DL Open Thread: Sunday, April 6, 2025

You’re smart people.  Don’t think any further explanation is necessary.

At Least All Those Flooded States Needn’t Worry About FEMA Officials Gumming Up The Works.  Nor, I suspect, will we see any Trump Flyovers.

During Donald Trump’s first presidency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency launched a program to break this cycle, awarding billions of dollars to states to repair levees, elevate flood-prone homes and shore up drinking water systems. The program was built on research showing it is many times less expensive to protect against future damage from natural disasters than to pay for repairs and rebuilding afterward. Kentucky received more than $7 million for hazard mitigation projects and upgrading power transmission lines.

FEMA is now canceling plans to award these grants for the 2024 fiscal year, according to an internal memo reviewed by The Washington Post. As Trump’s second administration looks to slash federal spending, money given to states by the federal government after disasters strike could also be in jeopardy. The president has said he wants to eliminate FEMA and shift responsibility for disaster response to the states — which experts said are unprepared to respond to catastrophic disasters without federal assistance.

First Rat Off Sinking Ship?:

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent may be planning to cut and run after Donald Trump’s disastrous “reciprocal tariff” announcement earlier this week.

During an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Friday, contributor Stephanie Ruhle reported that the key Cabinet member is already looking for an escape hatch.

“My sources say that Scott Bessent is kind of the odd man out here and, in the inner circle that Trump has, he’s not even close to Scott Bessent or listening to him,” Ruhle said. “Some have said to me, he’s looking for an exit door to try to get himself to the Fed, because in the last few days he’s really hurting his own credibility and history in the markets.”

To be sure, Trump’s tariff policy represents a sort of defeat for Bessent, a former hedge fund manager who entered office under the delusion that he might actually succeed in stopping Trump from wrecking the economy. Should he flee the administration now, he would likely forfeit what little credibility remains.

Bessent warned other countries Wednesday not to make any rash decisions to Trump’s sweeping “retaliatory tariff” policy, which included a 10 percent baseline tariff on almost every country in the world.

How Musk Is Hooking The Feds On His Merch:

A few weeks ago, my colleague Doris Burke sent me a story from The New York Times that gave us both deja vu.

The piece reported that Starlink, the satellite internet provider operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, had, in the words of Trump administration officials, “donated” internet service to improve wireless connectivity and cell reception at the White House.

The donation puzzled some former officials quoted in the story. But it immediately struck us as the potential Trump-era iteration of a tried-and-true business maneuver we’d spent months reporting on last year. In that investigation, we focused on deals between Microsoft and the Biden administration. At the heart of the arrangements was something that most consumers intuitively understand: “Free” offers usually have a catch.

Microsoft began offering the federal government “free” cybersecurity upgrades and consulting services in 2021, after President Joe Biden pressed tech companies to help bolster the nation’s cyber defenses. Our investigation revealed that the ostensibly altruistic White House Offer, as it was known inside Microsoft, belied a more complex, profit-driven agenda. The company knew the proverbial catch was that, once the free trial period ended, federal customers who had accepted the offer and installed the upgrades would effectively be locked into keeping them because switching to a competitor at that point would be costly and cumbersome.

Enter Elon.  From the referenced NYTimes piece:

Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is now accessible across the White House campus. It is the latest installation of the Wi-Fi network across the government since Mr. Musk joined the Trump administration as an unpaid adviser.

It was not immediately clear when the White House complex was fitted with Starlink after President Trump took office for a second term.

White House officials said the installation was an effort to increase internet availability at the complex. They said that some areas of the property could not get cell service and that the existing Wi-Fi infrastructure was overtaxed.

But the circumstances are different from any previous situation to resolve internet services. Mr. Musk, who is now an unpaid adviser working as a “special government employee” at the White House, controls Starlink and other companies that have regulatory matters before or contracts with the federal government. Questions about his business interests conflicting with his status as a presidential adviser and major Trump donor have persisted for weeks.

Yep, the fix is in. Back to the Pro Publica story:

“It doesn’t matter if it was Microsoft last year or Starlink today or another company tomorrow,” said Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law studies at George Washington University Law School. “Anytime you’re doing this, it’s a back door around the competition processes that ensure we have the best goods and services from the best vendors.”

Typically, in a competitive bidding process, the government solicits proposals from vendors for the goods and services it wants to buy. Those vendors then submit their proposals to the government, which theoretically chooses the best option in terms of quality and cost. Giveaways circumvent that entire process.

Yet, to hear Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick tell it, the Trump administration wants to not only normalize such donations but encourage them across Washington.

Last month, during an appearance on the Silicon Valley podcast “All-In,” he floated his concept of a “gratis” vendor who “gives product to the government.” In the episode, released just a few days after The New York Times published its Starlink story, Lutnick said such a donor would not “have to go through the whole process of becoming a proper vendor because you’re giving it to us.” Later, he added: “You don’t have to sign the conflict form and all this stuff because you’re not working for the government. You’re just giving stuff to the government. You are literally giving of yourself. You’re not looking for anything. You’re not taking any money.”

You’re smart people.  You know better.

The ‘GE’ In DOGE stands for governmental efficiency.  Does this sound like that to you?

Office closures, staffing and service cuts, and policy changes at the Social Security Administration (SSA) have caused “complete, utter chaos” and are threatening to send the agency into a “death spiral”, according to workers at the agency.

The SSA operates the largest government program in the US, administering social insurance programs, including retirement, disability and survivor benefits.

An average of almost 69 million Americans per month will receive a social security benefit in 2025, totaling about $1.6tn in benefits paid during the year and accounting for 22% of the federal budget. While expensive and challenged by an ageing population, social security remains overwhelmingly popular with Americans. But the agency has been dubbed a “Ponzi scheme” by Elon Musk, the billionaire whose so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is currently slashing its staff and budgets.

Rethugs Balk At Gov. Meyer’s Proposed Tax Hikes On Wealthy.  Water is wet.  But here’s some truly shitty journalism from a reporter who should know better:

The Tax Foundation, an independent tax policy research organization, ranks Delaware fifth in the nation for how much it collects in state taxes at $6,368 collections per capita, just slightly higher than New York State, according to 2023 data from the foundation.

Abir Mandal, senior policy analyst at the foundation, said the plan to add more income brackets to Delaware’s graduated tax system could hurt its ranking further.

Mandal argued that graduated tax systems are inefficient and make things more complex. He warned it could also scare off high-income earners from moving or staying in the state, a concern that Senate Minority Whip Brian Pettyjohn also echoed.

Ho-kay, an extensive search of the intertubes (took me about 30 seconds) reveals The Tax Foundation to have been a corporate-driven anti-tax organization from its inception:

The Tax Foundation was organized on December 5, 1937, in New York City by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., Chairman of the General Motors Corporation; Donaldson Brown, GM Financial Vice President; William S. Farish, President of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (Exxon); and Lewis H. Brown, President of Johns-Manville Corporation, who later became the first chairman of the board of The Tax Foundation.^[9] The organization’s stated goal was “to monitor the tax and spending policies of government agencies”.^[10] Its offices were located at 50 Rockefeller Plaza and later 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

During World War II, Tax Foundation research emphasized restraining government spending domestically to finance wartime expenditures. In 1948, the Tax Foundation opened an office in Washington, D.C., and in 1978 relocated there completely.^[10] Its research and analysis has historically emphasized publicizing federal and state financial information, arguing against the use of tax systems for “social engineering,” and urging “broad bases and low rates” tax reform (that pretty much defines non-progressive income taxes).

In other words, it’s non-partisan in the same way that the Caesar Rodney Institute is non-partisan.  Meaning, technically non-partisan, but biased.  Amanda Fries’ article should have pointed that out.

What do you want to talk about?