The Candidates' Policies - Part I

Vice President Harris has been criticized lately for (1) not sitting down for a long interview with the press and (2) not listing her agenda or policy platform on her website. She is contrasted with Trump, who has sat down for "interviews" and has something that he calls a "platform" on his website. Set aside for a a moment the ridiculous notion that there is anyone out there who is genuinely ignorant of the contrast in governing styles of the two candidates and consider Trump's "platform". I'm going too look at the more ridiculous claims, or those that are so vague as to be worthless. All of the following are from Trump's campaign website https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform . My comments are in bold italics.

End inflation, and make America affordable again

Okay - so when Harris puts forth a specific plan, that's Communism, but when Trump suggests it. How specifically does he plan on "ending inflation"? Is he talking about bringing prices back down to pre-2024 levels? What about wages? 

Defend our constitution, our bill of rights, and our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms

What does any of this look like? When he was president the only amendment he thought worth defending was the Second. He is on record as wanting to weaken the freedom of the press. 

Prevent world war three, restore peace in Europe and in the middle east, and build a great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country -- all made in America

Of course no specifics on any of this. Does he even know what the 'Iron Dome' even is?

End the weaponization of government against the American people

We all know that he believes that his legal troubles are some kind of government persecution. This from the guy who encouraged his followers to "lock her up" and is on record as wanting to go after President Biden and any other enemies as revenge for his own prosecutions. 

Cancel the electric vehicle mandate and cut costly and burdensome regulations

The mandate that doesn't exists? Or is he for electric vehicles now that the owner of Tesla is being nice to him?

Cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children

More things that aren't happening?

Deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again

He thinks anyone who criticizes Israel is "pro-Hamas". Is he talking about deporting American citizens?

Secure our elections, including same day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship

He literally tried to overturn the last presidential election

Unite our country by bringing it to new and record levels of success

In the Trump dictionary "unite" means muzzle dissent

Okay, so he has a list that he is calling a policy platform. Where it's not vague it's either dangerous or an unworkable fantasy. He's also being praised, and contrasted positively with Harris because he's sitting down for interviews and inviting reporters in for press conferences. Let's not get too excited about those either. The one with Elon Musk was a lot of softball questions. His press conferences are invitation only. When he gets tough questions he goes on the attack, or rambles incoherently. 

So I don't know what we're learning from these performances that we didn't already know.

 

Taxing Tips

 Now that both major candidates have come out in favor of making tips tax exempt, I have to ask “why?”. Other than pandering to the powerful hospitality industry unions in Nevada.

Tips are income and are considered taxable – subject to income & payroll taxes. In the past, when tips were primarily given in cash, and IRS regulations were looser (or nonexistent) it was easier to avoid reporting some or all of them as income - but they've always been taxable income. With most payments now being made by card or app, virtually all tips go through the employer with income and payroll tax withheld from paychecks. Even with the dwindling number of cash tips, the IRS has been tightening reporting requirements.

There’s a myth that the IRS requires that employers assume that servers receive a certain percentage of the gross sales in tips and withhold income & payroll taxes on that amount whether or not they actually received that amount of tips. The IRS DOES mandate that employees report ALL tips to their employer and that the employer consider those taxes as income & withhold taxes accordingly. If the total reported tips for a business falls below 8% the employer is also required to allocate the difference between the actual percentage and 8% among all tipped employees. (This might be the origin of the myth) This shows up in a separate box on an employee's W-2. The employee must add this amount to the total gross income unless they can provide records to show that their actual tips were less. (Which is why keeping a tip record is important) 

What I do not think is legal is for an employer to assume that servers receive a certain percentage of the gross sales as tips and withhold income & payroll taxes accordingly. (No taxes are withheld from the allocated amounts) I understand that this happens, illegal or not, but I don’t know what recourse an employee has if it’s happening. Bottom line is that it’s not the responsibility of the employer to confirm that 100% of tips are being reported, their only responsibility is to remit the taxes that they collect based on wages plus reported tips .

I understand that employees who depend on tips are in a different boat than hourly or salaried employees. I’ve always known what my pay was going to be before going to work – a tipped employee never knows. But it’s still INCOME. I’d focus more on making those who derive their income from non-wage sources (dividends and so-called carried interest etc.) pay the same income tax rates as wage earners and remove the cap on social security taxes. And speaking of Social Security, if you artificially depress your income by not reporting tips, the amount of income that is used to calculate your eventually Social Security benefits will necessarily be much lower.

Single Issue Voters

Something I have encountered a lot lately is the right-wing one-issue voter who pretends to not be a one-issue voter. A conversation might go like this:

Other guy: I can't vote for Democratic candidate "A", he thinks we should have open borders
Me: [debunks that position]

Other guy: Yeah, but [presents garbled attack on his military service]

Me: Here's a news article debunking that

Other guy: [Yet another unsubstantiated position]

Me: [Easy debunking]

Other guy: Well, he believes in killing babies!

And there you have it. You can expound upon women's bodily autonomy or the immorality of forcing women to put their lives in danger or the ethics of requiring rape victims to give birth to their rapist's baby all day long, but you're going to make no headway against someone who believes that the moment of conception is the start of a fully human life, i.e. "a baby". Anyone who believes that is not statistically likely to be open to debate about the subject and fully believes that an abortion is "killing a baby". 

But this post isn't really about abortion (I get similar reductive "arguments" that end with equating gender-affirming care with "mutilating children"), it's about derailing every political policy discussion and disregarding it in favor of that one issue. If abortion is the issue that overrides every other issue, if it doesn't matter if the pro-choice candidate is for literally every other issue that you think is important, or if the anti-abortion candidate is against literally every other issue that you think is important, then don't waste my time bringing up the border, or taxes, or inflation and just tell me you can't vote for any candidate who is pro-choice. 

Then we can go about our respective days.

Hell Yes I'm Voting for Harris

Since the last blog post Vice President Harris has emerged as the uncontested presumptive nominee. While I would have voted for Biden's uneaten half a ham and cheese sandwich before I'd vote for Losin' Don, or facilitate his election by voting for any of the independent candidates, Harris is actually a Democrat who I'd be voting for, rather than just against Donnie Two-Scoops. Why?

In general, most of the electable potential nominees in the Democratic Party are going to govern a similar manner. They're going to be broadly left-of-center with a nod to the progressive wing without alienating the moderate base. They all have some government experience and therefore know how things work, know the extent and limits of presidential power and they understand that working with Congress is not optional. If there are vacancies on the Supreme Court they would all appoint liberal-leaning justices and do the same for the other federal courts. They all understand the importance of strong international alliances and the need for mutual support of those allies. So why Harris?

Two reasons. During her short time in the Senate the tenacious way she held administration officials accountable was inspiring. Not in a "getting social media likes" manner, not in the rude way some members of Congress treat those who testify, but as one would expect from a former prosecutor, by cutting right to the heart of matters. Her rise through various levels of government show a familiarity with the system that would serve her well juggling the myriad responsibilities of the presidency. Secondly, as a practical matter, since she is the Vice President she is the logical choice to step up and run for the highest office in the land. Skipping over her in favor of one more White dude would have alienated some of the Democrats' core constituencies. That's not something that they could or should risk this late in the game. 

I've heard a lot of criticism about the Democrats' "undemocratic" elevation of Harris. Although the criticism is mainly coming, not from other Democrats, but from Republicans and so-called neutral observers. Most of this criticism is based on a lack of understanding of how the nomination process works as well as an ignorant view of just how impossible an operationally feasible plan for opening up the nomination to "the people". One thing I keep a hearing is that the Democratic party should have run another primary to give people a choice. "A" primary? That's a fantasy: (1) There isn't a national primary (2) Each state party in cooperation with the state government, sets its own rules for primaries. - How long do you think it would take for candidates to come forward, ballots to be printed and the whole machinery of an election geared up? Hint: it's measured in months. I've asked people to tell me how this could have been accomplished and no one can come up with an answer other than "They should figure it out". Heck, you can tell me I should drive to New York and arrive by tomorrow morning, but no amount of "figuring it out" is going to make it possible. 

The other issue is the lack of understanding from the "We're a republic, not a democracy" crowd. When you vote for a candidate for president in a primary or caucus you're actually voting for a slate of delegates who are pledged to vote for that candidate at the convention in the first round of voting. The delegates represent us. If no candidate receives a majority of the votes, or a candidate drops out then the delegates are free to vote for whoever they think best represent the party and can win. Which is the situation we are in. Besides, all of the plausible Democratic candidates had resigned themselves to standing aside for Biden, and wisely chose to do the same for Harris in the cause of party unity. And do we really think that Harris is going to drive away anyone who had planned to vote for Biden? At the very least she'll bring in some voters who would have sat out due to being uncomfortable with Biden's age and its attendant weaknesses.  

I don't care about her laugh. I don't care about accusations that she slept her way into politics. I certainly don't care whether she is Black or Indian or what my fellow White people think about her heritage. What I care about is that she is our best chance to keep Losin' Don out of the White House and that she is well suited to lead our nation.

Interesting Times

What am I missing? President Biden's performance released an avalanche of panic within the Democratic Party, especially among its big donors. I watched that "debate" - all 90 minutes of it (I wrote a blog post about it) and while I thought he did a bad job, and responded poorly to Losin' Don's barrage of lies I certainly didn't believe that it negated his overall solid performance as our nation's leader. Other than a few flubbed facts and some run-of-the-mill politician's exaggeration, I thought he did fine. Unlike his opponent, he actually answered the questions put to him. The only thing that I can think of is that his performance was part of a trend that went back at least a year, maybe longer, and that the Democratic leadership was either covering it up or were engaged in wishful thinking about Biden's ability to campaign effectively and win the election. If...and that's a big "if", either of those scenarios are true the conversations that have been taking place since last month's debate should have taken place long ago. 

Despite the chaos, I give the Democrats credit for addressing the apparent (yes, apparent) unfitness of their candidate, something that the Trumpublican Cult would never do, despite the nonsense that comes out of his mouth at his rallies. "The late, great, Hannibal Lector? Sharks and batteries? No water in washing machines and showers? Well, now that the major mainstream news organizations have amplified the worries about President Biden's age and mental agility, can we expect them to start beating the drum of Losin' Don's very apparent mental decline, as well as his age (only 3 years younger than Biden). Did we forget his inability to take a drink from a water bottle without using two hands? His shakiness on a not-very-steep incline and grabbing onto the U.K. Prime Minister in order to navigate some stairs is still something I recall. 

One of the criticisms I hear is that the Democrats, by pressuring Biden to drop out, are acting undemocratically, effectively cancelling the decisions of primary voters. But did they really? When an incumbent president is running for re-election it's extremely rare for there to be any serious challenges. Anyone from the president's party with presidential aspirations sits it out until the next election. There is no choice to speak of. (Not to mention how the very existence of the de facto two party system limiting choices by design). Could other Democrats theoretically have run? Sure, but it just isn't done. Of course they don't see the hypocrisy of accusing the Democrats of subverting democracy when plans are in full swing to challenge the results if a Democrat wins in November. (On a side note I've heard a few Sanders 2016 supporters popping their heads up to complain about Hillary Clinton and the party bigwigs giving the 2016 nomination to Clinton. They never really go away, those Bernie fans!)

This raises another question: if President Biden is unfit to campaign for re-election, and is unfit to serve a second term, is he fit to complete his current term? I'm not convinced that he is unfit to campaign or serve a second term, but if that is the prevailing opinion, is a call to resign next? If he does resign, Vice President Harris becomes President and goes into the campaign as an incumbent, with all attendant advantages. Since the president's dropping out is new news, we still don't know how the replacement candidate will be chosen. The Democratic National Committee has rules, and there is a process - I just don't know what it is. It's my hope that the party leadership and the delegates unite behind Harris and present a solid front against the Republicans. Harris was my first choice in 2020 and I was disappointed when she dropped out before the primaries.

Everything I have ever presented as reasons to defeat Losin' Don in November are still true. The assassination attempt didn't make him more fit for office, President Biden dropping out of the race didn't make him a better or more effective leader. He's still a horrible, hateful man who is in it for one person, and one person only. Let's make sure we can still call him Losin' Don in November.

Poor Judd is Dead

If Donald Trump were to drop dead of a heart attack today, this country would be a better place. 

No - I am not suggesting that political assassination is a good thing nor am I wishing that the bullet had struck a fraction of an inch to the right. I'm not making jokes about it; I'm not sharing "clever" memes. It's not funny. Even as bad as things are now, that's not how to do things. 

I'm holding off on forming an opinion about the shooter's motives, about whether it was a false flag operation, whether someone in the Secret Service was in on it or incredibly incompetent or any of the myriad conspiracy theories percolating from all quarters the last few days until some facts are presented. 

But do I think Trump dying (of natural causes) is a good thing? Absolutely. 

Politics is, and always has been, a dirty business. Idealistic people of all political persuasions run for office but get caught up in the system and often are corrupted to greater or lesser degree. They spend so much time and effort raising money and campaigning for the next election that it's amazing that anything ever gets done. Members of the House of Representatives are up for re-election every two years! But Trump is an entirely different political animal. Policy is beside the point with him and his legions of followers are loyal to him no matter what he does and says. He is upfront about wanting to tear down any semblance of democratic institutions - the danger that he poses is well known and documented in detail. 

But what about Project 2025 and the many Trump supporters who have been taking over the Republican party? Wouldn't they still be a threat? Of course. The anti-abortion movement didn't suddenly spring up in 2017; Mitch McConnell was stealing Supreme Court seats during Obama's time in the White House. But the grass roots support, voters who will turn out for their guy just wouldn't be there without Trump. I was in a cult and have seen first hand what happens to a cult when their charismatic leader dies. And make no mistake about it, Trumpism, "MAGA" if you will, is a cult. Can you see anyone in MAGA-land who can energize the crowds like Trump does? Anyone who can, without fail, cause millions of people to believe their every lie? 

That person does not exist.

The reason that Project 2025 is such a threat is that its authors are counting on Trump getting elected. They are counting on Trump appointing 2025-friendly cabinet members and staff. If the Republicans have a majority in both the House and Senate they are counting on Trump bullying members into supporting the program. If the Democrats win one or both Houses of Congress they are counting on Trump using executive orders or novel constitutional interpretations to achieve their goals. It all falls apart without Trump. All the local MAGA election officials, school board members, county board members, they all lose interest and fade away without Trump. 

As long as he is alive Trump is a threat. Even if he loses again we'll see a repeat of "Stop the Steal". This time it won't be Confederate Wannabes and Sentient Oakleys beating up cops with flagpoles, or Rudy Giuliani's hair dye running down his forehead - it will be real lawyers flooding the zone with lawsuits and challenges just inside the boundaries of legality. Without Trump - no one cares. And you don't have the MAGA cult leader telling them to care. 

Losin' Don can't live forever, and the poison that he has spread will take a while to dissipate, but there is no doubt that the country will be a better place. And the daisies in the dell will give off a different smell because Losin' Don is underneath the ground. *

* Apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein

Presidential Immunity

Let's talk about presidential immunity, shall we?

Let's talk about the fact that we never had to talk about it until Donald Trump became president. 

It's been understood since the beginning of the republic that presidents, as well as Congress, have to have the ability to do their jobs without the threat of prosecution if things don't go well. There will always been unintended and unforeseen consequences to government decisions - sometimes resulting in deaths. That's why no one was seriously suggesting that Trump be prosecuted for his mismanagement of the Covid crisis, even though his incompetence arguably contributed to hundreds of thousands of the deaths that ultimately resulted. Likewise, President Biden shouldn't be prosecuted for his mishandling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which resulted in thirteen service members being killed at the airport in a terrorist attack. Policy differences aren't crimes. Miscalculation isn't a crime. Incompetence isn't even a crime. 

The Supreme Court, in their recent decision regarding presidential immunity, did not rule that everything a president does while in office is shielded from prosecution. They made it clear that they were talking about official acts and core constitutional duties. Why did they even agree to take the case? Didn't we already know this? Of course we did. It even came up because a president engaged in allegedly criminal acts  in his election campaign and in his attempt to overturn the results of an election. 

There's a lot of exaggeration and misrepresentation about this decision. It does not mean that a president "can do anything that he wants". The checks and balances that existed before the ruling still exist. Biden, for example, has always had the power to add justices to the Supreme Court. The reasoning behind not doing so is, and always has been, a political calculation, not a legal restriction. What has been affirmed is that nothing a president does as part of being the president is not subject to prosecution. 

So what's the problem?

Two main categories of problem.

1. The court majority went beyond what they were asked to rule on - the majority opinion stated that in any question about whether an act was or wasn't part of a president's official duties there must be a presumption that any act is part of those duties. And that potential evidence that derives from the president's official duties cannot be considered. This leaves the door open for all kinds of challenges to the charges that Special Counsel Smith has brought. 
2. This is nothing but a delaying tactic. The Supreme Court was asked to rule on the question of immunity months ago. They refused, saying it had to make it's way through the lower courts. (Which all ruled that Trump was not immune). Even now, they haven't ruled that Trump is immune from prosecution in the specific cases he accused in, but have sent the case back to the appeals court for them to determine which, if any actions Trump took are immune. Surely whatever they decide will be appealed. 

The mindset of the Supreme Court majority is also disturbing. The problem as they see it, is not that president can break the law with impunity, but that a president will be constrained from doing his best for the country due to fear of criminal prosecution. This is exactly the rationale that Trump's lawyers presented. They have bought into the tale of persecution that Trump revels in. They have internalized the lie that it is the Biden administration, even President Biden himself, who is pushing these supposedly political prosecutions. Yet it's Trump who brags about exacting retribution on his political opponents, promising to jail Biden and anyone else who he doesn't like for imaginary crimes, or for exercising their constitutional responsibilities. 

The Supreme Court didn't authorize the president to be a dictator, but they did authorize him to be a criminal.