A Newer Deal Part 4: Zooming in on IGUS(!) & subpoenas & cyber & political reform

Last week I commenced issuing a ten-parter that proposed several dozen fresh tactics for the Enlightenment side of our current culture war. And as a unifying umbrella, Part One and Part Two began the series by examining – dissecting – the greatest political gambit of the last 40 years, and the greatest act of political switcheroo betrayal!  Newt Gingrich’s successful-and-despicable “Contract With America.” The lessons we draw from it informed my own efforts to draft a Newer Deal for America. Thirty-Five proposed actions that Democrats can promise, in order to draw support from 60%-plus of voting citizens…

…and then quickly enact, in order to save the very structure of our republic.  Saving for later the controversies and hail-Mary passes that will happen too! Once the Republic is saved. 

Part three that has all of the meaty proposals, summarized.  Then they are examined in some detail, in parts four through ten.

Whether or not you liked my using that overall umbrella, the thirty or so proposals merit discussion in their own right! Some of them -- maybe ten or so -- are ideas that have been floating around on the moderate-liberal agenda, but that I've meddled-with, in order to add some punch, or judo spice.  Or zing.

         Others are wholly my own.

Some of the proposals take the form of internal reforms that Congress could enact on their very first day - of a session whose majority consists of sane and decent people.      

For starters, pause and envision this reform and procedural rule. One which no future GOP-led Congress would be able to retract! 

Distributed subpoena power: We shall establish a permanent rule and tradition that each member of Congress will get one peremptory subpoena per year, plus adequate funding to compel a witness to appear and testify for up to five hours before a subcommittee in which she or he is a member. In this way, each member will be encouraged to investigate as a sovereign representative and not just as a party member, ensuring that Congress will never again betray its Constitutional duty of investigation and oversight, even when the same party holds both Congress and the Executive.

Think about that for a sec. very soon each Representative or Senator would view that personal, peremptory subpoena -- whether one per year or per session -- as a treasured and jealously-guarded prerogative of office. Possibly useful to their party or to confront major issues, or else to grandstand for the folks back home. Either way, they will balk at any attempt by future party leaders to terminate the privilege. And thus it could become permanent. And the minority will never again be barred from calling witnesses to interrogate the majority.

Or look at another internal reform that I'll talk about next time... to reconstitute the advisory bodies for science and fact that used to serve Congress, but were banished by Gingrich and Hastert and company, because... well... this Republican Party despises facts.

Other proposals would be legislated LAWS that seem desperately -- even existentially -- needed for the U.S. republic! Like this one I have offered annually for the last fifteen years:

 

We shall create the office of Inspector General of the United States, or IGUS, who will head the U.S. Inspectorate, a uniformed agency akin to the Public Health Service, charged with protecting the ethical and law-abiding health of government.  Henceforth, the inspectors-general in all government agencies, including military judge-advocates general (JAGs) will be appointed by and report to IGUS, instead of serving beholden to the whim of the whim of the cabinet or other officers that they are supposed to inspect. IGUS will advise the President and Congress concerning potential breaches of the law.  Structures and procedures of the Inspectorate shall be debated and optimized for independence, professionalism and efficiency at detecting and correcting either misbehavior or errors.

 IGUS will provide protection for whistle-blowers and safety for officials or officers refusing to obey unlawful orders. 

Wouldn't everything be better if we had IGUS right now? Go back and read the full text.

And then there's this one - a way to bypass the corrupt Citizens United ruling by the suborned Supreme Court - using a clever and totally legal means, that is supported factually by Robert Reich. Though I think my approach is more likely to get passed... and to work.

 

THE POLITICAL REFORM ACT will ensure that the nation’s elections take place in a manner that citizens can trust and verify.  Political interference in elections will be a federal crime.  Strong auditing procedures and transparency will be augmented by whistleblower protections. All voting machines will be paper auditable. New measures will distance government officials from lobbyists.  

Campaign finance reform will reduce the influence of Big Money over politicians. The definition of a ‘corporation’ shall be clarified: so that corporations are neither ‘persons’ nor entitled to use money or other means to meddle in politics, nor to coerce their employees to act politically.

There are others, like how to affordably get every child in America insured under Medicare, while we argue over going the rest of the way. We'll get to that amazingly simple method next time.

But here's another one that is super timely because - as reported by the Strategic News Service - "Huge new botnets with 40M+ nodes are available to criminals on the dark web..." That's Forty MILLION computers around the world - including possibly the one you are now using to view this - have been suborned and turned into cryptic nodes for major cyber crime. 

Indeed, we are far more open to cyber attacks than ever, now that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has been downsized by a third! And the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) dissolved, and the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC) terminated. And many counter-terror agents have been (suspiciously) re-assigned. Hence, here's a reform that might address that... and it might - if pushed urgently - even pass this good-for nothing Congress.

THE CYBER HYGIENE ACT: Adjusting liability laws for a new and perilous era, citizens and small companies whose computers are infested and used by ‘botnets’ to commit crimes shall be deemed immune from liability for resulting damages, providing that they download and operate a security program from one of a dozen companies that have been vetted and approved for effectiveness by the US Department of Commerce. Likewise, companies that release artificial intelligence programs shall face lessened liability if those programs persistently declare their provenance and artificiality and potential dangers. 

IGUS shall supervise an audit of US and state government computer systems for access security, hygiene and modernization needs – prioritizing first those used by defense and intelligence agencies and the U.S. Treasury and Social Security systems. All disbursements by the Treasury shall be registered immediately on log that is visible to IGUS and to pertinent subcommittees in both houses of Congress.

NOTE that in February 2026:  Google said it crippled IPIDEA, a massive residential proxy network that secretly turned millions of everyday devices into tools for cybercrime. IPIDEA hid attacks behind real home internet connections, making malicious traffic harder to detect and block than data center-based proxies. About nine million Android devices were freed, along with the removal of hundreds of compromised apps.

But that was just one botnet. There's a Sh**t tsunami of these parasites, out there.

=====

Again... these and maybe 30 more are to be found in my big series on a proposed "Newer Deal." I'll try to repost and appraise each of them over the next few weeks. As next in part 5.

Almost any of them would be winning issues for the Democrats, especially if they were parsed right!  Say, in a truly workable 'deal' for the American people...

     ...and for our children's future.

       == Political notes ==

While we all should be impressed with Gavin Newsom's people for expertly trolling old Two Scoops, it's not the core tactic I have recommended for 20 years. Though one fellow who seems to be stabbing in the right general direction is Jimmy Kimmel, who keeps offering to hold public, televised challenges to check the factuality of foxite yammerings. 

 

Kimmel’s latest has been to satirically take on Trump's crowing about his 'aced' cognitive test. That test (which is not for IQ, but to eval senility or dementia) was accompanied by yowling that two female Democrat Reps were 'low-IQ.' Kimmel's offer of a televised IQ vs dementia test is brilliant. It'll never happen. But brilliant.   In fact, Kimmel's offer of a televised mental test is a version of my Wager Challenge. 

The key feature is REPETITION! The KGB-supported foxite jibberers have a tactic to evade accountability to facts. point at something else and change the subject. Yet, no dem - not even brilliant ones like Pete B and AOC - ever understands the power of tenacious repetition. Ensuring that a single lie - or at most a dozen - gets hammered over and over again.

All right, they ARE doing that with "Release the Epstein files!" Will they learn from that example to focus? To actually focus? And yes, demanding $$$ escrowed wager stakes can make it a matter of macho honor... honor that they always, always lose, as the weenie liars that they are.  

Next... onward to four more pragmatic, 60%+ proposals in Part 5!

Look at impeachment as chess... not a sumo match!

You - yes you - are foolish to demand that we deal with the oligarch-mafia-confederate treason with spasm trench warfare. Charging ahead with full-frontal assaults.

We need generals in this civil war who can play chess and look many moves ahead, gaming out what the enemy might try to do. You can bet that Romney and Ryan and Republican Party elders — overlapping to an unknown degree with the puppet masters Murdoch, Putin, Mercer & MBS etc. — are mapping out a path that can:

1 - cancel out Trump’s biggest liability from their view — that of narrowing GOP constituencies, driving off all professions and educated people, ethnicities and many formerly republican women, crushing their coalition down to a rabid, confederate  base… **(See late news below)

(Of course, desideratum #1 means somehow eliminating Trump himself, since he will not modify or compromise. See below.)…

2- …while somehow not enraging that base against the GOP establishment for ‘betraying” Trump…

3- …while enraging that base instead against lib’ruls…

4- …while raising up new GOP leaders with credibility…

5- …while protecting establishment oligarchs and the pyramid of blackmailed servants…

6- …while protecting the cheating methods that are their only hook into power.

It’s a difficult path to thread, especially since the Party Elders and the Puppet Masters probably part company over the following:

7- the rise of would-be theocrats (e.g. Pence and dominionists) who would continue the narrowing while possibly setting in motion a deliberate (and literal) end of the world…

8- unleashing disruptive waves of violent McVeighs., tearing America apart.

What I desperately fear is the one path that would touch all of these bases at the same time. That path is *martyrdom.* A martyred Trump is the way to accomplish all of them. 

== Martyrdom Scenarios ==

I have long been on-record pointing this out, horrified that no one else has even mentioned it. But I ask you to put all of this together:

A. God bless the United States Secret Service. I mean that and I wish Donald Trump health. But if they fail and the pupeteers do eliminate their liability, then we all need to react tactically, not emotionally! 

It will be counterproductive if you celebrate, encouraging the meme that “lib’ruls did it to our hero!” 

Vastly better ? Express rage and suspicion toward those who would benefit most  from such a martyrdom— the Ryan-Romney-Putin-and especially Fox interests. Indeed, what could be a better judo move than to express compassionate pity for a Donald who was blatantly mentally ill? (See this elaborated -- with wry humor -- below.)

B. The other kind of martyrdom is more likely, of course — with those judo-master GOP manipulators giggling as they back pedal and let democrats clean up their mess for them. Because that’s what hurried impeachment could be, unless done right… getting rid of their problem for them, while feeding Red America’s paranoias by appearing like a partisan lynch mob. Yes, the impeachment martyrdom would leave a living Trump out there screeching at rallies. So they’ll map it out with special attention to #2 and #3.

C. Most likely of all — a rush to impeachment leads to Moscow Mitch McConnell chortling with glee and getting the GOP Senate to reject the House’s charges, then declare: “All you dems wanted was to get even for the Clinton Impeachment." Allowing that comparison -- a silly ass pursuit of a wayward husband fibbing about some 3rd-base infidelity vs. Trump's weekly felonies and treason -- to stand will give Fox a chance to portray Trump as a martyr, while keeping him and his rally mob party loyal.

Nancy Pelosi is absolutely right (!!) that a race to *rapid* impeachment is stupid. Profoundly stupid! It presents Romney/Ryan + Putin with a rash gift that would feed chess moves #1-8 while failing to deliver any satisfaction. If hurried, it will give them every thing on that list. (And yes, one “chess” gambit they might pull is to let 18 GOP senators who have 4 more years on their terms, swing to conviction and removal, in order to clear decks for Ryan/Romney, counting on time to overcome DT’s fulminating rallies.)

Pelosi is right. Stretch it out! If done right, and timed right, impeachment *can* corner the GOP into a lose-lose. Think! Use “impeachment hearings” to overcome the Roberts Doctrine and regain full subpoena power. Then go after the money-laundering for Russian mobs. Demolish Trump’s reputations as a businessman, as a judge of character, and above all as a “strong man.” (George Lakoff makes clear that his appearance of blustery strength is THE core-psychic root of his redder support.) Chopping away at all of that, across the 2020 campaign, would either lead to an effective impeachment or else corner all Republican senators into an impossible and hopeless position.

I cannot comprehend why some dem leader hasn’t taken the pity tactic, which would infuriate Trump vastly more than the chest-to-chest sumo shoving and shouting we currently see. Any liberal leader who started publicly pitying Two Scoops, speaking v-e-r-y slowly toward this addled dimwit, would win instant cred and become the central focus of Trumpian tweet hate. 

It would chop hard against his blustering "strong man" image.

Moreover, the pity-meme could help us plenty, if the GOP masters go for either kind of martyrdom! “You threw that poor imbecile into a complex world for which he was ill-equipped, just because he’s good at riling up rallies of other imbeciles. And when it all finally overwhelmed him, turning him into a drooling-jibbering liability, YOU threw him under the bus. You monsters, we’re on to what you did to us, and to that pitiable moron!”

== Stop insisting on full-speed-ahead. Instead... maneuver! ==

Again and again, I repeat: Trump is infuriating, but his White House leaks! He is cauterized! The civil servants and defense pros are alerted! Things… could… be… much… worse!  

A Pence White House will be staffed with tightly disciplined dominionists and utterly leakproof. He would smoothly call for comity and calm and negotiation — an utter lie that we have fallen for many times. He will soothe back into line hundreds of thousands of civil servants and officers who’ll sigh with premature relief that the Trump Nightmare is over...

... when in fact the new president will be a much-worse maniac! One who prays daily for an end to all freedom, ambition, curiosity and children and an end to the world and an absolute destruction of the United States of America. And I mean that literally is what he prays for, daily.

No, no, I am not in a rush to remove the cauterized and 80% neutralized Donald Two Scoops, before the timing is right. And it is only right if it helps crush the GOP in the 2020 election! If nothing else, have impeachment on the docket when the NEW Senate takes over, some weeks before the 2021 inauguration. That new Senate -- ordering Trump dragged out of the White House in shame and banned from the Capitol steps -- is a fantasy we might, if we work hard, manage to see.

 == Addendum ==

FINAL scenario.  As one of you pointed out, the gopper secret masters might jettison both Trump and Pence, allowing Pelosi(!) to become president, as a tactical move saddling her with (1) Trump’s martyrdom, (2) presumption that was her ambition all along, and (3) blame for the sudden recession and (4) incumbency during a rejection-election. 

Problems with this scenario. Pelosi would unlock every filing cabinet and every Putin scheme gets uncovered and the election cheating gets harder.  Ryan might go for it. Not Murdoch or Putin.


** Late New Saturday: Former House Speaker Paul Ryan reportedly wants to use his position on Fox's board to 'do something' about Trump

The Fact Act - Restoring Science Integrity

- I'm asked to get specific. 

"All right, Brin, you're convincing that there's an all-out war against facts and all fact-using professions, from science, journalism and teaching to the FBI and Officer Corps. But what can we do about it?"

I've spoken on this at Google and Facebook, at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and many other places where there's rising concern over what seems to be a concerted campaign not only against those professions -- (see Shawn Otto's The War on Science and Tom Nichols's book The Death of Expertise) -- but against even the notion that there's such a thing as Objective Reality! That anything is testable or provable.

Mind you, this stab at the heart of enlightenment civilization won't be blunted by corporate or government action, alone. One-by-one, we must sway our fellow citizens to forego the drug high of incantations and assertions, returning instead to the adult art of pragmatic negotiation.

But law and politics can play a role!  And so -- suppose we get a Congress that's willing to push back against idiocracy. What item should be number one on its 'contract' or to-do list? How about ending the War on Facts?

I wrote the following at the request of the Internet Caucus of the recent convention in San Diego, of the California Democratic Party. It is posted in full on my website here.

== Ending the tyranny of lies and liars... without a "Ministry of Truth" ==

The "Fact Act" will help restore access to useful and confirmable information for public officials, politicians and citizens. Rather than establishing some suspect "Ministry of Truth,"¹ this legislation will encourage systems that use diversity, competition and grownup adversarial methods, helping leaders and the public to parse lies and distractions from assertions that are supported by strong evidence.²

Under the Fact Act, Congress will:

ONE: Restore the nonpartisan Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), shut down in the Gingrich era.³ Protect the Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office. Take measures to ensure that scientific processes in government agencies will be both subject to critical accountability and liberated from partisan political pressures.

TWO: Restore full funding and staffing to the executive Office of Science and Technology Policy (OTSP). This bill further requires that the President must fill, by law, the position of White House Science Adviser from a diverse and bipartisan slate of qualified candidates offered by the Academy of Science, and the Academy will choose one, if the president does not. The Science Adviser shall have uninterrupted access to the President for at least two one-hour sessions per month.⁴

THREE: Each member of Congress shall be summoned to choose, from his or her home district, two advisers: one a scientist and one a statistician, funded to counsel the member on matters of verifiable fact, and to take press or public questions referred to them by the member. They will not opine on political issues, only upon the degree to which assertions are supported by factual evidence.

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Likely effects? (a) Congress-members will no longer be able to shrug off fact/scientific questions with "I’m not a scientist." (b) Any member's refusal to appoint these advisers will be an implicit insult to the member's home district, implying she or he could find no one qualified.

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FOUR: These congressional advisers — scientists and statisticians — shall gather a shadow "Fact Congress" (FC) twice a year to supervise the restored OTA and OSTP and ensure nonpartisan professionalism. Eclectic diversity and potent minority input will ensure there is no "Ministry of Truth."

Without usurping Congressional authority over policy and confirmations, the FC will question top scientific appointees regarding grasp of important concepts in their field, e.g., ability to clearly describe factual disputes and forecast potential policy outcomes and tradeoffs, including levels of uncertainty.

If more than one quarter of Senators or Representatives submit a question to the Fact Congress, the FC will respond with advice according to best available models. Congress-members may bring their FC advisers to House or Senate committee hearings and may charge them to form ad-hoc shadow committees, to assist with explications of fact.

FIVE: The Fact Act must restore the media Rebuttal Rule, prying open "echo chamber" propaganda mills. Any channel or station using airwaves or accepting advertising will be required to offer five minutes per day during prime time and ten minutes at other times to reputable adversaries chosen by Competitive Argument Societies (CAS) that are approved by one quarter of the members of the Fact Congress.⁵

Example: If the 25% most-conservative members of the FC approve the 'Herbert Hoover Competitive Argument Society,' then HHCAS may send a rebuttal spokesmen to MSNBC, tackling Rachel Maddow. A CAS chosen by the most liberal 1/4 of the Fact Congress will get rebuttal time on Fox.

Rebuttals shall feature under-banners offering links for more details... plus links to refutation of the rebuttal, or else to fact-debates offered by pairs of competing CAS.⁶

Any channel or station not using the airwaves or accepting advertising that nevertheless engages in avid political polemic, with the intent to influence electoral outcomes, will be required to offer — at intervals &md a small link, in one corner, that the viewer can use (or not) to access counter-arguments, or else to track the sources of both the channel’s assertions and funding.

SIX: Under auspices of the Fact Congress, Competitive Argument Societies (CAS) and other entities will be offered infrastructure and encouragement to engage in public debates over policy or else disputations over fact. Fact disputations will argue matters of verifiable or falsifiable evidence, aiming to narrow — but never eliminate — uncertainties and to target specific questions meriting further study. Amateur or non-credentialed participation will be encouraged.

SEVEN: Whistleblower protections will be upgraded to encourage early/discreet problem solving within institutions, and later (if necessary) protection of whistleblowers who feel they are unfairly repressed by their own institution. By offering a scaled sequence of safe and secure steps, the Fact Act will encourage first self-reform, but ultimately the adversarial discovery of cleansing truth.

EIGHT: To encourage the establishment of a wide variety of competing, credible fact-checking services, Congress will appoint a commission of sages from all parties, starting with the former presidents and retirees from the Supreme Court and top federal appeals courts, along with other eminent Americans with unimpeachable reputations. Among the duties of this panel will be to issue findings when a fact-checking service is accused of "partisanship."

NINE: Under the 13th and 14th Amendments, this act requires that states mandating Voter ID requirements must offer substantial and effective compliance assistance, helping affected citizens to acquire their entitled legal ID and register to vote. Any state that fails to provide such assistance, substantially reducing the fraction of eligible citizens turned away at the polls, shall be assumed in violation of equal protection and engaged in illegal voter suppression.

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Corporations demand compliance assistance when government imposes new regulations. So, why can’t poor folks get help to comply with voter ID laws? If a state does this, then its demand for Voter ID might be sincere. Alas, not one red state allocates a cent to help poor citizens, elderly, the young, or divorced women comply with onerous new restrictions on franchisement. Most have moved to close DMV offices in counties where many Democrats live! (Why do no Democrats make this point? Opposing voter ID leaves Democrats open to accusations of excusing cheaters, but denouncing the GOP's corporate-citizen "compliance assistance hypocrisy" is a clear win.)

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TEN: Congressional committees and procedures will be reformed so that members will be free to negotiate as individuals, with less power vested in the majority leaders to control legislation. Each member — whether in the majority or minority — will have authority to issue one subpoena per year, compelling adversarial testimony before a congressional committee of his or her choosing for as long as five hours, so that the minority will always be able to question the party in power. These member subpoenas will have priority over those issued by committee chairs.

ELEVEN: The seventy-three Inspectors General of federal departments and agencies shall be brought under an independent office of the Inspector General of the United States (IGUS), whose appointment must be ratified by the council of sages (see SEVEN) as well as the Senate. IGUS officers shall be commissioned, uniformed, trained and held to quasi-military standards of discretion, honesty and meticulous devotion to law.

TWELVE: This act directs the administration to negotiate treaties extending transparency, accountability and truth worldwide.

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endnotes

1. The "Ministry of Truth" Orwellian accusation will surely be trotted-out , it must be prepared-for.

2. This principle underlies our competitive, fact-using arenas: markets, democracy, science and justice courts. We know how to do this.

3. Even Republican appointees on OTA kept demurring from GOP dogma, saying "That's just not true," so it was eliminated.

4. Donald Trump is the first President since Truman not to fill this post. Evidently, even far-right candidates like David Gelernter made the mistake of saying to him: "I'll tell you, when something is clearly false." That was, apparently, unacceptable.

5. This "one quarter" provision ensures there can be no accusation of majority bullying or "voting on facts."

6. Again, emphasizing the competitive nature of these measures will stymie accusations of a "Ministry of Truth" or "free speech repression."

The Tax Bill: aspects that no one (at all) will discuss.

It seems that the GOP, which has owned every branch of government and lever of power, since January, will at last have an "accomplishment" -  a Tax Bill they admit will add a trillion dollars to the national debt, while offering last-minute gushers for real estate developers, banks, hedge funds, the oil industry, lobbyists and aristocratic heirs…

… all of it without spending a red cent on infrastructure, which would have generated high money velocity and growth, while fixing actual bridges, actual roads we use. 

(Funny how that list describes almost every power broker or politician-owner correlated with this Congress and this White House:  Real Estate developers, Banks, hedge fund skulks, the oil industry, lobbyists and aristocratic heirs… ah, swamp drainage.)

To distract from this raid on our children, the oligarchy offers up more magical incantations of Supply Side “economics,” proclaiming that this time the oligarchs will spend their windfall on R&D and productive capacity and jobs… unlike every single other time, when they spent it all on passive asset bubbles, exactly as Adam Smith predicted, back in 1776.

Smith warned that aristocrats — like the ones our U.S. Founders rebelled-against — tend not to spend infusions of cash on risky capital formation, or research, or factories. Generally 90% of them will plow it into ‘rent-seeking’ assets like stocks or land, where they can passively collect dividends or gains.  (Note that every tax break in this bill favored passive income, not wages you actually earn through work.) 

As in King George’s time, top cronies adjust the laws to favor rent-grabbing assets over innovation, production or work. Smith would be outraged today… but not surprised.

Of course there is an end game to asset bubbles, and that end-game is the elephant in the room! One that, so far, no clever pundit has raised, amid all the yelling over this tax bill... an important aspect of the legislation that matters far more that the petty attacks on higher education and science, or the open war waged upon Blue States. I'll get to this invisible pachyderm, in a moment.

But pause first to congratulate the victors! The same folks who howled that Democrats passed the ACA (‘Obamacare’) in "just a year," holding open, public hearings for just 6 months in just five committees… those same complainers have now passed the biggest tax bill in history with ZERO days of hearings, with scribbled margin notes enacted into law, forging this trillion dollar raid for billionaires in top secret and passing it in the dead of night, amid a festival of lies.

What you fellahs do is evil. It is treason. But you do it very well.

== The real reason for the tax cut - an oligarch exit strategy ==

Critics of the Tax Bill point out that benefits to aristocrats are locked in, while much smaller cuts for working people fade quickly and turn into tax hikes, over a few years. That’s a travesty, of course.  But also a distraction, because we're left with an impression that the biggest change - slashing corporate tax rates - has little to do with the top-rich families of the country.

We're assured corporations will then invest it all in R&D, in new products, in factories and jobs. But...

1) Again, across 40 years, this Supply Side incantation never came true. Ever. Once. The eras of highest U.S. growth, rising wages and middle class health all took place under high tax rates established by the Greatest Generation, in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Except for the JFK rate cuts, every other cut was followed by reduced growth rates.

(See: Comparing the GOP tax plan to what it was like prior to the great depression.)

2) For the 2nd half of the Obama Administration, corporations have been mostly very profitable. They already had tons of cash on-hand, in the USA, to invest in production, jobs or R&D, but those investments declined. Their bulging cash larders were spent instead on dividends and stock buybacks that helped their CEOs to meet performance criteria for their vampiric option plans.

3) Any “competitive disadvantage” from other nations’ lower corporate rates might have been dealt with by negotiating a world treaty balancing such rates. It’s happened before! Sure, negotiations might not work, this time. But there’s no mention of even trying, only a race to the bottom.

4) Those who used to lie - claiming they care about deficits and debt - are suddenly shouting “squirrel!” and pointing offstage.

5) If this Tax bill had anything to do with investment in new products etc., it would have targeted to incentivize R&D, new factories and jobs. Instead, this was left as only a vague, armwaved promise. There is a reason.

== They need an exit from the bubble they created ==

Look across the era since Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations. Every generation of Americans since then has witnessed attempted political and economic putsches by would-be aristocrats gaming the rules so they can get richer without working or producing. Instead, as Smith described, they heap wealth into passive (rent or dividend or capital gains or parasitic-commission bleeding) assets. They do this because it’s far easier than putting “skin” into actually producing goods and services.

They also do this because sweetheart legislation makes it a great deal! But the smart ones know there is a price. 

That price is an ASSET BUBBLE.  We’ve seen many in our lifetimes: commodities, housing, real estate, banking and now a hyper-inflated stock market, with price to-earnings ratios that seem straight from the Twilight Zone. Those who piled their earlier tax largesse into asset bubbles know the great times always end.  

And hence, being clever, they always plan an exit strategy, for when the bubble bursts.

The dream strategy concocted during our previous two bubbles used to be "privatize social security!"  Get every middle class bumpkin to funnel his or her SSI account into stocks during a market peak! Fill equity markets with Greater Fools to sop up bloated assets, so the current (rich) owners can cash-out at top prices. 

That scam was stopped, thank God, just before the last collapse.  Whereupon Republicans suddenly lost interest in privatizing Social Security.  Go figure!

So what's the plan now?

Send hundreds of billions of tax-bennies to already profitable corporations!  Without any requirements or incentives to actually spend any of it on R&D or factories or jobs, members of the inbred, incestuously conniving “CEO caste” of 5000 golf buddies will know what to do, with a nod and wink.

Accelerate their already absurdly massive stock buy-backs!  (There are reasons why this was illegal, during the Greatest Generation.) Break the U.S. budget subsidizing companies to squander their futures, giving money to current stockholders... buying up stock that the moguls know will soon plummet in value.

We stopped their earlier scam, but this time — by skulking in secret and at night — they will get their way.

How can you benefit from this insight?  The wise will wait till the first buy-back crest brings equities to their final peak, then sell. Get out before the middle gets crushed again.

Oh, it may work. Only they are counting on us never noticing. And that could be a mistake.

=== Coda ===

“There are two ideas of government,” William Jennings Bryan declared in his 1896 “Cross of Gold” speech. “There are those who believe that if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.”

That was more than three decades before the collapse of the economy in 1929. The crash followed a decade of Republican control of the federal government during which trickle-down policies, including massive tax cuts for the rich, produced the greatest concentration of income in the accounts of the richest 0.01 percent at any time between World War I and 2007. Those disparities were brought to their minimum under FDR and Eisenhower, with tax rates and policies that were ratified over and over by the Greatest Generation.

        

 We need to study them, and how they achieved all that they did in a spirit of moderation and enterprise. Especially, how they veered away from dogmatism and craziness, just when it seemed overwhelming.

One major danger of the right's current madness is that the left might over-react, returning to its own past insanities. The Evonomics site is where calm, rational, brilliant scholars & others reveal how cheaters have betrayed not just the poor and middle class, but also enterprise, innovation, genuine market economics, common sense, national self-interest and even Adam Smith! The articles and studies get better and better, making the clear case that market enterprise works, but only when cheating is tymied. (I've published a few there.) 

If your cousin is one of that vanishing breed - a residually sane Republican - take her to Evonomics and tell her: "Only you can save enterprise capitalism from its age-old foe. Not socialism so much, but feudalism."


Which brings me to my question. You’d have to be deaf and blind not to see the signs of a growing movement of American conservatives who are fed-up... not just with Bannon and Putin and their Trump, but with Rupert Murdoch and the insanity promulgated by Clear Channel Radio. Signs are all there - especially among the Mormons - that vigorous conversations are afoot about holding a convention of Sane American Conservatives.


Here's a parallel event, showing how it happened, in the past. If the dems could do it, why not you guys? 

Hence my question. Surely some of you have been approached by now? By people desperate to save American conservatism, before it is too late?

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Addenda:

* In addition to stock buybacks, there are mergers and acquisitions. At one level, this helps to make up for the plummet in industrial R&D -- purchasing small, innovative startups does have its logic, reducing short term risk, passing it over to entrepreneurs. That's fine. But the other half is what three generations of our ancestors fought, tooth and nail, the trend toward monopoly, duopoly or oligarchy in an industry. Anti-Trust laws were there for hard-won reasons that the Baby Boomers may be too stupid to grok.

*  Apparently the tax bill actually makes corporate tax deductions more or less irrelevant. But don't get excited.  The omission will be fixed in conference committee. What matters is: "The biggest consequence could be the research credit, often used by manufacturers, technology firms and pharmaceutical companies."  This is just another part of the War on Science. But more-so, since it directly goes to the jugular of American strength. Putin could not have asked for more.