So after six months, has President Trump delivered what he promised you?
- He told you he’d repeal Obamacare and replace it with something “beautiful.” You bought it. But he didn’t repeal and he didn’t replace. (Just as well: His plan would have knocked at least 22 million off health insurance, including many of you.)
- He told you he’d cut your taxes. You bought it. But tax “reform” is stalled. And if it ever moves, the only ones whose taxes will be cut are the wealthy.
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- He told you he’d invest $1 billion in our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. You bought it. But his infrastructure plan, which was really a giveaway to rich investors, is also stalled.
- He said he’d clean the Washington swamp. You bought it. But he’s brought into his administration more billionaires, CEOs and Wall Street moguls than in any administration in history — to make laws that will enrich their businesses — along with former lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who are crafting new policies for the same industries they recently worked for.
- He said he’d use his business experience to whip the White House into shape. You bought it. But he created the most chaotic, dysfunctional, back-stabbing White House in modern history, in which no one is in charge.
- He said he’d close “special interest loopholes that have been so good for Wall Street investors but unfair to American workers.” You bought it. But he picked a Wall Street financier, Stephen Schwarzman, to run his strategic and policy forum, who compares closing those loopholes to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.
- He told you he’d “bring down drug prices” by making deals with drug companies. You bought it. But now the White House says that promise is “inoperative.”
- He said that on day one he’d label China a “currency manipulator.” You bought it. But then he met with China’s president and declared “China is not a currency manipulator.”
- He said he wouldn’t bomb Syria. You bought it. But then he bombed Syria.
- He called Barack Obama “the vacationer-in-Chief” and accused him of playing more rounds of golf than Tiger Woods. He promised to never be the kind of president who took cushy vacations on the taxpayer’s dime — not when there was so much important work to be done. You bought it. But in his first 6 months he has spent more taxpayer money on vacations than Obama did in the first 3 years of his presidency. Not to mention all the money taxpayers are spending protecting his family — including his two sons who travel all over the world on Trump business.
- He said he’d force companies to keep jobs in America. You believed him. But despite their promises, Carrier, Ford, GM and the rest are shipping jobs to Mexico and China.
- He said he’d create coal jobs. You believed him. He hasn’t. But here’s what he has done: Since 1965 a federal program called the Appalachian Regional Commission has spent $23 billion helping communities in coal states fund job retraining, reclaim land and provide desperately needed social services. ARC helped cut poverty rates almost in half, double the percentage of high-school graduates, and reduce infant mortality by two-thirds. Trump’s first proposed budget eliminates ARC.
Robert Reich was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton.
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