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Just the Facts: Impact of the Big Beautiful Bill

Just the Facts: Impact of the Big Beautiful Bill

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Just the Facts: Are FAA Staff Cuts Causing Current Airport Delays?

Balance – The Golden Mean

Balance – The Golden Mean

Officials failed to disclose new jobs when leaving Trump administration

The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumMar 28, 2019
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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Seven senior Trump administration officials left government without disclosing their future private sector jobs on federal financial disclosure reports, an apparent violation of federal law.

"It's the latest in what good government advocates say is a pattern of ethical lapses in the Trump administration," Politico wrote in detailing the apparent breeches of the rules. "Several government watchdog groups have criticized the Trump administration repeatedly for allowing high-ranking staffers to spend exorbitant amounts of money on travel, promoting Trump businesses and failing to file legally required financial reports."

One of the former officials is Stefan Passantino, who as deputy White House counsel was in charge of West Wing compliance with ethics rules and is now handling the Trump Organization's response to a spate of House oversight investigations.

Two others have returned recently to the Trump orbit: Marc Short, who was director of legislative affairs before leaving and now back as Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, and Bill Stepien, who was director of political affairs and is now working for the president's re-election campaign.

The others are Reed Cordish, assistant to the president for intergovernmental and technology initiatives; Katie Walsh, deputy chief of staff; Paul Winfree, deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy; and John McEntee, who was the president's personal aide.

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The AI Race We Need: For a Better Future, Not Against Another Nation

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Getty Images, J Studios

The AI Race We Need: For a Better Future, Not Against Another Nation

The AI race that warrants the lion’s share of our attention and resources is not the one with China. Both superpowers should stop hurriedly pursuing AI advances for the sake of “beating” the other. We’ve seen such a race before. Both participants lose. The real race is against an unacceptable status quo: declining lifespans, increasing income inequality, intensifying climate chaos, and destabilizing politics. That status quo will drag on, absent the sorts of drastic improvements AI can bring about. AI may not solve those problems but it may accelerate our ability to improve collective well-being. That’s a race worth winning.

Geopolitical races have long sapped the U.S. of realizing a better future sooner. The U.S. squandered scarce resources and diverted talented staff to close the alleged missile gap with the USSR. President Dwight D. Eisenhower rightfully noted, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” He realized that every race comes at an immense cost. In this case, the country was “spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

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Welcome to the newest edition of The Expand Democracy 5! With Rob Richie’s help (from his journey along the Appalachian Trail!), Eveline Dowling explores: (1) parties and polarization in elections in the UK and Australia; (2) open primaries in the United States; (3) bipartisan views on environmental issues; (4) addressing the voting needs of military families; and (5) this week’s timely links.

In keeping with The Fulcrum’s mission to share ideas that help to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives, we intend to publish The Expand Democracy 5 in The Fulcrum each Friday.

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Could Splits Within the GOP Over Economic Policy Hurt the Trump Administration?

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Getty Images, Tasos Katopodis

Could Splits Within the GOP Over Economic Policy Hurt the Trump Administration?

Republican U.S. Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri is an unusual combo of right and left politics—kind of like an elephant combined with a donkey combined with a polar bear. And, yet, his views may augur the future of the Republican Party.

Many people view the Republican and Democratic parties as ideological monoliths, run by hardcore partisans and implacably positioned against each other. But, in fact, both parties have their internal divisions, influenced by various outside organizations. In the GOP, an intra-party battle is brewing between an economic populist wing with its more pro-labor positions and a traditional libertarian wing with its pro-free market stances.

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