I am not sure how you think Trump saying US needs to reconsider trade agreements, lower business taxation, and address an immigration problem that costs the US hundreds of $BB between providing social services, homeward remittances, and non tax payments; is not discussing the economy.
Sure we need an answer to Federal spending and its accompanying deficit debt load. That falls on several parties - no? The president making recommendations, the Congress creating the actual bills, us voting in the same guys because we like the pork. Attacking the biggies of Medicare and SS without being in office are a political non starter. Candidates don’t get voted in but promising to hand you the saw to cut the limb you are sitting on. More so when you planted the tree through years of mandatory contribution.
I don’t discount the mathematical facts that we are headed to failure in that area, but your test is one that no US pol has been able to pass up to now.
Except for the candidates in the primary, GWB (tried and failed to address entitlements), and members of current congress.
To pander to nativists. Not talk about the economy. Talking about the economy is not “I make the best deals, trust me, believe me”, let alone how his VP, other primary candidates and congress are free trade.
Agree on that, but if you don’t address the elephant in the room (entitlements) all for naught.
Was that his argument? Because I sure haven’t heard it said that way. But if you want to get into the specifics of ecnomic immigration and how deporting 11 million people would change the economy we could go there, but its been discussed previously. (not sure if in this thread)
Except the recommendation he’s made is he won’t touch entitlements and doesn’t discuss the debt. He only talks about what he will spend (like a dumb wall, when we already have a fence) and how he will get rid of those pesky brown people.
There are literally members of congress who have been elected talking about this…
Please specify which entitlements you are referring to.
Which President do you consider has done the most for correcting the deficit caused by entitlement funding?
It doesn’t require much pulling off. Most of the items he spoke of are already in place. They just aren’t being enforced.
Maybe it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but the judge at my brothers ex-wife’s hearing hit those points squarely on the head as reasons to deny her application and appeals for citizenship.
Similar results for another more distant family member that was sponsoring his wife and her brother, and they were an architect and mechanical engineer. Judge heard their arguments and actually threatened their attorney. He directly told the attorney that if he wants any of his other cases to go any differently that he better quit arguing the present one and move on with things. Then he closed the file, stated his disposition, and closed the hearing.
The thing that Trump is taking advantage of is peoples ignorance of what already exists and is happening. Like his “Bomb the shit out of them” statement, which we were already doing and have continued to do since. Same with immigration. The criteria for citizenship already exist. All he has to do is say “Hocus Pocus, alakazam! Look what I did!” and people with think that he magically reformed the immigration laws, when in fact, they have been written for a long time.
Has anybody here talking about this ever seen an immigration hearing, spoken with an immigration attorney, or talked to someone who has gone through the process?
That’s his point I think: “Attacking the biggies of Medicare and SS without being in office are a political non starter”
You just named people who talked about it while holding office, which was his point…Trumps not in office yet. Congressional reps who represent a district are very very different from a president that is supposed to represent the whole country. Congressional reps are able to get away with more in certain areas depending on their district constituency.
To this point, GWB probably did the most but failed due to congress. It wasn’t as dire of a problem before Clinton, and arguably not the most pressing issue during the Clinton era either but they all (like most mayors, governors or other officials) kicked the can down the road because the consequences wouldn’t happen during their tenure. Obama is more or less pretending its not an issue. The WSJ article I posted shows how much damage he has done in that area and what he will be leaving for the next president.
Except some of those people were running for president. GOP voters chose the only one (to my knowledge) that not only refused to talk about it in any detail, but said entitlements would not be touched.
Off the top of my head I remember Paul, Huckabee, Christie, Kasich, Rubio, Bush, and Cruz at least discussing it.
I hate Trump, but it was clearly not an issue people wanted to discuss during the primaries…non starter indeed. We can banter about exactly why Trump managed to get the nomination but treco might have a point there.
Exactly, so of all the candidates who could possibly “save us” from our current fiscal drain circling… voters chose the one who won’t address the issue.
To clarify my point, Trump can’t “save us” if he ignores one of the bigger issues a president will face in 2016-2020. Read the WSJ article.
he’s pretty clearly talking about candidates here mate. The “test” he is referring too is the election process for POTUS.
Technically you can argue it of course, but I have no interest in that. I thought his meaning was pretty clear without having to parse semantics, which is why I brought it up
Now, I’m going to go out on a limb here so be gentle and give me a wide berth here- but Maybe, just Maybe- he was smart enough not to touch that which he knew would disqualify him so early in the process.
Maybe. Other viable explanations would include that he was busy saying other stupid things, but still somehow managed to blow the doors off of his competitors who thought that they were touching the clean end of that particular political turd.
It’s true, he simply wants to enforce immigration laws that are currently in place. But doing that in the current political climate is what makes it impressive. Ask yourself, why haven’t immigration laws been enforced since the Reagan presidency? Why is he getting so much heat for suggesting America should enforce its laws?
On the legal side:
The criteria for permanent residence that he is suggesting is new. Right now most get in via a lottery system or family sponsorship. The only real requirements are a criminal background check and that you don’t have a handful of infectious diseases.
Trump wants to admit immigrants based on merit, an ideological check (no muslims) as opposed to a lottery.
He also wants to ban refugees altogether which Hillary plans to import 500K.
I mean, he was talking about murdering non-combatants so I think you might be giving him a bit more credit than he’s due…
He’s either smart enough to know that he can’t grow the border patrol by 23% and build a $15B wall and talk about the reducing the debt and deficit while being taken seriously or;
He doesn’t care about the debt and/or the deficit other than to say how high it is.
He is 70 or so. It’s not really his problem.
You’re right, though. It’s not sexy enough for a primary or even a run at the white house for the majority of the population. Sadly, it’s much more important to get in a jab at your opponent via Tweet.
Trump’s only saving grace is that Hillary does not have an answer for either the debt or the deficit either. Both would make them worse.
Maybe currently Raj, but that is not what I saw in the early 2000’s. These were family sponsorships. The only thing he’s introducing that is new is the ideological check.
Even the guy I know that came in by lottery had to have some damn good reasons to be here and be sponsored. He stated political asylum and medical necessity, as his wife needed a heart valve transplant and care that could not be obtained in the Ukraine under communist rule.