It sounds like a line from a Marx brothers movie: Theresa May couldn’t even get her deal through by offering to quit. So what now?
It’s going to be no deal unless the government gets completely out of the way and a substantial number of MPs agree to think more about the country and less about party affiliation. There is a deal to be made on the basis of a permanent customs union or a second referendum if everyone will just stop worrying about the next election for a few minutes.
When Cory Booker is asked about reparations, he responds by talking about his baby bonds proposal, and with good reason. Baby bonds would have most of the same impacts as reparations in practice, due to the wealth gap between whites and African-Americans, but the proposal does not discriminate on its face. Booker very appropriately sees the wealth gap as a problem to be solved through wise public policy, not a reason to pile guilt on struggling white people who are insufficiently woke.
There is a lot to like in this approach. It addresses a real problem, and it doesn’t offend me in the way that reparations would. Is it feasible? My fear is that the GOP would have success portraying it as a huge giveaway to shiftless, irresponsible minorities and thus fire up the base. Booker will have to find a way to deal with that during the campaign if he wants to spend January 20, 2021 in the White House.
A note to my readers: I will be on vacation until late next Wednesday. Posting between now and then will be irregular at best.
On the one hand, models tying presidential elections to the state of the economy are currently forecasting an overwhelming Trump victory in 2020. On the other hand, the recent yield curve inversion suggests that investors believe a recession is on the way. Should we root for one?
The amount of harm that Trump could do in a second term is incalculable. And so, yes, as painful as it would be, a mild, well-timed recession might well be a good thing for the country in the long run.
It will be entertaining, in a car crash sort of way, if we do have a recession. You will have Trump screaming for fiscal and monetary stimulus in an effort to keep his job, but that will fly in the face of Republican rhetoric about deficits and soft money during the last recession, and tax cuts for the wealthy, the GOP solution to all economic problems, will accomplish nothing.
David Brooks is right about one thing; Cory Booker is running as a healer, not a fighter. I’ve often referred to Booker as Obama Lite, because he’s an African-American man with some of the same qualities as Obama, but not to the same degree. He doesn’t have the same exotic biography or the same gifts of rhetoric. He’s not a hot and spicy chicken wing; he’s mild.
Booker has two significant things going for him. First of all, he has a good chance to win a general election by putting the Obama coalition back together again. Second, he would be generally acceptable to all of the quadrants of the Democratic coalition. He is, in a way, the lowest common denominator.
Is that good enough for the Democrats in 2020? Will they settle for a healer instead of a fighter? I doubt it; I think Harris is going to prevail in the minority lane and be one of the three finalists, along with Sanders and Biden. But it’s early days, and no one really knows anything yet.
A: A right-wing political hack with a record of being spectacularly wrong on critical economic issues, Donald Trump nonetheless appointed him to the Fed Board of Governors.
Q: Who is Stephen Moore?
Do you remember the scene in “Blazing Saddles” in which the African-American sheriff threatens to shoot himself if the lynch mob doesn’t back off? May’s promise to resign once her Brexit deal is approved is sort of the opposite of that–if you back off, I promise to shoot myself!
DIZZY MISS LIZZY
You make me dizzy, Miss Lizzy
The way you fight for me.
You make me dizzy, Miss Lizzy
The way you set me free.
Come on, Miss Lizzy!
Make the country what it used to be!
_____________
Bravo to your wealth tax!
You want to stick it to the rich.
You make me dizzy, Miss Lizzy.
Come on and scratch my itch!
Trump is a-rockin’ and a-rollin’.
Ooh! The truth is really a bitch!
___________
You make me dizzy, Miss Lizzy.
Redo the welfare state.
Ooh, baby!
You can make the country great.
Come on, come on, baby!
You know that it’s not too late!
Parody of “Dizzy Miss Lizzy,” as performed by The Beatles.
We resume the discussion at her kitchen table.
C: We’re back, and I have to say, Bailey is just as cute and furry as advertised.
W: He’s a very good boy. He’s also an asset to the campaign.
C: I want to ask you some questions today about some of your proposed programs, starting with your signature issue, the wealth tax.
W: OK.
C: I have a lot of specific questions about it, but let me start with a general one–is it intended to be more of a statement about the nature of your candidacy than a real policy proposal?
W: It’s both, of course. Why do you ask?
C: Because it truly makes a dramatic statement about what you stand for, and there are other ways to accomplish the same thing that don’t raise the same legal, political, and practical issues.
Let me start with the legal question. You have to know that there is a serious debate about whether the tax would be constitutional. Why would you propose something that will have to be reviewed by the Roberts Court? What do you think is going to happen there?
W: I’ve reviewed the history and the case law. I think it’s constitutional. There are plenty of legal scholars who agree with me. The inequality issue is too important not to take the risk. I’ll worry about the Supreme Court when the time comes–there may be ways of dealing with that.
C: And, of course, there are the administrative problems. I know the plan includes lots of money for enforcement, but the real world examples in other countries don’t exactly inspire confidence.
W: I worked out the details of the plan with some of the finest scholars in the country. We think it will work. Their studies say it will.
C: That’s all well and good, but there are plenty of other scholars who disagree, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Anyway, doesn’t the tax also send the message that someone like Jeff Bezos should stop investing money in new projects, because he’ll just have to pay more wealth tax if he hits it big?
W: I’m not against entrepreneurial success. I’m not a socialist. I just think that too much success is a threat to the working of our political system. Anyway, Jeff gets to keep most of his earnings even with my plan.
C: Why not just amend and strengthen the estate tax? There are no legal problems, the administrative issues are much easier to deal with, and the impact on incentives is much lower.
W: The inequality issue needs to be confronted directly, forcefully, and immediately. Waiting for the plutocrats to die doesn’t get the job done.
C: Let’s move to your corporation legislation. It definitely has advantages and a reasonable conceptual basis. It isn’t outrageous to view incorporation as a privilege which comes with obligations to society. You also have Germany as a precedent. But would it work? Inequality is less of a problem in Germany than it is here, but wages are stagnant there, too.
W: You just said it–at least inequality is less of a problem.
C: Aren’t you worried about corporations gaming the system by staying below the asset threshold, and about corporate executives essentially capturing the worker board members?
W: Yes, but I can’t control that. We can create the framework and make the intent clear. Everything after that has to be up to the parties. As with most legislation, the American people would ultimately have to make it work.
C: You view corporations as being the property of a variety of interests, including the workers. Why are they different than, say, my house or my car? The people who built my house and my car don’t own any interest in them. Anyway, if the corporation has multiple objectives–not just maximizing shareholder value–how can you be sure it will stay competitive in a brutal worldwide market?
W: German corporations seem to be doing just fine.
C: Next, I’d like to talk about your child care proposal. Why not just give money to parents, rather than create a new bureaucratic system?
W: We’re trying to accomplish a wide range of things with that proposal. A lot of the friends and family care that right-wingers love so much is substandard. My proposal creates standards and good paying jobs for people that need them in addition to protecting struggling families.
C: I’ll finish with reparations. Your suggestion that we should set up some sort of a committee to study reparations sounds like an effort to win favor with African-American voters without actually doing anything. In fact, I think it would alienate millions of white voters who want desperately to find a reasonable alternative to Trump.
W: It’s a really, really important issue, and talking never hurt anyone. It’s the first step in the healing process.
C: I disagree. Let me give you two scenarios. First, a white worker from, say, Michigan who is struggling financially, and wants to vote against Trump. You’re essentially telling him that he’s guilty of discriminating against African-Americans, that he needs to feel really bad about that, that he needs to be more woke, and that he needs to write a check to African-Americans who, in his view, already get cuts in line. How do you think he’s going to react to that?
W: It’s going to be a long, slow process. No one will be writing checks any time soon. Again, we can’t solve a problem without talking about it.
C: Finally, imagine a white millennial who grew up after de jure discrimination ended. He has lots of student debt and no wealth. You’re going to tell him to write a check to pay for his white privilege? Good luck with that!
W: If anyone is writing a check, the details will have to be worked out later. Maybe the money should come out of the wealth tax. It’s all subject to discussion. I don’t have any desire to pile on white people with no money.
C: Thank you for your time.
Boris Johnson clearly admires and relates to Winston Churchill, and with good reason; the two have a good deal in common. Both were talented writers and journalists; both were slightly eccentric members of the Conservative Party; both had a decidedly mixed record while in office; both were viewed by the mainstream as dangerous and erratic opportunists who couldn’t be trusted with too much power; and neither suffered from low self-esteem.
I would imagine that Boris views Brexit as a contemporary version of the Battle of Britain, and wants history to give him credit for delivering it. There are two problems with the analogy, however. First of all, crashing blindly out of the EU without a deal is not the equivalent of saving the UK from the Nazis. Second, Churchill, for all of his many and serious foibles, was unquestionably a great man, while Boris is just a clown.
We all know that Donald Trump had zero qualifications to be president when he was elected, because his business experience had no relevance to a position defined by law, custom, and the needs of hundreds of millions of people. Unlike the Trump Organization, America is not a corporation, let alone a closely-held one run on the whims of a capricious man on golf cart.
It occurred to me this afternoon that Trump may actually find the experience of governing with a Democratic House somewhat liberating. He had no idea how to legislate and no real ideological agenda, so he was forced to outsource that part of the job to the Republican leadership in Congress for the first two years of his term, which meant sharing the limelight with other members of his party. Today, he knows he can’t legislate, and no one expects it of him, so he can focus on the parts of the job he actually enjoys–running around the world making deals with strongmen, tweeting about his opponents, and holding campaign rallies. His experience as a developer, casino owner, and media celebrity actually has some relevance to those activities.
Fortunately for the rest of us, we can now enjoy the counter-spectacles of the House attempting to hold him accountable, and of his Democratic opponents preparing to take him on in 2020.
Is it Oliver Cromwell dissolving the Rump Parliament, or the Commons speaking to Theresa May? You decide.
We obviously haven’t seen the actual report, and we don’t know if we ever will. My guess, however, is that its nuances are less favorable to Trump than Barr is suggesting, as follows:
If I’m right, and I think I am, the GOP is welcome to run its 2020 campaign on the basis of “he’s such a liar, he couldn’t possibly obstruct justice.” That’s not quite as catchy as “Make America Great Again.”
There are essentially three ways the United States can work for a peace plan between the Israelis and the Palestinians:
Historically, the preferred approach has been #1, which can only work if both sides view the mediator as being disinterested. #2 has been rejected for the reason that it puts the power and reputation of the US at what has been viewed as an unacceptable risk. We are currently at #3. The Arab heads of state have not bought off on any proposals yet, which is why the Trump/Kushner peace plan hasn’t seen the light of day, more than two years into the Trump presidency, and may never do so.
My guess was right. The report did provide ammunition for both sides, although Trump’s attorneys are undoubtedly happier about it than the handful of Democrats crying out for impeachment. Here are my observations on the Barr letter:
Tomorrow will be the first installation of Middle East Mondays! We’ll be covering all of your favorite thugs, despots, and theocrats on a weekly basis until I run out of ideas, which, given the volatility of the region, should take quite a while.