Government by Bait and Switch
By Jamelle Bouie at Slate
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/07/trump_s_deregulation_efforts_are_great_for_the_rich.html
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The Republican health care billa tax cut for the richest Americans financed by a massive cut to Medicaidis the most prominent instance of how, in the era of President Trump, government has retreated from the public interest, acting instead as a vehicle for the upward distribution of wealth. But we shouldnt forget the other ways this is happening, less dramatic but just as consequential.
One of the biggest, as detailed in a New York Times report, is the Trump administrations effort to deregulate American business, which in the hands of his aides and appointees, has become an unabashed attempt to let corporations rewrite the rules of the game for their own benefit. The appointees, notes the Times, include lawyers who have represented businesses in cases against government regulators, staff members of political dark money groups, employees of industry-funded organizations opposed to environmental rules and at least three people who were registered to lobby the agencies they now work for. Its not one fox guarding the henhouse; its an entire skulk.
The last Republican administration was also widely criticized for its deference to business interests. But President Trump has supercharged this dynamic, first by nominating a Cabinet of individuals, like Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who oppose the basic missions of their agencies, and then by giving them free rein to deconstruct those agencies for the benefit of private enterprise. And so we have Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, holding private meetings with the CEOs of the largest oil and gas companies and subsequently relaxing emissions standards for the fossil fuel industry. We have DeVos choosing the chief executive of a private student loan company to run the federal governments financial aid operations. We have a host of men and women in the administration who, just recently, worked on behalf of those industries they are now charged with deregulating.
The investments fell through, the classes were worthless, and the steaks werent all that good.
Donald Trump entered office promising a government that would work on behalf of the forgotten men and women of our country who would be forgotten no longer. But unless forgotten means something different for Trump, what we have is just the opposite, a government devoted to the narrow interests of private enterprise and wealthy individualsas Trump continues to hold rallies while in office to maintain his populist bona fides.
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