American Elephants

Donald Trump laid out his plans for his first 100 days in a speech in Gettysburg. He listed 28 points, some excellent, some not. Here are a few of the good ones, in no particular order. This is not to say there are not other good proposals, Here ‘s the entire list.

—Work with Congress on a Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act.An economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate.

—Cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities.

—Suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.

—Institute a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health)

—Require for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated.

—Work with Congress on a Restoring National Security Act.Rebuilds our military by eliminating the defense sequester and expanding military investment; provides Veterans with the ability to receive public VA treatment or attend the private doctor of their choice; protects our vital infrastructure from cyber-attack; establishes new screening procedures for immigration to ensure those who are admitted to our country support our people and our values

—Cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure.

—Work with Congress on a School Choice And Education Opportunity Act Redirects education dollars to gives parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. Ends common core, brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and make 2 and 4-year college more affordable.

Here are Steven Hayward’s comments on the list. Term limits are perennially popular, but there are good and effective congressmen whom it would be a pity to lose, and we would never agree on who are the good ones and who are not. New members of Congress are not always particularly effective in their first term, and need to learn their way around.

The eliminate two regulations in order to add one is a gimmick. The Obama administration has added regulations in ridiculous numbers in the illusion that people in government know better than ordinary citizens. We need a far stronger way to eliminate them.

Give the list some attention. It makes you think about what is desirable and what is not, and where you stand. I think Mr. Trump is generally mistaken about trade. NAFTA has been very successful for all three countries.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is not a useful venture—it’s making a common market of Pacific nations — and we should have learned from the EU that this is a very bad idea indeed. It essentially eliminates our borders and turns our sovereignty  over to an unaccountable international commission. The Left no longer believes in national sovereignty, a major point to keep in mind.

Government is too big, and tries to do too much. There are few things that are best done by the federal government, and even those are not well done. The nature of government employees is to believe that their expertise is what is needed to control the unruly deplorables out there, and they do way too much, make too many laws, pass too many regulations, have too many agencies and departments, and if we eliminated more than half of them, nobody would notice.