My theory is this: Sometime over the holidays, someone got to Donald Trump and told him he would lose the midterm elections badly if he did not offer something to the public to deal with affordability
concerns. The traditional policy playbook for such things on the conservative side would either do nothing or make things actively worse. So this search for an affordability agenda has led Trump into the waiting arms of progressive populism, sort of.
The result has been … strange. Over the past couple of weeks, Trump has called for banning corporate investors from purchasing homes. He has directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities to lower mortgage interest rates. He has insisted on a one-year cap on credit card interest rates to 10 percent, and endorsed a bipartisan bill to inject competition into credit card markets to reduce excessive swipe fees merchants pay. He claimed that he would force tech companies to “pay their own way” when building out data centers that can spike electricity costs. He’s promised a “framework” to lower health care costs (for about the 25th time). And he signed an executive order that purports to restrict military contractors from paying dividends or engaging in stock buybacks until they deliver services on time and on budget.
You can squint and view this as a typical week in the Bernie Sanders presidency. Only in this case, it’s Music Man populism. In most cases, Trump is making big promises that he cannot possibly deliver, because his own party opposes them. Worse, he’s also hyping policies on one end while undermining them totally with his other actions. None of this is likely to amount to anything of value.
Several of these involve Trump just “calling” for things to happen, like ending corporate home purchases or capping credit card interest rates. I can call on all ice cream companies to send me a pint of strawberry, but it’s probably not going to happen. These require laws, and for that you need Congress. And Trump’s party in Congress is not inclined to help him.
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