Our New White House - Coming Soon

It should be obvious to one and all that Trump intends and expects to demolish the entire White House and have his rich looting friends build him whatever he wants. No lawful means exists in this disintegrating country for opponents to prevent it.

As I write this it’s February 4, 2026 and Trump continues to announce targets of people and things he expects to destroy in his public pronouncements. Include now the Kennedy Center, which he says he will “remodel.” He has no authority to do that or appropriation to pay for it, but our paralyzed Congress does nothing and his corporate friends give him the money as a bribe.

Who will seriously believe Trump will leave a symbol of American history and democracy like the White House? Better to ask yourself if non violent protest will save the country? Remember your state National Guard has a right to bear arms.

Follow Up:

I write this follow up August 13, 2025 after I have read about $900 million construction plans for the White House. Just wondered if there are still doubters from my original post of September 22, 2025?

The -911,000 and the Washington Post

 

The -911,000 and the Washington Post

On September 9, 2025 the Washington Post posted a headline “U.S. employers added 911,000 fewer jobs than first reported, new BLS data shows.” BLS is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which reported the number on its website as a preliminary benchmark revision of its CES establishment data.

As BLS makes abundantly clear the data is for one month and one month only: March 2025: “The preliminary benchmark revisions in table 1 are calculated only for March 2025 for the major industry sectors.” Table 1 has the 911,000 breakdown by ten private sector industries and government employment. Further BLS explains “Official establishment survey estimates are not updated based on this preliminary benchmark revision.” In other words, the establishment employment data reported before March 2025 and after March 2025 remain the same, unchanged.  It will be February 2026 before new data will be published.

Nothing can be inferred about month to month changes in employment from this report, but the Washington Post decided to give the White House an opportunity to attack the Biden administration and justify their attack on BLS: “Today, the BLS released the largest downward revision on record proving that President Trump was right: Biden’s economy was a disaster and the BLS is broken.” Fresh crapola from the Washington Post, publisher of Trump propaganda.

The already reported and published BLS data shows the last 12 months of the Biden economy generated just over 2 million jobs while the first 7 months of the Trump economy generated 385 thousand jobs.

Sherburn on Cowardice Old and New

 

Sherburn on Cowardice Old and New

Colonel Sherburn – a proud looking man about 55 – and he was a heap and the best dressed man in that town.

Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the South, and I’ve lived in the North; so I know the average all around. The average man’s a coward. In the North he lets anybody walk over him that wants to, and goes home and pray for a humble spirit to bear it. In the South one man, all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men in daytime and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other people – where as you’re just as brave and no braver. Why don’t your juries hang murderers? Because their afraid the man’s friends will shoot them in the back, in the dark – and it’s just what they would do.

. . . The average man don’t like trouble and danger. But if only half a man – like Buck Harkness there – shouts ‘Lynch him! Lynch him!’ you’re afraid to back down – afraid to be found out for what you are – cowards – and so you raise a yell, and hang yourself onto that half-a-man’s coattail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you’re going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s what an army is – a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but from courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.

------------From Colonel Sherburn’s slow and scornful speech, Chapter 22, of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  

Public School Teacher Salaries in Fairfax, Virginia

Public School Teacher Salaries in Fairfax, Virginia

Recently I reviewed the Fairfax County Public School pay schedules for its classroom teachers. Fairfax County has one of the biggest school districts in the country.  The published schedules have pay for steps that have pay for each year of experience in the Fairfax County schools. The pay goes up from step to step to reflect individual seniority.

If a teacher moves up year by year, presumably from a satisfactory performance rating and also gets the cost of living adjustment for the adjusted pay schedules, then a teacher that stays in the system will get pay increases that raise their buying power, a.k.a. real wage. For example, a teacher fresh out of college at step one in 2020 received pay of $50,000. If five years later they were at step five in the 2025 cost adjusted pay scale they would earn $68,145, which provides a 10.7 percent increase in their real wage. That also equals 6.4 percent annual percent increase, more than the inflation rate for the period.

However, the story changes for those that enter teaching in later years or who enter the system with experience in other school systems. As the years have gone by the new pay scales do not keep with inflation. If I compare the step 5 salary in 2020 with the step 5 salary in 2025 for someone coming into the system, their 2020 was $58,492. For someone entering the system as a step 5 in 2025 their salary would be $63,005.  The 2025 salary is a cost adjusted salary drop in the real wage of 12.52 percent over the 2020 salary.

The decline also applies the more years of experience someone brings into the system. Someone at step 20 in 2020 received a salary of $79,469. Someone at step 20 in 2025 would receive a salary of $88,111. To keep up with inflation and keep a stable buying power the salary would need to be $97,856 in 2025. The $88,111 is a 9.96 percent decrease in the real wage for someone entering the system at step 20.

The pay scales are designed to encourage teachers to stay in the system and they will advance over time if they do, but since all new teachers have started at a systematically lower real wage year by year, they are advancing from a continuously lower real wage from the years before. In Fairfax County, Virginia, the public school teachers sink farther and farther down the economic ladder.

The Vice President’s Job

The Vice President’s Job

Amendment Twelve of our U.S. Constitution defines the Vice Presidential office to be a person waiting to succeed as president, but for one reason: death of the President. We can excuse the founding fathers for wanting someone a heart beat away, as the saying goes, to become president given the primitive state of medicine and the opportunities for death in 1787. Still designating the next president in advance unmistakably resembles monarchy, or royal succession, not democracy. The founding fathers had nothing for their V-P to do, just like a British Prince, and so gave him, and lately her, a vote in the Senate in the event of a tie. As the office remains in 2025, the vice president gets a salary of $250,000 for a job that neither requires, nor allows, work defined in the Constitution.

From 1837 when Vice President Martin Van Buren succeeded Andrew Jackson until 1989 when Vice President George H.W. Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan, no vice president succeeded a president by election. Death, assassination and one resignation have given us six accidental presidents since 1877 that include Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Gerald Ford. These six men, like all ambitious politicians, had to confront the reality that party bosses choose vice presidential candidates to "balance the ticket" as an aide to electing someone else. Once installed as vice president, they typically get assigned some empty task the President defines for them and then get shoved aside. They seldom give sign of independence and refuse to say anything controversial for fear of offending their President and jeopardizing a faint and evanescent hope of presidential office or a political career. Vice Presidents do too much of what they are told: Mike Pence to wit.

The vice-presidential office should be abolished. If we are a democracy we should prefer voting for all our presidents, but we should also make the best of what Amendment Twelve defines.  Our vice presidents have a unique place in American politics precisely because he or she lives a heart beat away and can become the president in an instant. That threat makes them hard to ignore if they do not choose to be ignored. Since they have no boss or defined political power and little or no future as a politician, they can and should get the attention they need to aggressively confront controversial matters suppressed or ignored by corporate America and the politicians they own and control. Democrats take note.

 

The Debt Ceiling Hoax

 

The Debt Ceiling Hoax

The Federal government has the sovereign power for the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank to control the money supply and so it can always pay its bills without borrowing from the public. Federal debt has no characteristics of what people think of as debt. For starters it will never be paid off and it would be extremely destructive to do so. The amount of this so-called debt is irrelevant except for managing the economy. It is the duty of the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank to have the right amount of money in the economy to generate the production and income that maintains full employment. Increasing the money supply to pay a federal budget deficit can generate inflation and so the government will borrow from the public to reduce their spending power to control spending and prevent inflation. The accumulated debt is nothing but the legacy of the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve attempting to manage the economy. Since the federal government has the sovereign power to create money, a debt ceiling is a complete hoax. Total up the billions and billions of federal debt generated during the Bush and Trump administrations and you will understand their politics.

Washington Metro and the Dismal Side of Privatization

Washington Metro and the Dismal Side of Privatization

The Washington Post ran a story November 13, 2019 about an area bus strike, which perfectly and transparently illustrates the dismal side of privatization. [Justin George and Luz Lazo, “Bus Strike in N. Va. Poised to Spread”] It turns out a French company named Transdev, received privatization contracts from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, usually referred to as Metro, to run a bus garage and a second one to Fairfax County, Virginia to operate its Fairfax Connector bus service.

Wednesday, the day the story ran, was the 20th day of a strike of 120 garage workers at the Cinder Bed Road garage. Strikers are former Metrobus employees and members of the Amalgamated Transit Workers Union local 689 on strike in protest of wage and benefit cuts by Transdev. The Fairfax Connector bus drivers and members of Amalgamated Transit Workers local 1764 voted to authorize a strike against Transdev with a likely strike date of November 30, the date the current contract expires. The strike of garage workers has shut down 15 routes in Northern Virginia affecting 8,500 riders. A strike at the Fairfax Connector would leave 30,000 without service.

All are unhappy with Transdev pay scales set below Metro employees and with cuts in health care and benefits. Transdev defends their pay as competitive because they are able to fill their positions, but not because the pay is the same. They have further issued the usual company boilerplate claiming to be negotiating in “good faith.”

The Metro director in Fairfax encourages both sides to reach agreement, but sits on the sidelines refusing to be involved. A metro spokesman Dan Stessel excused any responsibility Metro might have telling the Washington Post “This is a labor dispute between the union and Transdev, not Metro, so while we are concerned about the impact the strike has had on our customers, we are not a party to the negotiations and are limited in the role we can play as an outside party.” This transparent and disgusting evasion reflects their failure to write and enforce protections into the contract. The Metro contract calls for Transdev to have a plant to operate the routes during strikes, which they have not done.

Then we learn Metro elected to outsource bus operations to Transdev for $89 million that saves them $15 million over five years by not paying Metro pensions and benefits. They actually admit the savings are from cuts to their workforce. Striking employees complain there is no annual pay scale and they have never had a raise. Health benefits have a $6,000 deductible.

Transdev can expect to pay the same amount for equipment and fuel as Metro. As well a privatization contract adds the cost of a second bureaucracy. Any savings in a privatization contract comes from cutting pay and benefits. Metro director Paul Weidefeld defended privatization: “And there’s lots of examples of things that are run by the private sector that are good. Doesn’t mean its always good.” He did not offer examples, but Metro would not be an example of “things that are good.”

Andy Puzder and the Pandemic Unemployed

 

Andy Puzder, Secretary of Labor drop out and former chief executive of CKE Restaurants, does not like the enhanced unemployed benefits. In a Washington Post op-ed piece [Unemployment benefits are causing a worker shortage” WP June 3, 2020] he claims the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program creates a shortage of labor because benefits are too high.

He cites the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) June Jobs Report that 32 percent of all owners reported job openings they could not fill. NFIB’s chief economist, William C. Dunkelberg, complains “generous unemployment benefits are making it harder for some firms to recall workers and fill open positions.” Puzder goes on to tell us “Virtually anyone in business will tell you that this $600 per week bonus is discouraging work.” He concludes “It isn’t complicated. If you pay people more to stay home than to work, fewer people will work.”

How true, but irrelevant because his comments only tell us what we already know: millions worked for less than $600 a week before the pandemic and people like Puzder earned millions exploiting them. He expects public policy to be a priority for corporate America and ignores the dangers of the pandemic entirely; it interferes with his privileges. Since $600 a week is $15 an hour for full time work, or $30,000 a year, he demands that public policy must continue to promote salaries so low they convert people into the working poor.

The Economic Crash from Covid-19

The Economic Crash from Covid-19

A $2 trillion Corvid-19 spending bill is now law, but Congress better hope Trump gets the money pumped into the spending stream fast. There are roughly 17 million working in the leisure and hospitality industry with about 12 million of them working in restaurants or related food services. There are 22 million more working in wholesale and retail trade. The brunt of the layoffs will fall on them and without enough money for people in these industries to keep up rent or house payments, car payments, groceries, utility bills the economy will collapse, disintegrate.

Congress wants the IRS to send $1,200 to each of the furloughed workers. For someone furloughed earning $62,400 a year, $1,200 is one weeks pay. While its better than unemployment compensation its a one time check to pay bills that keep coming.

Apparently, unemployment compensation that currently averages $300 a week gets bumped up to $600 a week in the new survival bill, although it only goes for 13 weeks. Converted to annual pay $600 amounts to a raise from $15,600 a year to $31,200, which will not maintain spending power for millions. It must be extended. Since the unemployment compensation has an operating bureaucracy it would be wise to let those furloughed from a job earning more than $31,200 to produce their last pay stub and send them their net pay as unemployment compensation. That gives a better chance of sustaining buying power and the flow of transactions. It will now apply to the self employed and gig workers, helping to boost spending.

Unless the money handed over to corporations finds its way back into the spending stream the business subsidies will do nothing to stem the immediate potential for decline. If they pay wages to prevent layoffs that would help, but corporations are notoriously slow putting capital back into the spending stream.

The final bill restricts corporate stock buybacks, executive pay and dividend payments, but those were put there to restrict opportunists from capitalizing on the Pandemic; they will do nothing to sustain the economy. The bill does not add anything for those living on Social Security, nor cancel student loan payments, nor pay the health care bills for the uninsured and so these do nothing to sustain the economy.

The disruption creates a netherworld for economic policy but the astonishingly quick action to provide $2 trillion by a normally battling Congress suggests they at least understand they have to do something to avoid a collapse. I can’t imagine this will go well. They will have to do more to support the working class or the economy will go into a steep recession/depression. Good luck to all!

Incompetents at the Fed

Trump and Incompetents on the Fed

Trump keeps telling us how great the economy is doing and how we should all take a bow to his great skill. Well, the economy is doing quite well under the circumstances, for which Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell and his fellow board members deserve the credit. Trump is just going along for the ride and deserves no credit whatsoever. His abusive comments dashed out on Twitter sound like his usual angry response to anyone who does not follow orders, but the abuse has not deterred Powell from acting in good faith.

By now it is hard to think the Trump base would object to anything he might do after what has already transpired, but if ruining the economy accounts at all, then he might want to question his latest scheme to take over monetary policy. His current nomination for Federal Reserve Board, a women named Judy Shelton, wants to return to a gold standard and eliminate deposit insurance.

As every good capitalist knows the value of money is determined by the supply of it relative to its demand for needed transactions. Obsessives like Ms. Shelton want money to be a supply of something they can pick up and store like gold, but gold is a commodity like cars, clothes and corn flakes, all subject to rising prices.

When money was gold, changes in its price rippled through the economy causing inflation or recession. A gold standard requires giving the public the opportunity to exchange currency for gold at a fixed price making it necessary for the government to stabilize the price of gold by holding large inventories to sell in a shortage, or buy in a surplus. Managing gold inventories was subject to the erratic success or failure of mining ventures and the erratic whim of hoarders and speculators.

If Ms. Shelton would ask herself how the U.S. Treasury could remain ready to exchange gold at a fixed price if the market price of gold goes up, she might notice a problem with a gold standard. If the market price of gold starts to rise there will be speculators to show up at the U.S. Treasury to exchange their currency for an ounce of gold at the fixed price. They will speculate the government will eventually run of gold by having to sell it and have to let the price rise to a new level. Then they can resell their gold at the higher market price.

The need to buy or sell gold to hold the price changes the money supply the same way open market operations change the money supply now, except the buying and selling of gold to keep its price stable cannot be timed to meet the needs of stabilizing the economy.

In 1933, the United States left the gold standard, announcing it would no longer convert dollars to gold at any price. Banks were allowed to designate other assets than gold as reserves, which make it easier to manage the money supply. Other countries followed and in 1971 the gold exchange standard for international payments ended by mutual agreement of the international community.

Using gold as money creates many problems that have to be solved, but has no benefits of any kind. It does not impose discipline because money is always a human decision. Humans decide what it is and how much of it there will be. The Republicans know this, but they are willing to pander to Trump and his conspiratorial base.

A few Republican Senators express worry with a crackpot on the Fed. The Washington Post from February 9, 2020 quoted an insider who says “I don’t think she belongs on the [Fed] Board, but it’s not going to be an apocalypse. She’s not going to change the direction of monetary policy.” Don’t be too sure. Others think Trump is positioning her to be Fed Chair when Powell’s term ends in early 2022.

Republicans have their own agenda and while they are not against a stable well managed economy, it is not first on their agenda for economic policy. Recall the Bush recession of 2008-2010 following the 1999 Banking deregulation, which provided the wealthy and well placed unlimited opportunities for speculation and financial gambling. If the incompetent Trump gets control of monetary policy, it will be much worse than that.

The Amazon Effect on Jobs

The Amazon Effect on Jobs

Media coverage of the Amazon expansion keeps suggesting their growth comes at the expense of brick and mortar retail stores. The employment data suggests Amazon contributes to a decline in retail jobs that derives from more causes and long term trends.

Back in 1990 the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported electronic shopping and electronic auctions employed a monthly average of 40.4 thousand people while 112.5 thousand worked at mail order houses. By 2016 the BLS reported 233.5 thousand employed in electronic shopping and electronic auctions, but mail order houses showed only a small increase to 127.5 thousand jobs.

As Internet access expanded to millions, the difference between the two categories faded as mail order houses doing catalog sales started using the Internet to compete. In response the BLS combined the two series after 2016. Combined employment since 1990 has an annual growth rate of 3.34 percent, more than triple the national average. The monthly average employment for 2018 came to 398.7 thousand jobs.

While the employment totals in retail trade continue to increase, jobs go up so slowly that the share of retail employment in national establishment employment declined year by year since 1990. In 1990 retail was 12.04 percent while in 2018 it was 10.62 percent. It may sound small but if retail employment retained its 1990 share in 2018, retail employment would have 2.114 million more jobs than it does.

Retail sub sectors in motor vehicle and parts dealers, furniture and home furnishing stores, electronic and appliance stores, food and beverage stores, health and personal care stores, gasoline stations, clothing and clothing accessories stores, sporting goods hobby book and music stores, general merchandise stores, office, supplies, stationery and gift stores all have a smaller share of jobs in 2018 than 1990, and smaller shares in 2018 than 2017.

In addition to electronic shopping a few other retail sub sectors have job growth that standout from the general decline. Home centers are a sub sector exception, which has a higher share of establishment employment with annual job growth of 2.89 percent since 1990. The Home Center job increase has come at the expense of job declines at paint-wallpaper stores, and hardware stores.

Employment at used car dealers has increased at nearly five times the annual growth rate for new cars since 1990: new cars .74 percent, used cars 3.59 percent. Jobs at cosmetic and beauty supply stores increased at a growth rate more than 7 times the rate for pharmacy and drug stores: .53 percent compared to 3.72 percent. Stores selling used goods such as thrift stores and consignment stores have the second highest annual rate of job growth in retail, 4.19 percent; only the electronic shopping that includes Amazon has higher job growth. Pet stores also have a high rate of job growth since 1990: 3.53 percent. These jobs combined have only 8.5 percent of 2018 retail employment, and .9 percent of national employment.
The following retail sub sectors all lost jobs from 2017 to 2018: household appliance stores, electronics stores, pharmacy and drug stores, clothing stores, shoe stores, sporting goods stores, hobby toy and game stores, sewing needle work and piece work stores, music instruments and supply stores, book periodical and music stores, department stores, warehouse clubs and super centers, office supply and stationery stores, gift, novelty and souvenir stores.

The electronic shopping total of 398.7 thousand jobs in 2018 represents 2.5 percent of retail trade employment compared to 2010 when 249.8 thousand jobs were 1.6 percent of retail jobs, a mere .9 percent gain for electronic shopping. Since the end of the last recession in early 2010, electronic shopping has added only 148.9 thousand jobs, not many jobs to replace the 2.114 million jobs there would be without such a low, average growth in retail trade. The Amazon effect is a part of the loss of retail jobs, but the expansion of electronic shopping will bring a net loss of jobs in retail and the economy.

Trump and the Federal Reserve

Trump and the Federal Reserve

Trump keeps complaining the economy should do better. [as in “Trump frustrated on Fed, oil as he tries to juice economy” Washington Post, May 3, 2019] He thinks lower interest rates than the already low interest rates would pep up the economy and so he nominates two incompetents for Federal Reserve Board posts.

There are many ironies here. First, presidents do not manage the economy, the Federal Reserve does that. Congress sets government spending and taxes and business creates jobs. Presidents can be cheerleaders but remain on the sidelines to a remarkable degree.

Second, work in applied economics at the Federal Reserve requires more study of macro and monetary economics and more experience in application of these specialties than any other jobs in economics. In truth no one should be nominated for the Federal Reserve Board that does not have prior experience in banking and experience as professional staff before moving up through the ranks at headquarters in Washington or the regional banks.

Third, the economy continues to do extremely well by any standards, but especially so given the inequality of income and the dulling effect of two years of Trump tariffs. An economy is nothing but a flow of transactions and interest rates are a policy tool to help maintain that flow and avoid fluctuations in production, income and employment. Since inflation remains remarkably low at less than two percent with an expanding economy and rising employment, we can easily recognize interest rates are at the perfect rate.

Fourth, the two incompetents withdrew after enough Republicans signaled a NO vote. These same Republicans remain silent on Russian Interference in United States Democracy, but they draw the line at incompetents taking over the economy. It’s good to learn a few Senators will not always slobber on Trump; pandering has limits, even for Republicans.

Fifth, in a digital age with excellent economic information and just in time inventory management recessions do not occur by accident. The natural business cycle resulting from fluctuations in production and spending will continue to be mild and the Federal Reserve can deal with business cycles to keep economic fluctuations mild and barely noticeable as the last decade shows.

The 2008-2010 recession was not part of a natural business cycle. The economy collapsed after the banking industry looted the nation’s loanable funds for gambling in home mortgages. By selling and reselling mortgage loans packed as collaterized debt obligations they built a speculative bubble, which collapsed in a rush. It all happened after Congress and Bill Clinton repealed the regulations of the Glass Steagall Banking Act of 1934, thereby eliminating bank and banker restrictions on the use of loanable funds for their own speculative purposes.

Severe recessions like the one in 2008-2010 only occur because those with the power to make the right decision have their own agenda and choose to make the wrong decision. Given the rogues and scoundrels of 2019 it seems quite possible to occur again.

Trump’s Medicaid Fraud

Trump’s Medicaid Fraud

The current Medicaid work rules amount to a deliberate attack on the Affordable Care Act, which allowed an expansion of Medicaid for those who could not afford health care but did not qualify for Medicaid under the older and draconian poverty requirements.

Medicaid recipients receive medical benefits like doctor or hospital visits, but not funds they can use to support themselves. Medicaid appropriations go to venders who provide the services. Therefore, Medicaid recipients have no choice but to find work, or to starve.

What state governors call work rules are really just rigmarole designed to trick people or to get recipients ensnarled in a complex labyrinth of regulations and bureaucracy that justify removing them from the rolls. Trump aficionados like Seema Verma, HHS administrator, know that perfectly well as does the Governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, who patronized the Federal Judge who would not go along with the deception.

States like Arkansas have established elaborate rules that require recipients to report they are already working to government administrative authorities in order to receive benefits. Authorities have not always made clear recipients would be expected to log into the Internet and report their work each month. Those who did not obey, or understand, these requirements find they are removed from the rolls; those who lost one of their low paid jobs and did not meet other rules and regulations can find themselves removed as well.

If ever there were useless regulations these are it. The Washington Post [Amy Goldstein, March 29, 2019] quoted Governor Hutchinson that “I remain fully committed to a work requirement, and we are in this for the long haul because we believe it is the right policy.” Really!

Work requires a transaction where someone gets paid for their time doing specific work. No such transaction takes place for Medicaid recipients that allows a “work requirement.” The Trump Administration Medicaid regulations, and Governors like Asa Hutchinson who apply them, choose to make and enforce a deliberate fraud.

Unconstitutional Appropriations – Trump demands the Trifecta

Unconstitutional Appropriations – Trump demands the Trifecta

If you think politicians should observe the written conditions of the U.S. Constitution, then you might agree with me that a second shut down would be better than what’s going on with Trump’s current threats. The compromise appropriation passed by Congress and signed into law by Trump followed the requirements in Article I of the constitution exactly. For Trump to threaten to take appropriated funds for his personal appropriations bluntly and crudely violates one of the simple and plain English restrictions written into the Constitution. The restriction says

“No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; . . .”

Some constitutional phrases allow or require interpretation; leave room for the creative cloudy thinking judges and politicians love to do. Not here; not with this one. Funds appropriated go into a budget and fund specific departments and agencies of the government. The constitution does not permit taking appropriated funds and spending them on unappropriated projects. Changes require a supplemental appropriation signed into law.

We might suppose members of Congress, House and Senate, would object to having their constitutional authority erased as so much irrelevant nothing. The emergency excuse is irrelevant even with an emergency since federal appropriations already fund emergency response agencies and we have armed forces ready to respond.

I would expect patriotic members of Congress would abandon their partisan politics to make a unanimous vote to end this unconstitutional threat to our institutions and constitution. They only need two-thirds, which neuters those who refuse to agree English words mean what they mean.

Next in the separation of powers we have the third branch of government: the federal courts. I would expect all patriotic members of the federal bench to agree English words mean what they mean. For the courts to fail to stop this unconstitutional nonsense a district court judge, then two of three appeals court justices and five members of the Supreme Court must fail to do the duty they took an oath to do.

For Trump to get his way requires a complete Trifecta of constitutional failure; a breakdown of all three branches of government. We can hope it doesn’t happen, but I hear some nervous tremors from those who say it won’t.

Mr. Beutner and the Los Angeles Public Schools

Mr. Beutner and the Los Angeles Public Schools

The Los Angeles Public School teachers left their classrooms in the first teacher strike in thirty years. I read the teachers and their union want class size reduced and support staff restored to previous or even reasonable levels.

The school system’s latest Superintendent, Austin Beutner, has no experience in education. Reports describe him as a former investment banker and non-profit executive brought into the school system by the school board to get the system’s finances in order.

I always get disgusted with everyone who thinks anyone with a history of financial success automatically qualifies for all other jobs including education. So many show their contempt for education by expressing such views. I do not hear the reverse that teachers are professionals qualified to take over an investment banking firm, but they would have to do exactly what Mr. Beutner has to do: start fresh and learn something new.

Newspaper accounts quoted Mr. Beutner: “If we agreed to [union] demands, the district would be come immediately bankrupt and would be taken over by the state that same day.” Even if its true, it takes no financial skill to determine that, which is irrelevant to what’s important anyway.

I read one quote from a striking teacher that makes clear what’s relevant to the strike “We have a charter school on campus that is eating away at our spaces, our resources.” Now we know the real financial problem: charter school students get a bigger share of the budget than their share of students; get amounts out of proportion to their numbers.

If that assertion is false it takes no financial genius to prove it false. Now – January 23, 2019 - the union and Mr. Beutner have reached a tentative settlement that will give teachers a raise, reduce class size and hire more support staff; certainly a good thing. However, it does not answer the question Mr. Beutner was hired to evade. It does not justify the percentage of the total financial budget going to the public schools compared to that going to the charter schools. Those who believe in education should demand an answer.

My Plan for Infrastructure Spending

My Plan for Infrastructure Spending

Politicians have returned to talking infrastructure spending to boast the economy and create jobs. The press actually suggests it could be something bipartisan. Trouble is titanic budget deficits make new infrastructure hard to pay for especially when Congress keeps cutting taxes for the rich who do not agree they should have to pay taxes.

Two years ago Trump discussed ways to make it profitable for his friends in business to take over infrastructure expansion, but they couldn’t figure out how to make it profitable for business to bother without turning over parks, waterways, airports and highways to corporate America and letting them charge monopoly prices.

I have a good plan though because I notice the credits at the beginning and end of PBS television news and views has a longer and longer list of foundations and trusts that give away money. The rich hope to get us to feel good about them so they can feel good about themselves.

The growth of foundation portfolios goes with tax cuts for the rich and corporate America, and with income inequality. It should also help Americans realize the United States has an idle rich so bloated with income and assets they can’t possibly spend on themselves they put it in tax free foundations. That way they can direct national resources by personal preference without need to respond to representative government, or those pesky voters.

For the last three decades, at least, America’s productivity gains have been converted to profits not wages. These profits to the rich and foundation assets amount to lost wages for the working class. But the rich can show their public spirit by contributing 25 percent of their required annual foundation giveaways to pay for infrastructure spending. Here is a plan that requires nothing from Trump or a do-nothing Congress.

It’s a perfect, fast action plan, but I’m not holding my breath! Chairitee! Chairitee!

Harley-Davidson Motor Cycles, Trade Wars and our Obsolete Constitution

Harley-Davidson Motor Cycles, Trade Wars and our Obsolete Constitution

Harley-Davidson Motor Cycles recently announced it will be moving some production to Europe to avoid new tariffs made in retaliation to unilateral increases in United States tariffs. Harley officials reported a $2,200 price penalty from the Trump tariff war. In spite of the abuse and ridicule from Trump, Harley-Davidson Motor Cycles did what any business has to do week in and week out; they adjusted to a change in economic circumstance. In this case Trump made a significant change in their market condition imposing tariffs with a guaranteed retaliation.

For at least 50 years the United States sent representatives to repeated meetings of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(GATT) with instructions to negotiate lower tariffs and trade barriers. The world economy and companies like Harley-Davidson have adjusted completely to the lower tariffs. The Trump tariffs make American companies especially vulnerable because retaliation only affects American products made in America; every other company from every other country now has a price advantage over American companies like Harley-Davidson.

More companies will have to do what Harley-Davidson does, which will accelerate job loss in the United States. Trump remains immune to economic forecasts and market conditions while his conduct continues to be so erratic no one can predict how bad things might get.

Congress?

Congress granted Presidents the dictatorial power to impose tariffs for national security reasons, but has allowed Trump to define national security as anything he wants. Congress can take the power back anytime it wants. As Trump threats and bluster translate into retaliation by other countries a weak and plaintive protest of corporate America has appeared in the media, but nothing happens about the tariffs. Corporate America appears powerless to challenge Trump, a Republican no less.

Congress can be obnoxious and threatening and make life a misery for administrators; it can stall and obstruct, but it can’t make a simple decision to stop an idiotic policy that guarantees economic loss as Harley-Davidson officials so clearly understand.

The current Trump tariff abuses highlight the workings of an obsolete constitution. The founding fathers designed a Congress with machinery designed for obstruction; very small numbers can obstruct majorities in a bicameral Congress filled with rules to block decisions. No balance of power remains among the three branches of government we all learned about in high school. The initiative and power have all passed to the President and his executive branch machinery. Anyone who doubts that should ask why corporate America with all its money bags looks at economic loss as a spectator in a brewing trade war?

DC Initiative 77 and the Tip wars

On June 19, 2018 District of Columbia voters had a chance to vote on Initiative 77 to do away with the sub minimum wage and the tip credit for tipped employees like waiters, waitresses, and bartenders. They did so by a 55 percent to 44 percent margin. [D.C. voters approve initiative to raise minimum wage for tipped workers to $15, Washington Post, June 20, 2018]

The minimum wage in Washington, DC is $12.50 an hour in 2018, but as with the Federal minimum wage the District of Columbia has a sub minimum wage for businesses with employees who customarily receive tips. The sub minimum wage in DC is $3.33 an hour. Under rules governing the sub minimum wage those restaurants that pay a sub minimum wage must verify the additional amount from tips are enough to bring an employee up to at least the minimum wage, a practice known as taking the tip credit. If tips are not enough to equal the minimum wage then the employer is expected to keep track of the short fall and make up the difference. Notice that means all tips paid above $3.33 an hour up to $9.17 an hour, or $12.50 minus $3.33, are in lieu of normal wage obligations and become a subsidy to the restaurant.

Initiative 77 eliminates the sub minimum wage gradually by raising the current $3.33 cash wage plus tips to be a $15.00 an hour cash wage by 2025. After 2025 any tips will be the property of servers in addition to their cash wage; the business subsidy will gradually disappear.

The subsidy from the sub minimum wage dates from 1942 and a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to ratify a private scheme to use tips as wages. The wage data reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its Occupational Employment Survey suggest the restaurant subsidy scheme in the sub minimum wage does not ensure employees are paid the minimum wage. In DC the median wage reported for waiters and waitresses in 2017 was only $11.86, not $12.50, which means something over half of waiters and waitresses earn less than the minimum wage including tips.

California, Oregon and Washington are three states that abandoned the sub minimum wage for tipped employees. California and Oregon have a minimum wage of $10.5 an hour and Washington $11.50 an hour for all industries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports all 31 of California metropolitan areas and 5 sub state non-metropolitan regions have a median wage for waiters and waitresses above their minimum wage; and for Oregon’s 8 metropolitan areas and 4 sub state non-metropolitan regions; and for Washington’s 13 metropolitan areas and 4 sub state non-metropolitan regions.

The effect in these three states suggests it pays for the working class waiter and waitress to get rid of the sub minimum wage subsidy for restaurants. If, or when, restaurants confront much higher food prices they have to experiment with a combination of cost cutting and price increases. They might serve smaller portions, or change the menu to save costs while experimenting with higher prices. I’m hard pressed to understand why they expect to avoid doing that when wage costs rise. They have had this favor since 1942 and judging from their publicity campaign against changing it they think it as their inalienable right.

The Washington Post article mentioned above goes on to discuss the grimy politics of DC voter initiatives because apparently the city council and always the U.S. Congress can overrule a voter initiative. To justify throwing out a District wide election opponents of the working class debase democracy by complaining only 18 percent voted in the election as an excuse to ignore voters. They act as though they know the other 82 percent would have defeated the measure, and we all should respect the lethargy of no shows. If it was Trump talking I could understand it, but the DC city Council?

Strike! Strike?

GOP Repeals Michigan Wage Law

In Michigan the Republican controlled legislature repealed the prevailing wage law that applied to public construction projects. Supporters cited by the Detroit Free Press [Det. FP, June 7, 2018] claim repeal will save taxpayers money as projects paying prevailing wages “cost 10-15 percent more than if it was built by the private sector.” State representative Gary Glenn called prevailing wages a “discriminatory relic of the past.” He claims it will save “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

No one quoted in the Free Press mentions a dollar wage when speaking of a prevailing wage, but if repeal will save money then wages must fall and for wages to fall there must be a big surplus of labor. Since business keeps whining about labor shortages, they contradict themselves.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the median wage for 50 construction and extraction occupations, which in Michigan is $22.67 an hour, or $47,167 a year. That puts Michigan 19th among the fifty states and the District of Columbia. A 10 percent cut would be $4,717 and leave $42,438 a year.

If, as seems likely, business contractors bid on public projects then there can be no guarantee the contractors will bid lower in response to repeal of a prevailing wage law. Unless there is vigorous competition among many contractors they maybe able to bid as usual and pocket the wage savings themselves. It appears quite likely taxpayers will get nothing from this repeal.

The Free Press reported that all Democrats in the House voted against the measure and therefore Republicans take the entire responsibility for repeal, which makes the whole episode another in string of examples of politics in a divided society. Saving taxpayers was just the excuse. Democrats will have to figure out why so many in the working class vote for Republican pickpockets who lower their standard of living.

Jobs and Telework

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) changed telework rules for thousands of its employees. The Washington Post [March 18, 2018] quoted a USDA spokesperson that “USDA’s telework policy is designed to be responsible to the taxpayers and responsive to the customers who depend on our services. It is also respectful of our fellow employees who come to work each day.” The change in policy promotes “USDA as one family working together as a single team to serve the American people.” House Representative Gerald Connolly from a nearby Virginia House District co-sponsored the telecommuting rules back in 2010; he called the changes a retrograde move.

The Office of Personnel Management reported a steady increase in the share of Federal Workers who telecommute, which now stands at 20 to 22 percent. Telecommuting helps relieve serious traffic congestion for commuters. I-95 into the District has an average of 23 traffic jams a day. Based on telecommuting data from USDA around Washington the new rules will add 42,000 trips a week to area commuters.

The March 18 article in the Washington Post spawned several letters to the editor. One claimed “Teleworking is a scam” because employees on site are far more productive working together and there should be no special privileges allowing employees to make the same income as those who show up everyday. Another person wrote in that working at home increased his productivity because office distractions made it hard to work. He wore head phones with piped in music to minimize “working together.”

Weary commuters spending hours a day sitting on a cement slab lookin’ up some guy’s tail pipe will recognize a subplot here. Work could be about getting work done, accomplishing necessary tasks, rather than how and where the work gets done. For authoritarian bosses work should be suffering and so they want to see all their underlings dutifully sitting in their office warming up a chair. The authoritarian boss always thinks other people cheat; no one can be trusted to do what they’re supposed to do. They have rules: no reading newspapers, no personal emails, no breaks. Anyone not in their plasterboard cubicle must be malingering, or possibly having fun.

Somehow it fits right in for the Trump people where authority and form counts and substance does not.