A Quartet of Trump Cabinet Choices
Dec 22 2016Donald Trump's appointments make it clear that he is putting together not just a conservative government, but a cabinet whose mission is to reverse what preceding governments — Democrats and moderate Republicans alike — have worked to accomplish, underscored by appointing Rick Perry to head Energy, one of three departments in the 2012 campaign debates he (and many Republicans) wanted abolished ("it's three agencies of government that when I get there are gone"). On this page are short takes on four appointees that we foresaw in December would run into strong objections in their confirmation hearings.
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I agree with Alex. Good luck with this website if it’s just going to bash hard working people who actually are fixing the country.
How do you figure that, with a labor secretary who is against raising the minimum wage, against paying people for overtime work, and prefers robot workers to humans?
Wail over these cabinet choices if you want, I applaud every one of them.
1. Obamacare was a disaster right out of the box (per Pelosi, “pass it, then we’ll see what’s in it”). Thank goodness we now have the opportunity to repeal and replace it. Will the new administration and Congress come up with an effective fix? We’ll see, but at least now the opportunity is there.
2. Public education has been abominable for decades, especially in the inner cities. Largely due to the domination of the teachers’ unions, who look to protect their members, competent or not. Students be damned. And local politicians beholden to them. Good old fashioned competition (school choice) is the solution – charters and vouchers. You moan about ‘for profit’ alternatives. First, profit is not by definition a dirty word – several for profit charter operations are achieving impressive results. Second, many school choice alternatives are not for profit. Many charter schools are launched by neighborhood groups simply trying to create better education options for their kids. Profit is the last thing on their minds – in fact, they struggle to even survive financially, rely on private contributions to just stay alive. And parochial schools supported by vouchers – these are clearly non-profit. And please, don’t give me the church/state argument – the government doesn’t decide where that voucher money goes – the parents do.
3. Regulations – yes, pollution is a legitimate concern. We have made great strides over recent decades dramatically reducing it. Climate change? Not at all sure how settled that science is, especially how significant human activity is in causing it. What I can say is that government overreach, especially by the Obama administration, has been choking our economy, costing us jobs and economic growth, to dubious environmental benefit. And the flood of regulations promulgated by government agencies under Obama in other areas has only added to the challenges facing businesses in this country. May the Trump administration unleash the economic growth that will create jobs, increase wages across the economic spectrum, restore the ‘American Dream’ of children looking forward to a future better than their parents realized.