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Part of Patriotism is Paying Taxes

Linda Beale | October 6, 2017 7:20 pm

Politics

Taxes/regulation

US/Global Economics

Part of Patriotism is Paying Taxes

As Americans, we pay taxes to allow our government to support important activities that we as individuals or individual businesses either can’t do at all or can’t do as successfully. Both individuals and businesses benefit from government, so that paying taxes is a wonderful exercise in patriotism.

For individuals, the idea of paying taxes as patriotism may be obvious to many of us, because we think that taxes are an obligation of citizens to support and pay for the many things that the government does that we cannot do ourselves, from running a military defense system to supporting basic research into diseases, helping people and cities and states hit by natural disasters (like Texas and Florida and Puerto Rico), supporting education and research that leads to innovation and economic growth, helping to fund changeovers from dying industries like coal to new and growing industries like solar and wind, preserving areas of public lands for the public rather than allowing them to be decimated by private industry and fossil fuel extraction, preventing huge multinational companies from gouging consumers or polluting our water, land, and air, and the many other things that the government does for the benefit of all Americans.

But the far right in this country has been preaching the opposite for years.

There’s a good bit of hypocrisy there, because when Sec. of Health Price (now fired) or current Sec. of Treasury Mnunchin or current EPA Director Scott Pruit wants a comfortable private ride (like Pruitt’s many trips back to Oklahoma to talk to industry magnates one-on-one without any public information, and then de-regulate on their behalf), they love that they can make a slim excuse and take a military jet at the cost of hundreds of thousands of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Or, like Pruitt, have a “sound-proof room” built for himself (first EPA administrator who thinks he needs it) so he can talk to his industry buddies about how to un-protect the environment without any Americans ever finding out about it.
Far right media personalities have made a killing by arguing for tax cuts (that mostly benefit the rich like them) and government shrinkage (of programs that they think they won’t use).
- Grover Norquist wants taxes to be low because he wants to “shrink the government and drown it in a bathtub.” That idea has proliferated on the right to many of the programs that are directed to help the most vulnerable amongst us, such as Medicaid, and to programs that exist to help ensure the Americans of all ages and backgrounds enjoy the right to access to health care and decent standard of living in retirement, through Medicare and Social Security. Not surprisingly, Norquist has stated that including a VAT in the U.S. system would be “like shards of glass on a pizza” (see this link) –even though almost every developed country has a VAT as well as an income tax (which is one of the reasons that the comparisons of corporate tax rates is so misleading–it is comparing apples (only an income tax) to oranges (an income tax AND a VAT and usually other taxes as well, such as financial transaction taxes).
- Rush Limbaugh supports Trump’s tax-cuts-for-the rich ideas. See “What I was Told About the Trump Tax Plan–and What I Think About It“, The Rush Limbaugh Show (Sept. 28, 2017). He spouts one falsehood after another about them: that they are not trickle-down (of course they are), that they aren’t harmful for the poor (of course they are); that they will allow 99% of Americans to file their tax forms on a postcard just because the framework reduces the number of tax rates (absurd: reducing the number of tax rates has just about nothing to do with reducing the complexity of the Code for the vast majority of American taxpayers, who already file a simple form because they have mainly wage income that is withheld at the source). And no matter how much Rush Limbaugh claims that reducing the corporate tax rate, creating a low tax rate for partnership pass-through income, getting rid of the estate tax and getting rid of the AMT aren’t benefits for the rich (because, he says, Trump has insisted that the changes aren’t supposed to benefit him), the fact is that they are benefits for the rich and the Trump clan clearly will especially benefit, probably to the tune of hundreds of thousands annually and billions upon Trump’s death. Limbaugh is quite simply just plain wrong. Because, you see, although rates matter (and we should have a top tax rate much HIGHER than our current top tax rates), the changes that the GOP Six are proposing in the framework are specifically intended to, and do, provide enormous tax cuts to the ultra wealthy. That’s because the marginal statutory rate is just one piece–the real question is what gets taxed, i.e., how is the “taxable income” amount calculated and what special loopholes are built in to benefit the rich (like the 25% partnership pass-through rate).

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Right Wing Propaganda Tank IPI Likes the Trump Tax-Cuts-for-the-Rich “framework”

Linda Beale | October 4, 2017 4:20 pm

Politics

Taxes/regulation

Right Wing Propaganda Tank IPI Likes the Trump Tax-Cuts-for-the-Rich “framework”

There’s no surprise here. The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) is a right-wing “think” (i.e., propaganda) tank that has consistently argued for tax policies that favor multinational corporations and the wealthy. So IPI has a posting on Sept 29 that is supportive of the so-called “tax reform framework” put out by the Trump administration.

As an earlier post noted here, the Trump framework is a wish list for the wealthy, providing one tax cut for the ultra rich after another:

elimination of the estate tax (that only affects the heirs of estates worth more than $11 million);
territoriality (that advantages multinational corporations that actually operate from the U.S. but claim headquarters in low-tax jurisdictions);
a flat 25% rate on “pass-through income” that gives almost a 15% rate cut to wealthy owners of partnerships in the real estate, joint venture, oil and gas and other businesses (and affects very few true small business owners whose effective tax rate is already no more than 25%, if that much);
elimination of the top rates on the progressive individual rate structure (reducing the top rate from 39.6% to 35% (or less));
reducing the statutory rate for corporations to a low 20%, when corporations already pay much much less in taxes than they have generally paid under the income tax system while making record profits and paying their key managerial personnel the kind of salaries and percs that have exacerbated the increasing income inequality gap in the U.S.;
elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), a provision that was enacted to ensure that wealthy taxpayers are not able to use so many loopholes and special provisions that they escape taxation altogether on their income (the elimination of the AMT being a pro-wealthy tax cut that ordinary folk in the lower two-thirds of the income distribution will benefit not one whit from); and
permitting immediate expensing for five years of equipment and similar expenditures by businesses (another provision that will allow mega corporations to make even more profits that can be shared–through bonuses, higher salaries, and share buybacks with the wealthy managers and shareholders of the enterprise and a provision that runs explicitly counter to the actual economics of the business, in which new equipment stays at close to original value in the early years with wear and tear actually economically backloaded onto the last years of the useful life).

As a result of these provisions, the wealthy who own the vast majority of financial assets (including stock in corporations and partnership interests in real estate and other partnerships) will enjoy hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax cuts. In fact, the major portion of the tax cuts will go to the very wealthy who need them least.

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Trump’s Inadequate Response to Hurricane Maria and the Posse Comitatus Act

Dan Crawford | October 4, 2017 12:09 pm

Journalism

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Taxes/regulation

by ProGrowthLiberal (originally published at Econospeak)

Trump’s Inadequate Response to Hurricane Maria and the Posse Comitatus Act

Credit to Matthew Yglesias for his discussion of the incompetence of Donald Trump as well as the excuses for it from his defenders including:

Officials have also cited the Posse Comitatus Act as a complicating factor that helps explain why Trump was so much slower to dispatch assistance to Puerto Rico than the Obama administration was to send help to Haiti after it was devastated by an earthquake in 2010.

Except this 1878 Congressional Act does not bar the President from calling in the military as Michael Spak and Donald Spak note:

Before 1878, it was common for the United States Army to enforce civilian laws. In frontier territories, the army was often the only source of law enforcement, supplemented by occasional U.S. Marshals. Over time, marshals and county sheriffs regularly called upon the army to assist in enforcing the laws… By the time of the 1876 presidential election, Southern states were reconstituted. Many Southerners opposed both Grant, the outgoing Republican president, and Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican presidential candidate. Federal troops actively assisted U.S. Marshals in patrolling and monitoring polling places in the South, claiming to be enforcing the federal election laws and preventing former Confederate officers from voting (as was the law at that time). Following bitter election contests in four Southern states, Hayes won the presidency by one electoral vote. Many felt that the federal troops, which supported Hayes and the Reconstructionist Republican candidates for Congress, intimidated Southerners who would have voted for Samuel Tilden, the Democratic candidate. The resulting Democratic Congress was at odds with the Republican President Hayes. In response to what was seen as undue influence over the 1876 election, Congress outlawed the practice of posse comitatus by enacting the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) (as 20 Stat. 152) as a rider to the Army Appropriation Act for 1880. The act stated: “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.” Congressional debates indicate that the PCA was intended to stop army troops from answering the call of a marshal to perform direct law enforcement duties and aid in execution of the law. Further legislative history indicates that the more immediate objective was to put an end to the use of federal troops to police elections in ex-Confederate states where civil power had been reestablished.

In other words, this PCA is an outdated piece of legislation. But there’s more:

Others suggest the act is obsolete and should be repealed because numerous legislative exemptions have eroded the underlying policy and left the PCA a hollow shell. Others insist that although there are many exceptions, the act is essential to bar misuse of the military by civilian authorities and to prevent a military dictatorship from assuming control of the nation through use of the armed forces. Still others argue that the act means only that federal military forces may not be commandeered by civilian authorities for use in active and direct law enforcement as a posse comitatus. If local authorities need military personnel for specialized operations enforcing state laws, it is argued, they may call on the state governor for the assistance of the state National Guard.

There are many exceptions and no one would think giving aid in a time of need endangers either military dictatorship or the misuse of the military by civilian authorities. This pathetic excuse from Team Trump is just another example of how he turns everything into a culture war.

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Oxfam America President Abby Maxman Questions Slow Aid Response to Puerto Rico

run75441 | October 4, 2017 8:46 am

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Oxfam is a global organization working to end poverty. Its goal is to help people build better futures for themselves, hold those responsible accountable for the failures of people in power and/or government, and work in disaster areas. Their mission as stated is: “ To create lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and social injustice.”

Earlier in the week Oxfam acknowledged the ongoing tragedy in Puerto Rico. Oxfam President Abby Maxman said:

“Oxfam has monitored the response in Puerto Rico closely, and we are outraged at the slow and inadequate response the US Government has mounted in Puerto Rico. Clean water, food, fuel, electricity, and health care are in desperately short supply and quickly dwindling, and we are hearing excuses and criticism from the administration instead of a cohesive and compassionate response. The US has more than enough resources to mobilize an emergency response; but, it has failed to do so in a swift and robust manner. Oxfam rarely responds to humanitarian emergencies in the US and other wealthy countries; but as the situation in Puerto Rico worsens and the federal government’s response continues to falter, Oxfam has decided to step in to lend our expertise in dealing with some of the world’s most catastrophic disasters.”

And still what Trump thinks about during a visit to the island is the debt owed Wall Street. “They owe a lot of money to your friends on Wall Street and we’re going to have to wipe that out. You’re going to say goodbye to that, I don’t know if it’s Goldman Sachs but whoever it is you can wave goodbye to that”. Trump was and is holding Puerto Rico hostage to getting aid on behalf of Wall Street.

Abby Maxman continues:

“Oxfam will join forces with Puerto Rican leaders to appeal to Congress and other federal agencies in Washington to dedicate resources to the response and remove barriers that are keeping aid out, and to commit to long-term support to help Puerto Rico build back better. We’ll also engage policy makers about the roles inequality and climate change are playing.

In addition, Oxfam has sent a team to San Juan to assess a targeted and effective response. We are currently determining how best this response could benefit from our expertise, such as meeting the needs of rural communities who face increasing risks of disease like cholera without clean water, providing shelter and meeting other immediate needs.”

Where are our Congresspersons and Senators? The population of Puerto Rico are US Citizens. I would urge people to write your representatives and senators pushing them to pressure the President to move quicker and forget the banking and financial sector Main Street bailed out. If this were a white population, no one would stand for this type of treatment.

Jon Chait and Alex Pareene

Dan Crawford | October 2, 2017 10:23 am

Journalism

Politics

Taxes/regulation

Lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts:

Jon Chait and Alex Pareene

I have a Jon Chait problem. I generally agree with him on most issues. I find him very provocative. I am very sure that no one cares about my opinion about Chait’s latest post. That includes me. I don’t want to waste time thinking about the exactly how far I agree with him. But here I am.

I also have a vaguely favorable view of Alex Pareene, but don’t read him much. I was very entertained by his mild mannered amused Phillipic on Chait “You Are Jonathan Chait’s Enemy”.

There is one marginally interesting sub-topic. It appears that Pareene and Chait can’t both be right, but I am confident they are.

Pareene wrote “I say “you” because his conception of the left almost certainly includes you. … He means basically anyone to the left of Bill Clinton in 1996. ” Chait wrote ” (I allegedly oppose “basically anyone to the left of Bill Clinton in 1996,” which is odd, because I was to the left of Bill Clinton in 1996, and still am.)”

I see no contradiction. I think Chait was to the left of Clinton in 1996 and also that he considers anyone who goes out of her way to note that she is to the left of Clinton’s positions as of 1996 to be a dangerous lefty. So the “basically” is a vague hint at “who is to the left of Bill Clinton in 1996 and says so even when not accused of being as far right as Bill Clinton in 1996”.

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A thought for Sunday: of basic decency and humanity, and how the economy is shoring up the GOP

NewDealdemocrat | October 2, 2017 10:17 am

Politics

US/Global Economics

A thought for Sunday: of basic decency and humanity, and how the economy is shoring up the GOP

A few threads of the Trump malAdministration came together this past week.

The latest attempt to overturn Obamacare confronted Trump with a choice between his two main goals: basking in a Trump triumph vs. erasing all of Obama’s programs from the history books (in retaliation for Obama humiliating him at the White House correspondents’ dinner in 2011).

At the beginning of his presidency, Trump opposed the “repeal and run away” Congressional GOP objectives for Obamacare, telling them he wanted a “replacement” plan with more coverage and lower premiums. He wanted, in short, a Trump triumph.

After 3 failures, however, Congress’s 4th try at dismantling Obamacare has no replacement features. Things like guaranteed coverage of pre-existing conditions were stripped away. The bill in essence simply repealed Obamacare, punted the issue to the States with instructions to not even think about enacting something like universal coverage, and gutted Medicaid to boot. In short, it was very much “repeal and run away” (with a fig leaf).

Trump’s support for the bill showed that he will even eschew a Trump triumph if the alternative obliterates an Obama accomplishment.

Another thread of the Trump presidency is its nearly constant failure on the test of basic decency and humanity.

One of the places where it had been safe to avoid the rancid circus of Washington was The Weather Channel. Not this past week, where it more than any other media outlet highlighted the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico, which appears to be approaching Katrina x 10. When an outlet as innocuous as The Weather Channel feels compelled to implore Washington to DO SOMETHING! you know that those in power have plumbed a new low in the banality of evil.

I have a feeling, however, that conditions in Puerto Rico are going to get much worse — and maybe finally noticed by the actual news media — before they get better.

Which brings me to the final thread. Polling for Trump has been waxing and waning within a limited range for half a year now. It waxes when there he rails against foreign or domestic enemies, like North Korea or uppity nonwhite malcontents, and wanes when his basic lack of decency and humanity is in the forefront. To wit, here is the latest update from Gallup:

Why hasn’t it sunk any lower?

Paradoxically, Trump and the GOP are benefitting from the pretty decent Obama economy — which is still in place, on autopilot, because the GOP has accomplished exactly zero legislatively on economic matters.

And the ongoing Obama economy at the moment has a 4.4% unemployment rate, is still adding about 150,000 new jobs a month, has real median household income at its highest in a decade, if not forever, and real hourly wages for nonsupervisory workers at their highest in 4 decades. In short, civil society may be going to hell, but the economy? Not too shabby.

Historically, in the absence of either war or civil unrest generating a real death toll that dominates the headlines (like Korea, Vietnam, or the race riots of the late 1960s), an economy with these numbers generates reasonably good numbers for the incumbent political party. The benefit of that — of Obama’s economy — is currently going to the GOP!

But if Trump’s approval is in the 35%-40% range with a decent economy — and the Congressional GOP polling at the worst ever — just imagine what the polling is going to be like when the economy as it must eventually turns down.

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The Kurdish Independence Vote

Barkley Rosser | October 1, 2017 6:25 am

Politics

The Kurdish Independence Vote

Buried on the back pages of this busy week has been the news that in Iraqi Kurdistan on Monday there was a referendum on independence reportedly supported by 92% of the voters. I imagine that is not inaccurate, and that there was strong support for this referendum, even as Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani says that it is only advisory and a prelude to negotiations with the central Iraqi government. As it is, this vote is not being treated as such, and there has been a tremendous negative reaction not only from the Iraqi central government but from all of the neighbors of the KRG, with even their usual ally, the US, not supporting the vote (if not threatening hostile actions against it), with only Israel openly supporting it. The hostile reactions of neighbors and especially the central Iraqi government may well lead to war, even as ISIS remains not quite completely defeated within Iraqi territory, with up until now the Kurdish Pesh Merga having been working with the Iraq National Army as well as various Iranian Shia militias against ISIS.

Let me be clear that I have enormous sympathy with the aspirations of the Kurdish people for having their own nation. The 35 million Kurds have long been described as “the largest ethnic group without a nation” (although technically some larger ones merely have a state in India). They were promised a nation at the Versailles conference back in 1919, but the machinations of the British, French, Turks, and Persians (now Iranians) led to that promise not being fulfilled, and the Kurds being spread among Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran today, and a history over the last century of being crushed and abandoned and lied to by many nations. They speak an Indo-European language related to Farsi/Persian, and are mostly Sunni Muslim although with a Shia minority. However, they are largely not as religiously fanatical as most people around them, and the parties representing them in Turkey tend to be secular and leftist.

The three provinces with a Kurdish majority in northeastern Iraq began achieving a de facto autonomy during the first Gulf war, after Saddam Hussein had used gas against them during the 1980s, leading to some of them fleeing to the US, including some to my city of Harrisonburg, Virginia, where they have a large community. The US supported this autonomous government with a no-fly zone over it, and it achieved a more official autonomy, although not independence from Iraq, after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. During the US invasion, the Kurds were the strongest allies of the US, and their Pesh Merga has been the strong arm of the anti-ISIS military movement in both Iraq and Syria, working especially closely with the US in that.

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Trump’s “Give the Rich a Break” Tax Plan

Linda Beale | September 30, 2017 7:10 am

Politics

Taxes/regulation

US/Global Economics

Trump’s “Give the Rich a Break” Tax Plan

National GOP leaders on Wednesday released a 9-page document that they called a tax “framework” (available here on the Washington Post site) describing in vague terms how they intend to cut taxes for the nation’s wealthiest people while doing very little that serves the government needs. Overall, the GOP framework would amount to about $2.2 TRILLION in less revenue to support federal programs (like protecting the environment from corporate pollutants, supporting higher education loans for students, funding basic university research) (assuming $5.8 trillion loss to lowering rates and shift to territorial system and maybe $3.6 trillion recouped by eliminating as yet unspecified deductions). See GOP proposes deep tax cuts, provides few details on how to pay for them, Washington Post (Sept. 27, 2017).

They promise 3 rates (12%, 25% and 35%, without stating what the applicable income brackets for those rates should be). That lowering of rates is primarily beneficial to the wealthiest, since the people who just barely get by on their wages (especially with the new corporate regime of calling people in for short shifts, as needed, rather than paying them a regular full-time job) are hit hardest by the payroll taxes that won’t be lowered at all under this plan. That is, ordinary wage-earners in the middle and lower classes are generally already taxed on a consumption basis–they spend what they earn and have little left for saving for the future. They pay relative low income taxes but pay significant payroll taxes through withholding on their wages (with no deferral). This is another excursion into the current GOP’s ‘alternative fact’ universe, where huge tax cuts mainly benefiting the wealthy are sold as a ‘simplifying’ reform that will benefit ordinary people.

Although the lowest rate is higher than the poorest wage-earning taxpayers pay now, the planners claim that this is still a tax cut because of the “doubling” of the standard deduction for those taxpayers that do not itemize. However, the personal exemptions are eliminated, so that the combination of the standard deduction and the higher rate is likely to be at best a minimal cut for small families and an actual tax increase for larger families. See, e.g., this article.

They promise to eliminate the “alternative minimum tax”, a tax provision that was enacted as a safety provision to ensure that wealthy taxpayers who can afford tax planning and generally can most easily benefit from the various loopholes and tax subsidies written into the code would pay some modicum of taxes rather than get off scott-free from any tax burden. The “framework” (page 5) claims that “it no longer serves its intended purpose and creates significant complexity.” It is admittedly somewhat complex, but not unduly so with modern tax preparation software which makes that complexity a minimal problem. I have been required to pay the AMT, and it hasn’t made my life or tax return filing more complex. In fact, the people who owe the AMT should be paying more tax than they would pay without the AMT, and that means it is in fact serving its intended purpose of ensuring that taxpayers cannot aggregate too many of the various haphazard subsidies in the Code to permit them to essentially escape a reasonable tax burden on their economic income. Elimination of the AMT is a tax break for the well-to-do: Trump, for example, has had to pay the AMT (real estate developers are one of the much-favored groups in terms of various tax expenditures in the Code that benefit them).

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Will October 1 Bring Another Repeal Effort?

run75441 | September 27, 2017 8:00 pm

Healthcare

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It could . . .

With the Senate vote tomorrow canceled on the Graham – Cassidy ACA defunding bill, the effort to defund and repeal the ACA will cease for the rest of this budget year ending September 30, 2017. With the passage of a new budget and a new resolution the effort could go onward in an attempt to repeal the ACA.

As I have said, there can only be one resolution per year. Let me clarify the one reconciliation per budget year statement. Unless the Senate passes more than one budget resolution, there can be only one Reconciliation per year for each of three subjects; spending, revenues, and debt limit in one or multiple bills. Since there was no budget passed last year, the Republicans had a unique opportunity to do two Reconciliations . . . one to defund the ACA and the 2nd one to do Tax Reform. The present Reconciliation affected Spending and Revenues thereby killing those two subjects for Reconciliation in 2017.

If one bill covers spending and revenue, Reconciliation using a budget resolution is expended for those two subjects. Budgets end September 30 of each year.

2018 is a different year and again Congress could take up the repeal of the ACA. And why not when they can get 49 votes to pass it any time they wish to do so. Maybe one of the remaining three Republican Senators will side with them or a Dem may have a weak moment. Since Republicans want to do tax reform, they will use Reconciliation again as it only requires a majority vote and defund the ACA to provide the revenue for it. The opportunity to do two Reconciliations due to two budget resolutions will not be available for Republicans. It may end up being both ACA and Tax Reform in one Reconciliation of just one meaning the ACA or Tax Reform.

Martin Longman at Washington Monthly does a good job of explaining Reconciliation. I believe I beat him in predicting a new run at Reconciliation which can be found in the comments section in early September. I was happy he did write on it as few people have done so till the very end. If still interested, here is a detailed primer on the topic also.

Did the effort to repeal the ACA hurt it going forward? Trump’s threats to kill the CSR which funds out-of-pocket expenses for those between 100% FPL and 250% FPL would not be impacted by this move. For those between 100% and 250% FPL, healthcare insurance premium increases would be picked up by the ACA. Those above 250% to 400% FPL would have premiums limited by the a ratio of ~9% of income. Above 400% FPL, some of our readers and everyone else would take on the full impact of the premium increase. Trump has done everything possible to cause issues with the ACA and this would include lying to the public as well.

Worse Than The Usual Hypocrisy: Trump, Puerto Rico, And The Jones Act

Barkley Rosser | September 27, 2017 2:35 pm

Journalism

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Worse Than The Usual Hypocrisy: Trump, Puerto Rico, And The Jones Act

The Jones Act was passed 97 years ago to protect US shipping within the US from foreign-made ships. I doubt I ever would have supported such an act, but at least back then there were plenty of US-made ships to fulfill the demand. Despite the Jones Act, the US shipping industry has collapsed in the last century so that the number of such ships is far below demand in normal circumstances, so that intra-US shipping costs are far higher than those outside the US. Puerto Rico was covered by he Jones Act and remains so.

After Hurricanes Harvey and Irma the Jones Act was temporarily suspended for Texas, Louisiana, and Florida on orders of President Trump, going through the Department of Homeland Security. The Jones Act is not being suspended for Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurrican Maria, although damage to PR seems to be far greater than what happened on the mainland during Harvey and Irma (with those areas also accessible to supplies and aid by ground transportation, not relying nearly as much on ocean shipping). The supposed reason is that PR’s ports are damaged, which is certainly the case, but even if suspending the Jones Act will only slightly speed up deliveries, it will certainly reduce the costs of supplies, allowing cheaper natural gas from Pennsylvania in place of more expensive oil from Venezuela, for example.

Which brings us to the worse then usual hypocrisy on the part of our president. While he has been all worked up over football players kneeling and moved to get aid to Texas and Florida as rapidly as possible while expressing lots of sympathetic sentiments for the victims in those states, his initial reaction to Hurricane Maria, after several days delay, was to talk about how bad their infrastructure was before the hurricane and how they have a massive debt situation. Of course, if he were really concerned about helping them, he could suspend their debt, but at a minimum, given that he is aware that they are poor and debt ridden, on top of having 80% of their crops destroyed and all their power out among other problems, he is insisting that they pay top dollar on supplies brought in by water, where almost all supplies will come. His refusal to suspend the Jones Act for Puerto Rico after having done so for mainland US territories is far worse than the usual hypocrisy from any president, even this far more hypocritical than pretty much all others one.

Barkley Rosser

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