One for the Ages!

Well I am in a good mood! Trump is the president for the next 4 years (at least) and his rise was totally remarkable, unlike anything seen in politics in my lifetime. Oh sure, other remarkable unexpected elections probably came about across the country on some level, Schwarzenegger was a California governor after all . Never has the highest office in the country been awarded to someone with no government experience, no military experience and no applicable work experience. OK the last one may not be entirely convincing since many in the business community think their boardroom acumen is perfectly suited for dealing with Congress.

I was a late (very late) supporter of the Trump campaign. At some point you look around the tent and realize no one is left to vote for but the orange guy with the floppy red hat. I was reluctant and still am that he can put a coalition together that gets manufacturing back and stops immigration from the Southern border. I am hopeful though that with the GOP House and Senate he stands a better chance than with a divided Congress.

Here is a short list of things I’d like to see happen in the first 100 days.

1.      1 Nominate Ted Cruz for the Supreme Court. If he accepts, which he probably will, he represents a solid conservative voice that shapes the thinking on decisions for the next 30 years. Putting Cruz on the SCOTUS takes him away as a presidential challenger and resident pain in the ass Senator and gives him a larger stage. Plus, Ted wants to prove to everyone how smart he is (and he REALLY is). Give ‘em a chance, we won’t regret it!

2.      2  Repeal Obamacare (ACA) and replace with ANYTHING resembling a market driven plan. The House Republicans under Paul Ryan have (I guess) been working on it for a while, but you know…Obama. How much of mess this program really is? Ever tried to untangle a box full of old clothes hangers? Like that…but more like warehouse full of hangers in boxes. Oh, and the instructions on how to begin are 2000 pages long, and in Chinese. It should have been an albatross around the president’s neck the last few years but never seemed to be. The only real ACA stuff I read was in my Heritage Foundation blog updates. Anytime the press uttered the words “Affordable Care Act” the White House staffers should’ve run out shrieking like they had seen a ghost. It wasn’t just a disaster, it was a predictable disaster.    

3.      3 Reassure our allies in Europe (NATO) that the alliance is still strong. Trump will insist on letting them all know if they want the defensive umbrella of NATO they better pay up. Rarely do all the allied nations pay their percentage. This ‘freeloading’ is what Donald Trump has explained causes the US to keep funding defense for the continent. I don’t agree completely with his assessment, but allies are crucial to world stability and free trade. Make nice with Europe. We need them, they need us.

4.      4 The regulatory state is a nightmare and although I can’t begin to determine which industry needs the most help, an overhaul should be done. Start with ‘environmental’ regulations put into effect strictly because of climate change non-sense. I don’t mean start tearing up the Clean Water Act and allow industry to dump toxic sludge into lakes and rivers. Quotas and limits on industry should be scrapped. They are as arcane as war era food rationing plans. Trump should take restrictions off the coal industry that the current president helped establish. The price of electricity should determine how much coal or natural gas we use, not onerous and expensive federal measures.  

Those are four just as quick as I could come up with them. Certainly there are aspects of a Trump presidency that worry me but with a true belief in this country and the unlimited potential of the market, I am optimistic.

 The missing element in this country (and the world by extension) has been tough leadership and moral certainty. The US navy keeps the pirates around the horn of Africa in check because it has the moral clarity to protect the sea lanes. Ditto for the South China Sea and the Dardanelles. Moral certainty means other countries interested in trade and travel accept the arrangement of peace and stability the US ensures in much of the world. This tenuous position of give and take power politics is ALWAYS in play in theaters around the world. Why is Russia a constant thorn in Eastern Europe? They represent the ‘other’ side of influence, state run economies and zero citizen freedoms. Only when US hegemony is removed, or severely curtailed, will we realize how good we all had it. I hope Trump begins to get a sense of the responsibility this country has as a default guarantor of peace. Something tells me he’ll get help where he needs it.