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Thought experiment: the honest billionaire President
Let's imagine a world in which somebody with Donald's Trump's wealth and holdings got elected President, and actually wanted to be viewed as an honest public servant rather than as running the government for the benefits of himself, his friends, and his family. What would he have to do?
Any business he owns into which people can put a lot of money would be suspect as a bribery channel: I want favorable treatment from the President, so I'm going to stay at his hotel, golf at his resort, pay membership to his club, and make sure he knows it. (The same applies, of course, to the President himself patronizing his own businesses on the taxpayer's dime.) So all such businesses would have to be liquidated, the proceeds put into a truly blind trust which could invest in stocks, bonds, real estate, even hotels and resorts, as long as nobody (including the President) knew that he owned them. Which of course means they couldn't have his name on them.
Transferring ownership to somebody else for the duration of the presidency would seem better than nothing, but the American people need to know that the President (and his heirs) will *never* benefit from people patronizing that business during his presidency. Which would be a nightmare to administer: how do you run a business while promising not to do anything with its current income that increases its future value?
Likewise, if there's a property that the President doesn't own but gets a variable income stream from, like a hotel that licenses his name in exchange for a cut of the profits, that deal would have to be terminated.
To guard against the possibility of foreign governments holding leverage over the President, any significant income stream he owned in foreign countries or dependent on foreign government activity (licenses, patents, contracts, etc.) would likewise have to be liquidated. Again, if the blind trust invests in foreign countries, that's ok as long as the President doesn't know what he owns in which countries.
All this would be extremely difficult, especially trying to do it in the two and a half months between election and inauguration. You never want to sell something that everybody knows you *have* to sell *soon*: you'll get a below-market price for it. So what solution would satisfy both good government and fairness? I think it would be possible to transfer most of the businesses into a blind trust, and get a good start on taking the President's name off them, in a few months. It's ok if he still owns them for a while, as long as they're being sold off and he doesn't know when they have been.
And, of course, his finances would have to be transparent, so the American people know this has all actually happened. The blind trust would still be blind, but pretty much anything the President can see, so can reporters.
But what about somebody like Trump, for whom the name *is* a major asset itself? I wouldn't weep too many tears for him: four or eight years as President of the United States will leave him with more name recognition than he ever had before, and if the blind trust makes at-all-reasonable investments, he'll still have the wealth he had before, so he can rebuild a name-based business empire with no difficulty after he leaves office.
So it could be done. A billionaire becoming President faces hurdles that don't face an ordinary millionaire President like Clinton or Obama, but they'd be solvable with the aid of good lawyers. The candidate could even describe his plan for liquidation and the blind trust while campaigning, as evidence of his commitment to the public ahead of himself.
If, that is, he *were* committed to the public ahead of himself. Which alas is still only an imaginary world.
Any business he owns into which people can put a lot of money would be suspect as a bribery channel: I want favorable treatment from the President, so I'm going to stay at his hotel, golf at his resort, pay membership to his club, and make sure he knows it. (The same applies, of course, to the President himself patronizing his own businesses on the taxpayer's dime.) So all such businesses would have to be liquidated, the proceeds put into a truly blind trust which could invest in stocks, bonds, real estate, even hotels and resorts, as long as nobody (including the President) knew that he owned them. Which of course means they couldn't have his name on them.
Transferring ownership to somebody else for the duration of the presidency would seem better than nothing, but the American people need to know that the President (and his heirs) will *never* benefit from people patronizing that business during his presidency. Which would be a nightmare to administer: how do you run a business while promising not to do anything with its current income that increases its future value?
Likewise, if there's a property that the President doesn't own but gets a variable income stream from, like a hotel that licenses his name in exchange for a cut of the profits, that deal would have to be terminated.
To guard against the possibility of foreign governments holding leverage over the President, any significant income stream he owned in foreign countries or dependent on foreign government activity (licenses, patents, contracts, etc.) would likewise have to be liquidated. Again, if the blind trust invests in foreign countries, that's ok as long as the President doesn't know what he owns in which countries.
All this would be extremely difficult, especially trying to do it in the two and a half months between election and inauguration. You never want to sell something that everybody knows you *have* to sell *soon*: you'll get a below-market price for it. So what solution would satisfy both good government and fairness? I think it would be possible to transfer most of the businesses into a blind trust, and get a good start on taking the President's name off them, in a few months. It's ok if he still owns them for a while, as long as they're being sold off and he doesn't know when they have been.
And, of course, his finances would have to be transparent, so the American people know this has all actually happened. The blind trust would still be blind, but pretty much anything the President can see, so can reporters.
But what about somebody like Trump, for whom the name *is* a major asset itself? I wouldn't weep too many tears for him: four or eight years as President of the United States will leave him with more name recognition than he ever had before, and if the blind trust makes at-all-reasonable investments, he'll still have the wealth he had before, so he can rebuild a name-based business empire with no difficulty after he leaves office.
So it could be done. A billionaire becoming President faces hurdles that don't face an ordinary millionaire President like Clinton or Obama, but they'd be solvable with the aid of good lawyers. The candidate could even describe his plan for liquidation and the blind trust while campaigning, as evidence of his commitment to the public ahead of himself.
If, that is, he *were* committed to the public ahead of himself. Which alas is still only an imaginary world.