Cohn stays on despite mouthed misgivings about Trump's spoken support of Nazis and White Supremacists because he's itching to get the job of Chairman of the Fed so he can further manipulate the economy to benefit himself and his Wall Street cronies.
Mnuchin stays on for the same reason he came on board, he's a sleazeball who saw an opportunity to rip off a greater and more varied group of Americans. He's looking for a new way to assert his power on a national scale just like Trump. Marrying a woman similar to the one his boss did and using public money to travel with his new bride just like Trump just magnifies his sleaziness.
If anything, they're just burnishing their imitations as wealthy sleazebags by associating themselves with Trump and his administration and by making boldface, insupportable lies to our collective face.
1
Cohn's reputation was ruined when he was upset by Trump's support of neo-Nazis but failed to quit the administration in protest. Mnuchin's was ruined when he failed even to get upset.
1
What reputations?
Actually it is too late to redeem themselves. It was too late before they even joined the administration. Read any Matt Taibbi pieces regarding GS and you will find Cohn very much at the helm and an active participant in bilking their investors in the “Big Short” Carving up junk mortgages and pawning them off on their clients while taking short positions on that same junk to their profit and their clients massive loss. He may have overcome his dyslexia, but he never overcame his lack of morals.
17
If the gov really wants/needs $$ to function , Congress can just reinstitute the luxury tax of 10% on all luxuries/unnecessaries... -- the 400M yacht, the 170M Picasso, the 10$ broach..
We had one in the 50's: it went byebye. GWH Bush put it back: WJ Clinton took it away...
No one ever mentions it.
We should also get rid of the charitable deduction.. It's not charity if it's a tax deduction... Would be interesting to find out who really believed in charity.. Obviously, the Gateses do
5
Gary Cohn displayed his complete detachment from reality by claiming that the “average american family” has income of $100K. He was only off by 45,000, exaggerating the actual average by 82%. Then he told those folks that they could expect a $1000 tax cut, enough, he risibly claimed, to either renovate a kitchen or to buy a new car.
And the Munchkin has been following around his latest trophy wife, checking out the gold in Fort Knox just in time to be in the path of the eclipse, on the taxpayer’s dime.
And they get on TV and tell lies that get any sentient being laughing mordantly, because it would be unseemly to find those lies hysterical.
Mr. Leonhardt, it is far too late for these banksters to salvage any reputation. And the Munchkin had a horrible reputation based on his life cycle as the “foreclòsure king of Indybank.” Remember how he foreclosed on an old woman over $29 dollars in fees?
11
Cohen and Mnuchin lost their reputations when they did not resign after Charlottesville. When they stayed on in the Trump administration, as Jews, and did not speak out publicly, at that moment, I knew I'd never have any respect for them, or any position they might take on any issue, nor would I believe anything that came out of their mouths. Done. If it takes the business world a little longer to figure out that they are men of no integrity, fine with me. If the business world never figures it out, no surprise there. When someone shows you who they really are, believe them.
10
Sorry - too late for these guys!
Cohn had his chance over Charlottesville -- he didn't take it, presumably because this ridiculous reverse Robin Hood budget proposal is SO important.
And haven't Mnuchin's use of government planes for personal benefit already made him punch-line?
6
Yes, Mr. Cohn and Mr. Mnuchin lied about the tax plan, which is simply a redistribution of money from the poor and middle classes to the very rich. It is appalling that Cohn and Mnuchin were willing to serve and work for a man like Mr. Trump whose nature was well known. Before the inauguration Trump had, for instance, already confessed to sexually assaulting women. And Cohn and Mnuchin are blithely and happily continuing to work for the president who has, among other things, recently dramatically increased the likelihood of nuclear war and the subsequent millions of deaths. Every White House employee should have resigned already over the racism that is Trump's go-to plan whenever he needs to fuel the rage of his racist rabble. This isn't a partisan thing. All reasonable thoughtful moral skeptical Americans should be calling for the same.
5
As one who has both started successful small businesses, and worked in management at large companies, I'm sick and tired of these wealthy parasites like Trump, Mnuchin, and Cohn. Goldman Sachs people are almost as big a joke as Trump (well, that's hard to equal). Their entire careers are built on nothing more than plundering those poorer than themselves. Why would they change now? They'll be welcomed back into that viper's den with open arms, when they're done destroying the government.
7
Working for trump only reinforces the belief that these men are soulless, morally corrupt individuals. Who else would work for trump?
5
If either of these two had a conscience, it has been removed by daprez attitude, which states:
"Look, doesn't matter what happens, you seal the deal with tax reform, we all get to keep more of what we make,and the little guy will know nothing because he's too busy being the little guy. We do have to keep him entertained with our lifestyle and the microscopic hope that someday hel'll be like us. It's gonna be great, believe me"
2
Mr. Leonhardt's notion that men like Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin were admirable for rising in the corporate world shows that some people have learned nothing from the last decade. We are living in an ecological crisis and all these two did was concentrate wealth. No one worth listening to respects that.
1
Their reputations are something we should care about?
They are collaborators who are complicit in the destruction of basic American values.
It is entirely just that their reputations end up in complete ruins. In fact, we should celebrate just what it says about public sentiment that these two men are so widely and deservedly loathed.
They have stayed beyond a point when all signs are clear that the President is a veritable repository of 25th amendment-worthy psychopathology.
The only sad thing is that all of this won't be followed some rough equivalent of the Nuremberg trials.
2
Excellent essay and wise counsel. I join you in your advice that, "It is not too late for Cohn and Mnuchin to take a different approach.
May I suggest that they should start by defining the social, economic, and political problems under our current system that are preventing Americans from achieving a higher standard of living, greater opportunity & social mobility, better education, cleaner air and water, and safer, less congested highways for travel and shipment of goods, adequate housing and supply of affordable and nutritious food, consumer products, national defense, and public safety. In short, good government.
Good government is a daunting challenge. We have been stumbling along reasonably well but seem to be slipping in health, education, income distribution & highway safety. E.g. The costs of highway accidents are staggering. Economic losses due to medical expenses, property damage, insurance, lost wages, and productivity are $836 Billion dollars per year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This does not include the costs of health damage from vehicle pollution. 53,000 Americans die prematurely every year due to pollutants emitted from motor vehicles, according to a recent MIT study. Despite this tragic performance, government has been unable to keep the Highway Trust Fund replenished and also has been unable to repair and renew its commuter mass transit systems. So I am shocked that these fiscal policy mavens have not made this priority #1.
2
It has little to do with pleasing their boss, and even less to do with reputation and any personal code of ethics. Ambition and greed play a large part. After all, both Cohn and Mnuchin and many of their cohort will benefit from the tax cut.
1
I stopped for a connecting flight in the Detroit airport, sat down for a drink, opened this up, and sprayed my dismay all over the bar.
1
Risking their reputations? Both of them reputations as Wall Streeters who have enriched themselves on the backs of the working poor and the middle class. You mean it is actually worse than that?
2
Mnuchin came into the administration with a reputation as a hedge fund manager, not exactly a shining knight. He has since established himself as avaricious and corrupt, charging personal travel to taxpayers. Doesn't seem to me to have much of a good reputation to lose. Cohn sacrificed whatever reputation he had when he considered resigning over Trump's "good people on both sides" comments about the neo-Nazi demonstrators in Charlottesville (when a Jewish congregation cowered in their synagogue afraid to venture outside) and then decided to stay on.
But I understand Leonhardt's dilemma trying to identify Trump associates who might be sacrificing good reputations by supporting a tax plan that takes from the poor to give to the rich and claiming, against all past evidence, that tax cuts while encourage so much economic growth that they will not add to the deficit.
Truth is that these folks are all living up to the reputations they established in their past lives, exactly as they were intended to.
Isn't Gary Cohn the guy who said that with the $1,000 tax cut, a person could buy a car or remodel a kitchen? I've been car shopping and for slightly more than $1,000 I could get an electric car. True, it only goes up to 7 mph, and it's only for ages 5 to 10 and driver and passenger can't weigh more than 150 lbs.
I haven't looked for a kitchen remodel for $1,000, but I bet I can find a kiddy kitchen to go with that kiddie car for $1,000.
2
“I’m not stupid,” DJT during debate in response to HRC claiming he paid no taxes for decades. Bring on the clowns, they’re us.
1
Since when did Steve Mnuchin have a reputation to save anyways? He is a potential criminal in CA for fraudulent and illegal dealings during the foreclosure crisis and the fact that he was not prosecuted is already tarnishing Kamala Harris' reputation. Then there are the flights, which already caused Price's resignation. Mnuchin's reputation is already in tatters as far as many are concerned.
The reputations of these two were ruined the moment they agreed to serve in the Trump administration.
I watched Steve Mnuchin on October 1, Sunday shows. It is difficult to imagine the falsehood against all evidence he declared despite vigorous questioning from the hosts of these show. He brushed aside the issues of estate tax and minimum tax which directly benefit him , Gary Cohn and Trump. He repeatedly claimed that the wealthy will benefit from proposes tax cut, and avoided giving evidence that tax cut for 1% results in significant growth and debt reduction. I can not believe any one with minimal respect for truth and evidence can believe Mr. Mnuchin.
1
Perhaps Trump is "draining the swamp" in a way other than he intended. By bringing people such as Cohn and Mnuchin on board, he's causing them to show how devoid they are of principles. (That can be said of plenty of people in his circle.) He isn't giving them authority, he's sapping the authority they claimed as their earned right. The people who embrace 'power' under Trump's aegis are going to end up as empty cicada shells, silent shadows of their former selves.
The repeal of the estate tax, if it happens, will be a brazen rip-off of the American people.
If a rich guy acquires stock valued at 1M and its value goes up during his lifetime to 5M and he NEVER sells it while he's alive, his kids get a "step-up" in basis, i.e., they inherit ALL THE GAIN TAX-FREE!! Millions of dollars of gains are never taxed at all as it stands, because the threshold for estates subject to estate tax is super high and estate tax is so easy to plan around anyway. Without an estate tax, this guy could pass on not a few million, but unlimited billions of dollars of income - all taxed at a rate of 0%.
Farmers-schmarmers. This is about guys like Trump who have appreciated stock and real estate. Daddy got a pile of stock or a house in a chic zip code that is worth a ton. He hasn't paid any tax at all while the wealth grew and grew for decades in his retirement. He wants to pay no tax on the stock or real estate gains, ever.
11
At the very least may this process actually involve deliberation rather than the antics of the failed ACA repeal effort. May we actually have hearings where clear proposals are made, and opposition party has a fair opportunity to challenge claims.
In one sense, we can only hope for more of the same - that the Senate will fail to pass anything along these lines - until we have some adults in the White House.
I don't think they are sullying their reputations. These men are showing us who they really are and the appalling lack of integrity they have. I am also unclear why the contributor thinks being a Goldman Sachs executive somehow gives them a good reputation. Quite the opposite: I think it means they had a tainted reputation from the start.
33
The reputation argument is total nonsense. Reputation/ethics/morals and values are gone and they are not coming back. If wealth and power are retained and increased, you are a hero of the oligarchs, and forever employable.
11
Pretty much what you would expect from folks who are actively trying to take over the country for a one-party dictatorship. Lies, lies and more lies.
20
Thank you for saying what is clearly happening but few want to acknowledge.
Not only are Cohn and Mnuchin liars but first and foremost they are cowards. Cohn wants, so badly, be named to to be the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board that he'll acquiesce to Trump's embracing the Neo-Nazi's who marched in Charlottesville. If he and Mnuchin had any sense of their Jewish heritage they would have both resigned immediately.
16
The "Ship of Fools". I would imagine that some Americans are confused by their behavior.
2
Uhhhhh....what reputations?
15
People DO NOT CHANGE
Especially old white rich men!
12
Munchkin and Cohn are hitmen from goldman-sachs.....they dont have much reputation left to worry about.
Trump's worst move was to allow Goldman=Sachs to continue to run the US finances into the ground.....for profit....tax free.
The Monster turns on its Master.
12
Is it possible David Leonhardt is delusionally naive about Cohn and Mnuchin? Is it not possible that, as for so many others, their beliefs and analyses boil down to pure opportunism?
4
It is not too late to change their approach? How do you un-become a liar?
3
The problem is that both Cohn and Mnuchin lack the guts to criticize Trump. Cohn tried after Charlottesville, but backed down when Trump attacked him. He should have resigned. Mnuchin has no shame. That both these guys can accept "fine people", aka white supremacists and nazis, shouting "Jews will not replace us" and accept it speaks to their total lack of character and morals.
14
O.K Gary and Steve are lying about the facts. Shame on them for lying. Their Jewish Mothers would berate them for that but how upset would they be with their sons' boss' statements or lack thereof re: holocaust remembrance day or Nazi protests. Weren't they raised to ask "Is it good for the Jews?" Both these men have made their mothers very happy with their success but certainly supporting their boss is not, is not, is not, good for the Jews. Gary and Steven, stand up and be a mensch like they raised you to be.
6
Risk their reputations? Did I read that right? I presume Mr Leonhardt is inferring there is a good reputation to be ruined. Nope. That time has already passed.
11
Secretary Mnuchin has already -- separately -- besmirched his reputation by attempting to have the government pay for personal air travel (e.g., when he and his wife traveled to Fort Knox), and when he requisitioned military flights for his government-related travel when commercial airlines would have been proper.
Although I sympathize with avoiding steerage class on airlines, Mnuchin's actions were wrong, for they violated government travel regulations and set a terrible example for Treasury Department rank and file. I wonder how he will be able to atone for these infractions.
11
Maybe we're working with a different backstory here, but I'm unclear as to what previously held values of theirs you feel they're betraying..?
6
Is it realistic to ask two dudes who sold their souls to Wall Street to start worrying about their reputation now, especially when there is still so much more to be made?
5
These two have "reputations" for making money on wall street. To normal people that implies they are unethical. So, no reputation to preserve.
In government they have no reputation whatsoever. Wall street does not teach anyone how to run a government or an economy. Their wall street experience is completely irrelevant.
What they are doing is just implementing long standing republican tropes about what repubs want to do with taxes. i.e. cut them. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether tax cuts will do anything at all for the economy. They really don't care as long as they (rich people) get more money out of it. Their hypothesis about what it will do for the economy are just theater for the "base." It has nothing to do with reality, and they know it. They don't care, they just throw out the sound bites they use as solutions to every problem - cut taxes. It's just meaningless nonsense. Too bad republican voters never learned anything about economics and so are so easily fooled.
12
Its obvious from Cohn and Mnuchin's willingness to provide cover for their double talking and corrupt boss in the White House during his latest efforts to saddle the middle class with more debt and less say in how our taxes are spent, that these two are completely unconcerned with the truth while helping Trump fashion the GOP's latest version of Trickle Down.
I suspect because of the size of their egos however, that the only time that it will occur to Cohn and Mnuchin that they have done unrepairable damage to their reputations in the connected worlds of finance and politics is when after they leave office and begin to see their names mentioned in the same breath as that of Richard Nixon's own finance chairman, Maurice Stans, and Nixon's closest financial advisor, H. Chapman Rose. Perhaps by that time though Cohn and Mnuchin (like Stans and Rose before them) will have been offered a Presidential Pardon by a suddenly outgoing and throughly disgraced President.
4
I'd sure like to know what Mr. Mnuchin's personal code of ethics might be. His reputation at this moment is not in question so far as I can tell.
5
Between Goldman Sachs, Relativity Media and being the guy who foreclosed on a mortgage for $0.70 owing, that is all you need to know. He has none.
9
Reputations for what? From what I have read these two are just your basic wall street con-men who get enough people to believe in their con before they cash out. And it's clear they could not care less how many people are left holding the bag just as long as they get their money and their lifestyle. And making money on wall street is completely irrelevant to running a government and an economy. They really have no clue whatsoever what they are doing.
16
Somehow I doubt they could of got where they did at Goldman Sachs if they had a code of ethics worth protecting.
17
Given the propensity of these two economic czars to lie
says a lot about Goldman Sachs. Apparantly the
executives who lie to their clients and make
money for GS get promoted. Lying is not the
skill they honed at the white house, they simply
transferred from their previous employer.
9
Just what the US needs - Goldman Sachs alumni. I guess Paulsen wasn't enough of a lesson in 2008 making GS whole while Lehman was left to twist in the wind. And Munchkin;s 'reputation' as the Foreclosure King is one that needs to be preserved at all costs.
9
“charlatans and cranks” sums up this administration and its GOP enablers perfectly.
11
"... their reputation and their personal code of ethics ..." We're talking about the same Mnuchin who requested military transport for his honeymoon and who travelled to see the recent eclipse under cover of inspecting the gold at Fort Knox, right? He is an dishonest as the day is long. He has the ethics of his boss - none.
10
Wonderful column. One assumes Cohn and Mnuchin will become aware of it. Will it have any effect on them? We can wish...but these are smart and wordly guys. They must have known policy wise (as opposed to the President's behavior) what they were signing up for. Kudos to you but batten the hatches.
4
Cohn and Mnuchin's reputations are theirs to destroy. That's the beautiful symmetry of throwing in with someone like Trump. They have cast their fates with the rest of the menagerie and will serve as examples to any who follow and also decide to risk their careers.
4
Some people consider themselves so wealthy and elite that they don't need the value of a good reputation.
10
Here is what Socrates thought about those who practice greed:
"He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have."
6
I'm sorry, I have to reject the core premise of this column, namely that Cohn and Mnuchin have reputations to lose. I know little of Mnuchin's career but I do have a more-than-passing knowledge of Cohn's and of Goldman Sachs' role in the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Goldman Sachs was long on real estate, along with all of Wall Street, until it decided that a crash might be coming. So far, no problem. Then it went short on real estate, most notably by purchasing multiple billions of Credit Default Swaps on the supposedly safe AAA tranches of CDOs that it itself had sold to its clients, as well as CDSs on the bonds of its competitors. Again, nothing particularly unethical.
But THEN came the Goldman match that lit the flame that nearly burnt down the global economy: it started *very* aggressively bid down the price of the illiquid insured CDO tranches on which it had purchased CDS insurance, triggering multiple billions of dollars of margin calls on its counterparties, most notably AIG, and setting of the runs on Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and the rest of the global financial system. Cohn was the second in command of GS during all this.
Ethical? In what remote sense of the word does Leonhardt apply it to Cohn's complicity in this chain of events? "Unindicted co-conspirator" would seem to me to be the apposite term. If Cohn's presumably brief tenure w/t Trump administration blackens his name then this is one o/t few redeeming aspects of this circus.
7
Read Prof. Chomsky's "Requiem for the American Dream". He describes "masters of mankind" who live by the 'vile maxim":
"All for ourselves and nothing for anyone else."
7
It it is clear that "tax reform" simply means giving greater advantage to the top. The elimination of the estate tax is the perfect example because there is already at least $10 million for a couple that is exempt. If anyone with a larger estate cannot figure out how to minimize the tax they deserve to pay. I am a very fortunate retiree who has a pension and was able to save and invest enough to provide a comfortable live. However, I do find it irritating that my effective Federal tax rate is 20% while billionaires have an effective rate of 14 or 15% or less.
8
I never watch Fox, so I am curious: Are they considered heroes by that crowd?
3
Mr. Cohn and Mr. Mnuchin seem stuck in the weeds of adoration of a rich man that became president. That's what they see when they look in the mirror. Misplaced ambition is a terrible thing. Maybe Mr. Mnuchin's foreclosing on people trying to work out a payment plan in the financial crisis inured him to reality. Mr. Cohn had a brief hesitation when his Jewish heritage was disparaged but got over it.
One misstep on their part and their boss will turn on them as he has many other loyalists. That fear is like crossing a pond of alligators; it takes great concentration to not fall over. And so they repeat the proper words, like the ventriloquist dummies they are.
4
Exactly what reputations are those?
4
"Man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor."
---Thomas Jefferson
8
"It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation,
and only one bad one to lose it. "
---Benjamin Franklin
1
There is a saying about restoring a ruined reputation:
Fixing a destroyed reputation is as difficult as regathering all the feathers from a pillow that split open outdoors during a windstorm.
If these two post-Holecaust Jews who are not only now standing with Nazi sympathizers but also asserting their Nordic overlord to have NEARLY PERFECT GENES still have reputations to ruin then we have crossed the Wagnerian Rubicon and are flying pilotless with the Valkyries!
8
David: You're appealing to Cohn and Mnuchin's sense of dignity and self interest? The ship sailed on dignity when they went to work for a scoundrel. And these guys are probably bright enough to have done the self interest calculation and it obviously came out differently than you would have liked. Plus, everyone who keeps enabling the Narcissist in Chief will eventually end up a punchline. A Mattis caricature is not yet ready for prime time on SNL, but the likely upcoming "Trumped" up war, where ever it is, will change that.
5
The sad truth of the situation is that even those of us who can't fathom how anyone in his right mind could be associated with Trump are hoping that when the right moment comes, Mattis will refuse the illegal or insane order when it comes, whether it's for an unprovoked nuclear attack or some domestic deployment of the military for totally illegal and unconstitutional purposes of power. Congress has failed and unhappily we are in the situation where the last line of defense is among certain political appointees. I would like to think that this is why Mattis stays. Maybe that's just dreaming.
5
What reputations? What an odd headline.
7
What in the world makes you think that either of these clucks had a reputation that they give a rat about? Once they got rich (by any means necessary) all they want is power. Does that sound familiar? You think you can shame them? To coin a phrase, Sad!
7
As an outsider from Oz, the message I get from this op-ed is that the only one risking a reputation here is David Leonhardt - for such mushy appeal to two men who've been boldly trash-writing their own life-story (and obits) for years.
6
Eventually, we wil have to pay the national debt or no one will lend us more money. When that emergency arrives, the benefits will be cut from the poor and the middle class will pay the debt. Meanwhile these guys will have banked the tax cut.
On the other hand, maybe we *won't* pay the national debt. Maybe we''ll just go the Argentine route and default.
Either way, these guys and their friends will already have the money.
5
Bush took Clinton surpluses and squandered them on tax cuts, ballooning the deficit. If there was any justice, the Republicans would own up to this foolish mistake and actually raise taxes.
4
It's too late.
2
"In the daily scrum, I’m sure that pleasing their boss must seem like the most important possible thing. But their reputation and their personal code of ethics deserve some consideration too."
Leonhard seems to forget that each one of Cohn and Mnuchin is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. in all likelihood, there will be some far right Republican billionaires who would be happy having them around at a few tens of millions a year when they are done working for the mororn in the WH.
Even if nether one ever works for anyone else, they will still be set for life. Toss in a few private jet (or military jet) rides as the cherry on the sundae.
Nah, no reason to worry about their "reputations."
2
They maybe titans on Wall Street but they shed all that halo when standing by Trump's side as he made all those racist remarks comparing the neo-Nazis with the protesters in Charlottesville. There can be no excuse however uncomfortable they looked. Actions speak for themselves.
5
"But they can make a free-market case for lower taxes that is based on something other than lies." There is no credible case that can be made of lower income taxes. The tax receipts are already insufficient to cover spending, most of the income taxes are paid by those in the upper 25% of incomes, we are nearly at full employment and thus further reductions in income tax rates will have relatively small stimulative effect. A case could be made for increasing the progressivity of tax rates for incomes above 150K by adding rather than decreasing the number of brackets and icreasing the maximum top rate to say 50% but again this will have limited benefit in the current economic environment. We need living wages and full time jobs at the lower incomes. Deficits should not be spent of income tax relief. Infrastructure spending or payroll tax relief makes much more sense. Better yet we need to look at what the economy needs and work toward that rather than trying to find a way to justify GOP orthodoxy.
3
They are risking their reputations with economically aware liberals, except that their reputations with these people were bad to begin with, so that they were preserving their [bad] reputations. They are also preserving their reputations with those who want tax cuts for the rich and judge sales pitches on their effectiveness rather than their accuracy (and by definition effectiveness is how sales pitches are judged).
The only people with whom they risk their reputations are people naive enough to believe their sales pitches who start seeing through these sales pitches as a result of their policies. That is not very many people. Cohn and Mnuchin are undoubtedly dedicated to the public interest, but the public interest as they conceive of it includes preserving the present role and influence of the financial community on the nation and its economy, and probably also includes enhancing this influence; this is just doing God's work.
To say that they are risking their reputations is to ascribe reputations to them that they do not have, want, or value except as appearances to deceive the sheeple. To ascribe reality to these sheeple-clothing reputations is to join the effort to keep the sheeple in their sheepledom while enabling the wolves to communicate about what is going on.
3
Has the bar for success ever been this low?
"Can you recall a single time when Mattis has said something outright untrue? I can’t. That’s how he has retained his dignity in the eyes of so many people."
2
These guys remind me of a good joke I heard from a Brazilian friend back in the '80s when Brazil and Argentina were both under military juntas.
There was a Brazilian general and an Argentinian general who were friends. The Brazilian visited the Argentinian at his ranch. They were sitting on the verandah having a drink when Argentinian general pointed into the distance. "Do you see that highway over there"?, he said. The Brazilian squinted. "Yes, I see it." The Argentinian patted his packet. "Ten percent," he said, with satisfaction.
Some time later the Brazilian hosted his friend at *his* ranch. While they were having a drink on the verandah, he point into the distance and said, "Do you see that highway out there?" The Argentinian general squinted and looked, then squinted and looked again. "No, I am sorry, I can't see it from here." The Brazilian general patted his pocket and said with satisfaction, "One hundred percent."
What kind of "reputation" exactly does Mr. Mnuchin have left to protect, after having his self-entitled spouse tweet about their government funded plane travel with a bunch of luxury designer hashtags and his subsequent comment that he couldn't possibly have been traveling just to see the eclipse, because he is a New Yorker, and has seen it all. And let's not forget his egregious attempt to have the taxpayer pay for the plane he planned to use for his honeymoon...
All this would seem to me to fit in just perfectly with the rest of the Trump Cabinet.
3
"Ethics?" It seems, sadly, a thing of the past.
1
When the torches and pitchforks come out,I imagine these two will be claiming some of the first lampposts.
3
The wealthiest have the chance to be the greatest patriots but often work to avoid receipt of the honour - as if theirs was not their country. Financially rich but ethically poor - happy to benefit from others providing but loathe to provide themselves - they are not a good fit for national service.
2
This an an administration built on lies, lies about just everything. So there is no surprise that Cohn and Mnuchin would lie about tee great advantages of this proposed tax cut. they have an advantage also, because the public rally does not understand economics any more than economists do. The muck in the Trump swamp is getting deeper and m ore oily. Could it be time for a little honesty?
4
More proof that the US economic system is rigged. Do you really think they don't know they are telling lies and making stuff up? You really think they believe what they say? The US economic system is becoming totally corrupt and oligarchic. Our current path is towards the collapse of the Republic just as in ancient Rome.
9
I'm sick and tired of hearing about the importance of cuts to help "small businesses." Why? Because too many Americans don't understand that this means that individuals like the attorneys I support - partners in a major law firm - file as a small business, not an individual. Though they make far more money than their secretary, I'll probably be paying a higher tax rate.
If we were going to be serious about corporate tax reform - no matter the size of business - we'd keep the existing rate and close all loopholes. In return, companies will receive tax breaks for investing in new hires (in positions with living wages and honest benefits) and create equitable profit-sharing plans for all employees (not just 401ks).
The truth is that 21st century corporate America does not want to invest in people. I see at my law firm. It's all about outsourcing (general services, word processing) and centralization. Not only is word processing outsourced, but the operators are nearly 1,000 miles away.
5
Please, tell me honestly, 'Would you buy a used car from Steven Mnuchin?'
This guy bought a bank, started foreclosures on properties in arrears in the mortgage payments. A judge later described the behaviour as 'harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive.' So you can be pretty sure that anything coming out of his mouth will not be of benefit to you.
10
The deciding factor for Mnuchin and Cohn in serving Mr Trump is not whether they are truthful when predicting the national effects of the tax plan they fathered for Trump’s approval. Their only concern is whether America’s super-rich will benefit. As long as their socio-economic class values the “open door” to influncing President Trump’s policies which they represent, their future private careers and personal wealth are guaranteed. They entered public service to assure private gain by any means necessary. In their moral universe lying is just “spin”.
3
Trump was critical of Goldman Sachs during his campaign and quick to connect his opponents to Wall Street.
Just to refresh memories, during the campaign last year Trump said: "I know the guys at Goldman Sachs. They have total, total control over him,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at a rally in South Carolina last year. "Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton.”
Now Mnuchin is the head of the Treasury Dept. and is using taxpayer funds to pay for personal expenses. I doubt he cares about his reputation.
5
What reputations ?
5
Working for a moron and keeping ones reputation doesn't work together. They sold themselves already. I have more respect for people who sell their bodies to bring butter to the table.
3
Sixty years ago, my grandfather told me, "You can be a bum many times, but a gentleman only once".
A similar principal applies to one' s credibility and integrity. These men have irreversably compromised theirs.
5
What reputations are those? As sleazy underhanded Goldman Sachs vulture capitalist thugs in business suits who'd run over their own grandmothers for a dime? As conscienceless Jews working for an obvious white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer? As shameless Republican stooges fleecing the American taxpayer on behalf of their plutocratic friends and their Koch Brothers masters? As self interested unabashed, unashamed, unconcerned, unconscious crooks who think nothing of charging the taxpayers for their frivolous travels despite the fact that both are multi millionaires or near billionaires?
When you have no conscience nor shame it's pretty hard to have a reputation. As Dylan said, if you ain't got nothing you got nothing to lose.
But after all, they ARE Republicans.
15
The Republicans and some of corporate America's fondest dreams would kill the goose that laid the golden egg for them, the great wide and prosperous middle class of our country. The wealth that rich enjoy comes mainly from the middle, those4 who buy, rent and pay fees on top of fees. If the Republicans got their way, this economic class would be pulverized. You'd have the wealthy, a small middle group of managers and a vast nation of near poverty.
How would the rich benefit? In times past, our ancestors realized that building America helped them (at least some of them realized how to act beyond their own immediate self interest). Now, the rich and mega-rich would like to live in a society where they can buy anything they want, including servants for everything, at ever lower prices. Plus, America's corporations have discovered the rest of the world in a way they never did previously. They no longer think of themselves as American corporate citizens, but citizens of the world. GE, among other mega-corps, now gets more revenue outside the US than in.
The very rich, as embodied by these two men, would sell us out and if things got too bad here, they would run away to enclaves elswhere, sucking money from wherever it might come their way. This is no joke. Should one suppose that houses in tropical zones and personal jet aircraft are merely about enjoying life? No. America was once the center of concern, now it is a base of operations that can be abandoned at will.
4
What reputation could they ruin now that they have sold their soul to the trump?
3
You are being very tactful, Mr. Leonhardt. I don’t have a good sense of who Cohn is, but I’ve got Mnuchin’s number. What good rep he had, and I suspect that those who know him don’t think much of him, was totally eclipsed by his use of government planes, at a cost exceeding the annual income of many tax paying Americans, to bring his trophy bride to Fort Knox to view the total eclipse of the sun.
12
Leonhardt doesn't know how to play the Republican tax game. Primarily they define "wealthy", "upper-class" and "rich" by quintiles. Thus the wealthy etc. is comprised of everyone in the top quintile--the 80th percentile and up. By eliminating most of the itemized deductions such as state and local taxes, and personal exemptions they increase the taxes on the 80th through the 99th percentile. These increased taxes offset the large tax decreases for the 1%. It's a very obvious game, once you know how it's played.
5
Both Cohn and Mnuchin should provide evidence how the tax cuts are going to contribute to job creation and economic growth.
The proposal would also cut down on funding for Medicaid and Medicare. Any tax reform should seek ways to bridge the growing disparity between the rich and the poor. By having to cut on people's entitlements, does not help to seek the solutions.
The rich continue to be richer and there is very little or nothing done to address the plight of the poor in this country.
5
WHAT reputations ?????
5
Cohn and Mnuchin are just like Tillerson. They don't care too much about their reputations. They never would have taken the jobs if they had. Right now all three are just trying to meet the 1-year period to fulfill the deferral requires on Certificate of Divestiture, as explained here: https://www.bestcashcow.com/rex-tillerson-is-waiting--waiting-until-janu...
2
It's got to be the overpowering taint caused by the Trumpian era. More than one of us have also started seeing some fine men in Nazi-KKK ranks. Mnuchin and Cohn, two of the orignial members of Trump's campaign "risk their reputation" by going with Trump? Both Cohn and Mnuchin have been friends with Trump over the years. Didn't they know, you have to discard all inhibitions the moment you jump into the Trumpian public bath? Remember, no clothes no swim trunks, not even a hint of coyness on your face are allowed in this Bath.
1
PLEASE!!!!!!
Mnuchin and Cohn came up with Trump's tax "plan."
Whether they lie for it or not (and they are lying) they are the creatures who created the tax monster Trump wants to shove down America's throat.
"Reputations" should be about what you do, not that you happened to rise at Goldman Sachs. Cohn and Mnuchin are showing what two faced shameful characters they really are. As Maya Angelou said, "when people show you their true colors, believe them." Let's believe that what they do is who they actually are.
6
Cohn and Mnuchin are modern day sonderkommandos.
They have no reputations to lose.
5
You can put the title of this story into past tense. They risked their reputations and they already lost. Talk about clichès. Mnuchin seems driven by one need and one need only -- to hang on to his "adorable" trophy wife. Cohn craves power. He tried to push out his sick boss at Goldman Sachs and got slapped down. Now, he gets to fly around on taxpayer-funded TrumpAir and show off his suits. Sycophants. Friends of little Jared.
9
Sorry, but Cohn and Mnuchin ("I'm from New York, so a solar eclipse would be if no interest to me, although the Kentucky rubes might like it.") are already punchlines.
4
Liars, cheats, and clowns. That's the staff that Trump has surrounded him self with. Show us your tax returns, Bozo.
7
Is this the onion? These guys are reprehensible people.
They don’t care about their so called reputations as per the NYT op-Ed column.
What. Joke
3
Yep, Steven Mnuchin, the "foreclosure king" and Gary Cohn are the new Sean Spicers. Period.
5
The headline reads: "Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin Risk Their Reputations".
WHAT "reputations"? A goniff is a goniff is a goniff. Case Closed.
3
Cohn and Mnuchin have “reputations” to protect?
Thanks for the laugh New York Times....
5
They have both worked for the Trump administration long enough that their reputations are lying in shredded tangles down around their ankles. How do these guys sleep at night?
3
David, These men would be highly valued by any corporation for their willingness to lie about anything. It demonstrates how they are stand-up guys willing to go all out promoting and protecting their employers and they can do it with a straight face and panache. Speaking of "lies" the news media has to start using this word freely to describe this administration's penchant for tossing out lies non-stop. You used the word once in this piece at the very end. You use other phrases to suggest the same throughout your piece which in my mind shows deference to these crooks. They have not earned it. They don't deserve it because they are acting as enforcers for the privileged few and screwing the rest of us and future generations. Government Lies are really propaganda to intentionally mislead it's citizens it's supposed to serve. Trump is ratcheting up the pace of our sick democracy sliding into fascism. All the elements are in place: Massive domestic spying, hyper-militarized municipal police forces, a rigged system of justice, whipping up the public's fear of hordes of aliens invading the country and blaming them for everything that afflicts the lower middle class, perpetual wars to defend the country from imminent mayhem by terrorists and the daily flood of propaganda. Congress is failing its duty to act as a check against power grabs by the executive branch. Our last hope for staving off fascism falls on the 4th estate that is highly skeptical of our government.
10
What do Cohen and Mnuchin care about what happens to their reputations. This change in taxes will give them so much more money it will not matter what anyone says.
9
That Cohn and Mnuchin are fat cats who grossly enriched themselves in a zero-value-add industry doesn't necessarily make it impossible for them to perform honorably in public service.
But their reprehensible Newspeak attempts to sell the proposed tax cut as anything other than an enormous transfer of national wealth to the extremely rich removes all doubt about their interest in serving honorably.
That both men failed to stand up against Trump's shout-out to anti-Semitism shows that they had already abandoned their integrity.
At this point, they're not risking their reputations -- they've clearly established themselves as unprincipled liars.
19
I used to call the tax cuts pay for themselves mantra "the laughable curve" rather than the Laffer curve. People with long memories will understand.
One of the fundamentals of economics is that you must have capital in order to get economic growth. Societies moved into the industrial and later technological ages because they had enough money floating around to invest. (You need a lot of other things, too, like innovation, inventors and people willing to take big risks.) The idea that you can cut taxes and take in more money in the ensuing years through growth is a perversion of the concept of capital formation. It is a witches brew sold by corporate/Republican America which boils down to this "we are your ultimate savior, you must give us what we want in order to get anything yourself."
Making a lot of money distorts the human brain and its buddy, the ego. This will one day be fully demonstrated scientifically, but for now we have to deal with the evidence all around us that this is true. "Draining the swamp" means putting a bunch of rich guys in charge? Me thinks the swamp is getting deeper every day. Riding on a boat of lies, Trump and company will one day be fully revealed to all but their most devoted believers.
10
"Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin arrived in Washington this year after long, successful careers in business.: This somehow overlooks the part that both of these Wall Street marauders played in the 2008 financial debacle. In my view and, I believe that of many others harmed by their financial malfeasance,these two men have a distinctly odious reputation and should never have been confirmed by the Senate.
6
"Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin Risk Their Reputations"
When the Koch-Mercer-Mellon money is flowing, reputations mean nothing, as Mankiw, Holz-Eakin, Boskin, Snow, and a host of others have shown. No matter how unsound their policies or inaccurate their forecasts, experts who are willing to fry their academic reputations to please plutocrats will find themselves failing upward, wafted aloft by the Hoover-Heritage-American-Enterprise-Heritage-Tax-Foundation welfare.
12
This has been true for decades of everyone who has done the tax cut mambo.
They've gotten away with it too. Prospered. Become Speaker of the House from it, as one of many examples, of a guy who got coverage as a "policy wonk" for this utter and complete in-your-face lies.
It isn't these two. It is the political culture, including the media coverage of it enabling this. They are just two more of very, very many.
10
The media have a great deal more to do to make it possible for citizens to know which policies and statements emanating from the White House and Senate and House Republicans are undeniably true and which are bald-faced lies. No previous administration deluged the public with such unending lies, so the need for such enlightenment was far less in the past. I suggest that every newspaper keep on its front page, and every Internet news site keep on its home page, a sort of box score, with explanations, to inform readers of specific lies, and why they are definitely lies. I realize that such explanations will not constitute scientific proof in many cases, but they will be powerful arguments. Regarding some issues, such as the dangers of chemical pollutants to individuals and the earth, all but the most blind or greedy accept as proof global warming and much higher rates of respiratory maladies, but those truths should be repeated many times.
3
"Their reputations"?.... as a trickle down mystic and a mortgage foreclosure pirate [respectively]? Those are reputations worth saving? Surely Mr Leonhardt jests.
12
Cohn famously said, "only morons pay the estate tax". He also said that middle class families would save $1,000 under this tax plan, with which they could renovate their kitchens or buy new cars. Mnuchin -- who, let's face it, would never have gotten anywhere near where he is now without Daddy having been a partner at Goldman Sachs and paving Stevie's way into Yale, then Goldman, and lots of $$$ -- uses military jets to counter his own insecurity about never having achieved anything without Daddy's help. Two of the most privileged and out of touch men in the universe. Why would we think either of them care about their reputations, after what we've heard and witnessed? They will say anything -- do anything -- to further feather their own beds and those of their corporate masters. And people in this economic stratosphere don't need to work at all, so the notion that they might be heading into other jobs after this, because of their relative youth, is, well, quaint. Wake up, David. This is the new world order. None of these privileged, entitled brats have any self-awareness, or any shame, or any conscience. We're on our own. Time to roll out the resistance. It's our only hope.
27
What reputation? Steve Mnuchin was known as one of the foreclosure kings. A man who takes luxury flights on military jets at taxpayer expense is not concerned with reputation, but entitlement. A man who would marry a vapid and insensitive trophy wife who boasts about her outlandishly expensive fashionista habits, is hardly concerned with the common good. Or public service. This a Confederacy of Grifters, lead by the Grifter in Chief.
24
Note to David Leonhardt: This horse left the barn a few months back. The reputations of these two men are now officially irreparable.
9
How could Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin risk their reputations working for the Trump administration when their reputations were already ruined. Mnuchin as the foreclosure king taking houses away from seniors and Cohn for assisting in tanking the economy in 2008 by defrauding investors. Goldman Sachs paid 5B for it's role in the 2008 financial crisis. These two were damaged good before arriving at Trump's circus train.
10
the 5B Goldman paid was a paltry sum intended only as window dressing so noisy dems would shut up and not criticize team Obama as was so richly deserved.
Any tax reform plan that does not eliminate the hedge fund loophole, paying 15% instead of 35%, is complete garbage
10
You do know the new tax plan proposes to tax all pass though income at 25% right. These guys actually want to expand the loophole considerably.
2
Reducing the tax burden on everyone could be easy if President Obama had not doubled the national debt to 20 Trillion dollars AFTER he said it was unpatriotic of Bush who did the same thing. It was Bad when Bush did it and worse for the hypocritical Obama.
Republicans like to confuse people by mixing up the deficit and the debt.
http://www.exponentialimprovement.com/cms/bushdeficit.shtml
Reagan exploded the deficit and thus the debt.
Clinton turned the deficit into a surplus and thus began to pay down the debt.
Bush exploded the deficit and thus the debt.
Obama slashed the deficit, so the debt is growing more slowly.
Trump proposes returning to the Republican deficit increasing, debt exploding merely so the richest among us get tax cuts they don't need.
1
I think both guys are acting just as they always have, lying & committing fraud. I don't know about those 'reputations' you're writing about---I'm from California & they were loathed here. Both should have been prosecuted criminally for fraud leading to the Great Recession. Mnuchin, especially, is an absolute thug--having forced so many to lose their homes & making money on human misery.
8
Cohn showed is lack of ethics and principles when he said nothing about Trumps remarks about the Charlottesville racist groups march against anyone who was not white and stayed on. Mnuchin proved his lack of ethics and principles when he used military planes at taxpayers expense for private trips
How can you think they actually have reputations to save. They have already proven what they are about as human beings, let alone public officials
7
I surely one of the dissenters who don't count, as I hate djt and virtually his entire administration. But when you call out ethics in any of his minions it is really and truly a joke. The swamp has been so deepened and so muddied by every single person working for trump. To pretend Chon and Mnuchin ever were men of integrity (never mind needing to protect it) is nonsense. They went into these jobs with eyes wide open. I just hope that every person of substance they encounter in life from this moment forward reminds them of their dismal failure in public service to America with their lies and falsehoods.
4
The two most absurd arguments about this tax plan is that it will: (1) Pay for itself, and; (2) It will create more jobs. The amount of GDP growth necessary to 'pay for this plan', both in amount and length economic expansion would is too irrational for words. The job growth argument is equally egregious due to the fact we already have about 5 million unfilled jobs. What additional 'job growth' do companies require, when we have more jobs than can be filled?
These two men are not just discrediting themselves; they lay bare the intellectual bankruptcy of the entire 'revised tax plan' put forth by Trump and the GOP.
4
The Republican Party has been all about tax cuts for the rich for decades, and they have pushed them using lies all along. Mnuchin and Cohn do not risk their reputations with the money-men behind the Republican Party and their social circles by pushing more and more tax cuts for them or by using lies about them. This has been standard procedure for Republicans since Reagan. They see this as a chance to further their dreams of eliminating most taxes on the wealthy. They are now going for lower tax rates for the top and the elimination of the estate tax, which will exclusively benefit the very wealthy, including saving the Trump family millions of dollars in estate taxes. Cohn and Mnuchin will also surely reap huge benefits from the proposed cuts, as will the wealthy supporters of Republicans, as well.
Republicans will continue to push for the reduction and eventual elimination of capital gains taxes and taxes on dividends, from which their money people make most of their money. They will push for a flat tax to reduce the percentage paid on their high earnings that cannot be morphed into capital gains through accounting tricks. They will not be satisfied until the very wealthy pay no taxes. They will continue to push for user fees and privatization of infrastructure, to shift the costs from the wealthy to everyone else. They will continue to reduce workers protections so they can abuse their workers more and more. They don't care about income equality at all.
7
I detest Trump but to write of the estate tax and not mention step-up basis, which Trump proposes eliminating, smacks of "fake news". I didn't even know about it from my usual news sources until a friend told me last week. I wonder how many readers even know what it is.
These two have lost any credibility (which was very low to begin with). As to one of you last statements - "But they can make a free-market case for lower taxes that is based on something other than lies." - is wholly deceiving. A truly free unfettered market is a myth - one the GOP tries to push all the time. The concept never actualized and especially with the plutocracy never will - the markets are not free!
1
I am not quite sure if this appeal to their reputations is a literary device or you truly believe that there is such a thing possible. My wife reads the paper every day and shouts - " dont they care about their reputations! They'll ruin their futures etc etc"
Really ? Two very rich to extremely rich men - who literally never have to work again, who no matter how bad the trump administration goes down in flames, will be able to get jobs on Fox news and in a few years even CNN will ask them to be on their Sunday panels ( as they do with Bill Bennet, Gingrich and Santorum - three men who are NEVER right about anything)
No, these guys are there for at least the end of the year so they can take advantage of the stock benefits of being in the cabinet https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/business/dealbook/for-trumps-wealthy-...
there's money in selling ones soul - and a column in the NYT's pleading for their moral compass cannot buy it back.
3
Getting rid of estate taxes - which only affect multi-millionaires and billionaires - would really add to our national debt. What's 34% effective tax on $7 billion? How much of the national income is comprised of estate taxes?? How much of these huge estates are in foreign banks, immune from taxes?!
This tax bill is just meant to lock in money and power for the few at the top, at the expense of the many.
8
As an American of Jewish background, both Cohn and Mnuchin, ruined their reputations forever by not resigning immediately after President Trump's Charlottesville repeated comments lending moral equivalency to Neo-Nazis and those protesting against them. By staying on they are on they have become "willing accomplices" to Donald Trump's white nationalist, America First agenda. Shame on them!
15
RISK?
1
It's too late for Cohn and Mnuchin (and Kelly, Mattis, McMaster, Tillerson and Ryan, McConnell, ..) to salvage their morals and their dignity. What corporation would want to pay anyone of these feckless "leaders" to make bold moves?
Once a syncophant, forevermore a syncophant.
6
These two guys are a complete joke.
Anyone who works for this administration, with its heretofore unprecedented incompetence and endless lying, will be forever tainted.
Contributing obvious whoppers of your own in service of what we all know is a massive tax cut for the rich doesn't help either.
The reputations of Cohn and Mnuchin are forever ruined, as well they should be.
1
Gary Cohn's greatest struggle in his rise to power was dyslexia? I'll bet that chapter is a real page turner. The book stores can't even keep Gladwell on the shelf. Imagine the pain and suffering of that poor finance executive as he fights to overcome a reading disorder. It's a story with popular attraction too. Up 20% of the population experiences some degree of dyslexia. If you don't experience dyslexia, you know someone that does. At the very least, you're more likely to know someone with dyslexia than someone worth half a billion dollars like Cohn. Empathy for the man just pours off every page.
I have dyslexia. Managed to get a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from a major medical school. Didn't make me rich, but at least I now know it wasn't the dyslexia that prevented that. I just picked a field of work that wasn't predatory. My bad...
1
If Cohn and Mnuchin help pull off this scam, they will be the toast of Wall Street and the 1%. Wall Street only cares about short term profits and the 1% only care about themselves. And telling a few lies to help the rich has never gotten a Republican in trouble with the rich.
And if your looking for lies that Jim Mattis has told, try anything he has said about our wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
If you lie for or with Trump, your as bad as Trump. I don't see any way around it.
5
It seems likely that Cohn and Mnuchin have been promised a big payday if they deliver for the rich, Wall Street and big business. They are not only liars, they are crooks.
1
Too late.
1
In the land of liars, no one can tell the truth.
1
Too late! The Reputation Train for the majority of the drones, lackeys, and defenders of our "Child-King-Fool long ago left the station!!!
What is left now are indictments, trials, and lawyer's bills for many, many, many of them. Justice anyone???
3
Cohn and Mnuchin have already destroyed their reputations. They've already displayed their true colors. They have a long way to go before they can rehabilitate themselves. They don't want to. They are happy where they are. Do you think Mnuchin regrets spending almost a million in tax payer money on his little jaunts on military and charter aircraft? Do you think he'd ever consider paying back what he owes for that? Nope!
5
Oh good more magical thinking in place of reason.
2
Too late. Whatever so-called "reputations" Gary Cohn and Steve Mnuchin might have had, aside from being the self-serving greedy acolytes that they are, is already way past diminished.
And that, is of course, is what makes them both a perfect fit for this administration.
If anything, that is the very least the past eight months have taught us.
4
What reputations?
1
Once the reputation has been ruined, one lives completely uninhibited.
Wilhelm Busch
1
If Cohn Mnuchin cared at all about their reputations, they wouldn’t have associated themselves with Donald Trump. It’s obvious they have an agenda, an agenda that doesn’t include the preservation of this Republic and its institutions.
3
COHN Has the misfortune of sharing the same surname as the Trump long time family attorney, Roy Cohen, the notorious rabid lap dog who destroyed so many lives during the witch hunts led by McCarthy, based on Trumped up (pun intended) evidence provided from the private files (i.e., concocted lies) of J. Edgar Hoover. Mnuchin's career in government is on the skids due to his arrogant abuse of travel privileges using chartered jets rather than traveling coach like the rest of us. Both of these guys are worth so much they could retire tomorrow and never look back. But they're afflicted with ambition, that has placed them smack dab in the midst of the indisputably worst presidency in the history of the US. Indeed, they will have made themselves radioactive to perspective future employers. The rest of us may become radioactive if Trump starts WW III and North Korea attacks cities in the US using atomic weapons.
2
This is an appeal to the "personal code of ethics" of men who went to work for a racist, misogynist, racketeering fraudster who brags about his success in habitually sexually assaulting women, insults gold star families and war heroes, compulsively lies, mocks the disabled, and might start a nuclear war with Korea because he can't control his twitter finger?
Because -- what -- Trump's behavior is acceptable to them, but they're going to read this column, have an epiphany, and stop lying for their boss?
Zero chance. They have sold their souls. But nice try.
2
If you sleep with a dog, you wake up with fleas.
The first casualty of the Trump administration has been truth. "The lie" has become its lingua franca. The cancellation of the Alternative Minimum Tax will save the "1%" about 38 billion a year, elimination of the Estate Tax about 27 billion. The yearly saving of 65 billion dollars is an incontrovertible fact. Gary Cohn and Steve Mnuchin have apparently compromised their personal integrity and joined the "progress" of ethically challenged sycophants, who with the notable exception of James Mattis, surround the liar-in-chief.
2
Everyone who joined/joins the Trump Administration no longer has a reputation at risk; they are permanently stained and will be henceforth known as enablers of an ignorant lying racist misogynist xenophobe. Cohn's Goldman colleagues must cringe at the mention of his name now.
1
WHAT "reputations?"
Talk about your low-risk bet!
Looks like David missed the boat on this one. Cohn and Mnuchin will become heroes to a small portion of America if they can simply assist congressional republicans and DJT pull off this con. When the deficits balloon and consequences are apparent a democrat will be president and the GOP can blame him or her.
Reputations saved.
3
Let's just make it clear. EVERY leading individual who joins this administration will spend the rest of their life apologizing for it. It is a shameful administration and every participant will be shamed and ashamed.
189
They have no shame.
1
I wish you were right but to feel shame is to admit you have soul, a conscience, a heart, whatever you want to call it, and none of these lackeys working for the Trump misadministration have anything close to resembling any of the above qualities.
2
Ron, you're not serious? Hardly any of those people has ever apologized for anything, and they are too old to change.
Blech. Their reputations in reputable serious circles are shot.
1
It is sheer foolishness, and borders on naivete, to ask Cohn and Mnuchin to stop telling lies. Corporate types at every level operate businesses by "strategizing" the truth, being very selective about information dissemination, and by telling flat-out lies. The reasons can range from protecting corporate or personal turf to actual issues of psychopathology. The greater the wealth, the greater the likelihood of engaging in this behavior. Not to say the apples are all bad, but aside from personal wealth and/or status advancement, the pressure on corporations to perform in the marketplace is unrelenting and highly competitive. Lying is simply de facto. It becomes ingrained.
Um, wasn't Steve Mnuchin known as the "foreclosure king"? I'd say he entered the White House already sullied.
1
Hey Steve, there's always another Birken pocketbook to buy. How about a deduction for that ?
1
It is too late for Cohn and Mnunchin to save their reputations. They have both already exhibited the willingness to hurt millions of americans and simultaneously help themselves and others of their economic class.
In addition, as far as Mnunchin is concerned, the damage was already done before his support for the the tax reform.
The minute he and his wife began to open their mouths and express their snobbish attitudes, the damage was done. He is one of the most unlikable people I have ever met.
In stiff competition for least likable are Bannon, Miller, Conway, Price, Pruitt, and DeVos.
Where oh where does this administration find so many creepy people?
1
Clearly these two are as self-serving as the man they serve.
1
Risking their reputations? Unfortunately, that ship has long sailed. Mnuchin has been a toady ("do it for me") and grifter (use of military jets for all his trips, including trying to use one for his honeymoon) since Day One. I thought Cohn might have redeemed himself by quitting after the Charlottesville incident, but noooo, I guess the fact of going down in history as part of the most corrupt and incompetent administration ever in US history, was just too much to resist. These men have sold their souls by lying to themselves and the American public with little to no remorse. And all trump will do is eventually throw them under the bus as he's done to everyone else. Good luck guys after this fiasco is over--you'll need as you've lost the respect of anyone with half a brain.
What "Reputations"??
Reputations as thieves, looters, 'negative externality' hiding con-men for Goldman?
"Don't cry for me Wall Street"
2
Reputations? For what, and with whom? Do aristocrats like Cohn and Mnuchin ever think of what they look like to the rest of us, who will be paying more taxes so the one percent can pay less?
Reminds me of the Marquis St. Evremonde in “A Tale of Two Cities,” a book which depicts the consequences of income inequality. Hint: the French Revolution ends very badly for the aristocrats.
Funny how aristos like Cohn and Mnuchin (and of course St. Evremonde) always think that the long-term consequences of inequality never apply to THEM.
1
I swear, anyone who is in the great pretender's cabinet is risking their morals, ethics, and potential lives. Why would anyone do that? Greed.. To get at the core of democracy and destroy it to line their own pockets. We already know, most of those the little man chooses have horrid issues. Sad that the little man picks the worst and the most ignorant of all that is out there.
1
Voters may remember George Schultz or John Connally as Nixon's former Treasury Secretaries, but who remembers Herb Stein -- the leader of the Council of Economic Advisers?
I get the feeling Donald will crash so big and hard that history will scarcely mention the people whose tax and economic policies failed in Congress, along with everything else.
What a bizarre column. There was never any doubt that Cohn and Mnuchin signed on to the Trump administration in order to peddle voodoo economics with lies. They are there to enrich themselves and their buddies at Goldman and the rest of the 0.01%. The swamp is swampier than its ever been.
5
What about the budget deficits? Har har hardy har har!
1
Usually agree with David's comments, but not in this case. First, both Cohn and Mnuchin achieved success by leading shady companies: Cohn with the money-sucking, vampire squid Goldman Sachs, Mnuchin with One West Bank, which likes foreclosing on mortgage owners in minority communities. Given their histories, they're perfect working for someone with no ethics like Trump. Their reputations were already sullied, and it doesn't seem like they care much about it.
Second, given their vast wealth that will grow with tax cuts, they don't need to worry about getting another job. Their only concern is getting richer...just like the guy they work for.
3
Which of Mnuchin's reputations is he likely to harm--the one he earned as CEO of OneWest bank, the "Foreclosure Machine" whose actions one judge referred to in 2009 as "harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive'' or as one of the "moochin' Mnuchins," feeding voraciously at the public trough?
4
These two crooks have earned entry into my special "filthy lucre" club. More hard work on their part and they will become candidates for the infamous "let them eat cake" society.
2
The economic crash of 2008 exposed massive corrupt, illegal practices by lending and rating agencies. Yet NO ONE went to jail. So what do you expect from these Greed-is-Good Wall Street vultures? They know even a short stint in the White House is a golden ticket and their Pardoner-in-Chief will cover them if they break the law.
1
anyone who works within or for this administration is toxic. Their reputaions should suffer, interminalblly. Should GS even think of rehiring of these clowns , I would strongly suggest a national boycott.
As for the tarnishing of 45's business:
Scotland golf course lost $24million in 2016
May Y loco cancellations for the Palm beach social gala season outnumber events staying (losing millions)
The golf course in LA and the Bx these clowns/thieves run are empty and hemporraging $
so much for this clown benefitting. As for agendas: what agennda? the one to self enrich..that is indeed succeeding .
So George Burns tells Gracie Allen that a nearby furniture store is having a sale. She calls up the store and starts ordering furniture with the caveat, "Let me know when I've saved enough to pay for it all." Mnuchin and Cohn are telling very old jokes.
1
When the revolution comes, I want to be the one to offer them a blind fold and cigarette.
3
Mnuchin is a bottom-feeding toad, a self-entitled "elitist" if ever there was one....and no number of kisses from him bobble-headed trophy wife will turn him into a prince. He threw an 90 yr old woman out of her home for being 27 cents short on a mortgage payment. Being the aggressive "foreclosure king" gave him money, piles of money: money is all that's needed to finance movies, it doesn't take character.
When has he displayed character such that he need be worried about ruining a "good" reputation.
4
Mnuchin, lose his reputation? Please.
Not to be an education snob, or anything, but Cohn ran a hedge fund, after getting a degree (B.A.) in business from American University. He has no special expertise in running an economy of any size, and few transferable skills. Ask any New Jerseyan what one of Cohn's predecessors, Jon Corzine, brought to the table in terms of vision, wisdom, expertise, and execution. Financial success can be skill, it can be luck, or it can be inheritance. Not one word that has issued from Gary Cohn's mouth or pen in the last year points to anything but feathering his own bed and those of his partners.
2
How can Cohn and Mnuchin actually believe that leading the country along virtually the same path that George W. Bush took us, which led to "The Great Recession" (4Q07-1Q09), rather than Obama's complete opposite course, which cleaned-up Bush's mess, and led the nation into a sustained recovery, which lasts until the present?
https://thetruthoncommonsense.com
2
Cohn and Mnuchin want big tax cuts for themselves and their ultra-wealthy friends and family and they will lie with the best of them to get it done. End of story.
1
Maybe Cohn and Mnuchin value their piggy bank more than their public reputations. They will become even richer and more powerful should the Trump agenda succeed.
"Now, unfortunately, both Cohn and Mnuchin are endangering their reputations in their attempts to sell a tax cut."
If Cohn and Mnuchin are still, given all that has happened and been said and not said, willing to stay and play a part in the travesty that is the Trump presidency, they obviously don't care much themselves. So who cares about their about their reputations? I certainly don't.
1
In the early 80's, there was a short lived western sitcom entitled "Best of the West" about a sheriff (Best) who didn't carry a gun.
In one episode Christopher Lloyd plays a gunslinger who wants to draw down on him in the saloon. The sheriff tells him "I'm unarmed, think of what shooting an unarmed man would do to your reputation." To which Lloyd's character replies "That IS my reputation!"
Medals ere not won marching to some sergeant's cadence. You win them in the fog of war when bullets are flying and men are falling around you. If these two come up with a tax plan in this environment, that is also valid, sound, passable, and Trump signs on it, they will come out looking like two financial wizards. That will go down in history as the best there was. If they give up and join back into the marching, they go into history as, " What were the names of those two guys back a few years ago." On the other hand if they put forth a myth that hides the purpose to help the rich, their names will be remembered for a long time but not with respect.
Who needs a reputation when you have MONEY.
These are the guys Moses is staring at as he comes down from the mountain.
3
Sadly, the very thought that someone in the Trump administration might be concerned about their reputation or personal code of ethics is quaint and idealistic.
Didn't you get the memo? We are now firmly in the age of zero accountability.
Let's see...Who was it that said recently: "I could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and not lose voters"?
Wise investors should buy stock in golden parachutes. It's rising by the minute.
I have always found the estate tax to be ridiculous in principle. The money in the estate has been taxed already so the government is double taxing the estate. People who have had a thriving family business can cross this financial threshold, especially if the business has been doing well and been held by a family for many years. The hard work that has gone into a business can thereby be forfeited to the government.
You write "I’m sure that pleasing their boss must seem like the most important possible thing. But their reputation and their personal code of ethics deserve some consideration too." But don't their actions ("revealed preferences") show that pleasing their boss is an important clause in their personal code of ethics? Maybe it's their "prime directive".
1
"But they can make a free-market case for lower taxes that is based on something other than lies."
More partisan drivel.
Former Senator Phil Gramm has an opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal, explaining how the wealthy in the US are taxed at a rate far exceeding that of such progressive "favorite" countries, like Sweden and France. Indeed, Gramm suggests that Republican urge Sanders' supporters to advocate having American wealthy taxpayers pay what they do in Sweden and France. Of course, the top 10% American taxpayers pay over 70% of all income taxes.
The point is that opinion pieces like the one appearing here deal in half-truths. Just like opinion pieces in the Journal.
Sure would be nice to read a comprehensive and balanced piece on what benefit if any accrues to a country which reduces taxes on the wealthy. If it is truly "none," than state such conclusion after reviewing all the facts. Not just those favorable to your own partisan position.
1
Risk their reputations as ruthless pursuit of money with no regard to ethics or fairness? Didn't Mnuchin foreclose on economically vulnerable people with no mercy. The people he cares about think that is just great. What these two men do for Trump only enhances their reputation among their peers.
1
I do not understand how these people can lie bold face like that. I thought only con men do that. No?
I do not understand why the Republican base, the struggling working non-elites Republicans, do not revolt. I thought we are generally selfish and look out for our own interests. No?
I do not understand where all the fiscal hawks in the Republican Party have gone to when our deficits are about to be blown up sky high with no guaranteed return. May be they are not fiscal conservatives after all. Eh?
I do not understand, why the party of business, do not understand the importance of collecting our money, because they keep cutting the budget to IRS which I heard is still running Window 7?
May be, the Republican Party is really a party for the rich, only. As such, they care only what these people care, more money in their pocket. What does it matter profit-making guns are killing our children? What does it matter our infrastructures (through which these rich people run their business and make their money) are crumbling? What does it matter poor people starve, poor children are uneducated, poor soldiers can't get healthcare, poor workers become homeless...
What do rich people care?
Why do these tax plans never include incentives for job creation? Perhaps a tax credit for each new job created in the continental US, filled by an American citizen.
Talk about a stimulus that would just keep giving ..........
1
"But he has also been careful to set his own ethical boundaries. Can you recall a single time when Mattis has said something outright untrue? I can’t. That’s how he has retained his dignity in the eyes of so many people."
This is now the height of the bar for "ethics" and "dignity"? Just no outright lies? Heaven help the United States!
3
What reputation? Mnuchin's reputation as someone who evicted/foreclosed on service members? Who evicted an elderly woman over a 30 cent typo on her mortgage check? Cohn's reputation as a man who helped tank the economy? I'd say what they're doing now is exactly in keeping with their reputations as soulless money grubbers who'd sell their own children down the river if it would increase their bottom line.
The Times' groveling and elevating such men as somehow having integrity in the past that is now being put at risk by working for Trump is more pathetic than anything these men could do. Please get off your knees and stop groveling, Times.
14
Good article. Will Times reporters please ask Mnuchin and Cohn point blank questions about David's column and the essay "Why Corporate Tax Cuts Won’t Create Jobs" by Marcus Ryuoct, also in today's NYT? You have to pin down these guys with direct questions and follow-ups.
4
"Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin Risk Their Reputations"...
Duh, isn't that true for anyone who had a 'positive' reputation before agreeing to join Donald the Magnificent's Court?
3
"Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin Risk Their Reputations." Sorry, that ship has sailed. Even if you give them a pass for their time at Goldman Sachs, there's their silence while their new boss was busy embracing Neo-Nazis and white supremacists calling them "good people." And then we have Mnuchin's use of taxpayer funds for his private use. Cohn wants the Fed chair so much he's willing to eat dirt to get it. These are ambitious, shameless individuals whose "public service" is nothing but an exercise in self-agrandizement.
13
There are lies. Then there are big lies. The lies that Cohn and Mnunchin are spreading are so huge and disgraceful that no words can adequately describe the size of their lies.
9
Cohn and Mnuchin?
Who cares?
They made their, let them sleep in them.
1
The late, former Reagan cabinet secretary Ray Donovan, upon being acquitted in a fraud trial, famously asked "Which office do I go to get my reputation back?"
Cohn and Mnuchin should study up. One can spend an entire lifetime building a reputation for integrity. It often only takes one screw up, willful or otherwise, to squander it, and life will never be the same.
In Donald Trump's case, people expect nothing in the way of integrity, and that is exactly what they get. As for guys like Mnuchin and Cohn, one can reasonably ask why they would sacrifice their own hard earned reputations on the altar of Trump's less than stellar one and become guilty, if not of crimes, per se, then guilty by association.
3
You think Mnuchin has only "started" to risk his reputation? You don't think his comments on Trump and Charlottesville are worth mentioning? His smirking flamboyant junketing?
12
Supporting Trump is treason.
10
Ethical concerns have no impact on ethical illiterates.
9
Mnuchin has already lost his reputation.
He will forever be known as the man who took his vacuous, tone-deaf wife to see the gold at Ft. Knox at tax-payer expense. He will be known as the man who thinks that NFL owners can limit the Constitutional rights of their employees. ( Note to Mnuchin: NFL players are free men. Slavery ended in the United States in 1865.)
Cohn is about to lose his reputation, but at this moment, many people see him as one of the grown-ups in this administration. He ought to be honest about the tax plan, and let the chips fall where they may.
9
WHAT reputations??
6
cohn and munchkin don't have real reputations to damage. They rose on the backs of others not on merit. Why don't you have the nerve to call a lie a lie. What these men are doing is not spouting falsehoods, they are spouting lies.
12
Cohn and Mnuchin seem determined to prove the rule that everyone who works within Trump's sphere gets corrupted ... and eventually discarded.
5
Redistrbuting the tax burden, as one reader suggests, across the income spectrum, to what, make things more equitable and 'fair'? This hardly appears to help most income brackets, or the stimulous of the economy.
Equitable and fair would be a redistribution of wealth, not burden.
5
The Bush tax cut did not produce economic expansion. It transferred wealth to the rich and the corporations. But the Great Recession followed, although the Bush tax cut was probably not responsible. Nevertheless, with all the wealth creation from the Bush tax cut, in no way did that fend off recession, and in no way did it support the economic growth touted by Mnuchin and Cohn. On the other hand, the US has a large national debt, and the year-to-year deficits will grow it larger unless taxation is better matched to spending. Taxing the rich to reduce the deficit will help pave the way for future growth. Reduced debt allows the US to invest more in education, technology, and other infrastructure. In other words, we can give the rich a tax cut now and hope that they will fund future growth, or we can tax the rich now and invest that money ourselves to stimulate future growth.
3
Guys like Cohn and Mnuchin have loyalty to no one except their off-shore accounts and care for the opinion of no one except their fellow oligarchs.
Mnuchin supposedly has a pact with Tillerson and Mattis that if any one of them is fired, they will all resign. I would be willing to bet that it was Mnuchin who formulated such a scheme in the first place, being the most easily expendable, and selling it to the other two as a national security matter. I'd also be willing to bet that if either Tillerson or Mattis was fired, Mnuchin would suddenly forget their agreement, the same way he managed to "forget" a hundred million dollars in personal wealth when he was being vetted by the Senate.
8
This administration and the markets look an awful lot like the conditions that brought on the 2008 recession. Why is the market continuing to rise? The wisdom of markets? Nonsense, the hubris of greed, fed the steroids of short term gains and government rescues. Privatize profits and socialize risk.
I realized we were doomed when the government allowed someone to spend hundreds of millions to build a high speed stock trading center just outside NYC so it could trade milliseconds faster than their competitors in Chicago. It seems the only restraint on these parasites are the laws of physics.
This is not going to end well.
5
What will they do and who will they work for after they finish or are finished with Trump?
They can salve their wounds in their Montgomery Burns estates.
Release the Hounds! ON THEM. Exxxcellent!
1
When President Reagan decided to adopt the trickle-down economic theory of Chicago economics professor, Arthur Laffer, his budget director, David Stockman, advised the new president that the promises of tax cuts being paid for with economic expansion would not improve things for the middle class. In Stockman's words, the benefits to the middle class would amount to nothing more than "pizza toppings" while setting up the nation for a recession by the end of the 1980s.
Stockman was right, of course, setting up the conditions for Bill Clinton's election mantra, "It's the economy, stupid," a strategy created by James Caravelle. It worked because trickle-down economics did not.
After Mitt Romney's loss in 2012, Reince Priebus took the GOP into post-election hiatus to figure out why they lost the White House and how to win it in 2016. Since those days of "introspection," the Republicans came out swinging with the same policies, frequently described by analysts of economic theory and punditry as, "the same old pizza in a new box."
For Mnuchin and Cohn to carry Trump's water bucket of lies is a sad reminder of how nearly every member of TeamTrump is willing to sell their souls for political advantage in the future. The only two possible exception are retired generals, "Mad Dog" Mattis and John Kelly, and 'Mad Dog' turns out to be entirely sane, contrary to early fears from Democratic worry-warts.
To Mssrs. Cohn and Mnuchin: Expose the lies and tell the truth. Then, leave.
5
Trump's toxic rhetoric has infected any one who joined his cabinet of sycophants and Bannon tools of destruction of the government. By staying in the cabinet they are tolerating an erratic dictator wanna be who has no idea of what he is doing except to get attention and react to any attack on his fragile ego. Trump may not be a legit prez and when history is written about this dangerous buffoon those around him will look toxic and spineless.
3
It pains me not that Cox's and Mnuchin's reputations are taking a hit by continuing their roles in the administration, but blaming their lies on Trump absolves them of responsibility for the choices they have made. They are not pawns, and some of their conduct as individuals outside their policy roles (e.g., Mnuchin's request for a government jet for his European honeymoon), has been reprehensible.
3
Steven Munchkin has a "reputation" to compromise? Now, that's above-the-fold news!
Hamilton reasoned that wealthy men were good choices for administrative positions because, being wealthy already, they would have no motivation to plunder the office for personal gain. He was proved spectacularly wrong, and nothing much has changed in almost 300 years..
6
Arthur Laffer is the court jester of supply side economics...
He made his"bones" selling this during the Reagan Administration.
It was a laugher then it is a laugher now.
To expect that the deficit and the economy will be resolved with this approach is pure fantasy and the Republicans know it.
These two guys want these positions on their resume, who cares what they do the economy and the American worker.
Hardy to Laurel...here is another nice mess you have gotten me into!"...Indeed!
3
Reputations? With whom?
I remind you most Americans loathe Goldman Sachs partners. This plea to reputation, as if they have reputations or are recognized anywhere outside of Manhattan or DC, is frankly sophomoric.
If they could pass a bigger tax cut, they would.
3
The Holy Plutocracy
Elimination of the Estate Tax is the only tax reform detail that matters. The other details are just posturing for the biggest deal of Trump’s life – one that has been in the making for almost twenty years.
Trump wrote “The America We Deserve” in 1999 when he first had serious presidential ambitions. His tax reform plan was outrageous: “Here is the Trump plan. ... I would impose a one-time, 14.25 percent tax on individuals and trusts with a net worth over $10 million. ... That would raise $5.7 trillion in new revenue, which we would use to pay off the entire national debt. We would save $200 billion in interest payments, which would allow us to cut taxes on middle-class working families by … $1 trillion over ten years.” The catch is that the rich would pay a 14.25% net worth tax and pay off the national debt only if the Estate Tax were eliminated for the few families that matter.
While Obama was in office and the Democrats controlled the Senate, the Republicans had a show vote in the House to repeal the Estate Tax with no strings attached. Members of the swamp were rewarded by those who worship at the church of Goldman Sachs and view wealth as a family political burden rather than a tax base.
Steve Bannon may have let the cat out of the bag when he hinted that the G.O.P. would add a higher tax bracket for the wealthy to appease the Democrats as long as Estate Tax elimination remained. All other tax reform items are negotiable (but don’t ever admit it).
3
Risk their reputations? No they already have poor reputations exactly because they are toadies.
2
The only way these people are rung their reputations is if this country reverts to "business as usual" after a Trump interregnum. If this is the new normal the people who matter won't care what lies they've told.
"Risk"? Those reputations already lost. Neither man will ever be respected in polite society again. Only worthy of being shunned and spat upon for their explicit endosement of Trump -- there are no innocents around Trump, Co0hn and Mnuchin sold thir souls for what?
3
You lost your thread of thought by announcing that these two men don't care about their reputations. What would be the point of continuing in enforcing the obvious. Mnuchin definitely doesn't care about anyone unless he can freeload a ride.
"I realize that the two men have already ruined their reputations with many of President Trump’s critics, simply by working for Trump. But those opinions don’t matter much to Cohn and Mnuchin. If they did, the two never would have joined the administration — Cohn as chief White House economic adviser, Mnuchin as Treasury secretary.
2
I am reminded of the interview with a t rump supporter right after the election. He told the interviewer that "at least there won't be any Goldman Saks people in the White House.
Ronald Reagan is still worshiped by republicans as a deity so I don't expect any of this to end well.
4
In the circles in which these individuals travel, their reputations will, in fact, be greatly enhanced. Their insatiable greed, and their willingness to lie in service to that greed and to their lust for power, will be greatly admired.
7
"But they can make a free-market case for lower taxes that is based on something other than lies."
Lies seem to be the only currency of the Trump administration.
3
Please do not assume that people who climb the ranks of finance are somehow more likely to display "integrity" or otherwise perform well in government. Even setting aside the crazy extremes of Steve Bannon and Jon Corzine, many would struggle to award even a "B" grade to the many GS alumni who have toured through the White House and, for some curious reason, the NJ governor's mansion. Do not be surprised when it turns out that these latest two accomplish little more than building their own "brands" and in Mnuchin's case, scoring some fun travel perks. Let's just hope that Phil Murphy has used the ten years since he retired from GS to acquire the knowledge and skills we need to get NJ back on track.
1
If anyone has risked reputation it is Trump, who promised to “drain the swamp” then hired the very people who promote and benefit from swampland.
But what kind of reputations are we talking about anyway?
From my vantage, Cohn and Mnuchin, by virtue of their tenure at Goldman Sachs, an institution whose singular greed and deception nearly resulted in global economic collapse (to name just one “faux pas”), had no stellar reputations to tarnish. Of course, the not-funny joke is Trump didn’t either.
Cohn’s and Mnuchin’s reputations as “charlatans and cranks” far preceded them, and our nations’ mantra solidly remains: Long Live The Swamp.
5
Goldman-Sachs? Reputation? PUH-LEEEEEEZZZ! (Capital letters in deference to our beloved fearless leader).
2
Pretty much every time I watch Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, or Kellyanne Conway speak for the Trump administration, I wonder where they think they will be employable after it's all over. Spicer seems to be finding out how deep is the whole he dug for himself - none of the news networks would hire him. Apparently after just a few months' service in the Trump administration, he lacked the credibility even for FOX News.
Ironically, Gary Cohn and Steve Mnuchin probably have better prospects if the Trump tax plan isn't enacted. It's one thing for economists to predict that their plan will benefit the rich and explode the deficit - Cohn and Mnuchin can always argue with a prediction. But if the tax plan becomes law, and economists' predictions become facts on the ground, Cohn and Mnuchin will have a lot harder time convincing anyone that they have any marketable knowledge of economics.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
3
I am tired of people using SS and Medicare as some kind of handout. WE DO PAY FOR THEM BOTH. 40 quarters or ten years working+. I have worked for 30 years and still work at 68. My husband died at 59 and never drew a quarter. If you do not work, you are not eligible for Medicare or SS because you paid nothing. This is why I get so angry with the lying right, saying DACA and others receive this. They do not and they DO pay into it all. Get it straight, do not compare Medicaid and SSI with Medicare and SS.
3
So what is the underlying reason these men are lying about this? They don't seem to be that ideological, so why would they risk their reputations to espouse such ridiculous claims? And for that matter, why would Trump make such claims, knowing that his base will suffer for it? Are they simply putting personal gain above all else? Do they think the Trump base is so stupid that they will continue supporting a president and cabinet that are fleecing them at every turn? The cult-like support that's on display at his rallies seems to indicate they are
3
Both Cohn and Mnuchin destroyed what little reputations they already had (both are Wall Streeters, thus their low reputations coming into the trump administration) when they threw in with trump. Like Tilerson and even Corker, their past errors in deciding to associate with trump eliminates them from ever having "good" or "rehabilitated" reputations.
If these two guys were so smart they would have never worked for Trump.
They were willing to overlook his racism ,misogyny and policy ignorance because he served their raw ambition. Trump read them like an open book: they could be bought.
And here we are: tax reform will fail like every other legislative gambit from Trump. And Trump will blame them. Cohn won't get the Fed job and Mnuchin will be forced to resign for abusing private air travel. They had it coming.
3
Dear David, I hear you, but I shall not follow your advise. I have enlisted in the WH-troupe so that I can fly government planes and be important. I shall make a ton of money by hitching my wagon to the WH-train. Of course I shall not gain from the tax cut, I shall keep my slim and trim figure. I suggest you let your readers eat ice cream.
How much, not how, has long been the watchword in Wall Street. Cohn and Mnuchin will have no trouble reintegrating back into Wall Street. The 2008 financial crisis only increased their income and standing. Their's but to carry on and look down at the likes of Mattis who did not continue feathering their own nests.
3
They lost their reputations the second they hooked up with 45.
1
As they say, when you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.
2
I agree with this column, but Mr. Leonhardt should look up the difference between defensive and defensible.
These two are perhaps desperate to hide their previous reputations, no? Especially mnuchin.
Mr. Leonhardt,
I favor eliminating the death or estate tax. This is money that has been already taxed several times and I see no reason why the accumulated savings of a lifetime has to be taxed yet again.
I suspect the ultra wealthy don't even pay it as they have lawyers and accountants who figure out just how to avoid those types of taxes.
Eliminating the estate tax will benefit middle and upper middle class people who don't want to see their wealth consumed by the government.
Likewise, for stocks.
All Americans who own stocks will benefit from a cut in capital gains taxes. Furthermore, many people will be more willing to invest in the market if there is a better return. That money will be invested in new equipment which means more jobs and even more taxes for the government.
Stop the class warfare, please.
Don't know that much about Cohn. But Mnuchin doesn't need to worry about losing his reputation; the foreclosure king has none left to lose.
10
Let’s please remember that deregulation is also a tax cut for the wealthy. As such, it will have exactly the same impact on economic growth: zero—or worse.
3
They get away with this because most Americans don't understand how rich people think, what they do with more money, and how governments work. Our education system doesn't inform students what governments are for, how ours works, and what taxes do. They don't understand what welfare is for, why not spending money on maintaining the infrastructure is bad, and what duties we have towards our government and what it's supposed to do in return.
No one is exempted from paying taxes. Even illegal immigrants pay them as do the very poor. We have sales taxes, user fees, property taxes, etc. Those monies pay for public services, schools, roads, disaster aid, and the salaries of our elected officials. Tax cuts do not promote jobs, a more efficient government, a well maintained infrastructure or a better educational system. Too many tax cuts will render us unable to compete or keep up with the rest of the world. But all people see are the words tax cut. They don't see the rest until the bridge collapses, that program for their elderly parent is cut, or a user fee is imposed.
The rich have their own economy. They don't need more money. They save whatever the government gives them. The rest of us need jobs that pay living wages, a working infrastructure, and an economy that works for us rather than impoverishing us. The GOP will not do that.
17
This whole administration is a massive conflict of interest.
19
What reputations? Mnuchin playing fast and loose with FHA housing grants and mortgage lending and Cohn packaging bad mortgage and loan debt, that was sold to investors, especially public and private pension funds, at disadvantaged terms without fully disclosing risks. Both are significant privateers, playing fast and loose with public assets. To disembowel the public purse , without providing an offsetting public good was always at the heart of this kind of piracy.. That is why they were chosen by the President who was a great practitioner of this art himself..Let the public and the buyer beware...
23
Don't bash this "plan"! I'm looking forward to my $2000 new car or kitchen renovation!
17
The Republican Party, Selling birthrights for a mess of pottage since 1980
Would someone please ask these two men what their definition of public service is?
12
Don't get me started. I have been a civil servant for almost 30 years and proud to serve the people of my State. And I see the same with my colleagues and others in our state government. And we do it for salaries much lower than we could earn in the private sector. Our reward? Job satisfaction. Interesting work. Knowing we did good work. Regular work hours. Medical benefits. A pension (maybe...). But really for me, I can retire knowing my good name will remain intact. I work honorably and ethically for the people of my state. It is a huge reward and although it does not buy me material things, I don't care. No one says at your funeral that you were worth so much money. They talk about your character. What you did in the world. These guys will never have that and their children will know exactly what kind of reputation their fathers really had.
2
"Many corporate executives" were relieved when Cohn joined Trump because they thought Cohn could steady Trump? You can be a "corporate executive" and still not have a clue?
These corporate executives need to catch a production of Richard III.
No one gets between a malignant narcissist and what they want. Their desires are a black hole, and facts, common sense, reality, decency -- all of it is crushed under the weight of a malignant narcissist's unshakeable belief that whatever he wants, he is entitled to get it.
It is stunning that "many corporate executives" didn't see this disaster coming.
4
Because "many corporate executives" did not see this disaster coming because they are malignant narcissists themselves.
Bad premise. Mnuchin, especially, has no reputation to risk losing. Cohn is just a Wall Street guy of a generation that just wanted to "do the deal." Goldman's reputation was destroyed some time between the Rolling Stone vampire squid story and the book/movie The Big Short. In the language of finance these guys' reputations were "discounted" long ago. I think the financial press has yet to accept that (they still take these guys seriously), and that is now a problem.
5
Succeeding in business isn't that hard. Mnuchin foreclosed viciously on innocent people. It's not hard to have a heart of stone.
9
Their reputations went into the toilet the day they dived into the swamp Trump not only hasn't drained but turned into a sewer. To call these people "public servants" is a sick joke. They're bottom feeders like the rest of Trump's coterie of sycophants and enablers.
10
What an archaic concept - reputation. Donald Trump shows the way: Lie, cheat and steal.
The proposed tax cuts hurt the middle class and the working class. They increase the deficit (remember Republicans HATE the deficit when Democrats are in the White House). They will, however, save Trump, Cohn, and Mnuchin millions of dollars.
Mnuchin has already squandered nearly $1 million on private and military charters. His ethics are so poor he asked the military to fly him to his honeymoon.
Pigs at the trough don't care about reputations.
8
The false logic in this piece is that these guys had "good" reputations to protect in the first place.
13
What causes men with so much personal success financially breech the truth?
Is it a need for more money?
The need for approval by those in or above their financial class?
For surely they've read that social inequality jeopardizes the stability of the Country.
How can men of Jewish faith fall inline with Trump and his support of bigotry?
You really have to ask what is lacking in these two men that they would expose themselves and our Nation to these risks.
4
Serving Trump reveals nothing but total lack of character judgment and ethics.
7
They are not risking their reputations, they are living up to their reputations. What did the scorpion say to the frog? Its in their nature.
12
When they tell you it isn't about (their) money,.... it's about THEIR money.
7
> It is not too late for Cohn and Mnuchin to take a different approach.
Why would they? This is their "once in a lifetime" chance to do good for rich people, including themselves. They'll never have to look anyone in the eye who isn't rich; the help at home certainly aren't going engage in this argument.
2
Gary Cohn made a wonderful mockery of himself when he extolled the virtues of the tax bill by claiming that the average middle class family making $100,000 per year (try somewhere in the 50,000's) would have a $1,000/ year savings. Cohn claimed that through this generous savings that family can renovate their kitchen, buy a new car, or go on a family vacation- they can raise their life style.
This is not even trickle down- this is either lies or being purely out of touch with reality.
16
Is it just me, or does this picture of Mnuchin, and also the picture of Stephen Miller in another article today, reveal a certain underlying smugness? I'm not insulting their physical faces, but rather their expressions. Don't they just look like superior jerks?
8
The problem is that these types own 99% of America, and they want the remaining 1%.
They are rapacious fanatics.
6
Remember in the board room scenes on television's "The Apprentice," how the most sincere and congenial contestants were forced to claw and scratch each other's eyes out? Then, grovel at Mr Trump to avoid elimination?
That is where Cohn and Mnuchin are, right now.
3
The difference between Sec. Mattis and Sec. Mnuchin and Mr. Cohn is simple. The DoD is a huge organization with activities in so many different areas from the usual (projection of military power) to the unusual (the environment--yes, that environment) to the weird (self-driving vehicles, DARPA) Sec. Mattis can do the department's business and stay far from the Orange Epicenter.
By contrast, Messrs. Mnuchin and Cohn deal only with money, the substance central to Trump's focus. Making any statement which does not serve to increase Trump's personal wealth risks an immediate late-night tweetstorm.
3
I can't even imagine what Mnuchin must be telling businesses off camera that keep stock markets soaring. Will these tax cuts result in job growth - probably not. To me the bigger problem is not job growth but wage growth. From 1978 to 2015, CEO pay has seen a 900% increase. For the average worker, it has only increased about 10%.
And Cohn is a fool if he thinks Trump is going to give him the Fed job. He'll just string him along. Loyalty is a one way street with Trump.
2
Our biggest problem is the people who have jettisoned honor, honesty, integrity, cooperation, and community, in favor of greed.
Greed is putting money above your actual self interest, by definition. The Greeks made up King Midas, who turned his beloved daughter to gold, to teach this lesson 2000 years ago.
It used to be that a man's word was his bond. Getting caught in lies would put you out of business. Pathological liars would be shunned.
The right and the "centrist" establishment has encouraged the business world to make war on honesty.
Trump is a "business man," they reason. He is supposed to lie.
No business men and women are not supposed to lie. That is called fraud and is technically against the law.
Now they have put an obvious pathological liar in the White House. (When you say the opposite of what you just said, one of those things had to be a lie, and Trump does this constantly.) They act like constantly lying is good strategy.
Wall Street has been engaging in massive fraud: manipulating currencies, commodity prices, world interest rates, energy prices, mortgages and mortgage backed securities, labor markets, tax schemes, etc., and half the country applauds as if this is good.
The USA only exists as long as the constitution is the arbiter of how things work. When you put liars in the White House, the rule of law and the constitution become meaningless. You are turning your beloved country to gold, owned by billionaires that don't care about you at all.
3
They both worked for Goldman Sachs, the "...vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything smelling like money." Of course they lie.
3
What is the phrase-- no honor among thieves? If a person joined this administration after hearing trump lie, smear others, encourage racists, etc etc etc, then that person has no moral compass. There is no "I"m trying to save the country" stuff. Same with Tillerson. All the hand wringing over him possibly being fired. Really? The man has gutted our State Dept, and when our journalists were disparaged by the Russians, laughed and smirked.
2
Sorry, but what high reputation is Mnuchin protecting? This is a guy who bought a failing sub-prime lender called IndyMac, re-named it OneWest, and then so ferociously kicked struggling people out of their homes that he was known by an epithet: "The Foreclosure King." He was dogged by complaints about OneWest's phony robo-signing and discrimination against minorities. Mnuchin is a vulture who enriched himself off the carrion of the financial crisis. He has no good reputation to defend.
4
Repeat a lie enough times and eventually people will mistake the lie as the truth.
3
Wait! They have reputations to preserve?
5
Now that’s a funny headline. Yet sad at the same time.
3
Do you really think Mnuchin and Cohn are lying on BEHALF of the president ? They fully subscribe to this "tax cuts can do no wrong" view of the world themselves and stand to benefit directly from it. In addition, neither are particularly Republican. They have no issue in principle with debt and deficits. Does anyone think Trump is the architect behind this tax plan (if you can call it that) ? He has barely an understanding of government, and with no nuance, detail or intricacy.
They joined the Trump administration for selfish reasons and are championing this tax cut for exactly the same. Don't delude yourself.
2
First, thank you, Me. Leonhardt, for the news that I can lose weight by eating more ice cream. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this insight.
As for the prior reputations of Mssrs. Cohn and Mnuchin, I know little about Cohn's history but Mnuchin has little to lose, unless we place a high value on rapacious financial predation if vulnerable Americans. Then there's the question of his ethical comportement while in office which falls nearly to the standard of Tom Price.
It is true that nobody can get near this president without infection by whatever contamination he always carries, but Mnuchin was well corrupted before he joined the Cabinet.
2
Cohn and Mnuchin lost their reputations on
June 12, 2017 when they joined in with other
cabinet members to sing the praises of serving President Donald
Trump. Loyalty counts for little in the Trump world of politics . Mnuchin and
and Cohn will soon join select members of Trump servers as
Stephen Bannon, Sean Spicer, Anthony Scaramucci, Michael Flynn, etc.
on the sidelines. Tillerson and Sessions are also on the
chopping block, and they understand their positions in Trump world. So far, no political victories for Trump but lots of Trump screaming Of course, it is
not Trump's fault the legislative score card is zero. The Emperor never
males mistakes.
Cohn and Mnuchin are from a big bank on Wall Street, you know the folks who destroyed 13 trillion dollars worth of wealth in 2007? The folks who caused thousands of home foreclosures. I'm at a loss to see how their reputation can be sullied any more even by their association with Trump.
4
I think the rich and powerful are perfectly content to steal from the middle class and the working poor. Why shouldn't they? They earned this privilege by hard work and birth! And they should be able to give every dollar tax free to their future billionaire children. Perfect. What a society!
1
One sentence: NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! Moreover, every person who serves in this administration has sacrificed their integrity and morality or didn't have it to begin with.
2
Trump seized power partly by speaking frankly and not politically correct.
Not being politically correct begs the question - When do “blatantly false statements” become “outright lies?” If these statements are lies let's call them that.
Some would say, citing examples and firms, Wall Street is not the best training ground for ethics. Others would say, there is a revolving door between some Wall Street firms and Washington.
Can the dots be connected? There have been examples of Wall Street trained pillars of the community caught in lies to please their boss and keep their positions, or assure themselves of future positions after their "government service." Is this one of them? Federal Reserve Chairman would be a nice position.
We must find a way to hold Elected Politicians and their staff, from both parties, personally liable, responsible and accountable for the lies they have told us and their gross mismanagement of our county, our $20.2 T and growing national debt, and our $100 T in future, unfunded liabilities they forced on US jeopardizing our economic and national security, while benefiting themselves, their staffers, their party and special interest donors.
http://www.usdebtforum.com
David, In one of your references Greg Mankiw made a blanket claim that lowering taxes on capital is always more efficient than lowering taxes on income. I can think of many arguments against that, for instance if demand is really suppressed, a payroll tax cut might be more effective. Obviously there are income distribution problems too. Could you please comment on this in one of your columns. This could help explain differences between liberal and conservative economists.
This won't be their last jobs? These two are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, so if they ever work again they will be the owners of the firm, which means that their tenure at Trump and Company won't affect them at all. In fact, they will hire people who brownnose them just as they have done with Trump.
And their reputations? Don't cry for me Wall Street because they will be laughing their way to the investment bank.
2
Part of the jobs these guys have is to lie for the boss. They are doing this, and for doing it (after tax reform fails), will be thrown under the bus.
1
Isn't the bar very low for USA businessmen? It's not a jump nor a hop but rather a walking step over the bar for them.
1
Want reform guys? How about we just:
1) eliminate deductibility of mortgage interest on second homes,
2) cap the mortgage interest deduction to the interest on a $300,000 loan,
3) eliminate the charitable deduction for gifts to entities that engage in so much as one iota of politicking,
4) raise the tax rates for unearned income to equal the earned income rates,
5) double the standard deduction, and
6) call it a day?
That sounds like it would simplify things (aka reform) to me.
1
They have no reputations. And if they did, they were gone when they signed up for Trump's administration, that is when they are ruined.
Now they are going to stand up and say that eliminating the estate tax, and the alternate minimum tax will not benefit only the very wealthy.
I also wonder why you think either of them has a personal ethics code. I see no evidence of that, especially from a multi millionaire who thinks the government should have paid for his honeymoon.
They ruined their reputations by selling their fellow NYers down the river with this tax plan that will do nothing but hurt the taxpayers
2
To get very far at Goldman Sachs you have to be a liar or at least refuse to see the truth. This doesn't surprise me. They (Goldman) still think that the "Financialization" of the United States helps the average citizen when it is actually hurts the population tremendously.
1
Let's forget what Cohn and Mnunchin say and remember what we know about reality. People who already have a lot of money will not suddenly start spending and generating significant demand because of tax cuts.
This weekend we bought a new fridge, which we have been putting off for a few years because of more urgent expenses. The salesperson at P.C. Richards told us about meeting the current Mr. Richards. He is apparently very down to earth, but also frugal. If he buys something for $100 and finds it somewhere else for $90, he will return the more expensive one. And from my own experience working with the wealthy, I don't doubt it's true.
Trickle down does not work. The rich can choose to horde their money, (and they do) while the rest of us have no choice but to spend most of what we earn to live. The fact that Cohn thinks a middle class family could finance a kitchen remodel or new car with a $1K tax cut says it all. $1K buys half a fridge, on sale, before taxes and delivery cost or pay for half of what it costs to fix my husbands 10 year old car.
40
I believed that the headline is incorrect. It should read Gary Cohn and Steve Mnuchin DESTROYED their reputations.
27
Typical Republican lies. This review leaves out Mnuchin's huge role in the
2008 credit swap meltdown aftermath where he threw half of California out of their homes. He is worst kind of criminal and theft of government funds by air travel is only a part of it. Cohn is just a run of the mill exploiter
30
The whole debate reminds me of the '01 Bush tax cut debate. Tom Daschle (sp?) said, and I paraphrase; 'The wealthy will get a new Lexus. The rest of America will be able to buy a new muffler.'
Then he was attacked by the GOP for 'Not understanding how economics work!'.
Sad.
Americans bought the GOP Politburo line.
They will probably buy it again.
We know that Cohn and Mnuchin are a couple of liars. They do not appear to be at any risk of changing that reputation. If they keep it up one of them might even have a chance of becoming POTUS some day.
13
"...serious business executives whom members of Congress can trust.", What? Are you kidding? Trust to do what? Help out themselves and increase profits for business? Is that what we want from them? To hell with the good of the common weal? Line the pockets of the wealthy? That's about all you can trust them to do because they are republicans! Self made men that pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. Utter nonsense!
15
What can you say? The top person sets the tone for the organization -- and it sure shows here.
170
It is too late. You cannot play upon such a large stage while spewing lies and expect it not to have a huge impact on your reputation and life. One thing you did't address is why they would choose to strut across this stage in order to damage this country and themselves.
11
Reputations? If these guys cared about anything other than big money, they wouldn't have gone into the big money business in the first place.
10
My neighbor across the street had a Trump sign on his lawn during the campaign and after the election, until someone stole it. Then a Trump sign was posted inside, facing the window, and visible from the street. I've noticed it's gone now, and I first thought the cat had knocked it down, but the window is still empty. Dare I hope he's seen the light?
10
If you want to understand the GOP "tax reform", simply follow the monetary benefits that accrue. According to Brookings Institue's Tax Policy Center, 80% of the benefits will accrue to the top 1% of income earners by 2027. While the affluent wage earners (80%-95% percentile) will incur additional tax burdens above the current levels.
The hypocrisy of the GOP "deficit hawks' is astounding. As a nation we are told we can not afford supporting the people who live on Main Street, but every accomodation possible must be made to the uber-wealthy. And of course these $2.6 - $4 Trillion costs will somehow be paid for - this is Paul Ryan's mythical unicorns. Even the elder Pres. George Bush knew this as "vodoo economics" 30 years ago.
14
Resistance is futile my friends. The Republic is dead, its desicated hulk now serving only to maintain a pretense, an alibi. Over the past several decades we have so increased the wealth of the top 0.1 percent that Congress and other political elites simply cannot afford to reject their calls for further enrichment, be it through tax cuts or favorable anti-trust rulings. If a politician, Democrat or Republican, protests too much they will lose their backing and funding from their elite patrons. No, after some political theater what we will see is a well planned, well thought out compromise, yet to be announced, that will slightly diminish the tax cuts and cuts to social spending. Republicans will then be able to successfully fund their future campaigns, boasting of the cuts while decrying the compromise forced upon them and Democrats will be able to successfully do they same, decrying the cuts while boasting that the cuts could have been worse. If you doubt me, consider history. We've seen this before. Republican Rome was not torn down in a day, but it was torn down. Cohn, Minuchin and other Wall Street barbarians are inside the gates. Even if they were to be overcome, many more are ready to take their place. It is too late. But all is not lost. Democracy and the republican spirit still thrives in Europe.
13
Look into their eyes. They see nothing, feel nothing. The thickness of their wallets only matters.
The same for the rest of Trump's people.
15
You present a straw man, or more properly straw men. Suggesting either or both have credibility to lose, suggests that their prior conduct was worthy of respect. Apparently, their actual histories belie that, except to those who believe that an accumulation of wealth, notwithstanding how it is done, is equivalent to having a positive reputation. In truth, neither man has much to lose by continuing to make deceptive representations, and both seem comfortable in that role.
17
It's not merely their personal reputations on the line. It's the credibility of the Republican's only real economic policy plank at stake. Take away the tax cuts and it's pretty hard to figure out just what the GOP stands for.
6
Tax cuts for the rich is all that the repugnantklan party stands for.
The Republican tax cuts, like much of the R agenda, have nothing to do with economic policy. It is simply: "Me and my wealthy buddies want to pay less in taxes, and now we have the power to make it happen." To say this truthfully, however, is bad form (and bad politics). So, rationales are made up and pressed publicly even though they are not credible economically or ethically. The media generally report this hype as if it has some "truth" to it, which the proponents know it does not. Unfortunately, not enough journalists get to talk with really rich people off the record and in all candor--where it becomes obvious that what they care about is tax cuts for themselves, period.
The same cynical approach--think up a "good" reason for what we want to do rather than admit the real reason-- permeates R policy on many issues. Before giving any credence to such reasons, we should all ask a simple question: "Who benefits the most?" If the answer is not in sync with the "good" reasons being advanced, the reasons should be called out for what they are: nonsense or lies.
8
The only hope for some semblance of respect these two men earned over the years is to resign now. I just don't understand what is keeping these men, including the Generals surrounding Trump in what Senator Corker calls a day care center. My only guess, which is bad news for the country, is that each of these men view themselves as a firewall against a Mad Max future.
5
Unfortunately, you equate success on Wall Street with a "good reputation". That is like saying Bernie Madoff's "reputation" was ruined only because he went to prison. I remember when there was a difference between having a good reputation, and not being caught. Exhibit A: $800,000 in private and military air travel at taxpayer expense.
17
I find the idea that financial people like these two have personal ethics beyond greed & gain ludicrous at best. They are undoubtedly not true believers and they & their contemporaries among the top 20% of American society will gain much from this farce of a tax reform. Great for the Donald, sad for the rest of us.
7
They are not just lying to us, they are lying to themselves. These men are sympathetic to the idea that they are better, smarter and more virtuous than those of us that do not qualify to pay the estate tax. So, they will not recognize it as a lie because if they did they would then have to come to the conclusion that they are not decent people. I’m afraid this is true of many leaders particularly prevalent on the right in the last 40 years. They can’t stop lying, if they did they would have to admit that they are not virtuous, just selfish.
15
“Blatantly false”, you say. Yes, they are absolute lies. Politicians don’t like to use the term, “lies”, when they speak of other politicians. But it’s a good word, and it better describes what is happening with much more regularity in the Trump administration.
On the estate tax, the lies have been going on for years—no decades. We’ve heard lies about how the estate tax should be repealed in order to allow small farmers to pass on their family farms. When Cohn, or Mnuchin, or Trump, or Huckabee-Sanders mentions the estate tax as a component of the new tax plan, why isn’t there an immediate, loud, public, sustained response from Democrats that explains what the estate tax repeal means and who, exactly, will benefit from it? Why not a direct question to the President on how much the estate tax means to his family? Why not keep repeating that question until the voting public understands one of the most obvious lies in the Trump tax proposal?
8
The men you mention whose reputations will be tarnished do not care an iota about it. If Trump gets his way, they will be laughing their way to their banks. They will not be running for office and many executive boards in financial institutions, who would like more financial regulations removed, will hire them without any hesitation whatsoever.
They are people who consider themselves superior above the rest, entitled, and even victims of excessive taxation. All that hard work they do and they still do not get as much as they think they are worth. It is called greed, and they have it in abundance.
8
We talk about government policy and society in terms of conservative, moderate & liberal. But in all things economic and financial there is first the wealthy (top 20%) then there’s everyone else. No matter the political outlook of the top 20%, taking care of themselves will trump (pun intended) all other considerations. This is their tax plan and any attempt to frame it otherwise is disingenuous and ethically lacking. Keep in mind that these are Clinton & the DNC’s people as well. They were just willing to throw more crumbs our way.
1
These are very smart...and VERY successful businessmen.
There can be only two plausible explanation(s) for their seemingly mindless devotion to DJ TRUMP:
1.) Admittedly, I'm channeling the late-great Don SIEGEL here, but no one from Homeland Security has apparently looked beneath their desks for any sign of 'pods'
2.) 'Drug Screening' is not required as part of the Senate's Cabinet Appointee approval process
While I appreciate your thoughtful essay, one would have to assume that these two men were upstanding citizens with intact reputations before they began spewing lies about Trump's tax plan.
I would argue that the moment they accepted this president's invitation to join him at the White House, the moment they signed on the dotted line and said "yes" to this greedy, narcissistic, entitled, mentally deranged man, the reputations of these two "upstanding citizens with intact reputations" went up in smoke.
4
I seriously doubt General Mattis would have accepted a position in the Trump circus if he did not believe in the Trump mission. Time to stop making the Trump generals some sort of saints saving the republic. The truth is that generals are flawed people just like the rest of us. Some of us are old enough to remember (and if you aren't, watch the Ken Burns doc on Vietnam) General Westmoreland assuring LBJ about the rightness of the Vietnam debacle and how we were winning the war. Mattis may be better at protecting his personal integrity but he still makes it possible for a terrible president to sow his terrible agenda.
7
Too late for them to behave with integrity and ethically. They sold their souls long ago at Goldman Sachs. They are dancing in an evil administration and there is no way to walk back from that.
7
It's not possible for Steve Mnuchin to "risk his reputation," because, as those of us who have worked on Wall Street in finance and law know, his reputation was never that great to begin with.
Much like Jared Kushner and the Trump kids, Steve Mnuchin rose up on the coattails of his successful father, who was a legend at Goldman Sachs. People in the industry have long regarded Mnuchin as an undeserving mediocrity.
Cohn is a different story entirely.
5
These men care more about money than they care about their reputations or anything else.
5
No, no, no. Especially now, and as splendidly chronicled in a companion editorial in today's NYT, after bearing witness to the absolute hollowness of the man they chose to serve, any individual who continues to do so is in my book utterly lacking in character. The same goes for members of Congress who continue to passively countenance this outrageous and abhorrent behavior. Given what came out during the campaign it was already two strikes, and now there are simply no excuses. Avarice, cowardice, and cynicism. That is what is on display here.
22
How foolish, their reputations won't be changed. They are trying to serve our country, if they did not believe in these things they would not be there.
1
Nonsense. They are trying to cut their own taxes as much as possible just like Trump, without any regard for how it will affect the country. They are global billionaires, who feel themselves above mere countries like the United States of America, and they are lying to get what they want, just as Trump does regularly.
There is no real theory that has a mechanism that creates a cause and effect relationship between tax cuts and economic growth. The Laffer curve merely says that if you tax people at 100% they have no incentive to work, so there must be a level of taxation below 100%, where people are discouraged from working, but the research shows that level is far higher than the level we are at now.
There is no data to show that tax cuts help the economy at all. The recent experiment of massive tax cuts in Kansas was a complete disaster.
When Bush One, then Clinton raised taxes, they got more growth then when Bush Two cut taxes.
Studies that look at changing tax levels vs gdp, show tax increases are actually correlated with growth, not cuts.
When you tax global billionaires the government spends the money here. When you give global billionaires tax cuts, they spend 15% of it here.
Anyone still pushing Supply Side Economics after 30 years of evidence that it doesn't work, is a liar or a dupe.
9
Then the true question is - what are they serving us?
2
You can believe anything you want. Beliefs are not facts until proven.
However, when what you believe is believed only by a small group, whose position (pay checks mean nothing to these guys) depends on them believing it and defending it, yet has been proven wrong time and time again by facts and fact checkers, including people who should be allies but can't go along with the lies, you look foolish and weak.
That includes their supporters.
3
Difference between Mattis and these two? The latter are in the money business, the former is not.
So when Trump is just a bad, bad memory for the rest of us (please, God, let it be soon!), Cohn and Mnuchin will go back to making money. And as long as they do so--as long as the profits are rolling in for what ever entity they are associated with--in their world, all will be forgiven and forgotten.
For the rest of us? Well, neither of them (nor their boss) really cares that much what ordinary Americans think, about their reputations or about anything else.
40
Don't know about Mattis & truth telling when it was reported that he told Trump that Obama - the man who ordered the raid on bin Laden - would not have been 'bold' enough to order that Yemen raid early in Trump's administration.
The problem is the MSM is so caught up in 'thank you for your service', it refuses to see any flaws in anyone in the military. That plays into what's been reported on Mattis, Kelly and McMaster...none of whom are living up to how the press has played them up.
24
How about "foolish" instead of "bold". Bold in the wrong circumstance can be foolish.
Hasn't this particular ship already sailed?
13
Leonhardt is mistaken to suggest that these men are only slipping into the dark universe of fake economic theories by the black hole of Trumpian politics. Trump is not the originator or even the primary force that pushes the mythologies Republicans use to justify shrinking the federal government to the benefit of the extremely wealthy at the expense of the middle class and poor.
Most middle class Republicans have long been indoctrinated into believing the lie that the estate tax is is a tool to let the federal government steal small farms from families. This is one of many created by one of the think tanks funded by the extreme right wing that is the dark force donor base of the GOP.
Why do the columnists of the NY Times always focus on the clowns in the circus and never the circus owners? One must hope it isn't because the owners are just too powerful to call out. The information is real and well documented by Jane Meyer. Why does one have to read the New Yorker to learn about this- the NY Times should be all over it.
30
Global corporations are your biggest competitors, nastiest suppliers and stingiest lenders. They directly caused the Great Recession, which put your profits back a decade.
Lobbying firms, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Republican "think tanks," are funded almost entirely by global corporations. They do not care about small businesses or small farms. They just want to swallow you up. The policies you blame on liberals are often lobbied for by them, as well as the policies that benefit the super rich at your expense.
The majority of businesses are not corporations. Corporate tax cuts do not help you.
Only 14% of pass through businesses are taxed at more than 25%, and most of those are really investment partnerships of the super rich, not really small business at all. But you will support their tax cut, which you will eventually have to pay for, since those same corporations are still lobbying for fat, no bid, cost plus contracts.
The global corporations have decimated small business, replacing downtowns with strip malls where former small business people now work for minimum wage. That is what happened to US culture. It was replaced by corporate monotony.
Small business owners keep falling for propaganda from lobbyists for global corporations, who sell them policies that directly attack them.
And the Democrats are often on their side too.
Ally with your customers, who are mostly the workers, to fix our government.
>
Both are from Wall Street, they don't have a good reputation to risk.
47
Maybe you give these men too much credit. Both Cohn and Mnuchin used the economic system that drives the world economy to make their fortunes. A lot of people were hurt in the process, but the focus is on the fortunes, not the pain and suffering of the masses.
What is happening with the tax code is the same process that happened with the repeal and failure to replace Obamacare. It has little to do with what will actually benefit the nation and a lot to do with what "charlatans and cranks" can sell to voters.
The meaning of the word "lie" has morphed into something new. If you can make people believe something, it becomes as good as truth. Cohn and Mnunchin are colluding with that deception.
Why would they take a different approach when lying and doubling down on lies works so well?
27
This good advice comes late. The horse has left the barn.
11
I would say once they became Goldman Sachs employees they lost their reputations to the masses of the US. Goldman Sachs is all about money, power and to be above the "little man". Show me a Goldman Sachs employee (or ex) and you will see someone who sees themselves better than others. It is the Wall Street mentality.
36
Not only better because they have more money but smarter as well. IF some of them would have gone to jail for the causes of the financial crises, this would have changed a little. Instead the "little people, how they see the rest of us". paid the price by losing their homes, credit rating and security. EVEN with this, they want more, no one should get a tax cut but middle and lower income.
There are a lot of rich people who believe this too, sometimes I make the mistake of putting them all in the same basket.
1
Risk their reputations? What reputations? Any esteem in which they were once held, evaporated some time ago.
13
It would be impossible to repeatedly mouth such preposterous lies (in support of policies that would shower additional wealth on people like themselves) unless they felt nothing but complete contempt for the 99% of their fellow citizens (people they apparently think of as the peonry) who would be hurt if they get their way.
So please take note, not just of these two, but of everyone who promotes these changes to our tax system.
32
"Neither one of them has yet turned 60 years old. These won’t be their last jobs."
Is this supposed to be a warning? You're joking right? These men will have no trouble getting jobs after they leave this administration - high paying, powerful, lucrative jobs, just like every other lying politician that has left any other administration. Lying in DC is not a disqualifier for subsequent employment.
11
Lying without remorse is a sought after skill in DC.
1
You want me to read an article about a man who is risking his reputation when he made his fortune by foreclosing on homeowners during a financial crisis! My time is more valuable than that...and I'm retired!
36
The fact that neither of them resigned after Trump's remarks about Charlottesville, speaks volumes about their character.
35
Anyone who works for Trump, after his odious presidential campaign, has no reputation to lose.
They are collaborators first, elevating careers over country.
History will not be kind, not that they are capable of remorse, reflection, or honor.
20
Money, money, money. More for us, more for family, more for friends, more for our chauffeured class members. The can't pass up opportunity to bury the vile death tax, ensuring for generations the Great American Plutocracy, control over political, economic, and social life. Too enticing a grand vision. Intoxicating, really. Onward, silk-stockinged soldiers, you have the Almighty on your side, divine confirmation of a righteous cause. The poor will always be with us, with their character flaws. A natural order of the world. We do drop some coins in the collection plate to help them out.
Yet another bump in the Dow. What a great country! Is this fun or not!
15
Trump tends to corrupt and absolute Trump corrupts absolutely.
14
Exactly what reputation does Steve Mnuchin have to lose? He was known as the foreclosure king before his entrance to Wall Street. His reputation was deplorable already. Nothing to lose now.
40
If they ever had a moral code, which I find highly unlikely given their prior occupations, neither of these men would have agreed to be within 100 yards of a despicable man like trump.
11
It's too late. Their names are forever associated with enabling the Trump presidency and will not be forgotten.
7
Jeff Sessions. You forgot to include Jeff Sessions.
6
In recent years there has been a tidal shift regarding one's government service. Personal integrity and honor have increasingly been set aside in ambitious efforts for fame, influence and power. Voters in the past may have fallen for political flim-flam, but with the election of Donald J. Trump, standards were tossed overboard with enthusiastic abandon. Cohn and Mnuchin are simply more examples of sublimating one's reputation in the interest of self-interest. Diplomatically inexperienced Secretary of State Tillerson is another example, an intelligent, successful person in business but out of his depth and unsupported by his President. At least he had the honesty to label Donald J. Trump as being unsuited for the presidency. These and others have accepted the bizarre absence of Presidential Etiquette detailed by the Times' Editorial Board in today's edition. Sometimes we are known by the company we keep. Even the successful and acclaimed can let personal integrity grovel when the siren song of temptation calls. And still the words of Irish poet Yeats remind us, "In dreams begins responsibility." Perhaps in future, the world will "little note nor long remember" the Cohn, Mnuchin and their colleagues' pathetic transgressions.
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
6
Both of these gentlemen worked for Goldman Sachs, the lovely company who just last year was ordered to pay 5 billion dollars for defrauding investors during the 2008 recession. They already made it clear that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to craft a tax plan that will benefit people like them and it'sjust too good an opportunity to pass up. Far from being tainted, if they're successful at getting this plan passed they will be embraced by the financial community as heroes. Reputations don't matter when you make people rich. Trump is nothing more than a means to an end.
14
So what??? When you have enough Money, reputation is overrated AND can be rehabilitated by spin doctors. This is all about EGO. The Job and actual duties, are incidental. Thanks, GOP.
8
I know Cohn and Mnuchin are focusing on tax cuts, tax policy and economics. Seems Republicans are "banking" on scoring a win there too. They all need a win!
What no one seems to be focusing on is the Faustian deal everyone has made with Trump. He fiddles while America burns.
Trump's Cabinet has quickly eroded into a narcisstic pool which reflects the soulless egomaniacal Trumpcentric world each of them lives in.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Mnuchin, Price, Ross--they were easily corrupted. Cohn and Tillerson more difficult to topple. Kelly? Compromises his standards daily. Mattis the Monk? Four years is a long term.
4
Most of us first heard of Mnuchin as one who made millions of dollars while foreclosing on the homes of hard working people after the 2008 crash.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-treasury-foreclosed-homes-mn...
So, this tax proposal keeps intact his reputation as one whose life’s work is to enrich himself at the expense of the (former) middle class, whatever it takes.
17
You can predict economic expansion with tax cuts all you want, but where is that economic expansion going to come from? Everything we import means money going out of the country (except to the wealthy here who own off-shore companies); everything here, like services and housing (already unaffordable in many places) will only grow more expensive with more money in circulation.
Despite the fact that you do have to borrow to start or expand an enterprise, debt can ruin a country if it becomes excessive, and ours is. The proof is the cries for cutbacks on essential services like those providing basic health care for all, and shelter from ultimate destitution for our elderly. If we were not paying interest on the debt $458,542,287,311.80 last year, on federal, state and local securities, there would be no problem, not even with our rightly mourned infrastructure now crumbling to third-world standards.
It is time for all parties to pay their fair share.
You left out an important tax benefit that is not being eliminated notwithstanding Trump’s campaign promise to do so: the 15% “carried interest“ tax rate for hedge fund types.
6
These men needed their credibility while they were rising in the business world.
Now they are in line to become even more fabulously wealthy at a cost to our country and can buy all the friends they need, so why should they care about ethics and reputation?
8
they apparently do not care but others think. all they care about is money. their ego will go up and up, but their former friends will find them a bore.
1
It is, for me at least, often very difficult to stay polite watching how
this Trump-administration has a lot more to do with a flying circus than with
an organisation that has been an example for any other major power in the world, on every aspect of fine and honest government.
You Americans are to blame for that, you know, because you voted for him.
Sorry. But is a fact.
6
robert, good point. although i am one who voted differently and the voters favored secretary Clinton, president trump won under our system. trump has a history of making untrue claims and many people love it. it is all a mystery to me unless the prejudice against Obama is so strong that they simply do not care.
the power of self can be very strong. it is running wild now.
1
This is actually quite simple but Trump and his administration are lying to us yet again. Color me shocked! America's economy is approximately 80% driven by consumption....everyday people buying stuff. Consumers need discretionary dollars to buy stuff. Any tax cut plan that does not put dollars into the hands of everyday consumers will fail to grow the economy and will only raise our already dangerously high national debt. Put more money in the hands of corporations and you enrich their stockholders and executives, who are already wealthy and don't and won't buy enough new stuff because they already have everything they need. Raise wages, improve education, training and infrastructure and stand back....the economy will grow responsibly and sustainably. Oh, did I mention Trump is lying?
27
You write this as if Republicans lying about tax cuts is new. It has been the party position up and down to lie about taxes and, frankly, most other things as well for at least 15-20 years. Their position is no different that what any of the Republican leaders in congress are saying.
12
This is picky, but lying implies knowledge of the falsehood. Unfortunately most Republicans actually believe that balderdash. Also, 50 years, not 15-20.
To say that someone's "personal code of ethics deserve[s] some consideration" is to indicate the absence of a personal code of ethics.
That lack describes both the president and his entire cabinet.
10
Maybe it is time to stop defining financial intelligence by whether someone has worked for Goldman Sachs, or not. In fact, that part of the CV may not be particularly relevant to good government work. The US citizen is not a shareholder of either Mr. Mnuchin or Mr. Cohn. In what is turning out to be a bad White House drama, hubris seems to be playing its usual crucial role in the downfall. I don't know why anyone is worried about saving the reputation of either of these men. I suggest that it is all somewhat Darwinian?
3
It's too late for these guys. As last years election taught us, perception is reality and I see two liars in expensive suits. All my friends do too.
5
I think sometimes what Liberals don't understand - especially about the estate tax - is that for a BIG number of folks, this isn't an economic issue, it's a moral one. I will NEVER in a million years be subject to this tax, and yet I believe that it is blatantly wrong. Now, you wanna raise taxes on the wealthy, be my guest. But don't try it this way.
By the way, it would be refreshing to hear from Democrats which spending (programs) they'd be willing to cut - I mean besides Defense of course? You'd have a lot more credibility with the middle class I'm guessing. I also think I'll be feeding my pet unicorn before I see a Democrat offer up a non-defense spending cut.
It must be nice to live in Republican fantasy land, where military, schools, police, roads, air traffic, space programs, scientific research, etc., etc., etc., simply sprout from the air, and no one has to pay a penny in taxes, especially the ultra-rich.
I'm guessing your opposition to the estate tax must be because you buy a lottery ticket every week, and you're planning on winning? No matter. Most Southerners didn't own slaves before the Civil War, but they were willing to die for those that did. Sound familiar?
3
Yes, war... that's the answer! The Republicans have never seen a war they didn't like or want to start. How much of the national debt was put on the credit card by Bush in Iraq? I am probably underestimating at $1 trillion.
2
RJ, Democrats have been demanding spending cuts on the federal money funneled to Trump properties because, for example, he and his family are too good to live and/or spend weekends in the White House, or the "dump" as he calls it.
Democrats also have been demanding spending cuts on private planes for Cabinet members.
1
Do they care about the reputation as long as they can get an amazing windfall for themselves and their ilk? Does anyone in wall street (with a few honorable exceptions) care about the reputation as long as they can make money?
4
I think we should ask how much faith do republicans have that tax cuts will pay for them selves. Write into the tax bill a provision that each year that tax cuts provide less than expected revenue, taxes will increase for those in the top bracket, sufficiently to pay for last years shortfall. If they are correct, taxes do not rise. If they are wrong, the deficit will not rise, lagging by one year.
7
Sadly, it's too late to save their reputations that are damaged beyond repair. So mow all that's left to do is to get themselves and their friends a big tax cut.
4
Both were hustlers and tricksters before they joined Trump's ship of fools, and they continue to be. No lie is too big, no distortion too distorted, no level of self-serving is too shameful.
Predictably, it's the working class--hypnotized and manic in their support--who will settle for pennies while their masters grab the millions.
This is what powerful nations look like in the midst of unraveling.
9
as always Trumps "Truman Show" sad reality is that the rich will get rich and the poor will get children, ensuring they stay poor and poorer. same as it always was
1
I'm amused that Wall Streeters are somehow diminishing their reputations by working for Trump and lying; weren't they working for Trump and lying to the rest of us before, too?
3
They are smart, successful and powerful. They will get all the jobs they will want because being “charlatans and cranks” is not a minus in their world. They will just not have the respect from people that understand what they are doing and disagree. The ones that understand and get the benefits are very happy feeding their greed.
2
Their reputations for naked ambition, self-aggrandizement and ruthlessness remain totally intact. The most cursory review of their careers reveal they are not breaking stride as front men for the craven goals of the Trump Administration.
4
The proposal to eliminate the estate tax is an unconscionable giveaway to the Super Wealthy at the expense of most Americans. Eliminating this tax would save hundreds of millions of dollars for a very few ultra-rich, depriving the government and ordinary Americans of many vital services which are funded by this revenue.
According to a recent report of Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation, out of 2,6 Million deaths in 2013 only 4700 estates were required to pay an estate tax. 99.8% paid NO tax whatsoever. And after various exemptions the effective rate averaged only 16.66%.
And don't let the Republicans talk about how the estate tax is unfair to farmers and small businesses! The Tax Policy Center reports that only twenty (20) farms and small businesses in the entire country paid any federal estate tax. And these 20 owed just an average of 4.9% of their value in tax.
The Republicans, including Cohn and Mnuchin, are just plain lying without any scruples or moral sensitivity. They are catering to the upper tenth of the upper 1%, and do not care about the welfare of ordinary Americans!
11
Facts. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Step right up folks and shoot free throws on our warped tax cut basketball rims and win a cupie doll if you make 3 in a row.
"Several — Tom Price, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer and Rex Tillerson — have badly sullied their standing with virtually everyone outside the administration."
I disagree, at least in regard to Rex Tillerson. I am obviously outside the administration, and I applaud Mr. Tillerson for saying what virtually everybody sees about the President. He is clearly incapable of discharging the duties of his office, and it is now 25th amendment time. It is critical that most of his cabinet and/or Congressional officeholders say out loud what we all know to be true and get him out of the White House before this life-hating President unleashes a catastrophe on our country.
2
Funny thing about projections and predictions. The future rarely turns out as projected or predicted.
Given that a respected conservative Senator has publicly stated that the President is being minded by three generals and STILL he is worried that Trump will lead us into WW III (and that most GOP Congressmen think the same) -- shouldn't this be our headlines?
Why is our GOP Congress not discussing this -- they should be!
Also, Ivanka and Jared took their private/government emails and AFTER a letter asking for them, they moved them to Trump Org. -- the business they are supposed to be divorced from? Whatever they're trying to hide must be a doozie. Why is their no headline about the Congress revoking their security clearances?
4
Why would either care about their reputations? They already have hundreds of millions of dollars, and these tax plans will give them even more. (Unless they crash the economy, but even in that case they will still be far richer than anybody else.)
If these guys are not in their last jobs, it will not be because they need the next job to stay alive. And they will still have plenty of buddies who will be glad to buy them dinner to say thanks for the millions this pair saved them as well.
8
If the crash the economy, they will be the first to know it's going south and they'll make more bilions shorting the bad market they created.
They live in a world of Heads, they win, tails we lose.
1
It does not matter how false it is to people who will benefit from the tax cuts, they want them.
4
"These won't be their last jobs." Really? After multi-million dollar salaries and golden parachutes, why would they need another job? Besides, in some places, the ability to lie without compunction is highly valued. If either of these men wants another job, he will be able to name his price. Sad.
6
The only way to survive our current political situation is to finally realize that Washington politics will never be the same again. Think of it this way: Digital is here to stay. There will always be a few so-called purest that will never accept digital. They prefer the sound and feel of Analog. Lies in the future will never again have the same effect that it used to have. Our filter for what is right or wrong is going to need to be adjusted downward. Remember the Bell Curve that many schools use to grade students who just can’t keep up? That’s the way I now see most of our politicians. How sad.
2
The question centers on whose opinion these two men respect. They both, in effect, represent the finance industry, the arrogance of whose leaders rivals that of the Robber Barons of the 19th century. They probably view Trump as merely a useful instrument for achieving a tax cut that will enormously benefit their peers at Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms, but do they really care about the judgment of anyone outside the Olympian environment of those Masters of the Universe?
One of the reasons extreme economic inequality inflicts such damage on a free society arises from its tendency to undermine any sense of common feeling between the elite and everyone else. Thus, only if Goldman Sachs et al reveal an unexpected capacity to distinguish between their own interests and those of the country as a whole will these two alumni pay a price that might alter their behavior. I'm not holding my breath.
6
It confounds me how the lower and middle classes vote for Republicans. It's like they have been cowed into believing that their poor suffering masters need more and more of their hard earned money in order to more efficiently enslave them. I am however tentatively optimistic that a greater majority of us can simply laugh at any attempt of Republican tax reform.
3
If this ridiculous tax plan is passed by the GOP, the true cost of the bill will, in all likelihood, not become apparent for a decade or more. By that time, the main characters will have sailed off into the sunset, all but forgotten by the taxpayers who will bear the brunt of the consequences of their mendacious claims. Trump will be blamed, of course, but it will be too late. He will probably be buried on the eighteenth green by then anyway.
Give the wealthy a tax cut and they save it for their heirs or play the market. Give corporations a tax cut and they buy back shares. Give the middle class and below a tax cut and they spend it, which drives the economy and makes the stock market go up. These guys are too smart not to have seen that play out time and time again. Must be something else impacting their judgement...hmmm.
2
Richard Thaler just won the Nobel prize in Economics for describing behavior as a variable in economic activity. Because of human irrationality the economic system is not like a simple diesel engine and therefore predictions becomes like predicting the weather. However, with larger computers, prediction modeling is getting better for weather and economics. That said, we also know that the holy grail of politicians is to fool all the people all the time. So why would the Republican party make tax breaks its main policy objective? It gets votes? It helps their donors? It lines their own pockets? (rational reasons). Or is it a game to be played on the less fortunate just to prove how well you can "fool" people? (control or arrogance) The problem we need to solve is how to keep a robust economy healthy. Income disparity is not just a symptom but a cancer on our economy, which requires that people buy irrationally, to make it work. Unless of course we desire going back to a slave or indentured servitude economy helping the wealthy by keeping the workers in subsistence. Something is horribly wrong.
2
These people care only for themselves. These are the best people money can buy. In some case, the payments are being delayed until they leave their government posts. We used call these people public servants. It used to be considered a privilege and high honor to serve. We used to believe in the over arching idea of "forming a more perfect union".
Our democracy is not democratic enough. It's a war of attrition fought with big money, big promises and big lies and shuttled along by a public that doesn't seem to notice.
Things like the forcing regular access to politicians by the public, making them prove their assertions with peer-reviewed data, eliminating the Electoral College, the Hastert rule, Gerrymandering, Citizens United, no revolving door heading towards high-paying jobs after leaving government work and limiting campaign contributions so that the average person can compete with the wealthy are all things up and down political ladder that need to be addressed. Oh, and let's bring back the mandatory draft, not letting those with bone spurs get out of military. This way, there will be a lot more screaming when junior gets his education in a far-off land instead of some private high-flying university.
Otherwise, this government is for the few, the wealthy, the deserving. Right?
Or wrong?
4
No surprises here. The Republican Party has always been about lining the pockets of the wealthy. GOP leadership never fails to show contempt for the poor. For eight years they've been fighting among themselves about the best way to kill an initiative to make health care more affordable and accessible. They demonstrate no compassion, except for large ammunition clips and assault rifles.
3
Mr. Leonhardt references Gladwell's David and Goliath but as regards Trump and his cronies, I'm more interested in another of his books: The Tipping Point. Specifically, when will the taint of Trump finally reach the point that no one -- his appointees, both houses of the U.S. Congress, and his private-sector benefactors -- want any proximity to Trump or his agenda?
After some key resignations, his business advisory council splintered apart over his Charlottesville remarks, and all 17 members of the White House Arts Panel resigned in protest. Will the impulse to eventually grow to include the parties that can shut down the Trump agenda? It seems unlikely, but that's the thing with tipping points. They seem far off until suddenly they're upon us.
Since this piece is about the men developing tax policy, I'll now wait for a comment from Socrates, who is a CPA.
3
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
- John Kenneth Galbraith
Nice GOPeople
47
Of course when government wants more of my money, that is not selfishness? Obviously government has a higher moral justification for everything it spends money on.
My state, Massachusetts, is revenue-starved, with several local communities unable to adequately support their schools and municipal governments through property taxes. Should the federal tax reforms eliminate deductions for state and local taxes, the ability of states and localities to raise the revenues they so desperately need, will become even more difficult. This is just one of many reasons that the President's proposed tax reforms don't make sense.
6
Sam Brownback, the governor of Kansas held forth the tax cuts for Kansas he sponsored in 2012 as a "real, live experiment" on the validity of the supply side doctrine that tax cuts are self paying. That experiment failed badly. Republicans, however, have brilliantly succeeded in revising "The Laws of Thought," as had been formulated by George Boole in his 1854 publication so named. Under the Republican break-through form of reasoning, contrary evidence often serves to actually reinforce the perceived efficacy of a touted doctrine.
17
Why is it that the same commentators and organizations that would have expressed their outrage and opposition if Rex Tillerson, former head of Exxon had been nominated for Sec'y of Energy never express such sentiments when former heads of Goldman Sachs are nominated to be Treasury Sec'y. It seems to me the issue of conflicts of interest are similar.
17
Look to Hillary Clinton’s speeches to the financial community to understand the lack of real opposition from the democratic leadership.
You miss the point. Government officials do not pay attention to the citizens of the nation as much as they attend to the owners. Those in the owners (big donors) box get the benefits.
Let's fix that first and the rest will follow.
28
The rest of what? Just wondering, eh.
Reputations?
How can these two be the least bit concerned about their reputations when they have already sold their souls? Here we have two Jews who have cozied up to a declared supporter of Neo-Nazi's and white supremecists. These people, who are some of Donald Trump's most ardent supporters, would string both of them up a tree if they thought they could get away with it. No tax cut, no so called pro business policy is worth throwing away every vestige of your tradition, religion and cultural philosophy. To top it off, Cohn and Mnuchin already have more money than they know what to do with.
This is long past losing reputation. Shame is far too nice a term for them. Besides, after you have thrown your soul away, shame no longer is a concern.
296
The fact that they don't even know what to do with all that money demonstrates that cutting their taxes won't boost their spending.
1
Perhaps the fairest way to access taxes is to assign how much in taxes each taxpayer should pay.
We could start with the premise that every citizen benefits from the government, so every citizen must pay something.
Next we calculate how much each citizen benefits from SS, Medicare, welfare, food stamps etc. and assign an amount those recipients should pay.
After we figure out how much this amounts to in taxes we can have the highest earners pay the rest.
This way the lowest earners would feel they were paying their share, and the higher earners would feel that what they were paying was more just.
2
What on earth is that supposed to mean? I gather you don't have much use for the low-income folks who get "welfare, food stamps etc.", but the benefits we all get by federal subsidy -- police departments, roads, education, the army, to name a few -- are a tad harder to calculate, and I'm not sure you guys living on 5th Avenue are smart enough to do the math.
1
They had reputations for succeeding in business.
Neither had reputations for serving the public or doing anything for the public good, necessarily.
And, how, they are seeking to "do good" for their counterparts in life - incredibly wealthy - ultra wealthy - peers. No more, no less.
So, I don't think their reputations are at stake at all. That group is applauding all the way to the bank.
186
Whatever they are doing the economy is humming for the first time in 8 years.
So let's hope they keep it up.
Wages are rising, and middle America is starting to benefit.
Much better job than was done by the community organizer.
Just think, if the entire Trump plan was lowered only the 'middle class' tax rate by 10% then the wealthy still get a tax cut. Steve and Gary know this as do Republicans so the wealthy always get a tax cut under their plans.
6
I spoke recently with an older friend who remarked that "Trump is the best president we've ever had."
This person watches the news only on Fox. The new tax law will harm his retirement finances, but he has no inkling this will happen.
I imagine that when the Great Income Shrinking occurs, Fox News will not cover that, either. If the event is covered at all, the true reasons will not be given. I already sense the one-size-fits-all "Obama" explanation.
77
Such people have no more character than the liar they support.
One has to accept that the world of big business is a world of dishonesty. That world consists of gangs pitted against one another, but more to the point, pitted against the American public and how much they can fleece the wallets of large numbers of individuals.
a bank manager and I were having a conversation. I asked her about the extraordinary fees her bank charges. She said, "It's referred to as 'walleting' in the industry." The fleecing factor.
Now that these bankers are the government, watch out.
57
We live under a you scratch my back I'll scratch your's interlocked directorship, with window dressing that doesn't even pass the smell test of democracy.
It is impossible for me to feel any sympathy for either of these men. They went into these jobs with their eyes wide open. As for their reputations, who cares? They come from an industry that exists to make the wealthy ever wealthier, and they are not the least concerned about anyone who is not contributing to that cause. Even if their jobs in the Trump mis-administration are their last jobs, they have skimmed enough money from the American economy so that neither they nor any of their families will ever have to work again.
42
The plutocrats that comprise a good portion of the Republican party realize that they have a limited window of opportunity to effect policy to enrich themselves even more. There is never enough for these people. One can only hope that America will wake up to these frauds and show them the door in the 2018 elections.
2
Somehow, Steven Mnuchin's nobility has escaped me to date.
216
How could you miss the crown on his head, and the tiara on his wife's?
2
I really thank the smart, honest people who work in government and try to keep things on the up and up, tell the truth and keep America moving forward. The ones that kiss Trump and support his wild and sick statements and plans will go down in history as traders.
8
Perhaps the last word in your comment "Traders" should be changed to "Traitors"
Not sure why in a column about truth, you feel a need to use hyperbole. You state that of 20 million New Yorkers only 470 people have to pay estate tax next year. You should have compared the 470 to the number of people who die in New York each year as those who don't die are not in play. If we assume 1 percent or 200,000, the number is still indicative of vast favoritism to the wealthy, but it is less dramatic. If 470 out of 200,000 pay, that is In other words, .2 percent of the population, which is consistent with Joint Committee on Taxation estimates. Your point is still accurate but why write about exaggerators and lies and do the same?
3
Good point. Just to clarify, because many people get confused by decimals, .23% = approximately 1/5 to 1/4 of 1%. According to NYS records, 155,000 people died in NYS in 2015 so the percentage of people paying the tax is about .30, or a bit under 1/3 of 1%.
"Reputation" is a quaint and antique concept. Donald Trump, today the leader of the most powerful country on earth, poured what ever meaning there was out of "reputation" when he won the presidency. Honesty and integrity have suffered the same fate. Mr. Cohn and Mr. Mnuchin have realized that in era of Trump, all that counts is being on the winning side.
239
“The most powerful country on earth”, don’t you think that has become debatable as of late? A more apt description would be once the most powerful country on earth that finds itself in rapid decline , quickly headed towards status of an oligarchy with a very big army.
3
Oh, I think they knew that much well before "era of Trump".
1
They are not winners they are losers - but the biggest loser is the nation!
1
This assumes they had reputations to ruin.
102
Anyone who is a friend-of-Trump or signed on to Trump's administration has forfeited all respect.
157
This is so true. I personally pay a lot of attention to the economic management of the country a by the Fed and the Treasury, and this pair have already blown it. Can you imagine any recent Treasury Secretaries (Geithner, Lew, Paulson, O'Neill, Summers, Rubin, even lightweights like Snow)lying so outrageously as Mnuchin already has. Then Cohn allegedly has ambitions to be Fed Chairman when he also has lied outrageously in interviews I've watched or read. Even Greenspan had the good sense to resort to obfuscation to obscure suspect actions like supporting the Bush tax cuts.
77
Whatever happened to the Republican fear of the deficit? This plan would undoubtedly raise it significantly. The answer of course, is it would put great pressure on congress to offset the loss of revenue with cuts in social programs.
So again the middle and poor will pay for the tax cuts for the rich.
The Trumpites will have again voted against their own best interest.
174
Thanks, Tom. Indeed, one of the goals of Republican efforts of "tax reform." has been to cut social spending, specifically targeting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, support for Planned Parenthood, public schools; and all in the name of "starve the beast." All of this has roots in pre-Revolutionary War America as anti-tax forces were taking their fight against the greedy British Crown and using it to fight against "big government" in the fledgling nation's battle to finance the war and whatever was required if we actually won.
Our country has grown a trifle larger than the original 13 colonies and, since those early years, the infrastructure requirements have grown with the country and that requires a population willing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in support of what is required to support what is needed by a great nation.
1
What about the idiotic Trump Wall. For sure Mexico is NOT paying for it. It will come out of OUR budget for safe bridges; faster, safer trains,better roads, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.
Yes, that's YOUR Medicare and SS, Trump voters. You've been scammed - just like the folks who believe the promises of Trump University
David might have picked more relevant examples of executives whose reputations are at risk. Gary Cohn served as COO for Goldman Sachs, and Steven Mnuchin served as Goldman’s CIO. Both were hedge fund managers. Mnuchin, like Steve Bannon, dabbled in entertainment. To many Americans, speaking about Goldman and Arizona vipers’ nests is redundant, and hedge fund worthies, if at all possible, might be in even worse odor.
So … with whom do these two men risk their “reputations”? Maybe with Wall Street, but with Main Street?
But both clearly are committed to tax reform, and to the notion that we can’t forever expect 20% of earners to fund 80% of the entitlements that others vote for but don’t pay for – or the 100% that liberals want them to fund. This evolving tax bill in its original form sought to better distribute the tax burden across most of America, instead of intensifying the burdens of an increasingly thinner slice of it at the top. It did so by eliminating just about all remaining deductions, including middle class deductions. While current Republican thought augurs restoration of some of those deductions, as I predicted here that it would, the end product likely will be the most intensive effort to redistribute shared responsibility that existed until about 1970 that we’ve seen in many years.
That’s a defensible position to take … even from a viper’s nest.
21
It's a more defensible position as long as nobody is aware of the percentage of new national wealth that has gone to the top 1% and top .001% over the past 40 years -- and as long as people make massively over-optimistic guesstimates about current wealth distribution and social mobility.
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There is a better argument in another column in this same issue. The tax cuts offered will not make the economy grow, they will mostly make inequality grow. The rich will get richer and those who want to start businesses will start businesses not because of lower taxes, but because they have good ideas and ambitions and the smarts to make it happen. Free money to the rich is no better than free money to the poor. The poor just need it more. There are as many freeloaders on the top as on the bottom. They, however, eat steak instead of hamburger. Take fantastic trips, instead of no trips. Go to good schools, etc. (And where, by the way , is the 'viper's nest'?
29
Bill:
It's one of the more entertaining blindnesses of the unchained, potted liberati that they argue so intently for increased harvesting of success of the few at the top, while NOT recognizing that this simply empowers that class. The more you pay for something, the more influence you have over it -- and many would argue that for that reason the increased influence is more legitimate.
if we're going to have entitlements, then everyone should pay for them.
There is no need for tax cuts. The economy (macro) is growing just fine at the moment. If anything, taxes should be increased for the higher brackets as part of a national objective to reduce income inequality. The "mantra" of tax reform is of course fixed in Republican mindsets, but what that mantra really means is reducing the size of government, not stimulating growth. Remember "starve the government?" That's basically the Republicans objective. Of course, it's wrong and bad policy for the country.
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What national objective to reduce income inequality? Many of us don't view people as groups, but as individuals who deserve to keep more of what they earn, even if it's more than you make. Taking more than a small portion of someone earns is just wrong, damn the statistics.
1
to sound like a Republican ' income inequality ' will then how to you expect all incomes to be equal - please get a grip - the fat are also getting fatter - and a lot are not picking up the pace to lose the weight and reduce the drag - another wierd term is restorative justice. Justice is all around and does not need to be restored - some people just don't like the results and some do. What is "just" and "right" always depends on your perspective and what side of the issue butters your bread.
Haters Hate and liars Lie.
WE Won(the american people)
You lost (coastal elites-alt-left,democratic liberals)
Continue to go apoplectic
WE LOVE it!
BOOYAH!
Thanks for this. You forgot to mention how many members of the Trump Cabinet and administration, including Trump himself, would personally benefit from elimination of the estate tax alone (or their families would), as well as the other proposed cuts. I'd like to know exactly who in the administration benefits, and how much. This is a massive conflict of interest.
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The defense of this plan has nothing to do "with pleasing their boss." It has everything to do with further enriching themselves and "pleasing" their social circle. As the late, great, Dennis Green once said so succinctly: "they are who we thought they were." That's why President Trump installed them; he knew exactly who they were and who they were going to work tirelessly for. A hint to the answer: not us.
745
As George Carlin so astutely pointed out, "There's a club, and you're not in it".
4
and I'm predicting now - the Trumpster wins again or someone equally abhorent and much like him. The problem seems to be - the liberals to the far left won't accept any leader that doesn't think like them - life is a free for all - well not in the sense they would like that to mean. It's never "free" as in not costing anything - but it is becoming a "free for all" like a circus or the wild west. Every person is for themselves and the US is we versus them.
1
I thought there was something ennobling when Gary Cohen decided to stay with Trump after considering resigning to protest Trump’s racist comments about Charlottesville. It represented strength of character that I certainly didn’t have.
One got the feeling that he would stay on to make the Trump tax revision more humane given his demonstrated sensitivity against intolerance. One assumed that it would extend to an understanding of the plight of ordinary working people and he seems to have done so.
However, the middle “class” people—those making $150-$300,000 per year —will be taxed immediately and severely. Because these middle ”class” earners clearly are not Trump’s base, , despite the religious intolerance demonstrated by Trump to him, the value of Mr. Cohen’s staying-on is more than adequately justified.
8
I am sorry, there was nothing ennobling to Gary Cohn staying after Trump's comments about Charlottesville. It was clear that he would stay as long as the prospect of replacing Yellen in the Fed was tangled in front of him.
And after his public comments that he considered resigning, which apparently annoyed Trump and possibly jeopardized his chances for the Fed job, he has gone all out to please his boss and those in the same income tax bracket who constitute Trump's "other" base.
1
Sorry, but if you're making $150-$300,000 per year, that puts you well into the top few percentiles, far beyond middle class:
http://graphics.wsj.com/what-percent/
Funny how everybody's definition of the "rich" who should pay more taxes always starts well above their own income.
But, Ms. Anna T, Trump’s “other” base—the 186,000 one-percenters—can’t re-elect Trump. Trump needs another 68 million votes to win in 2020.
When I mentioned the "nobility" of Gary Cohn, I was using the sarcasm of Mark Anthony when he referred to the murderers of Cesare as “honorable” men.
Why would they care about any of this when they have gazillions and will have more after their tax plans go through? It's the New American Way, apparently. The only thing that matters anymore is money money money and their entire social circle is the same.
The mindset of these people is a huge gated community--the rest of us don't register at all.
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My wife and I live a reasonably comfortable life. Roof over our heads, food on the table, able to pay our bills on time, can eat out every now and then, etc. When we do our income taxes it's pretty much the same every year. We either pony up a few hundred more dollars or get a few bucks back. Our knowledge of the tax code? 1040, long form. That's It!
So when we hear or read about estate taxes, carryover, corporations pay too much, top tier rate going down from 39.6% to 35%,, something about personal income tax and small business interrelationships, etc. It's means absolutely diddly-squat!
We just know we're going to get pulverized. And when we read that two wallstreeters are working with the Republican Congress, and a President who was a real estate developer that stiffed contractors every chance he could, just imagine what's going through our minds?
Ethics, smethics, this is a reverse Robin Hood. The rich stealing from the poor. Ethical codes went out the door for the Republicans many, many years ago.
1258
Look at the smirks on their faces. They know exactly what they are doing. They could care less about a future job when they will have lower taxes and no inheritance tax!
6
Only the little people pay taxes. Leona's words will live forever. What we need in this country is a law that says everyone's income tax returns are subject to public disclosure. That alone would ensure that there would never be another Trump,or another Mnuchin or Cohn.
3
The Rich have always stolen from the poor. The biggest problem is identifying one from the other, especially by Political affiliation and which is currently in power. I am frustrated at having to say this so much: just remember the old and very truthful observation made long ago and the reason for it: "Let Them Eat Cake"! It is still viable..........
3
You forgot to add the Mindless vicious cruelty of eliminating the medical expense deduction. Take three families who each have $100,000 in medical expenses. Remember that you can only deduct costs in excess of 10 percent of your income.
Family 1 has an income of 100,000 dollars. They can deduct 90% of the medical expenses with a total value of about 25K
Family 2 has an income of 250,000. They can deduct 75,000 with a value of about 27K
Family 3 has an income of a million dollars - they get no deduction. at all So such medical expenses are of no value to them tax wise.
Medical expenses are not like other costs. They are a regressive expenditure. Even the sick rich pay a far smaller share of their income than the upper middle class. so they have proposed a giant tax increase on teh Nations sickest people
"Republicans cannot rule out tax increases on, for example, a middle-class family of four that incurs high medical costs not covered by insurance. Washington Post"
That's it. Very SICK folks with huge medical expenses get to pay for a tax cut for the ultra wealthy. That is the GOP plan.
98
Two quick thoughts, Mr. Leonhardt.
First, when you write that "The statements make the two look more like Trump press secretaries than serious business executives whom members of Congress can trust," you can't seriously expect this installation of Congress to do much more than to rubber-stamp the demands of their donors. Oh, and speaking of trust, why should Republicans care very much about whether a wealthy individual is also a person of integrity and rectitude? Those in the halls of Congress may be particularly sensitive to public ridicule and reputation but not when it comes to doing the job(s) they were elected to do: to mask concern for a struggling (and rapidly-disappearing) middle class while working to reduce the tax obligations of the rich while all but demanding that working people pay for it. It's called greed and hypocrisy.
Second, "But their reputations and their personal code of ethics deserve some consideration too." Generals James Mattis and John Kelly may be the lone wolves in this wilderness of an administration to whom honor and decency have any hold. Does their president value rectitude? Of course not. Does their Vice-president? Surely, but only for show, because for them, it's all about pleasing "the base," the same poor suckers who will get hosed by a "tax cut."
Messers. Mnuchin and Cohn work for a man who's made a career of throwing chum in the water to attract the avaricious and unscrupulous.
Why would they, at this stage of their lives, change?
44
The fact that these two men were high up at Goldman Sachs already casts suspicions on their integrity. Now this "tax"plan confirms it. They and the Republic party are of the rich, for the rich and by the rich.
128
Not so. My brother-in-law led a Goldman Sachs office in a sizeable American city. He's as ethical as they come; very charitable, too.
Beware of generalities.
5
Remember when "Goldman Sachs" was a filthy imprecation hurled by Trump and his supporters at Hillary Clinton, symbolizing everything greedy and evil? Tragically, millions of you will answer "no, I don't."
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Yes, Neal, without memory there is no past and thus not much of a future. "Anchors away" used to be a navy tune; now it applies to our society, generally. We are becoming increasingly unmoored. And thus unhinged.
2
The real issue is not whether lying sullies their reputations with NY Times columnists and late--night comedians; the real issue is whether lying gets the laws they support passed. The point is power and wealth, not ethics. If the Congress and Trump want to enrich the Hyper-Wealthy and solidify their own power, what the NY Times thinks of their reputations won't matter to them or to the "responsible" businessmen who will greatly benefit from their lies if the lies resut in passage pf their tax bill.
38
They're playing hardball, we need the NY Times to quit acting as if these brigands have some shriveled shred of a soul or conscience that might be appealed to in order to change their innately kleptocratic and psychopathic instincts.
alan haigh carmel, ny Pending Approval
Leonhardt is mistaken to suggest that these men are only slipping into the dark universe of fake economic theories by the black hole of Trumpian politics. Trump is not the originator or even the primary force that pushes the mythologies Republicans use to justify shrinking the federal government to the benefit of the extremely wealthy at the expense of the middle class and poor.
Most middle class Republicans have long been indoctrinated into believing the lie that the estate tax is is a tool to let the federal government steal small farms from families. This is one of many created by one of the think tanks funded by the extreme right wing that is the dark force donor base of the GOP.
100
Does anyone think the term "death tax" became a Republican talking point by way of grass roots? Trump had nothing to do with it either. It is another product of the paid thinkers in the propaganda apparatus that dominated the party long before Trump and continues to do so, regardless of Trumps empty headed influence.
Trump just wants to seem like he's getting something done and to do so he must follow the wishes of the donor base of his party, just like almost every other Republican in office.
Progressives, repeat after me, "the estate tax is our nation's "silver spoon tax". Again.... again. We always lose the war of clever talking points because we have this terrible need to be creative instead of repetitive.
2
What Americans are hearing from the administration about the tax legislation hides a clever deception. It disregards the long term loss of federal revenue as a result of a zero estate tax. Yes, the immediate effect of elimination as presented in the scoring will only be minimal; however this is due to the fact that in the short term very few of the very wealthy will be dying.
The wealthiest 10% presently control three-quarters of all family wealth in the country. With the current maximum estate rate reduced to zero, over time a huge source of federal revenue will be taken away from the bottom 90%. This will have dire implications for them. Social programs will be cut or eliminated.
Post Enlightenment history has shown that wealth accumulation as an efficiency driver is only beneficial as long as it is prevented from forming a plutocracy. IF IT IS ALLOWED TO OCCUR, generational entry is rigged in favor of the oligarchic blood line by way of massive wealth transfer to succeeding generations, thus bestowing political privilege, economic control, superior education and medical care. Wide distortions in privilege and wealth then ultimately lead to a disintegration of underlying order. Social, political and economic mobility in the middle and at the bottom becomes extremely difficult.
www.InquiryAbraham.com
79
I'm thinking there will be money to be made in pitchforks and torches in the near future.
The tax cut championed by Cohn and Mnuichin will destroy what is left of middle class America. This tax reform is actually straight up theft from upper middle class salaried workers to corporations and wealthy business owners. You can sell me on a tax increase if the benefit was universal health, affordable higher ed, or massive infrastructure spending...but this plan does none of that...it is tax cuts for the wealthy, funded by increases to salaried workers with the hope that those wealthy people will spend....on non Existent demand that is sure to contract as soon as my taxes are raised.
Tax reform must begin by taxing all income as ordinary income. Anything else is just smoke, mirrors and deception.
145
Funny how Mr. Leonhardt mentions none of this, being so busy assuring us what great guys Mnuchin and Cohn really are (or were.) They only look like the avatars of greed, an optical illusion of the left eye.
2
We should exercise some empathy here. When tax cuts for themselves and for their peers on the Street are in arm's reach, men like Cohn and Mnuchin perhaps become afflicted by what we can call blurred vision, blinded by the bright. Their compass perhaps goes awry through the magnetic pull of amassing yet more wealth - after all, that's how the game score of their aspirations is kept among their friends and cronies, and they have great lengths to make up for the financial sacrifices they've made to serve their country. Have a heart!
And we musn't forget these gentlemen's provenance, where their former boss Lloyd Blankfein can baldly declare that "making markets" and in the process betting against their own clients is "doing God's work." Where fealties to God and to Mammon are indistinguishable. For in our culture aren't they gods themselves?
24
A company makes expense adjustments if actual revenues do not meet income forecasts. In my work, we have three budget projections available to guide us—one based on our best estimates, one if revenues increase 5% beyond expectations, and one if they decrease 5% below expectations. In short, we are prepared in advance for three different scenarios.
If Cohn and Mnuchin are so confident that their ideas will produce high levels of growth (ones beyond what reputable economists think is likely), they should include provisions for how tax rates and the budget will automatically be modified if they do not. Otherwise this is the typical Republican scam where they dramatically increase deficits under their administrations and then require the next Democrat in the White House to reduce the error of their ways.
43
"In the early stages of promoting Trump’s tax cut, they have made a series of statements that are blatantly false — not merely shadings of truth or questionable claims but outright up-is-down falsehoods mocked by various fact-checkers.
The NYT has put out several detailed articles outlining all the ways these are outright lies.
During the Charlottesville nightmare, Gary Cohn professed his love of country would trump any pain Mr. Trump's comments on white Supremacists (and by extension, Jews). He almost made it sound like self-sacrifice! "I'm staying to pursue an opportunity I've dreamed of for years, to overhaul the US Tax code," he bragged.
It was unseemly then, and even more unseemly now in the face of all these lies about who benefits most from what's euphemistically called tax reform. Gary Cohn and Steve Mnuchin--yes, he who takes military jets everywhere he travels--are acting like pigs at the trough in the hopes of passing one of the biggest transfers of wealth from middle America to the top .01%.
I care less about men willing to sacrifice their reputations on a baldfaced lie than I do about making sure the NYT and other publications remain free to point out the truth.
Because you know that's what's coming next.
395
As always, Christine, McM, I agree with you wholeheartedly. And in the event the Times does NOT print my entry today, here is a piece of it to corroborate your comments:
When President Reagan decided to adopt the trickle-down economic theory of Chicago economics professor, Arthur Laffer, his budget director, David Stockman, advised the new president that the promises of tax cuts being paid for with economic expansion would not improve things for the middle class. In Stockman's words, the benefits to the middle class would amount to nothing more than "pizza toppings" while setting up the nation for a recession by the end of the 1980s.
Stockman was right, of course, setting up the conditions for Bill Clinton's election mantra, "It's the economy, stupid," a strategy created by James Carville. It worked because trickle-down economics did not, except for the richest among us.
After Mitt Romney's loss in 2012, RNC chairman Reince Priebus took the GOP into post-election hiatus to figure out why they lost the White House and how to win it in 2016. Since those days of "introspection," the Republicans came out swinging with the same policies, frequently described by analysts of economic theory and punditry as, "the same old pizza in a new box."
Christine, thank you for continuing to offer your wisdom to the rest of us in the sandbox.
3
Making false predictions to justify tax cuts for the wealthy (voodoo economics) has been standard for Republicans ever since Reagan and Stockman. So their reputation among Republicans is safe, and would be jeopardized if they did not argue for such tax cuts. The personal code of ethics of businessmen is to close the sale of something to your advantage by any means that might work, and leave it to the buyer to perform due diligence. The personal code of ethics of businessmen is illustrated by Volkswagen and Wells Fargo, who got away with what they were doing for years; we have no idea how many other businesses are behaving in similar ways but are not being caught.
Goldman Sachs created derivatives that they thought would fail, sold them to customers who did not think they would fail, bet against these derivatives, and made a lot of money. According to the personal code of ethics of businessmen, they were clever, and if other firms criticized them it was out of envy. It is part of the personal code of business ethics to never leave money on the table, and it is also part of this code to preserve the appearance or fiction that the transaction in which the money vanished from the table was fair and balanced.
464
Yes, and even Stockman recanted, in his book "The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed" (1986).
3
Thank you for a better precis of today's "voodoo economics" than I have yet seen. Sadly, too many of today's Americans have been brain-washed into acceptance of this economic thievery as God-given. Thus facts are of no import.
3
The only reason I can imagine these folks are so willing to shuffle, prevaricate and outright lie for this administration is that (A) that their out-sized egos let them believe they'll be able to achieve the "ends" they took appointments for, or (B) they think if they stay in their traces they'll be able to stave off the country's descent into chaos caused by Trump's recklessness.
30
or...as a modification to (A), the "ends" they wish to achieve are to even further enrich themselves.
4
Maybe they are too wealthy to care about reputation - name recognition counts for a lot in some circles. 'We hired former Treasury Secretary...' has a nice ring to it for many businesses or universities.
Beyond that, they get the tax cuts which they claim they don't get (more for them and their heirs) while the ill-informed and/or ignorant Trump base cheers them on believing every lie about caring for ordinary Americans. ("Ill-informed and/or ignorant" fits a group which unfathomably believes that Trump is doing "a great job" and would get more done if only the terrible media and those terrible liberals would stop criticizing him so much.)
301
Exactly!
It is the same thought patterns that separated the Royalty of the old world from the serfs or peasants or slaves. What these humans thought or cared about did not even register on the consciousnesses of the Royalty or the Owners. (Owners is the current facade behind which the regenerated Royalists hide.) For a peasant or slave to express an opinion on almost anything resulted in immediate something usually painful.
This is the vision of what Trump wants to restore. And like a lot of the serfs and peasants of yore who loved their "kind masters" many of these somewhat uneducated individuals feel that way. Others are just so wound up n their own pity and hate that they support Trumpish things of any kind.