Monthly Archives: November 2017

Tax Policy Winners And Losers

I’ve posted previously about the GOP’s tax “reform” plan, and some of the truly despicable provisions hidden in the fine print. As more details emerge, it appears that my list–like the one below–barely scratches the surface.

Whatever the arguments in favor of the $1 trillion in corporate tax breaks contemplated by the measure, the original idea–the justification for reducing the rate– was that the rate could be lowered if the loopholes that allow large profitable corporations to pay little or no tax despite the published rate were eliminated. Somehow, however, the current version of the “reform” bill leaves corporations with both lower rates and their loopholes.

Speaking of corporations, Dana Milbank reported a revealing exchange in a recent Washington Post column.

Individuals lose the ability to deduct state and local taxes, tax preparation, moving expenses and most medical expenses. But corporations — think of them as Very Important Persons with superhuman privileges — can still deduct these same expenses.

At Monday’s markup, Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) quizzed a tax expert on this corporate exceptionalism:

“Will a teacher in my district who buys pens, pencils and paper for his students be able to deduct these costs from his tax returns under this plan?” He will not.

“Will a corporation that buys pens, pencils and papers for its workers be able to deduct those costs from its tax returns?” It will.

“Will a firefighter in my district be able to deduct the state and local sales taxes that she pays from her tax return?” She will not.

“Will a corporation be able to deduct sales taxes on business purchases?” It will.

“If a worker in my district had to move because his employer was forcing him to relocate . . . can he deduct his moving expenses under this plan?” He cannot.

“Can a corporation under this plan deduct outsourcing expenses incurred in relocating a U.S. business outside the United States?” It can.

We Americans just love our corporations….they’re people, you know.

And isn’t it nice that Republican Americans are so “pro-life”? (Well, they’re pro pre born life; once that little bugger emerges from the womb, they are considerably less solicitous.) Among the non-fiscal measures in the tax “reform” bill is one intended to “protect babies”–aka fetuses and fertilized eggs. You’d think these pro-life men (they’re all men) would do anything they could to support  adoption as an alternative to abortion. But you’d be wrong.

The House Republican tax reform bill would completely eliminate the adoption tax credit, which has been in the tax code since 1997. It was a bipartisan achievement pushed through by former Texas Republican Rep. Bill Archer, who was chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. Designed to help cover “reasonable and necessary adoption fees, court costs, attorney fees, and other expenses,” the credit is available for up to $13,460 per child.

Some employers also offer adoption assistance in the form of financial aid and paid leave time. As of now, this type of assistance is tax-exempt, but the proposed bill would make such benefits subject to taxation.

The bill would also make adoption assistance from employers — which usually takes the form of financial aid and paid leave time — taxable.

Words fail.

I’m less surprised by the measures that would effectively destroy graduate education; the current crop of Republicans considers educated people snotty elitists. GOP officeholders sneer at scientists, oppose research funding, and think college professors are unAmerican.

Most graduate students get through their degree programs depending on assistantships, tuition waivers and lots of ramen noodle dinners. As Forbes reports,

Currently, these tuition waivers are paid by the college directly to itself, on behalf of the graduate student, and are not counted as taxable income. Under the current “reform” proposal, tuition waivers would be taxed as regular income, making graduate school an unaffordable proposition except for those already independently wealthy.

And then there’s that pesky little detail that the Congressional Budget Office finds problematic: this monstrosity will add 1.7 trillion to the deficit. (And that’s evidently after robbing Medicare and Social Security…) If you are looking for some of those Republican “deficit hawks” of yore, you are probably out of luck.

On the other hand, if you’re wondering why Paul Ryan is reportedly optimistic about passing this Thanksgiving turkey, Representative Chris Collins explained it the other day.

Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) got points for honesty Tuesday while advocating for Republicans’ tax bill to slash the corporate tax rate and eliminate the estate tax, among other things.

“My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again,’” Collins said.

I’m sure those donors are selfless patriots who simply want to see middle-class Americans get some tax relief. (And if you believe that, I have a swamp in Florida to sell you…)

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Blood Libel Redux

The term “blood libel” was coined to describe a centuries-old false allegation that Jews murder Christian children to use their blood in the baking of Passover matzo (unleavened bread). Blood libels were invented and used to inflame hatred of Jews, and often led to mob violence and pogroms, many of which decimated entire Jewish communities.

Blood libels are a tactic beloved by–but not limited to–anti-Semites. If you want to arouse public passions against any group you detest, such libels–updated for use in a (slightly) more  advanced age– remain useful mechanisms. (Think of all those accusations about black men “deflowering” Southern white women.)

It’s just so easy in the age of the Internet. Find an accusation you like, or a “fact” you can use to support the argument you want to make, and just cut, paste and forward.

And as Ed Brayton documents, elected officials aren’t above employing these tactics.

Kris Kobach, a first-class bigot and liar who chairs Trump’s voter fraud commission, also writes a column for Breitbart.com. Well, he kinda writes it. What he actually does, as Media Matters documents, is cut and paste from chain emails and racists to justify lying about immigrants and crime.
Brayton quotes from Kobach’s recent column, in which he claims that 75 percent of the people on most wanted lists in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Albuquerque are illegal aliens, and that 53 percent of burglaries investigated in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas are committed by illegal aliens.
Kobach cites two sources for these claims: one is the INS/FBI Statistical Report on Undocumented Immigrants.” and the other is from a piece by “Peter B. Gemma” for the ConstitutionParty.com. The INS ceased to exist in 2003, after the Department of Homeland Security was created, and Gemma is known as a racist who has worked for the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens and has been a “part of the American Holocaust denial movement.”
Other manifestations of this sort of targeted dishonesty are less blatant, but they still serve bigotries aimed at disfavored groups. The Gainesville Times recently referred to one of them as “zombies that won’t die.”

A staple of horror movies popular around Halloween is the ubiquitous “monster that won’t die.” Be they zombies, Dracula, Freddy Krueger, killers in hockey masks or Godzilla, the demons of our imagination never succumb to mortal fate, as least as long as another sequel is in the offing.

Sometimes, bad ideas by politicians stalk the innocent wearing the same ghoulish pallor of the undead, springing back to life whenever we think the coast is clear. One such Walking Dead issue is a religious liberty proposal that some think we can’t live with and others believe we can’t live without, and waits in the bushes for another victim.

The Georgia legislature passed such a law in 2016, stating no individual or business would be forced to cater to the needs of others if doing so clashed with their religious beliefs. Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed it, much to the chagrin of social conservatives, over fears it would make the state appear unwelcoming to other views and lifestyles, which could deter companies from locating operations and jobs here.

The editorial went on to point out that–contrary to the “zombie” arguments–Americans remain remarkably free to practice their preferred religions, no matter how incensed some may get over “Happy Holidays” greetings and the existence of laws protecting the rights of other people to their beliefs.

LGBTQ citizens aren’t attacking Christianity. (Actually, as my friends in the clergy have pointed out, pseudo “Christians” are doing a great job of that themselves…) Black men aren’t deflowering white women (okay, so maybe Bill Cosby–but so are Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump.) Jews aren’t using the blood of Christian children to make matzo. (If you’ve ever eaten matzo, you’d know it couldn’t contain  liquid of any kind or it wouldn’t be so constipating…)

A central premise of the American legal system is that we treat citizens as individuals, not as members of a group. People who embrace blood libels aren’t just bigots, and they aren’t just ludicrously wrong. They’re unAmerican.

And that most definitely includes Kris Kobach.

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Yes! Virginia: There Is A Santa Claus

Yes, as I used to tell students when I was a high school English teacher, punctuation makes a difference…

Wordplay aside, I am gratified to report that, on Tuesday, Santa Claus–aka Virginia voters–brought Americans a welcome gift: Sanity, and a resounding repudiation of white nationalism and the politics of fear.

Ed Gillespie ran a campaign based squarely upon Steve Bannon’s promise that “Trumpism without Trump” would carry the day. It is no longer plausible–if it ever was– to characterize “Trumpism” as anything other than racial resentment, and the appeals to bigotry in Gillespie’s ugly and reprehensible political ads were anything but subtle.

Virginia voters also repudiated homophobia, replacing one of the most anti-LGBTQ and anti-transgender members of Virginia’s legislature with a trans woman–and by a very healthy margin. Rejection of the politics of hate wasn’t limited to Virginia, either; in Minneapolis, a black trans woman was elected to the city council. Even in more conservative areas of the country, voters ignored efforts to stigmatize immigrants, non-Christians and African-Americans. A Liberian refugee is the new mayor of Helena, Montana. Hoboken, New Jersey has its first Sikh mayor.

Initial analyses of Virginia voting patterns brought confirmation of widening divides between urban and rural voters, and between college-educated and non-college-educated white voters. It also gave political observers a better understanding of which non-urban precincts should be categorized as “rural” for purposes of electoral prediction.  As the Guardian noted, despite a campaign that repeatedly stumbled, and a candidate who was earnest and moderate, but considerably less than charismatic,

Northam still won by overwhelming margins in suburban and exurban areas, taking 60% of the vote in both Prince William and Loudoun counties, rapidly growing suburbs and exurbs of Washington DC. When Gillespie ran for Senate in 2014 against the popular incumbent Mark Warner, he won Loudoun County and lost Prince William by less than 3%.

It wasn’t just in Virginia that suburban voters rejected Trumpism.  Democrats won victories with suburban votes in races across the country. From the  populous New York suburbs of Nassau County and Westchester County, to mayoral races in  cities like Charlotte, North Carolina; St Petersburg, Florida; and Manchester, New Hampshire, voters in the nation’s suburbs decisively favored Democrats. As the Guardian article concluded,

The midterms are a year away and a lot can happen between now and then. But the changing political demographics of the US, combined with Trump’s low approval ratings, mean that Democrats can feel confident they are on the right track at present. They may no longer be the party of coalminers in Appalachian hollows but, based on Tuesday’s result, they are now the party of an increasing number of suburban subdivisions.

It will be interesting to see whether and how this dynamic plays out in red states like Indiana. According to the last polling I saw, despite the fact that he won the state handily, Trump’s Indiana favorability has declined by 19 points since the election. That decline probably won’t matter much to contests in the truly rural parts of the state, but it will be interesting to see if the more affluent, educated and cosmopolitan suburbs follow the pattern that emerged on Tuesday.

Tuesday provided us with a gratifying reaffirmation of Americans’ basic goodness, but it’s not nearly time to stop agitating, protesting and resisting.

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If These Are The Best People, I’d Hate To Meet The Worst Ones

Dana Milbank has been on a roll ever since Trump was inaugurated. I have been reading his (increasingly snarky) columns in the Washington Post regularly, and recommend them highly.

In a recent column, Milbank considered the various snaky characters who’ve accompanied Trump to Washington. Remember that campaign boast about “the best people”? Trump was going to drain that swamp and bring “the best people” to government. I hate to channel Sarah Palin, but “how’s that hopey-changey thing working out?”

Milbank starts with Sam Clovis, a minor figure who Trump nominated to be Chief Scientist at the Agriculture Department. (Clovis has withdrawn from consideration after being caught up in the Papadopoulos disclosures).

For those who had not heard of Clovis before (which is pretty much everybody), he has been nominated to be the chief scientist at the Agriculture Department, a position that by law must go to “distinguished scientists,” even though he is, well, not a scientist. He is a talk-radio host, economics professor (though not actually an economist, either) and, most importantly, a Trump campaign adviser.

Milbank notes some of Clovis’ “scientific” positions: he’s a climate change skeptic, says  homosexuality is “a choice” leading to pedophilia, endorses birtherism, calls Eric Holder a “racist bigot” and Tom Perez a “racist Latino.”

Clovis has lots of equally disreputable company. A group called American Oversight has compiled information on the “best people” who worked on the Trump campaign and subsequently got cushy jobs in the administration; the list is nothing if not enlightening.

There’s Sid Bowdidge, who is now assistant to the secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy. He previously managed a Meineke Car Care branch in Seabrook, N.H. and before that, worked for tire shops. (He lost his job after it was discovered he had called Muslims “maggots.”)

Victoria Barton now handles congressional relations for Regions II, V and VI of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Between 2013 and 2015, she was a “bartender/bar manager.” (Don’t get me started on the housing expertise of her boss, Ben Carson…)

Christopher Hagan, a confidential assistant at the Agriculture Department, was a “cabana attendant” at Westchester Country Club in Rye, N.Y.  David Matthews, another confidential assistant, developed scented candles while also serving as a “legal receptionist.”

Some of the other “best” people Trump has hired are well known. Lynne Patton, HUD regional administrator, previously arranged Trump golf tournaments and arranged Eric Trump’s wedding, among other things. Callista Gingrich, just confirmed as ambassador to the Vatican, prepared for this by writing children’s books, singing in a church choir — and being married to Trump ally Newt Gingrich.

Others now in high office are less known: an office page, the author of an anti-Clinton book, a Christian-school librarian, a couple of real estate brokers and a landscaper. Many don’t appear to meet the educational qualifications for their positions. But they did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Milbank didn’t bother to describe those we know: the sorry gang of cabinet officials who range from embarrassing to unqualified to antagonistic to the missions of their agencies. Or the White House “advisors” qualified by virtue of nepotism and/or ability to suck up to the single most unqualified member of the administration, Donald Trump.

We live in a complicated and increasingly dangerous world, and we have elected a President who has absolutely no idea what government does, and no understanding of or respect for the skills and knowledge needed to administer it. Donald Trump ran for President to feed his ego. I seriously doubt that he expected to win; he was simply promoting his brand. He’s a sad and embarrassing buffoon, and he’s surrounded himself with the kind of people who actually look up to someone using a gold toilet.

The same sort of people who voted for him.

PS SORRY FOR INUNDATING YOUR EMAIL BOXES YESTERDAY; THE EXTRA POST WAS PUBLISHED BY ACCIDENT!

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Sports, Politics And A Question

I hate sports analogies, but sometimes, they’re useful.

I’d like to pose a question based on such an analogy to the significant number of Americans who choose a political party and thereafter “root” for it in much the same way they do their favored sports teams: policy, shmolicy, it’s my guys, right or wrong!

So….

Let’s say you are a diehard fan of a particular sports franchise. In this alternate universe I’m positing, the owner of the franchise has lots of draft choices and is choosing someone to be on “your” team.

Would you be happy if he chose to add someone to the team who had never played the sport? Someone who had never been on any team, major or minor league? Someone who didn’t know the rules governing how the game is played, and displayed no interest in learning either those rules or the basic strategies of the game?

If, for some unfathomable reason, the owner did choose this person to join the team, and  placed him in a prominent position, how would you react when he refused to listen to the coaches and boasted that he was smarter than they were? What would you think when he insulted the referees/umpires and refused to abide by their decisions, telling everyone within earshot that the officials couldn’t be fair to him–that they only made calls against him because they came from an inferior background and that’s why they were always yammering about “the rules”?

How would you feel when he constantly attacked the sportswriters who covered the games, accusing them of “making up” stories about his errors (even the ones on camera, the ones everyone could see for themselves)? How about when he engaged in abusive (and frequently misspelled) twitter rants about the missteps of his teammates or opponents, and excoriated sportswriters for writing more about his (numerous and embarrassing) errors than the mistakes of those others?

These are actually peripheral questions, of course.

The most important consequence of the team owner’s choice–the entirely foreseeable result of drafting a self-important blowhard who has no idea what teamwork is or how the game is played or even what the game is–is that his participation immediately drags your team down, makes it play badly.  So badly, in fact, that the entire league suffers. Fans depart, attendance dwindles, sportswriters–even those who usually cover other sports, and live in other countries– make fun of your team for its ineptitude and criticize your league for not stepping in to do something about the constant disregard for the rules. The owner can no longer persuade good players to join the team, so the errors and fumbles get worse.

Meanwhile, the team’s longtime rival wins games, and gains fans and prestige.

But hey–it’s your team, right? So even when you realize that the owner is keeping this guy on the team because he’s a useful distraction–a goofball whose antics are keeping people from focusing on the deal the owner has made with the other owners to change league rules in a way that will enrich them at the expense of fans like you–why do you keep attending the games, contributing to the “gate,” and rooting for “your” team?

When does team loyalty stop making sense?

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