“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Douglas Holtz-Eakin: Trump’s tax plan is built on a fairy tale\
President Trump is correct to press for tax reform, correct to argue that corporate rates should be reduced and correct to look for policies that boost the United States’ anemic economic growth rate. But the “rough draft” of Trump’s tax plan, rolled out at the White House on Wednesday, falls short of being a real tax reform suitable to tax-cutting conservatives such as me.
Proposing trillions of dollars in tax cuts and then casually asserting that such a plan would “pay for itself with growth,” as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, is detached from empirical reality. A real tax-reform plan would include specifics on how to broaden the tax base — not leave that hard work to Congress. A responsible tax plan would not ignore the threat of increasing a national debt that is already on an unsustainable course.
Accelerating the pace at which the federal budget bleeds red ink must be avoided, and building a tax plan based solely on the premise of future economic growth is dangerous. Sailing straight into a sovereign debt crisis is not a pro-growth strategy. What firm would want to headquarter in a country that is toying with financial meltdown accompanied by emergency austerity and tax hikes?
David Cole: The states’ rights that Trump doesn’t like
States’ rights have long been a rallying cry for conservatives. The Trump administration cited its respect for the states in rescinding Obama administration guidance treating discrimination against transgender students as sex discrimination. Attorney General Jeff Sessions invoked the same principle in questioning federal consent decrees designed to ensure constitutional policing in cities such as Chicago and Baltimore. And when the Supreme Court relied on states’ rights to gut the Voting Rights Act, then-Sen. Sessions applauded the decision, calling it “good news . . . for the South.” In earlier periods, states’ rights arguments were advanced to resist desegregation and federal legislation protecting workers and consumers.
But the Trump administration doesn’t consistently respect the states, and nowhere is that more true than in its attack on “sanctuary cities,” in which it claims that states and cities choosing not to help enforce federal immigration law should be denied federal funding. On Tuesday, a federal court in San Francisco invoked the very federalist principles that President Trump and Sessions celebrate to rule unconstitutional Trump’s executive order denying funding to sanctuary cities, one of the signature initiatives of Trump’s first 100 days. The nationwide injunction, issued by U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick, ruled that Trump violated the rights of state and local governments to make decisions about the deployment of their own resources. The Constitution, the court ruled, mandates that state and local governments be left to make their own judgments about what best serves the safety of their people. Like lawsuits by the states of Washington and Hawaii challenging Trump’s anti-Muslim travel ban, the case demonstrates the value of our federalist system when one party controls the levers of federal power.
E. J. Dionne Jr.: Trump’s greatest single achievement almost never gets mentioned
In the outpouring of commentary on President Trump’s first 100 days in office, his greatest single achievement is almost never mentioned, which is itself a sign of what a major triumph it is: We are not talking much about whether Russia colluded with Trump’s campaign to help elect him.
Our distraction was not inevitable. Recall that just a little over a month ago, FBI Director James B. Comey told the House Intelligence Committee that the bureau was investigating possible cooperation between Trump’s team and Russia’s hacking and disinformation campaign to undercut Hillary Clinton. As the New York Times wrote, Comey’s testimony “created a treacherous political moment for Mr. Trump.” Yet the president slipped by.
In mid-February, the administration should have come under sustained inquiry when Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, was forced to resign because he misled White House officials about the nature of his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States.
Amanda Marcotte: Trump’s hollow promise on the opioid epidemic: GOP health plan would slash Medicaid funding for drug treatment
President Donald Trump, motivated by a congenital inability to admit defeat, is trying to revive Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The move is getting resistance from a surprising corner, as attorneys general from 19 states and the District of Columbia sent a letter to the president expressing concerns about what this means for their ability to fight crime.
What does health care have to do with crime? According to the attorneys general, quite a bit, due to the epidemic of opioid addiction.
“As the chief law enforcement officials in many of our states, we are on the front lines of battling this epidemic,” reads the letter, which was sent on April 21. “But we know that law enforcement alone cannot end this crisis. Our residents also need access to drug treatment.”
Most of the focus on Republican health care efforts has understandably been on what it means for individuals who could lose their health insurance if the GOP successfully pares down Medicaid and reduces the subsidy system that makes private health insurance more affordable under the Obamacare laws. But this letter highlights another problem, which is that undermining the health care system will have broader consequences for state and local governments. Nowhere is this more evident than when it comes to fighting the drug addiction epidemic.
Heather Digby Parton: The Trump family’s massive grift: Who cares about policy? As a business and branding venture, this presidency is going swell
In an apparent attempt to fool people into thinking his first 100 days have been wildly successful, President Donald Trump is engaging in a flurry of activity this week. Evidently he hopes that will serve as a proxy for accomplishment.
He has started a trade war with Canada, chatted up astronauts and talked about sending Americans to Mars, signaled that he plans to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement and then changed his mind in that same day, offered up some talking points that he called a tax plan, piled the entire U.S. Senate into buses and summoned them to the White House for a briefing on North Korea (later described by one senator as “a dog and pony show“) and jump-started the doomed Obamacare repeal zombie. And in the middle of all this he weirdly punted on his biggest campaign promise, the “big, beautiful wall.” Trump may not have been productive, but he’s been busy.
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