Gov. Katie Hobbs issued a ‘wake-up call’ on groundwater. Is anyone listening?
Joanna Allhands, Arizona Republic – January 11, 2023
Gov. Katie Hobbs give her State of the State address to the Arizona House of Representatives during the opening session of the 56th Legislature on Jan. 9, 2023, in Phoenix.
Gov. Katie Hobbs called it a “wake-up call” on water.
Whether it is remains to be seen.
The newly elected governor spent a good chunk of her first State of the State address talking about the “challenge of our time: Arizona’s decades-long drought, over usage of the Colorado River, and the combined ramifications on our water supply, our forests and our communities.”
She released a long-awaited model that shows parts of the far West Valley don’t have enough groundwater to sustain all users for the long term (more on that in a second).
And she called for swift action – particularly to address rural groundwater problems that have been festering for decades.
It’s the right tone, but will lawmakers agree?
Hobbs struck the tone that many in the water community have long sought from elected leaders – one that noted we’re not playing around, that there are consequential decisions we must make (and soon) to protect our dwindling water supplies.
There have been rumors aplenty about what may or may not be addressed this session, and right now, there are few answers, particularly on how far lawmakers might be willing to go on water regulation, something they have resisted for years.
Former Rep. Regina Cobb got nowhere on an effort to give rural communities more tools to manage groundwater use and more flexibility to choose which measures best fit their circumstances.
Retooled legislation is expected again this session, with more detail on how these new authorities would work with existing regulations.
And Hobbs is clearly pressing to have this discussion.
Hobbs’ council must have clear goals, deadlines
She told lawmakers she would convene a council to study ways to modernize and expand the Groundwater Management Act of 1980, which created Irrigation Non-expansion Areas and Active Management Areas, as well as an Assured Water Supply program that requires new subdivisions to prove they have a 100-year water supply before lots can be platted.
Hobbs also promised to include money in her proposed budget, due to be released later this week, to support rural communities that want to form Active Management Areas, the state’s most stringent form of groundwater regulation.
Granted, her predecessor created a council to study urban and rural groundwater management, but without strong direction and deadlines, it was generally where ideas went to die.
Hobbs cannot make the same mistake.
What if fast-growing areas can’t grow?
Because, as she correctly noted, real issues are beginning to manifest – even in metro Phoenix, where groundwater management is most robust.
Don’t overlook the significance of the report Hobbs released, one that she and others have claimed was withheld by former Gov. Doug Ducey.
The report found that the Lower Hassayampa groundwater subbasin – which contains Buckeye, one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation – is 4.4 million acre-feet shy of the groundwater it needs to service users for the long haul.
That’s roughly half of what a similar model found in the Pinal Active Management Area south of metro Phoenix. But presuming the state Department of Water Resources treats the Hassayampa subbasin’s imbalance the same way – meaning, it no longer allows developers to grow solely on groundwater – that could have major implications for Buckeye and the massive housing projects that have been proposed nearby.
New subdivisions would all but be shut down in that subbasin, under the state’s Assured Water Supply program, unless developers can secure and count renewable supplies toward their certificates, which are required to plat lots.
Arizona needed a call to arms. Now what?
Whether it’s real or not, there is a lot of fear that lawmakers will try to loosen the rules this session to maintain the status quo on growth in the outskirts, which has heavily relied on groundwater. Hobbs could certainly veto any such effort.
But if we agree to abide by the rules – and we should, because loosening them now would be disastrous for our negotiating position on even more painful Colorado River cuts – we’re going to have to rethink a lot of assumptions about how we continue to grow.
This is not going to be easy work.
Especially if Hobbs’ speech was not the wake-up call she hoped it would be. Or if Rep. Gail Griffin, the chair of the House natural resources committee, continues to be the brick wall upon which all new water regulation explodes.
The governor will need allies willing to go around that wall, if it remains.
But give Hobbs credit for issuing a call to arms. The days of allowing 80% of the state to pump indiscriminately, without ground rules to protect everyone, are over.
And even in areas with regulation, we need to up our game.
Arizona says developers lack groundwater for big growth dreams in the desert west of Phoenix
Brandon Loomis, Arizona Republic – January 11, 2023
The Tartesso community development borders the desert in Buckeye. It’s one of the last noticeable developments on the way out of the Phoenix area.
A newly released state report on groundwater supplies under the desert west of Phoenix signals difficulty ahead for developers wishing to build hundreds of thousands of homes there.
It also signals the start of an effort by Arizona’s new governor to shore up groundwater management statewide.
Gov. Katie Hobbs released the modeling report Monday afternoon, and it shows that plans to add homes for more than 800,000 people west of the White Tank Mountains will require other water sources if they are to go forward.
The Arizona Department of Water Resources had developed the model showing inadequate water for much of the development envisioned as far-west suburbs, but had not released it during then-Gov. Doug Ducey’s term. Hobbs mentioned it during her State of the State address, along with other initiatives, including a new council dedicated to updating the state’s 1980 groundwater protection act for a new era of scarcity.
Hobbs also announced a new Governor’s Office of Resiliency, coordinating agencies, tribal governments and experts in finding land, water and energy solutions for the state.
“We must talk about the challenge of our time: Arizona’s decades-long drought, over-usage of the Colorado River, and the combined ramifications on our water supply, our forests, and our communities,” the governor said.
In the case of development on the western edges of the urban area, the information her team released makes clear that developers who own desert expanses largely in Buckeye’s planning area north of Interstate 10 and west and north of the White Tank Mountains will need more water to make their visions come true.
The report, called the Lower Hassayampa Sub-basin Groundwater Model, finds that projected growth would more than double groundwater use and put it out of balance by 15%. The state’s groundwater law requires developers in the Phoenix area to get state certificates of assured water supplies extending out 100 years before they can build.
Arizona Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke on Monday said he would not issue new certificates for the area unless developers find secure water sources in addition to the local groundwater.
Some of the Buckeye subdivisions in the area already have certifications for homes that Buschatzke estimated number in the thousands, and that will combine to add 50,000 acre-feet of demand in a basin that already uses 123,000 acre-feet. The aquifer apparently can bear that amount, but not the 100,000 acre-foot demand that department analysts have attributed to hundreds of thousands more homes envisioned for the zone.
The Howard Hughes Corp. is a major player in the area, with 100,000 homes planned on 37,000 acres in the Teravalis development, formerly called Douglas Ranch.
The question of where developers might get the water to support such vast housing tracts has previously presented a mystery, with some developers merely saying they were confident in their prospects. The report the state released this week provides an initial answer: They won’t be finding that water solely in the aquifer below the land. Instead, they will have to find new ways of importing and possibly recycling water if they want to build out the property.
“Some of the big plans that are out there for master-planned communities will need to find other water supplies or other solutions,” Buschatzke said.
Contacted on Tuesday, Howard Hughes Corp. did not respond to an interview request, but did provide a statement from Phoenix Region President Heath Melton: “We support the Governor’s initiative to proactively manage Arizona’s future water supply and will continue to be a collaborative partner with our elected officials, civic agencies, and community stakeholders to drive forward the most modern water management and conservation techniques and help ensure a prosperous and sustainable future for the West Valley, Arizona, and the greater Southwest.”
For now, the groundwater deficiency could stall much building on the Valley’s far west side. But it also could foreshadow a push for big new infrastructure projects, such as an ocean desalination plant and pipeline proposal that a state water finance board has agreed to evaluate. That proposal, led by an Israeli company that has built or operated desalination plants around the world, would pipe water north from Mexico and through Buckeye on its way to the Central Arizona Project canal.
Other options include moving water from other areas, such as the Harquahala Valley to the west, or recycling wastewater, Buschatzke said. Those options could take years, though.
Buckeye officials sent a statement to The Arizona Republic saying they need time to study the report but will work to ensure sustainable growth: “Buckeye is committed to responsible and sustainable growth and working to ensure we have adequate water for new businesses and residents, while protecting our existing customers.”
Arizona State University water researcher Kathleen Ferris had called for the groundwater report’s release, and on Tuesday said she was delighted that Hobbs made it public. Ferris, with the school’s Kyl Center for Water Policy, is a past director of the Department of Water Resources and helped craft the 1980 groundwater law that requires a 100-year supply for new development.
“It’s a hugely important step,” Ferris said. “As the governor said, It’s about transparency and knowledge. We should not be allowing this growth to occur when the water isn’t there.”
Ferris said she counts herself among skeptics who don’t believe a desalination plant will come online quickly. The Colorado River’s drought-reduced storage means it can’t provide excess water to soon fill the gap in groundwater supplies, either. It doesn’t mean Buckeye can’t grow, she said, but finding the water to do so won’t be cheap or easy.
She cautioned, too, that other cities with stronger water portfolios are also on the lookout to snap up new water to secure their own futures.
Beyond Buckeye, Ferris said, Hobbs is right to push for better groundwater management statewide. The 1980 law applied mostly to urban areas, leaving vast areas of rural Arizona unregulated. The whole state doesn’t necessarily need the same 100-year-supply rule, Ferris said, but groundwater users everywhere should be responsible for tracking and reporting what they use. That would help the state know when it must act to conserve stressed aquifers, as it did this winter by halting expansion of irrigated farming around Kingman.
Any effort to address rural groundwater with statewide regulations is bound to face resistance in the Arizona Legislature, where lawmakers for several years have declined to extend state regulations to areas including Kingman. Voters in Cochise County approved a limited management area in November for one groundwater basin.
Whatever happens, Ferris said, the state is due for an honest conversation about where and by how much it can grow. She hopes the governor’s announcement is the start of such a reckoning. “We just can’t have subdivisions approved (solely) on groundwater,” she said.
One advocate for updating and strengthening groundwater protections around the state says she is encouraged that Hobbs has started her administration with moves to do just that.
“We are really encouraged and grateful that water is a top priority,” said Haley Paul, an Audubon Society regional policy director who co-chairs the Water for Arizona coalition.
The Hassayampa groundwater report demonstrates that Arizona needs to do something different now that it can’t rely on excess Colorado River water to backfill pumped groundwater, Paul said. Following a similar finding that has led groundwater depletion to limit Pinal County growth, she said, the report is “a reality check” on unlimited growth in the desert.
Brandon Loomis covers environmental and climate issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com.
Environmental coverage on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
US official warns of risks posed by heavy electric vehicles
Tom Krisher – January 11, 2023
FILE – Jennifer Homendy of the National Transportation Safety Board speaks during a news conference, Oct. 3, 2019, in Windsor Locks, Conn. On Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023, Homendy, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said she is concerned about the risk that heavy electric vehicles pose if they collide with lighter vehicles. (AP Photo/Chris Ehrmann, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
DETROIT (AP) — The head of the National Transportation Safety Board expressed concern Wednesday about the safety risks that heavy electric vehicles pose if they collide with lighter vehicles.
The official, Jennifer Homendy, raised the issue in a speech in Washington to the Transportation Research Board. She noted, by way of example, that an electric GMC Hummer weighs about 9,000 pounds (4,000 kilograms), with a battery pack that alone is 2,900 pounds (1,300 kilograms) — roughly the entire weight of a typical Honda Civic.
“I’m concerned about the increased risk of severe injury and death for all road users from heavier curb weights and increasing size, power, and performance of vehicles on our roads, including electric vehicles,” Homendy said in remarks prepared for the group.
The extra weight that EVs typically carry stems from the outsize mass of their batteries. To achieve 300 or more miles (480 or more kilometers) of range per charge from an EV, batteries have to weigh thousands of pounds.
Some battery chemistries being developed have the potential to pack more energy into less mass. But for now, there’s a mismatch in weight between EVs and smaller internal combustion vehicles. EVs also deliver instant power to their wheels, making them accelerate faster in most cases than most gas-powered cars, trucks and SUVs.
Homendy said she was encouraged by the Biden administration’s plans to phase out carbon emissions from vehicles to deal with the climate crisis. But she said she still worries about safety risks resulting from a proliferation of EVs on roads ands highways.
“We have to be careful that we aren’t also creating unintended consequences: More death on our roads,” she said. “Safety, especially when it comes to new transportation policies and new technologies, cannot be overlooked.”
Homendy noted that Ford’s F-150 Lightning EV pickup is 2,000 to 3,000 pounds (900 to 1,350 kilograms) heavier than the same model’s combustion version. The Mustang Mach E electric SUV and the Volvo XC40 EV, she said, are roughly 33% heavier than their gasoline counterparts.
“That has a significant impact on safety for all road users,” Homendy added.
The NTSB investigates transportation crashes but has no authority to make regulations. For vehicles, such authority rests largely with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Even apart from EVs, the nation’s roads are crowded with heavy vehicles, thanks to a decadelong boom in sales of larger cars, trucks and SUVs that’s led to extreme mismatches in collisions with smaller vehicles. But electric vehicles are typically much heavier than even the largest trucks and SUVs that are powered by gasoline or diesel.
Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said he, too, is concerned about the weight of EVs because buyers seem to be demanding a range of 300 or more miles per charge, requiring heavy batteries.
Setting up a charging network to accommodate that may be a mistake from a safety perspective, Brooks said.
“These bigger, heavier batteries are going to cause more damage,” he said. “It’s a simple matter of mass and speed.”
Brooks said he knows of little research done on the safety risks of increasing vehicle weights. In 2011, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a paper that said being hit by a vehicle with an added 1,000 pounds increases by 47% the probability of being killed in a crash.
He points out that electric vehicles have very high horsepower ratings, allowing them to accelerate quickly even in crowded urban areas. “People are not trained to handle that type of acceleration. It’s just not something that drivers are used to doing,” Brooks said.
Also, many newer electric SUVs are tall with limited visibility that poses risks to pedestrians or drivers of smaller vehicles, he said.
Sales of new electric vehicles in the U.S. rose nearly 65% last year to 807,000 — about 5.8% of all new vehicle sales. The Biden administration has set a goal of having EVs reach 50% of new vehicle sales by 2030 and is offering tax credits of up to $7,500 to get there. The consulting firm LMC Automotive has made a more modest prediction: It expects EVs to make up one-third of the new-vehicle market by 2030.
Comet last seen during Ice Age will be visible over Idaho. Here’s when and how to watch
Shaun Goodwin, Patrick McCreless, Genevieve Belmaker – January 11, 2023
A comet last visible by the naked eye when Neanderthals roamed the Earth should be observable in Idaho skies again soon.
The comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is passing through the inner solar system and will get closest to the sun on Jan. 12, according to space.com. The comet will continue to travel near the Earth, making its closest passage between Feb. 1 and Feb. 2.
The comet could be visible to the naked eye if it continues to brighten. Such a sight can be difficult to predict for comets, space.com states. However, even if the comet does dim a bit, it should still be visible with binoculars or a telescope for several days around its approach.
Though ancient, C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was only discovered by astronomers at the Zwicky Transient Facility at CalTech in March 2022. The facility operates at the Palomar Observatory at California’s Palomar Mountain, about 90 minutes northeast of San Diego.
The comet has a period of about 50,000 years, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory states. As such, the last time the comet came so close to the sun and Earth was during the last Ice Age, when humans and Neanderthals existed on the planet at the same time.
According to NASA, observers in Idaho and throughout the northern hemisphere should be able to find the comet in the morning sky as it travels northwest in late January.
Viewers should look for the comet when the moon is dim in the sky. The new moon on Jan. 21 will offer an excellent opportunity. Although the National Weather Service only provides accurate day-by-day forecasts five days out, the Climate Prediction Center predicts a 40-50% higher-than-normal chance for rain in the next eight to 14 days.
Although a higher chance of precipitation does not necessarily mean more cloud cover, clouds form when the atmosphere reaches its saturation point; more moisture in the atmosphere means a higher chance for clouds.
Brian Jackson, an associate professor at Boise State’s Physics Department, has previously told the Idaho Statesman that Camel’s Back Park in North Boise is an excellent spot to look toward the night sky. The park allows watchers to turn their backs on the light pollution from Boise and look out toward the Boise Mountains.
Jackson also recommended the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve in the Sun Valley, which offers one of the darkest night skies in the United States. The Light Pollution Map website also shows the best spots in Idaho to escape light pollution.
Weather Service meteorologist Josh Smith told the Statesman that Bogus Basin is an excellent place to stargaze and look for comets if there is cloud cover. Bogus Basin’s base sits at 5,800 feet, meaning it should be above any low cloud ceiling above the Treasure Valley.
What are comets?
Comets consist of ice and frozen gases, along with rocks and dust left after the solar system’s formation more than 4 billion years ago. They orbit the sun in highly elliptical orbits. When a comet approaches the sun, it heats up quickly, causing some ice to turn into gas. This heated gas and dust are what form a comet’s tail.
Why Trump loyalist went to prison rather than blame the boss
Nada Tawfik – BBC News, New York – January 10, 2023
Allen Weisselberg worked for former President Donald Trump for decades (file image)
Former US President Donald Trump’s long-serving chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, has been sentenced to five months in jail for his role in a tax fraud scheme.
Weisselberg, 75, was given a shorter-than-expected jail term after agreeing to a plea deal in which he served as a prosecutor’s witness against the Trump Organization.
But Mr Trump had little reason to fear that Weisselberg’s testimony in the autumn trial would harm him or overshadow his announcement in mid-November that he was launching another run for president.
Indeed, as expected, his employee – who started with his father Fred Trump and who was one of the first to join his company in 1986 – remained loyal even under immense pressure.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html
While Mr Trump sounded off on social media, pinning the fraud scheme on Weisselberg, he continued to offer him his support in arguably more meaningful ways. Jurors heard how the Trump Organization was still paying Weisselberg his same salary under the title senior adviser, covering his legal fees, and recently celebrated his birthday in the office.
“In a normal organisation, a corrupt CFO would be terminated and thrown out the door,” says Professor Maurice Schweitzer from the Wharton School of Business. “And you would want to separate and preserve the integrity of the institution. In this case, it’s the exact opposite.”
The trial provided a fascinating insight into the relationship between the loyal lieutenant and his boss – as well as prosecutors’ efforts to try to turn one against the other by threatening Weisselberg with a lengthy sentence at Rikers Island.
Weisselberg is expected to report to the notorious New York prison to begin serving his sentence immediately.
His attorney, Nicholas Gravante, said after Tuesday’s hearing: “He deeply regrets the lapse in judgment that resulted in his conviction, and he regrets it most because of the pain it has caused his loving wife, his sons and wonderful grandchildren.”
Under the plea deal, Weisselberg admitted to 15 felonies including tax evasion, and must pay nearly $2m (£1.65m) in fines in addition to the five-month prison term.
But without the deal, he could have faced as much as 15 years in prison.
But despite prosecutors’ focus on Mr Trump, Weisselberg refused to co-operate with the wider investigation into the former president and his business practices.
The question of what Mr Trump potentially knew about executives deceiving the tax authorities and not properly reporting benefits became a persistent and tricky one throughout the trial given he was not personally charged with wrongdoing.
Weisselberg prepared for his testimony with both the prosecution and the defence, an unusual arrangement. The Trump Organization’s lawyers repeatedly argued during the trial that he was motivated by greed, and that “Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg”. The defence strategy, in a nutshell, was that the former CFO was not shown the door because he was regarded as a family member, “a prodigal son”.
Prosecutors throughout the trial carefully tried to extract concessions from Weisselberg to bolster their case, while also poking holes in his story that Mr Trump and the business knew nothing of his 15-year tax dodging scheme. They walked the jury through how Weisselberg joined Mr Trump from day one and rose from accountant to controller to CFO. He had deep knowledge of all of the financial workings of the business as it grew. His testimony was key to exposing corruption and fraud at the Trump Organization and gave insight into how the family operated.
On the stand, he teared up as he was asked: “Did you betray the trust that was placed in you?”
“I did,” he answered.
Defence lawyer Alan Futerfas continued: “Are you embarrassed by what you did?”
“More than you can imagine,” he replied.
The man who Mr Trump once described as tough to contestants on an episode of The Apprentice, his old reality show, appeared timid and nervous.
A source close to the case insists Weisselberg’s testimony under oath was truthful and that he chose not to make up stories about Mr Trump. “That’s just common moral decency. And it’s also consistent with the rule of law, you should not make up lies about someone and then offer to give that testimony, which is perjury, just to improve your own legal situation after you have messed up in order to try to get a reduced sentence,” the source told the BBC.
His determination to take blame, however, did not convince the jury, which unanimously decided to convict the Trump Organization. Nor did it convince former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner, who got the impression that the 75-year-old was very scared. “He was hoping to be able to placate Donald Trump by his testimony. And I took those tears to be self-pity for fear that he is going to be frozen out of Trump World,” said Mr Epner.
Prof Schweitzer says the dynamics at play in this trial were in line with Mr Trump’s management style, what academics refer to as a “dominant” leader.
“There’s broadly two kinds of leaders, there are leaders who gain status because of their expertise and wisdom and capabilities, and there are leaders who maintain their positions of power because of dominance,” says Prof Schweitzer.
“Basically, they pull levers of rewards and punishments to coerce or compel people to do what they want.”
Mr Trump has been successful throughout his business and political career figuring out “loyalty levers to reward friends and hammer foes”, says Prof Schweitzer.
The former president has a history of rewarding those who stand by him and attacking those who don’t. Before he left office, he pardoned several of his former aides of their convictions, including his National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, his ex-adviser Roger Stone and his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
On social media, President Trump praised Manafort for not “breaking” like his former lawyer Michael Cohen. Cohen and Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates were convicted in the Mueller probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, but both co-operated with prosecutors. They, to the surprise of no-one, did not get pardons from Mr Trump.
Weisselberg stands behind Mr Pence and the former president at Trump Tower in New York in 2017
The former president’s treatment of Mike Pence is another example of how he places loyalty above other values. Mr Trump reportedly told the former vice-president not to “wimp out” and to not certify the results of the 2020 election, according to an excerpt from Mr Pence’s book. He recounts Mr Trump asking him: “If it gives you the power, why would you oppose it?”
Prof Schweitzer says both Mr Trump and Weisselberg were shaped by the era of ’80s New York and the mindset that greed is good. “Greed was celebrated and endorsed in a way that it is not today, we had different mindsets about this wild west of capitalism,” he says. “Things that we are saying are illegal were common practice. These men really enjoyed the privileges that came with being a very powerful, wealthy person in the 1980s who were not constrained by the rules that bound the rest of us.”
Mr Epner agrees. “The New York real estate business has been a dirty business for not decades, but centuries. And he [Mr Trump] was part and parcel of the dirty part of the NY real estate business and then he shone the biggest spotlight in the world on himself [with the presidency].”
On the final day of the trial, Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said during closing statements that the evidence had shown that Mr Trump knew exactly what was going on. He reminded the jury of that evidence, including a memo the former president initialled authorising a pay cut for another executive for the exact amount of his perk, rent paid by the company.
“Mr Trump explicitly sanctioning tax fraud! That’s what this document shows,” Mr Steinglass said.
To many, it begged the question why the former president, who built his entire reputation and bravado off the back of his namesake company, wasn’t charged, too. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office says investigations into Mr Trump are ongoing.
President Biden slams ‘reckless bill’ from Republicans to reverse funding for the IRS and its 87,000 new hires — here’s how it could impact you
Serah Louis – January 11, 2023
President Biden slams ‘reckless bill’ from Republicans to reverse funding for the IRS and its 87,000 new hires — here’s how it could impact you
Washington’s lawmakers have come back from their holiday break swinging.
After a days-long speaker standoff, Republicans in the House have moved on to their next priority: clawing back funds from the IRS.
President Joe Biden had included increased funding for the IRS in the Inflation Reduction Act to help the agency catch sneaky tax evaders — especially those high-earners who love to find loopholes. Advocates believe the increased funding could raise as much as $1 trillion by forcing tax cheats to pay their dues, especially after years of budget cuts have gutted the system.
But on Jan. 9, Republicans introduced and passed a bill to rescind that $80 billion in funding.
While it’s likely to be struck down by the Democrat-controlled Senate, and Biden’s office has already voiced his intentions to veto “this reckless bill” if it makes it to his desk, it’s still a strong statement from Republican lawmakers.
Meanwhile, at the center of this political football is an overworked and understaffed tax agency. And whoever wins the power struggle in Washington, experts say taxpayers could be the ones left holding the bag.
The IRS desperately needs the support
The $80 billion in funding spread over the next 10 years would help the IRS modernize its infrastructure, increase enforcement and replace its aging workforce (50,000 of the IRS’s 80,000 workers are expected to leave in the next five years).
A Treasury Department report from May 2021 estimates the extra money would allow the agency to hire around 87,000 new employees — which could include revenue agents and customer service and IT staff — by 2031.
The agency has reportedly been underfunded by about 20% for a decade — leading it to cut back on both staff and technology updates.
The customer service department has been woefully short-staffed as well. During the 2022 filing season, the IRS received around 73 million phone calls from taxpayers — but only 10% were actually answered.
“The combination of more than 21 million unprocessed paper tax returns, more than 14 million math error notices, eight-month backlogs in processing taxpayer correspondence, and extraordinary difficulty reaching the IRS by phone made this filing season particularly challenging,” national taxpayer advocate Erin M. Collins wrote in her 2022 midyear report to Congress.
On top of these issues, former IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig estimated in 2021 that the agency is losing $1 trillion in unpaid taxes each year — particularly due to evasion from the rich and big businesses. He also indicated they could be slipping through the cracks in part due to the lightly regulated cryptocurrency market, foreign source income and abuse of pass-through provisions.
Rettig has long pushed for increased funding “to bring on the fire-breathing dragons” to take cheaters to task.
Could bolstering enforcement do more harm than good?
Supporters argue the funding will help close the “tax gap” by helping catch more evaders.
From the total $80 billion, $45.6 billion has been allotted for increased enforcement — which would go toward hiring more enforcement agents, providing legal support and investing in “investigative technology” to determine who should or shouldn’t be audited.
But not everyone is thrilled with the news.
“They’re not going to get this ‘magic money,’” Brian Reardon told Bloomberg. Reardon is the president of the S Corporation Association, which represents small, privately-owned businesses that pass taxes onto their shareholders.
“If you dial up enforcement on people who are otherwise following the rules and paying what they owe, you create resentment and anger. You undermine people’s confidence in the tax system.”
However, the Biden administration maintains that the increased enforcement will be focused on the ultra wealthy and large corporations, and isn’t intended for small businesses or households who earn less than $400,000 a year.
Research from the Department of Treasury indicates that the top 1% of Americans could be dodging as much as $163 billion in taxes each year.
That being said, if the increased budget is approved, Eli Akhavan, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson in New York, says he expects audits will go up. But he’s been telling his wealthy clients they “have nothing to worry about other than some headaches,” provided they’re following good advice and have their “ducks in a row.”
“If there’s nothing to find, there’s nothing to find,” Akhavan says.
Here’s why the House GOP made defunding the IRS its first priority
Ben Werschkul, Washington Correspondent – January 10, 2023
The House GOP’s first policy bill out of the gate didn’t address inflation or gas prices or immigration, but instead went after the Internal Revenue Service.
The bill was passed Monday evening on a straight party line vote of 221 to 210 to reverse much of the $80 billion in extra funding set aside for the agency by 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act.
While it has little chance of it being enacted anytime soon with Democrats in control of the Senate and President Biden promising a veto, the prominence of the issue shows just how much the IRS has become a heated target of Republicans. That’s despite experts saying the funds in question would go toward prosaic concerns like helping the agency chase down tax cheats and refresh its outdated technology.
The enhanced funding for the IRS is “part of the broad Biden administration strategy to tax and audit exponentially more Americans,” said Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE) as debate got underway on Monday. He added that the bill would “stops autopilot funding for an out-of-control government agency that is perhaps most in need of reform.”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy then announced the final results of the vote once it had passed, noting that it had been a GOP promise.
Newly-elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy finally won the gavel early on Saturday morning after a protracted fight. (Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
‘Absolutely false’ viral claims
The claim from countless Republicans, from Speaker McCarthy on down, is that the influx of money will lead to a flood of 87,000 new IRS agents who will then turn and harass everyday Americans. Some critics of the agency go even further and claim these new agents will be armed.
The viral claims are “absolutely false,” Rettig wrote at the time, adding his agency “is often perceived as an easy target for mischaracterizations,” but he promised the new money will not lead to increased audit scrutiny on households making under $400,000.
The plan is instead for much of the money to go toward wealthy tax cheats. IRS estimates of the so-called “tax gap” — the difference between what taxes are owed to the government and what is actually paid — is hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
Much of the $80 billion will be focused on taking a bite out of the gap, focusing on wealthy tax payers. The investment is projected to pay for itself and then bring in over $100 billion in increased tax revenue over the coming decade.
By contrast, a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office released Monday afternoon found that the net effect of the House GOP bill’s to defund the agency would increase the deficit by more than $114.3 billion over the coming decade if enacted.
With the new funding, the IRS could hire an estimated 86,852 new employees, according to a May 2021 report by the Department of Treasury, but many of those would not be agents. Many would work in other areas like information technology.
And nearly all new agents would be unarmed. Very few IRS agents carry weapons as part of their responsibilities. Some of the hires may also be used to replace thousands of existing IRS workers expected to retire in the coming years.
Nonetheless, claims of a flood of new agents have persisted, repeated by figures ranging from the GOP chairwoman to Elon Musk.
The chronically understaffed IRS has until recently been a bipartisan concern, but the increased funding became an issue during the 2022 campaign and played into conservative suspicions of the agency that have been growing for years.
Conservatives have long claimed the IRS targeted the tax-exempt status of political groups during the Obama administration, while a 2017 Treasury report on the controversy found that groups on both sides of the political spectrum had faced scrutiny.
‘The average American cares about defunding 87,000 IRS agents’
This week’s vote comes just as Danny Werfel is set to return this year as IRS Commissioner, leading the agency’s revamp.
The newly elected chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Jason Smith (R-MO), said in a statement Monday that Werfel “should plan to spend a lot of time before our committee answering questions about the leaking of sensitive taxpayer information and an agency with a history of targeting conservative Americans.”
In a recent Fox News appearance, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) additionally argued that “the average American cares about defunding 87,000 IRS agents.”
An Internal Revenue Service building in Washington, DC. (KAREN BLEIER/AFP via Getty Images)
On the other side, Democrats repeatedly attacked Republicans for holding a vote on the bill and also for making it their first priority, implying they will use it against Republicans in the coming years.
In a statement calling the move a giveaway to rich tax cheats, Vice President Kamala Harris said House Republicans were trying to undo recent progress under Democrats and hoping to allow “millionaires, billionaires, and corporations to cheat the system.”
This post has been updated.
Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
1st bill out of new GOP-majority House would cut $71 billion from IRS, cost $114 billion
Peter Weber, Senior editor – January 9, 2023
Kevin McCarthy Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
House Republicans passed their first bill of the 118th Congress on Monday night, voting along party lines to cut $71 billion from the IRS. The legislation will not be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Biden said Monday he would veto the cuts if they somehow arrived at his desk. Before the vote, the Congressional Budget Office said the legislation would increase the federal deficit by $114 billion over the next 10 years.
Democrats approved $80 million in IRS funding in the Inflation Reduction Act last year. The IRS says the money will be used to hire 87,000 new employees over the next 10 years, upgrade the agency’s antiquated technology, and beef up enforcement of tax laws on taxpayers earning more than $400,000 a year. Many of the 87,000 new IRS workers will be in customer service, to answer taxpayer questions, the Biden administration says, and others would replace the 50,0000 IRS agents expected to quit or retire in the coming years.
House Republicans promised to prioritize cutting those funds, arguing they will be used to harass middle class taxpayers and “create a ‘shadow army’ to shake down small businesses with assault rifles,” The New York Times reports. “Our very first bill will repeal the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Saturday morning, shortly after being elected speaker on the 15th ballot. “You see, we believe government should be to help you, not go after you.”
Former IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, a Republican appointed by former President Donald Trump, said last November that the new investments in his understaffed agency would make it “even less likely for honest taxpayers to hear from the IRS or receive an audit letter.” Treasury Department spokeswoman Ashley Schapitl said Monday that “the IRS audits nearly 80 percent fewer millionaires than a decade ago,” and the House bill “would deny the agency much-needed resources to hire top talent to go after the $163 billion in taxes avoided by the top 1 percent annually.”
“The only way that House Republicans could make it any more obvious that they’re doing a favor for wealthy tax cheats is by coming out and saying it in exactly those words,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. “This bill is going nowhere in the Senate.”
Grand jury in Georgia delivers report on Trump, charges could come in next few months
Michael Isikoff, Chief Investigative Correspondent – January 9, 2023
Former President Donald Trump at a rally in Commerce, Ga., in March of last year. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
A Georgia special grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state has delivered its report to local judges, paving the way for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to potentially bring criminal charges against the former president and some of his allies in the next few months.
The special grand jury completed its work late last year after taking testimony from dozens of witnesses — including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. — who never testified before the House committee investigating Jan. 6. But Willis never subpoenaed Trump himself to testify, apparently concluding that it would needlessly bog down her investigation with legal motions and other court challenges from the former president.
Willis herself is expected to get a copy of the report sometime on Monday. The Fulton County judge overseeing the case, Robert McBurney, filed an order Monday morning with the court declaring that the special grand jury — which had been convened at Willis’s request and began taking testimony last June — had completed its work.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney instructs potential jurors during proceedings in May of last year. (Ben Gray/AP)
“It is the ORDER of this Court that the special purpose grand jury now stands DISSOLVED,” McBurney wrote in his order. “The Court thanks the grand jurors for their dedication, professionalism, and significant commitment of time and attention to this important matter. It was no small sacrifice to serve.”
McBurney also scheduled a hearing for Jan. 24, to determine if portions of the report or the entire document can be made public. Under Georgia law, special grand juries such as the one Willis convened can conduct investigations and make recommendations about whether to bring criminal charges. But for such charges to be formally filed, Willis will have to present the evidence to a regular grand jury — a process that could take several more months.
“This is a major milestone,” Norm Eisen, a Brookings Institution fellow who served as an adviser to the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Trump, told Yahoo News. “I think it’s safe to say that charges are likely — but not certain — against Trump and a single-digit number of co-conspirators.”
At a minimum, Willis’s probe appears to be on a faster track than a broader U.S. Department of Justice investigation into Trump’s conduct relating to the 2020 presidential election and the events of Jan. 6. That investigation is now being overseen by a special counsel, Jack Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. (Smith, who had been serving as an international war crimes prosecutor in the Hague, only recently returned to the United States following his recuperation from a bicycle accident.)
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, right, talks with a member of her team during proceedings to seat a special purpose grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., last May. (Ben Gray/AP)
Willis first announced her probe in early 2021, after the disclosure of then-President Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urging him to “find” enough votes to flip the state’s electoral votes from Joe Biden to Trump. Since then, she has expanded the probe to include related schemes in the state, including the appointment of so-called fake electors pledged to Trump and who were convened by Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer at the state capital on Dec. 14, 2020.
Willis has strongly hinted that she was examining whether to use Georgia’s broad racketeering law to bring conspiracy charges against Trump and his allies. Like many other details in the special grand jury’s still secret report, it is not clear whether the grand jurors themselves recommended that approach.
But Eisen said it is not a surprise that Willis chose not to call Trump before the special grand jury. “We all know that Trump would never have cooperated,” he said. “So why bother?”
Kim Jong-un’s midlife crisis: ‘He’s crying after drinking a lot’
Nicola Smith – January 8, 2023
In heroic mode, Kim Jong-un rides a white horse to climb Mount Paektu near the border with China – KCNA via KNS
A distinct puncture hole on a fleshy right forearm, seen just inside the sleeve of a boxy Mao suit. This tiny mark, when first spotted on Kim Jong-un in May 2020, caused an instant reaction among observers of the North Korean regime. Was it the trace of an IV drip? A giveaway of surgery? At the very least, it was an unusual sign of vulnerability in a man who rules his nation with a suffocating grasp.
The needle mark was seen on footage shortly after Kim had been out of public view the previous month. Rumours had circulated that he was either dead or in a vegetative state. When he was finally seen, touring a fertiliser factory, foreign medical observers concluded the wound could be related to a cardiovascular procedure, possibly for a stent placement.
The truth never emerged. So furtive is Kim about his health that on rare trips abroad he travels with his own toilets, to prevent foreign intelligence services scouring his excretions for clues. But the dramatic weight loss that followed his 2020 health scare, possibly due to bariatric surgery, is proof that even dictators must endure the trials of middle age.
This month, according to our best guesses, Kim turns 40. It’s indicative of how little the outside world knows about him that conflicting sources will put him at 39 or even 38. Either way, the approach of his fifth decade brings new anxieties.
Kim Jong-un turns 40 – Benjamin Swanson
‘He probably feels more mortal now than he did three years ago, and he had Covid earlier this year apparently as well,’ says Peter Ward, a North Korea expert and post-doctoral researcher at Seoul’s Kookmin University.
The regime itself appears to have acknowledged Kim’s mortality, quietly creating the unprecedented role of ‘first secretary’ – a de facto deputy – in the ruling party hierarchy. ‘It seems to be because they are concerned about managing another illness,’ says Ward.
Since 2011, Kim has secured his power base, brutally putting down any threat to his rule. But the impact of a global financial crisis and sanctions on the North Korean economy – along with climate change wreaking havoc on farming – could present the leader with his toughest decade yet, thinks Ward.
Adding to the pressure on Kim will be the battle to block the influx and spread of information that could destabilise his strictly curated persona. To North Koreans, Kim is sold as a benevolent provider and semi-divine figure who inspires devotion and fear.https://www.youtube.com/embed/iKM8C829oN8?enablejsapi=1&modestbranding=1&origin=http://www.telegraph.co.uk&rel=0
To the rest of the world, he is almost a figure of ridicule. Last March, when he appeared in a Top Gun-style propaganda movie, clad in a shiny leather jacket and aviator shades while walking past a monster missile – all in dramatic slow motion – he was mocked by the West.
Yet the threat he poses globally is no joke. One muggy Pyongyang morning in August 2017, Lindsey Miller was woken at 6am by a deep rumbling. Her body shook as she ran out to the garden to look into the sky. ‘It sounded like an aeroplane going overhead but it didn’t fade away,’ she recalls now.
The author of North Korea: Like Nowhere Else, Miller lived in Pyongyang from 2017 to 2019 with her diplomat husband. She is one of the few Westerners to have experienced the roar of a North Korean ballistic missile test as a Hwasong-12 took off from the capital’s airport.
City residents carried on normally, Miller recalls. ‘The thing that made me more nervous was the response internationally. I was scared,’ she says. ‘It felt like a very real sense of danger.’ Diplomats were told to pack a bag in case of an emergency exit. ‘There were North Koreans who said how stressed they felt. They were worried about the potential for real war breaking out,’ she adds.
Kim seems set on raising the stakes. Since January 2022, he has test-launched an unprecedented volley of ballistic and cruise missiles, including a purported hypersonic weapon and his largest missile, the Hwasong-17, designed to carry a nuclear warhead more than 9,300 miles, within reach of the US mainland.
A satellite image taken over Wonsan in 2020 – Reuters
There had been a respite from aggression in 2018, during talks between Kim and then-US President Donald Trump. But the cycle of intense military escalation has since resumed; intelligence officials now warn Kim is gearing up for a seventh nuclear test, possibly a tactical weapon, and further confrontation with Seoul, Washington and the West.
So, what could Kim Jong-un be capable of?
In Asia, the significance of turning 40 is an expectation that a person ‘does not waver in their judgements’, explains Chun In-bum, a former lieutenant general in the South Korean army. ‘Kim Jong-un’s legacy is a Maoist, Stalinist legacy,’ says Chun. ‘So if he is 40, he is probably going to think that, “My path is the right path”… He is going to be more convinced of who he is and he will be very hard line.’
A tendency towards ruthless determination was already evident in Kim as a child. ‘He had such an abnormal childhood and was raised in such a dysfunctional family, there is really no other way that he could have turned out,’ says North Korea expert Anna Fifield. ‘From a very early age he was treated like a princeling in a way that not even the British Royal family would be.’
Fifield’s 2019 biography, The Great Successor, pieces together his life story. As a child Kim knew he would be handed the keys to the kingdom, after his dictator father Kim Jong-il identified him as more suitable for iron-fisted rule than his older brothers.
The stunning vistas along the eastern coastal resort of Wonsan provided the backdrop for Kim’s early years, which he spent sequestered in opulent villas with high iron gates. The vast property still plays a special role in his playboy lifestyle.
Kim’s decadence may be concealed from his hungry subjects, but high-resolution satellite imagery allows the world to view his expanding property empire. Recent pictures of the Wonsan enclave have revealed four cruise ships and a marina, with 10 villas dotting a 530m-long white sandy beach and manicured gardens. One boat is 80m in length and is said to boast dual twisting water slides.
He married Ri Sol-ju in 2008, and is thought to have three children. The Kim family enjoys as many as 30 luxury villas, and several private islands, according to Bruce Songhak Chung of South Korea’s Kyungpook National University. And in September, new verified images showed the expansion of ornate buildings at Kim’s lakeside mansion in South Pyongan province.
Kim Jong-un and his daughter pose in front of the Hwasong-17 ‘monster missile’ – KCNA/Reuters
But now Kim faces the challenge to all midlifers: how to mitigate the threat he poses to himself. Overweight, a heavy smoker (of local brand 7.27 cigarettes) and drinker (he prefers fine spirits and expensive French wines), he frequently ignores the advice of his doctors and wife to exercise and cut back on indulgences. His father died at the age of 69. Kim’s long absences from the public eye suggest he is dealing with an array of serious health problems.
‘I heard he is crying after drinking a lot. He is very lonely and under pressure,’ says Dr Choi Jinwook, a Seoul-based North Korea academic.
In November, Kim unexpectedly pushed his ‘beloved daughter’ Kim Ju-ae into the spotlight. In her first introduction to the world, Kim was seen gently holding her hand in choreographed photographs as they inspected a new intercontinental ballistic missile. Analysts were left guessing about his message. Was the girl in the white puffy jacket and red shoes his heir? Or simply a prop to humanise him? Ju-ae, who was born in 2012, would be too young to take over in the event of his sudden death.
There is wide consensus among observers that the role would temporarily fall to his ambitious younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, who has often been spotted at his side, carrying his files or even his ashtray. ‘Family interests come first,’ says Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, and an authority on North Korea.
There are no reliable estimates of Kim’s personal fortune – in 2013, South Korean media suggested it could be $5 billion – but his personal assets grow even as dangerous levels of hunger rise in the nation of 26 million.
Last year, he warned citizens to brace for a crisis similar to the 1990s famine, which is believed to have killed up to 3.5 million people. In an interview with me last year, Professor Hazel Smith of the Centre for Korea Studies at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies confirmed that food insecurity is now at a similar level. ‘The conditions that we had in the famine years that precipitated malnutrition are in place today,’ she said. ‘There is starvation in North Korea right now.’
Kim Jong-un watching a Hwasong-12 missile launch
The crisis has been building for years thanks to the Kim family’s mismanagement of the agriculture sector and a centralised system that focuses heavily on providing food for the military and political elites, at the cost of the general population.
In 2019 and 2020, a string of typhoons hammered harvests and sent the cost of maize and rice soaring. ‘There is obviously climate change and long run environmental impacts,’ says Ward. ‘The point is their inability to handle them and the fragility of their supply system is not an environmental issue per se.’
Shortages grew in 2021 even as the pandemic forced the UN’s World Food Programme to suspend operations in the country. It warned that another poor harvest meant the North Korean population, already 40 per cent undernourished, would be short of about 860,000 tonnes of food that year.
Add in the impact of global sanctions and plunging trade with China due to border closures, and by June 2022, the South’s government-backed Korea Development Institute was warning the isolated North could fall into a ‘famine in silence’.
Naturally, Kim has never gone hungry. He was shielded from the 1990s famine as a child in his Wonsan paradise, with huge playrooms filled with toys and kitchens full of pastries and tropical fruits. Yet Fifield’s biography quotes Kenji Fujimoto, a Japanese sushi chef who spent years serving the Kims, as saying that a precocious Kim endured a solitary childhood, cut off without playmates.
Aged 12, he turned up with a ‘pudding-bowl haircut’ under the alias Pak-un at a $20,000-a-year international school in Bern, Switzerland. His maternal aunt and uncle Ko Yong Suk and Ri Gang cared for him and his older brother Jong-chol, later defecting to run a dry-cleaning business outside New York. ‘We lived in a normal house and acted like a normal family,’ Ko told Fifield. ‘I made snacks for the kids. They ate cake and played with Legos.’
Kim, though, was short-tempered, stubborn and intolerant. Classmates from the school recalled a loner who displayed frustration at his academic weaknesses. ‘He kicked us in the shins and even spat at us,’ recounts one in the biography. Others remembered his aggressiveness and trash talk on the basketball court. But his Portuguese friend João Micaelo described him as quiet, decisive and ambitious.
In 1998, Kim’s privileged European bubble imploded after his mother was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer; he returned home to face his destiny, taking on his father’s mantle after his death. His youth and Western education raised hopes that he might be more inclined towards reform, but those expectations quickly fizzled.
‘He realised if he was just treated normally, he wouldn’t be anyone,’ says Fifield. ‘He needed to keep this system completely intact, or his family would lose all of its power and status.’
Kim Jong-un’s 11 years in power have been defined by inhumanity and a determination to establish his reclusive regime as a nuclear state. The glimpse of Kim at the 2018 Singapore Summit, greeting Donald Trump with a wide smile, was all part of an act, says Fifield. ‘The real Kim Jong-un is the one that lives in Pyongyang and is Machiavellian,’ she says. ‘He is trying to strike fear into the heart of the populace and the top officials of the regime, to make sure that they don’t think about crossing him but also to generate the other half of the Machiavellian equation – which is love.
‘He completely played Donald Trump like a fiddle… all of it was designed to bolster his legitimacy at home and give him that brag book of photos where he could show people of North Korea that he is respected and treated as an equal by all these other leaders.’
Meeting with then US President Donald Trump in June 2019 – AFP
His wife Ri Sol-ju – described by Fifield as the ‘Kate Middleton’ of North Korea in the sense that she is an aspirational yet approachable figure – is said to have tried to modernise the dynasty. She was even seen holding hands with the South Korean First Lady at a summit in 2018. But Kim operates with a chilling cruelty.
Nine years ago he reportedly ordered the execution of his influential uncle and mentor Jang Song-thaek, accusing him of treason. Unconfirmed reports suggest Jang was mown down by anti-aircraft guns, and his body incinerated with flamethrowers. The facts were hazy, but the message was clear. It was reinforced in 2017 by his alleged decision to murder his half-brother Kim Jong-nam at Kuala Lumpur airport using a nerve agent.
Lankov describes Kim as a sometimes capricious, but rational ‘third-generation CEO’; a man prepared to be brutal internally, while also building a nuclear weapons deterrent in order to protect himself and his family from foreign invasion. ‘His goal is very simple – to die a natural death in his palace, decades later. He wants to stay in power. He understands… if he loses power, very soon he will probably lose his life and everyone who he loves,’ Lankov says. ‘He is protecting his life, not lifestyle.’
Heading a meeting of the Workers’ Party of Korea last May
Having neutralised the North Korean elites, whose prosperity is entwined with his fate, Kim tried to prevent a popular uprising by enforcing ‘information isolation’. Jihyun Park, 54, a defector and human rights activist who now lives in Manchester, tells me that as a child growing up under Kim Jong-il’s reign, she had no concept of how desperate the North Korean situation was. At school they were ‘brainwashed’ and ‘we believed everything we were told’.
Back then, in the pre-internet era, indoctrination was easier. Kim, while established as royal stock, has a more fragile cult of personality than his father and grandfather, Kim Il-sung, the nation’s founder. The younger Kim’s propaganda is less impressive, reduced to outlandish tales of learning to drive aged three, or a purported ability to control the weather. The first known mural depicting Kim’s exploits – digging at a greenhouse complex – has only recently appeared. It pales in comparison to the resplendent statues of his father and grandfather.
Hanna Song, from the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights in Seoul, said Kim’s youthful interest in technology is also a double-edged sword. He has to keep the younger, tech-savvy generation under control, through draconian laws and punishments for ‘anti-socialist behaviour’. In 2021, he unleashed a crackdown on ‘words, acts, hairstyle and attire of young people’ and a fresh ban on unsanctioned videos, broadcasts and speaking in a ‘South Korean’ style. Radio possession risks years in prison, and access to the open internet is blocked, allowing only a heavily censored state intranet.
Song said defectors’ motivations have shifted, from basic survival in the early 2000s to a new disillusionment with the leadership. ‘We’ve heard about North Koreans who are similar ages to Kim Jong-un who just couldn’t believe they had to serve a leader with his little experience,’ she says.
There could be one more astounding plot twist – and it’s a development that will only add to Kim’s mounting anxieties. In 2017, after his father Kim Jong-nam was poisoned in Malaysia, a young man called Kim Han-sol was spirited out of Macau, via Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, to an unknown destination. He is Kim Jong-un’s nephew.
Now 27, is he the other Kim being groomed in the wings for leadership at the earliest opportunity?
‘He seems to be somewhere in Europe being protected and taken care of, which I think is a great thing to do,’ former lieutenant general Chun tells me, ‘because we need him for some eventualities that might occur in North Korea. I am glad somebody is looking that far ahead.’
