Confirmation hearing for Christopher Wray, the nominee for director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Wray served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division under George W. Bush from 2003 to 2005.
Confirmation hearing for Christopher Wray, the nominee
Donald Trump, left, and Kid Rock, right. (Photos: AP)
Kid Rock was mentioned at the Michigan Republican Party convention last weekend as a candidate for U.S. Senate against Democrat Debbie Stabenow. Now, the politically outspoken rocker has launched a website in support of his potential bid.
UPDATE: “I have had a ton of emails and texts asking me if this website is real,” he wrote on Twitter. “The answer is an absolute YES.”
“ARE YOU SCARED?” it reads in bold letters above the fold, with “Made in Detroit” embroidered on the window shade behind him.
“Stay tuned, I will have a major announcement in the near future – Kid Rock,” he added on Twitter.
The soon-to-be released PPD 2018 Senate Election Projection Model rates The Great Lakes State (with a generic GOP candidate) as Likely Democrat, but the state has trended toward the GOP over the last few years.
Stabenow has held the seat since 2000 and the last time a Republican won the seat was in 1988. But that was also the last year a Republican won the state on the presidential level until another former celebrity, President Donald Trump, carried it against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
PPD Battleground State Likely Voter Profiles show Michigan has continued to inch further toward Republicans in 2016 and 2017. Republicans have also made significant gains in voter registration, with Michiganders in 2016 breaking records for registration.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, left, rocker Ted Nugent, center back, President Donald Trump, from and center, and Kid Rock, right. (Photo: Twitter)
Kid Rock, whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, endorsed President Trump in 2016 and even began to sell T-shirts and other pro-Trump merchandise. While he has told media he votes for GOP candidates, Kid Rock once told the Rolling Stone in 2013 that he considers himself a bit “more libertarian” ideologically.
The Michigan native also endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012.
Wes Nakagiri, a Tea Party activist from Livingston County, said Kid Rock “has name I.D., is an out-of-the-box idea, and would kind of get rid of that stodgy Republican image.”
Nakagiri, who was elected to the party’s central committee Friday night, told the Detroit Free Press the Trump candidacy could be “a template” for a Kid Rock candidacy, and “I’ll bet you he would generate as much excitement as Trump did.”
President Trump won 75 out of Michigan’s 83 counties. He kept Clinton below 40% in 60 of them and carried 48 counties with at least 60% of the vote. He flipped 12 counties that previously went for Barack Obama, including Macomb, Saginaw, Bay, Monroe, Shiawassee, Calhoun, Eaton, Isabella, Van Buren, Lake, Manistee and Gogebic.
Kid Rock was mentioned at the Michigan
Donald Trump Jr. speaks in Indianapolis, Indiana on May 8, 2017. (Photo: AP)
Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday tweeted out the email thread setting up his June 2016 meeting with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya. Through a third-party, Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting that included his brother-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as then-presidential campaign manager Paul Manafort.
“To everyone, in order to be fully transparent, I am releasing the entire email chain of my emails with Rob Goldstone, about the meeting on June 9, 2016,” Donald Trump Jr. said in a statement that accompanied the release. “The information they suggested they had about Hillary Clinton I thought was Political Opposition Research.”
In a statement on Sunday, Trump Jr. acknowledged having the meeting, but claimed that Ms. Veselnitskaya’s allegations were “vague, ambiguous and made no sense.” He ended the meeting when it “became clear that she had no meaningful information.”
“The woman, as she has said publicly, was not a government official. And, as we have said, she had no information to provide and wanted to talk about adoption policy and the Magnitsky Act,” he added. “To put this in context, this occurred before the current Russian fever was in vogue.”
[pdfviewer width=”740px” height=”849px” beta=”true/false”]https://www.peoplespunditdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Donald-Trump-Jr-Emails.pdf[/pdfviewer]
“In my view, this is much ado about nothing,” said attorney Alan Futerfas, who said that Mr. Goldstone contacted Trump Jr. late in the Republican primary campaign and “suggested that people had information concerning alleged wrongdoing” by Hillary Clinton.
“The meeting [with Veselnitskaya] lasted about 20-30 minutes and nothing came of it,” Mr. Futerfas went on. “His father knew nothing about it. The bottom line is that Don Jr. did nothing wrong.”
Prior to the release, the President’s son also tweeted that the story originally published by the New York Times was overblown based on media “desperation.” He followed up that tweet with another story from The Daily Caller reminding the media about the Clinton campaign colluding with the Ukrainian government.
“Media & Dems are extremely invested in the Russia story,” Trump Jr. tweeted. “If this nonsense meeting is all they have after a yr, I understand the desperation!”
The Daily Caller cited a report by Politico, Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire, which reveals how a veteran DNC operative who previously worked in the Clinton White House, Alexandra Chalupa, worked with Ukrainian government officials and journalists from both Ukraine and America to dig up Russia-related opposition research on Trump and Manafort.
Ms. Chalupa met with Ukrainian Ambassador Valeriy Chaly and an aide, Oksara Shulyar, at the Ukrainian Embassy in March 2016. Their conversation surrounded talking points about Russian connections. Ukraine disseminated documents implicating Manafort in a corruption scandal and suggested they were investigating the matter. As People’s Pundit Daily reported at the time, it was an intentional effort to mislead and Ukraine abandoned the allegation after the election.
Enter Fusion GPS, a political research firm led by Glenn Simpson. They were hired by Democrats and commissioned former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, the man who put together the now-discredited Trump intelligence dossier. Ms. Veselnitskaya was tied to Fusion GPS when the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Ia., disclosed they were also players in the case involving Prevezon Holdings.
Prevezon Holdings is run by Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, who retained Ms. Veselnitskaya after he became the target of the U.S. Department of Justice in a civil asset forfeiture case. The Justice Department alleged Prevezon benefited from a money-laundering scheme in Russia that was uncovered in 2008 by a Russian attorney and auditor named Sergei Magnitsky.
He was tortured and murdered. In response, the U.S. Congress passed into law the Magnitsky Act, which Trump Jr. claims Ms. Veselnitskaya made the topic of their conversation during the meeting in June 2016.
Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday tweeted out
File: Wholesale trade sales and inventories. (Photo: Bureau of Labor Statistics/ BLS)
The U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday wholesale trade inventories rose by a higher-than-expected 0.4% in May, with April revised 0.1 higher. The results will no doubt help second-quarter GDP, which the GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth has at 2.7%, sales at the wholesale level fell sharply by 0.5% in May.
The inventories/sales ratio for merchant wholesalers excluding manufacturers’ sales branches and offices came in at a seasonally adjusted 1.29, down from the 1.34 in may 2016.
The U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday wholesale
File: The $4 trillion U.S. federal budget proposed by Barack Obama in 2016. (Photo: Reuters)
Back in April, I shared a new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity that explained how poor nations can become rich nations by following the recipe of small government and free markets.
Now CF&P has released another video. Narrated by Yamila Feccia from Argentina, it succinctly explains – using both theory and evidence – why spending caps are the most prudent and effective way of achieving good fiscal results.
Ms. Feccia covers all the important issues, but here are five points that are worth emphasizing.
Success Stories – Simply stated, spending caps work. She lists the nations that have achieved very good resultswith multi-year periods of spending restraint. She points out that the U.S. made a lot of fiscal progress when GOPers aggressively fought Obama. And she shares the details about the very successful constitutional spending caps in Hong Kong and Switzerland.I touch on some of these issues in one of my chapters in the Cato Handbook for Policymakers. The entire chapter is worth reading, in my humble opinion, but I want to share an excerpt echoing Point #4 that I just shared from Ms. Feccia’s video.
There’s a very practical reason to focus on capping long-run spending rather than trying to balance the budget every year. Simply stated, the “business cycle” makes the latter very difficult. …when a recession occurs and revenues drop, a balanced-budget mandate requires politicians to make dramatic changes at a time when they are especially reluctant to either raise taxes or impose spending restraint. Then, when the economy is enjoying strong growth and producing lots of tax revenue, a balanced-budget requirement doesn’t impose much restraint on spending. All of which creates an unfortunate cycle. Politicians spend a lot of money during the good years, creating expectations of more and more money for various interest groups. When a recession occurs, the politicians suddenly have to slam on the brakes. But even if they actually cut spending, it is rarely reduced to the level it was when the economy began its upswing. Moreover, politicians often raise taxes as part of these efforts to comply with anti-deficit rules. When the recession ends and revenues begin to rise again, the process starts over—this time from a higher base of spending and with a bigger tax burden. Over the long run, these cycles create a ratchet effect, with the burden of government spending always reaching new plateaus.
It’s not that I want to belabor this point, but the bottom line is that it is very difficult to amend a country’s constitution (at least in the United States, but presumably in other nations as well).
So if there’s going to be a major campaign to put a fiscal rule in a constitution, then I think it should be one that actually achieves the goal. And whether people want to address the economically important goal of spending restraint or the symbolically important goal of fiscal balance, what should matter is that a spending cap is the effective way of getting there.
A new video from the Center for
Senator Elizabeth Warren gives remarks on the Senate floor on June 22, 2017 after the release of the Senate Republicans’ health care bill.
If you want to see a bunch of hypocritical leftists squirming with embarrassment, there’s a very clever video showing what happens when a bunch of pro-tax hike millionaires are asked to voluntarily pay more money to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
I’ve even debated some of these rich, pro-tax statists on TV, telling them not to make the rest of us victims of their neurotic guilt feelings.
They definitely don’t put their money where their mouths are. There is an official government webpage where people can voluntary send extra cash to Washington, but the amount of money raised doesn’t even qualify as an asterisk in the federal budget.
You probably won’t be surprised to learn that people elsewhere in the world also are not keen on the idea of deliberately giving politicians extra money to spend.
Bloomberg has a rather amusing story about the utter failure of a voluntary tax in Norway.
Eager to pay more taxes? Then look no further than Norway. …Launched in June, the initiative has received a lukewarm reception, with the equivalent of just $1,325 in extra revenue being collected so far, according to the Finance Ministry. That’s not much for a country of 5.3 million people… “The tax scheme was set up to allow those who want to pay more taxes to do so in a simple and straightforward way,” Finance Minister Siv Jensen said in an emailed comment. “If anyone thinks the tax level is too low, they now have the chance to pay more.” …Jonas Gahr Store, the wealthy Labor Party contender…, has so far refused to take up the government’s offer.
I’m not surprised that the ordinary people of Norway aren’t sending extra cash to their politicians.
After all, the country already has a costly welfare state financed by very high tax rates as well as lots of oil revenue. So why enable an even bigger burden of government?
But Mr. Store hardly seems a very ethical proponent of higher taxes if he’s not willing to lead by example.
Again, this is not very shocking. It’s a pattern among rich leftists.
The state of Massachusetts has a program for voluntary tax payments, but the Boston Globe revealed that Elizabeth Warren somehow couldn’t bring herself to cough up additional money to finance bigger government.
Elizabeth Warren acknowledged this morning that she does not pay a voluntary higher tax rate on her state income taxes, a question her campaign had previously refused to answer. …state Republicans have criticized Warren, who has earned a six-figure salary and owns assets worth millions, for her previous refusal to answer whether she pays a voluntary higher rate, calling her an “elitist hypocrite” who “lectures others about their responsibility to pay higher taxes.”
And John Kerry also decided that he wouldn’t pay extra tax to his state’s politicians.
Sen. John Kerry (D. Mass.) sailed into hot water last year when tax returns revealed that he also paid the Bay State’s lower tax rate. …perhaps he intended to pay Massachusetts’ higher rate, but his calculator slid off his yacht.
Though since Kerry uses tax havens to protect his wealth, and even keeps a yacht in a neighboring low-tax state, at least he’s consistent in his hypocrisy.
Though according to New England Public Radio, there are a few people in Massachusetts who actually do contribute extra money.
Lenox accountant William Keen said it’s his job to save his clients money, so he just assumes they want to pay their state income tax at 5.1 percent, and not the optional rate of 5.85 percent.
“If somebody specifically asked to be set at the higher rate, I would do it,” Keen said Friday. “Nobody has ever even asked for that. It’s never even come up.” And very few taxpayers across Massachusetts do pay at that higher rate. According to the state Department of Revenue, on average since 2002, 1,200 people each year check the box on the tax form to voluntarily pay more. That’s contributed to just over a quarter million dollars to the state’s coffers each year — a drop in the bucket since Massachusetts has a budget of about $40 billion.
I think people who deliberately over-pay to government are very misguided, but it’s better to be naive than to be hypocritical. Like the Clintons. And Warren Buffett. Or any of the other rich leftists who want higher taxes for you and me while engaging in very aggressive tax avoidance.
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Despite Massachusetts having a program for voluntary
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, answers a question about health care as he holds a town hall meeting, Thursday, July 6, 2017, in Austin, Texas. (Photo: AP)
Senate Republicans hope to reintroduced the ObamaCare repeal bill with the added Cruz Amendment, the Consumer Freedom Option. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, along with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, proposed an amendment permitting insurers to sell any policies they wish, so long as they also offer polices that cover a list of services required by ObamaCare.
Vice President Mike Pence endorsed the amendment during an interview Monday with Rush Limbaugh, while Sens. Cruz and Lee joined a chorus of Republican voices calling on leadership to cancel the August recess to work on legislation to replace ObamaCare.
“It’s crazy that we would be taking a recess,” Sen. Cruz told Fox News’ “Hannity” Monday night. “There are a bunch of us, myself included, that have been urging leadership back from January [to] not take any recesses.”
“We have a job to do and a short window of time, and so we ought to stop taking recesses, stop taking time off and just keep going until we get it done.”
Six Republicans–Sens. David Perdue, Ga., Steve Daines, Mont., Neely Kennedy, La., Mike Rounds, S.D., Luther Strange, Ala., and Lee–are expected to hold a news conference Tuesday afternoon calling on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kty., to cancel the August recess.
The repeal and/or replace of ObamaCare represents no less than a do-or-die test for Majority Leader McConnell, who infuriated conservatives last week by insinuating Republicans may not be able to fulfill their 7-year promise.
President Donald Trump warned of a midterm election “bloodbath” if Republicans don’t make good on repeal. The President has been eager to move forward on tax reform to boost economic growth.
“With costs out of control and choices continuing to dwindle, now is the time for Congress to act,” the White House said in a statement.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced Monday there was a 38% drop in filings for qualified health plan (QHP) issuers. Only 141 individual market issuers submitted initial applications to offer coverage using the Federally-facilitated Exchange eligibility and enrollment platform in 2018.
That’s down from 227 submitted at this point during the previous year.
“This is further proof that the Affordable Care Act is failing,” said CMS Administrator Seema Verma. “Insurers continue to flee the Exchanges, causing Americans to lose their choice for health insurance or lose their coverage all together. These numbers are clear: the status quo is not working. The American people deserve healthcare choices and access to quality, affordable healthcare coverage.”
While there are signs of significant progress with the addition of the Cruz Amendment, it’s unclear how many votes Republicans are currently shy after 10 declared their opposition last week. That included Sens. Cruz and Lee, who are in favor of the bill with the amendment.
On Monday, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., confirmed he backs the Cruz Amendment. He has faced significant pressure from leftwing activists in his home state. Two men were arrested at a health care protest in front of his Tucson office last week, one for allegedly threatening to kill Republicans.
The Pima County Sheriff’s office confirmed that Mark Prichard, 59, was arrested after he made threatening comments that referenced the shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.
“You know how liberals are going to solve the Republican problem?” Prichard reportedly asked an aide. “They are going to get better aim. That last guy tried, but he needed better aim. We will get better aim.”
Sen. Flake, who was at the Scalise shooting, is seeking a second term in 2018 and already has a Republican primary challenger, former state Sen. Kelli Ward of Lake Havasu City.
Senate Republicans hope to reintroduced the ObamaCare
People watch a TV broadcast of a news report on North Korea’s ballistic missile test, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, July 4, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)
Since our last look at North Korean missile capabilities, Pyongyang has taken a major step forward by developing a new model and beating previous records. Last week, the rogue leftwing regime tested a new ballistic missile on July 4, 2017.
U.S. officials told People’s Pundit Daily the was “something new.” Though it was believed to be a version of the KN-17, North Korea has designated their new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) the Hwasong-14.
It flew for 37 minutes and reached a height of 1,500 miles, or roughly 2414 kilometers, breaking the DPRK’s previous record of 30 minutes and 1,000 feet set on Mother’s Day. Rather than a single-stage, it was outfitted with a second stage, liquid propulsion system that gives Pyongyang the capability to reach the U.S.–Alaska.
It’s an improvement from the Hwasong-12, which has a maximum range of 4,500 kilometers.
“Had the same motor’s thrust been put to a range-maximizing flight path, the Hwasong-14 could have traveled as far as 7,000 kilometers, enough to reach Alaska and well in range of Guam,” claimed Thomas Karako, a Senior Fellow at the International Security Program Missile Defense Project.
“If fired in an eastward direction to take advantage of the rotation of the earth, the Hwasong-14 could potentially reach up to 8,000 kilometers, putting Hawaii at risk.”
While it was the 4,000-15,000 kilometer range Taepodong-2 that kept U.S. officials and military analysts up at night, the Hwasong-14 marks the DPRK’s first real successful test of an actual ICBM. According to the Cold War definition, an ICBM can deliver a warhead to a range of at least 5,500 kilometers.
Pyongyang claimed on state-run media the test marked the “final step” in creating a “powerful nuclear state that can strike anywhere on Earth.” That claim is false, but it doesn’t take away from North Korea’s accomplishment.
In order to reach the continental U.S., Pyongyang would still need an ICBM with a range of over 8,000 kilometers. To put the East Coast at risk, that range increases to at least 10,000 kilometers.
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Since our last look at North Korean
THAAD interceptors and a missile are tested in 2013. (Photo: Courtesy of U.S. Department of Defense)
The U.S. successfully tested the THAAD missile defense system from Alaska amid rising tensions with North Korea, U.S. officials told People’s Pundit Daily. It intercepted a target missile launched from an Air Force Cargo plane north of Hawaii.
THAAD can intercept short and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, but not intercontinental ballistic missiles. Thus far, the U.S. has hit 14 out of 14 targets.
“I couldn’t be more proud of the government and contractor team who executed this flight test today,” said Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves. “This test further demonstrates the capabilities of the THAAD weapon system and its ability to intercept and destroy ballistic missile threats. THAAD continues to protect our citizens, deployed forces and allies from a real and growing threat.”
THAAD represents a major aspect to the Trump Administration’s new policy direction to deal with the increased nuclear threat coming from North Korea. It became operation in South Korea in May, but soldiers from the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade in Kodiak, Alaska, conducted the test unaware of the actual launch time.
The latest test comes a week after North Korea tested a new version of the KN-07 during the record-breaking July 4 missile launch. It flew for 37 minutes and reached a height of 1,500 miles, breaking the DPRK’s previous record of 30 minutes and 1,000 feet set on Mother’s Day.
The U.S. successfully tested the THAAD missile
FILE – In this file photo made Sunday, May 6, 2012, Gov. Paul LePage speaks at the Maine GOP convention. (Photo: AP)
Back at the end of April, President Trump got rolled in his first big budget negotiation with Congress. The deal, which provided funding for the remainder of the 2017 fiscal year, was correctly perceived as a victory for Democrats.
How could this happen, given that Democrats are the minority party in both the House and the Senate? Simply stated, Republicans were afraid that they would get blamed for a “government shutdown” if no deal was struck. So they basically unfurled the white flag and acquiesced to most of the other side’s demands.
I subsequently explained how Trump should learn from that debacle. To be succinct, he should tell Congress that he will veto any spending bills for FY2018 (which begins October 1) that exceed his budget request, even if that means a shutdown.
For what it’s worth, I don’t really expect Trump or folks in the White House to care about my advice. But I am hoping that they paid attention to what just happened in Maine. That state’s Republican Governor, Paul LePage, just prevailed in a shutdown fight with the Maine legislature.
Here are some details on what happened, as reported by CNN.
The three-day government shutdown in Maine ended early Tuesday morning after Gov. Paul LePage signed a new budget, according to a statement from his office.The shutdown had closed all non-emergency government functions, prompting protests from state employees in Augusta. …The key contention for the governor was over taxes. LePage met Monday afternoon with House Republicans and pledged to sign a budget that eliminated an increase in the lodging tax from 9 to 10.5 percent, according to the statement from the governor’s office. Once the lodging tax hike was off the table, negotiations sped up as the state House voted 147-2 and the Senate 35-0 for the new budget. “I thank legislators for doing the right thing by passing a budget that does not increase taxes on the Maine people,” said LePage in a statement.
And here are some excerpts from a local news report.
Partisan disagreements over a new two-year spending plan were finally resolved late Monday. The final budget eliminated a proposed 1.5 percent increase to Maine’s lodging tax – a hike that represented less than three-tenths of one percent of the entire $7.1 billion package but held up the process for days.
…Gideon and other Democrats complained about the constantly-changing proposals being presented by House Republicans, who were acting as a proxy for LePage. Representative Ken Fredette, the House Minority Leader, insisted that his members were simply fighting back against tax hikes and making sure the governor was involved in the process. …Republicans in the Senate who, over the past several months, were able to negotiate away a three-percent income tax surcharge on high-income earners that was approved by voters last fall.
What’s particularly amazing is that Democrats in the state legislature even agreed to repeal a class-warfare tax hike (the 3-percentage point increase in the top income tax rate) that was narrowly adopted in a referendum last November.
This is a remarkable development. I had listed this referendum as one of the worst ballot initiatives of 2016 and was very disappointed when voters made the wrong choice.
So why did the state’s leftists not fight harder to preserve this awful tax?
One of the reasons they surrendered on that issue is that there was a big Laffer-Curve effect. Taxpayers with large incomes predictably decided to earn and report less income in Maine.
The moral of the story is that Maine’s Democrats were willing to give up on the surtax because they realized it wasn’t going to give them any revenue to redistribute. And unlike some DC-based leftists, they didn’t want a tax hike that resulted in less revenue.
Here are some passages from a report by the state’s Revenue Forecasting Committee.
The RFC has reduced its forecast of individual income tax receipts by $15.9 million in FY17, $40.3 million in the 2018-2019 biennium, and $43.9 million in the 2020-2021 biennium. While there was no so-called “April Surprise” to report for 2016 final payments in April, the first estimated payment for tax year 2017 was $9.3 million under budget; flat compared to a year ago. The committee had expected an increase of 25% or more in the April and June estimated payments because of the 3 percent surtax passed by the voters last November. … there is concern that high-income taxpayers impacted by the surtax may be taking some action to reduce their exposure to the surtax. The forecast accepted by the committee today assumes a reduction of approximately $250 million in taxable income by the top 1% of Maine resident tax returns and similarly situated non-resident returns. This reduction in taxable income translates into a total decrease in annual individual income tax liability of approximately $30 million; $10 million from the 3% surtax and $20 million from the regular income tax liability.
And here’s the relevant table from the appendix showing how the state had to reduce estimated income tax receipts.
But I’m getting sidetracked.
Let’s return to the lessons that Trump should learn from Governor LePage about how to win a shutdown fight.
One of the lessons is to stake out the high ground. Have the fight over something important. LePage wanted to kill the lodging tax and the referendum surtax. Since those taxes were so damaging, it was very easy for the Governor to justify his position.
Another lesson is to go on offense. Republicans in Maine explained that higher taxes would make the state less competitive. Here’s a chart they disseminated comparing the tax burden in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.
And here’s another very powerful chart that was circulated to policy makers, showing the migration of taxpayers from high-tax states to zero-income-tax states.
Trump should do something similar. The fight later this year in DC (assuming the President is willing to fight) will be about spending levels. And leftists will be complaining about “savage” and “draconian” cuts.
So the Trump Administration should respond with charts showing that the other side is being hysterical and inaccurate since he’s merely trying to slow down the growth of government.
But the most important lesson of all is that Trump holds a veto pen. And that means he (just like Gov. LePage in Maine) controls the situation. He can veto bad budget legislation. And when the interest groups start to squeal that the spending faucet is no longer dispensing goodies because of a shutdown, he should understand that those interest groups feeling the pinch generally will be on the left. And when they complain, it is the big spenders in Congress who will feel the most pressure to capitulate in order to reopen the faucet. Moreover, the longer the government is shut down, the greater the pinch on the pro-spending lobbies.
In other words, Trump has the leverage, if he is willing to use it.
This assumes, of course, that Trump has the brains and fortitude to hold firm when the press tries to create a fake narrative about the world coming to an end, (just like they did with the sequester in 2013 and the shutdown fight that same year).
In April, President Donald Trump got rolled in his
