One small step for economic recovery, avoiding one giant leap toward Putinism

Good morning. By the time you read this, America will have narrowly avoided taking one giant leap toward Putinism.

As part of the obviously needed stimulus package, the Trump administration along with the Republican-controlled Senate, wanted to dedicate $500 billion to help corporations and would have left the dispersal of that enormous amount of money entirely to the discretionary authority of Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. He would have been free to help his friends and punish his enemies — but let us assume for a minute that Mnuchin would not be so mercenary. He still has the wrong values to be given such discretion and is saddled with a top-down view of the economy that, if allowed to strengthen its hold on the government, would put our nation on the road to an oligarchy such as we have not witnessed since the Gilded Age. Senate Democrats were right to resist.

In 2017, when the economy was humming along, Mnuchin steered through Congress an enormous tax cut that disproportionately delivered huge sums of money to large corporations. We were promised that this infusion of capital would result in those corporations making further investments in the economy and job training, setting the stage for long-term economic growth. Of course, many companies instead gave huge bonuses to their executives and/or engaged in significant stock buybacks, another way of enriching the already rich. That was foreseeable when the law was enacted and, indeed, the Democrats in the Senate warned against that tax cut, but to no avail.

This kind of crony capitalism was not new to Mnuchin. He and several other top Trump economic advisers used the economic meltdown of 2007-2008 and the stimulus of 2009 to enrich themselves. "The problem with people like this is that they think that what's good for Wall Street or high finance is good for America," said Dennis Kelleher, head of Better Markets, a non-profit that advocates for increased market regulation. "The crash proved that what could be incredibly good for Wall Street was, in fact, incredibly bad for America." The episode also shows how the distinction between Wall Street stooge and non-Wall Street stooge is more important than that between Democrats and Republicans. In 2009, President Barack Obama's Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner also had enormous discretionary powers and made sure Wall Street was made whole first.

The Democratic mantra in the Senate — and the House — must be, "Fool me once…"

Shame, too, on the mainstream media for headlines that suggested something other than a power grab was going on, that this was mere typical partisanship. "Coronavirus rescue package stalls after Democrats defeat key vote," was the Politico headline Monday evening. "Democrats again block key vote on $2 trillion coronavirus bill as Senate floor erupts with partisan anger," led The Washington Post. You do not need an advanced degree in politics or history to find Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's fretting about the lack of bipartisanship a bit like Eva Perón complaining she can't sleep with all those descamisados calling her name outside the Casa Rosada.

Back in 2009, when Obama was trying to get a stimulus passed, McConnell displayed his historical sensibility saying, "If you started the day Jesus Christ was born and you spent a million dollars every day since then you still would not have spent a trillion dollars." During his famous 2010 interview when he said his principal goal was making Obama a one-term president, he also said, "I don't want the president to fail; I want him to change," which is exactly what Senate Democrats could say today about the majority leader. In 2016, McConnell broke all precedent when he refused to grant a hearing or a vote on Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. But now he is concerned about bipartisanship. Please. McConnell's dramatic pleas for bipartisanship put me in mind of Oscar Levant's famous comment about Doris Day, that he knew her "before she became a virgin."