“During the 2024 presidential election,”  Maurie Backman wrote at Moneywise in March, “farming-dependent counties overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. Almost 78% endorsed his most recent presidential run …”

Even two months into Trump’s second presidency, farmers had cause to regret their decision.

His closure of USAID knocked out billions of dollars in farm product sales, as well as loans and grants.

Then came the “Liberation Day” tariffs — taxing American buyers of foreign goods, in response to which many other countries’ governments imposed “retaliatory” tariffs on their citizens’ purchase of American foods or simply cut off those purchases … especially China, and especially soybeans, which I’ll come back to.

By mid-May, farmers were plowing under crops in some areas because Trump’s immigration crackdown meant many of the migrant laborers farmers depend on to harvest those crops had either been abducted/deported, or else refused to work in locations where they most feared abduction/deportation.

Trump’s solution? He wants to use tariff revenue to cut billions of dollars in welfare checks to the farmers he’s putting out of business. So all of us non-farmers are paying outrageous taxes, folded into outrageous prices, so that the farmers can get paid for NOT selling us food at non-outrageous prices.

Trump should have a ghost-writer ghost-write a sequel to his old ghost-written book focusing on his trade policies. Proposed title: “The Art of the No Good, Very Bad, Crack-Addled Raw Deal.”

It gets worse. Now the Trump administration has decided to bail out Argentina’s Javier Milei to the tune of $20 billion in “liquidity support” for his country’s volatile currency.

Argentine farmers grow lots of soybeans. Argentine farmers also export lots of soybeans.

Chinese customers buy lots of soybeans. They used to buy lots of soybeans grown by US farmers. Now they buy soybeans grown by Argentine farmers instead.

Oh, did I mention that one reason Milei needs a bailout is that he recently lowered the export tax on (and therefore his government’s revenues from) Argentine soybeans?

So now you and I get to pay MORE taxes and HIGHER prices so that American farmers get a bailout, Javier Milei gets a bailout, and Argentine farmers can sell more soybeans to Chinese customers at LOWER prices and pay LOWER taxes.

Insult, meet injury.

As Barack Obama used to say, “elections have consequences.”

All of the above are consequences of electing a senile narcissist who previously took six businesses, including casinos — which are  pretty much licenses to print money — into bankruptcy.

One major problem with democracy as a political principle is that when a plurality of voters makes a stupid decision, everyone else ends up paying the price. And Trump is certainly earning his place as a poster boy for that particular problem.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Nearly two weeks into the latest production of Shutdown Theater — a theatrical performance in which the US government doesn’t actually “shut down,” but some “non-essential” functions do — we’re still seeing the usual Blame The Other Party rhetoric from Republicans and Democrats alike.

My opinion has always been that the better strategy, for either party, is to claim ownership of, rather than bemoan, these shutdowns.

Instead of the same tiresome “those mean ol’ Republicans/Democrats won’t play nice” sympathy pleas, go with positional strength: “Darn right we shut some things down — we’re in control here and those things will come back after, and ONLY after, the Democrats/Republicans give us what we demand.”

In this case, the guy I’d expect to take that latter line,  the guy who would benefit most from doing so, is US president Donald Trump. Two reasons why:

First, there’s zero doubt whose shutdown this is.

The Republicans control the White House.

The Republicans control the US House of Representatives.

The Republicans control the Senate, and as recently as last month, they’ve shown they’re willing to use the “nuclear option” to get things done by majority, instead of super-majority, vote.

The US government is (partially and cosmetically) shut down because the Republicans want it that way. The shutdown will end when the Republicans want it to end. It’s theirs. They own it.

They (especially Trump) would look a lot better leaning into that ownership than they sound with their 24/7 whining about the Democrats.

Second, Trump is actually doing some good things with the shutdown — things that accentuate the “ownership” angle if he’d just claim that angle.

First, the White House is questioning whether furloughed government employees are entitled to “back pay” when the shutdown ends and they return to their offices.

That seems to be a legal question, but in the private sector, it’s not a question at all. If a factory shuts down and lays off its workers, those workers don’t get paid then or later, because they’re um, NOT WORKING. They can file for unemployment benefits, or they can just wait the shutdown out while living on their savings, or they can go find other jobs, but they don’t get retroactive paid vacations for the layoff period. Why should government employees be treated any differently?

Second, the Trump administration has begun “Reduction In Force” cuts to the government employee population.

Not temporary “shutdown” layoffs with guaranteed recall, but rather “going forward, this agency can get by with a staff of 400, not 500 … best wishes for your future in the private sector!” More than 4,000 government employees have already received RIF notices.

That’s some good stuff — and where political optics are concerned, bragging about it makes more sense than trying to shift blame for it.

I’d rather the US government shut down for real, and for good — but if Trump can use this partial, temporary shutdown to trim some fat and nix the “back pay” scam, that’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“Rather than letting gabillionaires like Elon Musk put practically none of their massive incomes into” Social Security, Jim Hightower writes at CounterPunch, “make them pay Social Security taxes exactly like regular workers do.”

As is always nearly the case when discussing Social Security, there’s quite a bit to unpack, but let’s start by congratulating Hightower on the fulfillment of his wish, long before he even expressed it:

Elon Musk DOES pay Social Security exactly like regular workers do.

Regular workers pay 12.4% — half directly and half theoretically from their employers, but thereby reducing the money available for wages —  in Social Security tax on every dollar of income they earn up to $176,000.

Elon Musk (and other “gabillionaires”)  also pay 12.4% in Social Security tax on every dollar of income they earn up to $176,000.

$176,000 isn’t the only Social Security “cap.” There’s also a maximum benefit amount. Elon Musk (and other “gabillionaires”), just like regular workers, can potentially receive a maximum monthly payout of $5,108  if they wait until the age of 70 to retire.

Hightower doesn’t really want to treat Elon Musk just like a regular worker. He wants Musk to pay more, without receiving a  commensurate increase in return, so as to subsidize the retirements of those regular workers.

He wants, in the common parlance, to “redistribute wealth,” in the form of retirement income.

Social Security already does that, but in a different direction: It forces black men to subsidize the retirements of white women.

The average life expectancy of a black man in America is 68 years, which means that the black man who doesn’t retire early receives a whopping one year of Social Security checks before shuffling off this mortal coil. Kind of a raw deal, huh?

The average life expectancy of a white woman in America is 81.1 years, which means that even the white woman who works to the maximum retirement age of 70 receives more than 11 years of those payments. Sweet deal, huh?

To add insult to injury, the labor participation rate of white women is lower than that of black men — in part because our culture still encourages “one-income households” after marriage with the man as “breadwinner” — so white women work fewer years before retirement, but enjoy more years after retirement, at the financial expense of black men.

If Hightower merely suggested reversing the flow of wealth redistribution — from bottom-up to top-down — I’d still call shenanigans, but he instead characterizes the Social Security Ponzi scheme as “an egalitarian effort to provide a decent retirement for all,” which it isn’t now and never has been.

The best thing to do with Social Security, if “decent retirements” is the goal — and, more importantly, if individual freedom and choice are the criteria — is eliminate it.

“Regular workers” and their households earn an average annual return on their involuntary Social Security “investment” of 1.23%. Actually investing that 12.4% of income in an S&P 500 indexed mutual fund produces an average annual return of 10%.

Instead of taxing the “gabillionaires” more, tax everyone at 0% and let the market make them prosperous.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY