A VERY STABLE GENIUS
“This taut and terrifying
book is among the most closely observed accounts of Donald J. Trump’s shambolic
tenure in office to date.” - Dwight Garner, The
New York Times
Read
an excerpt:
‘You’re a bunch of dopes and babies’: Inside Trump’s stunning tirade against generals
‘You’re a bunch of dopes and babies’: Inside Trump’s stunning tirade against generals
THE BOOK
Washington
Post national investigative reporter Carol Leonnig
and White House bureau chief Philip Rucker, both Pulitzer Prize winners,
provide the definitive insider narrative of Donald Trump’s unique presidency
with shocking new reporting and insight into its implications.
“I
alone can fix it.” So went Donald J. Trump’s march to the presidency on July
21, 2016, when he accepted the Republican presidential nomination in Cleveland,
promising to restore what he described as a fallen nation. Yet over the
subsequent years, as he has undertaken the actual work of the commander in
chief, it has been hard to see beyond the daily chaos of scandal,
investigation, and constant bluster. It would be all too easy to mistake
Trump’s first term for one of pure and uninhibited chaos, but there were
patterns to his behavior and that of his associates. The universal value of the
Trump administration is loyalty - not to the country, but to the president
himself - and Trump’s North Star has been the perpetuation of his own power,
even when it meant imperiling our shaky and mistrustful democracy.
Leonnig
and Rucker, with deep and unmatched sources throughout Washington, D.C., tell
of rages and frenzies but also moments of courage and perseverance. Relying on
scores of exclusive new interviews with some of the most senior members of the
Trump administration and other firsthand witnesses, the authors reveal the
forty-fifth president up close, taking readers inside Robert Mueller’s Russia
investigation as well as the president’s own haphazard but ultimately
successful legal defense. Here for the first time certain officials who have
felt honor-bound not to publicly criticize a sitting president or to divulge
what they witnessed in a position of trust tell the truth for the benefit of
history.
This
peerless and gripping narrative reveals President Trump at his most unvarnished
and exposes how decision making in his administration has been driven by a
reflexive logic of self-preservation and self-aggrandizement - but a logic
nonetheless. This is the story of how an unparalleled president has scrambled
to survive and tested the strength of America’s democracy and its common heart
as a nation.
Trump: “When Somebody’s President of the United States, the Authority is Total’
Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images/2020 Getty Images
Last Friday, President Trump used his daily press conference to proclaim that he would soon tell the country when he planned to open it back up. “I’m going to have to make a decision …” he said, portentously. “I would say, without question, it’s the biggest decision I’ve ever had to make.”
Trump does not in fact have the legal authority to make this decision. Stay-at-home orders have been made by governors and mayors, not by the president. Apparently angered by news coverage pointing out his legal impotence, Trump announced on Twitter that he does too have the power:
As a matter of law, Trump is wrong. State and local officials have legal authority to close businesses and public buildings in order to safeguard public health. As University of Texas law professor Bobby Chesney has pointed out, “No currently existing statute plausibly can be read to confer such an authority on the president.”
Indeed, the shoddiness of Trump’s legal reasoning is apparent in his tweet itself. Trump begins by claiming that authority to control closures rests with the “President of the United States & the Federal Government,” but then in the very next sentence asserts that the power rests solely with “the President.” The federal government in fact has multiple branches. Congress is a coequal branch of government. If Congress passed a law giving the president legal authority to override stay-at-home orders, there might be at least a legal battle. But Congress hasn’t passed anything like this. So, while Trump is simply declaring himself to be the federal government, that is not how the Constitution works.
Why would Trump be disputing the law? The stupidest, and therefore most likely, explanation is that Trump is simply angry that cable news is discussing the fact that Trump’s “decision” is not actually his to make. Trump likes positioning himself as the protagonist of the Trump Show, and it will not do for the narrator to explain that the big reveal in tomorrow’s episode has been determined by some off-screen characters. (The exception, of course, is when Trump has screwed something up, in which case he foists all responsibility onto his subordinates and berates them for their failure.)
But it is also possible that Trump is actually planning a showdown of some kind with state and local officials. He is reportedly leaning toward announcing a May 1 date for a grand reopening of the country, reflecting his desire for a splashy celebratory announcement. Trump may not want his big day to be stepped on by troublesome local officials diminishing his powers.
Trump genuinely does not grasp the distinction between his relationship to the federal government and his relationship to the Trump Organization. He believes he is entitled to the same measure of full control over both, with the complete personal loyalty of every employee thereof. “I have an Article 2,” as he has once put it, “where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”
At his press conference, Trump repeatedly asserted that he has absolute authority. “When somebody’s president of the United States, the authority is total, and that’s the way it’s gotta be,” he asserted, dismissing out of hand the clear legal authority possessed by state governments. When a reporter asked if any governors had agreed with Trump that he has this right, he replied, “I haven’t asked anybody, because – you know why? – because I don’t have to.” When she asked if any governors agreed, he shushed the question:
Trump may have in mind a legal fight. More plausibly, he may have in mind a political fight in which he would brandish his messaging platform and control over federal purse strings to force governors to follow his schedule. Trump has long believed that Democrats and the media hyped up the coronavirus to spook the markets and cause a panic that would tank the economy in order to harm his reelection prospects. In Trump’s mind, stay-at-home orders are part of the anti-Trump plot.
Trump’s response to the coronavirus has alternated between denial, blame-shifting, and ineffectual bluster. It was inevitable that he would come around to claiming extra-constitutional authority. It will probably amount to just more bluster. But when a president with a pronounced contempt for the rule of law announces more legal principles he refuses to respect, it is worth paying attention.
Bailout of US corporations expands while
workers see little relief
Two weeks after the passage of the $2.2 trillion coronavirus
pandemic corporate bailout bill, grotesquely misnamed the CARES Act, it is
clear that it was only the initial shot in the funneling of countless trillions
of dollars to the corporate-financial aristocracy that rules America.
While billions have already flowed to the corporations and
banks, the limited provisions of the act that were touted by both parties as a
boon to working people hit by the shutdown of much of the economy have yet to
kick in, and for millions they likely never will.
The act includes $454 billion as a Treasury
backstop to enable the Federal Reserve to
provide some $4 trillion in cheap loans to
major corporations and banks, meaning the
real scale of the bailout—thus far—is more
than $6 trillion.
The vast bulk of the money allocated goes to covering any losses
suffered by major corporations and fueling a new surge in the stock market. That
it has succeeded, at least for the present, in lifting the markets is seen in
more than 10 percent surge in the Dow over the past several trading days. This
has occurred in the midst of an ever-rising toll of death and suffering from
the pandemic and grim projections by bankers and economists of a
depression-level contraction in the economy and a catastrophic growth of
unemployment.
The expanding scale of the bailout and euphoria on the financial
markets, alongside the economic and social catastrophe facing the broad mass of
the population, demonstrates that the interests of the ruling class and those
of the working class are diametrically opposed. The response of the
ruling elite and its two political parties to the crisis has from the onset
been single-mindedly focused on defending the economic interests of
corporate-financial oligarchy, no matter the cost in human life.
In just the last several weeks, the Federal Reserve Board has
announced at least 12 major measures to rescue the financial markets and
backstop big business. These include:
·
Two emergency interest rate cuts,
bringing the benchmark lending rate back down to near-zero
·
A pledge to purchase at least
$500 billion in Treasury securities and $200 billion in mortgage-backed
securities and to continue the program for “as long as needed”
·
Nearly unlimited sums in
short-term loans to 25 large financial institutions that control the market for
repurchase agreements, or repos, including $1.5 trillion in the days following
the announcement
·
Foreign exchange swap lines, the
purchase of short-term loans to US corporations in the commercial paper market,
short-term loans to 24 large financial institutions, and, for the first time
ever, direct purchases of corporate bonds and direct loans to corporations.
The Wall
Street Journal quoted Jean Boivin, head of BlackRock
Investment Institute, as saying, “The amount of measures taken in a short
amount of time is surreal and unprecedented.”
“It’s kind of crazy how they’ve almost done as much in this week
as they did in several months in 2008,” JPMorgan’s chief US economist Michael
Feroli said last month. “Now they do have the advantage of just being able to
dust off [former Fed Chairman] Bernanke’s playbook.”
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell gave a blanket
guarantee of unlimited funds to corporate
America, telling the “Today” show this week,
“Where credit is not flowing, we have the
ability in this unique circumstance to step in
and provide those loans.”
Now both the Trump administration and the Democrats have
committed to provide an additional $250 billion to the so-called “Paycheck
Protection Program.” That is the Orwellian name given by the two parties to the
$350 billion program ostensibly established to provide government-backed loans
to small businesses, many of which face bankruptcy as a result of the shutdown
of much of the economy, and save the jobs of their workers over the next eight weeks. (That
this is farcically inadequate, even if implemented in full, in the midst of the
greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, is self-evident).
The program is designed to provide a windfall for the big banks,
which actually extend and administer the loans that are backed by the Small
Business Administration (SBA). This ensures that Wall Street receives billions
of dollars in fees and other charges.
On the eve of the official launching of the program last Friday,
the law was amended, under pressure from the banks, to double the interest rate
from 0.5 percent to 1.0 percent. Now the banks are demanding that the Fed buy
any loans they extend to small businesses so as to remove them from their
balance sheets. This will allow them to more freely engage in financial
speculation and parasitic activities such as stock buybacks.
Moreover, the great bulk of the money will go not to mom-and-pop
groceries, gas stations or eateries, but rather to large corporations that are
included in the program. Thus, for example, the program was amended to include
billion-dollar restaurant and hotel chains.
Small businesses desperate for cash are finding it difficult if
not impossible to actually find lenders who will provide the loans, even if
their applications are approved by the SBA. Banks, intent on maximizing
profits, are turning down applications right and left.
Citigroup is refusing to participate. Bank of America is not
accepting applications from companies that have borrowed from other banks.
Wells Fargo says it has already reached “capacity.”
Hundreds of thousands of businesses have applied under the
program, but to date only a handful have received any money.
Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are pressing the Trump
administration to expand the $50 billion bailout of the airlines included in
the CARES Act. This is, supposedly, another “jobs-saving” effort. Delta, for
its part, has already laid off thousands of its employees.
There are no real restrictions in the law on how the
corporations use the money they are given by the government. No one should
doubt that the airline carriers, which spent some $16 billion over the past
three years to purchase their own stock—in order to further enrich their top
executives and major investors by driving up the stock price—will use their
bailout money to do more of the same.
The Trump administration, for its part, is reportedly
considering such additional “stimulus” measures as a payroll tax cut—which
would starve Social Security of funding—a capital gains tax cut, 50-year
Treasury bonds and a waiver that would relieve businesses of liability for
employees who contract the coronavirus on the job.
Trump has moved to negate even the token congressional oversight
of the bailout program mandated in the law. On Monday, he named a White House
lawyer and Trump loyalist, Brian Miller, as inspector general of the Treasury
Department’s $350 billion small business (“Payroll Protection Program”), and on
Tuesday he removed Glenn Fine as head of the Pandemic Response Accountability
Committee, tasked with monitoring the entire $2.2 trillion program. Trump
replaced him with a “senior policy adviser” at US Customs and Border
Protection, Jason Abend.
Workers are finding that the promised relief from the bailout
law—which accounts for only a small fraction of the total cost of the
measure—is uncertain if not entirely illusory.
The New
York Times reported Monday that many Americans will not
receive the promised relief check of $1,200, plus $500 for each child, until
August or September. As many as 10 million low-income, childless adults who are
eligible for the stimulus payment program may receive nothing because they have
not filed tax returns. Millions more, including undocumented workers,
prisoners, students and adult dependents are excluded.
As for the $250 billion expanded jobless benefit part of the
law, which is supposed to extend state benefits for 13 weeks and add $600 a
week in federal funds for up to four months, workers are finding it all but
impossible to apply. Multiple state unemployment websites have crashed under
the crush of millions of applicants, and scenes of hundreds of workers lining
up, in the midst of a pandemic lockdown, to apply in person are proliferating
around the country.
Fed
Unleashes $2.3 Trillion of Aid to U.S. Economy
Mark Wilson / Getty
9 Apr 20201
2:07
The Federal Reserve Thursday
unveiled $2.3 trillion in additional aid to American households and businesses
besieged by the coronavirus outbreak.
The
Fed said Thursday that it is activating a Main Street Business Lending Program
authorized by the CARES Act, the largest economic relief package ever passed by
Congress.
Federal
Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the Fed’s role was to “provide as much
relief and stability as we can during this period of constrained economic
activity.”
In
a webcast from the Brookings Institution, Powell said that the Fed fully
intended to use its powers “forcefully, proactively and aggressively until we
are confident that we are solidly on the road to recovery.”
He
said there was “every reason to believe that the economic rebound, when it
comes, can be robust” because the economy was doing well before the virus hit.
Among
the actions taken Thursday, the Fed activated a loan program for municipal
governments, as well as additional support for the Paycheck Protection Program,
which the Small Business Administration rolled out last week. The program
provides loans to businesses with fewer than 500 employees.
The
Main Street lending program “will make a significant difference for the 40,000
medium-sized business that employ 35 million Americans,” Treasury Secretary
Steven Mnuchin said Thursday.
The
government’s pay protection plan for small businesses is off to a rocky start.
Businesses have had difficulty getting banks to provide the loans. The banks
have said that the government has not made clear how they should process such
loans, even what forms businesses are required to use.
The
Fed announced the new infusion of cash on the same day the U.S. reported applications
for unemployment benefits reached a staggering 6.6 million last week. That
means more than one in 10 workers have lost their jobs in just the past three
weeks to the coronavirus outbreak.
Trump Is Surrounded by Criminals
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-fall-of-donald-trump-final-days.html
“The legal ring surrounding
him is collectively producing a historic indictment of his endemic corruption
and criminality.” JONATHAN CHAIT
Bankrupting America
|
Posted:
Apr 08, 2020 12:01 AM
Two weeks ago, President Donald
Trump signed the largest stimulus bill in U.S. history: more than $2 trillion.
For once, both Republicans and
Democrats agreed. The Senate voted 96-0. The House didn't even bother with a
formal vote.
At the White House, a reporter asked
the president, pointing out that the bill includes $25 million for the Kennedy
Center, "Shouldn't that money be going to masks?"
"The Kennedy Center has
suffered greatly because nobody can go there," Trump responded. "They
do need some funding. And look -- that was a Democrat request. That was not my
request. But you got to give them something."
"Something" they got. The
bill includes $25 million for Congressional salaries, $50 million for an
Institute of Museum and Library Services and lots of other wasteful things.
Only a few politicians were wary.
Rep. Thomas Massie complained that he wasn't even allowed to speak against the
bill.
Rep. Alex Mooney asked: "How do
you pay for it? Borrow it from China, borrow it from Russia? Are we going to
print the money?"
Those are good questions.
Our national debt is already $24
trillion. Now it will jump, percentage-wise, to where Greece's debt was shortly
before unemployment there hit 27%.
There are really three options:
1. Raise taxes.
2. Print money.
3. Default.
Let's consider each:
1. Raising taxes on rich people is
popular. Even Michael Bloomberg wants "higher taxes on billionaires"
like him.
But raising taxes on the rich often
kills the wealth and jobs some rich people create. And it won't solve our debt
problem. Even if we took all the billionaires' wealth -- reducing their net
worth to zero -- it would cover only an eighth of our debt.
2. Some on the left now say,
"Don't worry about debt, just print money!"
This belief, called Modern Monetary
Theory, destroys lives.
Zimbabwe's dictator tried it. Eager
to spend more money on wars, higher salaries for government officials and
luxury for himself, he had his government print more money. But that meant more
money pursued the same goods. That caused explosive inflation. Soon, a $2 bag
of onions cost $30 million Zimbabwean dollars.
The more money the government
printed, the more inflation there was. They eventually even issued 100 trillion
dollar bills. Today those 100 trillion bills are worth about 40 cents.
Inflation wrecked lives in 1920s
Germany, Argentina and Russia, and in modern-day Venezuela, too.
3. America could simply refuse to
pay our debt. But that would betray everyone who invested in America, and
bankrupt Americans who bought Treasury Bonds.
Defaulting on your debt wrecks
economies, too. When Argentina defaulted, unemployment rose to 21%.
Once you're deep in debt, no option
is good.
How did we get to this point?
Presidents have talked about the
dangers of debt for decades. But they didn't deal with it; they just talked
about it.
"We have piled deficit upon
deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future," warned Ronald
Reagan. "We must act today to preserve tomorrow."
Bill Clinton said, "We've got
to deal with this big long term debt problem."
Barack Obama called driving up the
national debt "irresponsible" and then proceeded to do exactly that.
Donald Trump complained that Obama
"doubled" the nation's debt. But now, under Trump's presidency and
the new CARES Act, our debt will grow even faster.
This will not end well.
So far, the deficit spending hasn't
done enormous harm. But it will. You can stretch a rubber band only so far,
until it breaks.
Our debt will wreck our children's
lives.
Yet, today politicians mostly talk
about spending more.
John Stossel is author of "Give
Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the
Scourge of the Liberal Media." For other Creators Syndicate writers and
cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.
Trump Is Surrounded by Criminals
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-fall-of-donald-trump-final-days.html
“The legal ring surrounding him is collectively producing a
historic indictment of his endemic corruption and criminality.” JONATHAN CHAIT
TRUMPERNOMICS FOR THE RICH…. and his
parasitic family!
Report: Trump Says He Doesn't Care About the National Debt
Because the Crisis Will Hit After He's Gone
"Trump's alleged comment is maddening and
disheartening,
but at least he's being straightforward about his indefensible
and self-serving neglect. I'll leave you with this reminder of the scope of the problem, not that anyone in power is going to do a damn thing about it."
but at least he's being straightforward about his indefensible
and self-serving neglect. I'll leave you with this reminder of the scope of the problem, not that anyone in power is going to do a damn thing about it."
TRUMPERNOMICS:
THE SUPER RICH APPLAUD TWITTER’S TRUMP’S TAX CUTS FOR THE SUPER
RICH!
"The tax overhaul would mean an
unprecedented windfall for the super-rich, on top
of the fact that virtually all income
gains during the period of the supposed
recovery from the financial crash of
2008 have gone to the top 1 percent income
bracket."
Why do Republicans want to bail out a
top Democrat funder?
BECAUSE BILLIONAIRES AND BANKSTERS
ARE ALL
DEMOCRAT BRIBESTERS!
A $50 Billion Airline Bailout for Warren Buffett
Why do Republicans want to bail
out a top Democrat funder?
March 23, 2020
Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield,
a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an
investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic
terrorism.
In March, as the Wuhan Flu was
taking off in America, the Oracle of Omaha began buying airline stocks.
Specifically, one of the wealthiest men in the country increased his stake in
Delta Airlines to 11%.
Warren Buffett wasn’t oblivious
to the coronavirus. The University of Nebraska Medical Center, not far from the
black gated mansion of the billionaire, was on the front lines of fighting the
outbreak. Passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship were being treated 5
minutes from his house.
What was Warren Buffett thinking
when he shoved $45 million more in good money after bad?
Berkshire Hathaway now owns 11%
of Delta Airlines, and between 8% and 10% of United Airlines, Southwest
Airlines, and American Airlines. When you’re squeezed into a 17-inch airline
seat, it’s because a major funder of Democrat political causes is extracting
maximum value from his investment.
And now Airlines for America,
whose major members include American, Delta, United, and Southwest, along with
lesser airlines, want a $50 billion bailout. That includes $25 billion in
grants and $25 billion in loans and tax relief. While the airlines warn about
an economic catastrophe, Buffett isn’t worried.
Warren Buffett is no stranger to
bailouts. In 2010, he penned a fake folksy New York Times op-ed thanking “Uncle Sam”
from his nephew “Warren”. Later that year, he became a key propaganda figure in
Obama’s push to raise taxes. By the winter of the year, Obama had placed the
Presidential Medal of Freedom around the neck of the man who had fundraised for
him and acted as his financial adviser.
As Peter Schweitzer noted, “It was
only on September 23 that he became a highly visible player in the drama,
investing $5 billion in Goldman Sachs, which was overleveraged and short on
cash… Berkshire Hathaway received preferred stock with a 10 percent dividend
yield and an attractive option to buy another $5 billion in stock at $115 a
share… As he admitted on CNBC at the time, ‘If I didn't think the government
was going to act, I wouldn't be doing anything this week.’”
Buffett seems to think that the government
will act and bail out the airlines. Again. And this time for a lot more than the
$15 billion price tag of the airline bailout that passed after September 11.
By 2009, Berkshire Hathaway had invested $26
billion in eight financial companies, including Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and
Bank of America, which benefited from around $100 billion in TARP money.
There’s no question that the
Democrat billionaire is a very sharp investor. But there’s no reason for
taxpayers to keep subsidizing his investments. As small businesses are forced
to shut down and millions of people are put out of work, should they really be
helping Warren Buffett get even richer?
Just as during the bailout,
Buffett is betting that the government is going to back his investment.
If the major airlines were really
about to go down, Buffett would be trying to get everything out, instead of
getting in deeper. The billionaire is betting that Berkshire Hathaway will
emerge in a stronger position after the bailouts and the surge of optimism that
will follow the lifting of the coronavirus curfews.
He’s almost certainly right.
But if he wants to profit from
the turnaround and the potential takeover of an airline, he should do the heavy
lifting on his own. Berkshire Hathaway is sitting on $125 billion
in cash. But why cash out his treasury bills when the D.C. swamp will be happy
enough to do most of the heavy lifting for him.
Where will those taxpayer-funded
profits go?
In 2014, the Oracle of Omaha
predicted that Hillary Clinton will win. “I will bet money on it, and I don’t
do that easily,” he boasted.
Republicans lobbying for an
airline bailout are literally fighting to secure taxpayer money that will then
be used to fund their political opponents. It’s an insane act of fiscal
political suicide.
Beyond political donations,
Buffett has spent millions covertly funding abortion activism. Due to his
obsessive secrecy, the full scope of his abortion funding is unknown, but the
Buffett Foundation donated almost $4 billion to abortion causes,
including $674.5 million to Planned
Parenthood.
It’s a revelation that clashes
with his folksy image and invocation of small-town values. But behind the
Garrison Keillor routine, Buffett is just another version of George Soros with
an American accent.
That’s not just rhetoric.
At the heart of Soros' power over
American politics is the Democracy Alliance, a club of powerful organizations
funneling money into transforming this country. The Democracy Alliance's core
partners include the NoVo Foundation, run by Buffett’s son and daughter-in-law, and funded by $150
million from the Oracle of Omaha.
NoVo funds hate groups like Van
Jones' Color of Change, which plotted to defund the David Horowitz Freedom Center,
along with the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Tides Foundation, and the National
People’s Action.
That last donation is especially interesting considering
NPA’s role in creating the Community Reinvestment Act which forced banks
to dispense mortgages to insolvent borrowers. This, as the Freedom Center’s
Discover the Networks notes, “ranks high among the primary causes of the 2008
financial crisis.” That’s both fascinating and disturbing considering Buffett’s
links to that crisis.
Buffett avoided the subprime
crisis while profiting massively from the resulting disaster.
Putting money in Buffett’s pocket
will mean more cash for Biden, it will mean more Democrats in the House and the
Senate, more abortions, and more power for George Soros’ Democracy Alliance.
So why are Republicans ready to
make concessions to Democrats in exchange for the privilege of electing more
Democrats with a Buffett bailout? Even if one were to argue that a bailout of
the airline industry may be necessary, why would Republicans lobby to cut their
own throats?
When the wall isn’t funded, how
can the GOP justify a second billion-dollar bailout of an industry that will
then just turn around and cut another 2 inches from the cramped seats of the
taxpayers who bailed them out?
CCP Virus Exploding Federal
Deficit Even as Comptroller General Warns of ‘Urgent’ Need for Debt Reduction
March 20, 2020 Updated: March 22, 2020
WASHINGTON—There were only rumors of a
possible $1 trillion economic stimulus package on March 12 when U.S.
Comptroller General Gene Dodaro urgently warned the Senate Budget Committee
that federal spending and debt are
on an “unsustainable” path.
“I am concerned because our debt-to-gross
domestic product (GDP) ratio as of the end of the last fiscal year was 79
percent. That’s the highest it’s been since World War II, when we hit the
historic high of 106 percent,” Dodaro said.
“So we are very heavily leveraged in debt
at a time when we are going to be facing a steady annual deficit of a trillion
dollars a year for as far as the eye can see.”
He was referring to the fact the national
debt now exceeds $23 trillion ($122 trillion if unfunded obligations such as those
of Social Security and Medicare are included).
That $23 trillion currently equals 109
percent of the 2019 GDP of $21.4 trillion. But interest costs more each year as
the national debt goes up and the Government Accountability Office
projects those costs to exceed total non-defense discretionary federal spending
by 2024, go beyond defense spending the next year, and blow past Medicare in
2042 and Social Security in 2046.
“This is why we believe the current path is
unsustainable,” Dodaro said.
Five days later, amid an intensifying
worldwide crisis occasioned by the CCP
virus, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed that
President Donald Trump wants Congress to pass an economic stimulus package that
will cost at least $1 trillion.
“It is a big number. This is a very unique
situation in this economy,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “We put a
proposal on the table that would inject $1 trillion into the economy. That is
on top of the $300 billion from the IRS deferrals.
“Now let me just say, this is a combination
of loans, this a combination of direct checks to individuals, this is a combination
of creating liquidity for small businesses.
“You can think of this as business
interruption money. The president is determined to put money back into this
economy to protect hard-working Americans and small businesses.”
About half of the funds will go to
individuals and families based on reported income from 2018, with most of the
other half being loans made available to corporations and small businesses
primarily for the purpose of keeping payrolls as intact as possible during the
crisis.
Details are still being worked out in
negotiations between the Trump White House and congressional leaders from both
parties.
Asked by a reporter if Congress should be
concerned about rising deficits, Mnuchin demurred, saying: “I think Congress
right now should be concerned about American workers and small businesses. You
know interest rates are incredibly low right now, so there’s very little cost
of borrowing this money, and, as I’ve said, in different times, we’ll fix the
deficit, but this is not the time to worry about it.”
Even so, the $1 trillion stimulus package
raised eyebrows, especially as more details became known. The budget committee
has asked the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for an assessment of the
package’s impact on the government’s financial health, according to a senior
Senate aide who asked not to be identified.
The conservative Heritage Foundation
released an analysis warning
that “any action that Congress takes should be targeted, temporary, and linked
directly to the coronavirus epidemic in order to address the source of the
economic shock, while limiting any political abuse that can develop in a moment
of crisis.”
“Unfortunately, the Senate’s coronavirus
bill, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, misses this mark
by including special benefits to specific industries that will exceed $200
billion,” it said.
Truth
in Accounting President Sheila Weinberg told The
Epoch Times that it appears “the federal government is going to
cover trillions of dollars of other losses and costs, including those for
business interruption, personal income loss, and health care costs.”
“This type of coverage is what insurance
companies do, but not at this scale,” Weinberg said.
“The federal government requires insurance
companies to have reserves to meet their customers’ benefits. Since the federal
government has become a multitrillion-dollar insurance company, it should have
reserves to cover the costs of crisis. Instead, the government is $23 trillion
in debt (plus another $100 trillion for unfunded Social Security and Medicare
benefits).”
The Epoch Times refers to the novel
coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the
Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread
throughout China and create a global pandemic.
Contact Mark Tapscott at
Mark.Tapscott@epochtimes.nyc
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