Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Trump Flails at Change
By Nayyer Ali MD
Donald Trump entered the White House and immediately sprang into action. Some things he was able to do that involved retribution against those he felt may hinder his rule or help those who supported his attemptto steal the 2020 election. But most of his other actions have been deeply misguided, misinformed, and counterproductive. In several cases, he has already had to backtrack and retreat.
Trump pardoned over 1,500 convicted criminals who took part in the January 6, 2021, riot and seizure of the Capitol. Some of those he pardoned have already been arrested on other charges. It is a travesty that hundreds of people who assaulted police officers and stormed the Capitol now have a clean record with their conviction expunged. But it comes as no shock to most that Trump would carry out such a brazen miscarriage of justice.
When it comes to picking his cabinet, Trump has also run into trouble. His initial pick for Attorney General, Representative Matt Gaetz, had to withdraw his nomination after it became clear the profoundly unqualified Gaetz was not going to be confirmed by the Senate. Trump’s first pick to head the DEA, Sherriff Chad Chronister, also withdrew from consideration after his total lack of qualification for running such a massive agency became clear. Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, whose only background is being a talking head on Fox News, was barely confirmed by the Senate 51-50, with Vice President Vance having to cast the deciding vote. Interestingly Mitch McConnell voted against Hegseth, which suggests McConnell will likely join Senators Murkowski and Collins as reliable no-votes on Trump’s most egregious nominees.
Trump’s nominees for Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr, also faced withering questioning at their Senate confirmation hearings. It is safe to say that both of them are in trouble, but whether Trump can browbeat 50 Republican Senators to look the other way and vote for these dangerous mediocrities remains to be seen. The Wall Street Journal, the voice of the business wing of the Republican Party, has come out strongly against RFK Jr. His view of big pharma as something dangerous, and of vaccines as being unproven and unsafe, are a real risk to the health of the American people and the pharmaceutical industry.
Trump has also waded into a bizarre set of orders releasing water from Federal reservoirs in California. Trump somehow thought such a release would help fight the fires. But the fires have already been put out, rain has fallen in Southern California, and there was never a shortage of water to fight the fires. Extremely high winds kept aircraft from flying early in the fires, but there was plenty of water for them to use. In fact, the water release at this time of year threatened to flood farmland in rural California.
Trump carried out a series of bizarre initiatives that served little or no purpose. He demanded the end of all DEI (Diversity Equity Inclusion) initiatives across the Federal Government. That was in line with his view that unqualified Black people are to blame for everything wrong in the country. He went so far as to blame DEI for the airplane versus helicopter crash that killed scores over Washington DC. This is despite the fact that the pilots of the plane, the pilots of the helicopter, and the air traffic controller were all white.
Trump also put out a bizarre executive order “pausing” all government payments across the board except for Social Security and Medicare. This unleashed chaos. Was Trump ordering the NIH to cease all research on cancer until his “pause” was lifted? Were government contractors like Meals on Wheels to see an abrupt cutoff in funding? How about American foreign aid programs like PEPFAR, which provides lifesaving HIV meds to millions in Africa? After a few days of intense criticism, Trump walked back that order. Federal judges also issued injunctions on Trump’s actions as they violate the Constitution’s separation of powers. The President cannot pick and choose what federal spending has been authorized by Congress and signed into law he will actually carry out. He has to spend the money that Congress allocates.
The most recent outrage is the placement of tariffs on our two largest trading partners and neighbors, Canada and Mexico. Both are hit with 25% tariffs, making imports from those countries much more expensive. Strangely, though Trump talks as if he sees China as a potential enemy, he only hit China with a 10% tariff. Is this because Elon Musk does so much business in China with Tesla? And because Musk contributed over 300 million dollars to Trump’s campaign and is constantly in Trump’s ear about everything? Musk is the head of the ad hoc “Department of Government Efficiency” or DOGE, which is not actually part of the government. DOGE is, however, throwing up lots of weird ideas to save money. Initially, Musk was going to find 2 trillion dollars in “waste, fraud, and abuse” to painlessly cut from the government and thereby close the deficit and allow for more tax cuts for billionaires. But once Musk actually started to look around, he saw that 80% of government spending is on health care, Social Security, and defense, with another chunk made up of interest payments on the debt. Musk will be lucky to find 2 billion dollars of waste to cut. The tariffs on Mexico and Canada are a terrible idea and will drive up prices for average Americans on a whole range of goods.
Meanwhile, the Republicans in Congress are trying to figure out how much of Trump’s agenda they can actually pass into law. While the President has the power to issue “Executive Orders”, he is sharply limited by the separation of powers which prevents him from unilaterally making laws. The Federal system also insulates Americans from the whims of the President because many of the laws and regulations that apply to us are decided at the state level, and Presidents cannot override that on their own. Trump himself has little idea of any agenda. His initial pronouncements have included such bizarre suggestions as buying Greenland from Denmark, seizing control of the Panama Canal, and getting Canada to join the US as the 51 st state
The problem for Republicans is that the Republican party doesn’t really stand for much. There is no coherent Republican agenda that is being pushed forward by conservatives. Even abortion, which Republicans have been fighting to ban for decades, has disappeared. Trump basically punted on the issue and said it is up to the states, which means that abortion is legal for the majority of Americans, and even for those who live in Red states that ban abortion, there is nothing stopping a woman from traveling to a nearby state where it is legal. Only very poor women who have an unwanted pregnancy are being forced to carry the baby to term under Trump’s America. The Christian fundamentalists behind the anti-abortion movement have been shunted aside for now.
The Republicans could try to undo previous Democratic reforms, even if they have no ideas of their own. This could include trying to repeal Obamacare or perhaps going after the Inflation Reduction Act, which despite its name was Biden’s law that put several hundred billion dollars of subsidies into pushing America’s energy policy to net-zero carbon emissions. But it turns out that the Republicans have no appetite for either of these. Obamacare is now very popular, and trying to take away healthcare from 45 million Americans would be politically toxic for the GOP. Biden’s IRA was skillfully designed to spend lots of its subsidies in red states and districts that are now benefiting greatly from these investments. Republicans who represent these areas don’t want to get rid of these subsidies.
This leaves the Republicans with only one item on their agenda, their perennial goal of cutting taxes for rich people. But even here they are in trouble. The last time Trump took office the budget deficit was only 500 billion dollars, so a big tax cut could happen, and the deficit would blow up but to a tolerable level as far as Republicans were concerned. Now the budget deficit is close to 2 trillion dollars, or 6% of GDP. There is no real room to raise that even higher. What there is room to do is to renew the Trump tax cuts of 2017, which would cost about 5.5 trillion dollars over the next ten years. It looks like the Republicans are going to satisfy themselves with a simple renewal, and no significant cut in spending levels.
What the country needs though is a tax increase. We need to bring the budget deficit down and reduce aggregate demand in the economy. Inflation, though much better than two years ago, is still running at about 3% per year. The Federal Reserve is keeping interest rates around 4.5%, much higher than five years ago. These higher rates translate into much higher rates for mortgages, car loans, and business loans. Tax cuts are the opposite of what standard economic analysis would call for.
Trump is trying to act as fast as he can. He knows his political power is at its height for the next 60-90 days. By next year attention will shift to the midterms, which will almost certainly result in the Democrats taking back the House and placing an effective check on the rest of Trump’s term in office. By then he will be a lame duck with little political relevance other than appointing judges. This is why there is so much energy and action coming from the White House, even though it is misguided and will leave little of any permanent change.
