Blog Stage 4

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.