Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
Being a pragmatic anarchist, I’m resigned to the fact I live under many layers of government and will likely die in said condition. That said, about all I dare hope for is some indication that the governments I suffer under will, at some point, stop sucking so loudly. Reason for said hope is in ever more scant supply these days.
Our new President-Elect got himself into that position by promising an abrupt change from the way things have been during the last eight years of Obama; essentially echoing the same empty rhetoric that got Obama elected after eight years of Bush. And, like Obama, Donald Trump will fail to change much of anything. Evidence of this impending failure can already be had in his handling of the whole Carrier deal in Indiana. Now, granted, his protectionist plan to punish Carrier with tariffs if they relocate jobs outside the U.S. and then sell air conditioners back in the U.S. was terrible to begin with; and that such won’t be happening is a win for American consumers, as well as evidence that some things will never change.
In fact, the Carrier deal went the way our corporatist system dictates it would. After a bunch of blow and bluster, the company gets a state tax break, likely reduced corporate taxes (if Trump actually follows through on that promise) and will still relocate 1,300 jobs to Mexico while keeping 800 (not 1,100, as Trump claimed) in Indiana. Not that there’s anything wrong with getting a tax break or being able to ship jobs wherever a company wants; the point is, Trump did not, because he can not, deliver on his brand of protectionist populism.
If Trump, and if government in general were really all that interested in keeping jobs here in the United States, they’d have done something about it ages ago, as the formula isn’t all that complicated: reduce taxes and regulations and watch businesses flourish; increase same and watch them leave. But, government is run by individuals. Individuals have egos. Individuals need to feel important. So, when the individuals that make up government have to decide whether to give themselves more power and influence, or not, they typically always vote themselves more power and influence.
Over the last many decades, that level of power and influence has grown so great that there’s little room or resources left for anything else. Last year, as I reported here a while back, government’s regulatory bureaucracies had more “growth” than did the rest of the entire actual productive economy. Giving individual companies tax breaks while allowing the systemic poison of this massive government to continue choking out the rest of the economy is pointless in the big picture. The only point it serves is to make those companies “indebted” to the gracious individuals in said government that gave them the break. Don’t be stunned if Mike Pence retires from government into a cushy executive gig at Carrier or their parent company, United Technologies Corp.
Trump will not change the overall regulatory and tax burden that strangles our economy. His off-the-cuff and often-wrong pronouncements are all just theater; and the man can’t help himself when it comes to it. His entire diatribe on Tuesday about canceling the new Air Force One program because of its “4-billion-dollar” price tag is another perfect example; all theater, no substance. First, the program is actually budgeted to spend $2.87 billion for fiscal years 2015-2021, according to a piece in Yahoo News. Second, he’s not going to cancel it. He’s just not. Third, $4B is a drop-in-the-bucket when it comes to government waste.
While I foresee no real reason to hope something as inherently flawed as government will ever make itself less awful to those it governs, I remain guardedly hopeful that Trump and the GOP will do something, anything, to the massive bureaucratic boondoggle that is Obummercare, if only out of sheer spite for Obama. Obama’s only presidential legacy may well be his creation of a government program that cannot possibly be made worse by anyone else.
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