Category: Government

PUBLIC POLICIES TO REDUCE ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN AMERICA

Economic inequality is at record breaking levels in the U.S. The American oligarchy is powerfully wielding its economic and political power. Public policies can stop and reverse the growing economic inequality. See examples below. If Democrats or others want to garner support and votes, they should support policies to reduce economic inequality and create a secure economic future for working Americans.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

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Economic inequality is at record breaking levels in the U.S. America now has 916 billionaires whose combined wealth is $8 trillion (yes, trillion). Their wealth has increased by over $1 trillion in the first nine months of 2025. Since the passage of the Republican tax cut bill in 2017, it’s increased from $3 trillion to $8 trillion. For comparison, the least wealthy 167 million Americans (half the population) have combined wealth of just $3.6 trillion. In other words, the combined wealth of 167 million Americans is less than half the wealth of the 916 billionaires. The rise in billionaires’ wealth reflects the transfer of profits of economic activity away from workers and to owners and investors.

A big part of this is the increase in the value of the stocks of companies these billionaires own and in which they invest. Provisions in the 2017 Republican tax cut bill (that were continued by the GOP’s Big Ugly Bill in July 2025) give huge tax breaks to corporations. For example. Alphabet (Google’s parent) gets $17.9 billion, Amazon gets $15.7 billion, and Microsoft gets $12.5 billion.

With their great wealth, these billionaire oligarchs have great political power, especially given the laws and court decisions allowing unlimited spending in political campaigns. This basically allows them to buy our elected officials, as Elon Musk bought Trump with the over $250 billion he spent on Trump’s campaign. “Highly concentrated wealth leads naturally to concentrated political power.” [1] As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote almost 100 years ago, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

The oligarchs have been wielding their political power very effectively for the last 45 years, and especially in the last ten years. They’ve succeeded in getting policies enacted that enrich themselves and leave American workers not just short changed, but shafted. Public policies to provide economic security for working Americans will never happen if the oligarchs retain their political and economic power. (This previous post presented policies to increase workers’ incomes and this post highlighted policies to reduce the cost of living for them.)

Therefore, the policies that allowed economic inequality to grow over the last 45 years, and to explode in the last 25 years, need to be changed. A group called Patriotic Millionaires has proposed “The Money Agenda,” a set of policies that would reduce economic inequality and “permanently stabilize the economic lives of working people, stimulate wide-spread economic growth, and ensure prosperity and stability for America’s next 250 years.”

The Money Agenda includes four pieces of legislation. Here’s a quick overview of them:

  • The Equal Tax Act
    • Increase tax rates on income from wealth (e.g., capital gains) so they are the same as the tax rates on income from work
    • Close the loophole that allows the wealthy to give away appreciated assets and dodge anyone having to pay tax on their increase in value (i.e., the stepped-up basis loophole)
  • The Anti-Oligarch Act
    • Phase 1: Stop the growth of economic inequality by putting a reasonable tax on the true income of the wealthy (e.g., including increases in wealth) and on the intergenerational transfers of wealth
    • Phase 2: Reduce economic inequality by implementing a wealth tax on the ultra-rich
  • The “Cost of Living” Tax Cut Act
    • Establish a Cost of Living Exemption of about $45,000 in order to eliminate income tax on income up to a reasonable cost of living for a single adult without children
    • Pay for the lost revenue by putting a surtax on incomes over $1 million
  • The “Cost of Living” Wage Act
    • Raise the minimum wage to a living wage for a single adult with no children, or about $21 per hour (roughly $45,000 per year for full-time work) and index it to inflation
    • Protect workers from loss of income due to automation or AI

The Economic Policy Institute recently issued a report titled “Raising taxes on the ultrarich: A necessary first step to restore faith in American democracy and the public sector.” It states that if “policymakers are unwilling to raise taxes on income derived from wealth, the tax system can never be made as fair as it needs to be.” Its recommendations echo the provisions of The Equal Tax Act and The Anti-Oligarch Act above.

It also proposes:

  • Replacing the estate tax with a progressive income tax on those receiving an inheritance.
  • Raising the top marginal income tax rate back to its pre-2017 level (i.e., from 37% to 39.6%). This would generate revenue of over $30 billion a year. (Note: In 1980, the top rate was 70% and it was over 90% in the 1950s.)
  • Returning the corporate tax rate to 35% (where it was before the 2017 Republican Tax Cut Act reduced it to 21%). This would generate over $250 billion a year in revenue.
  • Closing tax loopholes that the ultrarich and corporations use to evade taxes.
  • Strengthening the IRS’s capability to enforce tax laws. The IRS estimates that $600 billion in taxes that are owed are not paid each year. However, in recent decades it has lacked the resources to enforce the laws and collect those taxes because Republicans have underfunded it.

If Democrats, or another party such as the Working Families Party, want to garner support and votes, they should support these policies to reduce economic inequality and the economic and political power of the American oligarchy. These and related policies would also provide economic security for working Americans. Democrats should be unequivocal in embracing economic populism and stop cozying up to the oligarchy and their PACs for campaign contributions. [2] To consistently win elections, Democrats need to loudly and unequivocally promote a vision of a more economically secure future for working Americans.

[1]      Bivens, J., 11/17/25, “Raising taxes on the ultrarich,” page 5, Economic Policy Institute (https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-taxes-on-the-ultrarich-a-necessary-first-step-to-restore-faith-in-american-democracy-and-the-public-sector/)

[2]      Reich, R., 11/3/25, “What the Democrats must do. Now!” (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-the-democrats-must-do-now) /

WHAT EVERYDAY AMERICANS WANT FROM GOVERNMENT Part 2

Many Americans are worried about the cost of living. Government policies can reduce or control the costs of everyday expenses. If Democrats or others want to garner support and votes, they should aggressively promote such policies. Some examples are presented below.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

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Many Americans are worried about the cost of living. The affordability of the cost of living has two components: 1) the amount of money people make and the benefits they get from their employer, and 2) the costs of everyday expenses from food to housing to health care to utilities. If Democrats, or another party such as the Working Families Party, want to garner support and votes, they should focus on the affordability of day-to-day life. They need to promote a vision of and policies for a more economically secure future for working Americans. This means embracing economic populism, including reducing economic inequality. [1]

This previous post discussed the first component, workers’ compensation. This post discusses ways public policies and government action can reduce, or at least control increases in, the cost of living, i.e., inflation. Over the last 45 years, the cost of everyday necessities has increased faster than workers’ wages, including for food, housing, child care, utilities, health care, and medicine.

Here’s an overview of some government policies that would reduce or control the cost of living. [2]

  • Rescind Trump’s tariffs. As even President Trump is now acknowledging, his tariffs have and will drive up consumer prices. He recently rescinded some tariffs on beef, coffee, tea, fruit and fruit juice, cocoa, spices, tomatoes and other commodities. He acknowledged that his tariffs may have contributed to higher prices at the supermarket. Since the first day that Trump announced his intention to impose tariffs, every reputable economist has stated that tariffs increase prices for consumers. (Note: Tariffs can be good policies if implemented as part of well-planned, comprehensive jobs or national security policies. However, Trump’s tariffs clearly do not meet this criterion.)
  • Enforce antitrust laws. Forty-five years of failure by the federal government to enforce antitrust laws (except for efforts to revitalize them under President Biden) have allowed the emergence of huge companies with monopolistic powers. This has harmed everyday Americans in many ways as outlined below. If Democrats or others, such as the Working Families Party, want to attract support and voters, they should unequivocally call out these huge companies and their oligarchic executives and investors for their greed and monopolistic behavior. This does mean that Democrats will have to stop cozying up to the oligarchs to get campaign donations.

Stop price gouging. Monopolistic or near monopolistic size allows companies to raise prices on consumers who have few if any options. In the short term, governments should implement windfall profits taxes and/or price controls to stop price gouging. In the longer term, governments should enforce antitrust laws and break up or impose very large fines on companies that engage in price gouging and other unfair, monopolistic business practices. This applies to a wide range of consumer goods and services from food to rent to air travel to health care to drug prices. It also applies to the big tech companies, Amazon, Meta (Facebook, Instagram, etc.), Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, and Apple.

Restore competition. By stopping mergers and acquisitions that lead to monopolistic power, and by breaking up monopolistic companies, competition could be restored to consumer markets. Without competition, prices go up and quality goes down, and consumers suffer.

Restoring competition would also reduce employers’ power over workers. Although this wouldn’t reduce costs, it would improve workers’ compensation and therefore the affordability of the cost of living. Employers’ power over workers has grown in multiple ways. The huge and monopolistic size of many employers limits the options for employees and, along with globalization, has allowed employers to undermine unions and cut workers’ compensation. Furthermore, many employers, including some fast-food chains, require employees to sign non-compete employment contracts that limit their ability to move to other employers for better jobs and better pay. President Biden took steps to ban non-compete agreements, but President Trump stopped this effort.

  • Stop privatization of public services and public goods. Privatization is often sold to the public with claims that the private sector will deliver cheaper and better services or products. This rarely turns out to be true. Once the profit incentive is introduced, prices are likely to go up and quality is likely to go down.

Nowhere is this clearer than in our health care system. The privatized system in the U.S. is the costliest system in any of the well-off countries of the world and its outcomes are among the worst. All elements of the system are putting profits before patients. Medicare is much more efficient than any of the private health insurance companies. The health care industry vehemently resisted including a public, Medicare-like option in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) because it knew the public option would deliver better care at lower prices. (See this previous post for more information on the failures of for-profit health care.)

Numerous other examples exist. Rail transportation in the rest of the world is more efficient, dependable, and convenient than the privatized system in the U.S. Internet service is cheaper and faster in Europe than in the U.S. (I’ve been criticizing privatization since way back in 2012. See this previous post and this one for more information.)

  • Stop the abuse of patents. Pharmaceutical companies abuse patent laws to keep cheaper generic versions of drugs from being introduced to the market. Classic cases of this are insulin and EpiPens. (See this previous post for more information.)
  • Enhance regulation. Regulations and enforcement of regulations need to be strengthened to protect consumers from fraud, price gouging, and unsafe food and products. Particularly where large companies have monopolistic power, strong regulation is needed. For example, millions of homeowners lost their homes in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis because large financial institutions were pushing fraudulent mortgages. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was created to protect consumers from financial fraud and abusive practices, such as exorbitant late and overdraft fees. The Trump administration is trying to eliminate the CFPB so big financial institutions can maximize their profits by ripping off consumers. (See this previous post for more information on the Trump administration’s weakening of regulations and the scams that are likely to be the result.)

My next post will discuss economic insecurity and inequality and the government policies that are needed to address them.

[1]      Reich, R., 11/3/25, “What the Democrats must do. Now!” (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-the-democrats-must-do-now) /

[2]      Kuttner, R., 11/12/25, “A blessing in disguise?” Today on The American Prospect (https://americanprospect.bluelena.io/index.php?action=social&chash=9a32ff36c65e8ba30915a21b7bd76506.3779&s=6009966078bda0f5 056f960a346ead8a

EVERY REPUBLICAN WHO DOESN’T STAND UP SHARES THE BLAME

Every Republican, especially those in Congress, who does not resist the undemocratic and illegal actions and his administration shares the blame for what’s happening. The Republican Party of Trump is a dark shadow of its former self. Many past Republican leaders would be horrified.

Every Republican, especially those in Congress, who does not stand up and push back against the undemocratic, unconstitutional, and illegal actions of Trump and his administration shares the blame for what’s happening. They are enabling a Trump dictatorship or monarchy. Congressional Republicans are unilaterally surrendering their constitutional powers. The Republican Party of Donald Trump is a dark shadow of its former self. Many past Republican leaders would be horrified.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

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Although President Trump and his administration get blamed (and rightly so) for the undemocratic and illegal policies and actions they’re taking, every Republican, especially those in Congress, who does not stand up and push back is also to blame. This includes Governors, state Attorneys General, state legislators, Mayors, and others, as well as former elected Republican officials. If there was a loud chorus of Republicans, including current and former elected officials, standing up and criticizing Trump and his administration, it would make a dramatic difference.

Silent and acquiescent Republicans, particularly those in Congress, are enabling the dismantling of democratic norms, processes, and institutions. Congressional Republicans are unilaterally surrendering their constitutional powers to the Trump administration. They are ceding the separation of powers, which is the Constitution’s remedy for potential executive tyranny (and the tyranny of the King of England). They are enabling a Trump dictatorship or monarchy.

Congress by its inaction and, on occasion, by its actions is: [1]

  • Surrendering the power of the purse, i.e., the appropriation of funds and the requirement that the executive branch spend money as appropriated.
  • Surrendering the power to legislate and set policy, e.g., on immigration policies and enforcement, declarations of war and use of military force, tariff and trade policies, etc.
  • Surrendering meaningful scrutiny of Trump appointees and agencies.
  • Surrendering oversight of the President and his actions, i.e., any Congress with any integrity would have impeached and convicted Trump multiple times for his unconstitutional and illegal acts.

In the current budget crisis and government shutdown, Trump is refusing to meet with Democrats to negotiate a resolution, Republican House Speaker Johnson is refusing to even have the House in session to work on budget bills or compromises, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Thune is refusing to hold any meaningful negotiations with Democrats on a resolution to reopen the government. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is trying to withhold available funds for food assistance (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP]), which puts food on the table for 41 million Americans (roughly 1 out of every 8 residents).

Even before the government shutdown, the Trump administration was illegally withholding (aka impounding) funds appropriated by Congress. Head Start programs, which provide early education and child care, as well as other supports, to low-income children under school age and their families, have been forced to cut back and now, with the shutdown, some are closing. This jeopardizes young children’s growth, development, and health, and means parents can’t go to work because they don’t have child care. Foreign aid, research grants, and emergency response funds for natural disasters are other examples of illegally withheld funding.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is illegally using public and private funds to finance favored people and initiatives, such as paying military personnel, funding ICE, prosecuting personal enemies, deploying the National Guard and military personnel on American soil, and demolishing part of the White House and building Trump’s new ballroom. [2]

Republicans and Americans who are not standing up and calling out these undemocratic, unconstitutional, and illegal actions are unpatriotic and share the blame. These actions are hurting Americans and undermining our democracy.

The Republican Party of Donald Trump is a dark shadow of its former self. Ronald Reagan, John McCain, Bob Dole, George H. W. Bush, and many other past Republican leaders would be horrified at the behavior of today’s Republicans and Republican Party.

[1]      Nader, R., Fein, B., & Fisher, L., 10/31/25, “The spinelessness of Thune and Johnson is destroying American democracy,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/johnson-thune-congress)

[2]      Hubbell, R., 10/27/25, “Democrats continue to stand strong,” Today’s Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/democrats-continue-to-stand-strong)(

THE AMERICAN STRUGGLE BETWEEN OLIGARCHY AND DEMOCRACY

An American oligarchy has battled for control of our country since its founding. In 1980, the American oligarchy re-emerged and has been undermining democracy and skewing government policy. Defenders of democracy are fighting back, including with growing protests against and resistance to King Trump and his administration. Please find and participate in an Oct. 18 No Kings protest near you.

SPECIAL NOTE: We need millions of Americans at the No Kings protests on October 18 in defense of democracy. Please support this however you can. You can find an event near you here.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me and get notices of my blog posts on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

An American oligarchy based on wealth and privilege, with race and religion lurking behind them, has battled for control of our country since its founding. The southern plantation owners were the first American oligarchy. The businessmen and industrialists of the late 1800s and early 1900s, who were dubbed the Robber Barons, were the second American oligarchy.

The first American progressive era from the 1890s through 1945 pushed back against oligarchy and the Great Depression, which was caused by the greed of the oligarchs. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and the growth of government and government power due to World War II relegated and regulated the oligarchy to the back seat. This put democracy and we the people in the driver’s seat and in control of America.

The period after World War II, from 1945 to 1980 was the second progressive era. An unwritten post-war social compact framed American society and the economy. It was based on three pillars:

  • Corporations served all stakeholders: workers, customers, communities, and shareholders;
  • Workers had a right to unionize and receive fair wages and safe working conditions; and
  • Government provided a safety net, managed capitalism, and leveled the playing field.

The result was an economy and society where, from 1945 to 1980, the rising tide did lift all boats. Economic inequality narrowed and America moved toward its promise of equal opportunity for all. Workers’ wages increased in accordance with their increases in productivity. The middle class grew along with economic security. Each generation was better off than the previous one. Democracy was working well.

In 1980, with the election of President Reagan, the American oligarchy re-emerged. For the last 45 years, it has been undermining democracy and skewing government policy in its favor. (See this previous post for more details.) Although Republicans have been the driving force, Democrats have contributed to this shift by supporting business deregulation and unconstrained globalization. Democrats also failed to support unions and failed to reform our campaign finance system. Moreover, they have come to rely on campaign contributions from wealthy individuals and corporations.

All this has led to 45 years of dramatically growing income and wealth inequality. The middle class has shrunk, and workers’ wages have increased much less than their increases in productivity. Many Americans have lost their economic security. The public’s faith in government and democracy has declined dramatically.

However, there are signs that a third American progressive era and a resurgence of democracy may be emerging. There is increasing acknowledgement and public awareness that:

  • Wealth and income inequality have grown to unacceptable levels.
  • Huge corporations tend to engage in monopolistic behaviors such as price fixing and price gouging; decreasing quality, choice, and customer service; and poor treatment of employees in terms of compensation and safety.
  • Unrestrained capitalism is not good for consumers, workers, communities, or our planet.
  • The oligarchs have rigged our economic system in their favor so that the rising tide is lifting only their yachts.
  • Oligarchy is anti-democratic and tends to turn into authoritarianism and fascism, i.e., white, male, Christian nationalism.

Bob Kuttner, a long-time, very astute and thoughtful observer and analyst of American politics and policies, has concluded that American democracy’s efforts to balance capitalism are doomed to fail. The incentives and power of huge corporations and huge wealth are too great and will inevitably overwhelm America’s brand of democracy. He concludes that significant public ownership of key sectors of the economy, i.e., democratic socialism, is necessary to keep capitalism in check. [1]

As Bob Reich recently wrote, “Capitalism is compatible with democracy only if democracy is in the driver’s seat. … [Otherwise] It fuels despotism.” [2] This is reminiscent of the quote from Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis back in the 1930s: “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

In many sectors of our economy there’s a clear need for strong regulation or public ownership including in health care, communications (including media and the big technology platforms), utilities and energy, the transportation system, banking and finance, housing, and food and agriculture. In these areas, a publicly owned option would be more effective and efficient because it wouldn’t have to cover the costs of profits, big executive pay packages, and advertising. For example, in the health care sector, when the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka Obama Care) was being developed, health care providers and insurance companies vehemently opposed a public option in the health care market place (basically Medicare available to everyone) because they knew it would be more effective and efficient. This is also why they oppose Medicare of All and are working feverishly to undermine Medicare with their privatized Medicare Advantage plans. We need public Medicare for seniors and a public option for everyone else to stop the rapacious, for-profit health care businesses that put profits before patients. (See previous posts here, here and here for more details.)

The growing protests against and resistance to King Trump and his administration’s actions and policies are signs of a resurgence of democracy and an emerging progressive era. The successes are many, on the streets and in the courtrooms, sometimes small but nonetheless important, and are underreported by the mainstream media. Forcing media executives to put the Jimmy Kimmel show back on the air was a huge and very visible success. (For lots of current good news see Jess Craven’s Chop Wood Carry Water blog here.)

In this vein, please find an October 18th No Kings event near you here and participate and support it in whatever way you can. We, the American public, as citizens, consumers, and workers, must stand up for democracy, otherwise, we’ll continue down the slippery slope to oligarchy, authoritarianism, and fascism. We can stop the anti-democracy slide, as we did in the Jimmy Kimmel case.

We need millions of Americans engaged in the No Kings protests and in the many, many other smaller protests that are occurring daily. Thank you for all you’re doing! Please keep up the great and important work to save our democracy!

My next post will identify additional signs of a resurgence of democracy and the beginning of a third progressive era, including a surge in unionization, campaign finance reforms, and actions and elections at the state and local levels.

[1]      Kuttner, R., 12/1/21, “Capitalism vs. liberty,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/capitalism-vs-liberty/)

[2]      Reich, R., 9/26/25, “Why are we so polarized? Why is democracy in such peril?” Blog post (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/why-are-we-so-polarized)

STANDING UP TO TRUMP AND CORPORATE OLIGARCHS

Oligarchy Definition A small group of people having formal and informal power based on (1)wealth; (2) connections; and (3) privilege.

American oligarchs have spent 45 years and billions of dollars undermining democracy and skewing government policy in their favor. We need to stand up and make Trump and corporate CEOs understand that the long-term success of their companies and our country depend on the trust and support of us, their customers and voters. We did this in a big way with the reaction to media executives pulling the Jimmy Kimmel show off the air. We need to do it again and again.

SPECIAL NOTE: We need millions of Americans at the No Kings protests on October 18 in defense of democracy. Please support this however you can. You can find an event near you here.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me and get notices of my blog posts on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

American oligarchs, i.e., wealthy individuals and their large corporations, have spent at least the last 45 years undermining democracy and skewing government policy in their favor by: (See this previous post for more details.)

  • Increasing, coordinating, refining, and hiding their spending of billions of dollars on election campaigns. They spent over $10 billion in the 2023-24 federal election cycle alone.
  • Spending billions of dollars on lobbying the federal government, currently to the tune of $4 billion a year.
  • Moving tens of thousands of people through the revolving door between jobs in their corporations and in the government agencies that regulate them.

These efforts have been very successful; their return on investment has been extraordinary. Trump and his anti-democratic, authoritarian, and fascist administration are the culmination of this work that has undermined our democracy and skewed government policies and our economy to favor the oligarchs. Examples of skewed government policies include the following.

The individual income tax rates on oligarchs’ incomes have been cut from 70% in 1980 and 92% in the 1950s to 37% today. Income taxes on income from wealth, i.e., long-term capital gains, have been cut from 28% in 1980 to 15% in 2012 but are back up to 24% today. Note that the tax rate on income from wealth (i.e., unearned income) has always been much lower than the tax rate on income from work (i.e., earned income). This benefits the oligarchs and entrenches and exacerbates wealth inequality. Furthermore, increases in wealth that aren’t cashed in aren’t taxed at all. As a result, the richest billionaires pay about 3.4% in income tax on their incomes while the average American pays 14.5%.

Corporate income tax rates have also been cut from 46% in 1980 to 21% today. Moreover, tax loopholes allow corporations many strategies to avoid taxes. In particular, multi-national corporations artificially shift profits to foreign countries with very low taxes. Corporations have also been allowed to move jobs to low-wage countries and to resist and undermine workers’ unions. Roughly one out of every three private sector workers was a union member in the 1950s; today it’s one out of every 15. [1]

Antitrust laws have basically been unenforced for the last 45 years. As a result, many sectors of the American economy are dominated by a few, large, monopolistic corporations. Reduced competition means corporations can raise prices, cut quality, and strong-arm employees. Deregulation has left consumers vulnerable to poor products and frustrating services.

All of this has led to 45 years of dramatically growing income and wealth inequality. The 50% of Americans with the least wealth now, collectively, have only 2.5% of national wealth (less than $23,000 each on average). The wealthiest 1% of Americans own 33% of national wealth (about $15 million each on average). Pay for CEOs is now 1,094% higher than in 1978, while a typical workers’ pay has only increased 26%. As a result, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio grew from 31 times a typical worker’s pay in 1978 to 281 times in 2024. [2] And CEOs now believe that their only responsibility is to maximize returns for shareholders; other stakeholders, including workers, customers, and communities, are not a matter for concern.

The oligarch’s successful assault on our democracy and public policies has resulted in many Americans losing their economic security, as well as their trust in government and democracy. Many of them don’t feel it’s worth voting because they don’t believe it’s going to make any difference. They believe government is controlled by special interests working to benefit themselves. These Americans are angry and fearful about the future. Therefore, they are willing to believe the lies that Trump tells them about bringing back their good jobs and wages. And they are willing to overlook his undermining of democracy.

We, American consumers, need to make corporate CEOs understand that the long-term success of their companies depends on the trust and support of us, their customers. We did this in a big way with the reaction to media executives pulling the Jimmy Kimmel show off the air in response to President Trump’s displeasure with him. We’ll need to do this again and again to wake up CEOs and to get them to focus on the long-term instead of pleasing the would-be dictator in the White House in the short-term.

The spinelessness of corporate CEOs in the face of Trump makes it clear that they “are poorly suited to be custodians of democracy or counterweights to presidential overreach.” [3] “Capitalism is compatible with democracy only if democracy is in the driver’s seat. … [Otherwise] It fuels despotism.” [4]

We, the American public, consumers and workers, must stand up for democracy and for its regulation of corporations and capitalism. Otherwise, we’ll continue down the slippery slope to oligarchy, authoritarianism, and fascism. We can stop this slide, as we did in the Jimmy Kimmel case.

I look forward to seeing millions of Americans engaged in the No Kings protests on October 18 and in many, many other smaller protests daily. Thank you for all you’re doing! Please keep up this great and important work to save our democracy!

Find an October 18th No Kings event near you here and participate and support it in whatever way you can.

For lots of current good news see Jess Craven’s Chop Wood Carry Water blog here.

[1]      Economic Policy Institute, retrieved from the Internet 9/29/25, “State of Working America: Unions,” (https://data.epi.org/unions/union_members_historical/line/year/national/percent_union_members_historical/overall)

[2]      Gould, E., Bivens, J., & Kandra, J., 9/25/25, “CEO pay increased in 2024 and is now 281 times that of the typical worker,” Economic Policy Institute (https://www.epi.org/blog/ceo-pay-increased-in-2024-and-is-now-281-times-that-of-the-typical-worker-new-epi-landing-page-has-all-the-details/)

[3]      Edelman, L., 9/23/25, “Why corporate leaders are appeasing Trump,” The Boston Globe

[4]      Reich, R., 9/26/25, “Why are we so polarized? Why is democracy in such peril?” Blog post (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/why-are-we-so-polarized)

CORPORATE OLIGARCHS HAVE BEEN UNDERMINING DEMOCRACY FOR 45 YEARS

Trump is the culmination of decades of work by wealthy individuals and CEOs (America’s oligarchs) undermining democracy & skewing government policy. This has led to high income & wealth inequality. Many Americans have lost their economic security, as well as their faith in government & democracy.

Trump is the culmination of decades of work by wealthy individuals and corporate CEOs (i.e., America’s oligarchs) undermining democracy and skewing government policies. This has led to dramatic income and wealth inequality. Many Americans have lost their economic security, as well as their faith in government and democracy.

SPECIAL NOTE: We need millions of Americans at the No Kings protests on October 18 in defense of democracy. Please support this however you can. You can find an event near you at: https://www.mobilize.us/nokings/map/?tag_ids=27849.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me and get notices of my blog posts on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

I’ve been surprised at how little spine corporate Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) (supposed “leaders”) have shown in the face of Trump’s behavior and attacks. They know that unpredictability and chaos in government, as well as uncertainty, polarization, and unrest in society (in America and globally), are bad for the economy and for their businesses, at least in the long run. They know that an autocrat’s lack of respect for the rule of law, for property rights, and for freedom of speech are bad for business.

However, the CEOs of large corporations (aka corporate oligarchs) tend to be pragmatic and short-sighted. They value having political power and influence to the point that they seem to care little about politicians’ ethics or actions on issues that don’t conflict with their corporate interests. They know their large corporations are dependent on the government for many things, e.g., approvals of mergers, government contracts, tax breaks and subsidies, and licenses to operate. And they know their corporations are affected by many other things government does, e.g., writing and enforcing regulations, tax laws, and export and import policies (e.g., tariffs). [1]

President Trump has been leveraging (generally illegally) these many interrelationships between the government and corporations to pressure CEOs to do what he wants them to do, to support his policies, and to support him personally (sometimes financially). CEOs know Trump is arbitrary, unpredictable, and vindictive. They know that if he is irritated by a company or its CEO that he will use the powers of the government in a punitive fashion against them. Therefore, they capitulate.

However, Trump and his anti-democratic, autocratic, and fascist behavior and administration are the culmination of decades of work by wealthy individuals and corporate CEOs (i.e., America’s oligarchs). They have been undermining democracy and skewing government policies and our economy in their favor for at least 45 years. They have quadrupled their political spending (after adjusting for inflation) over the last 40 years. [2] In the 2023-2024 federal election cycle, $5.3 billion was spent on the presidential race and $9.5 billion was spent on congressional races. The overwhelming majority of this money came from American oligarchs. One hundred billionaires alone spent $2.6 billion. The seven highest spending individuals spent $930 million, all for Republicans, with Elon Musk leading the way with $291 million in spending, almost exclusively for the Trump campaign.

In addition to spending on election campaigns, corporations are also spending over $4 billion a year lobbying the federal government. [3] Furthermore, they engage in an extensive “revolving door” cycle of personnel (tens of thousands of them) who move between government regulatory agencies and positions in corporations the agencies regulate. [4]

All of this is in the interest of skewing government policy to favor American oligarchs, i.e., wealthy individuals and their large corporations. They have been very successful; their return on investment has been extraordinary.

My next post will provide specific examples of their successes, along with the effects and implications of them.

In the meantime, please make plans to stand up for democracy and against the oligarchs. I hope you can participate in and/or support the No Kings protests on October 18 – and the many, many other smaller protests that are occurring daily. Thank you for all you are doing! Please keep up this great and important defense of democracy!

Find a No Kings October 18th event near you here.

[1]      Edelman, L., 9/23/25, “Why corporate leaders are appeasing Trump,” The Boston Globe

[2]      Reich, R., 9/26/25, “Why are we so polarized? Why is democracy in such peril?” Blog post (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/why-are-we-so-polarized)

[3]      Open Secrets, retrieved from the Internet 9/29/25, “Lobbying data summary,” (https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/)

[4]      Open Secrets, retrieved from the Internet 9/29/25, “Revolving door overview,” (https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving-door/)

CHILDREN AREN’T SAFE ON META’S VIRTUAL REALITY PLATFORMS

The harm that Meta Platforms’ Facebook and virtual reality programs do to children and youth is well documented. The evidence continues to grow as new whistleblowers come forward and share inside information. Clearly, Meta is far more committed to its profits than it is to protecting children.

The harm that Meta Platforms’ social media platforms, including Facebook and virtual reality programs, do to children and youth is well documented. The evidence continues to grow as new whistleblowers come forward and share inside information. Clearly, Meta (and other social media platforms) are far more committed to their profits than they are to protecting children.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me and get notices of my blog posts on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

It’s been far too long since I wrote about Meta Platforms and its subsidiaries. Meta’s Facebook and virtual reality platforms are harming children. The harm that Facebook and other social media do to children and youth is well documented. It is equally clear that Meta and other social media companies are far more interested in maximizing profits than protecting children.

Three years ago, I wrote a blog post calling for federal legislation to protect children on social media. No legislation has been passed in those three years and no significant federal legislation regulating social media has been passed since the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). A lot has changed since 1998 and new federal legislation is sorely needed. In my September 2022 blog post, I called on Congress to pass two bills to protect children on social media. (Previous posts here and here document the harms to children and beyond of Facebook and other social media platforms, as well as ways to respond.)

The Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSA) (a combined version of the two previous bills) passed the Senate with a strong, bipartisan vote (91 – 3) in July 2024. Heavy lobbying, led by Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and controlling stockholder of Meta, blocked action on it in the House. By the way, Europe has done a much better job than the U.S. of protecting everyone’s privacy and well-being on social media, including that of children.

The social media platforms’ business model is to hook kids at an early age, feed them addictive content to keep them engaged, amass extensive personal information about them and their online behavior, and then use these data to sell very targeted, personalized, and effective advertising. This is very lucrative for the social media platforms, however, the content and marketing to kids often presents toxic content that harms kids’ well-being and mental health. [1]

Advocates for children, including Fairplay, filed a request in May for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate Meta for violating children’s safety and privacy on its virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds. Children, including ones under 13, are at risk for sexual predation, financial harm, bullying, and harassment on Horizon Worlds. Meta knows this, but it fails to protect children while it captures their data, in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, to sell to advertisers and to make their platform as addictive as possible. The FTC complaint was supported by a sworn statement from Kelly Stonelake, the former director of marketing for Horizon Worlds at Meta.

Meta has been in the news this week because six whistleblowers and former employees have come forward to report (again) that Meta has been covering up and ignoring the harm they know their platforms are doing to children. The focus this week was on the virtual reality platforms that Meta offers. Current and former employees revealed that Meta is suppressing internal research on child and youth safety and is also turning a blind eye to children under 13 illegally using these platforms. Furthermore, Meta’s legal and communications teams work to communicate plausible deniable for its executives on company knowledge of negative effects on children. Zuckerberg and Meta have previously lied about the harmful effects of their platforms and their knowledge of those harmful effects on children. (Meta whistleblowers previously revealed similar misbehavior in congressional testimony in 2023 (Arturo Beja) and 2021 (Frances Haugen).)

Not surprisingly, therefore, the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSA) is again being considered in the U.S. Senate (S.1748) and there’s also a push to pass it in the House: It would:

  • Provide privacy protections for children and youth,
    • Extend to 13 to 16-year-olds the prohibition on social media platforms capturing children’s personal information without their consent and require the platforms to delete any such information they collect if requested to do so,
    • Limit individually targeted advertising (referred to as surveillance advertising),
    • Require the social media platforms to put the interests of young people first,
  • Provide families with the tools and safeguards to protect children’s well-being and mental health,
  • Require transparency from the social media platforms about the data they are capturing and the algorithms they are using for promoting content and advertising, and
  • Establish accountability for harms caused by social media.

I encourage you to contact your Representative and Senators in Congress and ask them to support strong regulation of social media platforms to prevent them from harming our children and youth. Urge them to support the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA, Senate bill 1748) and similar legislation in the House.

You can find contact information for your U.S. Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your U.S. Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

SPECIAL NOTES:

[1]      Corbett, J., 7/27/22. “ ‘Critical’ online privacy protections for children advance to Senate floor,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/07/27/critical-online-privacy-protections-children-advance-senate-floor-vote)

THE PERVERSION OF CAPITALISM BY TRUMP

President Trump is perverting capitalism and the free market by asserting unprecedented influence over the private sector. His actions are not a coherent economic policy. They’re all about centralizing power and control. This is what fascism and oligarchy look like.

President Trump is perverting capitalism and the free market by asserting unprecedented influence over the private sector. His actions are not a coherent economic policy and make the U.S. economy look like China’s. They’re all about centralizing power and control, while undermining the rule of law and democracy. This is what fascism and oligarchy look like.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me and get notices of my blog posts on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

President Trump is perverting capitalism and the free market by asserting unprecedented personal influence over and taking government ownership in private sector companies. His actions do not reflect a coherent economic policy. It is the power grabbing of a tyrant and bully who wants to control others and wants them to be subservient. Trump is using largely illegal financial (e.g., import tariffs and export fees), regulatory, and court-based actions to do this. He wants to influence the decisions of other countries and American businesses, including media corporations, financial institutions, law firms, and  universities. He wants countries and companies to come to him begging for exemptions from his actions and threats. [1] This is, of course, a breeding ground for corruption and bribery.

Nothing even approaching this level of government interference in the private sector has occurred since the emergency mobilization of the private sector for World War II. This government interference in private companies, which is a type of state-controlled capitalism, has until now always been anathema to Republicans and the business community. If any president prior to Trump had attempted any of this, Republicans, business executives, and the mainstream media would be screaming about it being socialism or communism. The actions by Trump are making the U.S. economy look like that of China, where the government owns a stake in companies or has considerable influence over their decision making. [2] [3] Or like Leninist capitalism where the Communist Party controlled the state’s ownership of businesses. [4]

This alignment of an authoritarian leader and a nominally capitalist economy is classic fascism. While Republicans and business executives are supportive or mute, the Wall Street Journal simply calls it inefficient. The business executives and other wealthy investors that facilitate and participate in Trump’s actions are the American oligarchy.

Examples of Trump’s actions include:

  • Allowed Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, makers of artificial intelligence (AI) computer chips, to export them to China on the condition that the companies pay the United States 15% of their profits. This poses risks to the U.S. AI industry and to U.S. national security (in part due to the chips’ use by the Chinese military). These payments are, for all intents and purposes, an export fee, which is unprecedented in U.S. history. Moreover, the Constitution explicitly bans export taxes (Article I, Section 9, Clause 5). [5]
  • Demanded that Intel’s CEO resign and then negotiated 10% government ownership of the company. This makes the U.S. government one of Intel’s largest shareholders. [6]
  • Proposed that the Defense Department take a 15% ownership stake in MP Materials, which mines minerals critical for chips and electronics.
  • Allowed Nippon Steel of Japan to take over U.S. Steel on condition that Nippon pay a “golden share” of the proceeds to the government and give Trump control over elements of corporate governance.
  • Reserved the right to personally direct some the $1.5 trillion in promised investments in the U.S. to be made by America’s trading partners as part of tariff negotiations.
  • Sued media corporations and negotiated approval of media corporation mergers to get money and influence over media content.

The government ownership in and influence over the private sector asserted by Trump has nothing to do with promoting the public interest, the well-being of American workers, or protecting national security. In fact, they undermine all these principles. They’re all about centralizing power and control in Trump’s hands as part of his efforts to undermine the rule of law and democracy. [7] Moreover, who holds the ownership stakes and who exercises the related rights is unclear.

Despite Trump’s bluster about being tough on China, his actions have been quite favorable to China. He has illegally extended the deadline for the sale of Chinese ownership of TikTok if it wants to do business in the U.S. He has shut down Radio Free Asia, which countered Chinese propaganda. He’s allowed the export of artificial intelligence computer chips to China, which was a key request from China in trade negotiations.

Please contact your members of Congress and ask them to assert their oversight of these deals Trump is making. Ask them to clarify who holds the ownership stakes, who is exercising ownership rights, and where the funds received are going. Ask them to ensure that the Trump administration’s economic policies and actions further the public interest, benefit workers, promote national security, and comport with the rule of law and democratic principles.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Dayen, D., 8/11/25, “Tariffs to import and fees to export,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-08-11-tariffs-to-import-fees-to-export-nvidia-chips-china/)

[2]      Reich, R., 8/12/25, “Trump’s ‘state capitalism’,” Blog post (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-state-capitalism)

[3]      Cox Richardson, H., 8/11/25, Letters from an American blog post, (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-11-2025)

[4]      Meyerson, H., 8/18/25, “When l’etat c’est Trump, the U.S. goes in for state capitalism,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/economy/2025-08-18-when-letat-cest-trump-us-goes-in-for-state-capitalism/)

[5]      Dayen, D., 8/11/25, see above

[6]      Liedtke, M., & Kurtenbach, E., 8/20/25, “US vying to own a big stake in Intel,” The Boston Globe from the Associated Press

[7]      Reich, R., 8/12/25, see above

BEWARE! SCAMS ARE COMING YOUR WAY! PART 2

Consumers beware; you’ll need to up your vigilance to avoid scams. The Trump administration is weakening consumer protections. From the cryptocurrency industry to cyber security to Social Security and health care, weak oversight and regulation will lead to consumer rip-offs and outright fraud.

Consumers beware; scams of all sorts are coming your way. The Trump administration is weakening or eliminating agencies and regulations that protect consumers. From the cryptocurrency industry to cyber security to Social Security and health care, weak oversight and regulation will lead to consumer rip-offs and outright fraud. You will need to up your level of vigilance to avoid getting scammed.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me and get notices of my blog posts on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

Consumers beware; scams of all sorts are coming your way. The Trump administration is weakening or eliminating agencies and regulations that protect consumers, so it’s an open field for unscrupulous behavior by businesses and fraudsters. From the cryptocurrency industry to cyber security to Social Security and health care, weak oversight and regulation will lead to consumer rip-offs and outright fraud. (See this previous post focused on financial and other corporate scamming.)

The cryptocurrency industry is trying to transform its image from that of a scandal-ridden and crime-enabling financial technology (aka fintech) experiment into that of a mainstream financial and commercial investment and transaction vehicle. Don’t let yourself be fooled. For example, Coinbase, founded in 2012 and now the largest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange as well as the world’s biggest bitcoin custodian, has had over 8,000 consumer complaints filed against it with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). [1]

The crypto industry spent well over $100 million in the last elections, including donations to Trump-affiliated entities, to elect pro-crypto politicians and to instill fear into others who might oppose the industry. It has also spent millions on a lobbying campaign to build bipartisan support for the Republican-led pro-crypto bills and to obtain a favorable regulatory environment.

Despite the crypto industry’s record of fraud, facilitating criminal activity, and extreme volatility, the Trump administration, through an executive order, is allowing investments in it by retirement plans, corporations (including banks!), and the government itself. [2] Furthermore, the Trump administration has eliminated crypto crime units at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and in other government agencies. It has ended numerous investigations and criminal prosecutions of crypto industry entities. These actions effectively facilitate money laundering and criminal activity. [3]

Three bills have been introduced in Congress ostensibly to regulate the industry but appear more focused on giving it legitimacy and a government seal of approval. One of the three bills, the so-called Genius Act has passed and become law. It established a regulatory framework for a piece of the crypto industry called stablecoins. This type of cryptocurrency is linked to the value of the U.S. dollar which is supposed to prevent the volatility that occurs with other cryptocurrencies. Most, but not all, Democrats opposed this bill due to concerns that it lacked strong provisions to prevent fraud and money laundering. Furthermore, it does nothing to stop President Trump, his family, and his associates from profiting from cryptocurrency activities that allow other people and entities to effectively put money in Trump’s and his affiliates’ pockets. [4]

One of the other bills, the so-called Clarity Act would create a broader crypto regulatory framework. The third bill would ban the Federal Reserve from creating its own cryptocurrency that would compete with private cryptocurrencies and presumably reduce the profitability of the private crypto industry. So, beware of anything crypto industry related that comes your way.

In a variety of other arenas, the Trump administration is also weakening consumer protections.

Having effectively eliminated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Trump administration is now considering weakening the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) that protects consumers from dangerous non-financial products.

The Trump administration has dramatically weakened some of the federal government’s cyber security agencies. So, be ever more alert for cyber crime and cyber scams. It is taking FBI agents away from their specialties such as combating hackers (as well as terrorism, espionage, public corruption, white-collar crime, civil rights, child sex crime, etc.) to have them patrol the streets of D.C. where crime is at its lowest level in years. Moreover, a map of where FBI agents and troops have been deployed makes it very clear they are not really there to combat crime; they are there to be seen and to make a statement. [5]

The Trump administration is cutting staffing and services at the Social Security Administration, while having it send out misleading information. (See this previous post for more detail.) This will make it harder for seniors and others to receive the benefits they’re owed and to get accurate information. This will create fertile ground for scammers to step in. Be on your guard.

Similarly, cuts to the health care system and weakened oversight of privatized Medicare Advantage Plans will open the door to scammers. For example, 17% of Americans now report they are using buy now, pay later (BNPL) programs to pay for medical or dental care. [6] BNPL programs not infrequently involve terms and costs that are not well explained to consumers and, therefore, result in financial abuse.

Please contact your members of Congress and tell them you support strong regulation of the crypto industry to protect consumers and to prevent crime and money laundering. Ask them to oppose the two crypto industry bills as they are currently written. Ask them to stand up for strong consumer protections from the CFPB, CPSC, and cyber security agencies. Ask them to protect seniors and others from the undermining of Social Security and our health care system.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

By the way, there is lots of good news. See Jess Craven’s latest good news post. It includes California Governor Newsom fighting fire with fire on the gerrymandering front, numerous judges’ decisions, protests all across the country, conservative economists opposing Trump’s nominee to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown deciding to run for U.S. Senate again in 2026, and much more.

[1]      Silverman, J., 5/27/25, “Three coin monte,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/power/2025-05-27-three-coin-monte-crypto-regulation/)

[2]      Johnson, J., 8/7/25, “‘Disaster in the making’: Trump to open 401(k)s to crypto, private equity vultures,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-private-equity-401k)

[3]      Silverman, J., 5/27/25, see above

[4]      Gold, M., 7/18/25, “Here’s how Congress is wading into crypto regulation,” The Boston Globe from the New York Times

[5]      Cox Richardson, H., 8/19/25, “Letters from an American,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-19-2025)

[6]      Corbett, J., 8/6/25, “‘Gouging’: US health insurance giants raked in over $71 billion in profits last year,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/health-insurance-profits)

BEWARE! SCAMS ARE COMING YOUR WAY!

Consumers beware; scams are coming your way. The Trump administration is weakening consumer protections. From financial services to big tech a lack of oversight and regulation will lead to consumer rip-offs and outright fraud. You will need to up your level of vigilance to avoid getting scammed.
Top view of money banknote, toy padlock and square letters with text SCAM ALERT.

Consumers beware; scams of all sorts are coming your way. The Trump administration is weakening or eliminating agencies and regulations that protect consumers. From financial services to the big tech companies a lack of oversight and regulation will lead to consumer rip-offs and outright fraud. You will need to up your level of vigilance to avoid getting scammed.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me and get notices of my blog posts on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

Consumers beware; scams of all sorts are coming your way. The Trump administration is weakening or eliminating agencies and regulations that protect consumers, so it’s an open field for unscrupulous behavior by businesses and fraudsters. From financial services (including student loans) to the big tech companies, a lack of oversight and regulation will lead to consumer rip-offs and outright fraud.

Perhaps the most blatant of the Trump administration’s anti-consumer actions is the virtual elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). In its 14 years of existence, the CFPB has required over $20 billion to be returned to consumers who were defrauded by financial businesses. Last year, for example, it sent $1.8 billion in checks to 4.3 million customers who had been defrauded by two credit repair services. [1] It has saved consumers billions more by regulating late fees on credit cards, overdraft fees on bank accounts, and much more. If it had been in existence before the 2008 financial collapse, it might well have prevented the collapse, and it would have saved many home owners their homes and others billions of dollars lost to mortgage fraud.

Not surprisingly, in the absence of CFPB enforcement, the number of consumer complaints has already exploded with 2.5 million complaints filed in the last six months. This is over ten times the number of complaints filed in a typical six-month period over the last 13 years. A major source of complaints is inaccurate data on consumers’ credit reports. Two weeks before Trump took office, the CFPB had sued Experian (one of the three big credit reporting agencies) for basically ignoring consumers’ complaints about inaccurate information. This lawsuit is going nowhere under the Trump administration. The Trump administration also voided a ruling that would have forced the Navy Federal Credit Union to return $80 million in fraudulent overdraft fees to customers who had been told they had sufficient funds to cover a withdrawal. This just one example of Trump administration actions to take millions of dollars promised to fraud victims and give it back to corporate scammers.

The Trump administration is attempting to dodge requirements that the CFPB make consumer complaints public so consumers can know which companies are bad actors. It has also stopped actions to curb excessive credit card late fees, to remove medical debt from credit reports, and to regulate digital payment businesses, payday lenders, and credit repair services. It has permanently dropped at least 22 enforcement actions against companies accused of billions of dollars of consumer financial fraud, including one against Zelle, the electronic payment platform that was infested with fraud shortly after being launched.

Medical credit cards and abuses of them are likely to increase dramatically with the CFPB out of the way. For example, in 2023, Synchrony Bank made $3.7 billion in interest and fees on its 11.7 million CareCredit cards (the most widely used medical credit card). These are offered to patients, sometimes ones in a crisis. They are often interest-free up-front but have a balloon interest amount due if not fully paid off in a set period. There are frequently junk fees associated with them and users frequently report that the terms and rules of the credit card weren’t clearly explained to them. [2]

The emasculation of the CFPB will eliminate oversight and accountability in the financial industry. This will make consumers vulnerable to the multitude of financial scams in the marketplace, which will now grow and proliferate. You will need to up your level of vigilance to avoid getting scammed.

Consumers will also be harmed by the far-reaching business deregulation and lack of enforcement of regulations and laws governing business behavior that the Trump administration is undertaking. As economists have noted for literally hundreds of years, bad money drives out good money, or, in other words, honest companies have a tough time competing against dishonest companies. Therefore, bad business behavior is likely to proliferate. [3]

Over 165 enforcement actions against businesses have been dropped or put on hold in the first six month of the Trump administration. Not coincidentally, roughly $50 million in donations to Trump’s inauguration and untold millions to Trump via other vehicles have come from companies subject to federal investigations, lawsuits, enforcement actions, or antitrust cases. Technology companies, particularly the big three: Meta (Facebook’s parent company), Apple, and Google, have benefited by spending relatively small amounts of money for them (a few million dollars) on political spending and lobbying to get favorable actions from the Trump administration. Of the 140 investigations and enforcement actions targeting 104 tech corporations when Trump took office, at least 50 have already been stopped. Bank of America, Capital One, Coinbase, DuPont, and JPMorgan donated to Trump’s inauguration and then federal enforcement actions against them were dropped. Intuit, which makes tax preparation software, gave to the inauguration and then the IRS discontinued its free, Direct File tax return program. Apple supported the inauguration and was then exempted from most tariffs. These companies are getting a great return on their “investments”. This pattern is evidence of a pay-to-play scheme that would be criminal bribery under any other president and administration. [4] [5]

The Trump administration is weakening or stating it won’t enforce laws banning U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials, prohibiting workplace discrimination, or regulating loan shark lending and its usurious interest rates. It is also making life harder and loans more expensive for student borrowers by making federal government student lending much less helpful and more costly. This will force many students needing to borrow funds for college into the hands of private lenders, some of whom are financial predators that the CFPB won’t be around to regulate or hold accountable. [6]

More in my next post on scams to be on the lookout for, including from the cryptocurrency industry.

[1]      Tkacik, M., & Baratta, J., 7/11/25, “Hardly workin’,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/economy/2025-07-11-hardly-workin-cfpb-doge-trump/)

[2]      Covert, B., 5/28/25, “Predatory lenders in the operating room,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/health/2025-05-28-predatory-lenders-operating-room-medical-credit-cards/)

[3]      Dayen, D., 5/27/25, “The golden age of scams,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/power/2025-05-27-golden-age-of-scams/)

[4]      Johnson, J., 8/14/25, “‘Corporate crime pays’ under Trump as his agencies drop enforcement against 165 companies,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/corporate-crime-donald-trump)

[5]      Johnson, J., 4/22/25, “‘See how this works?’: Trump drops cases against corporations that funded his inauguration,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-corporations-inauguration)

[6]      Dayen, D, 5/27/25, “Borrowers besieged,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/education/2025-05-27-borrowers-besieged-student-debt/)

THERE’S GOOD NEWS AND LOTS OF IT!

Despite all the bad news, there’s lots of good news. Democrats in Congress are starting to increase their resistance. In addition to action at the national level, state level action is critically important. I don’t condone gerrymandering, but I do believe we need to fight fire with fire. For lots of good news, look at Jess Craven’s weekly good news edition of her Chop Wood, Carry Water blog.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

Despite all the bad news the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are generating, there’s lots of good news.

Democrats in Congress are starting to increase their resistance. (Finally!) Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee invoked a rarely used procedure that allows five members of the committee to obtain documents from the administration. Senate Democrats have formally and officially demanded the release of the Epstein files by August 15. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has announced that she and hopefully other Democrats will refuse to cooperate with Republicans on any spending bills until Trump stops withholding previously appropriated funds. She pointed out that if Republicans allow Trump to ignore spending decisions by Congress or to rescind them after the fact, any future spending bills are a meaningless waste of time. Democrats are also demanding a thorough vetting process for fifty Trump nominations awaiting Senate confirmation rather than letting Republicans ram them through in an expedited process. [1]

Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) strongly criticized his fellow Democrats for voting for some of Trump’s policies. Apparently as a result, Democrats held a closed-door meeting to develop a strategy for their resistance to the Trump / Republican agenda for the next two months.

In addition to action at the national level, state level action is critically important. Most notable right now is states’ threats to gerrymander congressional districts. Texas is threatening to do a very unusual and very partisan redistricting (normally this is only done when there is new Census data every ten years). Its goal would be to create five districts where Republicans would replace Democrats. Not only are Texas Democrats working to block this however they can, Democratic states are announcing that if Texas does this, they will take similar action to create new districts where Democrats would replace Republicans. I don’t condone gerrymandering, but I do believe we need to fight fire with fire. Democrats can’t afford to play by the rules when Republicans aren’t playing by the rules and are destroying our democracy.

For lots of good news across all levels, look at Jess Craven’s weekly good news edition of her Chop Wood, Carry Water (CWCW) blog. Here are some samples of the dozens of items she reported in the last two weeks.

August 3 edition examples (there’s much more!)

  • President Trump was caught on camera cheating while playing golf in Scotland.
  • Michigan’s Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that nearly 210,000 Michiganders will see more than $144 million in medical debt eliminated.
  • A federal judge ruled that Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide must continue to be reimbursed by Medicaid, despite a provision in the Republican / Trump budget cutting off this funding.
  • On April 30, several thousand CWCW readers contacted their U.S. Representatives urging them to sign a bipartisan letter supporting fiscal year 2026 funding for global maternal and child health, GAVI (the vaccine alliance), and global nutrition. On July 23, the House Appropriations Committee rejected Trump’s proposed cuts, continued FY 2025 funding levels, and INCREASED nutrition funding to $172.5 million. ADVOCACY MAKES A DIFFERENCE!
  • Vermont Republican Gov. Phil Scott denied a request from the Department of Defense to activate Vermont Army National Guard soldiers in support of federal immigration enforcement activities.
  • Solar and batteries make up the vast majority of new power plant installations in the U.S. — and will continue to through 2030. Trump may be able to slow the momentum, but not stop it

July 27 edition examples (there’s much more!)

Please contact your members of Congress and tell them to increase their resistance. Urge them to speak out against Trump / Republican policies and to explain to their constituents the toll these policies will take on every day Americans and our society.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Hubbell, R., 7/31/25, “More signs of life among Senate Democrats,” Today’s Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/more-signs-of-life-among-senate-democrats)

HARMFUL POLICIES OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

Trump administration policies are doing wide-ranging harm to people and our society. We need to protest and resist to convince elected officials, business and academic leaders, and others to stand up and push back.

Trump administration policies are doing wide-ranging harm to people and our society. We need to protest and resist to convince elected officials, business and academic leaders, and others to stand up and push back.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

Trump administration policies are doing wide-ranging harm to people and our society. This is why we need to protest and resist in every way possible and however each of us can. We need to make it clear these policies are unpopular and convince elected officials, business and academic leaders, and others to stand up and push back. Perhaps some of the topics below will suggest wording for your protest signs. This previous post highlighted some of the harms of the recently passed Trump / Republican budget and thisprevious post documented some of the harm to seniors.

This post highlights harmful policies in crime and violence prevention, in children’s health and well-being, and for low-income seniors. It also notes harms to economic data and states’ finances.

CRIME AND VIOLENCE PREVENTION: The Trump administration has slashed funding for multiple programs that fight crime, reduce violence, and improve public safety. In April, the Department of Justice (DOJ) canceled $820 million in grants that had supported over 500 organizations working to reduce crime and promote public safety. This included $13 million for a program that funded rural law enforcement, supporting investigations of sexual assaults and reductions in child abuse. It cut a $3.5 million collaboration program for law enforcement, community leaders, and researchers to reduce violent crime – a program that Trump had touted as a success in his first term. These cuts are literally defunding the police. [1]

These programs had been working. After a spike in violent and property crimes during the pandemic, over the last three years crime has fallen substantially. Homicides have fallen in major cities, e.g., down 62% in Baltimore to a record low and also to record lows in Chicago and New York.

YOUNG CHILDREN’S WELL-BEING: The Head Start program provides essential services and supports to almost 800,000 low-income children up to age 5 and their families each year. The services include early education and child care, health and dental referrals, nutrition, and parenting supports, including support for getting a job.

The Trump administration’s ban on enrolling children who are undocumented is punishing children for their parents’ status and behaviors. This is like telling parents they can’t send a child to school because they got a ticket for running a red light. Denying them Head Start services will jeopardize the children’s development and ability to succeed in school and in life – early nutrition and development have life-long effects. Moreover, parents may not be able to work because they will have lost their child care. [2]

Head Start has provided these services and supports to over 40 million children and their families since 1965 with no questions asked because they benefit the children as well as their and our society’s futures.

Moreover, between Trump’s inauguration on January 20 and April 15, 2025, according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Trump administration illegally withheld more than $800 million from Head Start programs. Some Head Start programs were forced to close at least temporarily, negatively affecting thousands of children and hundreds of staff. [3]

CHILD MALNUTRITION: The Trump administration recently ordered the destruction of over 500 tons of emergency high-nutrition biscuits that would have prevented malnutrition for about 1.5 million children for a week. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had spent about $800,000 on this important food source for distribution to children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was in storage when the Trump administration gutted USAID stopping its distribution. Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured the House Appropriations Committee that the food would get to the children before it spoiled. However, the State Department ordered the destruction of the food because providing food to Afghanistan might benefit terrorists (although no reason was given for destroying the food destined for Pakistan and apparently no option of delivering the food to another country was considered). Destroying it will cost the U.S. taxpayers $130,000. [4]

WORK PROGRAM FOR LOW-INCOME SENIORS: The Trump Labor Department has quietly ended that Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP). This program helped tens of thousands of seniors (55 or older) who are living on the edge of poverty get part-time employment. The Labor Department withheld about $300 million from grant recipients in July. This is doubly cruel as the Trump / Republican budget is putting work requirements in place for these seniors to qualify for Medicaid health care coverage and for food assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). [5]

ACCURATE ECONOMIC DATA: The accuracy of economic data provided by the Trump administration has been a matter of concern for months. Cuts to staff at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a key source of economic data, have hurt the timely production of accurate data. For example, the Consumer Price Index and related data that the BLS produces have included a lot more estimated data than in the past. [6]

When the August 1 jobs report from the BLS showed low job creation for the last three months, Trump falsely claimed that the data had been manipulated to make him look bad. So, Trump fired the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Dr. Erika McEntarfer. With a Trump replacement, future data from the BLS, which is important to investors and business leaders making decisions about hiring and growth, will be even more suspect that it has been to date.

IMPACT ON STATES’ BUDGETS: Massachusetts Governor, Maura Healey, has introduced legislation to spend $400 million of emergency state funds on research and development. This is an effort to soften the blow of Trump administration cuts of research and development grants. MA state programs have lost $714 million in federal funding already this year and universities and other entities have also lost federal research and development funding. MA receives over $8 billion annually in federal research and development funding, which supports 81,300 jobs and generates $16 billion in ancillary economic activity. In New England, the Trump administration has canceled hundreds of research grants from the National Science Foundation and the Health and Human Services Department totaling over $3 billion. [7]

[1]      Waldman, M., 7/22/25, “Trump defunds effective crime-prevention policies,” Brennan Center for Justice: The Briefing (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trump-defunds-effective-crime-prevention-policies”

[2]      Hilliard, J., 7/14/25, “Immigration policy shift threatens Head Start,” The Boston Globe

[3]      Conley, J., 7/23/25, “Nonpartisan watchdog agency finds Trump admin illegally withheld Head Start funds,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/head-start-trump)

[4]      Cox Richardson, H., 7/15/25, “Letters from an American,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-15-2025)

[5]      Johnson, J., 7/20/25, “‘Extra cruel’: Trump admin ends job program for seniors as work requirements loom,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/senior-job-training-program)

[6]      Cox Richardson, H., 8/1/25, “Letters from an American,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-1-2025)

[7]      Gross, S. 8/1/25, “Mass. Research would get $400m,” The Boston Globe

PLEASE PARTICIPATE IN A “MAKE GOOD TROUBLE” PROTEST ON THURS., 7/17

I hope you’re planning to participate in a Make Good Trouble protest on Thursday, July 17. You can find an event near you here. The Trump administration continues its assaults on our democracy and on the safety and well-being of Americans. We and our elected officials need to step up our resistance and make it clear we oppose the administration’s actions.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Personal note: My posting has been and will be a bit less regular this summer primarily because of multiple opportunities to spend time with our grandchildren.)

I hope you’re planning to participate in a Make Good Trouble protest on Thursday, July 17. You can find an event near you here. These protests are important follow-ups to the No Kings protests on June 14. Resistance is even more important now as the Trump administration continues its assaults on democracy and on the safety and well-being of all Americans. Please participate in a protest if you can; bring family members and friends if possible. Support the resistance however you can. Let’s make this bigger and better than the No Kings protests in June!

In addition to protests against the Trump administration, these will also be rallies in support of democracy. They will include pro-democracy messaging supporting the Constitution, equality, due process, liberty, fairness, decency, compassion, and the common good. [1]

These Make Good Trouble protests will be honoring the legacy of civil rights activist and former member of Congress John Lewis, who advocated for making good trouble and marching forward despite all odds. Lewis and his fellow civil rights marchers didn’t make it across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday (and Lewis almost got beaten to death), but they persisted and now is our time to stand up for democracy, decency, the rule of law, fairness, and justice.

These protests are not seeking to change Trump’s mind or those of his MAGA supporters in and outside of Congress. They are seeking to demonstrate to our elected officials that if they do not stand with us in resisting the Trump administration and in protecting democracy that they will lose their next elections. They also seek to convince enough people of the importance of voting for Democrats (and against Republicans) in upcoming elections to give Democrats control of Congress, along with state and local offices and legislative bodies. They also seek to make it clear to corporate executives that siding with Trump will hurt their businesses as well as to judges that the people support and want democracy; that we want government of, by, and for the people; and that we will back them when they stand up to the Trump administration’s illegal actions.

The Make Good Trouble protests and pro-democracy rallies are also a way to support one another in our resistance and underscore the importance of our actions. As John Lewis wrote: “When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself. Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble.” [2]

Trump’s repeated assertions of illegal and autocratic powers undermine the Constitution, civil rights, the rule of law, and the foundations of our democracy. They are a coordinated attack on our democracy and a humane and healthy society. They attack our rights to due process, to vote, to protest, and even our well-being, including access to healthcare, food, and shelter. They target immigrants, families in need, and anyone who disagrees with them or calls out their lies.

The only solution to the Trump administration’s illegal and dictatorial actions is for millions of Americans to peacefully protest to show their opposition. Thousands of protests all over the country, in cities, towns, and rural areas, by people of all ages, political persuasions, and ethnicities, are needed to clearly show the Trump administration, our elected officials (members of Congress, Governors, Mayors, members of state legislatures, etc.), corporate executives, and our judges that the Trump administration’s actions are unacceptable and broadly opposed.

We, as citizens of a democracy, need to rise up in unassailable numbers to defend our democracy against the autocracy and budding police state dictatorship of the Trump administration.

Our political leaders (if they deserve to be called leaders) should be leading the charge and stepping up their resistance, as President Trump continues his assaults on our democracy. I urge you to contact your elected officials at all levels, from members of Congress to Governors to members of state legislatures to local officials, and ask them to join a protest on Thursday and to resist every day. Ask them to do more than just speak out. Now is the time for action!

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

P.S. We all need our weekly dose of good news, so here’s a link to a Jess Craven Chop Wood, Carry Water good news post.

[1]      Hubbell, R. B., 7/14/25, “Making good trouble,” Today’s Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/making-good-trouble)

[2]      Hubbell, R. B., 7/14/25, see above

EXAMPLES OF THE SOCIETAL TOLL OF TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS

The actions of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are inflicting a serious toll on our society. Examples include their efforts to defund foreign aid and public broadcasting, their weakening of our cybersecurity defenses, and their efforts to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, not to mention all the horrible things in the budget bill.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

The actions of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are taking a heavy toll on people, on our society, and on our democratic institutions. Here are some examples.(See this previous post for more examples.)

ACTION #1: Republicans in U.S. House recently passed a bill to rescind $9.4 billion of previously approved funding for foreign aid ($8.3 billion) and public broadcasting ($1.1 billion). The good news is that the Trump administration is tacitly acknowledging that it is illegal for it to cut congressionally approved funding through executive orders or actions by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The vote to pass the bill was 214 to 212 and occurred only after Republican Speaker Johnson had pressured a few Republican representatives to switch their “no” votes and support the bill. [1] Republicans in both the House and the Senate have expressed concerns about this bill.

The bill would rescind funding for foreign aid programs that some of them support, such as President George W. Bush’s emergency AIDS program that has saved over 25 million lives around the globe. These cuts will ultimately harm health and result in deaths here in the U.S. as diseases spread across international borders.

It also would rescind funding that supports 1,500 public TV and radio stations, including many in rural, Republican areas where they are a vital, local resource.

ACTION #2: The Trump administration is weakening America’s cybersecurity defenses at a time when the likelihood of cyberattacks is growing. Trump fired the general who led the National Security Agency and other leaders of our cybersecurity agencies. He has cut staffing and funding for cybersecurity agencies. [2]

This makes no sense because the likelihood of cyber warfare is growing as global tensions and conflicts escalate – in Ukraine, the Middle East, and over Taiwan. U.S. adversaries Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea all have significant cyber warfare capabilities, and there are signs of cyber activity cooperation among them. Cyberattacks can be used for espionage – to steal valuable corporate or government information. Or they can be used to disrupt public infrastructure such as electric power supplies, phone and Internet services, hospitals, banks and financial services, and water supply systems. Recently, Russian hackers disabled the automatic control systems at a rural Texas municipal water plant. This was probably just a test of their capabilities or a warning about what they can do.

ACTION #3: The Trump administration, Republicans in Congress, and their wealthy backers in the financial industry are working hard to eliminate or at least emasculate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The CFPB was created in response to the financial industry corruption that caused the 2008 financial collapse and resulted in millions of Americans losing their homes due to abusive and fraudulent mortgages. Since its creation, the CFPB has returned more than $21 billion to consumers through enforcement actions on illegal behavior by financial companies. It has also saved consumers untold additional money through its regulation of the financial industry. [3] For example, it has capped exorbitant fees such as credit card late payment penalties and bank account overdraft charges.

The Trump administration and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have been trying to cut CFPB funding, fire its employees, and eliminate the agency. On February 14, a federal judge ordered a halt to these actions. The Trump administration responded by placing most of the CFPB staff on administrative leave and preventing them from performing their jobs.

On June 10, the head of enforcement for the CFPB resigned, writing: “It is clear that the bureau’s current leadership has no intention to enforce the law.” [4] (Russell Vought is the Acting Director of the CFPB and the Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, as well as a key author of Project 2025.)

To benefit the wealthy executives and corporations in the financial industry, the Trump administration is persistently trying to eliminate the only independent agency protecting consumers from predatory and illegal practices of financial industry companies.

YOUR ACTION: Please contact your members of Congress and ask them to oppose these actions of the Trump administration in every way they can. Urge them to speak out against these actions and to explain to their constituents the toll Trump administration’s actions are taking on them and our society.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Edmondson, C., 6/12/25, “House votes to claw back $9 billion for foreign aid and public broadcasting,” The Boston Globe from the New York Times

[2]      Klepper, D., 4/21/25, “Nations ready cybersecurity defenses,” The Boston Globe from the Associated Press

[3]      Economic Policy Institute, 6/12/25, “Trump administration attempts to close the CFPB, block agency’s work,” (https://www.epi.org/policywatch/trump-administration-closes-the-cfpb/)

[4]      Economic Policy Institute, 6/12/25, see above

EXAMPLES OF THE SOCIETAL TOLL OF TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS

The Trump administration and Republicans are taking a serious toll on our society. Examples include their sanctioning of unnecessarily aggressive and violent tactics by federal police, their false claims of fighting antisemitism, and their attacks on transgender girl athletes.

The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are taking a serious toll on our society. Examples include their sanctioning of unnecessarily aggressive and violent tactics by federal police, their false claims of fighting antisemitism, and their attacks on transgender girl athletes. It’s valuable to document the damage and the toll for multiple reasons.

(Note: If you find this post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

The Trump administration is taking a serious toll on our society, in addition to its toll on individuals’ well-being and safety. (See this previous post for examples of the human toll).

Overall, the toll the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are taking on people, on our society, and on our democratic institutions is immense. The more one looks and the deeper one looks the more damage one sees. At some point it can seem meaningless to document the damage in detail – it’s just omnipresent and unimaginable. And it’s depressing to think about it all.

This is what Project 2025 envisioned and planned to do. However, the swiftness, scope, and cruelty of the actions in these first few months has, I think, been a shock to almost everyone. Part of this is that I’m not sure anyone – even Trump and the Project 2025 authors – anticipated the involvement and aggressiveness of Musk.

I do think it’s valuable to document the damage and the toll for multiple reasons. Here are some reasons to do so:

  • To identify and make us appreciate all that the federal government does for us, which I think all of us took for granted, at least to some extent.
  • To identify opportunities for push back and responses that facilitate individuals’ involvement based on where personal interests, experiences, and/or expertise allow each of us to be uniquely effective.
  • To provide evidence and arguments that will convince more and more people to turn out to vote and to vote against Trump and Republicans. This provides talking points for all of us to use in convincing others to get engaged and to vote. (Note: Democrats also must present powerful reasons to vote for Democrats; something Democrats have not done well, to say the least.)
  • To identify what will need to be repaired and rebuilt once the Trump administration and Republican control of Congress are over.

Here are some examples of the toll the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are inflicting on our society:

EXAMPLE #1: With Trump’s authorization and encouragement, federal police forces (including Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the FBI) are using unnecessarily aggressive tactics. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), perhaps following their example, has also engaged in unnecessarily aggressive tactics in response to the recent, largely peaceful protests in LA. (See this previous post, which includes more on the unnecessarily aggressive tactics of the Trump administration in LA, the exaggerated reporting of violence by the mainstream media, and a note on the kidnapping-type tactics of ICE in detaining people.)

Jeremy Lindenfeld, a reporter for Capital & Main, a California-based non-profit news source, has reported based on firsthand experience that peaceful protesters in Los Angeles have faced aggressive use of force that violates police crowd-control protocols. He has experience with this because he’s previously covered Black Lives Matter protests and demonstrations on the Israel – Palestine conflict. He reports that in LA he “witnessed law enforcement agencies deploy crowd-control weapons with greater intensity and more indiscriminately than [he] ever had before.” [1] He witnessed clearly identified members of the press being targeted and injured by the police’s use of weapons.

EXAMPLE #2: The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are using Jewish Americans as political pawns. They claim to be fighting antisemitism on college campuses and in protests over the war in the Middle East. However, this is just an excuse to attack colleges and individuals who don’t share their right-wing political views. Attacking colleges and universities is part of Project 2025 and something Vice President Vance has been talking about since at least 2021. [2]

The insincerity of the claims by Trump, members of his administration, and some Republican members of Congress that they are concerned about antisemitism is belied by their support (and pardoning) of January 6, 2021, insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol carrying Nazi flags and symbols, as well as spouting Nazi rhetoric. Trump also described neo-Nazis marching in  Charlottesville, VA, in 2017 as “very fine people.” Trump has hosted antisemites at his home at Mar a Lago and his biggest financial supporter and (until very recently) his co-president, Elon Musk, has engaged in antisemitic rhetoric and actions on multiple occasions.

EXAMPLE #3: The Trump administration and many Republicans are using LGBTQ+ individuals, and particularly transgender children, as pawns for political purposes. They are vilifying transgender children and denying them access to medical care as well as normal participation in everyday life.

Trump and many Republicans have targeted transgender girls playing public school and college sports. The number of these athletes is tiny and clearly should be handled on a case-by-case basis. Nonetheless, Trump and company are trying to ban their participation in sports. (Note: the NCAA reports that out of 500,000 college athletes, ten are transgender girls.)

Trump has targeted Maine over its laws that allow transgender girls to play on girls’ high school sports teams. He has tried to cut funding for Maine’s schools and to impose other penalties, but Governor Mills has fought back and has prevailed in court.

Recently, one of the very few transgender girls competing in high school sports in Maine won an event at a track meet. A Maine state legislator, Laurel Libby, on national TV, used Trump’s talking points to attack transgender girl athletes. She claimed that they are “pushing many, many of our young women out of the way on their ascent to the podium.” This is false because there aren’t that many transgender girl athletes and because they aren’t, by any stretch of the imagination, dominating girls’ sports. (Note: None of the ten fastest high school girl runners nationally in the events this girl ran is a transgender girl.) [3] Furthermore, Libby endangered the girl by posting a picture of her winning a race and portrayed transgender athletes as violent and dangerous during a legislative hearing.

The girl who finished second in the race won by the transgender athlete stated, “I don’t feel like first place was taken from me. Instead, I feel like a happy day was turned ugly by a bully who is using children to make political points. … No one was harmed by [the transgender girl’s] participation in the girls’ track meet, but we are all harmed by the hateful rhetoric of bullies, like Rep. Libby, who want to take sports away from some kids just because of who they are.”

[1]      Lindenfeld, J., 6/10/25, “Police violently crack down on L.A. protests,” Capital & Main (https://capitalandmain.com/police-violently-crack-down-on-l-a-protests

[2]      Abraham, Y., 4/3/25, “Don’t be fooled,” The Boston Globe

[3]      Wilkins, B., 5/15/25, “2nd-place runner in high school race rips Maine GOP lawmaker for attacking trans winner,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/transgender-student-athletes-maine)

PLEASE PARTICIPATE IN A NO KINGS PROTEST ON SAT., 6/14

I hope you’re planning to participate in a protest for No Kings Day on Saturday, June 14. You can find an event near you here. The Trump administration has escalated its attacks on our democracy, and we, and our political leaders, need to step up our resistance and make it clear we oppose the administration’s actions.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Personal note: I took last week off as I was on an overseas vacation – our first since Covid.)

I hope you’re planning to participate in a protest for No Kings Day on Saturday, June 14. You can find an event near you here. This important day of protest has been planned for many weeks and is even more important now that the Trump administration has escalated its attacks on democracy.

The Trump administration is actively working to impose martial law. Deploying National Guard troops, let alone Marines, to the streets of Los Angeles is blatantly illegal and unconstitutional. Trump is again declaring a fake emergency to justify his exercise of autocratic powers, and, in this case, the powers of a military dictator.

The confrontational protests in LA have occurred in a small, 4-block area of a huge city. The Trump administration has intentionally inflamed the situation first by the unnecessarily aggressive actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel (see more on this in a note at the bottom), then by sending in the National Guard, and finally by sending in Marines. The LA Police Department was fully in control of the situation and the Trump administration’s actions only made their job harder. (See Robert Hubbell’s on-the-ground testimony and video of the calm and normalcy of LA as well as his blog post.)

As Hubbell notes, the depictions and reporting by the mainstream media are misrepresentations of the situation. They play right into Trump’s hands in making the unwarranted emergency he has declared seem reasonable. Trump has declared this and other fake emergencies to justify his exercise of illegal and autocratic powers, thereby undermining the Constitution, civil rights, the rule of law, and the foundations of our democracy.

The only solution to the Trump administration’s illegal and dictatorial actions is for millions of Americans to peacefully protest to show their opposition. Thousands of protests all over the country, in cities, towns, and rural areas, by people of all ages, political persuasions, and ethnicities, are needed to clearly show the Trump administration, our political leaders (members of Congress, Governors, Mayors, members of state legislatures, etc.), and our judges that these actions are unacceptable and broadly opposed.

We, as citizens of a democracy, need to rise up in unassailable numbers to defend our democracy against the autocracy and budding military dictatorship of the Trump administration.

Our political leaders (if they deserve to be called leaders) should be leading the charge and stepping up their resistance, given that President Trump has stepped up his attacks on our democracy.

I urge you to contact your elected officials at all levels, from members of Congress to Governors to members of state legislatures to local officials, and ask them to join a protest on Saturday. Ask them to speak out in support of California Governor Newsom and LA Mayor Bass. But tell them to do more than just speak out. Now is the time for action. I’d love to see members of Congress organize and lead a march to the Pentagon to protest the use of Defense Department resources to support ICE (and also, by the way, to stage a military dictator-style parade).

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Note on ICE tactics: One thing our mainstream media aren’t covering at all, to my knowledge, is that if ICE was really focused on arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records, it would be operating very differently. Our police arrest criminals all the time. Unless they catch them in the middle of a criminal act, they have warrants for their arrest – which ICE typically does not. Our police wear uniforms that identify who they work for and who they are. They don’t wear masks to hide their faces. ICE agents typically show up without identification, often wearing masks, and frequently in military dress with military weapons. Their detentions are more like kidnappings than arrests. There is no need for these tactics to make arrests.

EXAMPLES OF THE HUMAN TOLL OF TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS

The Trump administration is making us less safe from disease, violence, and death. Cuts to Medicaid and Medicare will increase deaths. So will weakening gun violence prevention efforts. Finally, the Trump administration’s war on children is harming children and will increase deaths for them too.

The Trump administration is making us all less safe in many ways, including less safe from disease, violence, and death. Cuts to the Medicaid and Medicare health care programs will increase deaths. So will the weakening of gun violence prevention efforts. Finally, the Trump administration is engaged in a war on children that is harming the well-being of children and will increase deaths for them as well.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

STORY #1: The expansion of Medicaid by the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka Obama Care) has saved 27,400 lives. The National Bureau of Economic Research recently published an analysis of 37 million Americans since the passage of the ACA in 2010. The low-income adults who got Medicaid coverage under the ACA expansion were 21% less likely to die each year than those who did not have Medicaid coverage. Deaths also fell for 20 and 30-year-olds. Overall, the analysis estimated that 27,400 lives were saved by the Medicaid expansion. This is one of several studies that have found that having Medicaid coverage saves lives. These findings are particularly relevant now, given that the Republican budget just passed by the U.S. House would end Medicaid coverage for roughly eight million people who now have it. [1]

STORY #2: The Republican budget just passed by the U.S. House would increase the deficit so much that it would trigger mandatory spending cuts, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The cuts would include a roughly $50 billion a year reduction in Medicare spending. Explicit cuts to Medicaid (health coverage for low-income Americans including many seniors in nursing homes) are specified in the Republican budget. The cuts to Medicare (health coverage for all seniors) are not explicit in the budget but are forced by the budget’s sizable increase in the annual federal budget deficit. The CBO’s non-partisan analysis estimated that the Republican budget would increase the deficit by about $230 billion a year. Therefore, under the 2010 Pay-As-You-Go Act (PAYGO), the White House Office of Management and Budget would have to reduce spending (i.e., sequester authorized spending) by $230 billion a year. About $50 billion of this would come from cuts to Medicare, according to the CBO. [2]

STORY #3: The Trump administration is weakening multiple facets of gun violence prevention efforts. This makes us all less safe. On day two as President in 2025, Trump closed the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Despite Trump’s promises to keep Americans safe and reduce crime, this and other actions that weaken gun violence prevention will do the opposite. The White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, created by President Biden, brought a coordinated, government-wide approach to gun violence prevention for the first time. It coordinated the federal response to mass shootings and community violence. Its cross-agency, public health approach to the uniquely American epidemic of gun violence contributed to a 13.5% decline in the homicide rate in 2023, the largest annual decrease ever. It also contributed to a significant drop in the number of untraceable “ghost” guns, i.e., guns without serial numbers. It worked with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to close down 644 gun dealers who had engaged in illegal sales. [3]

The Trump administration has also:

  • Legalized the sale of devices that convert ordinary guns into automatic weapons, i.e., machine guns,
  • Advocated for a nationwide right to carry a concealed weapon,
  • Cut Centers for Disease Control funding for studying and analyzing gun violence,
  • Promoted policies that would make it easier and more profitable to sell gun silencers, and
  • Facilitated re-licensing of gun dealers who had their licenses revoked for illegal activity.

Three hundred Americans are shot every day on average. Weakening gun violence protection efforts puts the interests and profits of the gun industry above the safety of children and all the rest of us.

STORY #4: The Trump administration is putting children at risk and making them less safe in multiple ways. The risks start at birth and continue through adolescence. The lack of federal regulations and enforcement for the health care of pregnant and post-partem women has led to significant increases in maternal and infant mortality.

The Trump administration has laid off thousands of workers who run programs that help children and their families. They have also cut funding or plan to cut funding for many of these programs. For example, the staffs of programs that help families keep the electricity and heat on have been fired en masse. The staff that provides enforcement for child support payments has been decimated. Funding has been terminated for investigating child sexual abuse, responding to internet crimes against children, preventing youth violence, and following up on reports of missing children. Billions of dollars for school meals and school safety have been suspended or delayed. [4]

Trump wants to eliminate funding for Head Start, which provides hundreds of thousands of low-income children annually with high quality early education along with meals and family support. The federal staff that oversees Head Start programs and processes their federal funding has been decimated, which may force some programs to shut down.

The Trump administration’s cutting of funding for food assistance, gun violence prevention efforts, and the suicide hotline will all disproportionately harm children. It’s ignoring the harm that social media does to children. And last, but by no means least, its targeting of immigrants, who frequently are parents of children (who may well be U.S. citizens) is doing untold and immeasurable harm to children.

[1]      Kliff, S., & Sanger-Katz, M., 5/17/25, “Medicaid expansion saved 27,000 lives, study finds,” The Boston Globe from The New York Times

[2]      Johnson, J., 5/21/25, “‘They’re not just cutting Medicaid’: GOP bill would trigger over $500 billion in Medicare cuts,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/cuts-to-medicare)

[3]      Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, retrieved from the Internet 5/27/25, “Press releases,” (https://www.bradyunited.org/press)

[4]      Hager, E., 4/23/25, “The Trump administration’s war on children,” ProPublica (https://www.propublica.org/article/how-trump-budget-cuts-harm-kids-child-care-education-abuse)

MUSK AND DOGE ARE FAILURES

Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are failures. They haven’t even managed to reduce federal spending, let alone reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, or increase government efficiency – according to Jeff Jacoby, a quite conservative columnist for the Boston Globe.

Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are failures. They haven’t even managed to reduce federal spending, let alone reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, or increase government efficiency – according to Jeff Jacoby, a quite conservative columnist for the Boston Globe.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are failures. Don’t take my word for it, according to Jeff Jacoby, a quite conservative columnist for the Boston Globe (with whom I almost never agree), they have failed at the most basic of their goals: reducing federal government spending. [1]

It may be debatable whether Musk and DOGE had any intention of reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, or of increasing government efficiency, or even just cutting government spending. However, the results are clear: they accomplished none of these things. (See previous posts about their successes in benefiting Musk and his companies, as well as their failure to focus on the places where waste, fraud, abuse, and inefficiency are widespread, namely the Defense Department and private, for-profit government contractors.)

First, Jacoby recapitulates Musk’s own statements. Initially, Musk said he would cut at least $2 trillion in government spending. In March, he said DOGE would deliver $1 trillion in spending cuts by the end of May. At an April 10 cabinet meeting, he said he was anticipating savings of $150 billion. The DOGE website lists only $71 billion in spending cuts.

However, the Treasury Department’s report on federal spending says that spending in February and March was $86 billion MORE (up 7%) than in the same months last year. Jacoby notes that Musk and DOGE have not touched programs that account for three-quarters of the federal budget: Social Security payments (as opposed to staff), Medicare and Medicaid health care, the Defense Department, veterans’ benefits, and the interest on the national debt. The Congressional Budget Office reported separately that the federal budget deficit for this fiscal year has increased by about $200 billion in the first seven months of the year.

Although DOGE appears to have reduced or planned reductions of 121,000 federal employees, the cost of the entire civilian workforce of the federal government is only $336 billion. Given that there were three million government employees when Trump took office, assuming these reductions occur, this would reduce the workforce by only 4%. Ignoring severance and any other separation costs, this would save only about $13.5 billion – nowhere near the $2 trillion of promised savings.

Jacoby states that Musk and DOGE have “not made a dent in the vast amount of money the government annually loses to fraud and abuse – as much as $521 billion … It has not clawed back any of the improper payments disbursed by Medicare and Medicaid, which amounted to $101 billion in 2023.” (My bolding.) Trump, Musk, and the Republicans in their party platform, in the campaign, and once Trump was in office promised to slash wasteful government spending. Jacoby closes by noting, “That’s a promise the GOP always makes when it’s out of power and never keeps when it regains control.”

I couldn’t have said this better myself!

[1]      Jacoby, J., 5/18/25, “Why Musk flopped,” The Boston Globe

WHAT DEMOCRATS NEED TO DO Part 2

Democrats need to be more dramatic, effective, and consistent in opposing Trump, his nominees, and the congressional Republicans’ agenda. They need to step up their resistance while promoting and committing to enact policies that would support everyday Americans.

Democrats need to be more dramatic, effective, and consistent in opposing Trump, his nominees, and the congressional Republicans’ agenda. They need to step up their resistance while promoting and committing to enact policies that would support everyday Americans.

(Note: If you find this post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Correction. In my previous post asking you to contact your U.S. Representative and ask them to oppose elements of the proposed Republican budget, I wrote that the proposed cuts to Medicaid were “$700 – $800 million.” As many of you know, that should have been $700 – $800 BILLION.)

This previous post made the case that Democrats need to be more dramatic, effective, and consistent in opposing Trump, his nominees, and the congressional Republicans’ agenda. It identified policies that Democrats should be promoting for our economy and the economic well-being of all Americans. This current post focuses on policies in the social services arena, including health care reforms, drug price reductions, enhancements to Medicare, and ensuring long-term funding for Social Security.

Here are some specific policies Democrats ought to be promoting and committing to enact in the social services arena when they are back in power:

  • Ending wasteful and dangerous privatization of health care. Here are two examples;
    • Private equity firms should be banned from the health care industry. The example of Steward Health alone should be enough to seal this case, but there are plenty of other examples as well. (See this previous post for more information.)
    • End the Medicare Advantage program, which privatizes Medicare and results in huge, often fraudulent, wasteful costs to the Medicare program. For example, in 2024, illegal overbilling by Medicare Advantage providers (i.e., big insurance corporations) was estimated to be $83 billion. Medicare Advantage is estimated to cost Medicare $140 billion more per year than if all individuals were on traditional Medicare. [1] (See this previous post for more details.)
  • Strong regulation of drug prices. President Biden took some initial steps to regulate and reduce drug prices, but President Trump is undoing them. In 2022, U.S. drug prices were two and three-quarters times (178% more than) prices in 33 other industrialized countries. This means that our federal, state, and local governments (i.e., taxpayers) and all of us pay over $200 billion a year extra, which fuels exceptionally high profits for drug makers (when compared to other sectors of our economy). [2] (See this previous post for more details.)
  • Enhance Medicare. If the Medicare Advantage program was eliminated and Medicare was allowed to negotiate prices for all drugs (see the above two bullet points), the savings would be sufficient to pay for the addition of dental, hearing, and vision benefits to Medicare, as well as to cap out-of-pocket spending by Medicare enrollees.
  • Ensure Social Security funding for the rest of this century. Currently, workers pay taxes into Social Security only on the first $176,100 they earn in a year. This means that someone making a million dollars stops paying into Social Security after February 15 and someone making ten million dollars stops paying into Social Security after the first week of January. Simply eliminating this cap would increase Social Security’s revenue by roughly $100 billion per year. This would provide about 75% of the funding needed to allow Social Security to pay out its full planned benefits for the rest of the century. The rest could be raised by taxing investment income, estates, and gifts or a variety of other strategies. [3]
    • NOTE: The Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act in Congress would require taxpayers with over $400,000 in income in a year to pay a bit more into Medicare and Social Security. This would fully fund planned Medicare and Social Security benefits for at least the next 75 years. [4]

There are plenty of other policies that Democrats should be advancing to demonstrate that they would better serve and support workers and everyday Americans than Trump and the Republicans. Examples include housing; early education and child care; supporting workers and their unions; effective regulation of businesses for worker, consumer, and public safety; and strong enforcement of antitrust laws including the breaking up of monopolistic companies.

If any of your members of Congress are Democrats, I urge you to contact them and ask them to step up their resistance while promoting and committing to enact policies that would support everyday Americans. You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Dayen, D., 1/27/25, “We found the $2 trillion,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/economy/2025-01-27-we-found-the-2-trillion-elon-musk-doge/)

[2]      Dayen, D., 1/27/25, see above.

[3]      Dayen, D., 1/27/25, see above.

[4]      Conley, J., 5/9/25, “Democrats’ bill would extend Social Security and Medicare solvency ‘as far as the eye can see’,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/social-security-medicare-2671925476)

ASK YOUR REPRESENTATIVE TO OPPOSE THE REPUBLICAN BUDGET

Contact your U.S. Representative and ask them to oppose the draconian measures, including major cuts to Medicaid, in the Republican budget the House is considering. Its spending cuts will harm millions of Americans while it gives tax cuts to wealthy individuals and corporations.

ACTION: Please contact your U.S. Representative and ask them to do everything they can to stop the draconian measures, including major cuts to Medicaid, in the roughly 400-page Republican budget the House is now considering. In addition to spending cuts that will harm millions of Americans and tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations, it includes many other very objectionable measures.

(Note: If you find this message too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading and acting!)

Note that the big spending cuts are driven by the need to avoid exploding the federal budget deficit due to the lost revenue from the big tax cuts for the wealthy. Here are some key things the proposed budget would do:

  • Take health care away from millions of Americans by cutting spending on Medicaid by around $700 – $800 million. Medicaid provides health insurance for millions of low-income families, including students and families of low-pay and unemployed workers. It also covers nursing home care for millions of seniors.
  • Take food assistance away from millions of low-income households, including many new mothers and their babies, as well as students and families of low-pay and unemployed workers. It would dramatically cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. It would also cut the Farm to School program that supports local, small farmers and provides healthy, fresh food to school lunch programs.
  • Prohibit state and local governments from regulating Artificial Intelligence (AI) for ten years. State laws (often bipartisan ones) are currently regulating AI. (Note: The federal government is doing nothing to regulate AI and protect us from its abuses. Elon Musk and other AI entrepreneurs have been very supportive of Trump. They want AI unregulated and are on the current Mideast trip with Trump as the Saudi Arabian royalty is very interested in investing in AI.)

    For example, state laws currently block deepfake pornography, election disinformation, use of discriminatory algorithms (e.g., in hiring decisions), AI-enabled price fixing (e.g., rents), and abusive targeting of children. State laws also protect consumers from AI abuses, including privacy violations, deceptive marketing, price manipulation, and harmful health care decision making. Millions of residents in these states would lose protections from AI abuses if this provision passes as part of the budget bill. California and other states are also cracking down on AI companies using copyrighted material without permission, payments, or attribution. In 2025, at least 45 states’ legislatures are considering 550 AI-related bills. [1]
  • Grant the Trump administration broad authority to take away tax-exempt status from non-profit organizations it deems to be supporting terrorism. It’s already illegal for non-profits to support terrorism, so this is a ploy to allow the administration to take away the tax exemption from organizations it doesn’t like. Moreover, the language doesn’t give the non-profits any effective way to challenge the administration’s decision and action. As I imagine you know, the Trump administration is already attacking non-profits it doesn’t like (e.g., Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and Harvard University) and threatening to take away their tax-exempt status. [2] (Note: It’s a crime for the President to ask the IRS to target a specific taxpayer, for example, to remove its tax-exempt status.) [3]
  • Defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
  • Cut renewable energy funding.
  • Limit judges’ ability to hold the Trump administration accountable.
  • Cut student financial assistance.
  • Cut federal workers’ retirement benefits.
  • Increase funding for the Defense Department, including for Musk’s companies, when the Defense Department is where there’s more waste, fraud, and abuse than in any other government agency.

Pick a few of these harmful effects of the Republican budget (or others you know of) that are most meaningful to you and ask your Representative to oppose them and the budget overall. Also, let them know you oppose tax cuts for the wealthy, especially when they are paid for by cutting programs that benefit everyday working Americans.

Moreover, tell them you support tax increases on wealthy individuals and corporations to reduce the high levels of economic inequality in the U.S. and so the wealthy pay their fair share for all the benefits our society and economy provide them.

THANKS FOR ALL YOU DO! IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE!

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

(Note: Republican presidents and Congresses have cut taxes for wealthy individuals and corporations multiple times since President Reagan did so in the early 1980s. The economic boom, increased tax revenue, and trickle down of benefits to everyday Americans they have always promised have NEVER materialized. Most recently, they did not happen after the Trump and Republican tax cut of 2017. Extending these tax cuts and adding others will not increase economic growth, will not increase tax revenue, and will not trickle down to working Americans. They will balloon the deficit by around $500 billion a year – unless spending is cut to make up for the loss of revenue.)

[1]      Conley, J., 5/13/25, “‘Gift-wrapped favor to big tech’: GOP sneakily pushes ban on state AI regulation,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/regulating-artificial-intelligence)

[2]      Johnson, J., 5/13/25, “‘We need calls now!’ Republicans slip nonprofit killer bill into tax package,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/nonprofit-killer-bill)

[3]      Gleckman, H., 4/25/25, “Why Trump’s efforts to revoke tax exemptions so dangerous for democracy,” Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/howardgleckman/2025/04/25/why-trumps-efforts-to-revoke-tax-exemptions-are-so-dangerous/)

WHAT DEMOCRATS NEED TO DO

Democrats should be loudly and consistently opposing Trump, his nominees, and the congressional Republicans’ agenda. But they aren’t doing so. Furthermore, dramatic ACTION is needed. Democrats also need to put forth a powerful and coherent vision and agenda for America. They should establish a shadow cabinet to critique the Trump administration, promote a Democratic agenda, and explain how it would benefit everyday working Americans. They should promote policies that provide economic security for all and that require the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes.

(Note: If you find this post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

Democrats should be loudly and consistently opposing Trump, his nominees, and the congressional Republicans’ agenda. But they aren’t doing so. Some of them supported passage of the continuing budget resolution, voted to confirm Trump nominees, and are poised to pass a bill leaving the cryptocurrency industry largely unregulated, among other things.

Speaking out against the actions and agenda of Trump and the Republicans is important but it’s not enough. Dramatic ACTION is needed. Senator Corey Booker’s (D-NJ) 25-hour filibuster was excellent – both in content and in the action itself. Senator Booker’s and Representative Hakim Jeffries’s (D-NY) 12-hour teach-in on the steps of the capitol was great – again both in content and action. The Fighting Oligarchy tour by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is powerful in content and as action.

Democrats need to be taking more dramatic actions and using outside-the-box strategies. Perhaps they should undertake:

  • A sit-in in the House or Senate chamber to bring legislative action to a halt.
  • A march by veterans from Congress and the public to the Pentagon demanding that Secretary of Defense Hegseth resign.
  • A protest blocking access to the White House demanding the return of Abrego Garcia and others who have been illegally deported and the release of Khalil and others who have been illegally detained.

There is a war going on for the attention of the public and the mainstream media, but Democrats are fighting a machine gun with a cap gun. (By the way, the mainstream media are NOT liberal. Can you imagine the headlines if President Biden or any other Democrat did the things that Trump and his administration are doing?)

To win the attention war and the support of the public, as well as to energize voters, the Democrats need to do more. In addition to opposing Trump, they need to put forth a powerful and coherent vision and agenda for America. They should establish a shadow cabinet that is holding a press conference every day critiquing the performance of Trump cabinet members AND stating what they would do differently and how the Democratic policies and actions would benefit everyday working Americans.

Here are some policies Democrats ought to be promoting and committing to enact when they are back in power:

  • America 250: The Money Agenda put forth for America’s 250th birthday by the group Patriotic Millionaires. It calls for four pieces of legislation:
    • A Cost of Living Exemption (COLE) Act that would mean that no individual would pay federal income tax if their income was under the median cost of living for a single adult. Currently, this is about $42,000 and a single person with this income now pays about $2,500 in federal income tax. This tax cut would be paid for by increasing the income tax on those with over $1 million in income.

    • A Cost of Living Act establishing a federal minimum wage of $21 per hour, which would be about $42,000 per year for full-time work. This would provide a living wage to a single individual working full-time.

    • An Equal Tax Act that would have those with over $1 million in income pay the same tax rate on capital gains (i.e., profits from investments) as workers pay on ordinary, earned income, rather than the preferential, lower rate they now pay. In addition, it would eliminate the ability of the wealthy to pass on investments to heirs without anyone ever paying any tax on the gain in the value of the investments.
    • The Anti-Oligarch Act that would tax the investment gains and wealth of the ultra-rich.
  • A clear, concise critique of how corrupt our system of capitalism has become and how it harms everyday working Americans. (See previous posts for some details here, here, here, here, and here.) They should promote and commit to enacting when they’re in power: [1]
    • The Accountable Capitalism Act that would require any corporation with over $1 billion in revenue to 1) responsibly serve ALL stakeholders including employees, consumers, the public, and the environment; 2) have at least 40% of its Board of Directors be employees; and 3) get a vote of 75% of shareholders for any political spending over $10,000.

    • The Stop Wall Street Looting Act that would end the vulture capitalism of private equity firms. It would 1) stop the use of huge amounts of debt to acquire control of corporations; 2) make private equity owners liable for losses at firms they control and stop their abuse of bankruptcy laws; 3) prohibit exorbitant payments to private equity owners that often push firms they control into bankruptcy; and 4) prohibit private equity firms from selling the property of hospitals to real estate investment trusts, which is a common technique used to enrich themselves and push hospitals into financial distress.

    • Better management, accountability, and oversight of government contractors. Private, for-profit contractors are a growing portion of the federal budget, especially in defense and health. Multiple studies have found that government employees are more efficient than contractors, and they are more accountable and transparent. For-profit contractors are looking to maximize profit, so they charge the government as much as they can and deliver the cheapest (which generally means lowest quality) goods and services they can get away with. Therefore, strong management, oversight, and accountability measures are necessary to ensure taxpayers are getting good value for their money. (See this previous post for more details.)
  • Stopping tax cheating by wealthy individuals and corporations. President Biden provided needed funding to the IRS to increase enforcement of our tax laws and make sure that wealthy individuals and corporations pay what they owe. Such IRS funding is estimated to bring in $2.50 in revenue from tax cheats for every $1 spent. Republicans in Congress immediately began working to remove the additional enforcement funding from the IRS and the Trump administration has accelerated this defunding of the IRS. In 2022, the IRS estimated that the over $600 billion in taxes owed was not paid with the wealthiest 1% of individuals responsible for over a quarter of this amount. [2]

These are policies Democrats should be promising for our economy and the economic well-being of all Americans. My next post will highlight some polices that Democrats should promise in the social services arena including health care reforms, drug price reductions, enhancements to Medicare, and ensuring long-term funding for Social Security.

If any of your members of Congress are Democrats, I urge you to contact them and ask them to step up their resistance and to promote these policies. You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Kuttner, R., 2/6/25, “Corrupted capitalism and dithering Democrats,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/2025-02-06-corrupted-capitalism-dithering-democrats/)

[2]      Dayen, D., 1/27/25, “We found the $2 trillion,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/economy/2025-01-27-we-found-the-2-trillion-elon-musk-doge/)

RESISTANCE: PEOPLE’S PROMISE LETTER, USPS, NIH, ETC.

Trump is taking so many illegal, cruel, and objectionable actions that it’s hard to know what to focus on. Most important is to regularly raise your voice and take actions to resist, protest, and push back. For example, ask Congress to support the NIH and USPS. Sign the People’s Promise letter.

The Trump administration is taking so many illegal (many are unconstitutional), cruel, and objectionable actions that it’s hard to know what to focus on. Most important is to regularly raise your voice and take actions to resist, protest, and push back, regardless of the issue or specific action you’re focused on.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

Contact your members of Congress regularly so they know you’re paying attention, watching them, and that you care; that you want them to take strong actions to resist, protest, and push back. Thank them when they do good things; they need to hear this and feel supported. Criticize them when they do wrong things and urge them to do the right things, vigorously.

Ask them to take visible and powerful actions as Senator Booker (D-NJ) and Representative Jeffries (D-NY) did on Sunday with their 12-hour teach-in on the steps of the Capitol. [1] They highlighted the values and moral principles of Democrats, drawing from their religious faith.

While this post focuses on some perhaps less dramatic, but nonetheless very important issues – the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), as well as the People’s Promise letter – we shouldn’t lose sight of critical, on-going targets of protest including:

  • The return of Abrego Garcia and others who have been illegally shipped to prison in El Salvador,
  • The release of Ozturk, Khalil, and others who have been illegally detained,
  • The cessation of foreign aid by USAID that will cause millions of avoidable deaths worldwide and here in the U.S. (see this previous post for more detail),
  • The SAVE Act in the Senate, which would dramatically increase voter suppression (see this previous post for more detail), and
  • The slashing of staff and funding, as well as disruption, at multiple government agencies and programs including the Veterans’ Administration, Social Security, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Head Start, the Labor Department, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the IRS, and other government agencies. These actions will jeopardize the health, safety, and well-being of tens of millions of Americans in the short-term and all three hundred million Americans in the long-term.

Feel free to mention any of these when you contact your members of Congress – or contact them multiple times and mention all of them!

ACTION #1: Please contact your US Representative and Senators and ask them to do everything they can to stop the sabotage of research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is the largest sponsor of biomedical research in the world. The firing of thousands of workers and the blocking of funding for hundreds (probably thousands) of on-going research projects endangers our short-term and long-term health. For example, research on detection and treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer are being brought to a screeching halt. Drug research and development are similarly being blocked. The impact of all of this cannot be overstated. For example, from 2010 – 2019, 99.4% of new drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were developed with NIH funding support.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm. (Note: Many offices only accept messages on a voice mail system. In most cases, you can call outside of regular business hours and leave a message.)

ACTION #2: Contact your US Representative and Senators and ask them to oppose the privatization of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). The USPS is a vital public service. It delivers mail to everyone, any place in the U.S. It is not profitable to deliver mail to isolated, small, and/or rural communities, so with privatization these places would lose mail service. This is exactly what happened when the airlines and railroads were deregulated – service to small, unprofitable communities ended or became prohibitively expensive for most people.

Ask your Representative and Senators to support the bipartisan resolutions opposing Trump’s USPS privatization scheme: Resolution 70 in the House and Resolution 147 in the Senate.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

ACTION #3: Please sign the People’s Promise Letter sponsored by Common Cause and others. It’s a response to Trump’s first 100 days in office. It calls for an alternative course of action that delivers:

  • An economy that works for everyone including livable wages, the right to unionize, affordable housing, quality healthcare, and quality early education and child care.
  • A government for the people including quality education for all, a strong safety net, and the wealthy paying their fair share in taxes.
  • Equal rights and opportunity for all including legal due process for all; voting for all that is easy, protected, and accurately counted; and freedom from hate and discrimination for all.

Click on “Sign The Letter” in the upper right of the People’s Promise website to sign. Scroll down to read about the harm that the Trump administration has done in its first 100 days.

[1]      Rubin, J., 5/2/25, “Undaunted,” The Contrarian (https://contrarian.substack.com/p/undaunted-57a)

MUSK AND TRUMP ARE ENGAGED IN CORRUPT SELF-ENRICHMENT

Musk and Trump are corruptly lining their own pockets by ending or weakening investigations, enforcement, and regulation of Musk’s companies, as well as providing them with new government contracts. They’re also endangering workers, the public, and our national security.

Musk and Trump are corruptly lining their own pockets by ending or weakening investigations, enforcement, and regulation of Musk’s companies, as well as providing them with new government contracts. They’re also endangering workers, the public, and our national security.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

My previous post provided an overview of the 32 (or more) ongoing investigations of Elon Musk’s six companies when Trump was sworn into office. It also noted that Musk has obtained much of his enormous wealth through government subsidies and contracts – over $38 billion in the last 20 years. In 2023, Space X and Tesla got almost $3 billion from 100 contracts with 17 federal agencies. [1] These include substantial contracts with the Department of Defense (DOD). Space X has a multi-billion-dollar contract to build a classified spy satellite network for the DOD. It also has contracts for communication services through Space X’s subsidiary, Starlink.

Needless to say, Musk’s role with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) presents huge conflicts of interest that are illegal. He would be swiftly barred from this work and/or prosecuted under any president other than Trump. Instead, Trump and Musk are systematically undermining the agencies that regulate businesses, including Musk’s, to keep workers, consumers, and the public safe. This deregulation results in windfall profits for Musk, Trump, members of Trump’s cabinet, and other wealthy business executives and investors. This is outright oligarchic corruption with wealthy business people funneling government money and benefits to themselves and their cronies.

Musk is lining his own pockets as a government contractor and businessman in two main ways:

  • Dismantling or emasculating agencies that regulate his business activities, often ending on-going investigations and enforcement actions, and
  • Having the Trump administration award his companies billions of dollars in new contracts, while continuing to pay billions of dollars to his companies under existing contracts.

Actions by Musk, DOGE, and Trump to block or weaken regulation, investigations, and sanctions of Musk’s companies include:

  • Firing members of the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, and others at the Department of Labor in order to hobble their 24 investigations into violations of workers’ rights at Musk’s companies.
  • Cutting staff at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that was investigating fatal crashes of Tesla vehicles and had ordered recalls of hundreds of thousands of Tesla vehicles due to safety issues.
  • Emasculating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that
    • Was reviewing over 300 complaints about Tesla’s financing entity, and
    • Would have oversight of the digital payment service Musk wants to add to his social media platform, X.
  • Slashing the workforce at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that is suing Space X over worker safety and investigating it for violations related to its rocket launches.
  • Firing workers at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that was investigating Musk’s Neuralink company for violations of the Animal Welfare Act.
  • Eliminating USAID that was reviewing its contract with Space X subsidiary, Starlink, for communication services in Ukraine.
  • Firing over a dozen Inspectors General, which has reduced oversight of government contractors, among other negative effects. The firings of Inspectors General at the Defense Department most likely disrupted or ended an investigation into Space X’s contracts.
  • Presumably ending the three DOD investigations of Musk’s and Space X’s repeated failures to file mandatory national security reports of contacts and involvement with foreign entities. This is one small effect of Trump’s politicization of the DOD, e.g., his appointments of political loyalists such as Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Caine as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Musk and Space X have significant contacts and engagement with Chinese leaders and investors. This is one reason that their failure to make required national security reports is a matter of serious concern. Space X has sizeable investments from Chinese investors, but because of its contracts with the DOD, Space X does not want its investments from Chinese investors to be public knowledge. Therefore, it actively works to make sure those investments are laundered through intermediate entities in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere, which keeps investors anonymous. [2]

Roughly half of Musk’s Tesla vehicles are built in China and China is Tesla’s largest market. Tesla’s largest factory is in Shanghai and its construction received a $2.8 billion investment, major tax breaks, and special permissions from the Chinese government. Musk regularly meets with Chinese government and Communist Party officials due to his multiple business interests, current and future, in China.

Needless to say, Musk is considered a significant national security risk by DOD and intelligence officials and experts. Nonetheless, Musk had scheduled a private meeting with Secretary of Defense Hegseth and others for a briefing on top secret U.S. preparations for conflict with China. The briefing was apparently scrapped after knowledge of it became public. [3]

Notwithstanding all the above, the Trump administration has awarded or announced plans to award (it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference due to Trump’s and Musk’s frequent distortions of facts) Musk’s companies multiple new contracts. The FAA recently announced its intention to engage Space X subsidiary Starlink in a $2 billion contract to upgrade air traffic control systems. There were plans for the State Department to order $400 million worth of armored Teslas. The contract was backdated to make it look like it was awarded before Trump took office. The contract is apparently now on hold.

It’s abundantly clear that Musk, Trump, and their cronies are lining their pockets at taxpayers’ expense and at significant risk to the public. I urge you to contact your US Representative and Senators and ask them to call out and take whatever actions they can to stop the corrupt self-enrichment of Musk and Trump. You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Elordi, M., 10/21/24, “Elon Musk’s companies have faced at least 20 federal probes,” Daily Wire (https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musks-companies-have-faced-at-least-20-federal-probes-report)

[2]      Kaplan, J., & Elliott, J., 3/26/25, “How Elon Musk’s Space X secretly allows investments from China,” ProPublica (https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-spacex-allows-china-investment-cayman-islands-secrecy)

[3]      Reich, R., 3/21/25, “Is the Muskrat working for China?” Robert Reich blog (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/is-the-muskrat-working-for-china )

MUSK AND DOGE ARE ALL ABOUT CORRUPT SELF-ENRICHMENT

Musk, DOGE, and Trump do not care about efficiency & reducing waste. They’re not targeting for-profit contractors, which is where the bulk of fraud & waste occurs. They’re focused on ending investigations & enforcement actions against Musk’s companies, letting Musk corruptly line his own pockets.

Musk, his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and Trump do not care about efficiency and reducing government waste. They’re not targeting for-profit government contractors, which is where the bulk of fraud and waste occurs. Instead, they’re focused on ending investigations of and enforcement actions against Musk’s companies, and providing them with new government contracts. Musk is corruptly lining his own pockets.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is not focused on efficiency and reducing government waste. DOGE’s haphazard actions of laying off workers and dismantling government programs, processes, and agencies that Musk and Trump don’t like are actually decreasing efficiency. (See previous posts here and here for more detail.) Musk and Trump are focused on lining their own pockets, i.e., on corrupt self-enrichment.

Contrary to Musk’s and Trump’s claims that the government workforce is bloated, the federal government had fewer employees before Trump took office (3 million) than at its peak in 1990 (3.1 million), despite significant growth in the responsibilities of the government. Federal government employees were 4.3% of the U.S. workforce in 1960; they’re just 1.9% of the workforce today. In general, government agencies are understaffed, due to budgetary restrictions.

If Musk, Trump, and DOGE were serious about increasing government efficiency, they would be targeting for-profit government contractors – like Musk’s companies. Before looking specifically at Musk’s companies, overall, the major sources of waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending are contractors for military hardware and services, and insurance companies that are contractors providing Medicare coverage through so-called Medicare Advantage programs. It’s estimated that 40% of the people working for the federal government are contractors and not employees. For example, in 2019, in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were 50% more U.S. contractors than U.S. soldiers.

Between 2013 and 2023, spending on government contractors grew by nearly 63%. This reflects the mistaken belief by many that private, for-profit contractors are more efficient than government employees. A 2011 study found that contractors are overpaid in comparison to government workers and that when waste and fraud are identified in government programs it is often for-profit contractors that are the culprits. A 1994 Defense Department Inspector General’s report had similar findings.

For-profit contractors are seeking to maximize profit. They do this by maximizing their prices and minimizing their costs, which generally means minimizing the quality of services and products delivered. Contractors are exempt from transparency and accountability laws that cover government programs, making waste, fraud, and abuse hard to identify, eliminate, and punish. Contractors also violate the law with shocking regularity and repetitiveness. Defense contractor RTX (formerly Raytheon) averages over five sanctions per year for illegal activities. Insurance companies operating Medicare Advantage programs regularly and repetitively engage in fraudulent billing of the government. (See this previous post for more detail.)

To feather their own nests, government contractors spend millions lobbying the government and send employees through the revolving door to work in government roles often overseeing their contracts or work. In 2024, the ten largest federal government contractors spent $71 million lobbying the hand that feeds them. They also spent $8.5 million in the 2023-24 election cycle on contributions to federal candidates’ campaigns, although this is technically illegal. They circumvent laws banning contractors contributing to campaigns by setting up supposedly independent political action committees (PACs).

Musk is lining his own pockets as a government contractor and businessman in two main ways:

  • Dismantling or emasculating agencies that regulate his business activities, often ending on-going investigations and enforcement actions, and
  • Having the Trump administration award his companies billions of dollars in new contracts, while continuing to pay billions of dollars under existing contracts.

Musk has obtained much of his enormous wealth through government subsidies and contracts. His companies have received over $38 billion in government funding over the last 20 years. Currently, among other things, Musk’s Space X company is receiving billions of dollars a year from NASA for rocket launches and from the Department of Defense (DOD) for satellite launches and Starlink communications services. Musk’s Tesla vehicle company got significant funding from the Department of Energy for its development of electric cars. (Note: This support was called wasteful by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.) [1] In 2023, Space X and Tesla got almost $3 billion from 100 contracts with 17 federal agencies. [2]

When Trump was sworn into office, Musk’s six companies were the subject of more than 32 ongoing investigations by at least 11 federal agencies. The agencies conducting these enforcement actions are being emasculated by Musk, DOGE, and Trump. Therefore, these investigations and potential penalties from them are now likely to be ended. This means Musk’s companies are now worth far more than before because they are no longer threatened with government penalties or constraints on their operations. As their major shareholder, Musk is a huge winner. [3]

The enforcement actions against Musk and his companies included: [4]

  • A Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit accusing Musk and his companies of violating federal securities laws.
  • A lawsuit by the Federal Aviation Administration accusing him and his rocket company, Space X, of violating worker safety.
  • 24 separate investigations by the National Labor Relations Board into violations of workers’ rights.
  • Over a dozen investigations of Tesla and Space X for unfair labor practices, safety violations, and workplace discrimination by various agencies of the Department of Labor.
  • Several open investigations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration into safety issues with Tesla vehicles.
  • An investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which had fined Space X for previous violations, for issues with its rocket launches, including post-launch explosions that had interrupted air traffic and spread debris and toxic pollution in the atmosphere.
  • At least three investigations by the DOD of Musk and Space X for repeatedly failing to meet reporting requirements aimed at protecting national security, including reporting information on Musk’s meeting with foreign leaders. This non-compliance with national security protocols has led to investigations by the DOD Inspector General (now fired), by the Air Force, and by the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.

My next post will discuss actions by Musk, DOGE, and Trump to block regulation, investigations, and sanctions of Musk companies; Musk’s and Space X’s China connections; and new government contracts for Musk’s companies.

[1]      Heinz, B., 4/1/25, “Rule by contractor: DOGE is not about waste and efficiency – it’s about privatization,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/power/2025-04-03-rule-by-contractor-doge-privatization/)

[2]      Elordi, M., 10/21/24, “Elon Musk’s companies have faced at least 20 federal probes,” Daily Wire (https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musks-companies-have-faced-at-least-20-federal-probes-report)

[3]      Reich, R., 2/11/25, “Fraud and Musk,” Robert Reich blog (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/fraud)

[4]      House Committee on the Judiciary, 2/13/25, “Fact Sheet: Trump administration, DOGE punish agencies investigating Elon Musk’s companies,” (https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2025.02.13_fact_sheet_re_musk_investigations.pdf

OPPOSE THE SAVE ACT AND NORRA; GET ABREGO GARCIA BACK

ACTION #1: Please contact your US Senators and ask them to oppose – and filibuster if necessary – the SAVE Act, which just passed narrowly in the House. It’s pure voter suppression. Voter fraud is incredibly rare; less than one out of every two million votes cast, which is nowhere near enough to affect the outcome of any election. The SAVE Act would:

  • Make it much harder for the 70 million married women to register to vote because they’ve changed their name, so their current name doesn’t match their birth certificate.
  • Require voters to provide proof of citizenship – a passport or birth certificate – in-person to register to vote, including re-registering (e.g., after moving) or updating their voter registration.
  • Ban online voter registration (which 42 states currently have), voter registration drives, and mail-in registration (which millions of Americans have used).

Over 21 million Americans (9%) don’t have the required documents readily available. Only 51 percent of Americans have passports and applying for one for the first time costs $165 and requires assembling needed documentation, getting a self-photograph, and going to an appointment. [1]

You can find contact information for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm. (Note: Many offices only accept messages on a voice mail system. In most cases, you can call outside of regular business hours and leave a message.)

ACTION #2: Please contact your US Senators and ask them to oppose – and filibuster if necessary – the No Rogue Rulings Act (NORRA), which passed in the House recently. It would limit the ability of federal district court judges to issue injunctions that apply nationwide. (Note: The ability to do this has been in place for centuries, literally.) [2] Such injunctions have been used recently to block actions taken by the Trump administration. If NORRA passes, it will mean each state or even each harmed individual would have to get their own injunction. Note that hypocrisy is clearly evident here, as Republicans used nationwide injunctions, often from a single radical judge in Texas, to block Biden administration actions and access to women’s reproductive health care.

ACTION #3: Contact your US Representative and Senators and ask them to demand that the Trump administration abide by court rulings and return Kilmar Abrego Garcia from the El Salvador prison where he was sent after his admittedly mistaken arrest and deportation. Also, ask them to demand that the Trump administration stop failing to provide the due process of our laws to all people who are arrested. All people, even criminals, are guaranteed due process under our laws.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Morris, K., & Henry, C., 6/11/24, “Millions of Americans don’t have documents proving their citizenship readily available,” Brennan Center for Justice (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/millions-americans-dont-have-documents-proving-their-citizenship-readily)

[2]      Conley, J., 4/10/25, “House GOP passes bill that moves toward making Trump a ‘king with unlimited power’,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/republicans-impeach-judges)

DEMOCRATS ARE MOBILIZING!

Democrats in Congress are finally stepping up to resist the unprecedented challenges the Trump administration and complicit Republicans are presenting to our democracy and its foundational institutions. They are using outside-the-box tactics to slow progress on Trump nominees and Republican legislation. They are more aggressively and effectively communicating with constituents and the public. Contact your members of Congress to thank them for what they’re doing to resist and ask them to do more.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

The Hands Off! protest rallies across the country on Saturday, 4/5, showed the depth and breadth of the opposition to the Trump administration. Somewhere between 3 and 5 million people participated including in every state and in communities large and small, Republican and Democratic. To those of you who participated or supported the protests, THANK YOU! Many smaller, local protest rallies that hopefully will involve even more people are being planned, possibly for Sat., 4/19. More information will be forthcoming, but please plan to participate and bring a friend so the next protests are even bigger than April 5.

Democrats in Congress are finally stepping up to the unprecedented challenges the Trump administration and complicit Republicans are presenting to our democracy and its foundational institutions. The Democrats are beginning to use outside-the-box tactics, including delaying and obstructing progress on Trump nominees and Republican legislation. Some Democrats are more aggressively and effectively communicating with constituents and the public, including about the incompetence and failures of the Trump administration, as well as its illegal actions.

Thank your members of Congress when they do good things and push them to do more.

Democrats in both the Senate and the House have introduced bills (The Trade Review Act, S.1272 in the Senate) to take back control over tariffs from Trump. Eight Senate Republicans have now joined this fight. Ask your Senators and Representative to co-sponsor and support this bill. Thank them if they already have.

More Senators are putting holds on Trump nominees. (See this previous post for the initial holds.) Senator Schatz (D-HI) is placing holds on over 300 nominees and Senator Blumenthal (D-CT) has announced plans to place holds on all Trump nominees. Holds force the Senate to take votes to override each hold and this slows done the process of approving Trump nominees.

House Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) (the second highest Democratic leader) is working with her colleagues to produce one-minute videos critiquing Trump administration actions on a variety of topics. They’re putting out roughly one per day. As far as I know, they’re only available on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/housedemocrats.bsky.social. (Note: Rep. Clark is awesome! In the interests of full disclosure, she was my State Senator before she was elected to the U.S. House. Unfortunately, I’m one town away from being in her congressional district.)

There are 19 one-minute videos available by various Representatives on topics including the Republican budget (and its health care cuts and tax cuts for the wealthy), the SAVE Act (voter suppression), tariffs, Social Security, Medicaid, the Veterans Administration, Signalgate, the Department of Education, and protecting the privacy of our personal information.

(Note: I hope you have a Bluesky account and if not, I encourage you to sign up for one at: https://bsky.app/. It’s a partial alternative to Facebook and X. I encourage you to leave both of those platforms if possible or minimize your use of them because of the objectionable policies and politics of them and their owners. Unfortunately, Bluesky doesn’t have a group feature like Facebook and many of my online friends are still only on Facebook, so I still use it, but I minimize my time on it. I’m on Bluesky: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Follow me there if you’re so motivated.)

Individual Democrats in Congress are, of course, also creating videos on important issues. Senator Schiff recently did a 2 ½ minute video calling for an investigation of the likelihood of insider trading in the stock market by Trump cronies in advance of Trump’s announcements on tariffs.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is coordinating Town Hall meetings by members of Congress all over the country, including in Republican districts where the Republican refuses to hold a Town Hall meeting. The list of them is here: https://democrats.org/peoples-town-halls/. Please participate if there’s one in your area.

The DNC recently announced the formation of a “People’s Cabinet.” It will feature subject matter policy experts who will provide facts and better alternatives to the Trump administration’s lies and reckless agenda. [1] However, I don’t see anything on the DNC website about this yet.

Democrats in Congress are holding hearings even when Republicans refuse to cooperate. For example, Representatives Jeffries and Barragan recently held a hearing on the cuts targeting veterans. (The hearing starts two minutes into the YouTube recording and lasts an hour and 14 minutes.) Senator Shaheen (D-NH) convened a hearing on the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). (See this previous post for more detail.)

Democrats and a few Republicans are standing up and pushing back more frequently and vigorously, but they need to do more to resist the Trump administration and most Republicans’ support of it. The resisters need to feel free to use outside-the-box tactics; they need to fight fire with fire.

I encourage you to contact your US Representative and Senators to thank them when they pushback against the inhumane and illegal actions of the Trump administration. Ask them to stand up and resist when the Trump administration is not acting in the best interests of all Americans, is violating the rule of law, and usurping the role of Congress.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Martin, K., 4/4/25, “DNC Chair Ken Martin launches ‘People’s Cabinet’ to fiercely counter Trump administration chaos and lies,” Democratic National Committee (https://democrats.org/news/dnc-chair-ken-martin-launches-peoples-cabinet-to-fiercely-counter-trump-administration-chaos-and-lies/)

THE RESISTANCE IS BUILDING!

The resistance to Trump and company is building. The public protests in the streets and pushback at town hall meetings with members of Congress are growing. A few Republicans in Congress are standing up and pushing back. Democrats are resisting more strongly. Recent election results have been bad for Republicans and 500 law firms have opposed Trump. Contact your members of Congress and tell them to do more to resist!

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

Although the Trump administration continues to do despicable things daily, the resistance is building in volume and impact. Judges are standing up and pushing back. Court decisions against the Trump administration are announced daily.

The Hands Off! protest rallies across the country on Saturday, 4/5, showed the depth and breadth of the opposition to Trump Administration policies. The pushback when members of Congress hold Town Hall meetings, especially the vehement feedback Republicans are getting, is another sign of widespread resistance. The Tesla Takedown protests across the country are expanding. The dramatic decline in Tesla sales and its stock price are significant.

An essential component of truly effective resistance will be Republicans in Congress standing up to Trump and his cronies. The pushback from constituents at Town Hall meetings and in communications to members of Congress will be key to getting them to stand up and pushback. Once they’re convinced that their re-election is at risk, they’ll begin to resist.

There are a few examples of Republicans in Congress starting to stand up and pushback. Four Republicans — Senators McConnell (KY), Collins (ME), Murkowski (AK), and Paul (KY) — opposed Trump by voting with Democrats to rescind the national economic emergency Trump declared in February (which allows him to impose tariffs by Executive Order). They then voted to eliminate the 25% tariff on Canadian imports. This sends a clear message to Trump that there is broad discontent with his tariffs.

Republican Senator Grassley (IA) introduced separate legislation to reestablish Congress’s power over tariffs. The bill would require tariffs to be approved by Congress or expire in 60 days. A Senate committee, with bipartisan support, has asked the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate Secretary of Defense Hegseth’s use of the unsecure, prohibited Signal messaging app to communicate details of plans for the March 15 attack on the Houthis in Yemen.

Republican Senator Collins (ME), chair of the Appropriations Committee, has sent a letter to Trump accusing him of violating the six-month spending law recently approved by Congress by refusing to spend authorized funding.

Calls for National Security Adviser Waltz to resign are growing louder. He created the Signalgate scandal by setting up a messaging group on Signal that discussed the March 15 military strike in Yemen. The use of Signal is prohibited for security reasons by Department of Defense policy and Waltz included a journalist in the group by mistake. (See this previous post for more detail.) Subsequently, it’s been revealed that he and his staff set up at least 20 such messaging groups on sensitive national security issues. This was described as “commonplace” by one source. It’s also been revealed that Waltz and other members of Trump’s National Security Council conducted government business using personal email accounts, which are even less secure than Signal messaging. As one expert noted, it should be assumed that everything Waltz has discussed has been intercepted by China, Russia, Israel, Iran, North Korea, and perhaps others. [1]

Democrats are standing up and pushing back more frequently and vigorously. (About time!) I imagine you’ve heard about Senator Booker’s (D-NJ) 25-hour speech – and it was a speech not just blather! You can watch one minute of excerpts here or 4 minutes of excerpts here. He live-streamed the speech on TikTok and it got more than 400 million “likes” before he finished.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has just announced the formation of a “People’s Cabinet.” (About time!) It will feature subject matter policy experts who will provide facts and better alternatives to the Trump administration’s lies and reckless agenda. [2]

Senator Schiff (D-CA) has placed a hold on Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. Attorney in D.C., Eric Martin. Martin has never worked as a prosecutor and has engaged in a series of inappropriate actions while serving as  the acting U.S. Attorney. For example, he has described the Justice Department as Trump’s personal attorney, launched unwarranted investigations, and fired and reassigned prosecutors who worked on bringing January 6 insurrectionists to justice. There have been several calls for investigations into Martin’s actions. [3]

Senator Gallego (D-AZ) has pledged to block all nominations for posts at the Veterans Administration (VA) to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to the VA’s workforce. The plan is to cut more than 80,000 jobs at the VA; 2,400 probationary employees were fired last month. [4]

Democrats in Congress are holding hearings even when Republicans refuse to cooperate. For example, Senator Shaheen (D-NH) convened a hearing on the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The testimony is chilling at multiple levels – the millions of children and adults around the world who will die as a result, the harm to health here in the U.S. (more detail on these first two topics is in this previous post), the utter recklessness with which this was handled (e.g., the waste of resources that were in-place around the world), and the way the USAID employees were treated. You can watch the hearing here. Watch any five minutes and you’ll be horrified. We found it so riveting that we watched all one hour and 48 minutes of it.

More than 500 law firms have signed onto a court brief in support of Perkins Coie’s lawsuit against the Trump administration’s executive order attempting to punishing it for supporting people Trump doesn’t like. [5]

Recent election results have been encouraging. Most notably, Crawford, the progressive, won the Wisconsin Supreme Court race in a landslide (10-point margin), despite over $20 million spent by Musk opposing her. Musk and his money were a drag not a help. Although, Republican candidates for two U.S. House seats in Florida won, they won by just 14 points in each race. Five months ago, Republicans won those seats by 30 and 37 points. There was good news from other elections as well. [6]

Democrats in Congress need to do more to resist the Trump administration and Republicans’ support of it. One way to do so and to gain leverage in negotiating with congressional Republicans is to slow down the process of, for example, confirming Trump nominees and action on Republican legislation. Time is an essential resource in Congress and it makes no sense for Democrats to streamline the process of confirming Trump nominees who are hell bent on destroying our government and democracy. Senator Booker showed us one way to slow things down. Another is to deny “unanimous consent” in the confirmation of Trump nominees, or in other words have a Senator object to the nominee. Democrats have provided unanimous consent over 500 times so far this year. Each objection to unanimous consent would eat up about two hours of the Senate’s time. [7]

I encourage you to contact your US Representative and Senators and ask them to stand up and pushback against the despicable and illegal actions of the Trump administration. Encourage them to go beyond the norm, as Senator Booker did. Trump and his cronies aren’t abiding by any norms and therefore the resistance must go beyond the norms as well.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Wilkins, B., 4/2/25, “Calls for Waltz’s resignation grow amid report of at least 20 sensitive Signal chat groups,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/mike-waltz-signal-chats)

[2]      Martin, K., 4/4/25, “DNC Chair Ken Martin launches ‘People’s Cabinet’ to fiercely counter Trump administration chaos and lies,” Democratic National Committee (https://democrats.org/news/dnc-chair-ken-martin-launches-peoples-cabinet-to-fiercely-counter-trump-administration-chaos-and-lies/)

[3]      Beitsch, R., 4/2/25, “Schiff places hold on Trump pick for DC prosecutor’s nomination,”The Hill (https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5227564-adam-schiff-blocks-trump-nominee-ed-martin/)

[4]      Bolton, A., 4/1/25, “Senate Democrat will block Trump’s VA nominees to protest cuts,” The Hill (https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5225064-gallego-trump-va-nominees/)

[5]      Hubbell, R., 4/5/25, “Reclaim democracy on April 5 in a national day of protest!”, Today’s Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/reclaim-democracy-on-april-5-in-a)

[6]      Cox Richardson, H., 4/1/25, “Letters from an American,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-1-2025)

[7]      Dayen, D., 4/2/25, “The Democrats’ Liberation Day,” Today on The American Prospect blog (https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-04-02-democrats-liberation-day-booker-senate/)

PROTEST ABDUCTIONS AND AT APRIL 5 EVENTS

Contact your US Representative and Senators and ask them to demand that law abiding, legal U.S. residents who have been abducted and detained by ICE be released immediately and that these illegal arrests stop. If you can, join the big, nationwide HANDS OFF! protests planned for Saturday, April 5.

ACTION #1: Please contact your US Representative and Senators and ask them to demand that law abiding, legal U.S. residents who have been abducted and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) be released immediately and that these illegal arrests stop. In addition, ask them to demand that the individuals abducted be allowed to contact lawyers and loved ones. ICE has been quickly moving them around the U.S. to make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to contact lawyers and loved ones. In addition, the movement has (presumably intentionally) frustrated attempts by judges to establish jurisdiction and to order ICE to release or justify the detention of these individuals and to order that they not be deported. [1]

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts student, and Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student, are two examples of law abiding, legal U.S. residents abducted and detained by ICE. No evidence against them was presented and there was no due process.

There are others, and maybe many others; I’m not sure that it’s known how many. However, Secretary of State Rubio recently stated, “It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day.” [2] These individuals are political prisoners and this behavior by the Trump administration mimics what dictators do to intimidate and eliminate all opposition. This is what Russia and China do. They replace the rule of law with the rule of fear. This has never been done in the U.S. in my lifetime. This is a repugnant repudiation of the rule of law, which is a cornerstone of democracy.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Note that many offices only accept messages on a voice mail system. In most cases, you can call outside of regular business hours and leave a message.

ACTION #2: If you can, join the big, nationwide HANDS OFF! protest planned for Saturday, April 5. Go to Indivisible to find an event near you. Let’s make this a huge event! Please spread the word! If you can’t attend, consider supporting it in other ways, e.g., a donation to pay for buses transporting people to the events, spreading the word, etc.

ACTION #3: Contact your US Representative and ask him or her to support and vote for Senate Bill S.1077, the 2025 District of Columbia (D.C.) Local Funds Act. This bill would reverse a $1 billion cut to D.C.’s budget that was made by the federal budget bill recently passed by Congress (the infamous Continuing Resolution). It cut the D.C. budget even though no federal funds are involved. These funds are local D.C. tax revenues that have already been collected and budgeted. If not reversed, D.C. would be forced to cut funding for teachers, police officers, fire fighters, other emergency staff, public transportation, health services, and even retirees’ pensions. The bill has already passed the Senate. [3]

[1]      Murphy, S., 4/2/25, “US officials defend the detention of Tufts PhD student. Also say federal judge in Boston lacks jurisdiction,” The Boston Globe

[2]      Solomont, A., 4/1/25, “Jewish community must stand up to Trump’s targeting of international students,” The Boston Globe

[3]      Hubbell, R., 4/1/25, “Disrupting ‘business as usual’,” Today’s Edition Newsletter (Disrupting “business as usual” – by Robert B. Hubbell)

SIGNALGATE: AN UNFORGIVABLE NATIONAL SECURITY BREACH

Top Trump administration officials in the military and intelligence agencies have committed an unbelievable and unforgivable breach of national security. Investigations by Congress and the military are essential. Officials responsible should resign, be fired, or be impeached, and perhaps prosecuted.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

There is NO EXCUSE for top Trump administration officials communicating secret military plans over Signal, an unsecured, commercial messaging app, whose use is SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITED by Defense Department policy. Included in the Signal chat group discussing the March 15 attack in Yemen, before and during the action, were:

  • Secretary of Defense Hegseth and Secretary of State Rubio,
  • The President’s National Security Advisor Waltz and Chief of Staff Wiles,
  • The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Ratliffe and the Director of National Intelligence Gabbard,
  • Vice President Vance, and others.

None of them, over the four-day chat (3/11 – 3/15), raised a red flag over the illegal use of an unsecured communication channel, with a reporter accidentally included no less. This is astounding. Any government employee of lower rank who engaged in such a breach of security would be fired immediately and jailed without bail. Concerning elements of this national security breach include:

  • The incompetence, inexperience, and cavalier attitude toward sensitive information of these top Trump administration official is stunning and unacceptable.
  • This strongly implies that senior Trump administration officials are regularly having very sensitive communications over an unsecured, commercial messaging app in violation of the law.
  • Some of them were using their personal, unsecured phones. Experts have stated that it’s highly likely foreign intelligence services are monitoring their personal phones. (Official government-issued secured phones have special encryption and other security features, including the inability to download apps, such as Signal, WhatsApp, X, etc. that make a phone vulnerable to hacking.) [1]
  • Secretary of Defense Hegseth repeatedly lied about what had occurred and Gabbard and Ratliffe lied under oath at a Senate hearing. [2]
  • President Trump stated he had no knowledge of the breach on March 24. Based on the pre-attack messaging, which Trump was not part of, it appears the decision to go ahead with the strikes was made by deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, not the President, which is startling. Stunningly, the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the military was also not included.
  • The name of at least one CIA operative was revealed in the messaging. [3]
  • The revelation of a specific, targeted individual and on-the-ground intelligence about him, while the strike was on-going, is breathtaking and put intelligence sources at risk. (Apparently some of the intelligence and sources were Israeli and the Israelis are furious about the compromising of their information and sources.)
  • It must be assumed that Russia and China (and maybe other adversaries such as Iran and North Korea) have the ability to intercept these unsecured communications, according to multiple experts. An internal bulletin from the National Security Agency warned staff in February 2025 not to use Signal, citing concerns that the app was vulnerable to Russian hackers. [4]
  • The Signal messaging app being used by top Trump administration officials deletes communications after a set period of time – days or a few weeks. This violates federal laws requiring the preservation of documents and communications. Signal may well have been deliberately used here and in other communications to evade having a public record. [5]

All members of Congress, and particularly any with military service backgrounds, should be enraged and determined to get to the bottom of this. It is a national security breach of breathtaking seriousness that could or may have endangered the lives of military and intelligence personnel. Our troops and our country are clearly not being kept safe. If the Iranians had access to the messaging and had alerted their Houthi allies (the targets) to prepare for the attack, including anti-aircraft weaponry, the U.S. jets and pilots would have been at serious risk and the success of the mission would likely have been compromised.

The military itself should undertake a rigorous investigation with decisive punishment for those guilty of compromising national security. [6]

Reporters and internet sleuths have found personal information about phones and email addresses for a number of the chat participants, including usernames and passwords for email accounts for Hegseth, Waltz, and Gabbard. This makes it highly likely that foreign adversaries have been monitoring everything they have communicated since their nominations. [7]

There are many serious implications of this breach of national security. Here are a few:

  • Allies will NOT be sharing sensitive intelligence with the U.S. because they cannot trust that it will be kept secure. (This exacerbates their concerns raised by Trump’s behavior in his first term and his taking of classified documents to Mar-a-Lago at the end of it.)
  • U.S. soldiers’ lives are at-risk because Trump administration members are not maintaining security about upcoming military actions and allies won’t be sharing their intelligence.
  • U.S. CIA agents’ lives are at-risk because Trump administration members will include their names in unsecured communications and allies won’t be sharing their intelligence.

If you haven’t already, please contact your US Representative and Senators to express your concerns and outrage about this astonishingly dangerous national security breach. (And if you have been in touch with them, it can’t hurt to contact them again.) Ask them to demand a full investigation of the unsecured communication about the March 15 military action in Yemen. Ask them to demand the resignations, firing, impeachment, and/or prosecution of the officials involved. Hypocritically, Hegseth, Rubio, Gabbard, and Ratliffe have all stated the importance of secure handling of sensitive information and the need for accountability when it is mishandled in past attempts to criticize Democrats for supposed breaches of national security. Just imagine what Republicans would be saying if a Democrat had committed a breach anywhere near this serious!

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Hubbell, R., 3/27/25, “Signalgate: A crack in the façade?” Daily Edition Newsletter (Signalgate: A crack in the facade? – by Robert B. Hubbell)

[2]      Queally, J., 3/26, “Here are the texted war plans that Hegseth said ‘Nobody was texting’ on Signal,” Common Dreams  (https://www.commondreams.org/news/war-plans-signal-hegseth)

[3]      Cox Richardson, H., 3/24/25, “Letters from an American,” (March 24, 2025 – by Heather Cox Richardson)

[4]      Cox Richardson, H., 3/26/25, “Letters from an American,” (March 26, 2025 – by Heather Cox Richardson)

[5]      Hubbell, R., 3/25/25, “Criminal recklessness,” Daily Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/criminal-recklessness)

[6]      Editorial, 3/26/25, “A ‘gross error’ that needs to be punished,” The Boston Globe

[7]      Hubbell, R., 3/28/25, “Let’s ‘create a ruckus’,” Daily Edition Newsletter (Let’s “create a ruckus.” – by Robert B. Hubbell)

PROTEST NATIONAL SECURITY BREACH ETC.

ACTION #1: Please contact your US Representative and Senators to ask them to demand a full investigation of the major national security breach around the March 15 military attack in Yemen. They should demand the resignations, firings, or impeachment of the officials involved. There’s NO EXCUSE for them communicating secret military plans over an unsecure, commercial messaging app whose use is SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITED by Defense Department policy. Included in the chat group were the:

  • Secretaries of Defense and State,
  • President’s National Security Advisor and Chief of Staff,
  • Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director and the Director of National Intelligence,
  • Vice President, and others.

Any government employee of lower status who engaged in such a breach of security would be immediately jailed without bail. The incompetence, inexperience, lack of qualifications, and cavalier attitude toward sensitive information by these senior officials is stunning, egregious, and unacceptable. I will have more detail on this in my next post.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Note that many offices only accept messages on a voice mail system. In most cases, you can call outside of regular business hours and leave a message.

ACTION #2: Join a protest rally or march in-person if you can.

  • Big, nationwide HANDS OFF! protests are planned for Saturday, April 5. Go to Indivisible to find an event near you. Let’s make this a huge event!
  • Nationwide protest rallies at Tesla dealerships this Saturday, March 29. Put in your zip code at #TeslaTakedown and find a rally near you. These rallies have been very effective. They’ve gained media attention, and, as I’m sure you’ve heard, Tesla sales and its stock price are down substantially.

ARE TARIFFS AND NO TAX ON TIPS GOOD POLICIES?

Trump’s proposal to eliminate taxes on tips sounds good but analysis shows it’s bad policy. Tariffs can be used effectively, but Trump’s tariff actions are already hurting our economy and will raise prices. They’re also ripe for political corruption.

Trump’s proposal to eliminate taxes on tips sounds good but careful analysis shows it would benefit few workers, be unfair, create perverse incentives, and open a door for tax avoidance. On the other hand, tariffs can be used effectively, but Trump’s on-again-off-again, high, broad-based tariffs are already hurting our economy and will raise prices for consumers and businesses. They are also ripe for political corruption.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

Let’s take a step back from the dramatic and illegal actions of the Trump administration for a moment and take a look at their policy proposals on tariffs and eliminating taxes on tip income.

Trump has proposed eliminating income tax on tips, which sounds like a good policy that would help low-income workers. However, when carefully analyzed, it’s clearly a bad idea. First, it’s one more complexity in our tax code, unfairly treating some low-income workers and one type of income differently than others. It also creates a perverse incentive to create tip income, even the conversion of regular income to tip income. This is a new avenue for tax avoidance that some employers and business people would take advantage of. [1]

Second, eliminating tax on tips would help very few workers. Workers who earn less than $25 per hour and are in traditionally tipped jobs are only 2.5% of the overall workforce, which is about 4.3 million workers. However, 37% of tipped workers earn so little that they already don’t pay federal income tax. So, fewer than 2.5 million workers would benefit from eliminating tax on tips. Moreover, some low-income tipped workers would lose their eligibility for tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit.

It’s unfair to give this benefit to low-wage tipped workers but no similar benefit to low-wage workers who don’t get tips, such as fast-food workers, teachers’ aides, retail cashiers, and bank tellers, for example. The biggest beneficiaries of eliminating taxes on tips would be servers in high-end, expensive restaurants who are already making a decent living.

Third, it undermines efforts to increase wages for all low-wage workers. Some employers might see this tax cut as a justification for not increasing workers’ wages. So, in effect, part of the benefit of this tax cut would go to employers rather than employees. It undermines efforts to raise the federal tipped worker minimum wage of only $2.13 per hour (set in 1993), as well as efforts to raise the regular federal minimum wage of $7.25 (set in 2009).

Fourth, it would incentivize increasing the number of tipped jobs because it would allow employers to pay $2.13 an hour rather than $7.25. Furthermore, tipping might proliferate to many services that currently aren’t tipped. Businesses might add an automatic “tip” to bills or classify a portion of their fees as “tips.” The use of “tipping” to dodge taxes could spread to a wide range of services such as car repair and servicing, appliance installation, child care, and even dental and legal services. [2]

An expansion of low wage tipped jobs is clearly not in workers’ economic interests and, furthermore, tipped work is rife with wage theft, worker mistreatment and abuse, and discrimination (including by tippers).

Turning to tariffs, Trump declared a fake economic emergency that gives him the power to unilaterally impose tariffs. Putting aside the disruptive aspects of threatening or implementing tariffs and then stepping back from them, let’s examine the role and impact of tariffs.

Tariffs can be used effectively to achieve important goals of economic and trade policy. They are most effective when they are narrowly targeted at well-defined goals as part of a larger, clearly established policy strategy. The three main goals of tariffs are: [3]

  • Protecting domestic production of specific products for reasons of national security, resilience of key supply chains, or other clearly justified purposes,
  • Protecting U.S. workers from unfair competition from specific other countries, and
  • Protecting domestic climate change and environmental policies from specific other countries with weaker policies.

High, broad-based tariffs harm the U.S. economy in multiple ways, and they do not reduce the U.S. trade deficit. They raise prices of imported goods for consumers and for businesses who use inputs that are imported. Furthermore, other countries are very likely to implement retaliatory tariffs or restrictions on the importation of U.S. products. For example, when Trump imposed tariffs on China in his first term, China retaliated with tariffs on U.S. agricultural products and a ban on the purchase of Boeing airplanes. The loss of the Chinese market had such a profound impact on U.S. farmers and ranchers that the Trump administration authorized $61 billion in emergency relief for them. This ate up (no pun intended) roughly all the tariff revenue generated by the Trump tariffs. Boeing lost the 25% of its sales that had been in China, and this strengthened the Chinese competitor to Boeing and increased its sales.

High, broad-based tariffs facilitate political corruption. They typically allow importers to petition for reductions of or exclusions from the tariffs. This favors politically connected or favored companies. The first Trump administration granted more than 100,000 exclusions or reductions to tariffs through a process that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Commerce Department’s Inspector General found lacked transparency and made inconsistent and apparently arbitrary decisions. Further analysis found that tariff reductions were used to reward political supporters and contributors, while punishing political opponents. [4]

[1]      Cooper, D., & Mast, N., 2/6/25, “‘No tax on tips’ will harm more workers than it helps,” Economic Policy Institute (https://www.epi.org/blog/no-tax-on-tips-will-harm-more-workers-than-it-helps-proposals-in-congress-and-now-20-states-could-encourage-harmful-employer-practices-and-lead-to-tip-requests-in-virtually-every-co/)

[2]      Cooper, D., & Mast, N., 2/6/25, see above.

[3]      Hersh, A. S., & Bivens, J., 2/10/25, “Tariffs – Everything you need to know but were afraid to ask,” Economic Policy Institute (https://www.epi.org/publication/tariffs-everything-you-need-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-ask/)

[4]      Hersh, A. S., & Bivens, J., 2/10/25, see above.

RESISTANCE AND PROTEST ACTIONS

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ACTION #1: Please contact your US Representative and Senators regularly to thank them for what they do right and encourage them to resist and protest the harmful and/or illegal actions of the Trump administration and Musk. For example:

  • If they’ve held an in-person or virtual town hall meeting for constituents, thank them. If they have not, ask them to. Or ask them to hold another one. Participate if you can. Call their office afterwards and give them feedback on it.
  • Ask them to publicly condemn the Trump administration for its failure to comply with judges’ orders and to call for congressional hearings on the Trump administration’s failure to comply with court orders and requests for information.
  • If they are Democrats, ask them to form a shadow cabinet that would provide a daily critique of the actions of the Trump administration and its cabinet secretaries. They should state what Democrats would do differently and how that would benefit the American people.
  • Ask them to oppose the elimination of funding for our libraries from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This is the only federal government agency that supports libraries.
  • Or whatever else is on your mind or in the news.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Note that many offices only accept messages on a voice mail system. In most cases, you can call outside of regular business hours and leave a message.

ACTION #2: Join a protest rally or march in-person if you can. Big, nationwide protests are planned for Saturday, April 5, and there are many protests planned before then. Several national organizations, some with local chapters, are promoting the April 5 event as well as publicizing and organizing other protests. Here are some opportunities to find protests near you:

  • Indivisible is highlighting the April 5th event and will help you find an event near you. It has local chapters you can join and other actions you can be part of. Here’s a list of Indivisible Protests near you.
  • #TeslaTakedown. Put in your zip code and find a protest at a Tesla dealer near you. These rallies have been very effective. They’ve gained media attention, and, as I’m sure you’ve heard, Tesla sales and its stock price are down substantially.
  • 50501 is a grassroots organization listing protests organized by independent activists across the nation. It’s promoting the April 5th event, will link you to protests in your state, and allows you to add a protest to its list of actions.
  • Mobilize is a clearinghouse for protests and will help you find one near you. It also has online events, phone banking, petitions to sign and other quick actions, groups you can join, and volunteer opportunities.

HEROES OF THE RESISTANCE

The resistance to Trump, Musk, and Republicans is growing. You are all heroes for whatever you’ve contributed to the resistance. There are many heroes, including federal workers who work diligently despite the chaos and threats, as well as those who have resigned or resisted being fired to protest.
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The resistance to the Trump administration, Musk and DOGE, and the Republicans in Congress is growing. You are all heroes for whatever actions you’ve contributed to the resistance. There are some heroes that I would like to highlight, including federal workers, some who continue to diligently do their jobs despite the chaos, threats, and demeaning actions of the Trump administration and some who have resigned or resisted being fired to protest.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

The resistance is growing. Thank you for your participation! Thank you for pushing back and supporting the resistance in whatever ways you can, from donating money to in-person protesting to honking or waving in support of protesters you’ve seen. I hope you’re seeing, hearing about, and feeling the resistance from many people in many ways. I hope you’ve contacted your members of Congress to ask them to block or protest onerous actions of the Trump administration.

I hope you’ve participated in, seen, or read about the town hall meetings where both Republican and Democratic members of Congress have gotten strong pushback from their constituents. I imagine you’ve heard that the Republican leaders in Congress have recommended that their members NOT hold town hall meetings because of all the negative feedback they’re getting. That’s the result of all the feedback you and others have been delivering in-person and via all the various communication modes.

You’re all heroes of the resistance!

Another hero is Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, who spoke to Trump directly at the National Prayer Service after his inauguration and asked him to show mercy for immigrants and LGBTQ+ individuals. I hope other religious leaders will call out the inhumanity of many of the actions of the Trump administration. I urge you to ask religious leaders you interact with to stand up and speak out.

I want to highlight for you a few of the heroes in our federal government workforce. But first I’d like to acknowledge and thank every federal worker who’s on the job every day working hard to serve the American people despite the demeaning rhetoric and threats from Trump, Musk, and others. Many of them are working to hold the Trump administration accountable, but unfortunately we will never know about most of them and what they’ve done on our behalf. It’s important to acknowledge that, despite threats and risks, many of them are doing heroic work. It’s good for them to know we’ve got their backs and for us to know they’re pushing back from the inside as we’re pushing back from the outside. See We the builders for more on federal workers and how they and their unions are pushing back.

Nicholas Enrich was the acting assistant administrator for global health at USAID until March 2 when he was abruptly put on leave. He is a hero for working to keep programs functioning despite a workforce slashed from 783 to less than 70. And despite the freeze on funding. Funds were supposedly freed up by temporary waivers from the Secretary of State for lifesaving assistance. Enrich tried repeatedly to make the waivers work but was blocked at every turn.

He and others wrote a series of memos, which became public, documenting what was happening and what the impact would be. Despite his diligent work, Enrich was put on leave. [1]

The memos share estimates that without USAID’s work and funding more than 16 million pregnant women and more than 11 million newborns will not get medical care; more than 14 million children will not get care for pneumonia and diarrhea (among the top causes of preventable deaths for children under the age of 5); 200,000 children will be paralyzed with polio; 1 million children will not be treated for severe malnutrition; and 2.3 million children a year will die because they will not get vaccinated. There will be at least an additional 12.5 million cases of malaria this year, leading to 71,000 to 166,000 avoidable deaths.

USAID leaders estimated there will be a roughly 30% increase in cases of tuberculosis (TB). The increased tuberculosis infections and disruptions to treatment will cause TB to develop drug resistance, making future treatment options more difficult and costly. This will inevitably lead to more cases in the U.S. USAID staff forecast about 80 additional cases of multi-drug-resistant TB in the U.S. each year as a result. These cases will cost the U.S. millions in tax dollars because it costs roughly $500,000 to treat someone with drug-resistant TB.

There are many judges and public prosecutors who are heroes. Among them are U.S. District Judge Amir Ali. He has now ordered the Trump administration four times to pay the $2 billion owed to USAID contractors. U.S. District Judges William Alsup, Amy Berman Jackson, James Bredan, Tanya Chutkan, Jesse Furman, Beryl Howell, and Lauren King are also heroes. [2]

Eight senior prosecutors at the Department of Justice (DOJ) resigned rather than present a motion to dismiss the charges against NY Mayor Eric Adams. Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY, led the way by resigning when ordered by deputy U.S. Attorney General Emil Bove to file for dismissal of the case against Adams, apparently in exchange for Adams’s agreement to help the Trump administration implement its anti-immigrant policies. Kevin Briscoll, John Keller, Hagan Scotten, and four others also resigned. [3]

Trump has attempted to fire 18 Inspector Generals (IGs) in various departments of the federal government. At least eight of them have filed suits claiming they were fired illegally. The IGs’ role is explicitly to ensure effective and efficient operation of their agencies by detecting and preventing waste, fraud, and abuse, while making recommendations for enhanced functioning. Their track records are impressive. Here’s a list of some of them and some highlights of their work: [4]

  • Robert Storch, Dept. of Defense, 281 reports, 970 recommendations, $10.8 billion impact.
  • Michael Missal, Dept. of Veterans Affairs, 10,000 recommendations, $45 billion impact.
  • Christi Grimm, Dept. Health and Human Services, 1,300 reports, $18.5 billion impact.
  • Carde Richardson, Dept. of State, $17 million impact in 8 months.
  • Sandra Bruce, Dept. of Education, 739 recommendations, $1.2 billion impact.
  • Larry Turner, Labor Dept., 400 recommendations, $75 billion impact.
  • Mike Ware, Small Business Administration and acting at the Social Security Administration, $14 billion impact plus $30 billion seized or returned to the U.S. Treasury.
  • Paul Martin, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), documented the waste of funding and aid, as well as the impaired functioning of USAID, based on Musk’s interference and personnel cuts, among other things.
  • Phyllis Fong, Dept. of Agriculture, 7,250 reports, $19 billion impact. She refused to leave when fired and had to be dragged from her office. Among other things, she was investigating Musk’s company, Neuralink.

Here’s a quick list of some other heroes: [5]

  • Denise Cheung, a senior DOJ attorney, resigned after refusing to launch a fraudulent criminal investigation into grantees of an environmental program.
  • New York Attorney General Letitia James and Georgia District Attorney Fani Wills each prosecuted Trump despite threats and personal attacks.
  • Brian Driscoll, acting FBI Director, and his deputy, Robert Kissane, refused a DOJ order to assist in firing FBI employees who had investigated the January 6 insurrection.
  • Ellen Weintraub, chair of the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), is resisting Trump’s illegal attempt to remove her.
  • Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of Special Counsel, which protects whistleblowers and enforces the prohibition on federal employees engaging in political activity, is suing Trump for firing him illegally.
  • Gwynne Wilcox, chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), is suing Trump for illegally firing her. By firing her, Trump made the NLRB unable to function because it lacks the quorum necessary to make decisions. By the way, there are 24 cases against Musk companies pending before the NLRB. (Note: She was recently reinstated by a judge’s ruling.)
  • And many, many more.

[1]      Murphy, B., & Barry-Jester, A. M., 3/3/25, “Internal memos: Senior USAID leaders warned Trump appointees of hundreds of thousands of deaths from closing agency,” ProPublica (https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-doge-rubio-usaid-musk-death-toll-malaria-polio-tuberculosis)

[2]      Reich, R., 3/3/25, “The Trump-Vance-Musk-Putin manosphere,” Robert Reich blog (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-trump-vance-musk-putin-manosphere)

[3]      Ifill, S., 2/28/25, “When lawyers stand up,” The Contrarian (https://contrarian.substack.com/p/when-lawyers-stand-up)

[4]      Rubin, J., 2/14/25, “Undaunted,” The Contrarian (https://contrarian.substack.com/p/undaunted-aea)

[5]      Reich, R., 2/13/25, “Profiles in courage,” Robert Reich blog (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/profiles-in-courage)

STOP THE CONTINUING RESOLUTION SPENDING BILL

I’m sorry to be in your inbox again this week, but this is a real emergency.

Please contact your US Senators NOW and ask them to vote against the Continuing Resolution (CR) spending bill that the House Republicans passed. It would fund the federal government until September and avoid a shutdown but has many very objectionable provisions. If you have a Democratic Senator, ask them to filibuster the CR. That’s probably the only way to stop it. Keep in mind that the Republicans are doing a CR because they can’t come up with a regular budget.

Normally, a Continuing Resolution, as the name implies, extends current spending levels but this one slashes most spending, such as a $1 billion in DC (even though it’s local tax dollars and will cut public safety and other vital services), and increases defense spending (there’s more waste, fraud, and abuse in the defense budget than anywhere else in the federal government, so if anything should be cut, defense should be). Furthermore, the CR doesn’t rein in Musk, doesn’t stop illegal firings and withholding of approved funding, and doesn’t block Trump’s tariffs and end the fake “economic emergency” Trump declared that gives him unilateral power to implement tariffs.

Without these provisions, a government shutdown is no worse than what Trump and Musk are already doing. And the CR would explicitly let them continue what they’re doing through next September!

You can find contact information for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Note that many offices only accept messages on a voice mail system. In most cases, you can call outside of regular business hours and leave a message.

RESISTANCE ACTIONS ON UKRAINE AND TRUMP

ACTION #1: I strongly urge you to contact your US Representative and Senators NOW and ask them to support Ukraine. Here’s a sample message. Feel free to tailor it and put it in your own voice.

Please speak out loudly and clearly, and do everything in your power, to support Ukraine and democracy, while strongly opposing Putin, Russia, and dictators. I’m appalled by Trump’s, Vance’s, and Republicans’ attacks on Ukraine and Zelensky! Their withdrawal of satellite imagery and intelligence support for Ukraine is putting civilian and front lines troops’ lives at greater risk. This is horrifying!

Also, please do everything you can to prevent the Trump administration from lifting economic sanctions on Russia. Lifting them would be very harmful to Ukraine and to the struggle between democracies and autocracies worldwide.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Note that many offices only accept messages on a voice mail system. In most cases, you can call outside of regular business hours and leave a message.

ACTION #2: This is actually three sample messages for President Trump. Feel free to tailor them and put them in your own voice. You can do any one of them, all of them at once, or do them in three separate calls or emails.

President Trump please:

  • Tell Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy to work aggressively to stop the measles outbreak and the spread of bird flu. If more people die and egg prices keep going up, you will get hell from me and the American people!
  • Tell Musk to stop the firings at the Social Security Administration and the Veterans Administration. If those services deteriorate, I and the many other members of the public who rely on those services will be very unhappy, to say the least!
  • Stop your tariffs, the Republican budget, and Musk’s disruptive actions because if they crash the stock market and the economy, as they appear to be doing, you can be sure that Americans from all walks of life will be quite angry!

You can email President Trump at https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111, which is available only on Tuesday through Thursday between 11 am and 3 pm Eastern time.

TRUMP AND THE REPUBLICANS DO NOT CARE ABOUT MAKING GOVERNMENT WORK BETTER

The Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress are not trying to make government work better. They’re focused on destroying our federal government and making it unable to perform functions we all rely on in our everyday lives. They also plan to give huge tax cuts to wealthy individuals and corporations. Please contact your members of Congress and ask them to oppose the draconian budget Republicans have proposed.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

I probably don’t need to tell you that the Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress are not trying to make government work better. Rather, they want to destroy our federal government and leave it unable to perform functions we all rely on in our everyday lives.

This post will examine the Republicans’ budget proposal. My previous post documented the random slashing of personnel, which does not increase efficiency or make government work better. More examples of this have emerged in recent days. The Trump administration has disbanded the information technology group that was working to make the federal government’s public websites more user-friendly and functional. So, for example, it will no longer be working to make it easier and faster to get a passport from the Department of State or to use the free tax filing service of the IRS. [1] Many cybersecurity personnel from multiple agencies have been fired. Computer systems in the U.S. are not being effectively protected and Russia and other adversaries know this. Moreover, it has been reported that the Trump administration has stopped efforts to counter Russian cyberattacks. [2] Obviously, these actions are not doing anything to make the government more effective and efficient; quite the opposite.

Turning to the budget, the Republicans in Congress have proposed draconian cuts to agency and program budgets. They’ve set dollar-amount targets for cuts that reflect no analysis of need or efficiency. Their budget proposal has big cuts in everything that supports working Americans and their families. However, it includes big increases for defense and immigrant detention and deportation. It also extends and expands the very large 2017 tax cuts for wealthy corporations and individuals, which would cost $4.5 trillion over the next ten years. For example, the wealthiest 1% of Americans, with yearly incomes of over $743,000, would get an annual tax cut averaging $62,000. This is more than the yearly incomes of most of the 72 million people in the US who receive health insurance under Medicaid, many of whom are seniors in nursing homes. And make no mistake about it, Medicaid would have to be cut dramatically to meet the Republicans’ budget targets. [3]

These budget cuts are NOT about cutting waste or fraud; they are about cutting programs that working Americans rely on every day – from health care to nutrition programs to student loans to child and elder care. These deep cuts in programs are being proposed to make the tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations affordable, i.e., to keep them from exploding the budget deficit. Note that the Republicans’ budget proposal does NOT extend the tax credits that make health care more affordable under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care) for 20 million low- and middle-income Americans, including three million small business owners and self-employed individuals. The Republicans’ budget proposal would also shift significant costs to state and local governments – which don’t have the capacity to pay them.

Despite the draconian programmatic cuts, the Republican budget proposal would increase the national debt by $4 trillion in less than two years.

It is abundantly clear that the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, along with Musk and DOGE, have no interest in efficiency or making government work better. They want to break our government and turn our democracy into a dictatorship. Moreover, they act like bullies; being cruel and hurting people appears to be one of their goals. Why else would you separate children from parents and post gloating videos of immigrants in chains?

Mindless slashing of agency budgets and staff is harming our safety in multiple ways and weakening our economy. It will increase homelessness, hunger, and hardship for many; it will allow diseases to spread and environmental damage to grow.

I urge you to contact your US Representative and Senators and ask them to take strong action to oppose the draconian budget cuts Republicans are proposing.

If you have members of Congress who are Democrats, urge them to form a shadow cabinet and identify a party spokesperson. These individuals should critique the actions of the Trump administration on a daily basis by:

  • Identifying what it’s doing right and what it’s doing wrong.
  • Sharing data and people’s stories to document the damage that’s being done.
  • Presenting what Democrats would do differently and how people’s lives would be better if Democrats were running the government.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

In my next post, I’ll share some profiles in courage of those resisting and good news about how the resistance is growing and proving to be effective.

[1]      Hubbell, R., 3/3/25, “Every effort matters – now more than ever!” Today’s Edition Newsletter (Every effort matters—now more than ever!)

[2]      Cox Richardson, H., 3/2/25, “Letters from an American,” (March 2, 2025 – by Heather Cox Richardson)

[3]      Parrott, S., 2/25/25, “House budget would increase costs and hardship for many while providing huge tax breaks for a wealthy few,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (https://www.cbpp.org/press/statements/house-budget-would-increase-costs-and-hardship-for-many-while-providing-huge-tax)

TRUMP, DOGE, AND THE REPUBLICANS DO NOT CARE ABOUT EFFICIENCY

The Trump administration, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and the Republicans in Congress do not care about efficiency and making government work better. They are focused on destroying our federal government and making it unable to perform functions we all rely on in our everyday lives. Please contact your members of Congress and ask them to oppose indiscriminate firing of federal workers.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

I probably don’t need to tell you that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) does not care about efficiency. DOGE and the Trump administration are focused on destroying our federal government and making it unable to perform functions we all rely on in our everyday lives.

They are undermining the agencies and systems that keep us safe, including:

  • Military and intelligence systems that keep us, our country, and our troops safe from physical and cyber attacks.
  • Law enforcement agencies that keep us safe from both physical and cyber crime.
  • Public health agencies that protect us from diseases and unsafe air and water.
  • Agencies that keep us safe from dangerous consumer products, financial scams, and hazardous working conditions.
  • The agency that keeps us safe when we fly.

They are undermining everything that makes us a civilized society, and, of course, everything that makes us a democracy, including the health and education systems that allow all of us and our economy to prosper.

Their extensive and random firings of employees with no rationale other than claiming financial savings from reducing the payroll make it clear their intent is destruction and NOT efficiency. The fraudulent nature of their claims of waste is exposed by the situations where they have had to re-hire employees after learning what the employees did. These are NOT thoughtful reductions in the workforce after carefully identifying opportunities for efficiency; this is indiscriminate slashing of the workforce.

Roughly 11% (more than one out of ten) of the 2.4 million federal civilian employees (excluding postal workers) have been fired, have resigned, or have otherwise been relieved of their positions. Most have been relatively new employees within their two-year probationary period. No assessment was made of the need for these workers or of their job performance.

Here are just a few examples (of many) of their destructive firings and forced departures of government workers: [1]

  • The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has had 300 employees cut, despite 90% of its facilities having been previously identified as being understaffed. It was already short 3,000 air traffic controllers and at least 800 technicians. The airliner crash in D.C. may have been because air traffic control hadn’t paid enough attention to keeping the military helicopter out of the airspace of the jet that was landing. The more recent close calls in Chicago and D.C., where a plane landing had to abort because there was another plane on or near the runway, almost certainly reflect air traffic control errors.
  • Workers tracking the bird flu virus were fired and then re-hired.
  • Workers overseeing the safety of our nuclear weapons were fired and then re-hired. Roughly 300 fired employees at the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) were re-hired after DOGE learned that they were responsible for managing the US nuclear weapons arsenal.
  • Senior military leaders, including the leaders of the military justice system, were fired and are being replaced with political loyalists. This is not about efficiency; it’s about establishing dictatorial power.
  • 76,000 civilian employees at the Defense Department will be fired. The largest amount of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government is in the Defense Department, and particularly in its contracts with private companies. Yet this has not been a focus of DOGE. A huge reduction in civilian employees will undoubtedly weaken the oversight of contracts with private companies. Ironically, in the budget outline just approved by Republicans in Congress, the Defense Department receives a significant increase ($100 billion over 10 years in the House’s proposal and $150 billion in the Senate’s)! This makes it unequivocally clear that cutting waste, fraud, and abuse is NOT what Trump, DOGE, and the Republicans are doing.
  • The Social Security Commissioner has been removed, five of eight regional commissioners have departed, and the plan is to fire half of the 57,000 workers at the Social Security Administration, despite it already being at a 50 year low in its number of employees. How long will it be before Social Security is unable to enroll new eligible seniors, to stop payments to those who have passed away, to resolve problems, and even, ultimately, to keep payments flowing to current recipients?
  • Over a dozen senior leaders and 1,000 of the 17,000 employees (6%) at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are gone, despite pre-existing personnel shortages. Many of its most experienced disaster recovery leaders are gone, with hurricane season arriving shortly.
  • Over a dozen Inspectors General and the director of the office that protects whistleblowers have been fired. These offices were specifically established to root out waste and fraud in government, so this is clearly NOT an effort to increase efficiency. It can only be seen as an effort to allow waste and fraud that benefits Trump, Musk, members of the administration, and their cronies.
  • The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been shut down. This is clearly NOT an effort to increase efficiency. It can only be seen as an effort to allow fraud and abusive financial practices that benefit Trump, Musk, and large banks, credit card, and financial companies.
  • The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its 15,000 employees will be cut by 65%.
  • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has lost 1,000 workers. Its weather, marine, and storm forecasts are essential to all Americans. It also operates the two U.S. tsunami warning centers and staff there have been fired.
  • The Small Business Administration has had 20% of its staff cut (720 people).
  • USAID has been shut down and on and on.

It is abundantly clear that the Trump administration, Musk, DOGE, and Republicans in Congress have no interest in efficiency or making government work better. They want to break our government and turn our democracy into a dictatorship. Mindlessly slashing hundreds of thousands of government workers is harming our safety in multiple ways and weakening our economy. It is increasing unemployment and the number of people who will need public assistance because they can’t pay the rent, afford health care, or pay for food and medicine. It reduces what these former government employees pay in taxes and contribute to the economy through their everyday spending.

I urge you to contact your US Representative and Senators and ask them to take action to stop the indiscriminate firing of government workers. You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Cox Richardson, H., 2/27/25, “Letters from an American,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-27-2025)

ECONOMIC BOYCOTT AND OTHER ACTIONS TO TAKE NOW TO RESIST

Here are three action opportunities to resist Trump and Republicans at the national and state levels.

ACTION #1: A national, 24-hour economic boycott will occur on Friday, Feb. 28. Please plan ahead so that on 2/28 you can:

  • NOT shop online or in stores; NOT make any purchases if at all possible. In particular, do NOT shop at Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and other stores that have dropped their DEI commitments.
  • NOT use credit cards, debit cards, or any electronic payment systems.
  • NOT click on ads on social media.

If you must make an emergency purchase (e.g., food, medicine), shop at small, local businesses and use cash if you can.

Please SPREAD THIS MESSAGE. Talk about it, post about it, share it, and document your actions on 2/28!

THIS MATTERS because retail, financial, and other corporations only care about their bottom line. A noticeable blip in their business, even for just a day, will send a powerful message.

ACTION #2: Blue Wave is running a postcard campaign in support of Wisconsin Democratic Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford. Election day is April 1. The outcome of the race will determine the balance of power on the Court through 2028. Maintaining the 4 – 3 Democratic majority is essential to protecting constitutional rights in Wisconsin (such as access to women’s reproductive health services), supporting unionization, requiring fair electoral maps, and ensuring free and fair elections in 2026 and beyond.

The postcards must be purchased in packets of 100 and come with stick-on address labels. (If you don’t want to do 100, find a friend to share the work.) They have a VERY short message for you to write and are a great way to help win this election.

More information about Judge Crawford and her campaign is here. Donate if you can.

ACTION #3: There are two special elections for seats in the U.S. House from Florida on April 1. As you know, the balance in the House between Democrats and Republicans is very close and winning these two seats would narrow the margin and give Democrats greater strength. For now, donate if you can. I’ll share other ways to get involved in the future.

Gay Valimont (Democrat) is running in the special election for Florida’s 1st congressional district. (The special election will fill the seat left by Matt Gaetz, who resigned from office after Trump nominated him for attorney general. Gaetz later withdrew from consideration for that position.)

More information about Ms. Valimont and her campaign is here.

Josh Weil (Democrat) is running in the special election for Florida’s 6th congressional district. (The special election will fill the seat left by Michael Waltz, who Trump nominated to serve as national security advisor.)

More information about Mr. Weil and his campaign is here.

STOP TRUMP NOMINEES FOR EDUCATION AND MEDICARE / MEDICAID NOW!

I strongly urge you to contact your US Senators NOW and demand that they block the confirmation of Trump nominees Linda McMahon for Secretary of Education and Dr. Mehmet Oz for Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS oversees health care for more than 150 million Americans. Call if you can or email your Senators. Here’s a sample message:

Please speak out loudly and clearly, and do everything in your power, to stop Linda McMahon from being confirmed as Secretary of Education and Dr. Oz from being confirmed as Administrator of CMS. Both nominees are extremely unqualified for these jobs. Maintaining our public education and health care systems is critical to the future of our country. Neither of these nominees has the experience or expertise to oversee these critical systems.

Please stop these nominees NOW! If you have to stage a sit-in in the Senate chamber to get the attention of your colleagues, the mainstream media, and the public, please do so. Dramatic action is required to stop these dramatically unqualified nominees.

You can find contact information for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

STOP MUSK AND DOGE FROM ACCESSING IRS RECORDS NOW!

I strongly urge you to contact your US Representative and Senators NOW and demand that they stop Musk and DOGE from accessing your (and everyone else’s) IRS records. Here’s a sample message:

Please speak out loudly and clearly, and do everything in your power, to stop Musk and his DOGE group from accessing IRS records. I do not want them looking at my financial and tax information at the IRS.

Sharing IRS records with anyone outside of the IRS typically results in jail time. IRS employees who access records without authorization are seriously disciplined.

There is absolutely no justification for Musk and DOGE having access to IRS records and the potential for harm is immense.

Please stop them NOW!

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

THE RESISTANCE IS GROWING

The resistance to the coup and dictatorship of President Trump and co-President Musk is growing. Non-violent resistance has overthrown many dictatorships in recent decades. There are a wide range of actions we can take to resist Trump and his cronies. Don’t acquiesce; participate in the resistance and fight back.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

President Trump and co-president Musk continue their deluge of destructive and generally illegal actions. Republicans in Congress and in the states are standing by mutely and acquiescing to everything Trump and Musk are doing. They are complicit in the coup.

Elsewhere, the resistance is growing. Democrats in Congress and on the ground are starting to find their voices although they need to speak out more frequently and more forcefully. Federal workers are starting to find their voices and, with the help of lawyers, to push back. Lawyers and the courts are starting to find their voices and to stand up for the rule of law.

All of us are starting to find our voices and are pushing back more and more, both individually and collectively. We need to be louder. We need to do more. We need to badger our elected officials into doing more. They are our elected representatives; they should represent us.

As the negative effects of Trump’s and Musk’s actions are starting to hit home, more and more Americans, including in Republican districts, are starting to pushback. For example, the farmers in the Midwest whose agricultural products are not being purchased by US AID for foreign aid are complaining about the loss of sales and the potential impact on the prices they get for their products.

My previous post suggested actions to take. Everyone can do something and every little bit of protest and resistance matters. These actions and many more (198 in total) are listed in the book From Dictatorship to Democracy (Gene Sharp, 2012, CPI Group Ltd., UK). It was originally published as a pamphlet in Bangkok in 1993 by the Committee for the Restoration of Democracy in Burma. The original pamphlet and now the book are viewed by many as the go-to guide for non-violent resistance. It played a key role in the uprisings of the Arab Spring in 2010 and 2011. These pro-democracy protests and revoltstook place in the Middle East and North Africa. They challenged and toppled entrenched authoritarian governments in Tunisia, Egypt, and most recently, after a long struggle, in Syria.

Since 1980, regime change through non-violent resistance has occurred in numerous countries, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, Madagascar, Mali, Bolivia, the Philippines, and the Ukraine. Significant non-violent resistance has taken place in numerous other countries including the Tiananmen Square protest in China and the protests in Hong Kong against the Chinese takeover.

Here in the U.S., we don’t face nearly as daunting a challenge as the people of these countries did, so I’m sure we can succeed. I’m not saying it will be quick or easy; it certainly wasn’t in most of these other examples. However, if we work together and each of us makes a commitment to do what we can, we will succeed.

As Sharp writes, dictators rely on the acquiescence of the people they rule. They need people to acquiesce to the authority they claim, i.e., to obey and often to cooperate or even assist the dictatorship. Refusing to acquiesce is a key piece of resistance. This applies not only to individuals but also to the organizations and institutions they are part of.

Dictatorships are inherently unstable because of lack of competency, inefficiency due to decision making based on favoritism and whims, internal strife due to personal and institutional conflicts and rivalries, and the instability of hierarchical power structures.

Sharp identifies three types of non-violent resistance:

  • Protest and persuasion
  • Non-cooperation
  • Intervention

Protest and persuasion can include:

  • Formal statements in speeches or in writing presented in the full range of media.
  • Symbolic acts, such as commemorating an event or person with a moment of silence or placing flowers at a relevant site, or by wearing buttons or relevant colors.
  • Physical acts, including protest rallies, marches, or sit-ins; as well as protest songs and acting performances in skits (such as SNL) or plays.

Non-cooperation is essential for effective resistance and has three sub-types:

  • Social actions, such as boycotts or cancellations of events, walkouts from social institutions or events, and turning one’s back at events.
  • Economic actions, including targeted or widespread consumer boycotts of companies, strikes (including a short-term general strike of all workers and all consumers), work slowdowns or sick-outs, and a refusal to cooperate from key experts.
  • Political actions, such as rejection of the dictator’s authority through speeches, writing, or actions; boycotting or blockading governmental buildings, agencies, or bodies; non-cooperation with government officials or agencies; and civil disobedience.

Intervention can include occupation of facilities, publicized fasting, overloading governmental administrative systems, exposing and publicizing the actions of and the individuals cooperating with the dictator’s regime, and mock trials of government officials.

There have been many local resistance actions and a national resistance movement is beginning to develop.

  • Friday, February 28, will be a one-day consumer economic boycott where customers will not buy anything and in particular will avoid using credit and debit cards and other electronic payment systems.
  • Saturday, April 19, appears to be developing as a day for nationwide rallies and marches.

Stay tuned. There’s much more to come.

RESIST! OUR DEMOCRACY IS IN DANGER

These are unprecedented and dangerous times for our democracy. Things are worse than I thought they’d be. President Trump and co-President Musk are hard at work attempting a coup to establish a dictatorship. They want to create chaos, fear, and despair, while breaking our government and destroying our democratic institutions. We as citizens of a democracy must take action to resist the coup and the would-be dictators. There are a very wide range of actions you can take. See options below.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

In November, just after the election, I wrote, “This is a post I never thought I’d write. In January, the United States of America will unequivocally become a plutocratic oligarchy with strong elements of fascism. …  we and our country are in for some dark and difficult times. Take care of yourself and nurture the strength for the fights ahead.

I’m not giving up hope or the values and principles I espouse in this blog. Things will get worse, perhaps much worse, before we can turn things around. The fight for democracy has often been hard, and, as I’ve written before, democracy is not a spectator sport.

After a period of mourning and to rest and recuperate from the shock and horror, we all need to get to work fighting for our democracy and the vulnerable members of our society.” (The post is here.)

Well, things are worse than I thought they’d be. I never thought I’d write that there’s a bloodless (so far) coup underway and that our President (and co-President) are hard at work attempting to establish a dictatorship.

Needless to say, these are unprecedented and dangerous times for our democracy. President Trump’s and co-President Musk’s actions have been far more aggressive, far-reaching, and damaging than I think anyone expected. Trump seems to be focused on foreign matters and Musk on domestic ones.

Their goal is clearly to create chaos, fear, and despair. They’re trying to break our government and destroy our democratic institutions. They don’t care about democracy, the rule of law, or anyone but themselves and their cronies.

In the maelstrom of all they’re doing, it’s important to sort the wheat from the chaff and focus on what’s having a crucial, and generally immediate, effect. A lot of what Trump is doing and saying is just hot air and smoke meant to distract from the really important actions.

Right now, I’d urge us to focus on the coup (that is what it is) they’re executing by single-handedly and illegally asserting control over government agencies and spending. We also need to focus on their efforts to destroy the rule of law, which is a cornerstone of democracy and an essential element of their coup.

They’re asserting dictatorial powers over the federal government and its spending, denying any role for Congress. So much for the checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches of government clearly spelled out in the Constitution. (By the way, don’t believe for a second that Trump and Musk have any allegiance to or intent to uphold the Constitution. When Trump swore at his inauguration to uphold the Constitution, that was the first lie of his second term.)

They’re flouting privacy laws by accessing information and data, including your and my personal data, without any authorization. They’re making each of us and our country less safe and secure. With the chaos they have caused at the Department of Justice and the FBI, we are more at risk for everything from ordinary crime to identity theft. Their breaching of sensitive federal government computer systems makes the government and each of us more vulnerable to hackers and cybercrime. The focus of the Secretary of Defense on the Mexican border and purging diversity, equity, inclusion, and transgender individuals from the military has diverted attention from real foreign threats. This makes us more vulnerable to terrorism and foreign attacks of all kinds.

Oh, and by the way, none of their actions have done anything to reduce inflation or bring down the price of groceries. Quite to the contrary, Trump’s spat and threatened tariffs on Columbia have spiked the price of coffee. And the failure and anticipated failure of the CDC to tackle the bird flu, have spiked the price of eggs. Not to mention the impact of tariffs on prices.

We as citizens of a democracy must take action to resist the coup and the would-be dictators. There are a very wide range of actions you can take; there’s something everyone can do, and every little bit helps.

I encourage you to contact your U.S. Representative and your Senators. Urge them to do whatever they can to block the illegal actions and coup by President Trump and co-President Musk. Call if you can (and if their voice mailboxes aren’t full) and try both local and Washington phone numbers. Or email them using their contact forms or email addresses. (You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.)

Here are some other ways to protest and resist. I also encourage you to be creative and come up with your own.

  • Wear a button, a T-shirt with a message, and/or a color symbolic of resistance.
  • Boycott X (formerly Twitter), Tesla, Amazon, The Washington Post, Facebook, etc. and/or protest in front of stores of companies that are capitulating to Trump.
  • Communicate. Talk to others, like and share resistance messaging on social media, and/or send letters to the editor of media outlets or submit online comments.
  • Join the protests in the streets.
  • Support those protesting and those resisting (e.g., government employees Trump and Musk are trying to fire, lawyers and non-profits filing lawsuits, etc.).
  • Give financial support to media that are standing up to Trump, to lawyers and organizations who are suing Trump and Musk, and to those organizing protests.
  • Get organizations you belong to and their leaders to speak out, e.g., religious organizations and clergy.

AMERICAN OLIGARCHS CAN’T STAY BEHIND THE CURTAIN

American oligarchs have tried to stay behind the curtain and to distract the public and the mainstream media from their schemes to get richer at the expense of the rest of us. The recent process of funding for the federal government opened the curtain a bit. The greed and power-lust of the oligarchs made their schemes hard to hide.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog is here.)

As you probably know, Congress just passed a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal government for the next three months. The Republicans have made Congress so dysfunctional that is has been unable to pass a normal budget since Clinton was President. Instead, it passes continuing resolutions to fund the government for a relatively short period of time. CRs typically extend previous programs and spending levels without any significant changes. Often this process unfolds with significant drama as a shutdown of the government due to lack of funding looms.

On December 21, 2024, Congress again ran right up to the shutdown deadline before passing a three-month CR. An earlier version of the CR (which had the bipartisan support needed to pass) was scuttled at the last minute by oligarch Elon Musk (and then 13 hours later by president-elect Trump). Musk threatened to fund opposition to any member of Congress who voted for the painstakingly negotiated CR. [1] (Musk, as you probably know is the multi-multi-billionaire who largely funded Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and that Trump has named to head the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). DOGE is not a real department, but rather a private advisory group. This means Musk has no accountability and is not covered by any of the ethics or disclosure laws that cover public employees.)

Musk’s opposition to the original CR was supposedly because it spent too much money. He falsely criticized it for including, among other things, a 40% pay raise for Congress (it’s actually 3.8%). However, good journalists have uncovered other motives for his opposition, in part by comparing the CR that finally passed with the one the Musk blocked.

The original CR included a provision that restricted American investments in technology businesses in China. This was a bipartisan measure targeted at keeping sensitive, national-security-related technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced “quantum” computing capability out of the hands of the Chinese government. However, Musk is investing in businesses in China and wants to build an AI data center there. This investment restriction would have limited Musk’s ability build and profit from his businesses in China. The provision was removed and was not in the final version of the CR that was passed. [2] [3]

Also not included in the final CR was a provision of the original version that would have reined in pharmacy benefit managers. These middlemen for drug sales were supposed to save consumers money but instead have figured out how to negotiate with drug makers and insurance companies to generate huge profits for themselves. (See this previous post for more details.)

Also dropped from the original CR were five provisions to tackle childhood cancer. Although at least some of this funding was approved in separate bills, there was widespread outrage that the victims of the first cuts to government spending driven by Musk were children with cancer.

These are examples of the things that were going on behind the curtain as Musk, Trump, and other Republicans were diverting everyone’s attention with a government funding crisis. This is how the oligarchs will wield their power – cutting funding for children with cancer and increasing what we pay for drugs while letting Musk and other billionaires make money investing in China while transferring sensitive technology there. This is how the rich get richer while the rest of us pay the costs and suffer the consequences. This is how oligarchy becomes a kleptocracy as the powerful use the government to take the public’s money and, directly or indirectly, put it in their own pockets.

This continuing resolution is just one small example of how this happens. More examples will be shared in future posts.

[1]      Cox Richardson, H., 12/21/24, “Letters from an American,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-21-2024)

[2]      Dayen, D., 12/20/24, “The government is shutting down because Elon Musk has factories in China,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/2024-12-20-government-shutting-down-elon-musk-factories-china/)

[3]      Kuttner, R., 12/21/24, “How Musk outmaneuvered Trump,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/2024-12-21-how-musk-outmaneuvered-trump-government-funding-china/)

WHAT’S UP WITH TRUMP’S CABINET NOMINATIONS?

President-elect Donald Trump has been announcing picks for his cabinet. They are, for the most part, remarkably unqualified; they lack expertise and experience relevant to the agencies’ missions, as well as experience running any sort of large organization.

Many people are wondering why he is nominating such unqualified individuals. Although I certainly don’t understand Trump, I can think of a range of possible answers. It’s probably a combination of these reasons. Trump may be:

  • Trying to be outrageous to generate media and public attention.
  • Trying to see how far he can push Republicans in the Senate to confirm unqualified nominees. This would be an exercise to exert and demonstrate his power and dominance.
  • Setting up a negotiating strategy where the pressure to confirm some of his unqualified nominees grows after the most outrageous ones are rejected.
  • Concerned only about loyalty. His sole or main criterion may be individuals who will do whatever he asks regardless of legality, ethics, or precedents.
  • Engaged in psychological warfare. He may be trying to scare, terrorize, and traumatize people who are worrying about the effects of having these individuals running the agencies. Trump will engage in “a shock and awe presidency” where he “will bombard this nation with so many reprehensible actions in rapid succession [that] many may cower in a kind of shell-shocked inaction. We’ll still be recovering from one blow when the next one lands.” [1]
  • Trying to make government dysfunctional. Not only do Republicans want smaller, less effective government so regulation of for-profit corporations is reduced, they want to privatize government functions so private providers can profit off them (e.g., Medicare Advantage plans). They also want the public to distrust government and even democracy. What better way to accomplish all of this than to have blatant examples of government dysfunction.
  • Wanting to have the second-in-command individuals, who he can appoint without Senate confirmation, run the agencies. This strategy is included in the Project 2025 plan for the Trump presidency. If the top positions go unfilled (because the Senate won’t confirm or is slow in confirming his nominees), his next-in-line appointees will be in charge.

Whatever happens with Trump’s nominees, there will be significant damage to the agencies and the government. The Democrats need to point out specific examples of actions that hurt the public – and the mainstream media need to report them. For example, if Trump imposes tariffs that drive up prices, Democrats and the media need to highlight this inflation and that it’s caused by Trump’s tariffs. If Trump doesn’t protect consumers from price gouging by monopolistic corporations and abuses by financial institutions, Democrats and the media need to highlight this.

The Democrats also need to point out specific examples of actions that hurt workers and to counter Trump’s claims that he is standing up for workers. For example, if Trump doesn’t support an increase in the minimum wage, doesn’t support unions and efforts to unionize, opposes covering more workers under overtime pay rules, and doesn’t support banning non-compete provisions in contracts employees are required to sign (this is what right-to-work should really be about), Democrats and the media need to highlight this. And so forth.

We cannot allow ourselves to be stunned or overwhelmed into inaction. Every little action and bit of resistance makes a difference and is a contribution to a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. There are elections for the U.S. House and Senate coming up in 2026 that will determine control of both chambers. Needless to say, if Democrats could take back control of one or both chambers that would serve as a powerful check on Trump and his supporters in the federal government and in the judiciary.

The effort to communicate with voters about the differences between Democratic policies and Trump and Republican policies needs to begin now. And Democrats need to be clear and unequivocal that they are standing up for consumers, workers, and everyday Americans, NOT for wealthy corporations and individuals.

We, as believers in democracy, need to identify firewalls and hurdles to block or slow the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine democracy and elections, harm vulnerable people, and implement harmful policies (including on climate change). Legal action through lawsuits will be necessary. These can serve to slow implementation of bad programs and policies, even if, ultimately, they get to a politicized Supreme Court that sides with Trump. This is using the classic Trump technique of using the court system to delay action.

Ultimately, there may need to be big demonstrations and even, perhaps, a general strike. Although there haven’t been big demonstrations since the Women’s March in 2016 and although these are rare in recent times in the U.S., it may be time. The general strike is a tactic unheard of in recent times in the U.S. However, in France, there were huge, mass demonstrations and a general strike in 2023 over efforts to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64. We face far more extreme political and policy changes than that, so perhaps we need to step up our level of engagement and action.

We need to monitor what Trump and his cronies are doing, but we shouldn’t let ourselves be unduly stressed by hypotheticals. We need to respond in ways that are effective and not waste time on minutia and tilting at windmills.

So, for starters, tell your Senators that you want a meaningful confirmation process for Trump’s nominees, who should be held to traditional criteria. Tell your Senators and Representative that you want them to stand up for democracy, for equality and fairness under the rule of law, for equal opportunity, for the Bill of Rights (including separation of church and state), and for government of, by, and for all the people – workers, families, and consumers – not just wealthy business people.

There’s much at risk: democracy, vulnerable people, and important policies, including addressing climate change, enforcing anti-trust laws to block abusive practices by monopolistic corporations, and ensuring free and fair elections where all citizens are encouraged to and facilitated in voting. I hope you agree. There’s much to be done and having all hands on deck will be important.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Graham, R., 11/24/24, “Disqualifying, extreme, and incompetent – Trump’s DEI Cabinet picks,” The Boston Globe

CONCERNED FOR OUR DEMOCRACY AND THE WELL-BEING OF MANY

This is a post I never thought I’d write. In January, the United States of America will unequivocally become a plutocratic oligarchy with strong elements of fascism. Before getting into details of what this means, I want to acknowledge that we and our country are in for some dark and difficult times. Take care of yourself and nurture the strength for the fights ahead.

I’m not giving up hope or the values and principles I espouse in this blog. Things will get worse, perhaps much worse, before we can turn things around. The fight for democracy has often been hard, and, as I’ve written before, democracy is not a spectator sport.

After a period of mourning and to rest and recuperate from the shock and horror, we all need to get to work fighting for our democracy and the vulnerable members of our society. We’ll need to roll up our sleeves, knowing that at times it will get ugly, down and dirty. This is our generation’s fight for democracy. It’s different than my parents’ fight of World War II, but we may need to show the same resolve and courage as they did in the 1940s in the face of what appeared at times to be overwhelming odds.

Here are some thoughts and messages that have helped me in this dark time and I hope will help you.

Kamala Harris in her concession speech: “ … in our nation, we owe loyalty not to a president or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States, and loyalty to our conscience and to our God. … My allegiance to all three is why I am here to say, while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuels this campaign, the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and the dignity of all people, a fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. …

“We will never give up the fight for our democracy, for the rule of law, for equal justice, and for the sacred idea that every one of us, no matter who we are or where we start out, has certain fundamental rights and freedoms that must be respected and upheld. … We will continue to wage this fight in the voting booth, in the courts and in the public square. … On the campaign, I would often say when we fight, we win. But here’s the thing, sometimes the fight takes a while. That doesn’t mean we won’t win. The important thing is don’t ever give up. Don’t ever give up.”

Liz Cheney, former U.S. Republican Representative from Wyoming, wrote: “We now have a special responsibility, as citizens of the greatest nation on earth, to do everything we can to support and defend our Constitution, preserve the rule of law, and ensure that our institutions hold over these coming four years. Citizens across this country, our courts, members of the press and those serving in our federal, state and local governments must now be the guardrails of democracy.”

Rebecca Solnit, writer and author of Hope in the Dark, wrote: “They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love. …

“People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran and people there are writing poetry. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good. You can keep walking whether it’s sunny or raining. Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.”

From the son of a friend who was with Obama after the 2016 election: “But I mostly remember Obama talking about how growing up biracial in America in the 60s and 70s he had lived through setbacks and agonizing, searing zigs and zags in history, and ultimately he had decided to stay in the fight and stay in the work and stay hopeful. And he challenged us — after taking some time to care for ourselves and mourn — to think about what we were going to do about it in the coming weeks and years.”

We need to fight and persevere because our federal government is going to be run by a small group (oligarchy) of wealthy (plutocracy), primarily white, supposedly Christian, men. They want this power so they can rule like kings, enhancing their wealth and their privileged status. They believe they deserve power because they think they are better people, including smarter and better decision makers, than the rest of us. They don’t really care about working people beyond conning them into voting for them by parroting populist rhetoric.

Although fascism doesn’t have a clear, agreed upon definition, the rhetoric and apparent plans for governing of Trump and his supporters have many elements of fascism. A key one is that the means of production of goods and services, as well as land and other property, remain in private hands. The owners of businesses and the holders of wealth typically work in coordination with government officials to mutually increase their wealth and power.

Fascism is authoritarian, a dictatorship or an oligarchy. Political and intellectual opposition are suppressed, sometimes violently. Other elements of fascism include a social hierarchy often based on race, national origin, and/or religion. It is built on extreme nationalism and a set of “traditional” social values. It denigrates pluralism and democracy that give voice and power to “others.” The nation’s interests (as defined by the rulers) supersede those of the individual, which is, of course, in direct contradiction to the Bill of Rights that America’s founders ensconced in our Constitution.

I’m all in for democracy and for protecting the vulnerable members of our society. I hope you are too. We’ve got our work cut out for us.

SHORT TAKES #16: MORE CORPORATE BAD BEHAVIOR

Here are summaries of three important stories that have gotten little attention in the mainstream media. These stories include corporations engaging in fraud and bribery, blocking competition to rip off businesses and consumers, and running unsafe prisons.

I share these stories of corporate bad behavior – and there are many more than I have time and space to share – for multiple reasons, including:

  • To puncture the prevalent myth that the private sector does no wrong and that it is efficient and effective in meeting needs and solving problems.
  • To demonstrate that the profit motive, coupled with the greed of corporate executives and investors, is so powerful that for many individuals it will corrupt their behavior in ways both small and large (e.g., de la Torre of Steward Health, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling of Enron, and many others).
  • To make it clear that the private sector needs regulation to protect consumers, workers, and the public.
  • To show that the public shouldn’t trust what corporations say because they have a huge financial interest in hiding harms they may be causing (e.g., tobacco, global warming, toxicity of pesticides and other chemicals, etc.).
  • To document that the current punishments and penalties are too little to change corporate executives’ behavior. Often, the punishments and penalties are simply considered a cost of doing business.
  • To demonstrate that privatization of public functions and public goods (e.g., health care, drinking water systems, etc.) is not a wise idea.
  • To document that corporations are relentless over time and across multiple strategies (campaign spending, lobbying, the revolving door of personnel in and out of government regulatory positions, etc.) in their efforts to bend policy (taxes, regulation, punishments, etc.) and enforcement to their benefit. They are immortal, after all, and can and do outwait and out persevere most individuals and government agencies who try to rein in their power and misbehavior.

If you want to get a sense of the overall scale of corporate bad behavior visit this Violation Tracker database compiled by Good Jobs First.

STORY #1: RTX Corporation, formerly Raytheon, has agreed to pay $950 million in penalties for defrauding the government and paying foreign bribes. RTX entered into three-year deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) with federal authorities in MA and NY. These mean the corporation won’t be prosecuted if it exhibits good conduct (i.e., complies with anticorruption and antifraud laws) for the next three years. [1] It also means the corporation doesn’t have to plead guilty and that its records and executives are not the subject of depositions and court testimony, which keeps the detailed information on the violations and investigations from being made public.

RTX inflated its revenue from government contracts by at least $111 million by lying about labor and materials costs, as well as double-billing. RTX paid bribes to a high-ranking Qatari military official to get lucrative contracts with the Qatari military. This violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Arms Export Control Act.

RTX and its subsidiaries are repeat violators. Most recently, in August the corporation agreed to a $200 million penalty for more than two dozen violations of the Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The violations included the corporation providing classified military aircraft data to China and employees taking classified information on company laptops into Russia, Iran, and Lebanon.

Here’s Good Jobs First’s documentation of the violations of RTX and its subsidiaries since 2000. Prior to this latest $950 million settlement, there were 133 violations that resulted in penalties totaling $550 million.

STORY #2: The U.S. Justice Department has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa for stifling competition in the debit card business. The suit alleges that Visa penalizes banks and businesses that don’t use Visa’s payment processing system to process debit transactions. Visa’s processing system handles 60% of debit transactions in the U.S. and charges over $7 billion in fees. The suit alleges that Visa uses its dominance to stifle competition and extract billions of dollars in excessive fees from businesses and consumers. [2]

The Justice Department’s complaint relies heavily on Visa’s own statements of corporate strategy. For example, Visa’s stated strategy is to “partner with emerging players before they become disruptors.” As a result, it offers big incentives (up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually) to financial system innovators like Apple Pay and PayPal for NOT competing and NOT disrupting Visa’s dominance. [3]

Visa and its allies have spent over $80 million lobbying against the Credit Card Competition Act, which would save consumers and businesses an estimated $15 billion annually.

STORY #3: The U.S. Justice Department has announced an investigation into reports of recurring and sometimes deadly violence at the privately run Trousdale Prison in Tennessee; reports which have been endemic since it was opened in 2016 by CoreCivic. CoreCivic is the largest private prison corporation in the U.S. with a value of over $1.4 billion. It has four prisons and two jails in TN and, since 2016, has spent more than $4.4 million on nearly 80 settlements over 22 deaths of inmates and dozens of other mistreatment complaints. TN has fined CoreCivic $38 million since 2016 for contract violations and the state comptroller has released scathing audit reports three times. But CoreCivic is active with its political spending and state leaders downplay the problems and renew the state’s contracts with it. [4]

There have been over 300 deaths at the four CoreCivic prisons in TN since 2016; some due to natural causes, but some due to violence and some appear to be due to medical neglect. Inmate complaints allege murders, brutal beatings, physical and sexual assaults, medical neglect, and cruelty. In its settlements, CoreCivic does not admit guilt and typically requires the other parties to a settlement to agree to refrain from talking about their complaint or the settlement.

Severe staffing shortages and unchecked flows of contraband contribute to the problems at the CoreCivic facilities. Even the prison guards report that they feel unsafe because of the understaffing.

[1]      Offenhartz, J., & Sisak, M. R., 10/17/24, “RTX to pay $950m to resolve fraud allegations,” The Boston Globe from the Associated Press

[2]      Associated Press, 9/25/24, “Business Talking Points – Financial,” The Boston Globe

[3]      Kuttner, R., 9/25/24, “The Justice Department challenges Visa’s predatory power,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-09-25-justice-department-challenges-visas-predatory-power/)

[4]      Mattise, J., Loller, T., & Hall, K. M., 10/14/24, “Tenn. prison operator under US scrutiny,” The Boston Globe from the Associated Press

CORRUPT MANAGEMENT OF PRESCRIPTION DRUG INSURANCE

The Federal Trade Commission is suing the three dominant prescription drug insurance managers for practices that it alleges have spiked the price of insulin in the U.S. The suit claims these drug insurance managers have been “engaging in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices that have artificially inflated the list price of insulin drugs and impaired patients’ access to lower” cost alternatives. Drug insurance management was originally a cost-control effort that morphed into a profit center by getting rebates (i.e., kickbacks) from drug makers.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog is here.)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is suing the three largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) for practices that it alleges have spiked the price of insulin in the U.S. to over 12 times what it was 20 years ago. PBMs are middlemen that manage the costs of prescription drug coverage for health insurers. They determine which drugs an insurance plan will pay for, what the co-pay for patients will be, and how much pharmaceutical manufacturers will be paid for their drugs. [1]

The FTC is suing Caremark Rx, Express Scripts, and Optum Rx, which process 80% of all prescription drug purchases in the U.S., for “engaging in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices that have artificially inflated the list price of insulin drugs and impaired patients’ access to lower” cost alternatives. Each of these PBMs has roughly $100 billion in annual revenue and is tied to a large insurance corporation: Caremark Rx to CVS, Express Scripts to Cigna, and Optum Rx to UnitedHealth.

The FTC’s suit does not come as a surprise. Last year, numerous local governments sued these three PBMs and the three large insulin manufacturers alleging they had conspired to increase the price of insulin. [2]

PBMs were originally created by insurance corporations to manage the growing costs of prescription drugs. The initial intent was to save insurance corporations and patients money by negotiating lower prices with the drug makers and incentivizing patients to use lower cost drugs, particularly generic drugs as opposed to brand name drugs. A key part of these efforts was the creation of lists of drugs the PBM and insurer would pay for along with a tiered set of co-pays for patients to incentivize the use of lower cost drugs. These lists are known as “formularies.” [3]

The PBMs discovered they could turn this cost-control effort into a profit center by getting rebates (i.e., kickbacks) from the pharmaceutical manufacturers by paying them well for their drugs and incentivizing patients to use those drugs.

This created all sorts of perverse incentives. The PBMs could increase their profits by steering patients to brand name drugs with higher prices and co-pays (as opposed to cheaper generic drugs) because the PBMs got bigger rebates on the higher priced drugs. The PBMs could also increase their profits and rebates by paying the drug makers inflated prices for their drugs, because that allowed the drug makers to give them bigger rebates (also sometimes referred to as discounts). However, this drove up the “list prices” of these drugs so that people without health insurance (or with health insurers other than those linked to these PBMs) paid more.

The FTC suit focuses on insulin, although the illegal practices it charges the PBMs with apply to all prescription drugs. In the case of insulin, the PBMs’ formularies (i.e., list of approved drugs) include only certain types or brands of insulin. These are typically NOT the lowest price insulin products but the ones that give the PBMs the highest rebates and profits. Their collusion with the insulin product makers to maximize their rebates and profits, drives up the price of these insulin products for all users. The FTC has warned drug manufacturers that their complicity in the PBMs’ practices raises serious concerns and that they may be named as defendants in future FTC actions.

As background, insulin was invented in the 1920s and the inventors refused to patent it to make it as readily and cheaply available as possible. Today, three pharmaceutical corporations control the market for insulin: Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi. They’ve used their market power to unjustifiably increase the price of insulin. For example, Eli Lilly’s leading insulin product, Humalog, costs 13 times more now, $274 a dose, than it did in 1999 when it was $21.

Two interesting notes: First, Express Scripts has sued the FTC for defamation over the findings of its study of the PBMs’ behaviors. These findings were a precursor to the FTC’s lawsuit. Second, the FTC is also looking at the PBMs’ practices that favor certain, often affiliated pharmacy chains (such as CVS in the case of Caremark) and harm other pharmacies, particularly independent (i.e., non-chain) pharmacies. These, probably illegal, practices reduce competition in the pharmacy business.

As noted, these practices of the PBMs and the pharmaceutical corporations are by no means limited to insulin. The City of Baltimore is suing drug maker Biogen alleging illegal collusion with the three big PBMs to block competition for its brand name multiple sclerosis (MS) drug, Tecfidera. Biogen has regularly increased the price of the drug from $52,500 for a year’s supply in 2013 to $90,000 in 2019, so the drug now provides almost half of Biogen’s revenue. [4] Biogen’s patent on the drug was expiring and it was desperate to maintain the revenue stream and its profits. The suit alleges that Biogen paid the three PBMs to structure their drug formularies to promote the use of its drug rather than lower-cost generic drugs. Biogen calls the payments “rebates” or “fees,” but, in reality, they are good, old-fashioned kickbacks.

Kentucky is suing Express Scripts alleging that it colluded with opioid makers to increase opioid sales through deceptive marketing and other strategies. The result was a deadly, on-going opioid addiction crisis that was linked to roughly 75,000 deaths nationwide in the last year. [5]

There are bills in Congress and in state legislatures that would tackle various elements of PBMs’ corrupt practices. I’ll keep you posted if any of the bills in Congress look like they may move forward. In the meantime, you might want to raise this issue with your state representative or senator, or your state’s public health agency, to learn if they are taking steps to stop the anti-competitive practices of PBMs.

[1]      Dayen, D., 9/20/24, “FTC sues PBMs for jacking up insulin prices,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/health/2024-09-20-ftc-sues-pbms-jacking-up-insulin-prices/)

[2]      Silverman, E. 9/26/24, “Baltimore sues Biogen, accusing it of blocking generic MS drugs,” The Boston Globe from Stat News

[3]      Editorial, 7/30/24, “Reining in pharmacy benefit managers,” The Boston Globe

[4]      Silverman, E. 9/26/24, see above

[5]      Schreiner, B., 9/28/24, “Kentucky sues Express Scripts,” The Boston Globe from the Associated Press

SHORT TAKES #12: BIG BUSINESS RIP-OFFS: DRUGS AND PET CARE

Private equity firms are invading the pet care business and ripping off pet owners. The big pharmaceutical corporations are ripping off U.S. customers with high drug prices.

Here are short takes on three important stories that have gotten little attention in the mainstream media. Each provides a quick summary of the story, a hint as to why it’s important, and a link to more information. The first item describes the invasion of private equity firms into the pet care business. The other two describe U.S. drug pricing by the big pharmaceutical corporations.

STORY #1: Some private equity, vulture capitalism firms (see this previous post for why this terminology is appropriate) have targeted the pet care sector because they know that pet owners are willing to spend lots of money on their pets, especially when pets have medical or health issues. Over the past decade, private equity firms have spent billions buying up veterinary practices and now own almost 30% of them. The private equity firms make big and quick profits by increasing prices, reducing quality of care, and making working conditions onerous for veterinarians. (This mimics what private equity firms have done in the health care system for humans. See previous posts here and here.) Since 2014, prices for veterinary services have risen by 60%. At least one of the private equity firms is also buying up pet insurance companies. [1]

Veterinarians at private equity-owned practices have reported being overworked and pressured to sell pet owners expensive tests and procedures that may, in some cases, not be needed or appropriate. Some of the private equity managers tie veterinarians’ pay to the amount of revenue they generate.

I urge you to contact President Biden and ask him to direct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to take strong action to stop private equity acquisitions in the pet care industry and to rein in private equity firms and their practices in general. You can email President Biden at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414.

I also urge you to contact your U.S. Representative and Senators to ask them to support the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, which would rein in the private equity industry’s vulture capitalism. You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

STORY #2: The huge pharmaceutical corporation, Novo Nordisk, has been spending millions on lobbying and campaign contributions seeking to increase coverage of its weight-loss drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy, by Medicare and Medicaid, as well as to block regulation of their prices. Both drugs have the same active ingredient, semaglutide. In 2017, Ozempic was approved for adults with Type 2 diabetes (aka late onset or adult diabetes) to aid in appetite and weight control. In 2021, Wegovy was approved for weight loss. (Interestingly, neither of these drugs has been approved for use by people with Type 1 diabetes, the chronic life-long version of diabetes (aka juvenile or insulin-dependent diabetes.) Medicare and Medicaid only cover Ozempic for Type 2 diabetes patients and Wegovy only for patients with cardiovascular risks. Novo Nordisk is lobbying for expanded coverage that would include other patients.

Novo Nordisk has been spending about $4 million per year on lobbying since 2017. In 2023, it spent over $5 million on lobbying, hiring 77 lobbyists from 13 firms, 54 of whom had come through the revolving door, i.e., had previously been in government jobs. [2]

Since the 2013-2014 election cycle, Novo Nordisk-affiliated entities have averaged over $600,000 in campaign contributions in each of the five two-year election cycles. In the current 2023-2024 election cycle, its political action committee (PAC), executives, and employees had already made $500,000 in campaign contributions by June 30. This adds up to more than $3.5 million over 12 years.

Novo Nordisk has also engaged in aggressive marketing to increase the use of the Ozempic and Wegovy, spending $471 million on marketing them in 2023 alone. Their marketing campaign has been very successful and it’s estimated that 15.5 million Americans (6% of the population) have now used one of these injectable weight-loss drugs. This has led to shortages for the diabetics who need them the most.

Novo Nordisk charges about $1,000 per month for Ozempic injections in the U.S. In Canada, this costs about $150 and in Germany around $60, because prices there are regulated.

STORY #3: On the issue of drug prices in general, a 2021 RAND Corporation study found that drug prices in the U.S. average 2.56 times the prices in 32 comparable nations. For name brand drugs, it’s 3.44 times as much. In August 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act that allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices. (Price negotiation had been prohibited by the Medicare drug benefit law signed by President G. W. Bush.) Every Republican in Congress voted against the Inflation Reduction Act and Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote that allowed the bill to pass in the Senate and go to Biden to be signed into law.

Medicare recently announced agreements with pharmaceutical companies for negotiated prices on ten drugs. The new prices are from 38% to 79% less than the current list prices. These prices would have saved the government about $6 billion last year if they had been in effect. About 9 million people use these ten drugs and will save about $1.5 billion a year in out-of-pocket costs after the new prices go into effect on January 1, 2026. [3]

[1]      Perez, A., 8/7/24, “‘Life and death’ for pets: Elizabeth Warren targets firm buying veterinary offices,” Rolling Stone (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elizabeth-warren-targets-private-equity-firm-veterinary-offices-1235075465/)

[2]      Cook, M., 7/25/24, “Ozempic-producer Novo Nordisk on track for record spending on lobbying in 2024,” Open Secrets (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2024/07/ozempic-producer-novo-nordisk-on-track-for-record-spending-on-lobbying-in-2024/)

[3]      Richardson, H. C., 8/15/24, “Letters from an American blog,” https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-15-2024

THE SUPREME COURT’S THREATS TO OUR DEMOCRACY AND HOW TO FIGHT BACK

Based on the recent decisions by the Supreme Court’s six radical, reactionary justices, we should all be in the streets protesting. Their decisions undermine the Constitution and our system of government. For those of us who want to keep our democracy, we need to fight back and protest in whatever ways we can, starting with getting out to vote and voting for every office on your ballot in every election.

(If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog! Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog is here.)

Based on the recent decisions by the Supreme Court’s six radical, reactionary justices, we should all be in the streets protesting. Their recent decisions undermine the Constitution and our system of government. Their presidential immunity decision violates the principle that everyone is subject to the rule of law (see this previous post for more details).

In addition, in late June, the Supreme Court’s six radical, reactionary justices, in their Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision, overturned a 40-year-old Supreme Court precedent and over 200 years of precedent in practice. They ruled that the courts should not defer to the expertise of federal executive branch agencies on the details of the implementation of laws. [1]

The authority of executive branch agencies to make the detailed decisions necessary to implement laws had been the practice and core of our system of government for over 200 years. It was upheld and formalized by the Supreme Court in 1984 in a case that established the so-called “Chevron doctrine,” which said that the court system should defer to executive branch agencies’ expertise in interpreting and implementing laws. That decision reflected the Court’s belief and understanding from the Constitution that policy decisions should be responsive to the voters and their elected representatives, not made by unelected federal judges with lifetime appointments. Therefore, policy decisions should be in the hands of the president, the head of the executive branch and its agencies, and Congress, which writes the laws.

Based on the Court’s Loper Bright ruling, federal judges now have the power to determine the interpretation and implementation of laws. This means that agencies’ expertise and process in establishing rules and regulations can now be superseded by the courts. This takes crucial decision making out of the hands of experts and scientists at federal agencies and hands it to federal judges. Judges don’t have the expertise to make these decisions. The roughly 800 judges that make up the federal judicial system have widely varied philosophical and ideological views that mean there will be contradictory rulings that will create confusion and even chaos in the court system and in our economy and society. Furthermore, the workload of reviewing challenges to the thousands of decisions that executive branch agencies make in implementing laws is likely to bog down and maybe overwhelm the court system. Even Congress does not have the capacity to micromanage the implementation of the laws it passes, so it leaves this work to the fourteen executive branch agencies, their over 1 million employees, and their expertise. (The Department of Defense is the fifteenth executive branch agency and has over 3 million employees, but has less of a role in establishing rules and regulations that affect civilian society.)

The door is now open for court challenges to rules and regulations on, for example, public safety, public health, and environmental protection, such as protecting the public from pollution, unsafe and contaminated food, and unsafe working conditions. The approval of drugs and the regulation of drug prices are now susceptible to court challenges. The details of safety standards for aircraft construction and air travel, as well as the detailed regulations of financial instruments and institutions are now subject to court review. The federal requirements for services for children with special needs can now be challenged in the courts. And on and on and on. Some expert legal observers are worried that a likely plethora of challenges to rules and regulations could lead to legal and administrative chaos in the federal judiciary and regulatory agencies.

An important effect of these recent Supreme Court decisions by the six radical, reactionary justices is that more power has been arrogated to the court system and ultimately to the Supreme Court. In the Loper Bright case it’s power over rules and regulations and in the presidential immunity case, the courts will now decide which presidential acts are immune official acts, which aren’t, and what evidence can be used in a trial. Note that these rulings have created a strong president at the head of the executive branch but weak executive branch agencies. This is just another contradiction in the dramatic lack of coherence in the Court’s decisions.

The six radical, reactionary Supreme Court justices are not behaving as good-faith players in a constitutional democracy. They have overturned the balance of power among the three branches of government established by the Constitution, undermined its checks and balances, and made the courts (i.e., themselves) the supreme rulers and the ultimate arbiters of all legislative and executive branch decisions.

For those of us who want a democracy, with government of, by, and for the people, operating under the rule of law, rather than an authoritarian government overseen by an imperial president and an all-powerful cadre of six radical Supreme Court justices, we need to fight back and protest in whatever ways we can: [2]

  • Write letters to the editor, post on social media, call in to talk shows on the radio, etc.,
  • Talk with family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors,
  • Participate in local events and demonstrations,
  • Donate money to good organizations and candidates,
  • Volunteer in local government and local organizations,
  • Engage in local government and politics, perhaps even run for an elected position, and
  • Most of all, get out and vote and get everyone you know to do so as well.

On this last point, getting out to vote, I encourage you to vote for every office on your ballot in every election. In addition to federal offices, state and local elections and offices matter greatly. They affect your everyday life, your local schools, and the well-being of everyone in your local community. They also are the proving ground and pipeline for candidates for higher offices. I painfully note (as someone who was a proud independent until the days of President Reagan and who viewed local elections as non-partisan until 20 years ago) that the Republican Party, at least everywhere that I can see, has become the party of Trump and authoritarianism, of the wealthy, and of the large corporations. Therefore, I encourage you to scrutinize any Republican you might vote for very carefully, and, when in doubt, to vote for Democrats – all the way down the ballot to your local offices. (For more on the importance of “down ballot” races, see this blog post from Robert Hubbell.)

Democrats need to be in control of Congress and the presidency so the Supreme Court can be reformed. It clearly needs enforceable ethics rules. Perhaps most importantly, the Court needs to be expanded to counteract the two seats that were stolen by Republicans and have given the radical, reactionary justices control. There are other reforms that should be considered, such as term limits. See this previous post for some options for reforming the Supreme Court.

[1]      Turrentine, J., 6/28/24, “The Supreme Court ends Chevron deference – What now?” Natural Resources Defense Council (https://www.nrdc.org/stories/what-happens-if-supreme-court-ends-chevron-deference)

[2]      Pepper, D., 2023, “Saving democracy: A user’s manual for every American,” St. Helena Press, Cincinnati, Ohio.

OUR DEMOCRACY’S CHALLENGES ARE SERIOUS AND LONGSTANDING Part 2

Our democracy’s challenges are serious and longstanding. I presented an overview of the challenges, some history, and then focused on the selection of the president via the undemocratic Electoral College, including how to fix it, in a previous post. This post focuses on Congress. The Senate is a long way from the one person, one vote representation on which democracy is typically built. The extreme gerrymandering of some U.S. House districts (and of some state legislative seats) means that democracy is subverted there too. Finally, the Supreme Court has allowed elections to be held with gerrymandered districts.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog is here.)

Like the process of selecting the president via the Electoral College, the process for electing members of Congress is also flawed and undemocratic. The Senate, while established in the Constitution at two seats per state, is blatantly unconstitutional under the “one person, one vote” standard established by the Supreme Court in the 1960s based on the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. Although Senators are elected now rather than appointed by state legislatures (due to the 17th amendment to the Constitution in 1913), Senate representation is clearly undemocratic based on a state-to-state comparison. [1] For example, a California Senator represents the state’s 39 million people, over 67 times the 581,000 people a Wyoming Senator represents.

All Representatives in the U.S. House do represent similar numbers of people, but in some states the districts are so gerrymandered that they do not reflect the population of the state politically or racially. In part because of partisan gerrymandering, very few House elections are competitive. In 2022, only 30 out of the 435 House seats had a margin of victory of less than four-percentage points (i.e., 52% to 48% or closer). [2]

Gerrymandering, which is the manipulation of the boundaries of an electoral district to predetermine the outcome based on party, race, incumbency, or other factors, has been happening for a long time. Gerrymandering has become more blatant and effective in the 21st century because computers and mapping software now allow more sophisticated mapping using more detailed data.

In the redrawing of U.S. House districts after the 2010 Census, independent analyses find that Republicans engaged in extreme partisan gerrymandering in seven states. Partisan gerrymandering is accomplished by packing as many supporters of the opposition party as possible into as few districts as possible. The opponents will win these seats overwhelmingly. Meanwhile, supporters of the favored party are spread more evenly across the other districts, so this party will comfortably win as many seats as possible. Partisan gerrymandering has also dramatically affected thousands of seats in state legislatures.

The best estimates are that, through gerrymandering, Republicans captured between 15 and 20 more seats in the House (out of 435) than would have been expected otherwise. After the 2022 elections, the Republicans controlled the House by a margin of just five votes (which has now shrunk to one vote due to resignations and a removal). For example, in South Carolina and Wisconsin the Republicans’ percentage of each state’s House seats is about 26-percentage points higher than the percentage of their vote in statewide races. (In SC: Republicans got roughly 60% of the vote in the Governor’s and Senator’s races but, due to gerrymandering, won 6 out of 7 House seats, 86%. In WI: Republicans got roughly 49% of the vote in the Governor’s and Senator’s races but, due to gerrymandering, won 6 out of 8 House seats, 75%.)

Extreme partisan gerrymandering means that officials get elected by a small handful of their constituents – those who vote for them in the primary election (where turnout is typically very low). Given that the party that will win the general election is in most cases pre-determined by gerrymandering or a district’s natural political characteristic, the winning candidate is selected by the small number of voters who are motivated enough to turn out and vote in the primary election. These are typically the party’s most committed and partisan voters. The result is that elected officials are in effect picking their voters, rather than most voters having any real choice about who their elected representative will be. (See this previous post for more details on gerrymandering and its undermining of democracy.)

The Supreme Court, prior to the 2022 elections, blocked the implementation of changes to House districts in at least seven states despite lower courts’ rulings that the districts were unconstitutionally gerrymandered. After the election, it confirmed that the districts were unconstitutional. This probably delivered at least seven seats to Republicans that otherwise would have gone to Democrats. (See this previous post for more detail on the Supreme Court’s rulings and their effects on the election.) The shift of five seats from Republicans to Democrats would have changed the control of the House, which would have made a dramatic difference in policy making in the House and for the country. It’s hard to believe that the Supreme Court’s actions and timing were anything but blatantly political.

Racial and partisan gerrymandering are closely linked because a large percentage of Blacks typically vote for Democrats. Racial gerrymandering is still very much present in the south. For example, in Alabama, there are seven congressional districts. Twenty-seven percent of the population is Black (and four percent is in other non-white categories), but by packing as many Black voters into one district as possible and splitting up the other Black voters among the other districts, there is only one Black-majority district in the state. The courts have ordered the creation of another Black-majority district but Alabama officials have been resistant. From a partisan perspective, Alabama Republicans got 67% of the vote in the Governor’s and U.S. Senator’s race but, because of gerrymandering, won 86% of the House seats (6 of 7), a 19-percentage point difference.

Similarly, in Louisiana, there are six congressional districts. A third of the population is Black, but, again, by packing as many Black voters into one district as possible and splitting up the other Black voters among the other districts, there is only one Black-majority district in the state. From a partisan perspective, Louisiana Republicans got 62% of the vote in the U.S. Senator’s race but, because of gerrymandering, have 83% of the House seats (5 of 6), a 21-percentage point difference.

My next post will present ways to reduce partisan and racial gerrymandering, which would make our elections for the U.S. House (and state legislatures) more democratic, i.e., more representative of a state’s and district’s population.

[1]      Dayen, D., 1/29/24, “America is not a democracy,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/2024-01-29-america-is-not-democracy/)

[2]      Leaverton, C., 1/20/23, “Three takeaways on redistricting and competition in the 2022 midterms,” Brennan Center for Justice (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/three-takeaways-redistricting-and-competition-2022-midterms)

OUR DEMOCRACY’S CHALLENGES ARE SERIOUS AND LONGSTANDING Part 1

Our democracy is in real trouble – and always has been. The current crisis of ensuring a peaceful transition of power based on election results is very serious. However, there are other serious problems with our elections including voter suppression, gerrymandering, huge sums of money from wealthy interests, and the Electoral College. This post provides an historical overview and then focuses on the Electoral College and how to fix it.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog is here.)

Our democracy is in real trouble – and always has been. The current crisis is ensuring a peaceful transition of power based on election results and it’s an immediate, very real, and very serious threat. The possibility of electing an authoritarian, dictatorial government in the next presidential election, one that would ignore the will of the voters in policy making and in future elections, is significant.

However, the problems with our elections go much deeper than simply honoring the will of the voters. Other serious problems include voter suppression (using many strategies), gerrymandered districts, huge sums of money in campaigns from wealthy individuals and corporations, and the Electoral College, which allows someone to win the presidency with far less than a majority of the votes.

Before delving into these issues and solutions for them, a little history and perspective are valuable. Our Founding Fathers had limited confidence in true democracy, despite their truly radical statement that all men are created equal. Even putting aside their limited vision that included only white men and no women, they put serious limits on a government supposedly operating based on the consent of the governed, which is reflected in multiple elements of the government they created. [1]

For example, U.S. Senators were appointed not elected (until a Constitutional Amendment in 1913), the Electoral College not the voters select the President, the Constitution is very difficult to amend, and the checks and balances of the three branches of government have a built in a bias toward the status quo and make major policy changes difficult. Furthermore, elections are winner take all; proportional representation (to ensure that minority voices are included in government) is not included.

In part this was because the Founding Fathers were designing a government for a small, agrarian country and could not envision the demands on government of today’s complex, fast changing society and world. They created a government where major policy changes are difficult unless there is a strong, broad consensus – and it’s painfully obvious how difficult that is to achieve these days.

The national government today is unstable because it often does not respond expeditiously to the will of the voters. This is typical of political systems where a strong president is elected separately from the legislative branch and where the legislative branch has two equally powerful chambers. This structure and the status quo bias of the government’s checks and balances make responsiveness to voters difficult. Voters quickly get frustrated with the inability of the officials they have just elected to respond to their wishes and therefore tend to vote for the other party in the next election.

In the national elections since 2006, party control of at least one chamber of Congress or the presidency has changed hands in every election except in 2012 (when President Obama was re-elected, Democrats maintained control of the Senate, and Republican maintained control of the House). Since 1980, there’s been a politically divided federal government over 70% of the time. In other words, the presidency and both chambers of Congress have been held by the same party less than 30% of the time. Therefore, it’s been rare that either party has been able to definitively advance its policy agenda.

Winner-take-all elections (as opposed to proportional representation in multi-candidate districts) are a major reason the U.S. has two party politics and a fluctuation of control back and forth. Other parties have little chance of electing any of their candidates and, therefore, are seen as spoilers, not serious options, in elections.

When democratic governments have been setup around the world, including in U.S.-led efforts after World War II and the war in Iraq, the U.S. model has not typically been used. Of the 78 relatively stable democracies in the world, only four use the U.S. model of a strong, head-of-government president and a legislature that are elected in separate voting in winner-take-all elections (U.S., Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone).

The more frequent model for democracies is a parliamentary system. In a parliamentary system the head of the government, usually the prime minister, is the leader of the party or coalition that controls the parliament (i.e., the legislative body). (There is typically only one legislative chamber and if there is a second one, it typically has very limited power.) The president is typically a largely ceremonial figurehead (i.e., a head of state rather than a head of government). If the governing party or coalition in parliament cannot pass its policy agenda, an election is usually quickly held to elect a parliament that can advance its policy agenda.

The Electoral College system of selecting the U.S. President is particularly undemocratic and unstable. A state-based, winner-take-all model prevails in awarding Electoral College votes to the presidential candidates. (Only two states, Maine and Nebraska, split their electors between the presidential candidates.) What this means is that the presidential election is decided in a small number of “swing” states (typically four to maybe 12) by the tiny share of the overall electorate in those states who are the “swing” voters (about 400,000 voters or ¼ of one percent of the total votes cast of roughly 160 million). Moreover, because each state’s electoral votes are the sum of its number of U.S. Representative and Senators, the Electoral College votes are far from the democratic one person one vote standard. Most dramatically, each California Elector represents more than 700,000 people while each Wyoming Elector represents fewer than 200,000 people.

The easiest way to fix the Electoral College problem is to get states with a majority of the Electoral College votes to pass a National Popular Vote (NPV) law. This law simply states that the state’s electoral college votes will go to the presidential candidate with the most popular votes nationally. However, the law won’t go into effect in any state until enough states have passed it to make up a majority of the Electoral College votes (i.e., 270 votes). So far, it has been enacted in 17 states and Washington, D.C., which adds up to 209 electoral college votes. (D.C. has 3 votes even though it has no votes in Congress.) So, only 61 more votes from as few as five more states are needed for NPV to go into effect. In eight states with 80 electoral college votes, it has passed either one or both chambers of the state legislature. You can see the status of NPV in your state here.

If your state is one that hasn’t passed NPV, particularly if it’s one of the states where at least one chamber of the legislature has passed it, please contact your state legislators and urge them to pass it. There’s a nice one-page description of NPV and its status that you may find of interest or want to share with your state legislators here.

There will be more on the challenges facing our democracy and ways to strengthen it in future posts.

[1]      Dayen, D., 1/29/24, “America is not a democracy,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/2024-01-29-america-is-not-democracy/)

SHORT TAKES ON IMPORTANT STORIES #6: GOOD NEWS!

Here are short takes on five important good news stories that have gotten little attention in the mainstream media. Each provides a quick summary of the story, a hint as to why it’s important, and a link to more information.

STORY #1: States Newsroom, the country’s largest state-focused non-profit news organization, now has a full-time presence in all 50 state capitals. Its network has 39 freestanding newsrooms and, in the other 11 states, partnerships with state-focused, non-profit news organizations. It has 220 full-time employees and an annual budget of over $22 million. Statehouse policy and politics are the major focuses of its reporting, with full-time reporters covering every state legislature. It does not accept any corporate funding and publicly discloses all contributions of over $1,000. In addition to news, it publishes commentary that is clearly labeled as such, is completely separated from its news reporting, and is pro-transparency and pro-democracy. It does not publish commentary from current office holders or candidates. [1]

STORY #2: A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute updated a previous analysis from 2016 of the performance of the U.S. economy under Democratic and Republican presidents. [2] It confirmed and extended the finding that the economy consistently performs significantly better under Democratic presidents across a wide range of economic indicators. This is true for market-based data that are not affected by government supports or subsidies, dispelling the contention that the superior economic performance is due to Democratic spending on safety net programs. The report acknowledges that these findings cannot claim to prove there’s a cause-and-effect relationship between the party of the President and economic outcomes. It also acknowledges that the President has limited control over the economy and that luck plays a role. In terms of luck, it notes that both Obama and Biden inherited depressed economic conditions where the economy had been damaged by severe shocks, and, nonetheless, the strong economic performance under Democratic presidents persisted.

Examining economic data both from 1949 to the present and from 1981 to the present finds that economic performance under Democratic presidents was noticeably better on:

  • Growth in Gross Domestic Product,
  • Job growth,
  • Wage and income growth,
  • Unemployment,
  • Business investment,
  • Inflation, and
  • Interest rates.

At the growth rate typical under Democratic presidents, per capita living standards would double every 28 years, while with the growth rate typical under Republican presidents, per capita living standards would take 56 years to double. Moreover, income growth is much more equitable under Democratic presidents than Republican ones, with much higher income growth for those with higher incomes under Republican presidents.

STORY #3: In a major antitrust settlement, Visa and Mastercard, the two dominant corporations in the credit card business, have agreed to limit the fees they charge merchants for purchases using their credit cards. It’s estimated that this will save merchants at least $6 billion a year. Some of these savings may be passed on to consumers. Currently, the typical 2% credit card fee costs merchants over $100 billion a year.

Merchants are also now allowed to charge consumers differentiated fees depending on the credit card they use for their purchase. This incentivizes consumers to use lower cost cards.

The antitrust case has been in the courts for almost 20 years and five years ago Visa and Mastercard paid roughly $6 billion to merchants in what was, at the time, the largest settlement ever in a class action lawsuit. [3]

STORY #4: The Biden administration has taken a stand for safety and workers with a new federal regulation requiring most freight trains to have two-person crews. Ever since the February 2023 toxic train derailment and fire in East Palestine, Ohio, train safety and working conditions have been under intense scrutiny. However, little has changed and the railroad safety bill in Congress has stalled. The Biden administration has been working on this new regulation for two years. The process garnered 13,000 public comments with only about 60 in opposition to two-person crews. Nonetheless, the big railroad corporations have lobbied hard against it and have now gone to court to block the new regulation. The typical train these days is about a mile long (5,300 feet) with roughly 100 cars; some are three miles long. Despite the railroad corporations’ stated commitment to safety, particularly since the Ohio derailment, they are strongly opposing two-person crews and there are currently an average of almost three derailments every day. [4]

STORY #5: As an update on a previous post, Please sign this petition to reduce the Medicare Advantage rip off, the Biden administration held the line on the proposed 3.7% increase in Medicare Advantage payments despite intense lobbying by the insurance industry, which sponsors and makes big profits off Medicare Advantage plans. As a result, Medicare’s payments to Medicare Advantage plans are expected to increase by over $16 billion in 2025, to a total of over $500 billion. In the past, the federal government has usually succumbed to industry lobbying and upped the annual Medicare Advantage increase from the initially proposed amount. Although some advocates were disappointed that the Biden administration didn’t reduce the proposed increase or do more to rein in the abuses by Medicare Advantage plans, this shows that advocacy can change past precedent and result in at least a first step in reining in the for-profit rip off of Medicare Advantage plans. [5]

[1]      Joseph, C., 4/5/24, “This nonprofit has newsrooms in all 50 state capitals. Is it the future of state journalism?” Columbia Journalism Review (https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/states-newsroom-local-politics-policy-model.php)

[2]      Bivens, J., 4/2/24, “Economic performance is stronger when Democrats hold the White House,” Economic Policy Institute (https://www.epi.org/publication/econ-performance-pres-admin/)

[3]      Smith, P., 3/27/24, “Visa, Mastercard reach $30 billion deal with US retailers,” The Boston Globe from Bloomberg News

[4]      Funk, J., 4/3/24, “Freight railroads must keep two-person crews,” The Boston Globe from the Associated Press

[5]      Corbett, J., 4/2/24, “Campaigners beat ‘greedy’ insurance giants exploiting Medicare Advantage,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/medicare-advantage-plans)

AUTHORITARIANISM WILL COME TO THE U.S. IF TRUMP IS ELECTED

There’s a detailed, written plan for the Trump administration, if he’s elected in 2024, to turn our democracy into an authoritarian dictatorship. Project 2025 is a detailed presidential transition plan that identifies policies and personnel to accomplish this transformation. It was developed by a Heritage Foundation-led coalition with a $22 million budget.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog is here.)

It becomes clearer by the day that the plan for the next Trump presidency is for an authoritarian dictatorship. This is not just Trump making crazy off-the-cuff statements; it’s a written plan that right-wing organizations and people are advancing every day.

Project 2025 is a detailed presidential transition plan that identifies policies and personnel to transform our democracy into an authoritarian Trump presidency in 2025. It was developed by a Heritage Foundation-led coalition of over 65 right-wing organizations with a $22 million budget. The Heritage Foundation, founded in 1973, a formerly conservative and now revolutionary think tank, has played a leading role in shaping Republican policies since 1980. It’s part of the well-funded network of right-wing groups that have transformed the Republican Party and the Supreme Court. [1]

Project 2025 lays out specific plans to transform the presidency, the executive branch of government, and all our democratic institutions into an authoritarian, strongman-led government. (See this previous post for more details.) If Trump is elected, its authors and supporters will aggressively implement the plan. As Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation said, “[T]he Trump administration [in 2016], with the best of intentions, simply got a slow start. And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.” [2]

I used to regard the Heritage Foundation as a very conservative but thoughtful contributor to policy debates. This is no longer true. The dramatic change came when Kevin Roberts was appointed its president in 2021. It abruptly changed; for example, it shifted from supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion to supporting Russia. Some staff members resigned because of this and other changes. It’s now fully embracing authoritarianism, ending our democracy, and “institutionalizing Trumpism.”

You probably know that Hungarian authoritarian Prime Minister Victor Orban recently visited former president Trump at Mar-a-Lago. And you probably know that Orban upended Hungarian democracy, replacing it with authoritarianism, including gutting civil service and filling government positions with his loyalists, taking over businesses to benefit friends and family, and attacking the rights of immigrants, women, and LGBTQ+ people.

What you may not have heard is that Orban also visited Washington, D.C. Despite being Hungary’s Prime Minister, he did not meet with any government officials. Instead, he met privately with right-wing luminaries and politicians at the headquarters of the Heritage Foundation. Its president, Kevin Roberts, is a big fan of Orban’s and the Heritage Foundation has established a formal partnership with the Hungarian Danube Institute, which is basically a government-funded front for Orban’s propaganda. The Danube Institute has given grants to right-wing entities in the U.S. It’s not known if the Heritage Foundation is one of those entities, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if it was.

There’s an in-depth article on the Project 2025 plan for a Trump presidency in The American Prospect magazine. [3] For example, the Justice Department would be used to prosecute Trump’s political and civilian adversaries. The Insurrection Act would be invoked so the military could be used to crush any protests. The plan includes a long list of enemies and how to target them, including everyone from federal civil servants to business and environmental regulators to union leaders to safety net beneficiaries.

Project 2025 includes a key strategy for quickly implementing the plan: immediately install loyal Deputy Directors (who don’t require Senate confirmation) across the federal bureaucracy and fire all the senior managers who require Senate confirmation. Under federal law, the deputies then become acting heads of the agencies.

Project 2025 states that the Department of Defense (DOD) “has emphasized leftist politics over military readiness” and that the DOD needs to “eliminate Marxist indoctrination.” It encourages rigorous review of all senior officers, i.e., generals and admirals, to ensure they “prioritize the core roles and responsibilities of the military over social engineering and non-defense matters.” This sounds like the implementation of an ideological purity test for military leaders.

Project 2025 would increase economic inequality by favoring the wealthy and large corporations. It calls for cutting taxes on unearned income, i.e., capital gains and dividend income. It calls for lowering the corporate tax rate (which has already been reduced by the 2017 Trump / Republican tax cut bill), privatizing every government function possible, and deregulating every industry. It would incentivize corporations to limit employee benefits by capping the amount that could be treated as an expense to $12,000. It would end congressional approval of arms sales to foreign countries. It would basically eliminate scientists and scientific studies from any role in policy making except for studies of “the risks and complications of abortion.” It would put Christian nationalism at the center of all policy-making and government activities.

Project 2025 would gut current environmental and climate change policies. It would repeal the tax credits for clean-energy companies and ensure climate change deniers are appointed to all relevant agencies and bodies, including the EPA’s Science Advisory Board. It would support the fossil fuel industry while cutting funding for improvements to the electric grid that are necessary for using renewable energy sources. [4]

Even if Trump himself is incompetent and mercurial, Project 2025 would put in place bureaucrats and procedures in all executive branch agencies that would be focused on and effective at implementing the authoritarian government it envisions. The complete Project 2025 plan itself is here, but at close to 1,000 pages it’s a lot to wade through.

[1]      Swan, J., Savage, C., & Haberman, M., 7/17/23, “Trump and allies forged plans to increase presidential power in 2025,” The New York Times

[2]      Richardson, H. C., 3/17/24, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-17-2024)

[3]      Meyerson, H., 11/27/23, “The blueprint,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/2023-11-27-far-right-blueprint-america/)

[4]      Noor, D., 7/27/23, “ ‘Project 2025’: plan to dismantle US climate policy for the next Republican president,” The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/27/project-2025-dismantle-us-climate-policy-next-republican-president)

SHORT TAKES ON IMPORTANT STORIES #3: CORPORATE GREED

Here are short takes on three important stories that have gotten little attention in the mainstream media. Each provides a quick summary of the story, a hint as to why it’s important, and a link to more information.

STORY #1: Corporate profits have skyrocketed. They were roughly $12 trillion per year in 2022 and 2023. This is up from about $8.5 trillion a year in 2019 and 2020; a 50% increase in just three years. [1] (The graph linked to in this footnote is worth a thousand words.) This in large part reflects the price gouging large corporations engaged in in the post-pandemic years, claiming it was inflation. Their ability to inflate their prices and profits is due to the presence of just a few large corporations with monopolistic power in many markets in the U.S. economy. It also reflects squeezing workers to keep their pay low. [2]

This trend of high marketplace concentration, monopolistic power, and growing profits for large corporations has been going on for 40 years largely because of the failure to enforce antitrust laws. Corporate profits were $2.2 trillion per year in 2000, $1.1 billion in 1990, and $0.8 billion in the early 1980s. In other words, they are now over five times what they were in 2000, over ten times what they were in 1990, and 15 times what they were in the early 1980s.

In the last 20 years, marketplace concentration has increased in three-quarters of the U.S. economy with fewer corporations controlling more of the market than ever before. The good news is that the Biden administration is reviving enforcement of antitrust laws. It’s tackling price fixing in the meat industry – where four corporations control roughly 70% of the market. It’s suing Amazon for its monopolistic practices. It’s blocked the merger of JetBlue and Spirit Airlines as well as other mergers that would have increased concentration and monopolistic power.

Notably, the Biden administration initiated the first major antitrust case in 25 years that targets monopoly power. It charges Google with monopolizing the search engine market. The U.S. Department of Justice has been joined by 50 states’ attorneys general in the case. As the trial began, Google asked to keep the proceedings and evidence confidential and the judge was quite compliant. Google typically claimed the information represented business secrets that would harm the company if made public. In particular, Google tried to keep secret the dollar figure central to the whole case: how much it paid smart phone and computer companies to make its search engine the default on their devices. Six weeks into the trial, media representatives and transparency advocates filed a motion challenging the unprecedented secrecy and obstruction of public access to the trial’s proceedings and evidence. The judge responded by making much more information publicly available, including the amount Google was paying to have its search engine be the default on a wide range of phone and computer products and, therefore, effectively the default search engine across most of the Internet. It was a stunning $26.3 billion in 2021 alone. [3]

STORY #2: Chief executive officers’ (CEO) compensation is exorbitant and does not reflect their skills, their productivity, or competition for good candidates for the CEO position. Rather, it reflects CEOs’ power over their Boards of Directors and the lack of any counter weight to such unwarranted influence. CEO compensation declined slightly in 2022 because of weak stock market performance, which reduced the value of stock-based compensation. However, over the last 45 years, CEOs’ compensation is up over 1,200% (adjusted for inflation) while a typical workers’ pay is up 15%. CEOs are now paid 344 times as much as a typical worker, up from 21 times worker pay in 1965. [4]

The most egregious example of exorbitant CEO pay is the 10-year compensation agreement for Elon Musk approved in 2018 by Tesla’s Board of Directors. It’s potentially worth $56 billion. A shareholder sued and a judge just ruled that this level of compensation was unfair to shareholders. Tesla’s Board has only eight members and many have close personal ties to Musk (such as his brother) and therefore don’t have the degree of independence required for a publicly traded company. The compensation package would have allowed Musk to buy 304 million shares of Tesla stock for about $23 each. Over the last 3 ½ years, the stock’s price on the market has always been over $100, hit a high of $400, and has generally been around $200 per share – far above the purchase price of just over $23 given to Musk. [5] [6]

STORY #3: Our tax system needs to require wealthy CEOs and other wealthy individuals to pay their fair share in taxes. To achieve this, fair taxes are needed on income, including capital gains (i.e., the profit from selling stock). Without a fair and well-enforced national tax system, the wealthy play games to avoid national and state taxes. Recently, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced that he’s moving his official residence from Washington state to Florida. (He just bought two mansions for almost $150 million on a literally gated island near Miami.) It appears that his motivation for the move was to avoid a new 7% capital gains tax that Washington state has enacted on the sales of stock worth over $250,000. Bezos has been selling about 50 million shares of Amazon stock each year generating roughly $8 billion a year in income that was previously untaxed in Washington. He will save roughly $600 million a year by moving his legal residence to Florida, which has no income tax and no tax on capital gains. Washington enacted its capital gains tax to make its tax system fairer. Prior to its enactment, Washington’s state tax system was rated as the most regressive in the country. With this new, fairer tax system in place, Florida is now the state in the country with the most regressive state tax system. [7]

[1]      Federal Reserve Economic Data, 12/21/23, “Corporate profits after tax,” St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CP)

[2]      Reich, R., 2/16/24, “Where are record corporate profits coming from? Your thinning wallets,” Reich’s daily blog (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/corporate-soaring-profits-are-from)

[3]      Goldstein, L., 11/28/23, “The secret trial,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/justice/2023-11-28-google-secret-trial/)

[4]      Bivens, J., & Kandra, J., 9/21/23, “CEO pay slightly declined in 2022,” Economic Policy Institute, (https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2022/)

[5]      Chase, R., 1/31/24, “Elon Musk cannot keep Tesla pay package worth more than $55 billion, judge rules,” The Boston Globe from The Associated Press

[6]      Hals, T., 1/31/24, “Judge voids Elon Musk’s ‘unfathomable’ $56 billion Tesla pay package,” Reuters

[7]      Johnson, J., 2/13/24, “Tax-dodging Jeff Bezos to save $610 million with move to ‘Billionaire Bunker’ in Florida,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/jeff-bezos-billionaire-bunker)

SHORT TAKES ON IMPORTANT STORIES #2

Here are short takes on four important stories that have gotten little attention in the mainstream media. Each provides a quick summary of the story, a hint as to why it’s important, and a link to more information.

STORY #1: As the political divide in the U.S. widens, it’s been particularly evident in state level policies. States now vary widely in their health care coverage for low-income households under Medicaid and other public health programs. There’s also great variation in the generosity of other public benefits and safety net programs. Minimum wage and gun safety laws vary greatly as do rates of unionization. These and many other state policies affect the well-being and ultimately the longevity of a state’s residents.

Examining life expectancy provides a valuable perspective on the effects of policies on the residents of states and countries. Globally, life expectancy has been increasing in high-income countries for decades. While the U.S.’s life expectancy was increasing, when compared to these other countries it began to fall behind in the 1990s and by 2006 it ranked last. After 2014, life expectancy in the U.S. actually began to decline. By 2021, life expectancy in the U.S. was 76.4 years, compared to 80 to 83 years in European countries and 84.5 years in Japan. Even in China it was 78.2 years.  [1]

The trend in life expectancy varies considerably among U.S. states. Several recent studies provide convincing evidence that the divergence of state-level policies between Democratic and Republican dominated states has contributed significantly to the changes in life expectancy, especially for low-income people. The differences are highlighted by comparing Connecticut and Oklahoma where the policy ideology has shifted the most over the last 60 years. In CT, policies have trended toward Democratic, progressive, or liberal policies and in OK toward Republican or conservative policies. In both states, life expectancy was 71.1 years in 1959. By 2017, life expectancy in CT had increased to 80.7 years, while in OK it had increased to only 75.8 years. [2]

STORY #2: Not content to control just state policies (and harm residents statewide), Republican-controlled states are more and more frequently blocking local governments from enacting policies that benefit their local residents (but that state-level lawmakers don’t like). This trend began in 2016 when North Carolina’s Republican state officials nullified Charlotte’s ordinance protecting LGBTQ rights. Also in 2016, the Republican Alabama state legislature and governor banned local minimum wage laws after Birmingham had enacted one. (Note: Alabama is one of five states (all in the south) that has never enacted a state minimum wage law.) Mississippi’s Republican state lawmakers stripped Jackson of its criminal courts, having the state take over. Nashville’s civilian police review board was prohibited by Tennessee’s Republican state officials.

Texas, which had previously banned municipalities from enacting tenant protections and regulating fracking within their boundaries, for example, has now passed a blanket prohibition on any local law that does more than state law in a wide range of policy arenas, including agriculture, finance, insurance, labor, natural resources, and property rights, as well as in business, commerce, and employment law. Among many other things, this state law negated laws in Austin and Dallas that required water breaks for construction workers, despite scorching hot summer days. Florida is now trying to outdo even Texas’s blanket preemption of local government policy making. [3]

According to the Local Solutions Support Center (which helps municipalities fight state preemption laws), these preemption laws began as special interest legislation pushed by businesses for economic reasons but have now expanded to social issues and the culture war. Over 700 preemption bills have been filed in state legislatures in 2023 and, by October, 90 had been passed, even though they are typically unpopular with the public. They are, however, popular with wealthy business owners who provide campaign money to Republicans. Thirty-one of the largest 35 cities in the U.S. are run by Democrats and most of them have large minority populations, including Black majorities in some southern cities. Pre-emption by Republican state lawmakers prevents Democrats and, in some cases, Blacks from governing in their own communities.

STORY #3: A classic case of pre-emption by state and federal lawmakers has been protecting gun manufacturers and dealers from liability for gun crimes involving violence and deaths using illegally sold guns. In the late 1990s, dozens of cities filed lawsuits against gun manufacturers and dealers. Only one, brought by Gary, Indiana, has survived lawmakers’ protections and legal challenges. Last fall, the judge for the case ordered the gun manufacturers and retailers who are defendants to turn over internal records relevant to the case. It is widely believed that these documents would reveal damaging evidence about the gunmakers’ and sellers’ knowledge of illegal gun sales. Republicans, who hold large majorities in the Indiana state legislature and the governorship, are pushing legislation that would ban cities from suing gun manufacturers or dealers; reserving that power to the state. Not coincidentally, the legislation is retroactive to August 27, 1999, three days before the Gary lawsuit was filed. [4]

STORY #4: With the end of the pandemic’s ban on dropping children and adults from Medicaid health insurance, millions of children are losing health care coverage. States are now allowed to review the current eligibility of children covered by their Medicaid programs. At least 2 million children have already lost coverage and federal researchers estimate that more than 5 million children will eventually lose the health insurance they’ve been getting through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Under the pandemic’s emergency rules, Medicaid enrollment grew and researchers estimate that by 2022 more than half of the children in the U.S. were covered by Medicaid or CHIP. Overall, over 90 million people, more than one-fourth of the population, were enrolled in these health insurance programs. Over 15 million people have now lost their Medicaid coverage based on these eligibility reviews. Because Medicaid and CHIP are joint federal-state programs, the states have significant power to decide who they will cover and who they won’t and what happens to people who lose their coverage. [5] In Massachusetts, for example, 400,000 people have lost their Medicaid coverage, but the state is actively working to help them obtain other health insurance. Over 50,000 of them have signed up for subsidized health insurance under the state’s Health Connector program. [6]

[1]      OECD, 2024, “Life expectancy at birth,” (https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm)

[2]      Starr, P., 12/8/23, “The life-or-death cost of conservative power,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/health/2023-12-08-life-death-cost-conservative-power/)

[3]      Meyerson, H., 2/6/24, “Pre-preemption,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/2024-02-06-pre-preemption/)

[4]      Cook, T., & Coleman, V., 1/30/24, “Indiana lawmakers trying to kill historic suit seeking gun industry accountability,” ProPublica and IndyStar (https://www.propublica.org/article/indiana-guns-gary-lawsuit-gunmakers-hb1235)

[5]      Weiland, N., 11/10/23, “2 million kids lost health coverage,” The Boston Globe  from the New York Times

[6]      Borkhetaria, B., 1/29/24, “MassHealth takes steps to preserve coverage for eligible members,” CommonWealth Beacon (https://commonwealthbeacon.org/the-download/the-download-masshealth-takes-steps-to-preserve-coverage-for-eligible-members/)

SHORT TAKES ON IMPORTANT STORIES 2/1/24

These short takes highlight important stories that have gotten little attention in the mainstream media. They provide a quick summary of the story, a hint as to why it’s important, and a link to more information.

The U.S. economy is performing better than any other major economy in the world. Workers’ wages have grown 2.8% over the last four years after adjusting for inflation. The overall economy is 7% larger than before the pandemic and unemployment has been at record lows. Inflation is down to a benign 2% and consumer spending, which drives the U.S. economy, is growing. This isn’t just happenstance; it’s been fueled by pandemic relief measures and economy-stimulating legislation passed by Democrats in Congress and the Biden Administration. The success of these policies suggests that in future economic downturns, stimulative spending (i.e., fiscal policy) may well be more effective in reviving the economy than the Federal Reserve’s adjustment of interest rates (i.e., monetary policy). (Lynch, D. J., 1/28/24, “You don’t have to look far for the world’s best economic recovery because it’s happening here. What is going on in the US?” The Boston Globe from The Washington Post)

In February 2023, a train derailed in East Palestine, OH, and created a toxic nightmare. The railroads promised to operate more safely and Congress promised to pass legislation to prevent future accidents. However, derailments have increased and no legislation has been passed. Congressional legislation, the Railway Safety Act, has been opposed by lobbyists for the railroads. (Eavis, P., 1/28/24, “Since Ohio train derailment, accidents have gone up,” The Boston Globe from the New York Times)

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has proposed limiting the overdraft fees big banks can charge. The proposal, which will probably take a year or two to finalize and go into effect, would reduce the $35 overdraft fee that’s the current standard to between $3 and $14 or just enough to cover banks’ costs. The proposal would only apply to the 175 largest banks (out of about 9,000), but those banks collect about 2/3 of all overdraft fees. In 2022, consumers paid $7.7 billion in overdraft fees; the CFPB’s proposal would save bank customers about $3.5 billion a year. CFPB will be accepting public comments until April 1. (Crowley, S., 1/17/24, “Consumer bureau proposes overdraft fee limits for large banks,” The Boston Globe from the New York Times; The CFPB website: CFPB Proposes Rule to Close Bank Overdraft Loophole that Costs Americans Billions Each Year in Junk Fees)

Republicans in 15 states are refusing to provide federally-funded food to 8 million very low-income children this summer when they don’t get free meals at school. In 2022, roughly one out of every six households with children did not have enough food (17.3%). This was up almost 50% from 2021 due to the end of emergency food assistance, which was a response to the pandemic. The states refusing the federal funding are: Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming. (Gowen, A., 1/10/24, “Republican governors in 15 states reject summer food money for kids,” The Boston Globe from the Washington Post)

A record 20 million people have enrolled in health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care) this year. This is up 25% over last year’s record of 16 million and is at least in part due to increased subsidies for health insurance’s costs. The need for and popularity of federally subsidized health insurance grows, despite Republican attempts to reduce the subsidies and statements denigrating the Affordable Care Act. (Weiland, N., 1/22/24, “20m signed up for Obamacare for the new year,” The Boston Globe from the New York Times; Weiland, N., 12/21/23, “Americans are signing up for Obamacare in record numbers,” The Boston Globe from the New York Times)

Intuit Inc., the maker of the Turbo Tax software for doing income tax returns, has lobbied aggressively against the IRS creating an easy, free, on-line system for Americans to file their income tax returns. It has claimed such a system would be too expensive and not a good use of taxpayers’ money. The IRS has estimated that it would cost between $64 and $249 million annually for it to offer a free E-filing system. Intuit got a federal research tax credit of $94 million in 2022, which would roughly pay for the cost of the free IRS filing system. (Business Talking Points, 1/4/24, “Lawmakers say break for Intuit could have financed free government tax filing program,” The Boston Globe from Bloomberg News; Senator E. Warren, 1/3/24, “Warren, Blumenthal, Sanders, Porter probe massive tax breaks received by Intuit while company fights free tax filing for millions of Americans”)

TRUMP’S FOREIGN CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Former president Trump’s criminal and civil court cases have been getting a lot of attention lately. Lost in all of this activity – and to-date unprosecuted – are his substantial conflicts of interest while president based on his foreign businesses and his interactions with foreign government officials and business people. Given the strong evidence that his decisions and actions as President were influenced by these relationships, these conflicts of interest are likely violations of the Constitution, as well as ethics and bribery laws.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog is here. Click on the Subscribe Today button to receive notification of new posts.)

The Foreign Emoluments Clause in Article 1 of the Constitution states that “[N]o Person holding any Office of … [the United States], shall … accept … any present, Emolument [i.e., benefit], … of any kind whatever, from any … foreign State.” President Trump probably violated this provision of the Constitution in three different ways. First, he failed to disclose gifts worth more than $250,000 that he received from foreign governments or officials. (U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, 3/17/23, “Oversight Democrats release evidence showing Trump first family failed to disclose and account for more than $250,000 worth of foreign government gifts”)

Second, four of his U.S. businesses received at least $7.8 million from foreign entities in 20 countries in his first two years in office. This total is from only four of Trump’s over 500 businesses and is in a report from a congressional investigation based on records from the Trump organization’s accounting firm. The investigation was ended by Republicans when they took control of the House in 2022 and they told the accounting firm it did not need to provide documents it had been ordered to provide by a court. The bulk of this money, $5.6 million, came from China and most of it from a Chinese bank that leased space in the Trump Tower in New York. The other countries topping the list are Saudi Arabia ($615,000), Qatar ($466,000), Kuwait, ($303,000), India ($283,000), and Malaysia ($249,000). (Konig, J., Semyon, C., & Diamante, R., 1/4/24, “Trump collected millions from China, other foreign governments as president, House Democratic report says,” Spectrum News; Beitsch, R., 1/4/24, “Trump businesses took in nearly $8 million from foreign governments: House Democrats,” The Hill)

These countries, and indeed all countries, have significant interests in U.S. foreign policy decisions. Therefore, this revenue to the Trump Organization created conflicts of interest for President Trump. For example, Trump was making decisions that significantly affected trade with China, including the imposition of tariffs. The Trump administration was also deciding on a $100 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, as well as deciding how to respond to the murder of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government.

Third, data from the first two years of Trump’s presidency show that he was making substantial sums of money from his foreign properties and interests, while also continuing to pursue new ventures despite a promise not to do so. Trump had properties and licensing arrangements in at least 30 countries including China, Qatar, Russia, Saudia Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. His foreign assets were worth at least $130 million. In many cases, it appears foreign business and political leaders were making efforts to gain influence with Trump.(Massoglia, A., & Evers-Hillstrom, K., 6/4/19, “World of influence: A guide to Trump’s foreign business interests,” Open Secrets)

Based on an analysis of Trump’s tax returns, he made as much as $160 million from foreign business activities while president. Although it is probably impossible to know with certainty, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Trump’s actions as president were influenced by his financial interests. For example, his decision to abruptly end U.S. support for the Kurdish people on the Turkey-Syria border was highly appreciated by Turkey’s political leaders. Trump’s actions supporting the Chinese company ZTE after it had been sanctioned for allowing its products to be used to spy on Americans was shocking to many, including Republicans and the intelligence services. Meanwhile, Trump’s tax returns showed more than $7.5 million in income from China. In Argentina, Trump delayed enacting tariffs until after trademarks for his company had been approved. Trump pushed the British government to hold the British Open golf tournament at one of his Scottish golf courses. And the list of foreign conflicts of interest goes on and on. (Jacobs, R., & Maguire, R., 4/13/23, “Trump made up to $160 million from foreign countries as president,” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington)

Trump will probably never be prosecuted for these conflicts of interest (although several groups have filed related lawsuits) but their effects on U.S. domestic and foreign policies, as well as actions taken and not taken by the federal government, were very significant and should not be forgotten. With this context, the hypocrisy of congressional Republicans’ “investigation” of Hunter Biden’s business activities is mind boggling. This hypocrisy is underscored by the lack of investigation of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the $2 billion investment his new asset management firm received from the Saudis shortly after he left his White House role overseeing Mideast policy.

U.S. DRUG PRICES ARE A RIP-OFF Part 2

U.S. drug prices are 1 ½ to 3 times higher than they are in other well-off countries. Here are five steps our federal government should take to stop the ubiquitous anti-competitive strategies used by the pharmaceutical industry to jack up drug prices and profits. Inflated drug prices have dramatic, negative effects on people’s health and financial well-being.

This is the ninth post in a series on how the U.S. health care system is a profit-driven system. The first post presented an overview of the system. The second and third ones focused on the role of the extreme capitalism of private equity firms. The fourth and fifth posts described large-scale vertical integration and the related problems and illegal behavior. The sixth post describes egregious illegal and unethical behavior that is all too common among nursing home operators. The seventh post highlighted how doctors are pushing back against health care for profits rather than for patients.  The eighth post presented an overview of how anti-competitive and often illegal practices by drug companies are jacking up drug prices in the U.S.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog is here. Click on the Subscribe Today button to receive notification of new posts.)

My previous post presented an overview of the anti-competitive and often illegal practices used by drug companies that result in U.S. drug prices being 1 ½ to 3 times higher than they are in other well-off countries. Importation of drugs from Canada could save consumers and governments hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Here are some specific examples of drug company rip-offs and some policies that could address the problem of exorbitant drug prices.

A classic example of the abuses of patents and monopolistic power is the EpiPen. The EpiPen injects a pre-loaded dose of epinephrine (which counteracts a potentially fatal allergic reaction) with the push of a button. Both this auto-injector technology and the drug are over 50 years old. However, Viatris Inc. (formerly Mylan) has maintained a patent-driven monopoly on the EpiPen and typically charges over $600 for one, although the cost to produce it is just a few dollars. It regularly files for new patents based on minor changes that allow it to block generics from the market. [1]

In 2022, Viatris paid $264 million to settle an antitrust lawsuit for illegally blocking generic competition for the EpiPen – a small penalty given Viatris’s $2 billion in profits in 2022. (I’ve previously written about high drug prices, including the EpiPen, in 2022 and 2016.)

Another abuse of the patent system is the filing of multiple patents on a particular drug. An investigation by the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge (I-MAK) found that for the ten most frequently sold drugs in the U.S. companies had obtained an average of 74 patents on each of them! [2] Furthermore, there were an average 140 patent applications on each of these ten drugs and two-thirds of them were submitted after the drug was approved for sale by the FDA. One study found that 78% of drug patents are NOT for new drugs. [3]

Numerous patents on a drug are referred to as a “patent thicket” and its goal is to put a huge roadblock in front of any potential competitor even after the original patent expires. Cutting through this patent thicket to establish the legal right to market a generic version of the drug is likely to take years and to cost millions of dollars in legal fees.

Humira, an arthritis drug made by AbbVie Inc., is an example. AbbVie filed for 312 patents on the drug; 293 of them after it had gotten FDA approval! Of those, 166 were granted and extended the patent-based monopoly on the drug for seven years, from 2016 to 2023. About two-thirds of the money AbbVie got for selling Humira, or about $100 billion, came in the seven-year extension period. For sake of comparison, AbbVie got 6.4 times as many patents on Humira in the U.S. as it did in the European Union, where its 26 patents expired in 2018.

A report from the American Economic Liberties Project and the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge (I-MAK) identified ten illegal, anti-competitive strategies used by the pharmaceutical industry to inflate drug prices (see this previous post for details) and also identified policy fixes, including: [4]

  1. Prohibiting payments to potential competitors to NOT produce generic alternatives.
  2. Tightening the U.S. patent office’s procedures and standards in order to eliminate fraud and abuse. Patents shouldn’t be issued for new products that are minor tweaks of existing products, as they are used simply to extend the life of the original patent and prevent generic alternatives from entering the market. Filings that simply delay the approval of generics should be prohibited or ignored. The patent office also needs more staff, resources, and medical expertise to deal with the barrage of patent applications from the pharmaceutical industry.
  3. Streamlining the FDA’s approval of generics, including ignoring attempts by makers of patented drugs to slow or block approvals.
  4. Strengthening antitrust enforcement, in part by increasing funding and personnel. For sake of comparison, the FDA has 14,000 employees to review and approve drugs, while antitrust enforcement has only a few dozen working on pharmaceutical industry cases.
  5. Increasing penalties on violators. Clearly, current penalties have been insufficient to deter persistent and repetitive illegal behavior. Both companies and corporate executives need to be more harshly punished. Delaying generic competition and other illegal behaviors are very profitable, therefore significant penalties need to be levied to discourage them.

I urge you to contact President Biden and your U.S. Representative and Senators to ask them to take strong action to stop anti-competitive practices in the pharmaceutical industry and to rein in drug prices. You can email President Biden at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414. You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Kuttner, R., 8/7/23, “Eminent domain for overpriced drugs,” The American Prospect blog (https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-08-07-eminent-domain-overpriced-drugs/)

[2]      Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge, Sept. 2023, “Overpatented, overpriced,” (https://www.i-mak.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Overpatented-Overpriced-2022-FINAL.pdf) 

[3]      Cooper, R., 6/6/23, “How Big Pharma rigged the patent system,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/health/2023-06-06-how-big-pharma-rigged-patent-system/)

[4]      American Economic Liberties Project and the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge, May 2023, “The costs of pharma cheating,” (https://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/AELP_052023_PharmaCheats_Report_FINAL.pdf)

GIVING THANKS FOR PRESIDENT BIDEN

We should all be giving thanks for President Biden. He and his administration have taken historic steps to protect America’s democracy politically and economically. He is leading the charge to restore fairness and competitiveness in the U.S. economy. He is finding creative ways to support local governments in states where right-wing Republican Governors and legislatures are blocking progressive local policies. Biden has nominated, and the Democrats in the Senate have confirmed, over 150 very diverse judges. He is tackling economic inequality by enforcing our tax laws so the rich pay what they owe.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog presents the Latest Posts chronologically here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org/blog. Please click on the Subscribe Today button to continue receiving notification of my posts.)

I hope you are finding many things to give thanks for this Thanksgiving, despite the troubled state of the world and our democracy. We should all be giving thanks for the accomplishments of President Biden and his administration.

President Biden and his administration have taken historic steps, with remarkable success, in the fight to protect America’s democracy politically and economically, including standing up for workers and consumers. His administration has resurrected the idea that government can promote economic growth by regulating businesses, investing in ordinary Americans, and protecting workers and consumers. This was the American social contract that was in place from 1933 to 1980. Since 1980, Republicans have torn up that social contract and instead deregulated business, including ignoring antitrust laws that had blocked the growth of huge, monopolistic companies. The result has been that trillions of dollars have been taken from lower- and middle-class workers and consumers and given to the richest 1% of Americans. [1]

President Biden has been leading the charge to restore fairness and competitiveness in the U.S. economy. The economy is displaying remarkably strong growth and a dramatic increase in jobs (13.2 million) (both are stronger than under President Trump). With Biden’s support, workers have made dramatic gains. For example, the United Auto Workers have reached an agreement with the auto makers that includes a 25% wage increase over the next 4.5 years, along with cost-of-living adjustments that will bring the increases up to an estimated 33%. [2]

In 2021, Biden signed an Executive Order requiring agencies throughout the executive branch to promote competition in the economy. His administration is reinvigorating the enforcement of antitrust laws that had been mostly ignored for the past 40 years. It has focused on opposing large monopolistic corporations’ proposed mergers and acquisitions that would make them even larger and more powerful. The filing of antitrust litigation or the threat to do so has stopped the merger of big publishers Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House, the anti-competitive partnership of Jet Blue and American Airlines, as well as several proposed mergers in the health care, energy, and technology sectors of the economy. Antitrust investigations of Apple, Ticketmaster, and Visa are underway. In 2023, the value of completed mergers is down 40% from the average of the past five years largely because of the administration’s focus on enforcement of antitrust laws. [3]

Biden and his administration have also focused broadly on reducing anti-worker and anti-consumer business practices. It is working to reduce junk fees, eliminate non-compete clauses in most employment contracts, and end mandatory arbitration clauses in many consumer contracts. His administration has broken up the hearing aid cartel making hearing aids cheaper and more readily accessible. It has issued new regulations on broadband service providers and railroad corporations. It has revived the prohibition on directors serving simultaneously on the boards of competitors, which can lead to anti-competitive behavior in the market place and insider trading in the stock market. It won an $85 million settlement from agricultural giant Cargill and others for collusion to suppress workers’ wages.

The Biden administration is finding creative ways to support local governments in states where right-wing Republican Governors and legislatures are blocking progressive local policies. For example, in 2011, Wisconsin Republicans blocked local governments from requiring employers to offer paid sick leave, as Milwaukee had done. Fifteen states have passed similar laws including Texas, which has also blocked local governments from expanding voting options, taking some Covid response measures, and regulating local oil and gas drilling. In Florida, the state is controlling what local schools can teach and what books they can have. In Georgia, the state criminalized the provision of food and water to people waiting to vote at local polling places. And the list goes on and on. [4]

Perhaps the most dramatic step Biden has taken to support local governments is making federal funding available directly to them instead of having it flow through state governments, as has traditionally been the case. For example, the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act sent $130 billion directly to municipalities along with $220 billion to state governments. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes $196 billion for surface transportation grants that municipalities can apply for directly. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act includes a novel mechanism that allows municipalities to take advantage of tax credits for renewable energy projects.

Biden has nominated, and the Democrats in the Senate have confirmed, over 150 judges who may well be called on to protect our democracy (particularly around the 2024 elections) and our rights in the face of the right-wing and authoritarian onslaught from Republicans and former President Trump. In addition to the quality of these judges (in stark contrast to some who were nominated and approved under Trump and President George W. Bush), they are much more diverse than those nominated and confirmed under those Republican Presidents. Of Biden’s first 150 judges, 100 are women and 98 are people of color. [5]

President Biden is tackling economic inequality by enforcing our tax laws so the rich pay what they owe. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act provided new funding for the IRS to enhance enforcement. In just a few months, it has recovered $38 million in delinquent taxes from 175 high-income taxpayers. It is estimated that for each dollar the IRS spends auditing the top 1% of taxpayers it will recover $3.18; from the top 0.1%, it will recover $6.29 for each $1 spent. A study in 2021 estimated that the 1% of people with the highest incomes failed to report more than 20% of their earnings to the IRS. [6]

These are just some examples of the many steps President Biden and his administration have taken to promote fairness and competition in our economy, as well as to re-establish our democracy’s promise of equal opportunity for all. These actions are guided by his principles and values for our economy, our society, and our democracy. A subsequent post will put his actions in this larger context.

[1]      Richardson, H. C., 10/30/23, “Letters from an American blog,” https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-30-2023

[2]      Richardson, H. C., 10/26/23, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-26-2023)

[3]      Norris, W., 10/29/23, “Winning the anti-monopoly game,” Washington Monthly (https://washingtonmonthly.com/2023/10/29/winning-the-anti-monopoly-game/)

[4]      Norris, W., 4/4/23, “How Biden is using federal power to liberate localities,” Washington Monthly (https://washingtonmonthly.com/2023/04/04/how-biden-is-using-federal-power-to-liberate-localities/)

[5]      Puzzanghera, J., 11/19/23, “For Biden, a full court press to fill US bench,” The Boston Globe

[6]      Richardson, H. C., 10/30/23, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-30-2023)

HOW TO BECOME A BILLIONAIRE

There are basically five ways to become a billionaire and none of them are legitimate in ethical, free market capitalism. Furthermore, while it’s fine for people who work hard and are innovative to get rich, getting rich to the tune of billions has substantial social costs. Billionaires have effectively bought our policy makers (including Supreme Court justices) and have gotten incredibly favorable treatment in tax laws and other policies. They have purchased or built mainstream and social media outlets that spew right-wing propaganda. The existence of billionaires, therefore, undermines the common good and our democracy.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog presents the Latest Posts chronologically here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org/blog. The new home page, where posts are presented by topics, is here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org. Please click on the Subscribe Today button to continue receiving notification of my posts. I plan to retire this site at some point.)

For the last 30 – 40 years, the American economy has been consistently producing and enriching billionaires while the typical worker’s wages have been nearly stagnant. As Bob Reich highlights in a recent blog, there are basically five ways to become a billionaire and none of them are legitimate in ethical, free market capitalism. [1]

One way to become a billionaire is to own or run a monopolistic business. For example, Jeff Bezos, who founded and built Amazon, is worth over $100 billion. For being innovative and a good manager, he deserves to be rich. However, the billions come from Amazon’s monopolistic practices. The federal government and 17 states have charged Amazon with using its monopolistic power to inflate prices, stifle competition, and effectively blackmail organizations that want to (and often need to) sell via Amazon’s platform. Bezos also benefits from several patents granted by the government that many potential competitors feel are too broad and contribute to Amazon’s monopolistic power.

For 40 years, the government has failed to enforce antitrust laws to prevent monopoly power. Other examples of billionaire monopolists include Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. Under President Biden, antitrust enforcement is being reinvigorated.

A variation on this theme is to own or run a business that is deemed “too big to fail” and therefore gets bailed out by the government when business goes badly. The government spent trillions bailing out big banks during the 2008 financial collapse. As a result, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is worth $1.7 billion. There are dozens of other billionaires in finance and investment businesses who might well not be billionaires today if the government hadn’t bailed out the big banks and financial companies in 2008.

A second way to become a billionaire is to illegally get and use investment information not available to the public, i.e., to engage in insider trading. For example, Steven A. Cohen is worth an estimated $17.5 billion. He founded S. A. C. Capital Advisors which pleaded guilty to insider trading in 2013 and paid $1.8 billion in penalties. Cohen was banned from managing other people’s money for two years. Nine of his employees were found guilty of insider trading that the Justice Department described as “substantial, pervasive, and on a scale without known precedent in the hedge fund industry.” Cohen walked away with a fine but billions of dollars. He changed the name of the firm to Point72 Asset Management and continued to manage money, primarily his own.

Insider trading is endemic among corporate executives and board members. Frequently, they illegally sell or buy their company’s stock just before or after a major announcement that affects the stock price. Corporate executives and board members often know inside information about competitors (i.e., other companies in the same line of business as they are) and buy or sell a competitor’s stock based on this information. A previous post described what appeared to be insider trading by executives at companies developing Covid vaccines and treatments, as well as by members of Congress (who had non-public information) during the early days of the pandemic. To reduce insider trading and increase competition the Biden administration is more aggressively enforcing the existing ban on directors serving simultaneously on the boards of competitors.

A third way to become a billionaire is to get politicians to enact policies that are beneficial for wealthy people. The tax cut law of 2017 is a perfect example. Wealthy Republican donors threatened members of Congress and President Trump that if they didn’t pass tax cuts the donors would withhold contributions in the upcoming elections in 2018. For example, the Koch brothers spent $20 million in campaign contributions and lobbying to promote a tax cut. The 2017 law’s tax cuts are estimated to save them $1 billion a year in taxes. And this doesn’t include the benefits they get from favorable tax treatment of offshore profits and from cuts in the estate tax.

The fourth way to become a billionaire is to defraud investors. Adam Neumann conned investors into putting hundreds of millions of dollars into his office-sharing startup company, WeWork. While the company never made a profit, Neumann bought buildings that he leased back to the company and lived a jet-setting lifestyle, that included a $60 million private jet.

Other CEOs that have defraud investors and/or customers are Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried. Holmes has been convicted of fraud via her firm, Theranos, and is now in jail. Bankman-Fried was just found guilty of fraud for his actions at the crypto currency exchange FTX. And then, of course, there’s Donald Trump, now on trial for business fraud, among other things.

The fifth way to become a billionaire is to receive money from rich parents or other relatives. It’s estimated that 60% of the wealth in the U.S. was obtained this way. Two key policies are responsible, both heavily promoted by campaign contributions and lobbying by the wealthy. First, when assets, including stocks or mutual fund shares, are passed on to heirs neither the giver nor recipient has to pay taxes on their increase in value since they were received or purchased. So, as hypothetical examples, Bill Gates or Warren Buffett can give a billion dollars of his company’s stock (that he got years ago for say $10,000) to his child and no one ever has to pay any tax on the gain in its value. Furthermore, the estate tax is so minimal and easy to dodge that less than 0.2% of estates pay any estate tax. And, of course, there is no wealth tax in the U.S.

In addition, wealthy people avoid paying the income tax they owe (despite the cutting of the top tax rate in half over the last 45 years). The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) (until very recently) has been starved of the resources it needs to enforce our tax laws and make the wealthy pay. From 2010 to 2021, Republicans cut IRS funding by 19% and currently are trying to cut the IRS’s increased funding in President Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). A study in 2021 estimated that the 1% of people with the highest incomes failed to report more than 20% of their earnings to the IRS. With the new funding in the IRA, the IRS has, in just a few months, recovered $38 million in delinquent taxes from 175 high-income taxpayers. It is estimated that for each dollar the IRS spends auditing the top 1% of taxpayers it will recover $3.18; for the top 0.1%, it will recover $6.29 for each $1 spent. [2]

[1]      Reich, R., 10/26/23, “Do billionaires have a right to exist?” (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/billionaires-dont-have-a-right-to)

[2]      Richardson, H. C., 10/30/23, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-30-2023)

THANK GOODNESS JOE BIDEN IS PRESIDENT!

President Biden is providing outstanding leadership in a series of very challenging situations. President Biden’s speech to the nation on 10/19 will impress and move you. The mainstream media focus on drama, conflict, and negativity. Calm, steady, effective leadership doesn’t get the coverage it deserves. Below are three examples of non-mainstream media that have done a much better job of telling the story of Biden’s leadership than the mainstream media. Stop and think for a minute what would be happening if Donald Trump were President.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog presents the Latest Posts chronologically here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org/blog. The new home page, where posts are presented by topics, is here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org. Please click on the Subscribe Today button to continue receiving notification of my posts. I plan to retire this site at some point.)

In turbulent situations, it’s invaluable to have an experienced, thoughtful, steady, and rational leader. President Biden is providing outstanding leadership in a series of very challenging situations:

  1. The Covid pandemic and its aftermath, including serious damage to the economy;
  2. Putin’s attack on Ukraine;
  3. The dysfunction of the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives and, in particular, their threat to default on the U.S. debt; and
  4. Hamas’s attack on Israel and all the volatility it could unleash in the Middle East.

I don’t think any other President in my lifetime has faced such a set of serious challenges. Stop and think for a minute what would be happening if Donald Trump had been re-elected in 2020.

The mainstream media is now driven by on-line clicks, and therefore focuses on drama, conflict, and negativity. Calm, steady, effective leadership doesn’t generate as many clicks, so it doesn’t get the coverage it deserves.

Non-mainstream media have done a much better job of telling the story of President Biden’s leadership. For example, Robert Reich (who served as President Clinton’s Secretary of Labor and in a number of other federal government jobs before that), in his blog on 10/19/23, titled The last adult in the room, describes President Biden as “shrewd, careful, and calibrated” in the face of major challenges, despite the child-like behavior of many other supposed leaders. Reich highlights Biden’s significant actions and successes on the home and global stages from the Middle East to dealing with Congress to delivering benefits for the American workforce.

Robert Hubbell, in his blog on 10/20/23, titled We cannot give up on peace, reviews President Biden’s speech to the nation on the evening of 10/19. I encourage you to listen to Biden’s 15-minute speech. You will be impressed and moved by it. (It begins 2 hours and 5 minutes into the YouTube recording of the news broadcast.) Hubbell calls it a truly great speech in which Biden forcefully and convincingly addresses the complicated situations in the Middle East, Ukraine, and here in America. He links all of them back to the need to defend democracy from the threats of dictators, terrorists, and hate. Biden is thoughtful, compassionate, and comprehensive; he does not shrink from taking on difficult topics including racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism.

In the speech, Biden underscores the importance of the United States of America and its leadership on the global stage. He calls America the “essential” and “indispensable nation,” noting that America “is a beacon to the world” … “the idea of America, the promise of America.” He states that we must “reject all forms of hate. It’s what great nations do.”

Heather Cox Richardson, in her blog, Letters from an American on 10/18/23, reviews Biden’s visit to Israel and the speeches he gave there, where he adroitly walked the tight rope of condemning terrorism, supporting Israel, stating that the vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas terrorists, and negotiating humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in Gaza. He called unequivocally for the protection of civilians on all sides and adherence to the rules of war. He stated that democracies must live by the rule of law, not the rules of terrorism. Richardson takes note of “Biden’s steady hand, experience, and courage” in visiting Israel and taking on the tricky issues the Hamas-Israel conflict presents.

We are lucky, and should be thankful, that President Biden is bringing such capable leadership to our country and the world at this very challenging time both globally and domestically.

SENATOR WARREN’S EFFORTS TO REDUCE FEDERAL OFFICIALS’ CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Senator Warren (D-MA) has worked relentlessly to expose and reduce federal officials’ conflicts of interest, thereby reducing corporate influence on government decision making. Here are three examples of her work involving the oversight of Medicare, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Defense Department.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog presents the Latest Posts chronologically here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org/blog. The new home page, where posts are presented by topics, is here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org. Please click on the Subscribe Today button to continue receiving notification of my posts. I plan to retire this site at some point.)

Senator Warren (Democrat of Massachusetts) has worked relentlessly to expose and reduce the conflicts of interest of federal officials. She regularly advocates for stronger ethical standards for federal employees and for closing or at least slowing the revolving door between public and private employment where conflicts of interest arise. One of her goals is to prevent or at least reduce corporate influence over government decision making. Here are three examples of her work on this issue.

First example: President Biden has nominated Demetrios Kouzoukas for a spot on the Board of Trustees for the Medicare and Social Security Programs. His specific role would be as a Public Trustee, charged with overseeing the finances of Medicare and Social Security to ensure they are able to provide promised benefits to seniors in perpetuity.

Senator Warren raised concerns at Kouzoukas’s confirmation hearing about a potential conflict of interest due to his membership on the Board of Directors of Clover Health, a for-profit health insurance company. Clover Health receives a substantial portion of its revenue from Medicare Advantage plans, which provide privatized Medicare services to seniors. Kouzoukas receives over $100,000 a year from Clover Health for his position on its Board. He also owns 25,000 shares of Clover Health stock. [1]

As you may know (and as I have written about previously here, here, and here), there are multiple problems with Medicare Advantage plans’ privatization of Medicare. These plans cream the crop so they only serve healthier seniors. Nonetheless, they have successfully lobbied to get paid more per patient than Medicare spends on other patients. They often deny coverage for needed services and have high overhead for advertising, administration, and executive pay. Most damningly, every major provider of Medicare Advantage plans has fraudulently over-billed Medicare. Many health care experts worry that the current growth of Medicare Advantage plans will, ultimately, bankrupt Medicare.

The Board of Trustees that Kouzoukas has been nominated for will, among other things, oversee the efforts of Medicare to stop fraud by Medicare Advantage providers, which is estimated to be $75 billion a year. That role presents a direct conflict of interest for Kouzoukas given his position on Clover Health’s Board, from which he has refused to resign. [2] (Note: This footnoted press release from Senator Warren lists nine examples since July 2021 of her successful efforts to get federal appointees to commit to higher than required ethical standards that reduce conflicts of interest.)

Second example: In February 2022, Senator Warren requested that the Department of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) investigate potential conflicts of interest resulting from the revolving door of personnel between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the big accounting, tax, and audit companies. The New York Times had reported that tax lawyers from these companies were taking senior jobs at the IRS, writing policies that frequently were favorable to their former employers, and then often returning to their former employers where they received promotions and pay raises. [3]

TIGTA’s recent report revealed that 496 federal employees had received income from those big accounting, tax, and audit companies before taking government jobs. An undisclosed number went back to those firms after working for the government. At least eighteen IRS employees had worked on official tax administration rulings for clients represented by the company they had worked for either before or after their IRS job. For 232 IRS employees, TIGTA could not determine if they had conflicts of interest with previous private sector work because their previous employers would not cooperate with the investigation. Furthermore, an undetermined number of IRS executives did not properly disclose, as is required, private sector job searches while they were working for the IRS.

The IRS has agreed to implement two recommendations from the TIGTA report: 1) improving training for employees on ethics and impartiality, and 2) collecting better data to identify potential conflicts of interest. Senator Warren is pushing the IRS and its officials to do more. She has communicated with Marjorie Rollinson, who has been nominated to be the IRS’s top internal lawyer, and has asked her to hold herself to a higher ethical standard than is currently required by law. Rollinson has committed to do so by extending the two-year requirement to four years for recusing herself from matters concerning previous clients and employers. In addition, for four years after she leaves the IRS, she has promised not to lobby the IRS or to seek any employment or compensation from companies she interacted with while at the IRS.

High ethical standards at the IRS are particularly important right now because the IRS is receiving additional funding and implementing several important policies contained in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. These include the Corporate Minimum Tax (that Warren has championed) and new tax credits. In addition, the IRS is implementing a new, free, income tax filing system that would allow most Americans to easily file their income tax returns (and avoid paying for tax preparers or software to do so). Having these policies implemented by staff that don’t have conflicts of interest is critical to their success and effectiveness.

Third example: Senator Warren is investigating conflicts of interest involving the Defense Department’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC). The OSC was created in 2022 by Defense Secretary Austin to identify and finance technologies critical to US national security. It provides loans, financing guarantees, and other financial supports to companies involved with such technologies.

Warren has expressed concern that at least two advisers at OSC have senior positions at private consulting and venture capital firms that might present conflicts of interest. Both advisers were hired as “special government employees,” which exempts them from many of the ethics standards that apply to regular federal employees. For example, they are not barred from lobbying federal agencies or receiving outside income. However, their access to non-public information might benefit them in making investment decisions or assisting clients in getting defense contracts, for example.

Warren has proposed a bill in Congress, the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act, that would subject “special government employees” to the same ethical standards as other federal employees and would require them to recuse themselves from any matters that would provide a financial benefit to them or to an employer or client of theirs from the preceding four years. [4]

[1]      Johnson, J., 9/29/23, “Warren grills Biden Medicare Trustee pick over ‘shocking’ ties to Medicare Advantage firm,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/warren-grills-biden-medicare-trustee-pick-over-shocking-ties-to-medicare-advantage-firm)

[2]      Warren, E., 9/28/23, “At hearing, Senator Warren slams Medicare and Social Security Public Trustee nominee over ‘shocking and deeply unethical’ financial conflicts of interest,” Press release (https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/at-hearing-senator-warren-slams-medicare-and-social-security-public-trustee-nominee-over-shocking-and-deeply-unethical-financial-conflicts-of-interest)

[3]      Facundo, J., 9/28/23, “Warren and Jayapal raise revolving-door concerns at the IRS,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/power/2023-09-28-warren-jayapal-revolving-door-concerns-irs/)

[4]      Conley, J., 7/10/23, “Warren demands answers from Pentagon on ‘cozy’ relationship with Wall Street,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/warren-pentagon-office)

HOW POLICY AFFECTS FREEDOM

There are two philosophical types of freedom: “positive freedom” and “negative freedom,” also referred to as “freedom to” and “freedom from,” respectively. Government policies and programs have a big impact on the freedom we experience. “Freedom to” better aligns with democracy and equal opportunity. However, for 40 years, “freedom from” has dominated U.S. politics and policy making. President Biden and Democrats in Congress are working to change that and promote “freedom to.”

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog presents the Latest Posts chronologically here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org/blog. The new home page, where posts are presented by topics, is here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org. Please click on the Subscribe Today button to continue receiving notification of my posts. I plan to retire this site at some point.)

My previous post began an exploration of what freedom means in a democratic society. It provided an overview of the two philosophical types of freedom: “positive freedom” and “negative freedom.” Negative freedom is often referred to as “freedom from” and positive freedom as “freedom to.” “Freedom from” means freedom from constraints of external forces, while “freedom to” means the opportunity to make choices, take advantage of possibilities, pursue happiness, and be safe and secure. “Freedom to” is facilitated by governments’ policies and programs that protect rights, promote equal opportunity, provide a safety net, and invest in public infrastructure, including investments in knowledge and innovation through research. (Note: The terms “freedom” and “liberty” are generally used interchangeably by political and social philosophers.)

Beginning in the 1970s and continuing to today, the “freedom from” philosophy has been ascendant in American policy and politics. As a result, there has been a push to reduce the role of government in our society. Efforts to reduce the size of government have been part of this, including through policies that cut taxes so government has less revenue to fund its activities and programs. Cuts in the safety net of economic supports and assistance have followed, including everything from the minimum wage and overtime pay to unemployment benefits to housing and food assistance. As a result, the economic security and “freedom to” of many middle and low-income people has been undermined.

The push for freedom from government constraints has been applied not only to individuals, but also to businesses. This has led to deregulation of business, which has predominantly benefited large, wealthy corporations and their executives and investors (as has the tax cutting noted above). One piece of this deregulation had been the suspension of enforcement of anti-trust laws. As a result, huge companies have been formed and now almost every sector of the American economy is dominated by a few large companies. These companies have monopolistic power over markets resulting in reduced consumer choice, fewer employment options, and often lower quality in goods and services. They also have the power to manipulate prices, squash market place competition, and exert significant influence over our economic and political systems.

Reduced government regulation of the private sector has resulted in a loss of “freedom to” in many ways. Private companies have reduced the economic security of workers, which reduces their freedom to pursue opportunities and happiness. For example, employers have been allowed to make cuts in employer-provided health and retirement benefits. Companies have also imposed external constraints on workers and consumers. For example, many employers require workers to sign non-compete clauses prohibiting them from going to work for a competitor – a significant loss of job opportunities. Consumers are required to sign mandatory arbitration agreements in many contracts for products or services, which ban consumers from suing companies, including through class action lawsuits. This is just one item in the lengthy contracts consumers are required to sign for many services, particularly in the software and Internet markets.

Reduced regulation of companies as employers, and therefore of the labor market, has led to a dramatic decline in union membership. This has reduced workers’ ability to bargain collectively for economic security through job stability and good pay and benefits. As a result, “freedom to” has been dramatically reduced for many workers. In addition, the exploitation of labor has gone so far as to lead to a push to repeal child labor laws. These protect children from working in unsafe and unhealthy environments and from working long and late hours, which inhibit their ability to learn in school and therefore gain knowledge and skills that will provide them opportunities (i.e., “freedom to”) in the future. [1] [2]

On top of policies that have allowed these huge companies to be formed, U.S. policies have allowed financial speculation, manipulation, and exploitation through private equity firms and vulture capitalism. This, coupled with reduced taxes, has led to extremely wealthy businesspeople and investors who have outsized influence in public (or what should be public) functions and decision making. These very wealthy businesspeople, usually men, have great power not just in the economic system, but also in politics and information dissemination through ownership of social media and of many media outlets (e.g., Fox TV, many other TV and radio stations, and many local and national newspapers). They even can have dramatic effects on international populations and events. The Gates Foundation exerts tremendous influence over education in the U.S. and global health initiatives. Elon Musk, through his ownership of the Starlink satellite Internet service, often controls communication in disaster or war zones. US policies have allowed him to launch over 4,500 satellites (over 50% of all active satellites) and to maintain control over their use. At least twice, he has cut off Ukraine’s use of Starlink communications when they were critical to their efforts to fight Russia. [3]

Basic economics describes capitalism as a system that advances “freedom to” for consumers and workers – freedom to make rational decisions and choices among good alternatives. Free market capitalism is supposed to provide perfect competition among multiple providers of goods and services, while consumers and workers have the full information they need to make good choices that are in their best interests.

However, this is not the economy we have, because without government regulation (i.e., with “freedom from”) the private sector has shown itself to be greedy and manipulative, even rapacious. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to economic freedom today is businesses’ monopolistic power over consumers, workers, and even government policies. We need to restore competition to promote innovation, protect workers, keep prices down, provide good choices, and preserve democracy. In other words, competition is needed to provide “freedom to.” Recent estimates have put the cost of the lack of competition at as much as $5,000 a year for a typical U.S. household.

To address the 40-year trajectory of declining economic competition and “freedom to,” President Biden has established a White House Competition Council. It is directing government-wide efforts to promote competition in the private sector. For example, the Federal Trade Commission is reinvigorating enforcement of antitrust laws As Biden recently stated, “Fair competition is why capitalism has been the world’s greatest force for prosperity and growth. … But what we’ve seen over the past few decades is less competition and more concentration that holds our economy back.” [4]

[1]      Stancil, K., 7/19/23, “GOP assault on child labor laws under fresh scrutiny after 16-year-old dies at poultry plant,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/mississippi-poultry-plant-teen-dies)

[2]      The Conversation, 6/26/23, “States are weakening their child labor restrictions nearly 8 decades after the US government took kids out of the workforce,” (https://theconversation.com/states-are-weakening-their-child-labor-restrictions-nearly-8-decades-after-the-us-government-took-kids-out-of-the-workforce-205175)

[3]      Richardson, H.C., 9/9/23, “Letters from an American blog,” https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-9-2023

[4]      Richardson, H.C., 9/26/23, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-26-2023)

WHAT KIND OF FREEDOM DO YOU WANT?

There are two philosophical types of freedom: “positive freedom” and “negative freedom.” Conflicts occur when one person’s freedom impinges on another person’s freedom. Laws, societal standards, and government attempt to strike a balance in such situations. If a society wants to increase freedom broadly, it must establish policies and institutions that ensure people have positive freedom, which means realistic options in making choices about important opportunities.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog presents the Latest Posts chronologically here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org/blog. The new home page, where posts are presented by topics, is here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org. Please click on the Subscribe Today button to continue receiving notification of my posts. I plan to retire this site at some point.)

My last four posts have been a reflection on the state of our democracy, as well as what we need to do to restore American democracy and belief in it. They are a review of the book by George Packer, Last best hope: America in crisis and renewal.

Just beneath the surface of the discussion of American democracy is the question: What does freedom mean in a democratic society? Packer writes that the greatest obstacle to economic freedom today is businesses’ monopolistic power over consumers, workers, and government. This is one piece of freedom.

There are two philosophical types of freedom: “positive freedom” and “negative freedom.” Negative freedom is characterized by the absence of imposed, explicit external constraints on personal decision making and behavior. Libertarians and Packer’s Free Americans are proponents of this type of freedom. (Note: The terms “freedom” and “liberty” are generally used interchangeably by political and social philosophers.)

Positive freedom is characterized by conditions where individuals are enabled and empowered to realistically pursue any opportunity that interests them. Positive freedom requires the absence of implicit external constraints such as discrimination, a lack of access to or unaffordability of desired goods, services, or opportunities (e.g., jobs, education, and where one would like to live).

In shorthand, negative freedom is referred to as “freedom from” and positive freedom is referred to as “freedom to.” In other words, freedom from constraints of external forces versus freedom to make choices and take advantage of opportunities, to pursue happiness, and to be safe and secure.

Conflicts occur when one person’s freedom impinges on another person’s freedom. These situations are where laws, societal standards, and government attempt to strike a balance between one person’s freedom and another’s.

Traffic laws and their enforcement are examples of where the balancing of freedom from versus freedom to play out. If traffic laws are lax and/or laxly enforced, freedom from constraints is the priority. However, the safety and enjoyment of other drivers and road users (e.g., pedestrians and bicyclists) is compromised. If freedom to is the emphasis, there are strict traffic laws and enforcement. For example, in Finland, speed limits tend to be lower than in the U.S. (at least in heavily populated areas), speed cameras for enforcement are ubiquitous, and tickets are assessed, not as a fixed fine, but as a percentage of one’s income. As a result, drivers’ behavior is more civilized and roads are safer for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. The road death rate is one-third of what it is in the U.S. (Interestingly, late at night in Finland, most traffic lights are turned off!) [1]

Another Finnish example of a focus on freedom to is the way that income and opportunity are spread across the lifespan through taxes and benefit programs. Although taxes are high on income during one’s peak earning years, they are used to support young families and seniors. This effectively evens out income over one’s lifespan and enhances positive freedom in the early years of raising a family and in retirement (i.e., the ability to make choices and take advantage of opportunities, to pursue happiness).

In Finland, the costs of child-raising are significantly subsidized (e.g., through paid parental leave and subsidized child care) when parents are young and their earnings may be low as they’re early in their careers or furthering their education. This allows parents to make relatively unconstrained decisions about when and how many children to have.

In the U.S., the tremendous expense of child raising is the most common reason given by women for seeking an abortion and is a reason many parents have fewer children than they would like. Reproductive freedom isn’t just about birth control, it’s about the ability to choose (and afford) when and how many children to have.

To help with the high costs of child raising, the U.S. enacted an enhanced child tax credit as part of Covid pandemic relief in 2021. It reduced child poverty by 46% (from 9.7% to 5.2%), lifting 3.7 million children and 5.3 million people out of poverty. (Child poverty is basically non-existent in Finland.) It reduced hunger, homelessness, and low birth weight babies, while improving maternal and mental health. It improved the well-being of children and families of color even more dramatically than for white children and families. [2] (For more detail on the benefits of the enhanced child tax credit see this previous post.)

However, when the initial program expired in December 2021, congressional Republicans and a few Democrats refused to extend the program. Apparently, a majority of congressional lawmakers don’t believe in positive freedom, even for families with children. As a result, in January 2022, child poverty increased by 41% and hunger rose 25%. The arguments against continuing the enhanced child tax credit were that families would misuse the money, that they would reduce their workforce participation, and that they didn’t really need the money. However, research showed that families had spent the money on food, housing, and other things that benefited children, like education; and that it didn’t reduce the amount they worked.

Having guaranteed health insurance also contributes to positive freedom. Everyone in Finland has guaranteed health insurance but not in the U.S. This means that in Finland people’s choices aren’t constrained by concern about losing health insurance, such as when quitting jobs, starting a business, or losing a job. Moreover, they don’t have to worry about having to change doctors when they switch jobs, go back to school, or their employer switches insurance plans.

All human societies are complex and people are interdependent in innumerable and often unapparent ways. Negative freedom (freedom from) and individualism only get you so far – to the end of your driveway or to when you have a serious health issue.

If a society wants to increase freedom broadly, it must establish policies and institutions that ensure positive freedom (freedom to) so people have realistic options in making choices about important opportunities throughout their lives. Freedom is NOT maximized when some people are allowed to indulge their every whim, no matter the consequences to others or our planet.

[1]      Cooper, R., 9/14/23, “The Nordic way of freedom,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/world/2023-09-14-nordic-way-of-freedom/)

[2]      Covert, B., & Konczal, M., 9/1/23, “We have the solution to child poverty. Republicans are blocking it.” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/child-tax-credit-poverty/)

CRISIS AND HOPE FOR AMERICAN DEMOCRACY Part 4

George Packer’s book, Last best hope: America in crisis and renewal, offers an analysis of American democracy’s current crisis. He points out that our democracy has gone through similar crises in the past. He identifies key elements of a functioning democracy and four cultural narratives, moral identities, or “tribes” that have emerged in the U.S. They have fractured American politics and society. This post, the last in a 4-part series, discusses his specific recommendations on how we put America back together again.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog presents the Latest Posts chronologically here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org/blog. The new home page, where posts are presented by topics, is here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org. Please click on the Subscribe Today button to continue receiving notification of my posts. I plan to retire this site at some point.)

In Packer’s analysis, America fractured in the 1970s. From two relatively stable cultural narratives or moral identities aligned with the Democratic and Republican parties, four rival narratives emerged. Previous posts summarized the narratives of the Free America and Smart America “tribes” here and of the Real America and Just America “tribes” here.

All four “tribes” emerged due to America’s failure to maintain a middle-class-focused democracy and an economy that lived up to its founding principle of equal opportunity for all. Although this ideal has never been reached and has often been violated, without a commitment to work toward it, American democracy cannot function.

American democracy has had near-death experiences before; perhaps, most relevant is the Civil War. Americans have used the same tools of citizenship to recover democracy that we have today: journalism, government, and activism. (See this previous post for an overview of this history and the overall path to recovery.)

We will require a period of detoxification according to Packer’s analysis. It will also be essential to show the American people that government can make, and is making, their lives better. The economy must be governed so that everyone has a chance, not just to survive, but to participate in society with dignity and with a real chance to enjoy life, liberty, and happiness.

Packer states that the first needed step is to repair the safety net for workers and families by building on FDR’s New Deal of the 1930s, including policies such as universal health care and child care, paid family and medical leave, a living wage, solid unemployment insurance, and stronger workplace safety protections. He advocates for improved education for poor and middle-class children, including by moving funding responsibility away from local communities with more state and federal support for local public schools

Second, workers and citizens in the middle and lower-income brackets need to have more economic and political power. A key strategy is to make it easier for workers to organize and form unions, including instituting collective bargaining across whole sectors of the economy, not just with individual employers (e.g., for fast food workers and hospitality workers in hotels). In addition to direct benefits for workers and their families, unions build shared experience, responsibility, and empowerment among diverse groups of workers. Packer also suggests worker representation on corporate boards as is done in Europe.

Third, a new type of activism is needed that builds cohesion and solves real problems. It goes beyond just protesting and embraces working together. The local level, including local government, presents promising opportunities for this. This new activism is emerging and empowers Americans, makes their voices heard, and allows them to act as self-governing citizens.

Fourth, American democracy needs a revitalization that ensures that every citizen’s voice is heard. This means encouraging voter participation and stopping the erection of barriers to voting. Racial and partisan gerrymandering need to be ended. Campaign financing needs to be reformed, including through the use of public funds to make small contributions more impactful.

Packer advocates for significant government investments in key economic sectors, such as clean energy, manufacturing, education, and caregiving to create jobs, stimulate innovation, and raise pay and benefits for workers. A fairer tax system is also necessary to put the brakes on growing inequality. This would require taxing wealth, including an increase in taxes on large estates.

Packer writes that the greatest obstacle to economic freedom today is businesses’ monopolistic power over consumers, workers, and government. He also cites the need for reform of the media which are under financial, technological, and political pressures. The result is an information (and disinformation) stream that is faster, simpler, louder, more partisan, and more divisive. The demise of small news outlets (in large part due to our winner take all economic system) has led to the nationalization of news and politics, polarization of “facts,” and partisanship in everything that is reported. Objectivity is routinely questioned and struggled with in today’s journalism. Fear of hyper-partisan responses and social media firestorms has bred a self-censorship in the media that is more dangerous and less visible than government censorship. All of this leads to less thoughtful journalism and readership. And all of this is exacerbated by the rise of the big tech monopolies in social media.

I encourage you to engage in constructive activism in whatever way works for you. Working on local issues and/or in local government is a great way to work productively with others to address concrete issues that affect people’s everyday lives. Writing letters to the editor of local news outlets is an important way to share information and opinions.

In addition to voting, being informed about and engaging in campaigns for elected offices is, of course, essential to a functioning democracy. Engagement can involve volunteering for campaign work locally or remotely (e.g., through writing postcards to encourage voter registration and turnout). Making contributions to candidates you support of whatever amount you’re comfortable with is also an important way to participate.

I encourage you to contact your elected officials and, if possible, establish a personal relationship with them (and/or members of their staff). This ensures that your voice is heard – even when you don’t get the result you would like. Volunteering for or contributing to candidates’ campaigns helps in getting their attention and building a relationship with them.

Democracy is NOT a spectator sport. If all of us are engaged and act as responsible citizens, in whatever ways we can, large or small, we can revitalize our democracy and its work toward its founding and exemplary principle of equal opportunity for all. This probably won’t happen as quickly or easily as we’d like, and it will happen with fits and starts, but we can make it happen if we all pitch in.

IT’S OFFICIAL: TRUMP AND ALLIES WANT AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT

Donald Trump and his allies want to abandon democracy and create an authoritarian government in the U.S. This is now the official and explicit plan of the right-wing of the Republican Party. Their “Project 2025” is the culmination of efforts by right-wing, wealthy elitists to control the government’s administrative capacity and its regulation of the private sector. Its plan would give wealthy individuals and corporations unfettered control of the American economy, government, and society. To achieve these goals, they are willing to give the President dictatorial powers.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog presents the Latest Posts chronologically here. The new home page, where posts are presented by topics, is here. Please click on the Subscribe Today button to continue receiving notification of my posts. I plan to retire the old site at some point. Thank you for reading my blog!)

Donald Trump and his allies want to create an authoritarian government in the U.S. Although Trump has rhetorically and through some actions given indications of this in the past, what is new and shocking is that it is now the official and explicit plan of the right-wing of the Republican Party. This has the support (at least tacitly) of the Republican establishment. What has happened is that “businessmen who hated regulation joined with racists who hated federal protection of civil rights and traditionalists who opposed women’s rights” to advocate for upending our democratic government and returning the country to the pre-Franklin Roosevelt, pre-New Deal days of the 1920s. [1]

Their plan would abandon democracy, eliminate the checks and balances of the three branches of government, and create a presidency with dictatorial powers. It would increase presidential authority over every part of the executive branch of government, particularly over employees or agencies that currently have some measure of independence from political control from the White House.

Created by Project 2025, this presidential transition plan is identifying policies and personnel for a transition to a Trump (or other Republican) presidency in 2025. The scale and revolutionary nature of the plan are unprecedented. Project 2025 is being run by a Heritage Foundation-led coalition of over 65 right-wing organizations with a $22 million budget. The Heritage Foundation, founded in 1973, a formerly conservative and now revolutionary think tank, has played a leading role in shaping Republican policies and funneling personnel to Republican administrations since the Reagan Administration. It is part of the well-funded network of right-wing, radical, revolutionary groups that have transformed the Republican Party and the Supreme Court. [2] They now want to transform the presidency and all our democratic practices and institutions.

Project 2025’s plan is echoed by information on the Trump campaign website that was primarily written by Trump advisors Vince Haley and Ross Worthington, [3] with input from others, including Trump’s virulent, anti-immigrant advisor, Stephen Miller. The plan has been publicly promoted by Russell Vought, Trump’s head of the Office of Management and Budget, and by John McEntee, head of Trump’s Presidential Personnel Office. McEntee, as part of President Trump’s effort to control the government bureaucracy, was working to install Trump loyalists throughout the Executive Branch, even over the objections of Trump’s Cabinet Secretaries. The culmination of these efforts was clear in the leadup to the January 6, 2021, insurrection when Trump tried to get these loyalists to assert control at the DOJ, DOD, and other government agencies. [4]

Project 2025’s plan would:

  • Bring independent agencies under direct presidential control such as the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Internal Revenue Services (IRS), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission (which is the business regulation and antitrust agency), the Postal Regulatory Commission, and probably the Federal Reserve;
  • Allow the President to refuse to spend (“impound”) funds appropriated by Congress that were for programs or policies he didn’t like and, in general, to emasculate the legislative branch of government and any checks and balances it might exercise over the President;
  • Strip Civil Service protections from tens of thousands of career federal government employees, including at the intelligence agencies, the State Department, and the Department of Defense (DOD), so that they would be political appointees serving at the pleasure of the President and acting at his behest regardless of national security or the best interests of the country; and
  • Eliminate administrative procedures requiring public hearings and public comment periods for changes in regulations, as well as requirements for information sharing such as open meeting laws.

Project 2025 is the culmination of efforts by right-wing, wealthy elitists to have unfettered control of the American economy, government, and society via a President and Republican Party that they control with their money. To achieve these goals, they are willing to abandon democracy and create an authoritarian presidency with dictatorial powers. [5]

Many of the elements of the plan would be challenged in court if they are implemented. Many of these cases would eventually get to the Supreme Court. Although historically (in 1935 and 1988) the Court has upheld the independence of executive branch agencies and personnel from presidential political meddling, the current Court has already begun to erode those precedents. The Supreme Court’s recent track record would certainly seem to indicate that it would allow much of the concentration of power in the presidency that is being proposed by Project 2025’s plan.

If implemented, Project 2025 would likely end equality before the law, protection of civil rights, investments in programs that allow working people to prosper, and policies that build an economy that reduces economic inequalities. It would allow the President, for example, to:

  • Have the IRS target political opponents for tax audits and enforcement, while ignoring tax fraud or evasion by political supporters;
  • Have the DOJ prosecute political opponents, including on trumped up charges (no pun intended), while ignoring crimes by political supporters;
  • Target business regulations and antitrust actions at companies of political opponents, while letting those of political supporters operate uninhibitedly;
  • Order the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates before an election;
  • Target federal spending to states and municipalities led by political supporters while penalizing those of political opponents; and
  • Harm national security by directing loyalists in intelligence, diplomacy, and defense activities to act on his whims (e.g., friendships with Putin and Kim Jong Un) rather than on expertise and the country’s best interests.

[1]      Richardson, H. C., 7/17/23, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-17-2023)

[2]      Swan, J., Savage, C., & Haberman, M., 7/17/23, “Trump and allies forged plans to increase presidential power in 2025,” The New York Times

[3]      Vince Haley and Ross Worthington were Trump Advisors for Policy, Strategy and Speechwriting and developed Trump’s policies for undermining ethics standards among other things. Both had previously worked for former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich for many years.

[4]      Cooper, R., 7/18/23, “Donald Trump is plotting to make himself dictator,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/2023-07-18-donald-trump-plotting-make-himself-dictator/)

[5]      Cooper, R., 7/18/23, see above

STOCK BUYBACKS ARE HARMFUL AND SHOULD BE ILLEGAL AGAIN

The billions of dollars that corporate executives are spending to buy back their own companies’ stocks reduces safety for workers, consumers, and the public. Until 1982, stock buybacks were illegal. Making them legal has led to a dramatic change in corporate executives’ behavior. They now aggressively maximize profits and returns to stockholders, including themselves, while responsibilities to other stakeholders are left behind.

(Note: If you find my posts too much to read on occasion, please just read the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making.)

SPECIAL NOTE: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog presents the Latest Posts chronologically here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org/blog. The new home page, where posts are presented by topics, is here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org. If you like the new site, please click on the Subscribe Today button. The old site will continue to be available.

My previous post discussed, in the aggregate, the aggressive profit maximization behavior by corporate executives and their use of stock buybacks and high dividends to maximize the returns to shareholders, including themselves. It documented the occurrence of such behavior, the reasons it’s occurring, and what it reflects in terms of the goals and ideology of corporate executives, i.e., that maximizing returns for shareholders (including themselves) is all that matters. This post will focus on the impacts at individual corporations and on-the-ground. These impacts include reduced safety and economic security for workers, as well as reduced safety for consumers and the public.

One part of aggressively maximizing profits is aggressively reducing costs, which can mean that corners get cut on quality and safety. For example, in 2012, Boeing rolled out what appeared to be the very successful and profitable 737 Max passenger jet. However, at the time, Boeing was engaged in a major drive to increase profits and returns to shareholders through big stock buybacks (tens of billions of dollars) and generous dividends. In 2018 and 2019, two of the 737 Max jets crashed, killing 346 people. It turned out that the crashes were due to the same malfunction in the autopilot system. The investigations of the 737 Max crashes strongly suggest that Boeing executives’ drive to increase profits and returns to shareholders led to management decisions that cut corners on safety and were a major – if not the major – contributor to the crashes. [1]

Norfolk Southern Railroad, whose train derailed and crashed in East Palestine, OH, with disastrous results, and whose trains have derailed elsewhere as well, has used cash from profits to buy back stock instead of investing in employees and infrastructure that would have made their trains safer. (See previous posts here and here for more detail on Norfolk Southern and the railroad industry’s profit maximization.) Nike bought back stock while cutting the poverty-level wages of Asian workers. Pharmaceutical corporations buy back stock instead of investing in research and development. Nonetheless, they claim high drug prices are needed to fund the development of new drugs. [2]

The U.S. response to the Covid pandemic was hampered by corporations whose executives had engaged in profit maximization strategies that undermined the availability of ventilators and high-quality masks, among other things needed to combat the corona virus. [3]

As became painfully clear during the pandemic, corporate executives, in order to cut payroll costs and aggressively maximize profits, had created fragile supply lines dependent on other countries and international shipping. They had also reduced inventories and production capacity to absolute minimums to reduce costs, leaving their companies without the capacity to respond to disruptions in supply chains or spikes in demand and need for their products. So, for example, baby formula manufacturers did not have the inventory or capacity to fill the gap when one of them (that had cut corners on quality controls) had to pull its tainted products off the market.

Although stock buybacks are only one piece of these problems, they are a blatant and significant one that can be relatively easily addressed by dramatically reducing or banning them.

The Biden administration has been taking steps to discourage stock buybacks. The 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act signed by President Trump prohibited corporations from using federal financial aid to buy back stock, but because cash is fungible, it had little effect. The Biden administration, as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, implemented a 1% tax on buybacks. However, corporations are treating this as a cost of doing business and are continuing to buy back shares. [4] Biden called for raising the tax to 4% in his State of the Union speech, but even this or a higher tax is likely to have little effect because of the huge size of the economic benefits to big shareholders, including executives.

The only thing that will really stop stock buybacks and the harms they cause is to ban them again. Recently, three House Democrats (Representatives Garcia [IL], Khanna [CA], and Van Hoyle [OR]) filed a bill, the Reward Work Act, that would ban stock buybacks. A version of this bill was filed in the Senate back in 2018 by Senators Baldwin (WI), Warren (MA), Schatz (HI), Gillibrand (NY), and Sanders (VT). [5]

I urge you to contact President Biden and your U.S. Representative and Senators to ask them to ban stock buybacks and to take other steps to incentivize corporate executives to be more responsive to stakeholders other than shareholders. You can email President Biden at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414. You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Lazonick, W., & Sakinc, M. E., 5/31/19, “Make passengers safer? Boeing just made shareholders richer,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/environment/make-passengers-safer-boeing-just-made-shareholders-richer./)

[2]      Lazonick, W., 6/25/18, “The curse of stock buybacks,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/power/curse-stock-buybacks/)

[3]      Lazonick, W., & Hopkins, M., 7/27/20, “The $5.3 trillion question behind America’s COVID-19 failure,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/coronavirus/americas-covid-19-failure-corporate-stock-buybacks/)

[4]      Kuttner, R., 5/17/23, “How Wall Street feeds itself,” The American Prospect blog (https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-05-17-how-wall-street-feeds-itself/)

[5]      Meyerson, H., 5/25/23, “The bill that would stop buybacks,” The American Prospect blog (https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-05-25-bill-that-would-stop-buybacks/

GOOD NEWS ON THE ECONOMY, BUT A FEW CONCERNS

Inflation is subsiding, unemployment is low, and wage growth is modest. Problems in the banking industry provide some concern. The biggest concern for the economy is that the Federal Reserve (the Fed) will continue to push interest rates higher, hurting banks, increasing unemployment, and possibly pushing the economy into a recession.

(Note: If you find my posts too much to read on occasion, please just read the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making.)

SPECIAL NOTE: I’ve created a new website for my blog that has an image with each post and is easier to navigate. The Latest Posts are presented chronologically here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org/blog. The new home page, where posts are presented by topics, is here: https://www.policyforthepeople.org/. If you like the new format, please click on the Subscribe Today button and subscribe. Any comments on the new site or the posts themselves, of course, are most welcome. The old site will continue to be available.

Annual inflation in March was 5.0% (i.e., consumer prices were 5% higher than a year earlier). This continued the steady decline in annual inflation since its peak of 9.0% last June. Consumer prices increased just 0.1% from February to March, which would be an annualized inflation rate of just 1.2%. Consumer prices for housing (a component of the overall inflation rate) increased 0.6% from February to March, but that is expected to decline. Note that housing costs have risen in part because of the Federal Reserves’ increases in interest rates, which increase the cost of mortgages, depress the production of new housing, and reduce the purchases of homes. The latter two increase the number of people needing rental housing, which pushes up rents. [1]

Wholesale prices fell in March, down 0.5% from February. For the whole year, they were up only 2.7%. Wholesale price inflation is generally considered an indicator of future consumer price inflation, so this suggests that consumer inflation will continue to fall. [2] In addition, wage increases have been modest, around 4% on an annual basis. This is lower than the annual price increase, so wage growth is not driving inflation. [3]

Given that inflation appears to be under control and with the uncertainty in banking industry in mind (due to the collapse of three banks in March in part due to high interest rates), the Fed and Chairman Powell should at least pause interest rate hikes.

Powell’s recent interest rate hikes have caused the value of banks’ investments in bonds to fall an estimated $620 billion as-of the end of 2022. The Fed has announced a bailout for banks with bond losses; a safety net for financiers for a systemic crisis created by the Feds’ dramatic interest rate increases. In addition, the Fed has announced what is in effect a bailout for foreign central banks (i.e., other countries’ equivalent of the Fed), so that their dollar-based holdings don’t rapidly flow out to be invested in the high interest rates available in the U.S. [4]

Corporate profits have played a central role in creating and sustaining the inflation experienced since 2021. Profit markups (the percentage that profits are of all production costs) in the non-financial corporate sector of the economy jumped from about 12.5% in 2017 through early 2020 to an average of 15% from the 2nd quarter of 2020 through 2023. Putting this in terms of inflation, from 2017 through early 2020, profits represented 13% of inflation, with labor costs being almost 60% and non-labor costs about 30%. From the 2nd quarter of 2020 through the end of 2022, profits represented over one-third of inflation (about 34%), while labor costs and non-labor costs each accounted for roughly one-third of inflation (about 33%). The noteworthy change is that the contribution of profits to inflation jumped from 12.5% to 34%.

Given that the Feds’ increases in interest rates have no effect on corporate profit markups and no effect on the supply chain issues (which have been a major contributor to inflation but are easing), further interest rate increases are likely to be ineffective in reducing inflation. Moreover, they may push the economy into a recession, which won’t be good for anyone. [5]

Unemployment has fallen to 3.5%, the lowest level since 1969, while Black unemployment is at an all-time low of 5.0%. The percentage of prime age workers (those 25 to 54 years old) who are in the labor force is the highest it’s been since 2001. This is all good news for workers.

Much of the credit for this good jobs news goes to President Biden and the Democrats in Congress for passing the American Rescue Plan in the spring of 2021. Much of the mainstream media chooses to ignore the health of the job market and fails to give Biden and the Democrats credit for this accomplishment. By way of contrast, it took nearly 13 years for the job market to recover to this extent after the Great Recession of 2008. A major reason for this difference is that the 2009 stimulus package was much smaller and, in hindsight, clearly inadequate (as many progressives said at the time). Biden was Vice President then and may have learned a lesson from that experience that informed his decision to go big in 2021. In addition, President Biden’s economic advisors are ones who are more focused on Main St. and workers than on Wall St. and financiers. In contrast, in 2009, President Obama’s economic advisors were Wall St.-types – Bob Rubin, Tim Geithner, and Larry Summers. [6]

[1]      Kuttner, R., 4/12/23, “Will the Fed wreck an improving economy?” The American Prospect Blog (https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-04-12-will-fed-wreck-improving-economy/)

[2]      Wiseman, P., 4/14/23, “Wholesale inflation pressure eases,” The Boston Globe from the Associated Press

[3]      Kuttner, R., 4/12/23, see above

[4]      Galbraith, J. K., April 17/24, 2023, “The Fed, the banks, and the dollar,” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/svb-collapse-fed-causes-bailout/)

[5]      Bivens, J., 3/30/23, “Even with today’s slowdown, profit growth remains a big driver of inflation in recent years,” Economic Policy Institute (https://www.epi.org/blog/even-with-todays-slowdown-profit-growth-remains-a-big-driver-of-inflation-in-recent-years-corporate-profits-have-contributed-to-more-than-a-third-of-price-growth/)

[6]      Meyerson, H., 4/13/23, “Are good jobs good news?” The American Prospect Blog (https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-04-13-good-jobs-good-news/)

EFFECTIVE GOVERNMENT IS NEEDED TO PROTECT OUR RIGHTS AND WELL-BEING

Governments are established to ensure people’s rights and well-being, along with a fair, well-functioning society. Government agencies need to have appropriate levels of human and financial resources to effectively carry out this mission. Since the 1980s, Republicans have led on-going efforts to shrink government and reduce agency resources (except for Defense). The result is that government agencies are unable to effectively fulfill their missions and serve the public. This undermines the public’s faith in government and in democracy.

(Note: If you find my posts too much to read on occasion, please just read the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making.)

According to the Declaration of Independence, governments are established to secure people’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To ensure these rights, governments must have the resources and policies to function effectively. Well-functioning government agencies are necessary to have a fair and smoothly operating society. (See previous posts here and here for more details.)

Since 1980, it has been the ideology of the Republican Party to shrink government so that it does not have the capacity to ensure these rights for residents – although Republicans rarely say the second part of this out loud. In the 1980s, President Reagan and other Republicans (abetted by some Democrats) began cutting taxes (primarily for the wealthy) and the budgets of many government agencies, while claiming that they could do this without cutting government services.

Their claim to be able to cut taxes and budgets without cutting services is essentially promising people a free lunch. It was a lie, as has been proven over time, and as I believe many of them knew at the time. In many cases, this claim was a smoke screen for two Republican ideological initiatives:

  • Defunding of services and supports for poor people, which has racist implications, and
  • Privatization of public services to allow the private sector to make profits delivering them.

Forty years of work defunding and shrinking the federal government have taken a toll. Public services and regulation of the private sector that people want and that protect their rights as stated in the Declaration of Independence have been weakened or eliminated. One measure of this is the decline in the number of federal employees, despite growth in the economy and the population. Furthermore, the scope and complexity of what society needs and wants public employees to do has escalated. For example, the Covid pandemic and the growing number and severity of disasters (from hurricanes to forest fires) have placed new burdens and challenges on the federal government and agency employees.

Declining financial and human resources coupled with a growing workload mean that the government can’t effectively serve the public. This undermines faith in government and democracy, which may have been a goal of some of the right-wing architects of the efforts to shrink government. Underfunding not only starves agencies of the employees needed to fulfill their mandates, but also of other necessary infrastructure such as effective, up-to-date computer systems. [1]

In 2011, the Republicans in Congress used negotiations on lifting the debt ceiling cap to force dramatic cuts in federal civilian employment. (They are trying to do this again right now.) After these cuts were implemented, largely between 2013 and 2017, President Trump took office in 2017 and implemented further cuts in executive branch employees especially at the Departments of Interior, Labor, Justice, State, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services. The number of employees at independent agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Social Security Administration have also dropped significantly.

From 2010 to 2022, the number of employees at most federal agencies (other than Defense and Veterans’ Affairs) declined, some dramatically. For example: [2]

  • Interior: down 23%, i.e., 18,500 employees (manages national parks and wildlife refuges; responsible for environmental initiatives and protecting endangered species)
  • Agriculture: down 21%, i.e., 22,500 employees (oversees food safety, nutrition programs, agriculture, natural resources, and rural development)
  • Environmental Protection Agency: down 20% (protects the environment and public health)
  • Housing and Urban Development: down 18% (provides housing and community development assistance; works to ensure fair housing)
  • Treasury: down 10%, i.e., 10,900 employees (manages federal finances, collects taxes, oversees banks, enforces finance and tax laws)
  • Labor: down 10% (oversees workers’ rights to fair, safe, and healthy working conditions; minimum wage and overtime pay; unemployment insurance)

On top of the reduced number of employees, there has been a significant loss in experience, expertise, and institutional knowledge due to the departure of employees with longevity. There has also been a serious loss of diversity. The Biden administration is beginning to rebuild federal agencies, but, even if Congress were cooperative, it would take significant time to rebuild the numbers, and even longer to rebuild the expertise and therefore the full effectiveness of the federal government.

From a longer-term perspective, the number of federal civilian employees is about 2 million, roughly the same as in 1966, despite a population that has grown by 68% and a federal budget that is five times what it was then.

These cuts mean, for example, that the EPA is taking the fewest civil enforcement actions against polluters in 20 years. Food inspections are down and our railroads aren’t as safe as they should be. At the Internal Revenue Service, audit and enforcement actions on taxpayers earning $1 million a year or more has dropped from 7.2% of returns filed in 2011 to just 0.7% in 2019. [3]

Providing federal government agencies with appropriate financial and human resources is essential to their ability to fulfill their missions, serve the public effectively, ensure people’s rights, and oversee a fair, well-functioning society and democracy.

I urge you to contact President Biden and your U.S. Representative and Senators to ask them to support appropriate funding for federal government agencies so they can fulfill their missions and effectively serve and protect the public. You can email President Biden at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414. You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Panditharatne, M., 4/5/23, “Rebuilding federal agencies hollowed out by Trump and Congress,” Brennan Center for Justice (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/rebuilding-federal-agencies-hollowed-out-trump-and-congress)

[2]      Panditharatne, M., 4/5/23, see above

[3]      Cox Richardson, H., 4/7/23, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-7-2023)

HOLDING EXECUTIVES OF FAILED BANKS ACCOUNTABLE

A history of greed, mismanagement, deregulation, and weak oversight has resulted in a litany of banking and financial system crises over the last 40 years. Future crises could be prevented by:

  • Strengthening regulation,
  • Increasing deposit insurance, and
  • Holding bank executives personally liable and culpable.

(Note: If you find my posts too much to read on occasion, please just read the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making.)

Greed and mismanagement by bank executives led to the collapse of three banks in early March. Deregulation of “mid-size” banks in 2018 and 2019, along with failures of banking oversight by the Federal Reserve (the Fed), were also major factors in the banks’ collapses. The Chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, bears significant responsibility for the conditions that led to these bank failures. (See this previous post for more details.) The first two strategies above for preventing future banking crises – strengthening regulation and increasing deposit insurance – were discussed in this previous post.

To hold bank executives personally liable and culpable when their banks fail, banking regulators and the Justice Department should:

  • Demand the return of executives’ compensation (i.e., “claw back” compensation), especially when it was linked to the stock price or other metrics that were inflated by inappropriate risks taken by the executives. For example, CEO Becker of the failed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) received $9.9 million in compensation last year, including a $1.5 million bonus for increasing profitability. He made $3.6 million from selling SVB stock in late February, just weeks before his bank collapsed. In the previous four years, he collected $58 million from the sale of stock received as part of his compensation. Similarly, several top executives at First Republic Bank, which was also bailed out, sold almost $12 million in stock in the two months before their bank went under. Senator Warren (D-MA) is asking for the details of ten years of compensation for the executives at the bailed-out banks, including what criteria were used to determine their bonuses. Senator Warren is calling on bank regulators to demand repayment of executives’ pay and bonuses when they are linked to engagement in high-risk activities.
  • Investigate bank executives for possible illegal insider trading. Senator Warren is also calling for an investigation into whether these executives engaged in illegal sales of their banks’ stock based on inside information and into other possible illegal activities.
  • Charge executives of bailed-out banks with criminal offenses. Prior to 2003, criminal prosecutions were the norm. In the 1980s savings and loan scandal, more than 1,000 bank executives were prosecuted and many went to jail. Then, under President G. W. Bush, the prosecutions of bank executives stopped and were replaced by Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs). These DPAs typically impose corporate fines and include promises of remedial action, but criminal prosecution is deferred and almost never invoked, even when repeat offenses occur. [1]
  • Ban senior executives of failed banks from future employment in the financial industry.

One exception to the new norm of using DPAs instead of criminal prosecutions is occurring now and may indicate a shift in the norm under the Biden administration. Wells Fargo bank created roughly 3.5 million unauthorized customer accounts and issued about 500,000 unauthorized credit cards, costing customers billions of dollars. The corporation and the Trump Justice Department settled with a DPA that required Wells Fargo to pay $6.7 billion in fines and restitution, while five senior executives personally paid civil fines of tens of millions of dollars. The CEO lost his job and the executive under him who presided over the creation of the fraudulent accounts was prosecuted and just pled guilty to a reduced charge of interfering with a bank examination. She might actually do some jail time, although sentencing hasn’t occurred yet. [2]

In conclusion, it’s well past time to stop bank executives from pocketing private profits while socializing risk (i.e., dumping losses on the government and taxpayers). Repeated bailouts and the failure to prosecute individuals reinforces and incentivizes inappropriate risk-taking by bank executives. And, as history has proven, they will take inappropriate risks in order to enrich themselves. Accountability and deterrence are sorely needed; they are essential to preventing the next banking crisis. The steps listed above would serve as strong deterrents to future bad behavior by bank executives.

In the aftermath of this (hopefully mini-) banking crisis, President Biden has called for more accountability and punishment for executives of the failed banks, including clawing back compensation, imposing fines, and banning them from working in the banking industry. [3] He has also called for stricter regulation by executive branch agencies, noting that the Trump administration weakened key regulations. Treasury Secretary Yellen has echoed Biden’s statements and has noted that “the costs of proper regulation pale in comparison to the tragic costs of financial crises.” [4]

Senator Warren and Representative Porter (D-CA) have filed legislation that would strengthen banking regulations, including reversing the provisions in the 2018 EGRRCP law that dramatically weakened regulation of mid-size banks, like the three that just collapsed.

I urge you to contact President Biden and your U.S. Representative and Senators to ask them to support the strengthening of banking regulations and the holding of bank executives accountable with financial, criminal, and other consequences. Urge them to call on Fed Chair Powell to resign due to his complicity in these bank failures.

You can email President Biden at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Kuttner, R. 3/20/23, “Former Wells Fargo exec could do prison time,” The American Prospect https://prospect.org/justice/2023-03-20-wells-fargo-exec-justice/

[2]      Kuttner, R., 3/20/23, see above

[3]      Gardner, A. 3/18/23, “Biden calls for tougher penalties on bank execs,” The Boston Globe from Bloomberg

[4]      Hussein, F., & Boak, J., 3/31/23, “Biden calls to revive bank regulations,” The Boston Globe from the Associated Press