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Four More Years to MAGAA

28 Wednesday Oct 2020

Posted by Nuetzel in Big Government, Liberty, Politics

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Abraham Accords, Affordable Care Act, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, corporate taxes, Covid-19, Critical Race Theorist, David E. Bernstein, Deregulation, Donald Trump, Dreamers, Election Politics, Federalism, Free trade, Gun Rights, Immigration, Impeachment, Individual Mandate, Joe Biden, Joel Kotkin, Living Constitution, Medicare, Middle East Peace, Nancy Pelosi, National Defense, Nationalism, NATO, Neil Gorsuch, Originalism, Paris Climate Accord, Pass Through Business, Penalty Tax, Social Security, United Nations

As a “practical” libertarian, my primary test for any candidate for public office is whether he or she supports less government dominance over private decisions than the status quo. When it comes to Joe Biden and his pack of ventriloquists, the answer is a resounding NO! That should clinch it, right? Probably, but Donald Trump is more complicated….

I’ve always viewed Trump as a corporatist at heart, one who, as a private businessman, didn’t give a thought to free market integrity when he saw rent-seeking opportunities. Now, as a public servant, his laudable desire to “get things done” can also manifest to the advantage of cronyists, which he probably thinks is no big deal. Unfortunately, that is often the way of government, as the Biden family knows all too well. On balance, however, Trump generally stands against big government, as some of the points below will demonstrate.

Trump’s spoken “stream of consciousness” can be maddening. He tends to be inarticulate in discussing policy issues, but at times I enjoy hearing him wonder aloud about policy; at other times, it sounds like an exercise in self-rationalization. He seldom prevaricates when his mind is made up, however.

Not that Biden is such a great orator. He needs cheat sheets, and his cadence and pitch often sound like a weak, repeating loop. In fairness, however, he manages to break it up a bit with an occasional “C’mon, man!”, or “Here’s the deal.”

I have mixed feelings about Trump’s bumptiousness. For example, his verbal treatment of leftists is usually well-deserved and entertaining. Then there are his jokes and sarcasm, for which one apparently must have an ear. He can amuse me, but then he can grate on me. There are times when he’s far too defensive. He tweets just a bit too much. But he talks like a tough, New York working man, which is basically in his DNA. He keeps an insane schedule, and I believe this is true: nobody works harder.

With that mixed bag, I’ll now get on to policy:

Deregulation: Trump has sought to reduce federal regulation and has succeeded to an impressive extent, eliminating about five old regulations for every new federal rule-making. This ranges from rolling back the EPA’s authority to regulate certain “waters” under the Clean Water Act, to liberalized future mileage standards on car manufacturers, to ending destructive efforts to enforce so-called net neutrality. By minimizing opportunities for over-reach by federal regulators, resources can be conserved and managed more efficiently, paving the way for greater productivity and lower costs.

And now, look! Trump has signed a new executive order making federal workers employees-at-will! Yes, let’s “deconstruct the administrative state”. And another new executive order prohibits critical race theory training both in the federal bureaucracy and by federal contractors. End the ridiculous struggle sessions!

Judicial Appointments: Bravo! Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and over 200 federal judges have been placed on the bench by Trump in a single term. I like constitutional originalism and I believe a “living constitution” is a corrupt judicial philosophy. The founding document is as relevant today as it was at its original drafting and at the time of every amendment. I think Trump understands this.

Corporate Taxes: Trump’s reductions in corporate tax rates have promoted economic growth and higher labor income. In 2017, I noted that labor shares the burden of the corporate income tax, so a reversal of those cuts would be counterproductive for labor and capital.

At the same time, the 2017 tax package was a mixed blessing for many so-called “pass-through” businesses (proprietors, partnerships, and S corporations). It wasn’t exactly a simplification, nor was it uniformly a tax cut.

Individual Income Taxes: Rates were reduced for many taxpayers, but not for all, and taxes were certainly not simplified in a meaningful way. The link in the last paragraph provides a few more details.

I am not a big fan of Trump’s proposed payroll tax cut. Such a temporary move will not be of any direct help to those who are unemployed, and it’s unlikely to stimulate much spending from those who are employed. Moreover, without significant reform, payroll tax cuts will directly accelerate the coming insolvency of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds.

Nonetheless, I believe permanent tax cuts are stimulative to the economy in ways that increased government spending is not: they improve incentives for effort, capital investment, and innovation, thus increasing the nation’s productive capacity. Trump seems to agree.

Upward Mobility: Here’s Joel Kotkin on the gains enjoyed by minorities under the Trump Administration. The credit goes to strong private economic growth, pre-pandemic, as opposed to government aid programs.

Foreign Policy: Peace in the Middle East is shaping up as a real possibility under the Abraham Accords. While the issue of coexisting, sovereign Palestinian and Zionist homelands remains unsettled, it now seems achievable. Progress like this has eluded diplomatic efforts for well over five decades, and Trump deserves a peace prize for getting this far with it.

Iran is a thorn, and the regime is a terrorist actor. I support a tough approach with respect to the ayatollahs, which a Trump has delivered. He’s also pushed for troop withdrawals in various parts of the world. He has moved U.S. troops out of Germany and into Poland, where they represent a greater deterrent to Russian expansionism. Trump has pushed our NATO allies to take responsibility for more of their own defense needs, all to the better. Trump has successfully managed North Korean intransigence, though it is an ongoing problem. We are at odds with the leadership in mainland China, but the regime is adversarial, expansionist, and genocidal, so I believe it’s best to take a tough approach with them. At the UN, some of our international “partners” have successfully manipulated the organization in ways that make continued participation by the U.S. of questionable value. Like me, Trump is no fan of UN governance as it is currently practiced.

Gun Rights: Trump is far more likely to stand for Second Amendment rights than Joe Biden. Especially now, given the riots in many cities and calls to “defund police”, it is vitally important that people have a means of self-defense. See this excellent piece by David E. Bernstein on that point.

National Defense: a pure public good; I’m sympathetic to the argument that much of our “defense capital” has deteriorated. Therefore, Trump’s effort to rebuild was overdue. The improved deterrent value of these assets reduces the chance they will ever have to be used against adversaries. Of course, this investment makes budget balance a much more difficult proposition, but a strong national defense is a priority, as long as we avoid the role of the world’s policeman.

Energy Policy: The Trump Administration has made efforts to encourage U.S. energy independence with a series of deregulatory moves. This has succeeded to the extent the U.S. is now a net energy exporter. At the same time, Trump has sought to eliminate subsidies for wasteful renewable energy projects. Unfortunately, ethanol is still favored by energy policy, which might reflect Trump’s desire to assuage the farm lobby.

Climate Policy: Trump kept us out of the costly Paris Climate Accord, which would have cost the U.S. trillions of dollars in lost GDP and subsidies to other nations. Trump saw through the accord as a scam under which leading carbon-emitting nations (such as China) face few real obligations. Meanwhile, the U.S. has led the world in reductions in carbon emissions during Trump’s term, even pre-pandemic. That’s partly a consequence of increased reliance on natural gas relative to other fossil fuels. Trump has also supported efforts to develop more nuclear energy capacity, which is the ultimate green fuel.

COVID-19 Response: As I’ve written several times, in the midst of a distracting and fraudulent impeachment attempt, Trump took swift action to halt inbound flights from China. He marshaled resources to obtain PPE, equipment, and extra hospital space in hot spots, and he kick-started the rapid development of vaccines. He followed the advice of his sometimes fickle medical experts early in the pandemic, which was not always a good thing. In general, his policy stance honored federalist principles by allowing lower levels of government to address local pandemic conditions on appropriate terms. If the pandemic has you in economic straits, you probably have your governor or local officials to thank. As for the most recent efforts to pass federal COVID relief, Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats have insisted on loading up the legislation with non-COVID spending provisions. They have otherwise refused to negotiate pre-election, as if to blame the delay on Trump.

Immigration: My libertarian leanings often put me at odds with nationalists, but I do believe in national sovereignty and the obligation of the federal government to control our borders. Trump is obviously on board with that. My qualms with the border wall are its cost and the availability of cheaper alternatives leveraging technological surveillance. I might differ with Trump in my belief in liberalizing legal immigration. I more strongly differ with his opposition to granting permanent legal residency to so-called Dreamers, individuals who arrived in the U.S. as minors with parents who entered illegally. However, Trump did offer a legal path to citizenship for Dreamers in exchange for funding of the border wall, a deal refused by congressional Democrats.

Health Care: No more penalty (tax?) to enforce the individual mandate, and the mandate itself is likely to be struck down by the Supreme Court as beyond legislative intent. Trump also oversaw a liberalization of insurance offerings and competition by authorizing short-term coverage of up to a year and enabling small businesses to pool their employees with others in order to obtain better rates, among other reforms. Trump seems to have deferred work on a full-fledged plan to replace the Affordable Care Act because there’s been little chance of an acceptable deal with congressional Democrats. That’s unfortunate, but I count it as a concession to political reality.

Foreign Trade: I’m generally a free-trader, so I’m not wholeheartedly behind Trump’s approach to trade. However, our trade deals of the past have hardly constituted “free trade” in action, so tough negotiation has its place. It’s also true that foreign governments regularly apply tariffs and subsidize their home industries to place them at a competitive advantage vis-a-vis the U.S. As the COVID pandemic has shown, there are valid national security arguments to be made for protecting domestic industries. But make no mistake: ultimately consumers pay the price of tariffs and quotas on foreign goods. I cut Trump some slack here, but this is an area about which I have concerns.

Executive Action: Barack Obama boasted that he had a pen and a phone, his euphemism for exercising authority over the executive branch within the scope of existing law. Trump is taking full advantage of his authority when he deems it necessary. It’s unfortunate that legislation must be so general as to allow significant leeway for executive-branch interpretation and rule-making. But there are times when the proper boundaries for these executive actions are debatable.

Presidents have increasingly pressed their authority to extremes over the years, and sometimes Trump seems eager to push the limits. Part of this is born out of his frustration with the legislative process, but I’m uncomfortable with the notion of unchecked executive authority.

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Of course I’ll vote for Trump! I had greater misgivings about voting for him in 2016, when I couldn’t be sure what we’d get once he took office. After all, his politics had been all over the map over preceding decades. But in many ways I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I’m much more confident now that he is our best presidential bet for peace, prosperity, and liberty.

You think he was pissed off?

01 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by Nuetzel in Politics

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Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Burisma, Chris Christie, Chris Wallace, Court Packing, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden, Impeachment, Joe Biden, Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Michael Flynn, Proud Boys, Sean Trende

Many were put-off and even offended by President Trump’s aggressive approach to the first debate with Joe Biden on Tuesday. I’m not bothered except that he didn’t give Biden enough time to lose his way. This debate was tame compared to the standards set at the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which were full of insults, crude language, and racial epithets.

It was Joe Biden who began the unending series of interruptions on Tuesday. Biden interrupted Trump three times at that point, after which the moderator, Chris Wallace, declared “open discussion”. Go back and watch! So if you care, Biden started it. And Biden became rather abusive in his language as the debate wore on.

As to Trump’s pugilistic style, here is Sean Trende:

“… debates are usually staid affairs, pitched to politically knowledgeable elites who like to evaluate things on the merits. Trump’s debates are pitched to someone completely different. His behavior toward Clinton seemed bizarre and juvenile, and made for classic “SNL” fodder. It also apparently worked reasonably well; the townhall-style debate was one of his best received performances. So the interrupting and refusal to answer questions was off-putting for me, but I recognize that I’m not the target audience.”

Okay, fair enough, but Trump’s debate performance was more visceral than calculated. In fact, even members of his debate team were surprised: Chris Christie said it was “too hot”. Trump’s guns blaze because he’s pissed off, and he should be! Just to regard the countenance of the man across the stage was probably enough to infuriate Trump: Biden helped instigate the fraudulent investigation of General Michael Flynn (James Comey’s denial notwithstanding), Trump’s first national security advisor. Biden has repeatedly stooped to the same unfounded accusations of racism against the President that have been made by Democrats since Trump announced his first candidacy in 2015. This despite Biden’s own racial gaffes and affiliations with racists over the years. Biden was involved in a Ukrainian shakedown, admitting that he threatened the country’s President to have U.S. aid withheld if a Ukrainian prosecutor was not fired. That prosecutor was investigating the energy company Burisma, which just so happened to be paying a handsome retainer to Biden’s son, Hunter. Yet Trump was falsely accused of a similar transgression! Talk about the self-projections of Democrats! Trump has every reason to be pissed off, and to let it flow.

Biden represents the same Democrat party that has conspired to have Trump thrown out of office since before he was inaugurated. The same party has spread disinformation about collusion with Russians since before the 2016 election. The same party voted to impeach Trump in the House of Representatives on that fallacious basis. The same party promotes the idiotic suggestion that Trump “killed 200,000 people” with coronavirus; blames Trump for the economic malaise due to coronavirus lockdowns, then insists the economy must be shut down to end the pandemic; refuses to cooperate in passing a targeted coronavirus aid package; supports the violence perpetrated by Antifa and Black Lives Matter (“mostly peaceful protests”), with prominent democrats contributing to the payment of bail for arrested rioters; calls Trump a dictator for offering to help state and local leaders end the violent civil disorder; refuses to call-out the racism promoted by Antifa and BLM; promotes the Marxism and racism of critical race theory; and attacks his latest Supreme Court nominee on religious grounds. The Democrats also threaten to instigate one-party rule by packing the Supreme Court, ending the legislative filibuster, and admitting new states to the union and dividing old ones in order to create a permanent Democrat majority in Congress (but the Constitution prohibits DC from statehood). A one-party nation! And, of course, Democrats have pushed for universal mail-in ballots, with all the bedlam and challenges that is likely to bring to the electoral process.

Then we have the debate moderator, Chris Wallace. There was little doubt about Wallace’s sympathies. He interrupted Trump much more frequently than he interrupted Biden. He asked Trump whether he denounces white supremacist organizations, and Trump immediately said, “Of course.” Trump has denounced them, but Wallace thought it necessary to relitigate the matter. Wallace’s follow-up regarding the “Proud Boys” was misplaced, as the group might be nationalist, but it is not a white supremacist organization (their president is Afro-Cuban). Meanwhile, Wallace failed to ask Biden to denounce Antifa and BLM. Wallace failed to ask Biden about his son’s dealings with the mayor of Moscow and his Chinese clients. He also let Biden off the hook quite readily when he refused to give his opinion on court packing and eliminating the filibuster. Biden refused to answer… Wallace was like, “okay”!

If anything, my biggest frustration with Trump on Tuesday was his typical sloppy articulation of his policies and views. He seldom makes his best and most obvious supporting arguments. Whiff! Instead, what I hear often seems off-point and semi-coherent. Of course, I understand most of what he’s trying to get across, and so do many others when they’re not too busy self-projecting. So maybe Trump is a great communicator after all, despite his seeming lack of clarity.

Biden says he “is” the Democrat Party. Then he has a lot to answer for. I’m glad Trump lit into him. No reasonable person can blame Trump for being pissed off. Hey, I’m pissed off, and you should be pissed off too, because Joe Biden and the Democrat Party is ready to subjugate you!

The Impaired Impeachment

22 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by Nuetzel in Impeachment

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Abuse of Power, Burisma, Donald Trump, Due Process, Hunter Biden, Impeachment, Joe Biden, John Durham, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Nixon vs. United States, Obama administration, Obstruction of Justice, Steele Dossier, Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, Walter Nixon

biden-impeach-trump

To avoid defections in their ranks, House Democrats had to pare back so much on the counts for impeaching Donald Trump that they laid bare the raw political motives for bringing the action. Not that their motives needed clarification. They’ve been dying to find grounds on which to impeach Trump since the day of his election. They also know the Senate will not remove Trump from office. Now, the real point is to stain the President as he seeks re-election, and that should strike anyone as an illegitimate purpose.

The two impeachment counts, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, are flimsy. Proof of the first would require infallible mind-reading skills. It’s doubtful that the Democrats are any better at that than their inability to follow the simple facts of the case. During the controversial phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, Trump clearly expressed interest in whether the Ukraine would investigate possible interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and whether the Bidens had been involved, given their involvement with Ukrainian organizations that may have had connections to the Steele dossier. That’s a fair question and a legitimate area of inquiry for the chief executive. It can’t be helped that Joe Biden happens to be running for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2020, as if running for office was enough to absolve one of crime.

The second impeachment count against Trump relies on vacating the constitutional privileges accorded to the chief executive, privileges to which President Obama, and others before him, generously availed themselves (also see here).

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now has opted to delay transmitting the impeachment articles to the Senate. She said it was important for the House to wrap up their proceedings quickly, so much so that her party could not be bothered to bring a court challenge against Trump’s assertion of executive privilege. But now, Pelosi insists that she must be assured the Senate trial will be conducted “fairly”, as if the proceedings in the House were remotely fair to the President.

One of the House Democrats’ own expert witnesses asserts that the President’s impeachment is not official until the articles are transmitted to the Senate. That might be, but he overlooks the Supreme Court’s 1993 ruling in Nixon vs. the United States in which the Court said that no trial is required for the Senate to acquit anyone impeached by the House, and it may do so without judicial review. So, the Senate can acquit the President now, without a trial and without waiting for Speaker Pelosi to transmit the “charges”, should Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decide to bring it to a vote. Of course, he might not want to as a matter of optics as well as pressure from an incensed Trump to air all of the laundry.

Like the misguided impeachment itself, Pelosi’s motive for holding the transmittal in abeyance is political. Democrats, quite possibly unaware of the Senate’s power under Nixon, and facing their comeuppance, might hope the public forgets the charade that took place in the House and blame Republicans for an “unfair” Senate process that would let Trump off the hook. Or, Pelosi might be hoping for a weakening of Republican resolve on establishing rules for a trial in the Senate, but even that calculation is chancy. It’s even possible Pelosi imagines she can delay the transfer through the 2020 election, hoping to use the House impeachment again and again as a cudgel with which to batter Trump’s re-election chances. Fat chance!

Or is the delay a form of damage control? Does it have something to do with Joe Biden’s vulnerability? He is perhaps at greater risk under a Senate impeachment trial of Trump than Trump himself. Biden is the one who gloated publicly of how he cowed the Ukrainians into dropping an investigation of Burisma, the gas company for which his son Hunter was a board member, by threatening to withhold loan guarantees. Quid Pro Joe!

Biden’s has stated that he would not comply with a subpoena to appear before the Senate in the matter of the Trump impeachment, apparently confusing Trump’s status as the executive with privilege with his own status as an out-of-office candidate for the Democrat nomination. Oh, wait! Now Biden says he would appear after all! Is the contrast between Trump’s phone conversation with the Ukrainian President and Biden’s gloating admission pertinent? You bet!

Or perhaps Pelosi believes it’s unwise to hand the impeachment counts over to the Senate with John Durham’s investigation still hanging in the balance. Durham is looking into the efforts of U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on the Trump campaign in 2016. An ill-timed and damaging outcome for the Obama Administration could make the impeachment trial into a catastrophic event for Biden and other Democrats.

The Democrats’ have brought their longstanding lust for impeaching Trump to fruition only to find that they’ve miscalculated. First, Trump is practically guaranteed an acquittal, so the whole effort was and is a waste of time. Second, public opinion is far from rallying to the Dems cause. According to Gallup, Trump’s approval now is higher than Obama’s at the same point in his presidency, and support for impeachment hasn’t responded as the Democrats had hoped. In fact, if anything, support has eroded, especially in swing states, and the effort has strengthened Trump’s base of support. I would argue that it’s much worse for Democrats than the polls show. Many anti-Democrats, like me, actively avoid participating in polls. That’s partly because the framing of questions is often biased, and partly because I don’t want to be bothered. Finally, the Democrats seem not to fathom the political risks they face with impeachment: 28 Democrat representatives from districts Trump won in 2016 may now face stiffer odds against reelection in 2020, having cast their votes for impeachment. More critically, there are severe risks of a Senate trial to the Bidens, potentially other Obama Administration officials, and the Clintons.

Note: An acknowledgement goes to the Legal Insurrection blog and A.F. Branco for the cartoon at the top.

Another Flop at the Impeachment Playhouse

04 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by Nuetzel in Impeachment

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Adam Schiff, Australia, China, Cronyism, Donald Trump, FISA Abuse, House Intelligence Committee, Hunter Biden, Impeachment, Inspector General, Joe Biden, Michael Horowitz, Nancy Pelosi, Obama administration, Presidential Powers, Protectionism, Quid Pro Quo, Russia Investigation, Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Whistleblower

Listen, President Trump drives me crazy. His policy instincts often strike me as dangerous: trade protectionist, inflationist, and cronyist. I’m still suspicious that he might play ball with statists left and right on critical issues, when and if he perceives a political advantage in doing so. And Trump is hopelessly inarticulate and belligerent. Nevertheless, I will almost certainly vote for him in 2020 for several reasons, not least because the feasible alternatives are completely unacceptable. That view is reinforced by the behavior of the Democrat party in their effort to fabricate “high crimes and misdemeanors” on Trump’s part. That effort is not just dishonest, it is foolish, and they have a lot to lose. Their machinations are likely to blow up in their faces.

For one thing, the Democrats don’t seem to have much of a case. This time they are focused on a May 2019 phone conversation that took place between Trump and the recently-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The Democrats contend that Trump held up military aid in order to pressure Zelenskiy to investigate the Biden family’s activities in the Ukraine, a charge flatly denied by Zelenskiy. In fact, at the time of the call, the Ukrainians has no idea that military aid had been suspended, a fact first reported by The New York Times.

The Trump Administration released a transcript of the Zelenskiy call, which offers no evidence that a quid pro quo was offered by Trump. Even the text messages released this morning fail to support the claim. Joe Biden’s name came up during the call in connection with potential interference by the Ukraine in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. That’s reasonable in light of the events reported to have taken place, and it is certainly within the scope of presidential powers, as were Trump’s efforts to discuss election interference with Australia, the U.K., and other countries.

If you don’t know it already, a successful impeachment in the House of Representatives will not remove Trump from office. It will constitute a referral of charges to the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, and a conviction requires a two-thirds majority. Ain’t gonna happen.

In the meantime, there really is no formal “impeachment” underway, despite what you think you’ve heard. This is a “proceeding” that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi really had no authority to initiate, and there is no set of rules or procedures guiding the spectacle. An impeachment investigation requires a House vote, but Democrats voted to table a resolution calling for such a vote because they really don’t want one, not yet anyway. Why? Because it would force them to go on record before they’re quite sure they want to, but more importantly it would demand due process for the accused. A House vote for an impeachment investigation would give House Republicans subpoena powers, something Democrats don’t want to take a chance on.

Again, the whole effort by the Democrats will ultimately be futile, and the trial proceedings in the Senate might be very ugly for them as well. It is likely to shed light on several matters that offer unflattering context for the impeachment effort and might well lead to criminal charges against prominent Democrats and their operatives:

  • Did members of the Obama Administration, the DNC, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign work with the Ukrainian government to undermine the Trump’s candidacy, hatching the Russian collusion narrative in the process? Politico said so in 2017.
  • Did the Biden family trade on Joe Biden’s position to attract capital from large investors for a venture in the Ukraine?
  • What was exchanged in order for Joe Biden’s son Hunter to land a $50,000/month job with a Ukrainian gas company?
  • Did Joe Biden use the authority of his office to strong-arm the Ukrainians into dropping the prosecution of the company that employed his son? “Son of a B“, Joe said, I threatened to walk away and they dropped the investigation. Son of a Biden?
  • Members of Congress sent a letter to the Ukrainian government in May of 2018 that threatened reductions in aid without Ukrainian cooperation with the Mueller investigation into the Trump campaign.
  • A member of the Obama Administration is known to have approached the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in 2016 to solicit the Ukraine’s participation in a scheme to interfere with the U.S. election.
  • The Intelligence Community Inspector General’s report stated that the “whistleblower” or operative had a political bias. Well, might that have been a motive in the case?
  • Who authorized the change in requirements for whistleblower referrals from first-hand information to second-hand information, or hearsay? And when? Despite denials from left-wing fact-checkers, the Intelligence Community Inspector General’s narrative here doesn’t quite hang together. They gave the operative the wrong form? It’s been claimed that the operative provided first-hand information after all, but where is it?
  • Did members of Congress know about the operative’s complaint before it was formally referred to Congress? Apparently Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, knew before the complaint was drafted, and he lied about it. Was there collaboration with the operative?
  • What are Adam Schiff’s connections in the Ukraine? Let’s find out!

These are all troubling questions that should be investigated. We may or may not get to the bottom of it before the impeachment vote in the House, if it ever occurs. Senate Republicans will undoubtedly be interested in pursuing many of these areas of inquiry, and Joe Biden will not come out of this unscathed. There is likely considerable evidence to support claims that he used political influence to gain his son Hunter favor in the Ukraine and China. 

This month, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to release his report on the origins and conduct of the Russia investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. including potential corruption of the FISA process. His report will reflect the findings of two U.S. attorneys conducting separate inquiries into various aspects of the matter. These reports are a potential disaster for Democrats. Perhaps the distraction of impeachment theatre seems desirable to them, but the longer they continue the fruitless effort to “get Trump”, which began well before he was elected, the more incompetent they look. They don’t seem to have noticed that the whole spectacle is strengthening Trump’s base of support.

Which brings me back to Trump’s belligerence, which I briefly decried above. And it’s true, I often wince, but then I often laugh out loud as well. His political opponents and the media are constantly aghast at his every unapologetic response to their attacks. I will readily admit that it’s deeply satisfying to witness him hurling the crap right back at them, right on the schnoz. In the case of the impeachment drama, his base of support and many others in the middle know the Dems richly deserve it.

 

Mueller’s Muddle

05 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by Nuetzel in Trump Administration

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Christopher Steele, DOJ, Donald Trump, Impeachment, Inspector General, James Comey, Jonathan Turley, Mueller Report, Nancy Pelosi, Obstruction of Justice, Office of Legal Council, Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein, Russian Collusion, Steele Dossier, William Barr

The Mueller Report effectively put to rest allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 election, despite lingering wails from crestfallen Trump haters. But Trump lovers and haters alike might agree that the report should have settled much more, including whether there was evidence on which a charge of obstruction of justice could be brought against Trump. Robert Mueller demurred from that responsibility as a prosecutor, but he left a few tempting but ultimately dangerous crumbs for those still obsessed with toppling Trump.

Mueller’s statement last Wednesday wavered around the suggestion that Trump might be guilty of obstruction, a connotation colored more by politics than evidence. My conclusions, gleaned from both the report and a few other sources, are the following:

  • There was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
  • The original allegations were an attempted set-up of Trump. The scheme relied in part on the fraudulent Christopher Steele dossier, which was financed by the Clinton campaign, as well as a series of misrepresentations and suspicious contacts arranged by high-level officials at the Department of Justice and the FBI. That the entire investigation might have been compromised by such a conspiracy was not addressed by Mueller in the report, but we will learn more very soon when the DOJ’s Inspector General issues his findings. The IG will be interviewing Steele himself in the UK before long.
  • Mueller probably knew there was no collusion early in the investigation, but he persisted in “investigating” for two years. In my view, that created the appearance of an effort to entrap an angry Trump on obstruction charges.
  • Trump reacted to the collusion charges with a kind of raving petulance. Of course, it’s hard to blame him for his anger, and Mueller more-or-less acknowledged that. Trump did and said things that surely sounded intemperate, though some were within his prerogative (e.g., firing James Comey). Certain impulsive statements and actions might have risen to the level of obstruction had he not “changed his mind”, or had he bothered to follow-up on execution by aides. And Trump made statements (not under oath) that we’re intended to influence public opinion and possibly the willingness of certain witnesses to cooperate with investigators, but that sort of intent is hard to prove.
  • Of the ten instances of possible obstruction listed by Mueller in his report, two came dangerously close to qualifying as obstruction, two others were more of a stretch, and the rest were readily explained by motives other than an intent to obstruct, as Mueller sometimes indicated in the report.
  • Several of the possible obstruction issues were mitigated by Trump’s apparent willingness to cooperate with the investigation, including the provision to Mueller’s office of a huge volume of emails and documents, and by allowing members of the administration to be interviewed, some at great length.
  • Jonathan Turley has expressed his dismay at three underhanded actions taken by Mueller, one in the report itself and two in the wake of its delivery to his superiors at the DOJ (Attorney General William Barr and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein). The first was an omission: Mueller chose not to identify grand jury material that had to be redacted before release to the public. This was contrary to instructions and with knowledge that the omission would delay the report’s release to the public and reflect badly on Barr.
  • The second action noted by Turley was a letter sent by Mueller to Barr complaining about the “impression” created by Barr’s summary of the report, despite the fact that Barr had invited Mueller to review the summary in advance. The letter also asked Barr to “release uncleared portions of the report”, which Mueller knew was prohibited. This also seems to have been intended to reflect badly on Barr.
  • Turley’s third point is Mueller’s legally incoherent statement that “he would have cleared Trump if he could have” but chose not to draw a conclusion. Mueller invoked an opinion from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Council (OLC), which he claimed prohibited the indictment of a sitting president. But over a period of two years, he failed to seek further guidance on the question from the OLC, his superiors, or the Inspector General.
  • A more obvious explanation for Mueller’s failure to seek an indictment is that he knew that no grand jury would indict on the evidence as described in the ten instances of possible obstruction he listed in the report.
  • Essentially Mueller left the ball in Barr’s court to decide whether to seek an indictment of Trump on obstruction changes, and Barr decided that the evidence did not support it.
  • However, the very idea of obstruction is moot, or should be, given the first three points above. And apparently Mueller never intended to seek an indictment on collusion, as he stated again last Wednesday.
  • Mueller strayed outside the role of a prosecutor and potentially subverted the cause of justice in stating that he could not exonerate the president of obstruction. There is no such thing as “exoneration” of an accused in U.S. criminal law. Mueller’s role as a prosecutor was to make a determination as to whether he should recommend an indictment against Trump. It was not his role to determine Trump’s guilt and certainly not his innocence, and innocence must always be the presumption.
  • The Mueller report could provide Congress with a “roadmap” for impeachment of Trump on charges of obstruction. If House Democrats decide to take that road, it would very likely be a prescription for their electoral suicide.

No matter how aggravating and uncouth you find Trump, and no matter how unwise his policies might prove to be, he was elected fair and square. Nevertheless, his opponents in Congress and on the campaign trail can’t easily give up the impeachment rhetoric without angering their leftist base. But not all congressional Democrats are voicing support for impeachment proceedings, and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi is doing her best to manage the division without making a commitment either way. The Senate will never go along with impeachment, of course. Now, a House vote to merely censure Donald Trump is mentioned as a possible “exit-ramp” to compromise that would let the hard-line impeachers down easy. Whatever they do, however, some Democrats might hope to drag out the process in an attempt to inflict maximal damage to Trump’s reelection prospects. And that, too, is probably ill-advised, because people are getting tired of all this.

Tax Returns, Politics and Privacy

12 Sunday May 2019

Posted by Nuetzel in Privacy, Taxes

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Tags

Adam Grewal, Appraisal Techniques, Donald Trump, Impeachment, IRS, Jeffrey Carter, Legislative Purpose, Loss Carry Forward, Richard Neal, Robert Mueller, Robin Hanson, Steve Mnuchin, Tax Minimization, Trasparency, Tyler Cowan, Universal Tax Disclosure

It’s a constitutional crisis! Or so claim congressional Democrats, but at this point it looks more like a one-party panic attack. They keep sniffing the trailing fumes of the Mueller investigation, which turned up nothing on the President, or at least nothing worth prosecuting. There is also an ongoing dispute over the President’s tax returns, which he has chosen not to make public. Last week, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal subpoenaed the IRS for six years of Trump’s tax returns, but that is likely to be ignored. There is no law or requirement that Trump release the returns, and the IRS would be under no obligation to comply with the subpoena if it has “no legislative purpose”, as Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said of an earlier request by Neal. For his part, Trump has falsely claimed to the public that an ongoing audit prevents him from releasing his tax documents, but he is fully within his legal rights to withhold his returns, at least for now. His decision is, no doubt, political and it may be wise to that extent. Nevertheless, the suspicion that Trump is a tax cheat is fueled by his very reluctance to make the returns public.

Constitutional Protection

The legality of Trump’s refusals to make the returns public is established in the Constitution, according to law professor Adam Grewal of the University of Iowa:

“Though a federal statute seemingly compels the IRS to furnish, on request, anyone’s tax returns to some congressional committees, a statute cannot transcend the constitutional limits on Congress’s investigative authority. Congress enjoys a near-automatic right to review a President’s tax returns only in the impeachment context.”

If explicit action is taken to impeach the President, justifiably or not, then presumably he or the IRS would be forced to turn over his tax returns to Congress. Even then, however, it would probably become the subject of a protracted court fight.

Partisan Charges

It’s not surprising that Trump has engaged expensive tax experts for the Trump organization and his personal taxes. Of course he has! Anyone in his position would be crazy not to. Minimizing taxes is a complex undertaking even for those having far less wealth and business complexity than a Donald Trump. There is no reason why he should have foregone any tax advantages for which he or his business was entitled. And in fact, he was entitled to use losses on a number of failed enterprises over the years to offset other income for tax purposes. Under these circumstances, a tax liability of zero is not terribly surprising.

Specific claims that Trump is a tax cheat are as yet unfounded. As Jeffrey Carter explains, there is an array of tax provisions intended to provide incentives to businesses precisely because tax law has been crafted to encourage business activity; real estate development is no exception. The idea is that businesses encourage employment, income, incremental tax revenue, and eventually more development. While I generally oppose tax provisions that impinge on specific kinds of human activity, there is nothing illegal or even immoral about taking advantage of tax rules that exist. In fact, there are legal tax maneuvers that can allow a successful real estate development business to generate continuing tax losses.

There are allegations that the Trump organization used fraudulent appraisals to understate values of buildings as a means of minimizing taxes. A variety of appraisal techniques are used in commercial real estate, each involving a series of assumptions and possible adjustments. Appraisals might be especially difficult for complex properties such as large, high-end gambling developments. Perhaps reviews of appraisals are part of the ongoing IRS audit to which Trump referred. There’s little doubt that Trump’s tax advisors would have sought to use the most advantageous techniques and assumptions that would pass scrutiny by the IRS and other tax authorities. However, it is unlikely that he was intimately involved in the appraisal process himself. The audit should determine whether their methods were excessive, not a swarm of politicians and leftist journalists. The penalties for any past understatement of taxes might be financially significant, but his presidency would almost certainly survive such a finding.

Again, Trump may be wise to withhold his tax returns. In today’s political environment, every deduction, credit, and loss carry-forward would be characterized by Democrats and the media as an affront to the American people. In fact, most American taxpayers attempt to minimize their taxes, as well they should. In a world with a simple, sane tax code, a simple definition of taxable income, and a competent IRS, there would be little reason for the clamor over public disclosure of tax data by public officials or candidates for office.

Universal Tax Disclosure? No

That brings me to the subject of a rather striking proposal: Robin Hanson believes that all tax returns should be made publicly available: yours, mine and Donald Trump’s. That change was made in the U.S. in 1924, but soon reversed, according to Hanson. It is done today in Norway, though the identity of anyone seeking that information on a taxpayer is made available to the taxpayer. Without the latter condition, the idea seems like an invitation to voyeurism, or worse. The several rationales offered by Hanson all tend to fall under the rubric that “transparency is good”. He includes critical remarks from Tyler Cowan on the proposal, dismissing them all on various grounds. But I happen to agree with Cowan that not all transparency is good. In fact, my first reaction is that the proposal would be an unnecessary extension of the intrusion into private affairs made by government taxation of income.

Universal tax disclosure might have some value in discouraging tax evasion, and perhaps the IRS could create a schedule of buy-off rates by income level at which tax information would be kept private. However, I’m skeptical of the other benefits cited by Hanson. For one thing, if the identity of the inquirer is revealed, many of the purported benefits would be nullified by discouraging the queries. To the extent that transparency has value, many credit transactions or credit payment mechanisms already require verification of income. Insurance underwriting is also sometimes dependent on proof of income. I am skeptical that the ability of workers to collect information from the tax returns of other individuals would greatly improve the efficiency of labor markets. The value of income data to counter-parties in other kinds of relationships, such as prospective marriage, would seem to be balanced by the value of privacy. Hanson says that people don’t place a high value on privacy, but it clearly has value, and I’m not sure his Twitter poll with a single price point is a valid test of the proposition. And again, with the simple tax code we should have, the benefits of acquiring the tax returns of politicians would boil down to an opportunity for shaming the rich and “tax pinchfists” (successful tax minimizers), which is what some of this is about anyway.

Conclusion

Donald Trump’s tax returns are a prize that his detractors hope will reveal an abundance of classist political fodder and perhaps even evidence of misdeeds. They can only hope. Unless Articles of Impeachment are drafted in the House of Representatives, the Constitution protects President Trump’s tax returns from congressional scrutiny. Trump is probably wise to resist disclosure of his taxes, since the returns would be picked over by the Left and criticized for any whiff of tax management, legal or otherwise. Trump’s businesses hired experts to aggressively minimize tax liabilities, but there is no evidence that they engineered any illegal maneuvers.

Finally, to suggest that all tax returns be made publicly accessible is to support a massive invasion of privacy. Then again, the very imposition of our complex income tax code is a massive invasion of privacy, and one that creates a substantial compliance burden on all income earners.

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