Trump, Tax Cuts, and the Decline of US Welfare

Although the most common narrative in the major press focuses on its immediate effects on income, what do I think is likely to happen, outside of the common narrative:

A return to faux fiscal hawkishness to justify cuts to social welfare spending
Additional cuts to federal worker wages and benefits
Additional reductions in oversight justified as an effort to restrain waste and expenditures
Tax collection efforts will falter, as the IRS suffers resource constraints and people game the system for maximum benefit
Even more disingenuous and corrupt behavior from politicians, since they've finally ruined the ACA...
Reductions in longevity, employee safety, environmental health, maternal welfare, and educational outcomes - There are multiple factors at play, and some aspects like longevity might improve if the country can get a handle on opioid addiction - although rather than outright reversion, one might see even slower improvements than in previous years

Comments

For Trump, ‘a War Every Day,’ Waged Increasingly Alone - Responses

#1 @Jim Cricket - I think there might have been a more direct or apropos moral to the story, at least as it relates to Trump, in that he goes around blaming everyone else, fires them, until his term ends - the bottom of the bowl - and there is only one person left, and everyone realizes that there is only one person to blame, Trump himself. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/22/us/politics/trump-two-years.html?comments#permid=29862349:29864948 #2 Some people have seen a method to the madness of Trump, but he has always been a blithering, destructive idiot, and artless, heartless, and ignorant man. The only real question is how can we stop him? Minor mention, many, myself included, have thought impeachment might be problematic, Trump replaced by Pence, but considering all the harm Trump has caused, Pence would never really be quite so bad. Bad, but not nearly so.

Review: Valuing Wall Street

Valuing Wall Street by Andrew Smithers My rating: 5 of 5 stars The material was simple enough to digest, and certainly believable. It also provided good insights on the real behavior of investors, i.e. most investors are not long-term investors and the perils of retiring during a down period. The book also provides a good benchmark for when to invest, although the fact that I rode the market up on its fallacious valuation has not harmed me, since I transferred my portfolio to bonds before the market started heading down. View all my reviews

Response: Paging Robert Burns by Krugman

Along these lines, from a recent release, and supportive of your post: "Previous portraits of Davos delegates as uprooted jetsetters or global networkers easily overlook their influence on society. Our findings reveal that the forum actively shifts the burden for the solution of problems from governments and corporations to individual consumers, with significant personal and societal costs," the authors conclude. The release from Eurekalert

Foxes and Hedgehogs

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