Is the GOP really in disarray after Trump ended the shutdown?
To be clear and fair to everyone with respect to beliefs of what has happened over the last decade, I would welcome a factual comparison of what happened and what was stopped from happening by the GOP. I am more a political “outcome” junkie, and frankly I was doing professor-led case studies on Reagan(omics) in the mid 80’s as part of my degree program…at CU, and it all worked as predicted. Every marker we measured over 2 years happened, as predicted. The social agenda championed by the Dems has never been a bad thing – but it has to be balanced with several other factors, including avoiding trying to make the US a welfare state, letting go of the notion that you can tax the rich into oblivion to save the rest of us. Do the math – the numbers (or dollars) never…never add up. Also accept the fact that you can’t just use your words to solve world issues (but also understanding you don’t have to save the world unilaterally all the time), and in fact a strong military is the only big stick (read: deterrent) that matters when dealing with extremely powerful forces that don’t care about your words but would do anything they can to move you into second or third place on the world stage.
This debate would also need to look at things like healthcare, and the actual outcome of the Canadian and UK systems. Part of my team today are located in those countries. We provide supplemental healthcare for them, because the national programs are great for annual check-ups, and horrible for anything major, especially toward the last third of each fiscal year, where budgets and wait lists stand in the way of getting care. But I won’t harp on that any longer except to say that we should have addressed this completely differently before going off on the notion of “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy” (Nancy Pelosi, 10 March 2010), and passing a bill that has driven many doctors (and the health care providers I use to be the director of in the late 90’s) out of business.
So while I will always respect both sides’ collective opinions and thoughts, I also recognize the sheer hatred for the current president. But understand the other side has the same hatred for the past president and the Clintons. The right side watched regulations get piled onto businesses and banks, and drove thousands of them to close their doors. Banking alone was decimated at the community level. Trade deals were continued that crippled industry – including my next-door neighbor’s business, by China. Over 150 people in my office were let go, under Obama’s allowance of loophole immigration that let them (and tens of thousands of others) be replaced by Asian visa’d employees. I would welcome that factual debate, dating back to the Clinton White House and exec orders for home lending, etc. Over 30,000 regs have been removed again from the books by the current Trump administration, which has been partially credited for massively increasing industry growth by the guy that none of us are fond of, that many more hope will get caught up in scandals.
So what is the right direction? A different guy, or a different set of policies? If you put the guy aside, what would you change in policies?
