My Response to the Speaker
OFFICE OF THE SPEAKER
H-232 The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Mr. Speaker:
Thank you for your letter of January 7, 2018, which I just found when checking my spam folder. Perhaps I should have left it there because it does not resemble any communication from me from the past year. I am posting this response and your letter on my Facebook notes and Blogger pages for the Center for Fiscal Equity, as they are both public documents and therefore not entitled to the usual secrecy of correspondence.
My latest communication would have been transmitted from my Member, Mr. Delaney of Maryland, regarding H.R. 1, the Tax and Job Cuts Act (not a typo). In it I warned the Conference Committee that it would be ill-advised to make such extreme cuts to the Capital sector’s tax burden will surely produce an asset bubble on the order of the Clinton and Bush capital gains and dividend cuts, which resulted in the tech boom and bust and the oil futures and housing bubbles and the 2008 Great Recession. Any tax incentives to CEOs will result in continued efforts to keep salary growth to the level of inflation rather than the level corresponding to productivity growth, which would be at least three times the amounts recently announced in what is likely an orchestrated campaign. If you have not seen the analysis, you may read it at http://fiscalequity.blogspot.com/2017/12/house-senate-conference-committee-for.html
Any Keynesian or Welfare Economist who passed Econ 102 (Macro) can testify to the inadequacy of these raises. Only a follower of the Austrian School led by Hayek and endorsed by Ayn Rand would believe that employers can operate outside the free market in making salary arrangements due to their wealth and connections. That they are able to do so is not feature of the free market, it is a bug that makes Capitalism a flawed system in need of public intervention, especially in regard to preventing abortion and helping employers pay a family wage (as dictated, not as an option but a requirement, of Pope Pius XI’s Casti Connubii, para 118-122).
Prior to last year I responded to the Tax Reform Blue Print. My posted respose, which provides what would be considered standard welfare ecoomics, can be read at http://fiscalequity.blogspot.com/2016/06/response-to-tax-reform-blueprint.html While it was written hurredly on a Friday at the end of the day, the concepts are accurate, even if the grammar is clumsy in places. Regardless, this does not appear to be what you are responding to.
The last candidate is a copy of correspondence to the White House regarding the President’s legal troubles, which we both know are profound. You cannot laugh this off or ignore it. It is the Duty of the Speaker of the House to examine this issue seriously and without partisanship, because not doing so may result in your being Minority Leader at best and a full-time Wisconsin resident at worst.
Once one becomes Speaker, becoming a member of the K Street Crew is not considered seemly. As one of the youngest Speakers in history, being unserious in this matter does not play well. Playing along with White House attempts to quash the investigation in the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees is the height of frivolity. This matter must be approached with the utmost public gravity or you will look idiotic. Your Trump problem won’t be solved by smiling for the cameras or changing the subject when an American citizen shares his concerns about the President’s conduct.
Oddly enough, I offered you and the President a solution, which would have worked before evidence of money laundering began to come out. The election irregularities with Russia could have been dealt with by an FEC fine. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act problems regarding projects in Russia could have been dealt with by an SEC fine (especially as projects were not completed). The clumsy attempts to obstruct justice (had they stopped) could have been addressed with Censure. You can see my original comments at http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2017/06/my-letter-to-white-house.html
Unless the President can provide plausible denyabilty on money laundering for Russian olilgarchs, which any asset manager with a link to local tax records could easily prove (just have a staff member try it), the fact that such favors are linked to attempts to make sanctions over Ukraine go away make impeachment plausible, as Steve Bannon readily admitted in the last book on the Trump White House.
This will not end well for the President. How you respond may well determine whether your Speakership survives November, regardless of any Tea Party/Alt-Right primary challenges to members of your caucus. Ignoring likely crimes and abuse of power to placate such fools shows how insane our politics has become. You are in a unique position to stop it. Please do so now.
Your correspondents need an impeachment letter, as they will have plenty of opportunity to use it. When I was on the Hill, no response would ever have been that tone deaf. Now it is almost the norm for congressional responses to regurgitate a position paper without at least once repeating gist of the writer’s point.
Now that we have dealt with what I wrote, let us deal with the response, which for some reason is dedicated to national security. The remarks that the President limited defense spending to amounts in the budget caps were true. These caps, however, are a matter of law and passed pursuant to a deal that you agreed to and which helped keep the government open and was demanded by fiscal conservatives in your House. They were an essential part of making the Bush tax cuts for 98% of households permanent. Even then, budget authority did not begin to decline until after the Republican counter-revolution of 2010. A Democratic Congress would have both taxed and spent more.
The remarks about Syria are spin. President Obama did not push the Arab Spring. That can be laid at the feet of a Google Vice President. Finding friends in Syria that were against the regime but not ISIL proved difficult, although the comrades from Rojawa seem to have come through and supporting them is a pre-existing policy, not a Trump initiative. Indeed, Trump would ruin it if he knew. He is not only a crook but an incompetent. Repeating his talking points is unseemly, especially regarding the deal with Iran, which extends to the world, not just the United States. If anything, Trump’s bluster about Iran is another reason for impeachment. Thankfully, the permanent government, which follows laws rather the whims of fascists, will keep us out of harms way. That is not the work of a ”Deep State” but instead is a national surival instinct when Presidents like Nixon and Trump go off the rails.
All paragraphs regarding President Obama should probably be excised as they refer to the last seven years, indicating that they were written (badly) during his term and never removed from your corresponse system. Not only did you use the wrong letter, but it is also horribly outdated!
On the subject of procuring systems, they can only be built after they have gone through the development cycle and the pipeline has little coming out, given the design failures in both the Advanced Tactical Fighter and the Joint Strike Fighter. Perhaps something less ambitious, which would still have superiority, should be put into the pipeline. Much of it, however, should be redirected toward space exploration, including a strong orbital pressence with a tourist component. Aerospace workers will thank you. Our international challenges are more in the realm of special operations and simple law enforcement than in strategic systems. If you are libertarian on taxes, you must lean that way on defense as well. At least Trump thinks that way, despite the fact that he is otherwise illiterate of foreign and military policy.
The listing of web sites would be helpful had I written about defense. As it is, I can find my way to Ways and Means and Finance, and when I do I can read the comments for the record that I have submitted for as far back as 2011 for almost every hearing, likely longer than the site extends. As for Judiciary, the Republican membership is unserious and need to be replaced, at least the junior members, with people who will take the needs of America seriously regarding Mr. Trump.
As for your six goals:
National Security:
Impeach the current POTUS, who behaves like a Russian agent.
Tax Reform:
Revisit using consumption taxes to remove most families from the income tax rolls while providing for a much larger child tax credit through a subtract VAT to be paid with wages. Program income surtax reciepts for overseas military deployments and debt reduction, starting with the Social Security Trust Fund, which is coming do.
Reducing Regulatory Burdens:
Provide small businesses with dedicated regulatory ombudsmen, but end the childish assault on all Obama era rules. It smacks of racism to attack every act of our first black President.
Health Care Reform:
Get ready for single-payer, because ending the mandates (which were devised by the conservative Heritage Foundation as an alternative to HillaryCare) will crash private insurance as assuredly as ignoring the funding of plan adjustments. Single-payer will at least be partially enacted by the bankruptcy coursts in much the same way as Fiat bought Chrysler and GMAC was liquidated. The need to do this will be laid at your feet.
Poverty:
Enact a $15 minimum wage plus paid literacy and vocational programs at the same rate.
Restoring Constitutional Authority:
Take an Administrative Law Class or read an Annotated U.S. Constitution. The current regime is constitutional. If more congressional control over regulation is desired, systemetize the authorization process and include review of all major regulations enacted since the last authorization or that are in the review process. Establish the authority to amend these regulations by law but without giving such amendments additional statutory authority. In other words, make Congress a super-regulatory agency.
Despite the outdated information and the ignoring of the possible issues I originally contacted you about, thank you for your letter of January 7. Please take these comments to heart. Both your carreer and our nation depend upon it and best of luck revamping your correspondence system.
Sincerely,
Michael G. Bindner
Principal, Center for Fiscal Equity
Former Cost Analyst, US Air Force
Former Ombudsman, Washington Dc
Former Legislative Intern, Roger W. Jepsen (R-IA)
H-232 The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Mr. Speaker:
Thank you for your letter of January 7, 2018, which I just found when checking my spam folder. Perhaps I should have left it there because it does not resemble any communication from me from the past year. I am posting this response and your letter on my Facebook notes and Blogger pages for the Center for Fiscal Equity, as they are both public documents and therefore not entitled to the usual secrecy of correspondence.
My latest communication would have been transmitted from my Member, Mr. Delaney of Maryland, regarding H.R. 1, the Tax and Job Cuts Act (not a typo). In it I warned the Conference Committee that it would be ill-advised to make such extreme cuts to the Capital sector’s tax burden will surely produce an asset bubble on the order of the Clinton and Bush capital gains and dividend cuts, which resulted in the tech boom and bust and the oil futures and housing bubbles and the 2008 Great Recession. Any tax incentives to CEOs will result in continued efforts to keep salary growth to the level of inflation rather than the level corresponding to productivity growth, which would be at least three times the amounts recently announced in what is likely an orchestrated campaign. If you have not seen the analysis, you may read it at http://fiscalequity.blogspot.com/2017/12/house-senate-conference-committee-for.html
Any Keynesian or Welfare Economist who passed Econ 102 (Macro) can testify to the inadequacy of these raises. Only a follower of the Austrian School led by Hayek and endorsed by Ayn Rand would believe that employers can operate outside the free market in making salary arrangements due to their wealth and connections. That they are able to do so is not feature of the free market, it is a bug that makes Capitalism a flawed system in need of public intervention, especially in regard to preventing abortion and helping employers pay a family wage (as dictated, not as an option but a requirement, of Pope Pius XI’s Casti Connubii, para 118-122).
Prior to last year I responded to the Tax Reform Blue Print. My posted respose, which provides what would be considered standard welfare ecoomics, can be read at http://fiscalequity.blogspot.com/2016/06/response-to-tax-reform-blueprint.html While it was written hurredly on a Friday at the end of the day, the concepts are accurate, even if the grammar is clumsy in places. Regardless, this does not appear to be what you are responding to.
The last candidate is a copy of correspondence to the White House regarding the President’s legal troubles, which we both know are profound. You cannot laugh this off or ignore it. It is the Duty of the Speaker of the House to examine this issue seriously and without partisanship, because not doing so may result in your being Minority Leader at best and a full-time Wisconsin resident at worst.
Once one becomes Speaker, becoming a member of the K Street Crew is not considered seemly. As one of the youngest Speakers in history, being unserious in this matter does not play well. Playing along with White House attempts to quash the investigation in the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees is the height of frivolity. This matter must be approached with the utmost public gravity or you will look idiotic. Your Trump problem won’t be solved by smiling for the cameras or changing the subject when an American citizen shares his concerns about the President’s conduct.
Oddly enough, I offered you and the President a solution, which would have worked before evidence of money laundering began to come out. The election irregularities with Russia could have been dealt with by an FEC fine. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act problems regarding projects in Russia could have been dealt with by an SEC fine (especially as projects were not completed). The clumsy attempts to obstruct justice (had they stopped) could have been addressed with Censure. You can see my original comments at http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2017/06/my-letter-to-white-house.html
Unless the President can provide plausible denyabilty on money laundering for Russian olilgarchs, which any asset manager with a link to local tax records could easily prove (just have a staff member try it), the fact that such favors are linked to attempts to make sanctions over Ukraine go away make impeachment plausible, as Steve Bannon readily admitted in the last book on the Trump White House.
This will not end well for the President. How you respond may well determine whether your Speakership survives November, regardless of any Tea Party/Alt-Right primary challenges to members of your caucus. Ignoring likely crimes and abuse of power to placate such fools shows how insane our politics has become. You are in a unique position to stop it. Please do so now.
Your correspondents need an impeachment letter, as they will have plenty of opportunity to use it. When I was on the Hill, no response would ever have been that tone deaf. Now it is almost the norm for congressional responses to regurgitate a position paper without at least once repeating gist of the writer’s point.
Now that we have dealt with what I wrote, let us deal with the response, which for some reason is dedicated to national security. The remarks that the President limited defense spending to amounts in the budget caps were true. These caps, however, are a matter of law and passed pursuant to a deal that you agreed to and which helped keep the government open and was demanded by fiscal conservatives in your House. They were an essential part of making the Bush tax cuts for 98% of households permanent. Even then, budget authority did not begin to decline until after the Republican counter-revolution of 2010. A Democratic Congress would have both taxed and spent more.
The remarks about Syria are spin. President Obama did not push the Arab Spring. That can be laid at the feet of a Google Vice President. Finding friends in Syria that were against the regime but not ISIL proved difficult, although the comrades from Rojawa seem to have come through and supporting them is a pre-existing policy, not a Trump initiative. Indeed, Trump would ruin it if he knew. He is not only a crook but an incompetent. Repeating his talking points is unseemly, especially regarding the deal with Iran, which extends to the world, not just the United States. If anything, Trump’s bluster about Iran is another reason for impeachment. Thankfully, the permanent government, which follows laws rather the whims of fascists, will keep us out of harms way. That is not the work of a ”Deep State” but instead is a national surival instinct when Presidents like Nixon and Trump go off the rails.
All paragraphs regarding President Obama should probably be excised as they refer to the last seven years, indicating that they were written (badly) during his term and never removed from your corresponse system. Not only did you use the wrong letter, but it is also horribly outdated!
On the subject of procuring systems, they can only be built after they have gone through the development cycle and the pipeline has little coming out, given the design failures in both the Advanced Tactical Fighter and the Joint Strike Fighter. Perhaps something less ambitious, which would still have superiority, should be put into the pipeline. Much of it, however, should be redirected toward space exploration, including a strong orbital pressence with a tourist component. Aerospace workers will thank you. Our international challenges are more in the realm of special operations and simple law enforcement than in strategic systems. If you are libertarian on taxes, you must lean that way on defense as well. At least Trump thinks that way, despite the fact that he is otherwise illiterate of foreign and military policy.
The listing of web sites would be helpful had I written about defense. As it is, I can find my way to Ways and Means and Finance, and when I do I can read the comments for the record that I have submitted for as far back as 2011 for almost every hearing, likely longer than the site extends. As for Judiciary, the Republican membership is unserious and need to be replaced, at least the junior members, with people who will take the needs of America seriously regarding Mr. Trump.
As for your six goals:
National Security:
Impeach the current POTUS, who behaves like a Russian agent.
Tax Reform:
Revisit using consumption taxes to remove most families from the income tax rolls while providing for a much larger child tax credit through a subtract VAT to be paid with wages. Program income surtax reciepts for overseas military deployments and debt reduction, starting with the Social Security Trust Fund, which is coming do.
Reducing Regulatory Burdens:
Provide small businesses with dedicated regulatory ombudsmen, but end the childish assault on all Obama era rules. It smacks of racism to attack every act of our first black President.
Health Care Reform:
Get ready for single-payer, because ending the mandates (which were devised by the conservative Heritage Foundation as an alternative to HillaryCare) will crash private insurance as assuredly as ignoring the funding of plan adjustments. Single-payer will at least be partially enacted by the bankruptcy coursts in much the same way as Fiat bought Chrysler and GMAC was liquidated. The need to do this will be laid at your feet.
Poverty:
Enact a $15 minimum wage plus paid literacy and vocational programs at the same rate.
Restoring Constitutional Authority:
Take an Administrative Law Class or read an Annotated U.S. Constitution. The current regime is constitutional. If more congressional control over regulation is desired, systemetize the authorization process and include review of all major regulations enacted since the last authorization or that are in the review process. Establish the authority to amend these regulations by law but without giving such amendments additional statutory authority. In other words, make Congress a super-regulatory agency.
Despite the outdated information and the ignoring of the possible issues I originally contacted you about, thank you for your letter of January 7. Please take these comments to heart. Both your carreer and our nation depend upon it and best of luck revamping your correspondence system.
Sincerely,
Michael G. Bindner
Principal, Center for Fiscal Equity
Former Cost Analyst, US Air Force
Former Ombudsman, Washington Dc
Former Legislative Intern, Roger W. Jepsen (R-IA)
posted by Michael Bindner at 8:29 AM
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