September 18, 2024
Today, at a White House reception in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, President Joe Biden said: "We don't demonize immigrants. We don't single them out for attacks. We don't believe they're poisoning the blood of the country. We're a nation of immigrants, and that's why we're so damn strong."
Biden’s celebration of the country’s heritage might have doubled as a celebration of the success of his approach to piloting the economy out of the ravages of the pandemic. Today the Fed cut interest rates a half a point, a dramatic cut indicating that it considers inflation to be under control. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has maintained that it would be possible to slow inflation without causing a recession—a so-called soft landing—and she appears to have been vindicated.
Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell said: “The labor market is in solid condition, and our intention with our policy move today is to keep it there. You can say that about the whole economy: The US economy is in good shape. It’s growing at a solid pace, inflation is coming down. The labor market is at a strong pace. We want to keep it there. That’s what we’re doing.”
Powell, whom Trump first appointed to his position, said, “We do our work to serve all Americans. We’re not serving any politician, any political figure, any cause, any issue, nothing. It’s just maximum employment and price stability on behalf of all Americans.”
Powell was anticipating accusations from Trump that his cutting of rates was an attempt to benefit Harris before the election. Indeed, Jeff Stein of the Washington Post reported that Trump advisor Steven Moore called the move “jaw-dropping. There's no reason they couldn't do 25 now and 25 right after the election. Why not wait till then?” Moore added, "I'm not saying [the] reduction isn't justified—it may well be and they have more data than I do. But i just think, 'why now?’” Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville called the cut “shamelessly political.”
The New Yorker’s Philip Gourevitch noted that “Trump has been begging officials worldwide not to do the right thing for years to help rig the election for him—no deal in Gaza, no defense of Ukraine, no Kremlin hostages release, no border deal, no continuing resolution, no interest rate cuts etc—just sabotage & subterfuge.”
That impulse to focus on regaining power rather than serving the country was at least part of what was behind Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s lie about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. That story has gotten even darker as it turns out Vance and Trump received definitive assurances on September 9 that the rumor was false, but Trump ran with it in the presidential debate of September 10 anyway. Now, although it has been made very clear—including by Republican Ohio governor Mike DeWine—that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield are there legally, Vance told a reporter today that he personally considers the programs under which they came illegal, so he is still “going to call [a Haitian migrant] an illegal alien.”
The lies about those immigrants have so derailed the Springfield community with bomb threats and public safety concerns that when the Trump campaign suggested Trump was planning a visit there, the city’s Republican mayor, Rob Rue, backed by DeWine, threw cold water on the idea. “It would be an extreme strain on our resources. So it’d be fine with me if they decided not to make that visit,” Rue said. Nonetheless, tonight, Trump told a crowd in Long Island, New York, that he will go to Springfield within the next two weeks.
The false allegation against Haitian immigrants has sparked outrage, but it has accomplished one thing for the campaign, anyway: it has gotten Trump at least to speak about immigration—which was the issue they planned to campaign on—rather than Hannibal Lecter, electric boats, and sharks, although he continues to insist that “everyone is agreeing that I won the Debate with Kamala.” Trump, Vance, and Republican lawmakers are now talking more about policies.
In the presidential debate of September 10, Trump admitted that after nine years of promising he would release a new and better healthcare plan than the Affordable Care Act in just a few weeks, all he really had were “concepts of a plan.” Vance has begun to explain to audiences that he intends to separate people into different insurance pools according to their health conditions and risk levels. That business model meant that insurers could refuse to insure people with pre-existing conditions, and overturning it was a key driver of the ACA.
Senate and House Republicans told Peter Sullivan of Axios that if they regain control of the government, they will work to get rid of the provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that permits the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices. Negotiations on the first ten drugs, completed in August, will lower the cost of those drugs enough to save taxpayers $6 billion a year, while those enrolled in Medicare will save $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket expenses.
Yesterday Trump promised New Yorkers that he would restore the state and local tax deduction (SALT) that he himself capped at $10,000 in his 2017 tax cuts. In part, the cap was designed to punish Democratic states that had high taxes and higher government services, but now he wants to appeal to voters in those same states. On CNBC, host Joe Kernan pointed out that this would blow up the deficit, but House speaker Mike Johnson said that the party would nonetheless consider such a measure because it would continue to stand behind less regulation and lower taxes.
In a conversation with Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his former press secretary, Trump delivered another stream of consciousness commentary in which he appeared to suggest that he would lower food prices by cutting imports. Economics professor Justin Wolfers noted: “I'm exhausted even saying it, but blocking supply won't reduce prices, and it's not even close.” Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark added, “Tell me more about why you have to vote for Trump because of his ‘policies.’”
Trump has said he supports in vitro fertilization, or IVF, as have a number of Republican lawmakers, but today, 44 Republican senators once again blocked the Senate from passing a measure protecting it. The procedure is in danger from state laws establishing “fetal personhood,” which give a fertilized egg all the rights of a human being as established by the Fourteenth Amendment. That concept is in the 2024 Republican Party platform.
Trump has also demanded that Republicans in Congress shut down the government unless a continuing resolution to fund the government contains the so-called SAVE Act requiring people to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Speaker Johnson continues to suggest that undocumented immigrants vote in elections, but it is illegal for even documented noncitizens to do so, and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the nonprofit American Immigration Council notes that even the right-wing Heritage Foundation has found only 12 cases of such illegal voting in the past 40 years.
Johnson brought the continuing resolution bill with the SAVE Act up for a vote today. It failed by a vote of 202 to 220. If the House and then the Senate don’t pass a funding bill, the government will shut down on October 1.
Republican endorsements of the Harris-Walz ticket continue to pile up. On Monday, six-term representative Bob Inglis (R-SC) told the Charleston City Paper that “Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to the republic” and said he would vote for Harris. “If Donald Trump loses, that would be a good thing for the Republican Party,” Inglis said. “Because then we could have a Republican rethink and get a correction.”
George W. Bush’s attorney general Alberto Gonzales, conservative columnist George Will, more than 230 former officials for presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and 17 former staff members for Ronald Reagan have all recently added their names to the list of those supporting Harris. Today more than 100 Republican former members of Congress and national security officials who served in Republican administrations endorsed Harris, saying they “firmly oppose the election of Donald Trump.” They cited his chaotic governance, his praising of enemies and undermining allies, his politicizing the military and disparaging veterans, his susceptibility to manipulation by Russian president Vladimir Putin, and his attempt to overthrow democracy. They praised Harris for her consistent championing of “the rule of law, democracy, and our constitutional principles.”
Yesterday, singer-songwriters Billie Eilish, who has 119 million followers on Instagram, and Finneas, who has 4.2 million, asked people to register and to vote for Harris and Walz. “Vote like your life depends on it,” Eilish said, “because it does.”
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Notes:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/18/economy/interest-rate-cut-decision/index.html
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-hold-long-island-rally-effort-court-new/story?id=113808593
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ronald-reagan-former-staff-back-harris-walz-ticket/
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/17/trump-drug-prices-gop-concerns
https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/38a5a90bef9711ef/a1c00612-full.pdf
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/senate-republicans-block-ivf-bill/
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-party-platform
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Another “home run” of a letter from HCR.
Two quotes stood out for me today the first is from the New Yorker: “Trump has been begging officials worldwide not to do the right thing for years to help rig the election for him—no deal in Gaza, no defense of Ukraine, no Kremlin hostages release, no border deal, no continuing resolution, no interest rate cuts etc—just sabotage & subterfuge.”
Next, Billie Eilish: “Vote like your life depends on it,” Eilish said, “because it does.”
I’m pleased to see that the laundry list of prominent Republicans, former officials within recent past Republican administrations, who’ve announced they are voting for Harris/Walz is growing rapidly and substantially. Country before party is a mantra I can get behind.
Gosh! It’s almost as if the Trump campaign doesn’t want to see the ecomomy doing well!