Trump: The First 100 Days

I don’t see much on the list to disagree with…

The part about trying to clean up the lobbying industry would be awesome.

At term limits and Mitch McConnell, what a weasel. I’d support two terms for the senate. We could maybe give people in the house about the same amount of time.

Edited to add:

I support school choice. Absolutely. When you know public school teachers in Chicago are sending their kids to private schools, but these poor urban kids are stuck, there’s something very wrong. The teacher’s unions are so often about self-preservation rather than student performance.

Regarding his affordable childcare and eldercare act, I think there are positives of making the Earned Income Tax Credit more generous to help poor single mothers, and maybe even extend it to low wage earners without children. I’ve seen some data that this is a better way to try to go at poverty than hiking the minimum wage to $15 or something like that.

3 Likes

How do we get the USPS SHUT DOWN!

I friggin hate the post office, hey Donald turn that shit over to UPS!

3 Likes

It seems unlikely that Trump will get his infrastructure and “The Wall” plans pass a Congress that loves tax cuts.

Thomas Paine would have liked the idea of term limits. He wrote about the importance of recycling politicians back into the general population to prevent the rise of a political class insulated from the effects of their own laws.

1 Like

Yeah, something they never saw coming with the lack of salary from 2 centuries ago compared with today’s.

1 Like

I think a way to get terms limits to pass Congress is to anti-grandfather in current members of Congress. So say that all terms limits don’t start counting until the next election and only start counting when someone wins an election. So a Senator elected in 2016 could still run for re-election twice (in 2022 and 2028), even if that Senator had already been in Congress for 40 years (for instance). This would lessen the impact of the term limits on sitting members of Congress and allow terms limits to be phased in.

4 Likes

*Term limits would be a good idea; I agree w/others that have mentioned 12 years.
*The removal of two Fed. regs. for every new one added; I;ve held this position to thirty years.
*Lobbying restrictions just seem obvious to me.
*Trade restrictions are tricky territory. I can see the positive effect in theory; however I believe there would be much pain between now and then.
*Lifting restriction/roadblocks on domestic energy production…again sounds good but I’m not convinced we can compete without price increases at home…perhaps the trade off would be worth it.
*I’m fine with withdrawing/reducing UN payments all together.
*Trump’s plan to rebuild infrastructure appears to lead to private ownership of roads, bridges, water works, etc.; I’m not a fan of that.
*Illegal immigration…I’ve got a wait and see attitude here. If he includes serious penalties for employers, I believe it can be effective.

  • Taxes…I’ve ran the numbers; a 35% reduction is an exaggeration, but I’m all for reducing taxes.
  • Health Insurance, I’m not a fan of the ACA, however I’m of the opinion that the insurance/healthcare industry is out of control. The current model is not patient oriented. I don’t have the answer.
    *Draining The Swamp: Great idea…based on the rumors of his Cabinet positions it doesn’t appear to be a priority.
1 Like

Why are term limits such a popular concept? I would like to hear an explanation for term limits that doesn’t also justify getting rid of that office itself.

“We, as a collective, are too stupid to decide when to vote someone out of office, so please help us!”

"My congressman is great, but he needs to be replaced by one of the two jackasses running this year because term limits.

Maybe the focus should be on limiting, or eliminating, the powers of those in office. Giving someone absolute power for X years, and then doing the same for the next guy, is no better(and may be worse, because the guy no longer has an incentive to make decisions that are beneficial beyond his term) than giving one guy absolute power indefinitely.

2 Likes

Yes as a collective people generally are too stupid. Was that supposed to be a sarcastic reason? because its actually true.

If people are, collectively, too stupid to vote, why permit them to vote at all?

Because not letting them vote has its downsides too, see any war that starts or ends with Revolution.

1 Like

Hopefully Trump locks this cunt up,

That’s a hell of a commentary on the stupidity of the public. “Don’t revolt, and we’ll let you vote. That’s how you know your vote is meaningful.” Damn.

Members of Congress should be changed periodically for the same reason you change a baby’s diaper.

2 Likes

Anyone watch 60 minutes? That is man understands the weight of the office. Pivot anyone…

Didnt catch it. what happened?

Very grounded, moved a bit toward the middle, sensible.

2 Likes

He has a public position and a private position, just kidding, but Perino mentioned the office putting a weight of gravitas on it’s holder.

Hopefully much of his public persona was just a way to be heard or he is seeing it is serious to be leader of the Free World.

1 Like

Just saw it.

Agree.
Good start.

The problem is that entrenched members of Congress build up a bureaucratic infrastructure around themselves. Senior members of Congress become disproportionately powerful. Pork barrel spending then causes the constituents of that particular member of Congress to support him or her because its good for those constituents to have a disproportionately powerful advocate in Washington.

In other words, members of congress are only accountable to their individual constituents but have a large amount of power over the nation as a whole. Power structures like this will always exist but term limits will prevent them from becoming too entrenched long term.

More generally, republics work when institutions create a system where people voting for their individual self interests will collectively vote for their longterm collective self interest. While it may superficially seem like this will happen automatically, it’s actually rather difficult to make this happen in practice.

2 Likes