March, 10 2020, 12:00am EDT
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Trump Cannot Be Trusted with a Social Security Payroll Tax Cut, CEPR Economist Says
WASHINGTON
President Donald Trump said he will announce today details of measures to boost the economy. Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)'s senior economist, Dean Baker, has this comment on the proposal.
"President Trump is proposing a temporary cut in the Social Security payroll tax as part of an economic stimulus package to offset the impact of the coronavirus. While the economy will need a boost to limit the extent of the downturn caused by the virus, cutting the Social Security tax is the wrong way to go.
"Under the law, Social Security payments can only come from the program's dedicated revenue stream, which is primarily the Social Security payroll tax. Under President Obama, a temporary Social Security tax cut was put in place in 2011. The lost revenue was replaced by general revenue, so the Trust Fund was not in any way diminished. When the tax cut expired, the tax rate returned to its prior level.
"Unfortunately, Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress cannot be trusted to protect the Social Security trust fund. They have frequently proposed cuts to the program, and under President Bush, sought to privatize it. They may well use a temporary tax cut as an opportunity to weaken the program's finances so that they can then push for cuts or privatization.
"A much better model for a stimulus would be President Obama's Make Work Pay tax credit. This was a refundable tax credit that gave workers 6.2 percent of their pay, up to $400 per worker. It was phased out for higher earners, beginning at roughly $100,000. This is a more progressive structure and does not in any way threaten the Social Security trust fund. Given inflation over the last decade, and the needs of the economy, we may want to double the size of the credit.
"Of course, the stimulus must go further to include items like tax credits for paid sick days, increased SNAP benefits, and other subsidies for low-income families, in addition to free testing and treatment for the coronavirus. However, Congress should not allow a stimulus to dampen a coronavirus-induced recession to be an excuse to attack Social Security."
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) was established in 1999 to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives. In order for citizens to effectively exercise their voices in a democracy, they should be informed about the problems and choices that they face. CEPR is committed to presenting issues in an accurate and understandable manner, so that the public is better prepared to choose among the various policy options.
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Former Officials Say US Has 'Undeniable Complicity' in Killing, Starvation of Gazans
"The administration’s policy in Gaza is a failure and a threat to U.S. national security," said 12 ex-officials who resigned from the Biden administration over its support for Israel's war on Gaza.
Jul 03, 2024
Former Biden administration officials on Tuesday sharply criticized its Gaza policy, arguing that the continued supply of weapons to Israel is not only "morally reprehensible" but also a violation of U.S. and international law.
In a joint statement, 12 officials who've resigned in protest in the last nine months set forth a list of recommendations and urged their former colleagues in the administration to use American leverage to help bring an end to the assault on Gaza.
"The administration's policy in Gaza is a failure and a threat to U.S. national security," the statement says. "America's diplomatic cover for, and continuous flow of arms to, Israel has ensured our undeniable complicity in the killings and forced starvation of a besieged Palestinian population in Gaza."
The other resignees & I issued a statement calling for a new policy
"This failed policy has not achieved its stated objectives—it has not made Israelis any safer, it has emboldened extremists.. while it has been devastating for the Palestinian people"
1https://t.co/PHShChrn1u pic.twitter.com/PI8L5pjcYj
— Dr. Annelle Sheline (@AnnelleSheline) July 2, 2024
The 12 signatories included former officials from a wide range of posts and backgrounds.
One was the the administration's latest defector: 24-year-old Interior Department special assistant Maryam Hassanein, who resigned on Tuesday, tellingHuffPost that "serving in the administration in any capacity does essentially make you complicit in the genocide of the Palestinians." Hassanein was the first Muslim American administration appointee to resign, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which applauded the resignation on social media. She said the administration was engaging in the "dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims."
Another signatory was Harrison Mann, the most senior military official to have left in protest of the Gaza war. Mann had been a major at the Defense Intelligence Agency. He made the news this week when he toldThe Guardian that Israel was seeking out a war with Lebanon for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political gain.
Stacy Gilbert, a 20-year-old State Department veteran who resigned in May over a key report, dealing in part with whether Israel was blocking humanitarian aid to Gazans, that she says contained "patently false" findings, was also among the statement's signatories, as was Lily Greenberg Call, a former Interior Department official who was the first Jewish American appointee to resign in protest of the administration's war policy.
The joint statement, timed to come on the week of Independence Day, warns that the U.S. government is risking its international credibility and the safety of its own citizens by putting a "target on America's back."
The authors argued that the administration was "willfully violating multiple U.S. laws and attempting to deny or distort facts, use loopholes, or manipulate processes to ensure a continuous flow of lethal weapons to Israel." They cited the Leahy Laws that forbid providing military support to forces engaged in human rights violations.
The U.S. provides Israel with billions of dollars per year in military aid and has significantly increased its support during the war. In April, President Joe Biden signed a bill providing at least $15 billion in military funds for Israel.
The former officials called for an end not just to the U.S. supply of weapons for the war but also the "diplomatic cover" the U.S. provides for Israeli military occupation and settlements in Palestinian territory. The administration should announce that U.S. policy is "to support self-determination for the Palestinian people," they wrote.
The 12 ex-officials also called for an "immediate expansion" of humanitarian aid to Gaza and funding to help rebuild the territory.
Their statement comes as Israel continues to pummel Gaza with strikes that kill Palestinian civilians. Nearly 38,000 Gazans have been killed in the last nine months, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Several strikes that killed Palestinian civilians, including a massacre in Rafah in late May that killed at least 45, have been undertaken with U.S.-made weapons, forensic analyses have showed.
The conditions for those that have survived the Israeli bombardment are dire, with Gazans forced to live amid sewage and debris.
"Civilians in Gaza are clinging to their dignity under the most inhumane conditions," Sigrid Kaag, United Nations senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator, said in a statement on Tuesday.
"The war has not merely created a humanitarian crisis, it has unleashed a maelstrom of human misery," she said.
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Project 2025 Architect Signals Bloodshed If Left Opposes Trump-Led 'Revolution'
The "second American Revolution" now underway will "remain bloodless," said the president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, "if the left allows it to be."
Jul 03, 2024
The president of the right-wing group spearheading Project 2025 raised the specter of violence Tuesday against those who refuse to capitulate to what he characterized as "the second American Revolution" ushered in by presumptive GOP nominee and would-be authoritarian Donald Trump.
Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation, said in an appearance on "Real America's Voice" that the coming "revolution" will "remain bloodless if the left allows it to be"—a thinly veiled threat against those who resist the far-right's efforts to seize power.
Trump said in April that whether there is violence surrounding the 2024 presidential election "depends" on the "fairness" of the contest and the outcome.
Watch Roberts' remarks:
The president of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, which is behind Project 2025:
"We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be." pic.twitter.com/g0oKslNwkA
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 3, 2024
"We are going to win. We're in the process of taking this country back," declared Roberts, who has said Project 2025 is "institutionalizing Trumpism" in preparation for a possible victory in November.
The Heritage Foundation president also hailed as "vital" the U.S. Supreme Court's decision earlier this week bestowing what analysts and critics described as king-like powers on the presidency—powers that Trump is already planning to exploit.
Project 2025, a sweeping 922-page document, provides Trump with a detailed blueprint to advance his far-right agenda, including by purging career federal civil servants and replacing them with loyalists and centralizing power in the executive branch.
Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has called Project 2025 "a blueprint for autocracy," characterizing it as "a direct copy of the plan that Viktor Orban used to take over the Hungarian government in 2010."
"If it is carried out, Project 2025 will concentrate huge power in the hands of the president, giving him the power to control the whole federal government at his whim," Scheppele added.
Scheppele's assessment echoed that of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, which warned in an analysis published late last year that "the entire project is devoted to aggrandizing executive power by centralizing authority in the presidency, and a key aspect of democratic backsliding is viewing opposition elements as attempting to destroy the 'real' community, an essential aspect to quashing dissent."
"Project 2025 paints progressives and liberals as outside acceptable politics, and not just ideological opponents, but inherently anti-American and 'replacing American values,'" the analysis said. "Targeting vulnerable communities is a core tenet of Project 2025. Project 2025 is very clearly on a path to Christian nationalism as well as authoritarianism."
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Ralph Nader to New York Judge: Prison Time for Trump 'More Imperative Than Ever'
"Your task is to ensure that the sentence matches the character of the offender, including his clear and present danger to the peaceful transfer of presidential power."
Jul 03, 2024
Legendary consumer advocate and attorney Ralph Nader is calling on the New York judge who presided over Donald Trump's hush money trial to hit the former president with a prison sentence, arguing the case for jail time is "open and shut" and that the defendant poses a grave threat to democracy.
"The law endows you with the discretion to sentence Mr. Trump to prison up to four years based upon the circumstances of the felonies and the obligatory appraisal of the character of the offender after a customary investigation—time-honored sentencing considerations," Nader and Bruce Fein, an attorney who specializes in constitutional law, wrote in a letter to New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.
Nader released the letter, dated June 28, on the day the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority ruled that current and former presidents are entitled to sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution—a decision that threw a wrench in the hush money proceedings and the separate election-subversion case led by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
On Tuesday, Merchan granted a request from Trump's legal team to delay the presumptive GOP presidential nominee's sentencing in the hush money case—in which he was found guilty on 34 felony counts—and consider how the Supreme Court's immunity ruling could impact the proceedings. Trump is now scheduled to be sentenced on September 18, "if such is still necessary," Merchan announced.
Nader argued in a social media post that "a prison sentence is more imperative than ever."
In light of the Supreme Court blocking all avenues of accountability for Trump with its decision in Trump v. United States, Judge Merchan is the last best hope to preserve the Republic from its overthrow by Donald Trump. See our letter to Judge Merchan, which explains why a…
— Ralph Nader (@RalphNader) July 1, 2024
In their letter to Merchan, Nader and Fein wrote that "the future of the United States will be materially influenced by your sentencing Donald J. Trump."
"Mr. Trump threatens a counter-revolution against the American Revolution and the United States Constitution in favor of executive absolutism indistinguishable from French King Louis XIV," Nader and Fein continued. "Mr. Trump and his would-be vice-presidential running mates have repeatedly refused to endorse the peaceful transfer of presidential power after the 2024 presidential election if Mr. Trump shouts electoral fraud without any testing in courts of law or other due process."
"Do not be oblivious to what all the world can see. Mr. Trump covets dictatorial powers like his friend Vladimir Putin in Russia," they added. "Germany's Weimar Republic invited its demise by ignoring Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, a playbook for the Nazi ascent to absolute power for which the world paid a staggering price. Your task is to ensure that the sentence matches the character of the offender, including his clear and present danger to the peaceful transfer of presidential power. Set a standard to which the wise and honest judge may repair with a jail term—at least a serious fraction of the four-year statutory maximum."
A jail term would not necessarily end Trump's bid for another four years in the White House, and legal experts have struggled to answer the question of what would happen if the former president was elected from prison.
"I don't think that the Framers ever thought we were going to be in this situation," Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School, toldThe New York Times last month.
Nader, a four-time presidential candidate, has vocally warned of the fascist threat posed by Trump and the GOP, a threat he says has only grown in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. United States. Trump's advisers have already signaled that the former president intends to exploit the high court's ruling if he wins in November.
"The six Supreme Court dictators have issued an opinion that 'the king can do no wrong,'" Nader wrote in response to the decision. "They have given absolute immunity to presidents to use the Insurrection Act and the vague national emergency and national security declarations to suppress citizen protests and their political opponents."
"Today will live in infamy as a dictatorial, judicial putsch against the American Republic," Nader added. "Our founders, led by Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and George Washington would have been stunned."
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