Tag: Trump Administration

Trump and Clean Energy Jobs

The following article was posted on the TrumpAccountable.org website August 26, 2017:

Data from the U.S. Department of Energy indicates that 3.3 million Americans were employed in the clean energy industry in 2016. By contrast, during the same time period the fossil fuel industry employed 2.9 million Americans. The economic importance of clean energy jobs – fueled by a marketplace that increasingly demands the U.S. play a role in green technology – is an undeniable element of the U.S. economic landscape.

Despite those in the Trump administration who contend that climate change is a hoax, interest in clean energy technology and jobs continues to grow in the U.S. and abroad. Meanwhile President Trump continues to be an advocate for coal. “We’ve ended the war on beautiful, clean coal,” Trump claimed at a rally in Phoenix earlier this week. “And it’s just been announced that a second, brand-new coal mine, where they’re going to take out clean coal — meaning, they’re taking out coal, they’re going to clean it — is opening in the state of Pennsylvania.”

Trump clearly lacks a fundamental understanding of what “clean coal” is and the fact that the term refers not to the coal that comes from the ground but technologies used to capture carbon emissions associated with coal power plants. But aside from his flawed understanding, here are two important points about how the Obama and Trump administrations supported jobs in the energy sector:

  • Trump is trying to provide government support for jobs that are bad for the environment and that are economically unsustainable.
  • Obama helped provide support for emerging green technologies that are in high demand in the U.S. and around the world.

President Obama capitalized on a strong global economic movement driven by science while Trump is determined to support big coal industry donors and coal workers (who supported him in 2016) despite science or a grasp of the free market forces driving energy consumption in the U.S.

The free market has done more to undermine the coal industry and jobs dependent on coal than any environmental policies implemented by the Obama administration.

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Trump’s Wall Plan Ignores Immigration Realities

The following article by Cynthia Tucker was posted on the National Memo website August 25, 2017:

During a rage-fueled rant in Phoenix a few days ago, President Donald Trump threatened a government shutdown if Congress doesn’t appropriate the billions he needs to construct a wall along the southern border. Though he now ignores his once-upon-a-time pledge that Mexico would pay for the wall, it’s no surprise that the president pulled out a signature red-meat theme.

His poll numbers are trending steadily downward, and a raucous xenophobia tends to energize his base. In a campaign-style rally, he whipped up the frenzy with escalating rhetoric: “If we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall,” he exclaimed, as supporters chanted, “Build the wall!”
Let’s ignore, for a moment, the virtually insurmountable logistical, legal, economic and political obstacles presented by such a project. Even if Trump were to build his promised barrier — and that’s quite unlikely — it would not solve the nation’s biggest immigration challenge: what to do about the undocumented people who are already here. Continue reading “Trump’s Wall Plan Ignores Immigration Realities”

Everything Trump has ever tweeted about government shutdowns, in one post

The following article by Elise Viebeck was posted on the Washington Post website August 25, 2017:

President Trump has always been pretty cavalier about shutting down the government. Just go back a few years through his Twitter feed.

As a businessman, Trump provided almost daily commentary as the clock ticked toward the most recent shutdown, in 2013. When the government ultimately closed that year, on Oct. 1, Trump was a steady voice of support for Republicans, who sought to use the situation as leverage against the Affordable Care Act. He also played down the consequences of closing the government. “All essential services continue,” he wrote eight days before the shutdown in a tweet that earned all of 128 likes. “Don’t believe lies.” Continue reading “Everything Trump has ever tweeted about government shutdowns, in one post”

Hurricane Harvey will be Trump’s first major natural disaster test

The following article by James Hohmann with Breanne Deppesch and Joanie Greve was posted on the Washington Post website August 25, 2017:

While touring flood-damaged Louisiana in Aug. 2016, Donald Trump took a shot at President Barack Obama for his decision not to cut short a vacation on Martha’s Vineyard where he had been golfing. (Reuters)

THE BIG IDEA: Last August, Donald Trump attacked Barack Obama for golfing on Martha’s Vineyard after floods in Louisiana left 13 people dead. The then-Republican nominee flew to Baton Rouge to hand out toys to children who had lost their homes. “The president says he doesn’t want to go,” an outraged Trump told volunteers at a Baptist church.

“I heard he wants to stay under par while we are under water,” said Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council. Continue reading “Hurricane Harvey will be Trump’s first major natural disaster test”

Is Anybody Home at HUD?

The following article by Alec MacGilis was posted on the ProPublica website August 22, 2017:

A long-harbored conservative dream — the “dismantling of the administrative state” — is taking place under Secretary Ben Carson.

Credit: Cameron Cottrill, special to ProPublica

This story was co-published with New York magazine.

In mid-May, Steve Preston, who served as the secretary of housing and urban development in the final two years of the George W. Bush administration, organized a dinner at the Metropolitan Club in Washington, D.C., for the new chief of that department, Ben Carson, and five other former secretaries whose joint tenure stretched all the way back to Gerald Ford. It was an event with no recent precedent within the department, and it had the distinct feel of an intervention. Continue reading “Is Anybody Home at HUD?”

The American People Deserve More Answers on Afghanistan

The following article by Michael Fuchs, Hardin Lang and Vikram Singh was posted on the Center for American Progress website August 22, 2017:

AP/U.S. Marine Corps
U.S. soldiers maneuver an M-777 howitzer at Bost Airfield, Afghanistan, June 2017.

Eight months into his term, President Donald Trump is finally paying attention to the ongoing Afghanistan War, where thousands of U.S. soldiers are currently fighting. Trump’s new plan seems a lot like the old ones, with even less detail about how the war—or American involvement in it—will end.

For 16 years, America has been fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and trying to help stabilize the country. America’s longest war has claimed the lives of more than 2,400 U.S. troops and 1,136 allied troops, with tens of thousands wounded. In addition to the loss of life, combat in Afghanistan has cost the American taxpayer an estimated $841 billion (if the fiscal year 2018 budget request is met) in defense costs alone. Continue reading “The American People Deserve More Answers on Afghanistan”

Members of Trump’s Infrastructure Panel Resign in Protest

The following article by John M. Donnelly was posted on the Roll Call website August 23, 2017:

Administration not responsive to sound advice, letter says

The departing panelists cited President Donald Trump’s recent comments on the racial unrest in Charlottesville, Va., earlier this month. Credit:  Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo

More than a quarter of a blue-ribbon panel of experts that advises President Donald Trump on infrastructure security submitted a joint resignation letter to him Monday because, they wrote, his actions jeopardize U.S. security and “undermine” America’s “moral infrastructure.”

Seven members of the 27-person National Infrastructure Advisory Council, mostly Democrats, are stepping down, said Cristin Dorgelo, one of the resigning members, in an email to CQ Roll Call. Dorgelo, a senior counselor at Mission Partners LLC, was formerly chief of staff for President Barack Obama’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The council, created in 2001, advises the president through the Homeland Security secretary on critical U.S. infrastructure and information systems. Its members are drawn from the private sector, government and academia. Continue reading “Members of Trump’s Infrastructure Panel Resign in Protest”

Here Are the Top Officials in the Trump White House Who Have Left

The following article by Larry Buchanan, Alicia Parlapiano and Karen Yourish was posted on the New York Times website August 18, 2017:

Below are the top White House officials who resigned, or were fired, dismissed or reassigned. Mr. Trump also fired James B. Comey as director of the F.B.I. and Sally Q. Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration who was serving as his acting attorney general. Continue reading “Here Are the Top Officials in the Trump White House Who Have Left”

The Trump administration just disbanded a federal advisory committee on climate change

The following article by Juliet EIlperin was posted on the Washington Post website August 20, 2017:

President Trump speaks about the U.S. role in the Paris climate change accord in the Rose Garden of the White House in June, 2017. (AP)

The Trump administration has decided to disband the federal advisory panel for the National Climate Assessment, a group aimed at helping policymakers and private-sector officials incorporate the government’s climate analysis into long-term planning.

The charter for the 15-person Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment — which includes academics as well as local officials and corporate representatives — expires Sunday. On Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s acting administrator, Ben Friedman, informed the committee’s chair that the agency would not renew the panel.

The National Climate Assessment is supposed to be issued every four years but has come out only three times since passage of the 1990 law calling for such analysis. The next one, due for release in 2018, already has become a contentious issue for the Trump administration. Continue reading “The Trump administration just disbanded a federal advisory committee on climate change”

Racism and Tax Inequality?

The following article was posted on the TrumpAccountable.org website August 18, 2017:

Recently fired adviser to the President Steve Bannon likes it when progressives talk about racism because it distracts them from Trump’s core message of economic, nationalistic populism. “I want them to talk about racism every day,” Bannon told The American Prospect earlier this week. “If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”

Indeed while much of the country processed and litigated Trump’s controversial comments on Charlottesville, Republicans were meeting at Rancho del Cielo, Ronald Reagan’s country home, to honor Reagan’s 1986 tax reform success and continue building momentum for tax reform in Congress this fall.

There seem to be two ways of looking at this:

  1. Distraction – While Trump distracts the country with controversial statements about racism that embolden white supremacists, tax and policy wonks in the White House and Congress can quietly meet to craft tax legislation that will in all likelihood increase the deficit while also giving enormous tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.
  2. Lost Allies – Trump is imperiling his legislative and domestic agenda by supporting white supremacists and throwing rocks at Republican members of Congress who call him out on his unpresidential behavior. When he needs Lindsey Graham (R-SC) or Jeff Flake (R-AZ) to help him pass controversial legislation, he may find himself with another Obamacare-McCain moment.

We see both narratives playing themselves out in the media and discussed ad nauseum with cable news panelists across the country.

It may be that the “Distraction” narrative, which seems to play into Bannon’s strategy to get the left to focus on race, is the operating plan. However, that means that there has to be reasonable confidence that Republicans can cobble together a tax plan that the public will support and that enough Republicans can support. With the failure of Obamacare repeal and replace legislation, this may be a taller order than they can deliver.

A Reuters piece on the meeting at Rancho del Cielo on Wednesday, for example, lead with the headline “Republicans Offer Few Tax Plan Details at High-Profile Event.” Every time they offer tax plan details the media and special interest groups likely to be affected by tax code changes launch a blistering PR effort. It’s shaping up like the Republican’s ill-fated answer to Obamacare: a plan crafted by a select number of Republicans in a back room with no bipartisan or popular support.

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