{"id":14837,"date":"2020-06-18T10:08:51","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T14:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=14837"},"modified":"2020-09-17T12:53:08","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T16:53:08","slug":"d-c-s-iron-curtain-of-secrecy-endangers-the-economy-and-everything-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/18\/d-c-s-iron-curtain-of-secrecy-endangers-the-economy-and-everything-else\/","title":{"rendered":"D.C.\u2019s Iron Curtain of Secrecy Endangers The Economy and Everything Else"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>American Institute for Economic Research, June 18, 2020<\/h3>\n

D.C.\u2019s Iron Curtain of Secrecy Endangers The Economy and Everything Else<\/a><\/h1>\n

by James Bovard<\/p>\n

The Trump administration is threatening to sue John Bolton for unauthorized disclosures in his new book dishing dirt on Trump from their private discussions when Bolton was National Security Advisor. Bolton, who has a long history as a slippery warmongering fanatic, signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement and the Trump administration claims he violates it. The uproar around Bolton\u2019s book should awaken Americans to the Iron Curtain around the federal government, shrouding everything from economic policy to the furtive plans for toppling foreign regimes.<\/p>\n

The federal government is creating trillions of pages of new secrets<\/a> every year. The total number of new secrets each year is equivalent to \u201c20 million four-drawer filing<\/a> cabinets filled with double-spaced text on paper,\u201d the Washington Post<\/em> reported. If those filing cabinets were laid end to end, they would stretch almost to the moon. The feds have accumulated the equivalent of hundreds of pages of secrets for each American household, blighting any hope for citizens to learn of their rulers\u2019 rascality.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since the 1990s, the number of classified documents annually created by federal agencies increased more than tenfold<\/a>. In 2004, Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) derided the federal classification system as \u201cincomprehensibly complex\u201d and \u201cso bloated it often does not distinguish<\/a> between the critically important and the comically irrelevant.\u201d The New York Times<\/em> reported in 2005 that federal agencies were \u201cclassifying documents at the rate of 125 a minute as they<\/a> create new categories of semi-secrets bearing vague labels like \u2018sensitive security information.\u2019\u201d That last category is a favorite of the Transportation Security Administration, which works overtime to prevent Americans from learning the official rationales for squeezing their butts<\/a> and boobs at airport checkpoints.<\/p>\n

The same secrecy default that is entangling Bolton\u2019s book is also covering up the names of companies and nonprofits that have received more than $500 billion in Paycheck Protection Program loans. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced this week that the Trump administration will refuse to disclose the names of the recipients of PPP windfalls because the loan amounts are \u201cproprietary\u201d and \u201cconfidential.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration double-crossed both Congress and the media, since officials had previously pledged to disclose the information. As the Associated Press reported, \u201cAsked previously by news organizations for information on the companies receiving loans, the Small Business Administration has said it\u2019s too consumed by the urgent effort<\/a> of helping small businesses through the economic downturn to provide the data. It said specific loan data may be released \u2018in the near future.\u2019\u201d \u201cSpending so fast we can\u2019t explain what we are doing\u201d is not a reassuring defense for the SBA, which has been notorious for almost half a century for boondoggles<\/a> and favoritism.<\/p>\n

As Rep. Ben McAdams (D-UT) commented on Mnuchin\u2019s secrecy dictate: \u201cWhat part of \u2018it\u2019s taxpayer money\u2019 does<\/a> he not understand?\u201d The list of nonprofit aid recipients could be especially inflammatory. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) complained, \u201cAs far as we know, Planned Parenthood has taken $80 million<\/a> in taxpayer money straight to the bank. It\u2019s unacceptable and I won\u2019t stop until I get answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The power of the Federal Reserve has soared during the COVID crisis but average Americans don\u2019t have a snowball\u2019s chance in hell of learning the details of the Fed\u2019s favors until long after insiders take their profits. As Kurt Schacht of the CFA Institute<\/a>, the world\u2019s largest association of investors, observed, \u201cThe Federal Reserve has quickly moved from being the lender of last resort for banks to what many feel is a lender of last resort to the entire U.S. economy\u2026. Between Congress and the Federal Reserve, the government has committed more than $6 trillion to sustain the U.S. economy, an astounding price tag that surpasses all economic stimulus funding since the Great Depression.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Trump acts as if his COVID corporate handouts are entitled to total secrecy.<\/p>\n

Trump also purged the Inspector Generals on the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, which was supposed to oversee how federal funds were spent. Perhaps that will prevent Americans from learning whether the corporate relief policies are as incoherent and contradictory as the administration\u2019s advice on wearing masks<\/a>. Every president since Bill Clinton has helped gut the federal Freedom of Information Act<\/a>, so that will provide little or no help in exposing COVID bailout racketeering.<\/p>\n

Secrecy may be shrouding Trump effectively spending trillions of tax dollars for his reelection campaign to rev up the economy. The Treasury Department has a webpage warning people that if they receive emails \u201cclaiming to be from the Treasury Department<\/a> and offering COVID-19 related grants or stimulus payments in exchange for personal financial information\u2026 please do not respond. These are scams.\u201d Unfortunately, it is not a \u201cscam\u201d when financial insiders or corporations get secret benefits in return for campaign contributions to Trump or congressional wheeler-dealers.<\/p>\n

COVID bailouts will likely remain secret until long after major economic damage is done. Attorney General Ramsey Clark warned in 1967, \u201cNothing so diminishes democracy as secrecy.\u201d Earlier this year, federal judge Amy Berman Jackson declared, \u201cIf people don\u2019t have the facts<\/a>, democracy doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Republicans and Democrats in Washington have long since conspired to deny Americans the facts millions of times a year. If democracy depends on transparency, and government transparency is an illusion, then what is U.S. democracy? Unfortunately, secrecy and lying are often two sides of the same political coin.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American Institute for Economic Research, June 18, 2020 D.C.\u2019s Iron Curtain of Secrecy Endangers The Economy and Everything Else by James Bovard The Trump administration is threatening to sue John Bolton for unauthorized disclosures in his new book dishing dirt on Trump from their private discussions when Bolton was National Security Advisor. Bolton, who has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2406,2405,44,2399,2396,15,2349,2402,1974,1769,2400,2401,27,2397,2404,2398,1483,55,2403,1531],"class_list":["post-14837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aier","tag-amy-berman-jackson","tag-bailout","tag-ben-mcadams","tag-chris-shays","tag-congress","tag-covid","tag-federal-reserve-trump","tag-iron-curtain","tag-john-bolton","tag-josh-hawley","tag-kurt-schacht","tag-lying","tag-mnunchin","tag-pandemic-response-accountability-committee","tag-paycheck-protection-program","tag-ramsey-clark","tag-secrecy","tag-small-business-administration","tag-transportation-security-administration"],"yoast_head":"\nD.C.\u2019s Iron Curtain of Secrecy Endangers The Economy and Everything Else - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/18\/d-c-s-iron-curtain-of-secrecy-endangers-the-economy-and-everything-else\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"D.C.\u2019s Iron Curtain of Secrecy Endangers The Economy and Everything Else - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"American Institute for Economic Research, June 18, 2020 D.C.\u2019s Iron Curtain of Secrecy Endangers The Economy and Everything Else by James Bovard The Trump administration is threatening to sue John Bolton for unauthorized disclosures in his new book dishing dirt on Trump from their private discussions when Bolton was National Security Advisor. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14837"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15078,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14837\/revisions\/15078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}