As Trump takes reins, expect conflict between economic populists and crony capitalists:
Steve Bannon supports increasing taxes on the wealthy – Hill
“‘I’m for a dramatic increase in corporate taxes. We have to increase taxes on the wealthy. For getting our guys’s taxes cut, we’ve got to cut spending, which they’re gonna resist. Where does the tax revenue come from? Corporations and the wealthy,’ Bannon said during an interview with Semafor that was published Friday.”
Did chopped-down spending bill help Musk?
Monopoly Round-Up: New Deal or Crime Spree? – Matt Stoller/BIG
“Steve Bannon says it’s time for Donald Trump to join George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as one of the great American leaders. It’s a 1932-style alignment, he says. But that, um, seems unlikely…”
“…So last week, as usual, Congressional leaders cut a deal to put a bunch of legislation into one giant bill that also funded the government. To be clear, all of this legislation was consensus stuff, had passed out of committees, usually out of one legislative chamber…But then, Elon Musk, who is worth $400 billion at this point, ginned up a storm, and demanded that the Republicans renege on the deal, which they did. By Friday, Congress removed most of the legislative text and passed a skinnier bill…
“But there was one particular rule that got eliminated that did matter to Musk, which is tighter screening on outbound investment to China. And it’s possible that the real game was to do a lot of distraction by getting rid of a lot of useful legislative text, in the hopes that no one would notice the real provision that Musk wanted eliminated. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a populist Democrat, observed that Musk had just broken ground on a ‘new $200 million factory to manufacture large batteries critical to its electric vehicle supply chain’ in Shanghai, and that’s precisely the kind of investment that would be subjected to more screening under the new law. Musk’s response was to call her ugly, to distract from her point.”
Meanwhile:
Trump picks billionaire financier for deputy defense secretary – msn/WaPost