Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[hrothgar]

The following Twitter thread is well worth reading

 

 

Curious what Drews and Chas and the like think of this...

[y66]

From The Global Con Hidden in Trump’s Tax Reform Law, Revealed by Brad Setser at NYT:

 

Setser is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on international trade and money flows.

 

[On Tuesday night], President Trump reserved a few minutes of his State of the Union address to praise his tax reform law, which turned a year old last month. To promote its passage, Mr. Trump and his congressional allies promised Americans that drastically lowered corporate tax rates would bring home large sums of capital that had been stashed overseas and finance a surge of domestic investment.

 

“For too long, our tax code has incentivized companies to leave our country in search of lower tax rates,” he said, pitching voters in the fall of 2017. “My administration rejects the offshoring model, and we have embraced a brand-new model. It’s called the American model.”

 

The White House argued they wanted a system that “encourages companies to stay in America, grow in America, spend in America, and hire in America.” Yet the bill he signed into law includes a sweetheart deal that allows companies that shift their profits abroad to pay tax at a rate well below the already-reduced corporate income tax — an incentive shift that completely contradicts his stated goal.

 

Why would any multinational corporation pay America’s 21 percent tax rate when it could pay the new “global minimum” rate of 10.5 percent on profits shifted to tax havens, particularly when there are few restrictions on how money can be moved around a company and its foreign subsidiaries?

 

These wonky concerns were largely brushed aside amid the political brawl. But now that a full year has passed since the tax bill became law, we have hard numbers we can evaluate.

 

For starters, the law’s repatriation deal did prompt a brief surge in offshore profits returning to the United States. But the total sum returned so far is well below the trillions many proponents predicted, and a large chunk of the returned funds have been used for record-breaking stock buybacks, which don’t help workers and generate little real economic activity.

 

And despite Mr. Trump’s proud rhetoric regarding tax reform during his State of the Union address, there is no wide pattern of companies bringing back jobs or profits from abroad. The global distribution of corporations’ offshore profits — our best measure of their tax avoidance gymnastics — hasn’t budged from the prevailing trend.

 

Well over half the profits that American companies report earning abroad are still booked in only a few low-tax nations — places that, of course, are not actually home to the customers, workers and taxpayers facilitating most of their business. A multinational corporation can route its global sales through Ireland, pay royalties to its Dutch subsidiary and then funnel income to its Bermudian subsidiary — taking advantage of Bermuda’s corporate tax rate of zero.

 

No major technology company has jettisoned the finely tuned tax structures that allow a large share of its global profits to be booked offshore. Nor have major pharmaceutical companies stopped producing many of their most profitable drugs in Ireland. And Pepsi, to name just one major manufacturer, still makes the concentrate for its soda in Singapore, also a haven.

 

Eliminating the complex series of loopholes that encourage offshoring was a major talking point in the run-up to the 2017 tax bill, but most of them are still in place. The craftiest and largest corporations can still legally whittle down their effective tax rate into the single digits. (In fact, the new law encourages firms to move “tangible assets” — like factories — offshore).

 

Overall, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act amounted to a technocratic sleight of hand — a scheme set to shift an even greater share of the federal tax burden onto the shoulders of American families. According to the Treasury Department’s tally for fiscal year 2018, corporate income tax receipts fell by 31 percent, an unprecedented year-over-year drop in a time of economic growth (presumably a time when profits and government revenue should rise in tandem).

 

These damning results, to be sure, don’t make for a good defense of what came before the new law. In theory under the old system, American-based firms still owed the government a cut of their global profits. In practice, large firms could indefinitely defer paying this tax until the funds could be repatriated — usually when granted a tax holiday by a friendly administration.

 

Over a generation, this political dance was paired with rules that made it relatively easy for firms to transfer their most prized intellectual property — say, the rights to popular software or the particular mix of ingredients for a hot new drug — to their offshore subsidiaries. Taken together, they created a tax nirvana of sorts for multinational corporations, particularly in intellectual-property-intensive industries like tech and pharmaceuticals. But it wasn’t enough.

 

For their next trick, the companies worked with their political allies to favorably frame the 2017 tax debate. When he was the House speaker, Paul Ryan was fond of talking about $3 trillion in “trapped” profits abroad. But those profits weren’t actually, physically, sitting in a few tax havens.

 

They were largely invested in United States bank accounts, securities and bonds issued by the Treasury or other companies headquartered in the States. As Adam Looney — a Brookings Institution fellow and former Treasury Department official — has explained, companies that needed to finance a new domestic investment could simply issue a bond effectively backed by its offshore cash. (For instance, Apple could bring its “trapped” funds onshore by selling a bond to Pfizer’s offshore account, or vice versa.)

 

Put plainly, they got the best of both worlds: Uncle Sam could tax only a small slice of their books while they traded with one another based on the size of the entire pie.

 

The scale of the tax shifting has become so immense that some economists believe curbing it could raise reported G.D.P. by well over a percentage point — something Mr. Trump, who’s been absorbed by opportunities to brag about the economy, should notionally welcome.

 

President Trump’s economic advisers and the key architects of the bill on Capitol Hill must have known their reform wasn’t going to end business incentives that hurt American workers. Honest reform would have meant closing corporate loopholes — a move they originally promised to make.

 

Should the opportunity present itself, perhaps to the next president, there are a couple of viable options for a fundamental tax overhaul that wouldn’t require reinstating the 35 percent corporate tax rate.

 

One of several possibilities is to return to a system of global taxation without the deferrals that enabled empty repatriations. That would mean profits sneakily booked tax-free in Bermuda would be taxed every year at 21 percent. Profits booked in Ireland — or other low-tax nations — would be taxed at the difference between Ireland’s rate and America’s rate.

 

It’s an approach that would protect small and midsize American companies while cracking down on bad corporate actors with enough fancy accountants and lawyers to rig the game to their advantage. And it would be far better than the fake tax reform passed a year ago.

[Chas_P]

Happy Birthday Winston.

[Winstonm]

Happy Birthday Winston.

 

Thank you.

[y66]

From There’s now an official Green New Deal. Here’s what’s in it. by David Roberts at Vox:

 

The Green New Deal has become an incredibly hot item on the political agenda, but to date, it has remained somewhat ill defined. It’s a broad enough concept that everyone can read their aspirations into it, which has been part of its strength, but it has also left discussion in something of a fog, since no one’s quite sure what they’re arguing about.

 

On Thursday, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced a Green New Deal resolution that lays out the goals, aspirations, and specifics of the program in a more definitive way. This is as close as there is to an “official” Green New Deal — at last, something to argue about.

 

There will be lots to say in the days to come about the politics of all this. (In the meantime, read Ella Nilsen’s piece.) For instance, it is interesting that Markey, a living symbol of 2008-era Democratic thinking on climate change (and the leader of the old climate committee), is lending his imprimatur to this more urgent and radical iteration.

 

But for now, I just want to share a few initial impressions after reading through the short document a few times.

 

It’s worth noting just what a high-wire act the authors of this resolution are attempting. It has to offer enough specifics to give it real shape and ambition, without overprescribing solutions or prejudging differences over secondary questions. It has to please a diverse range of interest groups, from environmental justice to labor to climate, without alienating any of them. It has to stand up to intense scrutiny (much of it sure to be bad faith), with lots of people gunning for it from both the right and center.

 

And, of course, it eventually has to give birth to real legislation.

 

Given all those demands, the resolution does a remarkably good job of threading the needle. It is bold and unmistakably progressive, matched to the problem as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, while avoiding a few needless fights and leaving room for plenty of debate over priorities and policy tools.

 

The resolution consists of a preamble, five goals, 14 projects, and 15 requirements. The preamble establishes that there are two crises, a climate crisis and an economic crisis of wage stagnation and growing inequality, and that the GND can address both.

 

The goals — achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, creating jobs, providing for a just transition, securing clean air and water — are broadly popular. The projects — things like decarbonizing electricity, transportation, and industry, restoring ecosystems, upgrading buildings and electricity grids — are necessary and sensible (if also extremely ambitious).

 

There are a few items down in the requirements that might raise red flags (more on those later), but given the long road ahead, there will be plenty of time to sort them out. Overall, this is about as strong an opening bid as anyone could have asked for.

 

Now let’s take a closer look.

[Winstonm]

When individual-1 attacks on twitter, it is not from a position of strength. Here's why he's been attacking in the last couple of days. From WaPo:

 

It’s this threat of multiple ongoing investigations spanning the foreseeable future that should frighten the president the most. Whatever his personal criminal liability, it’s now proven that the organizations he has run — business, political and governmental — have been populated with actual criminals. Six of his associates, including his longtime friend and political adviser, his lawyer, his campaign chairman, his deputy campaign chairman and a foreign policy adviser have been indicted or pleaded guilty. It would be naive at this point to believe that more such charges are not coming. That apple could fall very near the tree indeed.

[johnu]

I was very puzzled that Pelosi allowed Dennison to give the State of the Union address before the February 15, 2019 deadline to pass appropriations bills when he can shut down government the 2nd time in the first 2 months of this year.

 

I would have scheduled the speech for something like the later of February 19 or the week after the appropriations bills are passed if and only if there is no additional government shutdown. If Dennison shuts down government again, I would have postponed the State of the Union speech until 2020.

 

I haven't seen the rationale for giving up one of the biggest bargaining chips to prevent a government shutdown.

[andrei]

From There’s now an official Green New Deal. Here’s what’s in it. by David Roberts at Vox:

 

 

How can one not love this plan?

Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal offers 'economic security' for those 'unwilling to work'

 

Genius.

[andrei]

As I previously noted, cancelled State of the Union speech versus cancelled flight. Do you really claim to not know who scored a knockdown, and who is trash talking while still dazed and laying on the canvas? Dennison is going to have the White House plumbers wall-borders (sic) over to Pelosi's office and build a wall in front of her office. That will be full measure. B-)

 

John, reality strikes hard.

 

I was very puzzled that Pelosi allowed Dennison to give the State of the Union address before the February 15, 2019 deadline to pass appropriations bills when he can shut down government the 2nd time in the first 2 months of this year.

 

I would have scheduled the speech for something like the later of February 19 or the week after the appropriations bills are passed if and only if there is no additional government shutdown. If Dennison shuts down government again, I would have postponed the State of the Union speech until 2020.

 

I haven't seen the rationale for giving up one of the biggest bargaining chips to prevent a government shutdown.

 

So who scored the knockdown?

Nancy better get to her flight quick, she might not be allowed to board a week from now.

[Winstonm]

It always helps to read an article prior to posting: from above link.

 

The actual resolution that outlines the Green New Deal does not include the "unwilling to work" part, but the overview document, released by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's office, does include the "unwilling" language.

(my emphasis)

 

Regardless, trying to provide a better economic environment for everyone is a worthy goal, is it not?

[Chas_P]

 

Regardless, trying to provide a better economic environment for everyone is a worthy goal, is it not?

 

Karl Marx thought so. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

[Winstonm]

Karl Marx thought so. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

 

I have no fear of the quotations or the ideas of Karl Marx. The fact that you raise the spectre as if it were some ancient ghost to be feared says a lot about you, though.

[johnu]

John, reality strikes hard.

Are you too ignorant to know what happened to end the showdown? Apparently so. Is Fox Propaganda saying that Dennison won the government shutdown battle?

 

Dennison agreed to reopen the government under the same agreement that Congress had agreed to before the start of the shutdown. He got zero concessions from Democrats and only caused millions of people great harm by closing the government for more than a month. If you think that's a success, you are even more despicable than I can imagine.

 

So who scored the knockdown?

Nancy better get to her flight quick, she might not be allowed to board a week from now.

Dennison was knocked down, took a standing 8 count and was saved by the bell. The next round hasn't even started so we'll see what happens in a week. Anybody who is rooting for another government shutdown is a sick and demented head case.

[johnu]

...

[johnu]

How can one not love this plan?

Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal offers 'economic security' for those 'unwilling to work'

 

Genius.

You don't like one part of an overview that isn't a part of the overall Green New Deal. Not everybody will agree with every goal. Given your obvious ability to parse out the important details and articulate them in a clear concise manner, what else do you think is wrong with this plan?

[barmar]

Why does anyone actually care how well the ACA polls?

 

1. Looking at polls in isolation is meaningless. As a rule, medical care in the US polls extremely extremely unpopularly, especially amongst anyone who needs to use it who has anything but a Cadillac plan. People hate what they have, people hate any viable option, and they only thing that the average voter actually likes is "Give me everything for free and make sure to screw over the blacks"

 

2. I would think that recent experiences with, say, Brexit or the election of Trump show the perils of putting to great faith in voice of the hoi poloi.

 

Obsessing over small shifts in polls over time seems like an exercise in frustration...

Exactly. I'll bet the Civil Rights Bill didn't poll well, either. This is why we have a representative democracy rather than a straight democracy -- ideally we're supposed to elect smart people who know what's best for everyone. Polling the American public is like parents giving children a vote on whether to go to school or when would be an appropriate bedtime. Unfortunately, we now also have children running the house -- it's like that Star Trek episode where they find a planet where all the adults had died.

 

Not to mention that the ACA had some clear problems that made it hard for it to poll well. The compromises that were necessary to get it to pass meant that it wasn't really the health care reform that most people really wanted. Dems wanted a single-payer system, ACA isn't that. GOP doesn't like creating more entitlements, but how can you have anything even remotely like universal health care without them? Given the political climate, if we waited for a perfect bill that everyone loved (if such thing is even possible) we'd get nothing. You can't let perfect be the enemy of good, and something is better than nothing.

 

We want lots of things: universal health care, great schools, better environment, reducing poverty, etc. But "read my lips, no new taxes." TANSTAAFL.

[johnu]

Exactly. I'll bet the Civil Rights Bill didn't poll well, either. This is why we have a representative democracy rather than a straight democracy -- ideally we're supposed to elect smart people who know what's best for everyone. Polling the American public is like parents giving children a vote on whether to go to school or when would be an appropriate bedtime. Unfortunately, we now also have children running the house -- it's like that Star Trek episode where they find a planet where all the adults had died.

What was very sad was that seniors (65+) were those least in support of the ACA. A lot of seniors don't like any change, even if the change doesn't affect them, since most will be on Medicare and aren't affected by private insurance at all (except Medigap and Advantage plans which are integrated with Medicare and are very highly regulated).

 

As far as Medicare for all, Medicare is one of the most popular programs ever implemented by our government.

 

Medicare as Reflected in Public Opinion

 

69% of those age 18-64 had a favorable view of Medicare. 21% had an unfavorable view. Among those 65+, 88% had a favorable view, 7% had an unfavorable view. Those are amazingly high favorable ratings.

 

In many ways, ACA is less than the sum of its parts. Although Republicans have no problem in voting to get rid of the ban on pre-existing conditions, parent keeping adult children on their health plan, etc, most people have seen the light.

 

14,065 viewsJun 24, 2018, 09:00am Poll: 66% Of Voters Oppose Trump DOJ's Move To Gut Patient Protections

And of the 66% who disapprove gutting ACA, 47% strongly disapprove.

 

Why doesn't the Senate schedule another vote on repealing the ACA?

[johnu]

For those Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez haters, this will make your heads explode. From a committee meeting on campaign financing:

 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Exposes The Dark Side Of Politics In 5 Incredible Minutes

 

I'm pretty sure the President she refers to is not the previous president, but the current president.

[Winstonm]

A joint drug bust between Australian and U.S. authorities in mid-January resulted in a record 1.7 tons of methamphetamine being seized at Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport.

 

Build that underwater seawall!

[andrei]

Are you too ignorant to know what happened to end the showdown? Apparently so. Is Fox Propaganda saying that Dennison won the government shutdown battle?

 

Dennison agreed to reopen the government under the same agreement that Congress had agreed to before the start of the shutdown. He got zero concessions from Democrats and only caused millions of people great harm by closing the government for more than a month. If you think that's a success, you are even more despicable than I can imagine.

 

 

Dennison was knocked down, took a standing 8 count and was saved by the bell. The next round hasn't even started so we'll see what happens in a week. Anybody who is rooting for another government shutdown is a sick and demented head case.

 

 

John, stop parroting what you read/hear-on-TV and start thinking for yourself for once.

 

How could anybody think Nancy won anything is beyond me: DT can still shut down the government in a week, he got his SOTU address.

This might change and you can claim victory in future, but for now it is premature.

 

And, BTW, nobody is rooting for another government shutdown. Some are rooting for a wall/barrier.

People who think others are rooting for another government shutdown are the sick ones.

[andrei]

what else do you think is wrong with this plan?

 

It is very hard to take seriously a plan which states that:

 

"Upgrade or replace every building in US for state-of-the-art energy efficiency."

"Build out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary"

 

After the plan is implemented, Americans will be swimming to Cuba or hiking to Canada/Mexico (now I see why you oppose a border wall, ports of entry won't be enough for all Americans willing to travel abroad)

[Winstonm]

From Raw Story and the latest in the Manafort actions concerning the SCO and Manafort's alleged failure to adhere to his plea agreement:

 

At another point in the transcript, a prosecutor tells the judge that one of Manafort’s motives for lying to investigators about something he told to Rick Gates, another former Trump aide who is cooperating in the probe, was that he was trying to “augment his chances for a pardon.” (NBC News noted that the transcript appears to incorrectly attribute this remark to one of Manafort’s lawyers, when it is, in fact, clearly a prosecutor speaking.)

 

This is the first time the special counsel has indicated publicly that it thinks a witness or target in the investigation might be angling for a pardon. Many have speculated that the pursuit of a pardon could explain Manafort’s otherwise puzzling behavior.

 

But since a pardon for federal crimes could only come from the president, the special counsel’s acknowledge of this possible motive is remarkable. It means the special counsel believes Manafort could increase his chances of a pardon by with a criminal lie. This, quite directly, implies that Trump has an interest in one of his former aides engaging in a criminal cover-up — a circumstance that is hard to imagine unless the president himself is at least indirectly implicated in criminal behavior.

 

Comments?

[Chas_P]

I have no fear of the quotations or the ideas of Karl Marx. The fact that you raise the spectre as if it were some ancient ghost to be feared says a lot about you, though.

 

I was agreeing with you Winston that "trying to provide a better economic environment for everyone is a worthy goal." And the GND aims to provide "economic security" for all who are "unable or unwilling" to work. So don't worry. Those who ARE able and willing will carry the load. Some other highly-sensible proposals in the GND are the complete elimination of air travel and 99% of cars. Of course this means that 1000's of autoworkers and airline employees would become unemployed. Here again there are no worries because the GND also promises to provide every single American with a job that includes a “family-sustaining wage, family and medical leave, vacations, and a pension.” So those unemployed autoworkers and airline employees could immediately be put back to work (assuming they are able and willing) killing off the cattle herds thereby eliminating cow farts which we all know are a major cause of global warming. It all makes perfect sense.

[y66]

Quote of the day:

 

I never expected to see Jeff Bezos emerge as a hero of democracy. But he has. A profile in moral courage. -- Paul Krugman

[johnu]

John, stop parroting what you read/hear-on-TV and start thinking for yourself for once.

Coming from a Fox Propaganda puppet, that's rich :rolleyes:

 

How could anybody think Nancy won anything is beyond me: DT can still shut down the government in a week, he got his SOTU address.

That would be almost everybody who isn't being paid by the White House to put out spin. Are you incapable of following the simplistic stories on Fox? Dennison reopened the government by signing essentially the same short term appropriations bill he could have signed a month before. And then he could have given his address at the original scheduled time. President Coulter said of Dennison, "Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States."

 

This might change and you can claim victory in future, but for now it is premature.

You almost got something correct. The last battle is over. The next battle, if any, is over the next spending bill. And there will be many more battles in the next 2 years, assuming Dennison hasn't been impeached and removed from office before then.

 

And, BTW, nobody is rooting for another government shutdown. Some are rooting for a wall/barrier.

People who think others are rooting for another government shutdown are the sick ones.

Hmmm, you seemed positively giddy about Dennison grounding Pelosi's transportation during a possible shutdown next week. I guess you know more about yourself than you think. And President Coulter and many others are still steaming because Dennison caved and reopened the government. You should be more respectful of President Coulter.