Trump Scorecard-An Assessment of His First Three Years

Trump Scorecard-His First Three Years

No US president has inspired more vitriol than the current occupant, #45 Donald Trump. His supporters are quick to mention that he has done more than any other president, so this article reviews his policy changes and budget impacts in a handy table for your scrutiny.

Fact #1 Fiscal Spending & budget Fiscal prudence matters, the only president to reduce the national deficit in modern times was Clinton	Trump has blown up the federal deficit, which has increased 39% (Davidson, 2019) in 2019 alone, and directly reflects tax cuts he gave to the top 2% and big corporations. The national debt is now $1,000,000,000,000 (a trillion). The entire GDP of the US is 20 trillion (about 25% of global GDP). That’s a lot of debt to service and less money for other programs.	To understand what this means think of the world as a community pot of money where foreign investors, largely China buy US debt as an investment. Should they ever cease to do this, the nation would have a historically massive depression, ruining the livelihoods of your children and grandchildren.
Fact #2 Increased the risk for global terrorism by facilitating the release of Isis members held in Syria after pulling US troops out	Trump pulled US troops out of Syria, where our allies, the Kurdish army (where women are fighters) were slaughtered without warning and forced to side with Russian ally, Assad.	The complete and total betrayal of long-standing US ally, the Kurdish Army, has resulted in the growing power of Putin, who controls Assad.
Fact #3 Reduced the competitiveness and efficiency of US motor vehicles and accelerated the growth in greenhouse gases by rejecting Environmental Protection Agency scientific recommendations	Trump has rolled auto fuel efficiency standards back to 37 MPG versus 54 under the Obama Administration. He is also attempting to force all states to accept his reduced standards for fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas causing exhaust. For decades 17 states have chosen to comply with California standards, including Washington.	Like Reagan he longs for the 1950’s, but the rest of the world has moved on with higher performing vehicles and more efficient infrastructure for the future. Retarding innovation in the US will not help with jobs or economic security, let alone offsetting damaging global pollution-we’ll all be choking on US exhaust soon enough.
Fact #4 Ripping up long standing agreements with US allies, including NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization	Trump’s current budget includes significant reductions in funding NATO, which is a bulwark against Russia aggression to our European allies.	The world is a small place and shredding agreements with our allies will not make the US stronger, but plays directly into Putin’s hands and could potentially help China.
Fact #5 Interfering with Military Tribunal Findings for War Criminals	Trump threw out the prison sentences for three Navy Seal members convicted of war crimes, overruling the highest command when removal of the Navy Seal Trident for these miscreants was imminent.	All branches of the military require a kind of blind service based on honor. Humiliating seven peers who testified against Gallagher does not enhance this valor or the safety of our troops.
Fact #6 Has used public money to finance religious based sham family planning clinics which do not provide basic birth control education or services	It is unconstitutional to use public funds to promote any religious perspective in education or healthcare or anything in the public domain.	Our founding fathers specifically created a secular constitution to avoid conflicts among sectarian groups. Freedom of religion doesn’t mean your ability to impose your will on others, but their freedom from religious tyranny.
Fact #7 Undermined the Affordable Care Act by making it more difficult for people to enroll and eliminated some funding sources	The ACA or Obamacare was a revenue neutral bipartisan act that created a marketplace for millions of Americans to get medical care by subsidizing the purchase of medical insurance. The ACA also removed the pre-existing conditions exclusion and other onerous insurance industry restrictions.	Making it more difficult for working class people to get healthcare undermines the economy and especially family survival. The US birth rate is at an all-time low because of family concerns over the high cost of healthcare, childcare, and education that have gone unanswered under Trump.

If the United States is to survive, we must find a way to stop the rhetoric about “sides” as anyone with a decent education knows there are lots of gray areas in life and the tricky part is accommodating them in policy making. To date I have yet to see anything tricky or masterful in the Trump Administration policy making. As the fervor of the religious right builds as they approach their eschatological climax, those of us who are more sentient are reluctant to embrace the greenhouse gas which envelopes our globe slowly simmering us all.

And this is the healthpolicymaven signing off encouraging you not to sign blanket medical releases before inpatient procedures and do specify that for which you agree and those treatments you decline. Do not allow someone’s else’s religion to determine your health care.

References

Davidson, K. (2019, June 12). US Deficit Grew 39% in First Eight Months of Fiscal Year. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved November 29, 2019, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-budget-deficit-grew-39-in-first-eight-months-of-fiscal-year-11560362539

The Endangered American Family

How America Has Broken the Social Contracts for Our Children

Trump Administration Republicans are intent on cutting social contracts for middle-class and lower income Americans, by undermining funding, creating negative campaigns about publicly funded programs, and voiding enforcement of current regulations. This article examines these primary expenses for families; healthcare, childcare, housing, and education in the United States, as compared to other industrialized countries.

Healthcare

The cost of U.S. healthcare is higher than anywhere else, yet the benefits and access to care are at the bottom of industrialized countries. As discussed in my 2013, book and many articles over the past decade, this is primarily due to a system which has little cost controls and reimburses healthcare providers on the basis of volume. The Trump Administration has removed the tax penalty for nonexempt families who do not obtain health insurance, which will undermine participation in the ACA insurance exchange programs. Further, the current administration has threatened to remove the tax credits which enable middleclass and lower middleclass Americans to obtain insurance. According to the Kaiser Foundation, the average cost for health insurance for a family is now $18,301 for private plans through employers. (Kaiser Foundation State Health Facts, 2018) Republican plans to lower the cost of health insurance include; reinstating pre-existing conditions for people with health issues, excluding maternity coverage, and absurdly low maximum benefit levels.

Finally, the cost of healthcare, does not mean your insurance payments, it means the total cost of services, administration, out of pocket expenses, and of course the insurance premiums.  This link shows healthcare spending in 2015, using World Economic Forum data. https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0170_international_health_spending_comparison

Childcare

The ability to afford childcare is fundamental to economic mobility. Countries which do not produce enough children have challenges filling jobs, supporting social programs for current beneficiaries of social programs, like Social Security, and maintaining public services. Excluding Monaco, which is primarily a retirement haven for the wealthy, as well as a small French protectorate off the coast of Newfoundland, and Andorra the adorable tax haven situated in the Pyrenees, Japan still leads the pack for the lowest birth rate. For this criterion, the U.S. is in the middle of the pack, ranking 158 out of 226 nations. (CIA Factbook-2017, 2017)  Of the industrialized countries, here are top child producers:

Rank	Industrialized Country	Birth per 1,000
1	India	19.0
2	Venezuela	18.8
3	Mexico	18.3
4	Israel	18.1
5	Argentina	16.7
6	Turkey	15.7
7	North Korea	14.6
8	Brazil and Ireland	14.1
9	Iceland	13.7
10	Chile	13.6
11	New Zealand	13.2
12	United States	12.5

The most expensive childcare is in the U.K., which includes England, Scotland, and Wales. The U.S. has the next most expensive childcare, consuming over 25% of family household incomes. (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2016) Currently, the U.S. has no mandatory paid maternity or family medical leave policy. The Family Medical Leave Act, enacted in 1993, required employers with 50 or more employees to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for an employee or family member engaged in the care of a family member. Employees are entitled to this leave every 12 months. Though 66% of women work during pregnancy, there has been no change in this mandate.

Scandinavian countries provide families with subsidized high-quality childcare, free preschool, and a monthly stipend per child. Parents receive anywhere from 12 to 20 weeks of paid maternity leave. These generous social policies mean that most women are able to work and support themselves while having children, at living wage jobs, including single mothers. Even the UK now provides 15 hours of free childcare for all children (as of 2017). Virtually all European nations provide some type of childcare for working families and in Western Europe this is typically 15 to 30 hours per week. (Janta, 2010)

Home Affordability

In the United States there are many variables to housing costs, depending on a rural or urban location and the availability of employment, which can support housing costs. This is why housing indexes tend to measure housing costs in major metropolitan areas and not the sparsely populated ones. Though housing costs for home buyers tend to be more affordable here than in other nations, for renters, costs are out of control in many regions of the country. That said, housing is a key issue for families so here is a metric illustrating how the U.S. compares to other developed nations with the most expensive listed first. This chart includes data from 2017 for 2018 cost of living values. (Numbeo.com, 2018)

Ranking	City	Multiple of Income   Housing Affordability Ratio
1	Beijing	48.1
2	Shanghai	42.8
3	Hong Kong	41.08
4	Mumbai	28.7
7	Singapore	22.2
8	London	22.19
9	Rio De Janeiro	21.31
10	Rome	20.48
28	Paris	17.68
41	Vancouver, CA	16.02
58	Barcelona	13.99
63	Tokyo	13.68
79	New York	12.34
81	San Francisco	12.31
108	Helsinki	10.99

Rental Housing

However, when viewing housing affordability and rent, a 2015 Harvard study of 11 countries revealed the U.S. was the second most expensive for renters, after Spain. U.S. renters spend 34% of disposable income on housing and low-income households are much more likely to spend 50% of household income on rent (28% of U.S. renters spend >50%). The study found that the degree of income inequality, which is by far greater in the U.S. than these nations and the availability of housing allowances determined the level of affordable rentals. This exhibit shows the housing subsidies provided by European countries compared to the U.S. (Micheal Carliner, 2016)

Percentage of the nation Receiving Housing Allowance	Country	Value of Annual Housing Allowance in USD
55%	France	2,257
46%	United Kingdom	4,988
38%	Netherlands	2,170
20%	Sweden	5,324*
18%	Germany	Not listed
12%	Austria	4,200*
6%	Italy	Not listed
6%	USA	7,200
5%	Spain	2,952*
3%	Switzerland	Local funding
2%	Belgium	Local funding

*These values were drawn from other sources for the 2015 year, due to the way the Harvard article expressed the data. (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2016)

Education

Though obtaining a university education is not a goal for all residents, it is considered a measure of upward mobility, not only for the individual but for generations of family members. Since the U.S. has continued to under fund public universities, universities have relied more on user’s fees, tuition increases, and private endowments to pay for higher education. Follow this link to a Forbes article citing the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which shows U.S. tuition costs compared to the world, based on 2017 data. (Organization for Economic Development, 2018)

https://www.statista.com/chart/11058/the-us-has--the-worlds-highest-tuition-fees/

  

Education policy changes under consideration in the Trump Administration include: eliminating PELL grants for low-income students, cutting back on federally subsidized student loans, eliminating loan forgiveness for those who go into public service roles like nursing or education, and turning loan programs over to for-profit entities, which will raise the costs for students. None of these changes would impact children of the wealthy, whom have already been gifted the biggest tax break under the Trump budget, since Ronald Reagan, only working-class people trying to better themselves.

Anyone with a pulse would conclude the U.S. is not a very easy place to raise children, with the highest rate of mass shootings in the world (the only places that come close are war zones), laws that allow employers to discriminate against working parents, and a nominal social safety net. Not only are these factors impacting highly skilled workers, where out migration has increased since George W. Bush, but the continued efforts by the Republicans to cut social safety-net funding jeopardizes future generations. The U.S. government doesn’t effectively track residents who move to other countries, but maybe it should learn why natives are fleeing the country. The number of Americans who have left the country is anywhere from two to nine million and those legions include retirees, professionals working elsewhere, and those who don’t want to raise their families in the U.S. If Trump wants to make America great again, why doesn’t he look at the adverse policies making it extremely expensive to raise children, who are after all, future tax payers. The proposed federal budget further increases the federal deficit to give tax breaks to the super rich further undermining the nation’s ability to meet Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid obligations. Let’s be clear, these are the only working class social programs for Americans and Trump, Ryan, and Mulvaney would like to get rid of them through program and funding cuts.

This article was written by Roberta Winter, an independent journalist and author of : https://www.amazon.com/Unraveling-U-S-Health-Care-Personal/dp/1442222972

For the next three months I will be raising money for the inaugural Russell Ride, an epic 858 mile bicycle ride from Washington to California, in memory of my brother. All proceeds go to the Benaroya Research Institute to cure Type 1 Diabetes. For more information, follow these links:

https://give.everydayhero.com/us/team-roberta-e

https://www.benaroyaresearch.org/

References

Agency, U. S. (2017). CIA Factbook-2017. In C. I. Agency, The World FactBook 2017. Retrieved March 27, 2018, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2054rank.html

Janta, B. (2010). Caring for Children in Europe-How Childcare, Parental Leave, and Flexible Working Arrangements Interact in Europe. Rand Corporation.org. Rand Corporation-Europe. Retrieved March 28, 2018, from https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR500/RR554/RAND_RR554.pdf

Kaiser Foundation State Health Facts. (2018, March 28). Kaiser Foundation State Health Facts. Retrieved from Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.org: https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/family-coverage/?currentTimeframe=0&selectedRows=%7B%22states%22:%7B%22washington%22:%7B%7D%7D%7D&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D

Micheal Carliner, E. M. (2016, September 1). Rental Housing-An International Comparison. Harvard University Joint Center For Housing Studies. Retrieved March 28, 2018, from http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/research/publications/rental-housing-international-comparison

Numbeo.com. (2018, March 27). Property Prices Index 2018. Retrieved from Numbeo.com: https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings.jsp

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2016). Affordable Housing Database-Key Characteristics of Housing Allowances. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Retrieved March 28, 2018, from https://www.oecd.org/els/family/PH3-2-Key-characteristics-of-housing-allowances.pdf

Organization for Economic Development. (2016, December 22). These Are The Countries Where The Parents Spend The Most On Childcare. World Economic Forum. Retrieved March 27, 2018, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/childcare-cost-oecd/

Organization for Economic Development. (2018, March 27). Education At A Glance. Retrieved from Organization for Economic Development: https://blogs-images.forbes.com/niallmccarthy/files/2017/09/20170912_Tuition_Fees.jpg