| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, the rough-and-tumble fun of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. On Sundays, we look at the major themes of the week past and how they will define the week ahead. Sign up for the daily newsletter here. I'm betting I'm not the only one who, in the aftermath of Donald Trump's astonishing triumph on Nov. 5, kinda forgot that Joe Biden was still president. Actually, I know I'm not. It's happened before of course. For example, while we waited for the Supreme Court to select our elected leader in 2000, a semi-disgraced President Bill Clinton kept a low profile that almost kept his final-day pardons of 140 people — including the odious billionaire Marc Rich, who fled to Switzerland while facing indictments for tax fraud and helping the Iranian regime export oil — out of the headlines. (Surely a coincidence that Rich's wife had contributed over a million bucks to the Democratic Party and the Clinton Presidential Library.) We'll get to Biden's pardons — and Trump's — in a bit. But first let's look at the outgoing commander-in-chief's legacy. Clive Crook summed it up in a pithy headline: "Joe Biden's Abiding Legacy Will Be Donald Trump." Yeah, that puts the whole Marc Rich pardon thing in perspective I guess. "Under what passed for Biden's leadership, the Democrats and their friends systematically dismantled the public's trust, to the point where a shameless political grifter of no fixed ideology seemed the better bet," Clive writes. "In 2020 Biden sought the Democratic nomination and ran in the election as a standard bearer for pragmatic moderation. Once in office, he anointed himself a transformational president and on issue after issue deferred to the party's left." Clinton's most colorful strategist, James Carville, had this to say: "The Joe Biden story is one of the great tragedies of American politics." This is not actually James Carville, but it's pretty darn close: Clive thinks less tragedy than farce: "Historians will debate Biden's legacy for years. Such assessments are always complicated and changeable. But credit where it's due: Getting Trump re-elected was a truly historic accomplishment." While Biden failed to be transformational, Trump seems to be succeeding already. "He is determined to reorder the US government," Timothy L. O'Brien writes in his free-to-read review of the 47th and 49th president's inaugural address. "Although he didn't invoke the specter of 'American carnage' that defined his first inaugural address eight years ago, Trump's second effort was embroidered with images of a weakened and threatened America so unspooled and trapped that only the miraculous might save it." (I somehow doubt this miraculous figure will usher in anything like Philip Larkin's idea of a miraculous year: "Then all at once the quarrel sank:/Everyone felt the same,/And every life became/A brilliant breaking of the bank,/A quite unlosable game.") Back to pardons, which the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board reminds us are a bipartisan disgrace. "If it wasn't already clear — after nearly 250 years — that the pardon power is a standing invitation to abuse and corruption, two presidents confirmed it on the same day this week," the editors write. Biden spared, nobly, some public officials doomed for Trumpian payback and, less nobly, family members. Trump, meanwhile, decided that rampaging though the US Capitol is just part of the rough-and-tumble fun of democracy— giving clemency to nearly 1,600 people charged after the Jan. 6 attack. Noah Feldman views the pardons in the light of history — both that of the founding fathers, and the recent court cases against Trump: "With hindsight, we can see that prosecuting Trump contributed to the breakdown of the rule of law, even as it was certainly intended to uphold the rule of law. Now we have lots of pardons on both sides — exercises of the monarchic or imperial impulse that the framers feared above all else." But not even an absolute monarch can avoid court intrigue. Nia-Malika Henderson thinks the schism will center on a basic question: "Who is MAGA for? The wealthy or the working class? The rich tech geeks who have sidled up to Trump as the AI boom looms? Or those working-class Americans who disdain globalists and elites?" In other words, it's average joes vs. tech bros. Even within the inner circle there's tension, personified by two notorious figures: the richest man in the world, and a guy who has called the richest man in the world "a truly evil guy." (That would be Trump-whisperer Steve Bannon.) Ironically, the president may also be hindered by the huge electoral boost he got from outside his base. "The broader GOP coalition also includes evangelicals and pro-lifers, presumably with expectations around abortion, as well as business owners who want tax cuts, deregulation and smaller deficits (but not tariffs)," Nia-Malika writes. "More recent additions to the mix include younger Republicans and a larger share of working class Blacks and Latinos, particularly men. It's an unwieldy coalition held together by Trump, a grip that will be tested, but likely unbroken, as he turns to governing." Trump likes to make history, not read about it (or about anything else, I guess). Nonetheless, I have a book recommendation for him: the wonderful historian Robert Toombs' The English and Their History. The president would learn that for centuries, most English (and later British) monarchs admitted they ruled by consent of their subjects (or at least of the strongest noblemen with private armies). The French Bourbon kings, OTOH, believed themselves all-powerful through a divine right from God — "L'État c'est moi," as the Sun King put it. [1] So, take a wild guess: Which royals survived to grow organic parsnips, and which found themselves under the guillotine? [2] If Trump truly believes he was "saved by God to make America great again," he, too, may find himself washed away in the déluge. Bonus Royals [3] Reading: What's the World Got in Store? - Conf. Board consumer confidence: Jan. 28: Luxury Needs Its Logos Back. Trump Can Help. — Andrea Felsted
- Fed rate decision: Jan. 29: Trump's Economics Are Anybody's Guess. Here's Mine. — Bill Dudley
- ECB rate decision; Jan. 30: Cheap, Not Trump, Is Why European Stocks Are Spiking — John Authers
 | | | There seems to be no limit to the number of things Trump wants to remake in his own image: immigration, justice, bureaucracy, race relations, education, gender, trade, war, the environment, "showerheads, toilets, washing machines, lightbulbs and dishwashers." (Not making that up.) But he had big ambitions the first time around, and about the only major one that really lasted was his 2017 upheaval of the tax code, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. "This is the biggest tax cuts and reform in the history of our country," he bragged at the time. "This is bigger than, actually, President Reagan's many years ago. I'm very honored by it." Then he held up a piece of paper with his stabby Sharpie signature on it and said, "This is a little picture of it. It fits nicely in the box. I said, take it out of the box because people have to see." So, yeah, he did that. There are pictures and everything:  Boxed in. Photographer: Evan Vucci/AP Eight years later, did the most embiggened tax cuts in history Make America Great Again? In one sense, kinda. [4] In another, not so much: Which leads Justin Fox to a question that Trump is unlikely to ask himself. But hopefully incoming Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant will tackle it for him: "The gap between US federal spending and tax revenue is currently bigger, as a share of gross domestic product, than it's ever been outside of major war or other crisis. Is that because spending is too high or tax revenue too low?" Trump won't like Justin's answer. "Federal taxes are at about the historical norm, and taxes overall are lower in the US than in most peer countries," he writes. "With broadly popular programs to provide income and health care to the elderly (Social Security and Medicare) getting more expensive as the US population ages, federal taxes should be a bit higher." Trump will like the editorial board's prescriptions even less. "To get on top of the country's daunting fiscal problem, everything must be on the table," they write. "Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense and other discretionary categories. Revenue must likewise be examined from every angle: Limit personal-tax deductions, reform the corporate tax (preferably by raising the rate while shielding new investment), gradually trim tax subsidies for borrowing and for employment-based health insurance, raise the earnings ceiling for the payroll tax, start taxing carbon emissions, eliminate stepped-up basis at death for capital gains tax, and more." As for the guy we have hopes for? Scott Bessent "said recently that extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was a top priority." Even if he changes his mind, Trump is king, and we don't have to guess what's inside the box. Notes: Please send whatever's in the box and feedback to Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net. |
No comments:
Post a Comment