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Ken Kies has a client list that includes Microsoft, which stands to benefit from the president-elect's proposed corporate tax cut to the tune of $4 billion per year.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced late Thursday that he has chosen a longtime corporate lobbyist and Republican donor to serve as assistant secretary for tax policy at the Treasury Department as GOP lawmakers prepare to craft another massive giveaway to the rich and major companies.
Ken Kies is currently managing director of the Federal Policy Group, a lobbying firm that was hired last year by Microsoft, the Cruise Lines International Association, the American Automotive Leasing Association, and other corporate interests. If Trump and the incoming Republican Congress succeed in lowering the corporate tax rate to 15%, Microsoft would receive an annual tax break of $4 billion, according to one analysis.
Kies' profile on the Federal Policy Group's website touts the "significant legislative and regulatory results" he has delivered for his clients, "which include major corporations, trade associations, and coalitions of companies with common objectives."
"Mr. Kies has led coalition efforts to enact legislation responding to the World Trade Organization's ruling against U.S. foreign sales corporation benefits, to avert enactment of broad 'corporate tax shelter' legislation that would have an adverse impact on legitimate business transactions, and to reverse Treasury regulations targeting 'hybrid' arrangements of U.S. multinational corporations, among other projects," the profile continues.
If confirmed by the Senate, Kies would work alongside billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent—Trump's pick to lead the Treasury Department—as the second Trump administration pursues an extension of regressive 2017 tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of the year, as well as another rate cut for corporations.
The Washington Postreported Thursday that Republicans are planning to offset some of the enormous projected cost of the proposed tax package with tariffs, cuts to federal nutrition assistance, and work requirements for Medicaid recipients. The GOP is also pushing to eliminate the Education Department, roll back clean energy programs, and prevent Medicare from covering obesity treatments.
In addition to Kies, Trump said Thursday that he has selected Samantha Schwab to serve as deputy chief of staff at the Treasury Department. Schwab is the granddaughter of billionaire investor Charles Schwab, who donated $1 million to Trump's 2017 inaugural fundraising committee, according toBloomberg.
"We urge the House of Representatives to reject this dangerous bill and to protect our freedom of speech and our right to dissent," said the president of Oxfam America.
House Republicans have revived and are looking to push through legislation this week that would hand President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration sweeping power to investigate and shut down nonprofit organizations, including news outlets and humanitarian groups.
The bill, H.R. 9495, failed to pass the House last week despite bipartisan support because the Republican leadership attempted to pass the measure using a fast-track procedure that requires a two-thirds majority vote. More than 50 Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and other prominent members, backed the legislation in last week's vote, along with 204 Republicans.
This time, the GOP is attempting to advance the bill through regular order, meaning it can pass with a simple majority. The Republican-controlled House Rules Committee is scheduled to hold a markup hearing for H.R. 9495 on Monday.
After learning of the hearing, advocacy organizations that mobilized against the bill redoubled their warnings about its dire implications for free expression and the right to dissent—particularly in the hands of a would-be authoritarian who has vowed to prosecute his political enemies.
"The bill we defeated days ago is back," the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights wrote on social media over the weekend. "Representatives are trying to ram through H.R. 9495, a repressive bill that could shut down nonprofits & student groups supporting Palestinian rights."
The legislation, if passed, would give the Treasury Department the authority to unilaterally strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status by designating them supporters of terrorism. As of this writing, Trump has not announced his pick to lead the Treasury Department.
While the bill provides a brief period for an accused nonprofit to defend itself, the ACLU said the provision "is a mere illusion of due process," noting that the federal government would be able to "deny organizations its reasons and evidence against them, leaving the nonprofit unable to rebut allegations."
Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, warned in a statement after Republicans revived the bill that H.R. 9495 "would grant the Trump administration, and any future administration, the ability to silence and censor its critics, curb free speech, target political opponents, and punish crucial organizations that speak truth to power and help people in the United States and around the world."
"This bill would increase the powers of the president at the expense of all of our freedoms, and could impact not only organizations like Oxfam, but other nonprofits, news outlets, or even universities who dare to dissent," said Maxman. "It could put our ability to respond to some of the worst humanitarian crises at risk and prevent us from delivering lifesaving aid to some of the world's most marginalized people."
"This bill follows the same playbook Oxfam has seen other governments around the world use to crush dissent. Now we are seeing it here at home," Maxman added. "We urge the House of Representatives to reject this dangerous bill and to protect our freedom of speech and our right to dissent."
It's not clear whether the U.S. Senate, narrowly controlled by Democrats, would bring H.R. 9495 to the floor for a vote if it passes the House this week, or whether President Joe Biden would sign it into law. But Republicans will gain full control of Congress and the White House starting in January, giving them the ability to push the legislation through at a later date.
"Their rush to reconsider this bill is solely to offer Trump more and more power, while Trump's nominees for key national security posts this week indicate how he will be using it," Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a leading opponent of the measure, toldThe Intercept on Friday.
Political reporters must explain the consequences likely to ensue if Steven Mnuchin, Joseph Otting, or their pro-Wall Street doppelgangers return for a second Trump administration.
Earlier this week, two of Donald Trump’s appointees—former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and former Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting—officially joined the board of New York Community Bancorp (NYCB) as part of a deal to buttress the struggling regional lender.
It was only last March that a NYCB subsidiary, Flagstar Bank, acquired many of Signature Bank’s assets from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). But in recent months, NYCB has found itself floundering as a result of the post-Covid-19 devaluation of commercial real estate.
NYCB announced last week that multiple institutional investors, led by a private equity firm founded and headed by Mnuchin, raised more than $1 billion to prop it up. In exchange, the bank reconstituted its board—shrinking it to ten members while designating four new directors, including Mnuchin and Otting, who will also serve as CEO.
The announcement of the cash infusion and leadership shakeup had an immediate effect, as NYCB shares quickly rebounded following a steep decline earlier in the day. Investors—including Mnuchin’s Liberty Strategic Capital, Hudson Bay Capital, Reverence Capital Partners, and the hedge fund Citadel—stand to make “hundreds of millions of dollars of paper profits if the shares maintain their gains,” according to the Financial Times.
To see Goldman Sachs alum Mnuchin and his pal Otting team up again to lead a financial institution is unsurprising, and yet that doesn’t make it any less troubling. From 2010 to 2015, Mnuchin and Otting worked together as executives at a scandal-ridden bank called OneWest. During that time, they repeatedly violated foreclosure laws to kick elderly people with reverse mortgages out of their homes. Vice President Kamala Harris’ refusal to prosecute the Pasadena-based lender when she was attorney general of California was a colossal and indefensible mistake.
To see Goldman Sachs alum Mnuchin and his pal Otting team up again to lead a financial institution is unsurprising, and yet that doesn’t make it any less troubling.
In 2017, Trump rewarded Mnuchin and Otting for their rapacious conduct by appointing them to his administration. Tapping the predatory pair to regulate the financial industry was brazen, but it made Trumpian sense; his team was a veritable who’s who of revolvers uninterested in curbing the exploitative practices that have made them and their peers so wealthy.
Barring unforeseen circumstances, the 2024 presidential election will be a rematch between Trump and Joe Biden. As campaigns kick into full gear, the news media would do well to reacquaint voters with what Trump appointees were up to before 2017, what they’ve been doing since 2021, and what their potential return to the White House would mean.
The American Prospect’s David Dayen, who reported on OneWest’s cruel repossession machine several years ago, said last week that he hopes “there aren’t any 95-year-olds with an NYCB loan facing foreclosure, that hasn’t historically ended well at a Mnuchin-owned bank!”
As it turns out, NYCB is one of the nation’s largest residential mortgage originators and servicers, with a focus on apartment buildings. It’s also a leading warehouse lender. Mnuchin has promised to pursue “a diversified and de-risked business model that supports long-term profitability,” but that doesn’t tell us what malfeasance he and Otting have in store for the coming months.
The last time Mnuchin and his partners bought a bank in distress, they engaged in ruthless behavior and made out like bandits. In 2009, a Mnuchin-led group of investors purchased IndyMac, a failed residential lender, from the FDIC for about $1.5 billion and renamed it OneWest, after which the bank proceeded to gobble up several competitors that were reeling in the wake of the 2007-2008 crash. When CIT Group obtained OneWest in 2015 for $3.4 billion, Mnuchin alone netted roughly $380 million.
Although it’s hard to predict the extent to which the NYCB investors are poised to capitalize on another real estate-fueled financial crisis, it’s easy to agree with Dayen, who added last week that “putting the OneWest gang back in charge of a bank rather than readying indictments is really distressing.”
In any case, Mnuchin and Otting’s move to join NYCB’s board serves as a reminder that Trump and his appointees have consistently prioritized Wall Street interests—before, during, and after his presidency. As Trump eyes a return to the White House, it’s worth stressing that presidential elections are never only about individual candidates; they’re also about how those candidates would control the vast apparatus known as the executive branch, including the types of regulators they’d likely appoint.
Mnuchin and Otting’s move to join NYCB’s board serves as a reminder that Trump and his appointees have consistently prioritized Wall Street interests—before, during, and after his presidency.
This year, we don’t have to rely on prognostication, as is usually the case with at least one candidate. We can contrast the personnel choices that Trump and Biden made during their respective first terms. By nominating bona fide vultures like Mnuchin and Otting to oversee the financial sector, Trump made it abundantly clear that he intended to facilitate plunder.
Even though Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has her own objectionable ties to corporate interests and major blind spots, her tenure atop the department has been preferable to that of Mnuchin. And whereas Trump picked Otting to chair the OCC, Biden nominated a legitimate progressive. Sadly, Saule Omarova was forced to withdraw following a vicious right-wing smear campaign full of red-baiting. Opportunistic Senate Republicans and a handful of Senate Democrats used Omarova’s upbringing in the Soviet Union to falsely equate her profoundly democratic desire to subordinate finance to the public interest with Stalinism.
The point is that while another Trump administration is guaranteed to oil the wheels of upward redistribution and graft, a second Biden administration could advance a downwardly redistributive agenda. But voters will not know this distinction without informative coverage of Trump’s cronies and their corporate agenda.
For their part, journalists covering the 2024 campaign should remember that their job is to convey to voters how the country is likely to differ depending on whether Biden or Trump wins. Given that Trump has vowed to impose the GOP’s fascist agenda with dictatorial force, the stakes couldn’t be higher. It’s high time for political reporters to start probing who would benefit if the likes of Mnuchin, Otting, and Trump’s other Wall Street allies are given another chance. Here’s a tip: it won’t be the average working American.