A Clear & Present Danger

If you aren't convinced by now that Donald Trump is a danger to our democracy and its continued functioning as a constitutional republic, you just aren't paying attention. Hell, you haven't been paying attention since he declared his intention to run for president in 2016. His questionable (at best) declaration of a national emergency in order to deliver on a campaign promise that was never anything more than an applause line at his rallies is only the latest and most egregious abuse of presidential power. His autocratic tendencies have been on full display since very early on. This is, in part, the problem with electing the head of a privately-owned business.

Periodically we hear how our elected officials should run the government like a business. If you don't think about it too closely, this sounds good, fiscal discipline and all that. But the government isn't a business. The prime duty of a business is to turn as much of a profit as possible for its shareholders. That's not what a government is supposed to do. And even though we voters sometimes get seduced by talk of balanced budgets and efficiency, when push comes to shove we don't want cuts to the things that benefit us. One of the positions advocated by the government-as-a-business party is eliminating regulations, because, they say, regulations constrain businesses and cost them money. Currently, a major US railroad is attempting to cut labor costs by reducing the number of workers on their trains. The union is pushing a regulation that mandates a minimum number, for safety reasons. Obviously this regulation will cost the railroad money, but I'd bet real money that the union members advocating for this regulation voted for Trump. Many right wing/conservative voters loathe the IRS and support the continual cutting of the agency's budget under Republican Congresses, yet complain when they are placed on hold for an hour or can't get their questions answered. Populism is only a good thing when it targets "the other".

When the businessman-politician is the head of a privately-owned corporation, the problems multiply. The president of a family-owned or other non-public company answers to no one. There are no shareholders, there is no board of directors. There is no check on the CEO's impulses. Donald Trump, once his father died, never had to justify his decisions, never had anyone who could overrule him. The head of an organization like the Trump Organization is, in effect, a mini-dictator. As much as Trump (and other business heads) liked to deride the "swamp", someone with government or military experience knows that the president isn't all-powerful. A governor already has experience having her programs frustrated by a legislature and familiar with compromising in order to get things done. A Senator has a background working within a legislature, as well as exposure to foreign policy.

In addition to the authoritarian mindset that is part & parcel of being the head of a private organization, Donald Trump's family built much of their wealth on illegal activities, including tax evasion. There is a history of doing whatever it takes to make a buck or two or a million. Lying to the New Jersey gambling commission, stiffing contractors and shameless self-promotion all add to the noxious stew.

Donald Trump is incompetent, Donald Trump is ignorant. But he thinks that he is the smartest and most competent person in the room, indeed in the whole country. He has never had anyone dare to stand against him, or even so much as contradict him, so naturally he rejects expert advice and ignore any information that doesn't support his opinion of how things ought to be. It's why, despite his own government supporting the opposite of his assertion that we have a crisis at the border, he maintains this fantasy.

We have a president who is ignorant of how government works, how the US economy works, how tariffs work, about the role of the military, how international alliances work, about the separation of powers. He is incompetent at diplomacy, and deal-making, at leadership in general. He is unwilling to listen to anyone who disagrees with him, indeed he demonizes those who disagree with him and attacks them as enemies. He concocts "facts" and "stats" to shore up his paranoid fantasies. He is incredibly thin-skinned with a hair-trigger temper.

How is this not the real national emergency?

Did Your Taxes Go Up?

As much as I enjoy hearing Trump supporters enraged that their taxes went up under the new tax laws, most of the time the people complaining have no idea whether or not their taxes actually went up or down; all they know is how their refund changed. Looking at the size of a tax refund as a yardstick to determine what your taxes were is flawed - it's one indicator, and can be a good one if absolutely nothing changed, but there's more to it.

First of all, the money you get back after filing your taxes is a refund, it's not a return. Your tax return is the form you fill out every year: a 1040, or a 1040A or 1040EZ. But that's only the tip of the misunderstanding iceberg. A refund represents the difference between what the tax on your income (technically your taxable income) was and what you paid in during the year, either via payroll withholding or estimated payments. If you receive a refund you have let the government take more than what they were entitled by law to take; in affect, an interest-free loan. Personally I'd much rather have an extra $100 after taxes in my pocket every month than receive a $1200 refund, however I do understand that, for some people, money management is easier if they don't have that cash available every month. It gives the illusion that you're getting some kind of bonus, but it's only an illusion!

In previous years, if your income remained somewhat stable and you had the same number of personal exemptions, a refund could be a fairly accurate way to gauge whether you were better off or worse, however this year was the first year of the new tax laws. The brackets changed, the rates changed,the standard deduction went up, personal exemptions went away, withholding amounts changed, not to mention changes in what could be deducted. The only way to know for sure if your actual tax burden increased was to look at the line that tells you what your tax was. (The line number varies depending on what form you use) You then have to do some work. If your circumstances are identical to 2017 you can just look at the "your tax" line from last year. If there were some changes, you might have to plug this year's income into last year's tax form and see what the difference is.

For example, I don't get a refund, since I have a small business where I don't pay taxes up front. This year I have to write a check for about $200 more than I did last year. Did my taxes go up? Not so fast! My income was higher than last year, my withholding was lower, plus all the tax changes. What I did was take a 2017 1040 and enter all my 2018 information, then compare my 2018 figures under the old and the new laws. As it turned out, under the new law my tax liability was about $300 less than what it would have been under the old law. If all I had done was look at the check that I had to write, I'd have assumed that I had gotten screwed by the new law.

Was I surprised? Not at all, since all the information that I needed to estimate how my taxes would change under the new law was available last year: tax rates, brackets, etc. Anyone could have done the math and come pretty close in estimating how the changes would affect them, especially for people with relatively simple finances.

I think fewer people came out worse off under the new law than think that they did.

Ralph Northam

By now you've heard about the Democratic Governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, and the fine mess that he's gotten himself into.

It started when a picture from his Eastern Virginia Medical School Yearbook surfaced, with a picture on his yearbook page showing one person in blackface and another in a KKK robe and hood. Initially it was not known which of the two individuals was Northam. First Northam said that one of them was him, but couldn't recall which one. Then he changed his story to say that neither was him, he didn't know how that picture got on his page, and by the way, he had once worn blackface in a Michael Jackson dance contest.

There are so many questions, so few coherent answers and Northam is backpedaling so hard that his bicycle is beyond repair.

I think that it's beyond dispute that wearing a KKK robe and hood, unless you're an actor in a movie, is inherently racist. I don't care if it was a "different time", or you didn't know it was racist, or it "was just a joke" or your one black friend supposedly wasn't offended, it's fucking racist! No matter how much you may have changed, or how much you now love black people, at least at that time, in that place, you were a racist.

I'm not sure about blackface. I don't quite get the racism inherent in it. But I don't have to understand it, every black person who I have seen give their opinion on it says that they think it's racist, so that's good enough for me.

The big question for me is whether an attitude that one had in the past (racism, misogyny, homophobia) that one no longer holds, should be held against them now. I'm not saying that any of these attitudes and mindsets should be excused as youthful indiscretions or that "it was a different time". But I wonder whether we should take into account whether someone has truly changed, or if the past will always be with us. For one period in my life, in my words and actions I was a homophobe. I bought into a doctrine that was being taught by the Christian group that I was associated with and pissed off many of my family members because of it. Eventually I shed that religion and with it my anti-gay attitudes. But if I ever run for office that part of my life will likely be used against me. I could say that it's not fair, but as they say, life, and especially politics, isn't fair.

Would it make a difference if aspiring office holders opened up about possible skeletons in their closets? It is impossible to say, but at least the voters of Virginia would have had that information up front and could have made their electoral decision based on facts that they now know about only in retrospect. We know that it doesn't seem to make any difference to Republican voters, Donald Trump got elected despite multiple potential disqualifying attitudes. Steve King is an unapologetic racist, yet he keep getting reelected.

I'm ending this post without having a clear idea what I think should happen to Northam, or whether past transgressions should affect the present. One thing that I am sure of is that Republicans don't have any moral high ground in this discussion and have no business commenting. Democrats at least condemn their own when caught in these circumstances, Republicans deny it or excuse the behavior.

One thing is clear: Governor Northam has lost the confidence of the people who elected him.