Money? Money
By Mark Van Proyen
July 27, 2024
James Tissot, “Jesus Wept,” 1886-96, watercolor over graphite on paper, 6 3/4 x 8 15/16”.
Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.
“And Jesus wept.” This Biblical phrase came to me as I watched the CNN coverage of Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the freak-show Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 18. It is the shortest sentence in the Bible even as it encompasses so much of its far-flung narrative. It also has a kind of universal applicability that can shut down any contentious conversation. For example, “you stole my parking space” could be countered by saying “And Jesus wept.”
In terms of smug brevity, it is hard to beat, but beat it I shall with the two opening one-word sentences from William Gaddis’s 1975 book “J.R.”: “Money? Money.” Insofar as the upcoming election is concerned, Gaddis’ call-and-response reminds us of what was really in play when we sat through the convention’s tsunami of insipid blathering about family, God and country. And let’s not forget the medieval allegations of divine intervention altering the trajectory of a sniper’s bullet. So, let’s talk money.
Rembrandt van Rijn, “The Raising of Lazarus,” 1632, oil on panel, 37 15/16 x 32”.
Courtesy of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
The great, big, beautiful tax cut enacted by Trump and his congressional allies in 2018 will expire in 2025. That will happen automatically unless new legislation is signed into law. No Democrat will do that. About 85% of those cuts benefited high income earners and corporations while offering little real relief to the vast majority of American taxpayers. To those wealthy people who can afford to make large donations to political campaigns, the expiration is consequential because it would precipitate a 18% annual spike to their unadjusted tax bill (38 percent as opposed to the current 33 percent for high income brackets). Those cuts have already caused a federal revenue gap necessitating an increase in bond issuances (“aka” the national debt), which set the stage for higher interest rates and higher inflation that went much higher because of additional COVID-related expenses measuring in the trillions. COVID quarantines did drive down interest rates to stimulate demand, but that was temporary. The inflation reaching 9% that we witnessed during 2022 is simply how the piper gets paid, and it is the Federal Reserve Board, not the President, that is empowered to adjust interest rates in order to stabilize the economy. One simple way of saying it is that with inflation your boss gets rich, and with recessionary deflation you lose your job. Alas, the other alternative is stagflation, which is what we have. It’s better than a recession, and it has not gone away because it operates on a timetable, that of the Federal Reserve Board, that is indifferent to any political calendar.
Hans-Peter Feldman, “$100,000 on the Guggenheim Museum Walls,”
money installed at the Guggenheim Museum, New York.
This rinse-dry-repeat pattern should be familiar to anyone who recalls the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Under President George W. Bush, Republican tax cuts and military adventurism led to higher deficits. Higher deficits, together with abuses in the housing and investment markets, led to the near collapse of the entire economic system that brought on a massive government rescue package and calls for cutting government programs. The resulting spikes in unemployment and other social problems required triage from the incoming Obama administration.
By no means was that the first time that the economy rode that particular merry-go-round, just the most recent. No doubt, it will not be the last. But let’s get back to the current dance of death between money and politics. On July 13, the day of the assignation attempt on Trump, Elon Musk announced that he will donate Republican super PACs $45 million a month for the next four months, totaling about $180 million [It has now been reported that his actual donation will be considerably less—Ed.]. A day later, affluent Democratic donors suddenly slammed their checkbooks shut to the Biden/Harris campaign. They saw that the Biden/Harris ticket had no clear path to electoral victory in November, so they used their leverage to let the President know their opinion that he should withdraw.
George Segal, “Depression Bread Line,” 1991, plaster, wood and metal and cast in bronze.
Courtesy of the FDR Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The blame for this has centered on Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate performance. By July 15, Biden looked a lot better when he was interviewed by Lester Holt, back-sassing Holt on the media’s obsequious silence over the thirty-odd lies that Trump told at the debate. Still, the tally of Congressional Democrats calling for Biden to relinquish his candidacy rose to 45, including Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer. The laws of political gravity became unavoidably clear. On July 21, Biden bowed out and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the nomination, which would allow her to inherit Biden’s delegates, campaign cash and political infrastructure if Biden’s delegates approved. Within two days, an open Democratic convention in Chicago (August 19-23) became highly unlikely. Nonetheless, it still portends to be must-see TV.
As the ad hoc candidate until it is made official at the convention, who Harris chooses as a running mate becomes the latest question of the moment. Arizona Senator Mark Kelly was among the first of a number of names floated in the media. Kelly would be a bad idea. If he were to join the ticket, he would have to give up his Senate seat, which could fall to the Republicans, even though Governor Katie Hobbs would choose a Democrat as the short-term replacement. The Democrats’ Senate majority is already in real danger of being lost. Given that West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has announced his retirement, it is almost certain that his seat will fall to a Republican, tipping the frail balance of the Senate to the GOP short any compensating Democratic gains. In the day after Biden’s announcement, over $80 million fell into the coffers of ACT BLUE, the primary clearing house for Democratic political fundraising. Other Democratic political action committees have landed similar piles of loot. New volunteers to the Harris campaign have spiked by a factor of 100. What was called the “Dembargo” that got underway soon after the debate had come to an abrupt end.
My own favorite for Vice-President is former six-term Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio. Even though he does not appear to be on the short list of potential running mates, he is the only one not encumbered by other duties pertaining to holding office, meaning that he could hit the campaign trail at full speed and without distraction. In 2022, Ryan lost that state’s open Senate seat to J.D. Vance by 6 points. It was a midterm election with a low Covid-related turnout, and Ryan’s campaign was dramatically outspent because the Democratic fundraising apparatus was unwilling to match Vance’s war chest, made fat from California techno-libertarian Peter Thiel’s contributions. Thiel summed up his interest in politics thusly: “democracy is incompatible with freedom.”
Vance worked as a corporate lawyer and investment banker in San Francisco for Mithril Capital in 2016 and 2017, where Thiel was the senior partner and majority shareholder. With his winnings from that job, he returned to Ohio to begin laying the groundwork for a career in politics. The 39-year-old Vance is a political neophyte and ideological chameleon. He had been a disappointment to his white working-class Ohio constituents in the short nineteen months that he has been in the Senate, earning the moniker of “Silicon Valley’s Senator.”
The choice of Ryan as Harris’ running mate has its risks, starting with him being directly opposite a guy he lost to only two years ago. But it could also yield real benefits because it is a perfect time for the Democrats to go on the offensive, and Ryan is an offensive weapon. As in the recent past, the 2024 election will be won or lost in four contiguous rust belt states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. Ryan’s Vice-Presidential rematch would be a dagger pointed at the chubby throat of Vance, whose half-literate tear-jerker of a memoir titled “Hillbilly Elegy” has been picked apart for its myriad misleading inaccuracies, not the least of which being its claim that Vance was somehow a true Son of the Soil when he in fact grew up in middle class circumstances. If Democrats could flip Ohio, they could run the table in other rust belt states. Harris can also play to win in North Carolina and Georgia, where the Black church lady activist base looms decisively large. Of course, if either or both of these things are to materialize, Democrats must make the election a referendum on “Project 2025.” Judging from Trump’s attempts to distance himself from that very document so richly adorned with his fingerprints, it seems to be working.
