Recession. Repression. Regression.
It seems fitting that 3R’s characterize the Trump-GOP
legislative program since it was the lack of 3R’s—an old-fashioned, old-timey
way to say education—that catapulted Trump to the White House, as uneducated
white voters, and many educated ones, too, were so blinded by fear of “the
other” that they believed Trump’s lies.
What we see in Trump’s legislative ideas is a wish list from
the extreme right that will please very wealthy people and eventually
disappoint everyone else accept those that think the function of government is
to suppress minorities. If fully implemented, Trump’s legislative program will
lead to a worldwide recession or depression, repression of civil rights and a regression
backwards in time that erases the economic and social progress we have made
over the past eight years.
Let’s take the proposals Trump and the GOP have put on the
table topic by topic.
Taxes
Trump and the GOP may engineer the largest tax break for the
wealthy in American history, including the Reagan and Bush II cuts. If Trump
gets his way, the tax cuts will skew in favor of those whose wealth is tied up
in land, but those who own financial assets will also make out like bandits.
Large multinational companies storing billions of dollars in profit abroad will
be able to repatriate their earnings at a bargain-basement rate of 10%.
Lower taxes on the wealthy and less revenue for the federal
government to dispense will eventually lead to a deep recession, as it did
under Bush II. Rich folk will invest
their wealth in financial and collectible bubbles, as they always do. No new
jobs will be created, because it is not money that is holding back big
companies from investing in growth today, but the lack of market growth
potential. That lack of a market derives because the middle class and poor have
less money than they used to, partially because the government, starved of
resources, does not funnel as much money to these groups—AKA the 99%--as they
could if taxes were higher. Lower taxes on the wealthy means less money for education,
infrastructure maintenance, food stamps, mass transit. Lower taxes on the wealthy
also means more money to feed financial bubbles. We’ve seen this before, not
just in the United States but throughout history. The asset bubble bursts and it
always turns out badly for the economy.
Infrastructure
Investment
Trump is living in a free-market dream world if he thinks
that his infrastructure financing plan will work. He wants to provide tax
incentives to the private sector, which will then rebuild our highways and
bridges and expand our mass transit systems. How will the private sector make
money on roads and trolley lines? Only by jacking up prices, ignoring the
public benefit of building certain roads and routes because they’re
unprofitable and hammering down employee wages. The private sector always goes
after the money, which may result in rebuilding municipal water systems only in
wealthy communities. We’ve tried private sector solutions to prisons and the
military and failed miserably. Advanced studies show that when you take into
account the wealth and disabilities of the student base, private schools
underperform public schools in educating children. There are just certain basic societal needs
that government must finance, address and manage, and infrastructure is first
among them.
Immigration
Trump is still talking about funding a wall between the
United States and Mexico and he still thinks Mexico will “reimburse” us for its
construction. While he intends to have the private sector pay for roads,
bridges, mass transit, waterways and sewers, he wants Congress to pass a law
that has our taxes laying out the money for this unneeded monstrosity, this
money pit that will provide no benefit save a temporary spike in construction
jobs. I said “laying out money,” but only a died-in-wool, brainwashed
Trumpsterite could believe that Mexico will pay even one penny for Trump’s
folly. The rest of his immigration program presents new harsh penalties for
breaking existing immigration laws, but nothing else.
Healthcare
If not stopped by healthcare industry lobbyists, Trump and
the GOP could plunge the U.S. healthcare system into chaos, especially if they
rescind Obamacare before replacing it. Getting rid of Obamacare will not only
take away the health insurance of 20 million people, it will precipitously end
three policies that helped everyone: 1) The removal of the cap on lifetime
coverage; 2) the rule that someone cannot be denied insurance for a
pre-existing condition; 3) allowing children to remain on their parent’s health
insurance policy until age 26. Now if Congress should pass a law that keeps
these important benefits but doesn’t mandate the kind of universal coverage
that Obamacare does, health insurers will be forced to jack up rates.
As with everything else, Trump and the GOP favor what they
call “market-based” and private solutions to address America’s healthcare
needs. They think that making it easier for health insurers to cross state
lines (they already do so, but with unique corporate entities in each state
responding to the local regulations in each state) and letting people create
tax-free Health Savings Accounts will bring down the cost of healthcare. It
won’t happen, but it will shift the burden of paying for health insurance from
the government and businesses to individuals. Another proposal, to let states
manage Medicaid funds, will enable those in right-wing states to reallocate
dollars from helping the poor to other uses.
Obamacare isn’t perfect, but building on it makes a lot more
sense than ripping it up in favor of “market” solutions shown not to work. I’m
guessing that once the healthcare lobby gets through beating up Congress that
whatever they call healthcare reform will end up keeping just about all of
Obamacare.
Defense
Trump wants to end the sequestration of funds that has
automatically cut federal government spending every year since 2013 for the
military only and begin expanding military investment. He doesn’t really have a
plan for what he will do with the extra money, but we do know that the Pentagon
wants to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons and continue development
of robot weapons that would make seek-and-kill decisions. Narcissists like
Trump always like shiny new toys. Congressional Republicans are still following
the Reagan playbook, which consists of cutting taxes primarily on the wealthy
while increasing defense spending to starve the social services part of the
government and at the same time create enormous deficits which, when interest
rates are high, translate into safe bond investments for the wealthy. I will give Trump the benefit of the doubt and
say that I am unsure whether he will ever want to use American military might,
but there is no doubt that he joins fellow Republicans in wanting to build it
up and never pay for it.
Safety and Security
This part is where the scary repression comes in. Trump has
proposed a number of laws that he says will address “surging crime, drugs and
violence.” Of course, crime is not surging, nor is violence, except in
households that own firearms. But much of Trump’s demagoguery revolves around
the notion that we are unsafe. Here is an area in which Trump could take
ownership of Obama-era statistics and declare victory, but I believe that
Congressional Republicans relish the opportunity to grab more civil rights, to create
more selling opportunities for gun manufacturers by underwriting greater
weaponization of local police and to encourage harsh police-state tactics in
minority areas. The racist undertones of the Trump campaign, his own history of
racism and the desire for Republicans to disenfranchise the African-American
community may lead to a generation of federal Jim Crow laws that also affect
Latinos and Muslims, all in the guise of protecting us from a non-existent
crime wave.
The Trump legislative plan marks the apotheosis of the
Reagan political strategy: Play on the racism, nativism and religiosity of working
and middle class whites to make them believe that their best interests lie with
the wealthy, pretend that the social service network being shredded only serves
minorities, while pretending that tax cuts help everyone and not just those at
the top.