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n2doc's JournalTrump Budget Director Admits Their Goal Is High Inequality, Not Low Deficits
For more than a generation, the Republican Party has single-mindedly pursued the goal of maximizing economic inequality. They have been almost as single-minded about not describing this as their priority. Republicans say their goal is reducing out-of-control deficits, or reducing out-of-control surpluses, or promoting economic growth, or saving Social Security and Medicare. But Donald Trump’s budget director Mick Mulvaney, in a new interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, basically admits that what he cares about is reducing transfers from the rich to the poor:
Bad spending, to me, in terms of its economic benefit, would be wealth-transfer payments. It’s a misallocation of resources. Infrastructure is sort of that good spending in the middle, where even if you do misallocate resources a little bit, you still have something to show for it. It’s tangible, it may help economic growth, and so forth. At the other end of the spectrum, at the very other end, is letting people keep more of their money, which — while it can contribute to the deficit in a large fashion — is the most efficient way to actually allocate resources. It’s a little less important to me if infrastructure adds to the deficit. And I’m really not interested in how tax reform handles the deficit.
The place to begin understanding Mulvaney’s ideas here is where he says “letting people keep more of their money … is the most efficient way to actually allocate resources.” The premise of this statement is that the market distribution of income is sacrosanct, and progressive taxation is thus both morally wrong (because it takes money that rightly belongs to high-income people who earned it on their own) and inefficient. Mulvaney concedes that cutting taxes for high-income earners can “contribute to the deficit,” but this fact is “less important.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Mulvaney says “wealth-transfer payments” are “bad spending.” Again, this follows from his belief that redistributing resources from rich to poor offends both morality and economic efficiency. And there in the middle lies infrastructure — which, since it’s not redistributive, is not as morally or economically offensive as transfer payments. The Republicans are cross-pressured on infrastructure spending, which tends to be quite popular; their default position tends to be to spend a lot of money on it under Republican presidents, as they did under George W. Bush and would like to do again under Trump, while opposing it as reckless, unaffordable spending under Democratic presidents.
more
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/trump-budget-director-wants-high-inequality-not-low-deficit.html
Wednesday Toon Roundup 4 - The Rest
Spicer
Kushner and Bannon
Court
Hatch
Billo
Wells Fargo
Food
Alien aurorae spotted on Uranus by Hubble
This is a composite image of Uranus by Voyager 2 and two different observations made by Hubble — one for the ring and one for the auroras.
Ever since Voyager 2 beamed home spectacular images of the planets in the 1980s, planet-lovers have been hooked on auroras on other planets. Auroras are caused by streams of charged particles like electrons that come from various origins such as solar winds, the planetary ionosphere, and moon volcanism. They become caught in powerful magnetic fields and are channeled into the upper atmosphere, where their interactions with gas particles, such as oxygen or nitrogen, set off spectacular bursts of light.
The auroras on Jupiter and Saturn are well-studied, but not much is known about the auroras of the giant ice planet Uranus. In 2011, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope became the first Earth-based telescope to snap an image of the auroras on Uranus. In 2012 and 2014 a team led by an astronomer from Paris Observatory took a second look at the auroras using the ultraviolet capabilities of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) installed on Hubble.
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/33570800220/in/photostream/
United Airlines confirms that beatings will continue until volunteering improves (satire)
United Airlines have confirmed that they are no longer troubled by overbooked flights in what they have renamed ‘Club Class’.
Instead, a spokesman told us this morning that tickets for the airline will double as a raffle entry for the 2017 Hunger Games, with lucky passengers being asked to fight for available seats.
Speaking over footage of a passenger screaming as he was punched in the face for asking for the service he’d paid for, a spokesman for United confirmed that the airline would shortly be rebranding as an adventure destination for danger-seekers.
A spokesman for United said that they were mystified by the response to the video of a bloodied passenger being by dragged off by staff, and stressed that offering $400, then $800, and then violently assaulting someone at random is perfectly normal in the airline business.
more
http://newsthump.com/2017/04/11/united-airlines-confirms-that-beatings-will-continue-until-volunteering-improves/
Anne Frank Center calls for Spicer to be fired
The Anne Frank Center on Tuesday called for White House press secretary Sean Spicer to be fired after his comments claiming Adolf Hitler did not use chemical weapons during World War II.
In a statement posted on Facebook, the center's executive director blasted Spicer, saying the press secretary "lacks the integrity" to serve in his post.
"On Passover no less, Sean Spicer has engaged in Holocaust denial, the most offensive form of fake news imaginable, by denying Hitler gassed millions of Jews to death," Steven Goldstein said in a statement.
"Spicer's statement is the most evil slur upon a group of people we have ever heard from a White House press secretary."
more
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/328320-anne-frank-center-calls-for-spicer-to-be-fired
Trumps Justice Department wont use outside experts to improve forensics
The Trump Justice Department will no longer work with a panel of independent scientists, judges, and attorneys to improve the country’s forensic-science practices, attorney general Jeff Sessions said Monday (April 10).
It’s the latest step of away from an Obama administration legacy in criminal justice reform.
Sessions said in a memo that he will not renew the term for the National Commission on Forensic Science, a body formed under Obama in 2013, the Washington Post reports. The move comes after the Justice Department announced it would reconsider its consent-decree agreements with police departments across the country, a reform initiative spearheaded by the Obama administration, and after a decision to rescind a directive to phase out the use of private prisons for federal prisoners.
The attorney general acted shortly after a group of the nation’s top criminologists wrote an open letter asking him to prioritize science in criminal-justice policies, and to draw on the knowledge of experts. Another letter from six researchers on April 6 urged the department to renew the commission’s two-year term.
more
https://qz.com/954391/the-sessions-justice-department-is-nixing-the-national-commission-on-forensic-science/
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