Leid Stories—Thuggery As Diplomacy; The Budget Bill ‘Nothing Short of Wholesale Looting’—12.20.17

In her first act as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley in January warned member-states of the international body that the Trump administration will be “taking names” of all countries ever daring to vote against it. The former governor of South Carolina this week repeated the threat in a letter to representatives of several member-states, ahead of a controversial vote tomorrow on the U.S.’s unilateral decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and relocate the U.S. embassy there. Leid Stories notes that Haley and Trump both seem to believe that thuggery is diplomacy.

 

When the House votes again today on new changes to the massive tax-overhaul plan, President Donald Trump and the Republican leadership will claim a stunning victory. The tax overhaul, the centerpiece of the Republicans’ $1.5-trillion budget, was long overdue, they say, and will greatly energize the economy, bringing across-the-board benefits. But Trump’s triumph is not sitting well with a wide swath of experts. Josh Bivens, director of research at the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, is one of them. The tax-overhaul and budget bill, he says, are “nothing short of wholesale looting.”