“the sanctions failed in one crucial way. The fact that Moscow was blindsided by them suggests it grossly underestimated the severity of the penalties it would face. Although the U.S. and its allies had developed an extensive menu of possible sanctions before the invasion, they never reached consensus on how far they were willing to go. They left Putin to divine the meaning of “the most severe sanctions that have ever been imposed,” and Putin—as he so often did—read Western ambiguity as weakness.
If Biden and other world leaders had committed ahead of time to the actions they would eventually take, they might have had a much better chance of staving off Putin’s invasion. Deterrence can’t work if your adversary underestimates your ability or willingness to act. Putin never saw the sanctions coming—and that was precisely the problem.”
“Maintaining current productivity rates would bring a continuation of the 2 percent economic growth rates that have prevailed over the past 25 years. As explained in the next section, pushing sustained economic growth rates up to 3 percent—which is a much greater jump than it may seem—would require nearly doubling long-term productivity growth rates. Nevertheless, such bold assumptions have long been a staple of GOP budgets. Major Republican tax cuts in 1981, 2001, and 2017 were each accompanied by assurances of colossal economic booms that would bring enough tax revenue to pay for the policies.”
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“In reality, these politician promises of aggressively accelerated economic growth are a lazy, longstanding gimmick meant to avoid the hard choices of restraining deficits and paying for their expensive proposals. They are based on little more than politicians’ wishful thinking and over-exuberant faith in the brilliance of their own policy agendas.
No magical economic growth lever exists in Congress or the White House. Economists can analyze which economic systems produce long-term prosperity, including whether or not certain policies are generally pro-growth. However, short- and medium-term economic growth rarely behaves according to forecasting models.”
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“There is little economic basis to expect permanent, sustained 3 percent growth rates to result from extending the 2017 tax cuts, repealing taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits, providing some regulatory relief, and imposing steep tariffs. Sure, policymakers should aspire to such growth, yet basing the federal budget on that assumption is reckless.”
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“Perhaps my economic analysis is too pessimistic. For the sake of argument, let’s imagine a world where Trump’s economic policies or an AI revolution nearly double productivity growth rates and thus produce sustained 3 percent economic growth despite the labor force headwinds. Would such growth provide enough budget savings to finance the Trump agenda and prevent deficits from escalating?
Unfortunately, the answer is still no. Calculations from the OMB show that permanently elevating annual economic growth rates from 2 percent to 3 percent would produce annual new tax revenues of $100 billion to $200 billion during Trump’s current presidential term, swelling to roughly $700 billion a decade from now. However, while revenues would grow quickly over time, so would the offsetting budgetary costs. Long-term Social Security expenses would climb because benefits are based on wage growth that also rises with faster economic growth (which is why improved economic growth would not significantly improve Social Security finances). Medicare and broader healthcare consumption also typically grow with rising incomes. Most importantly, faster economic growth tends to increase the demand for capital, which in turn raises interest rates. A corresponding 1 percent jump in interest rates would produce enough new national debt interest costs to consume the vast majority of first-decade growth revenues.”
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“Economic growth can solve a lot of problems, but entitlement-and-interest-driven budget deficits leaping towards $4 trillion within the decade is not one of them.”
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“even strong growth revenues would finance only a small fraction of the Trump/GOP policy agenda and none of the underlying baseline deficits that are growing so quickly.”
“”Refusing to follow a court order crosses a very clear, very dangerous line…If Trump refuses to follow court orders, especially from the Supreme Court, we will have tipped from chaos into dire crisis.””
“Affirmative consent refers to the idea that “no means no” doesn’t cut it; when it comes to sex—or even kissing—all actions must be explicitly and affirmatively agreed upon.
There’s nothing wrong with affirmative consent as an ideal, though some may argue it’s the antithesis of erotic. But affirmative consent as a legal standard is unworkable and dangerous. And as a feminist standard, I think it leaves a lot to be desired too.”
“Unlike every other department and agency within the federal government, the CFPB is not funded via congressional appropriations. Instead, its funding flows directly from the Federal Reserve. Each year, the White House submits a budget to the Federal Reserve, and the central bank hands over the necessary amount—$729.4 million last year, in case you were wondering.
For a long time after the CFPB was created in 2010, there were serious questions about the constitutionality of that structure. That finally got resolved last year, when the Supreme Court ruled that Congress was within its powers to hand off the purse strings. So, funding the CFPB via the Federal Reserve is not unconstitutional—it’s just unorthodox and foolish.
Here’s where the hubris enters the story. When Warren and Obama created the CFPB, they designed that unorthodox funding structure specifically to prevent a future Republican-led Congress from trying to defund the bureau. Remember, this was in the age when Republicans were running around the country telling voters they intended to repeal Obamacare too. By isolating the CFPB from Congress’ budgetary powers, Warren was trying to make it invulnerable to attack.
Instead, she simply gave it a fatal flaw.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration submitted its CFPB funding request to the Federal Reserve. It asked for…$0.
“Pursuant to the Consumer Financial Protection Act, I have notified the Federal Reserve that CFPB will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not ‘reasonably necessary’ to carry out its duties,” wrote Russ Vought, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), wrote on X on Saturday night. “The Bureau’s current balance of $711.6 million is in fact excessive in the current fiscal environment. This spigot, long contributing to CFPB’s unaccountability, is now being turned off.”
That appears to be the end of the CFPB, at least until a Democrat returns to the White House. Trump will need an act of Congress if he seriously wants to abolish the Department of Education, for example, and even minor spending cuts being made across the executive branch will eventually need congressional or legal consent to be permanent. But there should be no serious questions about whether the president can unilaterally defund the CFBP. Congress has no role to play in that fight.”