Posted on by rjonakait

A Response to a Friend

A knowledgeable friend concerned with the state of America asked me to comment on some of his views. He thinks that Biden does not understand that people don’t care much that the rate of inflation is dropping when they see that things still cost more than they did a year or two ago. The Southern border is a “mess and leadership demands some reasonable proposals to stop the bleeding in a fair amount of time.” He concludes that while he could never vote for Trump, his many issues with Biden will make it hard to vote for him just because he is “less of a disaster than the other choice.” The friend says he may vote for a third-party candidate and choose “to throw my vote away.” I responded in the following manner:

I agree with much of what you say. The inflation rate may be dropping but, as you point out, Americans in general may not care much about that. Those of us who lived through the regular inflation of the 1960s and 1970s might be impressed with the current lower rate of inflation, but many Americans only remember a world that for practical purposes had no inflation. I sometimes think that the presidency largely depends on the cost of gas, milk, and eggs, and those costs are higher than in recent years.

This hurts Biden, but as with much of the economy, I don’t know how much the president should be held responsible. Developed countries everywhere had inflation. It was not just an American problem, and our inflation rate was less than almost all of the European countries. By that measure, we did well on inflation. And, of course, by many standard measures—job creation, unemployment, GDP, average wages, the stock market–the economy is doing ok-to-quite good. If Biden is to be held responsible for inflation, then he should be given credit that it was lower than Europe’s rate and that the rest of the economy has performed well. However, the administration is going to need to amp up its messaging if this going to penetrate to the American electorate.

Many forecasters over the last 18 months predicted a recession. That has not occurred. I am not sure that Biden should be given much if any credit for this, just as I am not sure how much blame he should get for the inflation, but if a recession had occurred, he would be blamed for it. Inflation is a reason why Biden might not be reelected, but it is not a rational reason not to vote for him. But as someone observed, “A great president is the one who happens to be on the job when you are on a run of good luck.”

Immigration is both a political and policy mess. Biden comes across as not caring about the border, and that is a huge mistake. I thought from the beginning of Biden’s administration he should have tried to seize control of this issue by saying that it is not a southern border issue. We need comprehensive immigration reform. Biden should have been making it clear that we need immigration and that such statements as Lindsey Graham’s recent one that “the country is full” is silly, dangerous demagoguery.

I believe that the birth rate is below the replacement level. Without immigration we will have a shrinking workforce. If a 55-year-old wants to get social security, we need more workers, which means more immigration. Biden should have been making that clear. Many industries depend on immigrants. Biden should have been enlisting these industries into reform proposals. Of course, many conservatives are happy with the border crisis because it is such a potent political issue.

Biden should have put forward proposals to the Republicans that he would support massively increasing border security personnel if they massively increase the number of immigration judges — which requires additional government spending — and accept DACA reform. Of course, the conservatives would not do that. Compromise is not part of their game plan, just testosterone-fueled “solutions.” But Biden should have been stressing that our whole system is a mess and needs reform.

I have learned how little I know about our immigration system from many of the people I have met in my local biergarten. Many are immigrants, both legal and not, with at least one seeking asylum. I had little idea how complicated our system is and am still amazed that Viktor asked for asylum over five years ago and still does not have an answer. Every one of these immigrants works hard and has added to this country, but they live under an incredibly bad system.

I do have my criticisms of Biden, but I also believe that he has accomplished more than is generally recognized. Most important is the infrastructure bill, which is only a start on what is needed. Trump regularly talked about infrastructure but did nothing while Biden got something passed. It is always interesting when conservatives who voted against the bill have something from it rolled out in their district and then try to take credit for the coming improvement.

Democrats have many failings. One of their biggest, as mentioned above, is messaging. They have not touted their successes on infrastructure. Or on the economy. When Obama was President, I heard frequently how bad the economy was when it wasn’t. Most of the important indicators were favorable. Many of those economic trends continued under Trump, but by then the indicators were publicized to show how great the economy was. It was basically the same economy under both, but the conservatives messaged better about it, as they do now.

Biden has accomplished other things that fly under the radar. The spouse reads Heather Cox Richardson who regularly reports on Biden accomplishments that the spouse was not aware of. I was reminded of this while watching a Sunday morning show. A firefighter was talking about the high cancer rates among his colleagues. This has something to do with the protective gear they wear, and he was saying how changes needed to be made to improve the health of firefighters. He then went out of his way to thank Biden and Debbie Dingel for their efforts in this regard. Who knew?

Throwing away your vote where you live may not matter. Your state is likely to go Biden no matter what, but throwing away votes is how Trump got elected. In spite of popular perceptions, there was no great surge to Trump in 2016. He got almost the same percentage of the vote that Romney had four years earlier. However, an important percentage of the population apparently felt that they could not vote for Hillary Clinton. I guess that most of those thought she would win. They could not stomach voting for Trump so they voted for third party candidates. In most places that did not matter, but it proved decisive in enough battleground states — Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — to give Trump the presidency. In those closely contested states, Trump did not get majorities. Sometimes he did a little better than Romney had, but not much. Hillary, however, underperformed in these states and did not get the majorities that Obama had. Apparently a sizeable group decided they would “throw away” their votes. The third-party totals, while small, often doubled and tripled. This allowed Trump to get the pluralities in these states and their electoral votes. And thus Trump became president. In 2020, the percentages for the third-party candidates followed the pre-2016 historical trends, and Trump lost. Fewer people threw away their vote in 2020.  

“Throwing away” your vote can have unexpected consequences. This year, the consequences are too dire to contemplate. Sometimes a thrown away vote is not really thrown away; it just goes into a trash pile you didn’t anticipate.

Posted on by rjonakait

Chasing Waterfalls (continued)

I had hope for Trump’s presidency because he promised vast improvements in our infrastructure. I knew that the GOP would block such spending, citing deficits, if a Democrat had been elected, but I thought that perhaps a Republican president could get Republicans to maintain and improve many needed things around the country. That, of course, has not happened. Instead we got more tax cuts and ludicrous promises. We were told that the tax cuts would benefit the middle class more than the rich. False. We were told that tax cuts would pay for themselves because they would turbocharge the economy, windfalling tax receipts. Independent analysts said that would not happen. The Congressional Budget Office said that even with a better economy, tax cuts would add $1.9 trillion to the deficits. Even so, conservatives ignored these expert opinions and maintained that tax cuts would pay for themselves. Instead, deficits are up by nearly 40% over pre-tax-cut days. The conservatives eschewed learning from experience; the deficit increased after Reagan’s tax cuts of 1980s and George W. Bush’s of 2000. This was also true in Kansas when that state slashed taxes a few years ago.

The Trump tax cuts were also supported by arguments that they would lead to increased capital spending by corporations and this would lead to jobs. This, too, was a surprising argument because even before the tax cuts, corporations had been making large profits. They already were sitting on bundles of cash. If they weren’t making capital investments, it was not for the lack of money. Not surprisingly, the tax cuts have not led to a surge in corporate capital expenditures. But now income inequality is greater now than ever recorded before in this country.

Perhaps a trip chasing waterfalls to Mt. Morris and Letchworth State Park is more than just an opportunity to see natural wonders and paintings done several generations ago. Perhaps it was also to be a lesson that the government can improve this country in temporary and lasting ways that might be better than reducing taxes. Our bridges and roads need work. Our broadband needs expansion. Our energy grid is frightening. Our elections need security. If these needed things can’t be done because they will lead to deficits, then perhaps we should think about the wisdom of our tax cuts.

And a recent column about a new book, Triumph of Injustice, by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, professors at Berkeley, reveals something more that is shocking about our tax system. Now the four hundred richest families in this country pay a combined federal, state, and local tax rate lower than any other income group. (See: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html) The overall tax rate for this group is only 23 percent. The first half of the twentieth century saw increasingly progressive taxes, and the overall tax rate on the wealthiest Americans was seventy percent in 1950. Since then we have increasingly cut taxes on the rich. Their overall tax rate was forty-seven percent in 1980 and is now half that. The pitch for slashing taxes on the rich has almost always been that the economy as a whole will benefit and everybody will be much better off. (Of course, those who advocate slashing taxes on the wealthy don’t call them rich people. Instead other terms are used, such as “job-creators.”)

The rationale has been hogwash. David Leonhardt, the columnist, states, “The wealthy, and only the wealthy, have done fantastically well over the last decades. G.D.P. growth has been disappointing, and middle-class income growth even worse.” As was true in the years before the Great Depression and now, “The American economy just doesn’t function very well when tax rates on the rich are low and inequality is sky high. . . . Which means that raising high-end taxes isn’t about punishing the rich (who, by the way, will still be rich). It’s about creating an economy that works better for the vast majority of Americans.”

(continued October 21)

Posted on by rjonakait

Unsolicited Advice for House Democrats

Democrats have the majority in the House of Representatives. They can use this power for investigations of Donald Trump, but these should not be their principal focus, for such hearings will appear to many as acts of revenge or vindictiveness that are primarily aimed at pleasing the Democratic Party’s base. They might be the Democratic equivalent of all those endless and fruitless Benghazi hearings and not much different from demagogic Trump rallies. Investigations and hearings should serve and be seen to serve some broad national purpose, not just as spectacles to rile up or satisfy partisans.

This does not mean that all Trump investigations are unwarranted. We should know whether the president, his family, or those around him have economic and social interests that could be affecting our country’s policies. Could our relationships with Saudi Arabia be colored because of financial links between that country and the president or his family? Does the expansion of certain economic opportunity areas benefit the Kushner family? Is the relaxation of auto fuel standards driven by connections between the oil industry and the administration? Unfortunately, there are many such possible topics for exploration by sober investigations and hearings, and they should be done.

The House Democrats should not, however, enter the new Congress focused on articles of impeachment of Trump. Perhaps information will come to light that would justify the removal of the president, but under the present circumstances the Senate would not convict the president. Much has been made of recent guilty pleas and arrangements with prosecutors that suggest Donald Trump broke campaign finance laws, but even so, those violations by themselves will not bring a conviction in the Senate, for surely violations of campaign finance laws are legion and others are not removed for them. And the campaign finance problems really sound as if the Democrats are going after Trump for lying about sex. Sound familiar?

The Democrats should wait for Mueller to complete his investigation and only then consider strategies. Articles of impeachment may seem satisfying to certain partisans, but if there is no realistic chance of conviction in the Senate, impeachment will only further inflame and divide the country, and probably do the almost impossible: make Trump into a sympathetic figure.

A House impeachment without a solid chance of removal by the Senate would be grandstanding, and Democrats should avoid grandstanding. Instead, they should try to legislate and govern. The House should concentrate on passing good, cogent, well-researched legislation. Okay, okay, I know that that is a radical notion. Congress, whose constitutional purpose is to pass legislation, no longer seems to be much concerned with legislating. More often, a congressional party’s primary goal is to score political points. However, Democrats should realize that legislation that would help the country can be both good for the country and good for politics.

Objections will come that working on substantive legislation is a waste of effort because nothing that the Democrats propose will stand a chance of passage. The Republican-controlled Senate will simply kill any House initiative. But not so fast. What if House Democrats concentrated on legislative measures that President Trump has promised to support. We forget that there are important areas of apparent agreement between the rivals.

On what issues do Democrats agree with Trump? President Trump campaigned on increased infrastructure spending. As with many of his promises, he was not consistent in what he pledged–500 billion dollars, a trillion dollars, 1.5 trillion dollars. Nevertheless, more infrastructure spending was promised. He loudly and proudly pledged that he would “build the next generation of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, sea ports and airports that our country deserves.”

Democrats agree with that, and the House should pass an infrastructure bill for the needs most obvious to many Americans: roads, bridges, tunnels, and the like—the stuff that Donald Trump said that he was going to improve. Such a law would produce many benefits: It would show actual governing; it would improve the everyday lives of many, it would further commerce and, therefore, the economy. This is a no-brainer–is there anyone who does not think we need such infrastructure improvement?

The House, however, should not stop at the traditional hard-hat areas. Our power grid was largely built fifty or more years ago, and many have said that it is not adequate for the twenty-first century—indeed that it poses national security risks. I don’t know if that is true, but I am willing to bet that many (most?) in Congress don’t know either.

Legislative hearings can serve purposes other than trying to score political points. They can collect information about problems and can suggest workable ideas that can be turned into legislation that would ameliorate the problems. Good hearings about our aging power grid might accomplish such things. At a minimum, the hearings could help educate Congress and the country and have the added political bonus of showing that the Democrats are truly interested in governing and helping the country. From the information and proposals garnered from such hearings, the House should pass a bill that would improve our power grid.

(continued January 4)