I agree with the House impeachment resolution in full. The House should vote to impeach President Trump, again.

Four years ago minus eight days, Donald J. Trump swore an oath, “…and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Over the past two months he repeatedly violated that oath, attacking the Constitution and the presidential election process. He tried to seize for himself your right and mine to choose our next president by an agreed-upon set of rules.

Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden, fair and square. President Trump has then lied to the American people for two months, falsely claiming the election was stolen from him. He continues this lie even today. Courts investigated his claims; he lost. The states certified their results; he lost. The electors’ votes came to the Capitol to be counted. His exhortations led to a physical attack on the Capitol during the counting of those votes. After the insurrection, costing five lives so far, was quelled, Congress completed their task and counted the votes. Again, Mr. Trump lost. Mr. Biden won the presidency.

Simply put, President Trump tried to cheat in a constitutional process, a violation of his oath of office. He incited an insurrection, a violent uprising against an authority or government. He attacked that government from within for weeks, and then formed and provoked a mob of his most aggressive supporters, who attacked it from without.

We heard audio of President Trump trying to reverse the certified results of Georgia, threatening Georgia’s Secretary of State if he did not “find” enough votes to produce a Trump win.

President Trump pressured Vice President Pence to illegally disqualify electors from several states, disenfranchising more than 25 million voters in the process.

President Trump publicly urged his supporters to come to Washington and to march on the Capitol building, on the day and at the time when the Congress was counting the electors’ votes. That timing is significant. This was not a random rally; he was again trying to disrupt the constitutional and legal election processes. President Trump urged his army of supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol. It was his mob. He incited them to a four-pronged attack: on a sacred building, on all the people within it, on the legislative branch of our government, and on the constitutional vote-counting process.

At every stage of the election process, the Constitution defended itself, supported by widely accepted civic norms and by the honorable behavior of public servants in the courts, in the States, and in the legislative branch. Federalism and checks and balances worked, repelling the attack of a failed strongman. Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Trump in the election. The U.S. Constitution defeated Mr. Trump’s attempt to steal a second term.

Defending the integrity of our democracy must not be a partisan effort, and I hope the vote is overwhelming and bipartisan. I don’t care about the short-term side effects. This is about the long run. Accountability for these heinous acts and restoring lost credibility to this essential constitutional process are more important than any short-term pain.

I urge a YES vote on the impeachment of President Donald Trump for his attempted insurrection, his failed attack on our government and on the U.S. Constitution.

My layman’s approach to the impeachment of President Trump is somewhat simplistic.

We American citizens have the right to choose our leaders by voting in elections. Exercising that right requires that our elections be fair, especially the one for president. Anyone who cheats in an election denies us that right.

American elections are for Americans only. When a foreign power interferes in an American election, it attacks our democracy.

When our president asked a foreign head of state to interfere in our next presidential election, he cheated and he invited such an attack.

Cheating is wrong, and this cheating was no small matter. This was cheating in how we choose who will hold the most powerful job on the planet. President Trump cheated. To help himself, he tried to deny me my right to vote in a fair election, and he tried to involve a foreign government in that cheating. That is inexcusable and unforgivable.

President Nixon cheated. By removing him for this, our self-correcting democracy partially repaired the damage he caused. President Clinton lied in court. I thought that was a high crime and supported removing him then. We failed, lowered the ethical bar, and weakened our democracy. Both comparisons are relevant today.

Like Nixon, President Trump cheated in a presidential election. Even worse, President Trump’s attempt asked a foreign government to interfere. To me this is also worse than what Clinton did, and I thought Clinton should have been removed. Our democracy needs to self-correct, as it did with Nixon and failed to do with Clinton.

I think President Trump’s cheating in the next presidential election, and his use of his office in an attempt to involve a foreign government in that cheating to help himself, are together an abuse of power and a high crime. I recommend the Senate find President Donald Trump guilty of abuse of power and remove him from office.

I find many of the arguments in and on the margins of the Senate impeachment trial to be distractions or secondary.
– I don’t care whether President Trump tied explicit conditions or threats to his request for a “favor” from the Ukrainian president. The ask was the bad act.
– Nor do I care that his cheating failed. An inept cheater who fails to achieve his objective is still a cheater.
– I don’t care much whether his action violated a criminal statute, as I think this is not necessary to constitute a high crime.
– I would err on the side of being over-inclusive on witnesses and evidence but don’t need more of either to draw my conclusion.
– Others who also cheated should be or should have been punished. The right answer is to raise the ethical bar, not lower it.
– The prosecution’s flaws, failures, and in some cases corrupt motives do not mitigate President Trump’s bad act or guilt. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
– Relative peace and prosperity, good poll numbers, anticipated citizen anger, or an upcoming election do not excuse a president from being held responsible for trying to deny me my right to vote in a fair election. We should hold all elected officials accountable for their worst actions, not just those who are unpopular, unsuccessful, or whose policies or political style we dislike.

It is a privilege to live in a society where we can speak our minds, vote, criticize our elected leaders, and hold them to account. I cherish these freedoms and rights, and our democracy that protects them. As permitted by the Constitution, the Senate should remove from power anyone who attacks that democracy. That includes our president, Donald Trump.

My view on Brett Kavanaugh remains unchanged by recent events. Today I reaffirm my July 9th support for, and endorsement of, Brett Kavanaugh, which I share here once again before the Senate begins to vote.

“I worked with Brett Kavanaugh on a near-daily basis for three years, from mid-2003 to mid-2006. Part of my job was to write memos and prepare briefing memos for President Bush, and Brett was the coordinator and gatekeeper who made sure my work was ready for the president’s desk. I trusted Brett with the work I did for the president, and I trust him now for an even more important role.

I worked with Brett Kavanaugh on a near-daily basis for three years, from mid-2003 to mid-2006. Part of my job was to write memos and prepare briefing presentations for President Bush. Brett was the coordinator and gatekeeper who made sure my work was ready for the president’s desk. I trusted Brett with the work I did for the president, and I trust him now for an even more important role.

Judge Kavanaugh is simply one of the finest professionals with whom I have ever worked. His integrity, intellect, professionalism, and collegiality are unsurpassed. He is a role model for honorable public service, and just a good, solid guy. I urge the Senate to confirm him for the Supreme Court.

The spending bill the Senate will soon consider would significantly increase government spending. While the bill only covers this fiscal year and next, its practical effects will last longer. If you increase discretionary spending by $150 B per year for each of the next two years, you establish higher expectations and a new benchmark, a new baseline, against which future discretionary spending proposals will be judged. This is true even if the bill is drafted to technically cover only the next two years of spending.

Using press reports for some back-of-the-envelope calculations of my own, it appears that Congress is heading toward increasing discretionary spending by about $1.8 trillion over the next decade (+2/3 of this unfinished budget year), and will have to borrow about $1.7 trillion more from financial markets to finance those net spending increases.

In making this calculation I am being generous in all as-yet unspecified respects. I am ignoring rumored discretionary spending increases outside the spending caps in law, as well as reported possible mandatory (entitlement) spending increases. I am ignoring another $60ish B in added interest expenses that would result from the added government borrowing, and I am giving them full credit for a claimed $100 B in offsets that will, in all likelihood, consist partially of budget gimmicks.

The effects of this bill would be twofold. First, the numbers are really big.

Second, the Republican policy reversals are staggering:

With this bill, Republicans would abandon their goal to balance the budget. The smart way to achieve this goal is to restructure and significantly slow the growth of the big 4 entitlement spending programs: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act.

Instead, last year’s House Republican majority proposed a budget claiming to reach balance principally through cutting non-defense discretionary spending. At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the President’s advisors reconciled a balanced budget and a large tax cut through a $2 trillion accounting mistake/gimmick.

Now that the tax cut has been enacted and Republicans are about to embrace large increases in non-defense discretionary spending, even those feeble budgetary fictions evaporate. President Trump’s advisors and Congressional Republicans have over-constrained themselves. They refuse to reform Social Security, have failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, are discussing only small changes to Medicare and Medicaid, and are now about to enact large increases in both defense and non-defense discretionary spending. At the same time, they can no longer claim unspecified economic growth benefits from future pro-growth policies, since their pro-growth policies are all behind them. They can’t make the arithmetic work. This may explain reports that they won’t even try to pass a budget this year.

Other than their relative prioritization of defense over non-defense programs, when it comes to government spending and borrowing, it is now quite difficult to distinguish President Trump and Congressional Republicans from Democrats.

In their Axios story “Trump team considers nationalizing 5G network,” Jonathan Swan, David McCabe, Ina Fried, and Kim Hart report that “Trump national security officials are considering an unprecedented federal takeover of a portion of the nation’s mobile network to guard against China, according to sensitive documents obtained by Axios.”

I had three reactions to the leaked Trump NSC materials.

• Surely these are not actual policy documents they are using to make decisions.
• The author is using China as a model to design a U.S. policy.
• If the President says 5G or build a nationwide wireless network in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, his staff are setting him up for an embarrassing policy failure.

The leaked documents are of such low quality that they barely merit a response, but the policy ramifications would be so enormous and harmful I feel obliged to raise my concerns, framed as twenty questions for the author of these documents.

I encourage you to review the slide deck and memo and form your own judgment.

Public vs. Private

1. You compare a government-built 5G wireless communications to both the creation of the National Highway System in the 1950s, and the Space Race in the 1960s. The government did those projects in part because no one else could. Why shouldn’t private firms build 5G? They seem willing and able to do so.
2. Pointing to both the U.S. Interstate Highway System and the Chinese “Belt and Road” system as models, your primary option proposes a network model for 5G wireless: a single, universal, government-run, centrally-administered network. Why does this model make more sense for American 5G wireless than the multiple overlapping 3G and 4G private wireless networks, or the privately-owned wired U.S. internet infrastructure, or the private hub-and-spoke air carrier network, or the regional networks of State and local roads that connect to the interstate highway system? Why should the government (you) choose an optimal network structure rather than allow it to grow and evolve based on consumer-driven pricing signals?
3. You say a government-built and -operated wireless network will “create millions of jobs.” Won’t it just shift jobs from the private sector to the government?

Financing, innovation, and improvement over time

4. You say your “new paradigm … would require a single network that is virtually shared by retail providers.” Who will pay for building this network? Since the benefits of any private investments to build or upgrade part of such a network would be shared by retail providers, how does your proposal “rely on private capital?” Why would private firms invest to build or upgrade capacity? Are you proposing to turn telecom firms into regulated utilities and guarantee them a certain return?
5. Or do you assume the government would use scarce fiscal resources to build and upgrade the network over time? If so, what makes you think the taxpayer funds would be available, or that they would not be allocated based on political power in Congress?
6. Sometimes different private firms adopt different competing technologies (e.g., GSM vs. CDMA, VHS vs. Beta). Competition drives these firms to improve their technologies. In your plan, the government would choose a single technology and mandate its nationwide use. What makes you think the government (you) knows enough to pick the best technology?
7. Other than government fiats, why would anyone have an incentive to improve upon that initially chosen technology?
8. IT modernization at the IRS is a multi-decade disaster. The U.S. government was unable to build a health insurance enrollment website. FedEx, UPS, and Amazon run circles around the U.S. Postal Service. What makes you think a government-run wireless network will “enable innovation” or result in “more resilient and effective operations” compared to one built and operated by private firms?

Speed of deployment

9. You state the U.S. government will build a nationwide wireless network in three years. That fits with the end of the president’s first term, but is there anything more specific than “Inspired Leadership” which leads you to think this particular timeline could be achieved?
10. What makes you think equipment manufacturers could “move manufacturing facilities to the U.S. … in time to allow for a three year deployment timeline?”
11. More generally, what examples suggest the U.S. government could build a nationwide wireless network faster than could the private sector?
12. You point out that local siting rules slow down the deployment of new telecom infrastructure, and recommend the federal government override these local rules. This policy choice is independent of who builds the infrastructure, right? If made, such policy changes would also expedite private sector deployment, yes?

Security & privacy

13. Why do you think a single network would be more secure than multiple networks? Would it be more robust to a debilitating attack?
14. As someone who received an Office of Personnel Management notice that my federal government employee records were hacked by Chinese proxies, why should I trust the U.S. government’s ability to secure private wireless communications?
15. Your proposal would mean that every phone call I make, every email and text I send and receive, every photo I post, search I cast, app I run, and website I browse would be going through government-operated information systems, right? And my geolocation data as well? Do you consider this a feature or a bug?

Other

16. You propose the Department of Education “take the lead in developing training programs that ensure an adequate supply of skilled labor.” What existing government-run job training programs lead you to believe this can succeed?
17. You say private firms can be forced to “begin harnessing the secure network as soon as it is available” through imposing “corporate governance standards … for large and publically [sic] traded private entities.” Why should the government tell private firms what technology they must use and when?
18. You say the government will create “an air layer utilizing airline carriers and other public/private Unmanned Aerial Systems.” Does this mean the government will be flying planes and drones around to provide 5G coverage? Why is this a good idea?
19. The proposal seems to be inspired by and modeled after a Chinese government, top-down, centralized control approach. Is it? If so, why does it make sense to model U.S. policy after Chinese policy? If not, how is it different from what China does?
20. Who signed off on this? The Axios story says this document was produced and distributed widely by “a senior National Security Council official.” Do White House staff routinely circulate documents of this poor quality to senior decision-makers? Do policy decisions get made in the Trump Administration based on documents like this?

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post performs a valuable service with his Fact Checker column. He plays the referee, holding policymakers to account for the accuracy of what they say, and working hard to research, understand, and educate his readers on the veracity of a range of important policy questions. His body of work elevates the quality of policy debate.

Even good referees sometimes make a bad call, and I think Mr. Kessler did so yesterday in his column, “Is the GOP plan for Medicaid caps really Bill Clinton’s idea?” I disagree with his conclusion and score of former Senator Rick Santorum’s quote (two Pinocchios). I have expressed my views directly to Mr. Kessler, who graciously included some of my input in an updated version of his column. I’d like to share here a fuller explanation of why I think Santorum was right, Kessler wrong, and the two Pinocchio score is undeserved and unfair. My disagreement with Mr. Kessler stems in part, from a different view about the role of someone labeled a fact-checker who scores policymakers with Pinocchios. It may seem like I’m splitting hairs, but the underlying policy issue is important, and Mr. Kessler has a big role on an influential platform. His columns carry weight and his scores have influence, especially because the Pinocchio label implicitly tags policymakers as liars.

The quote Mr. Kessler analyzes comes from former Republican Senator Rick Santorum:

As everyone knows, the Medicaid per capita cap was proposed by President Clinton. Now it is seen as this draconian measure.

As far as we can tell, Democrats never embraced the idea after Clinton abandoned it once he had struck a deal with Republicans on the budget. Thus it remains a tactical gambit, not a serious proposal. That’s demonstrated also by the fact that Clinton’s caps were so high that they were virtually meaningless in terms of saving money.

In making his rhetorical point, Santorum ignores this history. He earns two Pinocchios.

Kate Davidson and Richard Rubin have an excellent article in today’s Wall Street Journal examining what President Trump’s economic advisors are now saying about how the President wants to allocate $2 trillion in budget benefits they think will result from faster economic growth. I wrote about this question Tuesday.

Trump Budget Director Mick Mulvaney testified at the House and Senate Budget Committees, while Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testified at the House Ways & Means and Senate Finance Committees. Director Mulvaney said President Trump was proposing that tax reform be debt-neutral without including the budget benefits that would result from faster economic growth, while Secretary Mnuchin said President Trump was proposing that tax reform be debt-neutral with including the budget benefits that would result from faster growth. These two views cannot both be true. I understood the Mnuchin position to be the Administration’s unified view before Tuesday’s budget release. The Mulvaney view is the only one consistent with the new budget documents. Davidson and Rubin are therefore correct when they write that the Mulvaney position would be a major fiscal policy shift for the President.

President Trump now has four options:

1. President Trump supports the position Director Mulvaney stated yesterday, consistent with the Trump budget release. Tax reform must be debt neutral, statically scored. The budget benefits of growth help the government reach balance in 2027, as presented in the just-released budget plan. Tax reform becomes dramatically more difficult to enact, since the President’s position now requires finding as much as $2 trillion* more revenue over 10 years from eliminating or scaling back tax preferences. That would mean either flipping to support a border adjustment tax and eliminating the deduction for interest expenses, or dramatically scaling back their proposed tax cuts from what they floated in April.
2. President Trump supports the position Secretary Mnuchin stated yesterday, consistent with the April tax reform release. Tax reform must be debt neutral, including the effects of growth. Director Mulvaney cannot count those additional revenues to help him balance the budget. He has to modify his budget proposal to cut a lot more spending ($496 B in 2027 to hit balance in that year) or he has to give up on balancing the budget.
3. President Trump splits the $2 trillion between the two goals. Mnuchin and Mulvaney each have to find more tax increases / spending cuts (respectively) to meet their stated goals of debt-neutral tax reform and a balanced budget.
4. Do nothing, remaining ambiguous and internally inconsistent. They stick with the mutually inconsistent policies and the $2 trillion double-count, and try to duck / ignore / power through the questions that point out this logical and arithmetic contradiction. The likely outcome is that House and Senate Republicans ignore the President’s inconsistent policies and make their own policy choice on this question. I’d guess they’d lean toward the Mnuchin approach, dynamically scoring tax reform and reaching a balanced budget by cutting spending more than the President proposes.

It is unclear to me why Director Mulvaney and Secretary Mnuchin are saying opposite things here. Does this reflect a policy disagreement between the two men that still needs to be resolved by the President, and we are seeing that disagreement play out in public? Does it reflect a new policy direction (debt-neutral tax reform, statically scored) to which Secretary Mnuchin has not yet adjusted his public rhetoric? Does it reflect a coordinated intentional choice to try to have it both ways so that the President did not have to make another $2 trillion of hard policy choices?

This is important. The principle of honest budgeting is amplified by the size of this hole and its impacts on core elements of the president’s economic agenda. Two trillion dollars is a lot of money, and the decisions yet to be made affect the chances for enacting tax reform and a balanced federal budget.

Technical addendum

* Correction to my “$2 trillion hole” number — Team Trump says that faster growth resulting from all the President’s policies, in total, will improve the budget picture by $2 trillion over the next decade, and they incorporate that full amount in their balanced budget plan, including $496 billion in the balance year of FY 2027. Traditional dynamic scoring of a tax reform would incorporate the budget benefits of only that additional economic growth which results from tax reform. If some fraction of the faster growth would result from non-tax policies (including regulatory reform, increased energy supply, infrastructure spending), then (traditionally) one could not “use” that to offset tax reform. This means that while Director Mulvaney could and did incorporate the full $2 trillion in his balanced budget plan, traditional scoring rules might allow Secretary Mnuchin to include something less than the full $2 trillion to offset gross tax cuts, if the President were to head in that direction. None of the Administration’s language reflects this difference, and it is secondary to the core problem the Administration faces, but I want to be as accurate as I can be in my explanation.