What Has the President Done in His first 16 months?

Many of us from the beginning disliked Trump. He was crude, rude, disrepectful, not always honest or accurate and seemingly a narcissist. While campaigning he said some awful things. Instead of saying that he would strive to end and reverse illegal immigration, he said that they bring drugs, crime and rape. Instead of saying that he wants to build a wall to cover our southern border with Mexico, he said that he would make Mexico pay for it. He said that he did not consider John McCain a war hero for being captured when he crashed his third jet and landed in North Vietnam in his first and last year in combat. He was captured and was a POW for five terrible years. He could have said that McCain is a patriotic American.

 We hated him for beating the first female candidate for President so badly.

But what has he accomplished in his first 16 months?

He saw the stock market go to 26,000 from the 16,000 when he won the election.

He promised to end illegal immigration that mainly hurts less educated Americans, many of whom are of African or Latin American descent. He is now trying to end chain immigration by wanting to grant visas only to spouses and their children, so the sponsoring family member will be responsible for taking care of his family, as any spouse or parent would. He also wants to end the lottery replacing it with a merit based system not on a random selection.

He approved a raise in the debt ceiling and a budget that most politicians liked. 

He appointed an excellent Supreme Court justice.

He passed a tax plan that will save most of us in taxes while limiting the deductions the wealthy use to lower their tax rate. He ended the “death tax” meaning we don’t have to disclose any family inheritance data. He lowered tax rates for companies from 35% to 21% which encouraged businesses to work in America, creating more jobs for Americans. 

The unemployment rate is under 3.8% is the lowest in 18 years.

He ended the mandatory individual ACA signups which forced people to get and pay for the coverage they will not be using. This made insurance companies see no need to compete for healthy applicants who were a captive audience and caused other insurers to withdraw from the market further reducing the competition.. He encouraged states to consider providing a scaled down version for those who only need a few of the benefits they are now paying for. These changes will lower the cost of coverage. He is also going after the drug companies to lower their prices.

He threatened tarrifs for Chinese goods entering the country. People were shocked, but it is bargaining chip to get China to stop creating such a big trade deficit with us. He threatened North Korea with severe sanctions and the power to annihilate them and North Korea is now talking about dismanteling their nuclear program.

He pulled out of the trade pact with Asian countries because it would hurt American workers and business. 

He pulled out of the Iran agreement because he found it flawed. Now Iran is working with the EU to come up with something America could agree to.

He moved our embassy to Jerusalem, the ancestral home of the Jews. This was promised by our last three presidents who then failed to deliver. Jerusalem is mentioned repeatedly in the Old Testiment and in daily Jewish prayers. There is no mention of it in the Koran. It would be nice to give East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palistinian state.

He reduced payments to the U.N. and NATO, because we were paying too much. He is limiting foreign aid payments to several countries that don’t like America or are using the aid to build a miltary or to build settlements.

Now he must make an agreement with Korea final promising to lift sanctions and to promise not to attack the North. This might lead to us pulling our 30,000 service members out of Korea where our troops have been for almost 70 years.

He also needs to finally fix the flawed ACA. He has already done step one, making it voluntary, now all he has to do is let private insurers reject anyone for medical reasons. Those denied would be immediately eligible to the “public option” which would be a federal program with a share of cost depending on family income. This option should also go for those who qualified for expanded Medicaid, but lived in states that did not offer it.

Finally it would be great if he could broker a deal for the creation of Palestine that both sides could agree to. 

He should also demote or fire the Secretaries of Energy, Education, the V.A. and HUD. Energy and HUD should go under the Interior Department; Education should go back to be under HEW. The V.A. and Homeland Security could go under the Defense Department. There are too many Secretaries and these ones in charge now, except for Homeland Security, are not good at it. 

He should also stop denying climate change and begin trying to reduce pollution. He should stop privatizing our national parks or approving oil pipelines. 

He should stop texting and let his press secretary speak for him. He should avoid saying things that are provocative like that immigrants come from lousy countries or that police when arresting a criminal, don't help them avoid hitting their head when they enter the patrol car. He should choose his words and his statistics more carefully.

No matter what else he accomplishes some of us will hate him and want him to fail even if it hurts the country and its citizens. We hate him for hating; are intolerant of him because of his intolerance; are crude and rude because we believe he is; we are disrespectful toward him because we believe that he is. We never see the irony or our hypocracy.

He has 30 months to show that he is a good president. Let's all hope he does.