The year in politics: What to expect from 2021?

The year in politics: What to expect from 2021? 

Trump is grasping at any straw to keep out of jail. He could have likely made a deal before the election to do so, but that would have required sanity to make. Now, he has nothing to trade. Frankly, I would rather see him poor than locked up. His minions will call him a martyr in jail, but not in the poor house. In the short-term, banning him from Twitter is enough. When Trump is poor, his movement goes away, like magic.

Step one in the COVID recovery is for people to stop dying. Spread is pretty much universal at this point and, with more virulent strains, unavoidable. Even twenty-somethings are getting the fatigue symptoms that previous strains have spared them. Those who vape THC will likely die, but any respiratory bug, no matter how benign, is a death sentence for them once they get popcorn lung. Normal vapers will have a hard time of it, but likely will not be dropping dead in numbers.

Most small businesses are 1099 employment or a second gig (Avon, calling?). Those jobs, along with temping, will come back rather quickly. 

Restaurants fail chronically in the best years. Their model, paying workers poorly, is a big part of the problem. The real issue with opening new ones is location - and there is plenty of that after the pandemic. It needs no help to come back. It needs moral payroll structures to come back better.

The needed reform is to increase the incentives for real hiring, not subcontract employment. A higher minimum wage is also a must. When lower wage workers have more money, they spend it all so more lower wage work is required. With salaries going up all along the food chain, everyone wins except those who write the checks to the Senators. Aside from a state-led movement, bipartisan compromise over a plate of food will be required. See below.

Infrastructure is always needed. Getting back to good old pork barrel spending allows the necessary gasoline or carbon tax increases to pass as long as everyone has a project to point to. This disdain for pre-approved projects coordinated between the Hill, local government and agencies is amateurish. 

The other must-do is money for families. This quickly becomes money for housing. When you have another kid, you need another bedroom (and eventually two). Biden has the right idea for doing that, he just needs to make it permanent.

Permanent help for families and workers is best done under tax reform. I have some ideas about that as well. More radical reform may even be easier if it means that is must be bipartisan. Any idiot can get 51 votes in the Senate and pass a tax increase. Getting the higher hanging fruit means having Elaine and Jill watch Mitch and Joe grill somewhere in Delaware as our nation's wounds are bound over a few trays of beef kabbobs.