Not Tired of Winning Yet III
From the Fake News service of PBS. This list repeats items mentioned in my previous columns, but I thought it worth emphasizing to my conservative friends who are still stuck on the Never Trump setting. I am hoping some of their (admittedly justified) suspicions may start to ebb:
Here’s the list of Trump’s executive actions so far.
1. Obamacare rollback. Mr. Trump has allowed all agency heads to waive requirements of the Affordable Care Act to the “maximum extent permitted by law.”
2. Regulation freeze. The president has frozen all regulations now in process (but not approved) until they are approved by him or an agency after he took office. This means any regulation signed by former President Barack Obama in his final weeks in office — including some that deal with energy efficiency standards — are on hold until they’re reviewed by Trump’s administration.
3. Abortion. President Trump has ordered that federal dollars cannot go to organizations that provide abortion services.
4. TPP. This memorandum withdraws the United States from all Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations and from signing the trade deal.
5. Federal hiring freeze. The president has told agencies they cannot fill any vacant positions nor open new ones, with two exceptions: military personnel and critical public safety positions.
6 + 7. Allowing Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines. We are still awaiting details on the language and scope of this action, but President Trump told reporters his actions today make construction of the pipelines easier.
8. Pipelines must hire American. As above, we are waiting to see specifics, but the president told reporters his action requires that pipelines be built by American workers.
9. Expediting permits for infrastructure. Again, we don’t have specifics yet. But this action seems aimed at making high-priority infrastructure get through permitting procedures more quickly.
10. Speeding up environmental review/regulation. The White House has not yet posted the language of this action, which the White House says is aimed at expediting the environmental review process for some projects.
He has already done more in five days than the last Republican in the White House did in five years, perhaps more than any Conservative has done in five decades.
This is the first time I can call to mind of a politician carrying out his campaign promises swiftly and decisively, and first time in my life anyone, anywhere, rolled back the ill gotten gains of the Greens, the nutbags, and the Federal Regulatory Gangsters.
Yes, I said Gangsters. Federal Regulations are not well-meant attempts to curb the excesses of the free market. They are a shakedown scheme to generate fine and licensing money for Caesar to shop-vac up. The Regulations are generated by an almost random, irrational process involving no votes and nothing but nuncupatory advice and consent of the people, meant only to make businesses fork over ever larger sums of cash to the Feds. That is all. They do not make work safe for workers, nor protect the environment from damage. Because that is not what they are meant to do.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
