Letters from an American - September 4, 2024

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

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September 4th, 2024. Long tonight, folks, but it's been quite a day. And even still, I did not mention the day's horrific shooting at a Georgia school. Today, Vice President Kamala Harris announced a series of proposals to help entrepreneurs create small businesses. Harris announced a series of proposals to help entrepreneurs create small businesses. Like President Joe Biden, she and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, argue that small businesses and entrepreneurs are the engines of our economy. In a statement today, they noted that small businesses employ half of all private sector workers in America, creating 70% of net new jobs since 2019, and do trillions of dollars of business every year. The Biden administration has boasted of

the record number of new businesses created since Biden and Harris took office. There have been 19 million new business applications in that time. Harris said she and Walls are setting a goal of 25 million new business applications in their first term. Their plan, they say, is to kickstart more young, small, and innovative firms. To make this happen, they propose raising the deduction for startup expenses from its current level of $5,000 to $50,000, noting that the average amount a new business spends to get set up in its first year of operation is $40,000. They also propose funding a network of new and existing federal, state, local, and private incubators and small business innovation hubs that will make it easier for small businesses

and local suppliers to get technical assistance, funding, customers, and so on. They also promised to make low-interest and no-interest loans available for small businesses, to protect and expand the support of the Affordable Care Act for small business owners, and to guarantee that one third of federal contract money will go to small businesses. They promised to make it easier for small businesses to file taxes, reduce excessive occupational licensing requirements, and urge state and local governments to cut the red tape of burdensome regulations by streamlining them across jurisdictions. Harris and Walz said they are committed to making the investments that will build the economy

while also paying for them and reducing the deficit. They also know, their statement said, that we need to support America as a locus of innovators, entrepreneurs, and workers coming together to create a better future. Harris calls this a new way forward, but it is curiously close to the old Republican reforms of the progressive era, when entrepreneurs joined forces with workers and farmers to demand access to capital and a fair economic playing field after decades in which a few wealthy industrialists stacked the system in

their own favor. When we look at that era, as well as the New Deal reforms of the 1930s, we tend to emphasize reforms designed to benefit workers and farmers, but members of those groups always allied with entrepreneurs shut out of the system by wealthy industrialists. The demand for securities and exchange law in the 1930s, for example, did not come from Western farmers, but from entrepreneurs who knew they could not break into the system if established businesses made up the rules amongst themselves. Harris recalled that Republican reform

impulse when she said we must make the tax system fairer. She called for rolling back Trump's tax cuts and implementing common sense tax reforms for corporations and the richest Americans. She calls for setting a minimum income tax for billionaires, the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, it was 35 percent before the Trump tax cuts, and quadrupling the tax on the stock buybacks that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans. She emphasized that no one earning less than $400,000 a year will pay Moran taxes under her plans, and called for a tax rate of 28% on long-term capital gains for those who earn more than a million dollars a year. earn more than a million dollars a year. This is up from the current 20% rate, but is less than the 39.6% rate Biden proposed in his 2025 budget. A Fox News channel host applauded some of Harris's

ideas, saying, when a political candidate comes up with what I think is a good idea, I have to call it a good idea. And a $50,000 tax credit for startups or small businesses, coupled with less red tape, I've got to say that is a good idea, regardless of our other tax ideas. This was a nice endorsement of Harris's policies, coming as it did after yesterday's assessment by economists for the Goldman Sachs Group,

saying that the nation's economic growth would take a hit if Trump wins, but will grow under a Harris presidency if she also has the support of a Democratic House and Senate. In her statement about economic policy, Harris called out Trump for supporting himself and the biggest corporations and noted that 16 Nobel laureates have said that Trump's policies would ignite inflation and trigger a recession by mid-2025. That recession, economists project, would cost more than 3 million jobs, explode the deficit, and raise costs. Harris pointed out that Project 2025 would cut funding for the Small Business Administration

and make it harder for small businesses to get access to money. For his part, Trump has doubled down on the idea that the United States is a failing nation. For the past week, he has been telling a story about a residential building in Colorado taken over by a gang from Venezuela. But it appears the story is entirely made up. But it appears the story is entirely made up. Similarly, Trump on Friday said at a right-wing Moms for Liberty event that public schools in America kidnap children and operate on them to change their sex. This is bonkers, but it is bonkers in a way that deliberately demonizes Trump's opponents. Trump's vision of the United States is one of darkness and carnage. As Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz said today, it is a deliberate effort by some people to make

them believe that our political system is broken, to make them believe that things are pessimistic. My God, every time I hear Donald Trump give a speech, it's like the next screenplay for Mad Max or something. They are rooting against America. That bleak version of the United States, it turns out, echoes the talking points Russian handlers gave to their operatives working in the U.S. in an effort to steer the U.S. public opinion in the right direction. The Russians directed their U.S. employees to emphasize the following campaign topics. Encroaching universal poverty, record inflation, halting of economic growth, unaffordable prices for food and essential goods, risk of job loss for white Americans, privileges for people of color, perverts, and disabled, constant lies of the Democratic administration about the real situation in the country,

threat of crime coming from people of color and immigrants, overspending on foreign policy and at the interests of white U.S. citizens, constant lies to the voters by Democrats in power. The target audience of the campaign was Republican voters, Trump supporters, supporters of traditional family values, and white Americans representing the lower middle and middle class. The focus was in particular on residents of swing states whose voting results impact the outcomes of the elections more than other states. This information came out today when the Departments of Justice, State, and the Treasury announced sanctions against 10 individuals and two entities, and criminal charges against two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, who allegedly

funded a company in the U.S. to hire right-wing social media influencers to push Russian propaganda before the 2024 election. While the indictment does not name the Tennessee-based company the Russians funded, it appears to be Tenet Media, a company registered by Liam Donovan and Lauren Tam, who is associated with The Blaze and Turning Point USA, as well as RT. The two appear to be married. but suggests the six commentators, Lauren Southern, Tim Poole, Taylor Hansen, Matt Christensen, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson, all staunch Trump supporters, did not know where their massive paychecks originated. After the story broke, five of the commentators denied any knowledge of the source of the company's funding. Some insisted their words were entirely their own. One of the company's funding. Some insisted their words were entirely their own. One of the videos the company pushed at the request of the Russians was what appears to have been right-wing host Tucker Carlson's visit to a grocery store in Russia, where he praised

the low prices, which even the company's founders thought just feels like overt shilling. Separately, the Department of Justice seized 32 internet domains that the Russian government and Russian-sponsored actors have used to influence the 2024 election. In a malign influence campaign called Doppelganger, these domains produced fake articles that appeared to be from major U.S. news sites, to which influencers and fake social media profiles on Facebook, X, Truth Social, and YouTube then drove traffic. Russian operatives called in bold type for Russia to put a maximum effort to ensure that the Republican point of view, first and foremost the opinion of Trump supporters,

wins over the U.S. public opinion. This includes provisions on peace in Ukraine in exchange for territories, the need to focus on the problems of the U.S. economy, returning troops home from all over the world, etc. One of the documents produced in the affidavit justifying the seizure of the Internet domains called for trying to stir up a conflict between the U.S. and Mexico in order to distract from the fact that the U.S. economy is very healthy under Biden. Tonight, in an interview with Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity, Trump appeared to think he is running against Joe Biden. An internal email leaked to the press from the Trump campaign showed managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles warning staff not to communicate with the press and suggested anyone doing so

would be fired. Today, Steph Curry of California's Golden State Warriors basketball team and former Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican of Wyoming, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. Endorsing Kamala Harris is important for me and my family, Curry said. Knowing Kamala and having been around her, I understand she's qualified for this job. Having been around her, I understand she's qualified for this job. There was never a doubt that the courageous Liz Cheney would endorse Vice President Harris, conservative Judge J. Michael Ludig wrote, because Liz Cheney stands for America.

She is the very embodiment of country over party and country over self, and she fears no one, least of all the former president. Letters from an American was produced at Soundscape Productions, Denham, Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. This is your world.