Do as I say (not as I do)

Do as I say (not as I do)

Remember Lord Acton’s famous line “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”? Dune’s Frank Herbert wrote

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.  

Both are true. Power does corrupt people but power also is “magnetic to the corruptible.” Harold Black’s 9^th Law is that “Any person desiring public office is not to be trusted.”

In another case of what goes around, the democrats were all atwitter over Trump’s firing on Biden appointees to “independent agencies”. The ruling by the US Court of Appeals upholding the Trump’s firings used as precedent Biden’s firing of a Trump appointee to something called the Administrative Conference of the United States. Strange that the democrats who supported the Biden firing would now be against it – not. 

I once wrote that I thought that tariffs were the province of the Congress and the president could only impose them under emergency powers. Well Trump did exactly that and invoked emergency powers to declare his rash of tariffs. There is a resolution before the Senate to revoke the emergency powers edit on Trump’s Canadian tariffs. All the democrats are on board and Rand Paul is a co-sponsor. Three other republicans – the usual suspects – Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins are expected to join him. Of course, the resolution will not see the House floor and Trump would never sign it. Trump of course is outraged. But again the democrats should be careful of what they wish for. If passed, it would limit the power of a future democrat president. Don’t they ever think of this? BTW, I still contend that any “emergency” proclamation should have to get two-thirds approval in both the House and the Senate. So much for checks and balances.

The much watched Wisconsin Supreme Court contest went to the progressive who crowed about beating the world’s richest man. She didn’t say that George Soros was among her biggest contributors. The pundits are saying that the Wisconsin Court will re-gerrymander the gerrymandering done by the republicans when they were in power and give the democrats two more seats in the House. Lest one forgets, the redrawing of North Carolina districts gave the republicans two additional House seats this past election.

Trump’s spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, held up a chart showing high foreign tariffs. There was the 100% Indian tariff on agriculture, the 700% Japanese tariff on rice and the 270% Canadian tariff on dairy. Not surprisingly, the charts are misleading. Actually Japan allows 770,000 metric tons of rice to be imported at a very low tariff then the higher tariff kicks in. The same is true for Canadian dairy. Of course, if the quota were higher, even more would be imported at the low tariff. The Indian tariffs are not tied to quotas. Rather in India 43 percent of the workers are employed in agriculture with small farms being predominate. Contrast that to the US where only 1.6 percent are employed in agriculture. The Indians want to protect their small inefficient farms from American agriculture even at the cost of higher food prices. It is doubtful if India will remove those tariffs regardless of whatever action is taken by Trump. The question is whether the Japanese and the Canadians will remove their quotas.

But the US does the same. If the White House reporters were doing their job they would have asked Leavitt about sugar. Brazil has complained for years about the US quotas on sugar. The National Taxpayers Union Foundation says that it costs Americans billions a year more in higher sugar prices. Like the other tariffs, sugar is assessed a tariff of 0.66 cents a pound until the quota is reached and then assessed a tariff of 15.36 cents a pound effectively stopping all sugar imports into the states.  

Although many think the US has few if any retraints on trade such is not the truth. Prior to the president’s announcement on global tariffs, the US imposed quotas on steel from Argentina, Brazil and South Korea. On aluminum products from Argentina. On brooms, whiskbrooms, ethyl alcohol, milk and cream, olives, mandarins, tuna and upland cotton. Then there were tariff rate quotas on the following. A question is whether these tariffs and quotas are still in effect

• Animal Feed 
• Articles Containing Over 10 Percent By Dry Weight of Sugar 
• Articles Containing Over 65 Percent By Dry Weight of Sugar
• Beef 
• Blended Syrups 
• Canadian Cheddar Cheese 
• Card Strips Made from Cotton 
• Chocolate 
• Chocolate and Low Fat Chocolate 
• Cocoa Powder 
• Cotton [Staple length > 28.575mm but < 34.925mm] 
• Cotton [Staple length 34.925mm or more] 
• Dairy Products 
• Dried Milk and Dried Cream 
• Dried Milk, Dried Cream, Dried Whey (in excess of 224,981 kilograms) 
• Fibers of Cotton 
• Harsh or Rough Cotton 
• Ice Cream 
• Infant Formula 
• Milk and Cream 
• Milk and Cream (Condensed or Evaporated) 
• Mixed Condiments and Mixed Seasonings 
• Mixes and Doughs 
• Peanut Butter and Paste 
• Peanuts 
• Raw Cotton 
• Sugars 
• Tobacco 

What is the saying about persons living in glass houses?