I had a case of the flu or something that came on hard just as we thought we had a deal on the Budget. As it turned out, there was some petulance expressed on both sides about promises made and ignored. There was bluster and a member of the President’s party on the floor of the Senate compared Mr. Trump to Joseph Stalin.

You know, this is all getting a bit much. When I worked on the Hill in the 105th Congress, there was a certain comity. The Democrats I worked for and with were not hysterical and were actually more fun to travel with than the GOP folks who seemed to wear the same expression Mitch McConnell seems to wear. I think the old word for it is “dyspeptic.”

Being pinned down by whatever the bug was, I sat through hours and hours of breathless commentary on the shut-down. It actually was kind of surreal, and the antics of our elected members quite entertaining. There is so much else going on- the new tariffs signed by Executive Order resonate with the vague memories of the Tariff Act that deepened the Great Depression.

To recap the bids on that folly, America was plunged into chaos by the Black Tuesday Stock Crash in October of 1929. President Hoover coordinated with Congress, and in 1930 signed the now-infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, which substantially raised U.S. tariffs on some 890 products. Other countries retaliated and world trade shrank enormously; by the end of 1934 world trade had plummeted some 66% from the 1929 level. Two friggin’ thirds of international trade!

So while I am generally in favor of rational protection for American goods and services, the laws of unintended consequences could turn this into a trade war that no one is going to like. They say history doesn’t repeat itself, though it does rhyme.

Enjoy the two-week break before the Big Crisis comes back. Maybe the FBI will find some of those missing texts to keep us entertained in the meantime…

– Vic

Copyright 2018 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com