The Existential Threat of Trump's Corporate Cabinet
Published on
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
by
Common Dreams
The Existential Threat of Trump's Corporate Cabinet
The corporate interests who the President-elect properly alleged in the
campaign buy politicians will now themselves be directly in charge of the
government
by
Robert Weissman
The totality of the harm Trump's cabinet will be able to inflict on America
is hard to overstate, writes Weissman. (Image: CNN)
We're facing the prospect of a government literally of the Exxons, by the
Goldman Sachses and for the Kochs.
President-Elect Donald Trump's cabinet and top nominees draw more deeply
from an extremist faction of the corporate class than any in memory, and
likely in history. We are witnessing the wholesale corporate takeover of the
American government.
"With this cabinet, it is a virtual certainty that this administration will
be the most corrupt and scandal prone in American history."
Nothing more plainly shows Trump's complete cynicism and dishonesty than his
absolute betrayal of the core claim of his campaign - to rid Washington of
corruption, cronyism and insider dealing. The corporate interests who he
properly alleged in the campaign buy politicians will now themselves be
directly in charge of the government.
With this cabinet, it is a virtual certainty that this administration will
be the most corrupt and scandal prone in American history.
And it is absolute certainty that, by design, they will pursue a policy
agenda that serves the interests of the corporate class against and does
deep harm to the American people.
To understand the scope of what we are facing, it's useful for a moment to
step back and consider not just one or two of Trump's nominees, but the
totality of his handover to corporate interests:
. Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who has strong ties to Koch
Industries and raked in eye-popping sums from the finance sector,
construction industry, pharmaceutical industry and chemical industry;
. Rex Tillerson, Trump's secretary of state pick, spent his entire
career at Exxon Mobil, which is not just among the world's largest oil
companies, but the corporation most responsible for spreading climate denial
and intimidating climate activists.
. Steven Mnuchin, treasury secretary nominee and longtime Goldman
Sachs executive, through a hedge fund took over the failed IndyMac, turned
it into One West and went on a foreclosure rampage, engaging in robosigning
and other abuses such that one judge found the bank to have engaged in
practices that were ""harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive."
. General James Mattis, the pick for secretary of defense, has spun
through the revolving door, leaving the military to serve on the board of
General Dynamics, a multinational military contractor, and the
scandal-ridden Theranos, a start-up company which misled investors and
consumers about its blood-testing technology.
. U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), under consideration for attorney
general, despite a racist record that disqualified him from a federal
judgeship three decades ago, and who has a record of gentle treatment of the
finance, tobacco and other industries.
. Betsy DeVos, named to be education secretary, is a billionaire scion
and whose husband is heir to the Amway fortune, is a purveyor of extremist
education privatization proposals and has herself invested in for-profit
education companies.
. Elaine Chao, up to run the U.S. Department of Transportation, who
served on the board of directors of Wells Fargo during the cross-selling
scandal, as well as a half dozen other corporate boards.
. Former Goldman Sachs executive Gary Cohn, slated to head the
National Economic Council, who led Goldman Sachs as it profited off the
housing market collapse in part by misleading its own clients;
. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Trump's pick to the run the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, believes that climate science is "far
from settled," has repeatedly sued the agency he will be tasked with
leading, and as Oklahoma attorney general sent letters to federal agencies
that were literally drafted by Devon Energy, one of the state's largest oil
and gas corporations.
. Steve Bannon, a special adviser to Trump who once ran and may
maintain undisclosed business or other ties with Breitbart.com, a far-right,
racist website, and is a former Goldman Sachs executive;
. Linda McMahon, picked to run the Small Business Administration, who
as World Wrestling Entertainment CEO helped ensure the wrestling industry
remained largely unregulated, putting the health and safety of wrestlers at
risk;
. Andy Puzder, who is to head the U.S. Department of Labor, the
long-time mogul in charge of the Hardee's and Carl's Jr. fast-food chains,
companies known for being anti-worker and anti-union, and who opposes many
or all of the most important, recent, pro-worker initiatives of the Obama
Labor Department, including a rule to ensure that worker are properly
compensated for overtime.
. Wilbur Ross, a billionaire whose firm has profited from buying
distressed firms and cutting workers' benefits, named to take the post of
secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
. Carl Icahn, named as Trump's "special advisor on regulatory
affairs," is the emblematic corporate raider and epitomizes predatory
corporate capitalism, with financial holdings that give him a direct stake
in many of the matters about which he will be advising the president.
In any prior administration, it would have been a tempest if even one of
these individuals had been named to the cabinet.
The totality of the harm these individuals can inflict on America is hard to
overstate. Consider some of the particulars.
First, the Trump administration with a huge assist from Senate Republicans
is displaying a stunningly cavalier attitude toward ethics rules. Nominees
for cabinet positions are being rushed through Senate confirmation hearings
without full vetting of ethical issues (as well as security issues). States
the head of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), the agency in charge of
ethics reviews: "It has left some nominees with potentially unknown or
potentially unresolved ethics issues shortly before their scheduled
hearings. I am not aware of any occasion in the four decades since OGE was
established when the Senate held a confirmation hearing before the nominee
had completed the ethics review process." In 2009, now-Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell demanded that no hearing be held on a cabinet nominee
until ethics reviews were complete - now, well, not so much.
Now, Senator McConnell says these are picayune and technical requirements
and the process of governing must proceed. But he's wrong. The ethics
pre-clearance process - by which nominees disclose their financial holdings
and work with the OGE on an arrangement of divestitures and commitments to
recuse themselves from issues relating to current and former investments -
is vital to avoid transgressing criminal conflict of interest standards. It
is the moment when there is, or should be, the most attention to conflict of
interest rules. If attention is not paid now, it is a virtual certainty that
scandal will emerge later.
Second, the unprecedented wealth and corporate entanglements of cabinet
nominees means those inevitable scandals won't just involve conferring
relatively small benefits on favored businesses. It means that policy-making
itself will be corrupted. Consider the case of Carl Icahn. The corporate
raider is known for his aggressive investment strategies that involve
complex disputes about securities laws and has been implicated in Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigations over wrongdoing himself. Now
Icahn has reportedly played a major role in selecting Trump's nominee to
chair the SEC.
Even more troublingly, Icahn had a key role in vetting Trump's candidates to
run the EPA, and had enthused over the selection of Scott Pruitt, the
Oklahoma attorney general who has shown much more loyalty to oil-and-gas
interests than environmental protection. Icahn has a controlling stake in
CVR Energy Inc., which claims pending EPA rules will cost it hundreds of
millions of dollars, and Icahn has stridently attacked EPA's renewable fuel
standards and shows no compunction about using his influence to get them
removed. Are we all going to breathe dirtier air just to help Icahn earn his
next few hundred million dollars? It's entirely possible.
Third, even if the legal conflict issues are resolved, the bigger
revolving-door problem will nonetheless pervade this administration. The
revolving door refers to people moving back-and-forth between government and
industry positions, and particularly between corporate jobs and in
regulatory agencies with jurisdiction over past and future employers. People
passing through the revolving door into government bring with them the views
they had in the private sector, and project those corporate interests as
governmental policy. People passing through the revolving door back into the
private sector may capitalize on their prior associations; even more
important is what they do while in government in anticipation of going back
to corporate jobs.
This revolving door problem will define the Trump administration. Exxon's
worldview will now fundamentally shape the conduct of U.S. foreign policy,
including over the transcendentally important matter of negotiating global
climate accords. The agency charged with enforcing worker protections will
be headed by a fast-food chain mogul who has run afoul of those very
standards. The Defense Department is to be headed by a retired general who
rushed to join the board of directors of one the largest military
contractors just five months after retiring from the marines. The Goldman
Sachs view will once again control economic policy-making (Gary Cohn at the
White House) and have a controlling power in financial regulation (Steven
Mnuchin at Treasury). And on and on.
Fourth, these aren't just your every day corporatists and billionaires. We
know from extensive poll and survey data that the super rich generally see
the world very differently than the rest of us. But the Trump picks go way
beyond that, hailing from an extremist faction of the super rich. Education
Secretary pick Betsy DeVos's primarily qualification is that she is an
extremist, corporate libertarian ideologue. She has paid a great deal of
attention to public education, with the primary objective of gutting it, in
favor of vouchers and for-profit enterprises. Says education historian Diane
Ravitch, "Never has anyone been appointed to lead in the past 150 years who
was hostile to public education."
DeVos and her husband and their family are part of what is colloquially
known as the "Koch network" of corporate libertarian zillionaires, and the
Koch Brothers are poised to have a surprisingly far-reaching influence in
the Trump administration, given their hostility to the president-elect.
"Trump has surrounded himself with people tied to the Kochs," reports
Politico in an article titled "Trump's Koch Administration," referencing
Devos, Pence, White House Counsel Don McGahn and a host of operatives on the
transition team; more, including Marc Short, former financial director for
the Kochs' Freedom Partners, who will serve as White House legislative
affairs director, have since joined the White House staff-in-waiting.
"Get ready, America. We're in for some very tough times."
Fifth, all of this matters more than it might in other administrations
because of the, shall we say, unconventional governing style expected of the
incoming president. The cabinet members are going to have unprecedented
degrees of autonomy to pursue their preferred agendas.
Those in and around the transition, and those who have had prior business
dealings with Trump, tell Politico that Trump "doesn't usually like getting
into day-to-day minutiae or taking lengthy briefings on issues. He doesn't
have particularly strong feelings on the intricacies of some government
issues and agencies, these people say, and would rather focus on
high-profile issues, publicity and his brand."
Not only will the cabinet officials be given lots of latitude, Trump will
encourage them to carry out extremist agendas - even if Trump himself has
little idea what changes are merited or what they are doing.
Get ready, America. We're in for some very tough times. A massive resistance
- including demands to block the confirmation of this motley collection of
corporate cabinet nominees - our best hope to limit the damage.
This article also appeared at The Huffington Post.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License
Robert Weissman
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The Existential Threat of Trump's Corporate Cabinet
Published on
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
by
Common Dreams
The Existential Threat of Trump's Corporate Cabinet
The corporate interests who the President-elect properly alleged in the
campaign buy politicians will now themselves be directly in charge of the
government
by
Robert Weissman
. 8 Comments
.
. The totality of the harm Trump's cabinet will be able to inflict on
America is hard to overstate, writes Weissman. (Image: CNN)
. We're facing the prospect of a government literally of the Exxons,
by the Goldman Sachses and for the Kochs.
. President-Elect Donald Trump's cabinet and top nominees draw more
deeply from an extremist faction of the corporate class than any in memory,
and likely in history. We are witnessing the wholesale corporate takeover of
the American government.
. "With this cabinet, it is a virtual certainty that this
administration will be the most corrupt and scandal prone in American
history."
. Nothing more plainly shows Trump's complete cynicism and dishonesty
than his absolute betrayal of the core claim of his campaign - to rid
Washington of corruption, cronyism and insider dealing. The corporate
interests who he properly alleged in the campaign buy politicians will now
themselves be directly in charge of the government.
With this cabinet, it is a virtual certainty that this administration will
be the most corrupt and scandal prone in American history.
And it is absolute certainty that, by design, they will pursue a policy
agenda that serves the interests of the corporate class against and does
deep harm to the American people.
To understand the scope of what we are facing, it's useful for a moment to
step back and consider not just one or two of Trump's nominees, but the
totality of his handover to corporate interests:
. Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who has strong ties to Koch
Industries and raked in eye-popping sums from the finance sector,
construction industry, pharmaceutical industry and chemical industry;
. Rex Tillerson, Trump's secretary of state pick, spent his entire
career at Exxon Mobil, which is not just among the world's largest oil
companies, but the corporation most responsible for spreading climate denial
and intimidating climate activists.
. Steven Mnuchin, treasury secretary nominee and longtime Goldman
Sachs executive, through a hedge fund took over the failed IndyMac, turned
it into One West and went on a foreclosure rampage, engaging in robosigning
and other abuses such that one judge found the bank to have engaged in
practices that were ""harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive."
. General James Mattis, the pick for secretary of defense, has spun
through the revolving door, leaving the military to serve on the board of
General Dynamics, a multinational military contractor, and the
scandal-ridden Theranos, a start-up company which misled investors and
consumers about its blood-testing technology.
. U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), under consideration for attorney
general, despite a racist record that disqualified him from a federal
judgeship three decades ago, and who has a record of gentle treatment of the
finance, tobacco and other industries.
. Betsy DeVos, named to be education secretary, is a billionaire scion
and whose husband is heir to the Amway fortune, is a purveyor of extremist
education privatization proposals and has herself invested in for-profit
education companies.
. Elaine Chao, up to run the U.S. Department of Transportation, who
served on the board of directors of Wells Fargo during the cross-selling
scandal, as well as a half dozen other corporate boards.
. Former Goldman Sachs executive Gary Cohn, slated to head the
National Economic Council, who led Goldman Sachs as it profited off the
housing market collapse in part by misleading its own clients;
. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Trump's pick to the run the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, believes that climate science is "far
from settled," has repeatedly sued the agency he will be tasked with
leading, and as Oklahoma attorney general sent letters to federal agencies
that were literally drafted by Devon Energy, one of the state's largest oil
and gas corporations.
. Steve Bannon, a special adviser to Trump who once ran and may
maintain undisclosed business or other ties with Breitbart.com, a far-right,
racist website, and is a former Goldman Sachs executive;
. Linda McMahon, picked to run the Small Business Administration, who
as World Wrestling Entertainment CEO helped ensure the wrestling industry
remained largely unregulated, putting the health and safety of wrestlers at
risk;
. Andy Puzder, who is to head the U.S. Department of Labor, the
long-time mogul in charge of the Hardee's and Carl's Jr. fast-food chains,
companies known for being anti-worker and anti-union, and who opposes many
or all of the most important, recent, pro-worker initiatives of the Obama
Labor Department, including a rule to ensure that worker are properly
compensated for overtime.
. Wilbur Ross, a billionaire whose firm has profited from buying
distressed firms and cutting workers' benefits, named to take the post of
secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
. Carl Icahn, named as Trump's "special advisor on regulatory
affairs," is the emblematic corporate raider and epitomizes predatory
corporate capitalism, with financial holdings that give him a direct stake
in many of the matters about which he will be advising the president.
In any prior administration, it would have been a tempest if even one of
these individuals had been named to the cabinet.
The totality of the harm these individuals can inflict on America is hard to
overstate. Consider some of the particulars.
First, the Trump administration with a huge assist from Senate Republicans
is displaying a stunningly cavalier attitude toward ethics rules. Nominees
for cabinet positions are being rushed through Senate confirmation hearings
without full vetting of ethical issues (as well as security issues). States
the head of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), the agency in charge of
ethics reviews: "It has left some nominees with potentially unknown or
potentially unresolved ethics issues shortly before their scheduled
hearings. I am not aware of any occasion in the four decades since OGE was
established when the Senate held a confirmation hearing before the nominee
had completed the ethics review process." In 2009, now-Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell demanded that no hearing be held on a cabinet nominee
until ethics reviews were complete - now, well, not so much.
Now, Senator McConnell says these are picayune and technical requirements
and the process of governing must proceed. But he's wrong. The ethics
pre-clearance process - by which nominees disclose their financial holdings
and work with the OGE on an arrangement of divestitures and commitments to
recuse themselves from issues relating to current and former investments -
is vital to avoid transgressing criminal conflict of interest standards. It
is the moment when there is, or should be, the most attention to conflict of
interest rules. If attention is not paid now, it is a virtual certainty that
scandal will emerge later.
Second, the unprecedented wealth and corporate entanglements of cabinet
nominees means those inevitable scandals won't just involve conferring
relatively small benefits on favored businesses. It means that policy-making
itself will be corrupted. Consider the case of Carl Icahn. The corporate
raider is known for his aggressive investment strategies that involve
complex disputes about securities laws and has been implicated in Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigations over wrongdoing himself. Now
Icahn has reportedly played a major role in selecting Trump's nominee to
chair the SEC.
Even more troublingly, Icahn had a key role in vetting Trump's candidates to
run the EPA, and had enthused over the selection of Scott Pruitt, the
Oklahoma attorney general who has shown much more loyalty to oil-and-gas
interests than environmental protection. Icahn has a controlling stake in
CVR Energy Inc., which claims pending EPA rules will cost it hundreds of
millions of dollars, and Icahn has stridently attacked EPA's renewable fuel
standards and shows no compunction about using his influence to get them
removed. Are we all going to breathe dirtier air just to help Icahn earn his
next few hundred million dollars? It's entirely possible.
Third, even if the legal conflict issues are resolved, the bigger
revolving-door problem will nonetheless pervade this administration. The
revolving door refers to people moving back-and-forth between government and
industry positions, and particularly between corporate jobs and in
regulatory agencies with jurisdiction over past and future employers. People
passing through the revolving door into government bring with them the views
they had in the private sector, and project those corporate interests as
governmental policy. People passing through the revolving door back into the
private sector may capitalize on their prior associations; even more
important is what they do while in government in anticipation of going back
to corporate jobs.
This revolving door problem will define the Trump administration. Exxon's
worldview will now fundamentally shape the conduct of U.S. foreign policy,
including over the transcendentally important matter of negotiating global
climate accords. The agency charged with enforcing worker protections will
be headed by a fast-food chain mogul who has run afoul of those very
standards. The Defense Department is to be headed by a retired general who
rushed to join the board of directors of one the largest military
contractors just five months after retiring from the marines. The Goldman
Sachs view will once again control economic policy-making (Gary Cohn at the
White House) and have a controlling power in financial regulation (Steven
Mnuchin at Treasury). And on and on.
Fourth, these aren't just your every day corporatists and billionaires. We
know from extensive poll and survey data that the super rich generally see
the world very differently than the rest of us. But the Trump picks go way
beyond that, hailing from an extremist faction of the super rich. Education
Secretary pick Betsy DeVos's primarily qualification is that she is an
extremist, corporate libertarian ideologue. She has paid a great deal of
attention to public education, with the primary objective of gutting it, in
favor of vouchers and for-profit enterprises. Says education historian Diane
Ravitch, "Never has anyone been appointed to lead in the past 150 years who
was hostile to public education."
DeVos and her husband and their family are part of what is colloquially
known as the "Koch network" of corporate libertarian zillionaires, and the
Koch Brothers are poised to have a surprisingly far-reaching influence in
the Trump administration, given their hostility to the president-elect.
"Trump has surrounded himself with people tied to the Kochs," reports
Politico in an article titled "Trump's Koch Administration," referencing
Devos, Pence, White House Counsel Don McGahn and a host of operatives on the
transition team; more, including Marc Short, former financial director for
the Kochs' Freedom Partners, who will serve as White House legislative
affairs director, have since joined the White House staff-in-waiting.
"Get ready, America. We're in for some very tough times."
Fifth, all of this matters more than it might in other administrations
because of the, shall we say, unconventional governing style expected of the
incoming president. The cabinet members are going to have unprecedented
degrees of autonomy to pursue their preferred agendas.
Those in and around the transition, and those who have had prior business
dealings with Trump, tell Politico that Trump "doesn't usually like getting
into day-to-day minutiae or taking lengthy briefings on issues. He doesn't
have particularly strong feelings on the intricacies of some government
issues and agencies, these people say, and would rather focus on
high-profile issues, publicity and his brand."
Not only will the cabinet officials be given lots of latitude, Trump will
encourage them to carry out extremist agendas - even if Trump himself has
little idea what changes are merited or what they are doing.
Get ready, America. We're in for some very tough times. A massive resistance
- including demands to block the confirmation of this motley collection of
corporate cabinet nominees - our best hope to limit the damage.
This article also appeared at The Huffington Post.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License
