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Dick Cheney and the American System of War

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Former Vice President Richard “Dick” Cheney died on November 3, 2025 at the age of 84.  As secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush, Cheney was the architect of the 1991 Persian Gulf War and later, as vice president under George W. Bush, he was instrumental in the invasion and eventual conquest of Iraq.

Brown University’s Cost of War Project has modestly estimated that the “wars on terror” have resulted in the deaths of more than 940,000 people including 432,000 civilians and a monetary cost to the United States of about $8 trillion. 

Of course, Brown University’s study calls the post 9/11 U.S. military operations in the Middle East “wars on terror” when, in reality, they have been fought for the benefit of Israel and its Greater Israel Project, which has decimated the Arab world and has accomplished almost all of its objectives.

Cheney’s nefarious activities were not confined to mass murdering peoples that posed no threat to America’s national security.  He was a force behind the U.S. policy of torture (waterboarding), and nearly unlimited domestic surveillance (the Orwellian-labeled Patriot Act).

According to an article on the news and commentary website “Antiwar,” headlined “Dick Cheney: The Dark Legacy of a War Criminal,” Cheney suggested U.S. intelligence agencies must: [O]perate on the ‘dark side,’ spend time in the shadows, and use ‘any means at our disposal’ to achieve its objectives.” 

As if the U.S. Presidency was not unrestrained enough, Cheney advocated a “unitary executive” theory that the “president alone decides matters within the executive branch” without input from opposition voices within the government’s foreign policy agencies. 

The response by libertarian and alternative media outlets to Cheney’s demise were universal in their denunciation of the former vice president, calling him a “war criminal” and that he left this world with a “dark legacy.” 

It should be noted that a number of alternative media’s podcasters who have criticized Cheney regularly host guests and speakers who are former U.S. military and diplomatic personnel, ex-CIA agents and intelligence operatives, a number of whom participated in the Iraq wars and other American covert operations themselves.

Few, if any, who condemned the former vice president for his criminality mentioned or questioned why it was, and still is today, that monsters like Cheney were able to inflict so much death and destruction on peoples and nations across the globe who posed no threat to America. 

Could it be that the political system that Cheney operated under was the problem?  And, what is to be done to prevent future Cheneys from committing similar atrocities?

Unfortunately, “democratic” wars are paid for “by the people” and the costs are socialized among the population through taxation, inflation (money printing), and deficit financing.  Since warmongering politicians do not have to directly pay for conflicts, there will be a tendency for them to be more bellicose.  Moreover, democratic wars are collective enterprises where elected officials are not personally responsible for the actions of the government but are agents of the voters.   

Nor have the supposed checks and balances of constitutional government, so often touted by admirers of the U.S. Constitution, been able to prevent conflicts, as the horrific record of American warmaking sadly proves.

The passage of the U.S. Constitution established a powerful central state which could (and did) tap the resources and men of the individual states to conduct wars which eventually took place the world over. 

A weak national government, like that under the Articles of Confederation, or no central state at all, but instead a political order of numerous sovereigns (a world full of Switzerlands, Liechtensteins, etc.) would make warfare on a massive scale impossible.

Chip Gibbons, writing in the Jacobin magazine, called Cheney an “enemy of democracy whose agenda included war, indefinite detention, warrantless surveillance, and torture,” according to Alan Mosley. *

Cheney was not an enemy of democracy, but the product of a system that enables evil men to carry out the most heinous acts with little consequence, at least in this life. 

Labeling Dick Cheney a war criminal will tarnish his legacy, but it will not alter America’s murderous foreign policy course.  That will only come about when there is a recognition that the governing system itself needs to be abandoned and a decentralized political arrangement adopted.    

*Alan Mosely, “Dick Cheney (1941-2025): The Dark Legacy of a War Criminal,” Antiwar.com, 5 November 2025.  https://original.antiwar.com/Alan_Mosley/2025/11/04/dick-cheney-1941-2025-the-dark-legacy-of-a-war-criminal/

Antonius Aquinas@antoniusaquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

International Affairs Analyst Says Putin’s Time May Be Winding Down

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Vladimir Putin has sky-high presidential approval ratings among Russians (the envy, no doubt, of every Western chief executive).  He recently triumphed at the Alaska summit, where he got President Donald Trump to back off of his demand for a cease fire in Ukraine.  The Russian president’s participation at the 2025 China Victory Day parade further cemented Russo-Chinese relations, and he has been credited with a reproachment between China and India.  So, why is at least one prominent analyst predicting Putin’s time is coming to an end? 

It seems that, after all of these achievements, Putin’s handling of the Ukraine war is coming under growing criticism – not so much from the populace, but from elements within the Russian “thinking class.”  They want an end to the conflict and the punishment and/or elimination of the Western-backed Volodymyr Zelensky regime.

Thus, Putin’s political exit has been predicted by American historian and longtime Russian affairs analyst Prof. Gilbert Doctorow, the author of War Diaries. Vol. 1: The Russian-Ukraine War, 2022-2023. Doctorow now believes that Putin’s slow, methodical war of attrition against Ukraine has taken too long and, if continued, could lead to the regional conflict spinning out of control and igniting a nuclear conflagration. 

Doctorow has also criticized Putin’s lenient attitude toward the many Western provocations taken against Russia, with the latest talk of the U.S. supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, which could be fitted with nuclear warheads.  The issuance of Tomahawks is on top of the massive aid – military, strategic, intelligence, and financial – that the West has provided without which Ukraine would completely collapse.

While Doctorow advises that Putin end the war as quickly as possible, it must be noted that the perspicacious Paul Craig Roberts has been one of the few, from almost the start of the war, who called for Putin to take decisive action to end what the Russians call a “special military operation.”

Roberts believes that the West is using the conflict as a means to ultimately collapse Russia, divide it politically, and plunder its resources. A fragmented Russia will provide no opposition to a unipolar world dominated by the United States.     

In his latest article, Roberts asks:

    Will he again be ‘Putin-the-Unready’ as he was in

South Ossetia in 2008, in Ukraine in 2014, in 2022

when Russia was forced to intervene in Donbas,

and when the Russian strategic bomber force was

attacked on June 1. *  

In recent podcasts and essays, Doctorow has broken from most of the foreign policy analysts of the alternative media who continue to speak in positive terms of Putin’s deliberate, painstaking approach of slow attrition in Ukraine and his continuing leniency to hostile Western action toward Russia, with now demeaning talk from U.S. politicians including President Donald Trump that call Russia a “paper tiger.” 

Doctorow believes that Putin’s reign has run its course:

                                    I am suggesting that the era of Vladimir Putin is coming to

                                a close.  . . . He no longer has the courage of his convictions,

                                that his threats meant to deter Western enemies are empty

                                verbiage.  . . . He has pulled up the red lines

                                he clearly set out one year ago with respect to long range

                                missiles being supplied to Ukraine, and that he is drawing

                                out the war in Ukraine by not using . . . hypersonic missiles to

                                end the war now. **

Whether such a seemingly implausible scenario comes about or that Russia eventually attains its goals with Putin in charge, the West will continue to escalate.  One bright spot, however, is that the current leadership of Europe’s most war-like states – Keir Starmer of Great Britain, Friedrich Merz of Germany and Emmanuel Macron of France – are widely unpopular and most likely do not have a long political shelf life.  Hopefully, their respective replacements will focus on the monumental economic and social problems that confront each nation and the Ukraine war will be put on the back burner.

One theme sometimes heard by alternative media commentators is that the Russian economy has improved since the start of the special military operation. While Western sanctions have proved to be mostly ineffectual, wars are always a detriment to economic life except, of course, to the arms makers and their bought politicians. 

The opportunity cost of producing guns, bullets, and missiles is the loss of the production of consumer goods – refrigerators, cars, computers, etc.  While it might not be directly seen, Putin’s slow march through Ukraine is taking a toll on the Russian economy.

More important than the economic degradation of society is that the war is being fought between two largely white populations.  The slaughter of whites will mean a decline in birth rates.  This unspoken aspect of the war, no doubt, has always been a policy of the enemies of the Occidental peoples.

While a certain segment of the Russian political elite may want to replace Putin, the ultimate responsibility for the Ukraine war and (God forbid) a possible nuclear exchange is with the collective West, in particular the United States. 

If President Trump really wanted to stop the killing, he merely has to cut off financial aid, end the considerable U.S. military and intelligence assistance to the Zelensky regime, and the war would be over in days.

If these ominous trends continue, it appears that only an act of Divine intervention can avoid a nuclear disaster. 

*https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/10/03/putin-the-unready/

**https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/10/04/conversation-with-professor-glenn-diesen-restoring-russias-deterrent-or-emboldening-nato/

Antonius Aquinas@antoniusaquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Central Banks Hoard Gold, Shed U.S. Treasuries

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A lot has been made by gold-money bugs about the roles that central banks have played in the run-up in the gold price that accounts for a 38% increase in the yellow metal’s price this year alone.  Some of these analysts attribute the shedding of central bank holdings of U.S. treasuries and other agencies’ bonds to purchase gold, which has accelerated gold’s recent meteoric rise. 

It is not just those in the gold community that hold this belief, but some in the mainstream financial press cite reports and data that purportedly show that central banks now own more gold than U.S. bonds.  If true, such a shift would be a fundamental change in the world’s financial markets and could mean the end of the post-Bretton Woods monetary order, where the dollar acted as the reserve currency, replaced, ironically, by gold which the dollar replaced in 1971.

A recent Financial Times (FT) article, written by Toby Nangle and titled “Do Central Banks Really Have More Gold Than U.S. Treasury Bonds?,” attempts to shed light on these claims.* It should be a reminder, as the article admits, that it is difficult to get accurate figures from data provided by central banks and international agencies. 

Since the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, central banks’ holdings of gold have steadily risen.  The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which keeps data on central banks’ financial sheets, estimates that banks are holding between 22% to 28% of their assets in gold, which comes to $3.86 trillion of gold as of the end of June. 

The FT article contends that this percentage of reserves is “mostly about recent price action rather than a fundamental and dramatic shift out of treasuries and into the yellow metal.”

While central banks still hold the bulk of their reserves in U.S. treasuries, the gap is narrowing as the price of gold continues to reach new highs which FT admits, but downplays: “the underlying reality isn’t quite as dramatic as it might seem….”

What should be taken from the article, not only by investors, but just about everyone else, is that a mainstream financial organ like FT is noticing not only the rise in gold, but the potential of the greenback losing its reserve status – an event that would have immense and catastrophic consequences for all Americans.  Such talk, up to this point, was only heard from hard-money advocates.

The rising price of gold is signaling that greater price inflation is on the horizon with continuing deterioration of the dollar’s purchasing power along with more job losses, which is the dreaded specter of “stagflation.”

Another of America’s financial elite has sounded the alarm that something ominous is on the horizon.  Morgan Stanley has revised its traditional 60/40 portfolio split, the 40% typically allocated to bonds, to a 60/20/20 portfolio with 20% allocated to gold.  To readjust its portfolio to increase its gold holdings, Morgan Stanley will have to reduce its share of U.S. treasuries, which will put more downward pressure on bond prices and increase yields.

With growing concern over the safety of U.S. treasuries, the continuing rise in prices, and the all-time high in gold and asset prices, the Federal Reserve, at its September meeting, decided to cut the federal funds rate by 25 basis points while indicating that there will be more cuts coming.  The much-anticipated rate cut, of course, was in reaction to the unprecedented pressure brought to bear by President Donald Trump on Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell.

Like his reckless tariff policy, which has driven some allies into the arms of America’s supposed adversaries – see India and its rapprochement with China – Trump’s Fed bashing will have the opposite of its intended effect. 

Trump believes that rate cuts will make the economy “take-off” and he hopes that lower borrowing costs will make service of the gargantuan U.S. debt more manageable. 

As usual, the president talks out of both sides of his mouth.  He has spent most of his second term boasting that the economy is the best it has ever been.  Why then is there a need for interest rate cuts if the economy is booming? 

Trump also promised massive spending cuts via the Department of Government Efficiency but, instead, he passed the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which added more spending, requiring more borrowing.

America is not alone in cutting rates as central banks across the world (whose economies are also debt ridden) are reducing rates which will only encourage more borrowing.  This, of course, will lead to more price inflation as central banks will have to print more money to finance the profligate spending of their governments. 

Eventually there will be a return to gold in the monetary order, not just as a reserve asset, but one used in exchange as fiat currencies collapse. 

If economic trends continue, that day may not be far off.   

*https://www.ft.com/content/0dbc435d-7d7e-43d7-b730-b8ced4b1cba2

Antonius Aquinas@antoniusaquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and the Ultimate Demise of the Dollar

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Despite considerable arm-twisting, President Donald Trump’s laughably misnamed “Big Beautiful Bill” (actually a Big Ugly Atrocity) barely passed both houses of Congress.  Such a monstrosity, which has been conservatively estimated to add $5 trillion to the national debt including interest over the next decade, is a slap in the face to those souls who believed Trump’s campaign rhetoric of cutting federal spending.*  This vindicates, once again, those who have correctly seen Trump for what he truly is – a big-spending liberal New York democrat.

Arguably, the most reprehensible aspect of the legislation is the $150 billion increase in “defense” outlays which will boost Uncle Sam’s military budget to a neat $1 trillion a year.  This will provide plenty of lucre to keep the military industrial complex well-oiled to continue its world-wide mass slaughter of innocents.  So much for lightweight Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s initial, and now long forgotten, talk of cutting the Department’s budget by 8% per year over the next decade.

While Trump and nearly every Congressional Republican continue to spend the nation into oblivion, little attention was given to the continuing and financially ominous decline in the U.S. dollar.  The greenback has fallen more than 7% in 2025, the worst since 1973, with some analysts predicting another 10% drop by the end of the year.**

Concomitantly, the dollar’s decline has seen a historic rise in the gold price with silver reaching highs not attained since 2012.  Precious metals are signaling economic troubles ahead, especially in the currency markets.

While some have pointed to Trump’s harmful tariff policy for the dollar’s fall, the real culprit is the massive U.S. debt and interest payments, which increased even further with the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill Act.  To finance the exploding debt and interest (which has now surpassed $1 trillion per year), the government will have to borrow even more. 

This will force the Federal Reserve to print more money to service the debt putting added downward pressure on the greenback.  More dollars printed will obviously mean a fall in its purchasing power, not only domestically but in relative terms to foreign currencies.  The inverse of a decrease in the purchasing power of the dollar will be an increase in the prices of goods. 

It is a vicious circle exacerbated by Trump’s latest budget.

A larger question that U.S. policy makers will have to face if the dollar continues to slide is its current status as the world’s reserve currency.  The loss of this privileged position would be the death knell to the ability of the United States to project its financial and military power throughout the world. 

Most international transactions are settled in dollars that bolsters its demand in foreign exchange markets.  If countries settle trade in another currency or, as some have speculated, in terms of precious metals, the demand for dollars would fall.  If the supply of dollars has to increase due to continued profligate U.S. federal spending and demand for dollars internationally falls, the “price” of dollars (their purchasing power) would tank. 

Moreover, if foreign nations do not need dollars in trade, eventually the dollars they hold will make their way back to America, causing domestic prices to sharply escalate. 

Of course, the one bright spot of losing its world’s reserve currency status would mean the collapse, or at least a catastrophic pull back, in America’s vast overseas military commitments and interventions.  No longer could the U.S. maintain its mammoth military expenditures to police the world.

Massive deficits are also an impediment (although Trump apparently does not realize it) to the president’s hopes of lowering interest rates.  Even if he can get Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to cut rates, the Fed does not control long-term rates which will undoubtedly spike putting upward pressure on all rates.  This will increase borrowing costs for the government, which will likely end in a sovereign debt crisis.

At this point, there is no turning back.  The only way to save the dollar is to cut spending, which would mean less borrowing and thus less money printing. 

Trump and the Republicans with their Big Beautiful Bill have hasten the dollar’s ultimate demise and the economic collapse and social misery that will follow. 

*Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, “Breaking Down the One Big Beautiful Bill.”  4 June 2025, ww.crfb.org/blogs/breaking-down-one-big-beautiful-bill 

**Liz Hoffman, “The US dollar is on track for its worst year in modern history.”  Semafor, 3 July 2025, https://www.semafor.com/article/07/03/2025/the-us-dollar-is-on-track-for-its-worst-year-in-modern-history

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

Big Spending Continues Under Trump

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While DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) has made almost daily headlines pointing out fraud and waste in government, the real battle over federal spending is beginning to take place.  From what has been proposed, it looks like it will be business as usual in Washington.

Last week, the full House of Representatives passed the House Budget Committee’s plan (budget resolution) which specifies cuts in both taxes and spending over the next decade.  The key phrase here is “over the next decade.”

In a Feb. 13, 2025 Tax Foundation article titled “House Budget Resolution Aims to Balance Tax Cut and Spending Reduction Goals,” William McBride, explains that:

The resolution caps the deficit increase resulting from

                   tax cuts at $4.5 trillion over the next decade and requires

                   a minimum of $1.2 trillion in spending cuts.  Additionally,

                   it sets as a goal to reduce mandatory spending by $2 trillion

                   over the next decade, and, if not accomplished, the cap on

                   tax cuts would be reduced commensurately. *

The resolution calls for certain committees to implement the cuts:

  • Energy and Commerce Committee ($880 billion)
  • Education and Workforce Committee ($330 billion)
  • Agriculture Committee ($230 billion)

Programs that more than likely face budget reductions include: Medicaid, student loan relief, and the Supplemental Nutrition Program. 

Despite Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s call for an 8% yearly cut in defense spending over the next five years, the current House resolution would increase defense spending by $100 billion. There is an additional increase of $230 billion for border control and “deportation plans to be executed” according to Brett Samuels of the political website The Hill, in an article he penned titled “Trump Backs House GOP Reconciliation Bill Over Senate Version.”  ** 

Like Trump and most of his administration, Hegseth has sent conflicting signals on defense spending.  While in Germany, the defense secretary said: “I think the US needs to spend more than the Biden administration was willing to, who historically under-invested in the capabilities of our military.”

Hegseth bombastically added that he wants “the biggest most badass military on the planet,” as quoted by Dave DeCamp of news and commentary website Antiwar.com in a Feb 2025 analysis. *** So much for an America first foreign policy. 

The House’s estimate for spending and tax cuts are based on a real rate of growth of 2.6%.  This optimistic forecast, of course, does not account for any downturn in the economy, war, or continued uptick in price inflation.  Any of these, or some exogeneous shock to the economy would lower gross domestic product and tax revenues and jeopardize any long-term projected tax or spending cuts.

In the end, the budget resolution will increase spending, which Trump vowed to curb, as Rep. Thomas Massie (KY), who courageously voted against, succinctly summarized:

If the Republican plan passes under the rosiest

                                                assumptions, which aren’t even true, we’re gonna

                                                add $328 billion to the deficit this year, we’re gonna

                                                add $295 billion to the deficit the year after that, and

                                                $242 billion to the deficit after that. . . . ****

Trump, who enthusiastically supports the budget resolution, fails to realize that without deep and significant spending cuts, the cost of living will continue to escalate.  The president blamed the Biden Administration’s policies for the run-up in prices, when, in fact, it was Trump who began the present inflation cycle with the passage of the CARES Act in 2020, expanding the budget an unimaginable $2.2 trillion.

Without spending cuts, the burgeoning federal deficit ($2 trillion) and the interest on the national debt ($1 trillion) will need to be continually financed through borrowing.  The borrowing by the federal government is “paid for” through money printing (the real definition of inflation) by the Federal Reserve which buys U.S. debt with money “created out of thin air” which in essence is debt monetization.  The new money puts pressure on prices as it filters through the economy increasing the cost of living. 

While cuts in spending and reducing the amount of dollars in circulation will lower the cost of living, it will not come without severe economic pain.  The fall in prices will pop the bubble that stocks and other financial assets have been in which will result in widespread unemployment and business failures.  This is necessary to cleanse the malinvestment caused by the money printing and credit expansion and is necessary if America is to be put on a sound financial footing.

Of course, no politician wants to be blamed for such misery and even though Trump will not be up for re-election, he still does not want to be holding the bag when the economy implodes.  Yet, if such a scenario happens, the president should bear much of the blame for his policies ignited the present problem.

If President Trump truly wants to make America great again, cutting government spending must be undertaken no matter how painful. 

It appears, however, that he will join the long list of chief executives who have spent the nation into a horrific debt spiral which will inevitably end in economic ruin.

*William McBride, “House Budget Resolution Aims to Balance Tax Cut and Spending Reduction Goals,” Tax Foundation, 13 February 2025.  https://taxfoundation.org/blog/house-budget-resolution-tax-cuts-spending/

**Brett Samuels, “Trump backs House GOP reconciliation bill over Senate version,” The Hill, 19 February 2025.   https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5152871-trump-endorses-house-gop-strategy/

***Dave DeCamp, “Pentagon Says Hegseth’s Order Will Redirect Spending, Not Make Actual Cuts,” Antiwar.com, 20 February 2025.

****Tyler Durden, “House Republicans Advance Trump Agenda as Final Vote Looms Tonight.” Zero Hedge, 25 February 2025,  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/house-republicans-advance-trump-agenda-final-vote-looms-tonight

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

Trump’s Grandiose Political Centralization Scheme Not America-First in Spirit

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Colorful houses of the coastal town of Ilulissat in western Greenland.

Although Donald Trump is now in office, his statements since the election indicated he has forgotten his pledge to follow an “America first” foreign policy. This is what he promised during the recent presidential contest and what he pledged in the 2016 campaign, but failed to deliver during his first term.  While domestic issues are what a president is mostly concerned with, the most important decisions surround foreign affairs, since they often involve war.

Since his lopsided victory over the hapless Kamala Harris, Trump has made few references about reigning in the murderous U.S. Empire, but instead has talked about buying or invading Greenland, seizing the Panama Canal, and making Canada an American state.  After the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump said that “many people in Canada love being the 51st state,” according to The New York Times, Jan. 7.*

If Joe Biden or Kamala Harris said such things, the MAGA crowd would be up in arms and accuse them of moving the country in the direction of the New World Order.

Whether Trump follows through with such fanciful plans, it shows that he does not understand what lies at the heart of the social and economic problems that America and the Western world face.  Trump’s ideas would create greater political centralization, as an American-Canadian or American-Canadian-Mexican-Greenland union would create a gigantic North American state.

For anyone concerned with individual liberty, prosperity, and the No. 1 social issue that confronts the U.S. – illegal immigration – a North American superstate would be a nightmare. Gone would be the vital ability of “dissenters” to “vote with their feet” and move to less burdensome political jurisdictions.

In the United States, one can see this taking place on a daily basis as Americans move from high-tax and high regulatory states to those less onerous.  Of course, citizens cannot escape the federal government’s dictates unless one decides to expatriate. Students of the nation’s history know the often-overlooked Anti-federalists made this argument in their opposition to the Constitution which has, over time, proven to be quite prescient.

The idea that more political entities lead to greater freedom has been proven by history.  The best example of this is pre-modern Europe which was made up of a host of kingdoms, duchies, and free states with no dominant central government that could tax without impunity.  It is well accepted by historians that Europe’s rise in its standard of living was the result of its political decentralization that resulted in low levels of taxation.

A multitude of nation states allows for “competition,” where if one government becomes too tyrannical, people have an opportunity to flee to another land.  In recent U.S. history, a number of draft-aged men fled to Canada instead of being sent off to Vietnam to fight in what they considered an immoral war.  A colossal North American state would have ended such an option.

Although not explicitly discussed by Trump, a North American Union would more than likely mean the creation of a new monetary unit as was done with the euro when the European Union was formed.  Despite the warnings of some economists, price inflation in Europe escalated for countries like Germany once they relinquished their monetary autonomy. 

Currently, national currencies “float” against one another in terms of exchange rates. If one central bank inflates its currency too much, its money will lose purchasing power to less inflationary nations.  While not nearly as good as a gold standard, there is a sort of a “check and balance” on central bank monetary debasement with floating exchange rates.

A single North American monetary unit would not face the kind of limit that now exists, where the Canadian dollar, Mexican peso and U.S. dollar vie against each other.  A North American currency would be another ominous step to a one-world currency – a dream of New World Order proponents. 

While Trump’s disappointing talk about political centralization looks like a betrayal of the principles of America first principles, there may be a glimmer of hope.  In a recent Truth Social post, Trump reposted a video of Prof. Jeffery Sachs, a longtime critic of American foreign policy, criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal actions in Gaza and throughout the Middle East calling him a “deep, dark SOB.”

Since the video has been posted, Netanyahu has canceled his plans to attend Trump’s inauguration, the implication being the Israeli leader was offended by the comment.

Only time will tell if Trump will abandon his promised America-first policies or pursue a drive to a New World Order.

*David E. Sanger and Michael D. Shear, “Trump Floats Using Force to Take Greenland and the Panama Canal,”  The New York Times, 7 January 2025. 

Antonius Aquinas@antoniusaquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Taxes vs. Tariffs: Which is Fairer?

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In the final days of his presidential run, Donald Trump floated the idea of eliminating the income tax and replacing it with tariffs as the means to fund federal spending.  He cited the era of U.S. history when the country had no income tax:

When we were a smart country, in the 1890s . .

this is when the country was relatively the

richest it ever was.  It had all tariffs.  It didn’t

have an income tax.*

While Trump was correct about the prosperity at the time, it is wrong to suggest that tariffs were the reason.  While there was no income tax, there was little if any burdensome regulation or government subsidy, and, most importantly, the nation was on a gold standard, which kept increasing the purchasing power of wages, all of which raised living standards to unprecedented heights.

On the surface, the idea of replacing the income tax with tariffs seems equitable. This is why many conservatives, populists, and libertarians have supported the idea. 

Under the present political order, the United States is a constitutional republic that is based on the social contract theory.  Government is established, in part, to protect the persons and property from external threats and internal unrest.  All citizens, in theory at least, are protected by the state.  It follows, therefore, that they are obliged to contribute to their defense.

Tariffs, on the other hand, are borne directly by two groups: consumers who buy imported goods, and businesses who sell imported goods and are impacted by a loss of income. 

Consumers pay the tax levied on foreign goods.  Therefore, those consumers who buy more expensive goods, such as a Mercedes Benz, pay a higher percentage of tax than those who buy trinkets such as Christmas tree ornaments and plastic cutlery from China.

Businesses, too, suffer from tariffs.  While it is often said that the tax is “passed on to consumers,” companies will see a reduction in income, since tariffs raise the price of goods.  Higher prices will cause a fall in demand, resulting in loss revenue.  Moreover, businesses who deal in foreign products have to bear the bureaucratic cost of complying with the government’s ever-changing trade policies while serving as tax collector for the state. 

While the income tax under social contract theory is more “equitable” than tariffs, one of its most egregious features cannot be justified.  Under current law, American citizens that are living abroad or have relocated permanently are still subjected to the income tax.  However, expats are no longer being defended by the U.S. government.  Renouncing citizenship (which is quite costly) is the only way to avoid being taxed.

Why should Americans, who are no longer being defended by their government, still be required to pay for it?  This would be a clear violation of the “social contract” that citizens have supposedly agreed to. 

There are other dangers that have come with government financing through tariffs, or, as some have called for, a national sales tax. Originally, when the income tax was proposed, it was to replace tariffs.  Tariffs, like all sales taxes, burden the poor and middle class disproportionately.  The income tax, which at first only affected the affluent, was accepted by the public since tariffs were to be eliminated.  Unfortunately, the tariffs remained after the two world wars and the income tax was levied on almost everyone. 

A similar situation could occur with the expansion of tariffs or the implementation of a national sales tax.  Governments rarely relinquish their taxing power.  

What is being ignored in the talk about tariffs and the income tax are the exploding government deficits.  Fiddling with what source of revenue the government collects is not addressing an impending financial crisis that could bring down the entire U.S. economy.

Of course, runaway debts and deficits are inherent in democratic republics as politicians are not personally responsible for the debt, unlike a monarch or king.  This is another flaw in the social contract theory. 

Before policy makers change the nation’s tax system, they should carefully consider the ramifications and seek to find the most equitable solution that will not burden only part of the citizenry. Cutting runaway federal spending is a first step.       

*https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/26/politics/trump-income-taxes-tariffs/index.html