That “Big Beautiful Bill”

Ever since Trump’s abominable “Big Beautiful Bill” emerged from the House, we’ve been buried in analyses of what it will do–essentially, rob the poor to further enrich the obscenely wealthy. But I continue to think about the initial reaction of Paul Krugman. What did this Nobel-prize-winning economist think in the immediate aftermath of the House passage?

Krugman began by noting that he’d expected House Republicans to pass this “surpassingly cruel, utterly irresponsible budget” in the dead of night, in an effort to escape notice. And as he said, “they tried! Debate began at 1 A.M., and if you think that bizarre timing reflected real urgency, I have some $Melania coins you might want to buy.”

The House has now passed what must surely be the worst piece of legislation in modern U.S. history. Millions of Americans are about to see crucial government support snatched away. A significant number will die prematurely due to lack of adequate medical care or nutrition. Yet all this suffering won’t come close to offsetting the giant hole in the budget created by huge tax cuts for the rich. Long-term interest rates have already soared as America loses the last vestiges of its former reputation for fiscal responsibility.

What struck me most about Krugman’s reaction to this massively irresponsible–indeed, evil–budget was his enumeration of what that budget ought to look like. Krugman isn’t one of the “fiscal scolds” who want to eliminate all deficit spending, but he is worried that the U.S. is on an unsustainable fiscal path–a path that this horrific bill will worsen. He acknowledges that the path to fiscal sanity will require some hard choices and tradeoffs. But he also insists that we could immensely improve our current situation with a series of easy choices, “actions that would mainly spare the middle class and only hurt people most Americans probably believe deserve to feel a bit of pain.” He proceeds to list four of them.

First, get Americans — mainly wealthy Americans — to pay the taxes they owe. The net tax gap — taxes Americans are legally obliged to pay but don’t — is simply huge, on the order of $600 billion a year. We can never get all of that money back, but giving the IRS enough resources to crack down on wealthy tax cheats would be both fiscally and morally responsible, since letting people get away with cheating on their taxes rewards bad behavior and makes law-abiding taxpayers look and feel like chumps.

As he notes, Republicans are doing the opposite, by starving the IRS of resources and trying to make tax evasion great again.

Second, we could crack down on Medicare Advantage overpayments. The insurance companies running Medicare Advantage game the system and get overpaid; one recent estimate found that Medicare is at risk of overpaying Medicare Advantage plans between $1.3 trillion and $2 trillion over the next decade.

Third, Krugman advises going after corporate tax avoidance, especially by multinational firms using strategies to make profits that are earned in the United States look as though they were earned in low-tax nations like Ireland. “Such maneuvers cost the Treasury around $70 billion annually.

And finally,

We should just get rid of Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut. That tax cut wasn’t a response to any economic needs, and there’s not a shred of evidence that it did the economy any good. All it did was transfer a lot of money to corporations and the wealthy. Let’s end those giveaways.

Would doing all these things be enough to put America on a sustainable fiscal path? Honestly, I don’t know. But they would make a good start toward putting our fiscal house in order. And none of them would involve the “hard choices” fiscal scolds tell us we need to make.

As Krugman concludes, the politicians who aren’t even willing to do these things have no business lecturing anyone about fiscal responsibility.

Krugman doesn’t speculate about why we don’t do the “easy” things, but I will. We don’t do them because we have elected people who don’t consider themselves representatives of the people who voted for them, but obedient servants of the plutocrats who funded them. And nothing will change until enough of those voters send an unmistakable message to the cowards and quislings that “time’s up.”

I’ve previously quoted a scholar whose research suggests that peaceful protests by 3% of a population are enough to send that message. That translates to something like ten million people. Our next chance to achieve that goal is No Kings Day, tomorrow.

Please participate. Time is running out to save the America we thought we inhabited….

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The Greeks Were Right

The early Greeks are said to have invented the idea of democracy, but that wasn’t their only contribution to the philosophy of governance. They also pioneered the importance of the “golden mean,” the mean between extremes. 

Right now, we are experiencing an assault on both of those critically important concepts.

The assault on democracy is well-understood; indeed, it preoccupies the political discourse. The importance of the “Golden Mean” is less understood. The Golden Mean was a core concept in Aristotelian ethics; Aristotle argued that virtue consists of finding the right balance in our behaviors and emotions.  (For example, courage is a virtue that lies between the extremes of recklessness and cowardice. Generosity is a virtue that lies between stinginess and prodigality.)  

American politics constantly wrestles with the proper balance between individualism and communitarianism. The country was founded on the principle that individuals are entitled to a generous zone of liberty–a zone that government should not invade until or unless that individual is harming the person or property of another, That principle gave rise to a very American, almost religious belief in individualism, and a corresponding suspicion of social programs and laws for the common good, which are inevitably opposed as unAmerican “socialism” or “communism.”

In the real world, of course, we are faced with finding a proper balance: what sorts of things really must be done communally, and when do government programs unnecessarily breach individual liberties? (I will ignore, for purposes of this discussion, the hypocrisy of MAGA folks who disdain “socialism” only when it benefits poor folks, and who have no problem with a corporatism that translates into socialism for the rich and a brutal capitalism for everyone else…)

What triggered the foregoing discussion was an article from the Guardian about–of all things–diet and exercise and long life. The article noted a decline in public health and life expectancies in rich countries, and posed the obvious question: what explains the gap between the public’s growing knowledge about living longer and its collective health going backwards?

The author of the essay is a public health scientist in Great Britain, whose job is looking into the factors that affect how long we will live. As she wrote, 

Most of these are out of individual control and have to do with the country and community we live in. The truth is, this “self-help” narrative doesn’t reflect the reality of how health works. In fact, the focus on personal responsibility and self-improvement has distracted us from the real issue –the impact that public policy, infrastructure and community make in affecting our health chances and longevity.

After citing the far better health and longevity outcomes in places like Japan, she writes that “What stands out about these places is that the people living there don’t just make individual choices that lead to better health – they live in places where healthy lives are normalised by government and culture.”

As I talk about in my new book, if I’m going to live to 100, I need more than fastidiously counting my calories and posting pictures of myself exercising on Instagram (which I am guilty of). I need to live in a world where health is a collective responsibility, not an individual one. This means supporting policies that make us all healthier – and politicians who prioritise the conditions for good health such as nutritious food especially for children, active cities, clean air policies, preventive healthcare and public provision of water, which should be at the core of what a government provides its citizens. There are lessons in how to improve life in all of these areas across the world: these are places where good health is built into daily life.

I confess that I have a strong libertarian streak, and a corresponding belief in the importance of the individual values of diligence, honesty, and hard work. But common sense requires recognition of the importance of the communities in which we live–the societies within which we are, in communitarian jargon–“embedded.” People cannot pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they don’t have boots. They cannot simply choose to breathe clean air and drink uncontaminated water. Poor people without health insurance cannot simply decide not to need medical care.

Whether politicians want to acknowledge it or not, there are major elements of our lives that can only be addressed communally, and most of those can only be accomplished through government. Our job is to craft a social infrastructure that is adequate, that supports without intruding–to find that elusive “Golden Mean.”

I don’t think MAGA is interested…..

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Things That Make Me Crazy

Can those who read this blog indulge me for three very personal rants?

We face so many major problems in this country right now (can we spell LA?) that it seems terribly self-indulgent to focus on a few annoying aspects of civic debate. On the other hand, I think at least a couple of the behaviors I find so exasperating are symptoms of the inability of We the People to productively address the bigger issues. (Anyway, that’s my justification and I’m sticking to it!)

#1. I recently posted about an emerging argument over regulation. Proponents of taking a closer look at our regulatory processes aren’t the knee-jerk GOP scolds who define “free market” as “free” from any government rules; the concern (as I said in that post) is to guard against over-kill. But I immediately got an email from an acquaintance saying, essentially, “finally, people are realizing that we need to get government out of the way!”

Now, I’ve known this particular correspondent for a long time, and he’s not stupid. But he drank the Kool-Aid back when the GOP’s plutocrats were insisting that government just needed to get out of the way and let good-hearted business-people run their enterprises as they see fit.

We’re beginning to see what that would look like, as planes fall from the sky.  Do we really want to get rid of FDA inspections to ensure that supermarket chickens are safe to eat?  Do we want to turn a blind eye to that factory discharging toxic waste into the local river? Stop requiring clinical trials before approving the sale of medications and vaccines?

Bottom line:  We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto! We don’t grow our own fruits and vegetables and go into the backyard to kill one of our own chickens for dinner. In a modern society, government regulations are essential.  As I said in my post, it isn’t an “either/or” proposition; policymakers need to determine what regulations are needed, and how much is too much. That’s a lot harder, of course, than spouting ideological idiocies.

#2. This platform, like so many others, is a place where people with different perspectives but generally similar civic goals come to argue about THE question: what should we do? What actions can citizens take in the face of an existential threat to the America we thought we inhabited? 

Those discussions may or may not be experienced as valuable, but one (probably inevitable) response drives me up the wall. It is the comment–in a lecturing tone–to the effect that such-and-such will clearly be ineffective, that it is simply “virtue-signaling” and unlikely to make any difference. It would be one thing if the person pouring cold water on a proposed activity ever followed up with a helpful, do-able suggestion–if the put-down was ever followed by a thoughtful “here’s what we should be doing instead,” but it never is.

One of the defects of Internet conversations is the absence of tone and body-language. Perhaps if we could see and hear the individuals who post these put-downs, they wouldn’t seem so sneering and self-important–but that is certainly what these “I know better than you and what you propose is stupid” comments convey.

#3.  I am OVER the Democrats who keep wallowing in “what went wrong” and “who was to blame” and “why the approach of those of you on the (insert ideological position) is dooming our chances in the future.” I am especially over the focus on Joe Biden, and the utterly stupid accusations of a “cover up”–as Robert Hubbell has pointed out, a “cover up” of the cognitive state of a man who was appearing daily at campaign events, delivering addresses to Congress where he outwitted the entire Republican caucus, providing interviews to major media outlets, and guiding America through a period of stable foreign relations and successful domestic policy. Biden aged in office –and we all saw that–but he was a transformational and incredibly effective President. Should he have withdrawn sooner? Probably. But for goodness sake, GIVE IT A REST. 

Meanwhile, we have a President whose election was at least partially due to the refusal of the mainstream press to give anything close to equal time to his embarrassing stupidity, his obvious mental illness (not to mention his age-related decline from what wasn’t a high bar to begin with). Even the aspects of his “character” (note quotation marks) that do receive coverage–his racism, his felonies, his rapes, his constant lies (are his lips moving?), his “out and proud” corruption –are still being normalized and sane-washed. WHY?

Okay. I’m done. Thanks for indulging me. I think I feel better.

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The Stakes

Remember that old song lyric, “What’s It all about, Alfie?”

Those of us who are appalled and confused by the administration’s daily abuses of the Constitution and rule of law can be forgiven for losing sight of “what it’s all about.” As usual, Heather Cox Richardson has provided context–and an answer. She points to the obvious: Trump’s economic policies are designed to transfer wealth to the already-obscenely-wealthy from the rest of us–then provides context: “From 1981 to 2021, American policies moved $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%.”

But just enriching the already-rich is only one part of the overall goal. Richardson points to the administration’s gutting of a government that “regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, promotes infrastructure, and protects civil rights and to replace it with a government that permits a few wealthy men to rule.”

The CBO score for the Republicans’ omnibus bill projects that if it is enacted, 16 million people will lose access to healthcare insurance over the next decade in what is essentially an assault on the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The bill also dramatically cuts Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan (SNAP) benefits, clean energy credits, aid for student borrowers, benefits for federal workers, and consumer protection services, while requiring the sale of public natural resources.

It gets worse. (I know, you’re thinking “how much worse can it get?” Trust me.)

Richardson is only one of the observers who pinpoints the real “mover and shaker” behind this assault on constitutional government–Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought. Vought is determined to decimate those parts of the government that are inconsistent with the Christian Nationalist goals outlined in Project 2025, the production of which he directed. As Richardson reminds us,

Vought was a key author of Project 2025, whose aim is to disrupt and destroy the United States government order to center a Christian, heteronormative, male-dominated family as the primary element of society. To do so, the plan calls for destroying the administrative state, withdrawing the United States from global affairs, and ending environmental and business regulations.

Racism is, of course, an essential element of Christian Nationalism, which works to elevate the civic and social dominance of (certain) White Christian males. Vought founded the Center for Renewing America (CRA), which focuses on combating its (utterly phony) version of “critical race theory.” The organization’s affiliated issue advocacy group, American Restoration Action, has a similar mission: to “renew a consensus of America as a nation under God”.  Both groups hope to provide the “ideological ammunition to sustain Trump’s political movement after his departure from the White House.”

It is worth noting that the administration’s war on education and empirical knowledge is an essential element of the Christian Nationalist plan to de-secularize America. The assaults on science, on research, on academic freedom are an indispensable part of the movement to substitute theocracy for a country that respects the intellectual liberties protected by the First Amendment. In service of that goal, Christian Nationalists have worked diligently to redefine “religious freedom” to mean the right of fundamentalist Christians to impose their beliefs on others, and to redefine “free speech” to mean privileging opposition to the “woke” values they abhor.

One of those “woke” values is education.

In my own Red state of Indiana, where performative “Christians” dominate the legislature and self-identified Christian Nationalists hold statewide offices, the assault on education has been unremitting. The voucher program that pretends to honor “parental choice” sends millions of Hoosier tax dollars to religious schools, in what is a dishonest work-around of the Establishment Clause while starving our public schools. More recently, steady assaults on Indiana University–a once-storied and highly respected academic institution–have ranged from political interference with its latest choice of a president–allowing the post to go to an less distinguished (but presumably more well-connected) “dark horse” candidate, to legislation threatening curriculum considered “liberal,” to the more recent and appalling substitution of far-right political operatives (including the odious Jim Bopp) for the choices of alumni on the university’s board of trustees.

Thanks to those assaults–and Indiana’s ban on abortion–Indiana University is losing many of the students who formerly enriched intellectual life on campus.

America is at an inflection point. What is at stake isn’t simply our global dominance (which Trump has already discarded), but our essential domestic identity. America hasn’t been seen as the “City on the Hill” because we embraced fundamentalist religion, but because we aspired to protect individual liberty and civic equality.

We didn’t always live up to those aspirations, but we can ill-afford to replace them with a Taliban-like theocracy.

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AI Talks To Trump

I wish this had been my idea, but it was my brilliant sister who–on a whim–asked Chatgpt what Thomas Jefferson might say to Donald Trump.

This was the response:

If Thomas Jefferson were to speak to Donald Trump, the conversation would likely reflect Jefferson’s Enlightenment-era values—particularly around democracy, individual rights, limited government, and civic virtue. Here’s a speculative interpretation of what Jefferson might say, based on his writings and beliefs:

“Mr. Trump, I have always believed that government exists to serve the people, not to enrich those in power. Our republic depends on an informed citizenry, a free press, and leaders who value the public good over personal gain.

While strong leadership can be necessary, it must be tempered by respect for the Constitution, the rule of law, and the separation of powers. These are not mere formalities—they are safeguards against tyranny.

Beware the temptation to sow division for political gain. A nation cannot be both ignorant and free. True greatness lies not in spectacle, but in the quiet, steady work of preserving liberty and justice for all.”

The AI then asked her if she would prefer a more confrontational, supportive or humorous version, or one tailored to a specific topic like free speech or executive power. (That question suggested endless possibilities. The fact that she didn’t pursue them shouldn’t keep the rest of us from playing with our own AIs…)

After she received the response to her question about Thomas Jefferson, she decided to ask what Jesus might say to Trump. Once again, AI responded by mining the relevant documentation–in this case, the Gospels.

That’s a powerful and complex question, and the answer depends on how one interprets Jesus’ teachings and values. Based on the messages in the Gospels—love, humility, justice, mercy, repentance, and truth—here’s a thoughtful, nonpartisan imagining of what Jesus might say to Donald Trump (or any political leader):

1. On Power and Leadership:
“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35)
Jesus might challenge Trump to reflect on whether his leadership serves the vulnerable and promotes justice and peace.

2. On Truth and Integrity:
“Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ Anything more comes from evil.” (Matthew 5:37)
Jesus often called out hypocrisy and might urge Trump to speak truthfully and act with consistency.

3. On Wealth and Responsibility:
“To whom much is given, much will be required.” (Luke 12:48)
Jesus might challenge Trump on how he uses his wealth and influence for the common good.

4. On Enemies and Rhetoric:
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)
Jesus might caution against divisive language and encourage reconciliation and empathy.

5. On Repentance and Grace:
Jesus welcomed sinners and called them to repentance. He might say to Trump—as he would to anyone—“Come, follow me.” (Matthew 4:19), offering grace but also calling for transformation.

Would you like a version written more like a direct conversation or modern interpretation?

When my sister shared this exercise, I asked my own Chatgpt what Ronald Reagan would say to Trump.

While we can only speculate, a thoughtful, historically grounded analysis of what Ronald Reagan might say to Donald Trump would likely reflect stark contrasts in style, tone, and certain core values—especially regarding democratic norms, civility, and America’s global role. Here’s a reasoned approximation of what Reagan might express, based on his public speeches, writings, and actions.

1. On Civility and American Ideals:

“Mr. Trump, words matter. The presidency is not only a position of power, but a moral pulpit. We must be a shining city on a hill—not a fortress of grievance and division. Insulting adversaries, attacking the press, and stoking anger may win applause, but it dims the light of that city.”

Context: Reagan often emphasized optimism, unity, and a dignified tone—even when disagreeing. He viewed America as a beacon of hope and saw the president as a steward of national character.

2. On Immigration and American Identity:

“You speak of immigrants as threats, but I saw them as assets to the American experiment. We are a nation of immigrants. We weaken our greatness when we shut the golden door to those yearning to be free.”

Context: Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which granted legal status to nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants. He spoke of immigrants with admiration, not suspicion.

3. On NATO and Global Alliances:

“You undermine alliances I spent a presidency building. America leads not by bullying partners or admiring strongmen, but by championing freedom and standing firm with our allies.”

Context: Reagan was staunchly pro-NATO and took a hard line against authoritarian regimes, particularly the Soviet Union. Trump’s praise of autocrats and criticism of NATO would likely alarm him.

4. On Conservatism and Responsibility:

“Conservatism is not chaos. It is a belief in limited government, personal responsibility, and respect for institutions. When we tear down the guardrails of democracy, we no longer conserve—we destroy.”

Context: Reagan valued conservative principles but respected democratic processes. He would likely object to Trump’s rejection of election results and attacks on the judiciary.

5. On Political Legacy:

“We do not inherit America’s greatness from one election to the next—we preserve it by upholding the values that bind us: liberty, respect, and the rule of law. History will judge not only what we build, but what we choose not to break.”

Context: Reagan was deeply concerned with legacy, often invoking America’s historical promise. He might warn Trump that personal power is fleeting—but democratic norms endure if preserved.

AI just confirmed it: Trump and the MAGA cult dishonor America, Christianity, and the once-Grand Old Party.

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