A Brief Consideration of Trump's 100 Day Plan

A Brief Consideration of Trump's 100 Day Plan

By Dave DeMars 4/1/2017

Just looking over Trump's plan for the first 100 days of his administration. I went to his website – the one he touted on some interview- and the first 100 days isn't there anymore (Ha ha – April Fool – the joke is on me). So I found another site at NPR. http://www.npr.org/2016/11/09/501451368/here-is-what-donald-trump-wants-to-do-in-his-first-100-days . You can check it out for yourself. At first glance, it looks and sounds impressive – until one gets into the nitty gritty. I know. Trump says he is not a wonk – he is not a detail guy. He is a big picture guy. And that is scary. Why?

Because big picture government is what they teach all of us in high school civics and government classes. Executive, Legislative and Judiicial branches of government. They are suppose to counter-balance one another. Checks and balances the chapter had as a sub heading if I remember correctly. So this essay is a kind of open letter to Donald. It's a critique about the stuff he wants to do in his first 100 days in office.

Dear Donald,

One of the first items your proposed was “a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress.” Hmmm! How is a constitutional amendment passed? There are at least 10 websites that tell us how to go about it. I took the first one.

“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution....”

Not good Donald. See you can't propose an amendment. So either you purposely told a fib, or you didn't do your homework ( or even worse, someone on your staff didn't do his or her homework – maybe Baron?). But even if you could propose an amendment to the Constitution, Mitch McConnell, Majority Leader (your party) in the Senate said  "It will not be on the agenda in the Senate." And then added, "I would say we have term limits now — they're called elections." And really, Donald, a Constitutional Amendment needs to be ratified by the states. That's why we only have 27 amendments in the 229 years since the Constitution was ratified. There have been 11,372 proposed amendments to the Constitution so far. Your chances are slim and none.

Donald, do you remember that guy – that Muslim guy with his wife at the Democratic convention? He asked you a question. “Have you even read the Constitution?” Article V of the Constitution. If you (or Baron) would have read it, you would have known. You ought to do your homework, Donald. Maybe you could fire somebody – ohh, I'm sorry. It would have to be you. It's okay Donald, we'll go on to the next item on your list.

Next you proposed “a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health);” Not bad. Hiring freezes work well. And conservatives get all goosey and pee in their pants thinking of the money that will be saved. I do think we tried that though. A 10% across the board cut in every department necessitated lots of cuts in staff. Lines got longer, waits to get things processed got longer. Some departments sacrificed new technology to save personnel, and when the technology that they had went bust, they had an even worse problem. Yup – Congressional conservatives (Tea baggers mainly) pushed the 10% across the board cut and it kicked them right in the cajones.

Just by way of experience, we did that here in Minnesota under Gov. “Plenty of nothing ” Pawlenty. He even increased all the fees on things like fishing license, teacher's license and car licenses. Didn't work. People got mad. People got irritated. And when the current governor took over, we were still $2 billion in debt.

And you know, looking further down the list where you say you want to “ grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs,” a lot of those jobs are going to have to be government jobs. Just saying, Donald. I know you don't like to take advice, but I'm just saying it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Now your next idea strikes me as kind of cool - “a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated.” Not bad Donald. I'm not quite sure what you mean by a regulation. Maybe you are talking about laws – you know the kind that Congress makes. In which case, don't hold your breath.

Now if you are talking about regulations like the IRS or the EPA makes, that's not a bad idea. But consider this Donald. Regulations are words on paper. Each regulation is given a number. It's clear. So the question is how does one eliminate two regulations and still keep those same regulations? The answer is simple. Let me show you.

Here are four Regulaltions: I, II, III, IV. I used Roman numerals to impress you. How do I keep Roman numeral number II, and III and make it possible to create an entirely new regulation?

That's right – I create I (a) and I (b). So now I have I (a) (b) II and III. It's called subordination, not elimination. They do this all the time in Congress. Sometimes they eliminate whole legislative actions in part (a) and introduce brand new legislation 180 degrees in reverse in part (b). It ain't rocket science (not that you would know anything about science.)

Your next idea really is a winner, Donald. “A 5 year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service.” You should start with that Donald, maybe get Congress to pass a law to enforce that idea. But first, Donald, you need to show us that you really are committed to the idea of a government free of lobbyists who worked in Congress. Here's how.

Get rid of the hacks that that you nominated for positions such as Attorney General, EPA, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Energy, and so on. Most of them have already worked as lobbyists, so make a clean sweep of it and get rid of the political hacks.

One other thing about this “5 year ban” - you know some dude or dudette is going to allege that this is an infringement on their right to earn a living as a lobbyist. They will hire a team of lawyers who will file a suit, lose, appeal, lose again and finally, appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supremes in their peculiar wisdom will find that indeed, this is an infringement and your attempt to get lobbyists out of politics will ultimately fail. That is my prediction.

I really like number five - “a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.” Unfortunately, you hired or wanted to hire people who did exactly that. Take the numb-nut you hired as your National SecurityDirector, Michael Flynn. He was already working for a foreign government when you nominated him. Maybe you didn't get the memo on the guy or maybe you just didn't read it. Or maybe you just didn't care and all the promises are so much bull-puckey. And he wasn't the only one. You nominated several others who took money from foreign governments to lobby on their behalf. Even your son-in-law Jared Kushner looks tainted in this regard.

If you really want to impress us, try doing this. Work toward getting Citizens United overturned. Get the big money out of politics so the country can finally have a chance at electing a real government official instead of the Billionaire Wall Street/ Military Industrial rubber stamped candidates we get now.

Oh, I forgot. You are one of the rubber stamped candidates, so it's not likely you'll touch that.

How about your sixth promise - “a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.” It sounds like you are really on to something here, but as they say, “actions speak louder than words,” and your White House and the way it operates is such a cluster-fuck, I can't see how you can be serious about this one. I mean, at least half a dozen of your shitty pals are under investigation for “collusion with the Russians.” A bunch of them took money from the Russkies, and Tillerson, oil man that he is, made deals for Russian oil. And you expect me to believe that you and the guys actually have the best interests of the people of the United States at heart? Better think that one through again. You have created a plutocracy. It's taken 70 some years, but the cycle has come round again. And you -lucky devil that you are – have benefitted (at least in the short term) from it.

In the song “When Princes Meet” by Tom Paxton, (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=when+princes+meet+lyrics) he writes:

“When princes meet
The poor little men must tremble
In judgment seat

They speak of their wars
While great armies assemble
Their armor shines
To shame the sun

They move like gods
They do resemble
All bow their necks
To iron feet when princes meet”

Though there are some who brazenly deny that this is what you are about, your actions reveal the truth about you Donald. And ignorance ( a path chosen by people as opposed to stupid which is a God-given commodity distributed in excess) of the American people will keep you and your cronies in power until there is an uprising. And then the pendulum will swing again and there will be a purging of sorts such as there was in the 1930's and again in the '60's.

Well, I see I am getting long winded, so I will end this letter and take up the rest of your 100 Day Promises at a later date.

Dave