The Quotable Reich

Trump merely speeded up what the Clintons and Republicans have been enabling since at least Reagan and Nixon.

That's a child's answer (well, really not even an answer to my question).

The poor phony Dem can't take the truth. It was you who lost the election. Face up and learn. Do better next time.

I have no sympathy for people who persist in being wrong, after all the facts have been endlessly made available to peruse.

I'm going to choose to stop challenging you directly. It's wasting everyone's time.

I look forward to not reading your copy/paste articles.

Own up to it. The Dems lost through their own short comings. Blaming one of the wheels because you ran out of gas is just plain stubbornness.

Robert Reich
10 mins ·
Almost one year in, it’s time for another update for Trump voters on his election promises:
1. He told you he’d cut your taxes, and that the super-rich like him would pay more. You bought it. But his new tax law does the opposite. by 2027, according the nonpartisan analyses, the richest 1 percent will have got 83 percent of the tax cut and the richest 0.1 percent, 60 percent of it. As Trump told his wealthy friends at Mar-a-Lago last week, "You all just got a lot richer."
2. He promised to close “special interest loopholes that have been so good for Wall Street investors but unfair to American workers,” especially the notorious “carried interest” loophole for private-equity, hedge fund, and real estate partners. You bought it. But the loophole is still there. The new tax law keeps it.
3. He told you he’d repeal Obamacare and replace it with something “beautiful.” You bought it. But he didn’t repeal and he didn’t replace. (Just as well: His plan would have knocked at least 23 million off health insurance, including many of you.) Instead, he’s doing what he can to cut it back and replace it with nothing. The new tax law will result in 13 million people losing health coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
4. He told you he’d invest $1 trillion in our nation’ crumbling infrastructure. You bought it. But after his giant tax cut for corporations and millionaires, there’s no money left for infrastructure.
5. He said he’d clean the Washington swamp. You bought it. But he’s brought into his administration more billionaires, CEOs, and Wall Street moguls than in any administration in history, to make laws that will enrich their businesses, and he’s filled departments and agencies with former lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who are crafting new policies for the same industries they recently worked for.
6. He said he’d use his business experience to whip the White House into shape. You bought it. But he has created the most dysfunctional, back-stabbing White House in modern history, and has already fired and replaced so many assistants (one of them hired and fired in a little more than a week) that people there barely know who’s in charge of what.
7. He told you he’d “bring down drug prices” by making deals with drug companies. You bought it. But now the White House says that promise is “inoperative.”
8. He promised "a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections." You bought it. But foreign lobbyists are still raising money for American elections.
9. He told you “I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.” You bought it. But he and House Speaker Paul Ryan are already planning such cuts in order to deal with the ballooning deficit created, in part, by the new tax law for corporations and the rich.
10. He promised “six weeks of paid maternity leave to any mother with a newborn child whose employer does not provide the benefit.” You bought it. But the giant tax cut for corporations and the rich doesn’t leave any money for this.
11. He said that on Day One he’d label China a “currency manipulator.” You bought it. But then he met with China’s president Xi Jinping and declared "China is not a currency manipulator.” Ever since then, Trump has been cozying up to Xi.
12. He said he wouldn’t bomb Syria. You bought it. But then he bombed Syria.
13. He said he’d build a “wall” across the southern border. You believed him. But there’s no money for that, either. Chief of staff John Kelly says it is “unlikely that we will build a wall, a physical barrier, from sea to shining sea.”
14. He promised that the many women who accused him of sexual misconduct “will be sued after the election is over.” You bought it. He hasn’t sued them.
15. He said he “would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off,” and he called Barack Obama “the vacationer-in-Chief." You bought it. But he has spent nearly 25 percent of his days at one of his golf properties for some portion of the day, according to Golf News Network, at a cost to taxpayers of over $77 million. That’s already more taxpayer money on vacations than Obama cost in the first 3 years of his presidency. Not to mention all the money taxpayers are spending protecting his family, including his two sons who travel all over the world on Trump business.
16. He said he’d force companies to keep jobs in America, and that there would be “consequences” for companies that shipped jobs abroad. You believed him. But despite their promises, Carrier, Ford, GM, and the rest have continued to ship jobs to Mexico and China. Carrier (a division of United Technologies) has moved ahead with plans to send 1,000 jobs at its Indiana plant to Mexico. Notwithstanding, the federal government has rewarded United Technologies with 15 new contracts since Trump's inauguration. Last year, Microsoft opened a new factory in Wilsonville, Oregon, that was supposed to herald a new era in domestic tech manufacturing. But in July, the company announced it was closing the plant. More than 100 workers and contractors will lose their jobs when production shifts to China. GE is sending jobs to Canada. IBM is sending them to Costa Rica, Egypt, Argentina, and Brazil. There have been no “consequences” for sending all these jobs overseas.
17. He promised to revive the struggling coal industry and "bring back thousands" of lost mining jobs. You bought it. But coal jobs continue to disappear. Since Trump’s victory, at least 6 plants that relied on coal have closed or announced they will close. Another 40 are projected to close during the president’s four-year term. Utilities continue to switch to natural gas instead of coal.
18. He promised to protect steel workers. But according to the American Iron and Steel Institute, which tracks shipments, steel imports were 19.4 percent higher in the first 10 months of 2017 than in the same period last year. That import surge has hurt American steel workers, already struggling against a glut of cheap Chinese steel. For example, ArcelorMittal just announced it will soon lay off 150 of its 207 steel workers at its plant in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.
19. He said he’d make America safer. You believed him. But according to Mass Shooting Tracker, there have been 377 mass shootings so far this year, including 58 people killed and hundreds injured at a concert in Las Vegas, and 26 churchgoers killed and 20 injured at a church in Texas. Trump refuses to consider any gun controls.
20. He said he’d release his taxes. “I’m under a routine audit and it'll be released, and as soon as the audit is finished it will be released." He hasn’t released his taxes.

Trump has a history of bigotry and lies. Those who support Trump are bigots like him. Trump has no redeeming quality that qualifies him to lead any company or country. He also admitted he’s a women crotch grabber by his own words.. Why is he our president?

Robert Reich
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Few thinkers have had a more profound influence on conservative ideology than Ayn Rand. Her ideas permeate the highest reaches of the Republican Party and the Trump administration. They've provided the justification for unbridled selfishness and contempt for the common good. They must be firmly and unequivocally rejected.

Further, Trump is a dangerous moron and liar who has no depth of knowledge in any subject. His idiocy continues with his tariff war.

Trump's tariff shows his ignorance.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/02/opinions/trump-tariff-move-shows-his-ignorance-sachs/index.html

Robert Reich
1 hr ·
I have locked horns with George Will for more than thirty years. Will is what we used to call a principled conservative. Here’s what Will had to say today about John Bolton, whom Trump has just appointed to be his National Security Advisor:

“He will be the first national security adviser who, upon taking up residence down the hall from the Oval Office, will be suggesting that the United States should seriously consider embarking on war crimes. The first two charges against the major Nazi war criminals in the 1945-1946 Nuremberg trials concerned waging aggressive war. Emboldened by the success, as he still sees it, of America’s Iraq adventure that began 15 years ago this month, Bolton, for whom a trade war with many friends and foes is insufficiently stimulating, favors real wars against North Korea and Iran. Both have odious regimes, but neither can credibly be said to be threatening an imminent attack against the United States. Nevertheless, Bolton thinks bombing both might make the world safer.”

The biggest problem is Trump. He's the ignoramus who will appoint dummies to his administration, and that includes his family members.

Robert Reich
1 hr ·
Kudos to teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Arizona who are not only seeking better pay after years of rock-bottom wages but also better schools. Cash-starved districts in rural Oklahoma have cut the school week down to four days; textbooks in Kentucky are so old their pages fall out; classes in many schools in these states contain over 40 students. The tax giveaways in these states are starving public education. Teachers are demanding better.

The true source of America’s strength is our people -- their skills, knowledge, and insights – not the size of our military, or the security of our borders, or the profitability of our corporations. America’s teachers build that strength. They should be paid what they’re worth. They should be honored for what they do. Their leadership in this dark era of Trump, DeVos, and hide-bound state legislatures is an inspiration.

The cost of living is so high here for teachers, the city/county has to provide special housing for them. There's one complex for teachers just one block from where we live, but in Santa Clara (not Sunnyvale).

Robert Reich
14 mins ·
The stock market is plunging on fear of a Trumpian trade war with China. We haven't seen as much volatility in the market in years -- much of it brought on by Trump. Some traders are making fortunes buying before the upswings and selling short on the downswings. Which, in turn, means that anyone with knowledge of what Trump is likely to do before he does it is reaping a bonanza.

So what's the chance that Trump's friends and family, or Trump himself, are in on this?

I don't worry about the daily ups and downs; only that in the long term, it continues to support how our economy is performing - which is strong by world standards. I trust in marco-economics, not the naysayers who continue to predict doom and gloom of our stock market crash.
Three years and counting. Some corrections along the way where market players buy and sell. Research has shown they make very little or break even by playing the market. Not worth the effort, when we can see that the long term performance is always upwards.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stock-market-crash-of-2016-the-countdown-begins-2015-02-25

In other words, it's impossible to predict the short term performance of the stock market. Stocks
Dow Jones Industrial Average - 1900-Present

Robert Reich added a new video.
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Trump appears to be gearing up to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller following an FBI raid of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen. If Trump does so, it would set off a constitutional crisis that would shake the foundation of our democracy. In these perilous times, we must remain vigilant.

Robert Reich
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Trump's harrumphing about Mueller steals the spotlight as Republicans in Congress work on their latest ploy to shaft Americans -- a "balanced budget amendment" to the Constitution.

As you know, Congress massively cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy -- lowering government revenue and blowing a hole the federal deficit. Now, Republican leaders are using the exploding budget deficit to push for a Constitutional amendment requiring Congress to balance the federal budget each year.

Such an amendment would necessarily cut vital social programs in order to fill that hole created by the tax cut -- allowing Republicans to gut Medicare and Social Security. And it would make it impossible for government to stimulate the economy in economic downturns.

Congress could vote on the "balanced-budget amendment" as soon as next week. Please join me in lifting your voice against this bonkers and dangerous initiative.