Spats Syndrome ~ B O smash grab

maybe redumbdent but<div>
</div><div>broadly observed that since trump has no guiding principle or ideology, he just knee-jerk reverses anything BO was for (this maybe a variant of McConnell we will make BO a one term prez even if he works for stuff we want.</div><div>
</div><div>parallel to smash and grab window of opportunity idea: we don't much like trump or agree with him, but his win plus control of 1 or 2 houses gives as a short time to push thru a decades old wishlist of stuff that we either wanted for ideological reasons (red meat for base evangelicals) or stuff that corps will pay us to do eg rollback regs.</div><div>
</div><div>spats: variant of above, the oldest most absurd thing you thot long dead comes back zombie-like like BULB bill:</div><div>
</div><div>Spats Syndrome</div><div>
</div><div>aha 1119 expansion: gop know trump will implode (or beaten or even term out?) so jamming thru decades old wishlist with Koch backing; jams thru rereg, esp environ, while McConn stalls all progressive bills, guns, protect elections...</div><div>
</div><div>ceo // seagull consultant, // gogo 80's M&O extract value short term then flee.</div><div>
</div><div>// apocalyptic end times? sounds wacky but Watts? dominionist cabinet?!</div><div>
</div><div>more realistically, could be matt effect death spiral: gop/tp/djt think gov't evil or at least inept and wasteful, so dereg, undermine good governance, campaign finance law, norms/inst, experts, plant swamp things to neuter capture agencies, then fail, then claim as evidence that gov't bad.  THEN USE FAIL/CRISIS TO JAM THRU SELF-ISH STEALTH AGENDA;  minor variant of 2 santas.</div><div>
</div><div>----<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/about-75-of-trumps-proposed-coronavirus-capital-gains-tax-cut-would-go-to-the-top-1-of-earners/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/about-75-of-trumps-proposed-coronavirus-capital-gains-tax-cut-would-go-to-the-top-1-of-earners/</a>
salon igorRoughly three-quarters of the benefits from the capital gains tax cut floated by President Donald Trump as part of the administration’s <a href="https://www.salon.com/topic/coronavirus" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">coronavirus</a> relief plan would go to the top 1% of earners, according to the <a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/distribution-individual-income-tax-long-term-capital-gains-and-qualified-44" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Tax Policy Center</a>.Trump has <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1257741326650470400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1257741326650470400%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2020%2F05%2F05%2Fbusiness%2Feconomy%2Ftrump-tax-cuts-coronavirus-stimu" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">repeatedly</a> <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-doubles-down-capital-gains-202242904.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">floated</a> a cut to <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/07/16/3-of-the-most-outrageous-ways-the-richest-1-percent-avoids-paying-taxes_partner/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">capital gains taxes</a>, which are taxes paid by investors on profits made when an asset, like stock or real estate, is sold. The capital gains tax rate is already <a href="https://news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-report/insight-the-mythematics-of-capital-gains-taxation-4-misconceptions" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">35% lower</a> than the top income tax rate, and only about 6% of households in the bottom 80% of earners claim any capital gains, meaning the overwhelming majority of benefits would flow to the wealthy.White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett argued over Memorial Day weekend that the administration opposed <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/23/study-projects-homelessness-will-rise-45-in-just-one-year-due-to-coronavirus-unemployment/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">extending enhanced unemployment benefits</a> despite a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/business/unemployment-stock-market-coronavirus.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">quarter of the labor force losing their jobs</a> since the pandemic hit the United States. Hassett <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/05/24/wh_economic_adviser_coronavirus_bailout_requests_from_cities_and_states_are_kind_of_absurd.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">told CNN </a>the administration would “consider” another round of $1,200 direct payments to Americans but is more focused on stimulating the economy through tax cuts.“Right now, it looks like the economy’s picking up at a very rapid rate, in which case we could potentially move on to other things that the president has mentioned, like the payroll tax cut and potentially even a capital gains holiday,” he said.the idea of a capital gains tax holiday was met with skepticism by economists.“Capital gains tax cuts are poorly targeted benefits,” writes the nonpartisan <a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/capital-gains-cuts-wont-cure-covid-19-economy" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Tax Policy Center</a>, which noted that 75% of tax filers who reported capital gains last year were in the top 1% of earners.“About 6 percent of households in the bottom 80 percent reported any capital gains income at all, compared with 83 percent of those in the top 0.1 percent,” said Tax Policy Center co-founder Leonard Burman, who previously served at the Treasury Department and the Congressional Budget Office. “That elite group (incomes over $3.8 million) accounted for more than half of all long-term capital gains, reporting an average gain of $5.5 million.”The analysis suggests the tax cut would do little to ease the pain of the economic shock caused by coronavirus-related lockdowns to the vast majority of Americans. But Burman notes that it would also “do little to boost the economy since rich people spend only a fraction of any additional income” and because “capital gains income may be hard to come by in the next few years given asset price declines.”In other words, even the benefits to the wealthy would not fully kick in until well after the economic crisis has eased.The cut would also do little to boost the stock market, which has been the president’s primary concern. Less than a third of corporate stock is subject to capital gains taxes, according to a <a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/us-corporate-income-double-taxed" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Tax Policy Center</a> report, and even stock in taxable accounts is often untaxed because many assets are held until death or donated to charity. And new investors would defer the taxes for as long as they want since they don’t kick in until the investment is sold.The economic conditions do not warrant such a tax cut, argued Karl Smith, the vice president for federal policy at the business-friendly Tax Foundation.“There is no [investor] shortage to be eliminated. Even modern <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/02/19/fiscal-fraud-why-supply-side-economics-refuses-to-die/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">supply-side</a> models of the economy suggest that a capital gains tax cut would have a tiny effect on long-term GDP,” he wrote at <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-07/capital-gains-tax-cut-has-no-place-in-coronavirus-relief-package" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Bloomberg</a>, joking that “Republicans’ preferred solution to any problem, whether a recession or an alien invasion, is to cut the capital gains tax.”Steve Wamhoff, the director of federal tax policy at the liberal-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), argued that “proponents of capital gains tax breaks have always offered a weak argument that they encourage investment” but Trump’s proposal is more dubious given that it is only a temporary cut.A temporary cut “is supported by no argument at all,” <a href="https://itep.org/trump-administration-stops-pretending-to-care-about-the-economy-with-its-capital-gains-tax-proposal/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Wamhoff said</a>, since “it would only reward investments made in the past while doing nothing to encourage new investment.”In other words, a capital gains tax holiday would allow investors to sell off decades of past investments without paying any tax while doing nothing to boost new investment.House Speaker <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/13/nancy-pelosi-said-the-next-pandemic-relief-bill-would-go-big-surprise-it-didnt/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Nancy Pelosi</a>, D-Calif., slammed the administration’s proposal for ignoring the needs of average Americans.“If you want to compare the need for us to change the capital gains tax, which, once again, once again, ignores the fact that there are people in our country that are hungry, and that there is some equivalence to that, I respectfully disagree,” she told <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-07/pelosi-dismisses-trump-call-to-cut-payroll-capital-gains-taxes" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Bloomberg</a>. “There are certain things that are urgent.”The capital gains tax holiday is just one of several tax cuts the administration is considering as part of its coronavirus relief effort. While House Democrats <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/13/house-democrats-propose-a-new-3-trillion-stimulus-package/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">proposed a $3 trillion bill</a> that would provide aid to states and local governments, extend unemployment benefits, and issue a new round of $1,200 payments, Senate Republicans have said the proposal is <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/497433-mcconnell-senate-gop-declare-house-3t-coronavirus-bill-dead-on-arrival" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“dead on arrival”</a> as they focus on more pro-corporate policies, like <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/04/28/mcconnell-wants-corporate-immunity-from-covid-19-suits-no-consequences-for-negligence-that-kills_partner/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">protecting companies from liability from coronavirus-related lawsuits</a>.The Trump administration is pushing to include a payroll tax cut, which Trump <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/06/seniors-sour-on-trumps-plan-to-cut-social-security-in-exchange-for-covid-19-relief_partner/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">has called for repeatedly in lieu of direct payments to no avail for months</a>, in the upcoming legislation.Like the capital gains tax cut, a payroll tax cut would overwhelmingly benefit the richest Americans while doing little to boost the economy in the short-term.A <a href="https://itep.org/checks-to-all-vs-trumps-payroll-tax-cut/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">study by ITEP</a> estimated that two-thirds of the benefits from the tax cut would go to the richest 20% of taxpayers. The payroll tax cut would also do nothing to help the 40-plus million Americans who have lost their jobs.By comparison, the poorest 20% of Americans would receive just 2% of the benefits and the next poorest 20% of Americans would receive just 6% of the benefits.“A payroll tax cut would help those lucky enough to keep their job and would provide a bigger break to those with more earnings,” the ITEP analysis said. “Sending checks to every household would be a far more effective economic stimulus because it would immediately put money in the hands of everyone who would likely spend it right away, pumping it back into the economy.”The payroll tax is also used to fund Social Security and Medicare, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/06/seniors-sour-on-trumps-plan-to-cut-social-security-in-exchange-for-covid-19-relief_partner/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">which would inevitably see cuts if the revenues are slashed</a>.“Make no mistake: by pushing to cut off the program’s funding stream, President Trump is taking the first step toward dismantling Social Security,” <a href="https://www.ncpssm.org/documents/news-releases/eliminating-payroll-tax-is-trumps-first-move-toward-dismantling-social-security/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">warned Max Richtman</a>, the head of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. “The president’s campaign to eliminate payroll taxes is a violation of his patently false promises to seniors ‘not to touch’ Social Security… Choking off Social Security’s funding stream is an existential threat to seniors’ earned benefits.”<a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/03/15/trumps-new-economic-adviser-larry-kudlow-doesnt-actually-have-a-clue-about-economics_partner/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Larry Kudlow</a>, the director of the White House National Economic Council, also floated lowering the corporate tax rate for companies that “onshore” their supply chains <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/15/white-house-floats-large-corporate-tax-cut-firms-that-bring-jobs-back-overseas/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">from 21% to “about 10.5%”</a>Economists <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/01/28/economist-paul-krugman-arguing-with-zombies-politics-interview/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">rejected</a> the idea that such a corporate tax cut would help amid the pandemic.The proposal is “like trying to graft supply-side Reaganism onto conservative populism,” Samuel Hammond, a policy expert at the conservative Niskanen Center, told <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/15/white-house-floats-large-corporate-tax-cut-firms-that-bring-jobs-back-overseas/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The Washington Post</a>. “A lower corporate tax rate probably won’t suffice to build an entirely new factory within U.S. borders.”“It’s ridiculous. Companies moving their supply chains back from China is not the crisis to address when 30 million people are unemployed,” added Adam Ozimek, the chief economist at the freelancing marketplace Upwork. “This is a distraction at best and could be destructive at worst.”House Democrats likewise rejected the plan.“The current health crisis produced by multiple Administration failures, said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Tex., who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, “hardly justifies another windfall for those at the top.”The proposed tax cuts drew eye rolls from experts, who criticized Republicans for pushing tax cuts as a universal panacea.“At this point it’s almost a pathology. Whatever the crisis, whatever the state of the economy, Republicans crave another tax cut for the rich,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/whatever-the-crisis-republicans-want-another-tax-cut-for-the-rich/2020/05/25/96d0c6ac-9eb8-11ea-81bb-c2f70f01034b_story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">wrote Washington Post economic columnist Catherine Rampell</a>. “One possible explanation is self-interest: Some important Republican constituents live off their wealth rather than the sweat of their brows.”<div style=""></div><div style="">aha this is beyond corp personhood?! // long sought class action /tort reform?</div><div style=""><div style="">
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</div><div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/mcconnell-vows-to-block-extension-of-boosted-unemployment-benefits-while-pushing-for-corporate-legal-immunity">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/mcconnell-vows-to-block-extension-of-boosted-unemployment-benefits-while-pushing-for-corporate-legal-immunity</a></div><div style="">
</div><div style="">McConnell <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/20/mcconnell-unemployment-benefits-271661" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">vowed</a> in a private call with House Republicans Wednesday that the enhanced unemployment benefits keeping millions of people afloat amid Great Depression-level joblessness will not be extended in the next coronavirus stimulus legislation, effectively endorsing a major income cut for a large swath of the U.S. population.The boosted unemployment insurance—which provides an additional $600 per week on top of state benefits and is set to expire on July 31—”will not be in the next bill,” the Kentucky Republican <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/20/mcconnell-unemployment-benefits-271661" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">reportedly told</a> his GOP colleagues, calling the fact that some people are making slightly more money on unemployment than they did from their jobs “crazy.”Progressives have said <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/28/maybe-pay-people-more-says-aoc-data-shows-half-us-workers-could-make-more" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">this is a reason to raise wages</a>, not roll back benefits.Ernie Tedeschi, a former Treasury Department economist, <a href="https://twitter.com/ernietedeschi/status/1262862927306133505" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">estimated</a> that if enhanced unemployment benefits are not extended, “unemployed workers will effectively get a pay cut of 50-75% overnight."in a series of tweets Wednesday evening, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) pointed to a Brookings Institution <a href="https://www.hamiltonproject.org/blog/incomes_have_crashed_how_much_has_unemployment_insurance_helped" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">analysis</a> showing that boosted unemployment benefits offset around half of all lost wages and salaries in April. House Democrats passed legislation last week that would extend the boosted unemployment benefits through January of next year.“Removing that support while eliminating access to food, shelter, and healthcare would inflict untold suffering and could cause widespread civic unrest,” Beyer warned. “Cutting back federal assistance at the height of the crisis would mean self-inflicted disaster, devastation, and additional deaths. That must not happen.”...//<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/small-business-owners-tell-mitch-mcconnell-stop-using-our-plight-to-push-for-covid-19-corporate-immunity/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/small-business-owners-tell-mitch-mcconnell-stop-using-our-plight-to-push-for-covid-19-corporate-immunity/</a></div><div style="">=</div></div>=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/the-trump-administrations-monstrous-idea-direct-payments-in-exchange-for-cuts-to-social-security-benefits">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/the-trump-administrations-monstrous-idea-direct-payments-in-exchange-for-cuts-to-social-security-benefits</a><div style=""></div><div style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/banks-and-the-trump-administration-see-opening-to-bring-back-wall-street-casino-in-coronavirus-crisis/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/banks-and-the-trump-administration-see-opening-to-bring-back-wall-street-casino-in-coronavirus-crisis/</a></div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><div>no lnx</div><div>
</div><div>Banks and the Trump administration see opening to bring back Wall Street casino in coronavirus crisis</div><div>
</div><div>Written by Joan McCarter / Daily Kos April 12, 2020</div><div>
</div><div>The banksters are gonna bankster. Right now, they are gleefully rubbing their hands together as if they were washing coronavirus away, but in anticipation of the rollback of regulations they’ve been under since the last big economic crisis. You remember it—the one that they created a dozen years ago that nearly brought the global economic system down. Since then, they’ve been chafing under the modest rules imposed by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law. But those rules are being eased under the current economic and public health crisis, and if the banksters have their way, there will be no going back.</div><div>
</div><div>The Federal Reserve and other regulators are loosening the rules on how much capital banks have to hold to be able to absorb losses; are allowing smaller banks to take on a higher debt load; and the Trump administration has delayed rules that would make them prepare against potential losses and set up systems to minimize risks. Trump’s cronies are doing their best to figure out how to weaken all these rules and turn Wall Street into a casino again. They see this as an opportunity, but the top Democrats in charge of banking oversight vow to fight.</div><div>
</div><div>“While our federal regulators, agencies and financial institutions must take action to protect consumers and our economy, I must emphasize that it is unacceptable to use this crisis as an excuse to justify rollbacks of important financial regulations that are in place to protect our financial system and economy,” Rep. Maxine Waters, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, warned last month. “Wall Street will take advantage of anything to chip away at commonsense financial protections,” Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, told Politico. “Right now, as we deal with the economic fallout of coronavirus, we need the financial watchdogs to keep a close eye on the financial system. We need to be doing everything we can to protect hardworking Americans, not helping Wall Street and big banks skirt regulations.”</div><div>
</div><div>Banks do need to have flexibility to make loans and keep businesses and individuals afloat. But they also need to not play roulette with the global economy, and Wall Street certainly has done nothing in the past 12-plus years to indicate it was going to watchdog itself.</div></div><div style="">
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</div><div style=""></div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/rewarding-vulture-capitalists-trump-white-house-accused-of-smash-and-grab-economics-for-weighing-tax-cut-for-rich-investors-as-workers-struggle/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/rewarding-vulture-capitalists-trump-white-house-accused-of-smash-and-grab-economics-for-weighing-tax-cut-for-rich-investors-as-workers-struggle/</a>no lnx
‘Rewarding vulture capitalists’: White House accused of ‘smash-and-grab economics’ for weighing tax cut for rich investors as workers strugglePresident Donald J. Trump participates in a roundtable on the economy and tax reform Monday, April 15, 2019, at Nuss Truck & Equipment in Burnsville, Minn. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams April 6, 2020As desperate workers, the unemployed, and small businesses struggle to obtain benefits authorized under the multi-trillion-dollar coronavirus stimulus package President Donald Trump signed into law late last month, the White House is reportedly considering an additional slate of aid measures that critics say would disproportionately favor the wealthy while providing little relief for those most in need.
The Washington Post, citing two anonymous officials familiar with White House discussions, reported late Sunday that the Trump administration is weighing “a payroll-tax cut, a capital-gains tax cut, creating 50-year Treasury bonds to lock in low interest rates, and a waiver that would clear businesses of liability from employees who contract the coronavirus on the job.”
Trump is also considering an infrastructure package, according to the Post, but the idea faces internal opposition from top advisers.
Slashing the capital gains tax, a move that would overwhelmingly reward rich investors, has long been an obsession of the Trump White House and congressional Republicans. Last year, as Common Dreams reported, Trump floated the idea of bypassing Congress to index capital gains to inflation, but never acted amid warnings that such a unilateral change would be illegal.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated in a 2018 analysis that 86% of the benefits of indexing capital gains to inflation would flow to the top 1%.
Capital gains tax cut. No detail. But (see above) they seem to like recycling bad ideas.
So take their last bad cap gains tax idea as an e.g. of the shape of distribution you can expect from a tax cut geared to people with cap gains. I.e., regressive.https://t.co/VZfWf4t0Mv pic.twitter.com/hy6q9VVuEI
— Chye-Ching Huang (@dashching) April 5, 2020
“A capital gains tax cut would be smash-and-grab economics with no value to the economic and medical calamity facing us,” tweeted HuffPost senior reporter Zach Carter.
Critics also took aim at the other proposals under consideration inside the Trump White House, including the waiver relieving businesses of liability for workers who get sick on the job.
“Won’t somebody please think of the employers who want to coerce their employees into accepting life-threatening workplace conditions without facing legal liability,” New York magazine’s Eric Levitz tweeted sardonically.
Freelance journalist Jon Walker called the Trump administration’s reported proposals “the worst possible set of ideas for dealing with a pandemic.”
“We are beyond parody at this point,” Walker wrote. “Making it easier for people to get sick at work. Rewarding people for going into work. Rewarding vulture capitalists profiting off a crisis.”
White House deliberations over a fresh coronavirus aid package comes as the mammoth legislation Trump signed late last month is failing to get much-needed relief into the hands of people and small businesses, vindicating progressives’ warnings that the package amounted to little more than a massive bailout for big corporations replete with goodies for the well-off.
On Friday, the Trump administration launched the $350 billion small business relief program authorized under the $4.5 trillion stimulus package. But the rollout was disastrous as small businesses struggled to apply for loans and some of the biggest banks in the country sat out the process entirely as the Treasury Department failed to provide adequate guidance.
“The estimate is there are 30 million small businesses out there,” wrote David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect. “About 4.5% of all of them will have a chance to get relief. Half of small businesses haven’t paid rent in April, which if I’m doing the math correctly is more than 4.5%. And millions of them will have no federal help, no customers, and really no hope.”
Workers and the unemployed, meanwhile, have yet to receive the one-time $1,200 cash payments and expanded unemployment benefits to which they are now entitled under law.
As the Post reported late Sunday, “the law’s provision to boost unemployment benefits has become tangled in dated and overwhelmed state bureaucracies, as an unprecedented avalanche of jobless Americans seeks aid.”
“Millions of workers are filing for unemployment and businesses around the country are struggling to stay afloat,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “This crisis isn’t going away soon. The rise in jobless claims makes it clear Congress must continue working on the next relief bill to get Americans the help they need.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said Friday that Congress—which is officially on recess until April 20—must move urgently to enact the “boldest legislation in history” to combat the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic collapse.
“We are in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic that could lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans and infect millions of others, and we are entering an economic downturn that could be worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s,” said Sanders.
The Vermont senator proposed a number of relief measures, including $2,000 in monthly payments to every person in the U.S. for the duration of the crisis and immediate suspension of all rent and mortgage payments.
“In this unprecedented moment in modern American history,” said Sanders, “it is imperative that we respond in an unprecedented way.”<div>
</div>420 never waste crisis<div style="">
</div><div style=""><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/nlrb-suspends-unionizing-amid-covid-19-crisis/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;">NLRB suspends unionizing amid COVID-19 crisis</a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/terry-schwadron/" title="Posts by Terry Schwadron" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Terry Schwadron</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/dc-report/" title="Posts by DC Report" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">DC Report</a></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Just as delivery personnel, medical staffers and just about everyone who has to be out in first-responder roles is raising serious questions about lacking proper protections, the federal government has…</div></div><div style="">
</div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div>an 320<h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/this-is-a-trap-progressives-sound-alarm-on-republicans-social-security-sneak-attack-hidden-in-coronavirus-bill/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;">this is a trap’: Progressives sound alarm on Republicans’ Social Security sneak attack hidden in coronavirus bill</a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/this-is-a-trap-progressives-sound-alarm-on-republicans-social-security-sneak-attack-hidden-in-coronavirus-bill/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;">
</a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/this-is-a-trap-progressives-sound-alarm-on-republicans-social-security-sneak-attack-hidden-in-coronavirus-bill/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/jake-johnson/" title="Posts by Jake Johnson" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Jake Johnson</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/common-dreams/" title="Posts by Common Dreams" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Common D</a></h3>=never waste a crisis?  // dis cap'lism?
<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/donald-trump-is-exploiting-the-coronavirus-pandemic-to-advance-truly-disgraceful-union-busting-effort/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/donald-trump-is-exploiting-the-coronavirus-pandemic-to-advance-truly-disgraceful-union-busting-effort/</a>
no lnx
Donald Trump is exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to advance ‘truly disgraceful’ union-busting effortUnion workers and supporters cheer at a "Build it Here" rally Monday, Nov. 18, 2013, in downtown Seattle. The Washington State Labor Council called for the rally, saying it wanted to show Boeing and state leaders it supports Machinists union members who voted last week to reject contract concessions Boeing said it needed to build the new 777X in Washington. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams March 20, 2020This article was paid for by AlterNet subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.President Donald Trump is not letting the global coronavirus pandemic stand in the way of his administration’s assault on what’s left of organized labor in the United States.
In fact, as the New York Times reported Friday, the Trump administration is actively using the outbreak as a pretext to ram through union-busting policies and other right-wing agenda items that would likely draw closer scrutiny and public outrage under normal circumstances.
“The White House, under the guise of its coronavirus response, is quietly advancing policies that President Trump has long advocated, from tougher border controls to an assault on organized labor to the stonewalling of congressional oversight,” the Times reported. “Administration officials insist that such long-sought policies are necessary to stem the outbreak. But opportunism is clearly in play.”
On Wednesday, the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA)—a small federal agency governed by three Trump appointees—quietly issued a rule proposal public-sector unions condemned as “an ideological attack” on organized labor.
Under current law, federal employees are permitted to cancel their union dues and membership during an annual 15-day window after they have been a member for at least one year.
The FLRA’s proposed rule would allow federal employees to cancel their dues at any time after one year of union membership.
“That they would push forward with this kind of union-busting in the midst of a pandemic, while front-line federal employees like [Veterans Affairs] caregivers, airport screeners, food inspectors, and other personnel are being forced to fight the administration for basic safety protocols and personal protective equipment, is truly disgraceful,” Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said in a statement Thursday.
Colleen Duffy Kiko, the Trump-appointed FLRA chair, claimed last month that the rule change is necessary to comply with the “spirit” of the Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus vs. AFSCME ruling, which said that public-sector unions cannot collect so-called “fair share” fees that help unions represent all workers, including non-union members.
Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), said in a statement that the FLRA’s proposed change flies in the face of decades of established federal labor law. NTEU is challenging the proposed rule in court.
“There is only one reason to change one-year dues collection agreements and that is to try and harm unions,” said Reardon. “This action reveals in stark terms just how determined the administration is to roll back the rights and benefits of federal employees.”

AFGE@AFGENationalThis FLRA proposed rule is just the latest move to bust unions and silence workers. #1u https://www.afge.org/publication/afge-statement-on-flra-union-busting-proposed-rule/ …
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The union-busting rule is one of several right-wing policies the Trump adminstration is pursuing under the cover of the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected nearly 13,000 people in the U.S. as of Friday morning.
“Across the government,” the Times reported Friday, “departments have been citing the ‘whole of government’ response to the pandemic as they push through the same policies they sought before the crisis.” Such a list could include xenophobic border restrictions, further attacks on science, bailouts for the oil and gas industry, and limitations on congressional oversight powers.
“Under normal conditions there would be extended debate and back and forth, but under this emergency some of those things will get through with less scrutiny,” David Lapan, Trump’s former spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, told the Times. “It is a way to use this national emergency or pandemic to push through some of these quickly that might not get through in the normal course of business.”
Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine—a 2007 book that documents how governments have exploited natural disasters and other crises to advance neoliberal policies—warned Monday that the Trump administration could draw from that same playbook amid the COVID-19 outbreak and urged progressives to be ready to fight back.
“We know what Trump’s plan is: a pandemic shock doctrine featuring all the most dangerous ideas lying around, from privatizing Social Security to locking down borders to caging even more migrants,” Klein said. “Hell, he might even try canceling elections.”
“If there is one thing history teaches us, it’s that moments of shock are profoundly volatile,” Klein added. “We either lose a whole lot of ground, get fleeced by elites, and pay the price for decades, or we win progressive victories that seemed impossible just a few weeks earlier. This is no time to lose our nerve.”
are fossil fuel corps actively pressuring funding lobbying on bulbs?!i dub thee Spats Syndrome<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/3/26/1845331/-Trump-to-roll-back-Obama-era-lightbulb-standards-will-pollute-more-and-cost-consumers-12-billion" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/3/26/1845331/-Trump-to-roll-back-Obama-era-lightbulb-standards-will-pollute-more-and-cost-consumers-12-billion</a>When President Barack Obama took office he announced that, instead of re-inventing the wheel, he would continue to <a href="https://aceee.org/press/2009/06/president-obama-announces-new-light-bulb-standards" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent;">improve upon the national minimum energy efficiency requirements for light bulbs</a> that began under President George W. Bush. The plan is to move away from the over century old technology of incandescent light bulbs into more energy efficient, safer, and cheaper technologies available to us now. Throughout the Obama presidency, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/great-energy-challenge/2013/u-s-phase-out-of-incandescent-light-bulbs-continues-in-2014-with-40-60-watt-varieties/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent;">new light bulbs were added to the list of bulbs needing higher efficiency standards</a>. Obama’s legacy on this has been pretty successful as more and more Americans have moved <a href="https://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/energysavingsforecast14-summ.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent;">towards LED technology </a>(light-emitting diode) for their lighting needs. Seems too good to be true? The Trump administration’s Department of Energy <a href="https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/02/f59/withdrawal-of-gsl-definition-nopr.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;">announced</a> that they plan on rolling back some of the bulbs Obama placed regulations on towards the end of his term. Under Obama, vibration service lamps, rough service lamps, 3-way incandescent lamps, shatter-resistant incandescent, and higher lumen (2,601-3,300 lm) incandescent lamps, would need to reach higher efficiency standard starting Jan. 1, 2020. The NRDC says that the bulbs in question work in over 2.7 billion sockets. The potential costs to consumers in leaving the highly inefficient technology unregulated <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/noah-horowitz/annual-cost-light-bulb-standards-rollback-12-billion" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box;">will be up to $12 billion over the next five years.</a>Of course, using more energy because of inefficient incandescent and halogen technology is exactly the kind of thing that drives the fossil fuel industry. Critics explain that the more energy needed for light, the more pollution pumped into our atmosphere. But the reality is that LED lighting, which uses 90 percent of its energy to create light (versus incandescent which spends most of its energy creating heat), is the future. It’s a future that even a dummy like George W. Bush knew whether he wanted to admit it or not.A big part of Obama’s legacy in this department has to do with promoting regulations that allowed new companies promoting cleaner and more efficient light technology a chance to grow into the marketplace. In that he was very successful. The switch over from incandescent to alternative forms has begun to speed up over the past few years as LED technology, found more popularity with consumers because of evolving light quality and cost-savings. LED lights can last up to <a href="https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/492/phase-out-incandescent-light-bulbs/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box;">12 times longer and save people four times as much on energy costs when compared to their incandescent counterparts</a>. Even more importantly for consumers and the earth is that LED’s individual price points have been dropping consistently over the past couple of years and can now come close to matching incandescent light bulb costs.https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/the-republicans-dumbest-idea-yet/It’s one thing to oppose the grandiose “Green New Deal” as gratuitously imprecise or for its full-throated attack on all-things-ozone and carbon release in our global community.<div class="p1_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It feels like something totally other to oppose narrow regulations that could advance the campaign to swap out incandescent light bulbs for light-emitting diode (LED) lighting, a small, practical step that, multiplied into the millions, would passively remove a healthy chunk of energy-eating pollution over time.<div class="p2_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Actually, I was surprised to see a recent editorial about all this in The Washington Post,  which argued that “Of all the counterproductive policy campaigns conservatives have waged in recent years, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-many-trumps-does-it-take-to-not-change-a-lightbulb/2019/02/11/f2c02942-2b20-11e9-984d-9b8fba003e81_story.html?utm_term=.8fcc65c2ba5e" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-many-trumps-does-it-take-to-not-change-a-lightbulb/2019/02/11/f2c02942-2b20-11e9-984d-9b8fba003e81_story.html?utm_term%3D.8fcc65c2ba5e&source=gmail&ust=1550925996432000&usg=AFQjCNENsN2Yf_MEleR1Z-rRAyhfjjbfOg" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">among the most irrational has been their war on the federal government’s efforts to update the light bulb</a>.”<div class="p3_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Lots of politicians and critics across the board have attacked the Green New Deal proposed last week by freshman Democrats Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts. Such rivals as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saw overstepping in the name of climate change, a blown campaign rollout to even explain all of its aspirational aspects, and, more generally, a need to slap down an unruly first-year Democratic Socialist. McConnell scornfully said he would call for an immediate vote on the resolution even before details could be discussed, just to have it swept away.<div class="p4_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">I understand a president so disdainful of the whole idea of climate change, but what baffles me is why he wants to make things worse.<div class="p5_14" style="font-style: italic; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></blockquote>So, I understand that our politicians want practical over primacy—unless you are discussing border security—and I even understand, sort of, a president who is just so disdainful of the whole idea of climate change as to not discuss what to do about it. But what baffles me is why there would be support to make things worse.<div class="p6_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">It’s why I find Trump’s support for re-opening coal mines a bit nutty as policy when there is no real marketplace for coal, and the proven resulting pollution obviously makes what is already bad much worse.<div class="p7_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">As the Post editorial argued, “Swapping out all the old incandescent bulbs across the country would save an astonishing amount of energy, which would translate into big savings for consumers and less pollution over time. But Republicans stymied the Obama administration’s efforts to pursue this policy, which has no downside, and the Trump administration <a href="https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/02/f59/withdrawal-of-gsl-definition-nopr.pdf" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/02/f59/withdrawal-of-gsl-definition-nopr.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1550925996432000&usg=AFQjCNEDHIgcQl9_ZorsoM-I0dACZ3Rl5Q" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">is now using</a> its power over federal efficiency standards to extend the rollback.”<div class="p8_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">It was in 2007 that Congress mandated a shift toward the LED light bulb. As manufacturers invested in manufacturing lights that use these updated technologies, the prices dropped, the bulbs improved and consumers saw lower energy bills for doing very little.<div class="p9_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">By 2020, all bulbs were supposed to be LEDs, including bulbs for candelabras, recessed lighting, heavy-duty applications and others also be subject added in the latter days of the Obama era. The Trump administration moved last week to eliminate those addition, despite the fact that the 2020 standards would have saved consumers billions of dollars per year and 140 billion kilowatt-hours in energy waste—the equivalent to the output of 45 coal-fired power plants—in 2025, <a href="https://appliance-standards.org/sites/default/files/light_bulb_brief_2.pdf" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://appliance-standards.org/sites/default/files/light_bulb_brief_2.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1550925996432000&usg=AFQjCNFEl-cJ-VltTTC4_gIv9YjN7U_fbQ" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">according</a> to the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, which advocates stiffer efficiency programs. Exempting candelabra and other lights from the 2020 standard could cut roughly in half the number of bulbs that would be required to use better technology, <a href="https://ees.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/lbnl-1007090-rev2.pdf" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ees.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/lbnl-1007090-rev2.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1550925996432000&usg=AFQjCNEUTHSGnmeof6R2dusPIr15pBsOiA" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">research</a> from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggests. The Appliance Standards Awareness Project <a href="https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-move-to-weaken-light-bulb-efficiency-standards-could-cost-consumers-12/547869/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-move-to-weaken-light-bulb-efficiency-standards-could-cost-consumers-12/547869/&source=gmail&ust=1550925996432000&usg=AFQjCNGoA0K6aOIBzPrP3kh1INIEJSvoIg" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">estimates</a> that the Trump rollback will cost consumers an additional $12 billion per year in 2025.<div class="p10_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The editorial noted that the Trump administration has signaled that it would attempt to roll back the 2020 standards further in coming months.<div class="p11_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The editorial concluded, “There is no excuse for unnecessary energy waste and every reason for the federal government to coordinate a move toward better bulbs. The Trump administration should halt its know-nothing rollback.”<div class="p12_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">In my environmental balance, we should be seeking out painless, passive ways to make things a bit better. As I am reminded about eating towards better health, we need not go on starvation diets, we just need to pay better attention to everyday habits.<div class="p13_14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The habit in this administration seems to be doing the opposite.<h6 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1px; border: 0px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal;"><a style="outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rep. Barton pushes a psycho vote on light bulbs</a></h6>Updated 8:12 p.m. PT, Tues., July 12, 2011<p class="abstr" style="margin: 2px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 14.4px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal;"><a class="icoVid" title="Click to view video: " rep="Rep" barton="Barton" pushes="pushes" a="a" psycho="psycho" vote="vote" light="light" bulbs="bulbs" http="http" assets2c.msnbc.msn.com="assets2c.msnbc.msn.com" rendering="rendering" img="img" story-chrome.gif="story-chrome.gif" background-attachment="background-attachment" scroll="scroll" background-color="background-color" transparent="transparent" position="position" static="static" display="display" inline-block="inline-block" line-height="line-height" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" style="font-weight: bold; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 3px 14px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: url("> </a>  Psychotalk: Texas Rep. Joe Barton's bill to repeal light bulb efficiency standards fails. But not before Rep. Marsha Blackburn and Fox's Steve Doocy fail at math while lobbying against energy-efficient bulbs. <div class="title" style="font-weight: bold;"><h1 class="title" style="">Omnibus spending deal blocks funding for light bulb efficiency standards</h1></div><div style="">By Andrew Restuccia - 12/15/11 10:15 PM ET</div><div class="txt" id="el-article-div" style="">Omnibus spending legislation <a mce_href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/199845-shutdown-averted-as-congress-reaches-spending-deal" href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/199845-shutdown-averted-as-congress-reaches-spending-deal" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">greenlighted by House and Senate negotiators</a> Thursday night blocks Energy Department light bulb efficiency standards that have come under fire from conservatives in recent months.
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