Tag Archives: Ann Wagner

Who pulls Ann Wagner’s strings?

30 Sunday Sep 2018

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Who pulls Rep. Ann Wagner’s strings? Not the voters in Missouri’s 2nd district for sure, who have been complaining for some time that she’s missing in action. She’s held no town hall meetings with constituents apart from some hilariously stage-managed “telephone” events – characterized by pre-selected participants and questions – and appearances before employees at friendly business venues that often offer no chance for questions. In fact, she’s so allergic to demands for direct accountability that, according the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Todd Robberson, she has “repeatedly” refused to meet with the paper’s editorial staff in order to secure its endorsement.

Rep. Wagner does frequently send out an email “newsletter’ filled with treacly PR, news about her photo-ops and questionable claims that conform to GOP talking points. Claims, for instance, that the GOP tax cut for the rich has actually benefited working-class Missourians, which she put forward in her email newsletter of Sept. 3, are debatable – although we’re not likely to get the chance to debate them with the congresswoman herself.

So if Rep. Wagner is more interested in constructing a smoke screen than in finding out how her constituents really think about what she is doing in Washington, they can’t be blamed for wondering for whom she’s actually working when she’s in D.C. And it’s not too hard to figure out.

We all know about her huge campaign war-chest, currently ca. $3 million, made up of cash donated by “private donors hoping to influence or advance the people who do the public’s business.” And the cash rewards are not limited to “getting the message out.” The Post-Dispatch reported recently that “members of Congress use ‘leadership PACs’ – separate campaign fundraising entities from their regular political committees – to buy everything from rounds of golf to trips to posh resorts to tickets to Broadway shows.” These so-called “life-style enhancements” are on the pricey side, as indicated by some of the particulars pertaining to Wagner:

Wagner’s “leadership PAC, Ann PAC, spent $21,831 from 2015 through 2017 for event expenses, lodging, catering, and travel at various locations in Las Vegas, including the Venetian/Palazzo Hotel and expenses from Tao Restaurant Vegas, an ‘unparalleled Asian-inspired restaurant’ that is the sister to the ‘trendsetting’ Tao in New York. The payments to the Venetian/Palazzo in 2015 correspond with the Republican Jewish Coalition Spring Leadership Meeting.” Spokespersons for Wagner did not respond to a request for comment.

Who pulls Rep. Wagner’s strings? Tell me who is it who keeps Wagner in D.C. and shows her a good time while she’s there and I’ll show you who has her ear.

Where’s Roy, Annie, Vicky and the rest of Missouri’s Washington GOP gang?

16 Monday Jul 2018

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Today Donald Trump kissed up to Putin and sold out the United States. His performance was so horrifying that a former CIA director, John Brennan, characterized it as exceeding “the threshold of high crimes & misdemeanors. It was nothing short of treasonous.” Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper added that, “on the world’s stage, in front of the entire globe, the President of the United States essentially capitulated and seems intimidated by Vladimir Putin. So it was amazing and very, very disturbing.”

All of which tends to confirm what we’ve all known all along: our president owes Putin big-time and is running scared as the extent of the debt is close to being exposed by the special prosecutor.

Even a few Republicans were outraged by the Trump’s craven performance (see here and here). But not all. Not even very many.  As Paul Waldman noted in The Washington Post:

When it comes to Republicans, we’re faced with two related issues. First, there are members of their party who actively benefited from Russian manipulation of our election, and even sought out help that turned out to come from Russia, whether they fully understood it at the time. Second, much of the rest of their party is now arguing that it’s really no big deal if the Russians manipulate American elections, so long as the GOP is the one that benefits. […]

We all know how eager the Trump campaign was to work with the Russian government when the campaign believed the Russians had dirt on Clinton to share. But just as we’ve seen so many times before, Trump’s naked corruption is merely a more unapologetic version of what’s happening within the Republican Party. So the question now is: Is this still going on? Are any Republican candidates currently receiving information obtained through Russian hacking about their opponents?

Which leads me to ask: what does GOP Senator Roy Blunt have to say about how Donald Trump is putting the security of our country at risk? Or my 2nd district GOP representative, Ann Wagner? So far nothing but crickets. And that goes for the rest of the Missouri delegation.

But it’s early times yet – just a few hours after the press conference after all. I’ll be watching to see how our GOP delegation responds after they’ve  had a chance to test the direction of the wind in order to decide where their convictions lay.  Who knows, just because they didn’t condemn daddy right away doesn’t mean they won’t manage to summon up some mild distress as long as it doesn’t look like it’ll get the red-meat pitchfork brigade too fired up.

I’ll be getting back to you when/if I learn who has an incipient backbone and who doesn’t. It’s important. We’ve got vitally important midterms coming up – and Trump’s public stance, in terms of what he says and his policies amounts to a giant “so what?”. All of which leads one to really worry about what deals may have been made – or further elaborated – in the two hours when the dictator and the wannabe dictator conferred unattended.

Ann Wagner wants to let auto lenders discriminate against African-Americans

15 Tuesday May 2018

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Got my latest email newsletter from my intrepid Washington Representative, Ann Wagner (R-2). It contained this rather extraordinary paragraph:

The Senate and House took action to roll back the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s backdoor regulating of the motor vehicle industry. In 2013, the CFPB relied on “junk science” when issuing their guidance on indirect auto lending. The Dodd-Frank Act explicitly states the Bureau has no jurisdiction supervising this industry, yet time and time again we see it is an agency willing to issue regulation by enforcement. Since 2013, the CFPB has issued over $200 million in out-of-court settlements to auto lenders based on guidance that was flawed from the start, ultimately harming the very consumers they intended to protect. Through S.J. Res. 57, Congress will bring accountability back to the CFPB and ensure this blatant over-regulation never happens again.

Bet using the phrase “junk science” gave Wagner a real thrill since she continually cites real junk science to justify her effort to deny women their right to abortion. Republicans in general like nothing better than fracturing logic in order to try to turn progressive rhetoric to their own use.

But the style of GOP duplicity in Wagner’s effort to mislead her constituents has to take backseat to its substance. What she’s referring to, the “problem” addressed by S.J. Res. 57, is an effort to address discriminatory auto lending practices via guidelines for indirect lenders rather than auto-dealers who were exempted from consumer protection oversight by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) established under Dodd-Frank. Specifically, the legislation Wagner touts attempts to nullify anti-discrimination provisions meant to protect minorities:

The fight centers on guidance issued by the CFPB in 2013 that took aim at a common industry practice in which auto dealers mark up interest rates offered by finance companies. Finance firms such as Ally, for example, set an interest rate based on objective criteria — including a borrower’s credit history and the size of the down payment. Auto dealers then are free to raise the interest rates within certain limits. The finance companies and the dealers split the extra profits.The CFPB argued that auto dealers were using that discretionary markup to charge black and Latino borrowers more than white ones, even if they had the same credit scores. Over several years, the agency fined numerous auto lenders millions of dollars for discriminating against minority borrowers.

What the “junk science” accusation in Wagner’s screed refers to is the CFPB’s use of  a study by the Center for Responsible Lending that applied statistical analysis to large data sets selected on the basis of last name and zip code. No one disputes that such analysis may not work on the individual level. In the absence of data indicating the race of borrowers,  however, far from being junk science, as Stuart Rossman, Director of Litigation at the National Consumer Law Center, puts it, “this analysis conducted on data from millions of auto finance transactions can find patterns that almost certainly reveal actual differences based on race.”

It also supplements numerous studies that have used other methodologies to show that lenders use the discretionary markup to disadvantage minority borrowers. Rossman, for instance, references more substantive data gleaned in the 1990s:

In fact, a few years ago, the National Consumer Law Center proved the same conclusion in courts of law based on data that did reveal the race of individual borrowers. In the late 1990s, we co-counseled class action lawsuits against all of the major auto finance companies challenging the use of discretionary dealer markups. In discovery, we obtained data on individual loans, and we hired an expert witness to match the loans to drivers’ license data in states that collected the drivers’ race. With millions of loans to analyze, we also could find the race of many borrowers who financed a car in a state that does not collect racial information but previously lived in a state that does. The results were overwhelming: Dealers were twice as likely to add a markup to the loans of African-Americans than to loans taken out by comparable white borrowers. Furthermore, when African-American and compatible white borrowers both were marked up, the African-American borrowers paid significantly more

That was 20 years ago you say – however a study earlier this year showed the same discriminatory lending patterns:

Discrimination in auto lending continues to be a very real problem. In early 2018, a study conducted by the National Fair Housing Alliance paired white and nonwhite testers to visit auto dealerships and shop for the same car within 24 hours of each other. The study found that, more often than not, the better qualified nonwhite applicant was offered more expensive pricing options than the less qualified white applicant. This resulted in those nonwhite borrowers paying on average $2,662 more than white borrowers over the life of the loan. Additionally, NFHA found that 75% of the time, white testers were offered more financing options than nonwhite testers. These statistics further prove the need for continued vigilant enforcement against violations of ECOA, as well as clear expectations for industry like the 2013 guidance provides.

So far no junk science, just many studies with diverse methodologies that point in the same direction. One that folks like Wagner don’t like to acknowledge straight-up. Because, hey, who wants to admit they support discrimination on the basis of race if it helps their banking cronies bottom line to deny it? Especially if the legislator in question has decided to cast her lot with the Idiot-in-Chief who’s helped her do lots of good for those in financial circles and who specializes in bringing the GOP’s racist dog whistles out of the shadows and into the light.

Getting ironical about Greitens

13 Friday Apr 2018

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Are Republicans cynical, confused, or just outright hypocrites?

Cynical: The White House spokespeople, folks who work for Donald Trump, P****-grabber and sexual predator extraordinaire, who are claiming that they find the abuse allegations against the Missouri Governor, who is, compared to Trump, a junior-grade sexual predator, “very concerning.”

Confused: The three Missouri legislators, Republican Senators. Rob Schaaf, Doug Libla and Gary Romine, who are appealing to the same White House predator – who will never in a thousand years resign himself – to force Greitens to go gently into the looming political night. I guess our state-level pols just haven’t been paying attention. Read their letter – except for the parts that glorify Geitens’ Navy SEAL past, it could be describing the antics that have been imputed to the Orange Buffoon himself. Of course, the fool in the White House could end up doing just about anything, depending on the state of his “gut,” so maybe their gambit will pay off.

Outright hypocrite: Then, finally there’s the case of Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2). Wagner couldn’t wait to declare that when it comes to Greitens, she is “disgusted,” and asserts that he “is unfit to lead our state.” But I’m betting that a few of you remember when, in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape, she called on Trump to withdraw and labeled him “predatory and reprehensible.” Didn’t take her too long to reverse herself, though, when she realized which way the wind was blowing among the crazy reds in the Missouri GOP base. Nor is it surprising that she’s spent the last year kissing up to the Orange Buffoon who has showered her financial industry patrons with goodies. So much for her country-club rectitude.

Don’t ever doubt that our Annie will do whatever it takes when it comes to going along to get along. So we’ll wait and see if Greitens manages to hang on whether or not, in the end, all will be forgiven.

Has McCaskill chosen the wrong “bipartisan” issue?

11 Sunday Mar 2018

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At this still, admittedly, early date, Claire McCaskill, Missouri’s Democratic Senate incumbent, is running eight points, 44-52, behind wet-behind-the-ears AG Josh Hawley, who is probably her best known challenger from among the GOP primary lineup. How can this be, you ask? McCaskill’s got the money, she’s been working hard to make sure that out-state Missourian’s know that she understands rural “Missouri values,” trekking from one town hall to another, tacking carefully and skillfully to the center in an effort to cultivate those famous moderates we keep hearing about – although we rarely seem to see them nowadays.

But recent events leave me wondering if McCaskill’s might have honed in on the wrong issue in order to prove her non-partisan bona fides. I’m referring to her support for a Republican bill that would once again deregulate banks. As Garry Rivlin and Susan Antilla of The Intercept describe it:

… the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, […] represents the greatest threat to the Dodd-Frank financial reform law since its passage in 2010. The bill would relieve all but the country’s largest dozen banks of increased scrutiny and ease mortgage rules imposed after the financial crisis. It would undermine fair lending rules designed to counteract race discrimination and weaken the Volcker rule, which limits a bank’s ability to make speculative trades with federally insured deposits. …

In spite of the fact that bank earnings have continuously surged since 2010, proponents speciously insist that, due to the act, banks “are suffering and so, by extension, are consumers, businesses, and the economy at large.” Part and parcel of the GOP belief, reinforced by the Liar-in-Chief in the White House, that if you say it, it will be so, reality be dammed.

Many of the red-state Democrats who support the bill, like McCaskill, purport to buy into the argument that Dodd-Frank needs to be revised to help suffering community banks that the law has, they assert, disadvantaged. However, as Rivlin and Antilla report, “A 2017 FDIC report shows that deposits in community banks have grown in each of the past six years. Another report showed that 96 percent of the country’s 5,294 community banks were profitable, as of the third quarter of 2017.” If you’re interested in learning more about the problems with this legislation, including the effect on community banks, noted economist Jared Bernstein spells some of them out here in greater – but not too lengthy or ponderous -detail.

The issue for McCaskill, though, could go beyond pandering through bad policy, and might actually cost her politically. Consider, for example, the speculation that banking champion GOP Rep. Ann Wagner may be vulnerable this time around. It’s true that there are several reasons other than her dedication to fighting for the banks that so generously fund her that might leave her in a little shakier position than in the past. Her district has changed somewhat, she plays shy with her constituents in an effort to avoid controversy – and dim any potential sunlight on her priorities. There is, of course, also some indication that the hard-core Trumpies may not totally buy her Trump-MAGA conversion and are likely put off by her coy country club Republican aura.

But it’s equally true that there’s somewhat louder discussion than in past years about Wagner’s single-minded efforts to gut the financial rules, the fiduciary rule that protected investors from dishonest financial advisors in particular. People aren’t always as stupid as politicians think they are, particularly when it involves financial survival issues. And don’t forget, lots of Trump’s so-called populist voters were motivated by anger at Wall-street and the big banks – and there are those among them who are feeling a bit disillusioned right now.

McCaskill should take care – linking herself with folks like Ann Wagner and Blaine Luetkemeyer, big-time Missouri shills for the banking industry, might just prove to be the proverbial millstone that could harm more than it helps with contrary voters. Oh, and there’s always the damage the actual policy may do to all of us. Don’t any of these Democratic fools playing the bipartisan game remember 2008?

ADDENDUM: Kevin Drum points out that the Dodd-Frank roll-back will also gut provisions that prevent racial redlining, voicing his – and my dismay – that any Democrats – are you listening Senator McCaskill – are supporting this piece of drek.

Missouri GOP having second thoughts about Hawley?

06 Tuesday Feb 2018

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Scuttlebutt is that Josh Hawley’s halo is getting a bit tarnished. Roll call reports:

In recent days, some Republicans have been questioning Hawley’s fundraising and lack of campaign activity in the four months since he officially launched his campaign.

“This is supposed to be the campaign where we righted all the wrongs of Todd Akin and we exorcised all the demons of past campaigns or past attempts to beat Claire McCaskill,” one Missouri GOP consultant said. “And now people are wondering, ‘Are we really going to blow this again?’”

And don’t forget Hawley’s statements about the sexual revolution as the root of sex trafficking. Second helping of Todd Akin anyone?

And then, of course, there’s the business of that mysterious robocall polling Missourians on whether they prefer McCaskill or Wagner? Who’s responsible? Your guess is as good as mine.

Missouri GOP House members go into hiding when Trump shows his true colors – about skin color – while GOP Senator Roy Blunt soft peddles the story

20 Saturday Jan 2018

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It’s been a couple of weeks since President Racist Moron sent us spiraling down toward a government shutdown by expressing his goal of importing prosperous, wealthy white Norwegians – who have little reason to come to the U.S. – instead of brown folks from S**thole countries – who actually need the haven that the United States has traditionally offered the oppressed, poverty stricken folks who flocked to these shores and helped build a strong, wealthy country where the middle class grew and prospered as never before. During this time, I’ve been monitoring the newspapers and congressional press releases to find out how our representatives in Congress have responded to Trump’s racist babblings – and I’ve found out just about nothing to let me know how our GOP profiles in political cowardice stand on the issue. However, today, Salon has posted an article that tells us what each member of Congress has had to say about this destructive and ugly piece of “telling it like it is,” as some of the more racist “deplorable” Trump supporters would have it:

  • Blunt, Roy (R–Sen.): Condemn
  • *McCaskill, Claire (D–Sen.): Condemn
  • Clay Jr., William “Lacy” (D–HR): Condemn
  • Cleaver, Emanuel (D–HR): Condemn
  • Graves, Sam (R–HR): No response
  • Hartzler, Vicky (R–HR): No response
  • Long, Billy (R–HR): No response
  • Luetkemeyer, Blaine (R–HR): No response
  • Smith, Jason (R–HR): No response
  • Wagner, Ann (R–HR): No response

Although GOP Senator Roy Blunt, as befits a junior member of the Senate Leadership, did make a statement, you might be struck, as I was, that it focused on the pragmatic aspects of Trumps words – addressing his competence in securing GOP goals, rather than his bankrupt moral world view:

Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, suggested the president’s inability to refrain from incendiary statements was detracting from his agenda.

“It’s an unacceptable view of the world, and it’s an unacceptable thing to say,” Mr. Blunt told KMBZ, a radio station in the Kansas City area. “You would expect the president to lead in determining how you filter your thoughts, rather than to continue to say things that take a lot away from what’s actually getting done.”

Compare the measured words of Blunt – who carefully avoided any overt reference to Trump’s racism, to the unequivocal tweet Democratic Claire McCaskill issued,:

It is unacceptable, repugnant, and morally bankrupt for a President of this great nation to call the countries of Africa “shitholes”.   9:32 AM – 12 Jan 2018

 I understand the need for political pragmatism, going along with a bad deal to avoid a worse deal – and I appreciate Blunt’s willingness to sorta, maybe imply that Trump isn’t really a great “dealmaker,” but for many of us racism, arguably the original sin that lies at the heart of American democracy, is the line that may not be crossed. Which means that I also understand the reticence of our Missouri House members to speak out – Republicans in general, not just in Missouri, have been calling out to more or less covert racism via code words and dogwhistles for years.What can these already compromised politicians do or say to credibly face down the beast they have enabled and continue to enable in order to benefit their wealthy patrons.
Of course that last sentence doesn’t even address the possibility that many of our elected Missouri representative may actually endorse Trump’s nasty racial sentiments.

 

 

Ann Wagner, you can’t honor MLK with the same lips that praise Donald Trump

15 Monday Jan 2018

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Gotta hand it to Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2). She’s making a serious effort at cultivating the two-faced look (and, no, I’m not talking about her Afghan-hound hairstyle). Today is Martin Luther King Day. On this day many Americans honor one of the leaders who helped crush the American apartheid that prevailed for almost a hundred years after the end of slavery – and who gave his life for it. King, one of the most profound of American thinkers and orators, would now be 89 years old had the remaining years of his life not been stolen from him at the age of 39 by racist America.

Wagner is making it clear that she wants in on the MLK party – which is to say, she doesn’t want to be tarred with the brush of GOP racism. Her official Website refers us to Facebook and Twitter posts encouraging us to read some of MLK’s “writings” available on the King Center Website, a seemingly reverent nod in the right direction. Enough to let us know that she’ll put in an appearance at the party without staying long enough to overmuch alarm the basest part of the GOP base.

But if Wagner wants in on this party, she’s failed to pay the price of admission. On those same Twitter and Facebook accounts there’s not a word about the most recent obscene, racist ramblings of the president she has enthusiastically supported. In fact, she has described the experience of working with him as “amazing,” and has emphasized her close relationship and identification with him:

Wagner was quick to speak to the commonalities between her and the President, and she also complimented him on what she sees as the president’s best attributes in office. “I’ve seen the strength and the leadership that he brings to the table and a negotiation skill that really puts him in the center of things.” Wagner said. “He wants to be an agent for change, he is a disrupter… We’ve really gotten along well, he and his entire team”

Nevertheless, Wagner has tried to keep her feet out of Trump’s overtly racist mud – and, in so doing, has put herself into a bad spot. As she herself proclaimed after Trump’s infamous Charlottesville equivocation, “leaders must call out Neo-Nazis, white supremacists and fascists by name.”

So, Annie, we’re waiting for you to call out this particular white supremacist – and arguably, fascist – by name.” And we know you know his name. Unless, that is you and he have more “commonalities” than you want us to know about. Which is is?

Ann Wagner says her DNA makes her destroy citizen protections

28 Tuesday Nov 2017

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GOP Rep. Ann Wagner must have a fixation on The Wizard of Oz because she spends lots of time creating straw men – and like the straw man in the story, they are all equally brainless. Witness her comments justifying President Moron’s efforts to rescind climate and consumer friendly regulations enacted during the Obama years:

“Everyone pays for the cost of compliance by government overreach, and it was on steroids during the Obama administration,” said Wagner, who said that an aversion to government regulation had been in “my DNA” since she was 12 or 13 and she saw her father and mother have to replace a new sign in their carpet store because it was a few inches too wide.

My heart breaks. The sheer inconvenience of all that overreach. Just imagine having to get a new sign.

Of course, my heart also nearly broke when my husband and I finally faced up to the fact of my 84 year old mother-in-laws’ increasing dementia and took over her finances. Imagine our surprise when we examined investments sold to her by her long-time (small) bank and learned that not only was she being sold highly risky securities, but that they were being sold over and over (the technical term is “churned”), generating comfortable commissions for the financial “advisor.” That discovery was nothing, though, compared to the statement she had been given to sign asserting that she had sufficient expertise to understand the risks of the investments made in her name. Bear in mind that this was a woman who couldn’t understand her electric bill – and who insisted that the banker in question took good care of her investments because she, the banker, was a “vice-president” and such a friendly woman who appreciated my mother-n-law’s long history with the bank.

Ann Wagner worked hard to dismantle the fiduciary regulations promulgated during the Obama years that would have insured that this type of behavior was unthinkable. Of course, to hear her tell it, she was actually insuring that elderly investors could get financial advice – advisors might chose, she implies, to refuse to work with such folks if they can’t fleece them.

Wagner’s ecstatic about Trump’s efforts to neuter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – an agency that saved consumers billions over the past few years, but got under the skin of the big bankers for whom Wagner is the main Girl Friday in Congress. She’s been one of the most enthusiastic congressional cheerleaders for dismantling the Dodd-Frank bill that created the agency. I didn’t, however, hear anything from our gal in D.C. when my 401(k) lost half its value in 2008 – thanks to the unregulated shenanigans of those very bankers. Evidently her DNA doesn’t permit her to consider problems bigger than daddy’s store’s sign.

Then, of course, there are the regulations proposed by Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Rolling back rules that would lessen harmful emissions will, of course, have devastating effect on efforts to slow and mitigate climate change. But that’s long-range stuff. Republicans like Wagner don’t have any use for that type of long term thinking – there’s no money in it after all.

But let me tell you a story that has implications for short as well as long range issues if these rules are successfully weakened. Fifteen years ago, when I announced my upcoming move to St. Louis, a colleague told me to be sure, when we bought a house, to buy on the east side of the Mississippi or far out in the West County. The reason: pollution. He explained to me that St. Louis is located in the center of a bowl shaped area with higher ground east and west. Pollution tends to settle in the city and its near suburbs, especially in warm weather. This gentleman had formerly worked in St. Louis and sold his house to move further out into the western higher suburbs – he eventually left the St. Louis region altogether to take a lower paying job – after the birth of a child who suffered from cystic fibrosis. His family and their doctors believed that it was literally a matter of life and death for the child given the pollution levels in the city.

Somehow, when it comes to regulation, Rep. Wagner’s parents’ sign doesn’t seem nearly as dire as the respiratory plight of folks in St. Louis which has ranked high on the list of most-polluted cities for many years (although data was not available for the American Lung Association’s State of the Air 2016 Report). Yet I’ve heard not a word of protest from Rep. Wagner as our intrepid President King Moron and his minion at the EPA, Scott Pruitt, try to undercut the Clean Power Plan.

Of course, there are probably some regulations that go too far. But shouldn’t our Congresspersons be going after those specific rules rather than than whole classes of rules that protect our health and financial well-being? Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill certainly seems to be able to hone in on real overreach when it happens without doing harm to regulations essential for our well-being:

… Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., is trying to repeal a rule requiring a magician from Springfield, Mo., to register his rabbit with the federal government and to have a disaster evacuation plan for the bunny. “I am not against getting rid of regulations that make no sense and make businesses jump through hoops that aren’t necessary, […] But I am not going to let them dismantle the EPA. I am going to do everything I can to fight Scott Pruitt because they are nominating people (to administer federal environmental programs) that can’t cite one clear air regulation they agree with.”

So if Senator McCaskill is capable of making such critical distinctions, why can’t Rep. Wagner and her pals? Does she have to insult our intelligence by claiming that all regulations are equal?

Perhaps The Wizard of Oz does really give us the answer to what’s going on in the mind of Republicans like Wagner. Not only does it feature a brainless straw man, but he’s enabled by a heartless tin man and a cowardly lion. Kinda like Wagner’s Republican party under Trump: brainless, heartless and, most importantly, cowardly folks who jump when their donors crack the whip.

Sam Graves pities poor multi-millionare farmers decimated by the estate tax

20 Monday Nov 2017

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Missouri Rep. Sam Graves (R-6), as behooves the offspring of a farm family, couches his defense of the provision of the GOP tax-cut-for-the-rich bill that would repeal the estate tax in terms of farmers. But before I get to that defense, it’s important to note that Graves seems to be a little confused about the meaning of words. He somehow thinks that the estate tax amounts to double taxation on the person who dies – rather than a one-time tax levied on the folks receiving a hefty gift they almost surely did not work for or earn. And BTW, big gifts are taxable even when the giver isn’t dead.

But he’s right about where to focus his defense of eliminating this particular rich folks’ goodie. Nobody will cry too hard if the Trump offspring someday have to pay estate taxes on what Daddy Trump represents as his billions. We all know that they’ll continue to live big no matter what – especially given the ways that Daddy is monetizing his time in the White House. But Graves knows that if his rural farming constituency thinks that the tax hurts small family farmers who receive their inheritance in the form of land, etc. rather than ready cash, they might be willing to foot the cost for Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric to buy a few more yachts, which is why he “gravely” (get it?) pronouces:

Farmers are hit especially hard by the death tax. After a lifetime of acquiring land and equipment to help provide food for the world, farmers are subjected to an additional tax on their estate when they die. The real effect of this double, and sometimes triple, taxation is felt by the late farmer’s family.

While many folks receive an inheritance in the form of a check or stocks and bonds, the family farmer passes on his life’s work and ensures that farming continues as a way of life in North Missouri and around the country.

It’s no wonder that our kids and grandkids aren’t choosing to farm when they grow up. It’s expensive enough to get a farming operation off the ground, much less keep it in the family after giving part of it to the government.

Could get a farmer all fired up and maybe even willing to overlook all the ways that the GOP tax plans will shaft the middle class – even middle class farmers. Except for one thing: Graves is playing fast and loose with the facts. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), “only 50 small farm and small business estates in the entire country will pay any estate tax in 2017 […] and they’ll owe less than 6 percent of their value in tax, on average.” Nor, as the CBPP further notes, will paying that tax force farming heirs to sell the family farm:

The estate tax affects so few small farms and businesses because the first $5.49 million of assets per person ($10.98 million per couple) are entirely exempt from it. Moreover, most farmers and business owners with estates large enough to owe the tax have sufficient liquid assets (such as bank accounts, stocks, and bonds) to pay the tax without having to touch other assets or liquidate their farm and business, a 2005 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study found. Today’s estate tax rules are even more generous than those CBO assumed in its analysis. Special estate tax provisions also allow estate tax filers to spread their payments over a 15-year period at low interest rates.

While doing next to nothing for family farms, repeal would provide a windfall to the wealthiest 0.2 percent of estates — the only ones large enough to pay the tax. A repeal proposal recently reintroduced in the Senate would provide the 0.2 percent of wealthiest estates with an average tax cut of more than $3 million in 2017. Roughly 330 estates worth more than $50 million would get more than $20 million apiece in tax cuts, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates. The proposal would also cost $269 billion over the decade, expanding deficits and adding to pressure for cuts in federal programs.

I’d say that somebody ought to tell Rep Graves to get his facts straight, but there’s that part of me that wonders what the point would be. We’ve seen his colleagues spin whopper after whopper to try to sell us on a tax cuts for their donors. Is it Graves fault that the best he can do is that old swampland special, the farm estate tax canard? It may even do the job it’s designed to do. After all, for many Trump voters who believe he/she knows from whence emanates all fake news, it probably still has currency.

At least Rep. Graves isn’t resorting to claims like those made my my Representative, Ann Wagner (R-2), that raising taxes on the middle class, cutting funding to programs that benefit the middle class, while giving a big regressive tax cut to the wealthiest of the wealthy will somehow help a “single mother of two.” Of course, there’s nothing to stop an unmarried Paris Hilton clone from giving birth twice. It could even happen on a lavish country estate that qualifies as a “family” farm.