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The Trumpy Awards, Round Two: Worst Anti-Democratic Action

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It’s not just the Academy Awards out with its nominations today.

Here comes the second installment of Trumpy nominations – highlighting the worst of the worst of the Trump administration.

Today’s category: Worst Anti-Democratic Action.

Vote for your pick here.

Trump’s assault on democracy is no accident. Not only does Trump not respect traditional democratic norms, his core notion of presidential powers is fundamentally authoritarian. Trump himself sabotages his authoritarian instincts by incompetence, laziness and self-contradictory pronouncements; he does not bring to the project the committed focus of a Vladmir Putin. Nonetheless, he’s doing considerable damage to democratic institutions and resultingly to identifiable communities. If the country faces a real or concocted terrorist attack or military confrontation, there is no telling how our democracy will fare. And, while Trump’s disregard for polite behavior separates him from other politicians, he disdain for democratic process does not. As commentators such as E.J. Dionne, Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann and Nancy MacLean argue, corporate extremists and the extremist Republican Congress have paved the way for the current moment through a steady undermining of democratic practice and institutions.

The judges had a lot to consider in selecting today’s nominees. They decided against a nomination combining all of Trump’s tweets and expressed hostility to democratic principles, choosing instead to focus on more discrete actions. There was a strong case for inclusion of the nomination and confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court, one of the most outlandish power grabs in memory and one which will haunt the nation for decades; but the judges determined that the worst democratic abuse in this regard was the Mitch McConnell-led block on Merrick Garland, which occurred prior to Trump taking office.

The nominees that rose above the pack and were selected as finalists for Worst Anti-Democratic Action are:

Tax Scam: No Deliberation Here. Remember Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill?” Well, that has nothing to do with how Congress handled the tax bill. It was rammed through committees without any serious consideration or time for careful debate. Then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made massive changes that were never considered through regular order. And, of course, the Senate used “reconciliation” to circumvent a Democratic filibuster. Forget the fundamental nefariousness of the exercise – the rushed process meant mistakes were rampant. Here’s how Norm Ornstein sums up what happened: “There has never been a more outrageous, revolting, unfair process to pass a corrupted bill in the history of Congress.”

Firing Comey: Obstructing Justice. Whatever the role of the Russian government in the 2016 election, whatever the coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, it is axiomatic that the investigation of potential wrongdoing must be permitted to proceed. And although the administration at first offered the preposterous rationale that Trump fired FBI Director James Comey over how Comey mistreated Hillary Clinton, Trump himself quickly stated that he ordered Comey fired over the Russia investigation. There’s no need to romanticize the FBI or Comey, but the president firing the FBI director in an attempt to quash an investigation concerning his campaign, those close to him and potentially the president himself is a profound offense against democratic accountability.

Suppressing the Votes of People of Color. Trump created the Pence-Kobach Commission on Election Integrity – now disbanded thanks to pressure and lawsuits – to intimidate voters of color and develop a national system of voter suppression. The Justice Department has reversed its prior position in ongoing voting rights litigation, just recently urging the Supreme Court to uphold an Ohio law that had the plain intent of knocking people of color off the voting rolls, part of an ongoing series of reversals that now put the Justice Department on the wrong side of voting rights. Think about that for a moment: The Trump administration is defending and promoting schemes to intimidate and make it harder for people of color to vote.

Overturning the Johnson Amendment: Citizens United 2.0. Early in his term, speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump promised to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment. Few Americans had a clue what he was talking about, but his audience did. The idea is to eliminate the restriction on churches (and charities) engaging in political, electioneering activity. This has long been an objective of evangelical churches that would like to participate directly in elections. In practical terms, it threatens to permit churches and charities to function as new, tax-deductible Dark Money organizations. It is completely realistic to anticipate that the move would lead to hundreds of millions of dollars of new Dark Money flooding into elections. That’s why many advocates are calling it Citizens United 2.0. A Republican effort to include the provision in the tax bill was derailed for procedural reason, but Trump and his allies are still pushing.
Which of these is the worst affront against democracy? Vote here.

And, you can vote for Worst Corrupting Conflict of Interest here.

Announcing the Trumpys

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The Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards have been bestowed and Academy Award nominations will be announced tomorrow. And, of course, President Donald Trump last week conferred his Fake News Awards.

Now it’s our turn to weigh in, with the Trumpys, recognizing the worst elements of what is likely to go down as the worst presidency in American history.

Every day through January 29, we’ll announce nominations in a category and invite Twitter voting to select the worst of the worst. We’ll announce the losers (winners) on January 30, the day of the State of the Union.

We begin today with nominations for the Trumpy for the Worst Corrupting Conflict of Interest.

Trump’s refusal to divest his business interests is one of the defining features of his presidency, creating direct conflicts for the president relating to a wide swath of issues, signaling his utter disregard for ethical norms, and creating a climate in which governmental corruption is normalized. Against this backdrop, it’s no surprise that the contest for Worst Corrupting Conflict of Interest is so intense.

The nominees:

Carl Icahn: Refining the Meaning of Conflict. There’s a reason that Carl Icahn was a model for the Gordon Gekko character who famously stated that “greed is good.” Appointed by President Trump to the made-up position of “special adviser to the president of the United States on regulatory reform,” Icahn tried to use the position to force a change in ethanol rules that would save an oil refinery he owned $200 million annually. Icahn didn’t bother to deny his self-interest: “I own a refinery. Who knows it better than me? Why shouldn’t I advocate?” he told Bloomberg. The prospect of winning his desired change to ethanol rules boosted the value of his stock by hundreds of millions of dollars, but his scheme collapsed under public scrutiny and with opposition from Big Oil. Afterwards, he quickly abandoned his “special advisor” position.

Jared Kushner and the Middle East: Like Father, Like Son-in-Law. Like the president, Jared Kushner has put most of his financial holdings in trust – but has not divested. Those financial holdings create a multitude of conflicts, including especially as regards his role in setting U.S. policy related to the Middle East. As The New York Times notes: “Even as Mr. Kushner’s company maintains extensive business ties to Israel, as a top White House adviser, he has been charged with leading American efforts to broker peace in the Middle East as part of his broad global portfolio.” And the family business ties with Israeli businesses are deepening, even while Kushner serves in the White House and engineers a major reorientation of U.S. Middle East policy.

Scott Pruitt and Dow Chemical: Conflicts on the Brain. At the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt is enabling polluters in countless ways (the subject of its own Trumpy award; stay tuned), but his gift to Dow Chemical is particularly pernicious. Under President Barack Obama, the EPA proposed to ban a brain-damaging pesticide sold by Dow Chemical. Pruitt reversed the decision. Did it matter that Dow Chemical contributed $1 million to Trump’s inauguration or that its CEO met with Trump five times? You decide.

The Tax Scam: Tax Cuts for Trump and the Cabinet. A superrich Cabinet designed and helped ram through Congress a tax bill that will transfer more than a trillion dollars … to the superrich and the corporate class. Among notable features, the bill doubles the amount exempt from the estate tax, a huge boon for Trump and his billionaire cabinet. The pass-through provisions will confer enormous benefits on Trump himself, lowering the tax rate he pays on his business operations; a last-minute change to the bill made the deal even more generous for Trump. “This is going to cost me a fortune,” Trump said untruthfully. But he revealed the reality at a gathering at Mar-a-Lago: “You all just got a lot richer,” he told his rich friends.

The Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. and Mar-a-Lago: The President Cashes In. The Trump International Hotel in D.C. is in Washington’s historic Old Post Office, and is leased from the government. That lease by its plain terms prohibits the lessee from holding elected office, but with Trump now on both sides of the deal, it’s going unenforced. Meanwhile, the hotel has become a go-to venue for foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, political campaigns and industry groups – from the National Mining Association to the national candy association – to hold events and curry favor with the president. “Why wouldn’t I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, ‘I love your new hotel!’ Isn’t it rude to come to his city and say, ‘I am staying at your competitor?’” one Asian diplomat told The Washington Post. Meanwhile, Mar-a-Lago has doubled its initiation fees – but offers direct access to the president.

Which corrupting conflict is the worst? Vote here.

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The Tax Scam: Naming the Culprits

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It took quite a conspiracy of lies and mendacity to drive tax cuts for the superrich and giant corporations through both houses of Congress.

The tax scam is no done deal – House and Senate negotiators must still agree on a single package, and that package must win approval in both houses. Given the narrowness of the margins for approval in both the Senate and House, and the significant differences between the bills each passed, the entire effort may still collapse – especially if the public grasps what’s at stake and mobilizes.

But the uncertainty over the ultimate fate of the tax cut is no reason to delay identifying the culprits. Each and every person who had a hand in crafting and passing these proposals for monstrous transfers of wealth to the superrich must be held accountable.

Some of the conspirators merit special attention:

Gary Cohn. National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn engaged in a very public handwringing about whether to remain in the Trump administration in the wake of the Charlottesville outrage, but decided the “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to make history by cutting taxes for the rich was too great to pass by. He continued to insist that corporate tax cuts would unleash new corporate investment – only to be greeted by a roomful of corporate executives who wouldn’t back up his story even by raising their hands in answer to a question about who would undertake new investment. Cohn racked up quite a record of interesting statements: “The wealthy are not getting a tax cut” (September 28). “I’m really not upset” that the wealthy are getting a tax cut (November 9). “The most excited group out there are big CEOs about our tax plan” (November 9).

Marco Rubio. Unlike others on this list, Rubio offered a dose of honesty about the tax cut. But his plus points for truthfulness are offset by the immorality of his admission: These gigantic tax cuts are a set-up for immediate demands to slash Social Security and Medicare. “The driver of our debt is Social Security and Medicare for future beneficiaries,” he stated. Actually, don’t give Rubio too many points for honesty. In those same remarks, he also insisted that the tax cuts would generate economic growth.

Donald Trump. The Liar-in-Chief says, “This is going to cost me a fortune, this thing. Believe me. Believe. This is not good for me.” Uh, not true. Provisions on the estate tax, pass-through corporations and the alternative minimum tax would directly benefit Trump and his family, potentially saving them a billion dollars or more. The House bill would eliminate the alternative minimum tax – under which Trump paid $31 million in 2005. Eliminating the estate tax would conservatively save his children more than half a billion, and potentially much more if Trump actually is worth $4 billion. The provision on pass through corporations – Trump’s empire includes about 500 of them – would enable him to slice his tax rate by a third or more.

Jeff Flake. A self-styled deficit hawk, he traded his vote for an altered provision on business expensing, which could change or be offset by other corporate tax cuts, and a promise to be part of the negotiations over DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Not for a commitment on DACA, but a “seat at the table.” That may be one of the lamest concessions ever obtained in a negotiation. Dear Senator Flake, we admire some of your recent criticisms of Donald Trump, but – and this is probably the first and last time we suggest looking to Donald Trump for advice – he wrote this book called “The Art of the Deal” that maybe you should check out. One of his lessons was: “Use your leverage.”

Paul Ryan. The self-styled tax policy wonk continues to insist that the tax cuts will pay for themselves. He insists that they will promote economic growth to such an extent that the government’s overall tax revenue will remain consistent. No serious economist believes this. Nor does anyone with a dose of common or historical sense, for the very same promises have accompanied previous tax breaks for the rich, and they have never borne out.

Steven Mnuchin. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin helped lead the chorus around the lie that the tax cut would pay for itself. Uniquely, he promised that the Treasury Department was conducting an analysis to prove the point. The analysis never appeared, raising two troubling scenarios, as Senator Elizabeth Warren put it: “Either the Treasury Department has used extensive taxpayer funds to conduct economic analyses that it refuses to release because those analyses would contradict the Treasury Secretary’s claims, or Secretary Mnuchin has grossly misled the public about the extent of the Treasury Department’s analysis.” Mnuchin’s Treasury Department had earlier removed from its website a 2012 study that refuted Mnuchin’s claim that corporations would pass on most of the savings from tax cuts to their workers.

There are many other names that deserve special disdain.

Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rammed the tax cut through the Senate with utter disregard for openness and normal process. As minority leader, he savaged Democrats for procedural maneuvers that look straight out of Schoolhouse Rock in comparison.

Senator Susan Collins soothed her conscience in supporting the bill by winning modest health care measures that won’t begin to offset the damage the bill does to the nation’s health care system, leaving aside the rest of the devastation it will wreak.

Senator John McCain failed to stand behind his call for “honor” and “a return to regular order” and undermined his contribution to the country in opposing repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

There have been few votes more disgraceful than the recent House and Senate passage of massive tax cuts for corporations and the superrich.

There are only days or weeks to go before both houses will vote on a reconciled bill. And there’s only one way to stop the legislation from becoming law: massive public mobilization that makes very clear the culprits will be held to account.

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Despite White House Chaos, Trump Delivers Favors for Corporate America

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The Trump administration may be dazed and confused about many things, but not about its corporate agenda.

From Scaramucci to Spicer, from Kelly to Kushner, one thing doesn’t change at Donald Trump’s chaotic White House: Its devotion to delivering for giant corporations at the public’s expense.

During the campaign, Trump directed nearly as much venom toward major U.S. corporations as toward his opponents. He savaged Wall Street, badgered companies for manufacturing products outside of the U.S. and threatened them with onerous penalties. Trump singled out lobbyists who do the bidding of corporations by promising to “drain the swamp.”

It was plain enough that Candidate Trump’s anti-industry shtick was bluster. But it wasn’t obvious that he would hand control of the government over to Corporate America. His billionaire cabinet is the most corporate in modern history and his sub-cabinet officials are worse.

Trump immediately backtracked on his promise to crack down on lobbyists, choosing to staff his administration with them. Three dozen lobbyists are working for the administration in apparent violation of Trump’s vaunted ethics executive order on conflicts of interest; an additional 100 lobbyists have posts in the administration.

Lobbyists are only a narrow category of the corporate representatives inside the administration. Others are former executives, consultants, corporate lawyers and hacks from corporate-backed think tanks.

Likewise, Trump turned to Goldman Sachs, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, OneWest Bank and numerous corporate law firms to fill key posts.

The same pattern appears in agency after agency.

At the Justice Department, the nominated head of the criminal division is a corporate criminal defense lawyer; the nominee to run the antitrust division has made a career working on merger approvals; the proposed top civil rights lawyer has defended corporations against employment discrimination claims; the nominee to run the environment division defended BP in the Gulf oil disaster case; and the proposed solicitor general has represented R.J. Reynolds.

At the U.S. Department of Education, where a for-profit college lawyer now works as a special assistant to Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration is working to roll back rules that aim to protect students from predatory private colleges and student lenders. (Public Citizen is suing to keep the rules in place.)

At the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt – who as Oklahoma attorney general allowed the fossil fuel industry to draft letters on attorney general letterhead on multiple occasions – persuaded Trump to pull out of the Paris climate agreement and won’t even acknowledge that humans are driving climate change. But that’s not all. A former chemical industry trade group official was picked to lead the office that regulates the chemical industry. Dow Chemical, a close Trump ally, has already been rewarded with an order overturning a proposed ban of a brain-damaging Dow pesticide. And a top coal industry lobbyist is expected to be picked for the agency’s second-highest job.

Trump installed a former financial industry lawyer as acting Comptroller of the Currency, a top bank regulatory job. That appointee has made the preposterous claim that banks’ financial health could be harmed by a rule that ensure consumers can file class-action lawsuits against financial firms, rather be forced into arbitration, where the deck is stacked against them.

One issue where Candidate Trump seemed to really believe in a progressive policy was drug prices. He promised to let the federal government negotiate prices on prescription drugs purchased through Medicare and accused the pharmaceutical industry of “getting away with murder.”

Well, that talk is long gone. In fact, leaked White House papers obtained by Public Citizen show a draft presidential executive order purportedly on drug pricing that would reduce safety, help drug companies raise prices overseas and do virtually nothing to cut Americans’ drug prices. Perhaps it’s a complete coincidence, but a former lobbyist for giant drug company Gilead now works in the White House, where he heads a working group on drug pricing issues.

While Trump has yet to deliver on Corporate America’s dream for a massive tax cut, he is rushing forward on their other top priority: slashing health, safety, environmental, consumer and other regulatory protections. Last month, the White House budget office said the Trump administration has withdrawn or suspended 860 pending regulations.

Candidate Trump promised to fix a rigged economic and political system. President Trump, by contrast, swiftly turned control of government over to the very corporate elites he denounced during the campaign, revealing his presidency to be nothing more than a giant bait and switch scheme.

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An Unusual Experiment with the Truth: Trump Tweets on Record Corporate Profits

An unusual experiment with the truth from Donald Trump: he tweeted, truthfully, that “corporations have NEVER made as much money as they are making now.”

But consider the lies that truth exposes.

If corporations are making record profits – they are – then exactly why should the US adopt a gigantic corporate tax cut? There is only one page of details available from the administration about its tax plan, but we know it aims to confer trillions on corporations and the super-rich. That’s why the Koch Brothers are promising dozens of events and rallies around the country, and the corporate-friendly American Action Network says it’s ready to spend $20 million to support tax cuts for the wealthy. But what’s the rationale? If corporations are already doing great, why exactly do they need trillions of dollars in tax breaks?

If corporations are making record profits – they are – then how is it that regulations are strangling corporate activity? Donald Trump and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endlessly recite thoroughly discredited claims that excessive regulation is strangling corporations. In fact, health, safety and environmental regulations spur innovation and help the economy. And it was regulatory failure that enabled the housing bubble and Great Recession, which together did far more harm to the economy (and even corporate profits) than regulations ever could.

If corporations are making record profits – they are – then why are wages are stagnant? Well, actually those two things go together. Corporations are grabbing a larger share of national income – taking it directly from working people. And the wage income that is being parceled is going increasingly to the top 1 percent. From 1979 to 2013, wages of the top 1 percent grew 138 percent. For the bottom 90 percent of the population, wages rose only 15 percent. If corporations are making record profits, shouldn’t workers reasonably expect that more of the gains be shared with them?

If corporations are making record profits – they are – then why we can’t raise the minimum wage? In 1968, the minimum wage was $11.25/hour in today’s dollars — $4 an hour more than the current minimum wage. That understates how far behind the minimum wage is – the overall economy has grown almost four times during that period.

If corporations are making record profits – they are – then why is there so little money in the Trump budget for low-income home heating or Medicaid or food stamps or food safety or consumer safety or public housing or legal services or disease research or mass transit or global health or international disaster relief or environmental protection or scientific research or agricultural research or energy efficiency? Why is the government supposedly so poor and cash strapped that it can’t do the things we need to do to take care of each other, maintain a decent society, avert preventable illness and disease, invest in our infrastructure, promote innovation or avert catastrophic climate change, the greatest threat humanity has every faced?

One inconvenient truth that Donald Trump did not elucidate is that record corporate profitability has virtually nothing to do with his six months in office. Many commentators are highlighting this point, saying that “credit” should really go to the Obama administration. That’s a reasonable argument, as far as it goes.

But it also points to deep structural problems in our economy, our politics and society. For while the Obama administration did not propose, ridiculously, to slash corporate taxes nor wage a savage attack on regulatory protections nor aim to hack away at vital government programs, it did preside over a period of record corporate profits amidst ongoing wage stagnation. Surviving the Trump administration will enable us to put many problems behind us, but not the most pernicious.

Robert Weissman is the president of Public Citizen.

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