Trump's First Budget

A Look at Trump’s Budget
The View from the Middle

While the lame stream media and the Democrat Party chase their “Russian collusion” tails and report one conspiracy theory after another that dominates nightly news coverage, I thought I would cover something of real importance, which has received about 15 seconds of collective coverage since it was released. Trump’s budget, which has been all but ignored by the media reveals much about Trump’s intentions, like them or not, for the country. And, I thought the best way to dramatize his new direction is to compare Trump’s budget to Barack Obama’s last budget.
Barack Obama’s budget increased government spending by 55% over 10 years from $4.1 trillion annually to $6.5 trillion. Total government spending over those 10 years was proposed to be $52.6 trillion. And Obama’s budget never balanced. In fact, annual deficits were proposed to increase every year after 2020 climaxing at almost $800 billion in 2026. In total, Barack Obama was planning to add $6.1 trillion to our debt and bring the total to just over $26 trillion in 2026. Remember, we are spending our children’s future as we accumulate this massive debt.
By comparison, Trump’s budget proposed only a 39% increase in annual government spending starting with $4.1 trillion in spending in 2018 and ending with only $5.7 trillion in 2027. That’s still a lot of money, but it is almost four trillion less than Obama’s ten year plan. And Trump’s budget actually does balance in ten years as annual deficits move from $440 billion in 2018 to a surplus of $16 billion in 2027. Again, that is still too much spending for my comfort, but it will reduce the proposed debt burden on our children by almost three trillion dollars compared to the Obama budget.
So, how does Trump propose to do this? First, he proposes to increase mandatory spending on things like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid by only 55% over those 10 years while Obama’s budget proposed a 66% increase over 10 years. The big question that the lame stream media is not asking is, “how does he plan to do that?” Is he going to “means-test” Social Security? Are reductions in Medicare and Medicaid reasonable? We don’t know because the lame stream media is too busy slurping their Russian vodka as they drool over their next collusion conspiracy theory.
Another component of Trump’s balance budget plan comes from an actual reduction in discretionary spending. Obama’s proposal increased annual discretionary spending by 9% over 10 years. Donald Trump plans to actually reduce that annual expenditure by almost 8%. And that all comes from non-defense spending like training, salaries and foreign aid since he proposes a modest increase in military spending.
Finally, Trump also plans to take in fewer receipts (taxes) over this ten year period and he suggests that our economy will grow slightly faster than the Obama proposal, so the American people seem to be much more well off.
There are legitimate questions that our lame stream media could be asking about Trump’s budget, but they aren’t. Directionally, as you might imagine, I am in favor of Trump’s budget. I prefer a smaller, less invasive, more efficient federal government and Trump’s proposal delivers that. Now if the media could get its collective heads out of its collective orifices we might learn a little more about how Trump plans to deliver this budget. Maybe the media and the Democrats are afraid that the answers might actually make too much sense.

The Paris Agreement - Just the Facts Ma'am

The Paris Agreement – Just the Facts, Ma’am
The View from the Middle

If you haven’t read the Paris Agreement, I recommend you do so. It’s only 25 pages long and the experience will allow you to cut through the hysterical rhetoric you’ve been hearing from the media and help you understand the upside and downside of our participation in it. There are very smart people on both sides of this issue so don’t let either side demonize you for your choice.

If you agree with Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement, “the left” will call you stupid, uncaring and greedy. They will probably accuse you of misogyny, homophobia, Islamaphobia, xenophobia and bigotry too, but I fail to see the connection. If you wanted to continue to participate in this agreement, “the right” (while less vocal) may accuse you of ignorance and blind loyalty. The truth is, as usual, somewhere in the middle. There are good reasons for withdrawal from or to support the agreement and Trump was going to get skewered no matter which way he went. If he decided to continue to support the Paris Accord, the media would have painted it as a broken campaign promise, but now he is just stupid, etc.

Make up your own mind, but let’s all deal with the facts, not apocalyptic projections. I’ve heard that the Marshall Islands will be underwater by 2070. Put that on your calendars for those of you who will still be alive by then. Of course the polar ice caps were supposed to be gone 10 years ago, but they stubbornly hang on, and millions of children are going to die of asthma attacks. Not that I am unsympathetic to asthma (my wife is a sufferer) but that is a claim that is easy to make but impossible to prove. Here is a fact – The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (some pretty smart folks) have projected that if all the provisions of the Paris Agreement are met, it will only result in a lowering of global temperatures by .2 degrees Celsius by 2100. That’s two tenths of one degree by 2100, and there are many assumptions built into that projection.

Let’s just deal with the facts. First fact – the Paris Agreement is non-binding. That means that all 175 countries can submit any grandiose plan they like, and if they don’t deliver on those plans there are NO consequences. In a group that includes Iran, Cuba and North Korea, I don’t have confidence in compliance. The United States, by contrast, does actually try to live up to it’s commitments, so let’s look at what exactly President Obama committed us to (remember, this was an executive action not passed through Congress. I wonder why?)

The first thing that the President committed us to is a 27% reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a lot, and how exactly are we going to do that? The short answer to that question is that we will have to convert energy we currently generate through fossil fuels to renewables. That sounds easy enough. Unfortunately, wind and solar combined only generate 3% of America’s energy today. Plus, when you take away government subsidies, they are much more expensive. This uncovers two problems. First, it is not practical to transition to renewables that quickly, AND if we tried, energy costs for the average American would “necessarily skyrocket”. Those are President Obama’s own words.

A side effect of this assault on our energy and manufacturing industries is going to be lost jobs. President Trump said that we could lose as many as 2.7 million jobs by 2025. That’s based on a study by insurance and risk management company NERA. I’m not sure if the job losses will be that great, but common sense should tell us that the disruption of our economy, increases in regulations and increased energy costs will kill jobs here.

The second thing Mr. Obama committed us to was money! By my count, the concept of transferring money from “developed” countries (us) to “developing” countries was mentioned 19 times in the Paris Agreement. Hillary Clinton said the US would coordinate a fund of $100 billion a year for this effort. The director of the Green Climate Fund, who would receive and distribute this money, suggested that the need would quickly rise to about $450 billion a year. BTW - I want the job of distributing that money. No threat of corruption there!! I looked at the leadership of that fund and you know what country is not represented? That’s right, The United States!! We’ll be the sugar daddy, of course, but will not be influential in the distribution of that sugar.

Since we are already running deficits here in the US, every penny of these new climate “goodie bags” will have to be borrowed. So, we will be borrowing money from China and giving it to – guess who? – China!! Another side note – of the 175 countries who signed the Paris Agreement, about 140 are considered “developing” countries that will receive funds from the “developed” countries, which I think means us. No wonder they received support from so many nations. BTW – Russia, India and China are all considered “developing” countries, thus eligible to receive these green funds.

I support Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. I’m not saying we should trash the environment. We should continue to research global warming to insure we understand the real causes and find solutions. I’m a big believer in solar power. Some day we will figure out how to harness it effectively and efficiently, but that day is not today. We don’t need the Paris Agreement to do that and we certainly don’t need to borrow any more money in the name of the American people. The other 174 countries can go ahead with their plans and America will do just fine, thank you. Or, they could come back and put together an agreement that will be better for the American people and pass it through Congress.

Muller - This could work out

Mueller? This Could Work Out
The View from the Middle

If you have followed my blog, you could have probably guessed that I was against the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate collusion by any Americans with the Russians in our elections. I took this position not because I feared what he or she would find, but because I felt this was an attempt by Democrats to drag this investigation out and thus thwart the administration’s attempt to pursue their agenda. I don’t believe that Trump himself had any connection with the Russians but I do believe that the primary motivation of Democrats is political. I have very little trust with anyone in Washington and right now the Democrats are at the bottom of my integrity list.
I also opposed a Special Counsel because I have confidence in the FBI. I did not have confidence in its Director, James Comey, but I did and still do support and respect the career law enforcement professionals there. Once Comey was gone, my hope for a thorough but expeditious investigation into this matter actually went up, so I would have been very happy to allow them to continue into their investigation and live with their findings.
Now, we have a Special Counsel and it is Robert Mueller. He is certainly qualified since he is former Director of the FBI and he has a reputation for being a thorough investigator. He is arguably above partisan politics since he was originally appointed to direct the FBI by George W. Bush and had his term extended by Barack Obama.
Personally, I think this is good news for Trump and bad news for Democrats. The Special Counsel’s investigation will take precedence over the House and Senate investigations, to which I say, “Hooray”. Neither party in these investigations is after the truth, but use their hearings to grandstand. Mueller should get to the truth and much faster than Congress would and even faster than a Comey-lead FBI, and that is what most Americans want.
But some Democrats could be caught in the Mueller crossfire. If Mueller is investigating Russian interference, will Bill and Hillary Clinton come under scrutiny? Bill was paid $500.000 for a speech by a Russian bank and millions flowed into the Clinton foundation while Hillary was Secretary of State and 20% of America’s uranium deposits were transferred to Russia.
Will Mueller also look into the murder of Democratic staffer, Seth Rich? Was his death really a robbery gone wrong or was it a political assassination? Was Seth Rich the real source of John Podesta’s emails to Wikileaks and not the Russians? Was Julian Assange actually telling the truth when he said that a “nation state” was not his source?
Most importantly for the country, could Robert Mueller just be an efficient investigator and complete this investigation before the midterms in 2018? While this would be the best thing for the American people, it is clearly not what the Democrat Party would like. Nancy Pelosi has already been quoted as saying, “A Special Prosecutor is the first step, but it cannot be the last” before Mueller has even started his investigation let alone announced any findings. She now wants an “independent outside commission”, whatever the hell that means. It is clear that Nancy Pelosi is not actually interested in truth or justice and certainly not expediency. Her only desire is to drag this investigation out for as long as possible to do political damage to Trump and the Republicans, even if the country has to suffer in the process.
The lesson for all of us is that our government is totally dysfunctional and the last thing we need is to make it bigger and allow more intrusion into our lives. Since we’ll never get a smaller government from the existing establishment politicians who are all part of the swamp, we need term limits for both Houses of Congress!!