The Truth About RFK Jr.

RFK Jr. seems like a decent, honest, intelligent person, but as a 70-year-old who comes from the most political family in American history and is running for the most powerful political position in the world I find it off-putting that not only does he have 0 elective experience, but he doesn’t even seem particularly well-informed where on issue after issue he says he needs to “do more research:” how to balance the budget, how to tax the rich, gender reassignment surgery for kids, school choice, Russiagate, Section 230, psychedelic legalization, UBI, federal job guarantee, etc.

He only has about a 3.4% chance of winning so the fact he’s even running further highlights his naiveté.

Anyway, RFK Jr.’s campaign boils down to… the federal government is so corrupt and incompetent that we need to… {checks notes}… make it bigger? 

He wants more yet better regulations and spending.

With that said, given his popularity I think there’s still a lot of value in dissecting some of his more interesting policy positions, which as a starting point of agreement he says…

I want you to vote for me or against me not based upon the labels people have affixed to me, but rather based on my position on the various issues.

1. He supports harder money.

I don't propose that all transactions in bitcoin be untaxed, but that there be a cap to up to a certain amount. If you allow big holders like BlackRock to escape taxation on the increases in the value for bitcoin you'd give a windfall of trillions of dollars to the richest people in our country, which they don't need. Small transactions like buying gasoline would be untaxed. We want to encourage people to use hard currency in the marketplace. My other proposal is very very modest, which is that we use a basket of hard currencies including platinum, including gold, and including perhaps bitcoin as a basis for maybe 1% of certain classes of T-bills and see what happens. See if that has any capacity to inject discipline into inflationary policies” — RFK Jr.

I think this is his best position, but he doesn’t mention it on his platform nor does he go far enough.

Perhaps, he’s simply articulating what he thinks is the most realistic monetary policy changes he expects to be able to make, but I think trying to nibble at the beast would be less effective than going straight for the heart of it by making gold and silver legal tender again. Once there’s monetary competition it’d dramatically constrain the Fed’s ability to print.

2. He wants to make trade deals with developing countries contingent upon them increasing their labor standards.

Neoliberal free trade policies set American workers into competition with workers in low-wage countries that have few labor protections where, in some cases, unions are non-existent. Mr. Kennedy will make labor protections the centerpiece of any future trade agreements. — RFK Jr. platform

Negotiate trade deals that prevent low-wage countries from competing with American workers in a “race to the bottom. — RFK Jr. platform

According to the World Bank, most developing countries’ daily median income is below $15 so if he forced them to increase it enough where it wouldn’t substantially undercut our $65 then that would cause them mass unemployment.

Rather than neocolonialistically tell other countries how to run their labor union (countries in themselves are labor unions) we should take care of our own by increasing barriers to entry (stop illegal immigration; 10% tariff).

3. He supports reducing illegal immigration and streamlining asylum claims.

• Tighten border security to regain control over the border. We will use technology that was installed at the border then dismantled by the Biden administration, such as cameras, lights, and motion detectors, coupled with physical barriers in key areas (there is no need to build a wall across the entire 2,000-mile border). We have the technology to prevent people from getting through undetected. We can control the border. We have the technology. We can deploy the personnel. All we need is the will.

• Get on top of asylum claims. We have to fully fund courts, services, and border agencies to allow lawful immigration in accordance with U.S. law and deny non-compliant access, and appoint more judges to handle asylum cases. There are woefully few asylum judges to process even the legitimate claims of political refugees. If claimants of political asylum knew their case would be heard swiftly, and that specious claims would be met with swift deportation, the cartels’ business model would fail. — RFK Jr. platform

He’s better on immigration than self-hating plutocrats, but here’s the bottom line…

America is an “A” nation. The prettiest girl can’t dance with everyone. If you’re from an “F” nation then she could out of the kindness of her heart help you get to a “D” or “C” nation, but a sob story shouldn’t give you permission to jump in front of people with high skills and thick wallets. 

4. He wants to make it easier to get loans.

Make student debt dischargeable in bankruptcy and cut interest rates on student loans to zero. — RFK Jr. platform

Tax-free 3% government-backed mortgage bonds, to bring the mortgage interest rate back to 2019 levels and even lower. — RFK Jr. platform.

Lowering the interest rates on student and housing loans will have the same unintended consequence it has had for the past 50 years: drive up the cost of tuition and housing!

The influence-industrial complex has indoctrinated us to believe that debt is good and I suppose it is if you want to force cogs to work harder on quarterly gains, but freeing people up to work on their own long-term goals is how we build wonders.

5. He wants to expand Americorps.

The existing Americorps is just a one-year program open only to college grads. The transformed Americorps will be open to all people 18 and older who want to make a four year commitment to service, in areas such as: urban renewal, ecological restoration, care for the disabled, sick, and elderly, infrastructure repair, addiction recovery centers, organic agriculture. — RFK Jr. platform

Where does it say in Section 8 of the US Constitution that the federal government can do any of these things? And does the 10th Amendment also mean nothing to him?

Rather than add federal jobs we could make most federal jobs 4-year commitments.

6. He wants to increase grants.

Targeted Community Repair will be available to devastated communities across the country, not just Black. The criteria will be around need, not skin color. However, because there are so many Black communities in need, this program will channel significant resources toward the rebuilding of these most devastated of communities. — RFK Jr. platform

Institute Black Business Development Agency to build and support African-American companies. Web courses taught by respected Black entrepreneurs on starting a business as qualifiers for small business grants. — RFK Jr. platform

Again, this demonstrates such little respect for the US Constitution’s separation of powers and federalism + the 14th Amendment.

And how will he determine what businesses can qualify for free money based on “need”?

The Black Business Development Agency is going to want to increase its budget every year and a way they can do this is by giving money to those who will then donate to politicians who’d support increasing their budget.

7. He wants to get money out of politics.

I’m going to get corporate influence out of the government once and for all. — RFK Jr.

In order to be a statist you need to believe it’s possible to get money out of politics.

He believes he can do so by…

Replacing corporate-friendly agency leaders with reformers and whistleblowers dedicated to the national interest. — RFK Jr. platform

But what existing agency leaders wouldn’t already consider themselves “reformers”?

His grandfather was the first SEC chairman precisely because he was a successful insider trader. 

With AI, RFK Jr. says he’d consult with industry leaders to figure out how to regulate it, which is the same rationale he’s condemning.

He also proposes to…

Shut the revolving door by executive order with a five year ban on administration officials lobbying their former government agency. — RFK Jr. platform

But what constitutes “lobbying”? 

I suppose he could ban “lobbying” in the same way legislators are banned from “insider trading.” Lol.

Would there be an exception for family members, e.g. one’s wife still works for the FDA?

And what if a former administrator lobby’s (aka influence’s) his former agency by critiquing it, e.g. a former Attorney General running for office promising to improve his former department?

He also offers other campaign finance reforms, which I’m sympathetic to some, but they often just push political influence into the shadows and create more ambiguity for those in power to enforce against their opposition. 

RFK Jr. was smart enough to realize from his time as an environmental lawyer that much of our big bureaucracy was captured by big business, but rather than come to the logical conclusion we should reduce the bureaucratic hurdles big businesses put in place he wants to selectively enforce the law against them… 

Support small businesses by redirecting regulatory scrutiny onto large corporations. — RFK Jr. platform

The answer isn’t to selectively enforce the law, but to reduce its number & abstraction so that we can once again be a nation of laws rather than a nation where we need to have a friend in high places even if that “friend” purports to be our own.

8. He’d reduce fracking and nuclear energy.

I will ban fracking, which provides the feedstock for most of the plastics produced in the U.S. — RFK Jr.

To his credit, after he received a lot of backlash his campaign softened his rhetoric…

Mr. Kennedy recognizes that an immediate and total ban on fracking would devastate the US economy, and is therefore unrealistic. He favors a gradual phase-out of the practice, starting with the removal of subsidies and a moratorium on new exploration. He believes that fracking, at least in most locations, will no longer be viable when the practice does not receive direct or indirect subsidies, and instead is exposed to the free market. — RFK Jr. campaign statement

But he also poo-poos nuclear energy…

Nuclear power, I’m all for it if they can ever make it safe or that they ever make it economical. And it’s not me saying it’s not safe. It’s the insurance industry. They can’t get an insurance policy. If they can’t get an insurance policy then I would say I don’t want it. — RFK Jr.

Both natural gas and nuclear energy are safer and cleaner than other forms of energy…

To a lawyer, everything is a lawsuit. 

He thinks suing fracking, nuclear, and medical companies would force many of them to internalize their externalities and therefore they couldn’t afford to stay open.

But there’s a subjective nature to how much any given externality costs where as a prosecutor RFK Jr. naturally erred on the side of overestimating them to get back as much damages for his clients as possible, which it’s this sort of philosophy that has justified evermore regulations…

So I’d suggest to RFK Jr. that if France can get 70% of its energy from nuclear by not regulating it out of existence nor increasing its liability to such a degree that insurance companies couldn’t afford to cover them then the most innovative country on Earth should be able to build a bunch of nuclear power plants in the countryside. 

Conclusion

In the end, I think he’s an honest, intelligent person, but if elected his expansion of government force would over time lead to fewer honest and intelligent people because as the state grows it’d increasingly reward conformity and penalize competence. Nice guy < good incentives.