The GOP Wants You to Pay More on Your Loans

July 12: GOP extortion … Biden’s news conference … Texas GOP botches Beryl … Harris on religious freedom …

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Pres. Donald Trump warned against lowering interest rates in a Feb. 2, 2024, Fox interview. (Screengrab / Fox video.)

Republicans are warning the Federal Reserve not to lower interest rates.

Those are the rates that determine how much people pay on our home loans, car loans, and other predatory loan-sharking and usury.

Republicans, to reiterate, are warning the Fed to keep those rates high.

Why? To help former Pres. Donald Trump try to claim the economy is doody. Helping America with lower interest rates would help Pres. Joe Biden’s political prospects, the “thinking” goes, and therefore must be political. Literally: If you help America and it might help Biden, you’re partisan.

Stop a war before the election? Political. Boost the economy? Political. And so forth.

It’s not unprecedented for Republicans to punish everyday Americans for the sin of electing a Democratic president. You can have good things when you elect Republicans, America.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) famously vowed as Republican leader that his caucus simply wouldn’t go along with anything that famously Black President Barack Obama wanted, no matter how much it help America. Because power over party over patriotism.

But this week’s threats against the Federal Reserve are the most blatant attempt to hold America hostage since Republicans refused to back the Republican-created health-care plan the moment Obama put his fingers on it.

Here’s what we’re talking about. Under Chair Jerome Powell — a Republican appointed by Trump and mysteriously/infuriatingly retained by Biden who at least has the excuse of being old — the Fed has been attempting to fight inflation by making it more expensive to borrow money.

The “thinking” is that tighter money will leave consumers with less cash, so they’ll buy less stuff, and when demand drops, prices will drop. If you’re thinking that’s insane, because inflation itself already leaves people with less money and therefore should be self-correcting, you are correct and may consider yourself an honorary Newsfucking economist.

This is your regularly scheduled announcement that economics is not science and only recently incorporated the idea that consumers are not perfectly rational consuming units. We now return you to your regularly scheduled newsfucking.

As part of Powell’s campaign, the Fed has kept the key interest rate for borrowing above 5.25% since last summer, thereby depriving of cars/homes and/or generally pissing off millions and millions of people, most notably Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

Here’s where things get fun/treasonous.

Inflation has been cooling. Yesterday we learned that in June, prices fell by one-tenth of one percent. Prices are still up year over year, but as of now, inflation is technically gone (although prices are still rising on some shit that we buy).

The entire endgame for those high interest rates has been that the Fed would lower them once inflation was heading toward its benchmark level of a 2% annual rate. Which is where it’s now headed.

So the Fed has signaled that a rate cut might be coming to lower that 5.25% interest rate, which would make it cheaper to borrow money, thereby spurring people to buy shit, thereby injecting even more money into the economy, thereby boosting Wall Street and the economy overall.

Right before the election. Which Republicans don’t want because patriotism.

So now Republicans are warning Powell not to make it cheaper for you to get a home loan or car loan until after you leave your vote in a paper bag under a bench in the zoo. In return for voting Trump back into the White House, then you can have your precious low interest rates back.

Think I’m exaggerating?

Maybe a little. But less than 5.25%!

Here’s Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), of the Banking Committee, after grilling Powell at a hearing earlier this week, telling Politico the Fed shouldn’t lower your interest rates: “[A]nything they do before November would be rightfully — would raise the question of their own independence.”

Too vague? How’s Cramer warning Powell not to help you out, as he quoted himself in his own press release:

“[A]ny move to lower interest rates or move interest rates either direction before November 5 could certainly be a bad perception. Even if there's a strong push to do that. I know you understand that. But I just want you to know that. As long as you remain independent, I'll be on your side.”

But, but, surely Cramer’s an aberration? Right?!? Well, in some ways, hell yeah. But not on this.

Here’s Rep. Mike Lawlor (R-NY), when he had Powell testifying before his committee this week, making Powell an offer he couldn’t refuse:

“[D]o you acknowledge, or do members of the [Fed] acknowledge that a rate cut in September could be viewed as political just 30 to 60 days before an election?"

Here’s Financial Services Chair Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) on Wednesday: “I think a September rate cut will not be perceived as apolitical.”

But, but surely no one’s actually seeing these as threats? Right?!? 

Here’s a note to clients yesterday from Renaissance Macro Research: If Fed members “proceed with an interest rate cut in September, expect Trump and Republican lawmakers to seek vengeance.”

But, but, surely that’s just Renaissance Macro Research’s guess? Right?!? 

The guy who wrote that client note was Renaissance Macro Research Policy Research Director Steve Pavlick, a former Trump Treasury official.

But, but, surely there’s no evidence Trump feels this way. Right?!?

Trump said as early as February that any rate cut from the Fed would be political. He told Fox he expected Powell “to do something to probably help the Democrats, you know, I think if he lowers interest rates."

The Fed got the first warning note wrapped around a brick through their window back in February.

And the warnings are ramping up now even though the Fed isn’t expected to make this call until September. And everything could change depending on what happens with inflation and jobs between now and then.

But if things keep going Biden’s America’s way, just know that the people who decide whether to make money cheaper are being threatened by the expected ascendant political party not to help you out.

And no one is seeing this shit except on the business pages or the bottom of general-interest hearing coverage.

I can’t even blame the media’s relentless focus on Biden’s mental status for them ignoring this interest-rate stuff. For one thing, I’ve harped on Biden, too (see below!) But also, there’s no way media would ever run with interest rates as a big story. But also also, Biden fed the insatiable beast yesterday.

But before I go and ruin it all by talking Biden, if your faithful TFN is the first outlet warning you about the GOP trying to keep it expensive for you to borrow money, please consider supporting this kind of coverage with a paid subscription or one-time donation. Thanks!

Biden Comes Thisclose to Ending the Debate Debate

Pres. Joe Biden’s press conference yesterday to close out the NATO summit was also intended to shut down debate over his mental state, and not to give it new fodder. Instead, Biden gave us something from column A and something from column Blegh.

While Biden was still parrying complex questions about foreign policy, the pundits were already predicting that other pundits would focus instead on his bloopers: Referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump” and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin.”

Simple brain farts. The kind we all make every day. But also the kind we can’t make when we’re trying to convince our 300 million bosses that we don’t suffer from chronic brain flatulence.

But Biden angered the media with nearly an hour of cogent, old but not terrifying, responses and meditations on a range of international issues. In other words, he bored them, providing only rare flashes of energy (such as a sudden anger spike discussing guns). And so, the coverage was dominated by the bloops. As payback for discussing policy.

Never mind that inflation’s cooling. Never mind news of a $1.7 billion investment to retool defunct and defunctier auto factories into Electric Vehicle plants, a move that could help save the planet and/or at least make life worse for Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Instead, by the time Biden managed to find his way off-stage (I’m kidding! He did good walkings!) two more House Democrats had jumped ship, announcing that they hoped Biden still had the motor skills for stepping aside.

And the media itself had its own mental difficulties. The final words of the news conference were a question about how to combat Trump’s mockery of Biden’s flubs. Biden responded: “Listen to him.” Meaning, basically, you think my brain is a toxic slurry, check out that festering, polluted, pustulant, pestilent, radioactive, daughter-ogling, id-indulging, anti-intellectual, anti-demcoratic, mental Superfund site.

Biden’s meaning was obvious. But as of press time, the Associated Press was still reporting it as Biden dismissing the reporter:

“[H]e was defiant when a reporter brought up his reference to ‘Vice President Trump’ and noted the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign was already promoting the slip-up. ‘Listen to him,’ he said, before walking off the stage.”

Answering the question of how he’d combat Trump. Not dissing the reporter.

Remember, articles and bloops like the AP’s come to us courtesy of The Beltway Insiders Who Know What’s Really Going On™.

Never mind that Trump was meeting with autocratic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Who emerged from the Mar-a-Lago sit-down with Trump and, referring to the Ukraine war, said that, “he’s going to solve it!” Without explaining how.

Never mind that Trump also has trouble with names: He’s been unable to think of the name of his running mate for weeks. The Republican National Convention starts next week.

Texas GOP Leaders Slowed Beryl Relief Aid

In a story that the AP booted — again — the top two Texas Republicans admitted botching their response to Hurricane Beryl. Hundreds of thousands of Texans were left without power, and thanks to those in power, won’t get power back for days or even weeks.

But the AP focused on the pissing match between Pres. Joe Biden and Texas Republicans.

Half a million residents will still lack privatized monopolized power next week. So if you’re sweltering in Texas’s triple-digit temperatures this July/August, just cool your heels. Oh wait you can’t cool anything.

Anyhoo, this story is about federal relief. Biden didn’t issue a disaster declaration — the prerequisite for emergency federal aid — until Tuesday. How come? Reasons!

First, there was Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) not making the request — which has to come first. The AP reports that Biden said he tried calling Abbott but wasn’t able to reach him, with Abbott saying his number hasn’t changed so Biden dropped the ball or made up a “bizarre lie.”

The AP never mentions that there was nothing preventing Abbott from picking up the phone first to help the state he’s supposed to serve.

Then Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said he — acting governor while Abbott chose to be out of country as a hurricane hit his state — only made the request for federal aid on Tuesday, because state officials first had to figure out what relief they needed.

Which is a bizarre lie.

As the AP appropriately noted — yay, doing something right! — there’s nothing preventing states from pre-emptively seeking aid even before landfall. And, in fact, Abbott himself has done just that. 

Texas requested a federal disaster declaration in 2017 before Hurricane Harvey hit. Amazingly/empirically, states are allowed to change their requests as they get new facts on the ground. Assuming they get facts. So, no, they don’t have to wait to assess exactly what they need.

Harris’s Record on “Religious Freedom”

Because Vice President Kamala Harris is both structurally and politically the obvious default replacement for Pres. Joe Biden, I wanted to look at her record on an issue the media cover poorly or not at all.

The perversion of “religious freedom” is insidious, and undercovered, but one episode from Harris’s time as California’s attorney general made headlines at the time..

In 2011, Harris defended the state in court against a lawsuit claiming anti-Sikh discrimination. 

An Indian Sikh had applied for a job as a corrections officer. He was denied after refusing to shave his beard, which would interfere with him wearing a proper-fitting gas mask.

To her credit, Harris stood her ground. (It can be and was argued that there were compromise accommodations worth trying. Which, fair.)

But even then, those accommodations should be available to everyone. Religious freedom doesn’t mean special treatment on the basis of religion.

Harris’s critics complained that medical excuses merited allowing short beards on guards with skin conditions or whatever. The difference, of course, is science. We follow the science, I’m told!

Now, if this were a Christian we were talking about, I’d likely to refer to it as a magic beard, since it’s required by his religion. Since he was a Sikh, I’m just calling it a beard. Why the double standard? Because Christians as a whole make up a dominant locus of power in this country, and by several orders of magnitude represent the most powerful religion in our politics.

So, Christian beards get mocked, Sikh beards do not. I may shave down, but I punch up. Mockery is rationed for those in power.

In 2019, running for president, Harris to her discredit disavowed her position on the beard thing. She said she had to defend the beard ban because her job meant defending California in court.

A spokesperson at the time said there were “unfortunately situations like this one where her clients [the people of California] took positions that were contrary to her beliefs. It obviously would have been a preferable to have the Department of Corrections willingly change this policy through negotiation.”

Again, it’s fine to say some accommodation might have been pursued. But make clear that it ought to be available to everyone and ought not interfere with performing the job.

Bottom line: Harris has shown a willingness to stand up against special treatment for religion, and a disheartening willingness to disown it when pursuing public office.

In 2020, she told Religion News that her “faith journey” began when her mom took her and her sister to church in Oakland, CA.  At church, she says, “I learned that ‘faith’ is a verb.”

Faith is not a verb. I looked it up, so I know. I’m not just faithing it.

Harris laudably chose to express an ecumenical view of religion, referring not just to her Christian church, but to the Hindu temples her India-born mother took her to, and her husband’s Judaism. But, as an elected official, she makes the same grievous, Christian-nationalism-enabling mistake most Democrats make: She hollows out a space for magical thinking in government work:

“[F]aith is not only something we express in church and prayerful reflection, but also in the way we live our lives, [and] do our work,” she says, theocratically.

This is pretty close to Seven Mountainism, the belief that religion should have a role in every aspect of human existence. Including government, which is barred by the Constitution from respecting an establishment of religion.

In her defense, she’s pressed for detail and says the parable of the good Samaritan showed her that our neighbors include strangers, everyone. That’s…fine. A worthy moral, but one that need not rest on religion, faith, or magic.

In fact it’s almost a secular confession, much as Barack Obama almost offered in his memoir when he said that he came to Christianity when he experienced the communal power of the church. Which in no way has any bearing on whether a magical carpenter was real. “Church is nice” ≠ “Jesus is Lord.”

Nevertheless, it’s still problematic that Harris felt the need to couch this entirely logical Good Samaritan precept — one found in all kinds of belief systems, magical and otherwise — in religious terms. It reinforces the religious claim to moral supremacy. In the face of, y’know…headlines, history books, logic, your own experiences, etc.

For the most part it’s a pretty anodyne interview, but it ends on the borderline discriminatory note so often resonant in political piety. “God will see us through to the other side of whatever challenge we’re facing so long as we do the work and hold onto our faith.” Her implication: Faith in religion trumps faith in reason. Which, if it were true, would mean its adherents would be able to meet the challenge of proving it.

Not long ago, in Harris’s lifetime and mine and maybe yours, it was understood that religious belief might be a source of strength for politicians or public officials, but should not infuse the work itself. Sen. John Kennedy (D-MA) went to great lengths to make clear in the 1960 presidential campaign that he was not influenced by the tenets of his religion.  

Today, that distinction, and the debate over religion, are a lot fuzzier. Fuzzier than they need to be or should be. Like an excessively long beard.

TCB

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