No confidence in Trump economic plan causes US credit rating to drop

Credit agencies know a bad risk when they see one

Robert Reich for Inequality Media

Last Friday, the credit rating of the United States was downgraded. Moody’s, the ratings firm, announced that the U.S. government’s rising debt levels will grow further if the Trump Republican package of new tax cuts is enacted. This makes lending to the United States riskier.

(Moody’s is the third of three major credit-rating agencies to downgrade the credit rating of the United States.)

So-called “bond vigilantes” are being blamed. They’ve already been selling the U.S. government’s debt, as the Republican tax package moves through Congress. They’re expected to sell even more, driving long-term interest rates even higher to make up for the growing risk of holding U.S. debt.

Some right-wing Republicans in Congress have already used the Moody’s downgrade to justify deeper spending cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, and other social programs that lower-income Americans depend on.

Just follow the money. The real cause is the growing political power of the super-rich and big corporations...

But, hello? There’s a far easier way to reduce the federal debt. Just end the Trump tax cuts that mainly benefit the wealthy and big corporations — and instead raise taxes on them.

I’m old enough to remember when America’s super-rich financed the government with their tax payments. Under President Dwight Eisenhower — hardly a left-wing radical — the highest marginal tax rate was 91 percent. (Even after all tax credits and deductions were figured in, the super-rich paid way over half their top marginal incomes in taxes.)

But increasingly — since the Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump 1 tax cuts — tax rates on the super-rich have plummeted.

What Courts Can Do If the Trump Administration Defies Court Orders

Judges have a range of tools for enforcing their orders in the face of noncompliance.

Yasmin Abusaif and Douglas Keith, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law

They could simply post this picture
 of President Musk

More than 10 federal courts have temporarily halted or rejected actions by the new Trump administration on issues ranging from spending to birthright citizenship. Dozens more lawsuits against the administration’s early actions are pending. 

However, statements by top Trump adviser Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance openly challenging judicial authority have raised the possibility that the administration may ignore court rulings it opposes. 

Already, one judge has determined that the Trump administration is not taking sufficient action to follow their orders. So, what happens if the government refuses to obey federal court decisions?

As the Supreme Court has explained, it is a “basic proposition that all orders and judgments of courts must be complied with promptly.” Courts can — and often do — step in when their rulings are defied. Here’s an overview of the tools available to federal courts to compel compliance, or punish noncompliance, with their decisions.

How can federal courts enforce their orders?

Courts have several important tools available to enforce their orders, including contempt proceedings and attorney sanctions. Judges regularly use at least some of these enforcement tools against the private parties and government officials who appear before them.

Old, ineffective and racist - the policy Trump loves

1950s strategy didn’t work then and is less likely to do so now

Katrina Burgess, Tufts University

While campaigning in Iowa last September, former President Donald Trump made a promise to voters if he were elected again: “Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he said. Trump, who made a similar pledge during his first presidential campaign, has recently repeated this promise at rallies across the country.

Trump was referring to Operation Wetback, a military-style campaign launched by the Eisenhower administration in the summer of 1954 to end undocumented immigration by deporting hundreds of thousands of Mexicans. 

“Wetback” was a widely used ethnic slur for Mexicans who illegally crossed the Rio Grande, the river dividing Mexico and the U.S.

A U.S. Border Patrol officer shows how he found
an undocumented Mexican immigrant under the hood
of a car along the U.S.-Mexican border in March 1954.
 Associated Press

Trump says that he can replicate Operation Wetback on a much grander scale by setting up temporary immigration detention centers and relying on local, state and federal authorities, including National Guard troops, to remove the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants now living in the U.S.

As a migration scholar, I find Trump’s proposal to be both disturbing and misleading. Besides playing to unfounded and dehumanizing fears of an immigrant invasion, it misrepresents the context and impact of Eisenhower’s policy while ignoring the vastly changed landscape of U.S. immigration today.

The Lost Art (and Joy) of Taxing the Rich

Make them pay their fair share - the way they used to

SAM PIZZIGATI  for Inequality.Org 

Eight decades ago, at a pivotal turning point in American history, our nation’s richest faced a 94 percent federal tax rate on their income over $200,000, the equivalent of about $3.5 million today. At that point, near the end of World War II, only one other nation — the UK — taxed its rich at a steeper rate. The wealthiest Brits ended the war facing a 97.5 percent tax on their top-bracket income.

These stiff top tax rates — all nearly unimaginable today — would help usher in a generation of unparalleled economic progress for average Americans and Brits. And those rates ebbed only slightly in the postwar years. In the 1950s, America’s richest faced a 91 percent top tax rate. The GOP president then sitting in the White House, Dwight Eisenhower, made no move whatsoever to hack that top rate down.

Overall, notes the economist Thomas Piketty, America’s wealthiest faced an average 81 percent top tax rate between the years 1932 and 1980, one key reason why our richest 0.1 percenters — over the course of the 20th century’s middle decades — saw their share of the nation’s wealth sink from 25 to just 7 percent.

The rich — on both sides of the Atlantic — would spend plenty of time stewing about that shocking sink throughout those middle decades. But these deep pockets would eventually regain their political mojo, first in the UK with Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 political ascent and then a year later with Ronald Reagan’s election. By 1988, the UK’s top rate had sunk by over half, and America’s richest faced just a 28 percent top-bracket bite.

So You Wanna Reduce the Debt?

Tax the Wealthy Like We Used To

ROBERT REICH in Robertreich.Substack.Com

The dire warnings of fiscal hawks are once again darkening the skies of official Washington, demanding that the $31 trillion federal debt be reduced and government spending curtailed (thereby giving cover to Republican efforts to hold America hostage by refusing to raise the debt ceiling).

It’s always the same when Republicans take over a chamber of Congress or the presidency. Horrors! The debt is out of control! Federal spending must be cut!

Not only is the story false, but it leaves out the bigger and more important story behind today’s federal debt: the switch by America’s wealthy over the last half century from paying taxes to the government to lending the government money.

Ike was right

 

Why Tucker Carlson worries about his manhood. Maybe it's the bowtie.

Tucker Carlson pulls from an old playbook as he stokes anxiety about a masculinity crisis

Conor Heffernan, University of Texas at Austin

Bodybuilder Charles Atlas sought to turn Americans from
 ‘Chump to Champ.’ Lee Lockwood/Getty Images

Promotions for “The End of Men,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s forthcoming documentary, lament “The total collapse of testosterone levels in American men.”

Carlson’s central premise is that modern society has devitalized American men. Strength, drive and aggression are no longer in vogue, and Americans, as a result, are become weaker. This, the film implies, has ramifications for the country itself.

The purported remedies – which include tanning one’s testicles – have been easy fodder for critics. But as a historian of physical culture, I see Carlson’s claims as part of a rich heritage of skeptics shouting from the rooftops that American men are becoming devitalized, lazy and effeminate.

Over the past century, these hustlers and politicians have claimed that society is making men weaker. They’ve explained that physical weakness is indicative of moral rot and weakness of character. They have cited recent social problems as evidence. And their rallying cries often have stoked anxieties about some stronger, foreign enemy.

Building ‘he-men’ after the Great Depression

Here's our home-growth example of toxic manhood, Blake
"Flip" Filippi

In the 1930s, fitness guru Charles Atlas – whose real name was Angelo Siciliano – embarked on one of the most successful fitness campaigns of all time.

He released a cartoon advertisement titled “The Insult that Made a Man Out of Mac” that told the story of a “97-pound weakling” who is embarrassed at the beach by muscular bullies. Shamed, the boy goes home, builds muscle using Atlas’ workout course, and returns to defeat the bully.

The text accompanying these ads was equally inspirational. Atlas promised to build “he-men,” to make “weaklings into men” and to turn Americans from “Chump to Champ.” The ads appeared in comic books, pop culture magazines and fitness journals. For millions of young Americans, “Mac” was a part of their comic book reading experience.

Older Americans were also susceptible to this messaging.

When interviewed by the New York Post in 1942, Atlas’ business partner, Charles Roman, noted that the Great Depression had been a boon for business, since working-age men tended to link unemployment to a lack of physical prowess.

In this regard, Atlas and Roman were not alone.

Ike nailed it

 

Conservatives & Billionaires Want to Make 'Welfare' a Dirty Word

Well then, take a hard look at CORPORATE welfare

By Thom Hartmann for the Independent Media Institute

Senator Joe Manchin, echoing the rightwing billionaire’s think-tanks’ PR and every Republican in Congress, recently said his objection to free college for students and eyeglasses for seniors was that such things created an “entitlement society,” a slur that means “a nation of welfare recipients.”   

In that, he displays a fundamental ignorance about what governments do and how societies work, as well as the difference between what we usually call the “social safety net” and things people should expect simply as a “right of citizenship” in a first-world country. He also misunderstands the difference between expenses and investments. 

A “social safety net” is there to catch you when you fall.  Unemployment insurance keeps you from becoming homeless when capitalism has one of its periodic hiccups.  Food stamps tide you over in rough times.  FEMA programs provide mobile homes and a stipend to keep people rendered homeless by natural disasters like hurricanes, forest fires, and floods alive and well.

These are the sorts of things that we generally refer to as “welfare.”  They’re there to “catch us” and keep us from falling through society’s “floor.” 

They also prevent people from “breaking” when they fall, whether it’s a temporary hiccup in capitalism (recession, depression), a natural disaster, or a region that’s failed to invest in itself so long that there are simply no jobs available. We know, for example, that inequality, along with the poverty and mental illness it causes, drive up costs to society that can be covered with these kinds of help.  

So these shorter-term programs (or, in some cases, even longer-term for already-wounded people) keep society stable. Finland, for example, is providing free housing for all their homeless; it’s cheaper than the police, hospital and mental health services that houseless people otherwise use. But these are still programs to “catch” people and regions who’ve fallen or been injured by life, not to grow and expand society. 

This is how to REALLY make America great

Mr. Fix-It

By Robert Reich

Joe Biden is embarking on the biggest government initiative in more than a half century, “unlike anything we have seen or done since we built the interstate highway system and the space race decades go,” he says.

But when it comes to details, it sounds as boring as fixing the plumbing.

“Under the American Jobs Plan, 100% of our nation’s lead pipes and service lines will be replaced—so every child in America can turn on the faucet or fountain and drink clean water,” the president tweeted.

Can you imagine Donald Trump tweeting about repairing lead pipes?  

Biden is excited about rebuilding America’s “infrastructure,” a word he uses constantly although it could be the dullest term in all of public policy. “Infrastructure week” became a punchline under Trump. 

The old unwritten rule was that if a president wants to do something really big, he has to justify it as critical to national defense or else summon the nation’s conscience.

Dwight Eisenhower’s National Interstate and Defense Highway Act was designed to “permit quick evacuation of target areas” in case of nuclear attack and get munitions rapidly from city to city. Of course, in subsequent years it proved indispensable to America’s economic growth.

America’s huge investment in higher education in the late 1950s was spurred by the Soviets’ Sputnik satellite. The official purpose of the National Defense Education Act, as it was named, was to “insure trained manpower of sufficient quality and quantity to meet the national defense needs of the United States.”

What we can learn from the polio vaccine campaign

The great polio vaccine mess and the lessons it holds about federal coordination for today's COVID-19 vaccination effort

Bert Spector, Northeastern University

Elementary students initially received polio vaccines at school. 
PhotoQuest/Archive Photos via Getty Images

I nervously fell into a long line of fellow first graders in the gymnasium of St. Louis’ Hamilton Elementary School in the spring of 1955. We were waiting for our first injection of the new polio vaccine.

The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis – with money raised through its annual March of Dimes campaign – had sponsored field tests for a vaccine developed by Jonas Salk. 

The not-for-profit had acquired sufficient doses to inoculate all the nation’s first and second graders through simultaneous rollouts administered at their elementary schools. The goal was to give 30 million shots over three months.

Now, more than six decades later, attention focuses on the rollout of two COVID-19 vaccines, following their emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. States have begun to administer them in a rocky and frustratingly slow delivery process – while hundreds of thousands of new cases continue to be diagnosed daily in the U.S.

While not necessarily comforting, it is useful to recognize that the early days and weeks of mass distribution of a new medication, particularly one that is intended to address a fearful epidemic, are bound to be frustrating. 

Only after examining the complex polio vaccine distribution process as documented in papers collected in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library did I come to understand how partial my childhood memories actually were.

How we beat polio

What we can learn from the polio vaccination campaign

Carl Kurlander, University of Pittsburgh and Randy P. Juhl, University of Pittsburgh

Dr. Jonas Salk, left, developed the first effective polio vaccine. Underwood Archives/Getty Images

In 1955, after a field trial involving 1.8 million Americans, the world’s first successful polio vaccine was declared “safe, effective, and potent.”

It was arguably the most significant biomedical advance of the past century. Despite the polio vaccine’s long-term success, manufacturers, government leaders and the nonprofit that funded the vaccine’s development made several missteps.

Having produced a documentary about the polio vaccine’s field trials, we believe the lessons learned during that chapter in medical history are worth considering as the race to develop COVID-19 vaccines proceeds.

Honesty really matters

Leaders like Trump fail if they cannot speak the truth and earn trust
Kenneth P. Ruscio, University of Richmond

During a recent Senate committee hearing on the COVID-19 crisis, Dr. Anthony Fauci told lawmakers he was concerned about “a lack of trust of authority, a lack of trust in government.”

He had reason to be worried. The Pew Center reported that July 7 only 17% of people in the U.S. have confidence in government to do the right thing. 

Never in the history of their surveys, which began in 1958, has that confidence been so low.

Why is trust so low and why does that matter, especially during a crisis – and especially during this crisis?

Ike understood

US and Iran have a long, troubled history

Let's learn the history of Iran and the US - understanding may prevent war
Jeffrey Fields, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Benny Marty/Shutterstock.com

Relations between the United States and Iran have been fraught for decades – at least since the U.S. helped overthrow a democracy-minded prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, in August 1953. 

The U.S. then supported the long, repressive reign of the shah of Iran, whose security services brutalized Iranian citizens for decades.



The two countries have been particularly hostile to each other since Iranian students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979, resulting in, among other consequences, economic sanctions and the severing of formal diplomatic relations between the nations. 

Since 1984, the U.S. State Department has listed Iran as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” alleging the Iranian government provides terrorists with training, money and weapons.

Some of the major events in U.S.-Iran relations highlight the differences between the nations’ views, but others arguably presented real opportunities for reconciliation.

On TV, political ads are regulated

But online, anything goes
Ari Lightman, Carnegie Mellon University



With the 2020 election just a year away, Facebook is under fire from presidential candidates, lawmakers, civil rights groups and even its own employees to provide more transparency on political ads and potentially stop running them altogether.

Meanwhile, Twitter has announced that it will not allow any political ads on its platform.

Modern-day online ads use sophisticated tools to promote political agendas with a high degree of specificity.

I have closely studied how information propagates through social channels and its impact on political messaging and advertising.

Looking back at the history of mass media and political ads in the national narrative, I think it’s important to focus on how TV advertising, which is monitored by the FCC, differs fundamentally with the world of social media.

Ike on parades

Is cutting Central American aid going to help stop the flow of migrants?

Or is it a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face?

Carmen Monico, Elon University

President Donald Trump has long made blocking the thousands of Central Americans who head to the southern U.S. border, most of them seeking asylum, from entering and staying in the country a top priority.

His administration is now stepping up its pressure on the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to take steps to curtail the migration of their own citizens by constricting U.S. aid. About US$370 million in aid money for the three countries included in the 2018 budget will be spent on other projects, the State Department said on June 17.

“It is critical that there be sufficient political will in these countries to address the problem at its source,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.

I’m a scholar who has researched migration from Central America, especially the arrival of unaccompanied children and teens from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Like many experts, I argue that slashing aid is counterproductive because foreign assistance can address the root causes of migration, such as violence and poverty. 

I also consider this demand that the region’s governments muster more “political will” to be meaningless, as only sustained human and economic development, along with efforts to combat crime, can make a difference.

Bring back Eisenhower socialism

President Eisenhower supported positions that today’s Republicans call “communist”

By Chuck Collins

Beware of the specter of socialism!

Anytime a politician proposes a wildly popular idea that helps ordinary people, a few grumpy conservatives will call them “socialists.” 

Propose to reduce college debt, help sick families, or ensure the super-rich pay their fair share of taxes — suddenly you’re a walking red nightmare.

Utah Republican Rep. Chris Stewart is so alarmed he’s convened an “Anti-Socialism Caucus” to ward off “the primitive appeal of socialism” that will “infect our institutions.”

Democrats’ talk of restoring higher income tax rates on the wealthiest or helping families with childcare was enough to trigger Treasury Secretary Steve Munchin to quip, “We’re not going back to socialism.”

These same politicians consistently vote for tax cuts for the rich and to gut taxes and regulations on corporations so they can exercise their full freedom and liberty — to mistreat workers, pollute the environment, and rip off their customers.