Brexit: A Children's Horror Story

It’s hard enough writing about American politics and getting it right. British politics is equally confusing and complex. Living in London, I have access to fine political journalists who are so much more knowledgeable than me. I’d recommend Daniel Finklestein, who writes for The Times and Jonathan Freedland, writing for the Guardian. Both stand out as masters of their trade, with especially good insights on Brexit.

However, many of my American readers have posed the question which can be summarised as “what’s up with Brexit?” Let’s start with an analogy. Say the State of California wants to leave the Union. Rather than engage in a civil war, D.C. enters into negotiations. It takes three years but the President and the Governor of California finally make a joint announcement, “We have an agreement.” However, those Californians who want to leave the Union say the agreement is a capitulation and vote it down. The State must re-negotiate with a totally recalcitrant D.C. Their mess continues.

One more analogy. At soccer games this weekend, if the referee gets decisions against the home side wrong, the crowd will chant, “you don’t know what you’re doing.” This is how many people think of Mrs May and her cabinet. Whilst playing politics to try to keep the Conservative Party united over Brexit, they have lost sight of what best serves the people they represent.

In 1972, British Prime Minister Ted Heath signed the Treaty of Rome giving UK entry into the EEC (European Economic Community). The Conservative Party was split asunder between those who welcomed joining Europe and others who found it abhorrent. Since then, despite almost 50 years of comparative prosperity and no wars on one of the most bellicose continents of the world, the Conservative Party remains as divided as ever on Europe.

If you want an example of ideological politics to the exclusion of common sense, you have only to look at the stance taken by those British MPs who believe and campaign that UK should not to be beholden to Europe or, as one of them says, under their yolk. How these politicians can maintain such a position is beyond me. Maybe Europe is expensive and bureaucratic. Yes, we are subject to European law, not British law, yet when I ask Leavers to provide three pieces of European legislation that adversely affect UK, they cannot do so. Look how we have benefited from Europe, not just in trade but through the many agencies which take care of 500 million people.

The history of our withdrawal from the EU is long, complicated and full of political sleight of hand. Suffice it to say that when David Cameron called the 2016 general election, the right wing of his party, as well as Nigel Farage’s UK Independence Party, pressed him to agree to go ahead with the EU Remain/Leave referendum. Without getting the right wing on-side, the Conservatives could well have collapsed and would have lost the election. The Conservatives won, Cameron secured some changes to EC rules and called the Referendum. Then followed promises by Leave of golden years ahead while Remain used the fear factor. Suffice it to say, both sides lied and lied and lied. By a 52%/48% vote, Leave won. Referenda are not legally binding but the Conservatives have chosen to treat the narrow victory as gospel.

 I’ll pass over the ensuing 30 months where little was achieved in negotiations with EU. Finally, Mrs May achieved “the deal,” a mish-mash of terms covering trade with the EU, a customs deal of sorts and other proposals. The deal was, in effect, an agreement to agree. Now I don’t mind such a deal. It would require more negotiations with EU but during this time, business would operate, trade would continue and kinks would get ironed out by practical men and women.

 However, the customs border between Northern Ireland and Eire is a Gordian knot. Ulster will leave the EU but Eire will remain. The EU will not countenance a “soft border” between EU and UK, including Ulster. This problem was disclosed to the public some nine months ago. EU law and Irish law butt heads and either the EU or Ulster and Eire will have to back down to secure a deal. If the latter, the Good Friday peace agreements will need speedy alteration. It’s a deal breaker.

 For Mrs May’s deal, the politicians cobbled together a “back stop” whose fine print I don’t pretend to understand but which kicks the can down the road. Leave politicians say they won’t agree the back stop because it ties us to EU indefinitely. More ideology.

 At one stage, Mrs May was not going to allow the House of Commons a vote on the deal until it was signed but a businesswoman, Gina Miller, took the executive to court on the issue and won. Subsequently, after delays by Mrs May, the Commons voted down the deal by a huge majority. The next day Mrs May the same MPs who deserted Mrs May backed her on a motion of no confidence in the government. Conservative MPs were twisting and turning like dervishes. Politics may be the art of the possible but this was nearer to watching the making of sausages.

Last week, after another wasted day of debate in the House of Commons when no clear way forward was agreed upon except further negotiations, Mrs May announced her next move. She would return to Brussels (political home of the EU) and renegotiate her deal. She had been told in the clearest terms by EU negotiators, both before and after the Commons debate, her deal was not open to re-negotiation. Mrs May, or should I call her Dona Quixote, failed to hear or just blanked out the noise from the EU. But her deafness is equally apparent to the British people who despair about their uncertain futures. Businesses are removing themselves from UK, medicines are being stockpiled and future food supplies are in question.

British politicians are so scared and desperate to get a deal, they will probably approve Mrs May’s deal if back-stop fudge can be resolved. They should be scared. Their ideology, the selfish desire to score points and achieve meaningless victories, their self-aggrandisement and deafness to the public demands to find solutions, coupled with their inexperience of the real world, has been evident for a long time and could condemn us to crash out of the EU with no deal. Scandalous. What is worse is that none of these politicians, whether in or out of government, are accountable. They might lose their seats in the next general election but they won’t be hauled before a judge for criminal negligence.

You may well ask what I would do. I would seek agreement with EU to extend Article 50 (the mechanism to take UK out of the EU on 29^th March, 2019) for as much as a year and hold a second referendum as soon as possible to discover whether the UK public still want to leave or remain. If their decision is again to leave, we already have a blueprint for a deal except the Irish back stop. Something has to give. There is no negotiable solution acceptable to all.

Most of us on this Sceptered Isle are heartily sick of Brexit and the leaders who handle it, not to mention the Opposition who cannot make up their minds about where to position themselves. If no agreement is reached quickly, businesses will continue to vote with their feet and move to Europe with concomitant loss of jobs, supply of goods will be delayed and all sorts of security protection we enjoy as members of the EU will be lost, making us all the more vulnerable to those who would do this country harm.

Why is it that Mrs May, her cabinet and members of Parliament do not heed the risk? They say we will leave on 29^th March, despite the fact that reams of legislation needed will not be passed by Parliament in time. They say, especially Mrs May, a new deal will be agreed. How? Only by abandoning Ulster. If our membership of EU ends in calamity, all those politicians will also say, in chorus, “It wasn’t my fault.”

Children Behave, Part II

On Sunday, American conservative political commentator, Tomi Lahren, criticized the President by saying, “Trump allowed Pelosi to walk all over him.” Lahren is also a television host who frequently criticizes “liberal” politics. Last week, I mentioned the tweet by right wing journalist Ann Coulter: “Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States.”

The love affair binding Trump to right-wing media and conservative commentators has entered its roughest patch. In a Wall Street Journal interview, Trump hit back at Ann Coulter. “I hear she’s become very hostile,” Trump said. “Maybe I didn’t return her phone call or something.” The President has even attacked reporters from Fox News, his news channel of choice, saying on Twitter that they had displayed “even less understanding of the Wall negotiations than the folks at FAKE NEWS CNN & NBC!”

The swipes make it clear that a divided Congress has put Trump in a dangerous and defensive political position. He depends on positive punditry and other forms of approval. They signal his sensitivity to criticism, particularly from people he has identified as friends. Crucially, his presidency relies in part on the right-wing media for the spin the Oval Office needs as validation. If cornered though, Trump lashes out.

The Republicans have started to eat their own. Probably, the President will face many more adverse comments from people he thought were friends and supporters. Indeed, there is little the Democrats need to say. Whether the politicians will try to find some common ground before 15^th February and another shutdown is a different question.

I have to wonder about the thinking of these right wing Republicans who are lambasting their leader. They didn’t suffer during the shutdown unless they had a delayed flight. They were not amongst the 800,000 federal workers who went without pay. They were not federal pensioners denied funds because workers who process such payments were absent. They were not in receipt of government food stamps because they get their three square meals a day. They are wealthy so they don’t have to borrow to pay bills whilst the government remains shut. Yet their minds do not turn to the people who suffer real hardships when politicians clash heads.

You can tell me I am getting emotional. At heart, I distrust ideological politicians like Trump. Give me pragmatists like FDR and Clinton any time. FDR experimented to take America out of recession. If a policy didn’t work, he scrapped it. His focus was on getting the man of the house back to work. Clinton shut the government down only because he would not let Republicans ride roughshod as they sought to reduce benefits for children and the poorest Americans.

I cannot predict how this Wall battle will end. Some estimates show the shutdown has cost over $6bn to the economy, more than Trump’s budget demand for the Wall. This is what happens when ideology trumps pragmatism. I fear Pelosi. Emboldened by one Trump cave-in triumph, she may want another clean win. I hope the House Speaker, and colleagues on both sides of the aisle, will factor in the problems of federal workers, pensioners and the poor before they shut the government down again.

PS. In Sunday’s blog, I wrongly stated that Dominic Grieve was a knight. Apologies.

 

 

 

Children, Time to Behave

It seems to be fate that the USA and UK are linked closely in many ways. Currently, both are facing political crises of huge proportions. Until Friday, the federal government remained shut down for 35 days. The UK government has crashed itself into a hopeless Brexit position so no matter what it does, it hits a brick wall on negotiations with the EU, not to mention its own supporters.

There is a ‘who rules’ fight in Westminster, not between the political parties but between the executive and the legislative. A week or so ago, Mrs May’s government tabled a motion about House of Commons future business for the week ahead and for Brexit specifically. These kinds of motions can only be proposed by government and cannot be amended, according to parliamentary precedent. But such precedent is not enshrined in law.

Conservative back-bench MP, Sir Dominic Grieve, tabled an amendment for the House to debate, whereby the legislative branch would be able to challenge the power of the executive. The Speaker, John Bercow, had to decide whether the Grieve amendment should be selected for debate. Against strong advice given to the Speaker by his own experts, he decided to have the amendment debated.

There was an almighty explosion from the executive but the Speaker justified his decision on grounds that members of the Commons had the right to be heard. What followed was administration spin, especially saying the Speaker was pro-Labour. This is odd as he is a Conservative Party MP, although, as Speaker, he is expected to be impartial.

When a Speaker retires, he or she is usually offered a seat in the House of Lords as a reward for services given. The administration let it be known that no such offer would be made to Speaker Bercow. How petty, how mean-spirited, how low. What an abuse of power by Mrs. May and her side-kicks in retaliation for what I view was a worthy move by the Speaker to redress the balance between an overwhelmingly powerful executive against a weak legislature. The Brexit battle continues on all fronts.

In USA, the federal government shutdown was partially based on ideology. The President and many Congressional Republicans believe the illegal immigration problems on the southern border will be resolved by the construction of a very expensive Wall, to be funded by the taxpayer. The Democrats disagree. The argument is not new. President Bush (43) authorized building a 700 mile stretch more than a decade ago and the program was supported by then Senator Obama.

A week ago, Trump sought to break the impasse with the Democrats. He proposed a deal to end the shutdown but Democrats rejected it, crucially before he began to speak. The rejection came as no surprise. Trump’s deal offered temporary concessions on the status of threatened Dreamers migrant groups. He retained his demand for funding the border wall. Before the President took the podium, newly installed House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, panned his proposal. “Democrats were hopeful that the president was finally willing to re-open government and proceed with a much-need discussion to protect the border,” she said. “Unfortunately … his proposal is a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total do not represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives. It is unlikely that any one of these provisions alone would pass the House, and taken together, they are a non-starter.”

The Democrats held the shutdown political high ground so why would such an experienced politician like Pelosi spend her political capital so clumsily? It equated to a refusal to negotiate and a demand that the President withdraw his Wall budget proposal. Speaker Pelosi made her Party look as intransigent and unreasonable as the Republicans.

How did Trump react? First, he retaliated with a refusal to allow members of Congress the use of a military jet for their proposed secret trip to Afghanistan to visit troops. Trump likes to present himself as someone who does not back down, although he changes his mind frequently. When the Congress delegation booked commercial flights, information which should have been kept confidential, the Trump administration released information about the trip to a war zone. Had the trip gone ahead, it would have been incredibly dangerous thing to do and Trump must have known this. No surprise: Pelosi cancelled.  

 I believe most Americans would not consider a Congressional trip to visit American soldiers in a war zone as something to be stopped. A trip to a military base in Afghanistan is no boondoggle. Trump justified his position, saying:  “I feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over.” He made the trip sound like an unjustifiable junket.

Relations between Trump and Pelosi, have assumed the character of a schoolyard spat, in the process all but extinguishing any remaining hopes that the partial government shutdown will end anytime soon. Last week, there was an effort in Congress to pass Bills and end the shutdown. They failed.

I think Frank Sinatra expressed it best when he said, “dobedobedoo.” Makes as much sense as anything being said and done by the politicians in Westminster and Washington!

************

I wrote this Blog on Friday. That night, the President waved a white flag, temporarily ending the partial shutdown after 35 days and without securing any funds for his Wall. There will be a continuing resolution until 15^th February, to give the President and Congress time to hammer out a final budget deal.

I see three immediate reasons for Trump’s climb-down. First, Trump likes distraction tactics. The arrest of his longtime adviser, Roger Stone, by Robert Mueller is very bad news for Trump. Stone is mired in the alleged collusion with Russians before the 2016 election. Stone’s arrest will be replaced in the headlines with the temporary ending of the shutdown.

 

Second, political pressure. Bad news for the administration built over the New Year. Suddenly, last week there was a shortage of air traffic controllers, causing significant flight cancellations and delays. Third, to cut his losses, Trump needed to act quickly. He can now go to the House of Representatives to deliver his State of the Union address this week, something Pelosi had denied him, on grounds it was unfit to do so during a shutdown.  

For me, the narrative is that the self-proclaimed dealmaker capitulated, caved, gave in, surrendered and lost. This is the same man who declared “I am proud to shut down the government.” He tried to dodge that perception by loading his speech with the usual graphic and gory claims about of drugs and violent criminals pouring over the US-Mexico border. Where is the evidence?

Trump warned that, without a fair deal from Congress, the shutdown might resume, or he might declare a national emergency to get the funds from elsewhere. I wish Trump and his advisers would read the law. He can only use funds from the existing Homeland Security budget. He cannot override Congress to grab additional funds. Anyway, if Trump declares “a clear and present danger,” I am sure Congressional Democrats would retaliate with injunctions and law suits. They know a busted flush when they see one.

The hard right, who have been urging Trump to fight for the Wall to the bitter end, are furious. Ann Coulter, author of In Trump We Trust, tweeted: “Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States.”

At long last, Trump is getting a taste of the real Washington. He can no longer act like a spoiled child and without restraints. His best hope is the Democrats, led by Pelosi, will overreach in their conduct of the negotiations to settle the budget and cause Americans to sympathize with Trump. Could this happen? Well, the Democrats have often proved they are shortsighted enough.

I believe Trump is a blip on the roster of American presidents, one who will disappear soon enough. Americans are starting to realize they don’t need a Phineas T. Barnum to head their government. Trump should stick to the circuses he loves and leave governing to the grown-ups.

The Real America

People often pose the question: what is the real America? Is it defined geographically by the Rockies of the West, the Great Plains of the Midwest, the big cities of the eastern seaboard, the bayous of the southern states? Is it demarcated by religion or race? What of wealth and poverty? The short answer is all of these and more. America has a complex, vital society with an economy to match. Sadly, the poor and underclass don’t feature much but they too are an integral part of the real America.

These days, I am in denial about USA because of the appalling and infuriating antics of the people in the White House and on The Hill, especially in relation to the shutdown. Some of these politicians seem to have forgotten that they owe their exalted, privileged positions to the people they are there to serve. At the moment, there seems to be a lot of political point scoring as the US government remains shut and the millions of people they serve suffer as federal employees are either furloughed or work without pay.

To counter this, I have reminded myself of the words of Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville: “Americans of all ages, all conditions and all dispositions constantly form associations…If it is proposed to inculcate some truth or foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society.”

De Tocqueville wrote these words in the 1830s. He had been sent to America to research the prison systems but in almost a decade of travel, he observed all American society. Were he to return to America today, I believe he would see that, especially outside the Washington Beltway, his observations still have merit.

De Tocqueville’s views have not been without challenge. In Bowling Alone, published in 2000, Robert Putnam put the case that Americans have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbours and democratic structures. The book warns Americans that their stock of "social capital", the connections with each other, has been slowing down with a resulting impoverishment of lives and communities.

Accepting the principle that government, whether federal, state or city, cannot do everything, so many of my American friends and relations engage in voluntary work. Here are a few examples. Let’s start with my best man who carried out his duties for me some 45 years ago with complete excellence. He and his family moved to the USA a few years later. Time passed and he was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia, a chronic pain condition that affects the trigeminal nerve, which carries sensation from your face to your brain.

My friend joined the Board of the Trigeminal Neuralgia Association, a non-profit organisation founded in 1998. He became chairman in 2000 and stood down in 2013.  Around 2005, the name of the non-profit was changed to The Facial Pain Association in recognition of a broader scope of facial pains. The FPA is recognized as the leading source of information and support for facial pain sufferers with a medical advisory board made up of leading clinicians. My friend served for all that time without remuneration.

He believes there is a strong sense of volunteerism in the US, not just among disease related causes.  According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics, there are more than 1.5 million non-profit organizations in America. People volunteer for the YMCA, Boys clubs, local community activities, and the Salvation Army among the many non-profits. He sees a sense of wanting to give back to society from a sense of personal good fortune.

It’s easy to find support for my friend’s views. A family member and close friend volunteered for nine years under an appointment from the Chief Judge of the Oregon Supreme Court to a Citizens’ Review Board. The function of the CRBs is to conduct reviews of cases of children in out-of-home placements.  For the most part, these children were in foster care, but some were in group homes or treatment facilities. The task is overwhelming for the courts but it is important work and needs well-qualified people to help. It is particularly demanding at the sharp end. I am humbled by what she has done.

My friend volunteered without remuneration even though the work took its toll. She resigned only when family pressures found her needed out of state. In addition, once a week, this person volunteers with her partner to plan, shop, prepare, cook, serve and clean up a dinner to seniors in her home town. This work entails hours of preparation. They also volunteer at nearby Crater Lake, an amazing place and well worth a visit. They assist at the Information Centre. 

My friend’s children are also no slouches when it comes to volunteering. One, together with her husband, both attorneys, do pro bono legal work. They are officers of a high school Alumni Board that raises funds for scholarships for inner-city high school kids. They are cross-country ski coaches for elementary-aged school kids through Parks and Rec.

My friend’s other daughters both do voluntary work, despite their heavy work schedules. One attends meetings once a week at a detox facility where people might be ready to make a change in their lives. Another cooks dinners and/or caters celebrations for friends and co-workers. None are paid for their services.

My friend’s partner is an equally active volunteer. I asked her to tell me in detail about her work. These are some of her words:

“I got started volunteering in library things here [in South Oregon] in 2008 or 09, when I was asked to serve on the Library Advisory Committee (LAC), a powerless committee which made recommendations to the County Commissioners about libraries, invariably ignored. At my first meeting, I confessed to being a retired law librarian, which then got me appointed to the Law Library Advisory Committee (LLAC).

“After a year or so, the LAC needed a new volunteer to be a liaison to the Library Foundation Board. I agreed to take this on. I learned that the "liaison volunteer" served as a full Foundation board member. I'm still there eight years later. In 2013, the County decided it no longer could afford libraries, and we'd have to get a levy or a special taxing district or they'd close the libraries. I joined a campaign committee and in 2014 we passed a ballot measure creating a library special district to take over operation of the libraries from the county. I also ran and was elected to the volunteer governing board. I'm in my second year as chair of that august body.

“We oversee 15 branches of various sizes that are scattered all over the county. It takes me an hour and a half to drive from the Prospect branch to the furthest branch to the west. These libraries serve our county with a population of about 220,000. We have taxing authority for up to $.60/$1000 of assessed valuation on county real estate. We currently levy $.52 because the county had earlier closed the libraries and then reopened them to be operated by a third party contractor at half the previous hours. The Library District has spent a lot of time fighting with the contractor for being a cheapskate. We've given notice and in July 2020 we will take over full operation of the libraries. I spend a ton of time on this one.”

Those of us who use libraries know how important they are, not merely for borrowing books but as an Information Centre for local people. The work being done by this individual is so valuable yet she is happy to do it without remuneration.

My wife is fortunate in having a huge family of cousins. Pretty well all of them including many of the youngest generation engage in all kinds of volunteering. In Florida, I know a person who is keen to volunteer in a cat rescue programme once she is well enough to do so. And so it goes on. We have friends all over USA, all of whom consider it an honour to volunteer. I am always amazed how people will give their time and expertise to help others who may be less fortunate.

My limited research cannot justify a conclusion that in general, Americans are ready, willing, able and happy to volunteer for all kinds of things in the community. But what I would suggest is that here is where you find the real America. Not D.C., not Wall Street, not Hollywood. It gives me faith that once the current crop of avaricious politicians are either kicked out or mend their ways, a kinder, more caring and pleasant America will emerge, the one I knew when I first started to cross the Atlantic in the 1960s.

 

 

Chickens Home to Roost

        

Donald Trump now has an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. He has presided over the longest federal government shutdown in history. What started as a dubious policy to keep Mexican illegals from USA moved into a political issue of principle and developed into open warfare when the House of Representatives refused to find the dollars for more construction. The Democrats are adamant they will not fund Trump’s Wall. Trump won’t give way. The Senate Republicans could break the log jam by passing a “clean bill” which would approve all the budget items except the Wall.

The Democrats, the Republicans and the President are into face saving. The Democrats don’t seem to want to come up with something which Trump and his Senate colleagues can accept. Trump is adamant he will not budge. McConnell is sitting on his hands. I have already made other suggestions of how to break the log jam. No need to repeat them. Currently public opinion is not on Trump’s side. The Huffington Post has a 50% plus poll which blames Trump and the Republicans. More significantly, only 25% of voters care. This number will rise when services slop down or stop.

The shutdown is also a distraction for what is coming down the Trump pipe. Over the next few weeks, Trump will have to find time for a number of issues, all of them with a crisis potential. Let’s start with Syria. When will the Trump administration actually decide on its position? In December, Trump announced an immediate total withdrawal of troops, causing senior people including Defence Secretary Mattis, to resign. The U turn last week found NSC adviser, John Bolton, walking back Trump’s announcement. Evidently, there would be no troop withdrawals until certain conditions were met. This was followed almost immediately by a Pentagon statement that troop withdrawal had begun. 

Maybe Americans don’t care about the yo-yo White House strategy but America’s allies will have little or no faith and reliance on the Trump administration if this is how they behave. Trump’s political capital with America’s allies must be almost spent.

The new House has already bared its teeth. In their first week as a majority, House Democrats introduced legislation requiring background checks on all gun sales. The new laws have little chance of surviving in the Senate but background checks are popular. Polling shows a 90% support. Some Republican Senators up for election next year may well support the legislation. The gun lobby will likely ensure that sufficient numbers of Senators block the laws on grounds of ‘a slippery slope’ leading to more stringent gun laws. But the Democrats will be victorious in the court of public opinion.

In the same week, the House Democrats forced the House Republicans to vote on a bill allowing the House to intervene in a lawsuit relating to the Affordable Care Act. ACA, known as Obamacare, was declared unconstitutional in a federal court, broadly because of the requirement for citizens to pay a fine if they had no health insurance cover. All but three House Republicans voted against the bill. The Democrats got exactly what they wanted. The prejudice the Republicans will experience is extreme. Obamacare is popular. There will be more health-related votes to hammer home the Democrat’s position that Republicans want a healthcare system only for the wealthy.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney, will testify in public before the House Oversight Committee on February 7^th. Cohen has already implicated Trump in paying off women who alleged affairs with the President. I suspect this will be compelling to viewers. In 1975, John Dean, Nixon’s attorney, testified to the Senate Watergate Committee. He broke all kinds of records for daytime viewing. Cohen is a man scorned without hope of a pardon. He is also keen to clear his name. Soon, television’s talking heads will be speaking of little else. The Trump spin machine will be at full force to damage Cohen. It will be the stuff of soap opera.

Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, was summoned to the Hill for a closed-door, classified session with the House Oversight Committee, who wanted to know why the sanctions on business with Russia were lifted for three Russian companies. Democrats at the meeting leaked their annoyance at the lack of information provided by Mnuchin. This one will run. Trump can expect that every transaction by his administration that has a whiff of wrongdoing will be investigated. If Mnuchin, ex Goldman Sachs, has been involved in something wrong at Trump’s behest – and I have no evidence he has - he will be sure to keep himself out of jail by talking.

If all the above is not enough for the President, the Mueller Report won’t remain pending for much longer. If the Report contains dynamite, the resulting explosion might lead to the end of the current presidency. Trump conducts his presidency as if it were a reality TV show. A painful but speedy termination of the Presidency for the many who cannot stand Trump might seem appropriate. For me, a Congressional censure is the best option. Impeachment is not a realistic option while Senate Republicans remain loyal but censure would be a killer blow to this vain man who believes he can do no wrong. I am definitely watching the D.C. space.

There are probably another cart-load of issues that are awaiting the President’s attention but the above is surely sufficient to keep him occupied but not off the golf course. He will have a busy winter.

 

Shutdown

Pared back to its simplest level, the requirements for action by western government are two-fold. Collect money; distribute money. I posed this view to a former senior civil servant. “What about policy?” he asked, horrified by my analysis. My reply: “Sure but once a policy is formulated, don’t you ask, ‘what will it cost and where will we get the money from?’”

Approval of the American federal government budget is extraordinarily complex. Negotiations start early in the year. Both Congress and the Executive battle over what will be spent by each department of state. More times than not, the budget, often 7,000 pages or more, is approved by the two branches in time for Christmas. Sometimes it isn’t.

Ronald Reagan’s administration went through four shutdowns. Most people don’t remember any of them. The one shutdown that people do remember happened in 1995/6, though I doubt whether 10% of Americans remember what caused it. A weakened Clinton administration refused to let Congressional Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich, reduce the education, health and welfare budgets affecting America’s poor. However, I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of Americans remember Monica Lewinsky, a news story of a different kind.

President Trump has shut the federal government down because he cannot persuade Democrats to fund his Wall. His budget passed the lame duck House of Representatives but failed in the Senate, at a time when Republicans had majorities in both Houses. Why did the Senate not pass the budget? The sixty Senate votes needed to defeat a Democratic filibuster were just not there. As a result, there is now a partial shutdown of the federal government.

I’m fascinated by the use of the word “partial.” In previous shutdowns, I have not heard this term used. In theory, when the federal government shuts down, all federal employees have to stop working because Congress has not authorised the expenditure to pay them. Put simply, money is unavailable to pay wages.

But there is flexibility and money in the federal system. Essential work continues. The Secret Service will continue to operate. An exercise takes place within government which could be described as ‘fruit from the lower branches.’ The first federal employees to suffer are those working in the national parks.

Whilst I feel sorry for tourists whose vacation plans may be wrecked, many national parks close at this time of year. Glacier, Yellowstone and others parks in the North West, northern Midwest and North East are not open to the public. Maintenance work will not get done but, in the scope of things, would there be damage? Sure there will. For example, the Grand Canyon has a maintenance backlog of $330 for maintenance projects and restoration of historic buildings. The work is on hold. Human waste and litter aren’t cleared. It’s an environmental nightmare.

If a federal government department is short of the cash, it can borrow from other departments and their pension funds. There is always money available as Peter is robbed to pay Paul. Of course, if the shutdown lasts for months, rather than days, the position changes. At the two-week mark of this shutdown, the President told Congressional leaders he was prepared for the standoff to last months or even years. Trump confirmed this during a Rose Garden press conference: “Absolutely I said that,” he said, when asked if Democratic Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, was correct in his claim that the White House was prepared to continue the shutdown indefinitely.

This is not the place to look at the humanity issues in the current operation of US immigration policy. It’s too complex and distasteful, not to mention inhumane. However, the politics have horrified me. For example, last weekend, the President stated he had the authority to override Congress on grounds of “clear and present danger.” This is absolute nonsense. In December, Senator Pat Leahy told The Washington Post, “Over the past two years, Congress has provided $1.7 billion for southern border fencing. So far only 6% of the funds have been spent.” Where can there be imminent danger if little government action is taking place? But late tonight, an appearance has been scheduled for the President to speak to the nation. My guess is he will invoke clear and present danger, by-passing Congress. If so, I’m certain the Courts will get involved. It will be a mess.

Democrats in the new House of Representatives have passed Bills to deal with budget issues in order to re-open the government but they denied Trump’s demand for $5bn to pay for the Wall. Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell says he will only take up “spending legislation approved by the President.” In other words, no $5bn from the Democrats, no end to shut down.

Some years ago, I went to Dodge City. It’s beginning to look like Congress and the Executive Branch have moved there. Trump tweets ad nauseam that the Democrats are to blame for the shut down because they are refusing to see how much danger arises from weak policing of the southern border.

From where I sit, it looks like a President having a tantrum because the Congressional Democrats will not bend a knee. But could he have a case? He campaigned hard on “Build the Wall” and was voted in, partly as a result. Has Congress the right to thwart the will of the people? Actually, yes it does. As for Trump’s claim that the Mexicans will pay, well we all say things in the heat of the moment and I doubt anyone believed it.

In the meantime, already more than 800,000 federal employees are without salary. There will be delays on processing tax refunds to the middle classes, cuts to food stamps, landlords will demand rent and mortgagees their monthly repayments. The courts will have to close, public services will be delivered slowly or not at all. And there is no assurance that the federal government will make up the employees’ losses. No wonder a union for federal employees has begun a law suit, alleging the partial shutdown is illegal because it has either forced people out of work or to work without pay.

The shutdown may not be entirely the fault of the Republicans or Trump. When Reagan did not get what he wanted in a budget negotiation, he was patient and came back later to try again. Were the Democrats to offer a deal that delivered part of the $5bn but with strings about its expenditure, such as a time limit in which the funds are spent, as well as better terms for DACA and the Dreamers, would Trump turn the deal down and extend the shutdown? Unlikely. He could spin the deal into a win. Surely, Democratic legislators who spend their lives negotiating can find their way through to reach agreement.

I am reminded that we in UK are watching our politicians struggle to negotiate their way out of a cul-de-sac, i.e. Brexit. Maybe I shouldn’t be so critical. Maybe governing is a lot harder than it seems. No, it isn’t.

 

*DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) is an American immigration policy that allows some individuals who were brought to the United States illegally as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and become eligible for a work permit in the U.S.

 

 

Sound Bites

I thought I’d start the year with a personal, political bete noir: Sound Bites. A sound bite is used by a politician to sum up policy or strategy in ten words or less. Sound bites are not new. Teddy Roosevelt used them in the late 19^th century. Sound bites are one of the pillars of political dumbing down. Make the people believe politics is simple. Then watch them vote for you.

But western society is complex. Politics and the variables of any given situation make it complicated. Professionals like lawyers, accountants, doctors, architects and chemists have to go through several years of training before they are allowed to inflict themselves on the public. But there are “professions” which require no training. On this side of the pond, how much training is needed by law for an MP or local authority counsellor? None. Help is at hand but only after an individual is elected. I am unaware of any formal training requirement in America for a budding politician.

A UK sound bite came from Prime Minister Theresa May in the run up to the 2016 general election. “Strong and stable government” was the promise heard loud and often from her and her colleagues. What did we get? A hung parliament that made her government weak and wobbly! Another phrase, “Brexit means Brexit” is laughable but oft repeated. It’s meaningless. But this column is not the place to deal at length with Brexit.

Mr Trump loves slogan sound bites. “Make America Great Again” can’t be right. The great country is Great Britain, not Great America. When since the end of the Second World War was America not great? You could argue that by the end of the Carter administration, there was a feel bad factor in America but since then America has been strong, although on occasion wrong. Now, that’s a sound bite!

How about “Build The Wall.” There seems to be no political will either in Congress or among a majority of voters to support the Trump proposal building programme. The total expenditure would be phenomenal. In the current budget, Trump asked for a mere $5billion for the Wall but the overall cost has been estimated in the hundreds of billions.

The refusal by the Senate to approve the expenditure has led to a US government shut-down which shows no sign of ending. It’s like the Wild West. Who will blink first? But what purpose would the Wall serve? Trump says it will keep rapists and murderers in Mexico. How fatuous and insulting. I can see a deal but it would require by-passing the President. Congress could approve the $5bn spend in exchange for security for the Dreamers, people born in America to illegal immigrant parents. If this happened, would Trump have the guts, not to say stupidity, to use his veto to keep the government shut?

The sound bite, “Clear the Swamp,” infuriates me but Trump does not use it much these days. Instead, the Trump administration has quietly failed to fill thousands of civil service places left vacant after the end of the Obama administration. Many senior civil servants resigned, as they are obliged to do when power passes. Their jobs are Senate confirmable and become vacant automatically at the end of an administration.

Trump’s transition was a total disaster. Little planning and slow decision making was patent. Michael Lewis’s new book, “The Fifth Risk” gives examples of inappropriate appointments where dubious qualifications do not fit the job requirement. One example is Trump appointing former Texas governor Rick Perry to head the Department of Energy. His blurb on the DOE website states:

“Secretary Perry is a veteran of the United States Air Force, a former farmer and rancher, and the longest-serving governor In Texas history, having led the world’s 12th-largest economy from 2000 to 2015. He has devoted his adult life to creating prosperity and opportunity for families.”

That’s it. The DOE looks after America’s energy requirements. Its personnel supervise oil, gas and electricity supply but the department has other important responsibilities. It is responsible for dealing with America’s nuclear programme including clearing up nuclear waste. There is a town in Washington State, Hanford, which had tunnels with a nuclear waste half-life of four billion years or more for its waste. The funding to maintain nuclear waste depots has been cut by Trump. What disasters may follow such short-sightedness?

Obama’s Secretary of the DOE was Ernie Monitz, a highly respected nuclear scientist. He ensured numerous anti-spill nuclear programmes were in place. What sort of a job will Perry do? He didn’t even appear at his DOE office until two months after the election. He is a career politician who gives every impression of being a member of The Swamp.

Trump appointed Sonny Perdue as head of the US Department of Agriculture. He has no agricultural experience. He was a member of the Georgia State Assembly, elected three times to the State senate. He was Governor of Georgia for eight years, leading reforms to cut government waste. In 2007, Georgia suffered its worst drought for decades. The Perdue solution was to lead large groups in prayer, saying: "We’ve come together here simply for one reason and one reason only: To very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm" and "God, we need you; we need rain".

Weather forecasting comes within the remit of USDA. Perdue is cutting funds for the projects operated by NOAA. He believes Americans should pay for their weather forecasting by using the private sector. He does not see they already pay through their taxes.

Compare this appointment with that of Tom Vilsack, Obama’s USDA secretary of state, who was also a professional politician. In his early career, he was involved in the local Chamber of Commerce and United Way. He was elected to the Iowa Senate in 1992. He worked on legislation requiring companies who received state tax incentives to provide better pay and benefits. He helped pass a law for workers to receive health coverage when changing jobs, and helped re-design Iowa's Workforce Development Department. He also wrote a bill to have the State of Iowa assume a 50% share of local county mental health costs. Iowa is a state which relies on agriculture. He took time to learn about the state’s reliance on agriculture, which proved helpful when he moved to D.C. 

The USDA does a lot more than ‘give farmers money to grow stuff.’ Pre-Trump, the Department had seven section: National Resources and Environment; Farm and Foreign Agricultural Service; Food Safety; Rural Development; Food Nutrition Service; Marketing and Regulatory Programmes; Research, Education and Economics. USDA is a big department of state, now run by a politician with no agricultural experience. I do not know if the structure of USDA remains. If so, I doubt there are sufficient civil servants to staff them.

I ask, who are the occupiers of the Swamp? Is it the career civil servants who make America’s government work? Or is it lobbyists who cajole legislators to pass laws beneficial to their private sector clients. Surely, they are the major Swampers. Trump has done nothing to limit lobbyists’ powers.

Another group of major Swampers are those in the high echelons of Wall Street whose wings have not been clipped and who continue to make unlimited campaign contributions and donations to members of Congress. Trump screams about the unfairness of government but surely Wall Street skewers the democratic process more than anything else. Trump attacks the civil servants who do great work but leaves his wealthy Wall Street friends alone. How does all this equate to “Clear the Swamp?”

When I look at the current British and American governments, I despair. In UK, members of the House of Commons are voicing personal prejudices rather than uniting and seeing the nation through its Brexit crisis. The May government is paralysed, failing to focus on the really important government issues: health, education and welfare in an era of declining tax revenues.

In the past months, North Korea is still no safer a place. America has effectively given the Middle East to Putin and granted China widespread trading advantages, despite the ludicrous tariff policy. Instead it has turned on its allies and NATO, leaving the distinct impression of a boat that has cast off its lines without a skipper or crew. Here the skipper is Trump; the crew is the missing civil servants.

There is nothing as worrying as a man who believes himself to be the cleverest of all while running a country with infinite stupidity. If you think this is a rant, may I direct you to yesterday’s Washington Post where former Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, excoriated Trump for many failures including the lack of character to lead a divided nation.

I am sorely tempted to apply for Australian or New Zealand citizenship. I’d get a game of cricket, have BBQs most nights and the roads are uncluttered. Sadly, I just woke up! But it was a nice dream.

 

Happy New Year, people!