Bloomberg News’ Max Abelson has an interesting article about the miraculous epiphanies all of these Wall Street giants have had over the past few months. Once talking into any microphone and to any reporter available about how we needed to “fix the debt,” and going so far as to have begun a movement called “Fix the Debt,” all those hypocrites are now super on board for tax cuts for the wealthy because they want to be richer. It’s about as simple and greedy as that.
The conversation on Wall Street changed after November’s election. Some of the same people who were anxious about the debt sounded delighted by Donald Trump’s plan to cut taxes for corporations and high earners, trumpeting it as a way to fuel growth. Never mind that estimates from the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation showed Trump’s campaign plan could reduce federal revenue by $3.9 trillion over 10 years. Case in point: Goldman Sachs Group Inc.CEO Lloyd Blankfein, a Fix the Debt supporter who in 2012 told CNBC he’d be for higher taxes if they helped mend the fiscal gap. After the election, Blankfein told colleagues in a companywide voicemail that Trump’s proposals, including tax reform, “will be good for growth and, therefore, will be good for our clients and for our firm.”
Blankfein isn’t so surprising. Then again, none of them are. Blankfein’s attacks on Bernie Sanders weren’t particularly helpful to Hillary Clinton in that it reminded everyone that Hillary Clinton knew Lloyd Blankfein, and Donald Trump voters are complete suckers, so it probably didn’t register with them at all. Former Republican Senator Judd Gregg has also seen God, and God’s name is tax cuts and rising debt.
“Passing tax reform becomes even more critical,” because it’s now a matter of political survival, says Judd Gregg, a veteran of both Wall Street and Washington who became co-chairman of Fix the Debt in 2012. He was a Republican senator from New Hampshire before he advised Goldman Sachs and led the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association in 2013. Gregg says it wouldn’t be so terrible if slashing taxes added $1 trillion or $2 trillion to the $20 trillion the U.S. already owes. The way he sees it, there should still be attention paid to the fiscal health of the U.S., “but concern in my opinion should be focused on entitlement reform.” Entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security take up a large and growing slice of federal spending. Tackling them to address the debt would mean cutting future spending on benefits for the old and poor.
It’s hard not to remember how much of a corrupt piece of waste Judd Gregg is. If you vaguely recall his name it’s because you might remember him as the Republican President Obama nominated for Commerce Secretary in 2009, who subsequently removed himself from consideration because he had lots of shady ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. “Disgraced lobbyist” is almost a perfect redundancy. “Disgraceful Republican” is a perfect redundancy.