Democrats need to stiffen our spines on tax policy. My thoughts:

 

We are under five months away from when voters will decide the direction our country takes on abortion, climate, and immigration. Another fight with huge consequences is also teed up: The fight over taxes. In 2017, Donald Trump signed his only major legislative achievement: a $2 trillion tax cut mostly sucked up by millionaires, billionaires, and giant corporations — you know, the guys Trump is now begging for money to pay his legal bills and fund his campaign. In 2025, many of those cuts will expire, and — ready or not — Congress will be forced to confront big decisions on tax policy. The 2025 tax fight will create a huge opportunity to break with decades of tax-cutting political orthodoxy and reshape the tax code to reflect our nation’s values by raising taxes on the wealthy. That’s what Americans across the country are demanding. That’s what Joe Biden is running on. Next year, we must raise taxes on giant corporations and billionaires. Below I’m going to go into detail on just how critical our country’s tax code policy is — and why this is a pivotal moment to shape the future of our economy. I’ve spent many years advocating for making our tax code fairer for the middle class, and I’m running for re-election this year to keep fighting for this. Will you pitch in $5 or any amount to help grow our campaign and make the case for policies that make our government work not just for the rich and powerful but for everyone? I’m grateful to have you on this team. I want to be crystal clear: This is about what both Republicans and Democrats have done in years past. If Democrats take the coward’s way out and sign our names to a half-baked deal that lets the wealthy off the hook, it will be a huge failure — and one the American people cannot afford. In short, taxes reflect our values. Taxes show what — and who — we value enough to collectively invest in. And today’s tax code reflects the values of a handful of the wealthy and well-connected, far more than the values of everyone else. It is no surprise the United States ranks 31st out of 38 developed countries in terms of tax revenue as a share of GDP. Our tax code is now caught in a doom loop. Tax loopholes for the wealthiest individuals and corporations mean the rich keep more and more of their money. And as the money floods to the top, so does power. Growing piles of cash fund growing armies of lobbyists that demand even bigger tax breaks. Cash spent on lobbying hit a record $4.3 billion last year — fueled by billionaires drooling over the prospect of even more lavish tax breaks in 2025. And boy, does it work. What are the policy consequences of high-powered lobbying and corporate-friendly senators and representatives on both sides of the aisle? Well, we end up with tax policy that reflects the values of the top 1% — and mostly the top 1% of the 1%. The tax doom loop also distorts every other part of our economy. In 2020, things started to shift. Every major Democratic candidate running to replace Donald Trump made raising taxes on the wealthy a centerpiece of their presidential campaigns — including Joe Biden. Enough of the tax doom loop — candidates were willing to say no to billionaire donors. After Biden won and a deadly pandemic rattled our economy to the core, Biden and Democrats in Congress actually delivered. We passed tax policies that broke with decades of bad economic and political orthodoxy — and, in doing so, fueled the best economic recovery on the planet. In 2022, we raised taxes on corporations for the first time in thirty years. Democrats in Congress passed my 15% minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations. This tax leapfrogged the usual tax loopholes and put a minimum tax on the profits these big corporations reported to their shareholders, meaning no more bragging to their wealthy investors about how big their profits were, and then telling the IRS they were too poor to pay taxes. It’s a tax change aligned with American values — and it will raise $222 billion in new revenue to boot. Democrats also passed a massive funding increase for the long-underfunded IRS, so it can take on the millionaires and billionaires who have been holding back about $150 billion each year — money they legally owe. Early reports from that effort indicate that for every dollar invested, $10 will be returned. And, once again, tax policy was a sharp dividing line between the two parties: Every Democrat supported the tax increases on the rich and every Republican voted against them. Every. Single. One. And that sets us up for the showdown in 2025, when Congress will decide what to do when a huge chunk of the Trump tax cuts expire, and big decisions need to be made. If Republicans win in November, Donald Trump has already said exactly what will happen. He told his “rich as hell” donors — his words, not mine — that he will give them another huge tax cut. An “upper class” tax cut, and a “business class big tax cut.” That corporate rate, which Trump had already slashed from 35% down to 21% — why not lower it to 15%? And why not add a few more loopholes for Wall Street and Big Oil? The tax code is on the auction block, with favors going to Trump’s wealthiest donors. If Democrats win, what happens next? In the past, we eagerly cut deals with Republicans that gave a teeny tiny tax break to middle-class Americans and another big, fat cut to those at the top. When Ronald Reagan got elected, for example, the Democratic House fell all over itself to make a $10 trillion tax cut deal with him. The tax doom loop in its full glory. Or look at the Bush tax cuts. Why did those cuts cost $8 trillion? Because Democrats cut a deal with Republicans to make nearly all of Bush’s temporary cuts permanent. The impact on the national debt was staggering. Right after the deal was cut, Republicans claimed to care deeply about the deficit. They then fabricated a debt ceiling crisis, which they used to extract crippling budget cuts. Those cuts cost the U.S. economy more than 7 million jobs, and they helped set the stage for Donald Trump’s election in 2016. Republicans are running the same play again — and too many Democrats have demonstrated just how eager we are to compromise. Earlier this year, hoping for an increase in the Child Tax Credit to lift 400,000 kids out of poverty — a very important goal — a number of Democrats agreed to give big corporations $3 in tax cuts for every $1 to poor families. Republicans tanked the deal because they believe they can get even more next year, and that Democrats won’t have the spine to stop them. But Democrats don’t need to be suckers this time. We can turn away from our history of bad dealmaking, and double down on raising taxes for those at the top. We can make the U.S. tax code reflect the values of the American people by raising taxes for billionaires and billionaire corporations. That’s what Joe Biden is running on for his re-election. And it’s what the American people are demanding — loud and clear. Four in five Americans support raising taxes on the rich — 80%. And that’s ALL Americans, Democrats, Republicans, and independents. And take a closer look at the Trump voters. Nearly two in three voters who pulled the lever for Donald Trump in 2020 say they support raising taxes on the rich. If Democrats play hardball on taxing billionaires, America will be with us. Raising taxes on the rich to pay for other programs makes those other programs even more popular. For example, a big investment like affordable child care is incredibly popular — but when child care is paired with a plan to pay for it by raising taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, it becomes even more popular — up 4 percentage points overall, and up 7 points with independents, and 6 with Republicans. In other words, when we talk about taxes to pay for the programs we want, we build broader support for those programs. At a time when people have grown cynical about Democratic promises, showing our willingness to tax billionaires and giant corporations to pay for those programs strengthens our credibility. My two-cent wealth tax would pay for universal child care; cancel all student loan debt, make technical school, two-year, and four-year colleges free; create a $5 billion investment in historically Black colleges and universities; and give every public K-12 school a million dollars to invest in the way that best meets their specific needs. When we remind people of that, we invite them to dream big for our children and for our nation — and to reject the answer that we can’t make our country a better place because Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk don’t want to pay taxes. The possible changes to our tax code are not mysterious. Democrats have a long list of ideas that raise taxes on the wealthy and big businesses — raising rates, closing loopholes, strengthening minimum taxes, and investing in the IRS. Our redlines should also be clear: At the end of the 2025 tax reform process, large corporations must pay higher taxes. A typical billionaire must pay a higher tax rate than a typical middle-class family. And wealthy tax cheats must be sweating because the IRS has enough money to enforce the law. Democrats have good, popular ideas about taxes. All we need is courage. Courage to shake off half a century of running for the hills every time the subject of taxes comes up. Courage to stand up to billionaire and corporate donors. Courage to say to the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country, “pay up.” It's time to stiffen our spines. Joe Biden is right: if the 2025 tax bill doesn’t call on wealthy people and giant corporations to shoulder a bigger share of what it costs to run this country, Democrats should reject it outright. And that is true no matter what crumbs the lobbyists toss our way to sweeten a bad deal. A little money for poor children or a modest tax cut for middle-class families is still a lousy deal when we can’t fund child care or infrastructure because the wealthiest among us are still sucking up billions in tax breaks. Better to let all the Trump tax cuts expire than be accomplices to another slash-and-burn tax bonanza for America’s billionaires. It’s time to talk about our values — and time to get out there and fight for them. Donald Trump is telling rich donors that he’ll give them even more tax breaks. He wants to build an America that works even better for those who have already made it big. Democrats should follow Joe Biden’s lead and double down on taxing the rich. Tax the rich so that we can build a stronger, fairer America — an America with opportunity for everybody, where every kid has a first-rate education, where our transportation system isn’t the butt of jokes, and where families aren’t bankrupted by one bad medical diagnosis. The American people are telling us that they are ready for a tax code that promotes their values, and Democrats must be ready to deliver. I’ve fought hard for this, and I’m going to continue doing everything I can to make wealthy billionaires and corporations pay their fair share in taxes. Your support makes this work possible. If you believe it’s time to tax the rich, can you please pitch in $5 or anything you can to help grow momentum for this critical policy? Thanks for being a part of this, Elizabeth Warren

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POLITICO Nightly: Presidential debates are broken — can they be fixed?

BY CALDER MCHUGH Presented by  Donald Trump and Joe Biden participate in the final 2020 presidential debate at Belmont University on Oct. 22, 2020 in Nashville, Tenn. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images BUILD BACK BETTER — The Biden campaign is out with a new ad letting fly at former President Donald Trump’s criminal convictions. Meanwhile, Trump is gathering allies at Mar-a-Lago to have informal “policy discussions.” Sean Hannity is loudly speculating on Fox News that Biden’s debate performance will be reminiscent of “the guy that we saw at the State of the Union … all hyped up, hyper-caffeinated, whatever ‘it’ is.” Debate season is in the air. And with only two presidential debates this cycle, the CNN-hosted contest on June 27 will take on increased importance, with both candidates attempting to allay concerns about their age — not to mention trying to present a steadier hand than the guy standing next to him on stage. But with both candidates assuredly gearing up for a mudslinging match, questions persist about the usefulness of modern debates: Do they really help voters make informed decisions? Or are they just theater that do little to draw contrasts between candidates? The first debate in 2020, between the same two candidates, was widely panned as one of the worst in history . And while their other 2020 debate drew more comparative praise, it was still rife with interruptions and snarky asides, providing little new information about the candidates. A new report out from the nonpartisan organization Open to Debate , and shared first with POLITICO Nightly, shows that our eyes are not deceiving us: debates have gotten materially worse in the last decade. Interruptions have skyrocketed, moderators have lost control and the formats of the debates have allowed candidates to dodge questions. This year, the Biden and Trump campaigns ducked the Commission on Presidential Debates altogether, choosing instead to negotiate with each other and the networks directly. The result? Rules released this weekend by CNN that will give moderators more tools to maintain decorum, including the ability to mute candidates’ microphones. But the debate will also bow to some commercial interests, including two commercial breaks — and that makes Open to Debate’s CEO Clea Conner nervous. To learn more about the results of their new report, and whether and how our debates can be fixed, Nightly spoke with Conner. This conversation has been edited. What are the major reasons the debates have changed so much? Both candidate decorum and information value have declined dramatically. Just twenty years ago, interruptions on the presidential debate stage were exceedingly rare. So rare, there was only one in 2004. But fast forward to 2020, and there were 76 instances in one debate alone. And personal attacks? There were only six before 2016. But between 2016 and 2020, there were more than 60 personal attacks between both sides. Not to mention viewers were exposed to less information over time, with only 20 of the 31 policy topics covered over the last twenty years. Worst of all, moderators went from losing control once in 2004 to 58 times in 2020. Is there a specific Trump effect here, given that he’s participated in the last two cycles of presidential debates? The data clearly shows that interruptions, cross talk, and personal attacks dramatically increased in 2016 and rose again in 2020. But when you consider all the data inputs and look closely at the qualitative results, we aren’t dealing with a Trump effect as much as we are dealing with a debate defect. The underlying issues with formats, rules, balanced moderation and framing the issues fairly is what enabled so much chaos to unfold in real time. What’s the importance of a good debate? Why should we tune in to hear one this year, when both candidates are familiar? These debates are the one and only time during the electoral process to see both candidates together on stage. It’s the single opportunity voters have to witness them thinking on their feet, answering sharply framed questions, marshaling facts in support of their policies, and actually engaging with their opponent. The point of it all is to inform voters and give them the opportunity to think critically about both sides of the issues. That’s the ideal of democracy; and debate is our best shot at making that ideal a reality. Is the problem the candidates running roughshod over the rules, or the moderators unable to enforce them? We’ve learned that one thing debaters will always do is test the moderator’s boundaries to ultimately break the rules. In our own debate programs, debaters have tried every trick in the book, from reframing questions to evading them, talking over their opponent and repeating talking points over and over again. It is guaranteed that our presidential candidates will try the same. Could we demand they respect the established time limits? Answer the questions asked? Cite facts — real ones? And stop making personal attacks? Sure, but rules don’t matter unless you have a moderator who is able to enforce them, and a format that empowers moderators to do it. How should we fix the debates? What can moderators in particular do that they haven’t yet? Here are some rules for the moderators that will prevent the debates from devolving into chaos: 1. Penalize bad behavior. When one side attacks, interrupts, or speaks over the other, the other side should be awarded a time credit. At the end of the debate, the candidate with the most time left on the clock gets the last word. It incentivizes both sides to stay on point and on topic (and demonstrate much needed decorum in our discourse norms). 2. Turn off the mic. Don’t let candidates go over their allotted time. If they do, mute the microphone. No exceptions. 3. No “gotcha” questions. The role of the moderator is to keep the trains running on time and enforce a fair and level playing field for both sides. Not to debate the debaters, endorse partisan ideas, or derail the conversation with selective fact checking. 4. Frame opening questions so they are answered with a yes or a no. In a real debate, the clearer the dichotomy, the sharper the arguments. Clearly stated positions give the moderator more to work with editorially and move the conversation forward. 5. Call out evasions. Often debaters rely on talking points instead of responding to their opponent’s ideas, or the questions that were asked. Moderators need to call those fouls when they are out of bounds and enforce the rules — not the other way around. 6. Forget fact-checking. Let reporters do their work as guardians of the fourth estate and hold our elected officials accountable for the facts they present. With the Commission on Presidential Debates seemingly out of the picture, at least for now, what does the future of presidential debates look like? They look like reality TV shows designed to drive ratings and sell ads. We are about to see the first presidential debate in American history with commercial breaks. That’s unprecedented, and it’s shameful. The introduction of commercial breaks will fundamentally change what makes a debate a debate, since the candidates will constantly be able to stop and regroup. Even though there will be only two commercial breaks this time, once we deem them acceptable it’s a classic slippery slope; how many will there be next time, and the time after that? It will be incredibly disruptive and make it harder to control or yield quality arguments and exchanges. Their arguments will have to be shorter, truncated for the commercial clock, and will result in more outrageous interactions to bump ratings. So, until there is an independent nonpartisan broker running interference between the candidates and the networks, enforcing fair rules and framing issues that matter to voters (not journalists or advertisers), let’s call it what it is: pure political theater. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @calder_mchugh . Nightly will be off tomorrow, June 19, for Juneteenth. We’ll be back in your inboxes on Thursday, June 20.   A message from Altria:     WHAT'D I MISS? — Boeing’s Calhoun gets torched by senators as he apologizes for planemaker’s failures: Outgoing Boeing CEO David Calhoun apologized today to the hundreds of families who lost loved ones on crashes of the company’s 737 MAX jets — standing and facing a roomful of victims’ relatives who packed a Capitol Hill hearing room. Then Calhoun encountered a Senate panel whose chair was in a less than forgiving mood — and who offered fresh whistleblower allegations that the company was knowingly hiding its problems from regulators. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, accused Calhoun of betraying the promises of improvement he had offered when assuming the CEO role in 2020. — Guard chief dings Trump, Biden border missions: The National Guard’s outgoing top officer today criticized the long-running deployment of Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to aid Homeland Security personnel there, saying it has “no military training value.” Gen. Daniel Hokanson, the retiring chief of the National Guard Bureau, told senators that the deployment at the border during the Biden and Trump administrations puts strain on part-time troops while doing little to build warfighting readiness. — Blinken insists U.S. sending weapons to Israel ‘normally’ after Netanyahu criticism: Secretary of State Antony Blinken said U.S. military assistance to Israel is “moving as it normally would” aside from one delayed shipment of bombs, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Biden administration of withholding weapons. Netanyahu had earlier slammed the Biden administration in a video posted on X this morning directly addressing Blinken. “It is inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel,” Netanyahu said, speaking in English. NIGHTLY ROAD TO 2024 THE PACIFIC THEATER — Donald Trump’s last national security adviser is calling on the Pentagon to deploy the “entire” Marine Corps to the Pacific as a bulwark against China’s increasing military might. In a wide-ranging Foreign Affairs op-ed published today, O’Brien wrote that the Defense Department should consider “relieving” the Marine Corps of missions in other parts of the world, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, in order to focus on the Pacific. O’Brien is a close Trump adviser and the op-ed could be a blueprint of Trump’s national security policy in a second term if he wins re-election. O’Brien served as national security adviser from 2019 to 2021, and is likely to be appointed to a senior post in a second Trump Cabinet. STILL GAGGED — New York’s highest court today dismissed Donald Trump’s appeal of the gag order imposed in his Manhattan criminal trial, dealing a setback to the former president’s efforts to strip the restrictions in the wake of his conviction. The Court of Appeals wrote that Trump’s appeal was dismissed because “no substantial constitutional question is directly involved.” The gag order, imposed by the judge who oversaw Trump’s criminal trial, Justice Juan Merchan, barred Trump from publicly attacking witnesses, court staff and prosecutors other than Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. During the trial, Merchan held Trump in criminal contempt twice for violating the gag order and fined him a total of $10,000.   THE GOLD STANDARD OF POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries—finance, defense, technology, healthcare, energy—equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists. Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced, and better sourced than any other—with teams embedded in the world’s most active legislative and regulatory power centers. From Brussels to Washington, New York to London, Sacramento to Paris, we bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY .     AROUND THE WORLD Then-President Donald Trump welcomes Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban to the White House on May 13, 2019. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo SLOGAN EXPORTED — Hungary unveiled “Make Europe Great Again” as the tagline for its upcoming six-month presidency of the Council of the EU, a period in which Hungarian diplomats will chair important meetings in Brussels and shape the bloc’s political agenda. “It is a reference to an active presidency,” Hungarian EU Affairs Minister János Bóka said. “It actually shows manifest the expectation that together we should be stronger than individually but that we should be allowed to remain who we are when we come together. It also portrays the idea that Europe is able to become an independent global actor in our transforming world.” Journalists at a press conference questioned the Trumpian echoes of the new slogan. “You don’t have the sense of déjà vu because of Trump’s slogan. I don’t know if Donald Trump ever wanted to make Europe great again,” Bóka said. The presidency also unveiled the Rubik’s cube as its logo, which Bóka described as “the essence of Hungarian genius.” COURT ORDER — A Paris court today overturned the French government’s decision to ban Israeli companies from Eurosatory , one of the world’s biggest arms shows. “The president of the Paris Commercial Court has ruled that the measure to exclude Israeli companies from Eurosatory is discriminatory,” one of the lawyers, Patrick Klugman, wrote on X. The French government made the decision in late May in reaction to Israel’s war in Gaza, creating a diplomatic spat with the Israeli government. The France-Israel Chamber of Commerce filed a complaint with the Paris Commercial Court. It’s unclear whether the decision will allow Israeli companies to take part, as the arms show is already underway and ends Friday.   JOIN US ON 6/26 FOR A TALK ON AMERICA’S SUPPLY CHAIN : From the energy grid to defense factories, America’s critical sites and services are a national priority. Keeping them up and running means staying ahead of the threat and protecting the supply chains that feed into them. POLITICO will convene U.S. leaders from agencies, Congress and the industry on June 26 to discuss the latest challenges and solutions for protecting the supply lines into America’s critical infrastructure. REGISTER HERE .     NIGHTLY NUMBER $2 trillion The new forecasted size of the U.S. budget deficit this year , according to Congress’ nonpartisan budget scorekeeper. The latest forecast from the Congressional Budget Office is up from its estimate of $1.6 trillion earlier this year. RADAR SWEEP OUR ROBOT FRIENDS — The app looks and behaves largely like Instagram — but it’s populated in large part by AI characters talking to one another . That’s the basic pitch for Butterflies, a new social media that’s raised millions in seed funding and is now available in app stores following a beta period with tens of thousands of human testers. The humans on the app can create as many AI “characters” that they want, who can then interact with them, other humans and other AIs. The result, as Alex Heath describes in The Verge, is a totally unrealistic and uncanny image of humanity, with some AI bots regularly generating pictures with extra arms or talking to each other in ways that humans never would. But the founder believes that will improve quickly — and he’s not the only one working on it. Mark Zuckerberg and other tech titans have had similar thoughts; the future of social media might look a lot like user-generated AIs and humans interacting. PARTING IMAGE On this date in 1979: President Jimmy Carter (left) smiles at Soviet President and Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev at the Vienna Imperial Hofburg Palace, as both exchange documents of SALT II Treaty after the signing ceremony. The treaty, which was meant to provide limits on strategic, offensive nuclear weapons, was never ratified by the U.S. Senate after the USSR invaded Afghanistan. | AP Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   A message from Altria:       Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   FOLLOW US

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Biden Takes The Dare

JOYCE VANCE JUN 19

After Republicans rejected the immigration bill proposed by Democrats earlier this year, Republicans said Joe Biden needed to do more with his executive power by means of executive orders. Today, he did.

Biden announced executive action that will allow qualifying undocumented spouses and children of U.S. citizens to apply for lawful permanent residency without first leaving the country. That’s important because it avoids family separation, even permanent disruption, that can happen if a person leaves the country to apply for residency and is denied reentry. The move could provide deportation protection to hundreds of thousands of people. To qualify, an applicant must have been in the country for ten years and be able to pass a criminal background check. The cut-off date for determining eligibility was last Monday.

In February, when legislation stalled in the House, Representative and Vice Presidential hopeful Elise Stefanik (R-NY) tweeted, “Biden has the power to end the border crisis without Congress. He just doesn’t want to.”

Today’s action by President Biden was widely received as the most significant action on immigration since President Obama announced Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA. It gave temporary relief from deportation (deferred action) and work authorization to young undocumented immigrants who were raised here and identified as Americans. The DREAM Act, which would have provided a path to citizenship, has never passed. Today’s action, if it remains in place, will expand on protections provided to undocumented spouses of members of the military and, in Biden’s words, provide a “common sense fix” for people who have lived here a long time. “It avoids,” the President said in an announcement today at the White House, “tearing families apart,” a reference to the horrific events Americans observed during the Trump administration, where families were separated at the border, including some babies who were so young that they had to be cared for by other children and could not tell officials who their parents were or where they came from.

One of President Biden’s first steps after taking office was to enter an Executive Order that created a family reunification task force. In it, he wrote, “My Administration condemns the human tragedy that occurred when our immigration laws were used to intentionally separate children from their parents or legal guardians (families), including through the use of the Zero-Tolerance Policy.”

The families who have faced separation, whether at the hands of a policy vigorously implemented by Donald Trump’s first Attorney General and anti-immigrant zealot Jeff Sessions, or because a family member made the difficult decision to leave the country to try and pursue a path to legal residency aren’t just numbers on a page. They are real people. Seeing today’s news made me think of an experience I had over a decade ago when my office—I was the U.S. Attorney for North Alabama at the time—was deciding whether to challenge HB 56, an anti-immigration measure adopted by the Alabama Legislature that they referred to as a “deport yourself” measure, designed to make conditions so difficult for undocumented immigrants that they would leave voluntarily.

We did listening meetings across the community to hear people’s views. At the end of one meeting, I was approached by a couple with their young son Javier, who was seven at the time. He had waited patiently through a long event to speak with me. His Dad explained that Javier had an uncle who was two years older than him and wasn’t documented. He told me that they used to take the kids to the zoo together once a week, but that because of HB 56, they couldn’t take them anymore. The risk of him being deported was too great in their judgment. Javier was afraid they were going to take his uncle, his best friend, away, and he asked me to try to fix it.

We were able to in a sense, although it took time to get there. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals found much of Alabama’s law unconstitutional. But the sense of insecurity in the undocumented community here has remained palpable. I was thinking about Javier and his uncle today, and hoping the measure approved by the President means that they and their families are able to have secure, happy lives in this country.

Meanwhile, at a rally in Wisconsin, Trump supporters chanted, “Send them back,” when he raised the topic of immigration.

They don’t seem to understand that Trump’s proposed mass deportations would have a dramatic effect on our economy and our daily lives. After Alabama passed HB 56, there weren’t enough workers to bring in the tomato crop the following spring. Prices skyrocketed and supply was limited. Construction crews were hit hard. We were having work done on our house and our contractor told us he’d lost two of his three crews—there weren’t replacement workers available. The wait times for getting work done were lengthy. Schools lost funding. Alabama is a “head count” state, funded based on the number of students at school on the day the count is taken. Immigrant kids weren’t there that year, even those who were American citizens, because Alabama required them to reveal their parents’ citizenship status to start school that fall. The unintended consequences when immigrants disappear cascade far beyond the intended consequences. It’s a case of, “be careful what you ask for.” The folks at this rally don’t understand the consequences of forcing out immigrants who lack legal immigration status or how their own lives will benefit from the steps Joe Biden took today. A rising tide lifts all boats.

So Joe Biden took the dare today and did, using executive action, what Republicans declined to do in Congress earlier this year and said he could do on his own. It’s not just good human rights work; it’s smart political strategy, too. It will counteract some of the disappointment after Biden, earlier this month, took action that restricts people who enter the country illegally from seeking asylum when immigration surges above certain levels. It lets Biden receive credit for a measure that cable TV hosts today were reporting garnered something like 70% approval from Americans. We have a do-nothing Congress, but the President is at work. Even if the courts reject it, because there are sure to be legal challenges, or if Trump dismantles it, Biden tried. And that matters. It will be a part of his legacy. Put simply, it was the right thing to do but also politically savvy.

Immigration plays a big role in Trump’s Project 2025. The word is used over 150 times in 920 pages, and a disproportionate number of people listed as advisors on the project have a background or expertise in immigration. Some of the examples include:

• In a section on “dismantling the administrative state,” this reference to the Department of Homeland Security bears no resemblance to reality: “Bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security, following the lead of a feckless Administration, order border and immigration enforcement agencies to help migrants criminally enter our country with impunity.” (pg. 8)

• This odious statement, which manages to entirely ignore the fact that we are a nation made of immigrants while suggesting that no Republican would ever benefit from cheap immigrant labor (what was that reporting about Trump’s employees at Bedminster?): “That’s why today’s progressive Left so cavalierly supports open borders despite the lawless humanitarian crisis their policy created along America’s southern border. They seek to purge the very concept of the nation-state from the American ethos, no matter how much crime increases or resources drop for schools and hospitals or wages decrease for the working class. Open-borders activism is a classic example of what the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called ‘cheap grace’—publicly promoting one’s own virtue without risking any personal inconvenience. Indeed, the only direct impact of open borders on pro-open borders elites is that the constant flow of illegal immigration suppresses the wages of their housekeepers, landscapers, and busboys.” (pg. 11)

• Denying permission to enter the country to people who aren’t highly skilled, the antithesis of the melting pot of America: “The incoming Administration should spearhead an immigration legislative agenda focused on creating a merit-based immigration system that rewards highskilled aliens instead of the current system that favors extended family–based and luck-of-the-draw immigration. To that end, the diversity visa lottery should be repealed, chain migration should be ended while focusing on the nuclear family, and the existing employment visa program should be replaced with a system to award visas only to the ‘best and brightest.’” (pg. 145)

• A provision to require prosecutors to act on every immigration crime, whether it involves a serious, violent offender or not. This sort of misallocation of resources would force prosecutors to cut back on prosecutions in other areas. Perhaps that would be okay with Donald Trump who is certainly no fan of prosecuting people who support coup attempts or retain classified material they aren’t entitled to possess, but this sort of focus would put our communities at risk: “Prosecutorial discretion. Congress should restrict the authority for prosecutorial discretion to eliminate it as a ‘catch-all’ excuse for limiting immigration enforcement.” (pg.150)

Project 2025, if implemented, would leave us all worse off.

A final note: my first Civil Discourse tee-shirt was promptly stolen by one of the kids. My replacement showed up in the mail today, and I’m very happy to have it.

If you missed out on the newsletter’s second anniversary celebration, you can still get mugs, shirts, stickers and even a flag—fly it upside down if you must—in the Civil Discourse Store.

We’re in this together,

Joyce

NEMASKET WEEK

 

NEMASKET WEEK

SHAWN WALSH

Middleboro man arrested on drug charges after Dartmouth crash

Jun 17, 2024

Items seized at the scene. Source: Dartmouth Police Department

DARTMOUTH — A Middleboro man was arrested on drug charges after Dartmouth Police responded to a car crash just after midnight on Saturday, June 15.

According to the Dartmouth Police Department, the vehicle’s passenger, 20-year-old Middleboro resident Shawn Walsh was arrested and charged with possession with intent to distribute Class B drugs, possession with intent to distribute Class E drugs and possession with intent to distribute Class C drugs.

While responding to the crash, officers observed a baggie of suspected Psilocybin, better known as mushrooms, and a large amount of cash inside the vehicle.

Upon further investigation, officers discovered pills suspected to be Oxycodone and Xanax, a Psilocybin chocolate bar, Marijuana vape cartridges, $1,262 in cash, a Glock-style BB gun, a black ski mask and additional items believed to be used in the illegal sale of narcotics, according to Dartmouth Police.

NEMASKET WEEK