Finance, Purgatory and Paradoxes in Project 2025

Covered today: Import/Export Bank, Federal Reserve, Small Business Administration

I have chosen to bunch up my analyses of three chapters of Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership manual because policies concerning finance aren’t settled on the right.

It’s easy to simplify those points of view into categories, namely libertarian vs state control, but the fact is a Trump administration would be fluid on such matters. What’s best for Dear Leader at the moment will end up being the quill from which economic and monetary arrows are utilized.

All of the chapters in this manual for governance start out with the same premise: civil servants are to be replaced with politically correct personnel. Leadership in all aspects of the bureaucracy will be mandated to eliminate programs aimed at establishing equity and purge policy regarding climate change as an existential threat to humanity.

Other solutions bounce back and forth between degrading the administrative state and weaponizing agency power to advance conservative consensus on cultural issues. The term “free market” is not really a philosophy to follow but a rhetorical device—albeit a hugely effective one—to skew public opinion toward conservative economic policy.

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The Export-Import Bank Should Be Abolished. Author Veronique de Rugy* / The Case for the Export-Import Bank. Author Jennifer Hazelton** 

Through loan guarantees, working capital guarantees, direct loans, and export-credit insurance, the Bank’s efforts amount to taxpayer-funded subsidies for companies to enhance export capabilities.

The case against EXIM (the acronym used to describe the Import-Export Bank) is based on the conclusion that the agency is protectionist, and picks winners and losers in the market by providing political privileges to firms that are already well-financed. 

The author argues that the agency does not create or maintain jobs, promote exports, nor boost economic growth. She says the risks involved amount to a bad deal for the public. Furthermore, in keeping with P2025’s stance on defining China as an enemy, these subsidies are ineffective at stymying competitors’ growth in the global marketplace.

The case for EXIM claims the agency’s actions are appropriate because they enable companies to vie for projects that would otherwise be out of reach, providing financing only when the private sector will not or cannot do so. The argument is made for the bank being an important part of an asymmetrical effort against hostile countries’ expansionist aims.

It’s argued that the bank’s actions prevent the US from ceding important economic power to China, which heavily subsidizes key industries. An unchecked China, they say, would have wide-open opportunities to claim jurisdiction over swaths of ocean and shipping lanes, expand its economic influence, and create major changes in the global balance of power.

(*) Veronique de Rugy is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a nationally syndicated columnist, and blogger for National Review Online’s The Corner

(** ) Jennifer Hazelton is a former congressional communications director, a journalist whose work has appeared on Fox News and CNN. She is a former senior strategic consultant for the DOD in Industrial Base Policy; and had senior positions at USAID, the Export Import Bank, and the State Department.

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The Federal Reserve. Author Paul Winfree*

The Federal Reserve is the agency that reactionaries (and some lefties) love to hate. The author of this chapter takes a two-tiered approach; one being severe limitations on the Fed’s mandates, and the other being simply eliminating the agency. 

It’s important to start any conversation about this agency with an acknowledgement of the most not-talked-about-in-public accusations that it’s controlled by a cabal, usually consisting of Jewish financiers. You won’t find any mention of this particular conspiracy in the Mandate for Leadership document, but  trust me when I say it plays a role in public perceptions of the agency.

The reformist view of taking on the Fed is to have Congress limit its mandates to protecting the dollar and restraining inflation. Of particular concern is the ability to “print money” to finance its operations, to intervene in mortgage-backed securities and private and public debt markets and its ability to take steps targeted to achieve full employment or other “environmental, social or governance” goals. 

Strip away all the wherefores and therefores, and what P2025 would be comfortable with would be the agency doing what it was told to do by Dear Leader. While this may seem in conflict with the critique that the Fed is too readily influenced by political pressures, remember that “political” is used as a descriptor for things people don’t like.

The eliminationist view of the Federal Reserve would have all kinds of consequences. Returning to a Gold Standard is, for these folks, a desirable first step. All kinds of “responsible” voices have raised this idea, largely based on the “stability” it would provide. If you want to think of the Great Depression as stability then this is the idea for you. 

The stability argument is horse poo. What having a gold standard does is protect the positions of the “haves” while leaving the “have nots” to fall into an economic abyss. The fact that there isn’t enough gold in existence to back the world’s currencies and limiting the amount of currency in circulation would stifle economic growth. And if you think interest rates are high now, take a look at what countries utilizing the Euro (which is tied to gold) are paying.

Ultimately what hard core Fed eliminationists have in mind is something called free banking, wherein individual banks issue currency backed by gold or some other convertible asset. The “market” would regulate banking, just like it (doesn’t) creates jobs when taxes on rich people are cut.

The problem with both approaches in this chapter boils down to be careful what you wish for. Reliance on the “marketplace” as an arbiter of anything is foolish, given the power of monopolies and decades of indifference toward the accumulation of wealth.  

(*) Paul Winfree is a Distinguished Fellow in Economic Policy and Public Leadership at the Heritage Foundation. He was Deputy Assistant to the President, Deputy Director of the Economic Policy Council, and Director of Budget Policy at the White House, and led the Trump presidential transition team responsible for the Office of Management and Budget in 2016. 

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Small Business Administration. Author: Karen Kerrigan

The author starts out with a defense of the SBA’s usefulness. Small Businesses are at the core of the conservative idea of paradise, and the agency’s mandates of providing access to capital, expertise, government  contracts, and advocacy are considered appropriate government functions.

The reality of SBA’s performance –  long-term deficiencies, practices, and problems that have prolonged the decades-long cycle of waste, fraud, and mismanagement – led various presidents going back to Ronald Reagan to quietly downsize the role of the agency.   

A factor in keeping the agency relevant has been its role as a financing vehicle in disaster relief. And then COVID came along. While many conservative entrepreneurs benefited (and scammed) from the Paycheck Protection Plan, the fact that monies were to Planned Parenthood branches was a major mistake.

It is suggested that future disaster aid assistance be moved to another agency and that programs providing direct assistance be eliminated.

In fact, what is suggested are steps to punish Planned Parenthood while making it easier for religious affiliated entities to get SBA services. Its advocacy functions would be enhanced to enable opposing extreme regulatory policies and advancing  limited government reforms that promote “economic freedom and opportunity.”  

(*) Karen Kerrigan, President and CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. Participates with federal advisory boards representing entrepreneurs and small businesses.

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Tomorrow: Financial Regulatory Agencies

Previously:

(Intro) Digging Deep into Project 2025 - (a multi-part Series)
Going Deep into Project 2025 - Partisan Priorities for Civil Servants
Project 2025: Christian Soldiers Marching Off to Land Wars
Homeland Security’s Authoritarian Role in Project 2025
What Can You Do For Trump Today? Project 2025’s Diplomats, Spies and Spokespersons
No Soup For You: Project 2025’s Foreign Aid Program
Project 2025’s National Nightmare for “The General Welfare”
Project 2025: Junk Food and Parents Rights
Make America Dirty Again: Project 2025 on Energy and the Environment
Project 2025: Some (Christian) People Are More Equal Than Others
Public Land for Sale, Cheap: Project 2025
Revenge Drives Project 2025 Justice Department
Don’t Let Trump Fool Ya: Project 2025 Lives
Department of Labor Gets Religion with Project 2025
Going Nowhere Faster - Project 2025’s Department of Transportation
Project 2025’s Assembly Line Veteran Care
Weather by [color descriptor redacted] Marker Pen: Project 2025's Department of Commerce
Project 2025: Looting and Booting at the Department of Treasury

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Monday News You Should Read

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Armed and Underground: Inside the Turbulent, Secret World of an American Militia via ProPublica

• The public’s impression of American militias is dominated by Jan. 6, 2021. Groups such as the Proud Boys had plotted to prevent the transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden. They formed the vanguard of the mob that stormed the Capitol that day, according to the Department of Justice. Media coverage since has centered on the prosecutions of participants, with hundreds of rioters sent to prison.

• But despite the riot and its fallout, militias are far from extinct. AP3 has expanded at a dramatic pace since Jan. 6, while keeping much of its activity out of view. This rise is documented in more than 100,000 internal messages obtained by ProPublica, spanning the run-up to Jan. 6 through early 2024. Along with extensive interviews with 22 current and former members of AP3, the records provide a uniquely detailed inside view of the militia movement at a crucial moment.

• The messages reveal how AP3 leaders have forged alliances with law enforcement around the country and show the ways in which, despite an initial crackdown by social media, they have attracted a new wave of recruits. A change in the political climate has also helped: In a matter of months after Jan. 6, rioters went from pariahs to heroes in the rhetoric of prominent Republican politicians. By the summer of 2021, people were enlisting in AP3, saying that Jan. 6 inspired them to join.

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Monopoly Round-Up: Price Gouging vs Price Fixing vs Price Controls by Matt Stoller at BIG

• Pricing is dynamic, complex, and endlessly complicated. New industries are constantly emerging, and changing. Moreover, the fact we didn’t enforce antitrust laws for decades means there are industries of consultants finding ways to cheat us. (One company’s sole purpose is to invent new airline fees!) Until the 1980s, writing and enforcing pricing rules was a large part of governing, and the collapse of our faith in politic is in some ways due to the end of public governance on pricing.

• The most important thing Harris is doing, therefore, is to just say that pricing rules will be a key priority for her administration. That, more than anything, is what matters. She’s already part of an administration that has live antitrust suits or investigations on rent, meat, supermarkets, Ticketmaster, gaming, oil, pharmaceuticals, et al, and one that has brought down the price of inhalers, epipen’s, insulin, and airline tickets, as well as radically cut junk fees on credit cards and bank overdraft charges, and mostly ended hospital surprise billing practices.

• Still, she’s promising specifics beyond what Biden has done, putting forward anti-monopoly laws involving pricing on housing, food, and medicine, while deemphasizing big tech. On rent, for instance, Harris says she seeks to block Wall Street from buying up homes, and to end the rent-fixing conspiracy of RealPage and corporate landlords, which has driven up rents.

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Why Gov. Tim Walz Drives Them Crazy by Jay Kuo at the Status Quo

• For a party accustomed to attacking its enemies, the GOP is now at a loss over how exactly to attack Walz next. Their latest meltdown over his “racist” comment about eating “white guy tacos” exposed them further as the very “snowflakes” they decry, delicate creatures who don’t understand the basic difference between racism and self-deprecation. And really, don’t they have anything better to do than whine about one of their own making a joke about spice tolerance levels? It’s all very silly, but also bogs them down in their own angry stew.

• And in that obsession to bring him down, the right is walking right into Harris’s trap. Every day that Walz draws their attention is one more day Harris moves closer to the presidency end zone, without anyone getting close enough to tackle her. For his part, Walz appears perfectly happy to distract her would-be assailants.

• It’s a play an experienced and successful defensive coach like Walz would appreciate.