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Dear Trumpers: Is This What You Voted For?

Presidential candidates say a lot of things during the heat of a campaign. Voters have to separate the wheat from the chaff to figure out what among all the proposals are likely to actually be pursued. President-elect Donald Trump has taken things further by revealing his most controversial proposals AFTER the election, saving voters from having to consider whether they make any sense or should influence their vote.

As Tina Brown said today in Fresh Hell, “In Trump Season Two, deranged masculinity is all the rage.” Consider the following items Trump has put forward since the election:

  • Greenland: Trump has refused to rule out the use of force or economic coercion as a means for America to take control of Greenland,  an autonomous territory of Denmark in the polar zone with self-government and its own parliament, a population of approximately 56,600 inhabitants and an official language, Greenlandic, that is spoken by the majority, although a small proportion of the population considers itself bilingual and uses Danish as a parallel language. “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale,,” said Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede.  “… he (Trump) seems to sincerely believe that strong countries have the right to bully weaker ones. Trump has long insisted that the United States should seize smaller countries’ natural resources, and that American allies should be paying us protection money, as if they were shopkeepers and America were a mob boss,” Jonathan Chait wrote in The Atlantic.
  • The Panama Canal: Trump has refused to rule out the use of military or economic coercion to force Panama to give up control of the Panama Canal that America built more than a century ago. Construction of the canal, an artificial 82-kilometer waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean, was officially completed on April 1, 1914 and officially opened to commercial traffic on  August 15, 1914.  On Sept. 7, 1977, President Carter submitted two treaties to the U.S. Senate. The first, called the Neutrality Treaty, stated that the United States could use its military to defend the Panama Canal against any threat to its neutrality, thus allowing perpetual U.S. usage of the Canal. The second, called The Panama Canal Treaty, stated that the Panama Canal Zone would cease to exist on October 1, 1979, and the Canal itself would be turned over to the Panamanians on December 31, 1999. These two treaties were signed on September 7, 1977.  Carter signed the implementation legislation into law on September 27, 1979. When pressed on whether he might order the military to force Panama to give up the canal, or to do the same with Greenland, Trump recently said: “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two.”
  • The Gulf of Mexico: “We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump said at a recent news conference. “ … What a beautiful name, and it’s appropriate.” That The body of water has been depicted with that name for more than four centuries.Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has already proposed a bill that would federally fund the required changes to maps.
  • Making Canada Part of the United States: Trump has threatened to use “economic force” to join Canada and the United States together, implying that the United States would pare back its purchases of Canadian products to force such a move. He has posted maps on social media showing Canada as part of the United States and posted “many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State.” He has also said, “If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them,” he added. “Together, what a great Nation it would be!!!” Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded on X, “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.”
  • Wind energy: Trump has said he wants the US to move away from wind energy. “We’re going to try and have a policy where no windmills are being built,” he said. In 2023, wind power generated 10% of the United States’ electricity. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that by 2050, wind power could meet 35% of the country’s electricity demand, unless its growth is stymied by political action. Maybe all this is nonsense, theater of the absurd. Maybe it’s designed to dominate the news cycle, control the narrative, a practice Trump employs with abandon and one which drives out competing coverage of important issues.
  • Lawsuit: And if the above aren’t enough of a contribution to chaos, Trump is pursuing a lawsuit against Ann Selzer, a veteran pollster who predicted Kamala Harris would win Iowa, for fraud, and The Des Moines Register. It’s not enough that he won, I guess.

As Heather Cox Richardson observed in her Jan. 8 Letters from an American, “things that matter deeply to the American people are going largely unnoticed”.[1] Maybe all this is nonsense, theater of the absurd. Maybe it’s designed to dominate the news cycle, control the narrative, a practice Trump employs with abandon and one which drives out competing coverage of important issues. If that’s the case, Trump is succeeding, pushing aside other important issues as his inauguration draws nearer.

In the meantime, it’s discouraging to see some commentators suggest ignoring Trumps bluster. On Jan. 8, Joe Klein, a former Time magazine columnist, wrote a message on his Substack blog saying essentially, “Don’t worry. Be happy”:

“I’ll not fall for the bait. I watched Trump’s press conference. I will take him seriously, but not literally. He’s negotiating. He’s sending messages. And I don’t think the messages are all that terrible. He is haggling for better rates for American ships in the Canal (and perhaps a MAGA project of widening that too-skinny thing). He’s sending a larger message to the Chinese: we’re watching every move you make, especially in the western hemisphere. He is haggling with Denmark: Greenland wants independence, at least a majority of its minuscule (57,000) population does and we’re a more plausible big brother than you. He is poking Canada, provocatively, for better trade deals and more defense spending. He is sending us a message, too: I’m Back and More Vehement Than Ever. All of which conveys three things: confidence, the appearance of strength and a certain crafty craziness.”

Reed Galen, president of JoinTheUnion.us, a pro-democracy coalition, took a different tack in The Guardian, saying we need to be more wary of Trump’s outbursts and threats:

“The guy’s been a troll for nearly 80 years,” Galen said. “The problem is now he happens to be a troll who is about to run, again, the most powerful nation that humanity has ever known. He wants to do this because he wants outrage. He wants, to the extent that he thinks he can induce it, fear or panic. Chaos is the coin of his realm and it always will be because things being out of control is the only way he’s in control.”


[1] According to Richardson, MAGA representatives have been introducing a slew of measures to the new Congress, many of which incorporate the plans of Project 2025 into legislation. They call for turning over immigration to the states, privatizing veterans’ healthcare, and repealing the 1993 National Voting Rights Act, the 2010 Affordable Care Act, and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
Bills call for withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization; increasing oil and gas production on federal lands; abolishing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA); allowing states to spend federal education money on private school vouchers; and removing the protection of transgender rights from schools.
Other measures would revoke security clearances for “certain former members of the intelligence community,” introduce a constitutional amendment to cap the Supreme Court at nine justices, and cut off federal funding to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office (the office that successfully charged Trump with election interference) and the Fulton County (GA) District Attorney’s Office (the office that has charged Trump with criminal conspiracy).
And MAGA Republicans have proposed a bill to impose a national abortion ban, along with a bill urging Congress to support a consortium of antiabortion doctors for women because, the bill says, “health care should emphasize the whole woman, including her physical, mental, and spiritual wellness,” and “health care for women should also address the needs of men, families, and communities.”
 
 




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Is TriMet “riding the winds of change”? Not really.

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Think TriMet’s New Electric Buses Run on Wind Power? Think Again.

By Rachel Dawson

TriMet unveiled five new battery-electric buses (BEBs) in April 2019, the sides of which all donned images of windmills and sweeping gusts of wind. The BEBs each cost around $1 million, nearly twice as much as a traditional diesel bus. And these buses are just the beginning: The TriMet board voted last year to replace the entire fleet with battery-electric buses for $1.18 billion by 2040, a $500 million premium over a diesel fleet.

TriMet has been hailed an environmental hero for “riding the winds of change.” TriMet Spokesperson Roberta Altstadt claimed that TriMet was the first in the United States to “operate an electric bus on 100% renewable energy.” Without further research, it would be easy to think that TriMet’s new buses ran on clean wind energy. And that is exactlywhat TriMet is hoping you would think. But you would be wrong.

If the buses don’t run on 100% wind power, how is TriMet able to get away with saying they do?

TriMet spends $228.75 per month on what are known as renewable energy certificates (RECs) from PGE. RECs are a tradable commodity sold by renewable energy facilities (such as wind farms) to the wholesale market, that purport to represent the “environmental amenities” of certain renewable energy projects. By purchasing the RECs, TriMet has bought the legal right to claim it is using renewable energy; however, the agency has not purchased any energy itself.

This would be like my paying someone else to exercise at the gym for me, and then telling my family and friends I go to the gym. The person I pay reaps both financial and physical benefits while I merely get to pretend I have them.

Supporters of RECs claim the certificates offset fossil fuels and pay for the generation of new renewable energy. However, these claims are not entirely accurate. According to Daniel Press, a Professor of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz, “RECs do little to reduce emissions in the real world because they have become too cheap to shift energy markets or incentivize businesses to build new turbines.” The income generated from RECs does not come close to the millions needed to construct more wind turbines, which means that RECs themselves don’t offset fossil fuels.

Despite its claims, it would be impossible for TriMet to run on 100% wind power unless it disconnected from the regional mixed grid and hooked up to its own personal wind farm. Even then, TriMet would be forced to rely on other backup power sources due to the volatility of wind generation.

While a wind turbine may be available to produce energy around 90% of the time, the average wind farm in the United States in 2018 had a capacity factor of only 37.4%. The capacity factor refers to the amount of energy produced in a year as a fraction of the farm’s maximum capacity. Wind farms produce electricity when winds reach about nine miles per hour and stop at roughly 55 mph to prevent equipment damage. If the wind isn’t blowing (or isn’t blowing strongly enough), little to no power can be generated.

This poses problems, as the electrical grid requires constant equilibrium or blackouts will result—power supply must meet energy demand. Every megawatt of wind power has to be backed up by an equal amount of traditional, “non-green” sources like coal and natural gas to account for times when wind energy isn’t generated. This would be like keeping a car constantly running at home in case the one you’re driving on the road fails.

Instead of a wind farm, TriMet receives its electricity from Portland General Electric, the same mixed grid your home is likely powered by. In 2020, this mixed grid will be made up of 37% natural gas, 28% coal, 18% hydro, 15% renewables, and 2% purchased power (power purchased on the wholesale market). Since wind only makes up a portion of renewables used by PGE, less than 15% of the electricity used by the “wind” buses is powered by wind. A greater percentage of the electricity used by TriMet’s BEBs comes from coal plants than wind farms.

If TriMet were honest with its riders, it would replace the windmills on the sides of the new buses with coal, natural gas, and hydroelectric power plants. In the name of accuracy, TriMet could place a windmill in the corner, demonstrating the small percentage of power generated by wind farms.

So instead of riding the “winds of change,” keep in mind that you’re just riding a really expensive bus.

Rachel Dawson is a Policy Analyst at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization.

 

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Tweedledee. Tweedledum: The two parties spend with abandon.

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Tweedledee. Tweedledum. This is what we get when the two parties work together, a massive spending spree.

A $1.1 trillion federal spending bill and a $650 billion tax package unveiled today show that neither party gives a damn about holding down spending. It’s not that all the items to be funded are wasteful or unneeded, but the package will push spending above previously agreed limits by $66 billion in 2016 and permanently extend a vast array of tax benefits that will add at least a half-trillion dollars to the federal deficit, once a matter of great concern.

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  • Bowing to pressure on Republicans and Democrats from medical device manufacturers across the county, including in Oregon, anti-Obamacare zealots, and ticked-off unions with expensive healthcare plans, the legislation will postpone for two years (which probably means forever) a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices manufacturers, that was expected to raise $29 billion of net revenues over 10 years and a so-called “Cadillac Tax” tax on expensive employer-sponsored healthcare plans, that was projected to raise about $30 billion over 10 years to cover new spending under Obamacare. Then, to add insult to injury, the legislation makes the Cadillac tax refundable when it restarts. The lost taxes will blow a hole in planned funding to cover the cost of Obamacare.
  • The Defense Department will get $1111 billion for new military equipment, including F-35 Joint-Strike Fighters, Black Hawk helicopters, attack submarines and guided missile destroyers.
  • A 40-year-old oil export ban will be rescinded and, in trade, Democrats will get expensive extensions of wind and solar power tax incentives.
  • A research and development tax credit will be expanded and extended permanently.
  • The $1,000 Child Tax Credit will be extended permanently.
  • The Earned Income Tax Credit will be permanently extended.
  • A federal health program for first responders and construction workers who worked at the World Trade Center site after 9/11 and a separate victims compensation fund will be extended at a cost of $8 billion.
  • A National Oceans and Coastal Security Fund will be created to “support work that helps Americans understand and adapt to forces like sea level rise, severe storms, and ocean acidification” associated with climate change.
  • The American Opportunity Tax Credit, an annual credit for tuition and other qualified expenses, will be permanently extended.
  • A $250 annual deduction on qualified expenses of teachers will be indexed for inflation and permanently extended.
  • Five tax credits tied to charitable donations by individuals and businesses will be permanently extended.
  • Funding for the IRS will be frozen, punishing the IRS for targeting conservative groups, but also further limiting its ability to go after tax scofflaws and, this, reducing tax receipts.
  • A $255 per month pre-tax benefit for parking and public transportation expenses will be permanently extended.

But aside from all the spending, Congress did accomplish a few good things.

There will be a pay freeze for Vice President Biden, for example.

Also, earlier this year the dour, stick-in-the-mud Capitol Police said sledding by gleeful children and adults on the snow of Capitol Hill would no longer be allowed. The package asks that the Capitol Police rescind that prohibition so the jollity can resume.

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