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| President Donald (mocking J) Trump |
Since this is such a general statement of unproven fact, we thought it would make sense to review those things that the Trump Presidency has done for you.
The Trump Administration has published a list that it considers accomplishments of Donald Trump. They range from taking credit for 400,000 manufacturing jobs being created in three years to eliminating regulations. The complete list is found at http://whitehouse.gov/trump-administration-accomplishments/.
In order to discuss how these "accomplishments" really hurt average Americans, I have grouped them into categories as follows:
1. Job related
2. Regulation related
3. Tax cut related
4. Health related
5. Energy related
6. Armed forces related
7. Judiciary related
8. Export/Import related
9. Immigration related
Job related accomplishments
Trump is taking credit for the growth in jobs, which amounted to 4,000,000 jobs since his election. Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs since the recovery from the "great recession" of 2007, have been maintaining the same rate of growth. This growth rate was started due to the economic successes of the Obama administration in dealing with the greatest financial crisis since the great depression. The most Trump should take credit for related to job growth is that he hasn't yet had a downturn in job growth rate during his first term.
Regulation related
Trump boasts that he has made it easier for businesses by reducing regulations. What he doesn't admit is that in many cases, those regulations were created to protect the environment and the Americans that must live in it. The Trump administration has reversed or is in process of reversing a total of ninety-five environmental regulations on pollution, toxic substances and safety and water purity. In many cases, this was done in an underhanded manner where the administration failed to provide a legal argument for the changes and skipped steps in the process such as notifying the public and asking for public comment. It has been estimated by the New York University Law School's State Energy and Environmental Impact Center that the increase in greenhouse gases and emissions from these regulation changes alone could lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths every year from air pollution and many more from the eventual damage to the earth through climate change.
One can read the details of some of these and other reversed regulations on the Brookings Institute site. Reviewing these regulation reversals makes it seem Trump thinks making America great again includes returning to a time when pollution was rampant. It also shows that he honors oil and gas company lobbyists much more than he values life.
Tax cut related
Trump is very proud of his tax cut program. He boasts that it is the biggest tax cut in history. But when one takes a closer look into the bill, one can understand why most Democrats view it as a tax scam. Briefly, the tax cuts created will deliver over $1.7 trillion dollars to the ultra rich in the next ten years. That is a very small percentage of Americans with income in the millions of dollars. The bill is written so that it continues indefinitely for the ultra rich, but will stop it's small benefit to the rest of us in 2025. It has been estimated that nearly 87% of all benefits of the tax scam bill go to the ultra-rich and Corporate America.
Additionally, the GOP tax scam bill will increase the United States deficit by trillions of dollars. This plays perfectly into GOP leadership hands as they will now have a reason for reducing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the social safety net in the near future. If Republicans become the majority in Congress and Trump wins re-election you can be assured that they will not care about anyone who needs those services, including their own base.
Health related
Trump says his administration has "reformed" Medicare by stopping hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors for drugs. He claims his administration has provided more healthcare options. He takes credit for the FDA approving more lower cost generic drugs.
Donald Trump and the GOP currently have lawyers pursuing ending the Affordable Care Act in the courts. They have also taken steps to help destroy the act by passing legislation designed to defund the act. They have passed legislation tied to the tax scam act that removed the individual mandate, which will cause more of a financial burden on the implementation of the act. Trump and the GOP almost destroyed the Affordable Care Act in 2017 before Senator McCain voted to stop their plans. At every turn, the GOP have tried to take away the benefit that the ACA has provided to so many people who have not had health insurance before. The plans that Trump would prefer are those that give the upper hand to the insurance companies. The GOP wants you to have a full compliment of insurance plans that can reject covering you for certain diseases, drop you from their plans at will, charge you rediculously high deductibles and not cover your pre-existing conditions.
Energy related
Trump celebrates and takes credit for the coal, oil and gas industries accomplishments. They have increased coal exports and reached record high oil production recently. Natural gas is exported now from the United States. These environmentally hazardous industries are big donors to the Trump campaign, so Trump must do his best to keep them profitable. Trump refers proudly to exiting from the "illegal" clean power plan. Investing in developing sources of clean energy is seen as a threat to the fossil fuel industry, so Trump and the GOP will vote clean energy down. Trump lists withdrawing from the "job-killing" Paris Climate Accord as an accomplishment.
Trump and the GOP are not interested in the health of individual Americans nor are they interested in saving the earth from climate change. If the GOP as a group shows people they are not valued, that is a good reason to remove yourself from the party.
Armed Forces related
Trump considers record making budgets for the military an accomplishment. He sees forcing NATO allies into an uncomfortable position to get them to donate more to NATO as a good thing. He considers his "guns in space" Space Force idea, brilliant. He is taking credit for violating the Iran Nuclear deal.
Unless Trump is planning on starting World War III, there is no reason for the United States to fund our military with more money than the combined total amount of the next 10 largest military countries in the world. When the GOP thinks about the deficit, instead of thinking about reducing the social safety net, perhaps they should start with reducing the military budget and giving back the tax scam money.
Trump has turned America into a fair weather friend insofar as our NATO allies are concerned. Because of Trump's poor treatment of our NATO allies, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, has said that Europe can no longer depend on America. The world is less secure with Donald Trump as the American President.
Because Trump withdrew from the Iran deal, we are today in a much less secure world. The middle east is now more destabilized because of Trump's actions regarding Iran and his decision to violate the Iranian deal.
Judiciary related
Trump takes credit for confirming more conservative judges than any other Republican president. He is happy to acknowledge that he selected two Supreme Court judges.
Mitch McConnell deserves much of the credit that Trump takes for judge confirmations. McConnell changed the rules for confirming judges, so that only a simple majority vote (fifty-one votes) was required instead of 2/3 majority. This may have lead to the appointment and confirmation of many unqualified judges. The American Bar Association has given a "Not Qualified" rating to many of the judges the GOP has confirmed.
For two years, Mitch McConnell held up a Supreme Court judgeship that was legally President Obama's to appoint. As a result Trump was able to appoint a conservative judge to the Supreme Court. With such trickery going on for appointment of unqualified judges, there really is nothing for Trump to be proud of.
Export/Import related
Trump sees removing the United States from the NAFTA agreement as an accomplishment. It was really a deal that did not need to be redone. He is replacing the NAFTA agreement with a USMCA agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada. Thanks to the Democrats, the USMCA agreement is better than the original agreement designed by Trump and the GOP. It is currently being held up by Mexico who does not agree with provisions for the United States to inspect Mexican manufacturing sites.
The riskier side of the equation that Trump is toying with includes the negative effect on consumer incomes that has been caused by his questionable tariff program. Tariffs increase cost of goods to consumers and the companies that must use the imported goods in their manufacturing processes. Trump has placed tariffs on steel, aluminum, and various products from China. We have seen that farmers have been affected so badly by Trump's tariffs, that they have had to be reimbursed for $billions in losses. All of this has a negative impact on the economy as a whole.
Immigration related
Trump claims that a travel ban against certain Islamic nations is an accomplishment. He claims that improved vetting and screening of refugees and switching to overseas settlement is an accomplishment. He claims he has begun building the Southern border wall which he thinks all Republicans want.
Trump and his administration have removed children seeking refuge in the United States from their parents permanently. This inhumanity to fellow humans is criminal. In the meantime, people entering the United States from airports, or docks or any other border crossing are allowed in without problem. Even people seeking legal refuge from the Southern border are being denied entry.
Trump touts his wall while he takes land by eminent domain from his base at the border.
Other issues
Let's not forget that Trump has been impeached. There is a continuous flow of information that is proving Trump is violating the Constitution and should be removed from office. In allowing Trump to act against the Constitution without rebuke, the GOP is complicit. Mitch McConnell has stated he will coordinate with the White House lawyers and will not remove Donald Trump from office. That should be all you need to know about Trump and the GOP. None of them deserve to govern.
The lesson is that you must investigate the claims that Trump and the GOP make. The underlying philosophy of the party is that big donors are their primary concern. The average American can only help them get elected and so their promises during campaigns and their claims while in the majority are usually lies designed to convince the electorate that GOP policies will benefit them. Once they are elected, the legislation they support only caters to their corporate donors. Average Americans are ignored and as shown here, may suffer or at least lose benefits from GOP policies once they are in office.
Be smart and don't vote for a party that doesn't really care about you.
