Questions for President Trump (Domestic Policy ) Donald Trump will almost certainly be the presidential nominee of the Republican party. His multitude of personal faults, impulsiveness, and apparently weak grasp on reality have been frequently noted. This column will pose seven questions to President Trump about domestic issues and one about his personal attributes. 1. Accepting Election Results: Will you publicly state now, without equivocation or hedge, that you will accept the results of the 2020 presidential election even if you lose? There are at least two reasons why this question needs to be asked. First, in 2016 you made statements that you would only accept election results if you won https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donald-trump-accept-election-230098 In 2018 you said in reference to President Xi of China, “”He’s now president for life. President for life,” Trump said of Xi. “No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.” https://www.newsweek.com/trump-president-16-years-life-884073 In May 2019, you said at a rally in Pennsylvania: “ “We ran one time and we’re 1-and-0. But it was for the big one. Now we’re going to have a second time. And we’re going to have another one. And then we’ll drive them crazy,” Trump said. “And maybe if we really like it a lot — and if things keep going like they’re going — we’ll go and we’ll do what we have to do. We’ll do a three and a four and a five.” https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/21/trump-election-2020-1374589 Second, it may have occurred to you that you will lose your immunity from criminal prosecution the moment your duly- elected successor is sworn into the White House. 2. Human Resource Management According to a study by the Brookings Institution, you have set a record for cabinet turnover in a president’s first term. In addition, turnover of top echelon, non-cabinet positions in your Administration is 78% . Almost one-third of the top jobs have turned over more than once. You have not even nominated people to fill 143 positions that require Senate confirmation. Why do you have so much trouble hiring and retaining people to serve in your Administration? https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/charts-white-house-turnover-breaking-records-n1056101?wpisrc=nl_fix&wpmm=1 https://www.brookings.edu/research/tracking-turnover-in-the-trump-administration/ 3.Immigration: Time Magazine reported that “Just 11 employers were prosecuted for hiring undocumented immigrants between April 2018 and March 2019, and only three were sentenced to serve any prison time, according to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University. More than 120,000 people were prosecuted for illegal entry or reentry during that same time period.” Why are you not prosecuting the employers of illegal migrants, even after raiding the place of employment and arresting the migrants? https://time.com/5649108/mississippi-ice-raids-no-employers-charged/ You have claimed that ICE is removing dangerous criminals from American soil. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/promise/1398/remove-criminal-undocumented-immigrants/ However, TRAC also reported that “…despite the administration’s rhetoric of deporting ‘criminals’ from this country, the latest data from the Immigration Courts through June 2019 shows only 2.8 percent of recent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) filings based deportability claims on any alleged criminal activity. This is way down from the emphasis on deporting criminals that prevailed a decade ago. https://trac.syr.edu/whatsnew/email.190719.html 4. MAGA: President Trump, is America greater today than it was three years ago? If yes, please give three examples to support your answer. 5. Have your tax cut (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act  ) and tariff policies been successful in bringing back jobs to the US from overseas? The New York Times reports that in the first two years of your presidency companies announced plans to relocate about 145,000 factory jobs to the United States. About 82,000 of those jobs were announced in 2017, before your tax cuts took effect. Companies say they will relocate to the United States fewer than 30,000 jobs because of your tariffs on imported steel, aluminum, solar panels, washing machines and a variety of Chinese goods.  Researchers at A. T. Kearney said in July that your trade policies, including tariffs, had pushed factory activity not to the United States but to low-cost Asian countries other than China, like Vietnam. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/business/economy/donald-trump-jobs-created.html https://www.atkearney.com/operations-performance-transformation/us-reshoring-index 6. Did corporations increase investments as a result of your tax cut?: According to Marketwatch: On the positive side, “total capital expenditures rose in 2018 to a record $851 billion, versus $761 billion a year ago {2017}, an 11.8% increase that ranks as the fastest since 2007”. On the other hand, “corporations were also very eager to return tax savings to shareholders, as evidenced by the 60.4% rise in shareholder buybacks from 2017 to 2018. Also, business investment spiked in the first and second quarters of last year, rising 11.7% and 8.7%, respectively, but has steadily fallen since that point, and only rose 2.7% in the first quarter of 2019.” https://www.marketwatch.com/story/after-trump-tax-cuts-corporate-cash-hoards-finally-shrink-2019-06-10 7.Trade: One of the stated goals of your Adminsitration is to reduce our balance of trade deficits. Let’s look at the U.S.’ 15 biggest trading partners. The trade balance deficit has increased in 10 of those countries between 2016 and 2018. The aggregate trade deficit has jumped from $503 billion to $628 billion. Please explain why your trade balance policy has failed ,at least so far. https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-markets-4758c49a-62ce-4953-9119-a53183185858.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosmarkets&stream=business 8. Personal attributes: In January, 2018 you stated that you are a “very stable genius”. Please give one example of your being either stable or a genius. You have also referred to yourself as “an excellent student”. When will you make public your high school and college transcripts? https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/06/politics/donald-trump-white-house-fitness-very-stable-genius/index.html My hope is that the 2020 presidential election will be about more than personal character. Let’s never stop asking policy questions. Let’s never accept a rhetorical response that is not really an answer. Let’s never stop questioning the answers we are given.

October 26, 2019 Leave a comment

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