Trump Against The World

It pains me to write this. I have many cynical friends who have always ragged on me for caring so much about politics and elections. They would watch a clip of me I emailed them, or read something I sent them and say, “Julio, it doesn’t matter who wins. We lose.”

I would argue, “if no one is minding the store, you’re just asking to get robbed!” Well, despite keeping a focused eye on Washington, it seems that the exasperation expressed from the politically disconnected has been validated by the behavior of the Republican legislature in lifting the debt ceiling and putting an estimated 1 trillion more on America’s debt. It reminds me of a good old-fashioned train robbery.

Last week’s omnibus bill passage confirms what the cynics have known all along. We are living in a One-Party state and President Trump, the Freedom Caucus in the House, and a handful of Senators are the only viable resistance to exploding deficits and debt.

I had written in an editorial earlier this year that President Trump needed to be ready to send a message to legislators that were not amenable to actually keeping their campaign promises. I specifically called for him to be willing to exercise his veto power in order to keep his party honest. Despite tweeting that a veto of the omnibus may be on the table, his desire to secure the “Mattis Package” to strengthen our military was too important to Trump to not sign into law.

By not sending the message last week, he is now at a strategic disadvantage going forward against legislators of both parties that share big government ideas and a loyalty to the special interests they continue to dun the American tax payer for. Trump may unfortunately wind up dealing with veto proof bipartisanship and only have the option of stretching the limits of his executive power in order to continue to advance what has been a very successful economic agenda, based on early results.

We have seen many examples of this insidious bipartisanship from the Republican leadership, particularly Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in the past.

The bill that ended the government shutdown in 2013 included only one earmark for a major public works project. It was a $2.1-billion authorization for the Olmsted Dam Project in McConnell's home state of Kentucky.

This pet project of McConnell’s was already 300 percent over budget at the time. It was first authorized by Congress in 1988 in Section 3 (a) (6) of Public Law 100-676, the Water Resources Development Act of 1988, at a price tag of only $775 million. Two and a half decades later, the federal government had spent a whopping $1.7 billion and was less than half-way complete.

In December of 2015, Steve Bannon and Julia Hahn wrote, “Paul Ryan’s first major legislative achievement is a total and complete sell-out of the American people masquerading as an appropriations bill.”

The bill funded DACA, sanctuary cities, as well as middle east immigration programs that were proven to be exploited by terrorists, including the F-1 “student” visa, the K-1 “fiancée” visa, and our green card and refugee programs.

According to Wikipedia a One Party State is, “a type of state in which one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties are either outlawed or allowed to take only a limited and controlled participation in elections.”

It seems that the all out bipartisan onslaught against the president has more to do with the preservation of this One-Party system than the desire to fulfill the expectations of their constituents.

Originally posted on Newsmax as : Trump and the One-Party State | Newsmax.com