It’s bad socialism to direct manufacturers to make surgical masks,
respirators and other desperately needed medical equipment
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| By Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune |
"We're a country
not based on nationalizing our business," Trump said at Sunday evening
press conference when asked about his reluctance to more aggressively utilize
the DPA, which he officially invoked last week. "Call a person over in
Venezuela," the president continued, "ask them how did
nationalization of their businesses work out? Not too well."
At the same press
conference, Trump refused to promise—in an evasive, rambling
response to the question—that no money contained in the $500 billion corporate "slush fund" put
forth by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the weekend
would go to bail out his personal hotel empire.
As the Washington
Post's Tory Newmyer notes, Trump's refusal to use the power of the
federal government to urgently pursue emergency production of vital medical
equipment in the face of an unprecedented public health emergency—coupled with
his refusal to say his own hotel empire will not receive a taxpayer funded
bailout—reveals a "glaring double standard" when it comes to what the
term "socialism" does and does not mean:
On the one hand, the Trump administration wants $500 billion for loans and loan guarantees that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin could tap for industry bailouts with few limits or oversight. That proposal helped galvanize Senate Democratic opposition to a $1.8 trillion package aimed at keeping businesses and workers afloat, throwing it into limbo and sending stock futures reeling.
But as his
administration reaches for unchecked authority to engineer a massive
intervention in the marketplace, Trump is rejecting bipartisan pressure to
conscript U.S. businesses to help churn out medical gear in dangerously short
supply. His reasoning: Doing so would constitute a Venezuela-style violation of
free market principles.
The strategy points
back to the president's political interests. Trump and his team had been hoping
to frame the 2020 presidential election as a contest between capitalism and
socialism. They aimed to brand the Democratic Party and its eventual nominee as
captive to radical ideas that would short-circuit the American wealth-creation
machine.
Progressive critics characterized that central contradiction presented by Trump—and shared by his Republican allies in Congress—as not only untenable and hypocritical, but ridiculous and cruel.
According to reporting by the New York Times, "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the heads of major corporations have lobbied the administration against using" the DPA to force emergency production.
With the administration apparently following that advice in this time of national emergency, Richard Yeselson of Dissent magazine said both the White House and the Chamber "have blood not just on their hands, but up to their armpits."
"Do I have this right?" asked journalist and policy analyst Marcy Wheeler following Sunday's press conference: "Trump says bailing out his own luxury hotel company is acceptable capitalism. But having the Feds guarantee a market for respirators for doctors during a pandemic is socialism?
"It even sounds like Trump hotel properties like Mar-a-Largo could receive huge bags of cash—and then fire their workers—if [Treasury Secretary] Steve Mnuchin decides to do a solid for his boss with taxpayer dollars," tweeted Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Sunday.
And as economist and
former labor secretary Robert Reich noted on Saturday, Trump's latest
comments fit a clear pattern: "Throughout this crisis Trump and
Republicans in Congress have made it clear that they believe in generous
socialism for banks, airlines, and the cruise industry, but think the American
people should mostly fend for themselves."