This man will never be able to get the taste of Trump's ass out of his mouth.

More: Consider Mid-Continent Steel and Wire, which produced roughly half of the nails made in the U.S. After the steel tariffs took effect, its sales plunged by more than half, causing it to lay off 80 workers. Another 120 quit because they worried its Missouri factory might close. After this damage, the Commerce Department granted the company a tariff exemption.

Auto makers were another casualty. Ford Motor said tariffs subtracted $750 million from its bottom line in 2018, which reduced profit-sharing bonuses for each of its workers by $750. GM said the tariffs dented its profits by some $1 billion, equal to the pay of more than 10,000 employees.

The tariffs also made U.S. manufacturers less globally competitive and prompted retaliation that hurt American businesses. Canada imposed tariffs on $12.8 billion in U.S. products, including 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum. Harley-Davidson shifted some production to Thailand to avoid Europe's retaliatory tariffs on U.S. motorbikes.

Retaliation caused Mr. Trump to exempt Canada and Mexico as part of the renegotiated Nafta deal. His Administration also struck deals with some countries that exempted a certain amount of their steel and aluminum exports.

Even so, the tariffs created uncertainty for U.S. manufacturers and boomeranged on steel and aluminum companies. Employment in durable goods manufacturing began to decline in early 2019, which reduced demand for steel and aluminum. Employment in fabricated metals manufacturing that used steel and aluminum plunged and is still some 35,000 lower than when the tariffs took effect.

U.S. steel and aluminum firms enjoyed a surge in post-pandemic investment and consumer spending, and profits rolled in. But demand for the metals fell again as U.S. manufacturing struggled amid President Biden's regulatory onslaught and higher interest rates. Domestic steel-making capacity utilization has fallen back to 70%, about the same as in 2016.

Which is why U.S. steel and aluminum producers now want tariffs with no exemptions. They blame imports for reducing prices. But steel prices are about 50% higher than pre-pandemic levels and aluminum prices a third higher. Cleveland-Cliffs shares rose 17.9% Monday, and other steel makers by 5% or so in expectation of windfall tariff profits.

This is political rent-seeking at its most brazen, and it benefits the few at the expense of the many. None of this matters to Mr. Trump, whose dogmatic views on tariffs can't be turned by evidence. But we thought our readers would like to know the rest of the story.

Sounds better than their previous business model of buggering little boys on camping trips.

More still: The role of the Treasury Department " and of the executive branch more broadly " is not to make determinations about which promises of federal funding made by Congress it will keep, and which it will not. As Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the Supreme Court previously wrote, "Even the president does not have unilateral authority to refuse to spend the funds." Chief Justice John Roberts agrees: He wrote that "no area seems more clearly the province of Congress than the power of the purse."

During our collective 18 years at the helm of the Treasury, we never were asked to stop congressionally appropriated funds from being paid out in full. Not since the Nixon administration has this type of executive action been contemplated. At that time, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the president did not have the power to withhold federal funds that Congress had authorized.

More: These political actors have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants, and one has explicitly retained his role in a private company, creating at best the appearance of financial conflicts of interest. They lack training and experience to handle private, personal data " like Social Security numbers and bank account information. Their power subjects America's payments system and the highly sensitive data within it to the risk of exposure, potentially to our adversaries. And our critical infrastructure is at risk of failure if the code that underwrites it is not handled with due care. That is why a federal judge this past weekend blocked, at least temporarily, these individuals from the Treasury's payments system, noting the risk of "irreparable harm."

While significant data privacy, cybersecurity and national security threats are gravely concerning, the constitutional issues are perhaps even more alarming. We take the extraordinary step of writing this piece because we are alarmed about the risks of arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments, which would be unlawful and corrosive to our democracy.

Detained for what? Political speech is, or was at least, protected by the first amendment.

President Musk will get this fixed so he can sell his swastikars.

What the Dems are going to do is fight it.

When? Or more pertinently, how? Trump needs to be countered but his personal party has a stranglehold on the government currently with rubber stamps in the House, Senate and SCOTUS.

I do agree with the rest of your comment though, Doc.

Everything he touches dies.

It was too late when they confirmed Clearance Thomas.

Any company headquartered in Arkansas isn't worried about the politics in NC.

They won't be satisfied until Trump is crowned King.

More:

The widespread political purges of the early 1950s echo clearly today. Seventy years ago, the reasonable pretext of hunting Soviet agents opened the way to a yearslong, paranoid campaign, motivated by outlandish conspiracy theories, that destroyed countless careers but did nothing to improve America's security.

Today, a stated desire to check the excesses of diversity, equity and inclusion programs has already been used to justify whirlwind firings and closures of entire federal offices. So it may be wise to consider the consequences of that previous era of purges, part of what came to be known as the "Red Scare."

At a time of intense geopolitical competition, the United States kneecapped itself, removing thousands of valuable employees and forcing those who remained into unhappy conformity. It is hard not to see the same mistake being repeated today.

It can be tempting to say that just as the Red Scare petered out, so too will the current hunt for "disloyal" elements. But for all the parallels, there's an important difference: Loyalty then meant loyalty to the United States; today Trump demands loyalty to himself and his agenda.

Once the public realizes the destructiveness of the purges conducted in Trump's name, will he halt them? That remains an unsettlingly open question.

More: A veteran House Democrat is introducing new legislation to respond to billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk's overhaul of the federal government: Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) on Wednesday rolled out the Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy (ELON MUSK) Act, which would ban "special" government employees like Musk from having federal contracts.

"No government employee, Special' or not, should have any financial interest in who the government does business with," Pocan said. "Elon Musk is the poster child for this type of potential abuse. After more than $20 billion in federal contracts, there's no way Musk can be objective in what he's doing." Musk holds major federal contracts through his companies including SpaceX and Starlink.

Shut up, little man.

How many people did he just put out of work? I hope someone is keeping a running total of jobs he is destroying.

#69,

If I were a believer I'd be convinced Trump was the Antichrist.

Unless boaz shows up and says something even dumber, #4 will probably be the most ridiculous thing I'll read all day.

As terrible as this is - and it is unbelievably terrible - it's being done as a distraction from what Musk and his cronies are doing. Our country and it's wealth are being stolen from us.

If you voted for him you deserve what you get.

The worst idea in the history of ideas.

That's it then. The payment system is compromised and should never be trusted again.