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tom price
Reverse Darwinian Selection Afflicts Trump's Washington
This administration always chooses the worst and the dumbest
Jun 26, 2019
In the 1960s, at the very dawn of the New Right rebellion, William F. Buckley, Jr., declared that he would rather be governed by persons selected from the phone directory than the faculty of Harvard. Conservative egghead bashing has a long pedigree, and even Buckley, an aspiring patrician with one of the most laboriously affected accents ever heard, felt obliged to join in the populist trolling.
Over the succeeding five decades, the conservative movement and its chosen vehicle, the Republican Party, have substantially achieved the goal of systematically devaluing expertise, thereby accomplishing one of their most cherished ideological goals: to prove to the American people that government doesn't work.
As I have written before, the Republican push for non-expertise got a big boost during the Gingrich speakership. It continued its long march through institutions during the riotously incompetent planning and conduct of the Iraq war under George W. Bush, and has reached ghastly perfection with Donald Trump.
Just look at a few of the uniquely awful Trump personnel at the top tier: Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Stephen Miller, Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos, departing Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Their unsuitability is matched by Trump appointees at lower levels.
The conclusion is inescapable: one could get better people for the jobs by recruiting candidates from the checkout line at a dollar store. Would such people be qualified for their positions? Probably not. But they might occasionally heed reasonable advice rather than reflexively doing the opposite, and they almost certainly would not unanimously possess the iron and unerring resolve of the current Trump team always to do the stupid, unethical or immoral thing.
Recently leaked vetting documents show what the Trump administration looks for in personnel. Despite warnings that former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt and former HHS Secretary Tom Price had considerable ethics and management problems, they were hired anyway. In their jobs, they proceeded to demonstrate just those same qualities the administration had been warned about.
Their downfall was less the result of their grifting and self-dealing than the fact that the capo in the White House was irritated by the conspicuous swaggering of these two arrogant underlings. They ought to have realized that such public flaunting of their bad-assery is reserved for the mob boss and his immediate family.
The vetting criteria for General David Petraeus, who was mooted for either secretary of state or national security adviser, are particularly telling. There were legitimate grounds for rejecting Petraeus: he was a major player in the Iraq debacle, a policy disaster that Trump roundly condemned during his campaign. The general's government career as CIA director ended abruptly when the FBI found he had been sharing code-word level classified information with his lover, who just happened not to be his wife. Petraeus compounded the damage by lying to the FBI.
But why was he rejected for a position in the Trump administration? Vetting personnel at the Republican National Committee "red flagged" Petraeus because he opposed torture - possibly the one unambiguously praiseworthy thing about the man.
As with personnel, so inevitably with policy. Flipping a coin before deciding among critical policy options would seem statistically to produce a better result than what we have seen in the Trump administration. By some strange reverse-Darwinian principle, Trump and his coat-holders invariably default to the worst conceivable option. Examples follow.
Let us imagine you are in charge and want to improve this country's terms of trade with China. Three broad options present themselves:
- Enact long-term, non-tariff, World Trade Organization-compliant measures to restructure the US economy, such as tax benefits for manufacturing, programs for apprenticeships, tax incentives for companies that hire manufacturing labor, and various encouragements to American firms for on-shore production.
- Risk a tariff war with China by imposing duties on its imports, but first get our allies (who are also damaged by Chinese behavior) on board so that there is a united policy front. This move would prevent export shifting by China to those countries, and hinder it from working side-deals with them that would undermine U.S. economic goals.
- Get into a tariff war with the second-largest economy in the world on our own because we made superhuman efforts to systematically alienate our allies and non-Chinese trading partners.
Of course, Trump picked option 3 because it was objectively the worst option.
Now, let's try tax cuts:
- Enact tax cuts for low and middle income people, but make them revenue neutral by increasing marginal rates on the rich, taxing non-productive or destructive Wall Street practices, and by closing absurd loopholes like the one that results in a hedge fund manager paying taxes at a lower rate than his secretary or a cab driver.
- OK, let's now assume you're not fiscally responsible: tax cuts for everybody and they're not paid for, but the cuts are heavily biased towards low and middle income people on the principle that the wealthy already got a huge windfall from the Bush tax cuts.
- Enact tax cuts that are theoretically for everybody, but in reality 83 percent of the dollar value will go to the top one percent of individuals. Oh, and the revenue loss blows the deficit through the roof, even in a nominally booming economy.
Naturally, Trump, with united assistance from the Republican Congress, chose option 3.
Now let us assume that for some reason you are dissatisfied with the Iran nuclear agreement (The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) that your predecessor signed. Let us run though the options:
- Recognize that for all the generalized railing against it because the plan was the handiwork of the Obama administration, and for all the massive financial pressure of the Israel Lobby, Iran had been compliant with JCPOA's terms. The agreement is the best single means of preventing that country from becoming a nuclear-armed state, and, like our arms agreements with the old Soviet Union, it is inherently imperfect but better than other options, like war.
- Articulate which provisions of the agreement are technically defective rather than just ranting about JCPOA without ever having read it. Engage diplomatically with the other signatories of JCPOA to amend the agreement.
- Unilaterally withdraw from the agreement, alienate the other countries guaranteeing JCPOA by making them potentially subject to the additional sanctions you are imposing on Iran (which, it must be repeated, was complying with the agreement), and engage in juvenile trash talk and saber-rattling. Put a cherry on the cake, even as you claim you want a diplomatic solution, by sanctioning the leader and foreign minister of Iran, thus making it impossible for the Europeans or anyone else to engage with the country diplomatically.
The answer to the Iran policy conundrum is of course now playing out in the news headlines.
Throughout American history, there has always been a strident minority opinion that aggressive and self-righteous stupidity is nobler and more virtuous in the sight of God than prudent and circumspect intelligence. This view now controls most of our government and is in a position to make its will the law of the land. Sooner or later, we shall see whether the higher laws of natural selection act to weed out stupidity in as spectacular and unpleasant a fashion as occurred with the Habsburg and Ottoman empires.
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New Analysis Catalogs Trump's Controversy-Riddled Cabinet-Level Selections
"His cabinet picks are proving a particularly stark example" of how Trump has failed to deliver on his promise to "drain the swamp."
Feb 16, 2018
As the heads of Veterans Affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency face intense scrutiny over taxpayer-funded travel decisions, a new analysis by the Washington Post reveals that more than 40 percent of President Donald Trump's initial cabinet-level selections have faced ethical or other controversies.
Aaron Blake at the Post found that nine out of the 22 people whom the president initially chosen for cabinet-level positions have faced some degree of public criticism for their actions, highlighting "what has been a pretty rocky first year-plus for the Trump cabinet" and demonstrating how Trump has failed to deliver on his oft-repeated campaign promise to "drain the swamp."
Five have come under fire for decisions about tax-payer funded travel:
- Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin: A report by his agency's inspector general found that Shulkin and top aides edited an email and made false statements "to create a pretext for taxpayers to cover expenses for the secretary's wife on a 10-day trip to Europe last summer," according to another Post story.
- Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt: As Common Dreams reported earlier this week, Pruitt is in hot water for "taking expensive first class flights and staying in luxury hotels on the taxpayer's dime...to avoid uncomfortable interactions with people who are mad at him for trying to destroy the planet."
- Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price: He resigned in September amid a growing scandal that invovled using tax dollars to travel throughout the country in pricey private jets.
- Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke: As Price was submitting his resignation, Zinke was ridiculed for taking, according to Politico, "several flights on private or military aircraft, including a $12,000 charter plane to take him to events in his hometown in Montana," which subsequent reports revealed belonged to fossil fuel executives.
- Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin: He not only requested a military jet to take him and his wife, Louise Linton, to Europe for their honeymoon, but also for a trip to Fort Knox to view the solar eclipse (after which Linton provoked outrage over a classist tirade she posted on social media alongside a photo of them disembarking from the aircraft).
Two are in trouble for making false statements:
- Chief of Staff John Kelly: Women's advocates and others have called for Kelly--who initially served as Trump's Homeland Security secretary--to resign amid criticism that he ignored and improperly handled allegations of domestic violence levied against former White House staff secretary Rob Porter, who resigned following a series of reports about the alleged abuse. Kelly reportedly instructed aides to lie and claim he took immediate action to address the allegations.
- Attorney General Jeff Sessions: The nation's top attorney had to recuse himself from the investigation into alleged election interference by Russians--and claims that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russians and obstructed justice--after it was discovered that during his Senate confirmation hearing, Sessions failed to disclose his communication with Russian officials, potentially committing perjury.
Two have faced personal controversies:
- Labor secretary nominee Andrew Puzder: The fast food executive withdrew his nomination to lead the Labor Department amid charges that he had made "derisive public comments about his restaurants' employees and other low-wage workers" as well as "concerns about past employment of an undocumented housekeeper and later-recanted domestic violence accusations from an ex-wife."
- Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson: Despite warnings from the department attorneys, Carson let his son organize an agency "listening tour" in Baltimore last summer, which might have violated federal ethics ruled, according to documents obtained by the Post, because "local businessman Ben Carson Jr., and daughter-in-law were inviting people with whom they potentially had business dealings."
"The repeated travel controversies, in particular, suggest the administration isn't running a particularly tight ethical ship or that there is a ton of overcompensation for Trump's promise to 'drain the swamp,'" Blake notes. "His cabinet picks are proving a particularly stark example of where that effort has come up short."
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The Trumpy Awards, Round Six: Worst Cabinet Member
Today's nominees certainly do represent the worst of the Trump administration.
Jan 28, 2018
Today's Trumpys are the second set of nominees for Worst Cabinet Member, following yesterday's consideration of Mick Mulvaney, Ryan Zinke, Gary Cohn and Jeff Sessions.
The judges wish to acknowledge the many atrocious candidates not receiving nominations, including Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin.
Today's nominees, however, certainly do represent the worst of the Trump administration.
You can vote for the worst of this motley crew here.
Rex Tillerson
Secretary of State: "Making a Great Case for Himself as the Worst Secretary of State in Modern History."
Lots of people are making the exact point in that quote, not just Slate, from which the headline is borrowed.
- Gutting and demoralizing diplomatic corps.
- Says human rights advocacy "creates obstacles" to advancing U.S. interests.
- With the White House, reimposed and expanded the global gag rule, denying U.S. aid funding to overseas nongovernmental health organizations unless they stipulate they will not talk to patients about abortion options.
On the positive side of the ledger for Tillerson, he reportedly has called Trump a "moron."
Betsy DeVos
Secretary of Education: "There's Probably a Gun in the School to Protect from Potential Grizzlies"
Blocked implementation of rules designed to protect students from predatory for-profit colleges.
- Pushing for privatization of public schools by shifting resources from public to private schools, and refusing to commit that those schools should abide by anti-discrimination rules.
Rolled back protections for disabled students.
Tom Price/Empty/Alex Azar
Secretary of Health and Human Services: "Tom Price Sure Knows A Lot About Waste, Fraud and Abuse"
Secretary Tom Price was famously forced out of office after racking up more than $1 million in flight expenses in a matter of months. The Senate just confirmed Alex Azar, a former Eli Lilly executive, to take the post.
- Price sought - and there's every reason to expect Azar to continue to seek - to gut Medicaid expansion and the protections of the Affordable Care Act.
- Threatening birth control and reproductive health programs.
- Enacting Big Pharma's coup over health policy by installing a former drug company executive (Azar) as the nation's top health official.
Scott Pruitt
Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): "What they're doing is conscientiously tearing the place down" ... "Mindless. There's no other word for it."
Those quotes are from former EPA administrators, Carol Browner (under Bill Clinton) and Christine Todd Whitman (under George W. Bush)
- Repealing the Clean Power Plan - and claiming it as an environmental achievement - and engineering the U.S. announced withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.
- Rolling back 19 public health and environmental rules, covering everything from clean water to chemical safety.
- Meeting with Dirty Energy and industry interests almost 20 times more frequently than environmental organizations.
Which of these characters should be named Worst Cabinet Official? Vote here.
And don't to forget to vote for:
Yesterday's entry for Worst Cabinet Official.
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