If he’s remembered for nothing else, Donald Trump will go down in history as the first president to think out his policies in public, 140 characters at a time. That may not be a bad thing. In fact, I think we should strongly consider a constitutional amendment limiting Congress to 140 characters per law. Hold that thought …

“Our country needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September to fix mess!” the Donald suggested in a tweet on May 2, in a fit of pique over the US Senate’s 60-vote cloture requirement. That requirement forced Republicans to negotiate with Democrats over a stopgap spending bill, in turn requiring Trump to give up on some of his policy goals for the short term to avoid the dreaded “shutdown.”

The president’s reasons for rattling the “shutdown” saber are wrong  — the harder it is for Congress to spend money, the better! — but his instincts are right. “Shutdowns” are much-needed opportunities for Americans to look more closely at, and hopefully re-think, the federal government’s true role.

As you may have noticed, the word “shutdown” comes with scare quotes both in Trump’s tweet and in this column. That’s because the federal government never really shuts down.

When a spending impasse in Congress brings about a “shutdown,” what happens is that “non-essential” government services cease operation and “non-essential” government employees go home home on unpaid leave (unfortunately, the impasse usually ends with them getting paid for the time off).

Let that sink in for a moment.

“Essential,” per Webster’s, means “[i]mportant in the highest degree; indispensable to the attainment of an object; indispensably necessary.”

If the services shutting down aren’t indispensably necessary, why is the federal government providing them the first place? If the employees who get sent home aren’t indispensable to the attainment of the federal government’s object(s), why are they warming office chairs in Washington?

If these things aren’t essential, why are taxes withheld from your paycheck every week to pay for them whether you want them or not?

If Trump stands firm in September and forces a “shutdown,” pay attention to what stopped happening and what didn’t. Did you really need the things that stopped to start again? And as for the things that kept on happening, did you really need them either?

You’ll likely be surprised to discover how irrelevant Washington, DC is to your life and disgusted at how much you’re paying in taxes for how little you get that you actually need.

Trump often tells us that he’s not a politician. Maybe that’s true. Politicians fear and loathe government “shutdowns” — not because of the momentary delays in their grand schemes, but because there’s always a possibility that you will suddenly realize how little you need them.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) 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  HISTORY

• “Trump is Right: ‘Shutdowns’ Are Good For America,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 05/03/17
• “Trump is right, ‘shutdowns’ are good for America,” by Thomas L. Knapp, University of New Mexico Daily Lobo [web and print editions], 05/07-08/17
• “Trump is right: ‘Shutdowns’ are good for America,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Newberry, South Carolina Observer, 05/17/17

More than half a century ago, Congress passed the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.  Since mid-April, US president Donald Trump has twice invoked one of the law’s nearly forgotten provisions, ordering Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross to investigate the possibility that steel and aluminum imports “threaten to impair the national security.”

If Ross says they do and Trump agrees, the law empowers him to “take such action, and for such time, as he deems necessary to adjust the imports of such article and its derivatives so that such imports will not so threaten to impair the national security.”

Keep in mind that when a president orders “investigations” of this sort it’s not for the purpose of arriving at the truth of the matter, but rather for the purpose of getting the answers he wants to hear so that he can claim justification for doing the things he wants to do.

 

For that reason, I can confidently predict that in the near future we’ll see restrictions on the importation of aluminum and steel, in the name of, but not actually for the purpose of, enhancing “national security.” In fact, those restrictions will have exactly the opposite effect.

Trade is one of the best guarantors of peace. Economist Otto T. Mallery perhaps overstated it a bit in saying that when goods don’t cross borders, armies will. But it should at least be obvious that when goods DO cross borders, armies are less likely to cross those same borders. Merchants and customers who are happy with each other don’t look for fights with each other.

If “national security” is just an excuse, what is the real reason? Why does Trump want to ban — or at least drastically reduce — steel and aluminum imports?

If you have to ask why, the answer is usually “money.” In this case, it’s “money and votes.”

Trump’s narrow victory in last year’s presidential election came down to a few tens of thousands of votes from Rust Belt workers who believed he would “bring the jobs back.” He wants to keep his promise — or, at least, he wants to keep their votes for his party in 2018 and himself in 2020. He also wants the financial and political support of American companies benefiting from captive steel and aluminum markets.

But of course there’s a catch. If American companies don’t have to compete with foreign steel and aluminum producers, they can raise prices. Let’s play a little game invented by 19th century French economist Frederic Bastiat. It’s called “That Which is Seen, and that Which is Not Seen.”

Seen: More workers, with more jobs, making more money in the steel and aluminum industries.

Not seen: The things you won’t be able to buy because you’re paying more for products made of steel and aluminum.

Donald Trump is buying the votes and support of American steel and aluminum (and timber — he just slapped a tariff on the Canadian lumber that constitutes 1/3 of the American market) workers and employers. And he’s buying those things with your money.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) 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  HISTORY

• “‘National Security’: The Last Refuge of Vote-Buying Politicians,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 04/29/17
• “‘National Security’: The Last Refuge of Vote-Buying Politicians,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 04/30/17
• “‘National Security’: The Last Refuge of Vote-Buying Politicians,” by Thomas L. Knapp,  Antiwar.com, 05/01/17
• “‘National Security’: The last refuge of vote-buying politicians,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Kinston, North Carolina Free Press, 05/22/17
• “‘National Security’: The last refuge of vote-buying politicians,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pahrump Valley, Nevada Times, 05/03/17
• “‘National Security’: The Last Refuge of Vote-Buying Politicians,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Key West: The Newspaper [Florida], 05/05/17

On April 26, the Trump administration released a one-page summary of its tax reform proposals. The following morning, US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin appeared on CBS This Morning to discuss those proposals. Co-anchor Norah O’Donnell didn’t waste any time ham-handedly injecting  the mainstream media’s dishonest narrative-shaping language into the conversation.

“As you mentioned this would be historic tax cuts [sic],” her first question began. “Estimated to cost the American taxpayer $7 trillion over a decade. So when will you tell us how you will pay for it?”

Unfortunately Mnuchin played along: “In regards to the pay for [sic], I don’t know how people can estimate the cost since we don’t haven’t released all the details, but this is going to be paid for by economic growth and by a reduction of many, many deductions in special interest.”

O’Donnell tried to put two ginormous lies over on her viewers. And Mnuchin let her get away with it.

Tax cuts don’t “cost the American taxpayer” anything. Quite the opposite, in fact. Taxation takes money from taxpayers and gives that money to politicians. Tax cuts leave some of that money in the taxpayers’ pockets.

Tax cuts don’t “cost the government” anything either. The money the politicians aren’t taking as taxes wasn’t theirs in the first place. They didn’t create the wealth it represents, the taxpayers did. Not taking it isn’t a “cost,” any more than me not shoplifting a pair of shoes “costs” me footwear or constitutes “payment” by me to the shoe store.

Nor do tax cuts need to be “paid for.” Yes, the government will have less to spend if it takes less from those who earn it.  Spending cuts aren’t “payment” for tax cuts. They’re not “payment” for anything. In fact, they are the exact opposite of “payment.” They are, by definition, NON-“payment.”

If O’Donnell had phrased the question truthfully, it would have gone something like this:

“With these tax cuts, the government will take $7 trillion less from American taxpayers than it would have taken if the current rules were kept. What are you guys not going to buy that you would have bought if you had taken that $7 trillion?”

O’Donnell’s torture of the English language — and of the truth — implies that that $7 trillion just naturally belongs to the government rather than to the people it was to be taken from — that not taking it somehow constitutes a “cost”  both to those people and to the politicians who want the money. That’s the opposite of the truth.

Taxing is taking, not giving. Spending costs and not spending doesn’t. If there’s a good argument for either, that argument will be based on those facts, not on parlor tricks like O’Donnell’s sleight of word.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) 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  HISTORY

• “Torturing the Truth: The Tax Cut Debate vs. the English Language,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 04/27/17
• “El recorte de impuestos y la tortura de la verdad,” by Thomas L. Knapp, La Tribuna Hispana USA, 05/02/17
• “Torturing the truth: The tax cut debate vs. the English language,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Fayette, West Virginia Tribune, 05/04/17
• “Tax cut debate vs. plain English,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pasco/Pinellas [Florida] Suncoast News, 05/08/17
• “Torturing the truth: The tax cut debate vs. the English language,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pahrump Valley, Nevada Times, 05/10/17
• “Torturing the truth: The tax cut debate vs. the English language,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Montgomery, West Virginia Herald, 05/17/17