Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts

Thursday, December 19, 2024

A 2T Cut



Reducing the U.S. federal budget by $2 trillion is a significant task that would require carefully considered policy decisions and trade-offs. Here’s an outline of possible strategies across various sectors:

1. Discretionary Spending Cuts

  • Defense Spending: The U.S. defense budget is substantial, making it a prime area for targeted reductions. Potential savings could come from:
    • Reducing overseas military operations.
    • Closing underutilized military bases.
    • Cutting investments in redundant or outdated weapon systems.
    • Streamlining procurement processes.
  • Other Discretionary Programs: Identify and trim underperforming or duplicative federal programs in areas such as education, housing, and public works.

2. Mandatory Spending Adjustments

  • Healthcare Programs:
    • Reform Medicare and Medicaid to reduce costs, such as negotiating drug prices or promoting value-based care models.
    • Introduce means-testing for higher-income recipients of Medicare benefits.
  • Social Security:
    • Adjust the formula for benefits to account for longer life expectancy (e.g., gradually raising the retirement age).
    • Implement progressive benefit reductions for higher-income retirees.

3. Reforming Tax Expenditures

  • Tax expenditures are effectively government spending through the tax code (e.g., deductions, credits, and exemptions). Reforms could include:
    • Capping the mortgage interest deduction.
    • Limiting or phasing out tax breaks for specific industries (e.g., oil and gas subsidies).
    • Scaling back retirement savings incentives for high-income individuals.

4. Revenue Increases

  • Corporate Tax Reforms: Close loopholes and enforce a minimum effective tax rate for corporations.
  • Individual Tax Adjustments:
    • Raise income taxes on the wealthiest earners.
    • Implement a financial transaction tax on trades of stocks, bonds, and derivatives.
  • Carbon Tax or Pollution Taxes: Generate revenue while promoting environmental goals.

5. Improving Efficiency and Reducing Waste

  • Increase investment in anti-fraud initiatives for government programs.
  • Improve oversight and reduce improper payments in Medicare, Medicaid, and other entitlement programs.
  • Optimize government operations by leveraging technology to reduce overhead costs.

6. Growth-Oriented Policies

  • Encourage economic growth through infrastructure investments and education reform to increase productivity and tax revenues over time.
  • Pair budget cuts with initiatives to improve workforce participation and reduce dependency on government programs.

Considerations and Risks:

  • Economic Impact: Sudden, deep cuts could harm economic growth, especially in sectors reliant on federal spending.
  • Public Resistance: Many cuts may face opposition from voters and interest groups.
  • Fairness: Ensuring the burden of cuts and reforms is distributed equitably across income levels and regions is crucial.



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Monday, December 09, 2024

9: United States

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Tuesday, December 03, 2024

3: Jaishankar

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Thursday, November 21, 2024

21: Donald Trump

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21: DOGE



Musk, Ramaswamy lay out plans for ‘mass’ federal layoffs, rule rollbacks under Trump Tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy said Wednesday that their brand-new government efficiency panel will identify “thousands” of regulations for President-elect Trump to eliminate, which they argue will justify “mass head-count reductions” across government. ...... “The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings,” they wrote. “We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws.” .......... Slashing regulations should allow for “at least” proportional cuts to the government workforce .......... “A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy” .......... “Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited” ............ Musk and Ramaswamy pointed to several recent Supreme Court decisions that have taken aim at the power of the administrative state, arguing that a “plethora of current federal regulations” exceed agency authority and could be on the chopping block. ............

“A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy”

........... “Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited” ........... Musk and Ramaswamy preemptively addressed arguments about civil service protections that could potentially block Trump from firing federal workers. ......... “The purpose of these protections is to protect employees from political retaliation,” they wrote. “But the statute allows for ‘reductions in force’ that don’t target specific employees. The statute further empowers the president to ‘prescribe rules governing the competitive service.’ That power is broad.” ........ “With this authority, Mr. Trump can implement any number of ‘rules governing the competitive service’ that would curtail administrative overgrowth, from large-scale firings to relocation of federal agencies out of the Washington area” ........... Government workers are already mobilizing in the face of potential mass cuts, reportedly hiring lawyers and preparing public campaigns while also hoping Congress will step in ........... Musk has spent much of his time at the Palm Beach, Fla., resort over the past two weeks, reportedly weighing in on Trump’s Cabinet picks and attending meetings, including those with world leaders. ........ He also hosted Trump in Texas to observe the launch of a SpaceX rocket Tuesday afternoon.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy: The DOGE Plan to Reform Government Following the Supreme Court’s guidance, we’ll reverse a decadeslong executive power grab. ....... Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected bureaucrats—tens of thousands of them each year. Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren’t made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees but by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections. ........... On Nov. 5, voters decisively elected Donald Trump with a mandate for sweeping change, and they deserve to get it. .......... The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic .......... We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs. .......... We are assisting the Trump transition team to identify and hire a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America. This team will work in the new administration closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget. The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings. We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws. Our North Star for reform will be the U.S. Constitution, with a focus on two critical Supreme Court rulings issued during President Biden’s tenure.

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Wednesday, November 06, 2024

6: Trump Victory

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Wednesday, October 16, 2024

16: Donald Trump



In Case of an Election Crisis, This Is What You Need to Know In 2020, when Donald Trump questioned the results of the election, the courts decisively rejected his efforts, over and over again. In 2024, the judicial branch may be unable to save our democracy. ............ The rogues are no longer amateurs. They have spent the last four years going pro, meticulously devising a strategy across multiple fronts — state legislatures, Congress, executive branches and elected judges — to overturn any close election. ............. The new challenges will take place in forums that have increasingly purged officials who put country over party. They may take place against the backdrop of razor-thin election margins in key swing states, meaning that any successful challenge could change the election. ........... Stephen Miller, a former Trump adviser, has brought suit in Arizona claiming that judges should be able to throw out election results. ........... Many states recently changed how they conduct voting. Even a minor modification could tee up legal challenges, and some affirmatively invite chaos. ........... Any time a state changes an election rule or can be accused of not having followed one, someone with legal standing (like a resident of that state or a candidate or a party) can bring a lawsuit. ........... Federal judges have on occasion been known to act in political ways, and any one of the 1,200 of them could make a decision that plunges the nation into deep confusion. ................. public confidence in the court is nearly at a three-decade low. No matter how nonpartisan the justices are, should the Supreme Court intervene, there is a high chance millions of Americans would see the decision as unfair. ................. state officials and local election boards also can wreak havoc by refusing to certify elections, and this time they will have new tools to manufacture justifications for undermining democracy. A new Georgia law empowering local boards to investigate voter fraud offers a prime example. On its face, the law sounds laudatory or at least innocuous. But the law could be read to give an election board the power to cherry-pick an instance or two, claim the entire election illegitimate and refuse to certify the votes. This is straight out of the 2020 playbook, when Mr. Trump reportedly successfully pressured two Wayne County, Mich., election officials not to certify the 2020 vote totals. Fortunately, that tactic didn’t work. This year it might. ................ there are state legislatures to contend with: They might make baseless allegations of fraud and interfere to get a different slate of electors appointed to the Electoral College, as happened in 2020. ............ the Congress has the power to swing the entire election. The rules are complex; even as a law professor, I can barely make sense of them. ............... Such maneuvering is totally inconsistent with the 2022 law. But it can be attempted and create chaos. Likewise, if a governor certifies a fake slate, that will be hard for Congress to fix. ............... In a world in which one party is still consumed by election fraud claims from 2020 (as JD Vance’s nonanswer in the debate underscored) and is prepared to claim the same in 2024, we have much to fear. ............ It does not require much imagination to see a member of Congress acting in bad faith to try to squeeze through bogus election fraud theories and plunge the country into uncertainty on Jan. 6. The 20 percent voting threshold is meant to avoid crackpot election fraud theories, but these days more than 20 percent of Congress might be inclined to support a crackpot theory. And some Republican strategists are gearing up to argue the 2022 Electoral Count Reform Act is unconstitutional and invalid. ................ If no candidate gets a majority of the Electoral College, either through mischief or a simple tie, then the Constitution sends the election to Congress. Mischief can occur on Jan. 6, for example, with Congress knocking votes of electors as not being “regularly given.” If for whatever reason no candidate gets a majority of electoral votes, the House will decide the presidency, under arcane voting rules in which the states, not a House majority, pick the president. ............... If either candidate wins the Electoral College decisively, any dispute will be rendered academic. ............ it is the new House and Senate, not the existing ones, that will call the shots on Jan. 6.

Three Weeks to Go, and That’s All Anyone Is Sure Of



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Kamala On Fox

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Tuesday, October 15, 2024

15: United States



The Push for Minority Voters and the Undecided It’s therefore perplexing why Donald Trump’s bigotry and obsession with immigration — which pervade every aspect of his politics and have always formed the core of his grievance messaging — is not disqualifying for all Latino and Black voters.

OpenAI Could Be a Force for Good if It Can Address These Issues First OpenAI, the artificial intelligence start-up behind ChatGPT, is now worth as much as Goldman Sachs or AT&T. OpenAI has also said it intends to shed its status as a nonprofit to become a for-profit business within two years. ................ Artificial intelligence may be the most consequential technological advance in our lifetime, and OpenAI is unique in the breadth of its potential impact. Its product could displace workers in far-flung industries, from customer service to radiology to film production. Its work is so energy-hungry that it could knock off track the planet’s progress on climate change. ............... the effects it will have on our democracy, national security and privacy will be profound. .............. OpenAI has responded to these concerns by saying it will become a public benefit corporation. A benefit corporation is a traditional for-profit company with one key difference: It is legally obligated to balance profit with purpose. Public benefit corporation leaders and boards must consider workers, customers, communities and the environment, not just shareholders, as in a standard corporation. ............. an estimated 15,000 companies globally adopting the new legal form. Think of Patagonia, Allbirds, Chobani and Warby Parker. .............. even a high-functioning government will not be able to stay ahead of a fast-moving industry ............... Recently OpenAI created what it says is an independent Safety and Security Committee, but it also has the power to blow that up whenever it becomes inconvenient, just as Microsoft laid off its entire A.I. ethics and society team in 2023. ............. Perhaps Mr. Altman could take a cue from Patagonia, a brand he’s often been spotted wearing. Patagonia’s purpose trust owns all of the company’s voting stock, meaning that the decision makers are obliged to advance Patagonia’s commitment to protecting the earth and its natural resources. .............. Every day, by applying these same principles, thousands of certified B Corps show that business can be a force for good to create high-quality jobs, rebuild strong communities and solve environmental crises — all while making money for investors.

The A.I. Wars Have Three Factions, and They All Crave Power Beneath almost all of the testimony, the manifestoes, the blog posts and the public declarations issued about A.I. are battles among deeply divided factions. ............... Some are concerned about far-future risks that sound like science fiction. Some are genuinely alarmed by the practical problems that chatbots and deepfake video generators are creating right now. Some are motivated by potential business revenue, others by national security concerns. ............. this isn’t really a debate only about A.I. It’s also a contest about control and power, about how resources should be distributed and who should be held accountable. .......... Should we focus on avoiding the dystopia of mass unemployment, a world where China is the dominant superpower or a society where the worst prejudices of humanity are embodied in opaque algorithms that control our lives? ................ One faction describes the dangers posed by A.I. through the framework of safety, another through ethics or integrity, yet another through security and others through economics. ............. The loudest perspective is a frightening, dystopian vision in which A.I. poses an existential risk to humankind, capable of wiping out all life on Earth. A.I., in this vision, emerges as a godlike, superintelligent, ungovernable entity capable of controlling everything. A.I. could destroy humanity or pose a risk on par with nukes. If we’re not careful, it could kill everyone or enslave humanity. It’s likened to monsters like the Lovecraftian shoggoths, artificial servants that rebelled against their creators, or paper clip maximizers that consume all of Earth’s resources in a single-minded pursuit of their programmed goal. .................... In the name of long-term-ism, Elon Musk reportedly believes that our society needs to encourage reproduction among those with the greatest culture and intelligence (namely, his ultrarich buddies). And he wants to go further, such as limiting the right to vote to parents and even populating Mars. ............... More practically, many of the researchers in this group are proceeding full steam ahead in developing A.I., demonstrating how unrealistic it is to simply hit pause on technological development. ................ there’s plenty already happening to cause concern: Racist policing and legal systems that disproportionately arrest and punish people of color. Sexist labor systems that rate feminine-coded rรฉsumรฉs lower. Superpower nations automating military interventions as tools of imperialism and, someday, killer robots. ................ The doomsayers think A.I. enslavement looks like the Matrix; the reformers point to modern-day contractors doing traumatic work at low pay for OpenAI in Kenya. ............ it’s noticeable that many leaders in this cohort are people of color, women and people who identify as L.G.B.T.Q. They are often motivated by insight into what it feels like to be on the wrong end of

algorithmic oppression

and by a connection to the communities most vulnerable to the misuse of new technology. ............ present-day harms that are exacerbated by A.I. misinformation, surveillance and inequity ....... even those worried that A.I. might kill us in the future should still demand that it not profile and exploit us in the present. ........... One version has a post-9/11 ring to it — a world where terrorists, criminals and psychopaths have unfettered access to technologies of mass destruction. Another version is a Cold War narrative of the United States losing an A.I. arms race with China and its surveillance-rich society. ............. These perspectives serve the interests of American tech tycoons as well as the government agencies and defense contractors they are intertwined with. ............. OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, both of whom lead dominant A.I. companies, are pushing for A.I. regulations that they say will protect us from criminals and terrorists. Such regulations would be expensive to comply with and are likely to preserve the market position of leading A.I. companies while restricting competition from start-ups. .................. A.I. research is fundamentally international; no one country will win a monopoly. ............. fears about the existential risks of A.I. are really fears about the threat of uncontrolled capitalism, and dystopias like the paper clip maximizer are just caricatures of every start-up’s business plan. .................. By analogy to the health care sector, we need an A.I. public option to truly keep A.I. companies in check. A publicly directed A.I. development project would serve to counterbalance for-profit corporate A.I. and help ensure an even playing field for access to the 21st century’s key technology while offering a platform for the ethical development and use of A.I.

Supreme Court Reform Is in the Air Biden is right to propose term limits for Supreme Court justices .............. the political branches have gamed the system in a manner that complies with the letter of the Constitution but violates its spirit. .............. The purpose of lifetime tenure is supposed to be to secure judicial independence, not to secure decades of ideological advantage on the court. The purpose of granting the Senate the confirmation power is to offer a thoughtful check on the president’s judgment, not to cripple the president’s appointment powers unless his or her party also controls the Senate. ............. When you combine a constitutional misjudgment with senatorial shortsightedness and extreme polarization, you land exactly where we are today — with instability and anger that harm the court and threaten the rule of law. ........... President Jimmy Carter didn’t appoint a single justice in his sole term. Donald Trump appointed three. Barack Obama had three vacancies in his eight years, but he was able to confirm only two new justices. Ronald Reagan was able to confirm three new justices ........... Democrats have won five of the last nine presidential elections, but Democratic presidents have nominated only three of the nine Supreme Court justices. ............ According to the Supreme Court, the average term of a Supreme Court justice has been 16 years. Many modern justices, however, have served well over 25 years. ............. And despite their theoretical independence, justices were too often prisoners of their political times — susceptible to the same racism and xenophobia that plagued the rest of the American body politic. ............... The judicial confirmation wars keep escalating. A dispute over filibuster abuse led Democrats to break the judicial filibuster for lower court nominees. Four years later, Republicans broke the filibuster for the Supreme Court. ............. The combination of the Republican decision to block an election-year floor vote for Merrick Garland while Barack Obama was president and then confirming Amy Coney Barrett under Trump just days before the 2020 election was both a raw exercise of political power and an ominous warning that the next phase of the judicial wars may well mean that divided governments simply won’t be able to confirm new Supreme Court nominees. ................ Writing nuanced, thoughtful opinions in hot-button culture war cases is a good way to kill your chances for higher judicial office. ............. the new political imperative is to nominate and confirm young justices who will do exactly what you want for as long as you want — for terms of office that can stretch longer than the reigns of ancient kings. .................. Democracy alone isn’t a sufficient safeguard for free speech, equal protection or due process. Criminal defendants, for example, are not a popular constituency, but much of our Bill of Rights is dedicated to protecting their basic rights. ............. Biden’s proposed reforms adopt the most common term limits proposal — every justice serves for 18 years (which roughly matches the median court term throughout the nation’s history), which in turn means that every president would select two justices per term, in his or her first and third years in office. This proposal has the virtue of addressing the worst of our current problems while preserving the best of the current system. ............... A long, fixed term (absent impeachment) would help guarantee judicial independence. The justices would have more than enough time to develop their own jurisprudence and make their marks on the court.

When Trump Rants, This Is What I Hear I arrived here first as a 3-year-old boy in the mid-1970s, settling with my family in Northern California, in a small town with trees so thick that their branches mingled high over the roads. My mother introduced us around the neighborhood not just as a new family, but as a Peruvian family (she signed cards, “from your Peruvian friends”). It mattered to her that people knew, whether to convey her pride or pre-empt their questions. Even when you’re trying to fit in, you can’t help standing out. .......... I’ve long regarded Trump as a challenge for America — for democratic institutions, for honesty and, yes, for its immigrant tradition — but this xenophobic cacophony, building so relentlessly over the past decade, now feels overpowering. It also feels directed my way, at who I am and the choices I’ve made. ........... For all of Trump’s particular efforts — the wall, the travel ban, the family separations and now the pledge of mass deportation — he is part of a long tradition. You don’t have to go back to the expulsion of Mexicans and Mexican Americans during the Great Depression, or the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the late 19th century,

or Benjamin Franklin’s musings on those inassimilable Germans

. .............. Trump does not say that he knows any good immigrants; he must imagine their existence. .............. “Little is more extraordinary than the decision to migrate, little more extraordinary than the accumulation of emotions and thoughts which finally leads a family to say farewell to a community where it has lived for centuries, to abandon old ties and familiar landmarks,” John F. Kennedy wrote in “A Nation of Immigrants.” He called it a “highly individual decision” and “an enormous intellectual and emotional commitment.” ............... There is a parallel existence always shadowing me, a version I glimpse in the cousins and friends who remained. What if I’d stayed? ................ I’ve always been jealous of those Americans who claim one unmistakable hometown, the place whose streets and rhythms they instantly recognize, a singular setting that anchors their memory. I ache for that, but I lost it. When I visit Lima, I feel out of place. My cultural references are dated, my mental maps fragmented, my friendships treasured but fragile. I don’t quite get the jokes. My longing is for a place that no longer exists, just like that other person I might have been. ................ “I will never be American enough for many Americans,” the journalist Jorge Ramos writes in “Stranger,” a 2018 memoir. “Just as I will never be Mexican enough for many Mexicans.” ............... The old place is gone, so I cling to the new with the zeal of the convert ............. Six years before Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, began spreading rumors about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Trump complained in an Oval Office meeting that he didn’t like admitting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador or African countries. “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” the president asked, as he rejected a bipartisan immigration proposal. With little subtlety, he said he’d rather draw from Norway. “Why do we need more Haitians?” he reiterated. “Take them out.” ................ “When migrants move, it’s not out of idle fancy, or because they hate their homelands, or to plunder the countries they come to, or even (most often) to strike it rich,” Suketu Mehta writes in “This Land Is Our Land,” a 2019 manifesto. They move, he explains, “because the accumulated burdens of history have rendered their homelands less and less habitable.” ............ My parents enjoyed a comfortable life in Peru; neither poverty nor oppression compelled our departure. But that life was not enough. My father’s American dream was less for himself than for me and my sisters, and we came here to find it. I chose to return to the United States for college because the Peru of my youth was mired in hyperinflation and terrorism; because I missed the sisters who had made that choice already; because the taste I’d had of America, even as a child, was impossible to forget. ......... Hoping that the new home will be better than the old one does not diminish the pain of truncating the life you have known, leaving a hole so gaping that even a land of opportunity has trouble filling it.

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Sunday, October 13, 2024

13: Donald Trump

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13: Kamala Harris

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