The Changes Needed- Trump Lays Out his Contract with the American People
Not that the mainstream media would ever report on something as substantive as actual issues in this election of 2016- especially when it comes to Donald J. Trump. After all, why would the mainstream media risk the election of their queen, Hillary Clinton, by reporting anything to do with substance when it comes to her opponent, who they despise even more than the idea that he might actually be elected president? Besides, it’s much more fun harping on unsubstantiated allegations by a dozen of her female supporters, that they were sexually assaulted by Trump years ago- allegations that have never surfaced prior to the last two weeks.
Nevertheless, it was Donald J. Trump who unveiled a substantive twenty-eight point plan to bring change, real change, to Washington, DC that would fundamentally change the relationship that government has with the people they are supposed to serve. In his Saturday address delivered in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump laid out a specific (did you get that, major media, specific ? ) agenda that he promises to initiate during the first hundred days of a Trump administration:
FIRST, Trump will propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress- 3 two-year terms for the House of Representatives and 2 six-year terms for the Senate;
SECOND, Trump will institute a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health);
THIRD, Trump will institute a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated;
FOURTH, Trump will institute a five-year ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service;
FIFTH, Trump will institute a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government;
SIXTH, Trump will institute a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections;
SEVENTH, Trump will announce his intention to renegotiate NAFTA, or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205;
EIGHTH, Trump will announce our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership;
NINTH, Trump will direct his Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator;
TENTH, Trump will direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers, and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately;
ELEVENTH, Trump will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal;
TWELFTH, Trump will rescind the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward;
THIRTEENTH, Trump will cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use this money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure;
FOURTEENTH, Trump will cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama;
FIFTEENTH, Trump will begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia from one of the 20 judges on his list, justices who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States;
SIXTEENTH, Trump will cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities;
SEVENTEENTH, Trump will begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country, and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back;
EIGHTEENTH, Trump will suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered “extreme” vetting;
NINETEENTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Middle Class Tax Relief and Simplification Act, an economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate. It will suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur.
TWENTIETH, Trump will submit to Congress the End the Offshoring Act, which establishes tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers, which enables them to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free;
TWENTY-FIRST, Trump will submit to Congress the American Energy & Infrastructure Act, which leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral;
TWENTY-SECOND, Trump will submit to Congress the School Choice and Education Opportunity Act, which redirects education dollars to give parents the right to send their kids to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. This ends common core and brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and makes 2- and 4-year college more affordable;
TWENTY-THIRD, Trump will submit to Congress the American Energy & Infrastructure Act, which leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral;
TWENTY-FOURTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act, which fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and allows the states to manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval of life-saving medications;
TWENTY-FIFTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act, which allows Americans to deduct childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-site childcare services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents, with matching contributions for low-income families;
TWENTY-SIXTH, Trump will submit to Congress the End Illegal Immigration Act, which fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full understanding that Mexico will reimburse the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a 2-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a 5-year mandatory minimum for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first;
TWENTY-SEVENTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Restoring Community Safety Act, which reduces surging crime, drugs and violence by creating a task force on violent crime and increasing funding for programs that train and assist local police, increases resources for federal law enforcement agencies, authorizes federal prosecutors to dismantle criminal gangs and put violent offenders behind bars;
TWENTY-EIGHTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Clean Up Corruption in Washington Act, which enacts new ethics reforms to “drain the swamp” and reduce the corrupting influence of special interests on our politics.
Whether or not a President Trump can be successful in implementing any or all of the above is an open question, but at least he is offering a substantive plan to fix what has ailed our government for the past seven decades, and seeks to place our elected leaders under scrutiny of the American people.
Then again, voters who think that change, real change, is not needed in Washington DC still have the option to vote for Hillary Clinton, whose programs explicitly promise to continue the same-old, same-old strategies which have landed our country in the circumstances with which we find ourselves, today.
But don’t expect to hear about these differences from the mainstream media, who would much rather concentrate on sex, instead.
-Drew Nickell, 25 October 2016
© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
now available at Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Bending-Your-Ear-Collection-Essays/dp/1633932907?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc
Signed and personalized editions now available at my website:
Follow my postings on the RSS feed: http://www.drewnickell.com/?feed=rss2