DocMack's Politics Thread

[DocMack]

During former President Donald Trump's term in office, he promised that higher tariffs on American imports would reduce the country's large trade deficit.

At the time, many economists disputed that notion. Tariffs might marginally reduce the import side of the trade ledger, but they also reduce economic output (and therefore exports), so the net effect on the trade deficit was likely to be minuscule, they warned.

No matter. In 2017, the White House's official Trade Policy Agenda highlighted how America's manufacturing trade deficit had grown from $317 billion in 2000 to $648 billion in 2016. That was evidence, the document claimed, that greater levels of trade had triggered "a period of slowed GDP growth, weak employment growth, and sharp net loss of manufacturing employment in the United States."

You know what happened next. Tariffs were raised. Then more tariffs were added. President Joe Biden took over and left Trump's higher tariffs in place. American businesses and consumers paid the cost of those higher taxes. The average tariff rate on imports to the United States has climbed from 1.5 percent to over 3 percent, and annual tariff revenue has nearly tripled.

So what happened to the trade deficit? It didn't fall.

In 2017, the last full year before Trump's tariffs were imposed, America's overall trade deficit was $517 billion. By 2023, it had grown to $785 billion, according to new Census Bureau data.

The story is the same when you look at the manufacturing trade deficit, the narrower category that the Trump administration had highlighted in that 2017 report. It climbed to over $1 trillion by 2021, nearly 60 percent higher than the 2016 figure that was cited by the White House as evidence that free trade was a failure.

Rather than reducing the manufacturing trade deficit, the higher tariffs likely led to its sharp increase, writes Ed Gresser, a former assistant U.S. Trade Representative. "Manufacturers import goods so as to turn them into other goods, and are big tariff payers," writes Gresser in a post for the Progressive Policy Institute, where he now works as vice president for trade policy. "So the tariffs raised the costs of industries like automobiles, machinery, and toolmaking; they faced a bit more challenges competing against imports and succeeding as exporters; and the overall goods/services deficit grew more concentrated in manufacturing."

In other words, the exact opposite of what Trump (and his advisors, including tariff-happy Peter Navarro) said would happen. After six full years of higher tariffs, this debate is settled. Trump was wrong and his critics were correct: Hiking tariffs does not reduce a country's trade deficit.

As an economic matter, this isn't a big deal—because trade deficits aren't something to be worried about. All a trade deficit actually measures is the gap between a country's collective savings and investments, and there is no meaningful correlation between the size of a country's trade deficit and the strength of its economy.

As a political matter, however, the fact that Trump's tariffs didn't do what he promised seems more significant. If a policy is enacted to achieve a specific goal, and that goal doesn't materialize, the underlying policy should be repealed or altered, and the logic underpinning the effort ought to be scrutinized.

Instead of doing any of that, Trump is again on the campaign trail making promises that tariffs are unlikely to deliver. His latest argument for more tariffs involves a plan to use that revenue to offset income taxes. But the math simply doesn't add up, as numerous economists have pointed out.

Trump may believe that tariffs are magical devices that can be used to achieve a wide variety of policy ends. When one promised outcome fails to materialize, he simply shifts gears and promises something else. But the facts suggest that he still fails to understand how tariffs work, and voters should stop buying into this scam.


https://reason.com/2024/06/19/trump-said...d-it-grew/

[DocMack]

Former President Donald Trump’s company Trump Media has dropped by nearly 50% on the stock market since the start of June.

Moreover, shares owned by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee have lost more than $2 billion in value since the beginning of the month. Trump currently owns 114,750,000 shares in Trump Media, the company that controls Truth Social, which had a valuation of $5.6 billion at the start of June.

According to CNBC, Trump Media has been in a consistent decline following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records by a Manhattan Jury. On Thursday, the company’s shares fell nearly 13% in a single trading session.

By midday Thursday, shares of the company, which trades as DJT, were approximately $27.50 on the Nasdaq. At the start of June, the company’s price was trading at more than $49 a share.

The continued downfall of the stock represents a significant loss for Trump as the majority owner of the company. Throughout the week, the stock has seen an accelerated decline with a near 10% fall on the previous trading day.


Per CNBC:

    The stock fell nearly 10% in Tuesday’s session, on more than double the average trading volume. After the bell, Trump Media revealed that the SEC had declared its registration statement effective. The stock plunged more than 17% in post-market trading following the announcement.

    The development authorized early investors in Trump Media to exercise warrants they hold in the company, and it allowed stockholders to publicly resell securities covered by the registration statement.


https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-med...-in-value/

[DocMack]

Former President Donald Trump is pledging to supercharge one of his signature trade policies — tariffs — if he's re-elected this November, by imposing 10% across-the-board levies on all products imported into the U.S. from overseas. The idea, he has said, is to protect American jobs as well as raise more revenue to offset an extension of his 2017 tax cuts.

But that proposal would likely backfire, effectively acting as a tax on U.S. consumers, economists spanning the political spectrum say. If the tariffs are enacted — with Trump also proposing a levy of 60% or more on Chinese imports — a typical middle-class household in the U.S. would face an estimated $1,700 a year in additional costs, according to the non-partisan Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Meanwhile, the left-leaning Center on American Progress has also crunched the numbers and projects roughly $1,500 per year in extra costs for the typical household. The reason, according to experts: Companies in the U.S. that import goods from abroad typically pass the cost of tariffs onto American consumers; relatedly, domestic manufacturers then often raise their own prices.


Who would pay the price?


The biggest impact of higher import tariffs would likely fall on low- and middle-income consumers because they spend a larger share of their income on goods and services than wealthier Americans, according to Kimberly Clausing and Mary Lovely of the Peterson Institute.

"If you are an economist, you know right away that tariffs are taxes. If you put a tariff on imported goods, it means they become more expensive" and competitors can raise their prices, Clausing told CBS MoneyWatch.

Trump is selling "snake oil," added Lovely. "It's really on steroids, and you have to speak a little louder and say, 'This is really going to affect you'."

The bottom line, both Clausing and Lovely said, is that Trump's tariff proposals would likely boost consumer prices, a concern after two years of surging inflation. The typical American household would feel the biggest pinch through materials and goods bought by U.S. companies, such as lumber for construction, and which would be passed onto them through $610 in additional annual costs, the Center on American Progress analysis estimated.

Middle-class households would also pay $220 more a year for cars and other vehicles, $120 more for gas and other oil products, and $90 a year in additional food costs, according to the policy analysis firm.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung didn't respond to requests for comment.

Tariffs have long been used to advance U.S. trade policies by both the right and left, as well as to curry favor with labor unions. And Americans generally support tariffs because they believe they protect U.S. jobs from overseas manufacturers.

In practice, policymakers tend to apply targeted tariffs that serve to protect a specific industry or product. For instance, President Joe Biden last month instituted a new tariff on Chinese electric vehicles, semiconductors, batteries, solar cells, steel and aluminum. The goal is to prevent China from undercutting U.S. companies and threatening domestic manufacturing jobs, according to the Biden administration.

"The basic thing is that people view tariffs as job saving, and say, 'It'll cost me a little more and I want to do that because I want to help steelworkers'," Lovely said. But, she added, "We see a lot of misunderstanding about how trade works and what tariffs mean for people."


Do tariffs protect jobs?


Lovely and Clausing point to existing evidence about the impact of tariffs enacted by Trump during his presidency, when he put levies on Chinese goods as well as Mexican products. But rather than protect employment, offshoring of U.S. jobs continued during the Trump presidency, according to Reuters, citing Labor Department data.

"People are being sold a bill of goods, but the data shows it's not helping them in their daily lives," Clausing said. "That's the hard thing about being an economist — everything lines up and people say, 'No, tariffs seem good'."

Noted MIT economist David Autor and his co-authors said in a January research paper that Trump's 2018-2019 trade war "has not to date provided economic help to the U.S. heartland," failing to raise employment in protected sectors. In fact, retaliatory tariffs from countries targeted by the Trump administration had the effect of "clear negative employment impacts, primarily in agriculture," Autor found.

The one success of Trump's trade war, Autor concluded, was political. "Residents of regions more exposed to import tariffs became less likely to identify as Democrats, more likely to vote to reelect Donald Trump in 2020 and more likely to elect Republicans to Congress," the researchers wrote.

It's likely that many Americans didn't notice the price increases during the Trump 2018-19 trade war because they were more targeted than a 10% across-the-board tariff would be, Lovely and Clausing said.

"If you look at set of imports targeted by Trump in his presidency, it was maybe one-tenth of trade, and companies like Walmart might have spread out some of that pricing increase across goods, so it's really non-transparent," Clausing said. "My prediction is that if the worst happens and he puts a 10% tariff on everything, people will notice that."


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-tarif...household/

[DocMack]

Donald Trump has transferred $4.6 million of donations to his campaign into his businesses by charging the campaign for travel and food expenses, according to a new report from Forbes.

Federal Election Commission filings show that Trump’s aviation company, Tag Air, has charged the campaign $4.2 million since his 2024 bid kicked off. Secret Service flight costs—members are required to travel with Trump on the campaign trail—reportedly account for more than $800,000.

The campaign has also spent around $60,000 between the Trump National Doral golf resort in Florida and the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. And that’s to say nothing of the $332,000 the campaign has paid to host events at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s residence.

It’s not the first time Trump has pulled this kind of enrichment scheme: As president, he reportedly charged Secret Service agents “exorbitant” rates—sometimes five times the General Services Administration–mandated government rate—to stay at Trump-branded hotels in the United States, and untold millions at Trump properties abroad. As a candidate in 2016, Trump promised to divest from his business holdings if he were elected president. In January 2017, not two weeks before his inauguration, he reneged on that pledge.

It’s no secret that Trump has been hurting for cash. After losing the 2020 election, he solicited $250 million in supporter donations for his “election defense fund.” In the last six months of 2023, he spent $27 million of his supporters’ money on legal fees. And in the wake of several legal judgments against him—including a $450 million fine in his civil fraud case and an $83 million fine in the E. Jean Carroll defamation suit—he’s been forced to rely on unsavory, if not outright illegal, fundraising methods. Knight Speciality Insurance, the only surety willing to post Trump’s bond in the civil fraud case, famously lacked the assets to back the bond.

The writer John Ganz recently wrote about the mafioso weltanschauung animating Trump’s approach to politics. If it wasn’t already clear from his 45 years of grifting, it’s obvious now that he does business like a gangster.


https://news.yahoo.com/news/trump-campai...24951.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexande...0Tag%20Air.

[DocMack]

A political action committee aligned with former President Donald Trump has racked up more than $860,000 in unpaid legal bills, new Federal Election Commission filings show.

Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has used a number of PACs—including Save America—to support his campaigning efforts ahead of polling day. However, these groups' campaign spending may be stymied by a number of legal obligations.

Analysis by The Washington Post found that legal bills accounted for 85 percent of Save America's May spending, with the PAC accruing an $862,000 tab. The publication reported that the PAC also raised $4,337 in May but spent $4.3 million, ending the month with $4.5 million cash on hand.

The legal bills are related to the former president's numerous court battles.


https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-pa...ng-1915687

[DocMack]

June 13, 2022


Supporters who thought they were donating to "election integrity" instead saw some of their money funneled to Trump hotels


“Not only was there the Big Lie, there was the Big Ripoff,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) near the end of the Jan. 6 committee’s second hearing in laying out how the Trump campaign scammed money from supporters over false claims of election fraud.

The Trump campaign sent “millions” of emails to Trump supporters about how they needed to “step up” to protect election integrity, according to the Jan. 6 committee. The money would go to the so-called the “Official Election Defense Fund” — which doesn’t appear to have actually existed, according to testimony.

The fund — which, again, did not actually exist — raised $250 million, most of which did not go to election litigation, but to Trump’s newly created Save America PAC. The PAC then made contributions to Mark Meadows’ charity, to a conservative organization employing former Trump staffers, to the Trump Hotel Collection, and to the company that organized the rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol last Jan. 6.

“The evidence developed by the select committee highlights how the Trump campaign aggressively pushed false election claims to fundraise, telling supporters it would be used to fight voter fraud that did not exist,” said Amanda Wick, a lawyer for the Jan. 6 committee. “The emails continued through Jan. 6, even as Trump spoke on the Ellipse. Thirty minutes after the last fundraising email was sent, the Capitol was breached.”


https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/po...g-1367359/

[DocMack]

Trump-Backing Congressman Has Specific ‘White’ Americans He Wants to Deport


Texas Rep. Chip Roy is most famous for two things:

First, he’s among the staunchest Donald Trump supporters in the Republican caucus, which grows more radical by the day — although he occasionally says something that aggravates the MAGA crowd.

Speaking of which ... secondly, his January speech on the floor of the House of Representative has gone viral on many occasions: “I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing that I can go campaign on and say we did. One. Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come and explain to me one material, meaningful thing the Republican majority has done — one thing!”

Roy, in a tweet on Sunday morning, believes he might have found a proposal at least: Trump’s plan to use the military to deport — the number keeps changing — between 10 million and 20 million immigrants whom Trump says are in the country illegally.

And Roy — when he saw the backlash from immigrant organizations, Democrats and the business community — nevertheless wants to tack on to that number, by deporting certain white Americans.

His colleagues, specificially.

“Tell you what — I do want to ‘ethnic cleanse’ by deporting white progressive Democrats — with a special bonus for rich ones with an Ivy League degree,” Roy tweeted. “I really do not like ‘those people.’”

In January, Roy said he wouldn’t play the tribal game.

“Everybody expects me to come down here and say, ‘shirts and skins,’ ‘Republicans versus Democrats,’ help us pass certain bills so we can go message them,” Roy said. “That’s not what I was sent here to do.”

But it’s what he’s doing now, no?

Of course, Republicans with Ivy League degrees who were involved in trying to overthrow the 2020 election, like Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, get to stay. So do others, like Sen. Tom Cotton, who promulgate lies.

Roy’s tweet was answered by displaced GOP author, Bill Kristol, who is now director of Defending DemocracyTogether.org.

“I’ve spent a lot of time over the years arguing with progressive Democrats with Ivy League degrees,” Kristol tweeted. “Some of them have even been dislikable. But I don’t dream about deporting them. Chip Roy yearns for an authoritarian regime in America. I like living in a free country.”


https://www.nj.com/politics/2024/06/trum...eport.html

[DocMack]

Donald Trump has been mocked on social media after footage from his rally at Temple University's Liacouras Center, a 10,000-seat venue, showed large numbers of open seats and entire sections of the upper level completely empty.

In May, a similar controversy arose over the attendance at a rally Trump held in South Bronx, New York. His spokesperson told Newsweek that 25,000 people attended the rally, though a number of journalists independently denied the figure.

Trump, who became the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential candidate in March, has been holding high-profile rallies across the nation in a bid to strengthen support before November's likely rematch against President Joe Biden. Pennsylvania is a crucial swing state, which Biden won in 2020 after it backed Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Chris Jackson, a Democratic Party activist, posted a 27-second clip on X, formerly Twitter, of Trump at the Philadelphia rally on Saturday, in which the venue's upper tiers of seating appeared empty.

Jackson wrote: "Look at all those empty seats in Philadelphia. Old man can't even fill a high school gym fill anymore. Sad."

At the time of writing, Jackson's post had received 1,200 reposts and 970,000 views on the platform.

Peter Henlein, a self-styled "political junkie," posted the same clip, writing: "Here is a video of Trump at his rally tonight in swing state PA at Temple University's Liacouras Center, capacity 10,200. It's half empty. Zero attendees in the upper bowl.

"Odd for a guy that brags about pulling 100k ppl in NJ and 30k in the Bronx."

Another user posted a video of the venue that was recorded before the rally began.

"They got the entire back of the arena covered up with flags," the user wrote. "The capacity at the Philly Trump rally is 10,206 and they're not getting anywhere near that."

Newsweek contacted representatives of Trump's 2024 presidential campaign for comment via email outside usual business hours.

During his speech, Trump focused heavily on crime, saying: "Few communities have suffered more under the Biden regime than Philadelphia. Under Crooked Joe, the City of Brotherly Love is being ravaged by bloodshed and crime."

"Retail theft in Philly—I spend so much time here—is up 135 percent since I left office. The convenience stores are closing down left and right. The pharmacies have to lock up the soap," he continued, adding, "You can't buy toothpaste. You can't buy a toothbrush. You want a toothbrush, it takes you 45 minutes."

Data released by the FBI earlier this month showed a 15 percent fall in violent crime between January and March, compared to the same period last year. This included a 26.4 percent fall in murders, 25.7 percent decrease in rapes and 12.5 percent decline in aggravated assault.


https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-pe...ns-1916209

[dickhead]

Multiple threads merged

Keep your trump-posting in this thread unless you feel discussing something else

/grumpy dickmod

[DocMack]

Trump’s $1B request from oil CEOs sparks complaint
https://thehill.com/newsletters/business...complaint/


Here’s what every key witness said at Donald Trump’s hush money trial
https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-h...fcc6f0a991


MAGA operative compiling list of "anti-Trump" federal workers, setting stage for Project 2025 purge
https://www.salon.com/2024/06/24/maga-op...025-purge/





Fox CUTS OFF UNHINGED Trump MID-SPEECH