November 2016

[Commentary] As the White House official responsible for overseeing implementation of President Barack Obama’s massive infrastructure initiative, the 2009 Recovery Act, I’ve got a simple message for Democrats who are embracing President-elect Donald Trump’s infrastructure plan: Don’t do it. It’s a trap.

Backing Trump’s plan is a mistake in policy and political judgment they will regret, as did their Democratic predecessors who voted for Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts in 1981 and George W. Bush’s cuts in 2001. First, Trump’s plan is not really an infrastructure plan. It’s a tax-cut plan for utility-industry and construction-sector investors, and a massive corporate welfare plan for contractors. Moreover, as others have noted, desperately needed infrastructure projects that are not attractive to private investors — municipal water-system overhauls, repairs of existing roads, replacement of bridges that do not charge tolls — get no help from Trump’s plan. And contractors? Well, they get a “10 percent pretax profit margin,” according to the plan. Combined with Trump’s sweeping business tax break, this would represent a stunning $85 billion after-tax profit for contractors — underwritten by the taxpayers. Second, as a result of the above, Trump’s plan isn’t really a jobs plan, either. Third, because there is no proposed funding mechanism for Trump’s tax breaks, they will add to the deficit — perhaps as much as $137 billion. Thus, Democrats should know that every dollar spent on the Trump tax scheme to enrich construction investors and contractors is a dollar that will later be cut from schools, hospitals and seniors. Fourth, if the Republican approach to the Recovery Act is any indication, the Trump plan will come chock-full of policy changes that undermine core Democratic principles.

[Klain served as assistant to President Obama and oversaw the team implementing the American Recovery and Renewal Act from 2009-2011. He was an adviser to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign.]

I want to congratulate Senator Jeff Sessions on his prospective nomination by President-Elect Trump to serve as Attorney General of the United States. I had the honor of working for Senator Sessions on the Senate Judiciary Committee, when he chaired the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts. Senator Sessions was and is a good man and a superb senator: honorable, thoughtful, devoted to the Constitution, and deeply committed to equal justice and the rule of law. He has long employed a diverse staff of attorneys—during my tenure, his staff consisted of an African-American man, two women, and me, a first-generation Indian-American—all of whom worked every day to fulfill his vision of a just and free America. I commend Senator Sessions’ nomination without reservation. The Department of Justice and the American people will benefit from his leadership.

Federal Communications Commission member Jessica Rosenworcel is facing new obstacles to win re-confirmation in the Senate for another term, and the clock is also working against her.

Commissioner Rosenworcel’s already fraught path to confirmation was dealt a potential death blow when Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) put a hold on her nomination, citing inaction on several recent FCC proposals. The holds further complicate the calculus for Commissioner Rosenworcel. Unless lawmakers reconfirm her, she must leave the FCC when this Congress adjourns. Republicans have also had longstanding holds on Rosenworcel’s nomination, sparking previous retaliation from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who’s been standing in the way of technology and telecommunications bills coming out of the Senate Commerce Committee. Now that some Democrats are also holding up Commissioner Rosenworcel, the Commerce Committee’s leadership is calling on Sen Reid, who is retiring, to let its legislation through. “Bipartisan technology legislation passed by the Commerce Committee should not face further delay from the Senate Minority Leader over a nominee Senate Democrats are now blocking,” said committee spokesman Frederick Hill. Among the bills Hill flagged that are in need of passage are the MOBILE NOW Act and The FCC Reauthorization Act, both of which are on Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune’s (R-SD) priority list.

Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman questioned whether Commissioner Rosenworcel is the right choice for Democrats, but Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said he disagreed with the holds on her nomination. “Free Press does not support the strategy, nor do we believe the claims underlying it. We did not ask any senators to take this step,” said Wood.

After more than a week of accusations that the spread of fake news on Facebook may have affected the outcome of the presidential election, Mark Zuckerberg published a detailed post describing ways the company was considering dealing with the problem.

Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chairman and chief executive, broadly outlined some of the options he said the company’s news feed team was looking into, including third-party verification services, better automated detection tools and simpler ways for users to flag suspicious content. “The problems here are complex, both technically and philosophically,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We believe in giving people a voice, which means erring on the side of letting people share what they want whenever possible.” The post was perhaps the most detailed glimpse into Zuckerberg’s thinking on the issue since Donald Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 election. Within hours of his victory being declared, Facebook was accused of affecting the election’s outcome by failing to stop bogus news stories, many of them favorable to Trump, from proliferating on its social network. Executives and employees at all levels of the company have since been debating its role and responsibilities.