An even smaller tax refund this year reminds who really benefits from Trump's tax law

I have this feeling that some low-to-middle income people are going to be in for a bigger surprise than they were last year when they file their tax returns: their tax refunds based solely on their federal income taxes—even if they have zero exemptions—are going to be even smaller than they were during the first year since Donald Trump’s tax law was implemented. I don’t like messy tax returns, and so over the past 10 years I’ve filed my tax return online using the easiest route, just using the standard personal exemption built into the tax return. I might not get as big a tax refund as I might, but I don’t have an army of accountants at my disposal like big corporations who have avoided paying any taxes at all thanks to Trump (who of course benefits immensely from his own law), and I am more likely to lose money if I pay for such services in any case. 

Since I received tax refunds based on an unchanging methodology, it is easier to “forecast” how much of a refund I can expect, one which in the past depended largely on income received. In 2017, before Trump’s tax cut for the wealthy and corporations went into effect, I saw both my highest yearly income, and highest tax refund. But a year later, like most people in my income bracket, I was stunned to see my refund drop to 67 percent of what it was before. I’ve already submitted by tax return for this past year, and it was even less—just 55 percent of what it was two years ago. This isn’t some “little” thing. I have zero exemptions because it is a way of saving money for “big” ticket items like a new laptop computer, or paying off dental or health care bills. 

What happened? The tax bracket the Trump tax law put me in reduced tax withholding from 15 percent to 12 percent. The taxes withheld decreased by about $1300 from the last pre-Trump tax law, while  my tax refund went down $800—meaning that my presumed tax “cut” was around $500. This means that I saw a take-home pay “increase” of less than $10 a week in “exchange” for a far smaller tax refund. For most people, such a tiny take-home pay increase is at best negligible if even noticeable at all—and I certainly didn’t notice any “change” that made my budgetary concerns any less stressful. Thus for most working people, Trump’s tax law is what it is: a fraud perpetrated on working class people to line the pockets of Trump and his friends—and that is exactly what has happened. 

The fact is that a 3 percent cut in taxes is essentially unnoticeable if the income base is relatively small to begin with. On the other hand, a 14 percent corporate tax cut on millions or billions of dollars is decidedly “significant”—especially for shareholders and corporate executives in whose pockets those extra dollars go straight into; as noted before, we have seen that the new tax law actually leads to a decrease in the incentive to invest in infrastructure, research and development, and labor due to the fact that these kinds of investments are no longer as useful as before for tax dodging purposes. After an initial “burst” of wage increases for the labor “class,” the tax cuts have been shown to have almost no impact on either employment or economic growth.

What makes matters worse is that while Trump and his corporate friends are reaping massive benefits from the tax law, he intends to pay for it by cutting social safety net programs—including Medicare, which he promised seniors in 2016 he would not touch, but a few weeks ago he proclaimed that if he is reelected, he intends to cut. What does all of this mean? Just more reasons for someone other than Trump in 2020.

USMCA deal made for short-term political benefit may have long-term "unintended" effects

Today the USMCA trade deal became “official,” at least from the U.S. side of things. As I pointed out before, the “deal” will have almost no impact on the U.S.’ overall trade deficit; it is merely a reflection of Donald Trump’s and some Democrats’ typical desire to scapegoat Mexicans for all the country’s “problems,” which is plain horsespucky given that the economy is supposed to be doing so well (Trump keeps reminding us) under the “old” NAFTA agreement. It is obvious that Canada and Mexico agreed to the “small” changes to the “old” deal” just to get Trump off their backs, because they have seen from this administration that Trump will inflate even the tiniest change—whether actually good or bad—into a “major triumph,” so why not just indulge his vast ego?

The Economic Policy Institute pointed out last spring that the alleged “benefits” to economic growth and the U.S. labor market are at best minimal, and only slated to occur if the USMCA is “fully implemented” in another six years. That’s right—the changes will have no immediate effect on the economy, but will be “incremental”—and a lot can happen in six years. Backers of the “deal” claim that it will create 175,000 new jobs, but only over that six year period, and given the ups and downs of the labor market, it will likely be difficult to tell if the USMCA has anything to with any increase in jobs. Furthermore, a 0.35 percent increase in GDP over that span isn't exactly anything to write home about either. The “heroic” claims of  benefit are being pushed by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), and the Institute suggests that its overly rosy picture is exactly that. It isn’t just that even the ITC’s claims of economic benefits from the USMCA are remarkably “modest,” but the models it uses have made disastrously wrong predictions in the past, such as in regard to the U.S.-South Korea trade deal, and the effect of allowing China into the WTO on bi-lateral trade. 

Skeptics of the USMCA, such as a position paper by the International Monetary Fund,  have pointed out that among other things, the “regional content” requirement—meaning that at least for the U.S. market, a higher percentage of  parts for cars imported from Mexico to the U.S. must be made in the U.S. (obviously not a requirement expected from other foreign-manufactured cars) and that labor costs in Mexico must be more in line with U.S. labor costs (which would likely lead to price inflation  out of the reach of non-auto workers)--are not likely to have the positive effects its supporters are claiming. In fact, the USMCA is more likely to reduce job and manufacturing growth in both Mexico and the U.S., due to loss of sales of automobiles  from increased costs. 

In order to avoid these increased costs, it is likely that U.S. manufacturers will simply go further “offshore” for parts and labor that would have come from  Mexico, instead seeking out supply from China, Vietnam or Malaysia—and the USMCA does nothing to prevent that from happening. Of course, job loss due to higher labor costs in Mexico means the greater the likelihood that Mexicans will look elsewhere for work—like, say, in the U.S. For all the tough talk about illegal immigration, the USMCA may in fact be yet another catalyst for it, due to short-sighted and short-term political gain.

Democrats who pushed for “changes” in the agreement—establishing an “enforcement” mechanism to insure that Mexico abides by labor union and wage standards imposed by the new deal—clearly have no real interest in the state of the Mexican labor force, but believe that increasing wages in Mexico will mean that goods manufactured for export to the U.S. will be higher, and thus allowing solely U.S. manufactured goods to be more “competitive.” Unfortunately, it is a bit hypocritical to be pushing this when in the U.S. labor union representation has been steadily eroding, Republican administrations have been actively reducing labor rights, and nothing is being done to stop that. 

A more likely result of the USMCA if implemented will be more expensive automobiles, and the loss of sales both in the U.S. and Mexico. It is not that higher wages would not be good for Mexican workers, but the U.S. is trying to impose a minimum standard that is simply not realistic for the Mexican economy, and if anything, would create job losses and thus a decrease in consumer spending for U.S. goods. By individual countries, Mexico is the second biggest importer of U.S. goods, behind Canada; the USMCA, if actually implemented as U.S. politicians intend, U.S. imports may in fact decrease rather than “increase” as the deal is being sold as here.

All-in-all, full implementation of the USCA deal may very well have effects that Trump and its Democratic supporters will not have “foreseen” for the sake of politics. It is very much like the problem of trade with China: People complain about the trade deficit with China, and it is a problem because China does have a considerable consumer base that ought to benefit U.S. exporters more than it does. But on the other, U.S. consumers crave cheap Chinese products, which is why it seems that virtually every apparel and electronics product sold in the U.S. seems to have a “Made in China” tag on it. The USMCA “deal” came about because of ingrained scapegoating of anything “Mexican,” and if it is fully implemented—and that is still a big “if”—it may very well only transfer the “problem” the U.S claims to have with one country (Mexico) in which it is foolish to weaken economically, to countries who pose even greater threats and we are less likely to be able to bully.

Supreme Court's “public charge” ruling again aids and abets not on its "merits" but the Trump administration’s well-established racist motivations, influenced by known purveyors of hate—like Jason Richwine

The latest asinine claim by the “Stop Bernie” movement is that while he may be able to beat Donald Trump, Sander's ideas are too “radical” to be converted into actual policy. Let me remind voters that since 2010, both Barack Obama and Trump have been promulgating policy via executive order—and as long we have divided government, that is the way things are going to be regardless of who is elected in 2020. The difference in electing any Democrat over Trump is that the executive branch will (presumably) practice more humane policies. That includes overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s vote along ideological lines to allow the Trump administration’s denial of visas and Green cards to individuals based on the administration’s “definition” of who qualifies as being a  “public charge.” Bernie Sanders immediately denounced the ruling, pointing out that his own immigrant forebears, like that of the vast majority of white Americans, arrived in this country without a red cent to their names or immediate job prospects—and no “papers.” Even after the 1924 immigration law, millions of immigrants from Europe (especially from Italy) who still came into the country illegally benefited from a 1929  amnesty program  that continued for more than 20 years, only ended because the flow of immigration from Europe had at that time slowed to a trickle. 

I think it is a fairly safe bet that amongst Sander’s first batch of executive orders if he is elected president is to overturn this “rule,” which has nothing to do with “merit,” but wealth and racial and ethnic prejudice. We know this because of the public pronouncements of Trump and the well-established white nationalism and unabashed racist attitudes of the rule’s principle architect, Stephen Miller. It is ironic that Miller as a Jew would invoke the “public charge” shibboleth, given its infamous history during the FDR administration; in order to stop a “tide” of immigrants fleeing the horrors of Nazi Europe, it used the “liable to be a public charge” policy to prevent mostly Jews trying to escape death from reaching our shores, based on Anglo prejudice and stereotypes. It is interesting to note that while the heads of the major motion picture studios at the time were Jewish, they were reluctant to call attention to the plight of the Jews in Nazi Europe on screen, because they did not want to stir-up “resentment” from the public at large (even in the film The Life of Emile Zola, which focused on the French author’s fight for justice on behalf of Alfred Dreyfus, there was only one  easily missed reference to the fact that Dreyfus was Jewish).

The infamy of the “public charge” rule after the full horrors of the Nazism were revealed led to a certain amount of shame and guilt that would lessen its use on determining immigration status. People come to this country with the expectation of finding something “better” than in the place they left, and that hasn’t changed. That includes Latin Americans, especially Central Americans whose countries and people were, as Gen. Smedley Butler candidly admitted back in 1935, beaten into submission to be more “pliable” for American corporate interests; when those corporations were done squeezing whatever profit they could, they left those countries even more impoverished than they were before. Today, under the CAFTA trade agreement—which Trump doesn’t attack because the U.S. has a large trade surplus from it, little has changed. Despite the fact that altogether the Central American countries have a much smaller consumer base than the U.S., they import more than the U.S. does from them, which of course means that CAFTA has provided far fewer jobs for Central Americans than promised—let alone living wage jobs. In fact, the “banana republic” days have only been “reborn” under CAFTA, in which American companies operating in those countries have been permitted to establish virtual fiefdoms under their own rules encompassing large swaths of territory, where those countries own labor laws have no effect. Rather than providing living wages, U.S. companies operating in Central America have only entrenched poverty in those countries—and given life to violent drug gangs.

There are white nationalist types who avoid the question by asserting that all migrants have to do  to come to this country is to do it the “right way.” In reality, under the Trump administration, it is all but impossible for Central American immigrants to come to this country “legally.” It isn’t just that the wait time could take decades longer that immigrants from what Trump would call “non-shithole” countries, but those seeking asylum were at first only allowed to apply two or three at time daily from holding camps to make their claims before an immigration judge, and few have gotten past that hurdle. Now, the Trump administration has stopped even that with the “agreement”—or rather, economic blackmail—of Central American countries to serve as asylum destinations. What has happened is that asylum seekers in the U.S. have flown to any one of these countries that all have the same issues of violence and poverty—providing a false “choice” for asylum seekers. 

But let’s go back to why the Trump administration has gone all-out to prevent a single Hispanic immigrant to legally enter the country. We know that the chief architect of its policy is Stephen Miller, and we know from his Breitbart emails that he has a particular hatred toward Hispanics, not just immigrants but generally. Those whose information he requires to justify to himself his race hate are organizations and persons who have a well-established reputation for disseminating racial and anti-immigrant hate. One of those people that Miller is especially fond of is one Prof. Jason Richwine, who traffics in the kind of eugenics and scientific racism theories that the Nazis used to “justify” the “purification” of Europe and create a playground for the “master race.” 

Richwine first gained notoriety when the Heritage Foundation fired him after the news media uncovered  his Harvard dissertation. The dissertation was entitled “IQ and Immigration Policy” and is available as a PDF download for your “edification.” First off, Richwine is an avowed white nationalist and it is clear that his intention with the paper was to reinforce his own racist beliefs. You know when someone focuses their entire attention on one group to demonize, the only explanation is an in-bred bigotry against that group. Richwine’s dissertation was from first to last a justification to stop all immigration from Latin America, using as a "rationalization"  his belief on their alleged "low IQ.” First, IQ tests are in many ways fraudulent since they don’t really measure “intelligence,” but rote memory. I remember a line from a song by the 70s funk group War: “Sometimes I don’t speak right, but yet I know what I’m talking about.” You don’t need a 180 IQ to build the offices or homes that “high IQ” people work or live in, or put food on their table, which such people are too “big” to do themselves. 

Like Miller and other white nationalists, Richwine believes that Hispanics are the principle “threat” to white hegemony (they are not—east Asians and Indians are), and in order to combat this, he needed to apply racial and ethnic stereotypes which he hoped to prove  by employing debunked pseudo-science and eugenics theories. He asserts that Hispanics as a group (not as individuals) will “never” achieve IQ gains sufficient to “compete” with whites, even though they are not necessarily “competing” for the same jobs—and take it from me, you have can have a university degree and people still only wish to believe that you are only capable of doing the most menial labor based on “appearance.”  Richwine even asserts that second and third generation Hispanics are “less” intelligent than their immigrant forbears; this is an absurd thesis, although the next logical assumption is that this is proof that environmental and “nurturing” factors (like racial prejudice and indifference by teachers) is a factor in how “intelligence” should be evaluated.

I was particularly “amused” by Richwine’s obvious ignorance about military aptitude tests, which took up a great deal of space in his dissertation.  I have taken the tests on three different occasions during my time in the military, so I know something about them.  Richwine attempted to make his table of comparisons between “native whites” and Hispanic immigrants as obtuse as possible, employing nonsense “standard differentials” that no lay person (like Stephen Miller) or even the three faculty members who signed off on the dissertation could understand, but the admitted “looked” impressive. Richwine clearly was unaware of what the AFQT “score” actually is, likening it to an “IQ” test, which it is not. On the ASVAB test the closest approximation of an “IQ” score is the GT, or “general technical” test score. The AFQT “score” is actually a percentile rank among all test-takers during a particular time period; if your percentile rank is 80, that means you scored higher that 79 percent of the other test-takers. My AFQT “scores,” went from 86 when I first enlisted out of high school, to 94 on the third test after I graduated from college. Interestingly, my highest GT score—135—came on the second test I took when I reenlisted, with an AFQT score of 88. Richwine makes some rather tortured claims about how the AFQT “fits” in the intelligence evaluation game that make no sense whatever. 

Like all white racists, Richwine will “elevate” Asians against other minority groups if it suits a racist end, even if they don’t really accept that Asians are “superior” to whites. We can surmise that certain Asian “ethnicities” have elevated abilities at rote memory, but it is well-established that in east Asian countries the quality of schooling is superior than in most countries. This is probably true of European education compared to this country’s as well. It is ironic that Hispanics who speak both Spanish and English and regarded as less “intelligent” than the vast majority of whites in this country who can only speak one language. Europeans are far more likely to be bilingual than whites; does that mean that white Americans are less intelligent than white Europeans?  How many languages does Trump know? How about Miller? If they only know English, what makes them any “smarter” than people who speak two languages, as most Hispanics immigrants do? 

Richwine ignores such questions, and he never stops to consider that many occupations that some groups fill that others refuse to do, do not require IQs of 150, whatever such a “score” actually means in real life. He also doesn’t even bother to consider that a substantial percentage of white people are not “high IQ,” and not all Hispanics (or blacks, for that matter who actually rate even lower on his scale) are “low IQ.” Like any white nationalist and racist, he lumped racial groups in his preconceived notions of “worth,” and his final “evaluation” is that Hispanics should not be allowed into the country because they are, well, not “intelligent” enough. 

Of course, given the racist nature of his dissertation is a fair question to ask who approved it for his doctoral degree. To begin with, he “earned” this degree from the Harvard’s Kennedy School of Public Policy. Yes, this is the same Harvard University that recently denied tenure to Prof. Lorgia Garcia-Pena, because of what many believe is Harvard’s belief that her “ethnic studies” courses were not important enough to suit the university’s elevated vision of itself. Yet the three committee members who approved his dissertation as acceptable to receive a doctoral degree seemed either blind to or otherwise not particularly disturbed by its blatantly racist nature. One member of the committee, George Borjas, admitted that he “didn’t find IQ academic work all that interesting,” but that didn’t stop him from signing off on it, probably because he approved of its call to limit immigration, a subject he frequently wrote about for the National Review. 

Another  was Richard Zeckhauser’s area of expertise is in investing, but he was “impressed” by the “empirical” work that he clearly did not understand, but looked like it had to mean “something.” One thing that he missed that others did not was that in evaluating the “intelligence” of Hispanic immigrants, Richwine used small, clearly cherry-picked for “low intelligence” sample groups. Zeckhauser did note that he was somewhat disturbed by Richwine’s eagerness to “extrapolate his empirical results to inferences for policy.” The third person to sign-off on Richwine’s dissertation was an alleged “social liberal” named Christopher Jencks. His only excuse for himself was that he came on late in the proceedings, was not there to approve of his thesis, and was “satisfied” that Richwine had made minor word changes that he had suggested.

Richwine went on to blame “low IQ” for breeding “societal mistrust.” What exactly he meant by that is unclear. Was he saying that the belief that Hispanics are “dumb” and thus more prone to “car prowling” breeds “distrust” in them by whites? Makes you wonder who the “dumb” people really are. A UK study, on the other hand, showed that a bigger problem was that racism is most prevalent among “low IQ” white people, and it is ironic that in the end, the chief “audience” for Richwine’s “thesis” are either those policy makers with a white nationalist agenda, or “low IQ” whites. Richwine concluded his dissertation by declaring that “From the perspective of Americans alive today, the low average IQ of Hispanics is effectively permanent.” And Harvard saw fit to “approve” a Ph. D for this disgusting, despicable creature? And someone who is one of the principle influences not just on Stephen Miller’s racist immigration policies, but his racist beliefs generally?

We need someone in the White House who has a record of common human decency. I don’t think that person is Joe Biden, and I don’t think it is someone who passes herself off as a “minority” to take jobs from real minorities.

Attacks on Bernie Sanders shows the Democratic “establishment” gearing up to make the same mistakes it did in 2016

Hypocrisy is in all places, it surrounds us everywhere we look, often even in the mirror. At best it is a matter of relativity. Evangelical “Christians” who support Trump, like Paula White and her “all satanic pregnancies should miscarry” prayer, are about as big as hypocrites can get. Republicans who refuse to see that Trump has shredded their “principles” into nothing are hypocrites. Bill Maher who claims to be anti-Trump yet appears to embrace Trump’s racism is a hypocrite. His recent guest Megyn Kelly, who denied that she and her former colleagues at Fox News are blatantly biased and bigoted, is a hypocrite; the fact that she is now a “feminist” icon only proves my point that white feminism and racism go fist-in-glove. While Hillary Clinton claims on her blatantly self-serving and suspiciously-timed “documentary” that “nobody” likes Bernie Sanders, she seems to be blissfully unaware that in this very same documentary, her critics admit that they “just don’t like her.” That’s what a hypocrite does: attack the person who never said he didn’t like her, and campaigned for her in 17 states in the last 11 days before the 2016 election—and still “blames” him for her defeat.

Meanwhile, Politico has just taken hypocrisy to a whole new level with a new story entitled “’They let him get away with murder’: Dems tormented on how to stop Bernie,” written predictably by an Elizabeth Warren apologist, Natasha Korecki. The “murder” comment was from some political hack named Matt Bennett who has been attempting to organize a “stop Sanders” movement, and blames the media for not “exposing” him. Former Chicago mayor and Barack Obama’s first term chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel claims that Sanders can’t win “swing states.” Just about every “establishment” Democrat quoted in the piece is wringing their hands about a possible Sanders nomination, even suggesting that they can “live” with a fellow “socialist” Elizabeth Warren nomination because, well, we know why.

Attacks on Sanders is nothing new, and neither are attempts to put up barriers to “stop” him. The Democratic “establishment” did everything it could to derail a Sanders insurgency in 2016, feeling that Clinton was “entitled” to the nomination after her disappointment in 2008. Nearly all super delegates lined-up behind Clinton even before the first primary, and we would learn subsequently that the DNC had made a “deal” with Clinton in which in exchange for financial “help” it would do everything it could to marginalize Sanders. CNN and MSNBC gave little air time to Sanders’ surrogates, let alone gave any credence to his chances at the nomination. This is in opposition to 2008, when the media was confronted with the reality that Obama excited voters more than Hillary, the majority of her own support who felt that it was their expected “duty” to back her since the media made the assumption early on that she would be the eventual nominee. Save for CNN, the media was forced to back off because on their assumptions because there would be a backlash by liberal and especially black voters if it swung too obviously favorably toward Clinton. 

One suspects that if Sanders was a younger, more physically “attractive” candidate, there would be greater enthusiasm for his candidacy among his current detractors. On the other hand, Sanders’ age and experience has left a record to ponder. Not only was he a civil rights organizer in the Sixties, but as mayor of Burlington, Vermont he put words into action—unlike, say, the big-talking “liberal” city government officials of Seattle, who have done nothing that means anything to promote affordable housing and rental units within the city limits. As mayor, Sanders refused to allow the landlords of the public housing Northgate Apartments to tear them down and replace them with luxury condos; according to a story in The Nation, Sanders declared “Over my dead body are you going to displace 336 working families. You are not going to convert Northgate into luxury housing,’” And he did just as he said, working with state and local officials to provide funding to “rehabilitate” public housing in the city, and forced landlords building condos to replace all the affordable housing units they tore down in the process. “Today” according to The Nation, “Northgate Apartments is owned by the tenants and has long-term restrictions to keep the buildings affordable for working families,” thanks to Sanders’ efforts on behalf of those “working families.” This is real action, and it is something that Sanders should be educating voters on, as it seems the media and Sanders’ detractors seem to prefer to believe is a record that does not exist.

Sanders’ detractors’ claim that he has no chance with white working class voters in “swing states” like Wisconsin and Michigan is absurd on its face. They seem to forget that Sanders won those states’ primaries in 2016. Actually, Wisconsin and Michigan were not expected to be “swing states,” but solidly “blue,” but the Clinton camp’s arrogant assumptions ignored the warning signs, and now they are in question. Working class voters opted for Sanders, and a poll taken shortly after the 2016 election showed that voters nationally preferred Sanders over Trump by a 55-45 margin, suggesting that Sanders would have easily beaten Trump. Why? Because voters were looking for “change,” and gender wasn’t “it,”  a reality completely blown by the media. Further, if given the choice, more voters who opted for Trump would have been more comfortable voting for Sanders, whose moral and ethical standing was clearly more elevated than that of Trump (let alone Clinton’s). That same dynamic is not necessarily not still in play in 2020. 

Unlike other candidates, Sanders has never wavered from or lied about what he believes in, or tried to invent a past that never existed. Yes, unlike Clinton and Warren he did participate in civil rights protests in the 1960s, and on one occasion was arrested because of his participation. Clinton was a “Goldwater Girl” and Warren was passing herself off as a “Native American” to get jobs as a “minority hire.” Warren supporters claim that her stance on health care, which has flipped and flopped, is what has “hurt” her. That is not true. What is true is that what the New York Times called her “story telling”—or rather, her habit of telling falsehoods that can be easily found out, yet she keeps telling them; as mentioned before that is part of the definition of a “pathological liar,” and like with Clinton we are not talking about someone like Trump whose lies generally come from his deranged worldview, but lies that are instinctual and self-serving efforts to avoid the exposure of uncomfortable facts about themselves and their own fitness to be president.

However, I want to be upfront about this: I am not particularly happy about the current crop of Democratic candidates; to me, it is a matter of who is less distasteful than the other. Initially Beto O’Rourke fascinated me, but his campaign was quickly extinguished as if a camp fire consumed by a tsunami. But if there is one truth in that Politico piece, it is that the attacks on Sanders hardens his support. I have admitted that I am leaning toward Sanders, and these hypocritical attacks on him by hypocrites has not changed that, not in the least. Who knows how things are going to shake up when all is said and done; Joe Biden as the "safe bet" may yet win the nomination. But make no mistake: Sanders can beat Trump, even if his detractors are too stupid--or vindictive--to realize it, as they were in 2016.