Tag: Trump Administration

President Trump’s ‘balanced’ budget relies on $2,062,000,000,000 in mystery money

The following article by Max Ehrenfreud was posted on the Washington Post website May 23, 207:

White House officials are boasting that President Trump’s budget would balance federal finances in 10 years. Yet despite extreme reductions in spending on health care for the poor, food stamps, education, science and other basic government programs, Trump’s staff could only balance the budget by claiming vague savings and unspecified sources of new revenue — in other words, with trillions of dollars in mystery money.

It is not just that Trump is counting on a rapid acceleration in economic growth that economists believe is unlikely, which the budget projects will yield $2.1 trillion in new revenue ($2,062,000,000,000, to be more exact). Besides that bonus from growth, the budget also assumes that Trump’s tax cuts — which he has said will be the largest in history —  would not affect the government’s bottom line at all. Continue reading “President Trump’s ‘balanced’ budget relies on $2,062,000,000,000 in mystery money”

Power struggle intensifies between White House and ethics office

The following article by Matea Gold was posted on the Washington Post website May 22, 2017:

Walter M. Shaub Jr., head of the Office of Government Ethics, has repeatedly been at odds with the White House. (Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM/National Law Journal)

White House officials are seeking to stop the federal government’s top ethics officer from getting details about waivers granted to lobbyists and other appointees working in the admin­istration, intensifying a power struggle between President Trump and the ethics agency.

Walter M. Shaub Jr., director of the Office of Government Ethics, sent a memo in April to the White House and federal agencies asking for information about such waivers. Continue reading “Power struggle intensifies between White House and ethics office”

Lack of Workers, Not Work, Weighs on the Nation’s Economy

The following article by Binyamin Appelbaum was posted on the New York Times website May 21, 2017:

Juan Guerrero, right, and Joseph Waseme securing materials on a truck bed at a Roofers Supply lot in Salt Lake City. The company needs at least 15 more drivers to meet demand, but has had trouble finding workers. Credit Kim Raff for The New York Times

SALT LAKE CITY — Stephanie Pappas and her brothers built their roofing supply company in this fast-growing region by promising next-day delivery, but lately they’ve been forced to tell some customers that tomorrow is impossible.

Their company, Roofers Supply, employs 28 drivers across Utah, and Ms. Pappas said she would need at least 15 more to meet the exploding demand for shingles and tiles. The company has raised its starting wage by 10 percent since the beginning of the year to $17.50 an hour, but it’s not enough. Continue reading “Lack of Workers, Not Work, Weighs on the Nation’s Economy”

The real threat of phony leaks

The following article by Callum Borchers was posted on the Washington Post website May 22, 2017:

Conservative talk show host Bill Mitchell has hatched an ingenious plot to destroy the credibility of major newspapers.

Bill Mitchell

✔@mitchellvii

You know what we should do? Start flooding the NYTimes and WAPO tip lines with all kinds of crazy “leaks.” Then laugh when they print them!

Continue reading “The real threat of phony leaks”

Echoes of Watergate as Trump flies to Middle East amid new Comey revelations

The following article by James Hohmann with Breanne Deppisch was posted on the Washington Post website May 19, 2017:

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

THE BIG IDEA: Donald Trump goes wheels up at 2:10 p.m. for Riyadh. His nine-day tour will then take him to Jerusalem, the West Bank, Rome, Brussels, and Sicily.

Walter Pincus, who has one of the longest memories in Washington, sees parallels between the president’s first foreign trip and a journey Richard Nixon took to the Middle East as Watergate consumed his presidency in June 1974. It came at the very time the Watergate special prosecutor was in court seeking the actual White House tapes of presidential conversations (do such tapes exist now?) and congressional committees were beginning to look into impeachment. “Back then, ironically, Nixon visited leaders in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Israel in an unsuccessful attempt to strengthen the ceasefire agreement that halted fighting in the Yom Kippur, Arab-Israeli war,” Walter writes for the Cipher Brief. “Nixon returned home to challenge and lose his Supreme Court argument over the tapes that set him down the path to resigning the presidency.” Continue reading “Echoes of Watergate as Trump flies to Middle East amid new Comey revelations”

As Trump prepared for Riyadh visit, Saudis blocked U.S. on terrorist sanctions

The following article by Joby Warrick was posted on the Washington Post website May 20, 2017:

Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich kingdom touted by President Trump as a key ally in the fight against the Islamic State, has helped block a Trump administration proposal to impose sanctions against a Saudi branch of the terrorist group, documents show.

The plan to add the Islamic State’s Saudi affiliate to a U.N. list of terrorist groups was quietly killed two weeks ago in a bureaucratic maneuver at the U.N. Security Council, records show. U.S. officials familiar with the move said the Saudis objected to the public acknowledgment of the existence of a separate Saudi offshoot of the terrorist group inside the kingdom. Continue reading “As Trump prepared for Riyadh visit, Saudis blocked U.S. on terrorist sanctions”

A Fine Line

The following article by Joseph P. Williams was posted on the U.S. News and World Report website May 19, 2017:

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Since taking office just over four months ago, President Donald Trump has made good on his campaign promise to shake up Washington, but, critics say, not necessarily in a good way.

From his refusal to divest of his real-estate empire to last week’s firing of a top law-enforcement official investigating alleged White House ties to Moscow, the former celebrity businessman has smashed political norms, ignored important governmental traditions and crossed bright-red lines designed to curb the power of the nation’s chief executive. Continue reading “A Fine Line”

Foreign Trip Comes at Crucial Time, but Trump Is a Reluctant Traveler

The following article by Michael D. Shear and Maggie Haberman was posted on the New York Times website May 17, 2017:

President Trump boarded Air Force One for a trip to the Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump leaves on Friday for a nine-day, five-city foreign excursion, his first trip outside the United States as the country’s leader and top diplomat.

He doesn’t really want to go.

In recent days, Mr. Trump has groused to several friends that he is not looking forward to leaving his new White House cocoon for high-profile, high-pressure meetings with dozens of world leaders in unfamiliar settings. Continue reading “Foreign Trip Comes at Crucial Time, but Trump Is a Reluctant Traveler”

Loyalty is a one-way street for Donald Trump

The following article by James Hohmann and Breanne Deppisch was posted on the Washington Post website May 15, 2017:

President Donald Trump speaks to students in the Oval Office last Friday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

THE BIG IDEA: Many West Wing staffers have sacrificed their personal reputations by parroting falsehoods on behalf of Donald Trump. How will their devotion be repaid? Perhaps with pink slips.

The president has a congenital inability to take personal responsibility for his own mistakes. Throughout his career, he’s sought out scapegoats whenever situations get hairy. He’s doing it again amidst the continuing fallout from his decision to fire James Comey as FBI director. Continue reading “Loyalty is a one-way street for Donald Trump”