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President Trump off to a good start |
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April 28, 2017 |
By U.S. Congressman Raul Labrador
As you may know, Saturday is President Trump’s
100th day in office, and while the media has a
habit of overhyping the 100-day mark in a new
President’s term, it does provide a good
opportunity to reflect on the pace of the
President’s accomplishments and his commitment
to keeping his promises.
Overall, I am happy with President Trump’s track
record to date. After eight years of failed
leadership, the people of Idaho demanded change,
and we are starting to get the kind of
conservative change the people of Idaho want and
deserve.
The most important achievement was President
Trump’s nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the
U.S. Supreme Court. On so many issues – from
abortion to marriage, from immigration to health
care – the Supreme Court is truly a co-equal
branch with Congress and the White House.
Last year, Candidate Trump promised to nominate
justices in the mold of Justice Antonin Scalia,
one of the greatest justices of all time. Based
on everything I’ve seen and read, Justice
Gorsuch will be a worthy successor to Justice
Scalia and make the people of Idaho proud.
But the President’s accomplishments don’t stop
there.
When it comes to the economy, he has shown
passion, focus and determination. Specifically,
he is using a record number of executive orders
to shrink government power over the economy and
unleash free enterprise.
Among other things, President Trump has approved
permits for the Keystone and Dakota Access
Pipelines, stopped his predecessor’s “Clean
Power Plan” that was significantly harming
America’s energy industries, and created an
Office of American Innovation to streamline
government with business ideas.
Congress is doing its part too.
So far in 2017, the House has used the
long-dormant Congressional Review Act (CRA) over
a dozen times to repeal last-minute Obama
administration regulations, most of which would
be detrimental to the economy.
These include a “stream protection” rule that
threatened one-third of the nation’s coal mining
jobs; an oil and gas rule hamstringing
development of domestic energy; and a Securities
and Exchange Commission rule that advantaged
foreign competitors over U.S. energy companies.
I voted for every CRA bill that has been signed
into law.
These actions are already having an impact. In a
recent interview, Bernie Marcus, co-founder of
Home Depot, noted that President Trump – working
with the Republican Congress – “has unleashed
the animal spirits of American investors,
consumers and businesses. Consumer confidence is
at a 10-year high. The stock market is up 10
percent since his election. And major
manufacturing companies are responding by
choosing to invest at home rather than abroad.”
The issue of health care has been – and always
will be – a complicated one, given that health
care covers one-sixth of the U.S. economy. But
when it comes to Obamacare specifically,
President’s Trump’s campaign promise was a
simple one: He would “repeal and replace” it.
I’ve made that same promise to the people of
Idaho, and I take that promise seriously. That’s
why I opposed the first version of the American
Health Care Act (AHCA) because it didn’t go far
enough in keeping our promises.
Over the last few months, I have been working to
improve AHCA, joining with my colleagues in the
House Freedom Caucus and negotiating directly
with the Trump administration.
I met with the President at the White House and
had multiple conversations with Vice President
Pence.
These negotiations have led to a better bill
although it still needs to be improved. The work
continues, and I personally will not rest until
we fully repeal Obamacare because that’s what I
promised the people of Idaho.
The President has also made important strides on
immigration. He is starting to halt federal
funding to “sanctuary cities” (which are in
violation of federal law), while increasing the
number of immigration enforcement personnel. In
addition, his budget includes much-needed money
for a southern border wall.
Since Trump took office, illegal border
crossings have fallen to a 17-year low.
On foreign policy, President Trump’s work has
been mostly positive. This in part because he
has surrounded himself with a stellar team, led
by National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster – who
literally wrote the book on the Vietnam War -
and no-nonsense Defense Secretary James Mattis.
Trump and his team are showing more U.S.
assertiveness globally, accelerating bombings
against ISIS in Afghanistan so we can end that
conflict sooner and working with directly with
China to contain the monstrous regime in North
Korea. This is in sharp contrast to the “lead
from behind” philosophy of President Obama.
We still have a lot of work to do, but President
Trump is off to a good start, and I hope to see
even more progress going forward.
When things got tough for Trump last year, I
stood with him. Now that he’s President, I want
to do everything I can to help him succeed. |
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