Conspiracy Theories

How more funding for the I.R.S. became a political firestorm.


By German Lopez

The New York Times
Aug. 26, 2022

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Senator Ted Cruz has warned that Democrats’ new spending law will create a “shadow army of 87,000 I.R.S. agents.” Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for Arizona governor, tied the increase in agents to the F.B.I. search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and warned, “Not a single one of us is safe.” Across social media, conservatives have embraced falsehoods about armed agents, saying that they will target Republicans in particular.

Why are the I.R.S. provisions in the law — $80 billion in additional funding for the agency over the next decade — getting so much attention?

In part, Republicans recognize that the law’s biggest elements, money for climate and health care, are popular. So they’re seeking other ways to criticize the legislation, including through conspiracy theories about the agency, as The Times has reported.

The opposition is also part of an older ideological debate. Republican lawmakers tend to favor lower taxes, particularly for wealthy Americans. They have achieved that by cutting tax rates. But they have also done it by blocking more funding for the I.R.S. — in an effort to stop the agency from aggressively collecting taxes.

“Among Republicans, there’s been a lot of hostility toward the I.R.S. for years,” Alan Rappeport, who covers economic policy for The Times, told me. “The funding has revved that up.”

The agency funding is meant to help it investigate wealthy tax cheats, improve customer service and modernize systems. By empowering the agency to collect the money it’s owed, the changes are projected to raise about $100 billion in net tax revenue over a decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That money will help pay for the rest of the Democrats’ new law.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain what the new funding will do and how it became such a hot topic.

The funding’s goal

Most of us know the I.R.S. from the unpleasant task of filing taxes. The agency processes more than 260 million tax returns and related documents each year, with an annual budget of nearly $14 billion and about 80,000 full-time staff members.

It does much of this work on antiquated systems. A recent Washington Post column depicted a bureaucracy that has not adapted to the computer age and instead has stacks of papers extending into a cafeteria. The agency still uses technology dating back more than a half-century, including devices running a programming language, COBOL, that few coders still know. It typically communicates with taxpayers through snail mail or fax.

Congress has cut the I.R.S.’s budget 20 percent since 2010. That makes it hard for the agency to help Americans file their taxes; it answered fewer than one in 10 calls for help during the 2021 filing season.

The funding shortage also makes it difficult for the agency to collect what the government is owed. The tax gap — the difference between taxes owed and taxes paid — is about 15 percent of all taxes.

The new funding will help address the shortcomings by letting the agency update its systems and hire more people. In total, the I.R.S. plans to recruit 87,000 employees. Many of those new hires will fill jobs left behind by retirees in the coming years, but its work force will expand overall to let it take on more duties in auditing, processing and customer service.

Republicans have cited the planned hires to amplify conspiracy theories about armed I.R.S. agents coming after law-abiding Americans. It’s true that some agents who conduct criminal investigations can be armed, like other law enforcement officials. But only 1 percent of new hires will be in such jobs, which focus on more serious financial crimes, according to the Treasury.

Republicans have also raised concerns that the I.R.S. will use the extra funds to go after conservative groups. The agency did target some right-wing organizations seeking tax-exempt status in the 2010s, but it also used similar tactics against progressive groups.
Against tax cheats

With the additional resources, the I.R.S. does plan to crack down on people and businesses who don’t pay the taxes they owe.

The question is who the agency will focus on. The Biden administration has said it will target rich tax cheats and ordered the agency not to increase audits on people who make less than $400,000 a year or on small businesses. The administration argues that underfunding led the I.R.S. to reduce audits on wealthy taxpayers in particular, so the new money should aim to close that gap.

The agency has good reason to focus on the rich: They account for the largest share of unpaid taxes, as this chart by my colleague Ashley Wu shows:

Share of unpaid taxes by income level

Estimates from 2019

Top 1 percent of earners

$163 billion

Top 5 percent of earners

$307 billion

Lowest 20 percent of earners

Less than $6 billion

Note: Total unpaid taxes are around $600 billion.

Source: U.S. Department of Treasury

By The New York Times

But enforcement against wealthy people also tends to be more difficult. The cases are more complex, involving much more money and sophisticated financial instruments. Rich people are also much more likely to hire elite lawyers to fight investigations.

The hurdles of investigating the rich could prompt agents to instead focus on easier targets, like low- or middle-income taxpayers, as Republican lawmakers have warned. And the agency could target some small businesses, because they make up a large portion of the tax gap, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a conservative economist.

Still, Biden administration officials insist the agency will not target low- or middle-income taxpayers or small businesses. They say Republicans are trying to stoke fears about the funding.

Related: The I.R.S. is reviewing security at its offices nationwide because of threats that grew out of the spread of misinformation.

REVELATIONS

A Rare Peek Inside the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

The Council for National Policy, a secretive network of powerful conservatives, goes to great lengths to conceal its activities and even its members. But recently uncovered documents reveal the extent of the group’s influence on American politics.

ILLUSTRATION BY THE NEW REPUBLIC

Anne Nelson/August 26, 2022

LONG READ

For more than four decades, the Council for National Policy, or CNP, has functioned as the secret hub of the radical right, coordinating the activities of right-wing strategists, donors, media platforms, and activists. Its membership and meetings have long been undisclosed, but over the past two years, a number of them have been brought to light. It has spawned generations of offshoots, which appear, disappear, alter URLs, and change names with astonishing frequency. Now two watchdog organizations have obtained new materials on the group’s current operations.

The Center for Media and Democracy has published the agenda for a recent CNP meeting, held February 22 to 24 at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, California. In addition, Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism project based in Washington, D.C., has obtained the membership roster and most recent 990 tax filings required of nonprofit organizations. Together, the materials shed new light on the CNP’s role in disrupting the democratic process. CNP archives illustrate the extensive planning its members undertook to discredit the 2020 election results, undermine local election officials, and incite the protest on January 6, 2021. The House select committee on January 6 has subpoenaed CNP election expert Cleta Mitchell, and the panel is also examining 29 texts exchanged between then–White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Supreme Court spouse Ginni Thomas (a board member of the CNP’s lobbying arm) in support of Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. The Conservative Partnership Institute, which has attracted ample attention for its role in election subversion, is closely tied to the CNP, though few reporters have made the connection. The CPI’s chairman, president and CEO, senior legal partner, and senior director of policy are all prominent members of the CNP (see below), and the CPI has served as a public face for CNP tactics developed behind closed doors.

Until now, the most recent CNP membership roster that was publicly available was dated October 2020. One can observe significant turnover from meeting to meeting, while various core donors and leaders remain constant. Reading the tea leaves, this shift suggests several possibilities. First, the rosters may indicate only the attendees of a particular meeting, while the broader membership might be much larger. Second, the new names on the February 2022 agenda may represent new approaches for the organization’s strategy. Below, I draw attention to some of the more striking developments in CNP’s leadership and membership, in the agenda, and in CNP’s funding.

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The February meeting brought a new slate of officers, including incoming president Thomas Fitton, the head of Judicial Watch. Fitton’s organization specializes in “carpet-bombing” (in the words of The New York Times) the federal government with Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. In the past, the CNP presidency has corresponded to the group’s short-term priorities. For example, during the 2016 campaign, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins led a drive to bring fundamentalist support to Donald Trump. In 2020, his successor, financier William Walton, conspired with the Trump campaign to reopen the economy prematurely at the height of the Covid-19 epidemic. As president of Judicial Watch, Fitton has promoted false claims about climate change, voter fraud, Hillary Clinton’s emails, and the Mueller investigation. In October 2020, Trump appointed him to the D.C. Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure, where he is slated to serve until 2025. His CNP presidency corresponds with the organization’s full-court press on the legal front, reflected in the agenda items on the federal courts and Roe v. Wade.

The CNP’s new slate also includes Ken Blackwell’s promotion to vice president. Jenny Beth Martin, who publicized and took part in the January 6 protest, was named secretary. The new members of the board of directors include retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, a noted Islamophobe and the CNP’s de facto spokesman on military affairs, and Chad Connelly, who was appointed by CNP Gold Circle member Reince Priebus as the first-ever national director of faith engagement for the Republican National Committee from 2013 to 2016.

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The Heritage Foundation, a meeting sponsor, has been a core partner of the Council for National Policy from the start, and Heritage president Kevin Roberts is on the CNP board of governors. Roberts was previously the CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which received funding from Koch Industries and other fossil fuel interests. Roberts’s series of op-eds for the Washington Examiner represent a virtual roundup of CNP talking points, including attacks on “critical race theory,” Black Lives Matter, and climate policy. The Heritage Foundation was co-founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich, in tandem with the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC; he would co-found the CNP in 1981. Together, the organizations would serve as a three-legged stool for the right, with Heritage as the think tank; ALEC as a state-level “bill mill”; and the CNP as a coordinating body for donors, media, and activists. Here we see the Heritage Foundation supporting a meeting to facilitate the endless round-robin of tax-exempt political activism on the part of these donors (who also fund the Heritage Foundation).

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Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 election as governor of Virginia was a major win for the GOP. CNP partners played a significant role in fomenting the “critical race theory” controversy that disrupted school boards and swayed white female suburban voters. In this panel, CNP member Chris Wilson offers his expertise in research, analytics, and psychographics. Wilson had brought Cambridge Analytica in to work on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. He appears along with Chad Connelly, a new CNP board member (see above). This general session of the CNP analyses the Virginia victory, followed by an action session with a repeat appearance by Connelly and Wilson called “From Virginia to the Mid-Terms” to “chart the course to success nationwide in November”. Several CNP partners, among them the Leadership Institute and the Family Research Council, have been holding national training sessions on school board activism; Turning Point USA, run by CNP member Charlie Kirk, placed Alexandria, Chesapeake, Loudon County, and other Virginia public schools on its School Board Watchlist.

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This panel features new board member retired Lt. Gen. William Gerald “Jerry” Boykin, former head of the Army Special Forces Command (Airborne) and current executive vice president of the Family Research Council, a core partner of the organization (see above). A born-again Christian, Boykin has sparked past controversies with anti-Muslim remarks. He is a frequent guest on Fox News, as well as the Family Research Council’s Washington Watch and other right-wing media outlets. In April and May 2021, Boykin joined several hundred retired high-ranking officers as a signatory to letters supporting Trump’s false claims of election fraud. He continues to serve as a critical link between Christian fundamentalists and the military elite.

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Although David Barton hasn’t shown up on CNP rosters so far, the organization takes his revisionist history of the United States as gospel. Barton, who holds a degree in religious education from Tulsa’s Oral Roberts University, has published a long list of books claiming that the U.S. was founded as—and remains—a “Christian nation.” His arguments are used to justify the CNP’s drive for theocracy, which posits that the fundamentalists’ direct line to God entitles them to lord over the rest of us, on matters ranging from abortion to guns. But these eternal verities are established by disregarding the historical research of the past century. For example, Barton has falsely claimed that the Constitution—a secular document that makes no mention of Christianity—is studded with biblical quotations. He presents Christopher Columbus as a savior to the native peoples of the Caribbean (Columbus actually kidnapped and enslaved them), and he overlooks the explorer’s introduction of African slavery to the Americas. Barton’s publisher had to recall his book on Thomas Jefferson based on its errors (after it had already made the New York Times bestseller list)

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Ken Blackwell serves alongside Ginni (Mrs. Clarence) Thomas on the board of CNP Action, the CNP’s lobbying arm, which has taken a keen interest in election mechanics. Blackwell tirelessly manipulated state-level elections in his native Ohio for over two decades. In 2000, he oversaw the electoral process as Ohio’s secretary of state—at the same time he chaired the Bush-Cheney campaign committee. The Brennan Center found “he issued a series of decisions that both restricted access to voting … and invited criticism for the appearance and substance of partisanship.” He currently serves as the Family Research Council’s senior fellow for human rights and constitutional governance. As of 2022, he has been promoted to chairman of CNP Action.

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Alan Sears, Marjorie Dannenfelser, and Kelly Shackelford, the speakers for the first panel, have led the charge on the CNP’s assault on abortion rights. Sears is the founder of Alliance Defending Freedom; Shackelford, until recently the chairman of CNP Action, heads the Texas-based First Liberty Institute, which specializes in litigation on behalf of Christian fundamentalists seeking to expand their claim to the public sphere. CNP Gold Circle member Dannenfelser is president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (until recently the Susan B. Anthony List), an astroturf organization that coordinates state-level anti-abortion strategies and conducts deep canvassing in key races. Here, the three tee up for the Supreme Court case in which a majority of justices are apparently gunning to overturn Roe v. Wade. The second panel presents Dannenfelser along with experts on “messaging, state legislation, and more.”

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Bhattacharya, a Stanford University School of Medicine professor, was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 open letter that argued against Covid-19 lockdowns and other public health measures. It was produced at the American Institute for Economic Research, which has received funding from Koch foundations. The CNP has been supporting an extensive Covid disinformation campaign over the past two years, attacking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Dr. Anthony Fauci, discouraging vaccination, and promoting the fake “cures” of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

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At first glance, the CNP and its lobbying arm, CNP Action, appear to be relatively modest operations. The Council for National Policy’s 990 tax form for 2019, the most recent available, reports a total revenue of about $3.3 million, based on $2.36 million in contributions and $884,000 in program services. CNP Action’s 990 from 2020 reported a total revenue of $121,232, made up of about $88,000 in contributions and $33,200 in program services. But the two organizations’ principal function is to serve as coordinating bodies for their partner organizations, and thus they leverage electoral and legal operations in the hundreds of millions.

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The CNP’s 990 from 2019 states that its purpose is “to provide information about policy alternatives” as a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. Under this status, granted by the IRS, the CNP, according to the IRS Code, is “absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” However, records from recent meetings, accessed by the Center for Media and Democracy, reveal voter-suppression efforts that clearly favor Republican candidates over Democrats. At a May 2019 meeting, Ginni Thomas led a session outlining media and electoral strategies to “protect President Trump.”

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The CNP’s 2020 financial statement shows relatively modest gross receipts that emphasize its role as a coordinator for donors and partner organizations and a wielder of influence, rather than an activist body itself. Past CNP documents indicated that members paid between $1,000 and $5,000 in fees, which accounted for a substantial portion of the budget.

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The CNP is not required to reveal its donors, but some have listed their contributions on their tax filings. These include the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, headed by CNP board of governors member Richard Graber ($75,000 in 2019); Shackelford’s First Liberty Institute ($37,000 in 2019); and the National Christian Charitable Foundation ($52,600 in 2019). The National Christian Charitable Foundation is a dark money, donor-advised fund, and the sixth-largest charity in the nation. Its donors include various parties connected to the CNP, including the DeVos family of Michigan, the Anschutz fossil fuels dynasty, and the family of the late financier Foster Friess.

While CNP directors are unsalaried, they are often handsomely compensated by the partner organizations themselves. Judicial Watch, for example, paid CNP president Tom Fitton $382,215 in 2019, while Jerry Boykin earned $178,840 as executive vice president of the Family Research Council in 2020 (the most recent years for which filings are available).

The Heritage Foundation offers a recent example of how the round-robin funding works. Heritage is listed as one of the sponsors of the 2022 CNP meeting. It has also received major funding from the Bradley Foundation, the DeVos Family, and Donors Trust, all founded or run by leading members of the CNP. On June 1, the Heritage Foundation announced its inaugural Innovation Prize to “financially support organizations providing innovative solutions to the most pressing issues facing America.” The $100,000 awards went to the Alliance Defending Freedom, headed by CNP board of governors member Michael Farris; the Independent Women’s Forum, headed by CNP Gold Circle member Heather Higgins; and the State Financial Officers Foundation, which organizes state treasurers and auditors in the interest of private enterprise. Its board of directors includes longtime CNP member Lisa Nelson, CEO of ALEC.

Additional donors were named for the CNP’s fortieth anniversary celebration, including Paige Patterson, who was recently named in a report commissioned by the Southern Baptist Convention as one of the senior church leaders who “protected or even supported abuses” in the denomination’s ongoing sexual abuse scandals.

Notable New members, 2020–2022:


The biggest development in the CNP membership is the addition of two dozen medical professionals. Two of the physicians, Simone Gold and James Todaro, have been active in the America’s Frontline Doctors campaign, orchestrated by the CNP and the 2020 Trump campaign, to downplay the Covid-19 crisis, discourage vaccinations, and peddle the bogus “cures” of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. Gold and her associates operated a lucrative online prescription service as she awaited sentencing for her illegal incursion into the Capitol during the January 6 riot. Another addition of note is Seymour H. Fein, M.D., who heads CNF Pharma, a pharmaceutical firm based in New City, New York.

CSPAN/YOUTUBE

J. Christian Adams (new), president, Public Interest Legal Foundation
Adams is an associate of Cleta Mitchell, the CNP attorney who guided efforts to subvert the 2020 election, at the Public Interest Legal Foundation: Adams is president and general counsel, Mitchell is chair, and John Eastman, who drafted Trump’s failed plan to block congressional certification of the 2020 election, is a director. In late 2021, Adams, Trump’s appointee to the Civil Rights Commission, successfully nominated Mitchell to the Advisory Board of the Election Advisory Commission, despite widespread protest.

GAGE SKIDMORE:CC BU SA 2.0

Lawson Bader, president, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund
DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund are linked dark money, donor-advised funds. DonorsTrust had revenues of nearly $202,800,000 in 2018. Donors Capital Fund’s revenues peaked in 2016, at over $71 million. Major donors include the Koch brothers and CNP affiliates the Bradley Foundation and the DeVos family. Recipients include the National Rifle Association, the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, and ALEC—all run by members of the CNP

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GAGE SKIDMORE:CC BU SA 2.0

Larry T. Beasley, CEO, The Washington Times
In 2015, Beasley was appointed to the board of directors of the American Conservative Union by chairman Matt Schlapp, later a leading election denier.

EWTN NEWS NIGHTLY/YOUTUBE

Rachel A. Bovard, senior director of policy, Conservative Partnership Institute
The Conservative Partnership Institute has held statewide voter-suppression summits in key battleground states through its Election Integrity Network, chaired by Cleta Mitchell. The CPI is chaired by former U.S. senator and longtime CNP member Jim DeMint. Its president and CEO is CNP member Ed Corrigan, and its senior legal fellow is the CNP’s Cleta Mitchell. In January 2021, DeMint hired Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and in July—a week after the House voted to establish the January 6 commission—Trump’s Save America PAC contributed $1 million to the organization.

Georgia Representative Barry Loudermilk
In 2019, Loudermilk compared Trump’s first impeachment to Christ’s crucifixion. A dogged election denier, Loudermilk has admitted to leading a tour of the Capitol on January 5, 2021

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TRISTAN WHEELOCK/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES

Cory Mills, Republican nominee for Congress, Florida, 7th district (Orlando)
Mills, a veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division, has released an online ad based on PACEM Solutions, a company he founded and chairs, which produces “riot control munitions for law enforcement.” His ad, for which he has scheduled a “six-figure” television buy in Orlando, shows video footage of police using tear gas against “Hillary Clinton protesters,” “Black Lives Matter protesters,” and others. On August 23, Mills won the GOP primary, and according to Politico he is favored in the November general election due to a “controversial new congressional map championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.” Politico predicts that the new map could raise the Republican margin in the state from 16-11 to 20-8 in the next Congress.

C-SPAN/YOUTUBE

Carrie Campbell Severino, president, Judicial Crisis Network
Severino has long been featured as a legal expert on CNP-linked media, such as Tony Perkins’s Washington Watch broadcast. A former clerk for Clarence Thomas, Severino convened a “war room” of Catholic and CNP organizations after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to defend Trump’s ability to appoint a justice in advance of the November election.

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William S. Simon, retired CEO and president, Walmart U.S. (2010–2014)
Simon stepped down as CEO of Walmart’s domestic operations following a period of slow sales. He currently serves as a senior adviser for the investment firm KKR.

WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES

Kenneth Starr
Starr is best remembered for heading the Whitewater investigation of members of the Clinton administration. As a member of the CNP, Starr joins Donna Rice, who generated a scandal that put an end to former Senator Gary Hart’s presidential campaign in 1987.

The Council for National Policy’s core membership has been remarkably stable over the last 40 years, and founding members like Richard Viguerie and Morton Blackwell still play an active role. But there’s also a rotating cast of other characters, which appears to be pegged to the political climate of the moment. The February 2022 roster highlights two initiatives in particular: The first is the deadly Covid disinformation campaign, spearheaded by new member Simone Gold. She and her associates have been making millions of dollars from online prescriptions for bogus Covid cures and undermining vaccination and public health policies.

The second initiative has introduced new members to reinforce existing relationships. Lawson Bader cements the long-standing tie to the Koch Network, which has been a major force in the Donors Trust dark-money operation. Carrie Severino has long been a public voice for the campaigns to attack abortion and LGBT rights through the courts, which are now reaching fruition. Rachel Bovard enjoyed the rare privilege of joining the board of directors of CNP Action in her first year of membership. This indicates the emphasis the CNP places on the Conservative Partnership Institute, which is headed and run by leading members of the CNP and recently employed former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Finally, the CNP has long made a practice of hedging its bets. The Conservative Partnership Institute was recently cited in an Axios report as a prime architect for “Trump 2025,” Trump’s plans for demolishing the federal government should he win a second term. However, Mike Pence became a “dues-paying member” of the CNP this year as well, and there can be little doubt that there are active conversations with Ron DeSantis. The CNP’s leaders have made it clear that their objective is not the personality, it’s the outcome.

Anne Nelson @anelsona
Anne Nelson is the author of Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. She has taught at Columbia University for over 20 years and is currently a research scholar at Columbia’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.

No, Student Debt Relief Won’t Stoke Inflation

Here’s why.

• 
  

  TOM PHILPOTT

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• MOTHER JONES
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It's simple: without all that debt, you won't be able to afford things.Mother Jones illustration; Getty

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On Wednesday, President Biden announced his much-anticipated plan to lighten the $1.6 trillion student debt burden that hangs over 45 million borrowers. Under Biden’s executive order, people making less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples) will see their debt load cut by $10,000. For borrowers who received Pell Grants—a program designed to make college accessible to people from low-income families—the relief rises to $20,000. According to critics ranging from Obama-era economic gurus to right-wing politicians, the move will add more fuel to a crisis already ravaging the economy: inflation, which already stands at a 32-year high. 

The argument goes like this. By slashing people’s college debt, Biden is putting more money in their pockets, which they’ll then spend, driving up prices. “It’s going to raise prices on everything from clothing to gasoline to furniture to housing because there’s more money being spent versus being saved in the form of paying down your debt,” fretted Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-partisan group promoting fiscal austerity, in an interview with Vox. Larry Summers, formerly a top economic adviser to presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, echoed that claim.

Jason Furman, a Harvard economist who also served under Obama, came in even hotter.

Their complaints echoed those of GOP power players like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

They’re very likely all wrong. 

When you hear about $10,000 in debt relief, you might imagine millions of people suddenly having fat stacks of cash at their disposal, ready to go on a spending spree. Gasoline! Fire! Inflation! But that’s not how the Biden move works. The average amount of student debt stands at about $37,667 per borrower. According to the student debt calculator SmartAsset, the monthly payment on that amount would be about $393. Shaving $10,000 off leads to a payment of $289, giving a hypothetical borrower about $100 extra per month—a nice bonus, but hardly fuel for a spending rampage. 

And as the New York Times notes, debtors who opted for income-based repayment “generally won’t see their payments change—even if a portion of their debt is canceled. That’s because they make payments based on their discretionary income and household size.”

As a result, Columbia University economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz argues in The Atlantic,  the “actual amount of annual debt payments that would be reduced now, during this present inflationary episode, will probably run to tens of billions of dollars, not hundreds of billions.” In the $23 trillion US economy, that’s just not enough new spending to move the needle on inflation. (Ask the pros: In 2016, economists at the St. Louis Fed found “almost no effect of government spending on inflation”—in fact, their data showed that a 10 percent jump in federal spending drove inflation slightly downward.) 

Stiglitz points to another factor that will eliminate the already minor effects of that extra cash jingling around people’s pockets: no one is currently paying back college debt. President Trump placed a moratorium on student loan payments during the pandemic—a measure Biden has upheld. On Wednesday, the same day it rolled out the debt-relief package, the administration also announced that it would lift Trump’s moratorium at the end of this year. When payments resume in 2023, even with a chunk of debt wiped out, debtors will be spending more to pay down student loans than they have been for the past two years, meaning zero inflationary pressure. Indeed, the “net effect will be to reduce inflation,” Stiglitz writes, although he acknowledges that the numbers are too small to have much impact either way. 

Despite the shrieks from prominent inflation hawks, Stiglitz’s view is hardly outside the mainstream. Indeed, multiple Wall Street economists agree. “The end of the payment pause and the resumption of monthly payments,“ Goldman Sachs’ investment team recently told investors, “looks likely to more than fully offset the small boost to consumption from the debt relief program,” per Vox. 

Mark Zandi, chief economist at credit-rating agency Moody’s, put the case like this:

In the end, the idea that student debt relief will fuel runaway inflation, much like the notion that it’s a boon to wealthy elites, is a right-wing fantasy.  (My colleague Mike Mechanic debunked the latter notion here.) It’s fascinating to see Democratic Party-aligned bigfoots like Summers and Furman playing along.  

DEJA VU

Now CNN wants to be less "partisan": Will the media never learn its lesson?

With Brian Stelter off the air, CNN seems determined to repeat the grotesque errors that led to President Trump


COMMENTARY
By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA

Senior Writer
SALON
PUBLISHED AUGUST 26, 2022 6:30AM (EDT)

Close up of the podium in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC.

 (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

LONG READ

If you want to understand Donald Trump's malevolence and the immense harm he has caused the American people and the world, you need to follow one basic rule: Take the worst thing you can imagine about Trump's character, behavior and motivations. Then take that several steps further, into the realm of apparent absurdity. Then, quite likely, you will have arrived at some approximation of the truth.

Accept that Donald Trump is a bottomless maw of perfidy, enabling and perpetrating the worst excesses of human behavior, and the reality of the Age of Trump comes into sharp focus. That is not "doom porn" or "hysteria" or "Trump derangement syndrome." It is simply the truth, which offers us some possibility of understanding, and ultimately of victory. Refusing to believe the truth, however, leads to inevitable defeat in the struggle to save America and the world from the rising fascist tide.

The axiom that we should expect the worst — or worse than the worst — from Trump and his movement applies to almost every issue before, during and since his presidency: the coronavirus pandemic, Russia's interference in the 2016 election, chronic fraud and corruption and self-dealing, and of course the Big Lie, Trump's coup attempt and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

That same rule certainly applies to the Department of Justice investigation of Donald Trump for having taken hundreds of highly classified and top-secret documents (reportedly including information about the nuclear weapons) from the White House and storing them at Mar-a-Lago for his own purposes.

Two weeks ago, the FBI obtained a warrant and searched Trump's residence at his private resort in Palm Beach, where they seized many boxes of documents. The mainstream media was compelled to act shocked and amazed at the potentially serious crimes the former president may have committed.

The axiom that we should expect the worst — or worse than the worst — from Trump and his movement applies to everything associated with his rise to power and his term in office.

Such a reaction was not wholly unreasonable. This is the first time in American history that the Department of Justice and the FBI have investigated a former president for serious criminal charges. Moreover, the implication that a former commander in chief could actually be engaged in some form of espionage or extortion involving national secrets — potentially endangering the safety and security of the American people — may sound like something torn from the pages of a subpar spy thriller rather than an actual possibility.

Two weeks later, the scale and implications of Trump's possible violations of the Espionage Act and other laws regarding presidential records and government secrets now appear much worse.

In response to this investigation, Donald Trump is now claiming that he is a "victim" of a political "witch hunt." That is predictable and entirely untrue. Like other fascists and political strongmen, Trump believes he is above the law. To that end, Trump is effectively encouraging his followers to engage in acts of violence to defend him and the MAGA movement from President Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice, the Democrats and other perceived enemies.
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If the media and the larger political class had observed my basic rule about the limitless possibilities of Trump's perfidy, nothing about his continuing political crime spree would come as a surprise.

Related

What "revelations"? Trump's Jan. 6 crimes should shock exactly no one

Too many people in media and political class have chosen to remain on the endless treadmill of shock and surprise, largely because that narrative is both profitable and comforting. Controversy drives viewers, readers and advertising revenue; spectacle keeps the public watching, reading and clicking. To borrow from the world of professional wrestling, too often the mainstream news media is selling "the sizzle and not the steak."

This creates an endless cycle of the spectacular that numbs public sensibilities; the next event in the cycle must be even more shocking and amazing than the last one. Perspective is lost, and the public's capacity for discernment and good decision-making is further diminished.

To keep repeating the narrative that Donald Trump's behavior is somehow "shocking" or "surprising" is also comforting for the news media and larger political class because it presupposes that Trump and the neofascist movement are limited or somehow governed by the "norms" and "rules" of democracy. In other words, it relies on the assumption that there is some bottom to their perfidy and willingness to harm democracy, society and the American people.

Repeating the narrative that Trump's behavior is "shocking" or "surprising" is comforting — it presupposes that he is somehow limited by the famous "norms" of democracy.

To state the truth, that there are no such limits, is simply not acceptable in this context. So the mainstream media continues with its obsolete habits in attempting to explain the behavior of Trump and his movement and the threat they represent. In practice, this desperate normalcy bias results in the persistence of "both sides" coverage and an obsession with "objectivity," "fairness" and "balance," rather than a willingness to act as bold and unapologetic defenders of democracy.

There are many recent examples.

Last week, journalist Brian Stelter's CNN show "Reliable Sources" was abruptly canceled by Chris Licht, the network's new CEO. Licht reportedly did not approve of Stelter's "opinionated style," has issued directives to writers and on-air personnel to stop referring to Trump's false claims about the 2020 election as the "Big Lie" because that language is too "partisan." Licht also reportedly wants more conservative guests and more "straight news reporting" on CNN. These changes are not about presenting a more robust truth to viewers, but about maximizing profits by appealing to Republicans, Trump supporters and "centrists."

Licht also took the unusual step of meeting with Democratic and Republican leaders, apparently to discuss CNN's future direction. The right-wing echo chamber is celebrating this decision as a de facto apology tour for the network's purported "liberal bias."

What do "balance" and "fairness" look like when one political party is engaged in a systematic assault on democracy, freedom and the rule of law, not to mention truth and reality itself? And what about the fourth estate's obligation in a democracy to tell the truth, stand up to the powerful and hold elected officials and other leaders accountable?

Writing at Medium, Wajahat Ali recently observed that "fascism will be welcomed and normalized in America as long as it delivers good ratings, money, and access to power":

Most American institutions, especially corporate media, have refused to learn anything from the past five years in which the GOP and the entire right-wing ecosystem have become a radicalized and weaponized authoritarian movement that views them as oppressive instruments of "the deep state."

…

The message that sends to America is that it pays to be a bad-faith actor. You get to fail up, as long as you provide the ratings. Just look at Donald Trump. In 2016, former CBS CEO Leo Moonves infamously admitted that Trump "may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS." Former CNN CEO Jeff Zucker still has no regrets about helping elevate and mainstream Donald Trump through "The Apprentice" and CNN's initial coverage of his 2015 rallies. Nobody's perfect, right?

It's not just CNN, but media companies across the board, that have learned all the wrong lessons. In May 2022, CBS News hired Mick Mulvaney, Trump's former chief of staff, who was utterly complicit in enabling all of his destructive incompetence. A CBS executive justified the hire by saying they needed more Republicans for "access," assuming Democrats would lose the majority in the upcoming 2022 midterm elections. ABC News gave a lucrative contract to Chris Christie to become a political commentator. The View just added Alyssa Farah, Trump's former White House Director of Strategic Communications, as a permanent host. The big lie and the violent insurrection were a bridge too far for Farah, and that gives her and other conservatives a lifetime pass to fail up in life even though they were fine with Trump's racism, misogyny, anti-semitism, lies and cruelty. There is affirmative action in media, but it only exists for Republicans. ...

I look forward to news panels in 2023 in which guests will debate whether slavery was actually a force of benevolence, and whether or not Jews have space lasers and are using them to replace white people. After all, you can't be a good "centrist" journalist who plays it down the middle if you don't make space for these conversations where everyone can come and be heard.

A recent Washington Post article offered another example of how the mainstream media continues to normalize Trumpism and American neofascism. The headline reads: "Six drastic plans Trump is already promising for a second term." The subheading follows: "In recent speeches, the former president has begun specifying new policies he'd pursue if he returns to the White House, with an emphasis on crime, voting and shrinking the government."

This linguistic frame presents Trump and the Republicans' assaults on democracy and other authoritarian behavior through the broken lens of "normal politics" and "business as usual." In reality, Trump's plans for a second term would involve establishing himself as an American king or emperor with the power to fire government employees for "disloyalty", to use the National Guard as his personal stormtroopers in Black and brown communities and to expand the war on multiracial democracy by creating a new Jim Crow-style system of white minority rule.

American politics has been broken by asymmetrical polarization and negative partisanship: On one side, the Republican fascists want to end multiracial, pluralistic democracy and replace it with a Christo-fascist apartheid plutocracy. On the other side, the Democrats and other pro-democracy forces want to stop them. There is no moral equivalency: The two parties are not equally responsible for the country's democracy crisis.

Yet institutional norms and rules within mainstream media continue to encourage false equivalency. Last June, media scholar Jay Rosen interviewed Mark Jacob, a former editor at the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, about the media's failures in the Age of Trump. Jacob reflected on how he tried to ensure an equal number of quotes from Republicans and Democrats in news articles, and how that supposed commitment to "balance" actually empowered Trump and his forces:

There were a number of errors in my process. One was in thinking of a news story as a stage that allowed Republicans and Democrats to perform their talking points, rather than as a way to inform readers about the issues and the facts as much as possible. It was also a mistake to prioritize who was speaking rather than what they were saying. There are times when a party's leadership has coalesced around a lie. The Republican disinformation about the Jan. 6 committee, for example. If you're obligated to run a quote by Republican leaders on that, you're going to run a lie. And if you don't debunk it at the same time, you're enabling the liars.

When did I come to grips with this problem? As the Republican Party became more corrupt and at the same time more adept at laundering its message through legitimate media. You see, my equal-time approach made more sense when the two major parties were equally corrupt and dishonest. They were both pretty bad in the '80s and '90s, and there are still bad actors in the Democratic Party today. But as the Republican Party en masse has become an increasingly dangerous, anti-democratic force, equal time for the parties has become equal time for truth and for lies.

This "old-fashioned mainstream journalism approach," in which both Republicans and Democrats get to "have their say," Jacob said, was "failing our democracy" and "was increasingly being exploited by propagandists":

The idea that we had to be fair to Republicans-vs.-Democrats instead of being fair to the public and the facts was a great gift to professional political liars. They were able to insert fake issues into the mainstream news agenda. And they saw their falsehoods repeated by "objective" journalists, conferring a sense of legitimacy. Old-fashioned journalism has been no match for right-wing propaganda. It's been a slaughter.

Saving American democracy from the Republican fascists requires the news media and other public voices to defend, without apology or qualification, multiracial democracy, the Constitution, human rights, civil rights and the rule of law. To be "biased" against fascists and other authoritarians is a virtue; it's the minimum that should be demanded of the fourth estate in a liberal democracy.

If the American media were truly objective, it would consistently report on the Republican fascists' existential threats to democracy, freedom and society. What the Trumpists and neofascists thrive on is cowardly neutrality in which evil and good, right and wrong, lies and truths are presented as effectively the same thing. As a practical matter, that framework empowers the Republican fascists and larger white right and other anti-democracy forces.

American politics has been broken by asymmetrical polarization: There is no moral equivalency between the two parties. They are not equally responsible for the crisis of democracy.

Embracing pro-democracy journalism would also mean acknowledging that reporters, editors, producers and other journalists, are real human beings, not automatons or abstractions who exist outside society, untouched by the consequences of politics and larger questions of power and society. The pursuit of "objectivity" is both pointless and false. Alex Sujong Laughlin explores this in an article for Poynter following the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, when managers at some newsrooms sent emails "reminding workers to avoid tweeting anything that may give a perception of bias":

The emails were sent in service of newsrooms' desire to uphold the journalistic value of objectivity — or at least the appearance of it. When, according to Gallup, only 36% of the country has a "great deal" or "fair" amount of trust in the mass media, I understand why the need for legacy newsrooms to be perceived as "unbiased" seems critical.

But the pursuit of the appearance of objectivity (as opposed to focusing on truthful and contextual reporting of the news) has always been a cynical public relations tactic, one that came to prominence at a time when the industry — and who works in it — looked very different than it does today. Performing objectivity is outdated, and if we want to preserve public trust in media institutions, the best thing we can do is to tell the truth. ...

Rather than adapting to the rhetorical needs of an unprecedented period of democratic destabilization, legacy newsrooms are clinging to outdated values while conceding only when public opinion demands it, or when the Overton Window shifts so an issue becomes mainstream….

We can do the important work of witnessing the world, verifying truth, and contextualizing it for our readers while acknowledging our humanity and telling the truth about how these decisions will affect us personally.

We are running out of time in the struggle to save American democracy and society from the Republican fascists and their forces. The American news media and other public voices must escape the comforts of normalcy bias and the empty hope that the Republican fascists and other "conservatives" are fundamentally good people who will snap back to their senses and renew their supposed commitment to shared democratic norms and values.

In the final episode of "Reliable Sources," Brian Stelter said: "It is not partisan to stand up for decency and democracy and dialogue. It is not partisan to stand up to demagogues — it's required, it's patriotic. We must make sure we do not give a platform to those who are lying to our faces."

The American media should treat Stelter's words as a guiding principle and embrace the responsibility of defending democracy. This is an existential battle. We have no need of neutral referees.


By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
Chauncey DeVega is a senior politics writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com. He also hosts a weekly podcast, The Chauncey DeVega Show. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook.

CNN management intent on changing perception of the network

By DAVID BAUDER

FILE - Television producer Chris Licht attends The Hollywood Reporter's annual Most Powerful People in Media cocktail reception on April 11, 2019, in New York. CNN, now under the Warner Discovery corporate banner and led since spring by Licht, the CNN Worldwide chairman, is trying to inject more balance into its programming and become less radioactive to Republicans. 

(Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)


NEW YORK (AP) — It was the kind of story that media reporter Brian Stelter would normally sink his teeth into — if only it didn’t involve him.

CNN said last week it was cancelling “Reliable Sources,” its 30-year-old program on the media, and letting Stelter go, part of a nascent effort by new management to reclaim a brand identity that it feels was damaged during the Trump era.

The news network, now under the Warner Discovery corporate banner and led since spring by CNN Worldwide Chairman Chris Licht, is trying to inject more balance into its programming and become less radioactive to Republicans. How and whether that can be accomplished remains a mystery.

“CNN has to figure out what it wants to be,” said Carol Costello, a former anchor there and now a journalism instructor at Loyola Marymount University.

Former President Donald Trump portrayed CNN as an enemy, and a Pew Research Center study illustrated the impact that had with his followers. In 2014, Pew found that one-third of people who identify or lean Republican said they distrusted CNN as a source for political news. By 2019, that number had shot up to 58 percent — higher distrust than The New York Times, The Washington Post or MSNBC.

And that was before the overheated 2020 election campaign and the anger over its outcome.

Last year’s firing of CNN anchor Chris Cuomo after he helped his brother, former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, behind the scenes, also hurt CNN’s reputation among Republicans, said Carlos Curbelo, a former GOP congressman from Florida.

As Trump attacked the network, CNN returned fire. Under previous leader Jeff Zucker, CNN figures became more opinionated on the air than they ever had before. Anderson Cooper once likened Trump to “an obese turtle on its back, flailing in the hot sun, realizing his time is over,” a remark he later apologized for.

“All mainstream media took a hit with the ascent of Donald Trump,” Costello said. “I really think he did a number on journalism in general, not just CNN. For a time we all played into it, and our reporting was kind of hysterical.”

CNN’s tone had a lot to do with changes in the network’s reputation, said Mark Whitaker, a veteran newsman and former CNN executive. CNN had higher ratings and more buzz under Zucker, but, Whitaker asked, “Was it worth it in terms of the way it changed the brand perception?”

Being seen as a liberal alternative to Fox News Channel isn’t an issue for a news outlet that plays up partisanship. But for a company that has sold itself as an unbiased news source for more than 40 years — to viewers, to advertisers, to cable or satellite operators — that presents a problem.

Since Licht took over, morning anchor Brianna Keilar’s occasional takedowns of Fox coverage have disappeared. Although Licht hasn’t commented publicly on Stelter’s exit, the media reporter’s criticism of Fox was a regular feature of “Reliable Sources.”

It received little notice at the time, but cable news executive John Malone, now a member of the Warner Discovery board of directors, said in a CNBC interview last November that “I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing.”

Similarly, Warner Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav said at a company town hall in April that CNN should set itself apart from a cable news industry that is dominated by “advocacy networks.” CNN needs to be about reporting, truth and facts, he said.

“If we get that, we can have a civilized society,” said Zaslav, who appointed Licht. “And without it, if it all becomes advocacy, we don’t have a civilized society.”

Licht has given few interviews to outside journalists since taking over, and a CNN spokesman turned down a request for this article.

Licht has taken steps toward the goals his bosses have elucidated. He wants CNN anchors to be conscious of a perspective that they sometime talk down to people. He wants panel discussions to be informative, not dominated by extreme points of view. He wants to resist “outrage porn.” He ordered that the on-air “breaking news” banner be reserved for real breaking news.

Licht also went to Washington to meet with Republican leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, his counterpart at the House.

Licht would like to see more Republicans appear on CNN for meaningful interviews, not necessarily to be used by them to appear tough to supporters for standing up to hostility. There have already been small signs of success in recent weeks: appearances by South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Texas U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw.

“This is true of all three (cable news) networks: When you can get only members of one party to show up, it shows that your news division is lacking in credibility with essentially half the country,” said Curbelo, an NBC News contributor. It’s early, but Curbelo said he has liked what he’s seen with Licht so far.

The outreach with Republicans has raised some eyebrows, with Democratic strategist Kurt Bardella suggesting in a Los Angeles Times column that CNN was “eager to pander” to politicians detached from reality. And Eric Deggans, NPR’s television critic, said he’s worried about the risk of normalizing lies like the last presidential election was stolen.

“Sometimes journalists have been accused of being partisan when what they’ve really been doing is insisting upon the truth and refusing to go along with a political party that is redefining the truth to serve its own ends,” Deggans said.

CNN points out that Licht made a similar pitch to aides at President Joe Biden’s White House, showing demographic information of viewers to illustrate it would be worthwhile to appear for interviews. The network resists suggestions that lies would not be challenged, but said wants all Americans to feel their opinions are listened to.

“No matter what they do, they’ll be attacked,” Whitaker said. “Trump and others will continue to cry ‘fake news’ about anything they don’t like from the media.” But, he said, CNN has the best chance of any cable news network to reach an audience looking for a more balance in journalism.

Other visible moves are likely to come soon. Licht has been eyeing a shakeup of CNN’s morning hours and recently hired Ryan Kadro, a former CBS News colleague who handled that network’s morning show. CNN still has a hole in prime time, too: Chris Cuomo hasn’t been replaced since he was fired last December.

But what’s next remains unclear, which Deggans advised against. He called on CNN’s leaders to be clear with viewers about what’s being done. “The attitude of the new management seems to be, ‘Trust us, we have a plan.’”

___

David Bauder is the media writer for The Associated Press. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/dbauder