Donald Trump has succeeded in grafting his own attention deficit onto policy-making. And with executive orders flying off his desk at such a frenzied pace, it is almost impossible to choose which of them deserves the loudest howls of outrage.
Emanating with gale force, each hideous White House act creates a turbulent clutter. The latest often erases the previous one from the top of the headlines. First there was the order directing federal agencies to ease the “regulatory burdens” of the Affordable Care Act, surely the first step in dismantling, not “repairing” it. Then came the approval of two controversial pipelines and the unraveling of other environmental regulations.
On national security there has been a torrent of horrors: the border wall with Mexico, the dissing of intelligence agencies, the potential revival of torture, putting Iran “on notice” and insulting long-time allies like Australia. We’ve barely had time to digest the full consequences of funding restrictions related to abortion and the nomination of a new Supreme Court judge more rightwing than Antonin Scalia.
As awful as they are, all these moves have been overshadowed and overtaken by the immigration ban that offends American decency and the Constitution. This one is so overpoweringly awful that it obscures the earlier ones and the forgetful symptoms begin to feel like a strange form of Trump-related dementia.
On Friday the country’s attention was glued to the brave Seattle federal judge who overturned the Trump immigration ban. But that same day, the president was closeted with the very people he denounced in his faux-populist campaign: the Wall Street elite. He welcomed Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, one of the biggest global banks, and Larry Fink of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management firm.
He had an enormous gift for them: the undoing of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations that were passed to protect consumers after the 2008 financial meltdown but were deemed overly burdensome by the bankers.
Dodd-Frank made it harder for the banks to dream up all those fancy financial instruments like credit default swaps featured in books and films like The Big Short and Too Big to Fail. The law curtailed the shenanigans that cost people their homes, wiped out their retirement savings and almost caused a depression. The banks and private equity firms were now free to get creative again, Trump’s new order said.
And there was more. The Obama administration “fiduciary rule”, much hated by Wall Street, would be rolled back. The rule protected retirees from conflicts by stockbrokers. With the rule gone, it will be the stockbrokers who are protected.
The White House message was unmistakable: Happy days are here again.
No wonder the stock market soared on the news, pushed to new highs by bank stocks. It was Dimon’s second visit to the White House since Trump’s election and the welcome mat will surely soon be extended to many other bankers, given that two former top Goldman Sachs executives, Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin will be in charge of America’s economic policy.
That includes, of course, taxes. If the president is successful in enacting the massive tax cuts he proposed during the campaign, the billionaires club will make out well indeed. He’s slashing taxes on businesses and lowering the top individual tax rate from 43.8% under Obama to 33%. And one of the big populist promises of the Trump campaign, to close the carried interest loophole cherished by hedge funds, hasn’t been much touted lately. During the campaign, Trump blasted the hedge fund managers as “paper pushers” who were “getting away with murder.”
It was only months ago that Trump, in his populist pose, pounded Hillary Clinton for her coziness with people like Dimon, especially her speaking fees and contributions. He lambasted her for failing to close the carried interest loophole when she was in the Senate. We will see if Trump does.
Democrats and consumer advocates are doing the best they can to denounce the Wall Street giveaways. “Donald Trump talked a big game about Wall Street during his campaign—but as president we’re finding out whose side he’s really on,” Sen Elizabeth Warren told the Wall Street Journal on Friday. One of Wall Street’s sharpest critics, she helped write parts of the Dodd-Frank law.
The bankers are hardly the only ones licking their lips over favors to be bestowed. According to a piece in the New York Times on Sunday, energy producers and coal companies are next in line.
Less than a month ago, the new president was scathing to “the establishment” in his inaugural address. “The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country,” he said. “Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs, and while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.”
Last week it was Wall Street that celebrated in Washington. Soon, no doubt, it will be the Koch brothers.
