Month: September 2022

As David Stockman later ruefully admitted, the Reagan tax cut was supposed to be just the first step in a “starve the beast” campaign; the second step, massive spending cuts, would be driven by a soaring deficit. It didn’t happen. Instead, the stimulus created by the tax cuts somewhat mitigated the impacts of the Volcker interest rate increases, and when interest rates were finally eased, it was morning in America. The GOP has never gotten over it.

Liz Truss is proposing to cut taxes and provide relief from rising energy prices at the same time. In effect, she wants to do what Reagan did without the promise of spending cuts. Unfortunately, the UK is not conspicuously overtaxed, so there is no reason to believe the tax cut will lead to some sort of growth explosion; there is plenty of precedent in this country after the Reagan years for that. In addition, the UK relies more heavily on imports for goods than we do. As a result, the tax cut will lead to higher demand and a falling pound, which will lead to increased inflation, which will cause interest rates to rise, which in short order will cause . . . stagflation.

The British monarch is intended to be a living, breathing, unifying symbol–a sort of human Union Jack. As anyone who has watched “The Crown” knows, even though it comes with plenty of perks, it is a difficult job, because to do it right, you have to give up your right to live and think outside a very small box. Some members of the family can’t tolerate the limitations of the box, and suffer for it. Others learn to accept the tradeoffs and are more successful.

Elizabeth was a success. I think it helped that she was young and inexperienced when she became queen; she had the ability to grow into, and to some extent define, the job, and she didn’t have a record that would offend anyone. Charles is in the exact opposite position. He knows the role perfectly well, but he also has a lengthy record that does not exactly inspire confidence.

My guess is that he will be OK. The UK is a very different place than it was in the early years of Elizabeth’s reign, so Charles’ propensity for running his mouth will probably be met with a tolerant shrug, not a glare of disapproval.

Biden’s legal authority to extinguish student debt, by all accounts, is open to question, so you can be sure the question will be asked. Under normal circumstances, the judicial system would hold that the issue is not subject to challenge because nobody has a sufficient interest to establish standing. The current Supreme Court has shown on multiple occasions, however, that it has no regard for such niceties. You have to assume that Alito, Thomas, and the rest of the reactionary crew are just dying to deliver another stinging defeat to the administration. If that happens, what’s next? Will the disappointed debtors take it out on Biden or the GOP?

It will be the fault of the vast right-wing conspiracy, but my guess is that they will blame Biden. Fortunately, it will be after the midterms.

The government didn’t pay my mortgage. Why should it pass student debt to the taxpayers as a whole? What is it about student debt that makes it so special?

Both student loans and mortgages are contracts in which the parties voluntarily entered into obligations in the hope of profiting in the long run. In neither case is that profit assured. You can argue, of course, that society identifies higher education as the cornerstone of the American dream, but you could say the same thing about home ownership. You can also argue that it is appropriate for the taxpayer to pay for higher education because it leads to economic growth, to the benefit of everyone, but home ownership supposedly leads to a more stable, law-abiding, and affluent society, as well.

The differences between the two kinds of debt are not significant enough to make a persuasive case, at least for me. If the objective here is simply compassion, it should be reserved for the truly needy, not the whiny needy.

Due to relatively low turnout, midterm elections are primarily about base mobilization, not attracting uncommitted voters. That is not to say, however, that swing votes do not matter. The best way to attract them is through the use of wedge issues.

The principal GOP wedge issues are:

1. Donald Trump and January 6;
2. Abortion; and
3. Climate change.

The Democrats have been trying to split the insurrectionist wing of the GOP away from the rest of the party for the last two years. Biden’s “MAGA Republicans” speech, for better or worse, was just the last of these efforts. Abortion is definitely splitting “pro-life” realos from fundis. Finally, some GOP voters are starting to accept that climate change is a real thing. It may be possible to split them from the mainstream in some locations.

If the Democrats have any sense, they will be focusing on these issues during the campaign.

Marginal tax rates in the UK are slightly higher than they are in the US. That makes sense, since the UK has a more comprehensive welfare state than we do, even after years of Conservative government. There isn’t a glaring disparity that clearly calls for taxpayer relief.

But Liz Truss clearly wants a big tax cut at a time when inflation and the deficit are uncomfortably high, interest rates are rising, and the pound is plummeting. If she gets what she wants, the increased demand (largely for imported products from countries with whom she is effectively threatening a trade war) will make these problems worse. Pouring gas on the fire will result in the stagflation of ’79, not morning in the UK.

By all accounts, Liz Truss does her best to look and sound like Margaret Thatcher. Tax cuts, deregulation, and bashing unions and the EU will be the order of the day.

The problem is that Truss is 40 years too late. There is nothing left to privatize–Thatcher and her successors took care of that. There are no domineering unions–crushing them was Thatcher’s biggest accomplishment. Public investment was squashed during the Cameron/Osborne years. And picking fights and starting trade wars with your closest and most important partner doesn’t sound like a great idea at a time of crisis unless you are only interested in creating distractions–not solving problems.

I just don’t see how this is going to work. Unless Truss does a U-turn (the one her role model famously refused to do) very early in her tenure, all hell is going to break loose in the UK. The political consequences of this will be, at an absolute minimum, the loss of virtually every Conservative seat in areas that were supposed to be “levelled up” and the emboldening of the SNP.

But cheer up, UK readers: at least you have stumbled on the solution to your immigration problem. Who is going to want to live in the UK under these conditions?

On the 46th President Joe.

The election has two months to go.

Trump is helping him out

But the outcome’s in doubt.

It will be a cliffhanger, you know.

The good news is that wages have risen significantly as a result of the hot economy and corresponding labor shortages. The bad news is that the increased costs have all been passed on to consumers, including workers, in the form of higher prices. The net gain for labor has been minimal to nonexistent.

The message here, as I predicted years ago, is that minimum wage increases do not work in the absence of some measure of government constraint on profits or price increases. Using the tax system and spending programs to redistribute wealth is a better way to help struggling workers than simply pushing up wages.

Three particular “freedoms” that are nowhere mentioned in the Constitution or any federal statute are extremely important to reactionaries. They are:

1. FREEDOM TO OPPRESS HISTORICALLY DISADVANTAGED GROUPS: Even if you have accepted the notion of equality for all in concept (many have not), you’re concerned that if women and minorities are given power, they will retaliate for the wrongs you committed against them. In order to avoid being sent to a camp or a gas chamber for holding traditional values, you have to keep yourself in power and maintain your privileges–forever.
2. FREEDOM FROM BEING OFFENDED: Reactionaries really, really hate gay pride parades. Ban them! And use the government to stop any other display of sexuality that you don’t like! That’s what government is for, after all.
3. FREEDOM FROM CRITICISM: As Justice Alito has noted, when Christians discriminate against LGBTQ people, they get called bigots on social media. That’s an outrage! Attacks on traditional values shouldn’t have any First Amendment protection. Attacks on historically disadvantaged groups, on the other hand, are fully protected by the Constitution, because the Founding Fathers would have agreed with them.

1. Christianity is established as the state religion of the United States of America. No government at any level may make any law infringing the rights of white Christians to speak, assemble, attend church, or post lies on social media. Minorities and non-Christians are not real Americans, so their behavior is subject to any regulation any reactionary government deems necessary.
2. The individual right of a white Christian to own and use a gun is sacred and may not be regulated by any level of government in any way.
3. If it proves necessary to quarter right-wing militia members in the homes of liberals in blue states to maintain law and order, that’s OK.
4. Donald Trump’s various properties are not subject to search under any circumstances. White Christians are only subject to search and arrest pursuant to the testimony of other white Christians. Government can do whatever it wants with anyone who is not a real American.
5. Donald Trump is free to avoid self-incrimination without any sense of shame. White Christians have the same right. If anyone else does it, it is clear proof of guilt.
6. Donald Trump is entitled to the best lawyers in the land even if he thinks he should be running the show.
7. Donald Trump can only be tried before a jury in a red state.
8. All of the punishments that were considered acceptable in 1788 are OK with us.
9. The rights of white heterosexual Christians to enjoy a normal, stable family life may not be abridged by any level of government. The sex lives of everyone else can be regulated in any manner the government sees fit.
10. The powers in the Constitution shall be interpreted strictly in favor of the rights of red states. Red states are authorized to preempt all regulations adopted by blue municipalities contained therein. All blue state regulations are subject to preemption by the federal government and by any red state.

The abortion issue has many GOP candidates running scared. Websites are being scrubbed, and formerly fiery anti-abortion extremists are trying desperately to sound moderate, on the rare occasions when they talk about it at all. The reason for this is obvious; the issue could drive up turnout and cost the GOP the election. By contrast, however, the average GOP candidate is not watering down his pro-gun position even though it is just as unpopular. How do we account for the difference?

The polls on gun control issues do not reflect the enthusiasm gap between gun opponents and supporters. For a Republican candidate to vote for gun control consequently means alienating the base, which is rabid on the question, without winning over many swing voters. As a result, even leaving the GOP’s cult of self-reliance aside, it makes little practical sense for Republicans to moderate their position on gun control, so they don’t.

Merrick Garland is in the land of no good options. If he prosecutes Trump, he plays into the man on golf cart’s favorite victim narrative, riles up the red base, and exposes law enforcement and the government in general to right-wing violence. If he doesn’t, he gives everyone the impression that Trump is above the law, and can act with complete impunity. What does he do?

Regardless of what Garland undoubtedly wants, this decision is a political act, and must be viewed in that context. The objective here is not to avoid violence from the extreme right, but to separate the extreme right from the rest of the Republican Party. To that end, Garland needs to avoid relying on strained interpretations of the law and the facts, to be consistent with DOJ precedents, and to explain his decisions to the American public as clearly as possible. If, using those criteria, he decides that prosecution is in the national interest, he should have at least the acquiescence of the vast majority of the American people. That would isolate the unreconstructed Trumpist right, which cannot win power on its own, either at the ballot box or on the streets.

If, when it is all said and done, he finds that prosecution is not in the national interest, he should provide us with a full explanation of his rationale and leave the ultimate decision to the voters.

Everything that Biden said about “MAGA Republicans” being a threat to American liberal democracy was true. But was it wise to say so? And was now the time to do it?

I don’t think so. Talking about Trump and January 6 is one thing, but casting your net to include a large portion of the GOP is something else, particularly when your brand is to be a healing, relatively bipartisan figure. Combining the attacks on the MAGA crowd with a victory lap on clearly partisan issues such as climate change only made things worse.

The bottom line here is that the best way to discredit the reactionaries is to let their words and actions speak for themselves. Biden is at his most effective when he is a counterpuncher. By going on the offensive shortly before the midterms, I’m afraid he brought the GOP together rather than wedging the McConnell crowd away from the insurrectionists, which is the best way for the Democrats to win elections.

The first concept of American exceptionalism was religious; after all, we still quote, somewhat out of context, the famous Puritan statement about the shining city on the hill. It didn’t last. Most of the colonists that followed were more interested in improving their material lives than in religious practices, particularly since Great Britain accepted a degree of toleration in the late 17th century.

The second version of exceptionalism came after the Revolution. The new nation, unlike the European powers, was a republic, and was mostly disengaged from European power politics. Partly due to geography, partly due to its weakness, and partly from principle, America did its best to focus on its own development and ignore the rest of the world. It did not evangelize for anything.

The 19th century version of exceptionalism revolved around economic opportunity and the frontier. America was the place to which immigrants came to make a better life for themselves. The rate of economic and population growth and technological change is what made America special in the eyes of its citizens and the rest of the world.

The first glimmerings of the notion that America’s liberal democratic system should be universally emulated came from Woodrow Wilson. Wilson’s attempt to remake international politics failed, however, and the nation returned to its historical indifference to the world until the thirties. It was FDR and World War II that changed America’s view of itself and the world for good. Henceforth, America would do its best to midwife liberal democracies around the globe, because its own liberal democracy, it was felt, could not survive in isolation against fascists and communists.

During the Cold War, American leaders had to do business with innumerable right-wing thugs in the name of “democracy,” by which we really meant opposition to communism and Soviet influence. After the fall of the USSR, we briefly had the opportunity to pursue the Wilsonian dream of universal liberal democracy without resorting to Cold War hypocrisy. That dream died in Iraq, however, and a rising China means dealing with some unsavory characters in order to counter, well, Chinese exceptionalism. We are in effect back to where we were during the Cold War–still offering American liberal democracy as a universal political concept, but only pushing it when it is consistent with our interests.