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Andrew Tobias: The More You Know

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2018 //
6

Andrew Tobias writes about personal finances and whatever else interests him. I subscribe to his blog. We disagree about Eva (he is mad about her, I am not), but not much else.

This is his latest post:

You don’t bring a bone saw to a fist fight. Our president is the only person in the world, other than some Saudis, who pretends to believe otherwise. It’s ludicrous.

And evil. Murder is proscribed in the Bible. Freedom of the press is enshrined in the Constitution. Murdering journalists — whom the founders saw as agents, not enemies, of the people — is a mortal sin that erodes democracy. Trump pals Putin and Duterte and Erdogan and Mohammed Bin Salman murder journalists.

Denying native Americans their right to vote is so Republican. As you’ve probably heard, Republicans have devised a way to block long-time voters from voting this time, by adding a new requirement: their ID must include a street address. But Indian reservations don’t have streets. Republicans couldn’t come up with a proposal for the “replace” part of repealing Obamacare, but boy can they make things happen when it comes to suppressing the vote. I mean, in fairness, what right do Native Americans have to vote? Why are they here, anyway? They don’t look like us. As the old saying goes, “go back to . . .” Oh, wait.

It’s the economy, stupid:
President Obama took the Bush Collapse and got the unemployment rate down by five percentage points — despite unprecedented obstruction from the Republican Congress — even as he got the National Debt back to shrinking relative to the economy as a whole (as Clinton had also done).

Trump has managed to keep the Obama Recovery going, trimming the unemployment rate by yet another percentage point — even as he has exploded the deficit, growing the National Debt faster than the economy ((as Bush and Reagan did).

See the difference?

You don’t think this is going to come back and bite us?

You don’t think the Republican tax cut for corporations and their wealthiest shareholders won’t cut into the programs so many normal Americans rely on?

Mitch McConnell says it out loud! Republicans are gunning for Social Security, Medicare and Obamacare!

Categories Accountability, Economy

Fortune: The Highest Paid CEO in the U.S.

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2018 //
6

Just thought you would want to know that the nation’s highest paid CEO made $103 million last year.

The U.S. Has a New Highest-Paid CEO and He Made $103 Million Last Year

Alan Murray

The Conference Board’s CEO pay study—the most comprehensive annual review of pay practices—comes out Thursday. Fortune‘s email newsletter CEO Daily got an exclusive early look.

Here are some takeaways:

—Median CEO compensation increased 9.9% in 2017.

—The biggest companies saw the smallest increases. CEOs at companies with revenues of $25 billion to $49.9 billion were down 7%; those at companies with $50 billion and more were up just 1.4%.

—The highest paid CEOs of the nearly 2,500 in the study were Hock Tan of Broadcom and Frank Bisignano of First Data, with total comp of $103 million and $102 million, respectively—almost all in stock awards (base salaries were $1.1 million and $1.3 million). Both are new to the Top 25 list.

—Other CEOs in the Top 5: Michael Rapino of Live Nation Entertainment at $70.6 million, Mario Gabelli of Gamco Investors at $69.4 million, and the now-departed Les Moonves of CBS at $69.3 million.

—The number of women on the Top 25 list dropped from 4 to 3, with Oracle’s Safra Catz ranking highest at No. 18 with $40.7 million.

—Full value stock awards—including restricted stock that vests over time—have almost entirely replaced stock options as a component of pay, and now account for almost half of compensation.

Options have fallen out of favor as being too subject to manipulation.

—For the first time this year, companies were required to report the ratio between CEO pay and median employee pay. For S&P 500 firms the median ratio was 158; for Russell 3000 firms it was 70. Mindy Grossman of Weight Watchers, whose total pay package was $33 million, had the highest reported ratio, at 5908.

Categories Economy

Global Groups Collaborate to Introduce Free Market Education Investments in Africa and Middle East

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2018 //
27

Education International, which represents teachers unions around the world, sent out notice of a disturbing new development. International groups have determined to introduce Marley forces and payment for test scores as their response to educational needs in Africa and the Middle East. The Business-School graduates discovered a “crisis” that has existed since time began: children in impoverished countries are not getting a decent education—or, in some cases, no education at all. Yes, it is outrageous. Why are these great minds not using their brainpower to promote economic development? Asia is booming. Why not transfer some lessons learned to reduce poverty and create good jobs, rather than bring in the hedge funds and social impact investors to monetize education?

Angelo Gavrielatos of Educational International writes:

A new financing facility, the Education Outcomes Fund (EOF) for Africa and the Middle East is in development – with plans to become operational in the coming year. The fund commercialises and commodifies education, using tax-payer aid budgets to support private actors and investors to profit from education provision. Similar funds are being developed targeting India and Latin America.

EI responds

EI has responded directly to the EOF and publicly.

Mobilisation of Member Organisations

Education International is mobilising our Member Organisations in potentially targeted countries, which include Burkina Faso, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Morocco, Nigeria, Palestine, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, recommending that they take action to pressure their governments not to engage with the EOF.

What is the EOF and how does it work?

EOF is an initiative of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity (the Education Commission) and the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment (GSG).

As a so-called innovation in education financing, the fund aims to raise $1 billion in development impact bonds (DIBs). DIBs work by employing investment capital to pay services, in this case education provision or education related services, offered by private actors in Africa and the Middle East. If ‘outcomes targets’ are met by the service providers, investors and providers receive a return, financed in part by bilateral donors through national aid budgets.

Putting private actors in the driving seat, disregarding democracy
EOF disregards democratic governance of education by choosing to directly fund private education providers rather than strengthening public systems through the elected national government. Giving investors control and influence over their investments is given precedent over governments’ sovereignty to define their own priorities.

What is more, as reporting systems for outcomes are geared to the needs of private funders, it becomes more difficult for educators, their unions and the broader community to hold their government to account to fulfil their obligation to provide quality education for all.

Funding outcomes narrows education
The EOF argues that its model’s strength lies in the fact that it will only pay for outcomes achieved. However, results-based financing actually negatively distorts quality teaching and learning processes by focusing on narrow outcomes rather than the development of the whole child.

With funding based on students’ test score outcomes, teachers are encouraged to teach to the test. Furthermore, results-based financing creates perverse incentives to invest in short-term gains rather than long term system strengthening. Outcomes in education are not immediate, but take time to manifest, such as its contribution to social, cultural, democratic and economic development.

Apart from the fact that the commodification of education by incentivising private providers and investors by profit-making is highly unethical and in disregard of the right to education, there is no substantial evidence of DIBs in the education sector.

Outcomes bonds leave the vulnerable behind
Importantly, a quest for outcomes and the involvement of profit-making organisations in the education sector leads to the further marginalisation of the most vulnerable groups in society. Evidence shows, when funding depends on test scores, private actors’ student selection processes can discriminate against less able students or alternatively encourage certain students not to participate in tests.

In clear contravention of the global commitment made through SDG4 to leave no-one behind, students from disadvantaged backgrounds, students from minority groups, refugees, students with disabilities or special needs and students living in remote areas lose out.

Proliferation of education privatisation and marketisation

To achieve SDG4, public systems must be strengthened and education must be universally embraced as a human right and a public good, not a market commodity.

Education financing must be sustainable and predictable, there are no shortcuts. It is only through well-funded public education that we will achieve quality education for all, not through attempting to establish new finance mechanisms that undermine the right to education.

Rather than strengthening public systems in regions where increased public financing for education is desperately needed, EOF will finance non-state actors, including for-profit companies and so-called ‘low-fee’ private schools that charge poor families for education of questionable quality.

‘Prime contractors’ will be commissioned by EOF to lead ‘whole-community based interventions’, suggesting that the fund will operate as a massive market creation scheme. Public-private partnerships will also be supported, with Partnership Schools for Liberia (PSL), Liberia’s disastrous experiment with outsourcing education to private providers, held up as a model.

Education is a public responsibility. The SDGs are about assuming those responsibilities. They are essential to the future and cannot be contracted out or sacrificed to the market. And, yes, they require political will to ensure a sufficient and sustainable source of public funding. We cannot rely on charity or the private sector.

If we believe that all children, regardless of their background or circumstances, regardless of the community, country or continent in which they live have a right to quality education, governments and the international community must invest in the expansion and strengthening of quality, free, universally accessible public education.
More information

Education Outcomes Fund (EOF) for Africa and the Middle East: Is it a Game Changer? by Keith M Lewin, Emeritus Professor of International Development and Education, University of Sussex, provides a detailed critique of the EOF.

Angelo Gavrielatos
Project Director – EI

Angelo Gavrielatos​
Project Director
Email: Angelo.Gavrielatos@ei-ie.org
Tel: +32 2 224 06 11
Fax: +32 2 224 06 06
5 bd du Roi Albert II | 1210 Brussels | BELGIUM
http://www.ei-ie.org

Categories Accountability, Economy, Education Reform, For-Profit, International

Lewis Hine, the Man Whose Photographs Ended Child Labor, and Reflections on Labor and Our Moment

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2018 //
34

Lewis Hine was the photographer whose work led to the passage of child labor laws.

Here are some of the photographs that touched the conscience of the nation and its leaders.

There was a time when our nation’s leaders had a conscience.

There was a time when Labor Day parades were a major event.

There was a time when labor unions provided a path to a secure, middle-class life for millions of people.

Now the parades have ended.

Now we have a new economic approach.

The rich get richer. Full employment. Stagnant wages.

The purpose of labor unions was to ensure that working people received a fair share for their contribution to their employer’s success.

Labor unions ensured that prosperity lifted up working people, not just shareholders, Wall Street speculators, and corporate owners.

We need them again. Working people need and deserve a collective voice. Now, more than ever it is time to spread the wealth, open new paths to the middle class, restore the dignity of work, and rebuild the hope for and the reality of a better life for all. To do that means to move away from the current emphasis on consumerism and libertarianism to a public philosophy that embraces the importance of the common good. That means a revival of the nearly forgotten concept of “We the People.” E pluribus unum. A shared destiny in which every life counts, in which we recognize our common humanity and our mutual obligations for one another, our brotherhood and sisterhood.

That won’t happen by wishing and hoping but by political action. It begins by voting out the agents of the current status quo. It must start now.

Categories Billionaires, Childhood, Economy, Inequity, Injustice

Harold Meyerson: Trump’s Man at the Fed Admits that American Workers Are Losing Ground

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2018 //
15

Harold Meyerson, editor of The American Prospect, writes today:

JULY 19, 2018

Meyerson on TAP

Even Trump’s Man at the Fed Says Workers Are Being Screwed. Anyone who still remains bewildered by the rebirth of American socialism should consider this: Jerome Powell, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve, says he’s concerned that the share of the national income going to labor has fallen “precipitously.”

In testimony Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee, Powell bemoaned the fact that “labor’s share of profits has been sideways.” This, he said, was “very troubling.”

That’s Jerome Powell who said this. Donald Trump’s appointee as the nation’s top banker.

The unhappy development Powell was referencing was the fact that the share of the national economy going to workers’ wages and benefits has fallen since the turn of the millennium from 66 percent to 62 percent, while the share going to corporate profits has risen correspondingly, from 8.3 percent to 13.2 percent. (And, adding insult to injury, more than 90 percent of those profits have been doled out in the form of increased dividends and share buybacks to shareholders and top corporate executives.) Had the workers’ share stayed at 66 percent of the economy, according to estimates by Jared Bernstein, Vice-President Biden’s former chief economist and a contributing columnist to the Prospect, their average annual income would have risen by $3,400.

Cautiously, Powell intimated this wasn’t good. “We want an economy that works for everyone,” he concluded.

That, however, is as far as the Fed chairman was willing to go. He didn’t adduce causes for the decline of the labor share, other than “global factors.” He didn’t cite the role that the business community’s and the Republican Party’s war on unions had played, or the Republicans’ opposition to raising the federal minimum wage, or the shareholders-uber-alles ethos that has governed corporations since Milton Friedman first propounded it and Ronald Reagan’s SEC supercharged it by legalizing share buybacks. He did admit he wasn’t sure how to reverse the decline—in fairness, a cluelessness that follows logically from his refusal to recognize the causes of that decline.

Still, even Trump’s man at the Fed is distressed that the labor share has dwindled. Is it any wonder that, among more sentient Americans, socialism is on the rise? ~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Categories Economy

Trump Tariffs Will Hurt Trump Voters Most

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2018 //
44

The New York Times showed that Trump tariffs on cars will boomerang and hurt Trump voters in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama.

“BRUSSELS — President Trump has complained about seeing too many German cars on Fifth Avenue, and threatened heavy tariffs on the companies that produce them. There is a good chance, though, that those Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs were not only made in the United States, but made by workers who voted for Mr. Trump.

“European companies have turned Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee into auto manufacturing powerhouses in recent years, churning out cars not just for American buyers but also for export to China and Europe. Germany’s three biggest carmakers all have facilities there, and Volvo Cars, which is owned by a Chinese company but based in Sweden, began producing at a new plant in South Carolina just last month.

“Yet being major employers in regions that voted heavily for Mr. Trump has not protected them.

“With barely a peep of resistance from his own party, the president has threatened tariffs — expected to be 20 percent — on imported cars and car parts. In a prelude to such a move, he has ordered an investigation into whether the imports pose a threat to national security. Trade restrictions could be put in place within months. And if he follows through, the European Union has pledged to retaliate.

“The damage would be far-reaching, draining an estimated $14 billion from the United States economy. If other countries retaliated, the cost would skyrocket to nearly $300 billion, the European Union’s Washington delegation said last week.

“Carmakers, both foreign and domestic, say such penalties would severely damage their lines of supply, interfere with exports and eventually force them to curtail operations in, of all places, Republican strongholds.

“Mr. Trump won 63 percent of the vote in Spartanburg, S.C., home of BMW’s biggest factory anywhere in the world. But Allen Smith, president of the Spartanburg Area Chamber of Commerce, said the president’s tariffs would threaten the region’s livelihood.

“For BMW and its many, many suppliers scattered across the state and region, you’re talking tens of thousands of jobs,” Mr. Smith said. “We would all agree with the president’s overall aim to improve trade with America’s interests top of mind. But getting to that end by inflicting so much pain on American business is the wrong approach.”

“Mr. Trump’s threat to impose auto tariffs would be the latest manifestation of his willingness to alienate longtime allies and American companies, ostensibly to protect domestic jobs. He has already imposed levies on steel and aluminum from the European Union, Canada, Mexico and other nations, and on Friday will place tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products.

“But this new front in the trade war carries substantial risk not just for the auto industry but for Mr. Trump and Republican officeholders nationwide, given the impact that a full-blown trade war could have on American jobs tied to the auto industry.

“Virtually all cars made in the United States contain imported parts. Unlike steel and aluminum tariffs, whose costs may not be obvious to most consumers, automotive levies would show up in showrooms within weeks. Sticker prices would rise by hundreds if not thousands of dollars. That is why Ford and General Motors, alongside foreign automakers, have also roundly condemned the protectionist measures.

“The times are gone that a producer was only headquartered in one country with production in that country and exporting from that country to the rest of the world,” said Erik Jonnaert, the secretary general of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, in an interview in Brussels.

“The economic impact would be greatest in a triangle demarcated by BMW’s factory in Spartanburg; Daimler’s Mercedes complex in Tuscaloosa, Ala.; and Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tenn…

“Over time, the European carmakers have expanded their operations in those regions not only to build vehicles for American buyers, but also to serve customers in places like China. Last year, Daimler added 900 jobs to its American operations, which also include truck factories, and it is investing $1 billion to expand the Tuscaloosa operation to produce electric vehicles and batteries.

“Mr. Trump’s contention that these companies may present a threat to American national security, though, has thrown that growth into doubt.

“BMW exports 70 percent of the vehicles that it makes in Spartanburg, about 270,000, helping to reduce the trade deficit that Mr. Trump often complains about. BMW plans to add 1,000 jobs in Spartanburg as part of a $600 million expansion. If trade tensions continue to escalate, BMW warned in a letter on June 28 to Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, the result could be “strongly reduced export volumes and negative effects on investment and employment in the United States.”

Categories Economy, Education Reform, Jobs

Trump’s Tariffs Hurting American Businesses

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2018 //
12

Harley-Davidson plans to open a plant in Europe because Trump’s tariffs will raise the price of a Harley by more that $2,000 for EU consumers.

Other industries will be hard hit and are planning to lay off workers.

The lobster industry, farmers, the nation’s largest nail company.

Think before you act.

Dealmaker-in-Chief Cuts Deal to Annihilate American Business – Vanity Fair

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/dealmaker-in-chief-cuts-deal-to-annihilate-american-business

Categories Economy, Education Reform

Needed: A Trustbuster to Break Up Four Mega-Corporations

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2018 //
43

 

Four corporate behemoths dominate our economy, writes Ross Barkan. It is time to break them up and foster healthy competition. Progressives met that challenge over a century ago. Have the Big Four become too big to fail and too powerful to regulate?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/19/democrats-break-up-techs-big-four-apple-google-facebook-apple

”Four corporations dominate American life. They have the wealth of nations. They have generated unfathomable revenue, created a number of jobs, and decimated many more. Their control of the economy is total.

“They are Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook. Unless we do something, their power will remain limitless.

“Any Democrat running for president who claims to be a progressive should put trust-busting at the top of their agenda. Socialist or capitalist, big government or small, the priority should be the same: to ensure the people who consume goods and create goods are not exploited.

“All four corporate behemoths are too large. These monopolies fuel staggering inequality and stifle the kind of economic growth that used to be more evenly distributed. Profits are immense and gains for actual workers are small – these corporations do not generate employment, let alone unionized employment, on the scale of earlier revolutionary giants.”

Will any candidate step up to the challenge? Will candidates from both parties court the 1% for campaign contributions in exchange for protecting them from taxation and regulation?

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Democracy, Democrats, Economy, Education Reform

Which Sector Employs the Most People? Higher Education or Steel/Aluminum?

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2018 //
9

 

Catherine Rampell asks that interesting question. Trump is hostile to higher education but courts the steel and aluminum sectors? Maybe he disdains higher education because, as he said during the 2016 campaign, he “loves the uneducated.”

Rampell says that Trump

“has been threatening [higher education] with anti-immigrant policy and rhetoric; several recent data releases suggest that the long-term growth in international students has now reversed itself. In response, a reader asked me how U.S. employment in higher education compares to employment in some of the industries Trump has sought to protect through tariffs.

“As you might expect, the comparison is not exactly flattering to Trump’s trade policies: Higher ed vastly dwarfs those other sectors.

“According to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, from the third quarter of 2017, about 3 million people were employed by colleges and universities, both public and private. That tally excludes those employed by junior colleges (an additional 697,000), technical and trade schools (131,000), and other related employers, which likely enroll fewer international students.

“By contrast, in iron and steel mills and ferroalloy production, employment tallied 82,000. Alumina and aluminum production had 57,000 jobs. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are employed in industries that use these metals as an input (aerospace, construction, energy, beer can manufacturers, etc.), and will therefore face higher prices and the threat of layoffs. Many millions more may also find their jobs threatened if, say, China follows through with its threats of retaliatory tariffs.

“I would offer you my chart of higher ed employment vs. steel and aluminum employment, but given that higher ed employment is more than 20 times as large as steel and aluminum employment combined, the chart’s a bit hard to read.”

 

Categories Economy, Higher Education

“This Land Belongs to You and Me,” not Trump, DeVos, and the Koch Brothers

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2018 //
77

 

One of my favorite non-education bloggers is Andrew Tobias (except on the rare occasions when he ventures into education), who cuts through the economic morass with a fine scalpel and recognizes Trump for the phony that he is. I subscribe (free) at AndrewTobias.com. He gave me his permission to post his latest. Open here to read his links. 

Tobias writes:

YOU Get $930! And YOU Get $930!”

John Grund, one of your fellow readers, offers this wonderfully clear analysis (thank you, John):

Here’s another way to think about the Republican tax bill: Think like an owner.

Sit down quietly and let your mind inventory all that you own as an American. I like to start with the Statue of Liberty. It was a gift from France to the American people; I’m an American person, so that includes me. And the Park Service charges admission, so there’s that.

From there, I like to fly over the country in my mind, surveying all that you and I own. All the beaches and waterways. All the roads and bridges. All the public lands and forests. All the great national landmarks and parks. All the wonderful buildings our fathers and mothers built for us: the libraries and colleges and theaters. 

Take your time. It takes time to even touch on how much there is. The public hospitals and clinics. The harbors and canals. The lighthouses and navigation markers. The reservoirs, rivers, lakes and water systems. The radio and television airwaves. The courts and city halls and schools. The warships, guns and warplanes.

And now reflect that corporations are granted a charter by the state (which you and I own, of course) that allows them to do business. And think of corporate taxes as the rent those corporations pay for using all that we own – the roads to deliver their products, the monetary system the underpins commerce, the police to keep their trucks safe, the schools to train their workers, the military to protect it all.

The Republican tax bill cuts the rent you earn on all that property. The corporate tax rate drops from 35 percent to 21 percent of profits.

Now perhaps you are a gracious and benevolent landlord, and you say you don’t really mind giving your renters a break. You’re feeling generous.

But remember you have a mortgage against all that property, too. It’s the national debt, and you use the rents – the taxes – you receive as owner to pay off that mortgage. And remember that the rents have to pay for upkeep on all that property. Are the roads and bridges in great shape, with plenty of money squirreled away to keep them that way? Or are they in dire need of long-delayed maintenance and restoration?

This is one case where it is right to think like an owner, because that is what you are. Be a calculating landlord when you consider the Republican tax bill.

Isn’t that kinda great?

One could certainly tinker with the implementation. For example, how about revenue-neutral corporate tax reform? Adopt the more-globally-competitive 21% were adopted — but pay for it by closing loopholes that most big corporations have been using to pay far less than the nominal 35% rate.

But the gist of John’s essay, I think, is exactly right.

Again, I urge you to watch Reagan budget director David Stockman’s critique of the massively ill-advised tax cut.

And again, note how beyond nuts — how bizarro-world — it is that this tax bill, designed to help the middle class (yeah, right), and that’s gonna cost Trump a fortune, “believe me” (yeah right), includes a special provision for real estate developers like Trump.

I’m all for the much-heralded $1,000 bonuses a few million employees (maybe 5% of American workers?) have gotten from corporate employers . . . perhaps in part to curry favor with the strong man in the White House, perhaps in part to help Republicans hold Congress in the next election, and surely in part because they’d like to do something nice for their valued employees. That’s great.

And I’m all for the modest but real tax breaks many middle-class Americans will see (if we can afford them; though: can we afford them?). Bloomberg estimates $930 a year for people in the middle fifth of taxpayers ($60 for people in the bottom fifth). But don’t you get it? The motivation here is to help those at the top. You get $930! And you get $930! And you get $930! And — if I’m in the top 1% — I get $51,140. Unless I’m in the top tenth of that group — $193,380. Unless I’m in the top tenth of that group — where Trump and his friend Carl Icahn and his pal Wilbur Ross and his pals Sheldon Adelson and the Mercers and Betsy Devos presumably are. That number Bloomberg doesn’t even try to estimate, but it would be a lot higher.

When the ultra-rich were taxed at a 90% top federal tax rate (Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower), it was too high (though designed to lower our National Debt, relative to the economy as a whole, which it did help do). And when they were taxed at 70% (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter) it was still too high (though it, too, helped shrink the Debt relative to the economy as a whole). Even when they were taxed at 50% (Reagan’s first cut), I would argue it may have been too high.

But, with his second cut, Reagan, and then Bush 43, and now Trump have exploded the National Debt — borrowing not to build infrastructure that’s been crumbling for 35 years, but to enrich the already-rich by cutting their taxes to record-low levels.

Criminal.

Well, not literally. But immoral.

And dishonest (Bush told us “by far the vast majority” of his tax cut would go to people “at the bottom”).

And . . . well, tragic.

Only Clinton and Obama managed to turn the deficits around, leaving their successors with economies growing faster than the debt . . . thus shrinking the debt relative to the economy as a whole.

This massively irresponsible Republican tax cut reverses that, once more. It puts us back over $1 trillion in deficit spending . . . gets the debt growing faster than the economy again, as under Reagan, Bush, and Bush . . . and is sold to the voters as, “Look! You get $930! And you get $930!” (And me? Don’t bother your pretty little head with that. If you can’t trust Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and Devin Nunez and Vladimir Putin — Trump trusts him, why shouldn’t we? — whom can you trust?)

Right?

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Categories Billionaires, Economy, Equity
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