissive insult to the entire world, Trump thinks that exceptional America has the right to be the exception.

At the NATO summit in Brussels and and the Group of 7 meeting in Italy, Trump’s pugnacity had been in full voice, lecturing on climate, picking a fight with Germany for depressing the euro’s value to make its goods cheaper, threatening to block import of German autos (unaware that BMW and Mercedes-Benz manufacture here), and hectoring European leaders once again about paying their NATO dues. Back in the U.S., the President of the United States even engaged in a senseless Twitter war with London’s mayor.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer meant to reassure, saying, “He’ll obviously continue to talk to world leaders” and “exiting Paris does not mean disengagement”, but he must have been unaware that leaders in foreign capitals have already disengaged from us, renewing their pledges to reduce emissions without the U.S. After meeting with China in a two-day summit meeting in Brussels, the European Council stated, “Today we are stepping up our cooperation on climate change with China”. A spokeswoman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said “China is willing to enhance cooperation with all sides …on details on implementing the Paris agreement”. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Trump “will not deter all of us who feel obliged to protect this Earth”. Unlike the thinly educated Trump — an undergraduate degree in real estate — Ms. Merkel was previously a scientist.

Rasputin re-ascendant

Trump has once again fallen under the thrall of the nationalistic destructiveness of Stephen Bannon, who, along with the Oklahoma fossil fuel zealot, Tom Pruitt, whom Trump appointed to cripple the Environmental Protection Agency, persuaded Trump that this would be the perfect stratagem to please his low-information base who think this will bring jobs back to middle America. Unaware that he is now president for all Americans, Trump instead stuck to a reckless promise made only to those who elected him, the rest of the country and our place in the world be damned.

“Our withdrawal from the agreement represents a reassertion of America’s sovereignty”, said Trump. Except nothing in the accord does impinge on our sovereignty. The real attitude? Nobody gets to tell the mighty United States what to do. We tell them what to do.

For Trump, everything is a transaction with money at its core. He is particularly vexed by America’s contribution to the fund that helps small nations in the path of rising oceans — calling it “billions and billions and billions” of dollars. In fact it is $3 billion, an infinitesimal reparation from the country that until recently was for a century the world’s largest emitter, with America’s 5% of the world’s population spewing 25% of its pollution into the atmosphere. Where is any concern for climate when he says, “The same nations asking us to stay … have collectively cost America trillions of dollars through tough trade practices and in many cases lax contributions to our critical military alliance”, a statement that drags in his other money grievances. “This agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage”, he says.

That is exactly what they will gain by our quitting. We are handing to others dominance in renewable energy, an extraordinary gift especially to China, to which the world will now turn for the latest green technology and manufacture. The Chinese are ecstatic at this development. Once again, we are destined to watch an Asian country take over technologies that America largely pioneered, that which they haven’t already. It is a huge market envisioned to be $6 trillion by 2030 for wind, solar, electric cars, and the storage batteries that will level weather and wind intermittancy. “The nations that remain in the Paris agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created”, said Obama. Instead, Trump will sacrifice all of that, pandering for the votes of the dying coal industry.

fake future news

Of all the forecasts of what emission reduction is likely to bring about in the U.S., Trump — no researcher — was apparently handed by Pruitt or Bannon the worst case of a hotly disputed study by an outfit named NERA, an economic research arm of Marsh & McLennan, an insurance brokerage and risk management firm. That led him to cite in his announcement “draconian financial and economic burdens” and “shuttered factories” leading to the loss of 2.7 million jobs by 2025. He cited plunges in industrial production — 12% in paper production, 23% in cement, 38% in iron and steel, for example — as if the economy would grind to a halt. The figures are viewed as greatly exaggerated (and, of course, the country would not blindly go off the cliff if they proved to be true) when one takes note that the U.S. has already reduced emissions 12% below the 2005 Paris benchmark peak; industry is booming, as reflected by all-time record stock market indexes; and the economy, despite Obama’s supposedly job-killing regulations, has added 11.3 million in a decade leading to a 4.3% unemployment rate, the lowest in 16 years.

Given its plunging assumptions, the outlier study seems to pay no recognition to the millions of jobs that would be created in a full scale, decades-long transfer to renewable energy. Hundreds of thousands are already employed in wind and solar, more already than work in the coal industry — mining, transportation, and power plants combined. It’s already happening, but Trump wants it stopped.

duped

Trump was also hoodwinked by about 40 conservative groups — including the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform and the Heritage Foundation — sent a letter to Trump in May urging withdrawal. Doubtless knowing that Trump does not want to read anything longer than a single page, they safely assumed that the president knew nothing of the terms of the Paris accord, so they lied to him. So did 22 Republican senators who wrote to Trump urging withdrawal. Both, along with Tom Pruitt, warned the president that staying in could lead to legal ramifications, as if other signatories to the accord could sue the U.S. for not meeting emission targets.

Trump fell for the lie. There are no legal requirements. All participation is voluntary. Each nation sets a target for reducing emissions and submits reports of how well or poorly it is doing on the path to that goal. That’s it.

A smug Journal editorial treats this as a laughable oversight, as if the Paris negotiators could possibly have arrogated to themselves enforcement powers and still hope to bring along virtually every nation on Earth.

The point is, there was no need to drop out of the agreement. Trump could back away from Obama’s commitments, fall short of meeting emission reduction targets, yet keep America’s place at the table where it can monitor technological developments and progress of other nations and maintain diplomatic relations. Instead, he chose to raise his middle finger and make America an international pariah. His arrogance attempts to foreclose any option of a future American president to resume our membership in the world and combat what science fears will be the ultimate and irreversible upheaval for life on the planet. Trump has stirred such animosity that a coalition of nations should consider invoking sanctions against the U.S.

Against the climate scientists’ consensus is a body of skeptics who believe that the rate of change is overblown, pointing out that, when fed past data, none of the models recreate what actually happened. Then there are those at the bottom of the knowledge chain who think climate change is nonexistent, persons such as Donald Trump who has said it is a hoax.

But setting aside the climate question, even the skeptics should want the reduction of pollution that the accord will bring. Returning to Earth from our moon, astronaut Edgar Mitchell looked at the glowing corona around our planet and saw how vulnerable is our “thin film of life”. We have but one atmosphere, yet those unconcerned for the lives that follow us in the centuries to come choose not to face up to how dumb it is to go on digging up hydrocarbons, formed and safely buried away over millions of years, and burning them into the atmosphere where their greenhouse gases accumulate and persist for a century or so.

A silver lining is that withdrawal is a four-year process. If we can get rid of Trump, there’s the possibility of a last minute reversal.

The United States, represented by Barack Obama, agreed to reduce its carbon pollution by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. It’s ambitious — probably too ambitious — but it depends on the fuel efficiency standards agreed to by the auto industry and the EPA’s Clean Power Plan’s regulations that require states to devise their own means to bring down emissions to levels that consider each state’s circumstances. Trump would roll back all of that, release public lands and offshore waters to drilling for oil and gas, open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, void even regulations aimed at preventing oil rig blowouts such as the disastrous Deepwater Horizon. And to make certain we don’t learn that he might be wrong about warming, Trump wants to defund the satellites and ocean bouys that measure warming of the atmosphere and the seas.

Everything he intends has the objective of erasing progress. We are witnessing a nation held hostage by a petty man who wants to destroy the legacy of a black president who he probably still thinks illegitimately gained that office, a man who is using the presidency to revenge Obama for chiding him at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Inept to the end, Trump tried for feeble alliteration with, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris”, except Pittsburgh didn’t elect him. They went 80% for Hillary. Moreover, he chose a city that once choked on coal pollution but has become a model for what the Paris accord hopes to achieve. Someone should have told him there’s a Paris in Texas.

Jun 20 2017 | Posted in Energy & Climate | Read More »

Are Republicans About to Blow Their Big Chance?

When Donald Trump stunned the Democrats by winning the White House, Republicans awakened to the impossible dream: control not only of both houses
of Congress but a president who would sign their legislation. It is their chance to reform the government, steering it on a rightward course.

There are three interlocking pieces. Tax reform means tax cuts, corporate and individual, but they dig a crater in the government’s revenue. Repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a far less costly program could fill that hole, so the healthcare piece is needed to pay for tax cuts. The third piece is the budget. It needs to know what will happen to healthcare and taxes before it can plan for everything else.

Trouble is, all three have gone off in different directions and the clock is running.

the poles apart party

The first bill drafted by the House to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act was pulled for lack of votes. The 30-or-so members of the Freedom Caucus found Speaker Paul Ryan’s plan too liberal. Caucus leader Mark Meadows, from far west North Carolina, wanted to strip away the tax credit that would help people pay for insurance — even though far more modest than Obamacare’s — and cancel the federal government-funded Medicaid expansion. Together, that would leave around 20 million subscribers with nothing.

The second attempt passed by the thinnest of margins, 217 to 213, winning Freedom Caucus votes by allowing states to obtain waivers exempting them from the bill’s requirements. The bill went to the Senate, where it sits largely ignored because the senators are developing their own. A panel of 13 carefully chosen conservatives — all men — is working on replacement in secret. (By comparison, the Affordable Care Act underwent 79 hearings over a year and a half). This earlier article spelled out the steep cutbacks of the House version and said:

If the Senate is able to pass a bill, it will likely be substantially different from the House offering. The next step is for both bills to be handed to a joint Senate/House committee to work out differences. If they cannot come to agreement, the Republican reform of healthcare dies right there.

If a compromise does survive, both House and Senate must approve the result unchanged. With its waiver concession undoubtedly stripped, will we then see the Freedom Caucus revert to its obstructionist “no”, killing repeal and replace? That will leave Obamacare the law of the land.

As late as end-March Trump said to a group of senators at the White House, “I know we’re all going to make a deal on health care. That’s such an easy one”.

the mandatory budget

Budgets — the President’s, the Senate’s, or the House’s — usually end up as more an expression of what each hopes to accomplish before they arrive in the dustbin. In 8 out of the last 15 years, Congress didn’t even bother coming up with one. Instead, lawmakers come up with a dozen often last-minute appropriation bills to keep the various departments of the government running. That haphazard process somewhat accounts for the perennial annual deficit that has brought us to a $20 trillion national debt.

But this time — for Republican purposes, anyway — there must be a budget for fiscal 2018, which starts October 1. That’s because congressional budgeting rules say that an approved budget is prerequisite to passing laws by simple 51-vote majorities called “reconciliation”, and that’s what Republicans need to do to avoid the certain Democratic filibusters against tax cuts.

budget befuddlement

The 10-year budget set out by President Trump and budget director Mick Mulvaney was met with broad condemnation, those on the left shocked by the deep cuts in government departments and social programs in favor of beefing up the military, those on the right aggravated by Trump sticking to his promise not to touch Social Security or Medicare.

What drew extra attention was fakery of the numbers and what that said about its authors. Trump had insisted he will balance the budget by 10 years out. Spreadsheets can perform miracles, so he has annual revenue increasing by a preposterous 65% by then in order to squeeze out a $16 billion surplus in 2027 and declare victory. The smooth, ever-upward progression in the Trump budget expects 10 more years of prosperity tacked onto an economic expansion that is already among the longest in American history. As David Stockman, budget director for Ronald Reagan, says about the budget, “It assumes you’re going to go 206 months without a recession, which has never happened”.

What is there to possibly make this happen? Trump and Mulvaney assume increased growth from the less than 2% a year of the last decade to a steady 3% every year in the decade to come. That growth comes from the tax cuts, the perennial myth from Reagan days forward that tax cuts won’t reduce government revenue, as the uninformed might assume. They will generate such an explosion of growth that the government will reap more revenue, not less.

Where in the budget do we see the tax plan that is supposedly to deliver this growth? It’s not there. There is nothing to account for the rapidly rising revenue the budget expects will get rid of deficits.

Confronted with this omission, Mulvaney said the tax program was left out of the budget because it will be “revenue neutral”. The growth that the tax cuts generate will tidily increase government revenue enough to offset their cost. With no net effect on the budget, no need to include them. But didn’t we just see all that growth in the budget’s revenue assumptions? The 3%-plus growth in the top line? Trump and Mulvaney were quickly called out for their magic trick. They had counted growth in both the tax plan and the budget. Whether fuzzy math or three card monte, we’re talking about trillions of dollars here.

Further, with tax cuts assumed, how to explain the budget showing tax receipts from individuals almost doubling from $1.660 trillion to $3.058 trillion between now and 2027 and from corporations zooming from $324 billion to $497? And what’s with counting on $328 billion in estate and gift taxes over 10 years? With his family in mind, hasn’t Trump said that estate taxes are to be eliminated altogether?

deus ex deductions

Caught ou about tax cut growth already usurped by the budget, Mulvaney told a Senate committee that the administration’s tax plan doesn’t count on revenue from faster economic growth after all. That was contradicted by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin before a different Senate panel, and then by Mulvaney himself at yet another hearing, where he spoke of other unspecified measures.

Possibly he meant raising the tax take by getting rid of deductions. The administration has spoken of keeping only mortgage interest and contributions to charity. That would wipe out the deduction for medical expenses — which already must top a high hurdle — increasing the shameful inequity between those who pay for their own insurance versus those who get it free from employers. Republicans momentarily considered trimming that favored status of employer-sponsored health insurance, but apparently that sounded too much like real reform.

The deduction for state and local taxes would be nixed. Republicans might enjoy seeing residents in high tax blue states pay taxes on income they never received. Also mentioned has been taxing 401k contributions, exactly the wrong approach when longer-living Americans need to be encouraged to sock away every possible dollar.

a few words about growth

Mulvaney used Trump’s favorite word to describe the CBO’s projection of long term growth at only 1.9%, calling it “a pessimism about America” that is “sad”. “We believe that we can get to 3% growth and we don’t believe that’s fanciful”. But who is going to produce that growth? In the decades between 1950 and 2000 that produced growth of 3% and more, the labor force grew 1.2% a year. But with the baby boomers retiring and the birth rate having fallen to its lowest rate ever, the labor force is expected to grow by only 0.3% a year over the next decade, says the CBO.

The administration believes that less-generous social programs could prod people back to work, all those people on phony disability, for example — although the Wall Street Journal remarked that “experience suggests getting existing recipients off is almost impossible”. And millions not in the work force are missing for a reason. With only a high school education for the most part, they don’t qualify for today’s more technical jobs that companies are finding so difficult to fill. The Congressional Research Service reports that in manufacturing, the number of workers with graduate degrees grew by 35% between 2000 and 2016. The percentage of workers with only a high school diploma fell by more than a third.


Blue bars show days the Senate is in session.
Black bars show when the House is in session.

time’s a wasting

June should see the House and Senate releasing their budget proposals. Speaker Ryan is sure to advance changing Medicare from its open-ended commitment to pay for healthcare, replacing it with a fixed contribution for each beneficiary to “inject market forces and competition into the system”. That will ignite another furor and we’ll see if promise-keeper Trump will stay with his hands-off pledge.

The tax plan so far exists only as a list on a single sheet of paper, containing no details, and rushed to the public a day or so before Trump’s 100th day so he could claim that as progress. It’s already June. After returning from their week-long Memorial Day vacation, Congress has only seven weeks [caldndar] until they take off for 34 days embracing the entire month of August. So the question is, with all the contradictions and disparities and voids, how will all three — healthcare, tax reform, and a budget, all agreed to by the President and both houses of Congress — cohere into the ambitious and integrated reform that Republicans seek. So far there is little to make that seem likely.

Jun 17 2017 | Posted in Governance | Read More »

Sowing Chaos, Trump Reaps the Whirlwind

The title of this site is breezily expressed, but we did have in mind tackling the problems that faced this polarized nation to see what we could come up with. But the Trump presidency, beset by the tumult of multiple Russia investigations, continually shoves normal governance to the sidelines. To ignore the goings on would make this page seem clueless. So we’ll do our part by attempting to organize all that has recently churned the endless news cycle.

Jun 3 2017 | Posted in Governance | Read More »