The WaPo reports (not paywalled) about MAGA's efforts to privatize all of the federal government:
DOGE wants businesses to run government services ‘as much as possible’
Mail delivery. Real estate. Foreign aid grants. The Trump administration is moving to privatize a sweeping number of government functions and assets — a long-standing Republican goal that’s being catalyzed by billionaire Elon Musk.The slash-and-burn approach of Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service is paving the way for a new shift to the private sector, reducing the size and power of the federal bureaucracy in a real-world test of the conservative theory — a version of which is also widely popular in Silicon Valley — that companies are better than government at saving money and responding to people’s needs.At the DOGE-allied General Services Administration, officials are quietly moving ahead with a push to sell hundreds of publicly owned buildings to private companies — which can then lease them back to the government, theoretically saving maintenance and upkeep costs for taxpayers, according to two people briefed on internal deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.A Wall Street investor nominated to run the International Development Finance Corporation, a little-known foreign investment agency that works to align the private sector with U.S. foreign policy goals, has suggested redirecting a large portion of the $40 billion budget of the shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development to investors, start-ups and companies that work in developing countries.
The possibilities for corruption on a scale unparalleled in human history are opening up to MAGA elites. The market for running government functions is worth a few trillion per year in sales and who knows what in profits.
Q: Do you believe the Silicon Valley assertion that companies, especially after MAGA deregulation, are better than government at saving money and responding to people’s needs?
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The BBC reports: Trump says he 'couldn't care less' about higher car prices -- But the US president told NBC News on Saturday that he hoped foreign carmakers will raise prices as it meant "people are gonna buy American-made cars - we have plenty". .... 25% tariffs on cars and car parts entering the US to begin on 2 April. Charges on businesses importing vehicles are expected on 3 April, and taxes on parts are set to start in May or later. When asked about what his message was to car bosses, he said: "The message is congratulations. If you make your car in the United States, you're going to make a lot of money."
Guess what happens when imported product prices increase due to tariffs? This is what happens: Domestic producers have an opportunity to raise their prices without losing competitive position, so that is what they do. The evidence on this point is clear and consistent. Domestic producers raise their prices to match or approach the higher prices of their foreign competitors. That ripples through consumer prices beyond just the imported products to include competing domestic products. djt and MAGA have just imposed a gigantic price hike on consumers and I don't see much public complaining about it, yet.
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The House is mulling over a proposed law to seriously reduce federal trial court power. The proposed law, the No Rogue Rulings Act of 2025, limits the power of federal courts to issue nationwide injunctions. What prompted this is MAGA's blatant unconstitutionality in its policies and actions. MAGA elites and djt are furious that the courts are stopping their illegal acts by issuing injunctions. If passed into law, this would take power from the courts and give it to djt. Apparently congressional MAGA authoritarians really do support the "unitary executive" concept where djt gets close to true dictator power. The bill is scheduled for a floor vote in the House today.
Presumably the bill would fail in the Senate, unless those authoritarian MAGA elites vote to get rid of the filibuster. The urge to get rid of the filibuster must be intense. MAGA elites really do want to steamroll everything that djt wants to do. As far as I can tell, the filibuster is the last big thing standing in djt's way in congress. If that falls, I think that djt and MAGA will be unstoppable.
