I recently sang at the funeral of a highly decorated military pilot, a member of one of America's most wealthy and well-known families. I listened appalled as I heard that this intelligent man watched Fox news 24 hrs a day. I realized in that moment that some of America's brighest and bravest are willfully ignorant. Why? Because it benefits them. Cash crack.
58
Trump is a moral wreck . That is bad , but worse than that , is that he is taking the Country down with him . The question is if we will be able to get up again . I think we will , if we put in place the measures available to us in the Constitution . If we do not do that , the future will not belong to us . Remember that Churchill said that Americans in the end will do the right thing after trying everything else .
19
One of your best columns ever! I agree that we are experiencing a short term "sugar high." Republicans that still support Trump should remember that he is the president that suggested we deal with the deficit by simply printing more money.
46
In the age of satellites, GPS, and smart missiles, there are only two classes of Navy vessels - submarines and billion dollar targets.
Everyone knows this, but sheer momentum (and huge contracts) sweep us toward expensive disaster.
17
If so many people regard so much of what Trump is getting done as “good”, then perhaps it’s time to second-guess the reporters, news analysts, pundits, bloggers, anchorpeople, producers and editors who believe with every fiber of their beings that he is SUCH a Schlemiel.
Just a thought.
But it’s a politically self-interested argument to first admit that things are great then claim that it won’t last forever, obviously hoping that Americans will not vote in a few weeks the now but a speculative future that is promised to nobody. NOTHING is forever but that final dirt-nap. For now, Americans are going to work, wages are rising, 401-Ks are increasing in value as stocks rise and corporate investment is up: THAT’S what we KNOW. And it’s a compelling argument that it wouldn’t be so if Americans had NOT elected an undivided Republican Congress and Donald Trump.
What if? Hell, what if Scarlett Johansson winked at me on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street?
You guys might be very surprised on 6 November. I recall advising this commentariat similarly two years ago.
3
My son is a professional athlete. Trump's tax cuts put an additional $740,000 tax-free dollars into his pocket this year alone and in doing so raised the national debt an additional 1.5 trillion dollars.
Who is going to pay that bill? Neither him nor his children. By time the bill comes due he will be retired and the vast amount of his income will come from dividends and capital gains which we know are taxed at a lower rate than income is.
Your children will pay for it.
My family thanks you. Keep voting first and asking questions later. I can't wait to see what the incompetent dotard you elected does for me and my kid next.
If you progeny ever figures out why they are in such dire straits, it will make for a very interesting Thanksgiving dinner. Don't invite me. I'll be busy.
237
Ginning up racist and sexist divisions for the purpose of solidifying your grasp on power, which you use to make yourselves and your cronies richer, is not just "amoral." It is evil. And if Trump is the cartoonish figurehead, these anonymous 'heroes' are steering the boat.
19
The GOP has learned from the biggest huckster that borrowing money is easy if you don't have to commit to pay of the loan. Not only is this policy going to effect future generations, the impact is right now. With a market steaming along as one of the comments mentioned a sugar high always leads to a crash afterwards and I for one. think the voters will vote as they have in the past with their wallets and put these crooks out of office.
Social programs are not handouts, tax cuts are.
This November help someone to vote and then vote as well. This is not the time for sitting this one out. I voted for sane policy's, not a well oiled machine that leaks worse than the Exxon Valdez.
Fire the swamp creatures and let some sun shine into the dark corners of this administration. The smell of rotting democracy calls all of us to demand a change.
15
"The most amazing thing is" (Steve Martin phrase) with all the hate and disconnect (especially from NYT readers) from our Sovietized media and DNC Politburo members Trump remains in the White House. How does that happen? Constitution and a heartland vote?
4
Tom Friedman, the best writer out there!
11
The Watergate mantra still applies.... Follow the money! Republicans want all they can get their hands on and the way to do that is to a) cut personal taxes, b) cut corporate taxes so the exec and shareholders get more money, c) Spend more on YUGE unnecessary defense projects that benefit the military industrial complex (business), d) cut social welfare programs to make room for more tax cuts, e) increase high end and corporate welfare to increase exec/shareholder wealth, f) maintain low minimum wage to increase corporate wealth. And finally, maintain power anyway possible to ensure the above.... who cares about an old piece of paper called the Constitution.
14
Strategic vision behind the deregulation, grossly bloated defense budget, perverse management of the economy? Simple:
-- A world in which unconstrained capital is absolutely free to plunder every natural and human resource and exploit every system as fast and hard as possible, leaving no money on the table.
-- A world in which government exists only to build roads, airports, and seaports -- our 21st century farm-to-market infrastructure -- and operate an enormous military, with which to impose our will on others (and their resources) when we so choose. Government is otherwise to stay entirely out of the picture.
The Koch brothers epitomize this world and have been building toward it for decades by donating generously to politicians, funding ultra-conservative "think tanks," endowing chairs in universities and law schools, spurring changes and restrictions to the electoral system that guarantee the preservation of incumbent power, and other tactics. The consequences for future generations are irrelevant; it's all about getting _all_ the money _now_ and preserving that state forever.
Trump, as awful as he is in many dimensions, is merely the hideous and corrupt figurehead, the latest carnival barker who is allowed to keep his job despite the deep embarrassments he produces as long as he delivers the judges, tax cuts, deregulation, voting restrictions, etc., that enable and further the oligarchic dream.
26
When the GDP percentage of the budget deficit is 4.5% what is the REAL growth rate of the economy? 0?
7
Thank you Tom! Keep it up! I hope the Democratic candidates are reading this. These are the talking points; not free college education and getting rid of ICE.
6
So much to agree with here and yet the author fails to see that his love of growth for its own sake is the driving force behind this rapacious mindset fueling the GOP. We cannot have growth forever, but we can have compassion and a sense of shared sacrifice for a little bit longer than we can endure this cancer for which we've chosen the euphemism of growth. The national religion is the accumulation of capital and pity the fool who asks the masses to consider the cost of their aspirations. It reminds me of the old South in which any poor white man could aspire to own a black man, "earn" enough through dint of forced labor to buy another, and maybe one day join the upper classes.
7
It’s Jared.
6
If you view Trump's Tweeting since yesterday evening, you can verify for yourself that he's insane. When is he going to see a doctor without the nickname of "Candyman" - inquiring SANE minds want to know.
6
Friedman writes, "Economic growth and employment have clearly been on a tear since Trump took office."
Alright, dammit, why can't even the New York Times get this straight? There is little, if any, discernible change in economic growth and private sector job growth since Donald Trump took office. To the extent that there is a difference, it would most likely be attributed to a disastrous tax cut that we're now seeing lead to enormous deficits which could very well undo whatever short-term gains it may have bought.
According to CBS News, "the 4.2 percent expansion at an annual rate that occurred in the April-June quarter, isn't out of line with Obama's record. The economy grew more quickly than that four times during Mr. Obama's eight years in office." Also, "When it comes to jobs, the U.S. added more jobs in each of the last three years of Mr. Obama's presidency, 2014-2016, than it did last year, Mr. Trump's first in office. Job growth has picked up a bit this year but is still on track to come in below its 2014-2015 pace."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-economy-obama-economy-administration-...
19
Hard to believe that both the FBI and NSA haven't got the fellow and his cohorts--to include NYT Editorial Board members--on their "watch list"--though it could have been written by Penelope Ashe, which is more likely.
1
This is what happens when a voter cannot distuinguish between a demagogue and a charlatan, a snake oil salesman and an honest seller, a showman “actor” (?) or a true public servant! The first thing he did was to make what everyone else says is fake news and only what he says or who praises him are the truth, and the people believed him as though he is Jesus! Of course, he was backed by “Evangelicals “! Didn’t he? People, including the Republican Congress, got what they deserved! They got their tax break, deregulation, marginalized poor population and immigration catastrophe, sex discrimination, etc., they deserve!
6
Come ON. Stop it. The Republicans WANT to drive us to the point where we have to cut Social Security--even cut it out entirely. And get real--they want to drive us to the point where we can't afford Medicare. Or Medicaid. Or repairing infrastructure. Why? Because then the "free market" can work its wonders. This is all part of their grand vision of an America where everyone is "self-reliant" and "free."
Add to this that they don't give a fig about the environment--I mean really, truly, they obviously don't (let drillers burn off the methane gas--are you kidding?)--and you see that "free" means rich people and corporations "free" to rape and pillage anything they set their beady eyes on.
I'm now at the point where when someone makes it known to me that he or she is a Republican, I say, "I'm sorry, but you and your ilk are irreparably damaging our country and the lives of our children, and I have nothing to talk about with you."
250
I am an economist and I will tell you professionally the tax cuts are like pouring gasoline on a lit fire. Deregulation meanwhile amounts to removing the fire extinguishers before setting the house on fire. I don't know how or when exactly. No economist does. However, I can tell you with absolute certainty the United States is heading for disaster. Throw on some tariffs and trade war just for good measure. We need to make sure inflation peaks along with interest rates right before the next crash.
The LBJ analogy is surprisingly apt. Republicans have set us on a straight shot towards stagflation. Only this time we're operating in a global economy. If you thought the 70s were bad, just wait. Things are going to be much worse.
19
Friedman says that he, too, "favors" big tax cuts on corporations. Why should we continue to listen to him and the other trickle-down theorists who have been wrong for decades? His so-called "global" views aren't worth much in the face of climate catastrophes that corporations are responsible for and should be forced to make reparations for, as well. So I find his clarion call about climate change most hypocritical--he's always been that. Instead of this fervor about who is Anonymous, let's keep our eye on the ball, that is, this globe, which corporate powers are passing back and forth but inevitably are dropping.
15
@SG My thoughts exactly. The last thing corporations need is a freaking tax cut.
10
Historically, do you know how governments have gotten out from drowning in debts they can't possibly pay?
They devalue their currencies. This is as old as time. Even back in Roman times (or some era around then), monarchs routinely devalued their coins - forcing people to trade in coins containing, say, 1 gram of silver for coins containing 1/2 gram, thus cutting their debts in half.
It's coming people. Pre-trump, there was at least an illusion of BELIEVING in fiscal responsibility. That concept no longer exists.
Buy gold.
5
There is a historical consistency of countries confiscating gold when they are in huge trouble. Stock up food, filter and fuel.
2
It is encouraging to see the idea of a sugar tax in writing, especially for me, a resident of Florida. Not only does that sugar wreck havoc with our bodies, here in Florida it's production poisons our water and destroys the Everglades. It made my day to read this. Thanks.
9
Just as Trump's negative excesses have shown fair witnesses what, by default, a good president should do, so also have his climate changing denials magnified the evident dangers facing Earth.
The question before us is whether this hard-won understanding of the better way forward will be enough to get enlightened voters out in November? Or, will we require a global catastrophe affecting us all to pull together for our own survival?
3
Climate change scientists predicted that hurricanes, droughts, and forest fires would intensify. They have. As Florence is poised to wreak havoc on the east coast, Trump talks of easing restrictions on release of methane, one of the most potent contributors to global warming.
As money from the tax cuts mostly goes to the wealthy and the deficit swells, House Republicans propose more tax cuts.
As wars in Afghanistan and Iraq provided lessons about the ineffectiveness of conventional warfare and cyber security is ever more of a threat, as ISIS and al Qaeda empower individuals to wreak havoc, we massively increase the defense budget.
Why are wages so slow to increase? Why are Social Security and Medicare, affordable health insurance that covers pre-existing conditions, Medicaid, and SNAP targets for reduction or elimination? Why do taxes get cut while our infrastructure needs go unaddressed for another term? Why is the fight against the opoid epidemic so poorly waged?
As Pence talks of space defense, is he aware that children of the rich will need to leave Planet Earth as their wealth cannot shield them from climate change effects and the disruptions that escalate when income inequality soars?
9
I am 44 years old and remember thinking as a grade school student about how our country had a huge debt during the Reagan years. With the exception of a few years during the Clinton administration, our debt has continued to grow and now I see that my generation is unable/unwilling to address the problem. It's hard to live with that knowledge and look at my own kids with a clean conscience. Add climate change on top of that, and the adversity they will face seems insurmountable.
People speak of rich vs poor as the great divide in this nation, but that is not really the issue. The real issue is that our nation is still lead by an older generation that truly does not understand that time is running out on the debt and climate. Our present leaders are the ones who shout the loudest, but their vision for American revolves around greed and is tragically misguided.
As a middle aged man, I am realizing now that time is unforgiving. Yesterday was the time to change the direction of this country, but now will probably still work. However, I fear that tomorrow will probably be too late.
10
@John
We need age limits in our politicians. Urgently. By the time these people rise to the top they are often 60 and then stay in office for 20 more years. Detrimental to our well being. Kick the geezers out. (Even if some of them ware wise, like Bernie)
6
Trump is the gutless anonymous source. He dictated the op-ed to Stephen Miller. Asked Miller to launder it in his vocabulary. Approved it and sent it out for publication.
Why did Trump do this? Trump has a 30 year history of anonymously spread propaganda to brainwash the general public with a false narrative.
6
@John Carter: The man cut his teeth touting himself incognito.
1
This country underwent a right wing coup d'etat in 2016. It was financed by the super-rich ultra-right mega-donors of the Republican Party, aided and abetted by Murdoch's Fox/News propaganda machine, and Russian election interference. Trump is the direct result of this organized collapse of democracy. He is the face of the Republican Party This right wing coup of 2016 based on voter suppression and lies took advantage of American voter apathy: The Trump/GOP low information racists and bigots are actually a minority that cannot stand up to the majority electorate if and when they go to the polls. Get out the vote if there is any hope of ridding our government of corporate fascist and white supremacist elements that call themselves the GOP.
10
"And don’t get me started on the recently signed $716 billion defense budget for the 2019 fiscal year ..."
While I fully agree that the Republican party is engaging in dangerous behaviour, let's keep in mind that only SEVEN Democrat senators voted against this budget. (If it matters, they are Diane Feinstein, Kamala Harris, Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, Kristen Gillibrand, Jeff Merkley, and Ron Wyden).
The Democrat party should be ashamed, and constituents should hold their senators accountable.
7
@John Richardson: The only charges of treason that seem to stick in the US are those pertaining to votes against military budgets and wars.
2
A lot of hysteria...
On Obama's doubling the debt (not the deficit), Friedman's outrage was somnambulent.
As opposed to the pejorative "starving the beast" appellation, there is a moral and humanitarian case to be made for slashing tax rates and regulation to increase the locus of economic activity in the private sector, whereby many more are finding more decent jobs, and then later fixing the entitlements -- with more people doing better and having more disposable income to save to pay their own way.
The difference is between the State vs free markets being the principal engine of human activity.
A lot of climate histrionics here as well; fracking has done a lot to reduce U.S. emissions. (You know, evil fracking.) The Paris Accord, binding on no one but ourselves (given how this country's pols and judges would construe it) is hardly a saving throw.
Climatology as a field has become fetid with "97% talk", i.e. appeal to majority where the ceiling for expertise is actually quite low. There's some warming, humans have an impact on the warming, and actual intelligent C/B public policies are few and far between. Yawn.
The latest Bill Nye types invoke Hurricane Florence the day after telling us imperiously that "Weather is not climate."
And which is it -- is there a Deep State or not? -- the NYT can't seem to keep its story straight...
3
@John Linton: The more money individuals have, the slower it tends to move. Taxation and spending comprise fiscal policy to spur or impede the movement of money as needed to keep the economy going at a steady pace.
2
I believe the op-ed was nothing more than a dog-whistle to any supporter now wavering on Trump - stick with him; he’s a useful idiot; we can control him; we will further our agenda.
9
The current U.S. deficit is $804 billion and our economy is also firing on all cylinders at the same time along with massive tax and deregulation, so only growing at a measly, paltry 4%? Great economy, massive deficit spending and deregulation - how come we are not growing at 8%, or more? And, how come tax revenues stink?
3
@shend, Regulation supports careers in enforcement and compliance. These folks are pariahs to the Trumps of this world, checking for things like too much fertilizer running off of golf courses, and so forth.
4
I have fantasized Mr. Friedman running for president ever since I read From Beirut to Jerusalem. It's not too late!
1
@Robin
And more Middle Eastern wars? That is Mr. Friedman for you. Please read up on his history.
5
"..... a spending hike so dramatic, as defense analyst Lawrence Korb pointed out, that it means since Trump took office under two years ago, “the defense budget will have grown by $133 billion, or 23 percent.” And there’s no major war going on."
Not yet, but soon!
5
This brilliant article , sounding like the prophet Noah's warning of mankind's coming doom, is frightening. It should have been on the front page under a banner headline "Mankind's Survival Threatened. Pray for our children!" Trump , in his idiocy and perverted notion of his own genius, thinks he is making America great but as Friedman's correct metaphor puts it--he is burning the furniture to keep our house temporarily warm. Completely leaving all attempts to slow down climate change while the window is still somewhat open ( he recently allowed increase of methane gas, in addition to all the other carbon additions), he is sinfully responsible for the growing number of horrific and increasingly destructive hurricanes . And so with the environment and the economy. What looks good today may be disastrous tomorrow--like the child who gorges himself on candy while killing his health. Trump is the big baby who does not think too deeply but lives for the moment. And his enabling crew who may be decent but placate their conscience in agreeing to try to control his stupidest impulses, of which there are many, are compliant in the destruction of our environment and economy. Front page, under banner headline--that is where Friedman's article should have been placed; maybe his chief enablers would read it and repent.
5
By remaining anonymous, the writer is able to retain the mantle of "Everyman." If the writer had signed the op-ed, then it would have just been that writer's own opinion.
Friedman is saying that while this is true, the downside of it is that the Republican Everyman is a calculating equivocator willing to express a severe form of moral equivalency: Trump is a boor, we've got him on a short leash, all for the advancement and protection of our rapacious political philosophy. "We got this!"
2
To paraphrase our elegant First Lady...
I "really don't care" who Anonymous is.
Regardless of their motive, it was a brilliant move and provides clear evidence that even his own staff know Trump is not fit for the office of the President.
Best is Trump's raging witch hunt to root out his disloyal "traitor". He just keeps the story in the news longer and longer.
(btw, has kellyanne offered to take a lie detector?)
4
Freidman don't you understand half of the country just don't believe anything you and the rest of the MSM have to say anymore? We are as they say in the hood WOKE
3
"...the U.S. 'may need to take politically painful steps,' such as cutting Social Security benefits and imposing higher taxes on consumers..."
This is by design: put the New Deal on its deathbed. Return to the Gilded Age.
Western democracy is dying from greed.
8
Exactly. Right on target, as usual, Thomas. In contrast to Anonymous' claim, the adults are not in the building. We, the children, the people, are left on our own, while those in elected to be in charge, "the adults," are simply kleptocrats, pillaging what they can while they can, with no thought for tomorrow. It is a very nihilistic time.
6
I like and respect Friedman for his insight but I turn off the hearing aid when the article starts in extremes - devil, amoral, dishonest, disturbed and a jerk. I know he caters to a set market but in order to retain respect and cater to a broader base populous you need to be just a little bit impartial. America voted this "jerk", who is disturbed and a devil, to the presidency. What does that say about America.
Reminds me of a prior President who was defiled, told he was a complete fool, only received about 39% of the popular vote and was called a gorilla by his commanding general. After one of the greatest speeches of all times a Chicago Times writer called the speech shameful, silly and dishwatery.
Either emotionalism, biasedness, dishonesty or elitism are the motives. In any event, they prevent a honest and trustworthy discourse from someone who has some very valid insights that are lost in the soup.
2
@Charles Slane: The US now has too many options to try to ever work down to the right thing to do, which, in the case of an election where illegitimacy would inevitably become an issue, would have been a run-off popular vote contest between the two leading candidates.
2
The Useful Idiot continues to be played by foreign dictators, right wing ideologues, members of the Republican controlled congress, special interests, and virtually anyone who sees the current times as a window of opportunity to get their agenda done.
Whether you are a Republican, Democrat, or Independent, the only way we can stop this madness is by voting Democratic in the mid-terms so that some level of control over this incompetent and immoral administration can be achieved.
4
Christians continue to buy the lie that God would not allow Trump to win the election unless he was the "right" candidate. That is nonsense. God did not pick Trump, fools with an undemocratic agenda to turn the United States into a religious state voter for a moron they thought would be an easy schill for their power grab.
Vote to remove every Republican from office. It is time for this country to bolster teaching of the Constitution and the rights of ALL citizens, and it is time to reject religious absolutism as an American governing principle. Dominionists like Pence have sold their souls to evil in an effort to change the United States into a theocracy.
7
@SWLibrarian: The notion that nature singles out people for better or worse is a delusion unworthy of respect in legislation. It glorifies the lucky and guilt-trips the misfortunate.
3
It seems obvious to me that Trump is focused on only one thing -- himself and what pleases his base. By pushing up the numbers, regardless of the consequences to future generations, he attempts to increase his standing, his policies, and his votes. It is a NOW NOW ME ME attitude which says :The future be damned; I'll be dead anyway. This is the way selfish children, if they had the chance, would govern. It enhances the attitude that Money and Power make Right. Fallen civilizations learned otherwise.
3
Trump can claim credit all he likes but I can't help but feel the stock market is being gamed by the 1%s, building it up to yank the rug out and leave the American 401ks left with the losses. Question is when will they do it? right before the election cuz it's time to give him the boot or are they so greedy they want to keep walking that line until it's too late and Trump's in control of the fall.
My banker called me up yesterday to plead with me to use more of my equity line of credit. Spend it! I'm already using 45% of it. No I said, not until I'm out of debt, plus interest rates on it have gone up 1.5%. He was embarrassed I know to even be calling me so something is up, never in our 20 year relationship has my bank done that.....Maybe things are getting hinky behind the scenes in the financial industry. Higher consumer interest rates will mean less spending. Goodness knows my wages aren't going up to cover it.
4
Since elected we've been hearing about off the record remarks from Republicans in Washington of how bad they think Trump really is despite how they chose their words carefully in public. They know Trump is a train wreck. And...they know climate change is real. And...they know their tax bill is a major mid/long term threat to the economy.
And...they know there will be massive consequences.
What they don't know is exactly when and how such consequences will manifest. A new global depression exacerbated by climate change? Do we really think the G.O.P. would choose an intelligent, negotiated response with humanity's best interests in mind? That's a laughable notion. They'll go for the jugular and instigate the culling their gun toting electorate has been dreaming of.
5
But this is the hallmark of all Trumpian transactions: short term growth based on borrowing, expansion based on whatever is the cheapest, easiest means at hand, and eventual bankruptcy and walking away from the consequences. Trump played this hand when he was in business, and he is playing it now. There has never been, in any of his business deals, a consideration of the long term effects, sustainability or the building of something meant to last. It's always been about getting in and getting out as quickly as possible, maximizing personal profit, and maneuvering to leave somebody else holding the bag.
Trump will continue to run things this way as president, implementing policies that, as Mr Friedman points out, burn the furniture in order to heat the house. This allows him to claim great success with the economy, unemployment, even the work of FEMA in Puerto Rico. In the end, either 2 years or 6 years from now, he will walk away from Washington DC held harmless, probably more wealthy than when he arrived, the political equivalent of filing bankruptcy.
This time it will be us and our children, not vendors and banks, who will be left holding the bag.
8
What is wrong with this article is that is does not take into account the binary aspect of the 2016 election.
If it wasn't Trump, it was Hillary; and Hillary, we were told (by Hillary and Obama), was the embodiment of Obama's policies.
I, a member of the deplorables, am quite happy with what we got, because Hilary and Obama were worse.
While I believe climate change is a serious issue, I do not believe it is the greatest risk we face, certainly not in the short term.
I do not want to throw thousands of coal miners out of work, smiling the whole time.
I do not see every interaction between the police and the public in terms of race.
I do not believe it proper for professional athletes to "take a knee" during the national anthem.
I do not think men should be allowed to go into the girls' bathroom.
I do not think giving $1.8 billion in cash to the Iranians is the way to get them to make nice.
I do not think bashing the Israelis at every opportunity will suddenly make peace break out in the Middle East.
I do not believe that more regulations by definition are a good thing.
I believe "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" is the most egregious lie any politician uttered in the last 50 years.
I am pro-choice and pro-gun-control.
So the choice was not about making a deal with the devil.
It was about making a deal with the devil you know, or making a deal with the devil you don't know.
I took a chance and am quite happy with the result.
4
How is this different than ever? The invasion of Iraq, Reaganomics ? American politically-driven economic policy has been lame since right after JFK. The only difference is Trump's personality.
2
The evil genius of the tax cuts is that most people won't feel pain until the Democrats have some power again. Then they will be faulted for inflicting the pain. Most people I've talked to have no idea how the "cuts" are affecting them, and they won't know until they do their 2018 taxes sometime in 2019.
6
@Anon The bomb goes off next April, when people find their usual refund has evaporated.
Why can't the US rid itself of the child running amok in its powder magazine with a candle? Because Pence is even worse?
4
"Anonymous" hasn't, and won't come forward because they're no one in a true position to have any effect on the current administration's policy decisions. There's is no "resistance" within the WH. There are advisers who discuss, and at times offer dissent to the POTUS' decisions. That's what advisers and Cabinet members are for. Obama always thought he was the smartest guy in the room, and very often disagreed publicly with intelligence and advise he received from the "resistance" within his WH. Why didn't the NYT call him out over it? If you're so confident that the very people who Trump hired to advise him are dead set against him, and his decisions, publish your source. Let the American people decide for themselves!
This "Anonymous" Op-Ed is just another liberal wishful thinking article along the lines of Woodward's latest book. I've yet to see a single person he references as a source own up to their supposed comments. The only "resistance" that exist is the liberals who's candidate lost the election, and the MSM who continue to invent articles with statements sourced from "anonymous sources", and nameless "sources close to the situation".
If you're so confident in your sources, and their messages about the "Downfall of our Republic" then name names.
2
Just imagine how great America would be if we halved the defense budget and used those dollars for public education and alternative energy development.
9
Boy, oh boy! Do I agree with your thoughts - except for this: corporate tax cuts. I have watched this nation shower tax cuts on corporations for generations, and the only thing I've seen happen is this: lots of stock buybacks and an incredible increase in pay for CEOs.
You mention you support those corporate tax cuts and then worry about slashing Social Security, Medicare, and other safety net programs. Why not "slash" corporate tax cuts? Why not favor a more direct way of encouraging growth. Let's make our corporations pay their fair share by simplifying the corporate tax code when we lower the overall rate so that corporations don't have to go through gyrations to pay their "effective tax." Then lets take the money a simplified code would produce and use some of it as grants to encourage new industries, such as clean energy. Take the rest and invest in roads and bridges and the rest of our crumbling infrastructure. We'd be creating more jobs, more income and more tax money to pay down the debt without stealing from the poor and the middle class. Wouldn't that be nice for a change?
9
"Economic growth and employment have clearly been on a tear since Trump took office"
Er, no...
Economic growth and employment have clearly been on a tear since the Obama administration initiated a recovery from the fallout of disastrous oligarchic GOP policies
8
Assuming that these weapons systems are designed to counter cyberattacks. Surely they're not really, really big ships and bombs?
1
The 2016 offered a binary choice. Open borders, student loan forgiveness, free college, universal basic income and free health care was the other choice, with absolutely no plan on how to finance it all, other than to "tax the rich"
3
@Bill
I guess you weren’t paying attention:
Our borders have not been open for decades.
And student loan forgiveness, free college? Some states were/are considering that but no way that would be rolled out across the country.
Universal basic income? Nope, not on the ticket.
Free health care? It has never been free but it could sure use some fixing.
After all, who’s afraid of an open-minded, educated and healthy citizenry?
The US has too many problems to paint the opponent with a big brush, and also to ‘solve’ them with a bull in a china shop.
5
@Bill Hillary never advocated for open borders or universal basic income or even free health care (you pay under Obamacare) and you know it. Get real.
6
When will you people ever understand that tax cuts for the wealthy never pay for themselves and that providing services requires taxes. No free lunches. The corps have been sitting on piles of cash and avoiding taxes for a long time. They are returning money to executives and shareholders, not investing for the future.
5
@libdemtex: Wise economic policy treats taxation and spending as the fundamental driver of the multiplier effect of the whole economy.
"But I would have offset them with a carbon tax, a tax on sugar..."
So Mr Friedman would evade the intent of the 10th Amendment by abusing the power to levy taxes.
Nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the power to use taxation as a means of coercion. Nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the power to dictate the fuels we burn or what we may eat.
The opening sentence of Article I, Section 8, is:
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."
The purpose of taxation to raise revenue to pay the country's debts, not to provide a bludgeon with which to give the federal government unlimited power to compel compliance with otherwise unconstitutional demands made by that government. And don't even try to use the tired old "general welfare" excuse. As James Madison, who wrote Article I, Section 8, put it in The Federalist Nr 41, "...it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases." (Before arguing with me on this point, I suggest you read Federalist 41, at least the last four paragraphs.)
The Constitution either means what it says, including what it says about the limitations of the powers of government, or it doesn't. Mr Friedman apparently thinks it doesn't.
1
@Henry Miller
Mr Friedman is not the best source of wisdom and guidance. The world is not flat, and it was like minded people that got us nafta, china in the wto, and destroyed countless communities all over america
I ignore everything friedman says, or do the opposite.
1
This is where you lost me: "we’re wealthier and more secure as a country." I do not really know anymore what it means to say that we are "wealthy as a country." Much of the United States looks old and worn out compared with other nations, vast swaths of Americans have their livelihoods threatened by the "wonders" of A.I., healthcare costs are out of control. I think say "we" are wealthy means only that the parasitic class represented by the stock market is getting wealthier, that the one percent can afford nice housing and good education. . . is that what is meant by saying "WE" are wealthier?
15
Ask them a much simpler question. Do they care about anyone other than the richest 1%?
3
Trump is simply the newest obstacle that the republican party has allowed to plop into place on the political path our country is traversing.
The republicans are systematically dismantling the strengths of our nation. Strengths mainly built up by the democrats in bi-partisan sessions whenever they were in charge over the last eighty years.
But not today.
Our big navy ships lugging big missiles and attack aircraft are sitting ducks. The armada of missile defense cruisers surrounding them will not protect them.
Our "star wars" air defense missiles can’t hit a high speed ballistic warhead aimed at our population centers.
And don’t worry about losing our coastal cities to military attack.
Flooding caused by global warming will push most of us into the hinterlands. A region where nature will rule with fire and drought and dire weather events.
Dustbowl life, anyone?
Our nation’s opponents spend a fraction of their wealth to develop military counter-forces that place us in jeopardy of losing our position in the global war of nations.
In the same way a global game of chess can be lost if lots of opposing pawns pick off enough rooks and bishops and knights until our military queen and king sit alone and defenseless against pairs of mobile lesser pieces.
It will take a long term voter fix to the White House and to the Congress to repair all the damage the republicans have done to our country.
5
There will only be one name blamed after each and every horrible consequence actually occurs. Twenty guesses who?
2
This should be the platform and rationale for the next, successful democratic candidate for president!!! Well put, Mr. Friedman!!
1
GOP lawmakers and anonymous White House staffers are not the adults in the room. They are children living in a fantasy world, fueled by campaign cash from self-serving plutocrats, and sometimes committing crimes of self-enrichment. The anonymous op-ed was alarming, not reassuring.
3
"What if Trump’s tax cuts, deregulation, scrapping of Obamacare without any alternative and military spending surge were actually ill-thought-through, short-term-focused initiatives that all ignored expert opinion — because they mostly emerged from off-the-cuff remarks at Trump pep rallies — and collectively amount to a sugar high that not only will be unsustainable but will leave our economy far more vulnerable in the long term?"
Nooooo problem, my good man! We start a huge bonfire (a big war, that is) and throw into that all garbage and left-overs from our big Trump fiesta. That should erase all "fingerprints", and allow us to move around so much money that, at the end, no one can trace a penny or will have a clue what happened.
Trump my have no appreciation of history. But Wall Street tycoons certainly have. They have always experts in crime scene "cleaning ups". Paul Manafort is/was just a third-rate operator. It may be educational for many just to look up how many passports and how many foreign accounts he has/had!
2
Hey, Tom. I see no problem here. Why don't you and the rest of those who built today's GOP use the insane defense budget increase to start another war in Iraq. You LOVED that idea in 2003. Your rationale: We must strike someone, ANYONE, hard and fast to showcase America's strength. That morally-bereft call to arms--which leaves us fighting in the Middle East fully 15 years later--showed your judgment to be so bellicose and unhinged that you can't be taken seriously even today.
Trump is giving Republicans what they say they want. So who are you to complain? Hey, Tom, let's nuke Iran. Or maybe you prefer that we blast the Korean Peninsula off the map?
So now the IMF joins the voices of Republican legislators who want to destroy the tiny bit of a safety net that exists in this country. Republicans vote for these legislators, not even bothering to learn that those same legislators want to end Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and more. But, then, the deluge of Republican lies does make it difficult to keep track of all that they're destroying.
3
No blue wave can mitigate the impact of a cynical GOP tax cut that is now a corporate windfall while at the same time architects the conditions that, they hope, will later necessitate civil-society-busting follow on cuts - the "'last coffin nail in the New Deal" deal.
GOP leaders Congress accepted the deeply flawed, dangerous Trump, allowed him to wantonly disregard & shred norms that weaken governance, shredded their own Senate norms with respect to SCOTUS nominations - so bent have they been in o to stack the court and get their tax cuts. They will watch from their armchairs at home as the, at last as the bedrock of our social benefits Social Security, begins to crumble from their handiwork.
A Democratic blue wave will be meeting a tsunami of problems - fixing global alliances, redressing damage to norms and governance, and facing new dangers posed by cyber threats. Mr. Friedman is correct - Anonymous Op-Ed is in plain sight.
1
I chose long ago not to have children for several reasons. I remain happy with that decision for many reasons. Particularly for the horrible circumstances...social, cultural, financial and environmental...that we are leaving for future generations. We should be grossly ashamed of ourselves.
4
Excellent article.
When the Dems take over the government they will be faced with huge problems. Like Obama did after Bush.
The Republicans have figured this out. They squeeze every possible bit of juice out of the economy when they are in power and hand over a sick country to the Democrats.
The Republican party is corrupt and dangerous.
7
republicans wring their hands in anguish over the idea of leaving their children with some man made debt. (If that debt was the result of Democrats.) They care not a fig about leaving their children with an uninhabitable planet.
President Truman campaigned on ridding the Nation of war profiteers. t rump puts war profiteers in his cabinet. The Defense Dept. says Global Warming is one of the most pressing issues regarding national defense. How is preparing our military for WW II going to help there?
I read the piece on refugees before turning to this one (boy there are some mean comments on that one) and it looks like we won't be helping the refugees we are helping to create. The Syrian refugee problem, we should remember, was the direct result of global changes (a very rare and prolonged drought) that the government couldn't cope with.
80% of the world's population live by a coast. When 6 billion people start to move inland it is going to get real dicey.
I saw a cartoon this morn: Weather man on TV says the storm that is approaching is category 5 hurricane and everyone should evacuate. But if you don't trust the media stay put.
If amonymous, anormenous, anyoneofus... whatever... really wants to go some good they could just lock him in his room for the next couple of years.
2
"But what if Trump is actually heating up our economy by burning all the furniture in the house?"
That is the most apt description of Trump administration I have heard so far.
5
How you described other country's approaches to military tactics brings to mind how effective Americans were against the British during our revolution.
2
you still believe in trickle down i see..... otherwise you'd advocate actually doing something for the middle class and workers, not doing something for the corporations and hoping it gets to those that are the roots of the economy. go to an orchard and see what they do...... the farmer waters the roots not the fruit.
7
Can we arrest Trump and his friends for attempted murder of the planet and reckless endangerment of children?
Bruce
Newton, MA
2
If this were not my country I would be laughing. For eight years the country had a president who was extremely intelligent, competent and good at problem solving. They rejected him because of his skin color. For eight years all we heard from Republicans was the word "deficit." Now all we see is incompetence and failure. This is what happens when you put a sociopath in control of a country. We have seen examples of this throughout history. And now it is happening in America.
5
@barbara b I would add that it wasn't just race. Obama did a poor job of "selling" his ideas and accomplishments. Generally speaking, the Democratic party does a poor job of selling.
1
@Syliva
I would add that Democratic-leaning people in general also have enough moral scruples to not deliberately brainwash the ignorant and intolerant, a winning tactic for the Republican party.
Regardless of the Trump/GOP debt bomb, Social Security should never be subject to cuts as it is an earned benefit- not an entitlement- and the Social Security system is a creditor to the US Treasury - not an expense.
Social Security is not paid from general revenue. Every penny was paid in by participants through payroll taxes and that money is to be backed by the full faith and credit of this government. Like an insurance annuity, it was paid in over years.
Someone should tell the Pete Peterson acolytes that Social Security is not a ponzi scheme and is not going broke. The trust fund was set up to pre-fund the surge in payments as the Baby Boomers retired and as a Boomer, I want my money that has been paid in since my first teen job as a cashier back in the day. I will be happy to join a class action lawsuit against any politician who proposes or votes for reneging on the Social Security benefits we have paid for.
5
Awesome column. Only want to add that our children might want to breathe. Our oceans and plankton are in trouble due to climate change. Plankton provide 70% of the world's oxygen, but Republican leaders only attend to the short term money-making ability of their wealthy supporters.
2
Corporations should only be eligible for tax cuts when they start paying their workers a living wage with benefits, including pensions.
6
"When Trump simultaneously cuts corporate taxes and withdraws America from the Paris climate accord, tries to revive the coal industry by lowering pollution standards and weakens fuel economy standards for U.S.-made cars and trucks, he is vastly adding to the financial debts and carbon debts that will burden our children."
Prove it. Prove both assertions. Prove that tax rate reductions will inevitably lead to revenue reductions. Prove that AGW is real.
In point of fact, Mr Friedman can prove neither assertion. The relationship between tax rates and revenue is complex. A reduction of the former is not even close to being linearly related to a reduction of the latter. Sometimes, the relationship is inverse--tax reductions can stimulate the economy, resulting in greater, not less, revenue
And AGW is, at best, an unproven theory. Climate models are far more consistently wrong in their predictions than they are ever, by chance, right.
Assertions are not proofs, and basing public policy on unproven assertions is a truly lousy idea.
2
1. While Malcolm Gladwell's "David and Goliath" demystifies the title’s biblical metaphor, Freedman's piece gives it a modern military face with "swarms of cheap speedboats" (David) overwhelming a slow moving U.S. carrier strike group (Goliath).
2. Despite Bush's promises, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts did not improve economic growth or pay for themselves. They ballooned deficits and debt, increased income inequality and led (along with military spending for two endless wars) to the recession of 2008. Trump's tax cut, which primarily benefits the wealthy, has again ballooned our deficit.
3. The 2003 invasion of Iraq based on false reports about WMD resulted in: the U.S. pulling resources too soon from Afghanistan; and tens of thousands killed/wounded at a cost of more than a trillion dollars that could have been spent at home. Republican Alan Greenspan wrote in 2007, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."
3. The U.S. Department of Defense published a 2014 paper (https://www.acq.osd.mil/eie/downloads/CCARprint_wForward_e.pdf) sounding the alarm about climate change-- a “threat multiplier" that will exacerbate our security challenges including terrorism.
4. Will we never learn? The red flags are waving and the sirens are screaming as our nation under the erratic leadership of Trump and his Republican enablers plunges into yet another self-inflicted security, economic and environmental abyss.
4
Funny how we haven't seen many figures on the National Debt recently. I noted it a couple weeks ago and wondered if Trump really cares for his grandchildren. I also wondered what kind of world we are leaving my 5 Great Grandchildren. It's like Trump - armed to the teeth, surrounded by golden trinkets and a total disregard for anyone else, the air we breath, the water we drink and the mess he is leaving behind.
Does any of this bother Trump? Not at all. He's a man who has lived his life in a golden tower only going outside to ride around from green to green and hit a little white ball. Clearly, he has no regard for the environment, the future economy or the country and people he swore to serve.
If the letter writer(s) were as avid at protecting the country as he, she, it, they claim, they would invoke the 25th Amendment now.
3
I generally like Tommy Friedman because he's honest. He has powerful sources and his ideas are sound.
1
We are currently experiencing the smallest preshocks of climate change as Africans seek refuge in Europe with fairly serious political consequences for western democracies. How will societies deal with the shocks when sea level rise, desertification, and other climate disruptions become much larger? Imagine if we had a government like the one we had during World War 2 that was planning the institutions of the post-war order while the outcome of the war was still far from certain. The task will be daunting and our current government is oblivious.
"Heating up our economy by burning all the furniture..." That's poetry.
Under Trump, the Rs are steadily dismantling everything the country accomplished in the 20th century — a largely benevolent and admired global image, a government based on social justice (again, by and large), workers’ rights, vast public projects, incl. Social Security, putting a man on the moon, interstate highways, etc.; public education, environmental protection and federal lands, progressive taxation, a Supreme Court envied by the world (https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/us/18legal.html, more relevant now than when written), et al — and burying it all under an avalanche of debt to make sure they won’t be rebuilt. It took a guy like Trump, an utterly corrupt narcissistic plutocrat who cares about no one but himself, to be cold-blooded enough to do it.
The Rs know that even if they lose in November, and that's far from certain, they’ll have accomplished more under Richie Rich, the Bad Boy President, than they’ve been able to do in 50 years.
5
We seem a little too eager to buy the administration’s propaganda about how good the economy really is.
Everyone is all excited about last quarter’s 4.2% growth rate, but the previous quarter’s result was 2%. Quarterly growth is very volatile, and last quarter was influenced by business trying to beat new tariffs. We’ll have to see what happens, but all this hoopla around a single quarter—when the previous quarter was much weaker—is just puffery.
As for the stock market, with all the stock buybacks and the artificially inflated earnings from the tax cuts, the current performance shows weakness at best.
And all that’s without a next round of tariffs.
5
GOP Anonymous = Faceless = Spineless. Thanks for crystalizing these arguments so crystal clearly. I think their flawed logic also emerges in "early whispers" among cabinet members about invoking the 25th Amendment, exactly as described in the letter. That again was clearly a large number of cabinet members speaking, not just one. And so... instead of doing their clear constitutional duty to protect the nation from an unstable Commander in Chief, they shrugged and accepted enormous tax cuts instead. And all those ex-generals got militrary budget increases that dwarf the total budgets of most nations. No accident, therefore, that the mega-millionaires in the current cabinet are at truly oligarchic levels. We might as well call it Oligarchs Anonymous and leave it at that.
2
Thanks for this important story!!! We need to mobilize and defeat the Trump plague at the next election. Or better, have him impeached before we are all toast.
1
So Friedman favors big corporate tax cuts, with corresponding tax increases on carbon, sugar that disproportionately hit the middle and working classes. Certainly sounds like a fair trade-off to me!!
3
The answer to Trump is also "hiding in plain sight".
They are "called" our Congressional Leaders, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. But they do nothing.
Daily, we ignore they fail to do their constitutional duty to exercise checks and balances over this presidency. They do nothing.
Ryan and McConnell have full power to STOP the egregious lawlessness by this unfit, mentally disturbed president. Yet they do nothing.
Every headline account of Trump's behavior should be accompanied by the byline, "Yet Ryan and McConnell do nothing."
Ryan and McConnell are as guilty as sin for allowing this mad man to undermine our intelligence agencies, our judicial system, our healthcare system, our international trade alliances and our nation's basic values of honesty,
decency and integrity.
While they DO NOTHING.
6
Anonymous is part of the problem not the solution. Just read Op Ed and see that the policies they want and like are what is wrong with our government.
Travel to any modern democracy in the world and see what can be done if you have a small military, a fair tax code where taxes go toward free education for all, great social services for all and socialized medicine for all plus excellent interstructure. These are the things government which is here to serve it citizens are suppose to do.
Sadly that is not America... Traveling in any modern democracy other than America citizens at least get a return on their taxes. Americans see the haves reap more and more benefits while the once strong middle class is falling into poverty. Soon America will only have two classes the rich or poor unless we push back. I know I am planning on pushing back are you ?
4
After years of hearing GOP members of Congress wring their hands over the scandalous national debt we're handing to our grandkids, they now seem to have thrown caution to the winds. They will now turn their fiscal piety to cutting social security and Medicare.
I immediately thought, as well, that the letter was written either my a group or by a representative of a group. The GOP using Trump for political advantage. Indeed, the last three GOP presidents have all been stooges. And it again shows how much of a liar the GOP is. There have been talking heads and Senators crying out that the cabal of Trump managers were usurping the will of the people, the voters. But the GOP has always been doing that. Lying to the people, hood-winking them, to get what they want for the patricians.
2
We're faced with crushing debt but yeah, hey let's give BIG corporate tax cuts. Get out of here.
3
My sentiments follow Mr. Friedman , but stop at this problematic sentence; "I favor corporate tax cuts — big ones." He favors using corporations' pledges of growth to remedy the social pathologies they started ! Ridiculous ! He would give the keys to the chicken coop to the foxes !
2
This is a great article.
Not to mention that this growth was already set in motion and would have happened regardless of the tax cuts and deregulation. Drumpf has achieved nothing but a legacy of destroying common sense public safe guards.
But I differ on a central argument in the article - a carbon tax replacing the tax cut that happened would not have decreased emissions whatsoever, if that cost was already part of the cost of doing business that the tax replaced.
Carbon taxes, while I support, are not likely to affect carbon emissions: they are always proposed too low to be more than simply absorbed as a cost of doing business to the companies. It would not reduce their output - they make far too much profit per unit of carbon. This is also true of cap and trade - the caps are set to low. Here in California, our refinery emissions have actually gone UP since cap and trade. There will never be political will to set the tax or cap high enough to lower emissions. Perhaps if a sales tax on goods could actually change consumer behavior meaningfully and incredibly quickly at a global scale. But it would have to be a global tax, because otherwise the companies will always find a foreign buyer at the profit margin the want.
This is the essential flaw to this reasoning, but we need a heck of a lot of options so I would of course vote for a carbon tax, but the faster we can get back sensible emission controls the better.
2
The 'tear' the economy is on is equivalent to pulling an all-nighter to study for finals... You may get the grade but there will be a steep price to pay. This is the case for pretty much any situation where you are willing to sacrifice sanity (or values, morality, law, etc) to accomplish your goals. You need to be able to justify the means to the end. If his goals were shared goals, there may even been an argument for it but as we can plainly see the nation is deeply divided on the goals of this administration. And it should come as no surprise that we're divided because the GOP and Trump were willing to sacrifice any kind of popular unity to pave an extremist road into power.
4
Phillip II of Spain had a heavy Armada and was defeated by Elizabeth's smaller nimble English ships. Totally. A lesson in history. Bigger does not make better. The Iranian and the Chinese are following the English model. The US is following Spain's model.
I believe we can forecast the outcome right now.
4
This is a great article.
Not to mention that this growth was already set in motion and would have happened regardless of the tax cuts and deregulation. Drumpf has achieved nothing but a legacy of destroying common sense public safe guards.
But I differ on a central argument in the article - a carbon tax replacing the tax cut that happened would not have decreased emissions whatsoever, if that cost was already part of the cost of doing business that the tax replaced.
Even when they are new taxes, these proposed carbon taxes by citizens lobby, while I support, would have zero effect on carbon emissions: they are always proposed too low to be more than simply absorbed as a cost of doing business to the companies relative to the per unit of carbon profit they make. There will never be political will to set the tax high enough to lower emissions. The only possible way is a sales tax on goods that could actually change consumer behavior meaningfully and incredibly quickly at a global scale. Global tax, because otherwise the companies will always find a foreign buyer at the profit margin the want. The tax will do nothing but raise money, and raising money will not solve the carbon problem - you have to cut emissions. This is the essential flaw to this reasoning, but we need a heck of a lot of options so I would of course vote for a carbon tax, but the faster we can get back sensible emission controls the better.
This is one of the stages of grief. "Oh, I'm all for this, the good stuff, but I'd have done x, y & z because bla, bla, bla." Translation: "even though the economic boom is wholly connected to the undoing of Obama's policies, which I supported at the time, I now feel compelled to offer some semblance of argument against the economic success via any means necessary."
This, coupled with equating the pain of economic failure that Americans endured under destructive Democrat policies to a life of annoying tweets, as if people's standard of living should be sacrificed for a better social media life?
The most moral government is the one that serves the lives of the people, all the people, over that of itself or its ideology. Are more people happier with the direction of the "country" now, or at any time under Obama.
In 2017, the poll of the direction of the country, Trump scored a low of 37%, high of 43%, currently 42%.
Under Obama, via Rasmussen from December 2010 to his end of term. Low of 15% in Octobemr of 2011, with a high of 43% in October 2012, which included only 5 weeks in the 40 percentile during all of his presidency. Coincidence at time of his re-election.
Trump has already had 35 weeks over 40 percentile approving the direction of the country.
1
Excellent analysis-thanks for that.
Let us all hope that Kavanaugh does not get into the Supreme Court when the votes are cast-the prospect of him receiving a perennial "Get Out Of Jail Free" card from GOP Central is just too frightening to contemplate.
1
I have honestly "hated" republicans since Reagan with their lies and magical thinking.
4
On the day before, news focused on the damage Woodward's new book would do to Trump. The next day, NYT published an anonymous op-ed written by a national stalwart inside the White House which blocked out the news-day Sun. Woodward and those before him in their books (referred to as "bad" books by the POTUS), all make the claim that Mr. Trump is missing a number of cards in his deck, meaning he is just unhinged most days. Nevertheless, the op-ed reassures us the important work,- making the rich richer, degrading the environment, stacking the Supreme Court, bloating military budgets, spending forthcoming $T deficits, and so forth,- is getting done because of their hard work. Unlike Trump and his likeminded followers, the "adults in the room" know how to ensure the safety, security, and prosperity of America. We are lucky to have such public spirited adults working the levers behind the wizard's curtain. My guess is the anonymous author is Bill Shine.
3
The idea of "unleashing" corporate investment by lowering corporate taxes seems to ignore that fact that corporations have been sitting on mountains of cash (more that $1 trillion) for many years now and haven't done any new investing. They have used their tax breaks to buy up their own stock making their managers richer but creating no new jobs.
We need to raise taxes on corporations and the rich, not rob Social Security and Medicare to pay for tax cuts corporations and the rich don't need.
Ideally, rising wages would have fueled our consumer-based economy, but businesses have kept wages flat for 30 years. Now, the only way to put money to work in the economy is by having the government tax it and spend it. Having it swirl around in the stock market makes the ultra-rich richer, but it doesn't create jobs or real world investment.
10
Many Democrats would have supported rational corporate tax cuts that most likely would have had all corporations pay a 21% tax rate (which was the average corporate tax rate before Trump’s “reform”). However this would have been close to revenue neutral and achieved by cutting the tax rate AND tax deductions such as the depletion allowance.
The author is correct, the United States will emerge much weaker after Trump. Making 1% richer by bleeding 90% will always have that result.
7
What Donald Trump fails to realize is that it's not really important WHO wrote the anonymous Op-Ed piece, it's WHY they wrote it -- and the fact that it has revealed something that is, and has been obvious to many of us for a rather long time.
That Donald Trump is a petty, vindictive, and abusive bully who is not temperamentally fit to hold this office is a well established fact by now. So in that sense nothing in the contents is new.
In fact, there are few things that he and the Republican party he has usurped can claim to be beneficial to anyone other than themselves and their corporate and wealthy elite friends.
The real problem here is that the depth of this depravity has now been exposed from within, and there's no turning back now.
Of course this "Whodunit?" makes a great and much needed distraction from the real problems plaguing this president in light of the confessions and indictments of those who once stood closest to him, and the ongoing Mueller investigation.
As for the identity of that senior administration official who penned this piece...
I am Spartacus.
5
When I read the anonymous letter to the Times I was appalled that it was nothing more than an apologia for the Republican Party agenda. The insidious message was clearly--for those who still read, as opposed to decode--we've got a mad man on our hands, but look at what we have accomplished under his auspices--or under his radar--while he distracts you fools.
Finally, Mr. Friedman, whom we can still count among those who really comprehend what they read, has called it for what it is: A defense of the Republican dismantling of the government under the guise of don't be concerned about the president's immorality, we are decent and moral and we will continue to do exactly what he and we wish: to eliminate all social programs, arm the citizenry, corrupt the Supreme Court, wrest power from the people, and place it in the care of the richest in the nation.
11
"cutting Social Security benefits and imposing higher taxes on consumers." That's not a defect, that's a GOP feature
3
I dislike the Trump deficit as much as the Obama deficit.
And this deficit is large and growing even when the Federal Govt is collecting record taxes.
What does that tell you?
The problem is SPENDING. Yes, we need to cut not just military spending, but all spending.
Excess federal spending now robs our kids later. Get federal spending back down to 10% of GDP to have make a more free and prosperous USA.
1
I don't get the "what if" part. We know from repeated experience that conservative economic policies lead to spectacular busts, the consequences of which only the perpetrators have the power to avoid. They *are* burning down the house, and they'll use the power of the government they own to make us pay to build them a new one.
3
Unfit to be President?
It's reminiscent of the attacks on Jesse Jackson, questioning whether he was qualified to be President.
His response was that he was more than 35 years old, and was born in the USA, therefore he was qualified. Equally valid for Trump.
There's another election coming in 2020. Mr. Friedman's vitriol would be better invested in running for President himself.
1
Anonymous reminds us, the public, of one sure truth: that there is a concerted effort to get rid of Trump.
For those who elevate Jefferson as the end-all, be-all of morality and civility, let's not forget his Indian Removal programs. He represented the educated elite of his day in America.
Many don't get it why many voted against Hillary and Obama policies. They forget that for many, yes even educated Americans, separating children from their mothers in the womb -- and we have now reached a critical mass -- may need to be questioned as much as separating children from their parents at the border. Note, I did not say totally outlawed, but questioned.
Me thinks many need to take the blind spots out of their own fields of visions before acting totally baffled, if not outraged, about the so-called immorality in others.
As someone who is pro choice I agree with you about the abortion issue. It is not criminals but shout be legal, safe, rare, and free of forced religious input. The best way to do that is to enhance the hope of the younger generation that they will be able to support themselves, see a safe society, and do financial planning. I’d like to see the Democratic candidate for President or the Congress propose a White House department to limit the amount of abortions without criminalizing it, threatening mothers, and have a limit of 24 weeks. It will need to cover contraceptives and support young parents. It will be more difficult than making it illegal but democracy is not for the timid. If you really thinks it’s loss of life put in the effort to address the issues
@courtney T.
". . . separating children from their mothers in the womb . . . may need to be questioned as much as separating children from their parents at the border."
It should not be "questioned" because it is a personal medical decision that none of your or anybody else's business. The only people who should be concerned with this decision are the patient and the doctor. The separation of children at the border is being questioned because it is current public policy that is paid for by taxpayers. And before anybody goes there: Abortion is not paid for by taxpayers - the Hyde Amendment took care of that issue in 1976. Regardless of the current political and cultural climate, facts still matter.
4
The GOP crowd who claim to be slavishly devoted to the Constitution are a bunch of hypocrites who backed Trump as a way to get into the White House and push forward an extreme rightwing agenda while Trump was the lightening rod and comedy act to distract everyone. There were a number of Republican candidates that competed with Trump and not one of them was able to gain any traction.
Now that they are done dismantling all the years of protections for us citizens, they are setting up to toss Trump overboard. I assume that Anonymous and his/her ilk assumed that the Democrats and others against Trump would be thrilled about how he/she is keeping us safe from Trump's more crazy actions. Nope, we are the people that actually respect the Constitution. If Anonymous thinks Trump is a danger to the nation, she/he should do the correct thing and proceed towards implementing the 25th Amendment.
6
The myth of Mussolini was that he was tolerated because in spite of being a brutal and tyrannical dictator, despite the fact that he destroyed human freedom in Italy and murdered and tortured citizens whose only crime was to oppose him, he ‘made the trains run on time.’
But, in fact, it was a myth and was spread as fascist propaganda. The Italian railway system had fallen into disrepair during World War I, and it did improve during the 1920's, but Mussolini was disingenuous in taking credit for the changes: much of the repair work had been performed before the fascists came to power in 1922. And, reports of those who actually lived in Italy at the time show that the Italian railway was no more timely after Mussolini than before him.
The devil's bargain the Republicans have made with Trump could be called the "Mussolini Effect." It's more based on hope and myth-building than reality. Friedman may be right, but only history will tell if the bargain was worth it.
3
This is much too polite on the subject of the economy. The Republicans held the country hostage for six years—blocking any of the stimulus we now see (as well as social programs or public works)—in order to sow dissatisfaction for the election and deliver the massive tax cuts for their ultra-rich donors. Trump’s populism was a very convenient front—which is essentially the argument of the OpEd writer!
The stimulus at this point is not only late but dangerous. It’s massive and going straight into the stock market via artificially inflated earnings and stock buybacks. The dishonesty of the whole affair makes you want to scream.
6
As a Military Officer, now long retired, I took an oath to protect our Constitution and Nation. Our worst and most lethal enemies are now within our border, who’s primary motivation seems to be extreme greed and the misguided notion to create a repressive far right fundamentalist theocracy based on Bronze Age mythology. What are my options in a Nation where barely half of the people take the trouble to vote, and in some places, are restricted from voting. Should I support a coup?
6
"Lastly, ask them if they have kids — and how they think all these Trumpian policies that they like, even if they don’t like Trump, will serve the next generation."
This one, Tom, you don't need to ask.
*Their* next generation and several generations after that, will be served very well indeed by their policies. They will live wonderfully, thank you, on billions of tax sheltered dollars stashed away in overseas havens. And all because of the hard work of these fine legislators, who toil each day to raise vast sums from lobbyists for the polluting industries and financial criminals they "regulate".
In the bad old days, Americans used to call such behavior 'bribery' and 'corruption'. But that was so then. For decades now, your Congress and Supreme Court have been busy getting rid of those nasty, old fashioned labels. Now, these transfers of dark money are just expressions of "free speech" by the handful of folks who own America.
Which is just how it should be. No one should complain, least of all the majority. After all, a moral nation must live by the Golden Rule: "He who has the gold gets to make the rules."
5
@Shailendra Jha
Many people said the Supreme Court was wrong to declare money speech in their Citizens United ruling. I believe that they may have never been more correct. In Washington, money is the only speech that really matters, and the ones who have the most money are the only ones who get to speak. If you have no money, then you have no voice, and no one in Washington will listen to anything you have to say.
2
Mr. Friedman, I love your columns. But you as well as other commentators always leave out a segment of the global population who has no voice: wildlife and animals in general. What is happening to them as human imperialism wrecks Armageddon havoc on the environment? What we are doing to the environment will not only come back to bite (and kill) us, but it certainly will do that to those sentient beings who had nothing at all to do with this disaster. Why is it that we humans always leave them out of the story?
I do not know who said it, but a society that cares for its animals is a society that cares for everyone and the planet - right? Soon the Anonymous-GOP, too, will have nothing more to hunt, nothing more to ride or round-up and nothing more to own that is alive. Sad.
2
The morning after the election, I went to my gym, where most clients are between 45 and 75, male and Republican. Several took one look at my face and immediately assured me that the "adults in the room"--the GOP establishment--would control Trump's impulses. Having just watched Mitch McConnell steal a SCOTUS seat from Obama, not even giving Merrick Garland the courtesy of meet-and-greets and a fair hearing--and witnessed the Republicans struggling unsuccessfully to overturn, and failing that, undermine the ACA, that was cold comfort.
And it was totally false. Rather than controlling Trump's worst impulses, the GOP enabled him to become president and launch repeated attacks on such American strengths as our Department of Justice and our intelligence community. While his minders are stealing the occasional paper from his desk, Trump is starting silly trade wars, toadying to Putin and Kim Jung Un, allowing his Attorney General to kidnap children from people coming to our borders seeking asylum because their lives are in danger, undermining environmental regulations we badly need and taking no action to mitigate climate change, and allowing Betsy De Vos to try to sell both lower and higher-level educational systems to for profit vendors whose major motivation isn't education but money.
So much for the adults in the room. I pray Democrats take control of both the house and the Senate in November.
538
@Katz Mitch Mcconnell made the SCOTUS seat an election issue. The Republican candidate won. END OF STORY
You CANNOT argue that Democrat's would not have done the exact same if a lame duck GOP President made the nomination.
And regarding the ACA, it is unconstitutional (I don't care what 9 un-elected judges say). If you disagree, please show me in the US Constitution where the FEDERAL Government is specifically given the power to run/mandate healthcare.
I could make the same argument regarding the Department of Education. Show me where in the US Constitution the FEDERAL Government is specifically given powers to meddle in education.
I don't like tariffs either, then again the "status quo" on trade is unacceptable to many Americans. What is your idea to even the playing field on trade?
Trump is toadying to Putin.. do you remember Obama mocking Mitt Romney about Russia being our # 1 geopolitical threat? What about Obama's hot mic incident ? What about the last Democrat administration approving the Uranium One deal ? When exactly did Democrats become so concerned with Russia ? Oh yea, and what about Ted Kennedy's collusion with Russia in the 1980's (documented and verifiable). Where were the Democrats and cries of treason?
Same for NK.. Obama didn't do squat for 8 years and suddenly "Trump's too soft on Kim." You are funny!
You Democrats have short memories... and historical precedent means nothing.
Key word --> HYPOCRISY
@Katz, Every day Trump pushes the envelope further, while the entire Republican delegation to Congress gapes in a stupor. They all seem to be as fake as Trump himself.
Any day now they will confirm Trump's latest boob to the Supreme Court, to elevate insincerely held beliefs above establishments of science, and merge church and state.
1
@Katz: Thank you for your comment which reflects my thoughts but expressed much better than I could.
In the not so old days we had company towns where the boss gave you just enough to buy a little food and made it almost impossible to move on without huge consequences and suffering. The corporate oligarchs had total control of this system. Now we have a company company that spreads from sea to shining sea and the same rules apply, maybe just enough food to survive, housing that puts you in debt and health care for the rich. and soon the elderly will just be required to die as they no longer fit into the corporate economy. The dignity and worth of the lives of everyone? Forget it.
6
On a side note to an otherwise excellent article: I agree, Mr. Thomas, with your suggestions on what regulations would have benefits, except for one. You propose a tax on sugar to curb diabetes. Sugar is not a health food, and a tax would be good public policy. But please also be aware that in 2015, the World Health Organization found processed and red meat to be carcinogens, and research (Adventist Health Study-2) has shown that those who consume more animal products have higher rates of diabetes than those who eat less or none at all. Tax sugar AND animal products (and end the subsidies that make these products so cheap). Continuing to link only sugar with the epidemic of diabetes is misleading to the public and to policy makers.
2
"Economic growth and employment have clearly been on a tear since Trump took office." Employment has followed the same positive trajectory as the last four Obama years as had the stock market. There has been a single quarter of strong GDP growth which is encouraging but can hardly be called a trend unless other strong quarters follow. Some economist question if that will happen. It is quite clear that this increase in GDP growth is coupled to a huge increase in the deficit. So I think that Mr. Friedman needs to be more careful with his words and his analysis.
2
@Quinn
I am very afraid of Trump, but I think we should give him some credit to energizing political DEBATE.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Before Trump, politics had become aloof and detached.
Now, because of Trump's domination and fear, political engagement is being forced upon us. Interest in the mid-term elections has greatly increased.
FDR said, that "the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.
Now, Trump is showing us, that some fear is necessary to wake the nation us, and to get us involved in debate...
@Quinn: There was also panic buying ahead of announced tariffs.
@Harry Pearle: I consent to be governed to reduce fear and uncertainty in my life.
Friedman writes: What if Trump’s tax cuts, deregulation, scrapping of Obamacare without any alternative and military spending surge were actually ill-thought-through, short-term-focused initiatives that all ignored expert opinion — because they mostly emerged from off-the-cuff remarks at Trump pep rallies — and collectively amount to a sugar high that not only will be unsustainable but will leave our economy far more vulnerable in the long term?"
Do you seriously have to ask?
7
I believe that all the republicans who have chosen not to run again or who have announced retirement should be forbidden to vote or put forward anymore actions that affect the citizens of the US. Ryan is proposing more tax cuts he wants pushed through before the end of December. That is wrong. He should not be allowed to do that. That is truly hurting the American people...really more tax cuts for the wealthy. The little guy on the minimum wage pay scale will be paying all the taxes that will support Ryan's retirement. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong...Vote them out...Lock them up.
3
@Nostradamus Said So: These are the very same despicable little men who stood in denial of President Obama's Supreme Court Nominee because the end of his term was imminent.
The US would be better off if it erased everything these awful little people have saddled us with.
3
So we cut taxes on the wealthy, increase defense spending to protect their greater wealth, cut social security and medicare so the poor, whose children defend the wealthy, are poorer, borrow enormous sums in good times, knowing we cannot pay the debt if there is a downturn, and this is a policy the resistance uses to justify keeping a President in power who in unqualified and bankrupts or corrupts everything he touches. The resistance may be worse than two more years of this President.
3
Mr. Friedman,
The United States has the economic muscle to lead the world out of the fossil fuel trap -- but we are failing to do that, thanks in part to the current "administration."
The United States has the economic muscle to rebuild and renew our infrastructure in roads, bridges, railroads, airports, seaports, schools, colleges, hospitals, libraries, and all public institutions. But we are not doing it; other countries are in the fast lane on this and passing us by.
Other countries have child care, education, and health care infrastructure of sufficient strength to mitigate the effects of poverty and familial stressors on children of all economic quintiles. But not in America. The ACES (adverse childhood experiences study) report on 17,000 American adults in which their life histories *and* their actual medical records concludes that the risks of many poor health outcomes are linked to childhood abuse, neglect, and trauma. The question, "Why are we not pouring money into the protection, care, and education of our children, particularly the youngest?" is one that goes beyond sugar, obesity, diabetes, and a host of other illnesses and asks why aren't we all in on this?
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/index.html
5
Nonsense.
Unlike the cowering white boys and girls in Michael Wolf's "Fire and Fury" and Bob Woodward's "Fear" and the NYT "Anonymous" Op-ed piece, Omarosa Manigault Newman is carefully, cleverly, coforfully, cynically and openly taking down Donald John Trump in her aptly named time "Unhinged".
Unlike the foes of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, no Trump enemy has ever ended up in hosptal, mental institution, prison, urn or coffin from a Trump tweet or speech,
@Blackmamba
Why hasn't Ben Carson exposed Trump?
It's impossible to take Manigault Newman's motives as altruistic, even while believing her words. She's very much like Donald Trump. Everything she does is to promote and elevate herself, even if it means switching alliances in a heartbeat.
@Blackmamba
If Kavanaugh gets into the Supreme Court, that last sentence of yours could yet prove to be in error.
"ask them how they think all these Trumpian policies".
Don't forget to ask about John Bolton's foot in the mouth disease. Every time he opens his mouth he converts best American friends in to adversaries, by his reckless pontification about American exceptionalism!
With people like Bolton around Americans do not need any enemies.
He is the best recruiting assistant to ISIS and Al-Qaida!!
3
Hard to believe that both the FBI and NSA haven't got the fellow and his cohorts--to include NYT Editorial Board members--on their "watch list"--though it could have been written by Penelope Ashe, which is more likely.
Superb analysis; scary though... just when I thought I’ll get a break from the US politics while enjoying the warm Parisian sun....Aaah, should not have read NYT
1
‘We the people...’ is anonymous, did anonymous frame the costiution;-)
Maybe an advance surrender is called for. Maybe, we tell China that we're stupid and cannot do future planning and we're done. Come and get it. You can have everything South of the Mason-Dixon line mostly because they need reeducation and political alignment regarding the fact that they lost the war. AND, that racism is not a good norm and that another generation of children ignorant to facts are wrongheaded and stupid. Come and have the South where they already eat pigs feet.
2
they are all full of it. each and everypone. and they will be the frst to jump ship like the rats they are as it starts sinking. each and every coward.
3
Trump is the Republican's useful idiot. He gets to be the center of attention while the White House staff works with McConnell to bankrupt us. Hopefully Americans will take off their blinders before it's too late.
1
Kids don't vote...
Tell that to the Parkland FL high school kids.
1
They are all "Anonymous"-every stinking, single one of them. Every one with an "R" designation who doesn't speak out against the megalomaniac in the White House is either anonymous, a coward or a criminal. Some are all three.
9
Theory:
Win Midterm Elections.
Protect Legislation Objectives.
Reveal/Constrain Trump.
Possible Road to Success:
Possible Grand Scheme of GOP governance.
"All we have to do is replace Obama. ... We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. ... We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don't need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate. [...]"
- Grover Norquist.
"Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared."
- Grover Norquist.
Grover et al may have found their useful idiot with useful "working digits".
The corrupt leaders will cut taxes and move to disable Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
Will the GOP throw Trump under the bus after he locks in the overall GOP legislative agenda.
When he is no longer needed the GOP could stand idly by when impeachment kicks in - a happy thought but the damage will have been done.
Is Trump merely a tool and a fool. (As well as Putin's Poodle.)
The election was hacked by exactly what entity .... and for what exact purpose.
4
Bravo!
Webster's definition of my answer to all the noise, opinions, and words.
Definition of vote
voted; voting
intransitive verb
1 : to express one's views in response to a poll; especially : to exercise a political franchise
2 : to express an opinion
consumers … vote with their dollars —Lucia Mouat
transitive verb
1 : to choose, endorse, decide the disposition of, defeat, or authorize by vote he was voted out of office
2 a : to adjudge by general agreement : declare
b : to offer as a suggestion : propose I vote we all go home
3 a : to cause to vote in a given way
b : to cause to be cast for or against a proposal
4 : to vote in accordance with or in the interest of vote your conscience voted their pocketbooks
— vote with one's feet
: to express one's disapproval or dissatisfaction by leaving
1
It's time to prepare the bomb shelter and start
storing the dried beans. The bill will be coming
for Hurricane Florence damage.
No major war going on?
1
EASY to find...wears a red baseball cap.
1
Amen. Now please bow your heads and let us say a prayer for the United States and for the world that our children and their children will inherit. Mercy, mercy.
3
Tom Freedman, What about the upside of Trump?
------------------------------------------------------------
He woken up the nation to the importance of political involvement.
FDR said, "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.
Don't get me wrong. I wish Trump would disappear, now.
But he should be given some credit for using fear to wake us up.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the nation became too insulated from the political process and the real problems we have as a nation, and as a people.
I hope it is time to more on, and I hope Democrats win the House.
=================================================
Well said.
Does any rational person think that we can sustain this economy with the following excesses?
By the first quarter of 2018, consumer debt was at an all-time high of $13.2 trillion.
Student loans are now the second-largest category of household debt in America, topping $1.4 trillion (176 percent increase in student loan debt in the decade through 2017).
The federal government’s annual budget deficit is set to widen significantly in the next few years, and is expected to top $1 trillion in 2020 despite healthy economic growth (Congressional Budget Office).
The national debt, which has exceeded $21 trillion, will soar to more than $33 trillion in 2028 (Congressional Budget Office). By then, debt held by the public will almost match the size of the nation’s economy, reaching 96 percent of gross domestic product, a higher level than any point since just after World War II and well past the level that economists say could court a crisis.
Adjusted net pension liabilities for the 50 states spiked in fiscal year 2017, increasing to $1.6 trillion (Moody's Investors Service).
The outstanding debt issued by states, local government, and special districts as of 2017 was estimated at $1.89 trillion.
Will our grand children and grandchildren pay dearly for the reckless and imprudent management of our economy by an elite lacking integrity, honor, wisdom, decency, and imagination?
5
They are a bunch of old white men. They don't care about anything but themselves. And the rank and file are too indoctrinated to even question what they are being told.
We've got an illiterate electorate run by a bunch of craven old white men.
Good luck getting rid of that.
And by the way, corporations should be on the ground with a boot at their throat gasping for air. They've done nothing but erode the power of the American workforce with greed and mismanagement.
3
Not a single child of an 'anonymous' congressman will experience the brutal fallout of these idiotic trump policies. Privilege will shield them, class will insulate the worst of it.
History will repeat itself, as some smugly selfish, rich, brat child of a US congressman will want to emulate this beastly POTUS, and restart a hateful clock at some point in our country's rocky future.
The kids are watching alright, emulating their complicit parents while they fan the flames of democratic illusion, and master self delusion and then proudly pass it down, like the family bible..
3
Friedman wonders "if the disgruntled senior Trump administration official who wrote the anonymous Op-Ed in The Times was actually representing a group "
He should first make sure the anonymous author was really a senior Trump official. We don't who really wrote that Op-Ed. We don't know if whomever it was simply made it all up. Why don't we know? We don't know because the NY Times acted unprofessionally and against the interests of the public by concealing the author's identity. Thus concealed, the author's integrity and general veracity cannot be discovered.
Information like that alleged in the Op-Ed is extremely valuable to the public.....but only if it is true and not some concoction of fiction deceitfully presented as truth. By concealing the author's identity, the Times merely presented an unreliable, unverifiable, partisan hit piece. Whereas it would have been a valuable insight into the Trump White House if the author had been identified.
Remember the last time there was a sugar high fueled by a Republican "stimulus" - big tax cuts, deregulation and defense spending - nothing short of a total financial crisis....
3
sugar taxes don't work and disproportionately hurt the poor. carbon taxes don't work and raise the price of all goods: wanna work on climate change? invest in government funded r&d on green technology, then sell the copyright. oh, and lowering rate raises revenue. i.e. the laffer curve. just a few points. perhaps your readers should here them more often.
Why chearlead for big corp tax cuts? We already had massive legal and illegal tax avoidance and very little enforcement thanks to Republican decimation of the IRS enforcement corp. And crazy toxic deregulation is stupid too, as is the massive boondoggle in military spending when Chump is giving up the fight in Syria to Russian domination.We have to remove him ASAP, then install competent (meaning Democratic unified government in 2020 to avoid another George W. Bush style economic meltdown, just when housing prices have almost recaptured their values from a decade ago. Rethuglicons are stupid, drunken sailors incapable of practical government. because their radical Libertarian ideology doesn't even believe it's either possible nor desirable. Bill Clinton created 20 million jobs and balanced the federal budget by using math. What a concept!
6
It's the age of the Tammy Wynette Republcans
Stand By Your Man
Sometimes it's hard to be a (Republican)
Giving all your love to just one man.
You'll have bad times
And he'll have good times,
Doin' things that you don't understand
But if you love him you'll forgive him,
Even though he's hard to understand
And if you love him oh be proud of him,
'Cause after all he's just a man
Stand by your man,
Give him two arms to cling to,
And something warm to come to
Stand by your man,
And show the world you love him
Let’s be clear, the Republican passed tax reform, actually jammed it through Congress and subsequently had it signed by the ‘useful idiot’ who occupies the White House, and it needs to literally hang around their neck. Democrats need to miss no opportunity to say to those who fashioned themselves as deficit scolds that their action, non-expiring tax cuts for the 1% have the GOP poised to set a record deficit in terms of government spending. The other issue in which the Democrats need to focus voters’ attention is that it is not by chance but by design the that new GOP budget seeks to reduce the deficit by cutting what they consider ‘entitlement’ spending, Social Security and Medicaid.
Just as aside, having paid into these programs my entire working life, I do not consider these ‘entitlements’ - get on message Dems.
4
This is what happens when we elect leadersip with the brawn and short sightedness of a boar. No brains no, no discernment, no vision.
As always, an excellent opinion piece, Mr. Friedman!
6
So nice to know what you would do if you were in power.... but you aren’t so you don’t really know, do you? Trump is the first president to keep his campaign promises.
1
@Princess Leia. Were these promises really in the best interests of America?
1
Punctuation and grammar matter.
The classic example is the hilarious T-shirt with two versions of the same words:
Let's eat Grandma!
-and-
Let's eat, Grandma!
This week we have the new Bob Woodward book which is often cited as:
Fear: Trump in the White House
This formulation has both "Fear" and "Trump" as subjects. But there is another possibility. Neither the book jacket nor the title page have a colon in which case "Trump" might just as easily be viewed as the object of the sentence with "Fear" as a verb, giving us:
Fear Trump in the White House
So, is Bob Woodward just a chronicler of history like William Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich or is he a Cassandra, warning us of possible events to come?
Punctuation and grammar matter.
2
1 Trillion Dollar Deficit by Fiscal Year End !
Hooray for Republicans !!
1
If you want to improve the country for the vast majority of your fellow citizens, there are two choices: vote Democratic for the next 20 years, or, stock up on pitchforks, rakes, and torches for the next 10.
8
you stole my suggestion that it was an Agatha Christie "they all did it" scenario. I said that a week ago to anyone who would listen. (wife, dog).
1
The GOP has always been a 'now' group. They have no concern about what horrors occur past the present and near future. Selfishness and greed are the keynote of their creed. Let's make a buck today and let some future dolts worry about the ramifications of climate change or failed fiscal responsibility.
The Republicans in power periodically unleash capitalism without real restraints. The results is always the same: greed induced failures, bailouts, and a mess left for the Dems to clean up. They don't govern---they pillage. In the name of 'free markets' they encourage the worst traits of human nature to flourish, creating a sordid 'gimme' culture.
Not to worry. The government will always bailout the corporate elite. After all, they are 'too big to fail'.
3
Sorry Mr. Friedman but greed does not have a nice side, a Mr. Hyde. You get what you get. There is no such thing as no baggage.
Anonymous is trying to absolve the Republican Party of Donald Trump. This is like trying to separate the tree from the apple.
1
Regarding the military budget: Who is David, who is Goliath?
Taxes are the investment we make to ensure that our nation is strong. The tax theft (Misnamed a "reform". It's a deformation.) these criminally minded individuals in our White House and Congress executed last year weakens every aspect of our existence. They think and behave like the mafia.
2
The anonymous op-ed got one thing wrong that the above essay repeats. Trump is not amoral, he is immoral, an evil presence in the White House spreading his evil throughout the world. Heaven help us!
2
@Lionel Deimel. Amoral means he has no morals. which is apt.
1
Incidentally, how much military spending is "enough" to count as "strong"? If three times China's spending still means the US military is "weak", maybe something else is wrong other than "not enough money"?
3
"History," said U.S. Grant, dismissively, at those in the North who never got over their hero, General Bobby Lee (as they affectionately called the most prolific killer of Americans), " is full of what ifs." We need to move on, Tom. We cannot forever walk around in sackcloth and ashes over our stolen elections (Gore, Clinton, and who knows how many others). We are witnessing a historical turn of ground-shaking proportion, and we most not bury our head in the sand of Lost Cause "what ifs."
Could not be better said! Those in the trump administration are in the front row seats of this unparalleled train wreck screeching across the rails. I guess delusion must be contagious, their conductor is too ill to even be aware of his own condition (let alone the country's) and no one appears willing to recommend even the most modest of preventative measures. Our children deserve better.
1
What’s truly immoral is that the limp GOP celebrates these financial gains at the cost of very real American lives and civil liberties. They bow to the racist, homophobic evangelicals to get their vote and destroy people in the mean time. It’s not just that Trump is immoral, the GOP has made a deal with the devil and real lives are being ruined. Because they are also selling out our earth, people will pay with their lives for decades to come.
2
Nobody seems to get it; not in the American public in any case. Everyone thinks Trump and his minions, in however blighted fashion, are still trying to do - at heart - things for the American people and America. Wrong. Don't you get it? They are not interested in any of that. They're not interested in you or the well being of the American People. They are interested in only that which serves them best. Period. End of discussion.
All that you see from them, all the policy initiatives and actions (such as they are), stems from that rationale. Get it? But even though they are in positions where they can effect their self-serving needs they do work for us. We the People put them in those positions. Got it? And it's time for their job review.
Vote in November folks. Vote your opinion of their job performance to date. Let's see what everyone truly thinks about what these self-serving grifters are doing...
John~
American Net'Zen
7
Disneyland for Trump Supporters. That’s exactly what every Trump rally is. His so-called base is in reality “baseless.” Sugar high Republicans are not thinking about tomorrow. The vast majority of them are on roller coasters and apparently don’t realize that they’ve locked their children in their cars in the parking lot.
3
@Eric Cosh
Excellent analogy!!
1
Hubert Humphrey said it best: "The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped." The Republicans get an F minus.
652
@Lucy S.So you preferred it when Obama added millions to food stamps?
1
@Lucy S.
Echoing Samuel Johnson:
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
2
@Jay Dwight
Well said, Jay.
Well said, Samuel.
Kudos to both of you!
1
when was the last time the immoral were persuaded by morality? Principle no longer exists in the Republican party. If it did Donald Trump would still be a regular guest on the Howard Stern Show.
3
But in that credo middle class wage growth is stagnant, individual and family savings are not growing (https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/personal-savings) and personal debt is slowly creeping upwards (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/business/dealbook/household-debt-unit.... The erosion of membership in the middle class should be troubling but it is ignored by the GOP. Without a robust, healthy middle class economic failure is on the horizon because disposable income will disappear. That evaporation of a middle class will return us to a starkly divided country of those who have and those in a grubby poverty.
Selfishness has replaced a selfless attitude. The new “credo” focuses on personal gain over broad social gain. The broader view is a more healthy economic model but means wealth and success are spread over many and not concentrated in the pockets, and portfolios, of a few.
Being better means looking out for others too.
3
"since Trump took office under two years ago, “the defense budget will have grown by $133 billion, or 23 percent.” And there’s no major war going on."
The war in Afghanistan isn't a "major" war? It's only the longest running war in our history. I think that qualifies it as "major".
But, Tom - you make the same mistake about criticizing the increase in military spending as everyone else does. You can't talk about just the military budget without also talking about the VA budget. After all, who does the VA support? Our military. So, you need to add the $200 billion for the VA to the $716 billion defense budget to get to the true cost of our military. We have to ask ourselves if spending essentially a trillion dollars each and every year on defense is a good and necessary investment for America's future. I think it's wildly excessive. And we know that Trump has no idea what that budget pays for, either.
3
The US conceit that it cannot possibly spend itself to death on weapons boggles the mind.
I speculate that Friedman classifies a war as "a major war" when ordinary Americans are asked to sacrifice something during war time. George W. Bush carried both the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war "off budget".
The only thing the GOP has going for it in the mid-terms is the strength of the economy. The Democrats are doing a poor job of explaining to the American public why the economy is booming. It's simply that if you inject a trillion dollars of deficit spending into an economy, it can't help but respond with a temporary boom.
Every economist (and the GOP till now) knows that this sugar high will eventually implode., but the Dems aren't doing a good enough job of focusing on this point.
Thank you Tom Friedman, for making it clear.
5
I live in a town that has a Superfund site. I have seen the cost of rampant pollution to the families that lost loved ones to rare cancers, the cost to property values, the price that the townspeople have paid because there was a factory here that left a toxic legacy of carcinogenic chemicals in the soil and the collective soul of the town.
This factory started this before the knowledge existed of what they were doing and went bankrupt before they could be held liable for the damage caused. The cleanup by the EPA has cost millions and is still ongoing. When I hear boasting about the economy unleashed by regulation rollbacks, I always imagine the price to be paid in the future with cleanup costs, medical bills and lawsuits against the government and the industries involved because they can no longer claim to be ignorant about the very real risks being taken for a very unreal and shortsighted financial gain.
Anonymous and the GOP may be willing to risk the danger posed by supporting an unhinged president because their greed blinds them but I think that the eventual outcome will be a disaster for this country on so many levels. We will be paying a very heavy price for this sad chapter in our country's history for a very long time.
375
It’s easier to burn down a house than to build one.
@Me I am afraid the EPA will stop doing any more clean-up. Unless intelligent people can be elected & put into place the EPA will totally collapse as a protective agency. It is now in the hands of the industries who abuse just in the name of profit.
What "Anonymous" made perfectly clear is that things are 'business as usual' for the GOP. Whether the issue at hand is Trump's lack of fitness for office, the destruction of our one planet, competition from other nations which require updated strategies - well, they will have to just take a backseat for Republicans, who are hellbent on their political agenda, no matter the costs.
303
Reminds me of a client at a huge corporation; no matter how poor the results of her decisions she doubled down and found others to take the blame or disguise the result.
1
Friedman, of course asks all of the right questions and wonders why they have not been asked. The answer is simple, there were no Democrats with effective voices in Congress to ask them. With minorities in the House and Senate and Republicans in charge of the Presidency and Congress and given their propensity to march in lock step behind their donor class in the defense industries and so forth, the Democrats could not call the witnesses, and that was if there was even a committee hearing conducted by the Republican chairs. It is what happens with one party highly partisan rule where the Party itself is a mere agent of its moneyed principals. You get this.
7
The whole Republican game is to provide short-term and short-sighted programs that appease their base, then when it all comes crashing down, they blame the Democrats for their failures.
The endless Iraq War (which my republican family members still inexplicably blame Obama for), the fiscal crisis of 2008 (again, Obama's fault!), and these horrible tax cuts, which if I remember correctly, conveniently expire for everyone except the wealthiest 1% right around the mid-terms, are just the most recent examples. I'm sure the surge of future deaths from environmental deregulation and the lasting effects of separating families at the border will be next on their hit parade.
The only upside is that I will never vote for another Republican in my lifetime.
7
From Douglas Adams, "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy":
"The President in particular is very much a figurehead - he wields
no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the
government, but the qualities he is required to display are not
those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this
reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an
infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield
power but to draw attention away from it. On those criteria
Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the
Galaxy has ever had - he has already spent two of his ten
Presidential years in prison for fraud. Very very few people
realize that the President and the Government have virtually no
power at all, and of these very few people only six know whence
ultimate political power is wielded. Most of the others secretly
believe that the ultimate decision-making process is handled by a
computer. They couldn't be more wrong."
"Six" likely enumerates the star chamber currently known as "Anomynush" and Trump is a thick-headed, unappealing ZB.
This farce has gone on long enough. Somebody, PLEASE -- make it stop!
6
Sugar high?
You're being too kind in your analogy. Unless one has diabetes recovery from a 'sugar high' can be remedied with a nap or a good night's sleep.
Drug users feel REALLY good, invulnerable to consequences, attached only to the present moment, when they begin taking drugs. Often they can even function well...for a while.
But a time comes to 'pay the piper' for that limited time of feeling like Superman and feeling no pain.
The Republican irresponsibility isn't about one thing. Both Obama and Romney strongly proposed lowering the corporate tax rate, but by far less. Its about the complete package and the rush to keep those wealthy individual and corporate donations rolling in.
And like the drug user there is always the urge to go back for another taste, another chance at the rush and euphoria. Today's headline:
House GOP pushing a new round of tax cuts that could cost $2 trillion over 10 years
2
"Let’s take that view for a spin: I favor corporate tax cuts — big ones."
How do you plan to implement the "offsets" you mentioned in a system where everyone is bought and paid for? We've allowed these people to police each other, which clearly doesn't work.
If you give people power — even a little power — it makes them hungry for more. A lot more. Our government has spun out of control due to this, with the big cheeses reveling in their own power and rapidly increasing wealth and the little curds inflating themselves over the vision of what might be in it for them. 'No raise in my paycheck? Well, at least I made sure your daughter can't use birth control and your son is doomed to manual labor. That'll fix ya.'
Time to change that vision to reflect reality. It can only be done by facing reality ourselves: People with no qualities other than a powerful drive to lead and attain wealth will stomp on anyone, including their future grandchildren, to enrich themselves. We're witnessing it right now.
2
Employment is high but wages are low. You seem to be ok with that.
And "unleashing" corporations is the last thing sane people want.
8
Friedman’s article is a keeper. Read it, re-read it and remember it.
Better yet, make sure that you and everyone you know votes in November— it is really our only hope for a return to fiscal sanity.
Written like a Republican. Like corporate tax cuts? Check. Gut Obamacare? Ok, though there may have been a better way. More military spending? Fine, but don't spend it on the big guns. "May have to cut Social Security." Hooray!! That's always Republicans' answer when they've spent themselves into a hole and quit bringing home a paycheck (cutting taxes). Sick of listening to it. I would vote for Attila the Hun, as long as he wasn't a Republican.
2
It is completely maddening the current so-called president is driving this country into bankruptcy in exchange for what has been appropriately turned as a sugar high in the economy. You orange headed beast based his campaign on cutting deficits but is added to Ben to a point where there is no return. Anyone who believes the current stock market boost wI’ll convert into a longer runway for the economy has no perception of the fact of history repeating itself.
3
Geeks not Pentagon generals will save us from cyber-devastation. The Oligarchy of Trump is well versed in the might of cyber election tampering and cyber bullying, and yet they owe their ascendancy to the corporate military industrial complex (including NRA, including FOX), so our tax dollars go for bombs not brains.
4
Not to worry. The U.S. economy will continue to be supported as it has been since the 1970's by the simple arithmetic of steadily converting its formerly huge middle class to a widening victim class.
The trick has been the sales pitch: convincing the electorate that their problems are the fault of the lazy/stupid victims or sneaky, foreign boogeymen, or evil, subversive domestic influences (liberal, socialist, non-caucasian, etc.).
The problem is in the math: harvesting the shrinking middle class is yielding diminishing returns as the growing victim class becomes insupportable on a budget balanced with IOU's.
1
Trump's supporters have opted for instant gratification. In their delirious state, they ignore the severe repercussions that are taking the form of a tsunami. The only uncertainty is the timing of the devastating wave striking the shores.
8
What? Friedman thinjs there should be MORE tax cuts? That’s this would somehow unleash corporate productivity?
They just got big tax cuts and they used it to buy back stock and make themselves and their stockholders richer.
Friedman wants it both ways: a benevolent dictatorship of ultra powerful corporations and a somehow a slightly empowered popular government to keep it from being too brutal.
Sorry Tom, there’s a reason that hasn’t happened.
2
Abraham Lincoln and other presidents have had strongly stated opposition from within their administrations. Generals discussed taking steps against Lincoln during that war, and you know what?
Those voices were investigated!
President Trump is in violation of STYLE questions, that's all.
If you hate him for how he speaks or has spoken previously, you should admit to yourself that you judge people over style differences.
His results speak for him, and he'll never have to do an ''Obama reprise'' and return to the public eye to claim credit for other leaders' actions.
But I guess anything that allows Barack the Brittle to come back out to talk about himself is a good thing.
1
For some reason, I have always favored being in the company of people who’s style includes, humility, empathy, honesty, and integrity.
3
It's correct that Trump's tax, spending, and environmental policy are awry, wreaking damage in half a term's time that will be felt for many more years to come.
But it's also shameful that Friedman has ruined any future reading I plan of Murder on the Orient Express. I hadn't gotten around to it yet, but it was on my list.
1
These Republican lawmakers have children who have already benefitted greatly by virtue of lobbyist contributions to their parents. Their grandchildren will most likely be dead by 2100, or living their final years in air-conditioned, gated community relative comfort in a world turning to oven. After that comes people who these lawmakers will never know and so…who cares?
This is a party that has always loved partying and leaving the adults to clean up the mess and deal with the hangover. If we don’t rid ourselves of these reckless solipsists now, the coming hangover will be too hot to handle.
We need to put an end to this obstinate march toward oblivion. Vote.
3
... So then I asked if she had kids, just like Friedman recommended. And she said, "I'm saving half of my tax cut in their trust accounts. Don't worry, they're set for life. Thanks for asking."
1
It's simple. If you don't like Trump - put up someone suitable against him. I can't speak for most people, who are partisan on one side or another. But, I also know that there are many people, maybe a plurality, who don't want Trump, but also do not want Clinton, Warren, Kerry or Bernie Sanders or other socialist. We don't want someone who is a party hack or nominate for their celebrity, sex, skin color or having gotten off a good line at a debate.
Have we become a nation that can only elect inexperienced and/or divisive presidents so that half the country can spend their time trying to undo the election? Should we just automatically appoint a special prosecutor and try to destroy the winner? Because, it is getting worse and it seems like the parties, our millstones, are doubling down.
Unfortunately, moderate-independents are diverse politically and can't get behind the rare good person who is willing to go through the nastiness and soul-sucking aspects of the process. Someone would have to be a billionaire or have the backing of one, the savvy to pick good people to run a hyper-technical campaign and enough personality to draw attention so that he/she can at least somewhat ignore ordinary funding and the parties. That's few people. Maybe that person doesn't exist. Or maybe they have to die or become too old to run before we recognize them.
More likely, the Ds and Rs will give us another bad choice b/c that's who we, collectively, deserve. It is hard not to feel that way.
1
SOMEBODY voted for him! The American people are so gullible, closed-minded, shortsighted, and weak. they will believe anybody who screams the loudest, makes the most incredulous remarks, lies, cheats and steals and dares anyone to do anything about it.....AND THEY DON'T! Everybody just whines and complains and acts so shocked and appalled. I'm going to act like Jeannie, snap my fingers, bounce my head forward and bounce out!
2
It looks to me that environmental regulations have already been lifted in New Jersey. Yesterday, around the refinery in Linden, the air turned murky and tinged orange with nitrous oxide, traveling northbound on the turnpike.
6
Are you happy with all of that winning?
An exemplary column that should be emulated by other media pundits: Stop fixating on Trump the tweeter and start focusing on
Trump the destroyer.
5
Of course it's a group. The assassination of Julius Caesar was the result of a conspiracy by many Roman senators led by Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, and Marcus Junius Brutus, and Caesar was the last to know about it. In this case it's White House denizens, probably Pence, Kellyanne Conway and her husband, John Kelly, and more. Too bad Trump knows zero about history or he would see his situation a lot more clearly.
1
Trump cares not about your children. The possibility that he factors the children of children is zero. Zero. Trump always and forever will deal with the now. Only the now. Only how it glorifies him. How the win can be won. How the deal comes down.
Deals. Wins. Mirrors. Photos. Punch backs. Even harder. These are his daily concerns. No real policy. No real cares about you are me or anyone. He is the president. A president for one.
The one and only.
5
“Anonymous” and fellow travelers in the administration should resign and tell their stories and share their concerns. President Trump was elected by the people not these administrators. Their current approach is basically treason to the American people.
Conservatives are like little kids who refuse to eat their vegetables and think they can eat cake their whole lives without any consequences. Which would be fine except they're dooming my kids and my grandkids while they stamp their feet and say, "No, I won't. You're not the boss of me."
I miss my daddy's GOP.
3
Having lived a long time, I remember the backlash to desegregation of schools, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, Medicare, and Medicaid. Those in the backlash wave accused Democratic an Republican lawmakers of corruption, of being un-American. People deserved equal treatment and equal access. People needed help. People needed healthcare. People also deserved living on clean soil, drinking clean water, and breathing clean air, which was also a big problem decades ago and was addressed by a Republican President (Nixon). People were suffering and dying in environmental filth. Neither States nor society were equipped for addressing problems impacting people across the nation equitably, and the responsibility fell to federal government.
As an adult, I understand corruption is based on greed, lawlessness, lust for power, and selfishness to the point of near-sociopathy. Corruption breeds lazy minds - Magic Eight Ball thinking of “let the markets decide” is an example. Such narrow, magical thinking of an Invisible Hand running the show is like a mystic religion. Lazy-mindedness is an easier way to govern but it is corrupt. Corruption is cowardess in congressional leadership allowing a couple dozen narrow minds in Congress to take emails and texts of two lovers in the DOJ to the level of a conspiracy within the entire DOJ.
Tackling problems has demonstrated successes and proved squalor, filth, suffering, unfairness, greed, corruption are not the way things must be.
Obviously, Trump and those Anonymous supporters who know he is unhinged, are planning the destruction of America and the collapse of the Western Alliance, isn’t it?
Can anyone describe a better outcome?
Totally agree. Anonymous is the entire Republican Party. It’s nice to feel that helping an autocrat destroy democracy is actually a patriotic act. At least they can sleep well at night.
2
The thing that I like most about Mr. Trump is that he’s not Hillary. Two fantastic judges on the Supreme Court and many many more on the lower courts. They will be a multiple generation buffer to the insane leftist tidal wave that has hit us. Anything else Mr. Trump does is gravy.
1
Thanks for giving voice to this perspective.
i am sick of these platitudes about how bad the GOP is or how immoral Trump is. If you are reading this and not working on a democratic campaign you are part of the problem.
@Jonathan-
Those aren’t airy platitudes but grim realities.
As for political campaigns, their raison d’etre is to inform the electorate, recruit voters and motivate them to go to the polls and cast ballots on election day. But they cannot compel obedience.
Campaign messaging is only as effective as the audience hearing it is open-minded, receptive to those messages’ content. That puts the onus not on campaign workers and political strategists but on the under-motivated electorate whose passion they attempt to arouse. But you can’t squeeze blood from a stone. Clinton lost in 2016 because too many voters in too many states decided to stay home and not vote for either candidate. And nothing that anyone campaigning sad or did could pierce their concrete shroud of disinterest, or change their minds about not voting.
So Mr. Friedman and Mr. Tramp have a difference of opinions on best economic policies. That is not so unusual among people. But there is a more important difference between them – Mr. Trump was elected President of USA, Mr. Friedman wasn't. So there is that.
Reading Woodward's book, there are countless other "Anonymouses" hiding in plain sight. Finding one to make an example of will not do the trick for Trump. He will be bugged by "traitors" for as long as he is president and probably beyond.
1
You may be overthinking this Mr. Friedman.
It's far simpler to understand what's going on when you realize the G.O.P. is essentially a criminal conspiracy to loot the government. They don't care if anything works or gets done as long as they keep their grasp on power.
Sociopaths and incompetents. Grifters all.
6
Well said Mr. Friedman, however, narcissists (which more than likely make up 99% of the ultra rich 1%) don't care about anyone but themselves...not their kids, not their country, nobody and nothing...the end goal each and every day is to make people bow down and respect them and if the country and kids and grandkids get trashed along the way so be it.
4
This is why you write articles about the economy, Tom, instead of running your own business. You dont know the first thing about how to make money, or how to grow the economy.
Lower corporate tax, but levy carbon and financial transaction taxes? Great idea. Typical liberal. This is how it should be done, without ever doing it yourself, or using history as any guide. Why cant we just raise taxes on the 1%, make them pay for everything, and we can have capitalism AND socialism?? Because in the real world Tom, that doesnt work. Lowering taxes in one place, and raising them in another doesnt free up investment capital. It doesnt incentivise business to take that risk to invest and expand, which is how we grow the economy, which is how jobs are created. Theres a reason why you write about the economy and Trump is a billionaire. Its the difference between being an astronomer and being an astronaut.
I was following you until you suggested Trump is a billionaire and a living example of business success which indicated the previous statements were a product of ignorance, as well.
2
I suggest you look up Tom Friedman's bio and then come back and try to tell people he doesn't know what he is talking about. You lost your credibility with that "typical liberal" remark, because we all just know that no liberal has succeeded in business, right?
Your second mistake was in believing Trump is a billionaire. Read "House of Trump, House of Putin" to understand just how Trump has amassed money.
1
By caprice and default, the dystopian future that the trump administration is condemning us to seems like a modern day Sparta.
A vast fortress ruled by the elite and swarming with soldiers and serfs under an orange sky.
5
No way should Trump get credit for employment "on a tear". Monthly job increases are 188K during Trump's term. In Obama's 2nd term job increases averaged 217K per month. Trump's own campaign promise was a rate of 208K per month.
5
Everything from climate science to economic good sense has gone out the window with Trump and this new GOP. When China and India are seen as more environmentally friendly than the United States you know something is dreadfully wrong. And while our stock market is booming, others around the world are busting -- clearly a warning that ours may eventually suffer the same fate. Vote in November, people, like you've never voted before.
6
Reality TV is all about right - now ratings. Perhaps more addictive than texting. And that is what changed American wisdom, instead of looking forward , we bought into Right Now. All the way up to the office of The Apprentice President.
3
considering that corp profits are all ready soaring, with no comment about regulating corp buybacks Dr. K lost legitimacy in this argument. Just saying "I'm in favor of corp tax cuts" without a "so long as they", for example, "pay their workers a living wage, provide health ins and a good retirement plan"-----well, color me socialist.
2
Tom, you hit it out of the ballpark this time. Perfectly articulating the difference in short and long term thinking and, sadly, a President who doesn't care. He and the anonymous voices that still enable an unrealistic vision of the future are selling us all out for a quick financial gain. The "haves" have enough and the "have nots," are getting little in return for their support. Instead of leading on things like alternate energy, we are making China "great again." It is cause enough to make a course correction in November and try to get back on track for a better future for our children and each other.
2
Here is where your argument falls down: you fail to mention the fact that many in Congress are extremely rich and will only get richer, thanks to the weakening of disclosure laws regarding political donations. As they do the bidding of their donors, they further ingratiate themselves. Now, in this future that you envision, who will be able to protect themselves from environmental deterioration (although of course there will be some encounters they cannot prevent)? Who will be poised to ameliorate the effects of runaway pollution and global warming on their children? One thing you can count on about America's rich and their political servants: Whoever will be harmed in a scenario that they have created, it will not be them.
@Ruat caelum Technically, they are not allowed to live on political contributions. One of them just got indicted for doing that. But Trump thinks it was unfair. I see another pardon in Trump's future.
Ruat Caelum:
How exactly will the rich mitigate the effects of a polluted atmosphere on their children? Will they have them live in their private oxygen tents? If the “heavens fall” environmentally, it will affect us all, rich and poor.
What if employment growth is mostly growth in employment by DHS, ICE, its contractors, and those of the DHHS solely for the current administration's immigration round ups, detentions, and expulsions. These folks are not just out in the field making arrests but are working at every level of the process - from examining decades old records through scouting for immigrants, arrests, detention, transportation around the country at every step of the process and finally, out of the country. Job creators, indeed!
2
@Scottsdale Bubbe: Trump gave the economy a $1 trillion snort of cocaine to bluff his way past the November election.
2
There is really only one conclusion one can draw from all this—rampant firearm ownership, climate change denial, polarization, the list goes on. Most of us are going to be rendered unnecessary to the wealth of nations because of robotics, ai, and super automation. Soon, we will not even be necessary in our role as consumers. And the only thing more dangerous than an exploited worker class is an unnecessary one. The answer, Mr. Friedman, is that working people no longer matter in any way and are completely expendable in every way.
3
@Jack F Machines will take over living for us.
Cutting social insurance plans like S.S. and Medicare are not the answer. Reversing the tax cuts would help the economy. The only people that are benefiting from this tax cut are the wealthy. It has been the GOP's goal since FDR to LBJ. The truth and middle class need to be educated and start voting for sensible politicians. This so called healthy economy isn't benefiting the working or middle class. Beside health care , the Deems need to focus on this fact in Nov.
7
@kilika the tax "reform" is not for any people at all. It is for corporations only. The Republicans hold that taxing corporations is futile because they just pass the taxes onto consumers.
@kilika Almost everyone in congress is a millionaire. They are merely voting their self interest. What they fail to realize is that, in the end, its all of us or none. Their armageddon may be delayed but it is coming.
1
Let's see how much of a good idea these tax cuts and starving of the government works out when the Carolina coast receives a thrashing from Hurricane Florence in a couple of days.
Southeast Texas still hasn't recovered that well from Harvey, at least in part due to the problems of getting disaster relief funds from the federal government. And don't even get me started talking about Puerto Rico--but, of course, that's not really part of 'Murica anway, right?
Katrina helped to bring down Republicans in 2008, but so far Teflon Don has manged to escape the revenge of Mother Nature dumping on his supporters. We'll see how he's doing by the middle of next week.
6
@Glenn Ribotsky
I don't know how widely the media are reporting this, but there was a report on MSNBC, not denied by the government, that $10B was quietly transferred from FEMA to ICE for its detention program. Apparently the tide of refugees and asylum seekers is more threatening than an east coast storm surge at high tide.
Let's see, indeed.
5
@Glenn Ribotsky, Trump probably already has FEMA sandbagging his own property on Sea Island, Georgia.
1
The republicans love Trump because they are able to buy themselves out of the effects of Trumpism. Climate change and environmental degradation are not problems because they can remove themselves and their children from the zone of impact. Or can they? Maybe we'll have to wait until Mar-a-Lago is under water due to coastal flooding or the legions of displaced people with no home and no food begin marauding country estates. Eventually the bill will come due and those with means will be THE target.
6
Trumpism is nihilism. Nihilists only crave more company in misery.
1
Trump has no concept nor concern for the future. He is into instant gratification (his own). Dirty air, dirty water, extreme weather, no matter...Don will get instant adulation. It is terrible having a president who had no insight nor concern for others. The earth, to him, really doesn’t matter.
10
Republicans like to kid themselves: Something must be going right, even if Donald Trump is loony. But deregulation and "historic" tax reform? Both will prove very destructive for the country, with the very wealthiest able to skirt clean-air rules and not pay taxes in the process. And as others are saying, the millions of people with blinders on are the greatest threat to this once-great nation. Get informed: Read a newspaper. Understand both sides of issues. Politics is not a popularity contest: Your hero may be a crook.
8
Why even bother to ask when the answer is clear to begin with? They are only interested in short-term profits. And Trump is too unenlightened - to put it politely - to feed anything but his own fat ego.
And they all live by the motto "After me the deluge".
6
@bjmoose1, Trump is as extreme as present hedonists ever get.
I drove up from DC to NYC yesterday. The truck traffic was quite light. I suspect the Trump administration even cooks economic statistics.
1
I cannot add anything to what Linda and BassGuy have said in the comments. There are millions of us out here who realize the bad guy isn't just Trump. The real damage is being done by radical right Republicans.
Anonymous seem to say "don't worry, we're in charge here".
8
@goofnoff This anonymous Op-Ed was just more of Trump playing with the heads of NYT editors.
Here standing as witness to events that mark the end and the beginning of “history”. Our time, the American Century has come and we the blessed generation of “baby boomers” has known tnhe best of times, now we witness troubled times, unsettled times. Where one of our own generation holds the power of our highest office and yet we are fearful. Fearful for our values, for our dreams, for our children’s dreams. So much promise so much hope so much disappointment. How? Why? When did we become old and embodiment of all that we once disdained? Where are those brave children who would give anything for the “right cause”? I am old and more than a little tired but still believe in a better world and a better time for my children and their children. Let the faint hearted “anonymous ones” who can not find the moral courage to stand by their values loud and clear in the public arena find some solace that at least it was a gesture with the best of intentions.
2
It's always nice to read something that is thought out well, and not just tweeted.
Good job, my friend; I have read your pieces for many years.
I probably do not need to tell you that I agree in full.
I look forward to your future posts.
2
Friedman's opinions so accurately mirror the really important issues it is frightening. How a majority in this country cannot appreciate his concerns for the future is astonishing. I am in total agreement with his views and am a life long Republican. Thanks for so articulately spelling it out. Bart Smith
2
"The rise in sea level will require massive movements of people and cities, and the soaring heat levels will cause losses in agricultural productivity and declines in human health across the globe."
If we did everything, to stop global climate change, right now, when will the the climate change return to "normal"?
A stupid question I admit, but, why can no one give the answer? Maybe, it's not so stupid.
If you know what will happen with one set of variables, why can't a different outcome be determined by changing the value of the variables?
The timing of the anonymous op ed in the NYT following advanced publicity of Bob Woodward‘s book was anything but an accident. It is a confirmation that Mr. Woodward‘s book is accurate, and a significant contribution to the truth in the midst of an avalanche of lies delivered by Donald Trump himself. The anonymous op ed’s confirmation of so many of the issues brought up in Mr. Woodward‘s book should give the American public an opportunity to see just how deplorable and pathological Mr. Trump’s incessant lying is .
In a war of words with Bob Woodward , Mr. Trump will clearly come out as a loser. If there really are adults in the room , somebody who is supposedly continuing to work in a high level position in the White House should just tell Mr. Trump at long last to shut up . It may be the very best thing he can do to protect his very fragile presidency .
1
Thanks for the policy analysis but it doesn't really capture the fact that the "Anonymous" crowd is also blithely co-signing Trump's assault on our democracy and the rule of law, villification of racial and sexual minorities, colluding with and chumming up with a foreign enemy, as well as the generalized kleptomania of Trump and his family. When the reckoning comes, these are the stains the Anonymous set will never be able to wash off.
1
"The A.P. story continued, paraphrasing the I.M.F. report, the U.S. “may need to take politically painful steps,” such as cutting Social Security benefits and imposing higher taxes on consumers. "
Why? Social Security is self funding - or it would be if the politicians didn't keep stealing from it.
1
"Good stuff?" Are the masses benefitting from the tax cuts; the "strengthened" military; the rollbacks, and so on?
"Good stuff?" Phooey!!
3
If the elephant wants friends, it has to tread gently, not throwing its weight around. Others need to be shown respect by the powerful.
Sadly, for many other nations (not Australia), through its bullying, the US comes across as the Evil Empire in Star Wars.
How did the rebels fight back? With "cheap cyberweapons and cheap but massive swarming tactics".
1
"Donald Trump is amoral, dishonest and disturbed, a man totally unfit to be president."
While you worry about silly problems in the abstract world, our problems get worse. If you and others opposed to Donald Trump would drop the silly Russian investigation and go to the bargaining table with the president, we could get a lot done.
Donald Trump may not be a good candidate for Sunday School teacher, but he is a marketing genius and he knows the art of the deal. That is, how do you make all parties to a deal happy. Few people do know how to do that, but Donald Trump has worked on that all his life.
Your solutions to our problems are pie in the sky. The Paris agreement on climate change is worse than doing nothing. Same with a carbon tax. And our financial woes are being ignored by both parties.
Just when we need to work together the most, we get Bob Woodward's silly book and the "Anonymous" (I'll bet he's Jon Huntsman) op-ed article. That just throws fuel on the fire, when we should be putting it out.
2
@John Smithson - how do you make all parties to a deal happy. Donald Trump has worked on that all his life."
The Trump way:
A. Warring with, suing and getting sued by your neighbors, business partners, friends...
B. Not paying for the services you bargained for.
C. Declaring bankruptcy and leaving others to pay.
D. Reneging on your agreements for public access.
E. Turning on those closest to you.
1
Hypocrisy and selfishness, where have I seen these before?
Oh yes, these are a dominant characteristics of the human race.
That is why it takes a responsible government to force us to do the right thing, against some of our natural tendencies. But when the government is fully owned by special interests, then it is just hopeless.
Imagine if a fraction of the US military budget was used for good public causes (education, health and infrastructure easily for example), then there is no doubt that the USA could become a completely different country, and truly an example for the world to follow.
There is only one solution, which is that everyone should ignore the deafening partisan clamors and general nonsense that fills the airwaves, and vote with his conscience. Thinking of the world that our children will inherit is definitely not a bad way to awaken our conscience.
1
It just hit me today as well , that "anonymous" is most likely a cabal of White House operatives, rather than a single individual. the "Orient Express" analogy is spot on.
The Op-Ed indicated that thwarting Trump's worst ideas was something of a group project, so why not the declaration? There's strength and courage in numbers, so it would be natural for disgruntled minions to want to spread the risk around. If their nefarious plot is sniffed out by Trump's keen intellect and powers of deduction, they can quit en mass and write a book together about their heroic deeds saving the nation from Obamacare and over-taxation of the super rich.
Another advantage of this scheme is that each of them can answer truthfully "I didn't write it" when interrogated by Trump because the correct pronoun is "we".
2
Without qualifiers, such as "...for corporations and the wealthiest" or "...for me" any mention of tax cuts or tax reform is a bold-faced LIE. A lie, like all the othe Repiblican and Trump lies.
For millions and millions the tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest include large tax INCREASES. This is the punitive side of the tax reform. Remember, its not good enough for Republicans to write a law that benefits them, they will go out of their way to punish others not them. Even for those individuals on the lower income scale that benefit from a trivial tax cut that is merely temporary while the cuts for the corporations and some of cuts for the waell
2
@Marie - for the waell
Sorry I was trying to type on iphone and while trying to edit and finish the comment was submitted.
So was supposed to be:
Even for those individuals on the lower income scale that benefit from a trivial tax cut that is merely temporary while the cuts for the corporations and some of cuts for the wealthy are permanent.
Its Ivanka.
Look at that deep stillness and sadness in her eyes and face.
She is still the bullied and abused child.
Look at the way Trump looks at her. The contorted pained expression. Its a deep deep sickness. Michael Moore is right.
At some point in time, probably after Trump is long buried she will speak out.
1
The problem is that "experts" have a terrible track record, and the public knows that they are so often wrong.
1
@Robert Do you have any specific examples of "so often wrong" and how does this statement relate to Friedman's Column?
1
Despite the deregulation, the lower taxes for the rich, the bigger military and the Supreme Court the anonymous Republicans aren't any happier than the rest of us. They're miserable and they know why: Trump is tearing the very fabric of the nation and they realize that at some point, perhaps soon, the destruction will be beyond repair. Anonymous' letter was a cry for help.
3
As Bob Woodward said today the president is at war on truth. Having opinion pieces like this one and Woodward's book will hopefully make the Republicans understand that it is unacceptable to put the country through this devil's bargain. Increasing the deficit is reckless just as having a president who is uninformed and unprepared is foolhardy and unwise and will not bode well in a crisis.
3
"His" tax cuts?! Congressional Republicans never thought of tax cuts until Trump came along? None of Trump's so-called accomplishments are his; they have been Republican goals for decades.
1
Mr. Friedman's article hits most of the nails squarely; overall he paints the folly we're living through quite well.
And many comments herein are so well written and spot on that I humbly say I can only add my agreement to their voice.
Those writers recognize that we have been thrust into an existentially dangerous situation.
They collectively seek to warn us that our normal political allegiance should have no place here and now
That our acceptance of thuggery, dishonesty, prejudice, and spitefulness in any way and to any degree now is unconscionable.
That this is no time for our parochialism, complacency, apathy, and cynicism.
Our Country existentially needs all honest moral patriotic Americans of whatever Party to have the guts to do their duty and vote to right the ship.
That is vote with a real love for our Country and the egalitarian principles it (however in hindsight imperfectly) sought to advance for all of humankind.
That is vote the GOP out or just stay home.
It is a Party OBVIOUSLY committed to establishing an authoritarian Plutocracy.
A Plutocracy that will be tinged with social and religious demagoguery
A Party willing to sacrifice any group.
A Party that abandons science, truth, fairness, elegance, empathy, and compassion to obtain power and advance their authoritarian objectives.
A Party that plays to the lowest instincts in us.
Despots of 1900s did "good" things too. And good people acceded to them to their Countries' devastation. DON'T!
1
If Friedman's assumption that every senior Trump administration official was Anonymous and they all colluded to write that NYT piece is correct, then they could all resign at once! Plus, think of all the time that would be saved by not having to take all of those costly lie detector tests when just one would suffice! And the money that would be saved could be used to pare down our obscenely growing and irresponsible national debt.
More importantly, every moment that this government continues to think that the best way to solve this country's problems and plan for its brighter future is by recycling discarded policies from its past is a tremendously sad and terrifying waste of everyone's time.
1
This has been the Republican bible for decades. Cut taxes, build up the military, and reverse government impact on profit. I can't quite understand why anyone would suggest that massive tax cuts that lead to a huge increase of the deficit, widen the income inequality, and are not paid for is a good thing. When the bottom starts to fall out, the only two answers will be: cutting social programs, thereby widening inequality further or increases in taxes on wealth. There is no other path forward. If Republicans are in power, which of those two do you think they will choose? The great recession threw millions of Americans over the cliff. It pushed the wealthy to the edge of the cliff, but not over. The wealthy quickly moved away from the edge and continue to do so, getting further and further away every day. The rest of America was pushed back up to the top of the cliff and left teetering on the edge.When the next economic downturn comes, the 99% will quickly be thrown back off the cliff. The Republicans will say we need more wealth for the 1%. You essentially call the Republicans out as irresponsible, but you let the co-conspirators off the hook: 30-40% of Americans are convinced they will not be in the group that goes over the cliff the next time around. That Trump and Republicans will save them. With absolutely no evidence for that. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me over and over, shame on me. VOTE.
3
Right on the mark with this column Tom. It seems so obvious that the GOP is not, and has not been, into governing this country.
McConnell and Ryan gleefully undermine our institutions with Trump's help. SCOTUS is no longer a keeper of any Higher Law embedded in the constitution. It all appears to be a perverted focus on short term advantage while sacrificing any thoughts of the future.
It is no less than a raping and pillaging of our resources as if the GOP are now the Vandals of history. Corruption is rampant and many have become immune to it and its effects on us.
Sen Warren has the right idea, that is, to enact laws that protect us from this singular abuse. She may be attacking windmills but if the D's and I's combine in Nov we may have a fighting chance to recover our democracy for all, not just wealthy and corporations.
Strong leadership, not fads, will be essential. Experience, talent, and intelligence needed. Please apply.
The populist furor that elected Trump arose from the near death of our economy in 2008 due to unabated exploitation of the mortgage markets by many big banks selling their risky garbage around the World. Capping this crash has been the slow but sustained market growth of our stock and job markets. Threatening this rosy picture is the adhesion of national debt fed by Trump’s exorbitant giveaways to corporate and wealthy interests around the US that increase our already fantastic income inequality.
Remember, Trump has filed for bankruptcy protection four (4) times. His money management skills are certainly suspect. He apparently he is creating a monstrous mountain of debt that will be difficult to reframe down the road as we gradually create an unsustainable debt position that could implode on our economy sooner than later.
1
U.S. policy has gone 'full stupid' and is ceding ground to every adversary willing to lead or dominate. To the rest of the world, Trump is a shining faux gold marquee signaling a weakened paper tiger nation that reacts instead of leads. Not to mention that he lost the real election by 3m. Yes, no one aside from U.S. constitutional wonks thinks the 'electoral college' is anything but a dumb idea... just try explaining it to a Brit or German. Trump is pathetic and weak and a too large a proportion of the electorate mistake him for 'strength'.
3
Whether the policies will hurt American kids is irrelevant for these people because their own kids will be spared. When bad policies make you millions richer, your kids are also millions richer, and this will offset any effect that these bad policies will create in the future (government being broke, economy collapsing, etc.). Yes kids will suffer, but not their kids.
Keep in mind, before Bush Lite lied us into a second invasion of Iraq, the last Clinton and early Bush military budgets hovered around $300 billion a year. That amount more than doubled when we invaded Iraq again. Keep in mind, Trump's $716 billion amount does not include medical costs for veterans injured in the conflict, military pensions, and interest on the debt incurred by this ridiculous military spending. And to think, 9/11 resulted in a dozen and a half guys buying airline tickets and some 99 cent box cutters.
2
The largest problem with the Republicans is they DO think about the next generation and they do so almost exclusively. But the word "generation" is the rub.
For the Republicans the next generation is not 25 years away, but at most 6 years away (for Senators) and no more than 2 years away (for House members).
Their problem is not thinking about our future, just THEIR future. Their thoughts only focus on what drek they need to promote to cajole, bribe or scare the electorate to support their continued parasitic hold on our government.
My dream would be their nightmare. I would cap the salary of our representatives at the level of the E-1's entering the military and give them section 8 housing or military housing at their option with health care either through the military system or Medicare or Medicaid but they would need to fill out all the claim forms themselves.
They would also get an addition to their salary. If they spend less than the government receives, 50% of the deficit would be divided by 535 and added to their base pay as a private/seaman/airman.
Since they have no empathy, no heart and no brain, they must be forced to "walk a mile in the shoes" of those for whom they make laws.
2
And this is how you starve the social welfare beast ... drain the coffers expand the debt and cut social programs down the road.
In 2020 when things have turned democratic watch the GOP scream about how the deficit is unsustainable and we must cut back Social Security, Medicare and public employee pensions to pay it down.
All part of the plan...
3
Sometime years ago Robert Heinlein wrote a book called the "The Past Through Tomorrow". I have long since forgotten the content of this book but the title will ring true for next 100 years. Thank you Tom Friedman for seeing what has been easily readable since everyone's favorite war, Vietnam (or pick another). All the dead heroes, broken economies and of course techno virtuosity have given us a better view of the dead heroes, broken economies, techno virtuosity ad nauseum. As America sails into the maelstrom the results have been in for a hundred years. Will we know when tomorrow has become a nightmare or just know that it has always been there?
Thank you.
1
Republicans are expedient people. In my state political ads show they love Trump for what they think he can or can’t do for them. One of his strongest supporters, Jason Lewis, has chosen to distance himself from Trump to gain faltering suburban support. Another representative, Erik Paulson, has adopted the Trump style of rhythmic name-calling and outrageous lying about his opponent. In the north, Trump has rewarded his closest adherent, Pete Stauber, by opening the pristine Boundary Waters Canoeing Area to mining exploration. Trump has proven the it’s all about what’s best for me tactic is the best political policy.
2
Thanks Tom I love the "Orient Express' analogy. Allow me to hammer on one more point - this is not the 'trump agenda' - for the you and the media , to ascribe an agenda to him is to give him far too much credit. From his tweets, to the leaks to the anonymous Op-Ed, one thing is abundantly clear - he - whose name I will not utter again here - has no agenda other than his ego. I'm not a arm chair psychiatrist, but I am a concerned citizen who can see the evidence before his eyes.
The 'agenda' is a tea - party, ultra conservative, and far right agenda - a hodgepodge of every Republican dream of dismantling every aspect of the state as created under FDR and grown from their.
Voting rights, civil rights, individual rights, even corporate rights ( they are now be selectively targeted by the WH and the WSJ and the Republican remain silent) and the list goes on.
They are just fueling the warmth of the house by burning the furniture, they are removing the beams and the doors and throwing them in the fire as well.
Make no mistake - this is clearly the REPUBLICAN AGENDA.
3
Blessed it was that dawn to be alive,
But to have never have had Cable was very heaven.
What are folks complaining about? Unemployment is down; labor force participation is up; wage gains at the lower end are increasing -- which would go some way toward explaining the fact that folks are "coming off the sidelines" and rejoining the labor force. Meanwhile, manufacturing is up, and -- get this -- carbon emissions are sharply down. That's right. Carbon emissions are down whereas carbon emissions are sharply up in Germany, France, Britain, China, India and just about everywhere else. (So much for the hollow 'Paris Agreement'.)
Things are moving in a good direction, but all the Never-Trump crowd has to offer are incantations of "Russia! Russia! Russia!" (which was engineered by our own security services on the part of one presidential campaign against another) and vain hopes that manufactured furor over such things a one-time encounter with a stripper will somehow bring down a presidency.
When did you all become such fervent converts to Puritanism? Meanwhile, it looks like most folks just don't care to hear about the personal lives of their presidents. Haven't we known that since the Lewinsky matter?
@chaunceygardiner
So, we should just "shut up and take it" because you say so . . . uh, no. Many of us who pay taxes have a problem with the current President of the United States being a lying, amoral, ignoramus who wasn't elected to office by the majority vote and whose "Presidency" has been marred by scandal and corruption since he took office. We also have a problem with his supporters being willfully blind to Trump's amorality and corruption, especially after having to endure 40 years of self-righteous scolding and finger-pointing from conservatives about how working women, legalized abortion, gay people and Bill and Hillary Clinton where the path to the country's ultimate ruin. We're tired of listening to this hypocritical nonsense and we will not shut up. Sorry.
Ask if they have kids? That concept pushes our dystopian future out too far. It's happening right now. Watch what happens in the Carolinas this week.
3
Our military budget is out-of-control and there is absolutely no need to add to it. This makes a case for re-asigning existing budget to more stealthy, less ostentatious (read Trump) displays of military might. Many Americans would like to see a decrease in military budget and an increase in education.
As for tax cuts, time will tell, but early reports are that once again, GOP tax cuts help the rich far, far more than they have or will help those they are allegedly designed to help, and serve only to further widen the economic gap.
1
Yes, the growing deficit and resulting debt are cause for concern. And yes, the GOP controlled government is blissfully unconcerned about it. Fear not. At some point in the not-too-distant (hopefully) future, Democrats will control some part of the federal government. Once that happens, the GOP will once again recognize the dangers of the debt. They will be models of fiscal responsibility each and every time a Democrat threatens to spend a dime on Democratic priorities.
5
The economy is not on a tear, it's on a crash trajectory.
Comment I posted 2 days ago elsewhere:
I mark January 1, 2018 as the official end of Obama's economy and the beginning of the next economic crash trajectory.
Few supporting reasons:
1) corporate taxes were reduced by one third
1.1) creates artificial step increase in corporate performance without an actual increase in performance.
1.2) money was used for stock buybacks, not for investment or wage increases
1.3) huge government borrowing (from China?) to make up for lost tax revenues.
2) revoke Volcker rule, allows for propriety trading (gambling) with FDIC insured depositors savings by a few rich guys with access. This (combined with buybacks) is inflating another market bubble.
3) raised taxes (aka tariffs) on the middle class, which caused frontloading, another temporary bump in the economy.
4) two thirds of GDP is consumer spending, raised taxes (tariffs) places a huge drag on this.
The market is not the economy of course. The run up in the market (approx 8% ?) is not correlated with the economy (4.2%). The recent 4.2% number in the economy is dismal given factors enumerated above. Since it is not possible to time the market or the economy, it is impossible to know when the next crash will occur, but we are certainly on the trajectory.
7
"Anonymous" is more like a nanny than a competent adult capable of guiding a nation. Boys and toys, board games with ships and tanks, banks on a Monopoly board, playing doctor not curing seems to be what the GOP foundations have fomented. The bad news is some of the GOP leadership actually believes in their theories and so do their voters, theories they never challenge or test or are willing to see as not functional.
4
For once Mr Friedman offers some constructive options worth considering, tho still exhibiting his typical liberal fear, paranoia, resentment, and divisiveness which I thought Mr Obama just warned us against.
But consider the messes the proud people (self-described "elites" who like to bully us around) have made. Newt Gingrich balanced the budget (sort of); Democrats hadn't done so since A.D. 1969. US natural gas has cut greenhouse emissions more than the Kyoto and Paris countries have (and read Kevin Williamson's 'What to think about global warming.') The stimulus bill, rather than keep joblessness below 8% as promised, was totally worthless in ending the Pelosi-Reid great recession, since every stimulus dollar taxed or borrowed took a dollar from taxpayers or lenders with no net effect; so thank God for the Tea Party recovery. Candidate Obama promised to halve, not double, the deficit in his first term. The bureaucratistas needed shaking up and Mr Trump was the only option to do that; so taking a chance on him was and is quite reasonable. ('In other words, Mr Spock, you reasoned that it was time for an emotional outburst?'-The Galileo Seven.)
Jesus is libertarian, letting us serve one another in love freely, using our own heads to create and serve instead of using them to evolve and then try to figure out ever-more-complicated regulations. Follow Him. Since He's libertarian, "social justice" means replacing the welfare state with voluntary charity.
1
@Andrew Lohr Glad this poster outed himself as an evangelical. That explains why he supports trump: like 80% of the rest of them he is an ignoramus who's priority is forcing everyone else to follow his superstitions. Facts, logic, and reason? Just fake news.
@Andrew Lohr
"Jesus is a libertarian" That's rich.
1
You forgot to blame the deep state.
1
To summarize and state more simply, for Republicans the end justifies the means.
That, along with might makes right, are the extent of current Republican thinking.
9
The smart thing for Trump's successor to do will be to earmark a large portion of the increased defense budget for energy and environmental projects.
4
We all know the Republicans' playbook. When they seize power they give goodies to the 1%, roll back regulations on corporations, weaken consumer protections, and put more of the tax burden - and risk of future government cutbacks - on the 99%.
And we know if Democrats are able to wrest back control of either the House or the Senate this year, Republicans, starting with Trump, will blame every bad thing that happens afterward on the Dems. (Heck, he blames them now and they have no power at all). Republicans will also have a renewed interest in deficit control, at the expense of actual people, but not corporations of course.
The Democratic establishment has done a very poor job fighting back against Republican duplicity mostly because they don't even try to sell Democratic values like working for expanded union protections and the health, wealth, and education of everyone in the 99%. That's because too many Democratic politicians are simply Republican lite. They value corporate cash over people and worry more about their future election prospects than the future of their constituents. Maybe the Dem establishment does not need to be completely blown up, but it certainly needs a loud wake-up call in the primaries tomorrow. In order to fight Trump's amoral agenda, the 99% need Democrats who are passionate and willing to fight for true Democratic values.
6
@LibertyNY, in my opinion, it isn't a matter of "Republican lite". It is a case of Democrats having no sense of teamsmanship, not understanding that politics is the art of persuasion, haven't practiced politics very well, and having focused on only one noble thing. . .diversity. They do not know how to sell, do not seem to want to LEARN how to effectively sell, and have no really effective unifying leadership capable of dealing with our millenial society and its internet tools. They assume demographic changes via growth in minority populations will save them. It hasn't dawned on them that The Magnificent GOP Propaganda Machine will ultimately sway new minority voters to vote against their own interests. This has happened over and over again. Look at Nebrask, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and other "used to be" "non Dixie state" Democratic states. Those voters didn't just suddenly switch en mass to the GOP of their own accord. They were SOLD on it over time, primed to switch to Reagan, the Bushes, and now Trump.
Just look at how Congressional Dems ducked and covered at townhall meetings under tea party assault over Obamacare before it was even passed and was still being negotiated. They couldn't sell their way out of a paper bag. They don't do their homework and don't work to persuade ANYONE to do anything but vote for them personally. They cower in the corner. They could all learn something from Beto O'Rourke.
" ...throwing away our bumpers and spare tires that we may soon need to drive through the next financial or climate storm — for a short-term economic and political high."
Well at least so many Americans are benefitting from these "Boom Times " and this short term economic high everybody is enjoying...
...except they aren't.
Only a very few and mostly very wealthy and already rich people are benefiting from the Boon of lower corporate and personal taxes and the business profits resulting.
For the rest and majority of Americans it's business as usual, wages as minimal and no real reason, cause or effect to give most even a short term economic high, but there is an Opiate Epidemic for getting high and the many who die from it , nor those it affects forever will never benefit at all.
3
The article title does not fit the content of the article. 95% of the essay is about the dark future ahead for the USA based on decisions Trump made. The anonymous op-ed is barely relevant to the rest of the essay.
1
Abraham Lincoln, in his Gettysburg Address, famously said that "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."
Aside from the reality that Donald Trump is simply unable to utter such finely honed prose as Lincoln's, the sad reality is that the world will be unable to forget what he did here, as the horrific consequences of those actions will live long into the future.
As for Lincoln's prophesy, that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth," not so much.
4
Economic growth and employment — the increases have all gone to the .01%
The rest of us are enduring wage stagnation.
6
Our founding fathers (and mothers) didn't fight for Independence to put more money in their pockets. They fought to end injustice spawned from a tyrannical leader. They fought to guarantee religious freedom and democracy for generations to come. They fought to create a better, more perfect union for everyone.
We have desperately lost sight of what makes America great at the very moment we need it the most.
9
@Sarah It is all as fake as the blustering fool who believes himself commander in chief of the planet. The founders fought to throw off British constraints on frontier expansion, trade, slavery, and taxation to defend the colonies during the French and Indian War.
Friedman's conservatism is showing. He has drunk the unemployment Koolaid. Jobs are many. Prosperity is still not widespread. After 40 plus years of growing inequality of prosperity, it is clear that traditional measures of economic success really only measure how well elites are doing. Cutting taxes to the wealthy without building in a defined outcome for shared prosperity has been the GOP plan since Reagan. Apparently, Mr. Friedman is no different from Ronald Reagan, believing in the magic of trickle down economics. The economic sugar high he complains so loudly about is the inevitable result when government is the tool of elites and not a counterweight to the concentration of wealth and prosperity. Until government works for all of us, boom and bust will continue with little to stop the cycle. Friedman's shaming of the GOP will have no effect at all despite his pretensions of his own brilliance. Sanity and prudence will only return when we change who our political system works for and share how power is distributed rather than promote a free for all of immediate riches for the few.
4
@Tom Who is dumber than the workers who voted for Reagan to destroy unions who now look to Trump for relief.
@Steve Bolger No question, a lot of people drank the Koolaid. A lot of hardhats under Nixon were happy to beat up hippies for Spiro Agnew, little knowing it was the very start of blue collar realignment and decline. Trouble is the Dems, led by the Clintons, took plutocrats' money too. Suddenly, unions were taken for granted but not promoted nor spared under NAFTA.
Every advanced European nation bans corporate political donations and most require campaign ads to be truthful. Campaigns are short, often publicly-financed, and campaign ads run free so expenses are minimal. Domestic propaganda like Fox News is not permitted.
When are we going to get smart and do the same?
25
@UARollnGuy Free speech is to make everything fake in the US.
Fox is the original Fake News.
I have one certainty, which is that Trump will never read this great analysis by Thomas Friedman, nor the fantastic comments made here. He has zero interest in facts or analysis. His concerns are so much more mundane and frivolous.
But there must be some GOP supporters and leaders who read those lines, as I would hope some of them have a minimum of intellectual curiosity. I am really curious to understand if they will dismiss it all as liberal nonsense or recognize at least a modicum of truth but then refuse to have the honesty to challenge their own real or stated beliefs.
Education and honesty (of the intellectual and moral kind) form the cornerstone of a working democracy.
For those who want to see things change, there is only one way: vote.
7
First comes continued stock market euphoria and real estate speculation brought about by colossal government overspending and irresponsible deregulation of corporations and the environment.
On top of this comes several more years of government by whim, caprice and executive orders featuring wild inflation,
overseas military adventures and widespread social protests throughout the country.
Finally ending up in a modern form of Fascism headed by Trump and Pence and their future acolytes.
Given the unstable character and mentality of the man with delusions of grandeur we chose to honor with the Presidency, how could it be otherwise?
It was a grand experiment while it lasted, but nothing great lasts forever.
8
@A. Stanton It is a system of optional slavery only three constitutional band aids removed from implemented slavery.
The national debt is 21 trillion $, no one, not republicans or democrats seem to be concerned. President Obama raised it from 12 trillion to 18 trillion and is considered by democrats to be a great President. We are adding about 1 trillion a year and all any politician is thinking about is who will control the House or the Senate. The media is obsessed with anti Trump, impeachment and the 25th amendment. To add to the insanity is the extreme left talking about a socialist society where everything is free with cradle to grave care, free college education, open borders, sanctuary cities, high paying entry level jobs, in other words a utopian country open to the world with no questions asked but with no concept of how to pay for it all. Not even a mention of social security and medicare insolvency within the next 15 years.
There is only one man in all of Washington that understands what is happening and that is Senator Rand Paul but no one wants to listen. Not yet anyway, not until the whole country becomes insolvent.
5
@Fred: Obama’s policies raised the debt by less than a trillion and the rest was inherited from Bush, cradle to grave affordable health care is the norm in all civilized countries except the US, as is an affordable education, the US has no open borders and sanctuary cities only means that police funded from state and local taxes do not have to assist immigration enforcement that is federally funded, the minimum wage should be $20 an hour now if inflation adjusted compared to the early 1970s, and social security and medicare can remain solvent with few adjustments. Were it not that Trump gave a huge unneccesary tax cut to the wealthy and ballooned the defense budget, while defense did not need it at all, adding trillions to the debt for years to come. Do you really want to throw elderly and disabled Americans off their health insurance and take their often only source of income away from them? Because that is what you seem to propose. How would you do that? Death panels? Throw them on the street to fend for themselves?
23
@Fred Hey Fred: Did you know the GOP is contemplating ANOTHER round of tax cuts to the tune of $2 trillion?
1
@Fred Yes, the great genius Rand Paul, the only one who knows the way. And such a libertarian: do what you want, unless of course you are a woman who wants to control her own body.
You do remember that the tax cut was also aimed at cutting taxes for the wealthiest among us, right? I don't see you recommending repealing that part of the tax cut.
Also, you're wrong about the value of a big tax cut for corporations.
6
Mr. Friedman notes that according to the IMF, the USA will have to cut social spending in order to pay down the national debt.
For Republicans this a feature of our national fiscal disaster: when the national debt reaches intolerable levels, they will shrug and say, "I guess we just can't afford social security and medicare."
Paul Ryan and Oren Hatch have spoken publicly about this.
My second problem is Mr. Friedman's suggestion that Trump has any concern for future Americans related to the impact of climate change. Trump does not care about current Americans, the forgotten men and women of this country, or anybody for that matter. Trump is concerned about Trump.
It is remarkable to me the way we invest the nation's money. If it were a corporation, it would out of business. We should invest in those things that power the economy: education, research, infrastructure, healthy workforce. But we don't.
I don't even recognize this country anymore.
47
@Al Miller Most of the money the US spends on politics just adds to its public delusions and mental illnesses.
Why do columnists continue to refer to Trump's "policies" when there are none. Ending Obama era regulations, backing out of international accords and decimating federal agencies through executive order is just a form of spite not a coherent approach to government.
33
Focusing on the deficit is likely the most effective argument against Trump
5
@Eric Miller When Republicans run deficits they say it primes growth.
A "strategic vision"? What a strange notion. Their children's future? These people's conception of long-term planning is the next electoral cycle, i.e. two years; or, in some cases, getting through and managing ("spinning") the current news cycle.
I hate to think of humanity as a failed species, but sometimes it's difficult not to.
12
Sometimes I find it hard to believe that the country that has been pre-eminent in the world for decades, if not a century or more, finds itself in this mess. While I understand that all political parties vie to be ‘top dog’ should not the national good be the preeminent goal? Am I just being naïve? I cannot understand how the GOP held their noses and chose this sorry excuse for a human being to be the standard bearer of their party. What leadership qualities did he possess? Does he have any compensating traits at all? Who will ever again trust this party to choose someone worthy of the office – I know there are many fine Republicans out there; one has just sadly passed away – but their choice of leader of the party stunk to begin with and is now in a high state of putrefaction. The GOP needs to grow a backbone and oust this wanna-be Despot.
20
@Jazzie Trump is a role model and ratification for every grifter in the USA.
Until the economy tanks, Trump’s base, i.e. the Republicans, will stand with him. Tax cuts and deregulation are fuel on an already burning fire. At this rate, we’re looking at maybe 2 more years of strong growth, enough to tighten their grip on power further. How long can Ruth Ginsburg hang on? Hate to root for an economic black swan, but we need one right now.
3
The forked liberal tongue is a wondrous thing indeed. When forced to stare the signal economic achievements of the Trump administration in the face it says either that all this is the result of Obama's policies or that all this, as Tom Friedman warns us, is a sugar high that will soon bite us in the backside. The sour grapes is simply astounding. Not a scintilla of credit where credit is due. Nevertheless for those who seek an accurate barometer, there is always Wall Street, the collective wisdom and instinct of millions of investors who operate without political sentiment and know when the going is good. And then there will be another collective wisdom as the great mass of deplorables marches to the polling stations come November. That media has its prejudices is only to be expected. But the depths to which it has sunk over the past two years is unprecedented. it is no longer simply a bias, but a firing squad loaded with an inexhaustable supply of ink.
6
There’s something to what you said, and consistent with what Friedman wrote. Wall Street is doing well, and economic reports show job and wage growth.
Trump calls it unprecedented but Obama can truthfully claim the economy grew as much or more during his terms in office. But other reporting suggests Trump’s big wave has lifted many of the same ships that Obama did, not the struggling heartland or rural base he has captured.
It’s not an accident. Congress decides on spending, and it’s not democratic. 538 shows the Senate can resist even a big blue wave. So new spending will mainly help lobbyists and donors. Advocates for the public (Medicare for all, public option, climate taxes, etc.) can persuade some on the left but few in the center or right. Amazon can flourish while the libraries get squeezed.
Few donors and lobbyists push ideas that benefit the public, and few voters will see benefits. Many voters did not even realize their healthcare, via the ACA, was Obamacare, until it came perilously close to unraveling in the Senate last year.
Educating voters on policy takes investment, while lying or stoking grievance are easy and pay off. Where is that beautiful healthcare policy?
Our system prizes donations instead, often for ads and lies. We pay politicians to follow the money instead of leading the country forward.
So, sure, the economy is great on Wall Street, and there are jobs. Maybe we should be content with that. Our kids can worry about our future.
13
The deficit spending during the Obama years was necessary to get out of the recession. Now that we are out of the recession, reducing the deficit and ultimately the national debt would be the responsible thing to do. An economic boom fueled by tax cuts and more deficit spending will lead to more problems down the road. A big party paid for by credit card, fun until the party ends and the bill is due.
4
Beyond noting that the refusal to note a line like "I'm glad about that," is a classic piece of Trumpist willful blindness, the chanted faith in the invisible hand of the market and those "millions of investors," is really becoming tiresome.
1
I commend Mr. Friedman for hitting it spot on. However, he needs to hit a little more.
In addition to his prophetic admonition concerning debilitating federal deficits due to hacksaw-applied tax-cuts, he might acknowledge two other factors in his calculus: 1) the escalating trade war; and 2) the continuing low interest rates.
History is replete with examples where ill-considered protectionist measures intended to remedy balance of trade disparities actually precipitated extreme recessions. We are flirting perilously with that scenario again. Keith Collins and Jasmine C. Lee's July 11, 2018 NYT piece wonderfully illustrates the magnitude of our current hyperbolic tariff strategy and its worsening iterations.
And then there's a current real federal interest rate hovering somewhere around 2%, leaving us effectively without another traditional means of stimulating a laggard economy through reducing the cost of capital. At 2%, there's not much downside margin left to leverage a money supply.
I fear that Mr. Friedman has only sounded one alarm of what should be at least a three-alarm warning about a potentially perfect storm that may make the 2008 recession look like a mild market-correction.
4
Funny. They seem to have amnesia about the 7 years of extreme panic about the deficit under Obama) created of course by another republican administration. Am sure the reverse amnesia will come raging back if Democrats win 2020 - all of a sudden we have to deal with the deficits (which will be blamed on the next Democratic administration).
21
How about a revenue-neutral carbon tax? This is something conservatives can support, and it would put us on a right track again. What is revenue-neutral? Return the revenue to the legal residents of the U.S. A carbon tax would go a long way towards mitigating the huge damage being done by the Trump tragedy.
2
The Great Compromise of 1787 gave us the Senate as an Upper House with 2 senators representing each state. In 1787 this may have been a good compromise.
In 2018 this does not look so democratic or clever. California did not exist amongst other states in 1787. By example today California has a population of about 38 million and by comparison Wyoming has a population of 570,000. Both have two senators.
This is but a small example of the reason that the "United States" are no longer united. There is taxation without fair representation.
All of these budget woes and the lack of checks and balances relate simply to an undemocratic system of governance. This is just one glaring example of the many failings of American democracy.
The constitution should have been "anonymous".
16
Being forced to cut entitlements as a result of the tax cut was always part of the plan.
55
If the Democratic Party would only let Tom Friedman write their platform, instead of creating a populist left philosophy (largely with the same lack of sound economics or sound international policy as the populist right), we might actually be able to steer the country back onto the rails. Alas, I fear that neither party is offering what we need to restore the country's bearings.
8
Why do we keep saying the 'Trump Tax Cuts' when he had little more to do with it than signing.
The tax plan, with the largest cuts reserved for corps and the wealthy, is republican thru and thru. The Republican Congress would have passed it and Rubio, Cruz, or any other Republican would have signed on the dotted line had not trump been elected.
Same thing with regulations; it's all standard republican fare, The hit list of regs, including decimating the EPA, was planned out long before the election.
25
Signing is what makes it the law. They are the Trump tax cuts.
5
It will be interesting to see how Republican candidates who tout income tax cuts by the Trump administration will answer whether they support the 25% sales tax increases that the Trump administration is imposing on all who purchase goods imported from various parts of the world. Fifteen percent cut in corporate income taxes offset by an up to 25% sales tax increase because of tariffs doesn't seem to be a tax cut at all.
3
Tom,
I think you have a desire to establish common ground with Republican readers so that you can't be accused of having too much of a leftist bias. But your views on corporate tax cuts do not match reality.
In general, corporations are using their tax savings for stock buybacks, not increased wages, investment in new equipment, or investment in people.
As the philosopher Yogi Berra once said: "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is."
14
@Larry
The LAST place that any country's businesses should be taking directions from on how they operate are any country's governments, and the more successful the country (like ours) the clearer that message becomes.
But do you REALLY want poor moms buying baby food helping huge companies to pay their taxes?
You can't tax a company - it's impossible. All you can do is tax their customers because all companies do with taxes is collect them to sent to government.
1
Real shame that our government put so much into railroad, steel, and the highway system, ain't it. Here's a thought: before the next cheerful encomium in capitalism's genius, maybe, you know, actually Adam Smith.
You know...find out how this stuff works.
So if I understand the IMF correctly the result of the Republicans getting to do what they want with relentless tax cuts to benefit the rich will be that in the next financial crisis the Republicans will.... continue getting to do what they want... by gutting social security and welfare in order to hurt the poor and middle class.
I'm sorry, but this doesn't sound like sound policy advice. It sounds like a dirty trick, exactly the sort of dirty trick the IMF pulled on Greece when it insisted that the consequences of the actions the IMF insisted that Greece perform necessitated... even more of what the IMF insisted- which always comes down to cutting social services.
Here is an interesting question: when has the IMF advocated increased spending on social welfare programs? Under what circumstances? Has it ever done so?
2
Sir you are clearly not fully informed about Greece. Everyone and their uncles and mothers enjoyed ridiculous state pensions. As in, retirement kicking in at 50. Votes have been going to the highest bidder for 100 years there. Seriously. Talk to a successful Greek if you get a chance.
I have no doubt that you're right about the anonymous author's representing a group, and not only because the essay captures the Faustian bargain that so many Republicans have made. The author actually writes as "one of them" ("many of the senior officials in [Trump's] own administration [who] are working diligently from within...").
Nor should there be any doubt that Anonymous took pen in hand deliberately, for a purpose, and not simply because disgust had reached the boiling point. We need to connect the dots between this act and Mick Mulvaney's idea of improving Republicans' standing with voters by finding a way to "subtract" Trump from the administration, as he recently put it in a closed meeting with party officials and donors. The essence of the anonymous essay is to assure us that a "steady state" faction is in place, isolating Trump as necessary to keep the administration rolling along a sensibly conservative track (their view, not mine).
Which is the more likely nature of Anonymous: a Don Quixote making a noble gesture, or one of a group of Fausts who has drawn the short straw and made contact with the New York Times on a desperate damage-control mission?
10
Good opinion: I agree. My only conclusion as to why the Republicans behind the president are so complicit is they are being enriched by the criminal defense spending.
Also, they do not really have a concept of their children and future heirs ever being troubled by pollution or climate change: the mighty dollar will insulate them and theirs.
3
Why is it that the only problems that apparently can be solved by 'throwing money at them' are problems involving the military?
4
I can't dispute much of what Friedman says except to say deficit-financed extra growth in the economy is nothing to get cheerful about. And as for Trump, he's the elephant in the room that Republicans are still ignoring.
3
ExxonMobil has known for years that climate change is real. They did the research back in the 1970s. And then they hid their results, and told us climate change was bogus. They LIED.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-chan...
Exxon's Oil Industry Peers Knew About Climate Dangers in the 1970s, Too.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122015/exxon-mobil-oil-industry-pee...
One of the consequences of global warming is bigger, stronger, wetter storms, like Harvey last year, and Florence, which is churning in the Atlantic as I write this.
Warmer land, air and water combine to put more water vapor in the air, and to make storms bigger and stronger.
We are also seeing glaciers melting all over the world.
The evidence is overwhelming.
Mother Nature does not care what you or I believe. Mother Nature responds to basic science, such as chemistry and physics.
How much longer are we going to put up with people like Delusional Donnie, his bought-and-paid-for EPA, and his Republican enablers in the Congress? Delusional Donnie understands NO science at all, and cannot accept that he is ever wrong.
Vote like our life on this planet depends on it, because it does.
43
"John Arquilla, a senior strategist at the Naval Postgraduate School," has been watching the internet and its progeny for years. Thank you! Long ago, when I knew you, you were prescient at tennis too!
1
Thought the same; a group conspired to write the piece making it possible for any member to say "it wasn't me."
I have no problem with this; it was a reassurance. I know others hold more forceful views.
They aren't listening about national debt, about climate change, about public education, about healthcare . . .
They just want to get reelected. Anything (don't pursue corrupt Republicans until after the elections, another tax cut, ease carbon restrictions, lie, cheat, steal, and sell our children's economic and environmental landscape) to get reelected.
5
Which major GOP policy is NOT being advanced by Republican enabled if mislabeled DJT administration?
What's not to like, but that he's flagrant rather than reticent in mode of next-in-line Pence?
Friedman's view remains supremely elitist, concerned exclusively with the welfare of his business-class cohort.
Of democracy, of the rabble multitudes yet to be trampled and ground to dust beneath the effects of Freidman's pro-business legislative aspirations, not a word. Trickle-down benefits? Maybe, maybe not, who cares?
4
I keep coming back to the observational data. Greenhouse gases from fossil fuel burning have kept going up at a business as usual rate, despite the exponential growth of installed generating capacity from alternative sources. We already see data indicating planetary scale positive feedback loops in the Arctic are in operation and they are predicted to accelerate. There is simply no more time. While this can only be known for sure after it is too late, it increasingly looks probable we have triggered two major positive feedback loops, permafrost melting and albedo change. Permafrost melting in particular has the capability to release as much greenhouse emissions as humans have produced, plus a lot, and rapidly. Fully triggering that feedback is a switch that will flip the Earth rapidly into a new Hot World steady state, that will last for thousands of years. Humans will survive this, as we did before, but not all or even most of us.
6
I sure don't support big corporate tax cuts. Corporations have already seen their share of the responsibility for federal revenue drop by about three quarters over the past two generations...any more is like pushing on a string. All you can really do is simplify the system to reduce compliance costs and stop forcing corporations to engage in elaborate games, but that's the opposite of what was done with this tax bill.
1
Corporate taxes as a part of GDP and as a percentage of our revenue stream were already at an all time low. Profits were already at historical highs and we were at full employment. Why cut corporate taxes? Yeah, you could lower the nominal rate to make it more attractive to stay or locate to America and close loopholes, but those loopholes never got closed.
2
A minor, but not unimportant correction: consuming sugar DOES NOT cause diabetes. It may lead to obesity which is associated with Type II diabetes. People with Type I, insulin dependent diabetes may have consumed only a low sugar diet all their lives but still have developed diabetes. Friedman's implication on this issue is that illness is "my fault," and if I had only been "more responsible" I would not have health problems, a typical, if mistaken, conservative position.
6
@asjohnclt You are right that eating sugar does not cause diabetes. But it is also true that health care does not make people healthy. Doctors can only do so much, and we all can do much more, to make our lives healthy.
Paying more to provide health care soaks up scarce funds and does little, if any, to make people healthier. We pay too much and get too little. Estimates are that better health care would help avoid only about 10% of deaths. Other things are much more important, and some of them (like eating sugar) we can all do something about.
2
Excellent article. While I would argue for even more pro-active steps to fight the upcoming climate disaster, I applaud your analysis of how the Administration and Republican Congress has failed to protect the future for the children of this country
10
Tom,
We got the corporate tax cuts but in no way unleashed any corporate renaissance. But we did and are getting large stock buy backs.
9
Florence reminds us that Nature is the dominant force on Earth so I am thankful that you have used your pen to highlight the failure of the President to persuade his party to address global warming.
A carbon tax is regressive and we already have a problem of too much poverty and a huge gap in income that is harming the economy.
I suggest you need to spark a serious discussion of the global and U.S. energy future. Looking at the quantified requirements for providing a new energy source to replace fossil fuels shows the dislocation will be massive.
The underreported and overwhelming challenge will be to reshape market society and industries to adapt humankind's standard of living to electric power generated from non-fossil sources. I can't imagine anything more serious.
That is why it is extremely disappointing that U.S. leadership has dropped out of the technology race and seems to be resisting the inevitable.
Reshaping market society can be made much easier if we fund the effort to create the new energy infrastructure with an international institution similar to the World Bank, the U.N. or IMF. The U.S. will be required to contribute its share based on our share of gross world product but it will be much easier than to go it alone.
Drs. James Powell an John Mankins have an intriguing concept for producing very low-cost electric power by mounting in space, Maglev launched solar-powered satellites to beam energy to the Earth, that I hope you will write about.
5
Your president doesn’t use e-mail and is fed his daily security briefings in two page tabloid form with his own name inserted every 6 sentences to keep him engaged whilst Fox news blares “real” policy intel by a tv judge named Janine! These people have been around just as long as we have and we knew who they were but never have we seen them act out this way. Have you?
I agree with almost everything Tom writes, but his essay is almost entirely off topic. The question he asks is whether it is moral/reasonable to support a president who you do not believe is fit for office if you agree with most of his policies. However, he totally skirts that question. Instead, his point is - you should NOT agree with his policies. Which may be a good point - but he's not answering the question.
There is a long-standing left-right ideological debate, and Tom is clearly leaning left and cogently presenting arguments and evidence supporting his views. But an interesting and important question - which Tom asks but does not answer - is whether a person on the RIGHT should still support Trump even if recognize the various character flaws. I hope he does tackle that question in the future.
3
@vladimir That is not what he is saying
Dear Tom:
I have noticed an interesting phenomenon: when “economic-type” events occur under a Democratic president they are often criticized; often the glass is half empty. So, when unemployment under Obama decreased steadily year after year, the refrain was that the jobs weren’t high quality; that the labour pool was decreasing owing to disaffected workers leaving the job market. Similar comments were made about economic growth: too tepid; nothing like what they were during the Reagan years or during other recoveries, etc.
I’ve attributed these sorts of comments to two things: primarily a political bias that was unwilling to give the Democrats and Obama any credit, and plain ignorance.
But when you stated that “Economic growth and employment have clearly been on a tear since Trump took office.” I decided to check the facts. I’m not facile enough to post the links here, but please do look up ‘Statista’ for a quarterly GDP growth series and the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the monthly job creation series. (I’m sure there are other sources.)
The evidence is clear: there is NO change in the trend of either GDP growth or job creation under Trump. I would be willing to bet that no one would be able to pick the ‘Trump data’ from the ‘Obama data’ if the data were masked.
Which brings me to my point: it’s bad enough when politically motivated/biased people distort the interpretation of the facts. But it is much worse when someone like you does so.
My word limit is up!
60
Great comment.
On top, with few exceptions, it is assumed by most people without any evidence, that Republicans are better at economics and most business writers (except Krugman) adhere to this falsity.
3
@Ravi Karra Good point - thanks for shining a light on that.
Mr. Friedman is expecting responsibility from the me first conman in chief. Our country has always loved a sugar high and that is exactly what the Donald is giving his irrespnsible base. The GOP has always billed itself as the responsible party that complains about budget deficits, but when the opportunity arises they will always go for the economic sugar high and blame the resulting crash on democrats. But it is one of the only ways that they can get anyone to vote for them as they depend upon the short memories of those who choose the short term over a longer view. it is the same thing that allows them to look after their own self interests which the GOP tramples every time they threaten their base's Medicaid.
3
@just Robert, I have never understood why the Republicans' constant cry of "tax-and-spend Democrats" seems to be "accepted" and never thoroughly fact-checked every time it is waged. The truth is we have the "loot and spend" Republicans. The Democrats always have to clean up the Republican spending sprees but yet have to be blasted with the lying Republicans' name calling and hypocritical drivel.
1
I imagine that when someone makes a Faustian bargain -the way that ‘anonymous’ and many top brass republicans did with Trump- it becomes important to defend the result, because one wants to believe the results are worth it.
I find Mr Friedman’s critiques valuable to a larger national discussion about what might work best for this nation in the long run, but I worry that these criticisms will not be heard by those who made ‘the deal’ because of the high cost of said deal and the very real need to believe that in the end it was all worth it, becoming attached -in an unhealthy way- to the new lower taxes, deregulation, etc.
5
Glad to read that people are coming around to the reality of Trump's accomplishments, most taking the economy out of a depression.
As for "anonymous", I wonder if this is real. He/she/them should come out and resign.
2
Hahaa @mrmeat florida, the recession you speak of has been going in your heads for much longer than 10 years. It’s what got us this (plus gerrymandering, Facebookskis and a nice topping of Comey)
I want to hear more about the tax on sugar. Isn't sugar still subsidized - so - in the US - substituted with corn syrup in many products to keep profits high? Would the tax be on just sugar? Would the tax be on sugar-like (and possibly more harmful) additives? Please elaborate.
4
"...ask them to describe the strategic vision behind that defense budget."
Well now, that's an easy one... to further enrich large defense contractors of course. And oh yeah - to create jobs.
3
In September 2016, here's how 88 retired military leaders found a way to endorse Trump:
"As retired senior leaders of America’s military, we believe that such a change can only be made by someone who has not been deeply involved with, and substantially responsible for, the hollowing out of our military and the burgeoning threats facing our country around the world. For this reason, we support Donald Trump’s candidacy.."
With military budget up by 23-percent, I guarantee that NOTHING anyone can say will drown out that music to those ears. Candidate Trump was known to be unsuitable to lead. Their endorsement provided NO RECOMMENDATIONS of Trump. Their reason is the money.
So, we can preach with 100-percent certainty that mitigation efforts to climate change are essential and that the doubling of the annual deficit to 4.5-percent of GDP is a dangerous 'sugar' rush. Only the 'sugar' matters.
Face it, Mr Friedman, neither the melee of today nor tomorrow is going to stop 40- to 50-percent of voters from boasting like Colonel Nathan R Jessup:
"I'd do it again".
4
As one of your Bethesda neighbors it is not surprising that I would fully support your keen analysis (though I would have added the liability for our children, as well as ourselves, of the subversion of the federal judiciary and the geopolitical order), but how do we get this message out to voters and, importantly, who can do it?
7
@Jan Bové
As so often happens, the very best sermons are preached to the very best and receptive audience - the choir.
Those who might benefit from the excellent sermon aren't paying attention.
Sad.
7
Thomas... The problem with your analysis is that it doesn't speak to the people who you are commenting on. From their point of view (I believe for I don't actually hold their point of view) every one of your points is irrelevant. It has never and should never have been about the government's policy in the first place. Eliminate taxes, eliminate regulation, eliminate environmental standards, build a military and if it tears down social security and medicare, it is all GOOD. The US economy won't crumble, the atmosphere won't heat any faster and people will thrive once they are free of the chains of the deep state government.
But thank you for the contrarian voice.
3
Deep state? You mean people who dont froth at the mouth at a trump rally?
1
Big ships and new missiles won't help against cyber terrorism. Where's cyber security in that enhanced military budget? Trump's building a military to fight the battles of 75 years ago.
19
Don't worry, the corporations will buy up the roads, bridges, and other infrastructure as soon as their indentured Republican representatives manage to bankrupt the government.
Then you will have to pay them for the favor of letting you drive to work.
8
... and they'll pick it up for pennies on the dollar. They might even executing jobs for former politicians to help run it for profit ☹️
Two points:
To the comments on the military budget investing so much in new, big weapons: Anyone who has ever watched tiny birds mob a large bird knows that the small birds always win... just like Iran's naval experiment described in this opinion piece.
To the comments on the Trump supporters being happy with the "accomplishments" of the administration: When people have committed themselves so publicly and loudly, they are usually too afraid to lose face by admitting that they could have been wrong. Asking them if they are worried for their kids futures won't do anything. It's instant gratification that they seek... the reward for their emotional immaturity.
9
I wish everyone everywhere would stop saying the economy is great. Wages have not increased in over $30 years and all along everything else has gone up. People can't afford even basic living on $15 an hour. The minimum wage would be $21 an hour if wages had kept up with inflation. The economy is NOT doing well for anyone who is NOT rich. The working people of this country have got to wake up and vote for the Democrats before it's too late and we will be like India, the really rich and the very poor, nothing in between. I hope the pitchforks come out then! Why Mr. Friedman were the corporate tax cuts good when they did nothing but buy back their stock, they did not increase anyone's wages except the fat cats at the top! Infuriating!
34
Yesterday was not better times. Regression is exactly that, it means that a return to yesteryear is preferable to addressing the issues that emanated from that same time. Ignoring fact out of spite is for the most ignorant and careless fools. The party that enables him out off lust for wealth and power is and will be held accountable when there is no longer any way to escape the disastrous results of their depraved and careless agenda's. Unfortunately we will all suffer because it will be too late to reverse course.
Thanks Trump and the GOP, thank you for destroying the future of this nation and the planet.
8
This is the collapse of the good old USA, folks.
Reminds me of the USSR in the early 90s. Everything was dismantled and sold to the powerful and connected who became the oligarchs. The country of Russia is still around, but a shell of its former self.
We are living through the collapse of (real) capitalism, and rise of autocracy and empire.
Luckily we already have oligarchs, so we don't need to worry about that.
22
You are exactly right. We forced USSR to overspend on militarily so much so that their whole nation collapsed. Now we are doing the same to ourselves! Little or no investment in our infrastructure, health, education, environment or on anything else that directly benefits the taxpayer while our deficit balloons to unsustainable levels. But we are all comfortably numb and happy because in the short term our 401Ks are looking good in this bubble. We all reap what we sow and it'll be 2008 or worse all over again very soon.
3
Mailed it. Beautiful article.
5
He loves chaos and doesn't mind burning the house down to get attention.
5
While ‘Anonymous’ is assumed to be a single person/culprit, I too believe that the article was green lighted by a group of
White House administration officials, who edited it verbally or otherwise but had no hand in actually writing it, hence the numerous “I didn’t do it!”
4
Of course he’s right except for the fact he’s just one more Amaerican pundit who, unlike in the rest of the world, hasn’t yet recogized it’s largely too late, the Trump damage is already done, it’s consequences will be severe and the clock can’t be turned back. In short, there will be no speedy getting of America back on a/the ‘right track.’ America’s future is one of much diminished potential now.
10
"Don't go mistaking your house burning down for the dawn" - Frank Turner, from the song "1933".
7
Personally I don’t care what anyone named anonymous has to say about anything. Democrats will make hay out of whatever they can get their hands on provided it supports what they already believe. Kind of like the image of the Virgin Mary in a tortilla chip.
1
Or the scene on the bus, that was good right buddy?
"Economic growth and employment have clearly been on a tear since Trump took office."
According to Ali Velshi (MSNBC) on NPR today: The economy added 3.6 million jobs in the 19 months since Pres. Trump took office. In the last 19 months of Pres. Obama's tenure, 4.6 million were added.
(Don't believe everything that gets repeated...check the numbers.)
28
@gc, thanks forsharing your numbers. I was appalled that Friedman would publish this as one of his thesis statements. Sounded like a line from fox news.
6
"Let’s take that view for a spin: I favor corporate tax cuts — big ones. "
Yeah? So you think corporations should benefit from roads, communication, court system, educated population, and military but not pay their fair share?
Conservative thinking is a cancer on our nation.
29
Friedman pushing the party line.
Trump first 19 months: 3.5 million new jobs
Obama last 19 months: 3.9 million new jobs
8
@Renee Hiltz
You realize that it's a continuum, not a new start, yes?
America is being looted dry. The idea of enhanced tax cuts, deferrals of capital gains, protection of family wealth for generations to come is robbing the country of the very means it needs to protect itself from the strengths of other nations. Protect its workers, invest in the country, build things people can actually use everyday to enhance their lives. No, we get bombs, guns, warplanes and not much else. We are not much better but it is sad to see such a great nation fall from grace to line the pocket books of so few.
12
John Arquilla, a senior strategist at the Naval Postgraduate School, likes to say that in today’s networked world — where ISIS was buying drones from online shopping sites and turning them into aerial grenade launchers — “many and small can beat few and large.”
Sounds a bit like how we defeated the British in the Revolutionary War. We should take heed.
8
Everything that Thomas Friedman is advocating in his latest column (eg., green energy, carbon taxes and climate control, widened medical care, thoughtful military budgeting) is excellent, even crucially important.
And every one of them will be soundly rejected -- not only by President Trump's Republican cronies (including "Anonymous") but also by his loyal grassroots followers.
Why? Because these items are universally regarded by conservatives as "things that liberals want" and therefore reason to oppose them, immediately and uncompromisingly.
So, this is your challenge, Mr. Friedman -- and indeed the challenge for all of us: When do we realize that logical, factual arguments are not enough? And when do we start promoting care of the Earth as patriotic, start presenting "green" as being "red,white and blue"?
27
Mr. Friedman... We can't hear you... Please speak louder! And please search and find among your journalistic colleagues, associates and friends those who will speak with your voice and your thinking. We the People need your voices to be heard throughout the land and across the globe.
7
As always The NY Times and T. Friedman are on target, however, I'm confused about the National Debt Clock --- It appears to show 21+ "Quintillion" NOT 21 "Trillion" unless we're using the British system of cardinal numbers now.
2
@J. FRANGOS:
Check it again, bro.
If I go on a spending spree with my credit cards I could certainly enhance my standard of living in the short term. However, when it comes time to pay the bills, I probably won't have the resources to make ends meet. I might even have to declare bankruptcy to solve my insolvency. Honestly, we don't need a complicated mathematical analysis of Trump's economic policy. Just look at his history. He will bankrupt this country just as he bankrupted his casinos. Why am I getting the same feeling that I got leading up to Iraq War 2 ? That feeling is: we are headed for disaster, encouraged by prideful, greedy and shortsighted power brokers like Anonymous who have sold their souls for 60 pieces of silver.
20
My money is on Pence. He was ready with a really strong denial, right on cue. He may write some more. Think about it, the NYT published it as anonymous, they had to feel good. And one of his fav words was in it (not by a set up). It's Pence. He is taking a big change. That makes the most sense.
2
And he has the most to gain from trump’s fall. And if he’s found out either before or after he can’t be fired anyway.
I know for fact that it’s true
Mr. Friedman is not only a foreign affairs expert, as noted at the end of his column, but he apparently is a domestic economic expert, able to toss off instant, half baked suggestions like: "But I would have offset them with a carbon tax, a tax on sugar and a small financial transaction tax." Truly a simple set of solutions to complex problems. For example, wouldn't a tax be extremely regressive and discriminate against the poor. You should stick to cheerleading for MBS.
2
"I favor corporate tax cuts — big ones"
No! Corporations should pay taxes, because they use our resources. They use our physical infrastructure - roads, airports and air traffic control; they use our intellectual infrastructure - public schools and universities; the use our legal infrastructure - patents, trademarks, civil litigation (the latter at a level far beyond the general public, and often against the public interest); and of course the military which defends the shipping lanes that carry their merchandise. So yes, they should pay taxes; and those taxes are, and should be, properly reflected in the true cost of their goods or services.
And look what the corporations did with their tax cuts. Lower prices? No. Raise wages for workers and lower management? Mostly, no. Create new jobs? No. Invest in new plant? No.
So what did they do? Buy back stock to raise price per share, which pushes up the net worth of the execs, who pay themselves in stock.
22
@mancuroc, great post. Further, in CA, Apple refuses to settle up property taxes to Santa Clara County going back years. This battle is at tremendous cost to the County taxpayers who WILLINGLY pay their taxes hoping for, gosh-- lighted tennis courts, clean streets, a library open 7 days a week, a nice park to let their kids play in, a fully staffed wastewater treatment plant? The cost for Apple to litigate is chump change for a trillion dollar corporation, the property taxes they have been billed are certainly manageable, and are unquestionably owed. Their greed blinds them to happily paying for services used, their hubris enjoys the cat and mouse game with the hospitable county in which they do business, and where most of their USA HQ staff resides.
1
"In 1952, the corporate income tax accounted for 33 percent of all federal tax revenue. Today, despite record-breaking profits, corporate taxes bring in less than 6 percent." You say you big corporate tax cuts? Who do you think is paying for the military? The few rich or the many poor? Who do you think it’s easier taking money from, a rich man or a poor man who believes you? I’m little taken aback by your strange enthusiasm.
1
Your essay summarizes the Faustian pact the Republican Party has made with Trump in order to recklessly promulgate policies of income tax cuts, deregulation, and extravagant military budgets.
These policies in my opinion are disastrous and will lower the standard of living for the average American and jeopardize the future of our country.
We needed to improve and enhance health care,
Social Security, and raise the income of average workers
with infrastructure spending and prepare for climate change with clean energy initiatives.
The Republican Party needs to be reinvented and be defeated decisively in upcoming elections.
They are corrupted and debased!
9
Friedman isn't seeing the big picture. Cap & trade, carbon taxes etc are dead in the water. American voters don't want to pay more for energy. They can't afford it right now. Every poll backs this up. Our country isn't moving in this direction anyway. The point of cap and trade was always to increase the price of 85 percent of the energy we use in America. That is the goal. For it to “work,” cap and trade needs to increase the price of oil, coal, and natural gas to force consumers to use more expensive forms of energy. President Obama’s former OMB director, Peter Orszag, told Congress that “price increases would be essential to the success of a cap and trade program. The majority of U.S. voters will never go for this. The overall reality in that climate change legislation is hard to pass even in good times. It's really a killer in an economic downturn where citizens & business fear higher costs, even slightly higher costs, & may see no concrete benefits. The US is extracting carbon & flowing it into the global energy system faster than ever before. We're trying simultaneously to reduce demand for fossil fuels while doing everything possible to increase the supply. Here are the key questions. Can we bring ourselves to prioritize renewables over cheap fuels? Are we willing to vote against our own self interests & approve higher taxes on fossil fuels? Can we muster the restraint needed to leave assets worth trillions in the ground? Absolutely not. It's never going to happen.
2
Return all the revenue from a carbon tax to the residents.
I will not be happy until big money is out of politics. I cannot abide by any of our future leaders who will not give the people of this country thier government back. We have been led b y wolves on the right and passive smooth talking money taking complicit liars on the left. We will fail as a Democrocy if we do not stop our leaders from taking money or needing it to get elected. This is how we find ourselves here. We have been lazy as citizens and have allowed this. I am sick with this and will work to get leaders who understand what service to the people is.
4
This man has started a war with someone or some institution every single day of his adult life. Can anyone really be surprised that he's pumping up our military budget? He's preparing us for his biggest war yet. One more devastating than all our recent remote wars. One that attacks the homeland directly.
Think about it... once he start it, how are we going to remove the sitting President in the middle of it. Mueller and Russia will pale in comparison to the threat on our homeland.
His last war will be World War III. It will also be ours.
4
@Gary Sales, and this is why the fire the GOP is playing with in allowing his election, and then letting him to continue "serving" is insanity-- they have given an arsonist books of matches and piles of kindling. Not going to be pretty.
Dear NYT:
Thomas L. Friedman exemplifies the arrogant attitude of America's self-appointed blowhard elite, who -- like Anonymous -- puff up their own sway in the affairs of industry and government, and denigrate the hoi polloi who put Trump in power.
Get over it, dude.
and lie to themselves about hate Trump so much they no longer have much else to say.
5
@Jorge
Interesting to see that there is no argument about substance here. Just a personal attack. So typical of Trump and his supporters. Sad.
1
Everything Trump touches dies
Perhaps whomever it is that makes policy in the Trump administration is no more hiding than proponents of Keynes' ideas regarding expansion and the attendant retardant functions. This simplistic, antiquated economic view is certainly, however, no worse than "Jonestown", that is, "keeping up with the Joneses" militarily, which is really the import of the troubles which may come due to, shall we say, the largess of attitude and proclivity of the rich. To maintain that economic growth and improved employment are a part and parcel of Trump's economic acts is just plain wrong and ignores the lies that the government always tells to maintain its legitimacy. To give the corporations tax cuts is to believe that their anti-trust inclinations are of benefit to all the people. Clearly, they are not; nor are they of benefit to their employees. The RF is the Joneses, but their innovations are not of the cheap kind which you describe, and believe you me, they want peace. They feel threatened by the compulsive need for war which Capitalism here seems always to try to promote. If by deregulation you mean the lowering of ecological standards so as to promote an increase in production, then the idea of the trade-off is controversial, except in the case of the President. It is the only way to success, in his view. Trump, the master risk-taker, will tell you that future generations will bask in the glow of more debt; just look at Venezuela... after the "kids" have all been killed by U.S. bombs.
TLF, All true, so true.
But the GOP will cynically ride this Trump mess into ignominy.
Problem is he will drag all of us down with him.
The world will not soon trust America. They have seen what our 'system' can produce.
Sad.
2
If the children (and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren) of the Republicans who are enacting these dead-end policies were explicitly and legally required to be accountable for their progenitors' decisions, maybe -- just maybe -- even some of our more obstinately anti-scientific and anti-rational lawmakers and policy designers might stop to ask if doing wealthy donors' bidding was such a good idea.
Failing that, somebody should invent a time machine to take our current crop of Republican lawmakers and administration hacks forward a hundred years to be judged by those who have to live with the consequences of these foolish decisions.
I'm not sure which proposal is more farfetched.
I'm sad for my grandkids. I'm sad for all the young people who went to war believing they were defending democratic ideals. I'm sad for those who believe in kindness, in welcoming the stranger, in wanting to make the world a better place. I'm sad for those who put their lives on the line for peace and human rights, while greedy people profited. I'm sad for those who thought of America as a refuge. I'm sad for those who once believed in truth, in our constitution, and in all the ideals we held dear. We are in big trouble.
3
The question worthy of answer is what do the anointed, committed or Fox see in Trump that transforms him into something he clearly is not?
1
Mr. Friedman, you actually think the country is more security because of trump’s actions or policies. Maybe because of the dedication of those who put their lives on the line.
Anonymous was being completely self serving. His hubris was showing - vote for us, conservative Republicans, because we have this all under control. Anonymous says forget Trump, he is a buffoon who really doesn't matter. We are in control and we are preserving the American way.
The writer is only interested in persuading Republican voters not to loose faith in the Trump party because the agenda outlined in the 2016 campaign, fed through the Trump mouthpiece, is being enacted.
Freedman makes lots of sense in his critique but he is not questioning the priorities of the writer. Let's look at what was left out of the letter - where did the military budget and tax cuts come from - diplomacy and investment in the education and health of future generations. The issue isn't that the military budget should have different military spending priorities but that national security would better be served protecting Americans from themselves and their worst instincts.
What is going to be left of the country to defend once Trump and his babysitters have carelessly deconstructed what makes America great.
2
If you think Trump is responsible for the growth in the stock market and the economy, you are not paying attention to reality. If you think deregulation is a good thing you are not paying attention to reality. If you think anything is more crucial than climate change, while the hurricanes and fires grow in intensity, you are not paying attention to reality.
5
"Carbon debt" - nice phrase. We need a carbon clock that shows how much of the earth's sequestered carbon we have "borrowed". An easy to visualize concept for those who find the subject too complex to reduce to a simple catch phrase.
1
"What if Trump’s tax cuts, deregulation, scrapping of Obamacare without any alternative and military spending surge were actually ill-thought-through, short-term-focused initiatives?"
Tom, what if Trump’s tax cuts, deregulation, scrapping of Obamacare without any alternative and military spending surge were actually four different things? The tax cuts were pure sugar high of course, but on the other hand I just had an experience with regulation that I would call demented, in the sense that the cost/benefit ratio was easily 50 to 1. Stuff like that just makes no sense.
In general, if you want to defeat Trump's obvious stupidity and hamhandedness, it seems to be the best way to do it is to show a bit more discrimination and articulation than that buffoon is capable of.
1
Trump wrecked every business he owned. Now he's wrecking our country. Does no one see this?
3
I don’t blame anonymously for hiding. Trump has destroyed careers and lives for a lot less.
The tax cuts should be renamed to “Steal from everyone else to make the rich richer”. The GOP, crowd who are being conned by Trump are causing great harm to our country.
The Republicans are burning all the bridges down as they march forward, rewarding the richest of Americans with more and more cash. That cash is not going back into our economy. That's a well-worn, Republican lie. Moreover, how is it that Mitch and Paul are on duty for one of the biggest increases in the US deficit ever? Wasn't the deficit what they were squawking about non-stop during Obama's presidency? It turns out the Tea Party GOP doesn't care about any of that. They care about abortion (even while demanding that their mistresses get them) and they care about lining their pockets. Welcome to "conservative" America.
1
GOP devout defense of American children:
1. Poison the air and water.
2. Deny climate change.
3. Loot public education.
4. Gift billions to millionaires and billionaires.
5. Nothing for infrastructure.
6. Undermine affordable health insurance.
7. Explode public debt.
8. Bankrupt farmers.
9. Do nothing in response to school massacres.
10. Undermine Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
7
The fact that only slightly over 36% of eligible voters voted in the last midterm election in 2014 is proof that something is indeed rotten in the United States of America.
The greatest problem in this country is, as proven then and again in the election of 2016, that a far too large minority votes against their own economic interest because of so-called religious and and family values.
The oldest democracy since Athens has become a farce after being ruled by both a president and the Republicans in the House by a minority of all its citizens.
3
Thank you for the enlightenment, I think....I wish the orange one would stop bragging about the GDP growth being a bigger number than last month's unemployment, and work to get the deficit relative to GDP (4.5%) to be a smaller and more forward thinking. Unfortunately, I don't think we can count on the liar in chief to ever be fiscally responsible or a leader to take on diabetes and obesity, even if he eats salads at McDonalds.
1
On Trump and "Anonymous":
If he believed the press were all liars
he wouldn't have responded so strongly
to the "Anonymous" op-ed.
He'd just simply have said
the New York Times made it up.
But, in his pique, he forgot his act,
and showed that he implicitly believed
it came from within his White House
merely because
the New York Times said so,
showing that the whole
"fake news" charade
really IS an act,
and that he's been lying all along.
The bigger the mouth
the more it's trying to disguise
what a small person it's attached to.
7
“...we’d unleash the energy of our corporations while mitigating climate change, spurring the next great global industry — clean power...
Uuh, Tom – you’re losing the last war...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/09/11/had-they-be...
“...Thanks to its deployment of nuclear power, the Canadian province of Ontario’s electricity is nearly 90% cleaner than California’s, according to a recent analysis...
“...As it’s become increasingly clear that Germany would not meet its climate targets, it is coming under criticism from leading renewable energy advocates, who may fear that Germany’s poor record on climate change discredits renewable energy as a solution for climate change...
“...If I were a citizen of Germany, I would be concerned about Germany being left behind,” said Al Gore... last June. “The leadership provided in years past created a reality that now no longer exists...
I would love to hear an informed opinion about where Dick Cheney fits into this fiasco. Several levels of hell are standing by....
3
You know I was basically with Friedman through most of this and thought he was finally making some real good sense. And than he has to throw in the "Iran Threat' and also linking them to ISIS who he talks about in the next paragraph. .. He knows Iran is no threat and they have helped defeat ISIS in Iraq & Syria. Have to always keep one eye open with this guy.
1
Amen, brother! You might add that the corporate tax cut we all favor, because corporate income is subject to two levels of tax, one on the corporation and another on its shareholders, provided a flimsy excuse for sleazy and dishonest legislators, like Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), to push through the same tax cut for their SINGLE level of tax. That's right, Ron Johnson stuck in a provision, the 'price' of his support for the tax bill, under which he is paying his individual, SINGLE tax at a special low rate, based on the low rate applicable to a corporation's FIRST ONE OF ITS TWO taxes. So Ron Johnson's paying 20% less than you!
Talk about adding insult to injury!
1
Trump now proposes to ease restrictions on release of methane gases into our atmosphere. He's 71, so what's in methane control for him, the ultimate selfish thug? Our children, grandchildren and future generations mean nothing to him because his gaze fixes upon his own navel and nothing beyond it.
3
Why shd it matter who Anoymous is? What is important is that his/her message is heard and heeded!
2
@Dolly Patterson
The bad thing is, Dolly, that Anonymous is willing to let Trump remain president for the time being, and that his unsound policies will still implemented, that our country is not being run by its chosen leader ( legitimate or otherwise).
Is that really a good message?
I have read the message and it is nothing to cheer about.
1
Fraust's bargain is always huge. A damnation for eternity, especially for those sanctimonious religious type. They say God this and Jesus that; but in the end, Trump doesn't even pretend to go to church anymore, unless you count golfing at one of his properties at government expense or tweeting in the can as Sunday worship
"Ask them if they really are unbothered by massively increasing the deficit at a time when our economy was already growing — just when we should be saving cash to soften our next recession."
Aw, gee, Mr. Friedman - saving during good times for the rainy days that will come is so, so, -conservative- if I can use the word.
And that's what we don't have in charge of the GOP any more. Instead of conservative, you've got folks who get a small raise and immediately put the smallest down-payment on a brand new party barge - the better to get drunk on, the better to spend like a drunken sailor.
Times are good? Pile on the debt! Apply for more credit cards! Whee!!!!!
We don't have to worry about what things are like in 2100, because that's like, what, 200 years from now?
I sure miss the sensible Republicans...
2
The bible is being revised to “The stupid shall inherit the earth...or what’s left of it” and the conflicted anonymous Op Ed’er seems to be one of the rewrite team.
3
Trump is in many ways a danger to the republic. For me, however, the tax cut for me and others is the most dangerous action so far and Trump was mostly a bystander or cheerleader. Tax cuts that pass the cost to our children are deeply immoral. Every member who voted them in should be replaced.
3
Trump is turning the US into a banana republic, aided and abetted by the "Banana Republicans" in the House, Senate and SCOTUS.
2
Trump wants America under his feet. He wants total control and it's about anything you can imagine, from justice to the military, from the intelligence to the economy. It's all about him. He can't accept criticism or objections.
The worst in all this situation is about his incompetence supported by many loyalists who blindly are dragging this country to the lowest point of its entire history.
Trump don't understand that the chaos he has created would eventually destroy himself too.
2
With our nuclear arsenal and large navy and Air Force, we probably don't need such a huge standing army in the US. We can keep troops overseas to meet our NATO commitments, but we don't need such a huge standing army on US Soil. Who is going to invade us by land? Canada? Mexico? Perhaps we just need the marine corps, and an army national guard for home defense. That alone could significantly cut our budget.
I did not notice that the corporations who received huge tax cuts are "stimulating jobs and growth", Mr. Friedman. They are buying back their stock and have not significantly raised the wages of their workers.
Corporations are people now, and they can do whatever they darn well please. They just got a big windfall, and they ain't sharing it...
5
My God. One of the most sensible and profound commentaries I have read here. It's tragically all there.
17
It's funny how rich people get so worked up over taxes. They gross 2 million and complain when 35% goes to taxes. That leaves them with 1 million 300 thousand dollars.
I'm happy to pay more in taxes if I get health care and education. And I'm left with few tens of thousands.
Of course I am not as important as those men who gentrify neighborhoods and shave the edges off coins. I just work for a living at a job that makes stuff.
Our economy rewards evil people. It's pretty simple. They took over.
23
I was recently hiking with a tour group in the Canadian Rockies, when the Brit next to me suddenly, out of nowhere, said "why do you people not like Trump when he is getting such good results?" I told him that we were really evenly divided, that I had lost family and friends for being a Trump supporter, (evidently I am personally responsible for centuries of racism, although I have lived
and worked with, and been supervised by, Americans of all varieties for my entire adult life) and I entirely agreed with him. He said he feels much the same about his leadership: they may not be people he admires, but he'll support anyone who stops fooling around and cleanly cuts ties with the European Union. So sorry, Mr. Friedman, your sudden devotion to, as near as I can tell, reducing the national deficit, is not going to do it for a lot of practical voters both here and abroad.
2
@Mary..... "why do you people not like Trump when he is getting such good results?"....What good results? Trump is a vulgar bigoted narcissist - how is that good for the country?
4
Yes, this is the story GOP tells itself: times are good, the economy is good, the president is "rough around the edges" but going to really make America great because we, the GOP, are right and the rest of you are wrong.
This is the GOP that:
-denies the reality of climate change
-is attempting to KEEP Americans from voting
-is in bed with Russia (as long as they support Trump)
-is almost entirely made up of white men
-believes we should bring back coal (as long as they support DT)
So, regardless of what is fashionable in politics, some of these Anonymousses may find themselves a little more 'woke' than they'd like in the coming few years.
6
The fact that the country probably IS being saved by the checks put on Trump by his own people is a sign of how far America has fallen from the peak of its greatnesss—a peak that arguably came when the Bush and Obama administrations collaborated on saving the country on what would have been a new Great Depression. That bipartisan rescue of the economy showed America at its best in one of its worst moments. BUT the GOP knew its only hope for returning to power was to burn bipartisanship to the ground—to follow the trail blazed by Sarah Palin to its grotesque end in the disordered ravings of Donald Trump. All those in the GOP who are now rending their garments knew exactly what they were doing during the 8 years that paved the way for Trump. The fact that he is so naked in his racism, misogyny and greed embarrasses them. But they support him because they know that he is the high powered rifle they need to shoot decency and fact-based reasoning (both so fatal to the GOP’s tribal politics) through the heart.
1
All for a carbon tax combined with a transparent, simple-to-administer and fair consumption tax. In exchange, I want the COMPLETE elimination of all income taxes: personal as well as corporate.
Let's talk, Mr. Friedman.
Mr. Friedman has it right. Anonymous is not an individual. The letter was no doubt was written by a team, and some have already declared that they are not the author.
Me Friedman talks about Republicans and the GOP like they exercised thought and had goals. A mistake. What the Republicans and GOP support is a machine run by a few demented billionaires who own the GOP Congress lock, stock, and barrel, and instruct its members what to do if they want help being re-elected from a successful propaganda and disinformation machine that defines reality for about 40% of voters. No thought. No goals. Just venal subservience to puppet masters.
7
Tom, I lost you at "I favor corporate tax cuts — big ones."
How about you support everyone pays their fair share - with huge tax increases to the top 10% and giant tax decreases to the remaining 90%.
Then, make certain EVERYONE gets a living wage. Then watch the economy soar - without the "meth" tax cuts goosing the economy.
7
When inflation is running rampant and interest rates are climbing past 6% to try and control it. When the deficit has reached numbers that have to be defined using scientific notation. Trump will still be blaming Obama.
5
Perhaps Trump is more populist than meets the eye. He reduced taxes for corporations, but the tariffs on Chinese products will increase tax revenue. It may not fully offset the cost, but it is a start. Furthermore it's laughable to hear the likes of Tim Cook complaining about the tariffs. The corporate tax cut along with the 8% devaluation of the Chinese Yuan, offsets the pain of the tariffs.
@Nick R....Right. In January I sold June delivery soy beans for $10.50 per bu. The last time I checked the price at the same terminal was $7.48. Multiply that times last years soy bean crop and that is more than a $13 billion dollar loss to U.S. farmers; and that does not even include the losses in corn, pork, chicken, and etc. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
1
Tariffs are a regressive tax on consumers. So we have substituted progressive income taxation on the wealthy with regressive taxes on the poor. And the new rounds of tariffs will target the low cost consumer goods that stock shelves at Walmart, Sams Club and other outlets frequented by the less well off.
1
@EHill... Exactly. I should have said he is a very effective Republican instead of a populist. However, I would argue that corporations don't necessarily have to raise prices. If net effect of a tariffs and currency devaluation is a price that allows for profits to be on par with pre-tax cut levels（e.g. 2016 levels), corporations could absorb this as opposed to passing it on to the consumer. So much for wishful thinking.
Your essay assumes that the people who hold their nose and support Trump for his tax cuts and deregulation policies might have a moral center that enables them to have concern for anything other than their wallet. I am afraid that is a big assumption...
7
You can’t ask Republicans why. It’s like asking a cheating spouse why they cheat. They’ll simply answer that they don’t. Where do you go from there?
4
For at least a millennium, thorough plagues and wars, humanity overall has gotten richer. Barring a sharp course change, children born today will likely see the end of that trend as the number of refugees from climate change and armed conflicts over dwindling resources reaches into the hundreds of millions.
3
A "sugar high" economy? More like a meth overdose.
2
There is an episode of The Simpsons that may capture our future under Trump. Homer is elected Garbage Commissioner. He revamps the garbage department, does an amazing job with garbage collection, even has a parade. Then the mayor comes into his office with the bad news. He spent the entire year's budget in a month. Things go downhill from there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YihiSqO4jnA I don't want to be a Cassandra with this, but the way Trump is handling things, the golden glitter may be far thinner than advertised. Stuff your mattresses, because we may be in for a huge fiscal and cultural hangover.
5
Friedman has written "around" the issues without actually taking a strong stand. He likes this, but doesn't like that about it. He approves of this, but doesn't like that about it. These are little things like long term consequences we should be aware of, but let's not take a stand against them. Thinking strategically about policies, instead of firmly adhering to moral principles has delivered us into a world where people just don't matter. The citizens of this country do not matter. What, exactly, is a "strong economy" when so many people cannot pay rent, much less own a home? His soft comments on climate change, eternal war, a deficit out of control, say basically nothing. Those who are running this country are in the game of politics, and work within the framework of commerce and war, and people, the actual people who live here, are just in the way.
5
This party is being thrown by the self-professed King of Debt. In Trump's past life, he filed multiple bankruptcies because he spent far more than he brought in. Sound familiar? There are now two key differences. This time, instead of Trump signing the charge slips alone, he has the GOP co-signing. And, instead of either him or his party picking up the tab, we are.
The challenge for all Americans is simple. In November we can vote to take the charge cards away or let these clowns continue to destroy our collective credit rating.
14
His bankruptcies weren’t as simple as that. From what I’ve read, his earliest financial difficulties did result from such a direct failure to match income with spending. However, many of his projects bankruptcies were essentially part of the long view business plan. It’s common in real estate, equity funds and mob bust outs. Take possession of or create an enterprise and saddle it with outsized debt to pay yourself for creating or buying it. Then once the debt service is unsustainable, crash it, file for dissolution or reorganization and move on.
3
Great article Mr. Friedman. But the first thought that ran through my mind when I finished was, "We are so screwed." The idiots, bigots, racists, uninformed, undereducated, white-privileged are in charge of America. The white minority is currently ruling the roost. American voters can change that this November. The question is--will they care enough to go to the ballot box and actually do it?
9
Clinton balanced the budget and started paying down the debt. Tragically, after Bush was elected, republicans reversed both of those accomplishments. Ask they why.
10
Of all said of the trillions spent, be it the military, medicare/social security/ACA subsidizes, there is a huge void in our media reporting on the waste of government spending. Billions of fake payments and those $700 toilet seat still exist. Yet, it goes on and on and on. Maybe we should look at national debt as a percentage of GDP, but waste as a percentage of monthly payment made by the government. Nobody seems to be asking, so like so many things it is a mute point. Since when was democracy efficient? Since when did the market play a major part in prudent spending by the government. Maybe if we were a socialist country, we would no longer track profits or expenses, but realize there is a glass of water (resources) and that is all there is. We know that today income distribution is a joke.
1
There is no strategic thinking to back the military build-up. It has to do with an envy attack that Trump had when he went to France and attended the military parade.
There is no strategic thinking beyond the tax cuts. Only a tactical step to favor his circle and take the money from Obamacare.
So I am not happy about Trump's "great results". But for one thing, I completely agree with Trump when he said the anonymous writer (well, he almost said "anonymous") is gutless. If she or he would have any guts, he or she would have put together a dossier with irrefutable proofs and take it to Congress. To me, the writer is an inefficient cabinet member. Like most of them.
5
The analysis sounds good, but it is much too subtle to point out the extreme damage being done to the economy and the environment. Instead of references to Murder on the Orient Express, I would use the proverbial Bull in a China Shop to more accurately assess the damages done to date, with more damage to come for the short term future. Just look at the infrastructure of our security and intelligence and diplomatic agencies to begin to see that it will take time and talent to replace the experienced managers and staff who have been purged. No doubt are real enemies are enjoying the situation. Who was the first to refer to the incumbent as the Chaos Candidate, was it the insightful Mitt Romney? Perhaps the mid term elections will start the process of restoring order to the political and economic crisis that has been created.
4
@Austin Al, It was jeb. I think of him often when I wonder why he does not speak out. What does HE have to lose? Specifically he stated that a chaos candidate would become a chaos president. How true.
3
The bucket of deplorables (90% of Republicans and 30% of America) still love and support Trump and his policies. Why worry about tomorrow when the gettin is good today.
5
Everything they do will result in disaster . Like the market crash after Kudlow declared how strong the economy was . We will be left broke , indebted, populated, uneducated with the 1% hiding behind the SCOTUS to support their theft.
Millionares Murdered in Manhatten. That will be the headline you are looking at . The people will have justice one way or the other. VOTE DEMOCRATIC in 2018.
9
While everyone is busy talking about the unfit man in the Oval Office and how the GOP is standing silently by, complicit to his actions, greater threats to our Democracy are ongoing and the Republicans do not seem to care.
For example, the unrelenting attack on our Intelligence Community that can only benefit our enemies.
Each time trump orders sealed confidential documents to be released to the public, he does so knowing that our enemies will receive "trade" secrets of our Intelligence Community.
Talk about treason? This is treason with GOP support.
Recently, trump has attacked Mr. Ohr by creating a false narrative about Mr. Ohr. Under that cover of how bad Mr. Ohr is, trump is demanding the release Mr. Ohr's department secrets about how we learn about true enemies of democracy, and stop bad actors.
Who would benefit by this Intelligence data release?
Why is no one standing up to the attack against our own country by our own elected official?
10
First off we’re not a crowd - we are a party very interested in Americans and not as much others. Get used to it. We like living in an American culture and not as much in others. Get used to it. We like things established to support Americans by our government. Not as interested in supporting all of the others. Get used to it. This is populism so get used to it.
No one really cares about some person who thinks they are saving the world because they aren’t. I’m personally hoping if they exist they are never found out but have to endure forever the torture of being anonymous. Mike
1
@Mike - I'll translate: Interested in White Americans, living in White American Culture and government support for White Americans. Non-whites need not apply. But America is changing. Get used to it.
7
@Mike.... "We like living in an American culture"....And when does American culture include having a vulgar bigoted narcissist in the White House? Some great American culture that is.
6
@Anna I used the word American precisely in what in means. You seem to have some issues with Americans. Sorry
The GOP is merely in the process of doing what it has always done exceedingly well .. wreck the economy. The BEA has compiled our National Income and Product Accounts going back to 1929. There you'll find our nation's GDP data. Just go to BEA table 7.1 and aggregate annual growth in real GDP per capita over GOP tenures .. and let the dismal results and epiphany strike you. Except for a handful of years, the economy really doesn't like it when the GOP is running things.
This is what happens when dogma clouds your vision.
5
I find it interesting that the US military strategic studies have shown that the number one threat to our national security is... wait for it... yes climate change. *Sigh*
So by not fighting climate change through the support of clean air, support of alternative energy and a carbon tax not only are we compromising our efficiency, our health, our competitiveness and job growth but we also are making ourselves more vulnerable to external and internal threats that more battle ships will be unable to stop.
4
For many years, with the loss of manufacturing across this country, we've been inundated with the constant and sad lament about how we just don't make anything here any more. But that's so demonstrably wrong. We make plenty of things here in this country. They are called weapons of mass destruction, and they are absolutely the very best on the planet.
It's highly ironic how myopic our "leaders" are in this regard. Friedman's point is very well taken. Our highly sophisticated and costly military is already being rendered as useless. As the late Molly Ivins once said in here inimitable style, it's like using a sledge hammer to try to kill a flea.
Will we ever learn? In my opinion, it's obviously already too late.
2
Republicans sold their souls to the devil and the American people are the ones who have to live in hell because of it. Republican ideology is an oxymoron. Their only strategy is to take every penny of wealth they can squeeze out of America and hand it over to their campaign donors.
America has slashed taxes, slashed spending and gutted labor protections for the past 50 years. The results, a rapidly disappearing middle class and an underclass that would embarrass a third world dictator.
4
Excellent column. It's easy to drift into feeling that Trump is the fundamental problem (and he certainly is a problem!), but in fact the deeper problems are just was Mr Friedman says: they are the selfish and idiotic policies of the radical right wing.
The things that Adelman, Mercers, Kochs etc push are disastrous to the United States of America.
6
If you define honesty, respect, humility, and charity as good, then aren't their opposites evil? And what kind of people countenance evil just to benefit themselves and their friends? If Jesus sacrificed himself for humankind and this is considered the acme of righteousness what does it say about someone who gives nothing, who views taking from others as a sign of success? There is evil in the world and there are those who are willing to look the other way for a few more coins in their pockets.
3
"...collectively amount to a sugar high that not only will be unsustainable but will leave our economy far more vulnerable in the long term?"
Apparently GOP think is that sustainability has to last only to the next election.
1
This group of Republican men are dead beat dads raiding the children's college fund to buy sports cars for themselves. Reminding them to care for their children's future will do nothing. They don't care. They are blinded by greed and figure they'll be long gone before any of the bills come do. Trump is their avatar.
2
I have no idea why we're building up our military outside of the money being a generous gift to the military and select congressional districts. I mean I'm pretty sure we can defeat our biggest threats under the trump administration, Canada and Mexico, with what we already have.
4
Trump is so clueless and blindly arrogant that he would lead all of us off a cliff - and his GOP enablers would happily go along in return for tax cuts (and a trillion dollar deficit next year) and a Supreme Court majority (representing the the GOP, Big Corporations and the rich). Trump is stupidly dismantling efforts to reduce global warming and the poisoning the environment, destroying the Affordable Care Act that gave 20 million more Americans a chance to have health insurance and better health care, starting trade wars, picking a fight with Canada (!) and demonizing entire groups and professions while undermining our basic democratic institutions. And I didn't mention his personal piggishness and probable criminality. When I think about it, it's impossible to feel any patience, respect or sympathy for the fools who voted for this guy and brought this nightmare down upon our heads.
4
Everyone talks about the success of the so-called tax cuts. It is way too premature to call them a success. It is a hare economy, and reality is a tortoise. Wait until the bill is due and the national treasury is as bankrupt as Greece's. And let's not forget the enlarging of the deficit by $1.5 trillion. This was nothing more than too-big-to-fail writ larger than in 2008.
1
Congrats and thank you to the editorial board of the NYT, great entertainment watching a completely dysfunctional White House meltdown in full view of the world.
Greatest joke-hoax of all time.
How do you destroy the United States?
Hint: It is not with a powerful army, navy and air force.
It is through what we are seeing today. It is through enabling the richest to own government, granting themselves massive tax cuts, and taking away necessary services, (education, social security, medicare, medicaid et cetera.) It is through building deficits during the good time and thereby being unable to intervene during the bad times.
It is through creating a growing class of underemployed economically non-viable citizens who are ill-equipped for the few very high skill jobs that will be required to support robotic plants, with robotic warehouses and infrastructure. AI will hit the white collar worker just as effectively as robotics and offshoring hurt the blue collar worker. And what precisely are all these idle hands and minds going to do? (The opioid crisis is one facet of this problem.)
It is also through stoking fear to get the giant to swing sledgehammers at gnats. That is the brilliance of asymmetric warfare. Think about 9/11 through that lens for a moment, and also think about how the Vietnam experience has shaped the culture with regard to the psyche of America and the willingness to accept casualties.
America is culturally and economically fractured, without a common narrative, where the uber-rich can shape the rules, and welfare is taking the form of private prisons.
The USSR fell in 1991; America's fall is in progress.
8
The small financial transaction tax. Yes, a thousand times yes.
1
Corporate America is rolling in cash and they are spending it on stock buy-backs and executive perks, not innovation or expansion. Giving these guys more money through tax cuts has never translated into real growth, it just means more public debt. The only way to grow America is by growing demand. The only way to do that is by putting more money in the pockets of consumers. There are many ways to do this, and all involve some significant government intervention. Federal support and encouragement of Unions and other collective bargaining devices, radically increased minimum wage, and wage guarantees. Massive infrastructure investment would probably be the very best way to effect consumption and the economy as a whole, provided a substantial wage standard for awarding of contracts was part of the deal. The competition for workers at real living wages would truly raise all boats. But all of this would require higher taxes. The GOP is committed to never raising taxes PERIOD, and is hell bent on bankrupting America, not building it.
5
People think that, because they are rich, they and their families are insulated from catastrophe. And the don not give a rat’s behind about anyone else.
2
I agree with most of Mr. Friedman's points. I support the corporate tax cut, but think the revenue loss could have been offset, at least in part, by making the dividends paid out deductible from profits and taxable to the recipients at earned income rates.
The Republicans have certainly made a Faustian bargain. I feel very sorry for children born today. Given the low qualitative level of political leadership and sharp divisions among the electorate along racial, nationality and cultural lines, there seems to be little that can be done to stem the tide. By incorporating abysmal shortsighted economic and environmental policy decisions, we are mortgaging their future. Additionally, housing affordability for Millennial's has nosedived. Couple this with the wars, misery and suffering occurring in the world, perhaps it would be compassionate and preferable not to have children at all. The potential for a cataclysmic disaster, either man made or natural, has increased dramatically. We may be leaving them a world that, at best, is unsustainable and at worst, uninhabitable.
2
Good points, Mr. Friedman, but was the Agatha Christie spoiler really necessary?
1
Mr Friedman, you used the word "amoral" and so did the OP-Ed writer....
"The root of the problem is the president's AMORALITY. " (NY Times OP-ED)......The word "amorality" is not often used and this is by far the key phrase in The New York Times OP-ED. Being AMORAL means you do not know the difference between RIGHT & WRONG. This explains the child separation at the border, equating neo-Nazis with protesters, he destroying of the environment, the gutting of healthcare for millions of Americans, the cozying up to dictators, the pathological lying, the sexual promiscuity, the lack of empathy... etc. The "devil's bargain" was with someone who can't distinguish between right & wrong. What does THAT say about the GOP ?
2
Who among them has no ruth
For obfuscators of the truth?
Who stands for our Founder‘s dreams
Instead of money grubbing schemes?
Who remembers, “Yes I can!”
—Certainly no Republican
Who stops their robbing ‘hoods
And brings back all their stolen goods?
Who reconstitutes a nation
Parched by moral dehydration?
Restores our shredded institutions?
Invigorates our constitution?
Rebuilds what they’ve ripped apart?
November’s just a crucial start!
The bullies smote, the bullies gloated
The victims simply had not voted
And now the cost of slack is clear
No more crying in our beer
No “Nevermore!”—a birdbrain’s quote
If you don’t vote that’s all she wrote
3
Brilliant as usual
2
I don't know which is more unethical:
A. Anonymous' cowardly refusal to quit the reprehensible Trump White House (and ergo salary) to step forward and openly document his/her serious concerns and warnings as a "senior official" and responsible individual;
or
B. Anonymous' strong support for the GOP-Trump agenda* of:
(1) tax "reform"/cuts that increase inequality further in our nation, continue to shortchange the middle- and working classes, and damage democracy by turning the U.S. into a have vs. have-not nation;
(2) deregulation of corporations and big polluters, which increases the likelihood of fraud, another economic crisis, and more rather than less environmental damage as we are already facing the dire consequences of climate change
(3) more and more money for the military, when the U.S. already spends more on defense than the next 7 nations combined, while deferring spending on our crumbling roads and bridges, and claiming Social Security, Medicare, and most social programs that benefit people who are not rich must be slashed or ended.
*mentioned in Anonymous' op-ed piece as what he/she really liked and supported in the GOP agenda (to make America more inequitable, more polluted and environmentally destroyed, and more in supportive of guns at the expense of butter
1
As a Trump-supporting establishment conservative, you hit the nail on the head! The Supreme Court is so important in our modern democracy that I was willing to support Donald J. Trump, just to make sure the Court didn't fall back into Liberal hands. Sad!
1
Wow! An eyesore exposed and poked at will, as it cannot defend itself even if it tried. Guerrilla (cyber warfare by others will be our downfall, while we outspend all in ever larger 'elephants' in the room. That Trump is exceedingly stupid and impulsive, as any megalomaniac tends to do, is a fact. That republican anonymous idiots are willing to meet Trump halfway (deregulation, tax cuts, Obamacare's racist obliteration) is exceedingly dumb and with no foresight, classic nitwits with their heads in the sand. Pogo was right, we found the enemy, and it is Us!
BRILLIANT and true.
DJT wants immortality, though he'll be cussed which he seemingly does not comprehend.
Sure the short term is working, and that's his schtick.
He is a fool, but his voters apparently suffer his mentality, and are so shallow that they'll vote for him no matter how absurd.
He considers that Uncle Sam has been getting ripped off blah blah blah.
I would like to see his university grades, and have doubts about how he got a degree (in econ? from Wharton?).
I am not shocked that his IQ is said to be 156.
Who did he pay to take the IQ test?
1
A morally bankrupt GOP, will bankrupt the country as well.
4
Let's see how wonderful Anonymous (or enonoumus if you ask mush mouth Trump) feels after Trump is directly responsible for more deaths. He is worse than the 9/11 hijackers who only killed 2600 in the Twin Towers proper and Trump has killed more people in Puerto Rico, but no one cares--the Americans in charge now are all racist and it is disgusting.
3
Another excellent column and wise thinking, Mr. Tom Friedman.
2
How apt it is when you say that our children are being cheated from their future by current policies.
I just wonder why the members of the Congress fail to understand that they will eventuality succumb to their morality, leaving their own children in a perilous future.
1
'The GOP crowd'? lol
The DEMS have just as many closeted supporters as the GOP, they are just much more cowardly to show their true colors.
1
Anonymous AND Friedman have ignored the small stuff like Constitution and Rule of Law.
The con artist will scam the USA again with a spending binge charged to the national debt. Then the ugly truth about the fake tax cut will hit in April. What a joke the USA has become.
1
Here’s more Trump trashing. That is if you’re warn out over “all things Trump??? In a certain sense, I am, in that I can’t do anything at the present time to change Trump and /or those who are convinced that he’s doing the right thing for the country. Obviously, it’s not the Far Right – they’ve bin blinded by his bogus promises. Somehow we got to get the rest of the country to take Trump down by electing Senators and members of the House who want to end this cancer in the White House.
2
Friedman, like many others, calls Trump amoral. That is incorrect. He is immoral. Amoral refers to a bloodless person who doesn't care one way or the other. Trump is immoral because he actively chooses to do and be evil. Even if you give him a pass on his sexual proclivities (and if you do, you should repent), there's no denying it: this guy likes to hurt people, is a high priest of the lord of lies, epitomizes greed etc. As the Doonesbury comic strip puts it, the only one of the seven deadly sins he doesn't have nailed is sloth. On the other hand, since Trump as of September 8th has gone to golf clubs a minimum of 144 times since his inauguration, perhaps he also makes his mark in sloth.
7
@Marvant Duhon......"Amoral refers to a bloodless person who doesn't care one way or the other"......No, Someone who is amoral has no morals; not to mention being a vulgar bigoted narcissist. American voters are so dumb.
GOP supporters and Trump's base will go along with just about anything Republicans propose in Congress because Democrats are apparently berserko socialist animals bent on destroying the country, if you believe the nonsense coming from the right wind media.
They'll go along with it until the older ones (and there are a LOT of those who vote for GOP candidates) perceive a threat to their Social Security and Medicare benefits.
My guess is that's when they'll finally wake up and smell the coffee - when someone tries to pull the rug out from under their feet. Like my father used to say, "You vote your wallet."
If what's happening in the White House isn't enough to wake up these people, maybe an attack on their benefits will.
1
What ever happened to the Tea Party? Did they disband after the "black guy" left the Oval Office? Of course they did. Another group of hypocrites.
7
Don't you know that Republicans only care about the unborn fetus? Once a baby is born, it becomes expendable collateral damage.
4
Republican creed: "If the Devil offers you a bargain for your soul which enriches you but harms all the rest of the human beings in your country, take it."
4
At its most basic level politics over global warming looks to be a pitched battle to the end between elites: greedy instant gratification types who want what they want regardless of the cost to future generations, and delayed gratification types who typically enjoy all the comforts of modern society including second homes and frequent fall flung travel, but at the same time, on account of their liberal upbringing and privileged status, keenly sense they have a responsibility to do something for the planet; a duty they fulfil by instructing the masses on how they might live their lives more sparingly, and more ever mindful of the byproducts of their workaday and leisure time activities. Aren't elite human beings funny?
3
One might ruefully muse that, in an evolving climate, the greatness of a nation would be defined by its ability to offer leadership and enlightenment in a time of climatic tumult. Show me any nation that has done that. Instead, we have concerns about profit today trumping the incalculable debt of tomorrow. One wonders how long the corporatists might live in order to enjoy their capacious fortunes at the cost of their children’s well being.
It seems evident, however, that the root of the problem is not corporatism. Rather, it is the reticence if we common folk to reign in the ravagers of the planetary gods for fear of job loss and the tipping of the economic skiff in which we all sail. If Nike is right with its Kaepernickian philosophy of sacrifice in the face of resultant loss, perhaps it is a corporation, ironically enough, that leads the way. Surely, climate change is worth the risk?
2
Ask them how many combined national defense budgets the U.S. should out spend? Demand a number.
Ask them if we should continue to spend money on strategies that are not working? The Taliban have control of much of Afghanistan. The number of ISIS fighters is greater than it has been for years.
2
Trump’s unfunded tax cuts which will see the US budget deficit go close to $1 trillion in 2019, will also put upward pressure on inflation and interest rates.
Currently inflation is around 2.9%, but Trump’s tariffs based on spite, will see US consumers pay more for many imports, while US exports may be under more pressure. Higher interest rates will impact negatively on the stock market and the US economy, yet Trump will lay the blame at Obama/Hillary/Democrats and his supporters will believe his diversion tactics......again.
Trump’s ability to turn a perfectly sound business into a failing enterprise, is not a skill to be applauded. He has not surrounded himself with the best, just the ones who gained the most from his unfunded tax cuts that were heavily skewed to the mega rich.
2
Seems to me that the increase in military spending is just another way to give more money to the wealthy. And the money grab by the rich continues!
3
Tom, your "Anonymous-GOP" cabal is just the same old GOP that's been so successful in bamboozling so many Americans for the last 30 years. Trump is only a vehicle (OK, a tiger to ride) to keep driving towards the same goals the GOP has fixated on since Reagan.
In a nutshell, the GOP's raison d'etre can be neatly summed up in the statements of Paul Ryan and Grover Norquist. Rob from the masses to further enrich the wealthy. Then after decades of "Robin Hood-in-reverse", announce to most Americans that "the federal cupboard is bare" and they'll just have to live without all those "socialist" programs like Medicare and Social Security.
The resulting neo-feudal America is already here. Today's Times features a full length article about the brutal fact that many full-time American jobs simply don't pay a living wage anymore. And tens of millions of Americans can't even grasp that rung of the ladder, subsisting instead on the "gig economy" in the service industries.
Just what the Oligarchy wants. An endless supply of dirt-cheap labor, desperate enough to put up with slave labor conditions - because the alternative (sans any social safety net) is starvation.
And the GOP tamps down any sense of "class warfare" by distracting the masses with fear of "the Other" (black and brown people, immigrants, Muslims, gays, "elites", intellectuals, etc.) - while offering up star-spangled red, white and blue "bread and circuses" to venerate "Real Americans" (white, Christian conservatives).
3
A couple of sentences severely weaken your opinions:
1. "I favor corporate tax cuts — big ones. But I would have offset them with a carbon tax, a tax on sugar and a small financial transaction tax"
Corporate tax cuts or tax cuts for the 1%. Please differentiate based on the law passed.
2. "How different is that from Trump’s indecency? Let’s be clear, Trump cheated on his wife, but his party’s now cheating on their kids. You tell me who’s worse."
This looks like a sentence in a freshman composition class.
Instructions to class: In this piece, make a bold statement that you can use in your conclusion to tie things together.
Probably best though if your bold statement is on point.
3
Thank you. Let's be clear here. Mr. Friedman is a card carrying member of the same ruling class that got us into this mess. He's just upset his clique is temporarily on the outs.
With Donald Trump America will lose its world leadership role. All of those policies trumpeted (pun intended) by his team of self-serving acolytes are for them alone. Donald Trump can't see beyond his own world. His speeches rally a base that has no idea it's all about him have given an opening to other regimes to step in. Already China is making headway in economics and even climate change. Russia is manipulating governments sowing discord in the US and Europe. North Korea is becoming a player. If they align the world as we know it is over. But this group could care less because they're focused on getting what they want and nothing else.
Devil's bargain? That implies quid pro quo; this is far worse, I fear. Anonymous did us no favors, it sounds too much like Sunday morning confession after Saturday night's debauchery.
2
"...the U.S. 'may need to take politically painful steps,' such as cutting Social Security benefits..." and Medicare, Food Stamps, SNAP...
That, and the Tax Cut legislation, are the Republican plan for gutting our social safety net.
5
The problem isn’t Trump; it’s Republicans.
4
American people, knowing very well that Trump had a shady past and politically incorrect way of talking, elected him as President. As President he is acting much better than Bill Clinton morally. America is doing much better than during the last eight years in every field. So, there is no fresh reason to remove him unless Mueller produces some hard evidences of wrong doing which we haven't seen so far. So, Tom, stop complaining, respect the decision of the people and wait for the next election.
3
No need to look into a crystal ball to see the years to come.
Trump and the Republicans are creating a bleak future for all earth's children -- old and young and those not yet born. Vote as if your life depends on it. Because it does.
3
Once again you are right on all you are pointing out and it is painful to read...God help us all...
1
Greed and Grandiosity Old Party.
A friend who worked hard all her life gets $811 in Social Security. $123 of that goes to Medicare. Leaving $688.
C'mon Paul Ryan -- let's cut that so a CEO gets a tax cut?
It is sickening.
10
Faust was going to save Marguerite, for himself. The bargain here for Mr. or Ms. Anon is unclear. He/she has taken oceans of abuse, from Trump, Sarah Sanders, etc. for what?
Apparently to do a Little Jack Horner -- tell the world "What A Good Boy I Am, "defined as poisoning the planet, throwing away a trillion on Welfare for Billionaires, making inadequate medical care a pre-existing condition for Americans and giving Trump an ill thought out military budget which he wants to use to blow up Iran.
Now there's a utility to the Part Time Dissident Essay. For historians it will serve as credible witness to the chaos, dishonesty, vile attitudes and recklessness (evangelicals please read 2 Thessalonians) which characterize the Presidency and its authoritarian ambition.
Short term, however, I fear it will help firm up Trump's paranoid base. A clean break, resign first, then talk would have better served the Republic (everybody in a senior administration position please read Albert O. Hirschman's Exit and Voice).
1
President Trump is the big, bright orange cherry on top of the curdled whipped cream that is today’s G.O.P.
Earlier Dr. Krugman wrote: ". . . Trump isn’t especially unusual for a modern Republican. For today’s G.O.P. doesn’t do substance; it doesn’t assemble evidence, or do analysis to formulate or even to justify its policy positions."
Long before Trump came on the scene, the GOP had institutionalized demagogic structures and practices
GOP demagogues understand that the common sense of the individual citizen readily succumbs to the emotions of the crowd. Republican manipulators effectively enflame those emotions, shut down democratic processes grounded in rational reflection and argument, and obstruct alternative solutions to our nation's problems.
GOP politicians and their media enablers employ the demagogue's favored tactics on a daily basis: gross oversimplification, fear mongering, scapegoating, emotional appeals, accusations that opponents are disloyal or weak, attacks on the news media, obstructive refusals of all compromise and bald faced lies.
Among the GOP's anti-democratic and demagogic tactics are: gerrymandering, voterx suppression, appeals to divisive "social/moral" issues, identification with a shallow militaristic "patriotism" and a narrow "Christian" fundamentalism, and the branding of socially beneficial programs as deviations from the one "true course": unfettered cutthroat capitalism.
Trump is the transient symptom. The GOP is the persisting disease
3
As a daily Times reader I have followed reactions to the anonymous op-ed piece printed on Sept 5. Tens of thousands of comments to it and to related articles have been displayed online. Many of these comments reflect an alarming disconnect between the reality of our current crisis and some readers’ idealistic reaction to it.
We are not “on the verge of a constitutional crisis.” We are in the middle of one.
Our nation is now facing the greatest peril it has during my 66 years. Perhaps since the Civil War.
The notion that Anonymous should have resigned, along with his like-minded co-workers, and that they should then go to the congress...
Absurd!
Seasoned politicians (including ex-presidents), statesmen and foreign leaders have tried to get through to the Congressional Republicans. Thousands of mental health professionals have warned congress that the president is unstable and dangerous. Thousands of Trump’s lies have been documented.
Congress takes no action.
Our safety, individually and as a nation, rests not on military might, law enforcement agencies or a free press; not even on our constitution. The foundation on which our country truly rests is the common sense, rationality and fair judgment of the American people — and that of our elected representatives. When reason fails us, on a grand scale, we are lost.
Can we differentiate lies from truth, distinguish fact from fantasy?
We the People are on trial.
Congress isn’t coming to the rescue.
Vote. It really matters.
17
Vote it really matters, you wrote and you say you approve of anonymous insiders sand bagging the policies of a duly elected president. Me thinks you should look at your self contradictory statements.
@Dennis
“... you say you approve of anonymous insiders sand bagging the policies of a duly elected president.”
I read and reread my comment. I can’t find what you say I said.
I don’t ever remember using the expression “sand bagging” in written or spoken English. The reason for this is that I’m not quite sure what that expression means.
Thanks for noticing my comment.
2
This style of leadership is the more of same for Trump. This is how he went bankrupt, sold out to foreign governments, and deeply compromised himself and his businesses. It is the myth of Trump he sells.
It is one thing for the average American to be fooled. It is another for Congress, most of whom know the truth of Trump, to be all in. In some respects one can understand why people believe Congress has sold out. They are too busy courting big business to care what their constituents want or need. They are not just selling their own souls, they are selling all of us out. Unfortunately, an uninformed minority clings to idea that the myth that Trump will save them. As long as Congress believes this "fan base" intact they will continue to support a man whose business acumen has been proven to be lacking.
2
Come on Tom, you know what cutting environmental regulation and increasing defense spending is really all about, don't you? It's just another page out of uncle Milton's laissez faire economic theory which is really just a cover for enriching corporate interests.
Trump couldn't care less about sugar highs, removing spare tires, or how these actions affect everyday, middle-class workers. Like all good "small government" Republicans, it's all about corporate enrichment -- the same entities that are the real power being politics -- particularly right wing politics. And that's why Republicans can hold their noses while rationalize away their support for Trump. He's a means to an end.
3
I can’t speak for the big picture but in the microcosm that I live in we are all doomed.
Today my nephew posted a picture of an elk he killed in Idaho. He’s quite proud of this. He lives with my mother and certainly didn’t kill it to put food in the table- more because he just wanted to kill it because hunting is cool, hunting is fun and it’s a terrific way to spend your weekend.
I travel a lot and because of my weird job I get to see all sorts of beautiful beaches. In Busan Korea they seem to re-nourish Haeundae Beach every other year because of global warming, while at Fulong Beach in Taiwan you can’t walk 5 feet along the beach without stepping on a cheap disposable cigarette lighter that has washed ashore because the fisherman use these to light their lanterns for commercial fishing. Those things are everywhere.
In the books that I have read and the people I talk to the most alarming thing seems to the tiny things that are missing. Like tree frogs in Panama and the lightning bugs at night and the honey bees in our back yard.
Once these things crash or become extinct we are in a world of hurt and then maybe we can have some serious discussions about how invasive and terrifying Homo sapiens have to this planet because I guess for now we are entitled to this way of life.
4
I keep reading how this tax cut will hurt some of our fiscal tools if there is another recession. I'm 60, with an Economics degree and MBA. I still want to believe deficits should matter, eventually affecting interest rates and growth.
It appears they don't. W's "credit card" wars, Great Recession government spending, now the tax cuts. So far, none of this seems to have affected global interest rates. Maybe we can print money and the world demand just absorbs it. Perhaps it's just numbers on a page. Maybe global monetary policy offsets Keynesian spending and careless fiscal (war and tax cut) policies?
John
1
There have been no tax cuts, only tax deferrals.
2
The economic boom under Trump had already begun under Obama. Trump took a strong economy and gave it huge Keynesian stimulus. There will be a price for the ill considered policy that only helps the rich. The de-regulation is destroying so many things and for all we know will lead to the next Great Recession. What is there to celebrate?
7
While much of what you say here is true, I'd like to address two things that tell me you've had a swig of GOP Kool-Aid. First, do you really believe that corporate taxes are hindering corporate investment? If so, I've got a spreadsheet model for you, and I am sure your colleague Krugman has even more. You might want to take a look at the percentage of federal revenue from corporate taxes on an historic basis, and also as a percentage of GDP. I believe that would prove clarifying. Also, if the only way to stabilize the budget is to cut Social Security benefits, why is it that virtually every European nation offers far more in the way of a social safety net and have happier populations? Do you really believe they are all going broke? Maybe, just maybe, the answer is to be found in the percentage of US GDP spent on defense, in ways that, as you explain, are simply dumb.
3
We need to invest in our roads, bridges and other modes of transportation that are fuel efficient. The transportation of food and other products depend on this
Military spending at the expense of education and health care weakens,not strengthens,our country. Cyberattacks affecting the grid is the way warfare will be conducted. Bloodless but devastating to our financial centers and commerce. The number of ships and planes ? Irrelevant in this type of warfare.
Mr Friedman mentioned diabetes twice in his essay and he is right to do so. Diabetes and its management takes a very large percentage of the health care dollars spent by Medicare. If the country does not address this issue more aggressively the quiet epidemic of diabetes will soon overwhelm our health care economy. The incidence is growing exponentially.
Mr Trump has a very narrow perspective on what will make America Great Again. America needs to be healthy, educated and have an economy that supports the middle class. These will be the major contributors to America’s greatness.
4
It’s Melania. Who or what else could wipe that smirk off of the Dons face in the picture with Stormy Daniels. Hell hath no fury and all that. Wait till he finally hears it from her. Bet that will be a picture worth millions.
@William Wintheiser
She can barely speak English though.
When Reagan was president, he invented "deficit spending", adding then-historic levels of debt to our economic burden. w. outdid Reagan, by putting actual shooting wars "on the tab", and eventually bringing us the Great Recession.
And, as Reagan used to say, "Here we go again." Did we NEED to spend even more on "defense"? Hell no! We already outspent the next 7 countries in the world COMBINED on "defense". And that money does NOT go to "the military". It goes to the Pentagon, and then to grossly overpaid contractors and, in many cases, "no bid" contracts, many of which have nothing to do with the active military. Did we NEED to eliminate environmental regulations, adding to the already evidently damaged environment? Who benefits from deregulation? The polluters, of course, who bribe our legislature to that exact end. We need giant pickup trucks to run on the pothole-filled roads we were once proud of. No more. Our healthcare system is being dismantled under the same sham logic. Already, we're the most expensive system on the planet, but the 37th when it comes to actual quality of care. Of course all this is brought to you by way of the lobbyists "representing" the transnational corporations who benefit most from the outrageous tax cuts of which the repubs seem so absurdly proud.
Yes, we are indeed burning all the furniture to heat the house. Vote in November!
3
So Anonymous liked the permanent tax cuts for the top 1% and corporations. Meanwhile, there will be opportunity costs such as infrastructure ignored, eventual meddling with Medicare & Social Security, direct hits to Medicaid, to schools, to aid for college students & university/ business apprenticeship programs.
Health care was sabotaged by the administration, the richest profit from the tax bill---
Economists call these opportunity costs: In order to have A, you give up B. The deficit has ballooned by 1.5 trillion, more than enough obscene funds went to the military industrial complex....Some believe the 1.5 trillion is much higher.
One of the biggest lies is Trump promised to provide healthcare for all. Last December Paul Ryan said reductions to "entitlement" programs were next on his agenda to offset the revenue cuts....What's next? Depleted safety net and a far less robust public sector?
2
Cyberwarfare requires a highly educated population, which is the reason that the Trump GOP has sharply increased the military budget for hardware. A highly educated population doesn’t vote for the GOP.
2
@BBB Let us hope that November brings common sense back into the equation along with compassion.
1
Maybe - just maybe, the government should take BACK that $2.4 Trillion tax cut / welfare for the rich and use it to pay down the debt.
Or maybe use that money to fund Medicare for all Americans.
Realize that the propaganda over the massive expense of Medicare for ALL is assuming that we pay nothing for our healthcare. Even those on Medicare right now pay every month.
If you sign up for Medicare this year - you pay $130 per month or more. And next year - it will be higher. If everyone paid $150 per person for Medicare for All - this $2.4 Trillion give-away to the rich would fund Medicare for All and have money left over.
But hey - those poor starving rich need this extra money to pay for an additional maid in their third summer house.
1
It is difficult to read these articles by traditional Republican writers who are appalled by Donald Trump and by the Republican Party's self-serving reasons for circling the wagons around him. And yet they would solve America's problems with some policies that take even more away from we the people "such as cutting Social Security benefits and imposing higher taxes on consumers", "limiting spending on infrastructure." Friedman says he favors corporate tax cuts while to me Trump's corporate tax cuts are useless and obscene. He would offset the cost of the tax cuts with a carbon tax. Hard to argue with that, and he would cure childhood asthma as a side benefit. (I'm not sure his medical facts are quite correct on this point.) Then he would cure diabetes with a sugar tax. Easy peasy - done and done. (Once again the medicine might be arguable.) By the time I am done reading this attempt to dump Trump and stay Republican, my mind isn't sure whether to be happy for the support, or angry about the policy. I tell myself it would be far worse if Mr. Friedman still loved Trump.
2
“There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.”
"The trains run on time".
8
@strangerq "the trains run on time". but they don't. Not in New York, or anywhere else. We don't even have a competent dictator.
1
@strangerq They will until they won't. As always.
The culprits and beneficiaries of the massive redistribution of wealth-with the predicted dire consequences to mainstream Americans saddled with this mess-are planning to flee our country, buying land and expensive homes in New Zealand. That small nation is taking measures to curtail the influx of America's least admired.
Mr. Friedman, going away the best columnist we have today, condemns the self-serving intent of the op-ed, but I'm still grateful that the group (that's a darn good guess) alerted us that the crazy old man is walking around late at night in the White House with a meat cleaver.
4
Thank you, Tom Friedman. Well written explanation. Will just voting Democrat in November cure this ill? No. We're stuck with this catastrophe voted upon us by ill-informed, racist, fearful voters afraid of having lost their power.
9
Your comments would be much better informed if you understood economics better. You need to study Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and learn to love a deficit.
1
What an excellent article; more so because the economic and environmental measures raised were once part and parcel of good governance, adopted and promoted across the world. Post Trump, the US has gone on a rampage. Policies, or rather edicts have become transactional and seem to serve no other purpose other than extraction and enrichment.
How has the largest democracy on earth allowed this horror of horrors to occur? An unchecked president and a wacky party of enablers acting like kids on a Christmas morning. There are no adults in this room. It's absolutely parasitic.
4
Thanks to Trump we will borrow our way to bankruptcy, just as he did in his business. But will we be able to rent the name " United States of America" to our creditors?
1
Republican zombies under bush crashed our economy and yet they don't die, and will crash it again all the while using the bush zombie mantra that you can't look at the past. It's a disgrace and disgusting that there people are alive.
6
The economic tear is a continuation of the many months of Obama's economy.
Only 15% of the current expansion is Trump's and there were both higher average GDP growth and higher average job growth under Obama, regardless of what Trump says.
Economic growth and job creation are now cooling off compared to Obama's expansion.
Trump is stacking risk, he's doubling down on everything to keep the expansion from faltering as it normally should have by now. He's burning all the furniture.
The Wilshire total market cap divided by total GDP is 147% as of today (this is what Buffet primary uses). If below 100% there is room for growth and you should buy, otherwise you need to sell.
So the market is way overvalued.
Trump's doubling down avoids the banking of an immediate loss and might provide a big return, but it doesn't always work. You're just doubling risk and pushing it off - and risk never goes goes away, it increases - when it returns you go bankrupt like Trump did six times.
So let's not cheer the economy as something good that Trump's done; what goes up fast always comes down hard.
Nothing Trump's done is good, nothing at all, not even an occasional accidental good. It's all bad.
9
Mr. Friedman is so breathlessly naive. “Economic growth and employment have clearly been on a tear since LONG BEFORE Trump took office”. State the facts, don’t repeat Trump’s lies. He inherited a strong economy, lied about Obama’s economc record, and took credit for it all. And Friedman? He cops to Trump’s lies. Isn’t that Hannity’s job?
5
@John Ranta
Trump also claims he did a great job with Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, despite the 3000 dead.
Wonder if Friedman plans on conceding to that lie as well?
1
The Chinese have non-nuclear ballistic missiles that can punch a hole right through the center of an aircraft carrier from thousands of miles away. Entering the atmosphere at thousands of miles an hour, they are unstoppable. What's our response? Why, more aircraft carriers of course! And let's make sure those new carriers are well stocked with clunky, glitchy, absurdly overpriced F-35's that can only fly on a breezeless spring morning.
We're going to get our nose bloodied within the next few years and it's not going to be pretty.
7
Well, all I can say is - Hitler and the NAZI's found a way to revive the German economy. The parallels with Trump should be enough to make anyone with a functioning brain do everything they can to stop this nightmare. I said that because Friedman says he is glad that there is economic growth and increased employment since Trump took office, which speaks to Friedman's inner Albert Speer.
For those of you with a typically American ahistorical understanding of the world, Speer ran the German economy for Hitler during WW2. That Speer made specious claims of not knowing about the Holocaust while it was underway makes the similarities to our Trumpites all the more vivid.
People need to consider the cost to humanity as a whole that is being exacted by imperial America. And consider the fact that nearly 63 million Americans voted for Trump. They did this knowing who and what they were voting for. And those working for Trump also know who and what they work for. This was in no way a devil's bargain. And the analogy to Hitler holds in this light. Many of those in the German hierarchy knew Hitler was deranged, like Albert Speer. But he did his job - and kept the NAZI war machine running. The death toll from this was staggering - a minimum of 25 million in the Soviet Union alone.
Again, we need to do everything in our power to get this regime out of power, and it is a regime, not just one lone nut.
10
Judging from history, there is a tipping point in the affairs of men and nations where no amount of protest or warning, no facts or reason, will avail to change minds and change the course of events. I feel we are near that point in America. The midterm elections will say for sure. If Republicans retain control of both houses and now the Supreme Court, all that remains for the rest of us to do is take care of ourselves and our families, make and save as much money as we can, help those less fortunate if we can, update our passports, and pray. What a Republican government under Trump does in the next two years will be whatever they want to do, no checks and no balances, and heaven help us.
4
Although man made the massive movement of mass people from Syria Iraq might actually be a natures way of getting people out of places that are going to heat up beyond human capacity to endure heat? People are going to move from Africa North Africa towards cooler Europe..
Hold on to Your seats...global warming is heating up..
1
Good or bad, why trust the President when you can't even trust the government who backs up the President?? see the circle??
1
The ''devil's bargain'' for the base (republicans) was enact tax theft, put radical right wing activist judges on the bench, and roll back anything that hindered absolute profits - even if it meant destroying the planet.
People voted for the above, out of tribe, out of misogyny, and out of the last vestiges of white male privilege against being ruled for 8 years by a black man. (him being a Democrat was secondary)
They didn't care that their candidate had zero political experience, nor did they care if he was a neophyte concerning international affairs. They didn't care that he admitted on tape of having sexually assaulted multiple women, and they didn't care that he was not religious. (especially concerning being divorced multiple times)
They didn't care that he had gone bankrupt multiple times and they didn't care that because of that he was in all likelihood under the thumb of the Russian Czar and his oligarch friends.
Now they don't care if the President is being undercut and subverted by an un-elected cabal that is supposedly directing the affairs of the United States.
Is this not the definition of a coup ? No one cares.
8