Heather Cox Richardson's Blog, page 117
March 5, 2024
March 5, 2024 (Tuesday)
Possibly the biggest story today in terms of its impact on most Americans’ lives is that as part of its war on junk fees, the Biden administration announced an $8 cap on late fees charged by credit card issuers that have more than a million accounts. These companies hold more than 95% of outstanding credit card debt. Currently, fees average $32, and they fall on more than 45 million people. The White House estimates that late fees currently cost Americans about $25 billion a year. The rule change will save Americans about $10 billion a year.
The administration also announced a “strike force” to crack down on “unfair and illegal pricing.” Certain corporations raised prices as strained supply chains made it more expensive to make their products. But after supply chains were fixed and their costs dropped, corporations kept consumer prices high and passed on record profits to their shareholders. The strike force will encourage federal agencies to share information to enable them to identify businesses that are breaking the law.
Banking organizations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce came out swinging. Executive vice president Neil Bradley said that such regulation “to micromanage how private businesses set prices will have the same result: shortages, fewer choices for consumers, a weaker economy, and less jobs.”
And in what perhaps illustrates why voters don’t appear to know much about what the administration is doing, these stories have gotten far less attention today than the primaries and caucuses.
Today is Super Tuesday, when 15 states and one territory choose their primary candidates for president and for the House of Representatives and the Senate (although in Alaska, only Republicans vote today and in American Samoa, only Democrats vote today). About 36% of Republican delegates will be awarded today, and that’s the side people will be watching because on the Democratic side, Biden has a virtually uncontested lead with the exception of candidate Jason Palmer, who won the Democratic caucuses in American Samoa.
Trump is expected to win today’s Republican contests, but observers are watching to see what percentage of the vote challenger Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, takes from him. As I write this, she appears to have won Vermont and run strongly elsewhere, especially in the suburbs. Three states conducted exit polls and they, too, show warning signs for Trump as 78% of Haley voters in the North Carolina primary, 69% in California, and 68% in Virginia refused to say they would support the party’s nominee no matter who it is.
It is also notable that polls showed Trump with a much stronger margin over Haley than materialized today. As Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo notes, it is not yet clear what that means.
Trump is on his way to becoming the Republican presidential nominee. On Friday the Republican National Committee (RNC) will meet in Houston to choose a new chair. The only people running are Trump loyalist Michael Whatley and Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who hope to become co-chairs. Natalie Allison reported today in Politico that the RNC will not vote on a resolution that would have prohibited the RNC from covering Trump’s legal bills.
Trump is certainly in need of money. Today, his lawyers demanded a new trial in the second E. Jean Carroll case, complaining that the judge limited what he could say, and asked for a judgment figure significantly lower than the $83.3 million the jurors awarded. By the end of Friday, Trump must post either the money or a bond covering it.
This morning, Trump told Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends that he was not worried about coming up with the money to pay the $454 million he owes in the New York fraud case, or the interest it is accruing at more than $100,000 a day. “I have a lot of money. I can do what I want to do,” Trump said. “I don't worry about anything. I don't worry about the money. I don't worry about money.”
Yesterday, Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, admitted he lied under oath during his testimony in that case. He will be sentenced in April.
Super Tuesday is also the day that the 2024 presidential campaign begins in earnest for those who had not previously been paying much attention, and Taylor Swift today urged her 282 million followers on Instagram “to vote the people who most represent YOU into power. If you haven't already, make a plan to vote today,” she wrote.
The presidential contest is only one of the many contests on the ballot today, but most of those results are not yet in.
Although the Arizona primary will not be held until March 19, we did learn today that Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) will not run for reelection. Her exit will leave the Arizona senator’s race to election-denying Trump Republican Kari Lake, who lost the Arizona governorship in 2022 (although she continues to insist she won it), and Arizona Democratic representative Ruben Gallego.
Just as voters don’t appear to know much about what the administration has done to make their lives better, a recent study from a Democratic pollster suggests that voters don’t seem to know much about Trump’s statements attacking democracy. When informed of them, their opinion of Trump falls.
Trump has called for mass deportations of immigrants and foreign-born U.S. citizens; on February 29, he said he would use local police as well as federal troops to round people up and move them to camps for deportation. Asked yesterday by a Newsmax host if he would “order mass deportations if you win the White House,” Trump answered: “Oh, day one. We have no choice. And we’ll start with the bad ones. And you know who knows who they are? Local police. Local police have to be given back their authority, and they have to be given back their respect and immunity.”
On the one hand, caps to credit card late fees and an attempt to address price gouging; on the other hand, local police with immunity rounding up millions of people and putting them in camps, for deportation. And, in between the two, an election.
People had better start paying attention.
—
Notes:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/05/investing/credit-card-late-fees-biden
https://www.aol.com/credit-card-fees-capped-8-165135458.html
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4510080-trump-new-e-jean-carroll-trial-testimony/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/05/biden-strike-force-unfair-illegal-prices
https://nytimes.com/2024/03/05/business/economy/biden-economy-times-siena-poll.html
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4511397-biden-loses-american-samoa-democratic-caucus/
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/more-trump-haley-polling-errors
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/05/politics/e-jean-carroll-donald-trump/index.html
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-faces-critical-deadline-e-jean-carroll-83-3m-payment-1875561
https://apnews.com/article/trump-fraud-weisselberg-perjury-0101a9972cefd1e1fb4ba6d36e69fecb
https://newrepublic.com/article/179548/poll-voters-trump-dictator-threats
https://www.axios.com/2024/02/11/trump-promise-deport-millions-migrants-reality
https://www.axios.com/2024/03/01/trump-mass-deportation-migrants-border-plan
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/us/politics/trump-2025-immigration-agenda.html
Twitter (X):
https://twitter.com/Fritschner/status/1765206599692361996
March 4, 2024
Today the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that states cannot remove Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot. Colorado officials, as well as officials from other states, had challenged Trump’s ability to run for the presidency, noting that the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits those who have engaged in insurrection after taking an oath to support the Constitution from holding office. The court concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment leaves the question of enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment up to Congress.
But the court didn’t stop there. It sidestepped the question of whether the events of January 6, 2021, were an insurrection, declining to reverse Colorado’s finding that Trump was an insurrectionist.
In those decisions, the court was unanimous.
But then five of the justices cast themselves off from the other four. Those five went on to “decide novel constitutional questions to insulate this Court and petitioner from future controversy,” as the three dissenting liberal judges put it. The five described what they believed could disqualify from office someone who had participated in an insurrection: a specific type of legislation.
Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson in one concurrence, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett in another, note that the majority went beyond what was necessary in this expansion of its decision. “By resolving these and other questions, the majority attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office,” Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson wrote. Seeming to criticize those three of her colleagues as much as the majority, Barrett wrote: “This is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency…. [W]ritings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up.”
Conservative judge J. Michael Luttig wrote that “in the course of unnecessarily deciding all of these questions when they were not even presented by the case, the five-Justice majority effectively decided not only that the former president will never be subject to disqualification, but that no person who ever engages in an insurrection against the Constitution of the United States in the future will be disqualified under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Disqualification Clause.”
Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife, Ginni, participated in the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, notably did not recuse himself from participating in the case.
There is, perhaps, a larger story behind the majority’s musings on future congressional actions. Its decision to go beyond what was required to decide a specific question and suggest the boundaries of future legislation pushed it from judicial review into the realm of lawmaking.
For years now, Republicans, especially Republican senators who have turned the previously rarely-used filibuster into a common tool, have stopped Congress from making laws and have instead thrown decision-making to the courts.
Two days ago, in Slate, legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern noted that when Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was Senate majority leader, he “realized you don’t need to win elections to enact Republican policy. You don’t need to change hearts and minds. You don’t need to push ballot initiatives or win over the views of the people. All you have to do is stack the courts. You only need 51 votes in the Senate to stack the courts with far-right partisan activists…[a]nd they will enact Republican policies under the guise of judicial review, policies that could never pass through the democratic process. And those policies will be bulletproof, because they will be called ‘law.’”
—
Notes:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/scotus-rules-constitutions-dq-clause-cant-keep-trump-off-ballot
Law DorkSupreme Court, 9-0, says Colorado can't kick Trump off ballotDonald Trump will remain on the ballot in Colorado’s Republican primary on Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Monday, reversing the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to the contrary. In December 2023, the Colorado court had ruled that Trump could not appear on the ballot because he had engaged in insurrection in connection with his actions related to January 6, 2021, disqualifying him from being president under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment and barring him from appearing on the Colorado primary ballot under state law…Read more21 hours ago · 131 likes · 35 comments · Chris Geidnerhttps://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/mitch-mcconnell-retire-trump-federal-judiciary.html
Twitter (X):
kyledcheney/status/1764667448207314981
judgeluttig/status/1764781742563480006
NormEisen/status/1764692656783802767
steve_vladeck/status/1764669055989063836
March 4, 2024
March 3, 2024
March 3, 2024
This week seems likely to be packed with news.
Today, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke about the crisis in the Middle East with strong words for both Hamas and Israel, calling for a ceasefire of at least six weeks, the return of hostages, and increased aid to the Palestinians. Such a deal is on the table. According to the U.S., Israel has agreed to it, and negotiators are waiting for a response from Hamas leaders.
Benny Gantz, a centrist officer in Israel’s war cabinet, is in Washington, D.C., where he will meet tomorrow with Vice President Harris and national security advisor Jake Sullivan, and on Tuesday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He did not have authorization from hard-right prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the visit. As growing numbers of Israelis are voicing dislike of Netanyahu, polls show that Gantz could command enough support to become prime minister if a new vote were held immediately.
This evening the U.S. Supreme Court indicated it will issue an opinion tomorrow. Marc Elias of Democracy Docket commented that it is “[v]ery likely the case involving Donald Trump's disqualification under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.”
Also today, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley won her first primary, winning 62.9% of the Republican vote in Washington, D.C. Trump won 33.2%. This victory makes Haley the first woman in history to win a Republican primary. It also illustrates that Trump’s support is terribly soft. Over the weekend, Haley picked up the endorsements of Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME).
Headed into the week, Tuesday, March 5, is so-called Super Tuesday, when voters in fifteen states and one territory will vote for their choice for president. Those states are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia. In American Samoa, Democrats will vote on Tuesday, Republicans on Friday.
It seems likely that Super Tuesday will shift so many delegates into Trump’s column that he will have virtually locked up the Republican nomination.
But that timing poses a real problem for the Republican Party. Trump has to post a bond to cover the $83.3 million he owes writer E. Jean Carroll no later than Friday, March 8. His lawyers have been trying to get out of this requirement, asking for a “substantially reduced bond.” This suggests that he might have trouble covering the amount. And after he comes up with this sum, he still has the $454 million to pay in the civil fraud case against him in New York.
March 8 is also the day that Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel steps down. The only people running to replace her are Trump loyalist Michael Whatley and Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who hope to be co-chairs. Trump’s senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita is running to be the RNC’s chief operating officer.
So Trump could clinch the nomination and control of the RNC just as it becomes crystal clear he has devastating financial and legal problems.
Also this week, far-right Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán is scheduled to meet with Trump at the Trump Organization’s property at Mar-a-Lago.
And Congress still must pass several appropriations bills. Meanwhile, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has suggested Democrats will protect House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from a vote to oust him if he will bring up for a vote the national security supplemental bill that provides aid to Ukraine.
Thursday, President Biden will deliver the State of the Union address.
I’m already tired just thinking of it all, but this week might well provide some new clarity on a number of major issues.
—
Notes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/01/us/politics/super-tuesday-when-states.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-hamas-war-cease-fire-hostage-release-us/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/03/harris-gaza-israel-ceasefire/
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/03/israel-hamas-netanyahu-washington-00144577
https://www.usvotefoundation.org/american-samoa-election-dates-and-deadlines
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68465057
Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance The Week AheadOn Monday morning, Trump should be going to trial in federal court in Washington, D.C.. But instead, that case, along with the one in Florida and the state case in Fulton County, Georgia, are snarled in delay. So rather than a trial that would have presented the evidence—the facts—to a jury and to the rest of the American people, this week will be mostl…Read more12 hours ago · 697 likes · 85 comments · Joyce Vancehttps://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/26/michael-whatley-officially-announces-for-rnc-chair-00143364
Law DorkSupreme Court announces Monday opinions, Trump ballot case decision likelyThe U.S Supreme Court is expected to release opinions in one or more argued cases on Monday morning. The timing of the announcement strongly suggests a decision is coming in Donald Trump’s appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court decision that the Fourteenth Amendment bars Trump from being president and state law prevents his inclusion on the state’s presidential primary ballot…Read more15 hours ago · 83 likes · 9 comments · Chris Geidnerhttps://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/us/politics/hakeem-jeffries-mike-johnson.html
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/national-international/israel-benny-gantz-us-visit/3792221/
Twitter (X):
March 2, 2024
March 2, 2024
On February 25, 1901, financier J. P. Morgan’s men filed the paperwork to incorporate a new iron and steel trust, and over the weekend, businessmen waited to see what was coming. Five days later, on March 2, the announcement came: J. P. Morgan was overseeing the combination of companies that produced two thirds of the nation’s steel into the United States Steel Corporation. It was capitalized at $1.4 billion, which at the time was almost three times more than the federal government’s annual budget.
While the stock market was abuzz with news of the nation’s first billion-dollar corporation, Vice President–elect Theodore Roosevelt was on his way from New York to Washington, D.C., where he and his family arrived at 5:00 in the evening. The train was an hour behind schedule because the crowds coming to see the upcoming inauguration, scheduled for Monday, March 4, 1901, had slowed travel into Washington.
Two days later, President William McKinley took the oath of office for the second time, and Roosevelt became vice president.
McKinley was a champion of big business and believed the role of government was to support industry, dismissing growing demands from workers, farmers, and entrepreneurs for the government to level the economic playing field that had tilted so extraordinarily toward a few industry leaders. McKinley had won the hard-fought election of 1896 handily, but by 1900, Republicans were so concerned about the growing demand for reform that party leaders put Roosevelt, who had won a reputation for standing up to business interests, on the ticket, at least in part because they hoped to silence him there.
Roosevelt hoped he could promote reform from the vice presidency, but he quickly discovered that he couldn’t accomplish much of anything. His only official duty was to preside over the Senate, which would not convene until December. He was so bored he asked the chief justice of the Supreme Court if it would be unseemly for him to enroll in law school to finish his degree. (Horrified, the justice offered to supervise Roosevelt’s studies himself.)
But then, in September, an unemployed steelworker assassinated McKinley, and Roosevelt became president. “I told McKinley it was a mistake to nominate that wild man at Philadelphia,” one of McKinley’s aides said. “I told him what would happen if he should die. Now look. That damned cowboy is president of the United States.”
Two months later, on November 13, J. P. Morgan and railroad magnates brought together the nation’s main railroad interests, which had been warring with each other, into a new conglomerate called the Northern Securities Company. Even the staunchly big business Chicago Tribune was taken aback: “Never have interests so enormous been brought under one management,” its editor wrote.
Midwestern governors, whose constituents depended on the railroads to get their crops to market, suggested that their legislatures would find a way to prohibit such a powerful combination. Northern Securities Company officials retorted that they would simply keep all business transactions and operations secret. When Roosevelt gave his first message to Congress in December, industrialists watched to see what the “damned cowboy” would say about their power over the government.
They were relieved. Roosevelt said the government should start cleaning up factories and limiting the working hours of women and children, and that it should reserve natural resources for everyone rather than allow them to be exploited by greedy businessmen.
But Roosevelt did not oppose the new huge combinations. He simply wanted the government to supervise and control corporate combinations, preventing criminality in the business world as it did in the streets. He asked businessmen only for transparency. Once the government actually knew what businesses were up to, he said, it could consider regulation or taxation to protect the public interest.
Senators and businessmen who had worried that the cowboy president would slash at the trusts breathed a sigh of relief that all he wanted was “transparency.” According to the Chicago Tribune, the “grave and reverend and somewhat plutocratic Senators immediately admitted in the most delighted fashion that the young and supposedly impetuous President had discussed the trust question with rare discrimination.”
But they were wrong to think Roosevelt did not intend to reduce the power of big business. In early January 1902, Minnesota sued to stop the Northern Securities Company from organizing on the grounds that such a combination violated Minnesota law. While the Supreme Court dithered over whether or not it could rule on the case, the Roosevelt administration put the federal government out in front of the issue. In February, Roosevelt’s attorney general told newspapers that the administration believed the formation of the Northern Securities Company violated the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act and that he would be filing a suit to keep it from organizing.
Businessmen were aghast, not only because Roosevelt was going after a business combination but also because he had acted without consulting Wall Street. When J. P. Morgan complained that he had not been informed, Roosevelt coolly told him that that was the whole point. “If we have done anything wrong,” said the astonished Morgan, “send your man [the attorney general] to my man [one of his lawyers] and they can fix it up.” The president declined. “We don’t want to fix it up,” explained the attorney general. “We want to stop it.”
“Criticism of President Roosevelt’s action was heard on every side,” reported the Boston Globe. “Some of the principal financiers said he had dealt a serious blow to the financial securities of the country.” For his part, Roosevelt was unconcerned by the criticism. “If the law has not been violated,” he announced, “no harm can come from the proposed legal action.”
In late February, the Supreme Court decided it would not hear the Minnesota case; on March 10, the United States sued to stop the organization of the Northern Securities Company.
In August 1902, Roosevelt toured New England and the Midwest to rally support for his attack on the Northern Securities Company. He told audiences that he was not trying to destroy corporations but rather wanted to make them act in the public interest. He demanded a “square deal” for everyone. As the Boston Globe put it: “‘Justice for all alike—a square deal for every man, great or small, rich or poor,’ is the Roosevelt ideal to be attained by the framing and the administration of the law. And he would tell you that that means Mr Morgan and Mr Rockefeller [sic] as well as the poor fellow who cannot pay his rent.”
In 1904 the Supreme Court ruled that the Northern Securities Company was an illegal monopoly and that it must be dissolved, and by 1912, Roosevelt had come to believe that a strong federal government was the only way for citizens to maintain control over corporations, which he saw as the inevitable outcome of the industrial economy. He had no patience for those who hoped to stop such combinations by passing laws against them. Instead, he believed the American people must create a strong federal government that could exert public control over corporations.
In a famous speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, in 1912, he called for a “new nationalism.”
“The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into being,” he said. He warned that “[t]here can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains…. We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that the people may know…whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public.”
Roosevelt had come to believe that a strong government must regulate business. “The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power,” he said.
After all, he said, “[t]he object of government is the welfare of the people.”
—
Notes:
Boston Daily Globe, February 26, 1901, p. 1.
Boston Daily Globe, March 3, 1901, p. 4.
Chicago Daily Tribune, March 3, 1901, p. 1.
March 1, 2024
March 1, 2024
Today, President Joe Biden signed the continuing resolution that will give lawmakers another week to finalize appropriations bills. Lawmakers will continue to hash out the legislation that will fund the government.
Republicans have been stalling the appropriations bills for months. In addition to inserting their own extremist cultural demands in the measures, they have demanded budget cuts to address the fact that the government spends far more money than it brings in.
As soon as Mike Johnson (R-LA) became House speaker, he called for a “debt commission” to address the growing budget deficit. This struck fear into the hearts of those eager to protect Social Security and Medicare, because when Johnson chaired the far-right Republican Study Committee in 2020, it called for cutting those popular programs by raising the age of eligibility, lowering cost-of-living adjustments, and reducing benefits for retirees whose annual income is higher than $85,000. Lawmakers don’t want to take on such unpopular proposals, so setting up a commission might be a workaround.
Last month, the House Budget Committee advanced legislation that would create such a commission. The chair of the House Budget Committee, Jodey C. Arrington (R-TX), told reporters that Speaker Johnson was “100% committed to this commission” and wanted to attach it to the final appropriations legislation for fiscal year 2024, the laws currently being hammered out.
Congress has not yet agreed to this proposed commission, and a recent Data for Progress poll showed that 70% of voters reject the idea of it.
This week, a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a nonprofit think tank that focuses on tax policy, suggested that the cost of tax cuts should be factored into any discussions about the budget deficit.
In 2017 the Trump tax cuts slashed the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and reined in taxation for foreign profits. The ITEP report looked at the first five years the law was in effect. It concluded that in that time, most profitable corporations paid “considerably less” than 21% because of loopholes and special breaks the law either left in place or introduced.
From 2018 through 2022, 342 companies in the study paid an average effective income tax rate of just 14.1%. Nearly a quarter of those companies—87 of them—paid effective tax rates of under 10%. Fifty-five of them (16% of the 342 companies), including T-Mobile, DISH Network, Netflix, General Motors, AT&T, Bank of America, Citigroup, FedEx, Molson Coors, and Nike, paid effective tax rates of less than 5%.
Twenty-three corporations, all of them profitable, paid no federal tax over the five year period. One hundred and nine corporations paid no federal tax in at least one of the five years.
The Guardian’s Adam Lowenstein noted yesterday that several corporations that paid the lowest taxes are steered by chief executive officers who are leading advocates of “stakeholder capitalism.” This concept revises the idea that corporations should focus on the best interests of their shareholders to argue that corporations must also take care of the workers, suppliers, consumers, and communities affected by the corporation.
The idea that corporate leaders should take responsibility for the community rather than paying taxes to the government so the community can take care of itself is eerily reminiscent of the argument of late-nineteenth-century industrialists.
When Republicans invented national taxation to meet the extraordinary needs of the Civil War, they immediately instituted a progressive federal income tax because, as Representative Justin Smith Morrill (R-VT) said, “The weight [of taxation] must be distributed equally, not upon each man an equal amount, but a tax proportionate to his ability to pay.”
But the wartime income tax expired in 1872, and the rise of industry made a few men spectacularly wealthy. Quickly, those men came to believe they, rather than the government, should direct the country’s development.
In June 1889, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie published what became known as the “Gospel of Wealth” in the popular magazine North American Review. Carnegie explained that “great inequality…[and]...the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few” were “not only beneficial, but essential to…future progress.” And, Carnegie asked, “What is the proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon which civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few?”
Rather than paying higher wages or contributing to a social safety net—which would “encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy,” Carnegie wrote—the man of fortune should “consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer…in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community—the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.”
“[T]his wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if distributed in small sums to the people themselves,” Carnegie wrote. “Even the poorest can be made to see this, and to agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellow-citizens and spent for public purposes, from which the masses reap the principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered among themselves in trifling amounts through the course of many years.”
Here in the present, Republicans want to extend the Trump tax cuts after their scheduled end in 2025, a plan that would cost $4 trillion over a decade even without the deeper cuts to the corporate tax rate Trump has called for if he is reelected. Biden has called for preserving the 2017 tax cuts only for those who make less than $400,000 a year and permitting the rest to expire. He has also called for higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, which would generate more than $2 trillion.
Losing the revenue part of the budget equation and focusing only on spending cuts seems to reflect a society like the one the late-nineteenth-century industrialists embraced, in which a few wealthy leaders get to decide how to direct the nation’s wealth.
In other news today, Alexei Navalny’s parents held a funeral for the Russian opposition leader and buried him in Moscow. Navalny died two weeks ago at a penal colony in Siberia where Russian president Vladimir Putin had imprisoned him on trumped-up charges after failing to kill him with poison. Navalny fought against Putin’s control of Russia by emphasizing the corruption and illicit fortunes of Putin and his associates.
Russia specialist Julia Ioffe of Puck News noted that a million Russians have fled the country since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and that many of them were Navalny supporters. Still, many thousands turned out for the funeral and the procession, throwing flowers at the hearse as it made its way to the cemetery.
A woman at Navalny’s funeral compared Navalny and Putin. “One sacrificed himself to save the country, the other one sacrificed the country to save himself.”
—
Notes:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/legislation/2024/03/01/press-release-bill-signed-h-r-7463/
https://rollcall.com/2024/01/18/bill-to-create-new-debt-commission-approved-in-house-panel/
https://crr.bc.edu/congressional-republicans-want-big-cuts-to-social-security/
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/05/politics/mike-johnson-social-security-medicare/index.html
https://itep.org/corporate-tax-avoidance-trump-tax-law/
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/29/trump-tax-cuts-us-companies
https://www.investopedia.com/stakeholder-capitalism-4774323
Justin Smith Morrill, Congressional Globe, 37th Cong., 2nd Sess., p. 1194.
Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays (New York: the Century Company, 1901) at: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c105438535&seq=13
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/11/trump-tax-cuts-2024/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/navalnys-funeral-set-for-friday-in-moscow-spokesperson-says
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/opinion/aleksei-navalny-russia.html
Twitter (X):
anneapplebaum/status/1763691874974392336
juliaioffe/status/1763576313145675933
Heather Cox Richardson's Blog
- Heather Cox Richardson's profile
- 1301 followers
