On July 21, Jared Kushner, Senior advisor to the president
and Trump’s son-in-law revised his financial disclosure forms, adding on 77
additional items that were not included in the previous forms. Catherine
Rampell, in her opinion paper expresses her disdain for Kushner and his
behavior in dealing with his financial disclosure forms.
Financial disclosure forms are forms where government
officials disclose their assets in order to confirm that they would not have
any conflicts of interest when working in the government. Rampell’s concern stems
from the fact that not filling out these forms could imply either a lack of due
diligence or corruption on Kushner’s part. She is discontent with the current
system as even though it is illegal to hide information from the financial
disclosure forms, all Kushner needs to do when any inconsistencies show up is plead
ignorance and add them back in. Instead of our current system, she proposes
that we adapt a “Banana Republic Rule” where if “you forget it, you forfeit it”
in order to combat abuse of the system. Her idea stems from Arnold Harberger’s tax
proposals to various countries struggling with corruption, any assets
registered to a certain value could potentially be forced to sell at that
value, encouraging greater honesty.
Rampell’s article was definitely targeted at those that
disapprove of Kushner’s actions as well as those that disapprove of Trump’s
administration as a whole, as can be seen by her various references to Trump’s
shady practices in the past. Along with this, she is also writing this for
those that disapprove of the current system of disclosing finances as can be
seen by her suggestions for alternate policies. These target audiences both align
with her political ideology as she is a staunch Democrat that has many criticisms
towards the republican party as can be seen in her past articles.
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