The Trump Regime's War on Public Health

Science and fact based policy decisions pose a problem for the Trump/Pence regime in its effort to roll back public health protections and destroy clean air and clean water regulations.  Why?  Because they support the regulations that Trump/Pence seeks to gut to aid big business, especially the fossil fuel industry. What's the solution when one wants to aid polluters and industry dangerous to public health?  One limits the use of science in setting regulatory policies. While the results may line corporate pockets, it will not be a win for the public and long term safety standards.   Between universal health care and an embrace, rather than a rejection of science, are among the reasons Europeans increasingly enjoy longer life spans than Americans, not that any of this matters to Trump and the vulture capitalists he champions.   The latest assault on public health care policy comes in efforts to limit the role of science in the EPA's policy making process.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at this aspect of the Trump/Pence regimes effort to restore the worse aspects of the Gilded Age.  Here are excerpts which also suggests that opposing these efforts should be part of the Democrats' 2020 agenda:

There are essentially two fronts in the Trump administration’s long battle to dismantle EPA protections and deregulate industry to allow increased pollution in the pursuit of short-term profit: the rolling back of specific laws that ensure access to clean air and water, and an attack on the science that informs the Environmental Protection Agency’s policy decisions.

On that second front, the White House has undermined individual targets, like the 2017 establishment of veto power over scientific studies produced by the EPA, and the recent massaging of information to suggest pollution from coal plants kill less Americans every year than is the case. But a new draft of an EPA proposal published Monday suggests that the Trump administration is preparing a comprehensive assault on the ability for scientists funded by the agency to suggest policy with accurate data. Under the guise of transparency, the proposal will allow the EPA to reject any academic findings unless all raw data from the study — including confidential medical records — is handed over.

As the New York Times notes, the inclusion of confidential records will severely hinder the ability of researchers to propose new clean air and water legislation, as “many studies detailing the links between pollution and disease rely on personal health information gathered under confidentiality agreements.” The proposal would also apply retroactively, meaning that a practice that has been built into public health research could nullify current policies built off of established studies — including findings proving that mercury discharge from power plants affects brain development, and that lead in paint dust is associated with childhood behavioral disorders. “This means the E.P.A. can justify rolling back rules or failing to update rules based on the best information to protect public health and the environment, which means more dirty air and more premature deaths,” Paul Billings, a senior vice president at the American Lung Association, told the Times. Other advocacy groups to condemn a previous draft of the proposal — which was less exacting than the current one — include the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Medical Library Association, the Association of Academic Health Science Libraries, and the National Center for Science Education, which claimed that the policy “would send a deeply misleading message, ignoring the thoughtful processes that scientists use to ensure that all relevant evidence is considered.” [I]t’s strange that 2020 Democrats have yet to push Trump’s failure to ensure Americans’ access to clean air and water — concerns that are broadly supported across the political spectrum. In a recent analysis on the popularity of strong anti-pollution enforcement, New York’s Eric Levitz argued that “it would be in the Democratic Party’s interest to increase the salience of environmental issues even if Trump hadn’t spent the past two years letting Big Coal and Dow Chemical run the EPA.”

Put another way, if Democrats aren’t able to leverage the popularity of environmental protections, Trump could be able to undermine the research underpinning the EPA for close to a decade.

We Need a New Version of Capitalism

Republicans - especially Donald Trump - are eager to depict whoever the Democrat presidential nominee turns out to be as a socialist and a threat to capitalism and somehow an enemy of average Americans even though the Democrat agenda is to improve the lot of a majority of Americans, not just the wealthy and big corporations as the GOP made clear was its goal in the form of the Trump/GOP tax cuts and the Trump/Pence regime efforts to roll back safety regulations and clean air and clean water regulations while destroying labor unions.  The irony is that many in Trump's base long for the 1950's when life was better for many because of labor unions that upheld wages and the far higher taxes paid by the wealthy funded infrastructure projects such as the Interstate highway system. In short, today's version of capitalism has turned toxic for the majority - much as was the case in the Gild Age, a time the GOP seeks to seemingly restore.  Not all of the wealthy are content to see income disparities continue to rise as the wallow in greed.  David Walentas, a visionary New York real estate developer definitely not cut from the same cloth as Trump, just made a $100 million gift to the University of Virginia to benefit students from families where no one has ever attended college.  Then there is Marc Benioff who argues that a new capitalism is needed in a column in the New York Times.  Here are column highlights:

Capitalism, I acknowledge, has been good to me.  Over the past 20 years, the company that I co-founded, Salesforce, has generated billions in profits and made me a very wealthy person. I have been fortunate to live a life beyond the wildest imaginations of my great-grandfather, who immigrated to San Francisco from Kiev in the late 1800s.

Yet, as a capitalist, I believe it’s time to say out loud what we all know to be true: Capitalism, as we know it, is dead.

Yes, free markets — and societies that cherish scientific research and innovation — have pioneered new industries, discovered cures that have saved millions from disease and unleashed prosperity that has lifted billions of people out of poverty.

But capitalism as it has been practiced in recent decades — with its obsession on maximizing profits for shareholders — has also led to horrifying inequality. Globally, the 26 richest people in the world now have as much wealth as the poorest 3.8 billion people, and the relentless spewing of carbon emissions is pushing the planet toward catastrophic climate change. In the United States, income inequality has reached its highest level in at least 50 years, with the top 0.1 percent — people like me — owning roughly 20 percent of the wealth while many Americans cannot afford to pay for a $400 emergency. It’s no wonder that support for capitalism has dropped, especially among young people. To my fellow business leaders and billionaires, I say that we can no longer wash our hands of our responsibility or what people do with our products. Yes, profits are important, but so is society. And if our quest for greater profits leaves our world worse off than before, all we will have taught our children is the power of greed.

It’s time for a new capitalism — a more fair, equal and sustainable capitalism that actually works for everyone and where businesses, including tech companies, don’t just take from society but truly give back and have a positive impact.

What might a new capitalism look like?

First, business leaders need to embrace a broader vision of their responsibilities by looking beyond shareholder return and also measuring their stakeholder return. This requires that they focus not only on their shareholders, but also on all of their stakeholders — their employees, customers, communities and the planet. Fortunately, nearly 200 executives with the Business Roundtable recently committed their companies, including Salesforce, to this approach, saying that the “purpose of a corporation” includes “a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders.” Unfortunately, not everyone agrees. . . . . When asked whether companies should serve all stakeholders and whether capitalism should be updated, Vice President Mike Pence warned against “leftist policies.”

But suggesting that companies must choose between doing well and doing good is a false choice. Successful businesses can and must do both. In fact, with political dysfunction in Washington, D.C., Americans overwhelmingly say C.E.O.s should take the lead on economic and social challenges, and employees, investors and customers increasingly seek out companies that share their values.

Legislation to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act have stalled in Congress for years, and today women still only make about 80 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by men. But congressional inaction does not absolve companies from their responsibility. Since learning that we were paying women less than men for equal work at Salesforce, we have spent $10.3 million to ensure equal pay; today we conduct annual audits to ensure that pay remains equal. Just about every company, I suspect, has a pay gap — and every company can close it now.

For many businesses, giving back to their communities is an afterthought — something they only do after they’ve turned a profit. But by integrating philanthropy into our company culture from the beginning — giving 1 percent of our equity, time and technology — Salesforce has donated nearly $300 million to worthy causes, including local public schools and addressing homelessness.

Globally, few nations are meeting their targets to fight climate change, the current United States presidential administration remains determined to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and global emissions continue to rise. As governments fiddle, there are steps that business can take now, while there’s still time . . . .

Skeptical business leaders who say that having a purpose beyond profit hurts the bottom line should look at the facts. Research shows that companies that embrace a broader mission — and, importantly, integrate that purpose into their corporate culture — outperform their peers, grow faster, and deliver higher profits.

Of course, C.E.O. activism and corporate philanthropy alone will never be enough to meet the immense scale of today’s challenges. It could take $23 billion a year to address racial inequalities in our public schools. College graduates are drowning in $1.6 trillion of student debt. It will cost billions to retrain American workers for the digital jobs of the future. Trillions of dollars of investments will be needed to avert the worst effects of climate change. All this, when our budget deficit has already surpassed $1 trillion.

That is why a new capitalism must also include a tax system that generates the resources we need and includes higher taxes on the wealthiest among us. . . . . Nationally, increasing taxes on high-income individuals like myself would help generate the trillions of dollars that we desperately need to improve education and health care and fight climate change.

The culture of corporate America needs to change, and it shouldn’t take an act of Congress to do it. Every C.E.O. and every company must recognize that their responsibilities do not stop at the edge of the corporate campus. When we finally start focusing on stakeholder value as well as shareholder value, our companies will be more successful, our communities will be more equal, our societies will be more just and our planet will be healthier.

Trump and his vulture capitalist cronies embody the direct opposite of this responsible proposal.

Is the Trump/Pence Regime Trying to Kill Americans?

The title of this post might seem extreme, but when one factors in the consequence of the Trump/Pence regime's agenda - and that of the GOP in general - the inescapable conclusion is that some Americans will die as a result of this regime's policies.  Through its quest to eliminate regulations that protect everything from clean air and water to the safety of the food we eat, the agenda is to bring back some of the worse aspects of the Gilded Age.  The purpose?  To allow large corporations and certain preferred industries to rake in more money while the health of average Americans is harmed.  Throw in the goal of eliminating the Affordable Health Care Act while proposing no meaningful replacement, and the death toll soars. Meanwhile, the wealthiest Americans only care about increasing their obscene wealth and evangelical Christians fixated on imposing a Christian version of Sharia Law think that they will somehow be exempt from the deadly effects of the Trump/Pence agenda.  A column in the New York Times looks at the real harm being done.  Here are excerpts:

Even if he’s a one-term president, Trump will have caused, directly or indirectly, the premature deaths of a large number of Americans.

Some of those deaths will come at the hands of right-wing, white nationalist extremists, who are a rapidly growing threat, partly because they feel empowered by a president who calls them “very fine people.”

Some will come from failures of governance, like the inadequate response to Hurricane Maria, which surely contributed to the high death toll in Puerto Rico. (Reminder: Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.)

Some will come from the administration’s continuing efforts to sabotage Obamacare, which have failed to kill health reform but have stalled the decline in the number of uninsured, meaning that many people still aren’t getting the health care they need. Of course, if Trump gets his way and eliminates Obamacare altogether, things on this front will get much, much worse.

But the biggest death toll is likely to come from Trump’s agenda of deregulation — or maybe we should call it “deregulation,” because his administration is curiously selective about which industries it wants to leave alone.

Consider two recent events that help capture the deadly strangeness of what’s going on.

One is the administration’s plan for hog plants to take over much of the federal responsibility for food safety inspections. And why not? It’s not as if we’ve seen safety problems arise from self-regulation in, say, the aircraft industry, have we? . . . Or as if there was a reason the U.S. government stepped in to regulate meatpacking in the first place?

Now, you could see the Trump administration’s willingness to trust the meat industry to keep our meat safe as part of an overall attack on government regulation, a willingness to trust profit-making businesses to do the right thing and let the market rule.

[W]e normally think of Republicans in general, and Trump in particular, as people who minimize or deny the “negative externalities” imposed by some business activities — the uncompensated costs they impose on other people or businesses.

[T]he Trump administration wants to roll back rules that limit emissions of mercury from power plants. And in pursuit of that goal, it wants to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from taking account of many of the benefits from reduced mercury emissions, such as an associated reduction in nitrogen oxide.

But when it comes to renewable energy, Trump and company are suddenly very worried about supposed negative side effects, which generally exist only in their imagination.

So it’s deregulation for some, but dire warnings about imaginary threats for others. What’s going on?

Part of the answer is, follow the money. Political contributions from the meat-processing industry overwhelmingly favor Republicans. Coal mining supports the G.O.P. almost exclusively. Alternative energy, on the other hand, generally favors Democrats.

Whatever the drivers of Trump policy, the fact, as I said, is that it will kill people. Wind turbines don’t cause cancer, but coal-burning power plants do — along with many other ailments. The Trump administration’s own estimates indicate that its relaxation of coal pollution rules will kill more than 1,000 Americans every year. If the administration gets to implement its full agenda — not just deregulation of many industries, but discrimination against industries it doesn’t like, such as renewable energy — the toll will be much higher.

So if you eat meat — or, for that matter, drink water or breathe air — there’s a real sense in which Donald Trump is trying to kill you. And even if he’s turned out of office next year, for many Americans it will be too late.

Trump's Terrifying Climate Policy

The Hampton Roads region is finally coming out of a period of widespread flooding on the par with what one would normally expect during a hurricane direct hit or close encounter.  Yet, there was no hurricane.  Just steady rain for numerous days in a row combined with high tides - combined with rising sea levels - that block storm drainage systems from doing their jobs.  And it was just Norfolk that suffered major flooding.  Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Chesapeake and other cities were stricken. Indeed, schools were closed because of the impassable nature of many roads.  All is proof positive of the reality of climate change.  Despite such objective proof, Republicans and Donald Trump in particular continue to push policies that will lead to climate disaster.  A piece in Think Progress looks at the terrifying policies favored by liar and vulgarian in chief, Donald Trump.  Here are excerpts:

On Thursday, Donald Trump spoke before an audience full of natural gas and energy industry leaders — and the message was exactly the same as his economic policy proposal from last week: fewer environmental regulations and more land available to fossil fuel companies.

“We need an America-First energy plan,” Trump said. “This means opening federal lands for oil and gas production; opening offshore areas; and revoking policies that are imposing unnecessary restrictions on innovative new exploration technologies.”

If elected president, Trump has pledged to revoke both the Clean Power Planand President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, the cornerstones of Obama’s domestic climate agenda, and important signals to the international community of the United States’ commitment to climate action.

 

Trump has also promised to roll back the Waters of the United States Rule, which would extend drinking water protections for millions of Americans. Instead, he said that he would redirect the EPA to “refocus…on its core mission of ensuring clean air, and clean, safe drinking water for all Americans.”

Trump does not seem to understand that regulations he so deeply wants to cut are crucial to preserving clean air, and clean, safe drinking water for all Americans.

A recent Harvard study found that the public health benefits of the Clean Power Plan are so robust that they outweigh the costs of the carbon standard in 13 out of 14 power sectors within five years of implementation. The same study estimated that the plan could save some 3,500 lives every year. Similarly, the Waters of the United States rule would protect the drinking water for a third of Americans that currently get their water from unprotected sources.

Beyond rolling back crucial protections, Trump’s speech on Thursday showed that he does not intend to back down on his policy proposal that would open up vast regions of the United States to fossil fuel production. 

After Trump’s speech, Sierra Club Political Director Khalid Pitts criticized the Republican presidential candidate’s policies, calling them polluter “talking points.”

“Trump’s dirty-fuels-first plan is pretty simple: drill enough off our coasts to threaten beaches from Maine to Florida, frack enough to spoil groundwater across the nation, and burn enough coal to cook the planet and make our kids sick,” Pitts said in a statement. “In stark contrast, Hillary Clinton is the only candidate in this race who is committed to grow the booming clean energy economy to create jobs and help tackle the climate crisis.”