SOME ADVICE FROM YOURS TRULY THAT PRESIDENT TRUMP PROBABLY WISHES HE HAD READ

3/29/17

The Washington establishment of both parties, along with the scribes who so slavishly do its bidding, was positively gaga about the failure of President Donald Trump’s “Repeal and Replace” health care “plan.”   The plan was, if such a thing is possible, stillborn from conception due to its fundamental flaws that arose from improper preparation and lack of appreciation for the complexity of the subject matter.  Yours truly’s thoughts on Mr. Trump’s approach to health care were contained in a 1/23/17 post (IS A SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN YOUR FUTURE?) that I am now convinced will, for better or worse, prove even more prescient than most of my posts.  Today’s post, however, is not about the substance of the deeply flawed Trump health plan but, rather, about the politics of the plan.   Yours truly thinks that Mr. Trump handled this aspect of his first major failure in office quite well; he admitted defeat but didn’t dwell on it and proposed moving onto the next issue and revisiting health care at a later, more opportune time.   He handled it like a businessman, rather than a politician.   That is not such a bad thing and it is unlikely that the political damage done by the health plan’s failure will be nearly as dyspeptic as Mr. Trump’s opponents (i.e., virtually all of official Washington) suppose.

The major point, though, is the wisdom of a post I wrote in nearly the immediate aftermath of Mr. Trump’s election, which, loyal readers will remember, yours truly predicted; see TRUMP WILL WIN, AND WIN BIG, ON TUESDAY, 11/4/16 and, no, I will not stop reminding my readers of that particular bout of prescience.   Back to the point, though…on 11/13/16, I wrote the below reproduced piece on term limits and the futility of taking on such a big issue early in the Trump presidency.   The last paragraph of the post contains the piece most relevant to the current discussion:

He (Mr. Trump) ought to first push for the easy things, the things on which he can gather bi-partisan support, like corporate tax reform and infrastructure spending.    Go for the relatively easy stuff, accumulate power and chits, develop a sense of inevitability and the pointlessness of resistance, then go for the big things.  

While I was addressing the mega-issue of term limits in dispensing the above advice, the same could be said on the more immediate, though not as large, issue of health care and one suspects that Mr. Trump, in the wake of this latest setback, wishes he had read the above piece and followed the advice contained therein.    Why Mr. Trump decided to start with this huge and seemingly intractable issue, repeating the very same mistake of President Obama that did so much to cripple his presidency, is a mystery to me.   But most of what Mr. Trump does is a mystery to me; I hope he is crazy like a fox.

THAT WHICH DONALD TRUMP MUST DO HE MUST DO LATER

11/13/16

Of all the things Donald Trump said he would do when he became president, far and away the most important was the institution of term limits for Congress.   Term limits would forever alter the thinking of those who get elected to Congress and never find their way back home.  If a House member knew that he would eventually have to live with the laws that he passes, perhaps he would look at those laws and their consequences more carefully.   If a Senator knew that a career in politics were just about impossible, perhaps that career would not be the foremost thing in her mind and she would not be so desperate for the cash needed to sustain such a career…and not so willing to make the compromises with one’s principles that come attached to that money.  

Term limits would break, even destroy, the political careerist mindset, and it was the rejection of, and the revulsion at, the professional politicians and their condescending and usually misguided way of thinking that made Mr. Trump President-elect Donald Trump.   Therefore, the most important thing that Mr. Trump must do to deliver on his promises is not tax cuts, a border wall, a war on ISIS, renegotiation of trade deals or a sweeping reform of the regulatory structure in Washington.   Mr. Trump must work ardently and incessantly for term limits to be true to his candidacy, to those who made it successful, and to his political reason for being.

However…

Mr. Trump must wait, perhaps longer than any of us would like, to make the big push for term limits.   There are two reasons that Mr. Trump must move gingerly on what should be his most important policy initiative.   First, the chances of his actually achieving term limits are close to nil because such limits would have to be passed by people who would be voting themselves out of a job, certainly the best job they could ever have; it’s hard to beat making a highly remunerative living getting one’s hindquarters smooched.   Even if one were to grandfather all existing officeholders in a term limits proposal, the pols still would not go along with such a proposal; note the opposition among senior citizens to proposed changes to Social Security despite their being grandfathered in every serious Social Security reform proposal that has come down the pike.

Second, pushing for a term limits amendment, either through the Congress or through a Constitutional convention, would certainly antagonize the Congress.   While most of us have little problem antagonizing Congress, doing so makes no sense from a practical perspective if one wants to get things done.   If the Congress knows, rather than merely suspects, that Mr. Trump would like to throw them all out of office, their enthusiasm for working with him would doubtless wane.   Why antagonize people you will need, especially if antagonizing them is, from a practical perspective, pointless?

So as much as those of us who voted for Mr. Trump would consider his presidency a failure, and our votes as misguided, if he were to abandon term limits altogether, he ought to put such limits on the proverbial backburner.   He ought to first push for the easy things, the things on which he can gather bi-partisan support, like corporate tax reform and infrastructure spending.    Go for the relatively easy stuff, accumulate power and chits, develop a sense of inevitability and the pointlessness of resistance, then go for the big things.   The biggest of all the big things is term limits.   Achieving this goal may ultimately prove impossible, but making an honest, forthright, and vigorous pursuit of this perhaps quixotic goal would point out to many of us that Mr. Trump is indeed not a closet member of “the club” and has heard the calls and cries of those who are simply fed up with the political professional’s mindset and all the damage it has one to our once great nation.

Term limits, Donald Trump’s health care plan, ACA, ACHA, political inevitability, Social Security, professional politician, infrastructure spending, corporate tax reform, crazy like a fox

SAVING ILLINOIS TAXPAYERS’ MONEY? DIDN’T REPRESENTATIVE MARK BATNICK GET THE MEMO?

3/29/17

I wrote the following letter to the Chicago Sun-Times a few weeks ago, and it is safe to conclude that it will not be published.  Nevertheless, it is worthy of consideration by thinking people and hence I have posted it here for my readers.  

It is almost too challenging to believe that we have people “serving” in Springfield who haven’t figured out the true nature of politics in our once great state and hence go along their ingenuous ways, insisting on things like saving taxpayer money and the like.

3/16/17

In arguing against a proposal by Rep. Silvana Tabares (D.,Chicago) to spend up to $1.5 million to translate portions of the House legislative website and in favor of using Google Translate to do the same thing at no cost, Representative Mark Batinick (R., Plainfield) asked a question that was silly even by the standards of the Illinois House:

“Why are we against a great free bipartisan solution?”

Just how naïve is Mr. Batinick?    Doesn’t he realize that government in Illinois has nothing to do with serving constituents and keeping a vigilant eye on the public fisc?   Is Mr. Batinick such an ingénue that he fails to see that the sole purpose of government in Illinois is to deliver a return on the investment of the people who buy the politicians their offices?   Why would an Illinois pol choose to do something for free when he or she could spend taxpayer money on a contract that would benefit his or her financial backers?   Why pass on an opportunity, any opportunity, to dig into the taxpayers’ pockets?  Do something for free when other people’s money can be spent to solidify one’s position at the public trough?   Has Representative Batinick taken leave of his senses?

Am I being too cynical here?   How can one possibly be too cynical after spending nearly 60 years following the criminal enterprise otherwise known as Illinois politics?      

 See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

JOHN SHIMKUS AND HEALTH “INSURANCE”: A RARE POLITICIAN WHO KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT THE SUBJECT HE ADDRESSES

3/29/17

I wrote the following letter to the Chicago Sun-Times in response to the flack that Representative John Shimkus was getting for having the temerity to suggest that it makes no sense for men to be required to buy coverage for pre-natal care.  The Sun-Times published the letter on 3/15/17.

My major point in this missive is that as long as we insist on maintaining the charade that what we are dispensing is health insurance, we are obligated to follow the patterns and practices of effective insurance.   This entails realistic assessment and spreading of risk and effective allocation of costs to those subject to those risks.  If we ever get around to admitting that Obamacare, any alternative thereto, or health “insurance” as we have known it in this country for years is, in reality, pre-paid health care, then we can expand the discussion to universal coverage and reasonably universal spreading of the cost:

3/13/17

Representative John Shimkus (R., IL) is under attack from, among other, the Sun-Times, for his perfectly logical contention that a health insurance policy that covers a man should not be expected to provide coverage for pre-natal care. 

Opponents of Mr. Shimkus’s reasonable contention predictably start their attack by screaming “Unfair!”, which is nearly always a canard wholly grounded in one’s perspective.   More interesting is Mr. Shimkus’s detractors’ follow-up argument, made as if they were suddenly imbued with a profound understanding of how insurance works, that insurance is about spreading risks and costs and that men should therefore pay for women’s prenatal care and women should pay for men’s prostate cancer treatments.    That can almost sound reasonable until one considers the nature of a risk.   A risk exists only if there is a chance of something unexpected taking place.    There is no chance of a man getting pregnant and needing pre-natal care.  Similarly, there is no chance of a woman developing prostate cancer and needing the appropriate treatment for that malady.  Yes, insurance is about spreading risks but only among those who face the particular risk being spread.   A man faces no risk of getting pregnant and a woman faces no risk of developing prostate cancer.   Therefore, to argue that a man’s insurance policy should cover pre-natal care and a woman’s insurance policy should cover prostate cancer is akin to arguing that those who don’t drive should be required to buy car insurance and those who don’t own a home should buy homeowner’s insurance.   After all, according to the “logic” of those who so decry Mr. Shimkus’s reasonable assertion, insurance is about spreading risk. 

I almost hesitate to bring up the car and homeowner’s insurance analogy for fear of giving these newfound experts on the nature of insurance any ideas.

ON TRADE DEFICITS, CAPITAL SURPLUSES, AND WORSHIPPING AT THE ALTAR OF “FREE TRADE”

3/27/17

Yours truly is a free trade enthusiast, not a free trade dogmatist.   The editors of the Wall Street Journal and most of the Republican Party, however, are largely defined by their blind devotion to the latter, scrupulously adhering to the jots and tittles that they have somehow decided are the essence of a sound free trade policy.  As the incense burning on the altars of the free trade gods began to smolder in the face of the cold winds of reality, the Journal, in a 3/10/17 lead editorial, tried to reignite the flames by trotting out an argument in favor of free trade that is technically true but flawed not far beneath the surface.  I attempted to call out the Journal on this argument in a letter, but, alas, the missive was never published.  I thought I’d share it with my readers.   While this might not be the most entertaining of my pieces, those of you who share my enthusiasm for economics should enjoy it:

3/10/17

The Journal is right (“How to Think About the Trade Deficit,” 3/10/17) when it states that the national payments must “balance” and hence that a trade deficit must be accompanied by a capital surplus of the same size.   However, the Journal makes it sound as if the capital surplus arises because our trading partners are falling all over themselves to invest in U.S. businesses, real estate, and other hard assets.   The Journal gives short shrift to the reality that the bulk of the capital surplus is invested in treasury securities and mortgage and other asset backed securities.  It’s no accident that the era of huge trade deficits has coincided with the era of huge budget deficits; while, as the Journal says, “foreigners are not forcing Washington to borrow,” all those foreign held dollars looking for a safe place to park surely make it easier and cheaper for the politicians to borrow and spend.  The Journal is also correct when it states that “Americans are making millions of individual decisions about how much to save,” but households’ being freed from the necessity to save, and facing less incentive to save, by all those foreign held dollars looking for a home surely skews those individual decisions in favor or more spending and less saving.

To argue that a trade deficit is merely the flip side of a capital surplus does not make the trade deficit a salubrious contributor to the nation’s economic vitality.  The trade deficit and its companion capital surplus have intensified two troubling trends of the last 30 or so years:   a rapidly growing government and an alarming drop in the savings rate.   The former is expensive and detrimental to the principles of freedom on which this country was founded.  The latter is reflective of a deterioration in the national character.   Both necessitate the importation of capital.  Those who think being dependent on foreign oil is dangerous ought to contemplate the perils of being dependent on foreign capital.