| | | | Fareed: The GOP Is Now the Party of State Planning and Crony Capitalism | | Conservatives have rallied around President Trump, Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column, but on "what Republicans used to call the core of their agenda—limited government—Trump has been profoundly unconservative."
Trump has blown up the national debt—his tax cuts will add nearly $2 trillion over the next decade—and he has put up trade barriers that have been anathema to the GOP for decades. Acting like a "Central Planning Agency," the administration has offered "exemptions on tariffs to favored companies and industries, while refusing them to others," often to help constituencies that could benefit Trump in 2020. "In true Soviet style, lobbyists, lawyers and corporate executives now line up to petition government officials for these treasured waivers, which are granted in an opaque process—apparently sometimes by Trump himself," Fareed writes.
"On the core issue that used to define the GOP—economics—the party's agenda today is state planning and crony capitalism," Fareed writes. "And this is what so-called conservatives are doubling down to defend." | | Fareed on the 'New China Scare' | | China isn't the existential threat some American analysts make it out to be, Fareed writes in a new Foreign Affairs essay. Some have portrayed Beijing as upending the liberal international order—but that order "was never as liberal, as international, or as orderly as it is now nostalgically described," and the US has gone against it often, launching wars and attempting regime change dozens of times. As the US itself rose in power, it "declared the entire Western Hemisphere off-limits to the great powers of Europe," and China, today, is mostly concerned with its own neighborhood.
China is merely seeking a place at the international table commensurate with its status, Fareed argues, and its rise is not necessarily incompatible with US aims. Some suspect Beijing of employing a "marathon" strategy to dominate the world in the long term. But, Fareed writes, "if Washington can keep its cool and patiently continue to pursue a policy of engagement plus deterrence, forcing China to adjust while itself adjusting to make space for it, some scholar decades from now might write about the United States' not-so-secret plan to expand the zone of peace, prosperity, openness, and decent governance across the globe—a marathon strategy that worked." | | Britain's 'Nightmare' Election | | The choices facing UK voters have, somehow, only become more extreme since the country's last general election in 2017, The Economist writes in its latest cover story. On the left, the Labour Party offers a socialist experiment in nationalization and redistribution; on the right, Conservatives too have "grown scarier since 2017" under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has promised to leave the EU without a deal, if post-Brexit negotiations don't conclude by the end of 2020. The best choice, the magazine argues, is to vote Lib Dem—even if it's only a "low bar" that party has cleared. "There is no good outcome to this nightmare of an election," The Economist writes. "But for the centre to hold is the best hope for Britain."
Note: Fareed will interview Economist Editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes on this Sunday's GPS. Tune into CNN at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET to hear Beddoes discuss the cover story and the UK election. | | America's Long Obsession With Iran | | "Imagine historians a century from now trying to decide which foreign power the United States feared most in the decades from the late Cold War through 2020," Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon write in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. Russia would be an arch-enemy; China, an emerging rival; and North Korea, a "sideshow." Only Iran "would be depicted as a persistent and implacable foe"—a mistaken priority that vastly overstates Iran's threat, in the authors' view.
Iran funds proxies, held US diplomats captive, and provided weapons to Iraqi militias, Benjamin and Simon write, but in "balance-of-power terms, Washington's obsession with Tehran is absurd." A nuclear Iran would indeed reshape the Middle East, but the authors chalk up America's "obsession" to a rise in evangelical politics, the deepening of US support for Israel, and an Iranian revolutionary ideology that may remind Americans of the Soviet Union. With the war in Syria winding down, and relative peace between Israel and Hezbollah, Benjamin and Simon suggest there may soon be an opening for engagement. | | The Historical Case for a Wealth Tax | | Concerned about the ethics and mechanics of a wealth tax? Who better than a progressive French economist from UC Berkeley to extol its virtues; in the latest episode of Project Syndicate's "Opinion Has It" podcast, Emmanuel Saez does just that.
Director of Berkeley's Center for Equitable Growth and a recipient of the John Bates Clark medal, Saez argues that although America invented progressive taxation in the early 20th century, US taxes have flattened since then: "Today when you put together all taxes, you find that essentially all income groups pay about the same rates, which is 28%, on average; it is actually a somewhat lower rate of 23% at the very, very top of the distribution," Saez says. During the Reagan administration, top tax rates fell from 70% to 28%, and an ideology of government-as-the-enemy encouraged legal tax avoidance; a wealth tax, along the lines of Elizabeth Warren's or Bernie Sanders's, would be a return to pre-Reagan normalcy, Saez argues. | | | | | | |
