What history has to say about tax cuts and trickle down economics

The Republicans' embrace of a mammoth tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy -- and their tired arguments that they will pay for themselves by sparking economic growth -- shows once again how little our elected leaders, and the people who elect them, understand, or care, about history.
We've heard this story many times before, and it rarely seems to end well. You know the line: If only we put more money into the hands of corporations and individuals -- particularly those who are already swimming in it -- and loosen the regulations stifling free enterprise, unfettered capitalism will handle the rest. The wealthy will spend, corporations will invest and hire, and profits generated as a result will trickle down for all to enjoy.
If only it worked out that way in reality. This was the mantra embraced by Republicans as far back as the 1920s -- when they controlled the levers of government as they do today -- and what did Americans get as a result? An unprecedented economic collapse and the Great Depression.

Fifty years later, Ronald Reagan came along and promised much of the same. He got his big tax cuts early in his administration, and sure enough, the long-slumping economy soon enough turned around. Vindication, right? Not quite. For one thing, the economic ills of the 1970s and early 1980s largely boiled down to the unique problem of stagflation -- a stagnant economy and runaway inflation -- rather than tax rates. Most economists credit the Federal Reserve's high interest rate policy -- not Reagan's tax cuts -- that finally snuffed out inflation and lit a fire under the economy. As for the tax cuts, far from trickling down to the masses, they helped lead to the massive income inequality we see today, never came close to paying for themselves, and ultimately blew a hole in the deficit that forced both Reagan and George H.W. Bush to enact tax increases.
Of course, the flip side of the Republican argument that tax cuts for those at the top unleash economic growth is that tax hikes on those at the top stunt growth and deter investment. At least, that's what they promised would happen after Bill Clinton hiked taxes in the early 1990s to address the growing deficit. The result? One of the greatest economic booms of the 20th century. Go figure.
But the clear evidence that the Republican tax mantra was not supported by any real evidence didn't stop George W. Bush from clinging to it yet again when he took office in 2001. With the economy finally slowing after years of stunning growth, Bush and the Republicans turned to -- you guessed it --- tax cuts as the answer. Those cuts were coupled with trillions of dollars spent on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (after all, it's soldiers, not taxpayers, who should have to sacrifice in time of war), again blowing a hole in the deficit, and a general attitude toward letting Wall Street and the financial industry do whatever they want (because, after all, that thirst for profit will ultimately trickle down to the rest of us; as the 1980s taught us, "Greed is good."). With Republicans again in total control of government for much of the early 2000s (as they were in the 1920s), they stuck to the old playbook of low taxes, loose money and little regulation. We also know how that story ended, much as it did the first time around. We got the Great Recession, which easily could have been another depression if not for Barack Obama's shrewd stewardship of the crisis, for which he got unbelievably little credit as Republicans and voters assailed him for not fixing things quickly enough. For Obama, it was a little like stopping the car from plunging off the cliff, only to be relentlessly criticized for leaving it with some scratches.

And as we saw with their votes on the tax bill in the dark of night Friday (complete with scribbled pages of last-minute changes), Republicans are intent sticking with that dust-covered 1920s playbook that should have been tossed into the ash heap of history long ago. When your favorite plays keep ending in disaster for your team, most coaches know that it's time to change things up. But that's a lesson apparently lost on politicians, who rarely have to pay the price for their misadventures in the name of ideological purity.
Will the Republicans and their backers finally show some accountability if their latest foray into tax cuts once again fails to deliver on their promises? That would be a first. The more likely outcome is that the harmful effects of the policy won't be felt for years, by which time the architects of it will be long gone and already pointing fingers and placing blame on those who have the misfortune of being tasked with cleaning up a mess they didn't create, as happened in the late 2000s. That's the way it usually happens in a world where voters place their trust in the hands of politicians who tell them what they want to hear, rather than taking the time to learn what history has taught us all time and again.

How Bill Clinton's resignation would have changed history

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's comment this week that Bill Clinton should have resigned amid the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal has ignited a firestorm of debate within the Democratic Party, and a backlash against the New York senator who now holds Hillary Clinton's former seat and has long-standing ties to the Clintons.

For what it's worth, as someone who voted for Bill Clinton twice, I believed then and today that he should have resigned for the good of the country. His salacious conduct was unbecoming of the president of the United States and a betrayal to voters who twice looked past various allegations of sexual misconduct on his part to elect him to the White House. But most importantly, his resignation would have spared the country a long impeachment battle, lifted the cloud from his presidency, and allowed the country to move forward in confronting its various challenges, not least of which was the growing threat of terrorism.
Regardless of what people think about what Clinton should have done in 1998, it's interesting to speculate how the history of the past 20 years would have been different had he stepped down and not served out the remainder of his second term. We'll never know for sure, but my guess is that the country would have been better off as a result.
Here's a look at some key historical questions to ask about the events that would have followed Clinton's resignation:

• Who would have one the 2000 presidential election? 
• Would the 9/11 terrorist attacks still have happened?
• Would the United States have ultimately gone to war with Iraq?
• Would the 2008 financial crisis have occurred?
• Would Barack Obama and Donald Trump eventually been elected president?

Let's look first at the most obvious question. Would the outcome of the contested 2000 presidential election been different? It's far from guaranteed, but I think it's highly likely that Al Gore would have won the 2000 election running as an incumbent president who had restored a sense of order and normalcy to the White House following the Lewinsky sex scandal. Given the fact he would have almost certainly continued Clinton's core policies, Gore likely would have enjoyed an approval rating similar to the one Clinton had upon leaving office (66 percent). He would have avoided the uncomfortable dilemma of having to run on the Clinton record while distancing himself from Clinton's personal conduct, as he would have had nearly two years to build his own record. Given the razor-thin margin by which he lost the election (a few hundred votes in Florida), I think these factors together would have easily put Gore over the top. There's no way to know for sure what an Al Gore presidency would have brought, but the results most likely would have been better than the disastrous George W. Bush presidency, which included the worst terrorist attack in the nation's history, a misguided war in Iraq, and the beginning of the Great Recession. 

Which brings us to the next big question. Would the 9/11 attacks have unfolded the way they did? My guess is probably they would have, but the chances are at least marginally higher that they would have been foiled had Clinton resigned. For one thing, the year that was consumed with the sex scandal and resulting impeachment battle coincided with the time period when the 9/11 attacks were being planned. If not for the distractions that accompanied Clinton's scandal, the White House and Congress obviously could have focused more centrally on the looming terrorist threat. Of course, there's no guarantee that would have happened (they could have simply shifted their focus to other matters, and battles), but the impeachment drama certainly didn't help in keeping the country focused on what Osama bin Laden was doing in the desert of Afghanistan. Then there's the question of whether a Gore administration would have succeeded in preventing the attacks that a Bush administration failed to. Again, I think it's unlikely, but possible. A Gore presidency would have brought continuity in the fight against terrorism, and there's strong evidence that the new Bush administration didn't view the threat with the same urgency that existed under Clinton. It's hard to argue that the intelligence agencies that failed to prevent the attacks would have acted in a significantly different fashion had Gore occupied the White House, but we'll never know.

One thing that is safe to assume, however, is if Gore had been president during 9/11, there would have been no Iraq War. This was by far the most controversial, and misguided, decision of the Bush presidency. If Gore had been president, as I believe he would have had Clinton resigned, he would have focused on extinguishing bin Laden and his band of terrorists in Afghanistan and not gotten sidetracked in Iraq. 

But what would have become of the Gore presidency had he been elected and the 9/11 attacks still occurred? I think it's likely Gore would have been a one-term president. Of course, much would have depended on how he executed the war against terror and led the nation in the aftermath of 9/11, but he would have faced a stiffer challenge than Bush in maintaining the public's support. He would have received more blame for the attacks than Bush ultimately received as a relatively new president. Gore's critics would have been able to argue that he was part of the administration that had been in power during the years in which Al Qaeda grew as a threat and plotted the attacks, and had failed to take strong enough action to stop it. Bush's supporters could say that he had been president for less than 8 months when the attacks occurred, and that most of the planning for the attacks took place on Clinton's watch. 

So let's say Clinton resigned, Gore became president in 1998, won in 2000, then lost in 2004, likely to Sen. John McCain. That's my best guess on what would have happened in the years following a Clinton resignation. After that, the hypotheticals grow cloudy. How would a President McCain had executed the war against terrorism, assuming 9/11 had occurred? Would a war in Iraq eventually resulted? And would the 2008 financial crisis had played out the same way? Not knowing how Gore's and McCain's economic policies would have differed from Bush's, it's difficult to say, but many of the factors that led to the economic collapse were structural and beyond the relatively limited scope of any actions different presidents, or their administrations, would have taken in the preceding years (Congress likely would have remained in the hands of the Republicans during the majority of this period). So let's say the economic collapse would have occurred regardless of whether Bush, Gore or McCain were president in 2008. It likely would have doomed any re-election prospects for whichever party held the presidency at the time (I'm guessing McCain, but it's possible Gore would have won re-election). So perhaps Barack Obama would have been elected president in 2008 and Trump in 2016 regardless.

But the one wild card in all this is how a Bill Clinton resignation would have affected Hillary Clinton's political career. The fact that Bill was able to prevail in the impeachment battle and serve out his term certainly made it easier for Hillary to run for and win her Senate race in 2000. But would she have run and won even if her husband had resigned? My guess is yes. Voters largely absolved her of any blame during the Lewinsky scandal, and her standing in voters' eyes actually improved as she became a sympathetic figure, and the scandal shifted focus away from her own controversies, specifically the Whitewater ordeal. But while I think she would have run for and won the Senate seat regardless, I think it's much more doubtful she would have been able to mount a presidential campaign. The Democratic Party's views toward the Clintons and the Bill Clinton presidency would have shifted dramatically had he resigned from office in disgrace, and it's highly doubtful that the Clintons would have been able to maintain their powerful position within the party, particularly if Gore had won election in his own right. And if there had been no Hillary Clinton foil for Donald Trump in 2016, the chances are very high his campaign would have crashed and burned. 

So there you have it. Bill Clinton should have resigned in 1998 not only because it was the right thing to do, but because it likely would have spared us the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, possibly prevented the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq War, and ultimately kept Donald Trump far away from the White House. 

At least that's my best guess. 

Journalist, martyr and saint. The amazing story of Maximillian Kolbe

In honor of All Saints Day, I wanted to share the story of a saint I only learned about a few months ago, during an audio lecture series I listened to titled "The Lives of Great Christians." Of all the saint stories I heard over the course of roughly 15 hours of lectures, none inspired or touched me as much as Maximillian Kolbe.

Kolbe was a Catholic priest during World War II who ultimately starved to death at Auschwitz when he volunteered to sacrifice his own life in the place of another prisoner. How did Father Kolbe end up in the most infamous of concentration camps despite the fact he was a Catholic and not a Jew? He also happened to be a fearless journalist who built an amazingly successful newspaper publishing operation in Poland and later Japan in the years before and then during the war (the monastery he founded in Nagasaki was spared in the atomic bombing because it was protected by a surrounding mountain). Somehow, Kolbe managed to prosper as a newspaper publisher when the economic challenges were even more daunting than they are today, building a circulation in the hundreds of thousands and eventually launching his own radio station.

Kolbe was passionate both in his faith and his belief in the power of newspapers to educate, inform and inspire. He wasn't afraid to take on those in power, whether Stalin's Soviet Union, the Polish government, or later the Nazis, and use the power of the pen to take a stand for human rights. During the war, he also sheltered Jews from the Nazis in his Polish monastery.

When Kolbe's newspaper accounts ran afoul of the Nazis, he was shipped to Auschwitz. But that wasn't his greatest sacrifice. One of the many horrific practices employed by the Nazis was their method of deterring escape attempts. When one prisoner escaped the camp, they would randomly choose 10 people to starve to death in a "hellish dungeon."

When a fellow prisoner who was chosen among the 10 cried out to be spared because he had a wife and children, Kolbe stepped forward and volunteered to take his place. For some reason, the Nazis accepted his offer, and Kolbe was the last to die in the dungeon, eventually being administered a lethal injunction when starvation wasn't enough.

The man whose life Kolbe spared, Francis Gajowniczek, survived the war and spread word of Kolbe's sacrifice in the years that followed. He lived to see Kolbe canonized a saint by Pope John Paul II in 1982.

In a world where we're buffeted daily by stories of hate and division, the story of Maximillian Kolbe's love and sacrifice for his fellow man during humanity's darkest days embodies the meaning of All Saints Day. And regardless of religious faith, his belief in the power of journalism to educate citizens, right societal wrongs and hold those in power accountable should serve as an inspiration at a time when the news media are regularly threatened and attacked by those in the highest rungs of power, both here and around the world.

The strange parallels between the presidencies of Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, and what it could mean

One of my favorite Google searches since January has been "Donald Trump's approval rating." Much was made of the fact that no president since polling began saw his approval drop so precipitously after taking office. The gap between where Trump's approval stood during the early months of his presidency and that of his predecessors during their honeymoon period was strikingly enormous. For those who believe Trump is a disaster for the country (I'm one of them), his dismal approval ratings have provided a ray of hope.

Clinton vs. Trump approval ratings from FiveThirtyEight.com

But as I've followed his approval ratings in recent months, I've noticed an interesting trend. It has largely flatlined in the high 30s, which of course is awful for any president, and particularly for one in his first year in office when presidents typically see some of their highest ratings. Nevertheless, comparing his approval rating to past presidents at the same point in their presidencies , we see that Trump is largely holding steady, while other recent presidents saw their ratings drop precipitously after their honeymoon period.

Of all the recent presidents, Trump's current average approval of 37.3% is closest to Bill Clinton (44%) at the same point in his presidency. In fact, Clinton's approval actually fell lower than Trump's was 134 days into both presidencies (36.8% for Clinton vs. 39.6% for Trump). Meanwhile, while George W. Bush and Barack Obama both began their presidencies with generally high approval ratings, by this point in their first years, both were hovering around 51% approval (Obama would drift under 50% as his first year continued, while Bush saw a huge spike after 9/11).

For those who continue to count on Trump's presidency to implode, or at the very least for him to last only one term, this trend poses both cause for concern, and optimism. First, the concern. The similarities between Bill Clinton and Trump stretch beyond their generally rocky presidential starts and low approval ratings in their first year. Both ran campaigns that almost from the start were engulfed in scandal and controversy and seemed poised to implode at various points. Of course, there were the sexual-related scandals (Gennifer Flowers for Clinton, the Access Hollywood tape for Trump). But it's easy for forget that with Clinton, there was a lot more (accusations of draft dodging and the Whitewater land deal to name a few). Time magazine ran a cover of Donald Trump melting down during last year's campaign when it appeared he had offended his way out of the race; but how many people remember the Time magazine cover of candidate Clinton's face shown through a negative photo image of him, to highlight his broader image problem. Almost from the moment his presidency began, it was under investigation for one thing or another, or at the least clouded by controversy and questions about his moral and ethical compass.

We all know what eventually happened with Clinton. Despite the scandals and low early approval ratings, he would easily win re-election and end his presidency as one of the most popular presidents in modern history -- despite being impeached. Few people would have predicted at this point in his first year as president that he would coast to re-election; in fact, by 1994, there were rumblings about whether he should be dumped from Democratic ticket in 1996 so that his more presidential-looking vice president (Al Gore) could take his place. The scandals never left Clinton, but the low approval ratings did. The reason was simple. The economy soared during the 1990s, the country largely avoided foreign entanglements and wars, and most people in the country were generally happy with their lot in life. Hence, they were more than willing to overlook their president's personal shortcomings and give him credit for what was going right in America. By almost every measure, Obama had nowhere near Clinton's baggage weighing him down, but he never approached Clinton's popularity, because the economy under Obama never approached its glory days under Clinton (few people seemed willing to give Obama credit for preventing another Great Depression, which many thought possible when he took office).

Could the same thing happen with Trump? Could voters ultimately overlook the Russian election tampering, the never-ending lies and self-absorption (and everything else), and reward Trump with a second term if the economy grows even more healthy and the country avoids international crises?

I think the answer is yes, but not likely. If unemployment stays low, the stock market continues to advance and things stay calm the next three years, there is a chance that Trump's approval rating could inch higher, especially if he finally decides to act somewhat presidential, and the Russia investigation bears no fruit. But I also believe the upside for him is much lower than it was for Clinton. For all his faults, Clinton was not nearly as polarizing and divisive as Trump has been, he was an intellectual heavyweight, and he acted presidential (at least much of the time). Enough people had an open mind about Clinton that when things started to look up in the country, and optimism about the future grew, there was lots of room for his popularity to soar. Trump, on the other hand, has offended so many people so quickly, has acted so unpresidential in so many ways, that a large segment of the American population simply will never change their opinion about him. The fact that his current approval rating is so dismal even though the economy is generally healthy, and even though he hasn't yet completely botched any domestic or international crisis, is a telling sign that  people are paying more attention to him (which seems to be his ultimate goal) than what's happening in the country as large.

Nevertheless, the Clinton example should be sobering for those who believe it's just a matter of time before the Trump nightmare ends. If the economy falters in the next year or so, or something else goes wrong, and Trump has no accomplishments to show for his time in office, his base could begin to desert him, and his approval could sink toward the 20s. But if that doesn't happen, it's not hard to see a scenario where his approval rating starts to inch back into the 40s and maybe even approach 50%. And as Bush and Obama showed, an incumbent who can keep about half the electorate behind him has a great chance at re-election.

It's hard to image at this point Trump's approval rating ever approaching the level it would need to be to give him a realistic chance at re-election (or even being renominated). But then again, the Clinton presidency also was shaping up as a disaster for much of his first term. Things can change quickly in a country where people largely judge their president based not on how they feel about him, but how they feel about their own lives.

Finding inspiration in the early years of Pope Francis

The four-part Spanish-language Netflix miniseries "Call me Francis" on the early priesthood of Pope Francis surely isn't raking in the viewership of "House of Cards" or "Stranger Things," but it's one of the most compelling, powerful and inspiring pieces of television I've seen in a long time (and inspiring is not something you see much in popular television these days). I never thought subtitles could bring me to tears.

First of all, you don't need to be a Catholic or even a Christian to find meaning in the series. In fact, one of the interesting and surprising revelations from Francis' life is that some of his closest friends were agnostics or atheists, including one woman in particular, Esther Ballestrino, whom Francis worked with in a lab when he was studying chemical engineering. Esther's fight on behalf of human rights during the brutal purges of the 1970s, and her tragic fate, is one of the fascinating subplots in the mini series, and leads to a crisis for Francis that threatens to destroy his career.

At the heart of the series is a message of hope and resilience, and the struggles so many of us face in trying to do the right thing and make a positive difference while constricted by forces outside our control. We learn from Francis' life how easy it is to tie ourselves up in knots, and how to ultimately undo those knots (Episode 3 of the Series is titled "The Knots.")

The basic theme of the story is Francis' life in the 1970s and '80s, when the man then known as Father Jorge Bergoglio is climbing the ranks of the Catholic Church in Argentina at the same time the church is grappling with the horrific purges and assassinations by the country's military dictatorship that ultimately results in the disappearance, and apparent deaths, of 30,000 people. Though the church is a powerful force in Argentina, its ability to stop these human rights abuses is limited, and those priests who are especially outspoken and active in fighting the government often end up assassinated themselves.

This is where Francis comes in. Like so many, he finds himself caught in the middle of an impossible situation, trying to work within the system to make a difference and save lives even while he knows the system isn't working the way it should. He often finds himself unable to please anyone, including himself. The activists who are openly fighting the government view him as too much of a conformist to a church that is unwilling to jeopardize its position within Argentine society by taking a harder stand against the government's atrocities. And those above him view him as too much of a rabble rouser rocking a boat that will only tip himself and the people he wants to help over the side.

This is ultimately a story of what it's like to be caught in the middle of a difficult, or impossible, situation, balancing what we want to accomplish with what is possible given the circumstances. Whether in our careers or family lives, how many of us have found ourselves in a similar situation? Trying to carve out a middle ground because it is the only path we can find, and seemingly unable to please anyone in the process, or make the difference we want to make? This is Francis' plight, and it ultimately leaves him tied up in knots. Even though he works behind the scenes to hide and protect people targeted by the government and fight government corruption, the people he cares most about keep dying.

And this is what leads to the crisis when Esther Ballestrino disappears during her fight on behalf of mothers of missing children who were abducted by the government (she and others were drugged and tossed out of an airplane to their deaths). His inability to save his friend nearly destroys Francis' career. He escapes for Germany and one day finds himself sitting in a small church gazing at a painting of the Virgin Mary holding a ribbon of knots. A woman sitting next to him explains the meaning of the painting. Mary is undoing the knots of the ribbon, symbolizing the power of faith to undo the knots we tie ourselves up in during our own struggles. She can undo your knots, the woman tells Francis. As Francis gazes at the painting, tears stream down his eyes. He feels the burden of his difficult decisions begin to lift from his shoulders.

The rest, as they say, is history. From that day on, Francis held a strong devotion to Mary, the undoer of knots, and would carry around cards with the painting that he would give to others facing their own struggles and difficult decisions.

As a man driven by faith, Francis also displayed a strong sense of pragmatism in his rise to the papacy. And in this era where ideology drives such deep wedges between us and stunts hope for progress that can only be achieved through compromise and finding a middle ground, it's a powerful lesson to remember. During his short papacy, Francis has brought people together like few before him, and inspired the world with his activism on behalf of shared values, whether the plight of the poor, or the environment. As the world sees a leadership vacuum from the United States, Francis may be the figure who steps forward to continue the fight for the values of freedom and social justice across the globe.

"Call me Francis" also reminded me how rare it is to see television drama these days that is truly inspiring and uplifting. There was plenty of darkness and sadness in the series, but that darkness was ultimately transcended by the power of human goodness, and one man's triumph over his inner struggles. It's sad that the most popular dramas on television these days seem to focus exclusively on human darkness and the power of violence, selfishness and evil. Back in the 1970s and '80s, you routinely saw dramas that, while often cheesy, were heavy on inspiration and the goodness of humanity, as well as the power of faith ("Touched by an Angel" and "Highway to Heaven.)" Those types of series are long gone. It seems that as a society, we now prefer to wallow in our darkest impulses, even when it comes to entertainment. We need more series like "Call me Francis" to teach us that goodness ultimately triumphs over evil, not just in fiction, but in real life.