Trumponomics: Batman...or Dracula?
It's
shocking, I tell you, shocking that some millionaires and billionaires would
brazenly lie and cheat in a corrupt nationwide scheme to rig the entrance
procedures of top colleges.
As
recently reported, these self-entitled elites were gaming the system in order
to weasel their undeserving children into prestigious schools, displacing
more-qualified students.
Where
do these privileged grown-ups get the idea that truth and integrity don't
matter, that they can just make up facts and bend any rules for their personal
advantage?
For
one answer, look no further than the Economic Report of the President, which
was released at the same time the college admissions scandal was making the
news.
Rather
than real analyses, these annual forecasts by the White House's handpicked
economists have become political documents puffing up a president's record.
But
even by partisan public relations standards, Trump's report is shamelessly
grandiose, replete with flagrant fabrications of facts and pretensions that his
failed trickle-down policies are record-setting successes.
In particular, the president's voodoo economists tried to pass off his 2017 trillion-dollar corporate tax break as a mighty engine of growth for the working class.
Speaking
in the ecstatic tongue of voodoo sorcerers, the Trumpsters insist that their
massive tax giveaway is producing a surge in corporate investment
that—abracadabra!—creates jobs and pay hikes.
Only
... there's been no investment surge. Corporate chieftains simply pocketed
Trump's handout.
When
the verbal lies of economic scoundrels aren't working, they resort to charts
that convert lies into a visual appearance of progress.
The
Trump report has a dandy chart of deception with a baseline showing slow growth
under President Barack Obama and a bright line streaking dramatically higher to
show phenomenal growth when proposals such as Trump's bold infrastructure plan
are enacted.
Of
course, the chart would be more convincing if Trump were to have actually
proposed such a plan and were aggressively pushing it through Congress.
But
he's made no such effort, so the chart is a double fraud — or, as economist
Paul Krugman calls it, "voodoo squared."
But
even a White House report that's a pack of lies can reveal some awful truths.
First,
the White House Council of Economic Advisers has issued a national forecast
that exposes its members as the Council of Presidential Butt-Kissers.
Essentially
hailing Trump as genius on a stick, the sycophantish advisers tell us that his
amazing set of economic policies will achieve solid growth and prosperity for
the people in perpetuity.
In
fact, though, he's only been able to get a couple of his policies enacted, and
most aren't even being considered — which is why serious policymakers are
paying zero attention to this fantastical document.
Indeed,
some student interns who worked on the report mocked it by slipping in the
names of such comic superheroes as Batman, Captain America and Spider-Man,
citing them for helping prepare it!
However, on second glance, the report details a radical right-wing deregulation agenda that Trump & Company are quietly but determinedly pushing under the ruse of stimulating economic growth.
For
example, it calls for eliminating minimum safety and educational standards for
operators of child care centers.
Huh?
Yes, the Trump laissez-faire ideologues declare that such regulations to
protect children can "increase the cost of obtaining care, thus serving as
a disincentive (for parents) to work."
Yeah,
just shoo the little tykes into unregulated corporate hog pens so Mom and Dad
can work minimum wage jobs, thus boosting corporate profits all around ... and
then call it progress.
Meanwhile,
the president's economists also admit that the only way they can get America's
economic growth above a dismal 2 percent a year is for Congress to make two big
changes:
1.
Roll back labor rules that protect America's workers from corporate
exploitation.
2.
Pass another round of even deeper tax cuts for corporations and billionaires,
as the 2017 cuts didn't work.
Do
they think we have sucker wrappers around our heads? Trump's economic report is
not written by superheroes like Batman, but by Goofy, Dracula and Scrooge.
When
top leaders lie so blatantly for their own gain, we can't be surprised that
other narcissists will take it as moral permission to do the same.
Jim Hightower is
a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the
book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With
The Flow.Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That
Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families,
environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.