Wednesday, November 30, 2016

A Trump "Inspired" Cabinet Pick

Conrad Black writes in National Review that the "inspired" pick is Mitch McConnell's wife becasue apparently some kind of crazed Great Depression era style make work project is going to be launched:
Nominating Elaine Chao, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s wife, as secretary of transportation seems somewhat inspired, as she will be largely responsible for implementation of Trump’s New Deal–like program for putting the unemployed to work repairing scandalously decayed American infrastructure. 
The real scandal is that Black is promoting the filling of the swamp, FDR-style, in a magazine that once carried the words of Murray Rothbard and Henry Hazlitt who actually knew the difference between filling a swamp and draining it.

As David Stockman wrote about the American infrastructure that Black believes is "scandalously decayed infrastructure":
[T]he bridges of America are not falling down and the nation’s infrastructure—-to the extent that it is any business of Imperial Washington at all—-is not “crumbling”. Actually, Washington’s primary job is maintenance of the Interstate Highway System, and that’s in pretty good shape, including its heavily trafficked bridges...

But that’s not the half of Trump’s wild pitch on this one. Having swallowed the infrastructure myth hook, line and sinker, the GOP candidate went a horrid step further and talked up an “infrastructure bank”—–the Democrats’ favorite backdoor route to further ballooning the nation’s already crushing public debt....

Here’s the thing. Upwards of 95% of what passes for infrastructure investment—-highways, roads, streets, bridges, airports, seaports, mass transit, water and sewer, the power grid, parks and recreation etc—–are the responsibility of the private sector and should be paid for by users or, arguably, constitute local public goods and amenities. The latter should be managed by state and local governments and funded by local users and taxpayers.

But give the beltway lobbies and racketeers an inch and they will take a mile. After decades of Federal mission creep, there is virtually no aspect of “infrastructure” spending that has not wormed its way into the federal budget...

At the end of the day, the ballyhooed national infrastructure crisis is a beltway racket of the first order. It has been for decades.

And now even The Donald has taken the bait.
And he was "inspired" to pick, to run the racket, the wife of the lead Senate crony.

Or as Black sees it:
The emerging story is that Trump is packing his government with people admirably equipped to work closely with the Republican leadership in the Congress. 
Yup, Chao no doubt will work closely with Republican leadership, her husband.

And Black is correct about this very scary observation:
 Donald Trump is preparing to come out of the gate like a fire engine and join Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan as a transformative president.
Oh and don't forget Trump foreign policy which no doubt will include efforts to overthrow the current regime in Iran.

As Black cheerfully explains the expected madness:
Although we are awaiting the nomination of a secretary of state, it is clear that, as promised, the mad Obama love-in with Iran is almost over...
 -RW

1 comment:

  1. Conrad Black:

    Franklin Delano Roosevelt stands astride American history like a colossus, having pulled the nation out of the Great Depression and led it to victory in the Second World War. Elected to four terms as president, he transformed an inward-looking country into the greatest superpower the world had ever known. Only Abraham Lincoln did more to save America from destruction.

    http://tinyurl.com/h7dfylt

    What would we do without “conservatives”?

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