Is Trump deregulating the economy? - InvestingChannel

November 16, 2024

Is Trump deregulating the economy?

by TheMoneyIllusion0191

Consider:

Jeff Sessions and the Resurgence of Civil-Asset Forfeiture

“With care—we’ve gotta be careful—and professionalism, we plan to develop policies to increase forfeitures,” Sessions told a crowd of law-enforcement officials in Minneapolis in July, previewing a federal directive to undo the Obama Administration’s mild constraints on the practice. In theory, civil forfeiture allows law enforcement to seize cash, cars, and other goods with provable ties to crime. But it has also deprived thousands of citizens of their property without due process. Unlike criminal forfeiture, civil forfeiture doesn’t require a property owner’s conviction, and the burden of proof falls largely on the person whose goods have been seized.

And:

Trump administration toughens H-1B visa renewal process

“[With the update], we are going to much greater scrutiny of these cases, and thus delays, even when the underlying facts have not changed,” Lawrence told CNNMoney.

Immigration attorney Chris Wright of The Wright Law Firm told CNNMoney that it fits a broader pattern: “It seems clear that USCIS have been instructed to push back wherever they can…” he said, noting that “the prevailing attitude seems to be, ‘How might we be able to deny this petition?’”

And:

Sessions cracks down on cities over immigration enforcement

Attorney General Jeff Sessions took new steps Thursday to punish cities he believes are not cooperating with federal immigration agents in a move that was met with bewilderment by local officials who said they did not know why they were being singled out.

And:

AT&T-Time Warner suit could be the start of a more aggressive antitrust era

The move is unusual because the government does not typically challenge so-called vertical mergers like this one, which do not involve the combination of direct competitors. Some have speculated the challenge stems from President Donald Trump’s stated disdain for Time Warner-owned CNN, which he has decried as “fake news.”

And:

Trump moves to slap duties on Chinese aluminum foil

And:

How Jeff Sessions Plans to End Medical Marijuana Before the Year Is Over

Tears streamed down Claudia Jendron’s face this year as her doctor patted her hand and told her, after eight years of failed pain treatments for her spinal fusion-gone-wrong, “This is going to work, Claudia.” She was talking about medical marijuana.

For “eight years of hell,” Jendron tried opioids, epidural shots and acupuncture in the hopes that she’d be able to sit down or go to her grandchildren’s birthday parties without having to leave and lie down. None of it worked. At one point, she considered checking into an assisted living facility to receive morphine before she tried medical marijuana. 

Then, early this year, the 66-year-old upstate New Yorker got a prescription for medical marijuana to help what she called “excruciating pain.” To Jendron’s surprise, her doctor was right about the weed. Two days after starting a tincture (a liquid cannabis extract dropped under the tongue), her crushing pain subsided to something manageable. . . .

The text of the Rohrabacher-Farr (also known as Rohrabacher-Blumenauer) Act, which blocked the U.S. Department of Justice from spending any money to prosecute medical marijuana in states where it’s legal. H.R. 2029 – Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016

In May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions pushed back against the bill when he sent a strongly worded letter to Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress, asking them to oppose protections for legal weed and allow him to prosecute medical marijuana.

“I believe it would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund particular prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime,” Sessions wrote in his letter.

So because crime is on the rise we need an intensified war on drugs?

And doesn’t this italicized sentence summarize everything that’s wrong with Sessions:

Sessions is known for being one of the nation’s toughest critics of legal pot. He once said the KKK was “OK until I found out they smoked pot.” 

There is some deregulation occurring in areas like education and health care.  But I worry that there is too much focus on lowering regulations on business, and not enough on making markets freer.  For instance, in finance you can reduce regulations by reducing moral hazard, or you can reduce regulations by leaving the distorted regulations in place (FDIC, FHA, the GSEs, TBTF, etc.) and then free up banks to abuse the moral hazard created by that system even more than they currently do.  You can probably tell which type of “deregulation” I support.

When they start abolishing the Ex-Im Bank, Fannie and Freddie, Federal flood insurance, etc., then I’ll take the deregulation claim more seriously.  Right now I’m not impressed.  I worry that the Trump administration wants to make it easier for doctors and real estate developers and weapons makers and lots of other special interest groups to rip off the American public.  I worry that they want to increase regulations on legal immigrants struggling to stay in the country, or average people in pain who need medical marijuana, or small businesses who have their life savings seized by corrupt local cops.

Let’s try paring back regulations that cause distress for people on the bottom of society.  The upper class is already doing fine.