Trump screws his base--#1 and counting

The Department of Housing and Urban Development said Friday that the reduction to the annual mortgage insurance premiums borrowers pay when taking out government-backed home loans has been "suspended indefinitely."

The cut, at a quarter of a percentage point, would have saved homeowners an average of $500 this year, according to the Federal Housing Administration. Borrowers with larger home loans would have seen an even bigger drop in their premium rate.

The mortgage-fee reduction was originally announced January 9 and was supposed to go into effect on January 27. ..

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/20/real_estate/trump-suspends-fha-premium-rate-cut/

Department of Housing and Urban Development said Friday that the reduction to the annual mortgage insurance premiums borrowers pay when taking out government-backed home loans has been "suspended indefinitely."

BFD.

Mortgage insurance make taking out mortgages less risky, hence, it subsidizes, above all, those who buy multiple dwellings, esp. expensive ones, and borrow the money--which they can do since they're wealthy anyway and another loan is never a problem for them--and thus these are speculators in the housing market making huge profits (as long as the bubble doesn't burst).

The real point ought to be what's done for or to those who have only one mortgage--on the sole home they are borrowing to purchase, which, therefore is the home in which they live full-time.

Mortgage insurance end costs got a little bit more expensive annually for the single home buyer (not in and of itself a good thing) and signficantly more costly for those who are buying as speculators and who therefore covet every penny they can shift off on someone else. That, in and of itself, is a "better thing."

The Democrats needlessly defended huge banks or mortgage insurers--not so they could hike mortage costs $10.20/week but so that they could force homebuyers into default, repossess their homes and make a killing in redevelopment and mortgage default swap dealings.

It's not even "a wash." We have a long way to go before the cost-benefit balance is clearly against the Snidely Whiplash Republicans and in favor of the Snidely Whiplash Democrats. A long way to go. So go keep your ledger entries.

BTW, where's the "pay-off" in such a policy for real estate moguls? Why would a money-bags friend of real estate adopt this policy?--which I gather you cite as a point against Trump and Republlican rule.

One would think that real estate moguls would greatly favor the mortgage-insurance premium reduction on government-backed home-loans.

_____________________________

Actually FHA loans can only be used for primary homes, not vacation homes or speculators.

A young man I know is working in a car wash attempting to pay off $$$ in student loans after only two years of education. He'll probably never be first in family to get a degree, and his start in life is being throttled by loans...

Trump administration rolls back protections for people in default on student loans

Days after a report on federal student loans revealed a double-digit rise in defaults, President Trump’s administration revoked federal guidance Thursday that barred student debt collectors from charging high fees on past-due loans.

Student loan defaults are rising faster than you think

The Education Department is ordering guarantee agencies that collect on defaulted debt to disregard a memo former President Barack Obama’s administration issued on the old bank-based federal lending program, known as the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program. That memo forbid the agencies from charging fees for up to 16 percent of the principal and accrued interest owed on the loans, if the borrower entered the government’s loan rehabilitation program within 60 days of default....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/03/17/trump-administrati...

#4--it's the next bubble IMO and a very good chance to crash the economy. Sanders had some very good ideas on this--Clinton picked up on it kind of late in the game but she was at least making some positive noises before the election. IMO--it wouldn't be the worst idea to take all your money out of everything---stick it in a nice solid coffee can or two and hide it somewhere---this fucker could crash everything.

>5 lriley: Honestly, my gut tells me the same.

Yeah, my husband just rearranged his retirement investments to get the heck out of the market.

Jonathan Swan | May 22, 2017
Trump budget to slash entitlements by $1.7 trillion

President Trump's 2018 budget proposal on Tuesday won't reform Social Security or Medicare — in line with his campaign promise — but it will make serious cuts to other entitlement programs. A source with direct knowledge tells me the Trump budget will save $1.7 trillion on the mandatory side over the next ten years.

...Where the entitlement cuts are made: From programs including SNAP (food stamps), CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program), and SSDI (Disability Insurance). The budget proposal will also assume that Trump can sign into law the American Health Care Act — the Obamacare repeal and replace bill that passed the House and is now being considered by the Senate. That bill makes substantial cuts to Medicaid...

https://www.axios.com/scoop-trump-budget-to-slash-entitlements-by-1-7-trillion-2...

A Message for Donald Trump from Former Mexican President Vicente Fox (4:21)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWlrauHGAbY

Trump Wants To Defund Programs That Help Small Farmers Survive
Federal initiatives that have been a lifeline for farmers and rural communities are on the chopping block.
Joseph Erbentraut | 5/28/2017

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rural-programs-trump-budget_us_59274fdfe4b0d...

See map--no wonder former TX Guv Rick Perry favored sticking with Paris Agreement!

The jobs at risk if Trump pulls the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement
May 31, 2017

Donald Trump campaigned on the promise to ‘Make America Great Again’ largely by bringing jobs back to Middle America. Yet his move to pull the U.S. out of the international Paris climate accord threatens millions of jobs in the very states that voted Trump into office.

https://medium.com/i-climate-scientists/the-jobs-at-risk-if-trump-pulls-the-u-s-...

Interesting reads about history and values of Scots-Irish immigrants to America, many of whose descendants voted for Trump:

Tracing the Scots-Irish
Cindy Thomson | 2005
http://www.barlowgenealogy.com/Resources/scots-irish.html

In 2016 Hillbilly Elegy: a memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, JD Vance traces his family's move from Kentucky to Ohio. Some like him escaped poverty through education, but many were caught in the rust belt as manufacturing changed and moved. A conservative, his account helps explain the appeal of Trump to such folk.

>12 margd: Orange chases orange.

#12--the one thing with Vance is that even if everyone was as driven and ambitious and as smart and as lucky as he was there are only so many that are going to succeed like he did--only so much of the economic pie to split up amongst the mass of population. And when we have many times over multi-billionaires and when wages stagnate and all profits made from increased production go to a very tiny minority there's a huge problem and it's one that conservatives don't seem to want to recognize at all. Well there are plenty of conservatives in the democratic party as well. Nancy Pelosi for instance made it very clear that she thinks in terms of capitalism and nothing else. The economy at present is designed to drive most people into the ground. IMO our economy needs to be profoundly changed. What's great for a few is harming the rest of our society. Trump has no answers for that. He never did. This economy works very well for people like him and he's no rocket scientist. The democratic party needs to reconnect--not with Vance--but with people like his mother.

>13 davidgn: Orange chases orange.

Uh UH! My paternal grandmother's family is from same island in the Hebrides as Trump's mother. A cousin appalled by Trump was shaken to the core when I teased him that we might share a scrap of DNA with the man. He'd only entertain the possibility if relationship was from "when we were swinging from the trees". :D

>14 lriley: Vance's mother
She was one impressive woman! Guess they had to be if they weren't to be crushed by what life threw at them.

#15--My wife has some of the Scots-Irish--my mother a bit as well--though her father had a lot of French from Normandy. My father had Irish without the Scots part on the one hand and Lithuanian on the other. More or less they were all mongrels and we their offspring are even more mongrelized than they were.

>15 margd: >16 lriley: All right. It sounded more clever at 7:30 am. ;-)

My grandmother was Scots-Irish (Huffman) and my grandparents were Roosevelt Democrats all the way (my grandfather said that Nixon was the first Republican he ever voted for and it was also the last).

>17 davidgn: Try to get to bed earlier.

>19 RickHarsch: I envisioned this as a 2-3 week project, but at week 6 it's looking pretty clear to me that this is at most a 7-week project. I'm getting sick of it, but the best way out is through.

>15 margd: Vance's mother

Correction: I was thinking of Vance's impressive tiger-woman grandmother. Her daughter, Vance's mother, was crushed by her environment and lousy personal choices and probably gender, which limited her options and added even more hazards (youthful pregnancy). Her son (Vance) chose education and the Marines as a way out.

>21 margd: So far, you've made nine posts.

Seven of nine posts have links to articles. That's seven times out of nine that you've let other people do your thinking for you, seven times out of nine that you can't come up with your own thoughts and ideas, or 77.7 percent of the time your are helpless and want to be taken care of.

Liberalism in a nutshell.

#23--yes, because reading something is always harmful. Just an observation Barney but I can't figure out why you even belong to a site devoted to readers. Apparently you don't even have books as you've none listed. And you're always telling people what not to read or what not to watch--such as your recent diatribe against Rolling Stone and Mother Jones, Al Jazeerah and the Guardian etc. etc. etc. You come down very hard on the side of ignorance---so what are you doing here?

>22 barney67: Barney, you can be pretty ugly. Margd has been extremely generous with her time and thoughts and researches, posting more than anyone by far in the last several months. You may not understand this, but when people post links they have read them and thought about them and deemed them worth passing on. You have it entirely backward. Posting links requires thought and suggests that some mental effort has been put into a particular topic. What you wrote requires nothing but hostility and the obtuseness to actually come up with the ignorant crap you expressed.

Republicans' Proposed Medicaid Cuts Would Hit Rural Patients Hard
3:09 | June 22, 2017

For the hundreds of rural U.S. hospitals struggling to stay in business, health policy decisions made in Washington, D.C., this summer could make survival a lot tougher.

Since 2010, at least 79 rural hospitals have closed across the country, and nearly 700 more are at risk of closing. These hospitals serve a largely older, poorer and sicker population than most hospitals, making them particularly vulnerable to changes made to Medicaid funding.

"A lot of hospitals like ours could get hurt," says Kerry Noble, CEO of Pemiscot Memorial Health Systems, which runs the public hospital in Pemiscot County, one of the poorest in Missouri.
Here's What We Know About The Senate GOP Health Care Bill
Politics
Here's What We Know About The Senate GOP Health Care Bill

The GOP's American Health Care Act would cut Medicaid — the public insurance program for many low-income families, children and elderly Americans, as well as people with disabilities — by as much as $834 billion. The Congressional Budget Office has said that would result in 23 million more people being uninsured in the next 10 years. Even more could lose coverage under the budget proposed by President Trump, which suggests an additional $610 billion in cuts to the program....

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/06/22/533680909/republicans-propos...

Steep cuts to Medicaid in the Senate bill that Trump is touting will affect 64% of Americans in nursing homes--and perhaps their families, who may be called upon to foot the bill:

At Nursing Homes, Medicaid Cuts Would Reach Even the Upper Middle Class
JORDAN RAU | JUNE 24, 2017

...On Thursday, Senate Republicans joined their House colleagues in proposing steep cuts to Medicaid, part of the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

...Under federal law, state Medicaid programs are required to cover nursing home care. But state officials decide how much to pay facilities, and states under budgetary pressure could decrease the amount they are willing to pay or restrict eligibility for coverage.

...A combination of longer life spans and spiraling health care costs has left an estimated 64 percent of the Americans in nursing homes dependent on Medicaid. In Alaska, Mississippi and West Virginia, Medicaid was the primary payer for three-quarters or more of nursing home residents in 2015, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

...With more than 70 million people enrolled in Medicaid at an annual cost of more than $500 billion, the program certainly faces long-term financial challenges. Federal Medicaid spending is projected to grow 6 percent a year on average, rising to $650 billion in 2027 from $389 billion this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

...Even if Congress does not repeal the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid will remain a target for cuts, experts say.

...While most Medicaid enrollees are children, pregnant women and nonelderly adults, long-term services such as nursing homes account for 42 percent of all Medicaid spending — even though only 6 percent of Medicaid enrollees use them.

“Moms and kids aren’t where the money is,” said Damon Terzaghi, a senior director at the National Association of States United for Aging and Disabilities, a group representing state agencies that manage programs for these populations or advocate on their behalf. “If you’re going to cut that much money out, it’s going to be coming from older people and people with disabilities.”...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/science/at-nursing-homes-medicaid-cuts-would-...

________________________________________

(Looks like low-spending Trump states AL and SC among those with more than 15 individuals per sq mi, and thus not protected by the Klondike Kickback.)

The Klondike Kickback: How the Senate Health Care Bill Screws Blue States on Medicaid While Sparing Alaska
Jordan Weissmann | 06/22/2017

...Republicans want to make a historic change to Medicaid by capping the amount of money the federal government spends on each patient. Currently, Washington and the states split the program's costs, with the feds covering a set percentage of every enrollee's care—whether they rack up $500 in medical bills or $50,000. Under the new system, that open-ended commitment would end. States would instead receive a fixed amount of money per Medicaid enrollee. Those grants would grow over time with inflation, but initially, they'd be based on each state's historical spending.

Some states are worse off under this system than others. Places like Alabama, Nevada, or South Carolina that have traditionally spent very little per enrollee would have their federal contribution capped low. Places like New York or Massachusetts that that spend a lot per enrollee would have their federal contribution capped high, and may be able to continue their own state funds to sustain their programs. This is a political problem for the GOP, since Republicans represent a lot of parsimonious states that try to keep their Medicaid budgets small.

...On page 64 of the bill, it says that if a state spends 25 percent more than average per patient, Washington will reduce its Medicaid contribution by up to 2 percent the next year. (So, if were scheduled to grow by 2.4 percent, it might only grow by .4 percent). If a state spends 25 percent less than average, it will see its contribution increased by 2 percent. Essentially, states—including much of the Northeast—would be penalized for being generous, in order to fund more Medicaid spending in states that are not. It's only a one-year penalty—so it's not designed to ratchet down funding for, say, New York or Massachusetts over time. But “it really is hurting states that, for a variety of reasons, have higher spending per beneficiary,” Edwin Park of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities told me.*

Except, that is, in states like Alaska. The bill states that this rule will not “apply to any State that has a population density of less than 15 individuals per square mile, based on the most recent data available from the Bureau of the Census.” In other words, rural areas like Montana, the Dakotas, and the great white north will be spared from this redistribution scheme.*...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2017/06/22/the_klondike_kickback_the_senate_...

Carrier workers facing layoffs feel betrayed by Trump
Dean Reynolds | June 23, 2017

INDIANAPOLIS -- A promise made before Christmas is fizzling before the Fourth of July.

In December, then-President-elect Trump told hundreds of workers at the Carrier manufacturing plant that he had worked out a deal to save their jobs.

But it's not working out that way. A steady downpour today did little to wash away the fact that the jobs of 600 union employees are going south.

"They're going to Monterrey, Mexico," said Robert James, president of the local union.

Reynolds said he felt betrayed, since Mr. Trump told workers during his December visit to the plant that 1,100 jobs would be saved.

...But the truth is that 400 of the 1,100 jobs Mr. Trump mentioned were white-collar positions that were never going away.

Only 700 union jobs were saved. Six hundred others will be lost, and Carrier is not paying a price. The company actually received a $7 million incentive package from Indiana to keep the plant open with a reduced work force...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/carrier-workers-betrayed-by-trumps-promise-to-save-t...

>28 margd: Looks like Carrier bested Trump in a deal. Sad.

>27 margd:
"Republicans want to make a historic change to Medicaid by capping the amount of money the federal government spends on each patient."

Another way to death panels, eh?

I've been covered under the Canadian system (Ontario) and US employers, but paging through Medicare Demystified in prep for choices I'll be needing to make shortly, I am longing for simple single-payer system like Canada's. How can we expect the aged and people unused to bureaucracy to make best choices for their needs??? Confusing array of fees and co-pays and premiums, etc., and I only read through chapters on A and B!! Does one's MD participate?

WOW! I'm thinking of all the little old winkies (like me), pupils dilated, in my opthalmologist's office, trying to understand bills that they may need to pay upfront, hoping for Medicare reimbursement.

The really nice thing about single payer, if transparent, is that they let voter and politician and MD zero in on areas needs attention or money. In literature, I see a lot of Cdn insights on, say, treatment of cystic fibrosis, that result in more efficient and effective healthcare decisions.

(If I understand correctly, OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance) would cover me after three months, if I moved back to Ontario. Don't know if there would be premiums, but I recall only small charges on my pay cheque eons ago...)

...(Trump) made coal miners a symbol of his campaign, but he has always held them in contempt. To him, they are luckless schmoes who fail to possess his ineffable talents. “The coal miner gets black-lung disease, his son gets it, then his son,” Trump once told Playboy. “If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination—or whatever—to leave their mine. They don’t have ‘it.’ ”

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/10/american-dignity-on-the-fourth-of-j...

Sounds like Trump seeking to curry favor with conservatives threw yet another group under bus. Apparently some House Conservatives wanted sex reassignment coverage removed from defense budget and appealed to Trump, who went even further. Military wouldn't comment, referring reporters to White House. WH spokesperson didn't know ramifications to trans people already serving.

Furious Gay Rights Advocates See Trump’s ‘True Colors’
MAGGIE HABERMAN | JULY 26, 2017

When President Trump was a candidate, he pledged his support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people immediately after the mass shooting last summer at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

...Wednesday...Mr. Trump’s abrupt decision to bar transgender people from any military job.

...hopes that Mr. Trump had a durable connection to the L.G.T.B.Q. community evaporated during the campaign, with his selection of Mike Pence as his running mate...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/us/politics/furious-gay-rights-advocates-see-...

___________________________________________

The military spends five times as much on Viagra as it would on transgender troops’ medical care
Christopher Ingraham | July 26,2017

On Twitter this morning, President Trump announced a ban on transgender people serving in the military, citing “medical costs” as the primary driver of the decision.

...a Defense Department-commissioned study published last year by the Rand Corp. provides exhaustive estimates of transgender servicemembers' potential medical costs.

...“The implication is that even in the most extreme scenario that we were able to identify … we expect only a 0.13-percent ($8.4 million out of $6.2 billion) increase in health care spending,” Rand's authors concluded.

By contrast, total military spending on erectile dysfunction medicines amounts to $84 million annually, according to an analysis by the Military Times — 10 times the cost of annual transition-related medical care for active duty transgender servicemembers.

The military spends $41.6 million annually on Viagra alone, according to the Military Times analysis — roughly five times the estimated spending on transition-related medical care for transgender troops.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/26/the-military-spends-five-...

_______________________________________________

Inside Trump’s snap decision to ban transgender troops
A congressional fight over sex reassignment surgery threatened funding for his border wall.
RACHAEL BADE and JOSH DAWSEY | 07/26/2017

...The president had always planned to scale back policies put in place during the administration of President Barack Obama welcoming such individuals in combat and greenlighting the military to pay for their medical treatment plans. But a behind-the-scenes GOP brawl threatening to tank a Pentagon funding increase and wall construction hastened Trump’s decision.

Numerous House conservatives and defense hawks this week had threatened to derail their own legislation if it did not include a prohibition on Pentagon funding for gender reassignment surgeries, which they deem a waste of taxpayer money. But GOP leaders were caught in a pinch between those demands and those of moderate Republicans who considered the proposal blatantly discriminatory.

...While Democrats and centrist Republicans are already blasting the move, one White House official said the decision would be “seen as common-sense” by millions — though likely vociferously protested by others. White House officials also noted that conservatives had pushed for the ban, including in a May letter that was signed by dozens of right-leaning groups.

...The announcement, multiple sources said, did not sit well with Mattis, who appeared to be trying to avoid the matter in recent weeks. An extensive Defense Department review of the policy was already underway, but a decision wasn’t expected for months.

Insiders said Mattis felt there was no need to rush upending the policy, arguing the Pentagon needed time to study the issue. Its decision would affect at least 2,450 transgender active-military personnel, according to a Rand report — though military LGBT activist groups say as many as 15,000 soldiers fall into that category.

That timeline, however, wasn’t good enough for House Republicans.

...The president was also annoyed by the Pentagon delay, one person said. A different official said the White House had gotten positive reaction from conservatives, an important factor amid their displeasure with Trump’s recent bashing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions...

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/26/trump-transgender-military-ban-behind-t...

ETA_______________________________________________

The Daily 202: Growing GOP backlash to transgender troop ban underscores Trump’s political miscalculation
James Hohmann | July 27, 2017

...Reflecting how dramatically the national conversation on LGBTQ rights has shifted in recent years, the news drew swift rebukes from several leading Republicans in the Senate.

War hero John McCain, the preeminent Republican voice on national security...

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a former Army Reserve commander and the first female combat veteran elected to the Senate...

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is up for reelection in one of the reddest and most socially conservative states in America...

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who wields a lot of control over the Pentagon’s budget from his perch on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee...

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)...

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who served in the Marines...

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), whose openly gay son prompted him to come out for gay rights in 2013...

...Most Republicans in the Capitol tried hard to avoid reacting at all, and their silence spoke volumes about the degree to which they don’t think this is a political winner...

...The Pentagon referred all questions about Trump’s announcement to the White House, but the White House referred questions back to the Pentagon and falsely suggested that the decision had been made at the behest of the military...White House incoming press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was unable to...answer...what will happen to the thousands of openly transgender troops who are already serving

...Under former Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, the military lifted the ban on transgender troops and was given one year to determine how to implement a policy that would allow transgender service members to receive medical care and would ban the services from involuntarily separating people in the military who came out as transgender...Trump's defense secretary, retired Gen. Jim Mattis, delayed implementation … by six months in order to study its impact. … That review was due by early December. Mattis cautioned at the time that the delay ‘in no way presupposes the outcome.’

...The military was plainly caught off guard. As of this morning, the pro-transgender policy is still on the Defense Department's website.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/07/27/daily-...

ETA________________________________________________________

Joint Chiefs: ‘No modifications’ to transgender policy from Trump tweet
‘We will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect,’ Marine Gen. Joe Dunford writes.
BRYAN BENDER and JACQUELINE KLIMAS | 07/27/2017

...“There will be no modifications to the current policy until the President's direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued implementation guidance.”

“In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect. As importantly, given the current fight and the challenges we face, we will all remain focused on accomplishing our assigned missions,” ....

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/27/trump-transgender-military-ban-no-modif...

ETA__________________________________________________________

Mattis appalled by Trump tweets announcing transgender ban: report
John Bowden - 07/28/17

Defense Secretary James Mattis...was on vacation at the time of Trump's decision, only had one day's worth of notice before Trump tweeted his announcement of the (transgender ban)...The report described him as "appalled."...infuriated by the tweets, and saw them as an insult to transgender Americans currently serving in the military...had been quietly lobbying Republicans for months to defeat a GOP-led amendment to the 2017 spending bill that would prevent the military from spending money on transition surgery or hormone therapy for transgender service members. The report states that Mattis initially resisted the policy allowing transgender Americans to serve in the armed forces, but accepted that the policy was to remain in place.

His predecessor, former Obama Defense Secretary Ash Carter, ripped the Trump administration for reversing the policy.

“To choose service members on other grounds than military qualifications is social policy and has no place in our military,” Carter said in a statement. “There are already transgender individuals who are serving capably and honorably.

"This action would also send the wrong signal to a younger generation thinking about military service.”...

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/344290-mattis-appalled-by-trump-tweets-announc...

ETA____________________________________________________________

14% of LGBTQ vote went to Trump in 2016. (I think I heard that on PBS News Hour.)

Private land could be seized to build wall (6:05)
Anderson Cooper 360

The construction of President Trump's border wall could force hundreds, if not thousands, to sell their private land to the government. CNN's Drew Griffin reports.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/04/04/donald-trump-private-land-eminent-...

Trump’s Trade Pullout Roils Rural America
After the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, other nations launch 27 separate negotiations to undercut U.S. exporters.
ADAM BEHSUDI | August 07, 2017

(Agriculture, TPP, NAFTA)

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/07/trump-tpp-deal-withdrawal-trad...

Coal Mining Health Study Is Halted by Interior Department
LISA FRIEDMAN and BRAD PLUMER | AUG. 21, 2017

...Last year, West Virginia officials asked the Obama administration to look into the health effects of mountaintop mining, a technique used to extract underlying coal.

As part of the practice, which dates to the 1960s, mining companies dump the rubble into the surrounding valleys and streams, in many cases leading to extensive pollution.

...Mountaintop removal, which has occurred on at least 500 Appalachian mountains, has clogged streams and waterways with heavy metals such as selenium and manganese, which can be toxic in high concentrations. The dust kicked up by these explosions is also considered a hazard.

One 2010 review published in Science found elevated mortality rates, as well as increased incidence of lung cancer and kidney disease, in counties near mountaintop mining. A 2011 study of central Appalachia found a higher rate of birth defects in the area.

The review by the National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences, published earlier this year, noted that it can be difficult to control for variables like poverty, and called for more careful research to determine the precise consequences of the practice.

The $1 million National Academies study had begun last year and was expected to take two years to complete. Heather Swift, with the Interior Department, said the Trump administration is conducting a review of grants and cooperative agreements that cost more than $100,000 to ensure tax dollars are used effectively.

Jake Glance, a spokesman for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, said the state was not aware of the review. He added that the state will continue to provide information to the National Academies “if and when the study resumes.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/climate/coal-mining-health-study-is-halted-by...

> 37 Never fear! There could be still another way to exploit and pollute those properties. Lets recover those rare earth elements and re-vitalize the coal industry - on the Dept. of Energy's dime.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-28/why-people-still-support-trum...

Why People Still Support Trump
It's not all about bigotry and ignorance.
by Clive Crook
2407
August 28, 2017, 7:00 AM EDT

A week ago I expressed the hope that President Donald Trump's lamentable performance after the Charlottesville protests would hurt his standing in the polls. This didn't happen. If there was a blip, it was in the other direction. I'd be pleased if Trump's regrettable decision to pardon former sheriff Joe Arpaio dented his popularity, too, but I'm not holding my breath.

Trump's supporters are loyal. What is one to make of this?

There are two main theories of Trump's support. One is that a large minority of Americans -- 40 percent, give or take -- are racist idiots. This theory is at least tacitly endorsed by the Democratic Party and the mainstream liberal media. The other is that a large majority of this large minority are good citizens with intelligible and legitimate opinions, who so resent being regarded as racist idiots that they'll back Trump almost regardless. They may not admire the man, but he's on their side, he vents their frustration, he afflicts the people who think so little of them -- and that's good enough.

It's disappointing that Charlottesville hasn't changed their minds -- but then it hasn't changed my mind either. I still think the first theory is absurd and the second theory basically correct.

The first theory, if it were true, would be an argument against democracy. If tens of millions of Americans are racist idiots, how do you defend the popular franchise? That isn't a sliver of reprehensible people who'll be safely overwhelmed when elections come around. And there's plainly nothing, according to the first theory, you can say to change their minds. Why even go through the motions of talking and listening to those people?

This sense that democratic politics is futile if not downright dangerous now infuses the worldview of the country's cultural and intellectual establishment. Trump is routinely accused of being authoritarian and anti-democratic, despite the fact that he won the election and, so far, has been checked at every point and has achieved almost nothing in policy terms. (He might wish he were an authoritarian, but he sure hasn't been allowed to function as one.) Many of his critics, on the other hand, are anti-democratic in a deeper sense: They appear to believe that a little less than half the country doesn't deserve the vote.

The second theory -- the correct theory -- is a terrible indictment of the Democratic Party and much of the media. Why aren't the intelligible and legitimate opinions of that large minority given a hearing? Why must their views be bundled reflexively into packages labelled "bigotry" and "stupidity"? Why can't this large minority of the American people be accorded something other than pity or scorn?

Those who scorn Trump's supporters might argue that none of their opinions are in fact intelligible or legitimate. After all, don't their views on immigration boil down to racism and white supremacy? What about their idea that the Charlottesville protesters and counter-protesters were morally the same? Or their morbid fear of change? Or the hypocrisy of their opposition to "big government," when everybody knows that Trump-voting states such as West Virginia are the biggest net recipients of federal money? If you read the New York Times, you know they have an endless supply of stupid, evil opinions.

In fact, this automatic attribution of stupidity and bad faith is just another kind of bigotry.

I'm a liberal on immigration -- but it isn't racism to favor tighter controls if you believe that high immigration lowers American wages. It sure isn't racism to believe that the laws on immigration should be enforced, and that "sanctuary cities" violate that impeccably liberal principle. It isn't racist to say that many of the Charlottesville counter-protesters came looking for a fight. Casting Trump supporters as fearful of change is risible -- he was hardly the status quo candidate. And I cannot see what principle of political economy makes it stupid to be a fiscal conservative if you live in West Virginia.

It's worth pondering that opposing the removal of Confederate monuments may soon make you a racist, if it doesn't already. After Charlottesville, PBS reported that 86 percent of Americans condemn the rhetoric of the white supremacy movement, while six in 10 Americans, including a narrow plurality of African Americans, believe the statues of Confederate leaders should remain. This would seem to refute the suggestion that opinion on the statues has much to do with white nationalism. These findings were presented under the inviting heading "Confederate Statues and White Nationalism."

For what it's worth, I think the statues should go -- read Ramesh Ponnuru on this -- but most of those who support leaving them in place aren't racist. It's sad that this should even need saying.

Democracies that work make space for disagreement. You can disagree with somebody in the strongest terms, believing your opponents to be profoundly or even dangerously mistaken. But that doesn't oblige you to ignore them, scorn them, or pity them. Deeming somebody's opinions illegitimate should be a last resort, not a first resort. Refusing to engage, except to mock and condescend, is both anti-democratic and tactically counterproductive. Proof of that last point is the dispiriting tenacity of Trump's support.

"What have you got to lose?" Overtime pay, for one...

Here’s the most significant thing Democrats could do to help working families now
Ronald Klain | September 1, 2017

...In his final year in office, President Barack Obama... raised the floor for overtime pay from $23,700 to $47,500 effective Dec. 1. Of course, that number is still low: someone making just $48,000 would still be ineligible for overtime under the new rule, even though he or she is hardly a quintessential “executive.”

Before the rule took effect, a court froze its implementation, and a self-proclaimed “champion” for working people won the presidency. Observers wondered: Would Donald Trump take up Obama’s fight for these hard-pressed, hard-working people (many of whom voted for Trump) and insist that they be paid overtime?

Nope. Rather than siding with his voters, President Trump caved to major employers. Last month, his Labor Department announced that it was considering “stakeholder” — read: business — concerns that the new rule’s salary level was “too high.” Attention MAGA red-hat wearers: The president believes if you are making $600 a week, you may be making too much to deserve overtime. The Lord of the Apprentice Boardroom, the King of Mar-a-Lago, the Master of Trump Tower thinks you — making $15 an hour — may be paid too much to get overtime. He believes your boss should be able to make you come to work at dawn, stay far into the night, and not pay you one dime more for the extra hours worked...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/heres-the-most-significant-thing-democra...
_____________________________________________________

Request for Information; Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales and Computer Employees

A Proposed Rule by the Wage and Hour Division on 07/26/2017

This document has a comment period that ends in 22 days. (09/25/2017)

...The Department of Labor (Department) is seeking information from the public regarding the regulations located at 29 CFR part 541, which define and delimit exemptions from the Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum wage and overtime requirements for certain executive, administrative, professional, outside sales and computer employees. The Department is publishing this Request for Information (RFI) to gather information to aid in formulating a proposal to revise the part 541 regulations....

II. Request for Public Comment

The Department is aware of stakeholder concerns that the standard salary level set in the 2016 Final Rule was too high. In particular, stakeholders have expressed the concern that the new salary level inappropriately excludes from exemption too many workers who pass the standard duties test, especially given the lack of a lower long test salary for employers to utilize for lower wage white collar employees. In the 2016 Final Rule the Department estimated that 4.2 million salaried white collar workers would, without some intervening action by their employers, change from exempt to non-exempt status. See 81 FR 32393. Concerns expressed by various stakeholders after publication of the 2016 Final Rule that the salary level would adversely impact low-wage regions and industries have further shown that additional rulemaking is appropriate. The Department is publishing this RFI to gather information to aid in formulating a proposal to revise the part 541 regulations.

The Department invites comments on the 2016 revisions to the white collar exemption regulations, including whether the standard salary level set in that rule effectively identifies employees who may be exempt, whether a different salary level would more appropriately identify such employees, the basis for setting a different salary level, and why a different salary level would be more appropriate or effective. In particular, the Department seeks comment on and information relating to the following questions: (1-11)...

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/07/26/2017-15666/request-for-info...

From his golf cart, Trump incites his base... ETA. Wonder if this is to protect himself if NFL team, like basketball, hesitates or turns down a White House invite.

Trump Calls on NFL Owners to Fire Players Who Protest, and Mocks Efforts to Make the Game Safer
Peter King | September 23rd, 2017

...Regarding anthem protests, Trump said: “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired. He’s FIRED!’ You know, some owner is gonna do that. He’s gonna say, ‘That guy disrespects our flag; he’s fired.’ And that owner, they don’t know it. They don’t know it. They’re friends of mine, many of them. They don’t know it. They’ll be the most popular person, for a week. They’ll be the most popular person in this country.”

Regarding his nostalgia for the dangerous hits that college and pro football have been trying to take out of the game, Trump said: “Today if you hit too hard—15 yards! Throw him out of the game! They had that last week. I watched for a couple of minutes. Two guys, just really, beautiful tackle. Boom, 15 yards! The referee gets on television—his wife is sitting at home, she’s so proud of him. They’re ruining the game! They’re ruining the game. That’s what they want to do. They want to hit. They want to hit! It is hurting the game.

“But do you know what’s hurting the game more than that? When people like yourselves turn on the television and you see those players taking the knee when they’re playing our great national anthem. The only thing you could do better is if you see it, even if it’s one player, leave the stadium. I guarantee things will stop. Things will stop. Just pick up and leave. Pick up and leave. Not the same game anymore, anyway.”

Reaction was swift on Twitter. “Where was this passion in response to Charlottesville?” Broncos guard Max Garcia wrote, referring to Trump’s equivocating remarks after the white supremacist rallies in Virginia in August.

“I hope more players kneel,” former defensive tackle Terrance Knighton wrote.

...Now about the new rules and penalties in recent years for the big hits both pro and college football are trying to take out of the game. Trump, apparently, is the only person in America who wants to see a more dangerous game of football.

...The New York Times has reported extensively on the number of deceased former players diagnosed with CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a disease experts believe is caused by repetitive head trauma...

https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/09/23/trump-nfl-fire-players-who-protest-during-anth...

That guy disrespects our flag; he’s fired.
I hope more players kneel
Boom
more players
fired

This document has a comment period
$1 million National Academies study
regulations located at 29 CFR part 541,
trouble hiring enough people to work during harvest season
transgender service members
put in place during the administration of President Barack Obama

Barney but I can't figure out why you even belong to a site devoted to readers. Apparently you don't even have books

Melania Trump Nudges President Trump To Place His Hand Over His Chest During National Anthem
TIME | Apr 17, 2017

The first lady nudged President Trump to put his hand over his chest during the singing of the national anthem during the White House Easter Egg Roll.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN3fWF9nD_Y

Hey, deplorables: Trump and his advisers are laughing in your faces
Greg Sargent | September 28, 2017

...Trump’s new tax plan eliminates the estate tax, which he has justified by claiming that it would help “millions of small businesses and the American farmer.” ...This is absurd...

Trump’s new tax plan eliminates the alternative minimum tax...this “largely impacts people making between $200,000 and $1 million. ...

...Trump would would benefit from his tax plan...lying to them about this point...not only would he benefit, Trump also still won’t release his tax returns, which would actually allow us to evaluate...

Trump claims his tax plan will not benefit “the wealthy and well-connected” and will protect “low-income and middle-income households.” But ...Trump’s plan would ...lower the top marginal income tax rate from 39.6 to 35 percent, lower the rate on “pass-through” businesses to 20 percent and cut the corporate rate from 35 to 20 percent...50 percent of the net tax cuts in his plan’s framework would go to the top 1 percent of earners and ...impact on middle-class families would (be) negligible at best...Trump’s plan is very specific about how it would benefit top earners and corporations and very vague and nonspecific about how it would help lower-income earners...

Trump is sabotaging Obamacare in new ways that will likely hurt untold numbers of his voters. ...

The Trump administration’s sabotage of the Affordable Care Act shows contempt for his supporters in another way...51 percent of Trump supporters want the administration to do what it can to make the law work. But Team Trump is not just doing the opposite without any rationale for it, they are also actively misleading his supporters about their own actions by falsely blaming the chaos they cause on the law itself....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/09/28/hey-deplorables-tru...

>46 rastaphrog: And when it comes to "pass through" income, the changes could benefit more than the "mom n pop" business.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/wealthy-financiers-could-gain-from-trumps-propo...

As for the estate tax, from everything I've seen on it, it only applies AFTER about 5.5 million and will affect less than 1% of estates. And, doesn't apply at all when left to a spouse. So I don't see how much help it'd actually be to a "small" business or farm when it doesn't even apply to most of them.

Trump’s Incentive-Packed Tax Plan

by Larry Kudlow
Trump just told the National Association of Manufacturers, “the era of economic surrender is over.” The Trump plan would slash large and small business tax rates, double the standard deduction for middle-income folks, make the whole tax code simpler by eliminating unnecessary deductions, repeal the death tax, and end the alternative minimum tax.

Rs and Ds alike deplored IRS awarding contract to Equifax--on the last day of the fiscal year, with no competition. That's right: the company that left 145 million of us exposed to fraud will be "verifying taxpayer identity" for the IRS...

IRS awards multimillion-dollar fraud-prevention contract to Equifax
The no-bid contract was issued last week, as the company continued facing fallout from its massive security breach.
STEVEN OVERLY and NANCY SCOLA | 10/03/2017 03:52 PM EDT

The IRS will pay Equifax $7.25 million to verify taxpayer identities and help prevent fraud under a no-bid contract issued last week, even as lawmakers lash the embattled company about a massive security breach that exposed personal information of as many as 145.5 million Americans.

A contract award for Equifax's data services was posted to the Federal Business Opportunities database Sept. 30 — the final day of the fiscal year. The credit agency will "verify taxpayer identity" and "assist in ongoing identity verification and validations" at the IRS, according to the award.

The notice describes the contract as a "sole source order," meaning Equifax is the only company deemed capable of providing the service. It says the order was issued to prevent a lapse in identity checks while officials resolve a dispute over a separate contract.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle blasted the IRS decision...

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/03/equifax-irs-fraud-protection-contract-2...

>48 margd: I can't decide if you are being sarcastic or serious. Moving the standard deduction to $12,000 from the current $6350 also includes the abolition of the personal exemption which is currently $4050....so the net gain is a paltry $1600. Then there is the abolition of deducting state and local taxes - which favors those states with low or no state/local income taxes and punishes those states with state and local income taxes.

There is the increase of the minimum tax rate from 10% to 12% with the simultaneous reduction of the top tax rate from 39.6 to 35% ....so the low income workers get a 2% increase and the rich get a 4.6% reduction...and then there is an end to the AMT - again a big plus if you are wealthy and an elimination of the estate tax which is a staggering windfall for the upper 1%.

If you are being sarcastic then I agree but if you think this is really a good move then I would strongly disagree.

>50 rastaphrog: If I heard right on the news this morning as I was driving home, there's some talk about keeping the deduction for mortgage interest and state/local taxes, BUT, a filer could only actually deduct one of them. It'd be their choice.

>50 rastaphrog: Kudlow

If you own, say, a stereo store, your customers have to be wealthy. Otherwise you won't make any money. Everyone else gets the cheap crap from Best Buy. You can't compete with a franchise anyway. So if the wealthy have more spending money, you will probably be happy about it. You, the middle class small business owner.

The terms are being confused. Trump's base? Middle class? The wealthy? I knew a man years ago from Milan who thought all Americans were wealthy because they have yards.

What's a base? Obama's intent with Obamacare was to give health insurance to a small minority of people, mostly minorities, while giving the rest of us a thumb in the eye despite, having campaigned on being the president "for everyone." But he didn't mean everyone. He meant "my people." Who aren't really his people anyway. He grew up in Hawaii where his greatest problem was how often to polish his surfboard. Those are his people. His people were far-left grad students. He knows nothing about the hood. His father was Kenyan. That's not American black life. If you want to hear African music, try Paul Simon's Graceland, not Kanye West or any other hip hop garbage that has nothing at all to do with Africa.

Dependents are a drag on the economy. Trump has in mind people who want to work. It may look like helping the wealthy to you because it doesn't look like hurting the wealthy, which is what all of you want because you're jealous and you know nothing about economics. Punishing the wealthy isn't going to improve the economy. If you assume that wealth cannot be earned ethically, you will never understand economics.

But this is all part of the moralized politics/political morality that has been characteristic of Democrats for I don't know how long. When Democrats stop thinking of themselves as superior, maybe then we'll have some real progress.

>53 RickHarsch: 'If you want to hear African music, try Paul Simon's Graceland, not Kanye West or any other hip hop garbage that has nothing at all to do with Africa.'

Barney, you have outdone yourself. I hope I needn't explain how stupid that post is, I mean to others besides the poster himself.

By the way, Barney, if you really are on a world music kick, try George Harrison for some Indian music.

Oh, and Obama, I don't know if he surfed or not, but he did community organizing work in Chicago, so he probably spent some time in what you call, as if hip, the 'hood'.

Shake it, Barney baby, but don't break it.

>52 barney67: Yes, I realize you were quoting Kudlow. What wasn't clear was your take on what he said. Given your cryptic response I'll assume you chose the quote because it reflects your views.

Donald Trump's Long History of Offensive Remarks About Those Who Served as Someone Who Did Not
Alexander Nazaryan | 10/18/17

“He knew what he signed up for.”

Those were, reportedly, the words of consolation offered by President Donald J. Trump to the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, a Green Beret who was killed in an ambush in Niger on October 4. American special forces are in the West African country to root out Islamist radicals. Three other American service members were killed in the raid along with Johnson...

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-la-david-johnson-niger-green-beret-raid-687369

>56 rastaphrog: Trump is denying that he made the comment. Unless a recording of the call was made and is released by the widow, this is going to be a "he said she said" situation.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/trump-accuses-dem-lawmaker-of-totally-fabricati...

#56--coming from the guy who got 5 deferments to avoid going to Vietnam. I listened to this guy commenting on this on CNN who said this is the kind of language that people use to distance themselves from what's going on. Trump sent these people to this place where they lost their lives and now here he is trying to distance himself from them. He's not a leader--he's an avoider and an evader of his responsibilities. This guy is such a fucking idiot--every time he speaks or does anything he sets the bar lower than it was before.

>57 lriley: I think at this point, if any "he said she said" disagreement, thinking people will know who to believe, unfortunately...

Sounds like there were two witnesses on widows' end--congresswoman and a staff sergeant-- and Trump seems to say there was a tape, as I suspect there always is on Presidential phone calls. I for one don't need anymore information, but bring it on if he must.

(I was likewise appalled that Trump attempted to drag John Kelly's son's death and Obama's response (or not) into his defensive tweetstorm: Trump is a repugnant boor.)

Congresswoman Wilson wasn't the only one in that car when that phone call came. The widow was there. The driver was there. Why would she put her reputation on the line like that? If either the driver or the widow were to say that the congresswoman was lying then it becomes a case of 'he said she said'. Until then....

To add to which almost everything that comes out of Trump's mouth is awkward and/or plays around with the truth if it's not an outright lie. We've had 9 months of his presidency and the whole election cycle that ran up to it. Credibility isn't on his side....at all.

Terrible. Arrest that man. Obviously unfit to be president. Not like us.

Republicans Consider Sharp Cut in 401(k) Contribution Limits
JIM TANKERSLEY | OCT. 20, 2017

...The proposals under discussion would potentially cap the annual amount workers can set aside to as low as $2,400 for 401(k) accounts, several lobbyists and consultants said on Friday. Workers may currently put up to $18,000 a year in 401(k) accounts without paying taxes upfront on that money; that figure rises to $24,000 for workers over 50. When workers retire and begin to draw income from those accounts, they pay taxes on the benefits.

Rumors have circulated for months that negotiators were debating including a cap as a way to help offset the revenue loss from a reduction in business tax rates that Republicans have put at the center of their plan. Reducing contribution limits would be, in effect, an accounting maneuver that would create space for tax cuts by collecting tax revenue now instead of in the future.

Such a move would be likely to push Americans to shift their savings to so-called Roth accounts, where contributions are taxed immediately, and not when they are drawn out as benefits. That would increase federal tax receipts for the short run.

The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that tax exclusions for individual retirement contributions will cost the federal government $115 billion for the 2018 fiscal year. That is just a fraction of the $1.5 trillion tax cut that Republicans are aiming to enact...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/us/politics/republicans-tax-401-k.html

Congress just killed a rule that would have made it easier for consumers to sue banks — here's why people are so upset
Bob Bryan | 10/25/2017

The Senate passed a bill Tuesday to kill a regulation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The (Obama-era) rule would have prevented financial institutions from including forced arbitration language in contracts for things like credit cards and car loans. (would have made it easier for consumers to file class action lawsuits against financial firms, particularly banks)

Democrats argued the rule protected consumers and gave them more legal recourse against big banks. Republicans argued lawsuits were not beneficial to consumers and could hurt small banks.

...Vice President Mike Pence cast the tiebreaking vote on the bill to strike down the CFPB's rule since Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and John Kennedy voted against the measure...

http://www.businessinsider.com/gop-trump-bill-kill-obama-cfpb-arbitration-lawsui...

How Trump Got the Economy Booming in Less Than a Year
By Peter Ferrara • 10/25/17

President Donald Trump was elected because he effectively ran on restoring Ronald Reagan’s pro-growth economic policies: slashing tax rates, deregulation, and cutting government spending. Hillary contributed to his successful strategy by advocating keeping Barack Obama’s anti-growth policies intact, further convincing blue collar workers that Trump was their only hope.

Early into his administration, Trump’s policies are already restoring growth. Real GDP grew 3.1 percent in the last quarter, up more than 50 percent from the average for the eight years that Obama was president.

In Trump’s first six months in office, more than a million new jobs were created, driving unemployment down to a 16-year low. The stock market set 34 new record highs, with headlines just last week screaming “Dow Races Through 23,000.”

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index rose to nearly a 16-year high, as did Bloomberg’s Consumer Comfort Index, both contributing to soaring retail sales. The National Association of Manufacturers Outlook Survey rocketed to a record 91.4 percent, the highest two quarter average for manufacturing optimism in the survey’s 20-year history. The Institute for Supply Management reported it’s barometer of manufacturing rose to 57.8, with over 50 indicating expansion of the manufacturing sector.

All of this was accomplished with just the promise of pro-growth tax reform based on the Reagan model of lower marginal tax rates. (The marginal tax rate is the rate that would apply to the next dollar of income earned.) That is what determines and drives incentives to produce, increasing output and GDP.

If Democrats want to vote against a tax reform bill that cuts taxes for all taxpayers, good luck running on that record. If Democrats think imposing the highest taxes on business of all developed countries in the world is good for American workers, voters don’t agree.

And neither do the investors who create jobs and finance higher wages.

But it is not all due to just the promise of pro-growth tax reform. Contributing even more to restored growth is the reality of sweeping deregulation.

Trump has already made a lot of progress in removing Obama’s boot on the neck of American energy producers. That is why U.S. shale oil production has already soared to record levels since Trump entered office.

America today has the resources to lead the world as the top producer worldwide of oil, natural gas and coal. Removing America from the Paris Climate Accord, the start of the demise of Obama’s so-called “Clean Power Plan,” and Trump’s ongoing dismantling of the anti-American energy regulation of Obama’s EPA has already liberated America’s energy producers to assume these world leading roles.

Any economy with the world’s number one oil producing industry, number one natural gas producing industry, and number one coal producing industry is going to be leading the world with booming economic growth. And not just in energy but in manufacturing too. Because manufacturing is an energy intensive activity.

No wonder manufacturers are optimistic. Their blue collar workers and voters are too.

Voters disagree with Democrats that climate change is a reason to cripple the U.S. economy. Most voters are not scientists, but they believe there is no reason for climate change hysteria, as scientists document in Climate Change Reconsidered II, published by the Heartland Institute.

Obama and the New York Times may think that book and the scientists therein should be banned, but there is a new administration now that doesn’t think so, which voters chose over Hillary’s promised continuation of President Obama’s clampdown on now world-leading American energy production.

The House and Senate have now passed budgets providing for many of the spending reductions proposed in Trump’s budget. Contrary to outdated Keynesian economics, government spending detracts from rather than adds to the economy, draining resources from the productive private sector, which is why Obama’s “stimulus” never worked.

In the 2010 and 2014 elections, voters decisively expressed what they think of the Keynesian doctrine that increased deficits and government debt contribute to economic recovery and restored growth. Voters first obliterated the House Democrat majority in 2010 and then took away the Senate Democrat majority in 2014.

Wait until America gains the reality of pro-growth tax reform. When it further restores booming recovery, voters will feel vindicated in their judgements and continue their support for the economic policies of the Trump administration.

Also posted at "NAFTA".
(With negotiator like Trump on NAFTA (Paris Agreement, DPRK!), sounds like time to put rest of my retirement savings in cash!)

Trump’s States Need Nafta
‘Coastal elites’ won’t be hardest hit if the President nixes the trade agreement.
Mary Anastasia O’Grady | Oct. 29, 2017

...At a private luncheon with Republican senators last Tuesday, Mr. Trump reportedly shared his North American Free Trade Agreement negotiating strategy. According to Inside Trade, which spoke to senators who attended the gathering, the president believes that by issuing a notification of his intent to leave Nafta—which would trigger a six-month waiting period before the actual exit—he can force Mexico and Canada to make the concessions he wants.

“The president said there was no way to get the changes we need unless we get out, then have six months to negotiate,” one GOP senator told the Washington-based trade publication. Mr. Trump reportedly did not say what those concessions are. The only clear goal, according to one unnamed senator, is ending the trade deficit with Mexico.

...Almost five million U.S. jobs rely on trade with Mexico, including jobs in auto manufacturing, auto parts, railroads, heavy equipment, machinery, oil and gas, steel fabricating, farming, ranching and food processing, as well as marketing, design, insurance, financial services and intellectual-property.

The pushback against Mr. Trump’s Nafta assault is not coming from “coastal elites” contemptuous of what they refer to as “flyover country.” It’s coming from the “flyover” industrial and farming heartland itself, which has the most to lose...

...Mexico has said it is eager to modernize Nafta. But with a Mexican presidential election in July 2018 there is no way the government is going to bow to the managed-trade demands of Mr. Trump, whose image inside Mexico is no better than that of James K. Polk, who presided over the Mexican-American War.

Mexico says that in a post-Nafta world it would buy its grain and meat in South America, prompting one wise senator to tell Inside Trade, “We’re not in as strong a position as Trump thinks we are.” As to manufacturing, companies are likely, at least initially, to pay any new U.S. tariff and pass the cost on to American consumers, essentially handing them a tax increase. Not exactly what Mr. Trump promised Middle America.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-states-need-nafta-1509301997

The GOP tax plan is moving forward. It’s a big scam on Trump’s base.
Paul Waldman | November 16, 2017

...Everyone always knew Republicans were going to cut taxes for the wealthy. They’re Republicans; that’s what they do. But it’s a genuine surprise to see them raising taxes on people with more modest incomes...

...con...works best when the marks are only too happy to let you con them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/11/16/the-gop-tax-plan-is...

(Also posted in tax reform thread.)

The tax bill is the start of Obamacare collapse
Sarah Kliff | Dec 2, 2017

It will hit red states (Trump states) especially hard...

...skinny repeal is essentially what Republicans have attached to their tax bill.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/2/16720032/senate-tax-bill-obama...

VA kills plan to cut homeless-vet program after outcry
ARTHUR ALLEN and LORRAINE WOELLERT | 12/06/2017

...Four days after Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin held a big Washington event to tout the Trump administration’s promise to house all homeless vets, the agency did an about-face, telling advocates it was pulling resources from a major housing program.

The VA said it was essentially ending a special $460 million program that has dramatically reduced homelessness among chronically sick and vulnerable veterans. Instead, the money would go to local VA hospitals that can use it as they like, as long as they show evidence of dealing with homelessness.

Anger exploded on a Dec. 1 call that was arranged by Shulkin’s Advisory Committee on Homeless Veterans to explain the move. Advocates for veterans, state officials and even officials from HUD, which co-sponsors the program, attacked the decision, according to five people who were on the call...

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/06/homeless-veterans-benefits-trump-20778...

NOW he's done it: pet-lovers are outraged. Sure hope the Cruel One doesn't now acquire a pet to get back in their good graces. Poor little puppy that finds itself in Trump's Christmas stocking!

The Claws Are Out: Animal Lovers React to Donald Trump Reportedly Calling Pets 'Low Class'
Kelli Bender December 06, 2017

http://people.com/pets/donald-trump-thinks-pets-are-low-class/
_______________________________________

God’s Plan for Mike Pence
McKay Coppins | Dec 5, 2017

...When it was reported last January that the Pences would be moving some of their family pets—which include two cats, a rabbit, and a snake—into the Naval Observatory, Trump ridiculed the menagerie to his secretary, according to a longtime adviser. “He was embarrassed by it; he thought it was so low class,” says the adviser. “He thinks the Pences are yokels.”...

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/546569/

Trump Promised to Protect Steel. Layoffs Are Coming Instead.
ANA SWANSON | DEC. 22, 2017

...The layoffs have stunned these steelworkers who, just a year ago, greeted President Trump’s election as a new dawn for their industry. Mr. Trump pledged to build roads and bridges, strengthen “Buy America” provisions, protect factories from unfair imports and revive industry, especially steel.

But after a year in office, Mr. Trump has not enacted these policies. And when it comes to steel, his failure to follow through on a promise has actually done more harm than good.

Foreign steel makers have rushed to get their product into the United States before tariffs start. According to the American Iron and Steel Institute, which tracks shipments, steel imports were 19.4 percent higher in the first 10 months of 2017 than in the same period last year.

That surge of imports has hurt American steel makers, which were already struggling against a glut of cheap Chinese steel. When ArcelorMittal announced the layoffs in Conshohocken, it blamed those imports, as well as low demand for steel for bridges and military equipment....

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/business/economy/trump-steel-industry-layoffs...

Farmers...

Most American Farmers Will Be Hurt by the GOP Tax Bill
But the top 4 percent highest-grossing farms will do fine.
Tom Philpott | Dec. 15, 2017

As a candidate, Donald Trump dominated the rural vote and polled very well among farmers. Will the tax overhaul he’s pushing hard in Congress finally reward farm country for its support?

Since taking office, Trump hasn’t exactly been a champion of farmers. He has imperiled their increasingly crucial export markets by rejecting trade deals and cracked down on the immigrants who supply the great bulk of farm labor. He even sided with massive poultry-processing companies over farmers by nixing US Department of Agriculture rules that gave farmers more legal recourse to defend themselves from unfair production contracts....

• Some farmers can expect a tax cut.
• But only the largest operations. (Only farms with around $1 million in annual sales are in high enough tax bracket to benefit from the lower rate. That amounts to about 4 percent of US farms.)
• Heirs to farm estates valued at more than $5.5 million will win.
• Farms involved in cooperatives may lose.
• The massive budget shortfall created by the bill will add to pressure to cut federal farm spending.
• Farmers relying on Obamacare could lose or pay more for health insurance.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/most-american-farmers-will-be-hurt-b...

ETA: An American Budget: Major Savings and Reforms (202-page PDF)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/msar-fy2019.pdf

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Trump Proposes to Cut Medicare and Spend Big on Wall, Defense
Justin Sink | February 12, 2018, 10:52 AM EST

Lawmakers already acted to raise military, domestic spending
Immigration enforcement a major theme of 2019 proposal

President Donald Trump will propose cutting entitlement programs by $1.7 trillion, including Medicare, in a fiscal 2019 budget that seeks billions of dollars to build a border wall, improve veterans’ health care and combat opioid abuse and that is likely to be all but ignored by Congress.

...a White House summary of the budget...says that the budget will propose cutting spending on Medicare, the health program for the elderly and disabled, by $237 billion but doesn’t specify other mandatory programs that would face reductions, a category that also includes Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and agricultural subsidies.

...The budget will also call for annual 2 percent cuts to non-defense domestic spending beginning “after 2019.’...

...increase in defense spending to $716 billion and a 2.6 percent pay raise for troops. He will request $18 billion to build a wall on the Mexican border...

...also seeks $200 billion for the infrastructure proposal the administration plans to unveil alongside the fiscal year 2019 budget, as well as new regulatory cuts...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-12/trump-to-urge-wall-opioid-spe...

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"What have you got to lose?", Trump asked during the campaign.

Trump’s budget hits poor Americans the hardest
Tracy Jan, Caitlin Dewey and Jeff Stein | February 12, 2018

President Trump proposed a budget Monday that hits the poorest Americans the hardest, slashing billions of dollars in food stamps, health insurance and federal housing subsidies while pushing legislation to institute broad work requirements for families receiving housing vouchers, expanding on moves by some states to require recipients of Medicaid and food stamps to work.

gut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, by $17.2 billion in 2019 — equivalent to 22 percent of the program’s total cost last year...over the next decade, a reduction of nearly 30 percent, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

...the Department of Agriculture would use a portion of those benefits to buy and deliver a package of U.S.-grown commodities to SNAP households that receive $90 or more in assistance each month, using the government’s buying power to obtain common foods at lower costs....(margd: think excess cheese, about to expire; ETA--MI ending private food to prisons--maggots, etc.; up to 1/3 could be spent on delivery--https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/12/trump-wants-to-slash-food-stamps-and-replace-them-with-a-blue-apron-type-program/)

...eliminating the entire fund for public housing capital repairs, a savings of nearly $2 billion a year. The targeted cut comes at a time when public housing faces a backlog of capital needs upwards of $40 billion

...cutting a federal housing subsidy program, known as Section 8 vouchers, by nearly $1 billion

...eliminate funding for Community Development Block Grants, which play a key role in disaster recovery, as well as grants to states and local governments to increase homeownership for the lowest-income Americans, and funding for neighborhood redevelopment.

...cutting federal Medicaid funding by $250 billion over the next 10 years...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/12/trumps-budget-hits-poor-a...

ETA____________________________________________________________

Trump proposes to decimate funding for Great Lakes restoration

In spite of bipartisan support for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, Trump proposes to decimate it. One of the biggest challenges right now is curbing summer toxin Microcystin in drinking water of millions of people in places like Toledo, Ohio. Three new species of carp with potential to transform ecosystem threaten to invade the Great Lakes from the Mississippi R. Aging infrastructure spews sewage during the increasingly frequent storm events. etc...

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/12/white-house-budget-gre...

ETA____________________________________________________________

Assuming any of Trump's base watches/listens to public TV or radio--Sesame Street?

Trump proposes eliminating federal funding for PBS, NPR
Joe Concha | 02/12/18

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/373434-trump-proposes-eliminating-federal-fund...

ETA_____________________________________________________________

The Daily 202: Trump budget highlights disconnect between populist rhetoric and plutocrat reality
James Hohmann | February 13, 2018

1. Touching third rails he said he wouldn’t
2. Scaling back support for the forgotten man
3. Giving up on a balanced budget
4. Relying on fuzzy math
5. Paying for tax cuts that mostly benefit the rich by cutting holes in the safety net for the poor
6. Deconstructing the administrative state
7. More guns, less butter
8. Leaning in on privatization

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/02/13/daily-...

ETA_____________________________________________________________

I understand there were a lot of Trump supporters DOJ, Defense Dept. civil servants.

Significant Cuts to Federal Retirement Benefits Proposed by White House in 2019 Budget
February 12, 2018

2019 Federal Employee Pay Freeze...

Other Federal Retirement Changes...

Eliminate the FERS Special Retirement Supplement for those who retire before age 62
Calculate future federal retirement benefits on the average of an employee's highest five years of salary for those retiring later than 2019 (it is currently is based on the highest three years salary)

Reduce the G Fund Interest Rate in the Thrift Savings Plan (a defined contribution plan for Federal Government employees)...

Changes to Federal Employee Sick and Annual Leave...

The following documents are available from the White House website regarding the 2019 budget proposal:

An American Budget: Major Savings and Reforms (202-page PDF)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/msar-fy2019.pdf

Strengthening the Federal Workforce (10-page PDF)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ap_7_strengthening-fy2019....

https://www.myfederalretirement.com/public/retirement-cuts-2019.cfm

ETA___________________________________________________________

Just five days ago:

Trump signs spending bill, ending early morning government shutdown
Nicole Ogrysko | February 8, 2018

...Trump...expected to release his fiscal 2019 budget proposal Monday. In a statement offering his support for the Bipartisan Budget Act, Trump hinted at proposals to come that will likely offer more spending reductions for non-defense agencies.

“It is critical that the Congress work to decrease non-defense spending in other areas to reduce America’s growing national debt,” the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a statement of administrative policy. “The Bipartisan Budget Act provided non-defense discretionary spending levels higher than the administration deems necessary. Additionally, although the Bipartisan Budget Act does include some spending reductions, the administration has proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending reductions that the Congress should also enact without delay in order to improve our fiscal state.”

Budget deal brings some (temporary) certainty to feds

The Bipartisan Budget Act, which had support from both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and the White House, would set spending caps for the next two years. It would set the spending limit for defense agencies at $629 billion in fiscal 2018 and $647 billion in fiscal 2019, while domestic agencies would be authorized to spend no more than $579 billion and $597 billion this year and the next.

But unlike previous two-year spending deals, the 2018 bill contains relatively few offsets, worth about $100 billion. Those offsets will come from higher customs, aviation security and certain immigration fees.

The passage of the spending bill should bring some relatively good news to federal employees, many who have long feared that lawmakers would again would use their retirement benefits to offset significant spending increases in another two-year deal.

After all, Congress has used previous two-year, bipartisan budget deals to set higher federal employee contributions. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 required that new federal employees hired after 2013 contribute 4.4 percent toward their retirements.

But at 652 pages, the 2018 budget act makes no mention of the federal workforce and its retirement system.

“With the release of a two-year budget deal, federal employees and retirees receive some much-needed relief,” National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association President Richard Thissen said Thursday in a statement. “Relief from the continuing threat of another government shutdown. Relief from austerity-level budget caps and the threat of sequestration. And most importantly, relief from knowing that their earned pay and benefits will not be targeted to pay for an increase in the budget caps.”

https://federalnewsradio.com/government-shutdown/2018/02/trump-signs-spending-bi...

ETA___________________________________________________________

Trump's budget reveals the GOP's priorities in all their hideous glory
Paul Waldman | Feb 13, 2018

http://theweek.com/articles/754741/trumps-budget-reveals-gops-priorities-all-hid...

More proposed budget stuff:

Trump Wants To Fire 248 National Weather Service Forecasters

Wasn't there some talk about privatizing the weather service--we'd have to pay?

Why not cut the pretense and invite Trump's rich friends to back up trucks at the Treasury? :-(
Worse than the Gilded Age--heck, coal magnate Murray even looks the part!

Trump's gas tax would wipe out 60% of tax cut benefit for individuals, analyst estimates

•The increased cost of gas at the pump would also be nine times larger than the estimated $4 billion companies are handing to workers in the form of bonuses, due to corporate tax cuts.

Not to mention the increased costs of things like food when transportation costs are passed on to the consumer.

Trump’s Food Stamp Idea Is Like Blue Apron Had a Socialist Hangover

Clearly not in the service of any free-market ideal. It is hardly pro-market to displace the private sector and build a parallel, state-run distribution system, no matter how many times you name-check Blue Apron. This is the sort of thing you find in countries still recovering from socialist hangovers.
...
No, the “Harvest Box” approach to hunger policy makes sense only in the context of hunger politics. And hunger politics have always been as much about the welfare of agribusiness as about the welfare of the poor.

Every minute of warning counts for many weather events, but hey, let's cut the number of people who can give those warnings, and when they may actually be working.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/trump-proposing-cutting-248-weather-forecasters...

Trump voters hurting: farmers, MI, WI, investors, etc., who are no doubt in touch with R reps.
Cross-posted to "NAFTA negotiations, which are scheduled to end May 1...

U.S. Stock and Crop Futures Tank After China Announces Reciprocal Tariffs
China said it would levy a 25% reciprocal tariff on 106 U.S. products including soybeans, cars, whisky and chemicals.
Lisa Botter | Apr 4, 2018

...Beijing vowed proportional retaliation to plans by the U.S. for a 25% tariff on 1,333 products, with China's Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday saying it would immediately appeal the actions to the World Trade Organization. The tariffs are in response to decades of state-backed intellectual property theft by China, which President Trump said was "probably ... in the neighborhood of $200 billion to $300 billion."...

https://www.thestreet.com/story/14544564/1/wall-street-futures-under-pressure-as...

For no good reason, and no end point other than funding for his &*%^*$ wall and satisfy base before 2018, 2020 elections...
Trump deployment of National Guard to Mexican border could cost billions--up to $100K per soldier--plus disrupt lives of National Guards called up.

How Much Do National Guard Troops At The Border Cost? Trump's Plan Weighs Heavy On Taxpayers
Seth Millstein | April 4, 2018

... the cost of National Guard deployments to the U.S.-Mexico border under Bush and Obama were more or less consistent: Around $100,000 of taxpayer money per troop annually. All other things being equal, it stands to reason that this price tag will remain the same under Trump.

...Between 2008 and 2014 — the most recent year for which data is available — more Mexican citizens have have left the United States than entered it.

https://www.bustle.com/p/how-much-do-national-guard-troops-at-the-border-cost-tr...

_________________________________

Sounds like governors must first approve:
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/04/04/national-guard-headed-mexican-bor...

Republican governors of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico -- three states that border Mexico -- backed the president's move:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/04/05/most-border-state-governors-back-trum...

But CA's Jerry Brown, the only Democratic governor in four states, could prove to be a kink in that plan. Brown pushed the question to the California National Guard: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/dhs-pressing-california-gov-jerry-brown-...

Overtime pay for regular folk:

...In 2016, the Department of Labor strengthened requirements for employers to pay workers overtime (time and a half pay) when they work more than 40 hours a week. This much-needed update corrected 40 years' worth of economic changes, as overtime regulations have eroded over time to cover only a fraction of the people they were designed to protect.

Unfortunately, powerful business interests attacked this long-overdue update to our overtime rules in court, and the Trump administration decided not to stand up for the rule ― even indicating that they supported rolling it back to a lower standard.

The result will be over a billion dollars in lost potential wages each year, and 12.5 million workers left in limbo with weak overtime protections ― or none at all. By April 1, 2018 working people will have lost out on approximately $500 million in increased wages since Trump abandoned the overtime pay rule...

...(Dems) have introduced the Restoring Overtime Pay Act, which will raise the overtime salary threshold from $23,660 to $48,412 ― increasing overtime protections for 12.5 million working people at the same standard as the 2016 regulation...

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/add-your-name-to-co-sign-the-restoring-overt...

HUD Secretary Ben Carson to propose tripling rent for some low-income Americans receiving federal housing subsidies

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson on Wednesday will propose tripling the amount the poorest households are expected to pay for rent as well as encourage those receiving housing subsidies to work, according to the administration’s legislative proposal obtained by The Washington Post.

The move to overhaul how low-income rental subsidies are calculated would affect more than 4.5 million families relying on federal housing assistance. The proposed legislation would require congressional approval.

Tenants generally pay 30 percent of their adjusted income toward rent or a public housing agency minimum rent — which is capped at $50 a month for the poorest families. The administration’s legislative proposal sets the family monthly rent contribution at 35 percent of gross income or 35 percent of their earnings working 15 hours a week at the federal minimum wage. Under the proposal, the cap for the poorest families would rise to approximately $150 a month, three times higher than the current minimum.

While increasing loans to Sean Hannity???

>80 2wonderY: This one really sticks in my craw because this is my area of expertise. I review tenant files all day long. There are so many people who are just hanging on by their bloody fingertips.

>82 2wonderY: A bad fire this week consumed belongings of 25 low-income families in Ontario, including a foster nephew of mine who was finally in a relatively good place in life. (Nobody hurt, thank goodness.) I suspect Ontario does better by their working poor than we do, but still, "hanging on by fingertips" sure describes their situation. Any emergency takes them down if no family or govt to help. Atrocious to play political games with their lives!

>80 2wonderY: WTF!?! What possible reasoning could the Federal government have to justify such an incredible leap. On the surface a 30 to 35 percent raise doesn't "seem" bad, but when you have so little every dollar counts. I'm middle class and I live nearly paycheck to paycheck and a 5 percent increase in my mortgage would be difficult to absorb.

Here's the text of the proposed bill:
https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/Main/documents/RentReformLegislativeText.pdf

The New York Times reports that Congress has it's own plan:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/us/hud-housing-assistance.html

On Wednesday, even as Mr. Carson was promoting the plan, department officials acknowledged that it would probably be superseded by a somewhat scaled-back set of rent increases and work requirement proposals House Republicans plan to unveil next month. And the new plan stands little chance of being passed in the Senate, where moderate Republicans like Senator Susan Collins of Maine are likely to reject it.

Housing advocates and congressional Democrats immediately condemned it. “What pretends to be a hand up is really a foot in the back,” said Shamus Roller, the executive director of the National Housing Law Project.

“This proposal would inflict unimaginable hardships on Americans living life on the brink of financial instability and significantly increase the risk of homelessness and hunger among children and at-risk populations,” said Representative Joseph Crowley, a Democrat of New York who serves as chairman of the House Democratic caucus.

Sometimes it seems like our government bends over backwards to give breaks to corporations and millionaires, but when it comes to the poor, "Oh, we don't have the money for social programs." I realize it isn't as cut and dried as that, but this proposed bill sticks in my craw coming on the heels of the tax cut which benefited the rich and corporations.

I can tell you that the owners of multi-family rental complexes are financed through the government, most times being charged as little as 1% interest, the taxpayer footing the rest of that bill. The borrower is a limited profit entity; but the general partner sets up management agencies that suck on this teat at great profit.

I get it that owners need to make a profit to stay in business. No profit = no product to offer. I just don't get why the government helps companies and owners so much and then -- potentially -- stick it to the poor.

Conservatives' recommendations for Medicare, among other programs, in FY 2019 (starts Oct 1, 2018):

According to the RSC, the budget proposal includes input from members of Congress, Congressional Committees, conservative think tanks and the executive branch to produce more than 300 specific policy reforms and spending cuts. The Republican Study Committee is a caucus of more than 150 conservative members of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives.

“Curbing spending is the only way to control our deficits and ballooning debt. Without resolute action now, we run the risk of an unstoppable debt spiral and ultimately a sovereign debt crisis. History warns us that countries that bankrupt themselves aren't around very long,” said Budget and Spending Task Force Chairman Tom McClintock (R-CA). “The RSC budget points the way back to solvency and prosperity, but every day we delay, our choices become harder. One thing is clear: inaction is not an option.”

A Framework for Unified Conservatism
FY 2019 Budget (176 p)
The Republican Study Committee. The House's Conservative Caucus
Released April 25, 2018

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/d4254037a343b683d142111e0/files/9adb45c5-7c68-4096...

Pages
64 Medicare Premium Support
65 Simplify Traditional Medicare by Combining Parts A & B
65 MediGap Reform
66 Phase in Increases for premiums and Means-Testing
66 Adjust Medicare Eligibility Age to Reflect Life Expectancy
67 Standardize Medicare Reimbursement across Delivery Site
67 Address Waste, Fraud and Abuse
67 Limit Medicare's Responsibility for "Bad Debt"
68 Reform Graduate Medical Education Financing

"Curbing spending is the only way to control our deficits and ballooning debt.

Wrong. Curb spending or raise taxes. As I recall, the same Republicans crying about this voted for the tax cut. At the present rate, one day America will be a nation of elites (due to money or status) and serfs (the former middle class and low income).

Pardon my negativity, but its frustrating to watch the political games. Republicans decried the federal deficit when Obama was in office; Now the Democrats do. And to listen to the Republicans talk out of both sides of their mouth (cut taxes! cut services!) makes me sick.

Common sense has deserted Congress and the Executive Branch.

My first-blush response to document:

Not just cutting taxes before worrying about deficits, did you notice that Republican Study Committee used a 65 year old WOMAN as example of how people pay less into Medicare than they receive. Women often leave the work force for periods of time to take care of family--and make less, and so contribute less to Medicare in general, than men do.

No wonder Paul Ryan's planning to retire after this term...

>89 margd: “Curbing spending is the only way to control our deficits and ballooning debt."

So the Republicans are unable to even conceive that raising taxes would lower deficits?

>92 jjwilson61: I'd say at least some Republicans don't grasp the concept. Imagine how fast they'd lose their big donors if they advocated raising taxes on higher incomes and consistent loop-hole free corporate taxes.

Personally, I'm in favor of a fixed percentage tax then everyone would pay the same proportionally.

Investment Boom From Trump’s Tax Cut Has Yet to Appear

so far, hard evidence of such an acceleration has yet to appear in economic data, which show more of a steady investment roll than a rapid escalation. And while there are pockets of the economy where investment is picking up — among large tech companies and in shale oil business, for example — corporate spending on buying back stock is increasing at a far faster clip, prompting a debate about whether the law is returning money to the overall economy or just rewarding a small segment of investors.

Income is insufficient to meet basic needs such as food, healthcare, and rent... One wonders when the breaking point will come.

The Pew Charitable Trusts Research & Analysis American Families Face a Growing Rent Burden
Report
American Families Face a Growing Rent Burden
High housing costs threaten financial security and put homeownership out of reach for many
April 19, 2018

Nearly 43 million U.S. households rented their homes in 2016, including about 9 million households that were formed over the preceding decade...

In 2015, 38 percent of all “renter households” were rent burdened (spending 50 percent or more of monthly income on rent), an increase of about 19 percent from 2001.

The share of renter households that were severely rent burdened—spending 50 percent or more of monthly income on rent—increased by 42 percent between 2001 and 2015, to 17 percent. Increasing rent burdens were driven in part by year-over-year growth in gross rent—contract price plus utilities—that far exceeded changes in pretax income, which means that after paying rent, many Americans have less money available for other needs than they did 20 years ago.

In 2015, 46 percent of African-American-led renter households were rent burdened, compared with 34 percent of white households. Between 2001 and 2015, the gap between the share of white and African- American households experiencing severe rent burden grew by 66 percent.

Senior-headed renter households are more likely than those headed by people in other age groups to be rent burdened. In 2015, about 50 percent of renter families headed by someone 65 or older were rent burdened, and more than a fifth were severely rent burdened.

Rent-burdened families are also financially insecure in many other ways:

Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) had less than $400 cash in the bank; most (84 percent) of such households are African-American-headed.
Half had less than $10 in savings across various liquid accounts, while half of homeowners had more than $7,000.

Fewer rent-burdened households transitioned from renting to owning in 2015 than in 2001.

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2018/04/american-famil...

Trump’s Iran-Deal Decision Will Hurt American Businesses and American Workers
John Cassidy | May 8, 2018

...Boeing...Schlumberger, the Houston-based oil driller...General Electric...Other U.S. companies saw their own opportunities. Last year, for example, U.S. and European firms that make household appliances met with Iranian officials about the possibility of investing in Iran.

...while American businesses may be hamstrung by Trump’s action, the situation will be different for firms in other countries...European carmakers, such as Volkswagen, have resumed exporting cars and trucks to Iran, and Renault has agreed to build a factory near Tehran. Chinese companies have agreed to invest billions of dollars to upgrade some of Iran’s oil-production facilities, and CITIC Group, a Chinese state-owned investment company, has extended ten billion dollars in credit to a group of Iranian banks. Just last week, Iran Airtour and Aseman Airlines ordered forty smaller passenger jets from Sukhoi, a Russian aircraft manufacturer...European company Airbus...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trumps-iran-deal-decision-will-hur...

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Trump's renewed economic sanctions on Iran heightens risks for global oil prices and U.S. consumer spending
Don Lee | May 08, 2018

...The benchmark Brent crude futures moved little Tuesday on the news, steadying at about $76 a barrel. It was about $50 a year ago.

So far, financial markets have taken the jump in oil prices largely in stride, as the U.S. economy has been performing well behind solid job gains and strong consumer confidence. But rising pump prices have pinched consumer spending, and some analysts argue that the Iranian sanctions could spoil much of the expected gains from the Republican tax cuts...

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-pol-trump-sanctions-economy-20180508-story...

Trump announces 3 US citizens detained in North Korea are now free, on their way home
Alex Lockie | May 9, 2018
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-announces-3-us-citizens-detained-in-north-k...

Good! Meanwhile, in Iran, hopes dim for 5 US citizens...

Hopes dim for US prisoners in Iran after Trump abandons nuclear deal
Jon Swaine | 9 May 2018

...At least four Iranian-Americans and one Chinese-American are being detained by Iranian authorities on charges their supporters and relatives say are bogus or unjustified. Several are held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison...

...Bacquer Namazi, who is 82 and underwent heart surgery in September last year. He and his son Siamak, an energy executive, are serving 10-year sentences for supposedly “collaborating with enemy states”, which they deny.

...Xiyue Wang, a Chinese-American graduate student at Princeton University, was arrested in August 2016 while researching in Tehran and sentenced to 10 years in prison, apparently on charges of spying, which he denies.

...Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian-American businessman and a director of the Persian Heritage Wildlife Foundation (PHWF), was arrested in January with others from the PHWF and accused of espionage. An Iranian-Canadian member of the group died in February.

Karan Vafadari, an Iranian-American gallery owner in Tehran, was arrested with his wife in July 2016 and accused of serving alcohol and holding mixed-gender parties. They, too, were later accused of spying, which they deny...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/09/us-prisoners-iran-trump-nuclear-de...

What Ben Carson Doesn’t Get About Poverty

The system that truly needs an overhaul is the American economy, which operates on the labor of millions of low-wage workers who earn too little to keep a roof over their heads without help.

...And that assumes the public housing resident can get more hours at her current job. Or that she can find another job—and has transportation to get there. In cities like Memphis, where I live, the public transportation system is pitifully inefficient. It’s a two-hour bus ride from my neighborhood to the retailer IKEA, which pays a living wage.

Then, assume that the worker can find child care for these additional hours she’s working—and that she can afford to pay for it and the rent increase.
...
The solution to poverty?

Money. If you have more money, you’re not poor. (It really is that simple.)

Since most people make money through their jobs, the cure to the sickness of poverty isn’t higher rents for the families struggling hardest to make ends meet.

The cure is a sizable increase in the federal minimum wage, which remains at $7.25 an hour.

>98 2wonderY: Yes! Though poverty is a complicated issue, the bottom line is their are multiple barriers between an individual and the path to improve their lot. Removing one barrier does not smooth the path. I've observed that even if you manage to find a job, getting enough hours is an issue. One neighbor had three part time jobs and had trouble getting enough hours.

We could through more money at the problem but unless it's done wisely it could just be wasted. I don't have the answers... just a lot of questions. But we have to be able to do better than this!

The Trump administration sent a letter to Congress proposing a $143.5 Billion cut in compensation for federal employees at the beginning of this week, this...

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

This PUBLIC SERVICE RECOGNITION WEEK.

Thank you, too, Trump.

Alt USDA_ARS @AltUSDA_ARS 7:35 PM - 9 May 2018

___________________________________________________________

FERS was introduced years ago for new employees to reduce fed pension costs under CSRS, so Trump is proposing to cut cuts:

Trump thanks federal employees with $143.5 billion in retirement cuts
Joe Davidson | May 8, 2018

...In a letter to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) on Friday, Office of Personnel Management Director Jeff T.H. Pon pushed four proposals that, over 10 years, would significantly cut retirement benefits for 2.6 million federal retirees and survivors.

Saying he wants “to bring Federal benefits more in line with the private sector,” Pon proposed:

Eliminating supplements for Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) annuitants who retire before being eligible for Social Security benefits.

Reducing federal pensions by basing them on workers’ basic pay five-year averages instead of three years.

Increasing employee retirement contributions with no increase in benefits. The plan would sharply boost the 0.8 percent of basic pay most FERS employees contribute. The letter makes the impact on federal retirees clear. “Under this proposal, FERS employee deduction rates will increase by 1 percent per year until they reach 7.25 percent of basic pay. … This proposal would require FERS employees to fund a greater portion of their retirement benefit.”

Reducing or eliminating retirement cost-of-living adjustments. The administration plans “to reduce the cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) by one half of one percent and to eliminate COLAs under the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) for current and future retirees.”...

New evidence shows that our anti-poverty programs, especially Social Security, work well
Michael Hiltzik | May 07, 2018

Few U.S. government efforts are consistently more vilified than anti-poverty programs. They're dismissed as ineffective and ridiculed as giveaways to undeserving recipients.

A new paper puts the lie to these assertions by showing that the nation's most important anti-poverty efforts all succeed in serving their goals — in the case of Social Security, spectacularly. The authors, Bruce D. Meyer and Derek Wu of the University of Chicago, used administrative statistics from six major programs to demonstrate that five of the six "sharply reduce deep poverty" (that is, income below 50% of the federal poverty line) and the sixth has a "pronounced" impact among the working poor.

The programs that reduce deep poverty are Social Security; Supplemental Security Income; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which is what commonly is known as "welfare"; housing assistance; and food stamps, or SNAP. The sixth is the Earned Income Tax Credit, which helps mostly families that earn around 150% of the poverty line. (That line is about $25,100 in annual income for a family of four.)

In each case, Weber and Wu found that the effect of each program has been materially underestimated by traditional measurements. That's because the earlier estimates are based on Census Bureau surveys that underreport benefits from these programs. As a result, the authors say, the effects of food stamps and TANF are underestimated by one-third to one-half, and the impact of Social Security is underestimated by as much as 44%. Their research covered 2008-13, the period of the Great Recession....

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-antipoverty-20180507-story...

___________________________________________________________________

The Poverty Reduction of Social Security and Means-Tested Transfers
Bruce D. Meyer, Derek Wu

NBER Working Paper No. 24567
Issued in May 2018
NBER Program(s):Aging, Children, Labor Studies, Public Economics

Many studies examine the anti-poverty effects of social insurance and means-tested transfers, relying solely on survey data with substantial errors. We improve on past work by linking administrative data from Social Security and five large means-tested transfers (SSI, SNAP, Public Assistance, the EITC, and housing assistance) to 2008-2013 Survey of Income and Program Participation data. Using the linked data, we find that Social Security cuts the poverty rate by a third – more than twice the combined effect of the five means-tested transfers. Among means-tested transfers, the EITC and SNAP are most effective. All programs except for the EITC sharply reduce deep poverty (below 50% of the poverty line), while the impact of the EITC is more pronounced at 150% of the poverty line. For the elderly, Social Security single-handedly slashes poverty by 75%, more than 20 times the combined effect of the means-tested transfers. While single parent families benefit more from the EITC, SNAP, and housing assistance, they are still relatively underserved by the safety net, with the six programs together reducing their poverty rate by only 38%. SSI, Public Assistance, and housing assistance have the highest share of benefits going to the pre-transfer poor, while the EITC has the lowest. Finally, the survey data alone provide fairly accurate estimates for the overall population at the poverty line, although they understate the effects of Social Security, SNAP, and Public Assistance. However, there are more striking differences at other income cutoffs and for specific family types. For example, the survey data yield 1) effects of SNAP and Public Assistance on near poverty that are two-thirds and one-half what the administrative data generate and 2) poverty reduction effects of SSI, Social Security, and Public Assistance that are 34-44% of what the administrative data produce for single parent families.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w24567#fromrss

'Tricked by the devil.' They backed Trump. Now, his foreign labor cuts may ruin them.
Tom Eblen | May 10, 2018

...Cuts in H-2B visas are hurting small businesses across the country that can’t find Americans willing to do hard, manual labor: Maryland crab processors, Texas shrimp fishermen, and Kentucky landscapers and construction companies.

...(Eddie Devine, owner of Harrodsburg-based Devine Creations Landscaping) said he believed Trump’s America-first promises. But cutting off a good supply of seasonal foreign labor when Americans won’t take those jobs is only hurting American business owners and the U.S. workers they employ, he said.

These workers aren’t immigrants, and there is no path to U.S. citizenship. When their seasonal work is done, they return home. That’s why Devine thinks the Trump administration’s stifling of guest-worker programs has more to do with racism than economics. “I think there’s a war on brown people,” he said.

But what makes him most angry is that Trump’s properties in Florida and New York have used 144 H-2B workers since 2016. “I want to know why it’s OK for him to get his workers, but supporters like me don’t get theirs,” Devine said.

http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article210676214...

>100 margd:

The Trump administration sent a letter to Congress proposing a $143.5 Billion cut in compensation for federal employees at the beginning of this week, this...

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

This PUBLIC SERVICE RECOGNITION WEEK.

Thank you, too, Trump.

Is it any surprise? Timing is everything. Thanks, Mr. President, for adding insult to injury.

And Now, For His Grand Finale, Paul Ryan Is Trying to Kick at Least a Million People Off of Food Stamps
Jordan Weissmann | May 11, 2018

...Congress is currently in the process of reauthorizing the farm bill, which per longstanding Washington tradition includes spending on both agricultural subsidies and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—aka food stamps— in order to attract support from all sides of the aisle...The bill that House Republicans have written makes good on his welfare reform talk by attaching much stricter work requirements to the food stamp program. And President Trump is reportedly threatening to veto any bill that doesn’t include the reforms.

Although you wouldn’t know it from Republican rhetoric, the SNAP program already has rules meant to make sure recipients work if they can.

...The House farm bill would make today’s work requirements more stringent, but tries to soften the blow by promising that everybody will have access to a jobs program.

...Congressional Budget Office believes that 1.2 million fewer people would receive benefits in 2028 thanks to the new work requirements, almost two-thirds of whom would be parents with older children.

...The CBO only thinks that only 80 percent of SNAP enrollees subject to the new work requirements would actually be offered any of the promised training services

...Chances are that the legislation will also prevent many perfectly eligible families from receiving food stamps simply by trapping them in red tape.

...also...the bill finds ways to boot people from the food stamp program that are completely unrelated to the notion of promoting work. For instance, hundreds of thousands of households would lose their SNAP benefits due to changes in what are known as categorical eligibility rules, which let people automatically qualify for food stamps if they participate in other federal or state programs for the disadvantaged, like Supplemental Security Income or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Notably, the CBO says these same changes would deny free school lunches to about 265,000 children...

https://slate.com/business/2018/05/paul-ryan-is-trying-to-kick-a-million-people-...

Harley-Davidson took its tax cut, closed a factory, and rewarded shareholders
Emily Stewart | May 22, 2018

The motorcycle maker in January told Kansas City workers it would close a plant there. Days later, it announced a nearly $700 million stock buyback plan.

n September 2017, House Speaker Paul Ryan traveled to a Harley-Davidson plant in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, to tout the Republican tax bill, which President Trump would sign later that year. “Tax reform can put American manufacturers and American companies like Harley-Davidson on a much better footing to compete in the global economy and keep jobs here in America,” Ryan told workers and company leaders.

Four months later and 500 miles away in Kansas City, Missouri, 800 workers at a Harley-Davidson factory were told they would lose their jobs when the plant closed its doors and shifted operations to a facility in York, Pennsylvania — a net loss of 350 jobs. Workers and union representatives say they didn’t see it coming.

Just days later, the company announced a dividend increase and a stock buyback plan to repurchase 15 million of its shares, valued at about $696 million.

It’s a pattern that’s played out over and over since the tax cuts passed — companies profit, shareholders reap the benefits, and workers get left out...

...The company will cut 800 jobs at the Kansas City plant when it closes by the fall of 2019 and says it expects to add 450 full-time, casual, and contractor positions in its York facility — a net loss of 350 jobs.

The median household income in York is much lower than in Kansas City, and Tate said that hiring a casual workforce there — temporary workers brought in to boost production during peak season — will be easier and cheaper for Harley.

...Meanwhile, Harley-Davidson is opening up a plant in Thailand, where it plans to start production later this year. (The company also owns and operates facilities in India and Brazil, and it is closing a facility in Australia.)...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/22/17350180/harley-davidson-tax-b...

Trump's tariffs on US allies will shrink the savings Americans gained from tax cuts
John Harwood | June 1, 2018

The U.S. says it will impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from allies such as Canada, Mexico and the European Union.
While the White House acknowledges that these measures will lead to higher prices, the administration argues the effect will be tiny.
But combined with additional tariffs on Chinese imports and retaliatory steps taken by U.S. allies, economists across the political spectrum agree these levies will have a negative impact.

...(Mark Zandi, an independent economist at Moody's Analytics) estimated the net effects of trade conflicts Trump has initiated at 0.2 percent in reduced economic growth, 250,000 in lost jobs, and $210 in higher costs for an average family. Such a reduction in growth would wipe out half the projected boost in growth from the tax cuts Trump and the GOP Congress enacted last December.

...Also in the name of national security, the Trump administration is investigating whether to slap 25 percent tariffs on imported cars.

That would boost prices of products on which Americans spent $180 billion in 2017. There's no assurance the expensive cycle of tariff escalation would stop there...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/01/trump-tariffs-will-shrink-savings-americans-gain...

The first layoffs from Trump’s tariffs are here
Heather Long | June 25, 2018

The first casualties of President Trump’s trade war are 60 workers at Mid-Continent Nail, America’s largest nail manufacturer. They lost their jobs on June 15 at a factory in a part of Missouri that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. The whole company could be out of business by Labor Day.

...more companies...On Monday, Harley-Davidson said it will be moving some “production” offshore because of the trade war (Europe hit Harley with a 31 percent tariff in response to Trump’s steel tariffs on Europe). Harley won’t confirm whether jobs are leaving the United States, but the union representing many Harley workers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, is worried.

Mid-Continent Nail blames the layoffs on Trump’s (May Mexican steel) tariffs, and the company says all 500 employees could lose their jobs by Labor Day. The next round of cuts could come in a matter of days.

...After the tariff, the company was forced to hike its prices, and customers fled. Orders are a mere 30 percent of what they were a year ago, said George Skarich, the vice president of sales. He suspects many customers are now buying Chinese nails.

....The Tax Foundation predicts 48,585 job losses from the tariffs Trump has already enacted on imports of washing machines, solar panels, steel, aluminum and $50 billion in Chinese products. That figure would soar to over 250,000 job losses if Trump moves forward with tariffs on another $200 billion of Chinese products, the Tax Foundation said.

...The overall U.S. economy is unlikely to fall into a recession because of this, most economists say, but it’s likely to curtail growth a bit as companies hold off on hiring more workers or building new factories. And some parts of the country are likely to be hit hard. Europe, Canada, Turkey and China are targeting their tariffs at towns that voted for Trump.

Supporters of Trump’s tariffs point out that the protectionist moves have yielded job gains. Nearly 4,700 American jobs have been created since the steel and aluminum tariffs went into effect; ...

...Experts have warned Trump that the tariffs are likely to cause more job losses than jobs saved, and the early signs of that are starting to play out in small towns south of St. Louis...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/25/the-first-layoffs-from-tr...

"new 1040 “postcard” is going to make tax filing more complex and expensive for many taxpayers"

Lily Batchelder @lilybatch
Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law at @nyulaw. Former Deputy Director @WhiteHouse NEC; former Chief Tax Counsel @SenateFinance.
6/29/2018 https://twitter.com/lilybatch

Looks to me like the new 1040 “postcard” is going to make tax filing more complex and expensive for many taxpayers. More will have to file schedules, which typically means tax preparers will charge them higher fees. 1/7:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/irs-changes-1040-tax-form-even-as-taxpayers-switch-...

Take a couple who has 3 kids, claims the child care credit, health premium credit, and student loan interest deduction, and owes some tax on excess advanced premium credits and early withdrawals from their 401(k). 2/7

Instead of just filing the 1040, they now have to file the 1040 “postcard” plus new Schedules 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. And it appears they’ll have to file another unspecified schedule for their 3rd child because there is only space to list 2 kids. 3/7

Here is the new draft 1040 “postcard” and the new draft schedules. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/f1040--dft.pdf … https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/your-money/1040-income-tax-postcard.html …

We don’t know how tax preparers will change their pricing structures, but if past experience is any guide, they’ll charge more to file 8 pages of forms on behalf of the customer instead of 2. Not exactly simplification! 5/7

Moreover, the 1040 “postcard” doesn’t just replace the 1040, but also the 1040A and 1040EZ. If this family hadn’t withdrawn from their 401(k), they could have filed a 1040A, which most companies prepare for free. Meaning the couple’s filing costs will probably rise even more. 6/7

Here’s a list of how many millions of people used various lines on the old 1040 that now require separate schedules because of the “postcard” (which is actually too big to mail as a postcard, but that’s for another day). Data is from 2015 (latest available). 7/7: https://twitter.com/lilybatch/status/1012792160989663233

Trump Wants to Blame OPEC for High Oil Prices. But He’s Much More at Fault
David A. Deese June 29, 2018

President Donald Trump again blamed OPEC for high global oil prices on June 13. But macroeconomic factors, as well as the president’s own policies, are more to blame for the rise. Trump doesn’t want to face the reality that his harsh rhetoric and volatile trade policies have heightened uncertainty in global markets, and that can have an upward impact on oil prices...

http://fortune.com/2018/06/29/trump-opec-crude-oil-gas-prices-change/

The Trump Administration's Giant F**k You to Working People: Playing Games with Capital Gains Tax Rates
Dean Baker | 30 July 2018

...The NYT reports that the Trump administration is proposing to unilaterally (as in no congressional action) change the way that capital gains are calculated for tax purposes.

The plan is to allow people to index capital gains for inflation. For example, under current law, if you bought 100 shares of stock for $100 per share ten years ago, and sell the shares today for $200, you would pay the capital gains tax on the full difference of $10,000. (100* $200 = $20,000, 100* $100 = $10,000. $20,000 minus $10,000 = $10,000)

Under the Trump administration's plan, you would be able to adjust the original $10,000 purchase for the inflation in the last decade. Let's say that the inflation over this period has been a total of 20 percent. This means that instead of deducting $10,000 from the current sale price to calculation your gain you would deduct $12,000. This would leave a taxable gain of $8,000 instead of $10,000.

In this case it means a 20 percent reduction in the tax rate on capital gains. The reduction would be greater for longer held assets and less for assets held a short period of time.

In case there is any doubt, almost all of the savings would go to rich people. The article cites an analysis showing that 97 percent of the savings would go to the top 10 percent of the population and more than two thirds would go to the richest 0.1 percent.

And, just to be clear, don't be foolish enough to think this is about helping the middle class Joe and Jane with their 401(k)s. These suckers have the capital gains in their 401(k)s taxed as ordinary income. They won't be helped one iota by this change in the tax law. As the Republican motto goes, "tax cuts are for rich people."

...Congress has repeatedly changed the tax code with the understanding that a capital gain was defined as the difference between the selling price of an asset and the purchase price. This is one reason why the tax rate on capital gains is so much lower than the tax rate on wage income. (The top tax rate on capital gains is 20 percent, compared to 37.0 percent on wage income.)

In effect, the Trump administration would be saying that Congress didn't know what it was doing when it was setting capital gains tax rates. That they actually meant for the gains to be indexed to inflation, it was just some weird misunderstanding that persisted for all these decades that caused capital gains to be measured by just taking actual purchase price...

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/the-trump-administration-s-giant-f-k-you-to...

_____________________________________________________________

Trump administration eyes capital gains tax cut for wealthy: NY Times
Reuters Staff | July 30, 2018

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut to wealthy Americans by allowing taxpayers to account for inflation while determining capital gains tax liabilities

...(NYT), quoting from an interview with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, said the administration could change the definition of “cost” used to calculate capital gains, allowing taxpayers to adjust the value of an asset for inflation when it is sold.

...“If it can’t get done through a legislation process, we will look at what tools at Treasury we have to do it on our own and we’ll consider that,” the Times quoted Mnuchin as saying. “We are studying that internally, and we are also studying the economic costs and the impact on growth.”...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-capitalgains/trump-administration-eye...

Hide the silverware!

The Trump Administration's Giant F**k You to Working People: Playing Games with Capital Gains Tax Rates
Dean Baker | 30 July 2018

...The NYT reports that the Trump administration is proposing to unilaterally (as in no congressional action) change the way that capital gains are calculated for tax purposes.

The plan is to allow people to index capital gains for inflation. For example, under current law, if you bought 100 shares of stock for $100 per share ten years ago, and sell the shares today for $200, you would pay the capital gains tax on the full difference of $10,000. (100* $200 = $20,000, 100* $100 = $10,000. $20,000 minus $10,000 = $10,000)

Under the Trump administration's plan, you would be able to adjust the original $10,000 purchase for the inflation in the last decade. Let's say that the inflation over this period has been a total of 20 percent. This means that instead of deducting $10,000 from the current sale price to calculation your gain you would deduct $12,000. This would leave a taxable gain of $8,000 instead of $10,000.

In this case it means a 20 percent reduction in the tax rate on capital gains. The reduction would be greater for longer held assets and less for assets held a short period of time.

In case there is any doubt, almost all of the savings would go to rich people. The article cites an analysis showing that 97 percent of the savings would go to the top 10 percent of the population and more than two thirds would go to the richest 0.1 percent.

And, just to be clear, don't be foolish enough to think this is about helping the middle class Joe and Jane with their 401(k)s. These suckers have the capital gains in their 401(k)s taxed as ordinary income. They won't be helped one iota by this change in the tax law. As the Republican motto goes, "tax cuts are for rich people."

...Congress has repeatedly changed the tax code with the understanding that a capital gain was defined as the difference between the selling price of an asset and the purchase price. This is one reason why the tax rate on capital gains is so much lower than the tax rate on wage income. (The top tax rate on capital gains is 20 percent, compared to 37.0 percent on wage income.)

In effect, the Trump administration would be saying that Congress didn't know what it was doing when it was setting capital gains tax rates. That they actually meant for the gains to be indexed to inflation, it was just some weird misunderstanding that persisted for all these decades that caused capital gains to be measured by just taking actual purchase price...

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/the-trump-administration-s-giant-f-k-you-to...

_____________________________________________________________

Trump administration eyes capital gains tax cut for wealthy: NY Times
Reuters Staff | July 30, 2018

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut to wealthy Americans by allowing taxpayers to account for inflation while determining capital gains tax liabilities

...(NYT), quoting from an interview with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, said the administration could change the definition of “cost” used to calculate capital gains, allowing taxpayers to adjust the value of an asset for inflation when it is sold.

...“If it can’t get done through a legislation process, we will look at what tools at Treasury we have to do it on our own and we’ll consider that,” the Times quoted Mnuchin as saying. “We are studying that internally, and we are also studying the economic costs and the impact on growth.”...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-capitalgains/trump-administration-eye...

Trump Administration chooses his GD towers and pocketbook (and Russia!) over health of 40,000 Americans (annually).

More Asbestos! More Asbestos! More Asbestos!
President Trump’s long-time love affair with asbestos is making its way into federal policy
Ryan Bort | Aug 7, 2018

...On June 1st, the EPA enacted the Significant New Use Rule, which allows the government to evaluate asbestos use on a case-by-case basis. Around the same time, the EPA released a new framework for how it evaluates chemical risk. Not included in the evaluation process are the potential effects of exposure to chemicals in the air, ground or water. It’s as absurd as it sounds. “It is ridiculous,” Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, who recently retired after four decades at the EPA, told the New York Times. “You can’t determine if there is an unreasonable risk without doing a comprehensive risk evaluation.”

The new evaluation framework is a nifty way for the EPA to circumvent an Obama-era law requiring the EPA to evaluate hundreds of potentially dangerous chemicals. Asbestos is among the first batch of 10 chemicals the EPA will examine, and also one of the most blatantly dangerous to public health. Its use is banned in over 60 countries, and though it is only heavily restricted in the United States, asbestos is no longer used in construction because of the health risks it poses. Direct or indirect exposure to the carcinogen can cause lung cancer and mesothelioma, and it has been found to kill 40,000 Americans annually. The World Health Organization wrote that “all types of asbestos cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, cancer of the larynx and ovary, and asbestosis.”

...Trump’s penchant for asbestos is almost certainly due to the cost of having it removed, which was undoubtedly a nuisance to a man known for stiffing contractors and cutting every regulatory corner imaginable. In the late-’90s, right around the time he was praising asbestos for how well it prevented fires, Trump did all he could to fight a bill proposed by then-mayor Rudy Giluiani that would have required all residential buildings to be retrofitted with sprinkler systems. The New York Times noted at the time that Trump placed calls to multiple city officials expressing “concern about the high cost of installation and other problems that he had with sprinklers.” The version of the bill that ultimately passed applied mostly to new buildings, meaning Trump Tower was exempt. The issue was brought back into focus this April, when a blaze in Trump Tower killed one man. The 50th-floor apartment that caught fire did not have any working smoke detectors, nor did it have a sprinkler system, thanks in part to Trump’s lobbying efforts 20 years ago.

It’s ironic, then, that Trump’s praise of asbestos has centered around its fireproofing capabilities...

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-asbestos-707642/

_________________________________________________________

‘Approved by Donald Trump’: Asbestos sold by Russian company is branded with the president’s face
Eli Rosenberg | July 11, 2018the author

A Russian asbestos company that operates a giant mine in the Ural Mountains is marketing its wares with President Trump’s image...

The company Uralasbest posted photos of the pallets adorned with a seal with Trump’s face in the center on its Facebook page in June.

“Approved by Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States,” the seal read, according to a translation supplied by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit focused on human health and the environment that flagged the posting...

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-asbestos-707642/

Appeals court orders EPA to ban sales of widely-used farm pesticide chlorpyrifos
AP | August 10, 2018

A federal appeals court has ruled that the Trump administration endangered public health by keeping a widely used pesticide on the market despite extensive scientific evidence that even tiny levels of exposure can harm babies' brains.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to remove chlorpyrifos from sale in the United States within 60 days.

A coalition of farmworkers and environmental groups sued last year after then-EPA chief Scott Pruitt reversed an Obama-era effort to ban chlorpyrifos, which is widely sprayed on citrus fruit, apples and other crops. The attorneys general for several states including California, New York and Massachusetts joined the case against EPA...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-dow-chemical-farm-pesticide-chlorpyrifos-scott-...

As a Congressman, Mick Mulvaney accepted donations from pay-day loan companies.
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/24/579961808/under-trump-appointee-consumer-protecti...
Now he proposes to weaken protections for young soldiers from their predations.

According to Rep Ted Lieu, "Last decade there was so much predatory lending targeted at the military that the Dept of Defense issued a report stating it harms military readiness, affects security clearances & hurts morale."

Mulvaney Looks to Weaken Oversight of Military Lending
Glenn Thrush | Aug. 10, 2018

...the Military Lending Act, which was devised to protect military service members and their families from financial fraud, predatory loans and credit card gouging, according to internal agency documents.

Mick Mulvaney, the interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, intends to scrap the use of so-called supervisory examinations of lenders, arguing that such proactive oversight is not explicitly laid out in the legislation, the main consumer measure protecting active-duty service members, according to a two-page draft of the change.

...The consumer bureau conducted dozens of investigations into payday and other lenders during the Obama administration without any significant legal opposition, and no lenders are currently challenging its oversight...

...The agency’s supervisory exams have been critical in uncovering previous instances of wrongdoing and led to several of its biggest fines.

...Many service members enter the military in their late teens or early 20s with little credit history, and are often targeted by auto loan financiers, credit card companies and retail stores that hide high financing costs behind low down payments and short-term teaser rates.

Over the last decade, Department of Defense studies have found that military members, their families and veterans are four times as likely to be targeted by unscrupulous lenders. Money woes, the studies also found, are a significant source of morale problems among service members.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/us/politics/mulvaney-military-lending.html

Trump’s New Climate Plan Will Kill People, According to the Trump Administration
Jay Michaelson | 08.21.18

The situation has turned dire. And the government is only making it worse. Why can’t advocates make more people care?

...On the cost side, 1,400 estimated deaths per year from all that extra coal-powered pollution. That’s not some figure put out by environmental groups. It’s from the Trump administration’s own EPA...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-new-climate-plan-will-kill-people-according...

Trump’s Student Debt Policies Are Mind-bogglingly Corrupt

On Monday, the CFPB’s top regulator of the student-loan industry resigned in protest. In a letter to the agency’s interim director, Mick Mulvaney, student loan ombudsman Seth Frotman wrote, “Under your leadership, the Bureau has abandoned the very consumers it is tasked by Congress with protecting. Instead, you have used the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.”

Federal work force sacrificed pay and benefits when nation recovering from recession.
Now economy is booming and they are called on by Prez and House to sacrifice because of tax cuts. (Senate supported COLA.)

Trump freezes federal worker pay, citing 'serious economic conditions'
Gregory Korte | Aug. 30, 2018

...In a notice to Congress Thursday, Trump cited "serious economic conditions" in cutting pay to civilian workers. "We must maintain efforts to put our nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases," Trump said.

...Trump's pay freeze comes even as he touts a booming economy. "The news from the Financial Markets is even better than anticipated," Trump tweeted just hours before announcing the pay freeze. "More good news is coming!"

Under federal law, federal employees get cost-of-living raises every new year – in addition to specific increases in high-cost cities called "locality pay" – unless the president determines those raises would be "inappropriate."...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/08/30/federal-pay-freeze-trump...

Trump is particularly focused on how well the stock market is doing. At the same time as he's cutting federal workers pay raise he's talking about tax cuts for capital gains earnings. They (as in politicians--even fake ones like Trump) always put almost their entire attention to corporations and people who are wealthy enough that they can invest in all sorts of things.....and basically that's what Trump's tax bill was about--the already superwealthy all the way down to the okay. They (I'm back to politicians again--even fake ones) miss (whether deliberately or not) what's happening to those on the bottom of the economy. It's been this way since Reagan and his fucking trickle down economy bullshit---that by the way when George H. W. Bush was running against Ronald for the republican nomination all the way back in 197-frigging-9--G.W.H. ridiculed the fuck out of--and for good reason--though he was fine with it after Ronnie made him his VP choice. Easily bought off anyway.

The economy and the whole of society are things that are meant to work together. A economy shouldn't be entirely structured around the already wealthy. Unfortunately that's exactly what we've got and that's exactly why capitalism is failing in this country and exactly why younger people are turning to other things like socialism.

Anyway as in #117 when someone has to pay the price it's always those who can least afford it. They never ask the super wealthy to pay their fair share and when people protest they call it class warfare.

Now for Rent: Email Addresses and Phone Numbers for Millions of Trump Supporters
Kenneth P. Vogel and Maggie Haberman | Oct. 13, 2018

WASHINGTON — Early in his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump dismissed political data as an “overrated” tool. But after he won the Republican nomination, his team began building a database that offers a pipeline into the heart of the party’s base, a comprehensive list including the email addresses and cellphone numbers of as many as 20 million supporters.

Now, consultants close to the Trump campaign are ramping up efforts to put that database — by far the most sought-after in Republican politics — to use, offering it for rent to candidates, conservative groups and even businesses...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/13/us/politics/trump-political-data.html

"Reagan and his . . . trickle-down economy bullshit..."

b t w, what ever happened to the "trickle-down economy?" We donʻt hear much about it lately, though we might expect DJT to be a flag-waving trickle-downer? Is it in "the trash heap of history"? Or, in the Trump era, does it just
go without saying"?

Pile on debt, cage 'em, bomb 'em, poison 'em--Trump administration child policies, contd.

E.P.A. Places the Head of Its Office of Children’s Health on Leave
Coral Davenport and Roni Caryn Rabin | Sept. 26, 2018

The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday placed the head of its Office of Children’s Health Protection on administrative leave, an unusual move that appeared to reflect an effort to minimize the role of the office.

Dr. Ruth Etzel, a pediatrician and epidemiologist who has been a leader in children’s environmental health for 30 years, joined the E.P.A. in 2015 after having served as a senior officer for environmental health research at the World Health Organization. She was placed on administrative leave late Tuesday and asked to hand over her badge, keys and cellphone, according to an E.P.A. official familiar with the decision who was not authorized to discuss the move and who asked not to be identified.

The official said Dr. Etzel was not facing disciplinary action and would continue to receive pay and benefits. No explanation was offered...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/climate/epa-etzel-children-health-program.htm...

_____________________________________________________________________

Sidelined children's health official says EPA inaction means "kids are disposable"
Oct 15, 2018

..."I often think of the Office of Children's Health as the conscience of EPA, because, you know, we're kind of nagging at them: 'Is this okay for children? Are you sure this is okay for children?'"

..."Our message is no longer welcome. The message that children are not little adults and they need special protections is not welcome," she said.
epa-dr-ruth-etzel-promo.jpg

("So, you had no one-on-one meetings with Scott Pruitt, and you had no one-on-one meetings with Andrew Wheeler? Not one?" asked (CBS) Werner.)

"Not one."

...one official brought in by the new administration telling her that anything involving new (Pb) regulation "wouldn't fly."

"My sense is that the government has absolutely no intention of taking any action toward seriously changing lead in children's environments," Dr. Etzel said.

(Werner asked, "What does that mean for the kids?")

"It basically means that our kids will continue to be poisoned. It basically means that kids are disposable, they don't matter."

...three weeks ago... "My boss, who's the deputy chief of staff, walked in and handed me a piece of paper and said, 'I'm putting you on administrative leave.' And I almost fell off of my chair. I said, 'What's this about?' And she wouldn't say."

("Did you have any idea what was happening or why it was happening?" Werner asked.)

"None whatsoever."

("Did you have any warning?")

"No. No. Nothing."

(Health and environmental experts who know Dr. Etzel were shocked and stunned over her being put on leave. In a letter to EPA, over 120 environmental and health organizations express their great concern, saying "by placing Dr. Etzel on leave, the EPA has sent a signal that children's health is not a priority for the agency.")

..."This is totally wrong, and the only people that I really report to are mothers and fathers and communities in the United States. And if EPA won't let me tell about how children are being poisoned, I'll just tell the mothers and fathers directly. I have that right, whether or not EPA wants me on their staff."

"If I did (something wrong), then I'll say, 'Okay.' If I didn't, then I'll say I didn't. You know? But I don't know what the allegation is, so it's very hard to know, but basically I'm a straight shooter, I'm transparent. So if I make a mistake, I own it."

(..."Although EPA does not customarily comment on personnel matters, due to circulating misinformation, the Director of EPA's Office of Children's Health Protection was placed on leave to give the Agency the opportunity to review allegations about the Director's leadership of the office." )

(..."Children's health is and has always been a top priority for the Trump Administration and the EPA in particular is focused on reducing lead exposure in schools, providing funds for a cleaner school bus fleet, and cleaning up toxic sites so that children have safe environments to learn and play. These are just a few of the dozens of objectives the EPA's Office of Children's Health will continue work on during this administration."}

(..."Dr. Etzel is currently on investigative leave because of serious reports made against her by staff regarding her ability to effectively lead the Office of Children's Health. The kinds of allegations that have been raised regarding Dr. Etzel's conduct are very concerning and prompted EPA to take action. Her attempt to use the press to distract from the allegations about her personal conduct is completely inappropriate. Any link that Dr. Etzel is attempting to draw between her personal situation and the mission of the Office of Children's Health is an attempt at misdirection. EPA is 100% committed to protecting children's health and will do everything in its power to ensure that the Office has competent leadership.")

In response, Dr. Ruth Etzel wrote the following:

"This is false. I want to respond to the EPA spokesperson's allegations about me. I have nothing to hide. For the years 2016 and 2017 I was given 'Commendable' performance ratings from my EPA supervisors. In April of 2018 I had a mid-year performance review with the Acting Deputy Chief of Staff and she brought no problems to my attention. EPA gave me a $2,200 cash award in August of 2018 for my leadership on drafting the Federal Strategy to Reduce Childhood Lead Exposures and Associated Health Impacts.

My end-of-year performance review was scheduled to take place this month but instead of doing a performance review EPA unexpectedly placed me on administrative leave. The federal government has well-established procedures to handle employee complaints. The specific complaint must be brought to the attention of the individual within a clearly specified timeframe so that she has the opportunity to respond. My EPA supervisors have not brought any complaint to my attention.

For the past 5 months, the EPA leadership appeared to be desperate to find something that I had done wrong. They tormented my travel coordinator and quizzed the person who handles our grants. Apparently they could not find anything so EPA put me on paid leave for no reason. Now, EPA is slandering me in the press, because I am telling the public the truth."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-childrens-health-official-ruth-etzel-epa-kids-d...

Interesting that for once this government wants to be "grounded in science", albeit not the most up-to-date science:

Because default in fetal development is to female, some XY babies don't get the "boy" memo and develop as female in all respects except that they can't become pregnant. Some women never know about their Y chromosome, but with increasing use of genetic tests they may not only learn their status, but be forced to identify as male by their government, all indications but genetic to the contrary and having lived their entire lives as women(?)

The Trump administration reportedly wants the government to revoke civil rights protections from transgender people
Emily Stewart | Oct 21, 2018

They want to define gender at birth — and force DNA tests to prove otherwise.

...Per the Times:

The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.

According to the Times, it would “eradicate federal recognition” of some 1.4 million transgender Americans.

HHS is preparing to formally present the new definition to the Justice Department before the end of the year, and if the department decides the change is legal, it could be enforced across Title IX laws and government agencies, including the Departments of Education, Justice, Health and Human Services, and Labor.

...Trump on the campaign trail said he would embrace LGBTQ people and said he would “fight” for them while Hillary Clinton would bring in “more people that will threaten your freedoms and believes.”...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/21/18005594/trump-administration...

Trump Tax Cut to Be Eroded Next Year by Inflation Switch
Richard Rubin | Nov. 15, 2018

The Internal Revenue Service on Thursday announced the tax code’s parameters for 2019, implementing a new method for making inflation adjustments that will result in higher tax payments—and government revenue—over time.

The shift will cost Americans $133.5 billion over a decade, according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation.

The tax law enacted last year lowered tax rates and reduced tax burdens for most households in 2018. It also required the IRS to switch to a different, slower-moving measure of inflation to adjust a variety of tax-code features for rising prices.

The standard deduction, tax brackets and other items will still increase most years, but now they will usually climb more slowly than they would have under the old formula.

...By 2025, 8.9% of taxpayers will pay more than they would have under the previous tax law, according to the Tax Policy Center, a research group run by a former Obama administration official. In 2018, 4.8% of households pay more...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-tax-cut-to-be-eroded-next-year-by-inflation-s...

EPA’s huge Christmas gift to special interests
Monica Medina | 12/13/18

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler...put the safety of one-third of the American public’s drinking water at risk.

...After a series of water catastophes, including the water in the southern end of Lake Erie turning a putrid shade of “grinch” green and the city of Flint’s water turning up with unhealthy levels of lead, President Obama’s administration put in place the most detailed definition of “waters of the U.S.” yet in 2015.

...The rollback of the WOTUS (waters of the US) rule does three detrimental things:

It shrinks greatly the types of water bodies that had been a WOTUS under the Obama rule so that only the largest and most expansive are covered
It expands the types of water bodies that are categorically excluded such as groundwater and agricultural drainage ditches
It limits the wetlands that are covered to only those with a continuous water connection to a WOTUS

What does that mean in real terms? It eliminates protection for 2 million miles of streams and 20 million acres of wetlands. Those are no longer safe from having chemicals and sewage dumped in them. Even if that dumping causes harm to the public — there is nothing that can be done about it because from now on it will be totally lawful.

...we have a massive poisoned water problem in this country. Just ask the 110 million Americans who have been exposed to toxic chemicals in their drinking water called PFASs that are used in making flame-retardants and metal coatings and have been documented at 172 sites in 40 states.

Or the Americans who were made ill by the two different types of toxic algae that have persisted in Lake Okeechobee and along the Florida coastline for months, killing fish and making it impossible to go to the beach, much less swim in these waters.

One study there showed that hospital admittances for respiratory problems jumped 54 percent as a result of the toxic algae in Florida. Exposure to it is akin to being tear-gassed, and eating fish that has been exposed to the toxic algae can be deadly.

Or ask the Americans who have most recently been made ill by eating romaine lettuce tainted with E coli bacteria, or the millions of American businesses and consumers who had to throw out perfectly good heads of romaine lettuce because we had no way to trace the dirty irrigation water source...

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/421312-epas-huge-christmas-gift-t...

As I was driving home the other day from an appointment in the East Bay we drove past some flooded wetlands along the Sacramento River. The birdlife there was amazing. Not being a birder I could only recognize geese and egrets from the distance. It made me sad to think sights like that might soon be a thing of the past.

EPA’s Own Data Refutes Justification for Clean Water Act Rollback
Sharon Lerner | December 15 2018

...Wheeler promised that the new water rule, which will replace water protections that the Obama administration put in place in 2015, would simplify water regulation. “Property owners should be able to stand on their property and be able to tell if a water is federal or not without hiring outside professionals”

...(Matt Starr, the Upper Neuse Riverkeeper and those) who work directly with rivers and streams say the EPA’s new definition of Waters of the United States will make it harder rather than easier to tell which waterways are regulated. The new rule takes protections under the federal Clean Water Act away from all ephemeral streams, which depend on rainwater, while likely leaving in place protections for some but not all “intermittent” streams, which flow during only part of the year.

...the similarity of the two types of water bodies is underscored by the EPA’s own documents. A 2008 report from the agency on the hydrological significance of intermittent and ephemeral streams notes the overlapping roles of both kinds of waterways.

“They perform the same critical hydrologic functions as perennial streams: they move water, sediment, nutrients, and debris through the stream network and provide connectivity within the watershed,” the report noted, going on to warn of the dangers of harming these critical components of our water system. “The disturbance or loss of ephemeral and intermittent streams has dramatic physical, biological, and chemical impacts, which are evident from the uplands to the riparian areas and stream courses of the watershed.”

...(EPA) analysis, 18 percent of streams nationwide are ephemeral and 52 percent are intermittent. The agency pointed out in a footnote that because many ephemeral streams are “classified as intermittent or are not mapped,” that figure likely underestimates the true number of intermittent streams.

In addition, the new rule would lift federal protections from “isolated” lakes and ponds, which are not directly connected by permanent water to navigable rivers. And depending on the feedback it receives during an upcoming 60-day waiting period, the new rule may wind up stripping protections from intermittent streams and even some stretches of perennial waterways.

An economic analysis of the rule released by the Army and the EPA this week undermines another fiction the agency has put forward about the water rule: that states will protect waterways that the federal government abandons...But, as the report notes, 13 states, including North Carolina, have laws in place that make it impossible for states to pass water regulations stricter than federal ones. Twenty-three other states have laws making it difficult to adopt water regulations that are stricter than the federal law.

Even states where more protective laws remain on the books may not have the funding or political will to enforce them. The difficulties tracking and holding powerful polluters accountable is a large part of the reason that most waterways that have been assessed (including more than 70 percent of ponds, lakes, and reservoirs) already violate water quality standards.

....he question of enforcement under the new rule is baffling some legal experts, who point out that in many instances it will be extremely difficult to punish polluters even when they release contamination into waterways that retain federal protections.

“Even if it’s technically true that you could hold someone responsible for discharging into a ditch that wouldn’t be a water of the U.S., the argument is that you could nail them when those pollutants flow from the ditch into a regulated water,” said Daniel Estrin, general counsel and advocacy director of the Waterkeeper Alliance. “But that ignores practical realities. Most often that pollution is going to flow miles past many landowners before it gets there. And the idea that you could ever hope to prove where the pollutants entered the stream is a practical impossibility.”

The challenges that the new rule poses to enforcement may explain why so many water-polluting industries pushed so hard for it. The Waters Advocacy Coalition, an umbrella group that spent more than $1 million lobbying to limit federal water protections and had 48 trade group members — including the National Pork Producers Council and the Fertilizer Institute — as of 2017, lobbied for the new rule. Other industry associations that lobbied for it, too, include the National Renderers Association, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the American Farm Bureau, the National Turkey Federation, and the Commercial Real Estate Development Association.

The corporate interest belies yet another myth about the water rollback: that it was intended to bring relief to the small farmer. While the Trump administration worked hand in hand with the beef lobby to assail the 2015 water rule as an assault on small farmers, the rule didn’t actually affect how they operate.

...Now that the new rule has been introduced, it’s environmentalists who are scared...

https://theintercept.com/2018/12/15/clean-water-act-rollback-epa/

ETA____________________________________________________

At first I thought author was being juvenile, but given EPA's proposed new rule, appropriate! (Poopyface :-D)

Is Trump’s Face Hidden in These Baboon Feces?

Claim: A scientific paper included a diagram with a representation of baboon feces containing President Trump’s face.
Rating: True...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/scientific-paper-trump-turd/

About 380,000 federal employees are on furlough and 420,000 are working without pay as the new year approaches, so Trump cancels their 2019 pay raise... civil servants took hits coming out of Great Recession, and now in good times they must accommodate tax cuts for wealthy...or is this yet another ploy for his GD wall?

Trump issues executive order freezing federal workers' pay in 2019
Veronica Stracqualursi and Kevin Liptak | December 29, 2018

President Donald Trump issued an executive order Friday freezing federal workers' pay for 2019, following through on a proposal he announced earlier in the year.

...nixes a 2.1% across-the-board pay raise that was set to take effect in January, comes as hundreds of thousands of federal employees are expecting to begin the new year furloughed or working without pay because of a partial government shutdown.

Trump told lawmakers he planned to scrap the 2019 pay bump for federal workers in August, saying the federal budget couldn't support it. In addition to the 2.1% pay increase, the executive order also cancels a yearly adjustment of paychecks based on the region of the country where workers are posted, called the "locality pay increase," that was due to take effect in January.

The move does not affect a 2.6% pay increase for US troops next year that was passed as part of the massive defense spending bill Trump signed in August.

In a letter to House and Senate leaders in August, Trump described the pay increase as "inappropriate."

"We must maintain efforts to put our Nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases," the President wrote.
Trump also stressed that a pay freeze would not affect the federal government's ability to attract qualified workers. He cited his statutory authority to adjust pay out of "national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare."...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/29/politics/trump-executive-order-federal-workers-pa...

ETA: How can main street not suffer with this kind of disruption in pay and programs?

Farmers risk loss of federal payments, loans, from shutdown
juliet linderman | Dec 29, 2018

...The USDA in a statement issued last week assured farmers that checks would continue to go out during the first week of the shutdown. But direct payments for farmers who haven't certified production, as well as farm loans and disaster assistance programs, will be put on hold beginning next week, and won't start up again until the government reopens.

...The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, helps feed roughly 40 million Americans. According to the USDA, eligible recipients are guaranteed benefits through January. Other feeding programs, including WIC, which provides food aid and nutrition counseling for pregnant women, new mothers and children, and food distribution programs on Indian reservations, will continue on a local level, but additional federal funding won't be provided. School lunch programs will continue through February.

...USDA has earmarked about $9.5 billion in direct payments for growers of soybeans, corn, wheat, sorghum and other commodities most affected by tariffs. The first round of payments went out in September. The deadline to sign up for the second round of payments is January 15.

...The impact of the shutdown, which began shortly before most federal workers were scheduled for a holiday break, started coming into focus by midweek.

About 420,000 employees are working without pay, while 380,000 are being forced to stay home. In the past, federal employees have been paid retroactively. But government contractors won't get paid for hours they'll lose staying home, causing problems for those who rely on hourly wages.

...The shutdown also is affecting national parks...Some remain accessible with bare-bones staffing levels, some are operating with money from states or charitable groups, while others are locked off.

Trump cuts off federal funds to California to fight ‘Forrest fires’
‘Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely,’ president tweets
John T. Bennett | Jan 9, 2019 10:12 AM

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he has ordered FEMA to withhold funds from California’s state government until officials there “get their act together” fighting forest fires. But he tweeted he thinks that is “unlikely.”

...Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forrest fires that, with proper Forrest Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2019

Trump at the same time appeared concerned for California residents in the path of the fires’ wrath and unconcerned that cutting off the FEMA aide might put more people at risk of injury, death or losing their homes.

...Last April, Trump falsely stated that the California government is diverting river water into the Pacific Ocean that could be used to fight forest fires, but he also signaled he will fast-track federal help.

https://www.rollcall.com/news/whitehouse/trump-funds-california-forest-fires

ETA___________________________________________________

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw | 9:47 AM - 9 Jan 2019

If hearings by @RepJerryNadler and @RepAdamSchiff discover that Trump pulled wildfire aid from California because it’s a Democratic stronghold, that would be a grave abuse of presidential power and part of an impeachable pattern of partisan abuse. The new “I” word: Investigate!

Laurence Tribe added,

CBS Los Angeles account @CBSLA | 8:25 AM - 9 Jan 2019
JUST IN: President Trump Wednesday morning announced that he has ordered FEMA to stop sending wildfire aid to California.
This comes after FEMA announced Tuesday that it has extended the deadline for victims of the Woolsey and Camp fires to apply for aid.
http://cbsloc.al/2RDA3sT

#129--of the 53 congressional districts in California Republicans won only 6 in November but as it happens one of those 6 districts they did win was the Northern California district that includes Paradise---the town that was wiped out. That's Doug LaMalfa's district. I'm thinking Mr. Trump just made it a lot harder for LaMalfa to win re-election in 2020. He seems hell bent on turning that entire state blue which is giving the opposing party a 53 shot handicap every time there's an election. It's fucking senseless and any republican who doesn't understand that these decisions that Trump is making are insane is just completely out to lunch.

Would it surprise me that Trump pulled aid because California is not one of 'his' states? Not at all.

Remember Trump building around woman's small home when she wouldn't sell? For wall, President Trump will have power of eminent domain, but no more empathy...

Texas landowners (including local Catholic diocese) prepare wall fight; Trump to visit border
NOMAAN MERCHANT | Jan 10, 2018

...The federal government has started surveying land along the border in Texas and announced plans to start construction next month. Rather than surrender their land, some property owners are digging in, vowing to reject buyout offers and preparing to fight the administration in court.

...Many have hired lawyers who are preparing to fight the government if, as expected, it moves to seize their land through eminent domain.

The opposition will intensify if Democrats accede to the Trump administration’s demand to build more than 215 new miles of wall, including 104 miles in the Rio Grande Valley and 55 miles near Laredo. Even a compromise solution to build “steel slats,” as Trump has suggested, or more fencing of the kind that Democrats have previously supported would likely trigger more court cases and pushback in Texas.

Legal experts say Trump likely cannot waive eminent domain — which requires the government to demonstrate a public use for the land and provide landowners with compensation — by declaring a national emergency.

...the administration’s plans call for a concrete wall to the height of the existing levee, with 18-foot (5.5 meters) steel posts on top. CBP wants to clear 150 feet (45 meters) in front of any new construction for an “enforcement zone” of access roads, cameras, and lighting.

The government sued the local Roman Catholic diocese late last year to gain access for its surveyors at the site of La Lomita chapel, which opened in 1865 and was an important site for missionaries who traveled the Rio Grande Valley by horseback.

...The diocese said it opposes a border wall because the barrier violates Catholic teachings and the church’s responsibility to protect migrants, as well as the church’s First Amendment right of religious freedom. A legal group from Georgetown University has joined the diocese in its lawsuit....

https://apnews.com/0b3d63c524214bbdbfb58ce8f61589f0

Big Dairy Is About to Flood America’s School Lunches With Milk
Peter Robison and Lydia Mulvany

The Department of Agriculture is throwing out Obama-era school nutrition standards and tossing a lifeline to the dairy industry. It’s called more fat, sugar, and salt...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-01-09/big-dairy-is-about-to-flood-a...

Trump tariffs cut each Ford UAW worker's profit-sharing check by $750

“Ironically the tariffs that are supposed to protect workers reduced profit sharing for workers by about $750-1,850 per worker. It would have been about $8,350-9,450 each without the components and metals tariff cost to Ford’s profits."

US government is seizing property without going through eminent domain proceedings(?)

National Butterfly Center
Like This Page · February 1 (2019)·

It's happening! Heavy equipment arriving as early as Monday! Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector issued this press release today to local media! #NoWall #Resist

(See CPB press release at)
https://www.facebook.com/natbutterflies/photos/a.960407043993021/231681001835271...

...National Butterfly Center Mary M McCracken no livestream. That's exactly what Trump wants. Equipment in place and breaking ground for border wall on Feb. 15, when budget negotiations "fail" and there is another government shutdown. Nothing would make him happier than flaunting that while federal workers are again furloughed...

_____________________________________________________________________

National Butterfly Center
9 hours ago (Feb 3, 2019)

8 law enforcement units around the National Butterfly Center this evening, as the first excavator rolled in & parked on land immediately east of us. Mission PD Officer Cabral was parked on our private property. He said effective tomorrow we will have NO ACCESS to our own land south of the levee. He said, "Effective Monday morning, it is all government land," and they have orders to prohibit anyone from stepping foot on the levee, which sits on our private property. We know this is illegal and will be taking legal action tomorrow. Stay tuned! #RESIST

https://www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/

_____________________________________________________________________

The National Butterfly Center and Bentsen World Birding Center are right next to Mexican border:
https://www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/about-nbc/maps-directions

Sounds like a good place to build a wall--right on top of those nature-loving liberals.
(Though lots of conservatives like their birds and butterflies, methinks! Reportedly, owner of butterfly center voted for Trump.)

"Under Trump, butterflies to be denied border-crossing." (Film at eleven.)

Amendment V: ...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

So far, not a Bundy, Oathkeeper, Don't-Tread-on-Me “anti-federal land grab” type in sight...

__________________________________________________

The Texas Tribune: The Taking
Inside the federal government's haphazard, decade-long process of seizing private land for a border fence.

--New allegations in border fence lawsuit: racketeering, bribes and money laundering
--The Taking, illustrated: A Texas family's story of losing land for the border fence
--The Taking: How the federal government abused its power to seize property for a border fence
--In the Rio Grande Valley, plans for a border wall ignite fight between church and state
--Hidalgo County sues former employee and engineering firm involved in border fence project
--South Texas judge dismisses fraud lawsuit over border fence project

https://www.texastribune.org/series/the-taking/
__________________________________________________​

ᎮᏒᎥᏕᏕᎩ @PrissyBritchez | 12:05 PM - 4 Feb 2019:

1/2 Unfortunately, this Land Grab is hitting my land as well. The farm is irrigated by the Rio Grande River. Irrigation is now blocked by Trump's illegal land seizure. Crops will be lost and hundreds of head of cattle must be relocated or sold at a loss. Additionally, ...

2/2 ... a large section is dedicated to bees. Honey Bees producing Clover Honey that is processed and sold throughout the United States. It is unclear atm if production will be able to continue this year or where the bees can be relocated.

By federal statute ( The REAL ID Act) the government has WAIVED 28 LAWS for this project to proceed. No fear, just facts.

They will seize the land by "quick take" which is a Depression-era provision of the eminent domain law that gives federal agencies the right to take property without compensation or adjudication.

UPDATE: They ARE seizing the land by "QUICK TAKE" which is a Depression-era provision of the eminent domain law that gives federal agencies the right to take property without compensation or adjudication‼️🚨‼️🚨‼️

💪 I'm not one to back down. This land was my Grandparent's first purchase when they immigrated from Spain & Lebanon. I have their ranch as well. It's on the border too. I'm expecting it will be hit next.

__________________________________________________​

Earth Movers Poised To Erect Border Barrier At Texas Butterfly Refuge
Mary Papenfuss | 02/05/2019

...The barrier is being erected along a levee of the Rio Grande in the border town of Mission, TX.

The 18 feet of steel bollards on top of an 18-foot concrete wall will cut off 70 percent of the 100-acre National Butterfly Center closest to the river, refuge executive director Marianna Trevino-Wright told HuffPost. The barrier will be two miles from the actual border, so gates will be built to allow Texans access from one part of America to another, she said.

...Some 35,000 people a year visit the butterfly center, which has as many as 200 species of butterflies in a wildlife area that will be devastated by bulldozing and disrupted by vehicle traffic, bright lights, garbage and increased human activity, Wright complained. The wall will trap some animals on the river side during floods, and those on the other side away from water they need to survive.

...Congress approved money for the barrier in last year’s federal budget, but it was pointedly not to be used to construct President Donald Trump’s wall — only for fencing or levees. The final product, however, looks suspiciously similar to an image he has tweeted of a version of his imagined wall.

...Construction, supervised by the department of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is expected to begin within days.

Wright complained that there was no notice when trucks first came onto the property in the summer of 2017, in the early months of the Trump administration, to clear brush and cut down trees without permission — long before any allocation of money for the barrier.

As of Monday morning the federal government had offered no compensation for seizure of center land needed for the barrier and adjacent paved enforcement zones, Wright said.

Environmental waivers will also allow barrier construction to cut through the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park and some private property.

...Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), whose congressional district includes 820 miles of the southern border, is opposed to Trump’s wall. He estimates that the federal government could seize land from as many as 1,000 property owners in his district alone to build a wall. “There’s a thing in Texas we care about called private property rights,” Hurd has said.

He also noted that more than a million acres might be ceded to Mexico to build a wall, depending on natural physical barriers and which side of the Rio Grande the wall would be constructed. In the case of Mission, the barrier is going up on the American side...

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/national-butterfly-center-texas-border-wall....

ETA________________________________________________________________

Bulldozers to soon plow through National Butterfly Center for Trump’s border wall
Silvia Foster-Frau | 12/6/2018

...The wall could be up to three stories tall, with 18-foot steel beams, called bollards, rising from a concrete base. Construction through the refuge could start in February.

The high court let stand an appeals ruling that lets the administration bypass 28 federal laws, mostly to protect the environment, to build the wall in the Rio Grande Valley. The Animal Legal Defense Fund and two other organizations had sued the government.

Some of the laws that were waived include the Endangered Species Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Environmental activists argue the wall could lead to the extinction of endangered species such as the ocelot, contamination of drinking water and destruction of indigenous historical sites.

...By refusing to hear the case, the Supreme Court upheld a February ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel of San Diego in favor of the government.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielson said in an October notice that the flow of undocumented immigrants and drugs along the border demonstrated “an acute and immediate need” for a wall.

The immigration reform act of 1996 and a 2005 update, the Real ID Act, grants the government broad powers to waive federal laws to expedite construction projects on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The butterfly center sued the government after contract workers appeared unannounced on its property in July 2017. Chainsaws in hand, they began clearing out protected habitat where the border wall was planned.

...Surveying began before Congress approved $1.6 billion for 100 miles of new and replacement fencing, with 33 of those miles in the Rio Grande Valley. The Senate has locked in another $1.6 billion for the next fiscal year, though Trump is asking for at least $5 billion and has threatened a partial government shutdown if Congress rejects the funding.

U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela managed to exclude the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge from the current wall budget. He said it was “devastating” that the wall will cut through the butterfly center, the historic La Lomita Chapel and Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park and possibly dozens of family cemeteries.

"All those areas, with the 2018 funding that’s already been passed, are going to be horribly affected,” Vela said.

..."By waiving requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Trump administration will also be skipping over an analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the wall. The federally regulated analysis also typically offers ways to lessen the harm of projects.

...Other laws being waived for this construction include the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act and the Clean Air Act...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bulldozers-to-soon-plow-through-national...

Is Wall Construction at the National Butterfly Center About to Begin?
Hannah Waters | February 04, 201

Rumors are swirling that the government plans to seize the majority of the private sanctuary’s land today. Center staff themselves don’t know for sure.

...At nearby Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, which is part of the Rio Grande Valley's World Birding Center, famed for its 500-plus bird species, nearly all of its 797 acres would also wind up south of the wall. The park land was sold to the state for $1 in 1944 under the requirement that it be used “solely for public park purposes;” the wall’s presence could break that requirement, forcing the state to turn the land back to the benefactors, the family of the late Democratic U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen, and close the park.

The parks along the Rio Grande River protect unique ecosystems formed where wetlands meet grasslands meet rare thorn forests and aridlands. The variety of habitats support a vast diversity of birds and other wildlife; this region is among the only places in the United States where subtropical and tropical birds range. At an Audubon Christmas Bird Count in Bentsen State Park last month, birders counted more than 150 species on a single winter's day.

To build the 30-foot wall, the Department of Homeland Security will bulldoze a 150-foot “enforcement zone” along its edge, land that today is wildlife habitat. Bright lights will blaze all night long despite the known hazard to birds, which navigate by starlight and are easily disoriented by lights left on at night. The area is home to dozens of endangered animals, which congregate around the Rio Grande River in an otherwise arid landscape...

https://www.audubon.org/news/is-wall-construction-national-butterfly-center-abou...

Mulvaney received $62,950 in payday lending contributions during his congressional career...https://alliedprogress.org/research/special-report-mick-mulvaney-is-a-puppet-for-payday-lenders/

Trump administration will roll back Obama-era restrictions on payday lenders
Phil McCausland | Feb. 6, 2019

"We urge Director Kraninger to reconsider, as her current plan will keep families trapped in predatory, unaffordable debt,” one consumer advocate said.

A federal banking agency announced Wednesday that it plans to roll back Obama-era restrictions on payday and vehicle title loans — a lending practice that many experts consider to be predatory.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed rescinding the rule that required lenders who provided “Payday, Vehicle Title, and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans” to make an effort to find out whether borrowers could afford to pay back the loan.

The Trump administration's effort to rescind the rule came after the director appointed by President Barack Obama, Richard Cordray, departed the agency and was replaced by Mick Mulvaney, who now serves as Acting White House Chief of Staff...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cfpb-announces-it-will-roll-back-obama-era-...

Nogales Orders Federal Officials To Remove Hideous, ‘Inhuman’ Razor Wire On Border
Mary Papenfuss | Feb 7, 2019

“I fear the day that our first responders have to go to the wire to extricate someone,” said the Arizona city’s mayor.

The City Council of Nogales, Arizona, has voted unanimously on a resolution ordering Trump administration officials to rip out new “lethal” razor wire coiled on a border fence along the downtown shopping district.

Such wire is “only found in a war, prison or battle setting” and is highly inappropriate for an urban area, states the resolution the council passed Wednesday. The bristling concertina wire is now attached to the fence from top to bottom.

“Placing coiled concertina wire that is designed to inflict serious bodily injury or death in the immediate proximity of our residents, children, pets, law enforcement and first responders is not only irresponsible but inhuman,” the resolution states.

The resolution demands that officials remove all concertina wire within city limits. it also states that no military force or the “use of military-type tactics designed to inflict indiscriminate harm” should be allowed in Nogales without an express declaration of war by Congress — or a national emergency.

...School buses travel along the fence, and children play where the concertina wire is exposed.

...Officials also see the coils as an unnecessary blight that will hurt tourism and shopping in the town of 20,000, which relies solely on sales tax for its income. The concertina wire is also a constant, depressing sight for Nogales residents.

If federal officials refuse to comply, Garino said the city is prepared to go to court...

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nogales-lethal-concertina-wire-resolution-t...

#138 contd.

Lax payday loan regulations could hit older Americans especially hard
Feb 8, 2019

A vulnerable population living on a fixed income, seniors are increasingly turning to payday loans in an emergency

...The number of Americans 62 and older using payday lending tripled between 2015 and 2016, according to a California Department of Business Oversight report. Nearly one in four payday loans were given to senior citizens, the report found. The annual percentage rate for these loans were 372%, up from 366% in 2015.

The share of payday borrowers 65 and older in Florida doubled between 2005 and 2015, as well — from 3.4% to 8.6% — and this age bracket was the fastest-growing group to participate in payday lending, according to a 2016 report from the Center for Responsible Lending. The growth rate of this borrowing for seniors is even higher than the growth rate of the number of seniors in the state during the same time frame.

Seniors use these loans to pay for medical bills or rent, but because they may not be able to pay them off from a following paycheck, they end up with increased overdraft fees, high interest and possibly bankruptcy, Standaert said. Payday lenders target older populations, especially because they receive guaranteed income in the form of Social Security benefits. “It’s a steady source of income they can count on,” she said. “We have seen research that payday lenders’ storefronts cluster around government-subsidized housing for seniors and the disabled.”

Not all older Americans can fall back on a nest egg. About 40% of middle-class Americans will live near or in poverty by the time they’re 65 years old, a Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the New School report found. Up to a quarter of households aged 65 and older rely on Social Security for 90% of their retirement income, three different studies found. (The average Social Security benefit check is roughly $1,400 a month.)...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lax-payday-loan-regulations-could-hit-older-am...

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 8:17 AM - 4 Mar 2019:
FEMA has been told directly by me to give the A Plus treatment to the Great State of Alabama and the wonderful people who have been so devastated by the Tornadoes. @GovernorKayIvey, one of the best in our Country, has been so informed. She is working closely with FEMA (and me!).

God @thegoodgodabove | 8:45 AM - 4 Mar 2019:
Alabama gets the A plus treatment because they voted for you, and California gets the F minus treatment because they didn’t.
You are a fucking monster.

Liberal Limericks @Libericks | 6:17 PM - 4 Mar 2019
A Red State that’s ravaged by twisters
Gets POTUS’s Grade-A assisters—
But screw all those freakin’
Brown-skinned Puerto Ricans
And Blue States (they’re full of Resisters).

ETA________________________________________________________________

How Federal Disaster Money Favors The Rich
Rebecca Hersher and Robert Benincasa | March 5, 2019

...an NPR investigation has found that across the country, white Americans and those with more wealth often receive more federal dollars after a disaster than do minorities and those with less wealth. Federal aid isn't necessarily allocated to those who need it most; it's allocated according to cost-benefit calculations meant to minimize taxpayer risk...

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/05/688786177/how-federal-disaster-money-favors-the-r...

Trump blames union leader for GM job cuts in Ohio — jobs the president once vowed he’d save
Heather Long | March 18, 2019

...Trump has used this tactic of lashing out at a local union leader before when blue-collar jobs that he promised to save ended up going away. Trump went after a steel union president in Indianapolis when the Carrier plant there went forward with job cuts after Trump tried to intervene unsuccessfully.

Fox News brought on David Green, president of UAW Local 1112, which represents workers at the GM Lordstown plant. Green said Trump’s tweet Saturday — days after the plant shut down — saying “GM MUST ACT QUICKLY” was doing little to help.

“The fact that we’ve seen our Kmart distribution center in Warren close, a hospital close out here, all these brick and mortar businesses are closing and now unallocated status at GM Lordstown ... people are starting to wake up about Trump,” Green said.

Green sent Trump two letters in the past year begging him to help stop the plant closure and never heard back. Trumbull County, where Lordstown is located, voted for Trump in 2016 after voting Democratic in every election since the 1970s...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/18/trump-blames-union-leader-gm-...

So not only have Trump's tariffs destroyed market for soybeans, they will exacerbate climate change and thus future flooding and droughts in Midwest!

US-China soy trade war could destroy 13 million hectares of rainforest
Jonathan Watts | 27 Mar 2019

Study suggests Brazil likely to rush to fill China’s sudden soy shortfall by boosting farming

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/27/us-china-soy-tariff-war-coul...

US auto plants would shut down within a week if border closes, economist says
Chris Isidore | April 2, 2019

New York (CNN Business)The entire US auto industry would shut down within a week if President Donald Trump goes through with his pledge to close the US-Mexican border...every automaker operating an auto plant in the United States depends on parts imported from Mexico, said Kristin Dziczek, the vice president of industry, labor and economics at the Center for Automotive Research.

About 16% of all auto parts used in the United States, both at assembly plants and sold at auto parts stores, originate in Mexico. Virtually all car models in America have Mexican parts, she said. Because of that reliance, she said the auto industry would stop producing vehicles relatively quickly.

...Parts makers that supply US assembly lines could shut down, because the auto plants don't have a place to store massive amounts of unused parts. So a shutdown of auto plants will ripple through the broader economy. About 1 million people work at US auto assembly and parts plants, according to Labor Department statistics...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/02/business/border-closing-us-auto-industry-shutdown...

Tariffs' Complex Ripple Effects Hit Appliance Shoppers And Makers (4:16)
Morning Edition | April 9, 2019
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/09/711001915/tariffs-complex-ripple-effects-hit-appl...

Ds as well as Rs responsible for this one...

Congress Is About to Ban the Government From Offering Free Online Tax Filing. Thank TurboTax.
A bill supported by Democrats and Republicans would make permanent a program that bars the IRS from ever developing its own online tax filing service.

Justin Elliott | April 9, 2019

Just in time for Tax Day, the for-profit tax preparation industry is about to realize one of its long-sought goals. Congressional Democrats and Republicans are moving to permanently bar the IRS from creating a free electronic tax filing system.

Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., passed the Taxpayer First Act, a wide-ranging bill making several administrative changes to the IRS that is sponsored by Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Mike Kelly, R-Pa.

In one of its provisions, the bill makes it illegal for the IRS to create its own online system of tax filing. Companies like Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and H&R Block have lobbied for years to block the IRS from creating such a system. If the tax agency created its own program, which would be similar to programs other developed countries have, it would threaten the industry’s profits.

...While efforts to make the IRS’ deal with the tax preparation industry permanent have fizzled in the past, critics are particularly worried this year. The Taxpayer First Act also includes a provision that would restrict the IRS’ use of private debt collectors to those above a certain income. A Wyden spokesperson said the current bill is a “bipartisan, bicameral compromise so it includes priorities of both chairmen and ranking members.” Wyden “supports giving the IRS the resources it needs to offer more services to taxpayers,” the spokesperson added.

https://www.propublica.org/article/congress-is-about-to-ban-the-government-from-...

get a fucking life, margd.

#147--funny, I was thinking you should do that.

Mick Mulvaney’s Master Class in Destroying a Bureaucracy From Within
Nicholas Confessore | April 16, 2019

The C.F.P.B. (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) was created to protect Americans from predatory lenders after the financial crisis. President Trump’s new chief of staff took it apart on his way to White House...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/magazine/consumer-financial-protection-bureau...

trump obviously has less understanding of how the economy works than I do.

That is god damn fucking scary.

Posted May 7, 2019. Comments due within 45 days:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/05/07/2019-09106/request-for-comm...
____________________________________________________________________

Trump’s latest scam: Defining poverty out of existence
Helaine Olen | May 7 at 8:16 PM

The Trump administration wants to lower the poverty rate in the United States. But there’s a catch: If the plan under discussion is enacted, it would cut the number of people living in poverty not by giving them a wage increase, but by defining them out of it. “Instead of actually doing anything to cut poverty in America, Trump is trying to fudge the numbers to artificially ‘reduce’ the U.S. poverty rate,” said Rebecca Vallas, vice president of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress. “It’s mathematical gaslighting.”

Well, that’s one way to make it look like “we have the strongest economy in the history of our nation,” as Trump likes to proclaim...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/08/trumps-latest-scam-defining-p...

_____________________________________________________________________

Trump Administration Seeks to Redefine Formula for Calculating Poverty
Annie Karni | May 7, 2019

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is proposing regulatory changes that could result in cuts in federal aid to millions of low-income Americans.

The proposal by the Office of Management and Budget on Monday would change how inflation is used to calculate the official definition of poverty used by the Census Bureau to estimate the size of the country’s poor population. The measure is also often applied to determine eligibility for government benefits.

Lowering estimates of the inflation rate could mean that the poverty level would rise at a slower rate, resulting in fewer families and individuals able to qualify for food assistance like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, health assistance like Medicaid and other government programs.

Critics seized on the proposal as the administration’s latest broadside against those struggling hardest to make ends meet. Over the past two years, the Trump administration has also sought to cut housing subsidies and tried to expand the work requirements needed to qualify for food stamps.

...according to a notice published on the Federal Register* the budget office acknowledged that “changes to the poverty thresholds, including how they are updated for inflation over time, may affect eligibility for programs that use the poverty guidelines.”

The Office of Management and Budget has been led by Russell T. Vought since Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s budget director, moved to the White House in December to serve as the president’s acting chief of staff.

Mr. Vought is known as a conservative and a proponent of shrinking the federal government and social programs. The budget office, for instance, pushed for cuts to the Special Olympics, before Mr. Trump said the funding would continue...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/us/politics/trump-poverty-level-proposal.html

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Posted May 7, 2019. Comments due within 45 days:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/05/07/2019-09106/request-for-comm...

Once they're born, Trumpians no longer care, it seems:

altEPA @altUSEPA | 12:36 AM - 23 May 2019 :
"For UC-SF, the … funding gap means “they will not be able to continue … research that focuses on maternal and fetal exposures and how chemicals can influence placenta development …because this type of research takes time and resources.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EPA plan to end funding for children’s health research leaves scientists scrambling
Corbin Hiar and Ariel Wittenberg | May. 20, 2019

Despite repeatedly expressing public support for children’s health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is ending funding for a network of research centers focused on environmental threats to kids, imperiling several long-running studies of pollutants’ effects on child development.

The move, critics say, is part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to downplay science that could lead to stricter regulations on polluting industries.

At issue are 13 Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Centers located at institutions across the country, from the University of California, Los Angeles, to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

Jointly funded by EPA and the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) for more than two decades, the children’s centers study everything from childhood leukemia to the development of autism spectrum disorders. Grants to those centers have long been considered unique in the public health world for including funding for both research and public outreach.

...a federal lead action plan from EPA and a number of government agencies described the research centers as “important resources.”

“In addition to conducting scientific studies on environmental health issues, each Children’s Center collaborates with various community partners and organizations to inform, advance and disseminate information for public health protection,” the plan said.

...existing funding, however, is set to run out for many of the centers at the end of the current fiscal year (30 Sept 2019)...

...Administrator Andrew Wheeler, who lobbied for fossil fuel companies before joining the administration, said earlier this year that “protecting children’s health is a top priority for EPA.”

Wheeler was speaking about EPA’s budget proposal. It would direct $50 million toward “healthy schools” grants that aim to reduce pests, asthma triggers and exposure to lead in schools, but also would slash nearly $220.6 million from four research programs that work on toxic chemicals in drinking water...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/05/epa-plan-end-funding-children-s-health-r...

The Republicans fight tooth and nail on their anti-abortion projects but parallel to that they are always at work eroding the safety net programs for those who can ill afford to bring up the children they're trying to force them to have. They could care less about poverty and they love to punish people for being young and/or poor and they can always define poverty #151 out of existence.