Be A Fanatical Optimist February 12, 2020February 11, 2020 This terrific piece argues “we must organize rather than agonize” . . . that “Nihilism remains the GOP’s ultimate Trump card.” . . . They are counting on citizens of good faith to give up, to quit the field, to say “who cares?” . . . Don’t let them sucker you. Be a fanatical optimist. Make a plan. Take action. Listen to your conscience. Vote. Ironically, the friend who sent me this — only some of whose German ancestors made it onto Schindler’s list — has made a plan. Is taking action. He’s scraping together the final $116,000 in fees needed for Canadian citizenship.* Needless to say, I think he’s over-reacting. But then I watched Bill Maher’s lastest New Rules. (“When a country slides into authoritarian rule, you don’t get a text alert.”) I still think my friend is over-reacting. I ain’t leavin’. But watch Bill Maher and share widely. Or if you don’t have five minutes, watch just the last two. *This leaves him little or nothing, he explains, to help fund the early organizing snowball that — if we all lean in — will wrest power from Trump and McConnell.
You’re Paying $650 A Night; And $1 Trillion For 2.3% Growth February 11, 2020February 10, 2020 The economy grew 2.3% last year. It is on this decent if far from spectacular performance that the impeached unindicted felon hopes to win Electoral College re-election. (A million and a half fewer jobs were created in Trump’s first three years than in Obama’s last three.) And Trump has borrowed massively. In good times, no less — when the debt should be shrinking relative to the economy as a whole. And recklessly — because the borrowing was to enrich the already rich, not invest in infrastructure. Listen to Nobel laureate Paul Krugman in the indispensable New York Times: The Triumph of Fiscal Hypocrisy What we can learn from Trump’s deficitpalooza Donald Trump’s re-election campaign will be centered around claims that he has done great things for the economy. And let’s be honest: The U.S. economy is running pretty hot these days. Growth in G.D.P. and employment has been good, though not spectacular; the unemployment rate is near a historic low. There are some shadows in the picture. Economic gains have been lopsided, with a large increase in corporate profits that mainly reflects giant tax breaks, while workers haven’t seen comparable gains (and gains for lower-wage workers have been driven in part by minimum-wage increases in blue states). The huge gains in health insurance coverage under President Barack Obama have stalled or gone into reverse, and there has been a sharp increase in the number of Americans who report delaying medical treatment because of costs. Still, it is indeed a strong economy. But if we ask what lies behind that strength, the main answer is an explosion in the federal budget deficit, which exceeded $1 trillion last year. And the story of how that happened has deeply disturbing implications for the future of U.S. politics. Let’s go back for a minute to early 2009, when the economy was imploding and desperately needed help in the form of deficit spending. The Obama administration did indeed propose a significant stimulus plan — but it was much too small relative to the size of the problem, largely because the administration wanted to win bipartisan support and wasn’t willing to use reconciliation to bypass the filibuster. This isn’t hindsight. In January 2009 I was practically tearing my hair out over the inadequacy of the stimulus, and warned of a scenario in which “the plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell says, ‘See, government spending doesn’t work.’” That is, of course, exactly what happened. Then, in 2010, Republicans took control of the House and were in a position to force Obama into years of spending cuts that exerted a significant drag on economic growth. This drag wasn’t enough to prevent a sustained economic recovery, but the recovery could and should have been much faster. There was no economic reason we shouldn’t have returned to full employment by, say, 2013; instead, largely thanks to fiscal austerity, the average unemployment rate that year was still above 7 percent. Now, Republicans claimed that they were demanding spending cuts because they were deeply concerned about budget deficits. And the news media, I’m sorry to say, both bought into the narrative that deficits were our most important problem — abandoning the usual conventions of reportorial neutrality — and took G.O.P. claims of fiscal probity at face value. By the way, whatever happened to the deficit scolds who were so prominent during the Obama years? They’re oddly quiet now. Anyway, it was always obvious to anyone who really paid attention that people like Paul Ryan were fiscal hypocrites, who would suddenly lose all interest in deficits as soon as a Republican occupied the White House. And that’s what they did. As I said, the budget deficit has exploded past $1 trillion under Trump, up from less than $600 billion in Obama’s last year. Most of that rise can be attributed to Trump’s policies, mainly a tax cut rammed through Congress using exactly the hyperpartisan tactics Obama balked at in 2009. In a way, the surprising thing about Trump’s deficitpalooza is that it hasn’t boosted the economy even more, a shortfall that can be attributed to bad design. After all, the corporate tax cuts that were the biggest driver of rising deficits did nothing to increase business investment, which has actually declined over the past year. And while the Obama stimulus included significant investments in the future, helping in particular to jump-start revolutionary progress in green energy, Trump has never delivered a penny on his promise to rebuild America’s infrastructure. Still, Trump’s deficits have given the economy — and Trump’s political fortunes — a lift in the short term. And that fact should bother you, a lot. Put it this way: Republicans used the pretense that they cared about fiscal responsibility to engage in de facto economic sabotage as long as a Democrat was in the White House. Then they abandoned the pretense and opened up the spending taps as soon as one of their own was in power. And far from paying a price for their duplicity, they are being politically rewarded. The implications for party strategy are stark: Maximum cynicism is the best policy. Obstruct, disrupt, and hurt the economy as much as you can, deploying whatever hypocritical excuses you think the media will buy, when the other party holds the presidency. Then abandon all concerns for the future and buy votes once you’re back in control. For whatever reason, Democrats haven’t been willing or able to behave that cynically. Republicans, however, have. And if Trump is re-elected, that asymmetric cynicism will be the main reason. As for the $650 a night your taxes pay for Secret Service rooms at Mar-A-Lago, I’m sure you’ve heard about it. But have you read the whole story? In small part: . . . During the 2016 campaign, Trump told voters that — if he was elected — he would not have time for travel. “I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done,” Trump told the Hill in a June 2015 interview. . . . But since taking office, Trump has spent more than 342 days — a third of his entire presidency — at his private clubs and hotels. The Secret Service always comes with him, as it does with all presidents. But the Trump Organization has assured the public that it is giving the government a great deal. Last year, Eric Trump told Yahoo Finance that when his father does visit his properties, he is legally required to charge something. Eric Trump did not say what law required Trump to charge his own government, and the Secret Service did not respond to questions asking what law he was referring to. The Secret Service is part of the Department of Homeland Security, whose internal directives state, “DHS may accept gifts to carry out program functions.” “If he stays at one of his places, the government actually . . . saves a fortune because, if they were to go to a hotel across the street, they’d be charging them $500 a night, whereas, you know we charge them, like 50 bucks,” Eric Trump said. Except that it was not “like 50 bucks” at all. Can you imagine if the Clintons or Obamas had directed millions of dollars to their family businesses? Would Ken Starr and Moscow Mitch have been cool with that?
Another Note To Bernie Bros; And To Cult Member Lindsey Graham February 10, 2020February 8, 2020 James Carville is an unashamed liberal, every bit as passionate about beating Trump as Bernie. And he will vote for Bernie, for sure, should Bernie be our nominee. But he thinks Bernie is not our smartest choice to beat Trump. And beating Trump (and McConnell), as all our terrific candidates forcefully agree, is paramount. Trumpism, this piece explains, is a cult. The problem is: cults end badly. Often, very badly. Like, very badly. I mean really really badly! Remember the shock waves when Khrushchev was revealed to have secretly denounced Stalin’s “cult of personality” to the Politburo? It took great courage — and Stalin had been dead for three years. Clearly, though he’s okay separating infants from their mothers and favors torture, Trump is not in the league of those referenced above. He certainly won’t allow his torch-wielding followers — some of them very fine people — to go too far. Will he? He will stand up to them just as he has stood up to M.B.S. for dismembering a Washington Post journalist, and to Putin for hacking, and continuing to hack, our democracy. He just wants adulation and power and money. Still, this cult thing is concerning. Look what it’s done to Lindsey Graham. Click here.
Compare The Prayer February 7, 2020February 7, 2020 I wasn’t in the Rose Garden when President Clinton came to the podium after being acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate. Now that the Senate has fulfilled its constitutional responsibility, bringing this process to a conclusion, I want to say again to the American people how profoundly sorry I am for what I said and did to trigger these events, and the great burden they have imposed on the Congress and on the American people. . . . But I was at the National Prayer Breakfast eight days earlier, at a table somehow connected to Cal Thomas, and was moved by what became, basically, a prayer for peace. The President’s remarks began: . . . You know, Senator Hutchison was talking about how when we come here, we set party aside. And there is absolutely no politics in this. I can tell you that is absolutely so. I have had a terrific relationship with Steve Largent, and he has yet to vote with me the first time. So, I know there is no politics in this prayer breakfast. . . . Here is what Senator Hutchison had to say eight days later as he voted to convict the president. Though I don’t believe lying to cover up an affair requires removal from office, I respect what Hutchison had to say as thoughtful and factual. (Here is here is what Mitt Romney said, 21 years later, as he voted to convict the president. If you ever wondered what courage and honor sound like, just click that link.) Watching Trump defile yesterday’s Prayer Breakfast, then curse and preen and slander and lie at the White House, the contrast with 1999 was . . . how else to put it? . . . of biblical proportions.
Overturning An Election; The State of the Union Is Factually Flawed February 5, 2020 First, the State of the Union. Click here for the full analysis. SUMMARY Trump claimed the economy is “the best it has ever been.” But GDP growth fell to 2.3% last year and economists predict further slowing this year. He said he brought about low unemployment by reversing “years of economic decay” and “failed economic policies,” when in fact over 1 million more jobs were added in the 35 months before he took office than in the first 35 months since. Trump boasted that the “unemployment rate for women reached the lowest level in almost 70 years.” That’s true, but it had been trending down for several years before he took office. The president wrongly said, “After decades of flat and falling incomes, wages are rising fast.” They’ve gone up under Trump, but also have risen under the last several presidents. Trump claimed that people’s 401(k)s and pensions have increased “60, 70, 80, 90, and 100% and even more.” Some may have, but that’s far higher than the average. He said “real median household income is now at the highest level ever recorded.” However, the Census Bureau noted that was partly due to a change in survey questions in 2014. Based on “adjusted” figures, median household income was slightly higher in 1999 than in 2018. Trump claimed the new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico “will create nearly 100,000 … auto jobs.” But an independent federal commission puts the job gains at 28,000 over five years. The president boasted that “a long, tall, and very powerful wall is being built” along the southern border, and more than 100 miles have been completed. But only one mile is located where no barriers previously existed. Trump said “illegal crossings” at the southwest border “are down 75% since May.” But total apprehensions in 2019 were 81% higher than in 2016, the year before Trump took office. He said that “after losing 60,000 factories under the previous two administrations, America has now gained 12,000 new factories under my administration.” He’s referring to what the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls manufacturing “establishments,” and most of the growth under Trump has been in facilities with fewer than five employees. Trump compared apples to oranges in claiming a doubling of insurance premiums in five years before he took office and “less expensive” plans under his administration. The president said he made an “iron-clad” promise to “always protect patients with preexisting conditions,” but that ignores the fact he has supported Republican health plans that would reduce the current protections under the Affordable Care Act. He suggested, misleadingly, that his administration was responsible for the U.S. becoming the world’s top producer of oil and natural gas. But the U.S. has been No. 1 in the world for natural gas for more than a decade, and tops in petroleum since 2013. Trump said “300,000 working age people” left the workforce during Obama’s eight years. Actually, the workforce grew by 5.4 million. As I write this, Republican senators are about to say that nothing a president does — if he thinks (or says he thinks) it’s in the public interest — is impeachable. As Adam Schiff made so compellingly clear, this defies all logic, precedent, and the oaths they took as jurors and as senators. To those who rationalize this by saying the goal of the impeachment is to overturn the 2016 election, our own distinguished professor emeritus Paul deLespinasse explains: impeachment does NOT overturn an election. It’s not easy to stand up to a bully — just look how much trouble the Republican senators are having — but if you wanted, you could sign this entirely non-political pledge, as a start.
Trade Is Not A Four-Letter Word February 4, 2020February 3, 2020 There’s a great new book I want to recommend — Trade Is Not A Four-Letter Word: How Six Everyday Products Make the Case for Trade, by my pal Fred Hochberg, who ran the Export Import Bank for eight years — but first, if you can find the time: Adam Schiff’s concluding argument yesterday. Finer, more patriotic, respectful, compelling words were never spoken. This is serious stuff. And did you read David Leonhardt on why Trump does what he does? (“Because he can.”) Concluding: . . . The country is left with a president who has spent decades doing whatever he thinks is in his self-interest — and a political party willing to protect that president. Staying in power trumps all. That, of course, is the ideology of autocracy. And although the United States is not an autocracy, our country is taking steps in that direction that I never imagined we would. → Click here if you’re in a position to help. And now: This isn’t like Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century that everybody knew they should read and nobody did, nor Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, where some of us gave up in the middle of chapter three, others, chapter four. (Though neither is it Patty Marx and Roz Chast’s new You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time: Rules for Couples, which takes 20 minutes to read, plus another 10 to figure out how many copies you want to order as gifts.) No, Trade Is Not A Four-Letter Word makes a really important topic lively and relatable, not least if you like bananas or avocados. There’s so much I didn’t know! E.g., you probably know that a lot of “foreign” cars are made in places like Kentucky — but did you know that in 2018 the car with the highest “made-in-America” rating was the Honda Odyssey? Trade is complicated. . . . November 26 [2018, in the wake of tariffs imposed to boost steel manufacturing and jobs here in the US], the very same day that news broke about Steel Dynamics’ plans to build a new mill [that would employ 600 workers] . . . GM announced . . . it would be slashing 14,000 jobs. . . . The following day, Trump tweeted that he was “very disappointed with General Motors” and would be “looking at cutting all @GM subsidies” — a curious threat, given that no such subsidies exist. “Written by a uniquely qualified expert,” blurbs FedEx Corp founder Fred Smith (a Republican), “this is a witty, enjoyable book that makes clear the great benefits — but difficult politics and policy choices — of international trade.” On to New Hampshire . . .
Guess Who Inherited The Happy Gene February 2, 2020 Me, sure — but I mean: who else? James Comey! Check it out. In small part: When I was a little kid, the United States seemed to be coming apart. . . . Our cities were torn by riots and fires. . . . Unarmed students were killed by soldiers. White Americans violently resisted desegregation. War and death and disorder dominated the news. — . . . the way Republicans are acting today means they will inevitably lose power, and for a very long time — an exile they will richly deserve. But neither party will disappear because the American center — that great lump of us clustered around the middle — always holds. Where the center is, exactly, moves over time — we changed the world by embracing same-sex marriage, for example — but it never goes away. That lump is our national ballast. To survive, our two political parties compete for that center, forcing them to change as we do. They regularly miss the mark, which is why the parties, not the United States, suffer repeated near-death experiences, always followed by miraculous revival. When I was a kid, the United States didn’t come apart. It won’t now. → “Let us pray,” as my mother used to say. But being an atheist, and thus skeptical prayer would suffice, she chipped in generously. (“Let that be a lesson to us all” — another of her frequent admonitions.) Have you seen Just Mercy, the film with a 99% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (from 9,940 verified audience reviewers)? It’s so powerful. Jonathan: “Could we have a word from you about BOREF?” → It dropped 50% to $3 Friday — on volume of 2,400 shares. Presumably, someone put in an order to sell “at the market,” and the only standing order to buy was at $3. Or maybe it was a typo. Later in the day I think I saw it at something like “$5 bid, $6 asked.” As you know, I think $6 is also ridiculously low — not because the company may not ultimately fail, but because if it succeeds it should be worth a great deal more. Only take that bet with money you can truly afford to lose!