Tag Archives: Trump cabinet

The Know-Nothing Administration

Data tells us that education levels predict the major divisions among American voters. Educational differences are also playing out in Washington, as Trump assembles a know-nothing cabinet composed of cranks, toadies, various conspiracy theorists and general ignoramuses.

Primary among those ignoramuses is Elon Musk. Musk’s reputation as a “genius” rests almost entirely on Americans’ quixotic tendency to ascribe intelligence to the accumulation of wealth. Musk inherited a fortune, purchased rather than invented the Tesla, and pretty much tanked Twitter. We taxpayers provide much of his income through lucrative contracts with the federal government.

I may be underwhelmed by Musk’s purported brilliance (actually, he isn’t stupid, he’s ignorant, and that’s different) but–like Trump–he himself is anything but modest. He’s proclaimed an intent to use his promised new (illegitimate) “department” to produce savings and government “efficiency.”

Musk and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy have promised to cut two trillion dollars out of the federal budget–a promise that displays incredible ignorance of what is in that budget, what is and isn’t discretionary, and what would be required to reduce it.

Vox recently explained that, even if Musk and Ramaswamy took an axe to the relatively small portion of the budget that is discretionary, that would save “only” $1.1 trillion. But those cuts would be incredibly painful–and would never make it through Congress:

Let’s suppose that Musk and Ramaswamy decide to really go for it. They’re going to cut non-defense discretionary spending in half, maybe by shutting down all scientific and health research and K–12 school aid. They’re slashing Medicare and Medicaid by a quarter, and they’re eliminating food stamps, ACA credits, and unemployment insurance entirely.

These, to be clear, are all cuts that would require congressional approval and that Musk, Ramaswamy, and Trump could not achieve through executive action alone. Furthermore, they’re cuts that seem politically impossible to push through. For the sake of argument, let’s suppose this is the package.

Doing the math, even this unbelievably ambitious package would amount to a little over $1.1 trillion annually. It’s barely halfway to Musk’s stated goal.

Robert Hubbell, among others, has noted that it isn’t mathematically possible (not to mention politically feasible) to achieve $2 trillion in cuts. A one trillion dollar cut would require “massive cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and subsidies for the Affordable Health Care premiums.” The majority of people hurt by those cuts would be the MAGA folks in Trump’s base, and they’d take effect right before the midterms.

What about Musk’s proposal to save money by firing thousands of federal workers? Again, he displays his ignorance. The federal workforce has remained essentially flat for decades; increases in the number of government workers have occured at the state and local level.

As Hubbell writes, 

The US economy is the largest in the world—by a large margin. Although Musk and Ramaswamy may not like it, the size of the US economy is due in part to the federal government, which creates stable marketplaces and economic conditions for growth.

If you demolish the federal regulatory framework by firing millions of federal employees, we devolve into a kleptocracy—like Russia, which has an economy smaller than that of Brazil. Indeed, Russia’s current GDP is smaller than that of the US before WWII. See World Bank Ranking of GDP 2023….

The myth that the US has a bloated federal bureaucracy is demonstrably false when compared to other developed economies. If Musk and Ramaswamy recommend cutting the US federal workforce by a million jobs, we will have a federal regulatory environment on the same scale as Haiti and El Salvador. That state of affairs might benefit robber barons and tech bros, but it won’t help working-class Americans.

Here’s the takeaway: We will hear an incredible amount of insufferable mansplaining and chest-thumping from Musk and Ramaswamy. But they will soon face the reality that government spending helps the American people (which is the point of having a government) and creates the conditions for a prosperous economy.

Musk and his ilk are just prominent examples of the uninformed population that thinks running a government is no different than running a business. As I explained yesterday, that belief rests on a profound misconception of what government is, and what it is for.

It isn’t just Musk and Ramaswamy. Trump’s entire cabinet is a collection of dunces and conspiracy theorists–from Soviet apologist Tulsi Gabbard to RFK, Jr. and his brain worm. His pick for Treasury Secretary is evidently pro-tariff, but as the New York Times has noted, will have a very uphill battle selling tariffs to a business community that actually understands how they work.

Some of these Trump-world clowns probably believe the earth is flat…..

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The Disaster That Is Betsy DeVos

There’s a reason that living under the Trump Administration is so exhausting;  citizens don’t know where to look first. We wake every morning with the same question: which of Trump’s incompetent/corrupt Cabinet members is doing the most damage today?

The EPA is headed by a former coal lobbyist who is busy eviscerating environmental protections. The  Secretary of the Treasury is refusing to honor a request for Trump’s taxes, despite a statute that specifically requires him to do so. At Commerce, Wilbur Ross was (fortunately) too incompetent to follow the rules for adding questions to the Census. Mike Pompeo is using the State Department to further fundamentalist Christian interests. Alex Acosta has joined the exodus of Trump Administration officials ousted for improper/corrupt behaviors….

And speaking of corrupt, don’t get me started about William Barr.

However, we can’t allow these scandals to obscure Betsy DeVos and her continuing effort to cripple the Department of Education and sabotage public education.

Recently, DeVos installed Diane Jones, a veteran of “for-profit organizations that operate low-quality education programs,” as chief architect of her education policy.

“President Trump’s Department of Education is stacked with former for-profit executives whose companies got rich by ripping students off,” said Charisma L. Troiano, the press secretary for Democracy Forward, a government watchdog organization that has accused Ms. Jones of several conflicts of interest. “For decades, Diane Auer Jones has advocated for this predatory industry.” (Link unavailable)

DeVos  is the first Secretary of Education to come to that post having zero experience with public schools. She has never worked in a public school, has never been a teacher, a school administrator, nor a member of a public board of education. Not only that, she didn’t attend public schools herself, and she didn’t send her children to public schools. In Michigan, she’d been an implacable foe of public education and a generous funder of vouchers and for-profit charters.

When she was nominated for the position, the Washington Post ran an article titled “A sobering look at what Betsy DeVos did to education in Michigan.” It documented the troubling decline in student achievement in the private and religious schools she supported.

Her confirmation hearings were a disaster, revealing her monumental ignorance of DOE’s mission and legal responsibilities, and lack of familiarity with important education policies. It took Mike Pence’s vote to confirm her–the first time in history a Vice-President had to cast a deciding vote for a cabinet nominee.

And what has she done since she was (barely) confirmed?

  • rolled back protections for transgendered students.
  • proposed a nine billion dollar cut in education funding
  • repealed federal protections against predatory for-profit colleges
  • rescinded college-level sexual assault guidelines
  • stripped DOE employees of collective bargaining rights
  • endorsed a plan to place guns in schools, and to purchase them with federal grant money intended for academics and student enrichment
  • eviscerated the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which allows public workers to apply for forgiveness of their student loans after 10 years of service and on-time loan payments.
  • pushed to expand federal vouchers by $50 billion dollars over ten years
  • refused–and  continues to refuse–to enforce laws requiring that federally funded services be provided only by public employees or by contractors independent of private schools and religious organizations. (It is unprecedented for a federal agency to announce it won’t enforce the law as written.)

There’s more at the link.

Even if Democrats sweep this abysmal crew out in the 2020 elections, it will take decades to repair the damage.

It turns out that handing the government over to people who know absolutely nothing–either about government in general or the work they are being asked to do in particular–is a really bad idea.

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The Best Worst

Note: This is tomorrow’s blog. Accidentally posted early.

When I was growing up, there was a widespread assumption that you could judge people by the friends they chose. Did Johnny run around with a bad crowd? Was Susie attracted to “bad boys”? In political life, we had a similar shorthand: did the Mayor or Governor or President surround himself (back then, it was always a him) with quality people? Knowledgable, ethical people? If not, it was a bad sign.

Which brings me to Gail Collins’ recent contest. Collins asked her readers to vote for Trump’s worst cabinet member. As you might guess, the competition was fierce. She began with a warning:

No fair just yelling “Wilbur Ross!” Our secretary of commerce appeared to be trying to sweep the field last week when he expressed bafflement that federal workers were going to food banks during the government shutdown rather than taking out loans.

Collins described several other contenders: Kirstjen Nielsen generated false evidence to justify the president’s ugly immigration policies, oversees the execution of those policies, and consistently lies about them. She’s a strong contestant.

And she’s been pretty effective in carrying out her plans, which is important when you’re part of a crew where ineptitude often cancels out bad intentions.

For instance, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos would certainly like to privatize the nation’s public schools, but she barely seems organized enough to get dressed in the morning. Still, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, believes DeVos should get Worst points for having “basically spent her time in that office working for everyone but the kids.”

If I were voting, DeVos would definitely be a finalist.

Although Collins listed Rick Perry, Mr. “Oops” has managed to look positively benign next to most of the other cabinet members.

Some cabinet-watchers are discovering, to their shock, that they miss Scott Pruitt, who won last year’s competitionas the anti-environment head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt was famous for his public relations disasters. Remember security agentswho were sent to pick up his dry cleaning and drove him from one place to the next in a search for a special moisturizer?

Now we’ve got E.P.A. Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist who’s way better at the job. Presuming you believe the job is screwing up the air and water.

Collins points out that a quarter of the cabinet are “acting”– she terms them “high-end governmental equivalent of temps.” It’s quite a list; it  includes the E.P.A., and the Departments of Defense, Justice and Interior.

People who care about land conservation were unnerved when the inept Ryan Zinke was replaced by Acting Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, a former oil industry lobbyist. Can you imagine Bernhardt and Wheeler plotting together?

I don’t know where those “people who care about land conservation”–or clean air and water–are, but it’s pretty obvious none of them are serving in this Administration.

Collins acknowledges the challenge in picking a Worst Cabinet Member–as she says, there is so much competition.

Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, ticked off Pompeo, DeVos, Nielsen, Steve Mnuchin (“Certainly the slimiest Treasury secretary ever”) and Housing Secretary Ben Carson.

Let’s face it. The most apparent qualification for a cabinet position in this administration is a belief that the agency you are heading is illegitimate.

Pruitt and Wheeler both prioritize fossil fuel interests over pesky concerns about clean air or water; DeVos (recommended by Mike Pence–need I say more?) has an animus toward public education–both she and Pence want schools to “bring children to Jesus”–and her background included pretty much destroying Michigan’s public schools. Maybe Ben Carson was a good surgeon, but he has often expressed bias against “handouts” like affordable housing, also known as the mission of his agency.

It’s really hard to choose a “worst” from this assortment of incompetents and crooks, otherwise known as Trump’s “best people.”

My favorite description of this pathetic assemblage was posted by a Facebook friend, who said “I’ve seen better cabinets at IKEA.”

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Trump’s Confederacy Of Dunces

It’s something new–and depressing–every day.

Just last week, Trump fired both Andrew McCabe and Secretary of State Tillerson in the most humiliating manner possible; one of his close aides was escorted out of the White House without even being given time to gather his belongings (he was under investigation for “financial crimes” of an unspecified nature); and multiple rumors surfaced about the imminent replacement of National Security Advisor McMasters with crazy-as-a-loon chickenhawk John Bolton.

Now, we learn that an advisor to Ben Carson–he of the $31,000 dining room set and the repeated admonitions to America’s poor about “personal responsibility”–has quit among questions of fraud and the inflation of his biography.

He said he was a multimillionaire – an international property developer with a plan to fix America’s cities through radical privatization. He felt that Donald Trump’s administration was where he was meant to work.

“It was a natural fit,” Naved Jafry said in an interview. Citing connections across the military, business and academia, he said: “I bring, and draw on, experiences from different areas of knowledge, like a polymath.”

Jafry was contracted to work for Trump’s housing and urban development department (Hud). His government email signature said his title was senior adviser. Jafry said he used his role to advocate for “microcities”, where managers privately set their own laws and taxes away from central government control.

Among other things, Jafry had claimed control over a multimillion-dollar trust fund; a claim inconsistent with court records showing that he struggled to pay rent and bills.

Wasn’t a major part of Trump’s “attraction” that he was rich? Trump voters drew two (unwarranted) conclusions from that wealth– that rich people must be smart and that they would be less incentivized to (mis)use tax dollars for personal gratification. Those same claims were made about the cabinet of wealthy white guys he’s assembled.

Um…not so much….

It turns out that HUD had agreed to spend $165,000 on “lounge furniture” in addition to the $31,000 dining set that–it also turns out–had been personally selected by Carson and his wife for his office. The news followed an administration proposal to cut $6.8 billion, or 14%, of HUD’s annual budget.

Then there’s treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, a former Wall Street executive purportedly worth as much as $35 million, who managed to run up bills in excess of $800,000 in his first six months in office for travel on military jets, (and whose wife made news by bragging about her pricey designer clothes on social media).

Scott Pruitt may not believe in science (or, apparently, the importance of clean air and water), but he evidently believes in using tax dollars to avoid those pesky citizen types who do. The environment secretary has said he has to travel first-class because of threats from members of the public who object to his climate-change-denying, regulation-slashing approach to government.

He also spent as much as $43,000 on a soundproof “privacy booth” inside his office to prevent eavesdropping on his phone calls and $9,000 for biometric locks and to have his office swept for listening devices. Earlier this month it was reported that he used $6,500 in public money to hire a private media firm with strong Republican ties to help produce a report promoting his accomplishments.

The Secretary of Veterans Affairs, David Shulkin, was the subject of a blistering report detailing ethical violations in a trip to Denmark and Britain that mixed business with pleasure, including a trip to Wimbledon and a cruise down the Thames.

When Interior secretary Ryan Zinke wanted to go horseback riding with Mike Pence, he took a government-funded helicopter – one of three such journeys in 2017 that cost a total of $53,000 of public money. In addition, Zinke, who favors oil, gas, coal and uranium mining on public lands out west, has been rebuked by the department watchdog for failing to keep proper records of his travel expenses and to disclose who paid for his wife to accompany him on work trips.

Health and human services secretary Tom Price was forced to resign last September after it was revealed that he used at least $400,000 and probably more than $1m in taxpayer funds on private and military flights for himself and his staff.

This Administration has clearly demonstrated that wealth doesn’t guarantee competence. As these examples show, neither does it promote ethical behavior.

But it sure seems to translate into a sense of entitlement.

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What Bible Are They Studying?

In the wake of Trump’s response to the Charlottesville riots–and especially as we look to see and judge the reactions of White House staff and Congressional Republicans–a news item published a couple of weeks ago in The Hill takes on a particularly ironic flavor.

Many of President Trump’s Cabinet members gather at a weekly session to study the Bible, the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) reported Monday.

Ralph Drollinger, the founder of Capitol Ministries, says he leads a weekly Bible study with Cabinet members such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

“It’s the best Bible study that I’ve ever taught in my life. They are so teachable. They’re so noble. They’re so learned,” Drollinger told CBN.

Vice President Pence, who is a sponsor of the faith sessions, reportedly joins the group when his schedule allows.

The snark just writes itself–especially when you consider that although Trump’s embrace of the “good people” carrying torches and chanting anti-black and anti-Jewish slogans prompted CEO’s to resign en masse from his two business advisory councils– it has yet to prompt even one departure from his Evangelical Advisory Board.

I am not a Christian (and I don’t play one on TV), so I don’t pretend to be conversant with the varying theologies that distinguish Christian denominations. But I have deeply religious Christian friends, and they assure me that Christ did not preach a doctrine of racial and religious hatred.

Evidently, the Evangelical Advisory Board and the leader of the cabinet’s Bible Study are more tolerant of intolerance than my Christian friends.

According to media reports, Pastor Ralph Drollinger, the 7-foot-1 former UCLA basketball star who leads these sessions, has his own take on a number of biblical admonitions. He once lectured a group of Sacramento lawmakers that female politicians with young children have no business serving in the Legislature. He called those who do so sinners. (Interestingly, he subsequently defended fathers whose careers take them out of the home for extended periods, although he did say they should be “extra sensitive” to such absences–whatever the hell that means.)

This is a “discipleship” that supports snatching health insurance from millions of Americans; that believes God wants them to deprive poor women access to the lifesaving pap smears and breast exams provided by Planned Parenthood; that wants to give wealthy taxpayers “relief” while viciously slashing already inadequate safety-net programs for the poor. It’s a “discipleship” that ignores biblical admonitions about stewardship of the environment. A “discipleship” that apparently has no problem supporting a President who equates good people and Nazis. I could go on. And on.

Isn’t there something in the bible about knowing people “by their works”?

Let me just modify that famous Gandhi quote: I like my friends’ Christ. I do not like these self-proclaimed “Christians.” They are so unlike my friends’ Christ.
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