PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

This is one of two departments I direct, with full and complete authority to run it as I see fit, which means, in this case, that I decide what quotes to remember.  I also comment on all of the good quotes.  So, here goes.

From a letter from eight tax policy professionals to the U.S. Treasury Secretary on the tax reform proposal in Congress:  “While the overall House and Senate tax plans contain numerous household and business provisions, we focus on the corporate tax changes, returning to other provisions before concluding. A key concept in this context is the ‘user cost of capital,’ which essentially measures the expected cost to firms of making additional investments in equipment.

“A considerable body of economic research concludes that reductions in the user cost of capital raise output in the short and long run. Several of the proposals that have emerged in the current debate are key to lowering the user cost of capital. For example, expensing, which allows firms to deduct the full cost of investment at the time it is made, lowers the user cost of capital relative to depreciation over time.

“A lower corporate tax rate also lowers the user cost of capital, which not only induces U.S. firms to invest more, but also makes it more attractive for both U.S. and foreign multinational corporations to locate investment in the United States.”

Comment:  It’s always tempting, not to mention very natural, to look at federal tax changes through the lens of how the change will affect you as an individual.  But, with this quote, eight tax experts encourage us to look at the beneficial corporate tax changes that will reduce the cost of capital which will, as past experience indicates, lead to economic growth — and we’ll all benefit from that growth.

From a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial:  “The question senators need to ask themselves in the end is whether this tax reform, all things considered, is a net benefit for the country. We think it is—not least because it is a vote of confidence that better policies can restore America’s traditional economic vigor. Democrats and their media friends have given up on that score, concluding that we are doomed to ‘secular stagnation’ and that our politics must devolve into a brawl to divide up the spoils of whatever meager growth we can muster.

“That is not the country we have known and it is an America that would be much diminished and harsher. Republicans need to decide if they still believe America can prosper again, or if it is doomed to the slow growth and stagnant wages of the last 11 years.”

Comment: See above.

From hill.com: Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci defended White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday, saying the administration’s mouthpiece does her best to protect President Trump while also telling the truth. ‘I think she does the best of her ability to tell the truth but also to protect the president,’ Scaramucci told host Chris Cuomo on CNN’s New Day.

Comment: It is possible to argue that Sanders has one of the toughest jobs in Washington, D.C., at least one that is very visible to the general public. It is to defend President Trump while dealing, face-to-face, with a tough and skeptical media, sometimes a cynical media.

I always am interested in how press secretaries conduct themselves because I was one once, no twice – the first time to a Democrat member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the second time to Oregon’s last Republican governor, Vic Atiyeh.

If you are in such a job, you have to remember all of the audiences that will read or hear your comments. The tendency, then, could be to avoid saying anything by being milquetoast. But the ones who are good at their jobs avoid that tendency, uttering thoughts on behalf of the person for whom they work while being as honest as possible with probing reporters. I say “as honest as possible” because you may be in possession of sensitive or private information which you cannot reveal. At that point, the best and most honest approach, plus the most credible one, is simply to say that you are not at liberty to talk about the subject.

From the WSJ:  “Behind the metaphor of ‘the swamp,’ after all, is the idea, not without justification, that today’s Washington is far removed from government of, by and for the people. In this context, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is a good proxy for the beau ideal of modern American progressivism: Appointed bureaucrats, unaccountable to the elected representatives of the people, wield their regulatory authority as a weapon. As if this were not outrageous enough, Ms. English (the person who was named to the top job as her predecessor left) argues the CFPB also has the right to self-perpetuate by the laying of hands on a successor by her predecessor when he leaves.”

Comment:  The CFPB — what? another acronym? — is a rogue agency, at best.  Some officials there apparently believe they are above the law, so they have created what amounts to a separate branch of government not subject to the normal prerogatives of the country’s top elected official, the president.

It’s time for two actions — (1) for the president’s appointee, Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, to run the agency, and (2) to do the appropriate deed, which is to get rid of the agency.  Meanwhile, Democrats, as they continue to support the rogue agency, have given President Trump a huge political gift — a chance to assert executive authority over out-of-control Democrats, which, it should be asserted, is one reason he won the presidency in the first place.