Public Policy and Governance – Page 187

Don’t Ever Say It Can’t Get Worse…

My mother–who under no circumstances could be considered an optimist–had a couple of favorite sayings: “Every silver cloud has a black lining,” and “Things are never so bad that they can’t get worse.”

Until Donald Trump’s election, I didn’t believe her.

Yesterday we learned that Rex Tillerson had been fired as Secretary of State and that he would be replaced by Mike Pompeo. Tillerson has hardly been a star, but he was one of the few seemingly rational actors in an administration epitomized by appointees like (arguably lobotomized) Betsy DeVos. (As one Facebook post described Tillerson, “He was terrible, but not insane.”) And it didn’t escape notice that he was dismissed immediately after issuing a strong statement in support of Theresa May’s assertion that Russia was behind the poisoning of a British spy and his daughter.

Mike Pompeo is evidently a favorite of our buffoon of a President, which is probably enough to disqualify him without knowing more. But let me share a description of our new Secretary of State from The Nation:

In the Republican wave election of 2010, when Charles and David Koch emerged as defining figures in American politics, the greatest beneficiary of Koch Industries largesse was a political newcomer named Mike Pompeo. After his election to the House eight years ago, Pompeo was referred to as the “Koch Brothers’ Congressman” and “the congressman from Koch.”…

Pompeo’s pattern of deference to his political benefactors is likely to make him a better fit with Trump. Pompeo will bring to the position an edge that Tillerson lacked. He is a foreign-policy hawk who fiercely opposed the Iran nuclear deal, stoked fears about Muslims in the United States and abroad, opposed closing the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, and defended National Security Agency’s unconstitutional surveillance programs as “good and important work.” He has even gone so far as to say that NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden “should be brought back from Russia and given due process, and I think the proper outcome would be that he would be given a death sentence.”

Pompeo’s open disregard for privacy rights in particular and civil liberties in general, as well as his penchant for extreme language and more extreme policies are anything but diplomatic. That makes him an even more troublesome Secretary of State than Tillerson, who was relentlessly corporate in his worldview but not generally inclined to pick fights—even when it came to standing up for a State Department that decayed on his watch.

The Nation is a publication with a point of view, but it doesn’t do “fake news.” If this description is even remotely accurate, my mother was right. Things are never so bad that they can’t get worse.

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And The Hits Keep Coming…

Every day, it seems, the Trump Administration sheds an advisor who is–whether or not one agrees with that person’s policy preferences–seemingly sane, and announces yet another appointee who is either deeply corrupt or factually-challenged or both.

The war being waged on public schools, the blithe disregard for the consequences of a trade war, the evisceration of HUD’s mission to help the poor, the reinstatement of a failed and flawed drug war–all of this is depressing. But the assault on the environment, the rollback of regulations that protect American air and water, is arguably the most sustained assault on science and sanity.

This morning’s media reported on a speech made by Interior Secretary Zinke, in which he asserted (without evidence) that wind power was largely responsible for global warming.

Last week, we learned that Trump and Pruitt had nominated a Dow Chemical executive to run the Superfund program.

Today’s report of rampant corruption comes, not surprisingly, from the EPA. Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt have nominated an attorney from Dow Chemical, one of the nation’s worst polluters, to run the Superfund program that cleans up after that company and many others.

In addition to his blog, Ed Brayton writes for a newspaper in Michigan, and his reaction to that nomination was based upon his reporting.

Dow is based here in Michigan and I’ve been reporting on them for many years. To call them environmental criminals is an insult to criminals. They are responsible for the enormous damage done by dioxins and furans, particularly in the Saginaw Bay area where their plants are located. The Tittabawassee River is massively contaminated, as are the soils around it. They have dragged their feet on cleaning it up for decades. Even the Bush-era EPA got so frustrated with them that they ended negotiations on just studying the problem in 2008. That contamination has spread from the Saginaw and Tittabawassee rivers into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron, helping spoil one of the world’s most important freshwater reserves.

The Hill reports that the entire administration is being stacked with climate change deniers.

Even as leading scientists, environmentalists and most Democrats accept research that shows climate change accelerating — and as some see it contributing to the two mammoth hurricanes that have threatened the United States this year — some in Trump’s administration have openly raised doubts.

Administrator Scott Pruitt has questioned carbon dioxide’s role as a “primary contributor” to a warming climate, something accepted by most researchers. He’s also called for a public debate over climate change science, a proposal that has caused scientists, environmentalists and former regulators to bristle.

“I think it’s going to have a chilling effect on science overall because it’s going to elevate those scientists who are in the vast minority and give them a stage that, frankly, they don’t deserve,” said Christine Whitman, President George W. Bush’s first EPA administrator, who called the proposal “shameful” in a Friday New York Times op-ed.

“It’s wasting taxpayer money and making it an even more difficult issue for the average person to wade through, which I think is part of the political agenda, to make the case that we don’t need to do anything about this issue.”

The EPA has removed its climate science website. Pruitt has put a political appointee in charge of reviewing grants, and that official is reportedly targeting grants that focus on climate change. The EPA keeps rolling back regulations that protect our air and water. The list goes on.

What is it that Neil DeGrasse Tyson says? Reality doesn’t care whether you believe in it or not.

There’s another saying: Reality bites. And that doesn’t bode well for our children or grandchildren–or for the planet.

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Rejecting The Enlightenment

And here I thought Scott Pruitt was just a bought-and-paid-for member of the “mafia” wing of today’s GOP. His long history of combatting environmental regulations while representing fossil fuel industries seemed adequate to explain his (toxic) presence in the Trump Administration.

Now, however, we discover that he is also a True Believer in the Pence mold. According to Politico, Pruitt has a history of statements that would do Pence and the rest of the “cult” wing of the party proud.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt dismissed evolution as an unproven theory, lamented that “minority religions” were pushing Christianity out of “the public square” and advocated amending the Constitution to ban abortion, prohibit same-sex marriage and protect the Pledge of Allegiance and the Ten Commandments, according to a newly unearthed series of Oklahoma talk radio shows from 2005.

Pruitt, who at the time was a state senator, also described the Second Amendment as divinely granted and condemned federal judges as a “judicial monarchy” that is “the most grievous threat that we have today.” And he did not object when the program’s host described Islam as “not so much a religion as it is a terrorist organization in many instances.”

The six hours of civics class-style conversations on Tulsa-based KFAQ-AM were recently rediscovered by a firm researching Pruitt’s past remarks, which provided them to POLITICO on condition of anonymity so as not to identify its client. They reveal Pruitt’s unfiltered views on a variety of political and social issues, more than a decade before the ambitious Oklahoman would lead President Donald Trump’s EPA.

This is the man who is charged with safeguarding the nation’s air and water, the man whose agency is our first line of defense against climate change. Never before has the EPA been headed by a person who actively dismisses and ridicules science and scientific evidence.

When the taped conversations emerged, an EPA spokesman was asked whether Pruitt’s skepticism about evolution– one of the major foundations of modern science– could conflict with the agency’s mandate to make science-based decisions.

Spokesman Jahan Wilcox told POLITICO that “if you’re insinuating that a Christian should not serve in capacity as EPA administrator, that is offensive and a question that does not warrant any further attention.”

Obviously, that was not the “insinuation,” although I for one would agree that a person espousing Pruitt’s particular version of Christianity and its mandates should be kept as far away from the EPA as possible.

Some polls show that less than 30 percent of white evangelical Protestants believe that human activity is the driving factor behind climate change.

And Pruitt has echoed that sentiment, telling CNBC last year that he did not believe carbon dioxide was a primary contributor to climate change. Last week, he told the Christian broadcaster CBN News that he supports developing the nation’s energy resources, a stance that he believes aligns with Scripture’s teachings.

“The biblical worldview with respect to these issues is that we have a responsibility to manage and cultivate, harvest the natural resources that we’ve been blessed with to truly bless our fellow mankind,” he said.

To suggest that criticism of Pruitt is tantamount to saying that religion disqualifies people from heading the EPA is not only appallingly dishonest, it flies in the face of the agency’s history.

Pruitt isn’t the first EPA administrator to openly express his or her religious faith, of course. His immediate predecessor, Gina McCarthy, was a Roman Catholic who visited top officials at the Vatican in 2015 as church officials worked to write Pope Francis’ climate change encyclical. She oversaw the creation of the major climate change and water regulations that Pruitt’s EPA has started to unwind.

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Trump’s Economic Ignorance

One of the reasons I was a Republican back when that party actually existed was my belief in markets. I certainly understood that there are areas of the economy where markets don’t work–health care, for example–and I also understood the need for an “umpire”–regulations to ensure that competition occurs on that all-important level playing field. But with those caveats, I was–and remain– decidedly pro-market.

So was the GOP that used to be.

Last Thursday, Trump announced that he intends to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum; he evidently thinks that such tariffs fulfill his half-baked “America First” approach to trade.

Speaking at the White House, the president said he had decided to levy tariffs of 25 percent on foreign-made steel and 10 percent on aluminum.

The move prompted an immediate slide in the stock market, uniform condemnation by economists (you know, the people who actually understand how these things work–or more accurately–don’t), and threats of retaliation from the EU and Canada, among others.

The Washington Post reported that Trump had ignored warnings from members of his administration:

The president went ahead with the unexpected announcement even after Gary Cohn, his top economic adviser, reportedly threatened to resign. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Trump that the stock market gains he loves to boast about would reverse themselves. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who he’s normally inclined to defer to, warned that this would hurt U.S. relationships with allies.

Companies that use steel and aluminum, including automakers, account for vastly more jobs than producers of the metals, and they argued that as many as 200,000 jobs were lost when George W. Bush imposed steel tariffs in 2002 that were later ruled to be illegal by the World Trade Organization.

Trump’s move, under a little-used national security provision of U.S. trade law, is expected to trigger legal challenges by China, the European Union and Brazil at the World Trade Organization. It also prompted predictions that it will backfire on American farmers and other exporters.

“It’s pretty much our worst fears,” said Rufus Yerxa, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents multinationals such as Microsoft and Caterpillar. “This is a pretty clear indication that the Trump administration cares more about the old economy than it does the new economy.”

This wasn’t Trump’s first effort at protectionism; the announcement follows an earlier round of tariffs on solar panels and washing machines. Economic history tells us that all of these moves will lead to higher prices for consumers. The recent ones will raise costs for manufacturers who use steel and aluminum (automobiles and beer in cans come to mind), and they will pass those increased costs to consumers.

The tariffs will also cost American jobs; the earlier ones have already caused at least one U.S. company that imports solar panels to announce layoffs.

Trump’s anti-competitive moves aren’t the only reason columnist Catherine Rampell now dismisses the GOP’s long-professed support for markets.

Republicans say they favor free markets. They’re not like those pinko-commie Democrats, who prefer “picking winners and losers.”

Oh, come off it already.

Republicans love picking winners and losers, too. They just choose different winners and different losers than Democrats do. In the case of today’s Republican officials, the winners are mostly donors, incumbents, culture-war favorites and cheats.

Rampell points to Trump’s efforts to prop up the coal industry, and the “carve-outs” and other favorable treatment given to donors and Republican governors. And she is especially scathing in her criticism of the Georgia legislature.

Republican officials there vowed to punish Delta Air Lines, one of the state’s largest employers, for canceling discounted prices for National Rifle Association members.

Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who is running for governor, gave Delta an ultimatum: restore the NRA discount, or forget the $50 million sales-tax exemption on jet fuel that Republican lawmakers had been considering. In other words, restore our special discount, or we won’t give you your own special discount. Delta didn’t budge, so lawmakers axed the tax break Thursday afternoon.

It takes a funny formulation of free markets to punish a private company for not giving your favored political group a good price.

It is also a perversion of market economics–not to mention a blatant violation of the rule of law–to tip off your advisor and good friend Carl Icahn about your intentions, so that he can unload nearly $31.3 million in a steel-related stock company before the news hits.

The GOP to which I once belonged no longer exists. What goes under that name today is an unholy merger between a cult and the mafia.

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As The Bullets Find Their Mark..

I will never understand the GOP obsession with repealing Obamacare.

I could certainly understand efforts to improve it, or even replace it with a different mechanism (not the smoke and mirrors sort of replacement that Trump yammered about but was unable to describe, but a different way to deliver actual healthcare).

It is hard for me to accept that there are people who genuinely believe poor folks aren’t entitled to medical care, that being unable to afford a doctor means you don’t deserve one. On the other hand, I recall that telling–and chilling– moment in a GOP debate when Ron Paul was asked what should be done with people who don’t have insurance, and the audience members yelled “let them die.”

So there’s that…

Even though Paul Ryan and his cronies couldn’t manage a complete repeal of the Affordable Care Act, they did manage to make it less workable. They didn’t kill it–they just made it more incoherent and costly.

According to Michael Hiltzik in the L.A. Times,

Those fiscal geniuses in the White House and Republican-controlled Congress have managed to do the impossible: Their sabotage of the Affordable Care Act will lead to 6.4 million fewer Americans with health insurance, while the federal bill for coverage rises by some $33 billion per year.

Also, by the way, premiums in the individual market will rise by an average of more than 18%.

These figures come from the Urban Institute, which on Monday released the first estimate of the impact of two GOP initiatives. The first is the elimination of the individual mandate, which is an offshoot of the GOP tax-cut measure signed by President Trump in December. The measure reduced the penalty for not carrying insurance to zero as of next Jan. 1.

The second is Trump’s plan to expand short-term insurance plans, which don’t comply with many of the ACA’s essential benefits requirements and allow insurers to reject or surcharge people with preexisting medical conditions or histories.

Both of these provisions siphon younger, healthier people out of the insurance pool–an entirely foreseeable (and indeed, widely foreseen) consequence. When the pool of insured individuals contains older, sicker participants not offset by as many young healthy ones, insurers must raise premiums.

Because government premium subsidies rise in tandem with premium increases, the cost of subsidies borne by the government will rise by $33.3 billion next year, or 9.3% — to $391.4 billion from $358.1 billion under existing law.

It isn’t only taxpayers who will get hosed by the changes Trump is so proud of. The article goes through a variety of ways in which people needing health insurance will get screwed over, and I encourage you to click through and read the whole analysis.

It’s hard to disagree with Hiltzik’s conclusion:

The damage estimate can’t be restricted to the immediate impact on individuals and families, the researchers observed. “As healthier enrollees exit for short-term plans, insurers will by necessity reexamine the profitability of remaining in the compliant markets. This may well lead to more insurer exits from the compliant markets in the next years, reducing choice for the people remaining and ultimately making the markets difficult to maintain.”

In other words, the Republican sabotage will continue to undermine health coverage in the U.S. The only alternative, it becomes clearer with every day, is some form of single-payer, Medicare-for-all coverage. That’s increasingly becoming part of Democratic Party orthodoxy, and it’s about time.

One more reason why we need a wave election in November.

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