Robert B. Reich's Blog, page 69

Are There 22 Patriotic House Republicans?

Trump warning to former FBI Director James Comey against leaking anything negative about him –...

The Moral Travesty of Trumpcare

Shame on every one of the 217 Republicans who last Thursday voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act,...

Nos félicitations, Macron

Emmanuel Macron is the next president of France, defeating his far right rival Marine Le Pen by a...

The Attack on Western Democracy

Hopefully, Saturday’s hacked leaks purporting to show offshore accounts and tax evasion by France’s...

The Moral Travesty of Trumpcare

Shame on every one of the 217 Republicans who voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act on Thursday,...

TRUMP’S UNNECESSARY CRUELTYThe theme that unites all of Trump’s...

TRUMP’S UNNECESSARY CRUELTY

The theme that unites all of Trump’s initiatives so far is their
unnecessary cruelty.

1. His new budget comes down especially hard on the poor –
imposing unprecedented cuts in low-income housing, job training, food
assistance, legal services, help to distressed rural communities, nutrition for
new mothers and their infants, funds to keep poor families warm, even “meals on
wheels.”

These cuts come at a time when more American families are in
poverty than ever before, including 1 in 5 children. So, why is Trump doing
this? To pay for the biggest hike in military spending since the 1980s – at a
time when the U.S. already spends more on its military than the next 7 biggest
military budgets put together.

2. Trump and his enablers in the GOP are on the way to repealing the
Affordable Care Act, and replacing it in a way that could cause 14 million
Americans to lose their health insurance next year, and 24 million by 2026.

Why is Trump doing this? To give $600 billion in tax cuts over
the decade mostly to wealthy Americans, when the rich have accumulated more
wealth than at any time in the nation’s history.

The plan reduces the federal budget by only $337 billion over
the next ten years – that is a small fraction of the national debt, in
exchange for the largest redistribution from the poor and middle class to the
wealthy in modern history.

3. Trump is banning Syrian refugees and slashing the total
number of refugees this year by more than half. This comes just when the world is experiencing the worst refugee
crisis since World War II.

So, why is he doing this? Your odds of dying by a lightening
strike are higher than by an immigrant terrorist attack. No terrorist attacker
inside the U.S. has come from Syria (nor, for that matter, from any of the 6
countries in Trump’s current travel ban.)

4. Trump is rounding up undocumented immigrants helter-skelter
– including people who have been productive members of our society for
decades, and young people who have been here since they were toddlers.

Why is Trump doing this? These actions come when unemployment is
down, crime is down, and we have fewer undocumented workers in the U.S. today
than we did ten years ago.

Trump is embarking on an orgy of cruelty for absolutely no
reason. This is profoundly immoral. It is morally incumbent on all of us to
stop it.

Trump’s Banksters and the Rollback of Dodd-FrankDonald Trump has...

Trump’s Banksters and the Rollback of Dodd-Frank

Donald Trump has ordered a rollback of regulations over Wall
Street, including the Dodd-Frank Act, passed in 2010 to prevent another
too-big-to-fail banking crisis.

Perhaps Trump thinks that we’ve forgotten what happened when Wall
Street turned the economy into a giant casino, and then – when its bets went
sour in 2008 – needed a giant taxpayer funded bailout.

Maybe Trump thinks Americans forget losing their jobs, homes, and
savings in the fallout.

Many people who voted for Trump got shafted. I hope they haven’t
forgotten that while they suffered, not a single bank executive went to
jail.  

Trump supporters need to join with
Democrats and progressives in stopping this rollback, and holding Trump accountable.

The
biggest banks are far bigger today than they were in 2008. Then, the five
largest had 25 percent of U.S. banking assets. Today they have 44 percent. 

If
they were too big to fail then, they’re too big period now. 

Getting rid of
Dodd-Frank triples the odds of another financial crisis. 

Meanwhile, Trump has
brought more banksters into his administration than any in any previous
administration – mostly, from Goldman Sachs. 

The head of Trump’s economic
council is Gary Cohn who was president of Goldman Sachs. Other Goldman alumni
include Trump’s right hand man, Steve Bannon, Trump’s pick for Treasury, Steve
Mnuchin, Trump’s pick for the securities and exchange commission, Jay Clayton
and another White House advisor, Dina Powell. 

Now remember, a decade ago,
Goldman Sachs defrauded investors and ripped off its customers and it’s paid
nearly $9 billion in government fines. 

Many of Trump’s banksters were
there at that time. 

Don’t let Trump and the Republicans endanger our economy again. Let’s
not make the same mistake twice.

The Authoritarian President

After more than 100 days into his presidency, it seems fair to ask: What is Donald Trump’s governing...

Trump’s Unconstitutional Assault on the Judiciary

One way dictators take over democracies is by threatening the independence of a nation’s courts....

5 Reasons Why Trump’s Corporate Tax Cut is Appallingly Dumb

Trump wants to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, in
order to “make the...