One of the most dreaded aspects of being a politician is being held accountable for what you espoused you were going to accomplish during your time serving the public. As November 3rd approaches its time to examine just how many of President Trump’s major political promises have actually become realities.
Building a wall on the Mexican/US border: Trump claimed he would build a NEW border wall that would cost about $22 million, Mexico would pay for it, and as of August 18, 2020, reported that the wall was nearly complete.
Fact: The latest cost is closer to $70 million, Mexico is not paying for it, and as of May, 2020, only 5 miles of a NEW 30 foot high wall have been built where none existed before. Most construction has been of patch work design to simply reinforce the existing barriers and fencing.
Replacement of Obamacare: In 2016, President Trump promised to replace Obamacare with a new, improved health care plan.
Fact: Four years later no such health care plan exists as a replacement for Obamacare.
Reducing drug prices: During that same year, Trump was passionate about drug prices. He swore to stand up to the pharmaceutical companies, long revered as among Washington’s most powerful interests. He even told Time magazine in his Person of the Year interview in December, 2016, “I’m going to bring down drug prices. I don’t like what has happened with drug prices. One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. In many other countries, these drugs cost far less than what we pay in the United States. That is why I have directed my Administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of our top priorities. Prices will come down.”
Fact: President Trump has done little to nothing to fulfill this promise. In fact, drug prices are still increasing. While growth in spending on drugs has slowed in recent years, the total national spending continues to grow. Americans spend more than anyone else in the world. Trump’s latest excuse for failing to reign in prices is that he wants to give the drug companies more time to act on their own so that he can broker a deal. He has had four years to broker that deal.
Lowering the national debt: Trump has repeatedly complained about the endless spending of his democratic rivals, and in 2016 he promised to eliminate the national debt.
Fact: When Trump took office the national debt was approximately $19.9 trillion; as of July, 2020, it was approximately $26.5 trillion, an increase of approximately $5.6 trillion in four years. And contrary to what his supporters believe, most of that increase was due to his reduction in taxes plan which was claimed to pay for itself and NOT increase the debt.
Balance the U.S. trade deficit: In 2016 Trump bragged about how he would bring the U.S. trade deficit into alignment, eliminating it. He continually talk about how we should be exporting more than we import and how the Democrats were responsible for the deficient that existed at that time.
Fact: The US trade deficit jumped to $63.6 billion in July of 2020. It is the highest trade gap since July of 2008. It is 6.3% higher than Obama’s last year in office, and the U.S. presently has the highest trade deficit in the world. While President Trump continually brags about the reduction in the trade deficit with China, which is down 22%, his other economic blunders have increased the deficit with other countries; thus leading to the new overall increase.
Deportation of undocumented immigrants: President Trump repeatedly told his supporters that every single undocumented immigrant, of which there are estimated to be more than 11.3 million, "has to go."
Fact: So far, under Trump, a record high of 340,500 were deported in 2019, a slight rise over the year before, although not as high as during the same length of time for the Obama administration, which deported approximately 410,000. Sadly for Trump supporters, Obama actually deported more during the same time frame.
Repairing the nation’s infrastructures: At the beginning of President Trump’s term he declared that the country's infrastructure "will become, by the way, second to none, and we will put millions of our people back to work as we rebuild it."
Fact: Although he has repeatedly vowed to spend $1.5 trillion to improve our country's roads, rail and airports, he has only spent $21 billion so far, during his four years in office, and most still remain untouched.
So even though President Trump has actually delivered on only a paltry few of his promises, he still enjoys enamored support from his followers because of a robust stock market, his appointment of conservation Supreme Court and federal judges, and his deregulation of government oversite of big businesses, particularly the oil, gas, chemical and coal industries, some of the biggest donors to his election campaign.
Accordingly, if one objectively judges President Trump based upon his fulfilled promises during his first four years, he probably deserves a ‘C-‘ and not the ‘A’ delusionally bestowed upon him by his supporters and Fox News. He is not the miracle worker they would like all of us to believe.
Words are cheap, and President Trump is at no loss for words,
but accomplishments are the bottom line and all that really matter.
No comments:
Post a Comment