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Payback
Dedicated to the Fools, Racists, and Ignorant
People who vote for the GOP and trump or don't vote because they claim it is not important
June 24, 2019
400 years and they have learned nothing
8 disturbing trends that reveal the South’s battered psyche
From Salon: Across red-state America, especially in the Deep South, the latest statistics show that the cycle of poverty, in its many manifestations, is unchanged and holding firm. Why is this? It’s easy to say this is how Republicans like to run states—cutting budgets, not raising the minimum wage, opposing labor unions. They let the poor and working class stew in their hardscrabble juices. Meanwhile, they distract voters by accusing liberals of waging war on the few sources of personal power in Southerners’ difficult lives: their religious beliefs and owning guns. But go back several decades when segregationist Democrats ruled; for the most part, they weren’t very different from today’s Republicans.
So what is it that perpetuates decades of poverty in the Deep South? What follows are eight bundles of statistics tracking this latest cycle of poverty. Could it be that people who historically have been treated badly, who have little money in their pockets but look to the sky and pray, expect less from others—including the public and private sector? Does that explain why red-staters cling to God, gun ownership and a “leave-me-alone” ferocity?
They expect politicians to defend their values and their pride and little more?
What’s going on here isn’t entirely political, even if it is used by red-state Republicans in their personal drive for power and influence. Look at what the following statistics reveal about red-staters trapped in deep cycles of poverty. What is the thread that connects lousy governance, bad health, evangelical religion and firearms fervor?
1. Southern states have the most poor people.
2. Deep South states have no minimum wage.
3. Deep South has lowest economic mobility.
4. South has lowest per capita spending by state government.
5. Forget about decent preventative healthcare.
6. One result: people self-medicate in response.
7. Forget the lottery, just pray to Jesus.
8. And hold onto that gun!
So what is it that perpetuates decades of poverty in the Deep South? What follows are eight bundles of statistics tracking this latest cycle of poverty. Could it be that people who historically have been treated badly, who have little money in their pockets but look to the sky and pray, expect less from others—including the public and private sector? Does that explain why red-staters cling to God, gun ownership and a “leave-me-alone” ferocity?
They expect politicians to defend their values and their pride and little more?
What’s going on here isn’t entirely political, even if it is used by red-state Republicans in their personal drive for power and influence. Look at what the following statistics reveal about red-staters trapped in deep cycles of poverty. What is the thread that connects lousy governance, bad health, evangelical religion and firearms fervor?
1. Southern states have the most poor people.
2. Deep South states have no minimum wage.
3. Deep South has lowest economic mobility.
4. South has lowest per capita spending by state government.
5. Forget about decent preventative healthcare.
6. One result: people self-medicate in response.
7. Forget the lottery, just pray to Jesus.
8. And hold onto that gun!
payback headlines - how you are screwed!!
*Unemployment rises in eight Trump states — and it could cost him in 2020
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Millions to lose benefits under Trump’s proposal to change how poverty is defined, new study shows(ARTICLE BELOW)
*U.S. businesses beg to be left off Trump's tariff list
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Disgusted truckers turn on Trump after their taxes skyrocket $8,000 while Wall Street gets lavished
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*US recession odds jump as Trump’s trade wars take a bite out of the economy
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*TRUMP TAKES AIM AT WILDFIRE FIGHTING JOBS AND FUNDING AS WEST PREPARES FOR BRUTAL SEASON(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump’s tariffs will cost every US household about $800 — and these everyday items will all cost more
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*How The Trump Administration Plans To Cut Social Security Benefits
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump Is Terrible for Rural America
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Farmers hit by Hurricane Michael left without federal aid as Trump fumes over funds for Puerto Rico
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*WISCONSIN DAIRY FARMS HAVE BEEN HIT HARD BY REPUBLICAN GOVERNANCE. NOW THERE'S 1,400 FEWER OF THEM
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Farmer Income Drops Most Since 2016 as Trade War Losses Mount
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Gold Star widow "shocked" by new tax bill on sons' survivor benefits
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump’s trade policies are costing Americans a lot of money
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump is helping big banks hurt his own voters — after railing against them in 2016: NYT reporter
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump’s New Proposal Cheats 8 Million Working People of Overtime Pay
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*THE HOUSE JUST PASSED A BILL THAT COULD BAR THE IRS FROM CREATING A 'FREE' TAX-PREPARATION SOFTWARE LIKE TURBOTAX — HERE'S WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU(ARTICLE BELOW)
*PAUL KRUGMAN DROPS A BOMB ON TRUMP’S BASE — HE JUST SADDLED YOU WITH $2 TRILLION MORE IN DEBT
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Paul Krugman uses one chart to show how Trump is screwing over his own voters in West Virginia
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump's tariffs are costing Americans $1.4 billion each month, study shows
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump has sold out the farmers who voted for him — and now they’re racing toward calamity
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*It just became easier for employers to dump retirees’ pensions
(ARTICLE BELOW)
PAYBACK FUNNIES(at the end)
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GREEN PARTY FucK YOU! - THIS IS WHAT TRUMP HAS WROUGHT...SAME AS HILLARY
Cattledog - demo. underground
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29 rules have been overturned
Flood building standards Proposed ban on a potentially harmful pesticide Freeze on new coal leases on public lands Methane reporting requirement Anti-dumping rule for coal companies Decision on Keystone XL pipeline Decision on Dakota Access pipeline Third-party settlement funds Offshore drilling ban in the Atlantic and Arctic Ban on seismic air gun testing in the Atlantic Northern Bering Sea climate resilience plan Royalty regulations for oil, gas and coal Inclusion of greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews Permit-issuing process for new infrastructure projects Green Climate Fund contributions Mining restrictions in Bristol Bay, Alaska Endangered species listings Hunting ban on wolves and grizzly bears in Alaska Protections for whales and sea turtles Reusable water bottles rule for national parks National parks climate order Environmental mitigation for federal projects Calculation for “social cost” of carbon Planning rule for public lands Copper filter cake listing as hazardous waste Mine cleanup rule Sewage treatment pollution regulations Ban on use of lead ammunition on federal lands Restrictions on fishing |
24 rollbacks are in progress
Clean Power Plan Paris climate agreement Wetland and tributary protections Car and truck fuel-efficiency standards Status of 10 national monuments Status of 12 marine areas Limits on toxic discharge from power plants Coal ash discharge regulations Emissions standards for new, modified and reconstructed power plants Emissions rules for power plant start-up and shutdown Sage grouse habitat protections Fracking regulations on public lands Regulations on oil and gas drilling in some national parks Oil rig safety regulations Regulations for offshore oil and gas exploration by floating vessels Drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge Hunting method regulations in Alaska Requirement for tracking emissions on federal highways Emissions standards for trailers and glider kits Limits on methane emissions on public lands Permitting process for air-polluting plants Offshore oil and gas leasing Use of birds in subsistence handicrafts Coal dust rule |
7 rollbacks are in limbo
Methane emission limits at new oil and gas wells
Limits on landfill emissions
Mercury emission limits for power plants
Hazardous chemical facility regulations
Groundwater protections for uranium mines
Efficiency standards for federal buildings
Rule helping consumers buy fuel-efficient tires
Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/climate/trump-environment-rules-reversed.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Methane emission limits at new oil and gas wells
Limits on landfill emissions
Mercury emission limits for power plants
Hazardous chemical facility regulations
Groundwater protections for uranium mines
Efficiency standards for federal buildings
Rule helping consumers buy fuel-efficient tires
Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/climate/trump-environment-rules-reversed.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
The True Cost of Voodoo Economics
The Reagan-Bush Debt is how much of the national debt of the United States is attributable to the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and
the Republican fiscal policy of Borrow-And-Spend.
As of Monday, June 03, 2019 at 8:04:47AM CT,
The Current ReaganBush Debt is:
$13,858,952,514,863.00
which means that in a total of 20 years,
these three presidents have led to the creation of
91.90%
of the entire national debt
in only 8.2305% of the 243 years of the existence of the United States of America.
@ReaganBushDebt.org
Unemployment rises in eight Trump states — and it could cost him in 2020
June 24, 2019
By Brad Reed - Raw Story
President Donald Trump is counting on the economy to remain strong throughout 2020 — but it’s already showing some signs of slowing in a couple of key states.
CNBC reports that unemployment in eight different states that Trump won in 2016 has actually risen year-over-year, and it’s eroded his popularity.
Although Trump is still very popular in some of these states, including Mississippi and South Carolina, the latest Morning Consult poll cited by CNBC shows that the president actually has a negative net approval rating in the states of North Carolina and Arizona, which are two states that he will need to hold if he wants to win in 2020.
In total, Arizona and North Carolina account for 26 votes in the electoral college. Trump has a net approval rating of -4 percent in North Carolina and of -6 percent in Arizona, according to Morning Consult.
Given that Trump won both of two states by less than 4 percentage points in 2016, a slight shift away from the president could be enough to tip those states away from him and toward his eventual Democratic rival.
CNBC reports that unemployment in eight different states that Trump won in 2016 has actually risen year-over-year, and it’s eroded his popularity.
Although Trump is still very popular in some of these states, including Mississippi and South Carolina, the latest Morning Consult poll cited by CNBC shows that the president actually has a negative net approval rating in the states of North Carolina and Arizona, which are two states that he will need to hold if he wants to win in 2020.
In total, Arizona and North Carolina account for 26 votes in the electoral college. Trump has a net approval rating of -4 percent in North Carolina and of -6 percent in Arizona, according to Morning Consult.
Given that Trump won both of two states by less than 4 percentage points in 2016, a slight shift away from the president could be enough to tip those states away from him and toward his eventual Democratic rival.
PAYBACK!!!
Millions to lose benefits under Trump’s proposal to change how poverty is defined, new study shows
An insidious change to America's safety net system.
AMANDA MICHELLE GOMEZ - Thinkprogress
JUN 18, 2019, 11:51 AM
A new study released Tuesday shows just how insidious the Trump administration’s proposal to change the way the federal government measures poverty actually is. In short: millions could lose health and food benefits.
By way of background, in May, Trump’s budget agency sought public comment on updating the inflation rate used by the Census Bureau to determine the poverty line and estimate who’s poor. This technical change matters a lot because the federal poverty line is used to determine who’s eligible for government benefits like Medicaid, food stamps, and other assistance programs.
The administration floated a lot of options to replace what’s known as the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is what the government currently uses to estimate the federal poverty line. But given the administration’s desire to slash benefits, as made clear over the years in proposed budgets and bills, it is likely to use a measurement that would redefine poverty in a way that cuts federal assistance to millions of low-income Americans.
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) analyzed the effects of one optionthe administration is likely leaning towards: “chained CPI” (or C-CPI), which was also used in the GOP tax bill passed in 2017. Chained CPI usually grows slower than traditional CPI, which means a lot of low-income people would be at risk of losing aid if the administration moves forward with this option.
The CBPP estimated that by the 10th year of calculating the poverty line using chained CPI, millions of people — including pregnant women and children — would become ineligible for or receive less help from various government programs.
Here’s the progressive think tank’s breakdown:
Due to some limitations, CBPP says it likely “modestly” overstated the impact of eligibility changes, but that “should not change the qualitative conclusions.” The bottom line is people will lose government assistance. It will be acute for those who do, with some losing multiple benefits.
In a press call on Tuesday, CBPP Vice President for Health Policy Aviva Aron-Dine noted this is one of the “most sweeping” federal actions affecting poor and modest Americans. The administration would also be undermining some of its own policy priorities, including addressing the rising cost of prescription drugs.
The ultimate irony, said Aron-Dine, is that by making the hardship worse, it makes it seem like fewer people are poor. But in reality, there’s strong evidence to suggest that the current poverty line underestimates what poor families need and that these families experience higher inflation than the general population as a whole, she said.
The public comment period for this rule will end on Friday, at which point the administration can move forward with its guidance. There are legal questions as the guidance is not moving forward through formal rule making.
By way of background, in May, Trump’s budget agency sought public comment on updating the inflation rate used by the Census Bureau to determine the poverty line and estimate who’s poor. This technical change matters a lot because the federal poverty line is used to determine who’s eligible for government benefits like Medicaid, food stamps, and other assistance programs.
The administration floated a lot of options to replace what’s known as the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is what the government currently uses to estimate the federal poverty line. But given the administration’s desire to slash benefits, as made clear over the years in proposed budgets and bills, it is likely to use a measurement that would redefine poverty in a way that cuts federal assistance to millions of low-income Americans.
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) analyzed the effects of one optionthe administration is likely leaning towards: “chained CPI” (or C-CPI), which was also used in the GOP tax bill passed in 2017. Chained CPI usually grows slower than traditional CPI, which means a lot of low-income people would be at risk of losing aid if the administration moves forward with this option.
The CBPP estimated that by the 10th year of calculating the poverty line using chained CPI, millions of people — including pregnant women and children — would become ineligible for or receive less help from various government programs.
Here’s the progressive think tank’s breakdown:
- More than 250,000 adults would lose health insurance through Medicaid.
- More than 300,000 kids and some pregnant women would lose health insurance through the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
- Millions of people would receive fewer subsidies for purchasing health insurance on the Obamacare marketplace, making it more expensive to do so.
- More than 250,000 seniors and people with disabilities would lose or receive less access to the Medicare Part D subsidy program, forcing them to pay more for prescription drugs.
- More than 150,000 seniors and people with disabilities would lose premium assistance for Medicare Part B, meaning they’d have to pay over $1,500 to see a doctor.
- Nearly 200,000 people would lose food benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
- More than 100,000 students would become ineligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and more than 100,000 would lose free meals but remain eligible for reduced-price lunch.
- About 40,000 infants and young children would lose access to care such as breastfeeding support and healthy food through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
Due to some limitations, CBPP says it likely “modestly” overstated the impact of eligibility changes, but that “should not change the qualitative conclusions.” The bottom line is people will lose government assistance. It will be acute for those who do, with some losing multiple benefits.
In a press call on Tuesday, CBPP Vice President for Health Policy Aviva Aron-Dine noted this is one of the “most sweeping” federal actions affecting poor and modest Americans. The administration would also be undermining some of its own policy priorities, including addressing the rising cost of prescription drugs.
The ultimate irony, said Aron-Dine, is that by making the hardship worse, it makes it seem like fewer people are poor. But in reality, there’s strong evidence to suggest that the current poverty line underestimates what poor families need and that these families experience higher inflation than the general population as a whole, she said.
The public comment period for this rule will end on Friday, at which point the administration can move forward with its guidance. There are legal questions as the guidance is not moving forward through formal rule making.
they are crying because their slave-labor produced products will cost more!!!
U.S. businesses beg to be left off Trump's tariff list
Uday Sampath in Bengaluru - Reuters
JUNE 17, 2019 / 6:46 AM
(Reuters) - Hundreds of U.S. businesses from local bridal shops to multi-billion dollar retailers have submitted comments to the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office opposing President Donald Trump’s plan to slap tariffs on another $300 billion of Chinese imports.
The higher tariffs would affect everything from apparel and footwear to fireworks and cellphones, and was likely to raise prices for U.S. consumers, the companies warned in submissions ahead of the start of seven days of public hearings on Monday.
Diane Cheatham, owner of Diane’s Formal Affair, an Alabama-based women’s boutique, said new tariffs would completely shut down her American suppliers, who will be unable to come up with the funding to cover the additional 25% they would need to pay to import their products.
“I am writing this letter pleading with you to keep our industry out of the next round of tariffs,” Cheatham said. “I stand shoulder to shoulder with thousands of business owners in this plea. Help us make AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
Cheatham’s comments were echoed by many more U.S. business owners who said the new levies would hurt consumers and cause job losses.
Spirit of 76, a fireworks company that imports 100% of its product from China, said the tariffs would cause significant harm to its business where profit margins are already razor thin.
It said it would have to raise prices and the resulting loss in sales would impact hiring and expansion plans.
Large public companies, many of whom’s shares sank in May on concern over the impact of tariffs on growth, also warned in broad terms of the trouble an outright trade war would cause.
“We strongly oppose the imposition of additional tariffs,” Ralph Lauren Corp said in a letter addressed to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
The luxury retailer asked for apparel and footwear to be removed from the tariff list, arguing that a rise in duties will lower sales and lead to U.S. workers losing their jobs.
Roku Inc, Tommy Hilfiger owner PVH corp and Best Buy are among a number of companies who have asked to testify at the hearings.
The higher tariffs would affect everything from apparel and footwear to fireworks and cellphones, and was likely to raise prices for U.S. consumers, the companies warned in submissions ahead of the start of seven days of public hearings on Monday.
Diane Cheatham, owner of Diane’s Formal Affair, an Alabama-based women’s boutique, said new tariffs would completely shut down her American suppliers, who will be unable to come up with the funding to cover the additional 25% they would need to pay to import their products.
“I am writing this letter pleading with you to keep our industry out of the next round of tariffs,” Cheatham said. “I stand shoulder to shoulder with thousands of business owners in this plea. Help us make AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
Cheatham’s comments were echoed by many more U.S. business owners who said the new levies would hurt consumers and cause job losses.
Spirit of 76, a fireworks company that imports 100% of its product from China, said the tariffs would cause significant harm to its business where profit margins are already razor thin.
It said it would have to raise prices and the resulting loss in sales would impact hiring and expansion plans.
Large public companies, many of whom’s shares sank in May on concern over the impact of tariffs on growth, also warned in broad terms of the trouble an outright trade war would cause.
“We strongly oppose the imposition of additional tariffs,” Ralph Lauren Corp said in a letter addressed to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
The luxury retailer asked for apparel and footwear to be removed from the tariff list, arguing that a rise in duties will lower sales and lead to U.S. workers losing their jobs.
Roku Inc, Tommy Hilfiger owner PVH corp and Best Buy are among a number of companies who have asked to testify at the hearings.
Disgusted truckers turn on Trump after their taxes skyrocket $8,000 while Wall Street gets lavished
June 5, 2019
By David Edwards - Raw Story
MSNBC spoke to a group of trucker drivers this week who say that President Donald Trump hasn’t kept his campaign promises.
After Trump recently called his economy “the best ever,” MSNBC’s Morgan Radford spoke with a group of truckers who disagreed. Several of the truckers were Trump voters who don’t expect to vote for the president again.
“Do you feel like this administration is listening to you as truckers?” Radford asked.
“No, ma’am,” one trucker replied.
“No, they’re not listening! Not at all!” another driver insisted.
The group also revealed that all of their taxes went up after Republicans cut taxes mostly for the wealthy.
“All of you?” Radford said. “So most of you saw your taxes increase? The reason, something called a per diem. In the past, truckers could deduct things like food and daily expenses from their taxable income. Now with Trump’s new tax bill, they no longer can.”
“I have a young family at home and with our per diem, they took the per diem out,” one driver told Radford. “That made an $8,000 difference.”
“You said you also believed that the president would help truckers,” Radford observed. “Do you think he’s doing a good job?”
“No, I don’t,” the trucker replied. “There’s nothing that he’s doing to help us out out here in any way possible. None.”
“Mr. Trump ran on the platform of doing away with the Obama bad regulations,” another trucker said. “Well, he quite well done that for, I’m going to say, corporate America, but us blue collar America, we have regulations that we have when Obama was in office, and I want to ask him, why didn’t he do away with the bad regulations for us independent operators?”
After Trump recently called his economy “the best ever,” MSNBC’s Morgan Radford spoke with a group of truckers who disagreed. Several of the truckers were Trump voters who don’t expect to vote for the president again.
“Do you feel like this administration is listening to you as truckers?” Radford asked.
“No, ma’am,” one trucker replied.
“No, they’re not listening! Not at all!” another driver insisted.
The group also revealed that all of their taxes went up after Republicans cut taxes mostly for the wealthy.
“All of you?” Radford said. “So most of you saw your taxes increase? The reason, something called a per diem. In the past, truckers could deduct things like food and daily expenses from their taxable income. Now with Trump’s new tax bill, they no longer can.”
“I have a young family at home and with our per diem, they took the per diem out,” one driver told Radford. “That made an $8,000 difference.”
“You said you also believed that the president would help truckers,” Radford observed. “Do you think he’s doing a good job?”
“No, I don’t,” the trucker replied. “There’s nothing that he’s doing to help us out out here in any way possible. None.”
“Mr. Trump ran on the platform of doing away with the Obama bad regulations,” another trucker said. “Well, he quite well done that for, I’m going to say, corporate America, but us blue collar America, we have regulations that we have when Obama was in office, and I want to ask him, why didn’t he do away with the bad regulations for us independent operators?”
US recession odds jump as Trump’s trade wars take a bite out of the economy
June 3, 2019
By Agence France-Presse - Raw Story
The odds of a US recession by next year have increased sharply, with mounting protectionism continuing to pose the greatest economic threat, according to a business economic survey Monday.
Nearly all the respondents to the quarterly survey from the National Association for Business Economics predicted growth would slow in 2019 but were moderately less gloomy about the risks to their outlook.
However, the poll of 53 economic forecasters from major US corporations and universities was conducted in the first half of May, just as US trade relations with China took a sudden turn for the worse but before US President Donald Trump’s latest threat to impose new tariffs on Mexico in a dispute over migration starting at five percent and quickly increasing to 25 percent.
“Increased trade protectionism is considered the primary downside risk to growth by a majority of respondents, followed by financial market strains and a global growth slowdown,” Gregory Daco of Oxford Economics, who chaired the survey, said in the report.
“Recession risks are perceived to be low in the near term but to rise rapidly in 2020.”
The panelists put the odds at 60 percent for a US recession before the end of 2020 — nearly double the 35 percent forecast in the survey three months ago.
Nearly 90 percent of respondents said they had cut their growth forecasts in recent months due to US trade policy, which has involved battles with all major US trading partners, but even so the overall consensus for this year and next are a bit higher than the last survey.
Panelists now expect GDP growth to fall to 2.6 percent this year and 2.1 percent by next year, from 2.9 percent at the end of 2018.
Most, or 60 percent, said the balance of risks was weighted to the downside but this was down from 74 percent in the previous survey.
Nearly all the respondents to the quarterly survey from the National Association for Business Economics predicted growth would slow in 2019 but were moderately less gloomy about the risks to their outlook.
However, the poll of 53 economic forecasters from major US corporations and universities was conducted in the first half of May, just as US trade relations with China took a sudden turn for the worse but before US President Donald Trump’s latest threat to impose new tariffs on Mexico in a dispute over migration starting at five percent and quickly increasing to 25 percent.
“Increased trade protectionism is considered the primary downside risk to growth by a majority of respondents, followed by financial market strains and a global growth slowdown,” Gregory Daco of Oxford Economics, who chaired the survey, said in the report.
“Recession risks are perceived to be low in the near term but to rise rapidly in 2020.”
The panelists put the odds at 60 percent for a US recession before the end of 2020 — nearly double the 35 percent forecast in the survey three months ago.
Nearly 90 percent of respondents said they had cut their growth forecasts in recent months due to US trade policy, which has involved battles with all major US trading partners, but even so the overall consensus for this year and next are a bit higher than the last survey.
Panelists now expect GDP growth to fall to 2.6 percent this year and 2.1 percent by next year, from 2.9 percent at the end of 2018.
Most, or 60 percent, said the balance of risks was weighted to the downside but this was down from 74 percent in the previous survey.
thank trump voters!!!
Trump takes aim at wildfire fighting jobs and funding as West prepares for brutal season
Massive cuts to a federal jobs program and an ongoing feud with California are setting the stage.
E.A. CRUNDEN - thinkprogress
MAY 28, 2019, 1:53 PM
The Trump administration is planning to cut over a thousand jobs — including many wildland firefighting jobs — in what’s thought to be the largest federal jobs cut in a decade. The move comes ahead of another wildfire season and amid threatened halts to financial assistance following deadly fires last year.
The latest attempt in what appears to undermine wildfire preparedness includes ending a federal program that trains young people for jobs including wildfire fighting, while at the same time withholding wildfire reimbursements California officials say are owed from last year. All of this serves to deepen the feud between President Donald Trump and West Coast states over disaster assistance. Meanwhile, multiple states are preparing for another brutal wildfire season based on current federal projections.
In an announcement buried on the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend, the Trump administration announced that it will end a program under the Forest Service, run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers (CCCs) train young people between the ages 16 to 24 in rural and disadvantaged areas for jobs including wildland firefighting and forestry, in addition to disaster recovery. The 25 centers are predominantly in the South and West and located on federal lands, with more than 3,000 students employed by the program.
Nine of the centers will close, with another 16 set to move to state control or to be taken over by private entities, as control of the program shifts to the Labor Department. Centers in Washington, Oregon, Kentucky, Montana, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Virginia, and North Carolina are all slated for closure. Roughly 1,100 jobs will be lost — potentially the largest federal workforce reduction in a decade.
“As USDA looks to the future, it is imperative that the Forest Service focus on and prioritize our core natural resource mission to improve the condition and resilience of our Nation’s forests, and step away from activities and programs that are not essential to that core mission,” USDA head Sonny Perdue wrote in a letter to Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta on Friday.
The program has suffered from safety issues, along with inconsistencies in job placement. But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed dismay over the massive job cuts, while union leaders have slammed the decision as “a coordinated attack on the most vulnerable populations in the country.”
In a statement following the announcement, National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) National President Randy Erwin lamented the potential implications for wildfire fighting in particular.
“[O]nly the CCC’s [sic] train students to serve as wildland forest firefighters to help with fire suppression operations during fire season,” Erwin said. “There is no plan for this loss of resources to the country which has seen more powerful fires with each passing year.”
Wildfires have become significantly more deadly and destructive in recent years, with the season now considered to run virtually year-round amid worsening climate impacts and urban sprawl.
According to Wildfire Today, one of the CCCs slated to close in Kentucky sent personnel on 40 assignments in 2016 alone. And a review by NFFE found that more than 300 students provided more than 200,000 hours of wildfire-related support in 2017. It is unclear, however, what the loss of the CCCs might mean for efforts to combat wildfires during this year’s fire season.
That reduction in wildfire assistance comes amid ongoing sparring between Trump and California. Last November, the president largely blamed the state for its wildfire problems, accusing California of “gross mismanagement of the forests” and threatening to withhold federal aid. Now, the Forest Service is accusing California of overbilling with its $72 million reimbursement request, money the state owes its fire agencies for last year’s work on federal lands.
The Forest Service is demanding proof of “actual expenses” for the services rendered on public lands and has launched an audit into the California Fire Assistance Agreement (CFAA), which reimburses the state for such costs. That means the federal government is now withholding more than $9 million of the total amount requested from California, even as the state stares down another wildfire season.
The 2018 wildfire season is connected with at least 100 deaths and involved the efforts of thousands of firefighters in California alone. This year could be equally dire, with western parts of Washington already prepared for an exceptionally bad season. That area has seen an abnormally dry year so far, with outdoor burns already reported throughout the month of March, which is unusual.
“Scared,” Dave Skrinde, a fire district chief in Washington, told local reporters, speaking about the wildfire season. “That’s my gut feeling.”
And according to the National Interagency Fire Center, Washington isn’t the only statethat needs to be on heightened alert for wildfires over the next few months. Areas across the West — including parts of Oregon, which is losing a CCC — are at risk. Warming temperatures in Alaska, meanwhile, have made the state more vulnerable to wildfires, with southeast Alaska currently experiencing its first recorded extreme drought in history.
The latest attempt in what appears to undermine wildfire preparedness includes ending a federal program that trains young people for jobs including wildfire fighting, while at the same time withholding wildfire reimbursements California officials say are owed from last year. All of this serves to deepen the feud between President Donald Trump and West Coast states over disaster assistance. Meanwhile, multiple states are preparing for another brutal wildfire season based on current federal projections.
In an announcement buried on the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend, the Trump administration announced that it will end a program under the Forest Service, run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers (CCCs) train young people between the ages 16 to 24 in rural and disadvantaged areas for jobs including wildland firefighting and forestry, in addition to disaster recovery. The 25 centers are predominantly in the South and West and located on federal lands, with more than 3,000 students employed by the program.
Nine of the centers will close, with another 16 set to move to state control or to be taken over by private entities, as control of the program shifts to the Labor Department. Centers in Washington, Oregon, Kentucky, Montana, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Virginia, and North Carolina are all slated for closure. Roughly 1,100 jobs will be lost — potentially the largest federal workforce reduction in a decade.
“As USDA looks to the future, it is imperative that the Forest Service focus on and prioritize our core natural resource mission to improve the condition and resilience of our Nation’s forests, and step away from activities and programs that are not essential to that core mission,” USDA head Sonny Perdue wrote in a letter to Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta on Friday.
The program has suffered from safety issues, along with inconsistencies in job placement. But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed dismay over the massive job cuts, while union leaders have slammed the decision as “a coordinated attack on the most vulnerable populations in the country.”
In a statement following the announcement, National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) National President Randy Erwin lamented the potential implications for wildfire fighting in particular.
“[O]nly the CCC’s [sic] train students to serve as wildland forest firefighters to help with fire suppression operations during fire season,” Erwin said. “There is no plan for this loss of resources to the country which has seen more powerful fires with each passing year.”
Wildfires have become significantly more deadly and destructive in recent years, with the season now considered to run virtually year-round amid worsening climate impacts and urban sprawl.
According to Wildfire Today, one of the CCCs slated to close in Kentucky sent personnel on 40 assignments in 2016 alone. And a review by NFFE found that more than 300 students provided more than 200,000 hours of wildfire-related support in 2017. It is unclear, however, what the loss of the CCCs might mean for efforts to combat wildfires during this year’s fire season.
That reduction in wildfire assistance comes amid ongoing sparring between Trump and California. Last November, the president largely blamed the state for its wildfire problems, accusing California of “gross mismanagement of the forests” and threatening to withhold federal aid. Now, the Forest Service is accusing California of overbilling with its $72 million reimbursement request, money the state owes its fire agencies for last year’s work on federal lands.
The Forest Service is demanding proof of “actual expenses” for the services rendered on public lands and has launched an audit into the California Fire Assistance Agreement (CFAA), which reimburses the state for such costs. That means the federal government is now withholding more than $9 million of the total amount requested from California, even as the state stares down another wildfire season.
The 2018 wildfire season is connected with at least 100 deaths and involved the efforts of thousands of firefighters in California alone. This year could be equally dire, with western parts of Washington already prepared for an exceptionally bad season. That area has seen an abnormally dry year so far, with outdoor burns already reported throughout the month of March, which is unusual.
“Scared,” Dave Skrinde, a fire district chief in Washington, told local reporters, speaking about the wildfire season. “That’s my gut feeling.”
And according to the National Interagency Fire Center, Washington isn’t the only statethat needs to be on heightened alert for wildfires over the next few months. Areas across the West — including parts of Oregon, which is losing a CCC — are at risk. Warming temperatures in Alaska, meanwhile, have made the state more vulnerable to wildfires, with southeast Alaska currently experiencing its first recorded extreme drought in history.
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Trump’s tariffs will cost every US household about $800 — and these everyday items will all cost more
Travis Gettys - raw story
15 MAY 2019 AT 11:29 ET
Prices are about to jump for a lot of consumer goods, thanks to President Donald Trump’s trade war with China.
The president has added a 25-percent tariff on another $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, and China responded with 25-percent duties on another $60 billion in American goods — and that will hit U.S. consumers as soon as this summer, reported NBC News.
Trump insists China will bear the brunt, but economic experts say he’s exactly wrong.
“The supply chain will try to absorb as much of the blow as they can, then they will move those costs forward to consumers,” said David French, senior vice president of government relations at the National Retail Federation.
Retailers are stockpiling merchandise in hopes of riding out a trade war, but those supplies will eventually run out — and consumers will pay more.
Consumers are already paying up to 225 percent more for imported washing machines, thanks to tariffs imposed last year, and a report from Oxford Economics estimated that tariffs could cost every American household about $800.
Those costs will hit cleaning products, diapers, food, luggage and mattresses in about a month, and additional tariffs could raise costs on camping equipment, clothing, shoes and sporting goods.
Consumer electronics — including computers, TVs and video game consoles — will also get more expensive. A new iPhone could cost about $160 more, according to analysts.
“If you were planning a large purchase six weeks from now, you may want to make that purchase today,” French said.
The president has added a 25-percent tariff on another $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, and China responded with 25-percent duties on another $60 billion in American goods — and that will hit U.S. consumers as soon as this summer, reported NBC News.
Trump insists China will bear the brunt, but economic experts say he’s exactly wrong.
“The supply chain will try to absorb as much of the blow as they can, then they will move those costs forward to consumers,” said David French, senior vice president of government relations at the National Retail Federation.
Retailers are stockpiling merchandise in hopes of riding out a trade war, but those supplies will eventually run out — and consumers will pay more.
Consumers are already paying up to 225 percent more for imported washing machines, thanks to tariffs imposed last year, and a report from Oxford Economics estimated that tariffs could cost every American household about $800.
Those costs will hit cleaning products, diapers, food, luggage and mattresses in about a month, and additional tariffs could raise costs on camping equipment, clothing, shoes and sporting goods.
Consumer electronics — including computers, TVs and video game consoles — will also get more expensive. A new iPhone could cost about $160 more, according to analysts.
“If you were planning a large purchase six weeks from now, you may want to make that purchase today,” French said.
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How The Trump Administration Plans To Cut Social Security Benefits
Move Will Deny Payments to Persons with Language Disabilities
By David Cay Johnston, DCReport Editor-in-Chief
5/13/19
The Trump administration, continuing its assaults on the most vulnerable Americans, is now going after disabled people with limited English proficiency. Dependent children of people who become disabled are among those likely to be hurt by the new rule.
The rule, not yet in effect, would deny Social Security disability benefits to people whose language difficulty makes them unemployable in the market, but who Team Trump thinks should be able to find jobs where an inability to speak or understand instructions is only a minor problem, citing among other examples cook and gardener.
The justification makes no mention of whether people have the stamina, agility and muscle power to do such work, especially if they are disabled. Most recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance payments receive between $800 and $1,800 per month (the average for 2019 is $1,234).
The proposed rule contradicts another Trump rule change. Both rules are squarely aimed at immigrants.
The proposed Social Security rule change is the latest example showing that to Team Trump no one is too poor, too powerless or too far down the economic ladder to escape their malicious attention.
People with difficulty speaking in any language could be denied benefits, opponents argue.
“We’re very concerned at how this administration is chipping away” at benefits for people, said Jenna McDavid of the Diverse Elders Coalition.
Hidden Intention
Buried deep in the Federal Register notice is the point of the rule change, which “would revise ‘Illiterate or unable to communicate in English’ to simply ‘Illiterate.’”
We’ve linked to the administration’s pending new rule explanation in the Federal Register, a difficult to comprehend government publication which I review frequently. This explanation stands out as one of the most verbose and obtuse proposed rule changes I’ve ever read because the explanation is designed to obscure the purpose.
The existing 40-year-old rule says “limited education means ability in reasoning, arithmetic, and language skills, but not enough to allow a person with these educational qualifications to do most of the more complex job duties needed in semi-skilled or skilled jobs.”
The rule change comes at a time when, the Trump administration says, the share of American workers with limited English proficiency is growing.
“The working-age population (ages 25–64) with [limited English proficiency] increased from approximately 5.4 to 17.8 million between 1980 and 2016, while more than doubling, from 5.1% to 10.5%, as a percentage of the population,” the notice of the proposed rule change stated. “Within this group, the number of individuals who spoke no English more than quadrupled from approximately 682,000 to 2.8 million” people.”
McDavid noted that the Trump administration has taken diametrically opposed positions on the value of English proficiency.
In a proposed rule to turn away people at the border, Team Trump asserted “an inability to speak and understand English may adversely affect whether an [immigrant] can obtain employment.” But in the proposed Social Security rule, McDavid pointed out, “the Administration claims that ability to speak English is irrelevant for an individual’s ability to find employment.”
No Definition of ‘Illiteracy’
One anonymous commentator noted that the proposed rule fails to define illiteracy. That would matter if the government argued that someone who can read and write in their native tongue is literate even if they cannot communicate in English, creating grounds to deny benefits.
About one in five Americans speak a language other than English at home. And about 25 million Americans, or one in 13, have limited proficiency in English.
Some of the 241 people who filed comments favor denying benefits to disabled people who are not proficient in English.
“There is no reason for them not to be able to communicate in the English language,” Peter Alamillo III wrote. “Children are taught English in school, either public or private. There is no reason for applicants for survivors [sic] benefits, etc. to have an inability to communicate in English.”
He said the proposed new rule “is a very prudent change that will help to save the SSA money for individuals and programs that truly need it instead of wasting it on foolhardy and unnecessary non-essential matters.”
Poor and Sick
Others noted that individuals lacking proficiency in English are more likely to be poor and suffer ill unhealth, among them Karla Guerra, writing on behalf of a community organization in Oakland, Calif. “The implementation of this proposal would result in diminished opportunities for health for disabled LEP individuals and their families,” she wrote.
Emily Voelker complained that the new rule “would mean that over 10,000 disabled and low-English proficient workers per year would no longer qualify for and receive benefits when they are unable to work. It’s discrimination that helps no one – and only hurts people who are already vulnerable to prejudice.
Perhaps the most direct and damning comment was filed by Margo Vanderhill:
“This proposed rule is clearly discriminatory. Many Native Americans cannot speak English (due to living in very isolated regions). They are not immigrants yet [they] would be affected by this rule.
“Other immigrants (documented and legal) may not be able to speak English, but that in no way should bar them from assistance. They may be unable to speak English because of emotional or intellectual disabilities. That does not diminish their qualifications for disability.
The proposed rule change does indicate racial bias and Xenophobic attitudes for those proposing the change.”
Yup. That’s standard operating procedure for this administration, which propagates harm using language that even those highly proficient in English find nearly incomprehensible.
The rule, not yet in effect, would deny Social Security disability benefits to people whose language difficulty makes them unemployable in the market, but who Team Trump thinks should be able to find jobs where an inability to speak or understand instructions is only a minor problem, citing among other examples cook and gardener.
The justification makes no mention of whether people have the stamina, agility and muscle power to do such work, especially if they are disabled. Most recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance payments receive between $800 and $1,800 per month (the average for 2019 is $1,234).
The proposed rule contradicts another Trump rule change. Both rules are squarely aimed at immigrants.
The proposed Social Security rule change is the latest example showing that to Team Trump no one is too poor, too powerless or too far down the economic ladder to escape their malicious attention.
People with difficulty speaking in any language could be denied benefits, opponents argue.
“We’re very concerned at how this administration is chipping away” at benefits for people, said Jenna McDavid of the Diverse Elders Coalition.
Hidden Intention
Buried deep in the Federal Register notice is the point of the rule change, which “would revise ‘Illiterate or unable to communicate in English’ to simply ‘Illiterate.’”
We’ve linked to the administration’s pending new rule explanation in the Federal Register, a difficult to comprehend government publication which I review frequently. This explanation stands out as one of the most verbose and obtuse proposed rule changes I’ve ever read because the explanation is designed to obscure the purpose.
The existing 40-year-old rule says “limited education means ability in reasoning, arithmetic, and language skills, but not enough to allow a person with these educational qualifications to do most of the more complex job duties needed in semi-skilled or skilled jobs.”
The rule change comes at a time when, the Trump administration says, the share of American workers with limited English proficiency is growing.
“The working-age population (ages 25–64) with [limited English proficiency] increased from approximately 5.4 to 17.8 million between 1980 and 2016, while more than doubling, from 5.1% to 10.5%, as a percentage of the population,” the notice of the proposed rule change stated. “Within this group, the number of individuals who spoke no English more than quadrupled from approximately 682,000 to 2.8 million” people.”
McDavid noted that the Trump administration has taken diametrically opposed positions on the value of English proficiency.
In a proposed rule to turn away people at the border, Team Trump asserted “an inability to speak and understand English may adversely affect whether an [immigrant] can obtain employment.” But in the proposed Social Security rule, McDavid pointed out, “the Administration claims that ability to speak English is irrelevant for an individual’s ability to find employment.”
No Definition of ‘Illiteracy’
One anonymous commentator noted that the proposed rule fails to define illiteracy. That would matter if the government argued that someone who can read and write in their native tongue is literate even if they cannot communicate in English, creating grounds to deny benefits.
About one in five Americans speak a language other than English at home. And about 25 million Americans, or one in 13, have limited proficiency in English.
Some of the 241 people who filed comments favor denying benefits to disabled people who are not proficient in English.
“There is no reason for them not to be able to communicate in the English language,” Peter Alamillo III wrote. “Children are taught English in school, either public or private. There is no reason for applicants for survivors [sic] benefits, etc. to have an inability to communicate in English.”
He said the proposed new rule “is a very prudent change that will help to save the SSA money for individuals and programs that truly need it instead of wasting it on foolhardy and unnecessary non-essential matters.”
Poor and Sick
Others noted that individuals lacking proficiency in English are more likely to be poor and suffer ill unhealth, among them Karla Guerra, writing on behalf of a community organization in Oakland, Calif. “The implementation of this proposal would result in diminished opportunities for health for disabled LEP individuals and their families,” she wrote.
Emily Voelker complained that the new rule “would mean that over 10,000 disabled and low-English proficient workers per year would no longer qualify for and receive benefits when they are unable to work. It’s discrimination that helps no one – and only hurts people who are already vulnerable to prejudice.
Perhaps the most direct and damning comment was filed by Margo Vanderhill:
“This proposed rule is clearly discriminatory. Many Native Americans cannot speak English (due to living in very isolated regions). They are not immigrants yet [they] would be affected by this rule.
“Other immigrants (documented and legal) may not be able to speak English, but that in no way should bar them from assistance. They may be unable to speak English because of emotional or intellectual disabilities. That does not diminish their qualifications for disability.
The proposed rule change does indicate racial bias and Xenophobic attitudes for those proposing the change.”
Yup. That’s standard operating procedure for this administration, which propagates harm using language that even those highly proficient in English find nearly incomprehensible.
Trump Is Terrible for Rural America
His biggest supporters are his biggest victims.
By Paul Krugman - ny times
Opinion Columnist
Economists, reports Politico, are fleeing the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service. Six of them resigned on a single day last month. The reason? They are feeling persecuted for publishing reports that shed an unflattering light on Trump policies.
But these reports are just reflecting reality (which has a well-known anti-Trump bias). Rural America is a key part of Donald Trump’s base. In fact, rural areas are the only parts of the country in which Trump has a net positive approval rating. But they’re also the biggest losers under his policies.
What, after all, is Trumpism? In 2016 Trump pretended to be a different kind of Republican, but in practice almost all of his economic agenda has been G.O.P. standard: big tax cuts for corporations and the rich while hacking away at the social safety net. The one big break from orthodoxy has been his protectionism, his eagerness to start trade wars.
And all of these policies disproportionately hurt farm country.
The Trump tax cut largely passes farmers by, because they aren’t corporations and few of them are rich. One of the studies by Agriculture Department economists that raised Trumpian ire showed that to the extent that farmers saw tax reductions, most of the benefits went to the richest 10 percent, while poor farmers actually saw a slight tax increase.
At the same time, the assault on the safety net is especially harmful to rural America, which relies heavily on safety-net programs. Of the 100 counties with the highest percentage of their population receiving food stamps, 85 are rural, and most of the rest are in small metropolitan areas. The expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which Trump keeps trying to kill, had its biggest positive impact on rural areas.
And these programs are crucial to rural Americans even if they don’t personally receive government aid. Safety-net programs bring purchasing power, which helps create rural jobs. Medicaid is also a key factor keeping rural hospitals alive; without it, access to health care would be severely curtailed for rural Americans in general.
What about protectionism? The U.S. farm sector is hugely dependent on access to world markets, much more so than the economy as a whole. American soybean growers export half of what they produce; wheat farmers export 46 percent of their crop. China, in particular, has become a key market for U.S. farm products. That’s why Trump’s recent rage-tweeting over trade, which raised the prospect of an expanded trade war, sent grain markets to a 42-year low.
It’s important to realize, by the way, that the threat to farmers isn’t just about possible foreign retaliation to Trump’s tariffs. One fundamental principle in international economics is that in the long run, taxes on imports end up being taxes on exports as well, usually because they lead to a higher dollar. If the world descends into trade war, U.S. imports and exports will both shrink — and farmers, among our most important exporters, will be the biggest losers.
Why, then, do rural areas support Trump? A lot of it has to do with cultural factors. In particular, rural voters are far more hostile to immigrants than urban voters — especially in communities where there are few immigrants to be found. Lack of familiarity apparently breeds contempt.’
Rural voters also feel disrespected by coastal elites, and Trump has managed to channel their anger. No doubt many rural voters, if they happened to read this column, would react with rage, not at Trump, but at me: “So you think we’re stupid!”
But support for Trump might nonetheless start to crack if rural voters realized how much they are being hurt by his policies. What’s a Trumpist to do?
One answer is to repeat zombie lies. A few weeks ago Trump told a cheering rally that his cuts in the estate tax have helped farmers. This claim is, however, totally false; PolitiFact rated it “pants on fire.” The reality is that in 2017 only about 80 farms and closely held businesses — that’s right, 80 — paid any estate tax at all. Tales of family farms broken up to pay estate tax are pure fiction.
Another answer is to try to suppress the truth. Hence the persecution of Agriculture Department economists who were just trying to do their jobs.
The thing is, the assault on truth will have consequences that go beyond politics. Agriculture’s Economic Research Service isn’t supposed to be a cheering section for whoever is in power. As its mission statement says, its role is to conduct “high-quality, objective economic research to inform and enhance public and private decision making.” And that’s not an idle boast: Along with the Federal Reserve, the research service is a prime example of how good economics can serve clear practical purposes.
Now, however, the service’s ability to do its job is being rapidly degraded, because the Trump administration doesn’t believe in fact-based policy. Basically, it doesn’t believe in facts, period. Everything is political.
And who will pay the price for this degradation? Rural Americans. Trump’s biggest supporters are his biggest victims.
But these reports are just reflecting reality (which has a well-known anti-Trump bias). Rural America is a key part of Donald Trump’s base. In fact, rural areas are the only parts of the country in which Trump has a net positive approval rating. But they’re also the biggest losers under his policies.
What, after all, is Trumpism? In 2016 Trump pretended to be a different kind of Republican, but in practice almost all of his economic agenda has been G.O.P. standard: big tax cuts for corporations and the rich while hacking away at the social safety net. The one big break from orthodoxy has been his protectionism, his eagerness to start trade wars.
And all of these policies disproportionately hurt farm country.
The Trump tax cut largely passes farmers by, because they aren’t corporations and few of them are rich. One of the studies by Agriculture Department economists that raised Trumpian ire showed that to the extent that farmers saw tax reductions, most of the benefits went to the richest 10 percent, while poor farmers actually saw a slight tax increase.
At the same time, the assault on the safety net is especially harmful to rural America, which relies heavily on safety-net programs. Of the 100 counties with the highest percentage of their population receiving food stamps, 85 are rural, and most of the rest are in small metropolitan areas. The expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which Trump keeps trying to kill, had its biggest positive impact on rural areas.
And these programs are crucial to rural Americans even if they don’t personally receive government aid. Safety-net programs bring purchasing power, which helps create rural jobs. Medicaid is also a key factor keeping rural hospitals alive; without it, access to health care would be severely curtailed for rural Americans in general.
What about protectionism? The U.S. farm sector is hugely dependent on access to world markets, much more so than the economy as a whole. American soybean growers export half of what they produce; wheat farmers export 46 percent of their crop. China, in particular, has become a key market for U.S. farm products. That’s why Trump’s recent rage-tweeting over trade, which raised the prospect of an expanded trade war, sent grain markets to a 42-year low.
It’s important to realize, by the way, that the threat to farmers isn’t just about possible foreign retaliation to Trump’s tariffs. One fundamental principle in international economics is that in the long run, taxes on imports end up being taxes on exports as well, usually because they lead to a higher dollar. If the world descends into trade war, U.S. imports and exports will both shrink — and farmers, among our most important exporters, will be the biggest losers.
Why, then, do rural areas support Trump? A lot of it has to do with cultural factors. In particular, rural voters are far more hostile to immigrants than urban voters — especially in communities where there are few immigrants to be found. Lack of familiarity apparently breeds contempt.’
Rural voters also feel disrespected by coastal elites, and Trump has managed to channel their anger. No doubt many rural voters, if they happened to read this column, would react with rage, not at Trump, but at me: “So you think we’re stupid!”
But support for Trump might nonetheless start to crack if rural voters realized how much they are being hurt by his policies. What’s a Trumpist to do?
One answer is to repeat zombie lies. A few weeks ago Trump told a cheering rally that his cuts in the estate tax have helped farmers. This claim is, however, totally false; PolitiFact rated it “pants on fire.” The reality is that in 2017 only about 80 farms and closely held businesses — that’s right, 80 — paid any estate tax at all. Tales of family farms broken up to pay estate tax are pure fiction.
Another answer is to try to suppress the truth. Hence the persecution of Agriculture Department economists who were just trying to do their jobs.
The thing is, the assault on truth will have consequences that go beyond politics. Agriculture’s Economic Research Service isn’t supposed to be a cheering section for whoever is in power. As its mission statement says, its role is to conduct “high-quality, objective economic research to inform and enhance public and private decision making.” And that’s not an idle boast: Along with the Federal Reserve, the research service is a prime example of how good economics can serve clear practical purposes.
Now, however, the service’s ability to do its job is being rapidly degraded, because the Trump administration doesn’t believe in fact-based policy. Basically, it doesn’t believe in facts, period. Everything is political.
And who will pay the price for this degradation? Rural Americans. Trump’s biggest supporters are his biggest victims.
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Farmers hit by Hurricane Michael left without federal aid as Trump fumes over funds for Puerto Rico
Tana Ganeva - raw story
07 MAY 2019 AT 12:44 ET
In October, Hurricane Michael — a category 5 weather event — tore through the Southwestern US.
Michael reportedly left an estimated $25 billion in damages.
But the people impacted the most have yet to get relief, reports CNBC.
Farmers who lost their crop and sustained damage to their businesses have been left out to dry, as relief for Michael is tied up in a large disaster relief package in Congress, as lawmakers fight over aid to Puerto Rico.
Greg Mims, a farmer in southwestern Georgia, described his ongoing ordeal to CNBC.
He had to rebuild his irrigation system — with no aid from the federal government. ““Agriculture is the only thing that is really going on in our little rural community,” Mims said. “It would help tremendously if we could get some type of financial aid.”
As he often does, President Donald Trump weighed in on Twitter.
““The Dems don’t want farmers to get any help,” he tweeted. “Puerto Rico should be very happy and the Dems should stop blocking much needed Disaster Relief!” he wrote.
But the legislation is likely to stall for the foreseeable future. Farmers like Mims are collateral.
“You get to the point where you’re thinking, ‘I don’t think we’re going to see anything out of it,’” Mims told CNBC. “It may be even past frustration and more, I guess, hopeless.”
Michael reportedly left an estimated $25 billion in damages.
But the people impacted the most have yet to get relief, reports CNBC.
Farmers who lost their crop and sustained damage to their businesses have been left out to dry, as relief for Michael is tied up in a large disaster relief package in Congress, as lawmakers fight over aid to Puerto Rico.
Greg Mims, a farmer in southwestern Georgia, described his ongoing ordeal to CNBC.
He had to rebuild his irrigation system — with no aid from the federal government. ““Agriculture is the only thing that is really going on in our little rural community,” Mims said. “It would help tremendously if we could get some type of financial aid.”
As he often does, President Donald Trump weighed in on Twitter.
““The Dems don’t want farmers to get any help,” he tweeted. “Puerto Rico should be very happy and the Dems should stop blocking much needed Disaster Relief!” he wrote.
But the legislation is likely to stall for the foreseeable future. Farmers like Mims are collateral.
“You get to the point where you’re thinking, ‘I don’t think we’re going to see anything out of it,’” Mims told CNBC. “It may be even past frustration and more, I guess, hopeless.”
they keep electing republicans!!!
Wisconsin dairy farms have been hit hard by Republican governance. Now there's 1,400 fewer of them
Hunter
Daily Kos Staff
Saturday May 04, 2019 · 2:30 PM PDT
The New York Times’ write-up on Wisconsin's struggling dairy farmers reads like a case study in how conservatism works to screw over its own constituents as much as or more than any of the people conservatism promises to screw over. The consequences are severe, and in the case of Wisconsin, they are that the total number of dairy herds in the state is now below 8,000: “Over the past two years, nearly 1,200 of the state’s dairy farms have stopped milking cows and so far this year, another 212 have disappeared, with many shifting production to beef or vegetables.”
How did it happen? Through a perfect storm of Republican decisions, all coming together to swamp the state's dairy farmers with one hit after another.
• At heart, it is an oversupply problem. Former (Republican) Gov. Scott Walker set a goal of overtaking (Democratic) California in milk production, for no particular reason other than personal pride and/or spite. The policies he pushed to encourage production worked well—and tanked milk prices, sending them from $25 per 100 lbs to under $17. “It was more an example of arrogance than practicality,” Family Farm Defenders president Joel Greeno told The Times.
• On top of that, the new Republican fury against immigrants—and, especially, the Trump administration's efforts against them—have dried up the supply of immigrant farm labor. Trump may have employed immigrants by the dozens in his own private clubs, but it's getting difficult for the farmers of America to find the workers they need to get their products from farm to market.
• And then came the Trump trade war. Trump's new tariffs meant to cut metals imports have resulted in a bevy of retaliatory tariffs. Among the most devastating to these particular farmers: a new 25% Mexican tariff on American cheese. That's reduced foreign demand even further in a market already suffering from overproduction. The Times pegs expected lost farm revenue from dairy tariffs at about $16.6 billion—far above what Trump's one-check subsidies to farmers are even pretending to cover.
Put it all together, add new corporate megafarms, and there you go: a recipe for shuttering family dairy farms by the hundreds, both in Wisconsin and elsewhere. The ongoing Trump trade war has caused personal farm income to fall by the most that it has in three years.
Trump is still assuring farmers that his still-theoretical modifications to NAFTA will make all the current market pain worthwhile and then some. It's not likely that the 1,400 shuttered Wisconsin dairy farms will find much solace in that.
How did it happen? Through a perfect storm of Republican decisions, all coming together to swamp the state's dairy farmers with one hit after another.
• At heart, it is an oversupply problem. Former (Republican) Gov. Scott Walker set a goal of overtaking (Democratic) California in milk production, for no particular reason other than personal pride and/or spite. The policies he pushed to encourage production worked well—and tanked milk prices, sending them from $25 per 100 lbs to under $17. “It was more an example of arrogance than practicality,” Family Farm Defenders president Joel Greeno told The Times.
• On top of that, the new Republican fury against immigrants—and, especially, the Trump administration's efforts against them—have dried up the supply of immigrant farm labor. Trump may have employed immigrants by the dozens in his own private clubs, but it's getting difficult for the farmers of America to find the workers they need to get their products from farm to market.
• And then came the Trump trade war. Trump's new tariffs meant to cut metals imports have resulted in a bevy of retaliatory tariffs. Among the most devastating to these particular farmers: a new 25% Mexican tariff on American cheese. That's reduced foreign demand even further in a market already suffering from overproduction. The Times pegs expected lost farm revenue from dairy tariffs at about $16.6 billion—far above what Trump's one-check subsidies to farmers are even pretending to cover.
Put it all together, add new corporate megafarms, and there you go: a recipe for shuttering family dairy farms by the hundreds, both in Wisconsin and elsewhere. The ongoing Trump trade war has caused personal farm income to fall by the most that it has in three years.
Trump is still assuring farmers that his still-theoretical modifications to NAFTA will make all the current market pain worthwhile and then some. It's not likely that the 1,400 shuttered Wisconsin dairy farms will find much solace in that.
Farmer Income Drops Most Since 2016 as Trade War Losses Mount
By Mike Dorning and Katia Dmitrieva - bloomberg
on April 29, 2019, 12:47 PM PDT
Personal income for farmers fell by the most in three years in the first quarter, as losses to U.S. agriculture mount from President Donald Trump’s trade wars.
The Commerce Department on Monday cited the steep decline in farm proprietors’ income as a key factor weighing on the nation’s overall personal income growth in March, even though agricultural producers represent only about 2 percent of total employed Americans.
The report provided fresh evidence of the growing financial strain on U.S. farmers hit by the trade war, low commodity prices and a series of natural disasters including spring floods in the Midwest. With rural voters a key part of Trump’s electoral coalition, it also underscores the political pressure to conclude the China trade war as U.S. negotiators begin another round of talks in Beijing this week.
One-time subsidy payments from the Trump administration to compensate producers for some of their trade-war losses helped prop up farm income in the previous quarter, but earnings plunged by an annualized $11.8 billion in the January to March period, according to seasonally adjusted data. On Monday, Larry Kudlow, President Trump’s top economic adviser, said the White House is prepared to do more to help agriculture.
Trump’s budget cuts would lower federal subsidies for crop insurance and small growers. The spending plan for 2020 he submitted for Congress would reduce subsidies for crop insurance premiums to 48 percent from 62 percent and limit current subsidies for growers who make less than $500,000 annually.
Even prior to the trade disputes, U.S. producers were struggling with lower commodity prices. The financial impact has spread across rural America as farmers cut back on purchases from local tractor dealers and other suppliers.
Still, the data can be volatile and factors in inventories.
A spike in December income, for example, was “likely a function of gyrations in federal subsidy payments” because of the administration’s one-time aid program to compensate farmers for trade war losses, Stephen Stanley, chief economist for Amherst Pierpont Securities, said in note to clients.
Trump has promised his trade wars will eventually be a boon for farmers.
“We’re doing trade deals that are going to get you so much business, you’re not even going to believe it,” he told a cheering crowd at American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual meeting in New Orleans in January.
The Commerce Department on Monday cited the steep decline in farm proprietors’ income as a key factor weighing on the nation’s overall personal income growth in March, even though agricultural producers represent only about 2 percent of total employed Americans.
The report provided fresh evidence of the growing financial strain on U.S. farmers hit by the trade war, low commodity prices and a series of natural disasters including spring floods in the Midwest. With rural voters a key part of Trump’s electoral coalition, it also underscores the political pressure to conclude the China trade war as U.S. negotiators begin another round of talks in Beijing this week.
One-time subsidy payments from the Trump administration to compensate producers for some of their trade-war losses helped prop up farm income in the previous quarter, but earnings plunged by an annualized $11.8 billion in the January to March period, according to seasonally adjusted data. On Monday, Larry Kudlow, President Trump’s top economic adviser, said the White House is prepared to do more to help agriculture.
Trump’s budget cuts would lower federal subsidies for crop insurance and small growers. The spending plan for 2020 he submitted for Congress would reduce subsidies for crop insurance premiums to 48 percent from 62 percent and limit current subsidies for growers who make less than $500,000 annually.
Even prior to the trade disputes, U.S. producers were struggling with lower commodity prices. The financial impact has spread across rural America as farmers cut back on purchases from local tractor dealers and other suppliers.
Still, the data can be volatile and factors in inventories.
A spike in December income, for example, was “likely a function of gyrations in federal subsidy payments” because of the administration’s one-time aid program to compensate farmers for trade war losses, Stephen Stanley, chief economist for Amherst Pierpont Securities, said in note to clients.
Trump has promised his trade wars will eventually be a boon for farmers.
“We’re doing trade deals that are going to get you so much business, you’re not even going to believe it,” he told a cheering crowd at American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual meeting in New Orleans in January.
Gold Star widow "shocked" by new tax bill on sons' survivor benefits
By JANET SHAMLIAN CBS NEWS
April 25, 2019, 6:59 PM
Coronado, Calif. — Many Americans were shocked by their tax bills this month. The new law was especially costly for our nation's Gold Star families, who saw the taxes owed on their survivor benefits skyrocket.
Theresa Jones has been a single mom to Anthony and Hunter for almost six years. Her husband Landon, a Navy chopper pilot, died in the Red Sea during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2013.
It's been a challenge for Jones, especially financially. They've been able to stay afloat because of the survivor benefits they receive, aid that came with an unexpected surprise at tax time.
"When I saw that tax bill I was shocked at how much these boys owed on benefits that were given to them," Jones said.
The boys each received about $15,000 in survivor benefits last year. Jones was hit with a tax bill of $5,400 for them, up from $1,100 from the previous year.
"That's how they have a roof over their head. That's how they have food in their mouths. That's why the lights are on right now. That's how we survive every month," Jones said.
Because a surviving spouse can't receive both Veteran Affairs and Defense Department benefits simultaneously in full, Gold Star parents often sign the taxable DOD benefits over to their children. But the new tax law lumps Gold Star children into a bracket known as the "kiddie tax" at 37 percent, much higher than their previous tax rate.
"We got lumped into that and somebody had said to me, 'Welcome to the top four percent.' I said, 'My 5-year-old is not top four percent,'" Jones said.
The Treasury Department says it is "evaluating what can be done to solve this issue."
Besides her most important job as mom, Jones works part time and is going to school. With the new tax burden, something will have to give. She hopes it won't be her home.
"For the boys, it's all they've known and I would hate to take that away from them. They've already had so much taken away from them," she said.
Theresa Jones has been a single mom to Anthony and Hunter for almost six years. Her husband Landon, a Navy chopper pilot, died in the Red Sea during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2013.
It's been a challenge for Jones, especially financially. They've been able to stay afloat because of the survivor benefits they receive, aid that came with an unexpected surprise at tax time.
"When I saw that tax bill I was shocked at how much these boys owed on benefits that were given to them," Jones said.
The boys each received about $15,000 in survivor benefits last year. Jones was hit with a tax bill of $5,400 for them, up from $1,100 from the previous year.
"That's how they have a roof over their head. That's how they have food in their mouths. That's why the lights are on right now. That's how we survive every month," Jones said.
Because a surviving spouse can't receive both Veteran Affairs and Defense Department benefits simultaneously in full, Gold Star parents often sign the taxable DOD benefits over to their children. But the new tax law lumps Gold Star children into a bracket known as the "kiddie tax" at 37 percent, much higher than their previous tax rate.
"We got lumped into that and somebody had said to me, 'Welcome to the top four percent.' I said, 'My 5-year-old is not top four percent,'" Jones said.
The Treasury Department says it is "evaluating what can be done to solve this issue."
Besides her most important job as mom, Jones works part time and is going to school. With the new tax burden, something will have to give. She hopes it won't be her home.
"For the boys, it's all they've known and I would hate to take that away from them. They've already had so much taken away from them," she said.
Trump’s trade policies are costing Americans a lot of money
Tariffs and sanctions drive up costs and will create a negligible number of jobs.
D. PARVAZ - thinkprogress
APR 25, 2019
When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced this week the end of waivers for U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil, he assured the world that oil prices and supplies will be kept in check. But on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after his announcement, oil prices spiked to a six-month high.
Taking Iran’s supplies out of the equation was bound to increase prices, despite what Pompeo and President Donald Trump have said, especially given that Venezuela’s oil supply is similarly sanctioned. This increase in oil prices will have an impact on economic growth in the United States, said Robert E. Scott, senior economist and director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the Economic Policy Institute.
“It slows us down for sure,” he said.
Energy analysts have already started worrying about the oil markets being under-supplied, warning that this action will make everything more expensive. This, in isolation, would be bad, but it is only one of several trade-related decisions made by the Trump administration — including tariffs on imported steel and aluminum and products made with those materials.
The president claims tariffs have been great for the economy. And in some very limited respects, they have been. For instance, the steel and aluminum tariffs have created American jobs in those sectors and increased investment.
“In the narrow, micro-economic sense, some of these tariffs have worked,” said Scott.
Tariffs and deals that (likely) don’t deliver
But the president doesn’t speak in narrow, micro-economic terms — he speaks in broad strokes, and has a tendency to say that America’s economy is thriving under his leadership, seeing anything that speaks to the contrary as a political attack on him.
The real picture is more complicated. For instance, one of Trump’s biggest successes has been the new trilateral free trade agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, known as the USMCA.
The deal, which has yet to be ratified by lawmakers in either country, will replace NAFTA, which Trump called a “horrendous” deal that allowed Canada and Mexico to take advantage of the United States. Both Mexico and Canada have also fallen under the steel and aluminum tariffs.
But economists at the U.S. International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency, published a report last week on the impact of the USMCA, and their projections don’t exactly spell “MAGA.”
When considering a default scenario (as opposed to the rosiest one), the report found that the new trade deal will cost almost 55,000 jobs and make the U.S. economy shrink by $22.6 billion. The more optimistic estimate has the economy growing by $68.2 billion and 176,000 jobs. In a nod to the uncertainly of this, the authors estimate that the USMCA “would likely have a positive impact on U.S. trade.” Yes: Likely.
“These numbers are peanuts… even if you go for that upper limit of 176,000 jobs, that’s one month’s employment creation, on average, in the United States,” said Dominique van der Mensbrugghe, director of the Center for Global Trade Analysis at Purdue University.
“It’s really hard to create jobs when the country is essentially at full employment. This has what’s puzzled many economists. Normally, you take these actions when you want to provide a little bit of relief for workers… so it’s a little bit strange that this is employment,” Van der Mensbrugghe told ThinkProgress.
The other changes don’t really add up to much — a bit more access to Canada’s dairy market, for instance. “These are really marginal changes,” he said.
Yet another study done by researchers at Princeton University, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Columbia University found that Trump’s tariffs and trade policies had cut incomes in the United States by $1.4 billion a month from January to November 2018.
Winning! But also, losing
So what is the full story here? Can we have an economy that is growing and still have bad policies that hurt it?
“Absolutely, we can have a push me, pull you situation going on in any sector in the economy,” Scott told ThinkProgress.
The U.S. economy is growing, relatively fast — and Scott figures that about 80-90% of that ongoing growth is attributable to President Barack Obama’s policies (like tax cuts, increased fiscal spending, and low interest rates).
That growth increases demands for domestic manufactured goods, but the trade deficit is growing, with 85% of that being in manufactured goods. Now, the economy, explained Scott, isn’t growing as fast as it was last year (when Trump’s tax cut basically gave it a sugar high), manufacturing output is slowing, and the trade deficit is continuing to grow.
And yet another study, by researchers at the University of Chicago and the Federal Reserve Board, shows how much the president’s tariffs are costing consumers of washing machines and dryers.
There are several reasons why the authors focused on washing machines, but a key reason is that the tariffs have applied to them the longest (since February 2018), so there is more data to look at to figure out who is absorbing the cost. Is it the exporting countries (say, South Korea) or the American consumer?
The study found that on average, the American consumer will spend $86 more for a washer and $95 more for a dryer (the tariffs don’t apply to dryers, but since they’re often sold as a set with the washing machines, retailers are just choosing to raise the price).
This will cost consumers an extra $1.5 billion a year, while collecting only $82 million in tariffs annually. In other words, the only entity benefiting from these tariffs are the businesses that sell these items.
Let’s take a look at the factory jobs created in the United States as a result of the tariffs: “Absent additional factors, the reports of increases in domestic employment attributed to this policy of roughly 1,800 workers would result in an average annual cost to consumers of over 815,000 USD per job created (after netting out the collected tariff revenues),” wrote the authors.
It’s important to note that Obama’s tariffs on Chinese tires basically did the same thing in 2009 — so it’s not like the outcome would be entirely unknown.
While Scott argues that the picture is complicated (having to do with retail pricing and competition in the United States), if the tariffs were lifted — say, in the wake of trade agreements — then those jobs would, indeed, go away. This happened under Obama’s tire tariffs.
But Scott said these tariffs are unlikely to be lifted under Trump, who is operating by a political strategy rather than an economic one.
“I don’t think that there’s a plan at all. I like to characterize Trump’s trade policy as a trade policy by press release. If he could come up with a new tariff every day and keep himself in the news, nothing would make him happier,” he said.
The currency elephant in the room
One big problem is China’s currency manipulation, which dropped by almost 10% in value relative to the U.S. dollar in a six-month period in 2018.
“So, we put in place tariffs, but they have been more than offset by the effects of the stronger dollar and the weaker Chinese Yuan,” said Scott.
This is exacerbated by the president’s tax cuts and spending increases, which have increased the budget deficit and strengthened the dollar. It’s also part of the reason why the trade deficit is getting bigger.
Van der Mensbrugghe too connected the budget deficit to the increase in the trade deficit.
“Anyone who has done Econ 101 will understand that, so we’re not sure who is advising the president on these issues. But it’s about the fact that the U.S. spends more than its income so it has to borrow from abroad,” he said.
You won’t hear the president say much about the budget deficit — but he talks about the the trade deficit frequently, especially with China.
As ThinkProgress previously reported, what the president is focusing on in a potential new trade deal with China is how much U.S. goods China will purchase over the next six years. Currency manipulation is not even part of the discussions.
The misalignment of the dollar, Scott said, is the fundamental cause of our trade problems. Fixing it would require building up industries to expand exports, as opposed do just trying to reduce imports.
“The fact remains that one of Trump’s campaign promises was that on day one, upon taking office, he was going to declare China a currency manipulator. And every six months, [The Department of] Treasury puts out a currency report, and they fail to declare China a currency manipulator,” said Scott.
Taking Iran’s supplies out of the equation was bound to increase prices, despite what Pompeo and President Donald Trump have said, especially given that Venezuela’s oil supply is similarly sanctioned. This increase in oil prices will have an impact on economic growth in the United States, said Robert E. Scott, senior economist and director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the Economic Policy Institute.
“It slows us down for sure,” he said.
Energy analysts have already started worrying about the oil markets being under-supplied, warning that this action will make everything more expensive. This, in isolation, would be bad, but it is only one of several trade-related decisions made by the Trump administration — including tariffs on imported steel and aluminum and products made with those materials.
The president claims tariffs have been great for the economy. And in some very limited respects, they have been. For instance, the steel and aluminum tariffs have created American jobs in those sectors and increased investment.
“In the narrow, micro-economic sense, some of these tariffs have worked,” said Scott.
Tariffs and deals that (likely) don’t deliver
But the president doesn’t speak in narrow, micro-economic terms — he speaks in broad strokes, and has a tendency to say that America’s economy is thriving under his leadership, seeing anything that speaks to the contrary as a political attack on him.
The real picture is more complicated. For instance, one of Trump’s biggest successes has been the new trilateral free trade agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, known as the USMCA.
The deal, which has yet to be ratified by lawmakers in either country, will replace NAFTA, which Trump called a “horrendous” deal that allowed Canada and Mexico to take advantage of the United States. Both Mexico and Canada have also fallen under the steel and aluminum tariffs.
But economists at the U.S. International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency, published a report last week on the impact of the USMCA, and their projections don’t exactly spell “MAGA.”
When considering a default scenario (as opposed to the rosiest one), the report found that the new trade deal will cost almost 55,000 jobs and make the U.S. economy shrink by $22.6 billion. The more optimistic estimate has the economy growing by $68.2 billion and 176,000 jobs. In a nod to the uncertainly of this, the authors estimate that the USMCA “would likely have a positive impact on U.S. trade.” Yes: Likely.
“These numbers are peanuts… even if you go for that upper limit of 176,000 jobs, that’s one month’s employment creation, on average, in the United States,” said Dominique van der Mensbrugghe, director of the Center for Global Trade Analysis at Purdue University.
“It’s really hard to create jobs when the country is essentially at full employment. This has what’s puzzled many economists. Normally, you take these actions when you want to provide a little bit of relief for workers… so it’s a little bit strange that this is employment,” Van der Mensbrugghe told ThinkProgress.
The other changes don’t really add up to much — a bit more access to Canada’s dairy market, for instance. “These are really marginal changes,” he said.
Yet another study done by researchers at Princeton University, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Columbia University found that Trump’s tariffs and trade policies had cut incomes in the United States by $1.4 billion a month from January to November 2018.
Winning! But also, losing
So what is the full story here? Can we have an economy that is growing and still have bad policies that hurt it?
“Absolutely, we can have a push me, pull you situation going on in any sector in the economy,” Scott told ThinkProgress.
The U.S. economy is growing, relatively fast — and Scott figures that about 80-90% of that ongoing growth is attributable to President Barack Obama’s policies (like tax cuts, increased fiscal spending, and low interest rates).
That growth increases demands for domestic manufactured goods, but the trade deficit is growing, with 85% of that being in manufactured goods. Now, the economy, explained Scott, isn’t growing as fast as it was last year (when Trump’s tax cut basically gave it a sugar high), manufacturing output is slowing, and the trade deficit is continuing to grow.
And yet another study, by researchers at the University of Chicago and the Federal Reserve Board, shows how much the president’s tariffs are costing consumers of washing machines and dryers.
There are several reasons why the authors focused on washing machines, but a key reason is that the tariffs have applied to them the longest (since February 2018), so there is more data to look at to figure out who is absorbing the cost. Is it the exporting countries (say, South Korea) or the American consumer?
The study found that on average, the American consumer will spend $86 more for a washer and $95 more for a dryer (the tariffs don’t apply to dryers, but since they’re often sold as a set with the washing machines, retailers are just choosing to raise the price).
This will cost consumers an extra $1.5 billion a year, while collecting only $82 million in tariffs annually. In other words, the only entity benefiting from these tariffs are the businesses that sell these items.
Let’s take a look at the factory jobs created in the United States as a result of the tariffs: “Absent additional factors, the reports of increases in domestic employment attributed to this policy of roughly 1,800 workers would result in an average annual cost to consumers of over 815,000 USD per job created (after netting out the collected tariff revenues),” wrote the authors.
It’s important to note that Obama’s tariffs on Chinese tires basically did the same thing in 2009 — so it’s not like the outcome would be entirely unknown.
While Scott argues that the picture is complicated (having to do with retail pricing and competition in the United States), if the tariffs were lifted — say, in the wake of trade agreements — then those jobs would, indeed, go away. This happened under Obama’s tire tariffs.
But Scott said these tariffs are unlikely to be lifted under Trump, who is operating by a political strategy rather than an economic one.
“I don’t think that there’s a plan at all. I like to characterize Trump’s trade policy as a trade policy by press release. If he could come up with a new tariff every day and keep himself in the news, nothing would make him happier,” he said.
The currency elephant in the room
One big problem is China’s currency manipulation, which dropped by almost 10% in value relative to the U.S. dollar in a six-month period in 2018.
“So, we put in place tariffs, but they have been more than offset by the effects of the stronger dollar and the weaker Chinese Yuan,” said Scott.
This is exacerbated by the president’s tax cuts and spending increases, which have increased the budget deficit and strengthened the dollar. It’s also part of the reason why the trade deficit is getting bigger.
Van der Mensbrugghe too connected the budget deficit to the increase in the trade deficit.
“Anyone who has done Econ 101 will understand that, so we’re not sure who is advising the president on these issues. But it’s about the fact that the U.S. spends more than its income so it has to borrow from abroad,” he said.
You won’t hear the president say much about the budget deficit — but he talks about the the trade deficit frequently, especially with China.
As ThinkProgress previously reported, what the president is focusing on in a potential new trade deal with China is how much U.S. goods China will purchase over the next six years. Currency manipulation is not even part of the discussions.
The misalignment of the dollar, Scott said, is the fundamental cause of our trade problems. Fixing it would require building up industries to expand exports, as opposed do just trying to reduce imports.
“The fact remains that one of Trump’s campaign promises was that on day one, upon taking office, he was going to declare China a currency manipulator. And every six months, [The Department of] Treasury puts out a currency report, and they fail to declare China a currency manipulator,” said Scott.
Trump is helping big banks hurt his own voters — after railing against them in 2016: NYT reporter
Brad Reed - raw story
16 APR 2019 AT 11:14 ET
New York Times reporter Nick Confessore has written a lengthy story about the ways that President Donald Trump and his administration have undermined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was set up in the wake of the Great Recession to curb abuses by financial institutions.
The assault on the CFPB comes despite Trump’s repeated attacks on Wall Street during the 2016 presidential election campaign, and Confessore points out in a Twitter thread that many of the people who are most likely to be hurt by policies such as reduced restrictions on payday lenders are blue-collar white people whose cause Trump has championed.
The leading man who went about dismantling the agency under Trump has been current acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who has been hostile to the agency’s missions since its inception.
“In my story, we focus on payday lending, a smallish financial industry whose customer base in the working poor, concentrated in ‘Trump states,'” he writes. “Mulvaney comes from a big payday state, where payday is widely used as credit, and sometimes some of the only credit available to them. Mulvaney and his political team at the bureau viewed the Obama-era CFPB as unconstitutional and out of control. They also argued that the imbalance of power Warren critiqued was, for the most part, not the job of government to correct.”
Confessore’s report details how some Christian leaders met with Mulvaney earlier this year and argued that the work payday lenders have been doing is actually sinful given the way it takes advantage of the working poor’s desperation and leaves them in debt.
“The ministers had planned carefully for their moment with Mulvaney, and for 20 minutes they took turns detailing the harm that payday lending had inflicted on their neighborhoods and congregations,” Confessore reports.
However, Mulvaney responded by telling them that it wasn’t the federal government’s job to stop people from taking out unwise loans.
“There’s no reason people should be taking these loans — but they do,” he explained in justifying his inaction.
The assault on the CFPB comes despite Trump’s repeated attacks on Wall Street during the 2016 presidential election campaign, and Confessore points out in a Twitter thread that many of the people who are most likely to be hurt by policies such as reduced restrictions on payday lenders are blue-collar white people whose cause Trump has championed.
The leading man who went about dismantling the agency under Trump has been current acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who has been hostile to the agency’s missions since its inception.
“In my story, we focus on payday lending, a smallish financial industry whose customer base in the working poor, concentrated in ‘Trump states,'” he writes. “Mulvaney comes from a big payday state, where payday is widely used as credit, and sometimes some of the only credit available to them. Mulvaney and his political team at the bureau viewed the Obama-era CFPB as unconstitutional and out of control. They also argued that the imbalance of power Warren critiqued was, for the most part, not the job of government to correct.”
Confessore’s report details how some Christian leaders met with Mulvaney earlier this year and argued that the work payday lenders have been doing is actually sinful given the way it takes advantage of the working poor’s desperation and leaves them in debt.
“The ministers had planned carefully for their moment with Mulvaney, and for 20 minutes they took turns detailing the harm that payday lending had inflicted on their neighborhoods and congregations,” Confessore reports.
However, Mulvaney responded by telling them that it wasn’t the federal government’s job to stop people from taking out unwise loans.
“There’s no reason people should be taking these loans — but they do,” he explained in justifying his inaction.
op - ed: Trump’s New Proposal Cheats 8 Million Working People of Overtime Pay
BY Naomi Walker & Paul Sonn, Truthout
PUBLISHED April 13, 2019
Eight million. That’s how many U.S. middle-class workers will be left without strong overtime pay protections under the Trump administration’s weak overtime rule proposed on March 22.
In human terms, that means 8 million working people across the 50 states can be made to work up to 50, 60 or even 70 hours a week, missing time with their families, without receiving any extra pay, even if they make as little as $35,000 a year.
The problem is the salary threshold below which workers are guaranteed time-and-a-half overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week has been frozen for decades, with no adjustment for the rising cost of living. As a result, the share of salaried workers guaranteed overtime pay has plummeted from six in 10 in 1975 to less than one in 10 today.
The Trump administration claimed that the new overtime salary threshold is a win for workers, and many news outlets echoed the administration’s spin, declaring in headlines across the country that the Trump rule is an “expansion,” or at least a “compromise” on overtime pay. In reality, it is a significant rollback that will cheat millions of Americans of fair pay for hard work.
That’s because the Trump overtime regulation replaces a 2016 Obama-era Labor Department rule that would have restored overtime protections for more than 12 million salaried workers earning up to $55,055 by 2023. The Trump rule slashes that salary level to $35,308 — and treats workers earning more than that as if they were highly paid executive who don’t need overtime pay. All told, Trump’s decision to slash the salary threshold means workers will miss out on $1.2 billion in wages each yearthey would have received under the 2016 rule.
The overtime salary threshold is supposed to protect workers with little bargaining power — think of modestly paid front-line supervisors at fast food restaurants or discount stores — from being forced to work long hours for no pay.
Typical of them is Charney, who works as a salaried manager at a dollar store in Michigan. Most weeks she clocks 65 hours, missing dinner with her family and time with her kids, with no overtime pay for her long hours and dedication.
“I did the math, and I make 50 cents more than my assistant, who is eligible for overtime and gets holiday pay,” she told Truthout. “I work on average 30 hours a week more than my assistants. I feel completely taken advantage of.”
The Obama-era rule was a modest first step toward correcting a system that was increasingly leaving workers behind. It would have restored overtime coverage to about one in three salaried workers.
But despite an extensive rule-making process that lasted two years and included a quarter-million public comments driven by worker advocates, the Trump Labor Department abandoned it. U.S. workers have lost more than $1.6 billion in unpaid overtime as a result.
Unsurprisingly, the weak Trump overtime proposal is deeply unpopular with voters. New polling conducted by Hart Research in competitive congressional districts shows that voters in swing districts overwhelmingly support the stronger Obama-era overtime expansion (by a 76 to 16 margin) over the weak Trump substitute. Independents back the Obama proposal over the Trump substitute by a whopping 71 to 15 margin. Republicans prefer it 65-to-27, and Democrats 89-to-7.
Fortunately, states can and are stepping in to protect workers from the Trump overtime rollback. In many states, governors can raise the overtime salary threshold through action by their state labor departments without the need for legislation. Moreover, in every state, the legislature can act to protect overtime pay.
Labor departments in California and New York have already raised their states’ overtime salary thresholds significantly; Washington and Pennsylvania’s labor agencies are in the process of doing the same. Other proposals are pending in Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Maryland and Colorado.
In particular, state-level action can and should go beyond the Obama overtime standard, which was a minimal national benchmark based on salary levels in the Southern U.S., the nation’s lowest-wage region. Higher-wage states can increase their overtime salary thresholds to commensurate levels, as Washington and Massachusetts are currently proposing.
At his inauguration, President Trump pledged that “Every decision … will be made to benefit American workers.” But the administration’s rollback of overtime pay protections and its record of dismantling worker protections at every turn show whose side the administration is really on when it comes to middle-class families struggling for a decent paycheck.
In the 2018 midterms, overtime pay already emerged as a key issue in several races. The overwhelming voter opposition to the latest Trump rollback means it’s likely to be back in 2020 as voters consider which candidates have their interests at heart.
In human terms, that means 8 million working people across the 50 states can be made to work up to 50, 60 or even 70 hours a week, missing time with their families, without receiving any extra pay, even if they make as little as $35,000 a year.
The problem is the salary threshold below which workers are guaranteed time-and-a-half overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week has been frozen for decades, with no adjustment for the rising cost of living. As a result, the share of salaried workers guaranteed overtime pay has plummeted from six in 10 in 1975 to less than one in 10 today.
The Trump administration claimed that the new overtime salary threshold is a win for workers, and many news outlets echoed the administration’s spin, declaring in headlines across the country that the Trump rule is an “expansion,” or at least a “compromise” on overtime pay. In reality, it is a significant rollback that will cheat millions of Americans of fair pay for hard work.
That’s because the Trump overtime regulation replaces a 2016 Obama-era Labor Department rule that would have restored overtime protections for more than 12 million salaried workers earning up to $55,055 by 2023. The Trump rule slashes that salary level to $35,308 — and treats workers earning more than that as if they were highly paid executive who don’t need overtime pay. All told, Trump’s decision to slash the salary threshold means workers will miss out on $1.2 billion in wages each yearthey would have received under the 2016 rule.
The overtime salary threshold is supposed to protect workers with little bargaining power — think of modestly paid front-line supervisors at fast food restaurants or discount stores — from being forced to work long hours for no pay.
Typical of them is Charney, who works as a salaried manager at a dollar store in Michigan. Most weeks she clocks 65 hours, missing dinner with her family and time with her kids, with no overtime pay for her long hours and dedication.
“I did the math, and I make 50 cents more than my assistant, who is eligible for overtime and gets holiday pay,” she told Truthout. “I work on average 30 hours a week more than my assistants. I feel completely taken advantage of.”
The Obama-era rule was a modest first step toward correcting a system that was increasingly leaving workers behind. It would have restored overtime coverage to about one in three salaried workers.
But despite an extensive rule-making process that lasted two years and included a quarter-million public comments driven by worker advocates, the Trump Labor Department abandoned it. U.S. workers have lost more than $1.6 billion in unpaid overtime as a result.
Unsurprisingly, the weak Trump overtime proposal is deeply unpopular with voters. New polling conducted by Hart Research in competitive congressional districts shows that voters in swing districts overwhelmingly support the stronger Obama-era overtime expansion (by a 76 to 16 margin) over the weak Trump substitute. Independents back the Obama proposal over the Trump substitute by a whopping 71 to 15 margin. Republicans prefer it 65-to-27, and Democrats 89-to-7.
Fortunately, states can and are stepping in to protect workers from the Trump overtime rollback. In many states, governors can raise the overtime salary threshold through action by their state labor departments without the need for legislation. Moreover, in every state, the legislature can act to protect overtime pay.
Labor departments in California and New York have already raised their states’ overtime salary thresholds significantly; Washington and Pennsylvania’s labor agencies are in the process of doing the same. Other proposals are pending in Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Maryland and Colorado.
In particular, state-level action can and should go beyond the Obama overtime standard, which was a minimal national benchmark based on salary levels in the Southern U.S., the nation’s lowest-wage region. Higher-wage states can increase their overtime salary thresholds to commensurate levels, as Washington and Massachusetts are currently proposing.
At his inauguration, President Trump pledged that “Every decision … will be made to benefit American workers.” But the administration’s rollback of overtime pay protections and its record of dismantling worker protections at every turn show whose side the administration is really on when it comes to middle-class families struggling for a decent paycheck.
In the 2018 midterms, overtime pay already emerged as a key issue in several races. The overwhelming voter opposition to the latest Trump rollback means it’s likely to be back in 2020 as voters consider which candidates have their interests at heart.
screwed again!!!
The House just passed a bill that could bar the IRS from creating a 'free' tax-preparation software like TurboTax — here's what it means for you
Bob Bryan and Joe Perticone - business insider
4/11/19
The House on Tuesday passed a bill designed to make some major changes to the way the IRS operates, but it also means that American taxpayers could be missing out on a huge opportunity.
The bill, named the Taxpayer First Act, is intended to update many major IRS systems and improve Americans' interactions with the agency.
But the bill also includes a provision that would codify the IRS's "Free File" system, which allows most Americans to file for free but through only private services. Critics of the bill say that it would make it so that the IRS would be unable to create its own free alternative to existing tax-preparation software such as Intuit's TurboTax or H&R Block's software.
The bill was supported by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, many of whom received campaign donations from Intuit and H&R Block. A similar bill exists in the Senate and would need to pass before the changes could take place.
Senate sponsors of the bill disputed the characterization that the provision would prevent the IRS from creating a filing service, but legal experts and advocacy groups say that the language would block the agency from doing it. Additionally, the IRS already has a memorandum of understanding with some tax preparers not to create a free filing system.
But while there is some back and forth on the exact effects of the provision, it can be hard to discern just what it means for the average taxpayer.
So what could the Taxpayer First Act mean for your tax filing? Here's a breakdown of how this would affect you:
But what is more important is what Americans are missing out on
While most of the tax-preparation landscape would not change under the bill, the real issue critics have with the measure is the reforms that the bill forgoes.
For one thing, advocates say that the Taxpayer First Act would prevent the IRS from creating a tax-preparation software to compete with or replace private software. According to ProPublica, those of you hoping that you could get rid of TurboTax or H&R Block sometime soon would be sorely disappointed by the bill because it would codify the existing Free File program, which relies on the private services and prevents the IRS from creating a competitor.
Additionally, the new bill does nothing to simplify the tax-preparation system.
Advocates of simpler tax-filing measures have maintained that the IRS could provide most Americans with simpler prefilled tax forms that would use data the agency already possesses. In theory, this would require most Americans to make, at most, minor adjustments to the forms in order to file.
But companies such as Intuit have said that such a system would result in more overpaying by taxpayers and other tax analysts have warned that it would cause complications and reduce transparency.
Regardless of the possible ease or hazards, the IRS has so far been blocked from implementing the system — which already exists in countries such as Sweden and Spain. The new bill would ensure that the system stays that way.
- The House on Tuesday passed the Taxpayer First Act bill, which includes notable changes to the tax code and the IRS.
- In the bill is a provision that would enshrine the current version of the IRS Free File service and prevent the agency from creating its own tax-preparation service.
- While it shouldn't make a big difference for most taxpayers, the bigger effect is what Americans could be missing out on.
The House on Tuesday passed a bill designed to make some major changes to the way the IRS operates, but it also means that American taxpayers could be missing out on a huge opportunity.
The bill, named the Taxpayer First Act, is intended to update many major IRS systems and improve Americans' interactions with the agency.
But the bill also includes a provision that would codify the IRS's "Free File" system, which allows most Americans to file for free but through only private services. Critics of the bill say that it would make it so that the IRS would be unable to create its own free alternative to existing tax-preparation software such as Intuit's TurboTax or H&R Block's software.
The bill was supported by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, many of whom received campaign donations from Intuit and H&R Block. A similar bill exists in the Senate and would need to pass before the changes could take place.
Senate sponsors of the bill disputed the characterization that the provision would prevent the IRS from creating a filing service, but legal experts and advocacy groups say that the language would block the agency from doing it. Additionally, the IRS already has a memorandum of understanding with some tax preparers not to create a free filing system.
But while there is some back and forth on the exact effects of the provision, it can be hard to discern just what it means for the average taxpayer.
So what could the Taxpayer First Act mean for your tax filing? Here's a breakdown of how this would affect you:
- If you qualify for free filing now, you can still file for free: As the system stands, Americans in the 70th percentile or below are allowed to file for free. That means, this year, people who made $66,000 or less in 2018 can file their taxes for free.
Even if the bill becomes law, people below the threshold can still access a number of services through the IRS's Free File landing page that allows you to file for free. Different services have different thresholds to qualify for free filing. TurboTax offers the service to people making $34,000 or less, TaxAct offers it for people making $55,000 or less, and H&R Block offers it for people making $66,000 or less.
But it is important to note that these are not IRS products, rather the websites listed are privately owned services that allow people below their respective thresholds to file for free. - If you already use a private tax service and are above the free-filing threshold: Tax preparation companies and services already in place will continue to operate as they have. Some companies offer free federal-filing services for simple returns and other deals; those will still be available at the discretion of the respective companies.
But what is more important is what Americans are missing out on
While most of the tax-preparation landscape would not change under the bill, the real issue critics have with the measure is the reforms that the bill forgoes.
For one thing, advocates say that the Taxpayer First Act would prevent the IRS from creating a tax-preparation software to compete with or replace private software. According to ProPublica, those of you hoping that you could get rid of TurboTax or H&R Block sometime soon would be sorely disappointed by the bill because it would codify the existing Free File program, which relies on the private services and prevents the IRS from creating a competitor.
Additionally, the new bill does nothing to simplify the tax-preparation system.
Advocates of simpler tax-filing measures have maintained that the IRS could provide most Americans with simpler prefilled tax forms that would use data the agency already possesses. In theory, this would require most Americans to make, at most, minor adjustments to the forms in order to file.
But companies such as Intuit have said that such a system would result in more overpaying by taxpayers and other tax analysts have warned that it would cause complications and reduce transparency.
Regardless of the possible ease or hazards, the IRS has so far been blocked from implementing the system — which already exists in countries such as Sweden and Spain. The new bill would ensure that the system stays that way.
Paul Krugman drops a bomb on Trump’s base — he just saddled you with $2 trillion more in debt
Noor Al-Sibai - raw story
30 MAR 2019 AT 16:07 ET
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman outlined all the reasons why President Donald Trump’s tax cut failed — and how much it’s going to cost American taxpayers.
Krugman pointed out that although the 2017 tax cut is Trump’s only “significant piece of legislation” to date, it only delivered for the nation’s richest.
What’s more, the columnist argued, is that the theory behind the tax cut “has turned out to be a complete bust” that will leave American taxpayers saddled with an additional $2 trillion in debt.
“The Trumpist theory — which was, I’m sorry to say, endorsed by conservative economists who should have known better — was that there was a huge pile of money sitting outside the U.S. that companies would bring back and invest productively if given the incentive of lower tax rates,” Krugman wrote.
“But that pile of money,” he continued, “was an accounting fiction.”
What’s more: “the tax cut didn’t give corporations an incentive to build new factories and so on; all it did was induce them to shift their tax-avoidance strategies.”
Krugman noted that Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations pointed out the source of that disparity: upon first glance, it appears that American companies make huge profits via overseas subsidiaries, but a deeper inspection reveals that “the bulk of these reported profits are in a handful of small countries with low or zero tax rates, like Bermuda, Luxembourg and Ireland.”
“The companies obviously aren’t earning huge profits in these tiny economies,” he wrote. “they’re just using accounting gimmicks to assign profits earned elsewhere to subsidiaries that may have a few factories, but sometimes consist of little more than a small office, or even just a post-office box.”
It’s unsurprising, Krugman concluded, that “the investment boom Trump economists promised has never materialized.”
“Companies didn’t use their tax breaks to invest more,” he noted. “Mainly they used them to buy back their own stock. This in turn, put more money in the hands of investors, which gave the economy a temporary boost — although for 2018 as a whole, one of the biggest drivers of faster growth was, believe it or not, higher government spending.”
In spite of the large debt figure, Krugman said he’s “not deeply worried” at the looming $2 trillion deficit created by the tax cuts.
“Given low borrowing costs, the costs and risks of federal debt are far less than the usual suspects — again, the same people who cheered on the Trump tax cut — have claimed,” he mused.
“But think of all the other things we could have done with $2 trillion — all the infrastructure we could have built and repaired, all the people who could have been given essential health care,” Krugman wrote. “What a colossal, corrupt waste.”
Krugman pointed out that although the 2017 tax cut is Trump’s only “significant piece of legislation” to date, it only delivered for the nation’s richest.
What’s more, the columnist argued, is that the theory behind the tax cut “has turned out to be a complete bust” that will leave American taxpayers saddled with an additional $2 trillion in debt.
“The Trumpist theory — which was, I’m sorry to say, endorsed by conservative economists who should have known better — was that there was a huge pile of money sitting outside the U.S. that companies would bring back and invest productively if given the incentive of lower tax rates,” Krugman wrote.
“But that pile of money,” he continued, “was an accounting fiction.”
What’s more: “the tax cut didn’t give corporations an incentive to build new factories and so on; all it did was induce them to shift their tax-avoidance strategies.”
Krugman noted that Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations pointed out the source of that disparity: upon first glance, it appears that American companies make huge profits via overseas subsidiaries, but a deeper inspection reveals that “the bulk of these reported profits are in a handful of small countries with low or zero tax rates, like Bermuda, Luxembourg and Ireland.”
“The companies obviously aren’t earning huge profits in these tiny economies,” he wrote. “they’re just using accounting gimmicks to assign profits earned elsewhere to subsidiaries that may have a few factories, but sometimes consist of little more than a small office, or even just a post-office box.”
It’s unsurprising, Krugman concluded, that “the investment boom Trump economists promised has never materialized.”
“Companies didn’t use their tax breaks to invest more,” he noted. “Mainly they used them to buy back their own stock. This in turn, put more money in the hands of investors, which gave the economy a temporary boost — although for 2018 as a whole, one of the biggest drivers of faster growth was, believe it or not, higher government spending.”
In spite of the large debt figure, Krugman said he’s “not deeply worried” at the looming $2 trillion deficit created by the tax cuts.
“Given low borrowing costs, the costs and risks of federal debt are far less than the usual suspects — again, the same people who cheered on the Trump tax cut — have claimed,” he mused.
“But think of all the other things we could have done with $2 trillion — all the infrastructure we could have built and repaired, all the people who could have been given essential health care,” Krugman wrote. “What a colossal, corrupt waste.”
Paul Krugman uses one chart to show how Trump is screwing over his own voters in West Virginia
Brad Reed - raw story
28 MAR 2019 AT 13:55 ET
Pissident Donald Trump repeatedly vowed to Appalachian voters that he would bring back coal jobs that he falsely claimed were being eliminated due to excessive environmental regulations being put in place by the Obama administration.
However, as the Washington Post reported on Thursday, Trump’s administration hasn’t stopped the closure of coal plants across the U.S.
According to the Post, the main culprit behind the closure of these plants isn’t the Environmental Protection Agency, but rather that “coal can’t compete against cheaper, cleaner alternatives, such as natural gas and solar and wind energy.”
In fact, reports the Post, “more coal plant capacity disappeared during Trump’s first two years in office than during President Barack Obama’s entire first term, and the closures are set to continue in 2019 and beyond.”
Reacting to the continued decline of the coal industry, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is now arguing on Twitter that the damage that will be done to coal-producing states like West Virginia by Trump’s health care policies is vastly greater than anything Trump could ever do to bring back the coal industry.
“With the new Trump effort to destroy the ACA, I’m thinking about West Virginia, where a lot of people gained insurance under the Medicaid expansion, but voted for Trump because he promised to bring back coal,” he wrote. “So I made a little chart.”
The chart shows the minuscule number of coal jobs added so far under Trump’s presidency — fewer than 5,000 in total — and compares it with 140,000 people in West Virginia who are projected to lose access to health care should Trump succeed in overturning the ACA.
However, as the Washington Post reported on Thursday, Trump’s administration hasn’t stopped the closure of coal plants across the U.S.
According to the Post, the main culprit behind the closure of these plants isn’t the Environmental Protection Agency, but rather that “coal can’t compete against cheaper, cleaner alternatives, such as natural gas and solar and wind energy.”
In fact, reports the Post, “more coal plant capacity disappeared during Trump’s first two years in office than during President Barack Obama’s entire first term, and the closures are set to continue in 2019 and beyond.”
Reacting to the continued decline of the coal industry, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is now arguing on Twitter that the damage that will be done to coal-producing states like West Virginia by Trump’s health care policies is vastly greater than anything Trump could ever do to bring back the coal industry.
“With the new Trump effort to destroy the ACA, I’m thinking about West Virginia, where a lot of people gained insurance under the Medicaid expansion, but voted for Trump because he promised to bring back coal,” he wrote. “So I made a little chart.”
The chart shows the minuscule number of coal jobs added so far under Trump’s presidency — fewer than 5,000 in total — and compares it with 140,000 people in West Virginia who are projected to lose access to health care should Trump succeed in overturning the ACA.
congrats, stupid voters elected a fool who is taking money out of their pocket!!!
Trump's tariffs are costing Americans $1.4 billion each month, study shows
The study concluded that “the entire incidence of the tariffs fell on domestic consumers and importers,” with “no impact” on the prices received by foreign exporters.
BY THOMAS FRANCK, CNBC
March 26, 2019, 4:39 AM PDT / Source: CNBC.com
President Donald Trump’s trade policies and tariffs reduced U.S. income at a rate of $1.4 billion per month by the end of last November, according to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Princeton University, and Columbia University.
The collaborative study found that businesses and consumers saw “substantial increases” in the price of goods throughout last year, including a “complete passthrough” of U.S.-imposed tariffs onto imported items. The economists — the New York Fed’s Mary Amiti, Princeton professor Stephen Redding, and Columbia professor David Weinstein — also said Americans suffered by a lack of import variety and disruptions to supply chains.
“Economists have long argued that there are real income losses from import protection. Using the evidence to date from the 2018 trade war, we find empirical support for these arguments,” the researchers wrote. “Losses mounted steadily over the year, as each wave of tariffs affected additional countries and products, and increased substantially after the imposition of the wave 6 tariffs on $200 billion dollars of Chinese exports.”
Amiti, Redding, and Weinstein found that while losses were accumulating at a rate of $1.4 billion per month by last November, total losses from January 2018 through November 2018 ballooned to a conservative estimate of $6.9 billion.
That number may be too low, the economists said, because their model assumes that the U.S. government uses tariff tax revenues to offset the welfare burden. If the U.S. government did not offset the cost of the tariffs to the American consumer with the new tax revenues, the full value of the tariff payments would be $12.3 billion.
The White House imposed a variety tariffs on goods imported from economic partners of the U.S. in 2018. The tit-for-tat between the U.S. and China has come as Trump and the U.S. Trade Representative try to protect American intellectual property and curb a steep trade deficit.
Trump has had varying success with the tariff tactic, winning both a revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement as well as alienating key allies including Canada and the European Union. The White House announced a round of tariffs on $200 billion of products imported from China at a 10 percent rate last year.
The White House also announced last year the introduction of a 20 percent tariff on the first 1.2 million imported residential washing machines from South Korea and a 50 percent tariff on machines above that number. LG Electronics told retailers less than one week after that decision that it would hike prices.
The research team also found that American consumers are also harmed during a trade war in terms of the variety of goods they can purchase. Consumers benefit from open trade and the ability to purchase more unique goods — like French wine and Colombian coffee, for example — that might be foregone if trade barriers are high.
In the three years prior to the imposition of tariffs, all categories of goods experienced increases in the number of varieties offered in the U.S., the researchers said.
“However, the imposition of the tariffs is associated with sharp drops in the number of imported varieties entering the U.S. in all sectors except the wave 1 products (washing machines and solar panels),” they wrote.
“These results suggest that some of the tariffs were prohibitive, reducing imports to zero. This can create a measurement problem that can arise if we try to assess the price impacts of tariffs on goods that are no longer imported.”
The trade war also caused “dramatic” turmoil in supply chains, as about $165 billion of trade ($136 billion of imports and $29 billion of exports) is lost or redirected through company and customer efforts to circumvent tariffs.
“We find that the U.S. tariffs were almost completely passed through into U.S. domestic prices, so that the entire incidence of the tariffs fell on domestic consumers and importers up to now, with no impact so far on the prices received by foreign exporters,” the Fed, Princeton and Columbia economists wrote. “We also find that U.S. producers responded to reduced import competition by raising their prices.”
The collaborative study found that businesses and consumers saw “substantial increases” in the price of goods throughout last year, including a “complete passthrough” of U.S.-imposed tariffs onto imported items. The economists — the New York Fed’s Mary Amiti, Princeton professor Stephen Redding, and Columbia professor David Weinstein — also said Americans suffered by a lack of import variety and disruptions to supply chains.
“Economists have long argued that there are real income losses from import protection. Using the evidence to date from the 2018 trade war, we find empirical support for these arguments,” the researchers wrote. “Losses mounted steadily over the year, as each wave of tariffs affected additional countries and products, and increased substantially after the imposition of the wave 6 tariffs on $200 billion dollars of Chinese exports.”
Amiti, Redding, and Weinstein found that while losses were accumulating at a rate of $1.4 billion per month by last November, total losses from January 2018 through November 2018 ballooned to a conservative estimate of $6.9 billion.
That number may be too low, the economists said, because their model assumes that the U.S. government uses tariff tax revenues to offset the welfare burden. If the U.S. government did not offset the cost of the tariffs to the American consumer with the new tax revenues, the full value of the tariff payments would be $12.3 billion.
The White House imposed a variety tariffs on goods imported from economic partners of the U.S. in 2018. The tit-for-tat between the U.S. and China has come as Trump and the U.S. Trade Representative try to protect American intellectual property and curb a steep trade deficit.
Trump has had varying success with the tariff tactic, winning both a revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement as well as alienating key allies including Canada and the European Union. The White House announced a round of tariffs on $200 billion of products imported from China at a 10 percent rate last year.
The White House also announced last year the introduction of a 20 percent tariff on the first 1.2 million imported residential washing machines from South Korea and a 50 percent tariff on machines above that number. LG Electronics told retailers less than one week after that decision that it would hike prices.
The research team also found that American consumers are also harmed during a trade war in terms of the variety of goods they can purchase. Consumers benefit from open trade and the ability to purchase more unique goods — like French wine and Colombian coffee, for example — that might be foregone if trade barriers are high.
In the three years prior to the imposition of tariffs, all categories of goods experienced increases in the number of varieties offered in the U.S., the researchers said.
“However, the imposition of the tariffs is associated with sharp drops in the number of imported varieties entering the U.S. in all sectors except the wave 1 products (washing machines and solar panels),” they wrote.
“These results suggest that some of the tariffs were prohibitive, reducing imports to zero. This can create a measurement problem that can arise if we try to assess the price impacts of tariffs on goods that are no longer imported.”
The trade war also caused “dramatic” turmoil in supply chains, as about $165 billion of trade ($136 billion of imports and $29 billion of exports) is lost or redirected through company and customer efforts to circumvent tariffs.
“We find that the U.S. tariffs were almost completely passed through into U.S. domestic prices, so that the entire incidence of the tariffs fell on domestic consumers and importers up to now, with no impact so far on the prices received by foreign exporters,” the Fed, Princeton and Columbia economists wrote. “We also find that U.S. producers responded to reduced import competition by raising their prices.”
Trump has sold out the farmers who voted for him — and now they’re racing toward calamity
JIM HIGHTOWER, ALTERNET - COMMENTARY - raw story
23 MAR 2019 AT 07:09 ET
As a farmer told me, “You can still make a small fortune in agriculture, but the problem is you have to start with a large fortune.”
Farmers tend to be optimistic pessimists. They know the odds are against them — the bankers, bugs, monopolists, violent weather and sorry politicians. Yet, they keep at it as long as they can; working long and hard hours, enduring arduous conditions and tremendous stress to nurture the seeds that bring us an abundance of foods. But sometimes, the odds bunch up. Coping with natural disasters is to be expected. It’s the unnatural disasters of rigged economic policies, Wall Street greed and unrestrained corporate profiteering that slam the door on good, efficient family farmers, making it impossible for them to keep producing.
This is one of those times. Aside from the rise of floods, drought, tornados, etc. (hello, climate change), farmers are now in the sixth year of plummeting prices for their crops and livestock. They’re producing more than ever but getting less. For example, it costs dairy farmers on average $1.92 to produce a gallon of milk, but the giant processors pay them only a-buck-32 per gallon. No surprise then that since 2000, half of America’s dairy farmers have been squeezed out of business by monopoly pricing. And now comes Trump’s trade spat with China, which has collapsed the market and prices for grain farmers. Overall, farmers’ profits have fallen by almost half in the last five years. Farm debt, bankruptcies, sales and suicides are rising towards the calamitous levels of the 1980s farm crisis, and concentrated corporate power is fast tightening its grip on nearly all food production, prices and policies.
Indeed, a central cause of the spreading farm depression is the increasing monopolization of all the things farmers must buy (from seeds to machinery) and of the markets that buy from them. The big four biotech ag giants, for example, control 63 percent of all commercial seeds sold in the world; four meat processors control 84 percent of the U.S. beef market; and four global traders control up to 90 percent of the world’s grain sales. Our farmers and their families are hurting, but so far, our leaders, including the president, aren’t helping them.
Speaking of the president, have you noticed how often Donald Trump prefaces his policy statements with phrases like “frankly,” “honestly,” “to tell the truth,” and “believe me”?
More than a verbal tic, his constant use of these qualifiers subliminally admits that being frank, honest, truthful and believable is not normal for him. So, like a carnival flimflammer selling snake oil, he strains to convince us rubes that he’s not flimflamming: “Really,” he claims with lying lips, “in all candor, this time I’m truly telling you the gospel truth. Trust me.”
Among those who’re learning about the truthiness of The Donald are the farmers who voted for him, having bought his campaign promise to stand up for them and restore farm prosperity. Once in office, though, he quickly sold them out. First, he threw a hissy-fit of a trade war with China that ended up slapping down U.S. farmers by drastically worsening the already-low prices they were getting for their crops. Instead of prosperity, the average farm profit last year was minus $1,500!
Then, trying to smooth over this betrayal of the heartland, Trump tweeted out a message to ag producers in December that probably didn’t warm that many hearts: “Farmers, I LOVE YOU!” he professed in capital letters. (I’m guessing he offered the same sweet insincerity to Stormy Daniels after he … well, you know.)
Actions speak louder than words, of course. On March 11, Trump then took action to express his true love for farmers: He whacked $3.6 billion from the safety-net programs that offer a measure of relief to hard-hit producers when crop prices crash. Revealing his plutocratic core, the cuts specifically targeted programs that benefit small farmers — a deliberate manipulation meant to drive more families off the land and increase corporate monopolization of agriculture.
Not satisfied with intentionally injuring family farmers, Trump added insult by calling the dab of support they get from the government “overly generous.” This from a real estate flimflammer who continues to rake in millions of dollars in government cash and special tax breaks.
Far from stepping up to stop this robbery of farmers, ransacking of rural vitality and rip-off of consumers, Congress and Trump coddle the monopolistic robbers, ransackers, and rip-off artists. To help counter their insanity, join forces with the grassroots power of Farm Aid.
Farmers tend to be optimistic pessimists. They know the odds are against them — the bankers, bugs, monopolists, violent weather and sorry politicians. Yet, they keep at it as long as they can; working long and hard hours, enduring arduous conditions and tremendous stress to nurture the seeds that bring us an abundance of foods. But sometimes, the odds bunch up. Coping with natural disasters is to be expected. It’s the unnatural disasters of rigged economic policies, Wall Street greed and unrestrained corporate profiteering that slam the door on good, efficient family farmers, making it impossible for them to keep producing.
This is one of those times. Aside from the rise of floods, drought, tornados, etc. (hello, climate change), farmers are now in the sixth year of plummeting prices for their crops and livestock. They’re producing more than ever but getting less. For example, it costs dairy farmers on average $1.92 to produce a gallon of milk, but the giant processors pay them only a-buck-32 per gallon. No surprise then that since 2000, half of America’s dairy farmers have been squeezed out of business by monopoly pricing. And now comes Trump’s trade spat with China, which has collapsed the market and prices for grain farmers. Overall, farmers’ profits have fallen by almost half in the last five years. Farm debt, bankruptcies, sales and suicides are rising towards the calamitous levels of the 1980s farm crisis, and concentrated corporate power is fast tightening its grip on nearly all food production, prices and policies.
Indeed, a central cause of the spreading farm depression is the increasing monopolization of all the things farmers must buy (from seeds to machinery) and of the markets that buy from them. The big four biotech ag giants, for example, control 63 percent of all commercial seeds sold in the world; four meat processors control 84 percent of the U.S. beef market; and four global traders control up to 90 percent of the world’s grain sales. Our farmers and their families are hurting, but so far, our leaders, including the president, aren’t helping them.
Speaking of the president, have you noticed how often Donald Trump prefaces his policy statements with phrases like “frankly,” “honestly,” “to tell the truth,” and “believe me”?
More than a verbal tic, his constant use of these qualifiers subliminally admits that being frank, honest, truthful and believable is not normal for him. So, like a carnival flimflammer selling snake oil, he strains to convince us rubes that he’s not flimflamming: “Really,” he claims with lying lips, “in all candor, this time I’m truly telling you the gospel truth. Trust me.”
Among those who’re learning about the truthiness of The Donald are the farmers who voted for him, having bought his campaign promise to stand up for them and restore farm prosperity. Once in office, though, he quickly sold them out. First, he threw a hissy-fit of a trade war with China that ended up slapping down U.S. farmers by drastically worsening the already-low prices they were getting for their crops. Instead of prosperity, the average farm profit last year was minus $1,500!
Then, trying to smooth over this betrayal of the heartland, Trump tweeted out a message to ag producers in December that probably didn’t warm that many hearts: “Farmers, I LOVE YOU!” he professed in capital letters. (I’m guessing he offered the same sweet insincerity to Stormy Daniels after he … well, you know.)
Actions speak louder than words, of course. On March 11, Trump then took action to express his true love for farmers: He whacked $3.6 billion from the safety-net programs that offer a measure of relief to hard-hit producers when crop prices crash. Revealing his plutocratic core, the cuts specifically targeted programs that benefit small farmers — a deliberate manipulation meant to drive more families off the land and increase corporate monopolization of agriculture.
Not satisfied with intentionally injuring family farmers, Trump added insult by calling the dab of support they get from the government “overly generous.” This from a real estate flimflammer who continues to rake in millions of dollars in government cash and special tax breaks.
Far from stepping up to stop this robbery of farmers, ransacking of rural vitality and rip-off of consumers, Congress and Trump coddle the monopolistic robbers, ransackers, and rip-off artists. To help counter their insanity, join forces with the grassroots power of Farm Aid.
hey, working class trump voters, you just got fucked, again!!!
It just became easier for employers to dump retirees’ pensions
cnn
March 20, 2019
(CNN) — Traditional pensions are disappearing in America, and the federal government just made it easier for employers to get rid of them.
With no fanfare in early March, the Treasury Department issued a notice that allows employers to buy out current retirees from their pensions with a one-time lump sum payment. The decision reverses Obama-era guidance, issued in 2015, that had effectively banned the practice after officials determined that lump-sum payments often shortchanged seniors.
Now, advocates for the elderly worry that millions of people receiving monthly pension checks could be at risk.
“Permitting plans — for their own financial benefit — to replace joint and survivor or other annuities with lump-sum payments will reduce the retirement security of both workers and their spouses,” AARP Legislative Council David Certner said.
Since the 1980s, employers have shifted away from offering defined-benefit pensions, which provide a guaranteed monthly income for as long as someone lives in retirement. Instead, employers now favor 401(k) accounts, a finite pot of money that becomes available at age 59.5.
Pensions, which are insured by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in case employers go bankrupt, still cover 26.2 million people across 23,400 single-employer plans. But that number has been shrinking faster than it would naturally as companies close their plans to new hires.
Here’s why: Pensions are big liabilities for companies, which Wall Street ratings agencies don’t like. To remain solvent, pension funds depend on their investments in bonds, stocks and other securities, but recent swings in financial markets serve as a reminder that positive returns are not a sure thing. Pensions are also expensive to maintain. The premiums the PBGC charges per covered employee have more than doubled over the past decade as part of a budget gimmick to fill other government revenue holes.
“Healthy companies throw up their hands and say, ‘why do we bother?'” said Annette Guarisco, president of the ERISA Industry Committee, which represents large employers around regulation of employee benefits. “Because companies are now competing with other companies that don’t offer these benefits to their workers, it becomes a cost that they have to question whether they have the ability to maintain.”
The rise of lump-sum buyouts
Federal law gives employers an out. Companies can offload their pension obligations to the private sector by purchasing an annuity plan for each retiree from an insurance company. Or, for an even cheaper option, they can offer their employees a lump sum up front according to a formula that approximates how much a retiree would receive if they lived an average number of years.
In the insurance world, this strategy is known as “de-risking,” because it transfers pension risk from the company’s balance sheet to an insurance company and to retirees. The lump-sum option became particularly popular starting in 2012, when changes enacted in a 2006 law that made them more financially appealing took full effect.
Ford and General Motors pioneered the practice of offering buyouts to their tens of thousands of current retirees, rather than just those on the cusp of retirement. The insurance firm Towers Watson estimated that about 200 businesses, including big companies like Sears and JCPenney, offered lump sum buyouts that year.
For retirees, taking a lump sum is entirely voluntary. However, behavioral economists have found that people tend to value money that’s right in front of them over money they will get in the future, even if the total over time would be greater. Plus, retiree advocates say that most people aren’t well-equipped with the advanced financial knowledge needed to fully evaluate their options, and often, they’re pressured by family members.
A 2017 study by MetLife found that one in five retirees who took lump sums spent them down within five and a half years, and nearly a third regretted using large chunks of the money for short-term needs like home improvements.
“People get blinded by the amount of money,” said Bill Kadereit, president of the National Retiree Legislative Network. “‘We’ll offer you $400,000,’ and they’re age 65. It’s not that much money at all. But they don’t think about it that way.”
A losing deal for retirees
In 2015, the Government Accountability Office issued a report finding that the rules the IRS had set up around mortality tables and interest rates allowed companies to offer lump sums at a significant discount to the actual value of the pension. Retirees who tried to reinvest the lump-sum payments would almost inevitably lose out — especially women, who tend to live longer than men and are more likely to run out of money in retirement.
But there was no requirement that companies disclose the imbalance, and retirees were taken in by promises from financial advisers that they could do a better job with the money.
“You’ll never be able to replicate the annuity you’re getting from the pension plan,” said Karen Friedman, policy director of the Pension Rights Center. “You’re getting 20% to 30% less than what the pension could buy, and you’re going to try to regain that in the stock market, it’s basically impossible.”
In 2015, after experts and advocates raised these concerns, the Treasury Department announced that it planned to write additional rules around lump-sum buyouts that would be retroactive to the date of the notice. That effectively put an end to the practice of offering lump sums to people who have already retired (offering them at the outset of retirement remained kosher). That is, until March 6, when the Trump administration’s Treasury said it didn’t plan to issue the rules after all.
That move could unleash a torrent of new lump-sum offers. As soon as the notice was issued, legal and financial services firms sent out notices to their clients advertising the benefits of the strategy, and there’s been a lot of interest.
“The phones are ringing,” said Wesley Wickenheiser, a principal with the benefits consultant Findley. “Anywhere from smaller clients from around the country to those with many many thousands of retirees.”
Josh Gotbaum served as director of the PBGC from 2010 until 2014, and lobbied for tighter rules around lump-sum buyouts. He’s frustrated by what he calls the “general scandal” of Congress incentivizing companies to get out of their pension obligations — firs by allowing companies to present retirees with an option that isn’t as good as it looks, and then by increasing the incentive to do so by raising PBGC premiums.
“You’re taking a group of people who are retirees who are already living their lives on a pension, and you are saying to them, ‘here, instead of the pension, why don’t you take this big check,’ and they don’t bother to tell them that this big check is worth less than your pension,” Gotbaum said. “And that’s what Treasury said you can go back and do.”
With no fanfare in early March, the Treasury Department issued a notice that allows employers to buy out current retirees from their pensions with a one-time lump sum payment. The decision reverses Obama-era guidance, issued in 2015, that had effectively banned the practice after officials determined that lump-sum payments often shortchanged seniors.
Now, advocates for the elderly worry that millions of people receiving monthly pension checks could be at risk.
“Permitting plans — for their own financial benefit — to replace joint and survivor or other annuities with lump-sum payments will reduce the retirement security of both workers and their spouses,” AARP Legislative Council David Certner said.
Since the 1980s, employers have shifted away from offering defined-benefit pensions, which provide a guaranteed monthly income for as long as someone lives in retirement. Instead, employers now favor 401(k) accounts, a finite pot of money that becomes available at age 59.5.
Pensions, which are insured by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in case employers go bankrupt, still cover 26.2 million people across 23,400 single-employer plans. But that number has been shrinking faster than it would naturally as companies close their plans to new hires.
Here’s why: Pensions are big liabilities for companies, which Wall Street ratings agencies don’t like. To remain solvent, pension funds depend on their investments in bonds, stocks and other securities, but recent swings in financial markets serve as a reminder that positive returns are not a sure thing. Pensions are also expensive to maintain. The premiums the PBGC charges per covered employee have more than doubled over the past decade as part of a budget gimmick to fill other government revenue holes.
“Healthy companies throw up their hands and say, ‘why do we bother?'” said Annette Guarisco, president of the ERISA Industry Committee, which represents large employers around regulation of employee benefits. “Because companies are now competing with other companies that don’t offer these benefits to their workers, it becomes a cost that they have to question whether they have the ability to maintain.”
The rise of lump-sum buyouts
Federal law gives employers an out. Companies can offload their pension obligations to the private sector by purchasing an annuity plan for each retiree from an insurance company. Or, for an even cheaper option, they can offer their employees a lump sum up front according to a formula that approximates how much a retiree would receive if they lived an average number of years.
In the insurance world, this strategy is known as “de-risking,” because it transfers pension risk from the company’s balance sheet to an insurance company and to retirees. The lump-sum option became particularly popular starting in 2012, when changes enacted in a 2006 law that made them more financially appealing took full effect.
Ford and General Motors pioneered the practice of offering buyouts to their tens of thousands of current retirees, rather than just those on the cusp of retirement. The insurance firm Towers Watson estimated that about 200 businesses, including big companies like Sears and JCPenney, offered lump sum buyouts that year.
For retirees, taking a lump sum is entirely voluntary. However, behavioral economists have found that people tend to value money that’s right in front of them over money they will get in the future, even if the total over time would be greater. Plus, retiree advocates say that most people aren’t well-equipped with the advanced financial knowledge needed to fully evaluate their options, and often, they’re pressured by family members.
A 2017 study by MetLife found that one in five retirees who took lump sums spent them down within five and a half years, and nearly a third regretted using large chunks of the money for short-term needs like home improvements.
“People get blinded by the amount of money,” said Bill Kadereit, president of the National Retiree Legislative Network. “‘We’ll offer you $400,000,’ and they’re age 65. It’s not that much money at all. But they don’t think about it that way.”
A losing deal for retirees
In 2015, the Government Accountability Office issued a report finding that the rules the IRS had set up around mortality tables and interest rates allowed companies to offer lump sums at a significant discount to the actual value of the pension. Retirees who tried to reinvest the lump-sum payments would almost inevitably lose out — especially women, who tend to live longer than men and are more likely to run out of money in retirement.
But there was no requirement that companies disclose the imbalance, and retirees were taken in by promises from financial advisers that they could do a better job with the money.
“You’ll never be able to replicate the annuity you’re getting from the pension plan,” said Karen Friedman, policy director of the Pension Rights Center. “You’re getting 20% to 30% less than what the pension could buy, and you’re going to try to regain that in the stock market, it’s basically impossible.”
In 2015, after experts and advocates raised these concerns, the Treasury Department announced that it planned to write additional rules around lump-sum buyouts that would be retroactive to the date of the notice. That effectively put an end to the practice of offering lump sums to people who have already retired (offering them at the outset of retirement remained kosher). That is, until March 6, when the Trump administration’s Treasury said it didn’t plan to issue the rules after all.
That move could unleash a torrent of new lump-sum offers. As soon as the notice was issued, legal and financial services firms sent out notices to their clients advertising the benefits of the strategy, and there’s been a lot of interest.
“The phones are ringing,” said Wesley Wickenheiser, a principal with the benefits consultant Findley. “Anywhere from smaller clients from around the country to those with many many thousands of retirees.”
Josh Gotbaum served as director of the PBGC from 2010 until 2014, and lobbied for tighter rules around lump-sum buyouts. He’s frustrated by what he calls the “general scandal” of Congress incentivizing companies to get out of their pension obligations — firs by allowing companies to present retirees with an option that isn’t as good as it looks, and then by increasing the incentive to do so by raising PBGC premiums.
“You’re taking a group of people who are retirees who are already living their lives on a pension, and you are saying to them, ‘here, instead of the pension, why don’t you take this big check,’ and they don’t bother to tell them that this big check is worth less than your pension,” Gotbaum said. “And that’s what Treasury said you can go back and do.”
payback funnies
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what you see is what you get!!!
your share, idiot!!!!
