Jack's Facts: A Very Serious Blog

Politics? News? Sports? More politics? You don't have time to research this stuff. I mean, I don't either, but hey.

[jack-fact]

On the Supreme Court and Institutional Legitimacy

In this article that you’re reading now, I’m going to be making an argument that some might see as partisan in nature. It isn’t, or at least, it shouldn’t be. I’m arguing here in support of our national institutions, not in support of either party. We’ve arrived at a crossroads in our history with special regard to one of those institutions. In case you couldn’t tell, it’s the Supreme Court. Let me explain a little bit more thoroughly.

For the past several decades, the Supreme Court has been difficult to place in traditional partisan boxes. There are a couple reasons why this has been the case. First of all, judges do not always arrive at legal decisions in ways that consistently benefit the policy goals of one party over the other. John Roberts, nominated by George W. Bush, authored a decision that preserved most of Obamacare. Neil Gorsuch, nominated by Donald Trump, penned a majority opinion earlier this year that nationalized workplace protections for members of the LGBTQ community. Anthony Kennedy, appointed by Ronald Reagan, authored the Court opinion declaring restrictions on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.

The second, more important reason that the Supreme Court has been so difficult to categorize is that nominations have been very even over the past few decades. Since 1991, nine justices have joined the court. Five (Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh) have been nominated by Republicans. Likewise, four justices (Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan, and the newly-passed Ginsberg) were nominated by Democrats.

This delicate balance of decisions and partisan appointments to the Court has kept it from becoming too slanted towards any one party and ideology in the eyes of the American public. This has been a good thing for our judicial system and our country. The unique concept of judicial review can be a useful tool for tempering the worse instincts of the legislative and executive branches, but it becomes useless if the Supreme Court can’t be seen as an impartial judge of our Constitution and our laws. I am here to tell you that the fastest, most sure-fire way to put an end to that perception of the Supreme Court among a giant swath of the American populace is for Donald Trump and Republicans to narrowly confirm a conservative justice less than a month before a general election. 

I’m not making an argument about whether or not people should react this way. I’m telling you that they are.

What does this mean? What happens if the Supreme Court loses its legitimacy in the eyes of those left of our political center? Well, an increasing possibility is that Democrats will expand the size of the Court the next time they control both Congress and the White House. Since the Constitution doesn’t spell out how many justices need to comprise the Supreme Court, a simple majority in both houses of Congress can send a bill to the White House changing the number of justices. Both parties have been loathe to consider this option for centuries since it would completely wreck the Court’s legitimacy and its ability to effectively wield judicial power. In a situation where Democrats have already lost any respect for the institution of the Supreme Court, this will no longer be an obstacle. After the court has been expanded, decades of political maneuvering will follow, as both parties continue to expand the court every time they gain control of both Congress and the White House. Sooner or later, politicians and agencies will start ignoring Supreme Court decisions, and we’ll have to have a discussion (or more realistically, a fight) over what to replace it with or whether to replace it at all. The Supreme Court, as an institution, will be dead.

Some might find this vision of the future overly-dramatic. After all, we’ve had 6-3 compositions of the Court before and nothing quite so serious has happened. I tell you this time is different. Polling done just in the past few days, before a national discussion on the topic of court packing, finds 40% of Americans already support the Democrats expanding the Court if Republicans appoint a Justice and Joe Biden wins, and another 21% are undecided. A good deal of those undecideds are going to move into the “Support” column. Over the past two decades, we as a nation have descended into an atmosphere of political vitriol and hyper-polarization that hasn’t been seen in 150 years. I don’t think we can sustain this serious of a blow to our confidence in our political institutions.

There is an easy solution to avoid this pain. Let the winner of November’s election nominate Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s successor.

[jack-fact]

Breaking Down the Iowa Caucus Disaster

This past Monday, across the nation, political junkies like myself sat down in front of our TVs and eagerly awaited the results of the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses. While technically the official “beginning” of the primary process, February 3rd marked the end of a long jockeying phase filled with televised debates and coalition-building. The electoral picture coming into Iowa was a little bit more muddled than it usually is by this time of year: two candidates were considered strong national front-runners, Former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders. Senator Elizabeth Warren was running slightly behind the pair, and Pete Buttigieg, the former Mayor of South Bend, sat in a more-or-less distant fourth. All four had a chance to win, depending on which poll you looked at. The results of the Iowa caucuses would serve as a strong indicator of where these candidates really stood, and would clarify the path each needed to take in order to win the nomination. 

So Monday night came. And went. And no results came.

What is a caucus? Well, they’re one way for members of a political party to have a say in who gets the official nomination of their party. The other method is called a “primary”. Primaries are simple. You show up to your local polling place, wait in line, and vote at a machine for your preferred candidate. At the end of the day, the votes are counted up. Each state has a predetermined number of delegates that it can give a candidate. At each party’s national convention in July, the candidate who has the majority of their party’s delegates gets the nomination. If a state is winner-take-all, the winner of their primary gets all of that state’s delegates. If a state uses proportional allocation, then candidates get a portion of the state’s delegates equal to the share of votes they got. And that’s it. Easy!

I have to describe how primaries work in order to emphasize to you how much more complicated caucuses are. Specifically, Iowa’s caucuses. Instead of going and voting at a polling place at any point during the day, to caucus you must go to your polling place at a predetermined time; in Iowa’s case, 7 PM Central Standard Time. At 7 PM, the doors of the polling place are locked to further entrants, and the real fun begins. Different areas of the room are designated for different candidates, and each person goes and stands in the area of their preferred candidate with their candidate’s other supporters. 

The precinct captain for each candidate, designated by the campaign, counts up the number of supporters in their group, and reports that number. This number is crucial. If a candidate’s group does not have at least 15% of the total people in the room after the first count, their candidate is deemed non-viable in that precinct. Supporters of non-viable candidates must either move to another candidate, or leave the caucus. An energetic phase of electioneering follows, where supporters of viable candidates may try to convince non-viable candidates’ supporters to come and join their group. One non-viable group might even merge with another, giving a previously non-viable candidate a chance. A lot can happen. After this realignment period is over, the precinct captains report their group size again. Each precinct has a given number of state delegate equivalents (SDEs) that it can give. These SDEs are given to each candidate based on the size of their final group of supporters. There are 2,107 SDEs up for grabs in the caucus, which are used to determine how many of Iowa’s 41 state delegates each candidate receives.

In the past, the Iowa Democratic Party has only reported how many SDEs each candidate received. In 2016, Bernie Sanders lost the SDE race by a margin of 0.2%, and there was a strong push by elements of the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) to change the reporting system to more accurately reflect the outcome of the caucuses. Starting this year, the rules were changed so that not only would SDEs be reported, but also raw voting numbers from the first initial round and the final post-realignment round. This is a lot more data to deal with. A lot more. So the IDP came up with the bright idea to use an app for vote reporting instead of the typical method of calling them in via phone.

On Monday night, as election officials at caucusing locations went to report vote totals, they found that the app they’d been given didn’t work. It took a little while for outside observers to notice, but by the time two or three hours had passed and 0% of precincts had yet to report their results, it was obvious there was a problem. Reports started trickling in of precinct captains complaining on social media about the app’s failure, and that one in particular had been on hold with the Iowa Democratic Party for over an hour as he tried to report his data via phone. 

The combination of a non-functional app and clogged phone lines meant that information was coming in at a trickle. To make matters worse, the IDP released a statement saying that the vote totals they did have showed vague “inconsistencies”. Many were quick to blame the caucuses’ convoluted rules, which likely led to mistakes in the vote tallying and SDE calculation processes. These inconsistencies in the vote tallies meant that the IDP needed to go back and recount the caucus results by hand, which is ridiculously time-consuming. The first batch of results wasn’t officially posted until 5PM Eastern Time on the day after the caucuses. Even now, over 40 hours later, only 71% of the votes have been counted. No timetable has been given for when the rest might be finished. 

Why did the app fail? IDP officials say that the app experienced a “massive coding error”. This isn’t hard to believe; apps go down all the time when they experience levels of traffic that they haven’t experienced before. Conspiracy theories abound, of course, but few make any sense. The two candidates who appear to have benefited the most from the results of the caucuses, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, would have both preferred if the results had come out on Monday night. A day’s delay means their success was overshadowed by Tuesday’s State of the Union address, and the impending end of the President’s Senate trial. Likewise, the manual counting of votes means that any electronic tampering of the results would certainly be uncovered sooner or later. Unless one believes that the entire Iowa Democratic Party is compromised, the results on TV are the correct ones. They just came far too late.

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Bitcoin’s Monetary Economics Could Kill It

You’ve seen it everywhere. Your friends talk about it. Your parents tease it. Your grandma asks if she should refinance her mortgage to buy some because another grandchild told her it was the wave of the future.

Everyone talks about Bitcoin.

And whether you’re a crypto-enthusiast, a dogged no-coiner, or somewhere in the middle, you probably have at least some thoughts about it. I’ll be honest and upfront about it and say I’m not buying in to Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency, which Wikipedia somewhat confusingly defines as “a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses cryptography to secure its transactions, to control the creation of additional units, and to verify the transfer of assets”, is a whole other beast, and I won’t lay judgement on whether the overarching tech can ever succeed. But whether you’re looking at it as a get-rich investment or a long-term stake in the currency of the future, Bitcoin raises worrying question after worrying question.

The biggest question on everyone’s minds when it comes to Bitcoin is whether or not it can sustain its fantastic growth in value. A bitcoin skeptic would respond to that question with a quick “not”, and would then tell you it’s an obvious asset bubble. Asset bubbles form whenever the price of a certain good rises far beyond the true value of that good. We’ve seen this happen before with the 2006 housing crisis, the dot-com boom and crash, and even tulip bulbs in the Netherlands.  Bitcoin itself is a new technology that is hard to compare to past financial crashes. Fortunately for us the essential question that will define Bitcoin’s future as a solid investment is a simple one: is BTC being overvalued? Or more specifically, how likely is it that BTC will succeed in its goal of becoming a widely accepted currency? If it could take off and become universally-embraced, the people who invested in it would look smarter than everyone else, and the price would grow and grow. On the other hand, failure to grow and adapt and gain widespread acceptance would inevitably kill its demand and its price.

Most economists have three criteria when it comes to grading currencies, but right now we’ll look at two of them. The first on the agenda is BTC’s effectiveness as a store of value. In the short-term a good currency should stay relatively stable in value, and in the long-term it should actually decrease in value at a slow and predictable rate. This particular phenomena is called “inflation”, and it’s generally desirable in low levels since it encourages people to spend and invest their money instead of hoarding it. The US Dollar is mildly inflationary, at a rate of about 2.65% in 2017, and most modern government-backed currency are inflationary to some extent. Bitcoin bucks this trend by artificially limiting its supply. The amount of Bitcoin in the market grows at a logarithmic scale, which means that while the supply is growing steadily now it will eventually slow down over time, until it caps out at 21 million BTC at some point decades from now. In a world with a finite supply of BTC and a steadily growing demand for it as a currency, it would surely shoot up in value. While this would be great for those who have it, it would spell death to any economic system that uses it.

Say you take a loan of 10 BTC and promise to pay it back in six months. Six months come around and it’s time to repay, but now BTC is worth 10% more, and your business is selling at 10% lower prices to compensate. Now all of a sudden you’ve got to sell a lot more to satisfy your debt, and your business is in potential trouble. This “debt deflation” phenomena is very bad for frequent borrowers like farmers and factory owners, and has been a problem for hundreds of years whenever currency deflates. Debt deflation isn’t the only downside to a deflationary currency, however. Imagine you had one BTC in pocket change and had two choices: spend it right now on a donut or wait a week and buy a steak dinner with the same one BTC. Unless you’re like my sister and have a coffee fixation, you’d likely choose the latter option, and it’s another example of the drawbacks of deflationary currency. When your currency is worth more the longer it’s held, naturally one will hold onto it as much as possible. We’ve managed to avoid this problem in modern society by using inflationary currency: your money is shrinking slowly over time, so better to spend it and invest it now than to hold onto it for later. The hoarding effect of currency deflation is well-documented, and was likely a major factor in the worsening of the Great Depression.

The second major criteria for a currency is use as a medium of exchange. In simpler words, a currency is only useful if you can easily exchange it for a good or service you want, whether it’s a coffee, a sailboat, a multi-billion dollar corporate merger, or your taxes. On its surface Bitcoin seems to have an advantage here, since as a decentralized currency system it should be easy to quickly and semi-anonymously make a transaction without the need for a middle-man. The situation is a teensy bit more complicated than it seems, as with all things that appear too good to be true. Bitcoin itself conducts transactions in ten-minute “blocks”, and at the end of every ten-minutes a one-megabyte block of transactions is verified and added to the publicly-viewable “blockchain”. Best case scenario, any transaction via Bitcoin should take no more than ten minutes to go through, and should be minimally expensive in terms of money or time. The underwhelming truth is that the number of attempted transactions every ten minutes is way more than one megabyte in size, which means that to get your transaction onto the ledger you need to either pay a hefty transaction fee or wait a very long time. As of January 21st, the average transaction fee was $19.10, and at the height of the December BTC boom the average fee was $55.16. Small peanuts perhaps if you want to transfer thousands of dollars overseas, but horrendous if you just want to buy a quick bite to eat and don’t like paying $30 for a $10 cheesesteak. Therefore it’s absolutely no surprise that there’s about 100,000 unconfirmed, pending Bitcoin transactions at the time of this writing.

All of this would be bad enough if there were still lots of companies that would let you pay them in Bitcoin. Fortunately more and more companies are becoming keenly aware of BTC’s myriad flaws, and opportunities to use it like you would a US Dollar are disappearing. The insane price volatility brought on by December’s boom led the online video-game vendor Steam to stop accepting it as payment, a serious blow since Steam had been a pioneer in that area. Bitcoin’s transaction speed was so slow, and its price was changing so quickly, that by the time Steam would receive payment it would no longer be worth the same as when it was sent. This meant Steam would either have to issue a refund to the buyer or request additional funds to make up the rest of the balance. That bizarre situation, combined with extravagant transaction fees, makes Bitcoin’s use impossible for most stores, and it’s very unclear whether a solution can ever be agreed on by the enthusiast community.

So at the end of it all, we have a currency that is time-consuming and expensive to use, is tedious for the few businesses who do use it, and dissuades investment, spending, and borrowing. By now I hope I’ve made it clear to you that any discussion centered around Bitcoin should be a cautionary one, instead of an enthusiastic one. Assets that are valued far beyond their inherent value rarely stay that way, and in this early stage it’s pretty clear that Bitcoin’s drawbacks hamstring its potential. There is potential in cryptocurrency and in blockchain technology, but I believe that it must be approached with an attitude mindful of the dot-com boom and the early years of the internet. The internet held untold potential for commercial success, but only for the companies that adapted to changing demands. Even now, alternative cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum have far outpaced Bitcoin in technological progress. It’s becoming clearer by the day that Bitcoin has little in common with ultra-successful ventures like Facebook, and compares far better to Facebook’s rigid and archaic predecessor MySpace.

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The Fall of the Pro-Immigration Republican, and What It Means

In 1981, Ronald Reagan declared that “illegal immigrants in considerable numbers have become productive members of our society and are a basic part of our work force. Those who have established equities in the United States should be recognized and accorded legal status.” In this regard, today’s Rep

My second published article in the Virginia Review of Politics. Give it a read.

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Looking at Republican Tax Reform, Income, and the National Debt

The White House and Republicans in Congress have been collaborating on tax reform since the spring, and GOP leaders reportedly hope to have a bill passed and signed by the winter recess. There are a number of aspects of the bill that I consider important to the debate, so let’s jump in.

First of all, let’s consider the point of the bill and the rationale for its passage. The Republican-controlled House Ways and Means Committee, which has oversees tax legislation in the House of Representatives, says on its website that the bill will “deliver real tax relief to Americans across the country – especially low- and middle-income Americans who have been struggling for far too long to earn a raise and get ahead.” If this is the basis for the bill, Republicans have a winner on their hands; after all, wages have been growing at a less-than-optimal rate in recent years. Another motivation that has been commonly cited in support for this bill is the assertion that America needs to cut its corporate tax to stay competitive in an international market. This could be true, but how much more growth do we need considering that the stock market has been booming for the last two years as the President loves to point out? Let’s unpack the most important changes in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

The thing that you hear most often in support of this bill is that it provides relief to low-and-middle income Americans, and the thing you’ll hear most often from those attacking this bill is that it ignores the poor to the benefit of the rich. Who’s right? Well, the Tax Policy Center (whose analyses I trust) has examined the most recent version of the bill and found that it affects income according to the chart below.

Directly after the passing of the bill, those in the bottom income quintile (the fifth of Americans who make the least income) only see a cut in their taxes of about $50, while the bottom-middle quintile would get about $330 back. Those in the middle quintile, those the House Ways and Means Committee would call “middle-income”, would see a sizeable cut of about $850. This middle-income figure is nothing to sneeze at, and by itself would be good evidence that the bill delivers on its promise to put money back in the hands of working Americans. The problem comes in when you realize that those who make the least money, those in the lowest income quintile, already pay a negligible average tax rate of 3.9%, and it is very difficult to give these people a meaningful tax cut. That doesn’t necessarily mean the bill is bad, but perhaps it means it shouldn’t be marketed as a tool to get money back into the hands of those who need it most.

If you’ve looked close at the graph, you’ll realize that for those who are not in the top 0.1% of the income curve the tax cut almost disappears in 2027. This happens for two reasons. First, the bill gets rid of Obamacare’s individual mandate. I’ve talked at length about the individual mandate and insurance death spirals in the past, and I recommend reading my past articles on healthcare reform to get caught up on that. In any case, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has found again and again that repealing the individual mandate would lead to higher health insurance premiums, which would lead to many Americans paying more or opting not to buy insurance at all. Secondly, and this is an important one, the income tax cuts in the bill expire in 2027. This is because Republicans have decided to prevent Democrats in the Senate from filibustering the bill by using the Byrd Rule. The Byrd Rule allows the Senate to pass a bill with 50 votes instead of 60 as long as it, along with a number of other requirements, does not increase the Federal deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. To cut around this rule while still keeping deficit-growing tax cuts in the bill, Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee led by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) have decided to terminate the bill’s individual income tax cuts in 2027. As a result, they are essentially assuming that Democrats would never vote against reinstating these tax cuts when they have to be reauthorized in 2027. They’re probably right to assume this; Republicans have learned over the last year with the ACA that it’s very hard to take away something that people like after they already have it. This means that most criticisms of the bill that show tax increases in 2027 aren’t showing what will actually happen, but those tax hikes would occur if one follows the letter of the law.

It appears that the most important part of this bill, at least to those writing it, is its cuts to the corporate tax rate. The current top rate on corporations is 35%, and this bill would cut that rate to 20%. The cut to the corporate tax rate is permanent, a decision likely made because the bill’s authors don’t want to harm economic growth with uncertainty over whether or not the cut will be reauthorized in ten years. Taken by itself, this cut has many potential positive effects. The Tax Policy Center, which provided the income analysis above, found that the cut would cause short-term jumps in investment, wages, and productivity just to name a few things. Note my use of the phrase “short-term jumps”. It is highly likely that in the bill’s current state, especially if the income tax cuts are made permanent, the national debt would grow far faster than it would under current law. The CBO found that it would increase the ten-year deficit by $1.44 trillion, which would be higher if not for the cut phase-out. When the national debt grows too high, the economy begins to experience something known as a “crowding-out effect”. The government owes more and more money, in both debt and interest on that debt, and therefore has to borrow more and more to pay it. As borrowing increases, the Federal Reserve raises interest rates on loans to prevent runaway inflation. This rate increase on loans prevents investment, which would cancel out all of the positive effects on investment, profits, wages, productivity, everything that the corporate tax rate would help with. This canceling-out effect is a huge macroeconomic concern, and is one of the reasons Republicans have expressed concern over what the bill means for the deficit.

This bill has a lot of potential, and no matter what the final result is there will be winners and losers. If one were to point out the biggest issues for Republicans to consider, I’d likely say that the growth of the deficit and the negative effects on insurance premiums are the two biggest concerns.

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Joe Arpaio: How “America’s Toughest Sheriff” Became a Pardoned Convict

For those who don’t know who Sheriff Joe Arpaio (sometimes lovingly referred to by his supporters as “Sheriff Joe”) is, for many years he was the face of hardline immigration law enforcement along the US Southern border. Famous for his eagerness to arrest and turn over for deportation those suspected of being in the country illegally, he also gained fame (or infamy) for the spectacularly terrible conditions he kept his prisoners in. Some of the law enforcement actions he took most pride in during his time as Sheriff of Maricopa County were forming “all-juvenile chain gangs”, forcing prisoners to wear pink underwear to prevent theft, and keeping convicts in a “tent city” where the temperature reached 145 degrees Fahrenheit. These actions over the years, combined with his combative attitude towards the Obama administration, won the hearts of immigration hardliners across the country, even as he lost the admiration of Maricopa County and lost his 2016 reelection campaign by almost 200,000 votes.

A big part of why Sheriff Arpaio was so controversial, aside from his objectionable prison conditions, was his at times over-eager enforcement of immigration law. A little known detail about illegal immigration enforcement is that since illegally entering the country violates federal law (specifically the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952), federal law enforcement like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the US Border Patrol are in charge of the arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants. Enforcers of state law like Sheriff Arpaio are legally prevented from arresting people solely due to the fact that they are in the country illegally unless they have special authority given to them by the Department of Homeland Security under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Unfortunately for Sheriff Joe, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office was stripped of this authority in 2009 because federal investigators found that “MCSO... engaged in racial profiling of Latinos; unlawfully stops, detains, and arrests Latinos; and unlawfully retaliates against individuals who complain about or criticize MCSO's policies or practices” while also “operat[ing] its jails in a manner that discriminates against its limited English proficient ("LEP") Latino inmates”. In essence, this meant that it was now illegal for Maricopa County deputies to arrest people because they believed they were undocumented immigrants or to turn over suspected undocumented immigrants to ICE or Border Patrol. To pile on to the trouble, in the case of Melendres v Arpaio Judge G. Murray Snow determined that Arpaio’s MCSO had continued to discriminate against Latinos and had continued to hand over people they suspected of being in the country illegally to the federal authorities. As a result, the MCSO was enjoined (legally prevented) from arresting and turning over people suspected of being undocumented immigrants, discriminating against people based solely on the fact that they were Latino or Hispanic, and unconstitutionally keeping people in long traffic stops. This order was the basis for Sheriff Joe’s future legal trouble.

In 2015, the judge who had handed down the Melendres ruling ordered an investigation into whether the Sheriff was following his orders or not, spurred by reports that the fundamental practices of the MCSO hadn’t changed. After being presented with evidence that this was true, Judge Snow decided to charge Sheriff Joe with civil contempt of court, a measure usually used by judges to punish those who interfere with the operation of a judge or court. Arpaio freely admitted in court that he had understood Snow’s order but hadn’t told regular deputies about it. Judge Snow felt that normal punishments were insufficient to get Arpaio to change his ways, and asked the US Justice Department to prosecute the Sheriff for criminal contempt of court, which is harder to prove but can be punished by up to six months in prison.

The trial was overseen by Judge Susan Bolton, who is regarded by legal experts as “fair and thorough” and has a history of dealing with immigration law. Federal prosecutors argued that the Sheriff had made it clear that he knew what he’d been ordered not to do and had knowingly continued to illegally arrest people. Arpaio’s defenders argued that Judge Snow’s order had been written extremely vaguely, and Sheriff Joe and his deputies didn’t know that they were breaking it. On July 31st, Bolton found Sheriff Joe guilty of criminal contempt of court and set his sentencing for October 5th. She made her decision based on numerous statements by the Sheriff himself, like in 2012 when he said in an interview “I’m still going to do what I’m doing. I’m still going to arrest illegal aliens coming into this country”. She also cited a police officer who testified that he was ordered to turn people suspected of being in the country illegally over to the Border Patrol, Arpaio’s former defense lawyer who testified that he’d explained the order to the Sheriff multiple times, and many others. This didn’t stop the Sheriff from declaring the conviction a “witch hunt”, however, and his supporters successfully convinced President Donald Trump to pardon Arpaio and overturn his conviction on August 25th.

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The Senate’s Obamacare “Repeal”

Friends, countrymen, lend me your ears! The Senate’s replacement bill for Obamacare is going to kill tens of thousands of poor children and the elderly! Wait, no, it’s going to keep Obamacare’s crushing regulations and taxes in place and the government will complete its dictatorial takeover of our pocketbooks! Wait, no…

The truth is in the middle. It’s always in the middle. The Republican Party has made the promise to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama’s proudest accomplishment as President, a core campaign issue for the last seven years, and after seven years they have unified control of all three branches of government. Wait, then why are we talking about this? Well, it turns out that even members of the same party can have vastly different opinions on healthcare. I’ll elaborate.

First, I’ll go over the history so far for those who haven’t been paying attention so far. (Don’t worry, it’s ok, as long as you’re here now. Better late than never.) In March the House of Representatives, led by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), released a bill called the American Health Care Act, or AHCA. The bill was received… poorly. I did a rundown of the bill’s contents and its tumultuous journey through the House two months ago, and I encourage you to read it if you haven’t yet. As I describe the Senate bill, I’ll also make sure to highlight how it differs from the House bill.

Anyways, the Senate signalled after the AHCA was passed that it was going to go its own way on healthcare reform and essentially ignore the House’s bill. And they did this for good reason: an underrated accomplishment of Obamacare’s passing was that it fundamentally changed the way America as a whole views healthcare. At its lowest, Obamacare had an astoundingly low approval rating of 37% in 2014-2015, as the law first began to take effect. However, in April polls found that the ACA had a 55% approval rating, the first time ever that more than half of Americans said they liked the law. We’ve seen, over the last 3-4 years, a fundamental shift in American culture, and that’s the growing attitude that affordable healthcare is something you’re entitled to, not something you have to earn. So naturally, Republicans in Congress had to move away from the idea of repealing Obamacare entirely and bringing us back to pre-2009 healthcare, and instead come up with a new system to make health insurance affordable. 

The House used a system of flat tax credits in their bill, essentially giving people a set amount of money to pay for health insurance depending on how old you are. Twenty-year-olds would get $2000, forty-year-olds $3000, sixty-year olds $4000. Unfortunately, on average, sixty-year-olds making $20,000 a year would have to pay more than their monthly salary in order to pay their premiums under this bill, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The AHCA didn’t affect the young very much, since a twenty-year-old isn’t likely to get sick very often, but it had potentially bankrupting effects on the elderly. 

ENTER THE SENATE. Now, Senators are renowned for being more level-headed and more moderate than their counterparts in the House. After all, they do represent entire states instead of just small districts (except for Rep. Liz Cheney from Wyoming, who represents the entire state because it’s so empty, but I digress.) Republican Senators took one look at the predictions that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office made about the House’s bill (the ones that said that 23 million people would lose coverage if it passed), and took another look at the bill’s horrendous 21% approval rating and said “hmmm, let’s not do that.” Instead, the Senate’s newly-minted bill, boringly dubbed the Better Care Reconciliation Act or BCRA, keeps Obamacare’s system of government-run markets where you can buy health insurance at low prices paid for by government money. (Hint: this is the part that conservative Senators say is too similar to Obamacare. Hint #2: they’re saying that because it is very similar to Obamacare.) The Senate only tweaks this part of the system slightly, by making the markets available to only people making 350% or less of the Federal Poverty Line, which is $12060. Therefore, if you make $42,210 or less you can get government-subsidized health insurance, but if you make $42,210-$48,240 this bill just pulled the rug out from under you. Fortunately, at that level paying for health insurance is not as hard as it is for people making poverty-level salaries. 

The new bill also keeps a number of important protective regulations from the ACA in effect. For example, children can still stay on their parents’ plans until they are 26. Most importantly, insurance companies cannot charge you more or deny your coverage if you have a pre-existing condition. This is where the bills’ similarities end, however.

A major issue that many have with the new bill is that it could possibly lead to an adverse-selection cost spiral, or “death spiral”. This term has been thrown out a lot in argument’s over the ACA’s future, and honestly, many people don’t seem to understand what it means. I’ll try to explain to the best of my ability why this bill has a possible issue: first of all, the BCRA protects people with pre-existing conditions, which is great. When this protection was first put in place, however, the drafters of the ACA encountered a problem. Essentially, if you don’t let insurance companies charge people with a lot of healthcare needs more, then they need to start charging everyone more money in premiums so that they don’t run out by spending it all on the people with chronic illnesses. This problem was made even worse by the fact that people who are young and healthy, and therefore pretty much never need to go to the doctor and don’t cost health insurance companies any money, oftentimes make the decision to just not buy any health insurance at all. So now, you’ve got permanently sick people using health insurance like crazy, you’ve got insurance companies running out of money because they can’t charge the really sick people more money than everyone else, and healthy people who pay in to insurance companies without taking much out choose to opt out of health insurance as prices increase. In short, prices skyrocket, and the market enters a “death spiral” as sick people take out more and more money, and healthy people bail. The architects of the ACA came up with a simple solution: if someone chooses not to buy health insurance, they pay a fine, called the “individual mandate” (it was officially called a “tax” to keep it constitutional, but it was basically a fine.) The fine would be paid back to the insurance companies and would help ensure that they don’t enter the death spiral; it would also encourage people to skip the hassle and just sign up for health insurance. You can tell that there’s a fundamental idea here: you can’t have a bill protect people with pre-existing conditions without some form of individual mandate. The financial contributions of healthy people who don’t need insurance basically pay for the extra healthcare that persistently sick people need. The BCRA, however, has no individual mandate. It keeps the protections for pre-existing conditions without ensuring healthy people stay in markets, and therefore the situation is ripe for a death spiral to occur. This is basic, logical economic stuff, and the Senate bill doesn’t have a good solution right now. 

Another huge difference in the bill is that it cancels a massive planned money injection into the Medicaid system. Medicaid is a government-run health insurance program for people of low income. Under the ACA, Medicaid was massively expanded to any state that chose to accept funds from the federal government. Many states chose not to accept federal expansion funds, and over half of the nation’s uninsured live in the states that refused expanded funding. The BCRA does away with the expansion of Medicaid entirely, and the bill cuts about $772 billion from Medicaid according to the CBO’s score. The Republican authors of the bill believe that people who lose Medicaid coverage will be able to buy coverage from the subsidized insurance markets, but the CBO still asserts that 22 million will lose coverage by 2026 due to the bill. No one knows whether those numbers are accurate; the CBO has had difficulty forecasting coverage changes in the past, but the evidence is there to at least partially support what they’re saying. Senators Dean Heller (R-NV) and Susan Collins (R-ME) have both said they cannot vote for the bill because of these cuts. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) and Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) both have expressed concerns about the cuts as well, since Medicaid funds have been important to those states’ fights against opioid abuse. 

A final aspect of the bill I’ll go over is the fact that it cuts funding to Planned Parenthood for one year. This is an extremely polarizing issue for a lot of people, so I won’t editorialize at all, but I will say that Sen. Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have both said they will not vote for a bill that defunds Planned Parenthood.

Republicans have 52 Senators out of 100. That means they can only lose three Senators or the bill will not pass. So far, Republican Senators Heller and Collins have said they do not plan to vote for the bill because of the insurance coverage losses it will cause; they want the bill to move to the left. Republican Senators Paul, Cruz, Johnson, and Lee have said they will not vote for it because it is too similar to Obamacare; they want the bill to move to the right. Seven more Republicans have voiced concerns or disappointments with the bill but haven’t come out as a “yes” or “no”. Already, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has had to postpone a vote until after the July 4th break due to a lack of support. This bill is by no means the sure thing it seemed in January, but if the House of Representatives taught us anything, it’s that no bill is too unpopular or too controversial to bring back to life.

[jack-fact]

Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

My interest was piqued this morning when I read a CNN headline that said “starting hurricane season without leaders of NOAA and FEMA should 'scare the hell out of everybody'”. Ok, that seems like it could be a bit of hyperbole, but what’s the issue here? Were the heads of the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) fired for something? It turns out, the situation is nothing like that. Since the President took office, no one has taken those two jobs, which both need candidates to be confirmed by a majority in the Senate in order to become official. Not only has the Senate not voted to confirm anyone to those positions, but Trump’s White House has not even nominated anyone to fill those spots. You can begin to understand CNN’s concern when you realize the fact that hurricane season started yesterday, and the NOAA is tasked with identifying and tracking threats from hurricanes, while FEMA is in charge of responding to natural disasters. 

But that’s just two positions, right? The Trump administration has a lot on their hands, can’t you give them a break when it comes to two minor-agency leadership roles? Well, it turns out there’s a slightly more widespread problem when it comes to the White House nominating people to fill important government posts. According to the Partnership for Public Service, there are around 1,200 positions in the Federal Government that require Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation; so far, only 39 have been confirmed by the Senate, and 63 have been nominated and await confirmation. That’s 102 nominations in total. By this point in President Obama’s term, for comparison, he had nominated 213 officials, and 130 had been confirmed. Bush Jr, 177; Clinton 201; Bush Sr, 141. Some of the positions for which no person has been nominated include multiple crucial assistant secretary and undersecretary positions at the State Department. These are usually specialized diplomats who focus on geographic areas, especially during times of conflict; for example, if war were to break out with North Korea, the Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs would be in charge of communicating with governments in the region. Dozens of ambassadors have not been nominated; in fact, only eight have been nominated or confirmed. Deputy secretaries for nine federal departments or key agencies have not been nominated. No one has been nominated to be the Director of the Census Bureau, even though the census is in only three years. No one has been nominated to be Secretary of the Army or Secretary of the Navy. There has been no nominee for the positions of Surgeon General, Director of the US Mint, Director of the National Counter-terrorism Center, and of course, the NOAA and FEMA. 

[jack-fact]

Election-Day Eve Wrestlemania

For those of you who are unaware, there is a special election in Montana tomorrow to fill a vacant House of Representatives seat which used to belong to Rep. Ryan Zinke (R). Zinke left office to become the Secretary of the Interior for Donald Trump, so a new election has to be held to fill the seat. The two candidates are Greg Gianforte (a Republican from New Jersey who lost the Montana governor’s race in November to a liberal Democrat), and Rob Quist (a “heartland”-type, bluegrass-playing Democrat). 

Earlier this evening, reporter Ben C. Jacobs of The Guardian (a newspaper from the UK) tweeted “Greg Gianforte just body slammed me and broke my glasses.” A BuzzFeed reporter who was at the scene, Alexis Levinson, immediately tweeted that “Ben walked into a room where a local tv crew was set up for an interview with Gianforte... all of a sudden I heard a giant crash and saw Ben's feet fly in the air as he hit the floor... heard very angry yelling (as did all the volunteers in the room) - sounded like Gianforte.” Fifteen minutes later she tweeted “Gianforte is now in a car with aides driving away.”

Gianforte’s team responded a bit later, saying that Jacobs “entered the [campaign] office without permission, aggressively shoved a recorder in Greg's face, and began asking badgering questions... after asking Jacobs to lower the recorder, Jacobs declined. Greg then attempted to grab the phone that was pushed in his face. Jacobs grabbed Greg's wrist, and spun away from Greg, pushing them both to the ground. It's unfortunate that this aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ.” Obviously, this account of the story is quite different from the one that had been alleged so far by Jacobs and Levinson. If only there was some way to find out who was really telling the truth...

Oh wait, there is. As Levinson stated, there was a local news team setting up in the room for an interview with Gianforte. While their cameras did not pick up the incident on video, there was an audio recording. Here’s the link to it. The most telling part of the recording is that Jacobs is actually asking a very pertinent and important question in a low and respectful tone about the recent CBO score of the Republican replacement for Obamacare, when he is given two dismissive non-answers and is not clearly asked to leave or to put down the recorder. Then in the middle of a question from Jacobs you can hear an immediate scuffle, after which Gianforte begins to verbally assault Jacobs. Jacobs claims Gianforte broke his glasses and says he is calling the police. 

If this audio account is not enough to convince you of what happened, the Fox News team who was interviewing him published a quick article with their account of the story. For those of you not inclined to click on links, here’s what they claim: “[Jacobs] walked into the room with a voice recorder, put it up to Gianforte's face and began asking if him if he had a response to the newly released Congressional Budget Office report on the American Health Care Act. Gianforte told him he would get to him later. Jacobs persisted with his question. Gianforte told him to talk to his press guy, Shane Scanlon. At that point, Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him. Faith, Keith and I watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the man, as he moved on top the reporter and began yelling something to the effect of ‘I'm sick and tired of this!’” 

Again, as indicated by the recording, it does not appear that Gianforte and his team were at all truthful in their account of the matter. Jacobs was likely badgering the candidate with questions, as politicians often find happening to them, about an issue which the reporter thought needed to be addressed in a timely manner. According to Levinson, police promptly arrived at the scene and began taking witness statements.

[jack-fact]

Who is Sally Yates?

Now that we’ve just gotten out of the totally fun and interesting TrumpCare news cycle (which is not even close to over yet hahahahahaha), cable anchors and Twitter warriors alike will engage tomorrow in yet another bloody clash over one person: Sally Yates. Yes, I realize you probably have no idea who that is. Let me give you some background.

Mrs. Yates has been a lawyer since 1986, and served early as a lawyer for the Department of Justice. She developed a reputation for pursuing white-collar crimes, and in the early 90′s was named Chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption sector of the Department. She has been a US Attorney since 2002, and was named a federal attorney in 2010. Two years ago, she was confirmed by the Senate to become Deputy Attorney General of the United States.

During her Senate hearings, when members of the Senate Judiciary Committee were asking Yates questions to determine whether she was ready for office, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama asked her “Do you think the attorney general has a responsibility to say no to the president if he asks for something that’s improper?” In a nutshell, if the president asks the DOJ to do something they know or think is illegal, would she resist or refuse? The president at that time was Barack Obama, so it’s not difficult to assume that the person Sessions had in mine when asking this question was ol’ Barry himself. Yates responded “I believe that the attorney general or the deputy attorney general has an obligation to follow the law and the Constitution, and to give their independent legal advice to the president.” Satisfied with that answer, the Senate confirmed Yates by a vote of 84 to 12.

Fast forward to recent history. A little over a week after being inaugurated, on January 30th, President Trump signed an executive order banning immigration or refugee intake from seven “high-risk” countries in the Middle East, which was met with a slightly peeved response. Nothing too bad. However, there were numerous concerns after the signing of the order over whether or not it was, you know, legal or not. Sally Yates, who was named acting (or temporary) Attorney General until the previously-mentioned Jeff Sessions was approved by the Senate, was definitely leaning towards the “not legal” side. So much so, in fact, that she ordered the DOJ not to enforce the order, saying “I am not convinced that the defense of the executive order is consistent with these responsibilities of the Department of Justice, nor am I convinced that the executive order is lawful… For as long as I am the acting Attorney General, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of th[is] executive order.” Obviously, having your head lawyer who is supposed to be defending your executive orders turn around and tell you that you just did something blatantly illegal would be distressing for anyone, so the President did the reasonable thing and sacked her immediately. 

Fast forward to mid-February. The President’s National Security Advisor Gen. Michael Flynn, who was already a little controversial, is kicked out of office after classified reports are leaked that he lied to Vice President Mike Pence about having phone conversations with the Russian Ambassador to the United States during the transition process. Even though it was rumored that Pence had discussed relieving US sanctions on Russia in those phone calls, which would be a serious violation of the Logan Act (which prohibits US civilians from negotiating on the government’s behalf with foreign governments), the White House stated that the reason for his dismissal was simply that he had lied to Pence. It came out at the same time as Flynn’s firing that the Justice Department had warned the White House about these phone calls far earlier, and that Justice was concerned Flynn was being blackmailed by Russia. I invite you to guess who was confirmed to be the person in the Justice Department who warned the White House about Michael Flynn weeks before he was fired. Come on, guess. Oh, fine….

SALLY YATES.

I don’t deal in guessing very much, so I’m not going to tantalize you with possibilities like whether Yates was fired over the immigration ban or whether it was really an attempt to silence her from uncovering a massive scandal within the first month of a fledgling presidency. However, I will present some facts and allow you to decide for yourself: Yates warned the White House about Flynn’s compromised state in “late January.” She was sacked on January 30th. Flynn was not fired until February 13th. Yates was asked to testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee in March, but the White House attempted to block her from speaking by claiming executive privilege. Yates is finally scheduled to speak in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee tomorrow, May 8th, and is expected to “contradict” the White House’s side of the story and state under oath that she offered a “forceful warning” about Flynn’s presence in the White House long before any action was taken. Already, the White House is purportedly planning to paint Yates ”as a Democratic operative who was out to get Trump from the beginning, and willing to torque the facts to advance her agenda.” 

I’ve presented you with a basic overview of Yates’ life, career, and recent drama. Decide for yourself whether she sounds like a partisan hack or a concerned citizen, because tomorrow a war will erupt over her name and reputation.

[jack-fact]

The Dog Finally Catches the Car

…kind of.

Last night, the political community exploded over rumors that Congressional Republicans had wrangled enough votes to pass a law repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and replacing it with the American Health Care Act. After hours of speculation, the AHCA was passed at about midday today to great fanfare, booing, singing, and beer-guzzling. “But Jack”, you ask, “Republicans have been trying to repeal Obamacare for years and they finally have control of both houses of Congress and the White House. Why did this take so long and why is it so controversial?” Well, I invite you to read my previous article on the tumultuous saga that has been Obamacare’s repeal effort. This has been going on for almost two months now. 

Let’s go over what this bill actually does first. What is it? What does it do? How is it different from Obamacare? Why is it so controversial? 

Well, first of all, it’s important to realize that this bill hasn’t actually become a law yet. It has been passed by the House of Representatives, which tends to output far crazier legislation which the Senate then has the joyous task of making acceptable to voters. This occasion is no different; multiple Republican senators, including but not limited to Lisa Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and others have all indicated they have grave concerns about the law in its current form. They will likely change it significantly until it won’t even resemble what the House plopped into their laps, and it’ll be interesting to see if the House approves the Senate’s changes. My bet is yes.

Moving on to what this bill is. The American Health Care Act repeals many of Obamacare’s provisions, most notably getting rid of the government-run insurance marketplaces that provided subsidized health insurance to people who receive lower levels of income and can’t afford quality healthcare. However, instead of leaving poor people out in the cold like most previous attempts to repeal Obamacare would have done, this new proposal gives poor people a $2000 to $4000 tax credit which goes towards their annual healthcare costs. That sounds very nice, but becomes less impressive when one realizes that people making minimum wage only make approximately $21170 a year. Not much wiggle room for possible emergencies there. As I mentioned in my previous article, the Congressional Budget Office (or CBO) is in charge of estimating the impacts of legislation, and in their score of the AHCA’s first iteration released in March they estimated that 24 million Americans would lose health insurance over the next 10 years if this law passes. 

One of the more controversial aspects of the bill is that it endangers a lot of the patient protection reforms that were included in the original Affordable Care Act. After the original version of the bill failed after failing to garner support from the Freedom Caucus of hard-right Republican representatives due to the bill being too similar to Obamacare, Representative Tom MacArthur revived the bill last week by introducing the “MacArthur Amendment”. This amendment to the original bill allows individual states to get rid of Obamacare’s requirement that insurance companies not be allowed to charge more to people who have pre-existing conditions. This provision helps some insurance companies who have seen bad profit margins due to having to charge equal fees to people who require much higher than normal levels of healthcare. The MacArthur amendment also allowed states to define what providing “essential health benefits” means, which could hike the prices of healthcare plans providing things like pre-natal screenings, newborn care, mental healthcare, lab services, pediatric care, and other services protected under Obamacare.

After the MacArthur Amendment was passed, Republican leaders had a new problem. Moderate Republicans had no desire to vote for the bill since voting to remove protections for people with pre-existing conditions is kind of political suicide. ENTER THE UPTON AMENDMENT! The Upton Amendment was a new, new fix for the bill designed to bring both sides of the Republican Party together. It's meant to ensure that these patients with pre-existing conditions in states that get rid of their protections still receive financial assistance. This brand new amendment does that by creating an $8 billion “high-risk pool” of money which can be given to states that get rid of the protections in order to pay for the healthcare of these people with pre-existing conditions, thereby reinstating the protections they just got rid of somehow? I think? It’s an interesting, albeit confusing idea, but as University of Michigan Prof. Nicholas Bagley points out, “the new money can only go to waiver states, but we don’t know how many states will seek waivers. If only Wyoming gets a waiver, an extra $1.6 billion per year will be enough to fully subsidize coverage for everyone in the state. But if all the states with Republican governors opt for waivers, the $8 billion will dwindle into insignificance.” Already, articles have been written saying that the Upton Amendment sounds good on paper but didn’t work in theory, and appears to be more of a political tool that moderate Republicans can use to vote for the bill and still say they tried to protect patient rights. 

Now for the crucial part, how the public has responded to the bill. While there hasn’t been any polling done on how popular the bill is after the amendments have been added, a poll done shortly before the first vote on the bill in March showed public support at a staggeringly low 17% approval rate. The AARP has spoken out strongly against the bill after learning that the AHCA plans to cut $880 billion from Medicaid’s budget, and that it would allow the elderly to be charged up to five times as much as young people for insurance. For comparison, under Obamacare the elderly could only be charged three times as much for health insurance than young people. Other organizations to issue strong condemnations of the bill’s passing include the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Health Care Association, America’s Essential Hospitals, America’s Hospitals and Health Systems, the American Public Health Association, the National Disability Rights Network, the National Partnership for Woman and Families, the National Physicians Alliance, the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, and many more. The Democratic Party has met the passing of the bill in the House with glee, with Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi referring to the bill as something that is “tatooed on [Republican’s] foreheads” as the country gears up for the 2018 midterm Congressional elections.

Finally, let’s look the immediate benefits of the law. Due to the cut in federal spending caused by not having to subsidize the healthcare of poor people, the AHCA “would cut the taxes of high-income people by nearly $300 billion over 10 years by repealing a payroll tax increase and a tax on their investment income imposed by the Affordable Care Act.” 

And that’s really it.

[jack-fact]

Two Things are Certain in Life

Death, and...

Earlier today, the Trump administration released their brand-new, super-hyped, long-waited-for TAX REFORM PLAN. After the beautiful, highly-controlled and foreseeable disaster that was the Republican Party’s attempt to repeal Obamacare, Trump pivoted quickly to what he really wanted to get done the whole time, what he’s truly passionate about: tax reform. After all, he said it himself, “we will probably start going very, very strongly for the big tax cuts and tax reform... that will be next.” Never mind questions about how something can be “next” when nothing happened in the first place, but I digress. 

The plan that was released this morning is extremely interesting. Don’t take that to mean that it’s pleasantly intriguing, however, because the proposal is more confusing than inspiring. First of all, the Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin heralded the plan as “the biggest tax cut” in American history, but the phrasing of that is a bit misleading. He also said the plan’s main objectives are to “cut taxes and simplify the tax code”, which I guess is an admirable objective, but the way the plan goes about doing so is muddled. One of the plan’s biggest ideas is to reduce the number of tax brackets, which are the income ranges a person fits in that decides how much they are taxed on; right now there are seven brackets, with tax rates increasing as your income increases. Under Trump’s plan, the number of brackets would be reduced to three, which seems to me like one of those things that sounds like a great idea when you hear it, but after thinking about it for a little bit you wonder why it’s very important. Another simplification measure the plan tries to take is to eliminate two types of taxes: firstly, the estate tax (which Republicans have lovingly called the death tax), a tax on all of a person’s possessions after the death and before they’ve been passed on to others. The second removed tax is the alternative minimum tax, a tax which essentially makes it impossible for high-earners to avoid paying their fair share in income tax through loopholes or technicalities. This idea is especially interesting, since it was revealed when Rachel Maddow on her show revealed a portion of Donald Trump’s tax returns from 2005 that if it were not for the AMT, he would have paid an astoundingly low income tax rate of 3.5%. The AMT forced him to pay 23%, which is still low compared to 39.5% he ostensibly should be paying, but isn’t illegally or scandalously low. 

There were a great number of other assorted tax cuts in the plan, as well. For example, under the plan, the standard married couple deduction would be doubled, which would essentially mean that the first $24,000 a married couple earns each year would have no taxes on it. Sounds really awesome right? Well, there’s even more tax-cut glory in this baby. The tax on corporations in the US right now is 35%, which is something that the President hates hates hates. He’s proposed lowering the corporate tax to 15%, which will, and I quote, “bring back trillions of dollars that are offshore to be invested here in the United States to purchase capital and to create jobs.” This is one of the more controversial things in the plan, since even Republicans don’t seem to want to lower the tax by that much. That may partially be due to the fact that a GAO analysis requested by Sen. Bernie Sanders reported that “24% of profitable large corporations owed no income tax in 2011.” That’s right, almost a quarter of large US corporations have managed to finagle loopholes in a way that allows them to pay a 0% corporate tax rate. There are issues with the US tax code, but it’s a bit hard to justify dedicating a big part of your tax plan to getting rid of a “burdensome” tax that many don’t even pay. 

Almost as interesting as what’s in the new proposed tax plan is what isn’t in it. You see, one of the most interesting things about the President’s decision to move on to tax reform after failing on healthcare reform was the fact that tax reform may actually be almost impossible without passing healthcare reform first. This is because of an interesting quirk in the legislative system: the Senate can pass a tax plan with only 50 votes (which would likely happen because there are 52 Republican senators) as long as the tax plan is revenue-neutral. That means that for every dollar the government loses through a tax cut, they have to find a way to get another one in revenue, and that’s difficult to do when your objective is to cut taxes; this process is called reconciliation. However, if the bill isn’t revenue-neutral, the Senate needs 60 votes to pass it, which means they’d have to get the support of eight Democratic senators. That’s not going to happen with this plan. Not in a million years. Obviously Republicans aren’t idiots (I think), so they had a great plan to deal with this. By gutting Obamacare, the government wouldn’t have to pay so much money to support healthcare for the poor, and they’d gain money. They could then use that massive gain in revenue to cancel the tax cut out with. 

Obviously, the problem with that is that Republicans did not repeal Obamacare; the effort to do that went down in flames. I covered the reasons for that extensively in a previous blog post. Now, Republicans still really want to pass this tax cut that Democrats already hate with a fiery burning passion, but they would need to find some way to get the money they’re going to lose back. Secretary Mnuchin says that the cuts would spark a “3% growth” in the economy which would pay back the money, but a basic knowledge of economics suggests that that isn’t even close to true (I really hope I don’t need to cite that one). Republican proposals to get some money back by instituting a border adjustment tax, which would tax goods coming into the country at a rate which would encourage companies to make products in the US instead of importing them, have been rejected by the Trump White House. That’s particularly interesting, since that kind of thing seems right in line with the sort of proposals Trump threw around on the campaign trail. After all this, it’s really no surprise that the President has started to push hard again for a vote this week on repealing Obamacare after the House Freedom Caucus (check my previous posts for more info on these special dudes) signalled they’re ready to vote “yes” on the new proposal. There’s only one problem, though, which was definitely not predictable at all.

Moderates can’t vote for it now. One moderate Ohio Republican congressman reportedly said that “if I vote for this healthcare bill, it will be the end of my political career”.

Well, the wait continues for the first big legislative accomplishment of President Trump’s career as his first 100 days come to an end.

[jack-fact]

Official JackFacts 2017 Mock NFL Draft

#1 Cleveland Browns: Myles Garrett, EDGE, Texas A&M.

Do not screw this up, A+.

#2 San Francisco 49ers: Jamal Adams, S, LSU. BPA, takes disappointing D to the next level, A.

#3 Chicago Bears: Soloman Thomas, DL, Stanford. BPA, helps with transition to 4-3, A.

#4 Jacksonville Jaguars: Leonard Fournette, RB, LSU. Fills massive need at RB, prototype workhorse, A-.

#5 Tennessee Titans (LAR): Marshon Lattimore, CB, Ohio State. Fills a team need at CB, All-Pro potential, A+.

#6 New York Jets: Malik Hooker, S, Ohio State. Team desperately in need of secondary help rebuilds, A+.

#7 Los Angeles Chargers: Mike Williams, WR, Clemson. Complement to fragile Keenan Allen, get Rivers some help. A.

#8 Carolina Panthers: Christian McCaffrey, RB, Stanford. Talent at pos. of high need, great spark to reboot offense, A+.

#9 Cincinnati Bengals: Jonathan Allen, DE, Alabama. Dominant D-lineman falls due to injury concerns. A+.

#10 Buffalo Bills: Mitchell Trubisky, QB, North Carolina. Heir to Tyrod; D. Watson if Trubs is gone, B+.

#11 New Orleans Saints: Reuben Foster, LB, Alabama. A team in dire need of LB help ignores red flags, A.

#12 Cleveland Browns (PHI): DeShaun Watson, QB, Clemson. High-production, highly-talented QB who’s shined under the brightest lights. Analytics FO will freak over him. A-.

#13 Arizona Cardinals: OJ Howard, TE, Alabama. Tight end with high potential and measurables, but low usage. A.

#14 Philadelphia Eagles (MIN): Tre’Davious White, CB, LSU. Slightly undersized but highly talented corner who can shine in the slot and hold his own outside. A-.

#15 Indianapolis Colts: Derek Barnett, EDGE, Tennessee. High-production, SEC product sack master. A.

#16 Baltimore Ravens: Charles Harris, EDGE, Missouri. Off the field concerns are ignored in a run on pass-rushers. A.

#17 Washington Redskins: Haason Reddick, LB, Temple. Very versatile, can play EDGE or ILB, willing to TRADE UP for him. A.

#18 Tennessee Titans: Corey Davis, WR, WMU. Electric playmaker, opponent strength concerns. High ceiling. A+.

#19 Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Chidobe Awuzie, CB, Colorado. A workout wonder at the combine with an All-Pro name. B+.

#20 Denver Broncos: Ryan Ramczyk, OL, Wisconsin. Huge need, highly polished player, fits a power system. A-.

#21 Detroit Lions: John Ross, WR, Washington. Injury-concerns get ignored by a team needing an offensive playmaker for Staffy. A-.

#22 Miami Dolphins: Forrest Lamp, OG, Western Kentucky. Versatile offensive lineman with crazy high  ceiling. A-.

#23 New York Giants: Cam Robinson, OT, Alabama. Highly athletic, successful LT starter for Nick Saban. Off-field concerns. B+.

#24 Oakland Raiders: Jarrad Davis, LB, Florida. Good coverage linebacker from great college D fills a hole. A.

#25 Houston Texans: Patrick Mahomes, QB, Texas Tech. Great arm talent, big project player who can sit behind Savage. A.

#26 Seattle Seahawks: Quincy Wilson, CB, Florida. Overlooked but underrated corner rejuvenates the Legion of Boom. A.

#27 Kansas City Chiefs: Zach Cunningham, LB, Vanderbilt. Rangy, freakishly productive ILB fills a hole in an already great D. A-.

#28 Dallas Cowboys: Gareon Conley, CB, Ohio State. High 1st-round talent, but falls due to rape allegations. Dallas FO goes crazy, and it could be the steal of the draft. A+.

#29 Green Bay Packers: Jordan Willis, EDGE, Kansas State. A team bites on great athleticism + talent. A+.

#30 Pittsburgh Steelers: Jabrill Peppers, OLB/S, Michigan. God-like athleticism, jack-of-all-trades, no polish. A-.

#31 Atlanta Falcons: Malik McDowell, DT, Michigan State. Sky-high potential, but inconsistent at best motor. A-.

#32 New Orleans Saints (NE): Taco Charlton, DE, Michigan. Dominant for Big Blue, can anchor and rush the passer well. A.

[jack-fact]

Game of Cucks

Yes, I stole this title from “Pod Save America”. Sue me.

ANYWAYS, for this post I wanted to dedicate some time to an analysis of the unprecedented warring factions which currently are occupying the White House, who makes them up, and what they want. It’s a complicated topic, and one that could change quickly as people enter and leave the President’s circle of trusted advisers. However, I will try to simplify it as much as possible. 

The first major faction within the White House is the one that propelled Donald Trump to the presidency: the Alt-Right, or economic and idealogical nationalists. They are very separate from the rest of the Republican Party both in terms of what they believe and how they achieve it. The main goals of this group is to return America to its original value system, and fight the “negative effects of multiculturalism and globalism.” You see their influence in things like the twice-rejected ban on immigrants from “high-risk” Middle Eastern countries, and Trump’s speeches, the shining example being his “American Carnage” inaugural address. That uplifting message was written by Alt-Right protege Stephen Miller, who is a favorite of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Their leader is Chief Adviser to the President Steve Bannon, who used to be the CEO of the very conservative-leaning news website Breitbart News before he took over the Trump campaign (after the demise of Paul Manafort due to his ties to the Russian government). Bannon has seen his influence plummet lately as he’s feuded with more moderate/experienced officials at the White House. Just two weeks ago, on the same day Donald Trump decided to take military action against Syria due to accusations of chemical weapons use, Bannon was kicked off of the National Security Council, a position which many had described as unprecedented and worrying. Since then, numerous news reports have come out describing Bannon as almost out of the White House, but he seems determined to stay, as one person reported he said “I love a gunfight.”

The next group of people important to understanding the White House is the Establishment Republicans. Yes, it’s true, despite his claims that he was going to dismantle the establishment, Donald Trump has a lot of established people in his White House. The most important of these people are his Chief of Staff Reince Preibus, who used to be the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, and his Vice President Mike Pence, who used to be the Governor of Indiana. These Republicans in the White House are intrinsically linked to the Republican establishment in Congress, so you could maybe stretch and put Speaker Paul Ryan along with Senate Maj. Leader Mitch McConnell as players among the established GOPers. These politicians want to pursue a classic Republican agenda of sweeping tax cuts, throwing out Obamacare, and strengthening national security. The only issue is, just like the Alt-Right, they seem to be losing power in the WH as well, as reports have circled that names have been floated around DC for replacements for Priebus. Even as the WH has signaled that Priebus’ job is safe, the uncertainty and tension still remains. This faction was never close to Trump, and they seem to be trending down in the race for his attention.

The final faction wrangling for power and attention in the White House is the one that currently is making the most noise, and they have a big advantage in the race. That’s because they are who I like to call the “Manhattan Group”, and a large portion of them are related to the President. The big players are the President’s daughter Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner, and Chairman of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn. Ivanka and Kushner have both been given important adviser positions in the White House, which right away raises some interesting questions regarding nepotism. However, Ivanka’s influence in the White House has been interesting, as she has said many things in the past which smack of liberalism, which makes her influential position in the White House really strange. Cohn has also been an enigmatic figure in the White House, as he’s been reported to have the ear of the President, especially on economic issues. That’s extremely interesting, since Cohn is pro-free-trade, pro-immigration, and at least until recently was a registered Democrat. His influence has likely led to many recent Trump backtracks on key issues, such as his new reluctance to declare China a “currency manipulator”, get rid of the Export-Import Bank, or remove Janet Yellen as Chairwoman of the Federal Reserve Board. One interesting tidbit has been that there’s been venomous infighting between the Alt-Righters and the Manhattaners, and Bannon’s group have begun to refer to Cohn in text messages as “CTC”, or Carbon Tax Cohn, which makes fun of one of the Democratic ideas he’s tried to champion within the White House, or just referring to him with a simple “globe” emoji for “globalist”.

It’ll be fascinating to see how these factions shake out in the power struggle in the coming months. The result will likely decide what path the administration takes in its policy agenda over the next few months, and it looks like family connections might have the edge.

[jack-fact]

Republicans’ Date with Destiny

Oh boy, for those who have been paying attention, the last two or three days have been hectic. On Monday the Directors of the FBI and the NSA testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee, and while that was very interesting, that’s for another post. No, the real news is that Republicans’ proposal to repeal-and-replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (affectionately known as Obamacare) is looking like it might face a challenge or two before becoming a law. 

In fact, make that a lot of challenges.

This whole thing started not soon after President Donald Trump was inaugurated, and it was rumored that Republican leaders in Congress were drafting a replacement law for Obamacare. Since politicians hate not being included in anything, Democrats along with Republicans who were not being involved in the drafting of the law demanded to see what Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Company were cooking up. They were flat-out told that the bill was not available to be viewed. So Democratic representatives went out and did what any normal person would do, and went on a scavenger hunt. They literally went and searched the entire Capitol building to find the secret bill and it was moved from room to room to prevent them from seeing it. If this wasn’t strange enough, Republican politicians who had campaigned on completely removing Obamacare and not keeping parts of it began to attack the bill before even seeing it, with Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) denouncing the bill as “Democrat ideas wrapped up in Republican clothing.” Keep in mind, he hadn’t even seen the bill yet.

Well, on March 8th, the bill was publicly unveiled as the American Health Care Act and immediately sent to the relevant House committees for their approval so it could go to the House floor for debate. The bill, to put it lightly, was horribly received by politicians from Democrats, all the way across the spectrum to conservative Republicans. Sen. Paul immediately called it “Obamacare Lite”, while conservative firebrand Ann Coulter simply asked “who wrote this piece of crap Obamacare replacement bill?” Even far-right news website Breitbart News has been plastering up headlines like “Conservatives ‘Fuming’ After Obamacare 2.0 Allows Illegal Aliens to Receive Tax Credits Through Fraud”. Meanwhile, Democrats and centrist Republicans accused Republicans of putting together a slapdash solution that would make healthcare plans unaffordable for many in exchange for little benefit. Indeed, they were proven correct when a report, or “score”, from the non-party-affiliated Congressional Budget Office confirmed that the bill would lead to 24 million people losing health coverage, while only resulting in a meager reduction in the federal deficit. 

Nevertheless, Republicans plunged on, determined to pass the law in its unaltered form. The final vote was set for March 23rd, the seventh anniversary of the original passage of Obamacare, which makes the whole thing sound a little gimmicky already. However, as the day approached, something started to become unnervingly clear: Republicans might not have the votes to pass the damn thing in the first place. To explain why that was, you have to understand who the House Freedom Caucus is. To put it in a nutshell, they are the most hated political group on Capitol Hill, composed of the most right-leaning, fiscally and socially conservative Tea Party-ers in the entire House of Representatives. They have no official membership list, but they have about 30-40 members at any given time, and they all hate the AHCA. You see, the Freedom Caucus has a reputation for being notoriously difficult to negotiate with, and they have a laundry list of things that they want added on to the bill. 

Some of the things that have been leaked from their meetings with Republican leaders are things like demands that the bill not include Obamacare’s protections of people with pre-existing conditions, which are pretty popular, even with Republicans. They also want repeals of some of the “essential health benefits” that insurance plans under Obamacare must provide, like “doctors’ services, inpatient and outpatient hospital care, prescription drug coverage, pregnancy and childbirth, mental health services.” Conservatives argue that removing these regulations would give insurance companies more freedom to tailor insurance plans to people with different needs, while Obamacare’s supporters and centrist Republicans say they would effectively be instituting a quote-on-quote “motherhood tax.” 

Here comes the rub: Republicans have a 22-seat majority in the House of Representatives, which means if they lose any more than 22 Republican votes, the bill won’t pass. The Chairman of the Freedom Caucus Rep. Mark Meadows has stated that he has more than 22 people lined up to vote “no”, which would effectively sink the bill. However, Republican leaders can’t give them any concessions because then centrist and moderate Republicans will begin to announce that they won’t support the bill. Now you see why this is looking like an impossible task. Already, it’s 8:52 PM on the evening of March 23rd, and no vote has taken place. It has been moved to tomorrow because Republicans have not whipped enough votes to pass, and President Trump has reportedly “closed negotiations, informed Republicans that the current version of the bill is the final proposal, and ordered Speaker Ryan to hold a vote on the bill tomorrow no matter the whip count.” The bill will be voted on tomorrow, and it’s very likely Republican leaders will have no idea whether or not they have the votes to pass it. 

Whatever happens tomorrow, get the popcorn and bubbly ready, because one side of the aisle is gonna get a surprise they won’t like.

[jack-fact]

The New Colossus

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. ‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’”

Emma Lazarus, 1883, inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Makes you think about what really made us great in the first place.

[jack-fact]

ALTERNATIVE FACTS

What a way to start a presidential term, seriously. On the second day of President Trump’s administration, Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer held the first press conference of the new government. He started off nice, but didn’t stay that way. After greeting the reporters he immediately attacked a reporter from Time for tweeting that the usual statue of Martin Luther King Jr. was not visible in the Oval Office. The reporter almost immediately after tweeting corrected himself, saying that a Secret Service agent had been standing in front of it. While that was a dumb thing for him to do, I’m not sure he deserved being accused of “deliberately false reporting” or being “irresponsible and reckless.” 

He then spent several minutes defending against stories that had been circling around social media and news organizations that the number of people at Trump’s inauguration was far lower than at Obama’s first inauguration, a claim that is probably true based on pictures of the event. He then claimed that white grass protectors were being used for the first time and made empty spaces more obvious, which is not true. He also claimed that “magnetometers” used for security made it harder for people to get into the viewing area, which is again, not true. He then said that it was impossible to tell how many people were there because “the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall, does not put any [crowd size numbers] out”, which may be true, but he followed it up by rattling off a bunch of numbers proving how many people were there. Which one is it? He finished his tirade off by saying “this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.” Yet again, there are PICTURES that show that is statement is absolutely false, and statistics show fewer people watched the inauguration on television as well. So lies all around.

This entire situation was worrying. Yes, having an argument about how big the inauguration crowd size was is really unimportant in the grand scheme of things. It’s about as important as how many pieces of steak Trump ate for dinner or how many times his sons had their names chanted by his supporters. But what’s scary here is that not only did he instruct his press secretary to execute a hit job on the entire White House Press Pool, but he provably lied multiple times while doing it. This administration, the one that was supposed to put power back into the hands of the people, that accused the media of misrepresenting the truth. It’s really hypocritical when you think about it. 

Putting the rotten cherry on top of this banana fudge (ewww) cake, a Trump senior aide Kellyanne Conway appeared on Chuck Todd’s Meet the Press (the video of which is hilarious, btw) the next morning and said Spicer had just presented “alternative facts.” WHAT. I really hate making 1984 references so early, but this is Newspeak levels of cognitive dissonance. With already stunningly low approval ratings, the Trump administration can’t afford many more public embarrassments before Republicans in Congress start renouncing support for his actions.