Thoughts on President Trump's First 100 Days

Starting with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, our presidents
have been graded for their performance in their initial 100 days,
this parcel of time having been that in which FDR had accom-
plished some of his major initiatives that he said he would do.
He of course went on to make many changes to the scope and
the functions of the federal government with his New Deal
programs during the recession of the 1930s. Ever since then,
the Rooseveltian benchmark has thus been the standard by which
all successive presidents have been judged for their hitting the
ground running once inaugurated. President Donald Trump has
not exactly been letting moss grow on his skin in his first hundred
days, the 100th day having been this past Saturday.

Here is but a partial list of the accomplishments of our 45th president
in this time frame:

*President Trump presented a tax reform proposal which, among other
things, would cut the top corporate tax rate from 35%, the highest such
rate in the entire world, to 15%. Such a rate will stanch the flow of U.S.
corporations moving some or all of their operations to countries with
lower rates of corporate taxation. This would, of course, keep U.S.
jobs in the U.S.

*Trump has begun discussions with the Canadian and Mexican
governments regarding renegotiating the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA). Many feel that this trade pact has been a far
better deal for Canada and Mexico than for the United States, among
them the president himself.

*Our 45th president became the first of our presidents since 1881 to
gain a Supreme Court nominee confirmation with the Senate giving
their yea to Judge Neil Gorsuch.

*He issued an executive order to establish a federal hiring freeze,
checking the growth of government in terms of employees.

*Trump gave his approval for the construction of the Keystone XL
and Dakota pipelines, both of which were stymied by President
Barack Obama, acting to placate his radical environmentalist
supporters. This move will help create more jobs in the private
sector. He also removed the crippling regulations Obama placed
on the coal industry, saving that industry and thousands of jobs
from eradication.

*The president also issued an executive order requiring that for
every new federal regulation created two regulations be eliminated.
A splendid way to eliminate extraneous red tape.

*Trump signed an executive order, "Enhancing Public Safety in the
Interior of the United States" to the Secretary of Homeland Security
and the U.S. Attorney General and their respective agencies to
increase the enforcement of immigration laws. The order contains
a proviso that "sanctuary jurisdictions", which include "sanctuary
cities" who do not comply with these laws will lose federal grants,
excepting those deemed necessary by the aforementioned officials
and their agencies.

*He also has requested an increase in defense spending, restoring
much of the cuts in same made by President Obama and the then-
Democrat controlled Congress, enabling our troops to better perform
their duties in the Middle East and Afghanistan among other needs.

Your greatly pleased Peasant could list many more accomplishments,
but time is not of such a generous disposition. I know, I was very
skeptical of Donald Trump's presidential campaign and thought that
if he got elected, he would not be able (or willing) to fulfill his many
boastful-sounding campaign promises. I have now been proven wrong
in my concerns regarding our president, and am overjoyed! President
Donald Trump may not be in the mold of the late, great conservative
president Ronald Reagan, but he is of a unique quality; a political
outsider, who had never run for even local office before, then runs
for and gets elected to the highest office in the land, bringing an
outsider's fresh view and sensibility to the job. President Trump just
might be the right person for this position at the right time, a time
when many people have had it with politics and politicians, the latter
making the former unpalatable with their pie crust promises, their
double-talking, their back-stabbing and backroom dealing, and of
course their interminable lies and hypocrisy. We as a nation could
use a fresh, new way of doing things in our governance, and Donald
Trump is providing that very way. Your grateful Peasant, admittedly
once a "Never Trumper", now stands with Trump and will continue
to do so as long as he stays his course.


MEM