Not An Easy Job

"I loved my previous life, I loved my previous life. I had so many things going. I actually, this is more work than my previous life. I thought it would be easier... I do miss my old life. This -- I like to work. But this is actually more work." -- President Donald Trump, interview with Reuters

The 100 Days conceit for presidents is an artificial one, but useful nonetheless. It's supposed to mark the end of the honeymoon period, but there's also no hard-and-fast rule about it. Most of Obama's major legislation came after the 100 days mark, for instance. That said, the 100 days marks a transition where things are only going to start getting more difficult as we move closer and closer to the next election cycle in 2018 (major legislation tends to slow down in advance of an election, as no incumbent wants to do anything too risky).

What I've seen from President Trump is one major success (Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch) and a series of issues in which he's discovered things are more difficult than he expected. I feel he hasn't been as bad as my worst fears, but he's certainly made a series of unforced errors. And it appears to me that those errors are largely because of overconfidence in how easy things should be. Let me explain:

Tax reform
I am convinced that no bill on tax reform will pass under Donald Trump. As I write this, they're unveiling their plans, and there's no way it gets passed as they propose it. This is for several reasons, but the primary reasons are a) Congressional and b) popular. The biggest thing is a corporate tax cut from 35 percent to 15 percent. That's a big deal.

There's a logistical hurdle in getting it to pass Congress, and that's in the Senate. In order to pass any tax cut, a plan would either have to get 8 Democrat votes to break a filibuster (Option A) or pass by a procedural trick known as reconciliation, which would be a simple majority. (Option B) Here's the rub: Reconciliation won't work if it increases the national deficit beyond 10 years. Any important tax cut would do that. There's one way to avoid that rule, and that's to make it only applicable for 2-3 years. (Option C) Let's talk about those options: Option A won't happen. Democrats have no incentive to work with Donald Trump, and have every incentive to show how his tax cuts are a bad idea. Option B can't work mathematically without major gives on revenue increases (cutting loopholes or hiking taxes elsewhere), and Option C wouldn't have much of an effect on the U.S. economy because corporations have budgets planned out years in advance — Paul Ryan's tax advisor said as much in that link earlier in this paragraph.

The other hurdle is popularity. Lowering the corporate tax rate will not affect Jill and Joe Taxpayer's pocketbook that much. Instead, it will affect those in the upper tax brackets. The easy sell for Democrats will be that corporations and the rich don't need any more tax cuts, and the people are being ignored. Further, if the tax plan (details are emerging, but show little other than a broad outline) is similar to his campaign promises, then it'll leave the country short on revenue... to the tune of $4-6 trillion over 10 years. I know that when we get above millions of dollars, it gets kind of hazy, but the U.S. only brought in about $3 trillion in taxes last year. A cut of this magnitude would be about 15-20 percent of the federal government's budget over the next 10 years. That would mean cuts — not just cuts, but drastic, across-the-board cuts to many popular programs.

Maybe the details will surprise me. Maybe "simplifying the tax code" will help Jill and Joe Taxpayers and make the corporate tax cut pill easier to swallow. We'll see. But right now I'm skeptical.

Health Care
The Republican Congress has made two efforts to get an Obamacare repeal through the House. Even if a bill were to pass the House, the Senate is likely to be an even more difficult proposition. Health care was supposed to be easy, with a Republican House and Republican Senate. But the devil is always in the details: Anything that is appealing to moderate Republicans is detestable to the far-right Freedom Caucus (ex-Tea Party) members. And vice versa.

Trump has made a solid, strong push for health care reform that has, perhaps, only made the idea of Obamacare even more popular. There's a story that's made its rounds on several news sites about the difference in tactics between Trump's health care push and Obama's. Trump supposedly told GOP lawmakers to vote for the bill, or they'd lose their seats. On the other hand, Obama told skittish Democrats that the health care plan was worth losing their seats.

Health care is not easy — there are countless balances to weigh and trade-offs to make. But Trump has not been honest about which trade-offs he's willing to make, only that he'd like health care to improve. He doesn't seem to understand the depth of the problem. I mean, he's flat-out said that he didn't expect health care to be tricky: "Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated."

Wars
I've written a lot lately about the various military engagements we are involved in, but let's hit briefly on it again because it's so important. Military involvement is the easiest way to get bogged down in an untenable situation (See: Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc.).

In Syria, we have bombed the government for chemical weapons use, a direct, apples-to-apples contradiction from what Trump said should be done on Twitter the last time that happened in 2013. So far, it seems that a one-off missile strike on an air strip that opened again six hours later was our only escalation. A broader strategy for Syria has yet to be made clear.

The biggest threat is with North Korea, with whom we continue to rattle our sabers. I understand the need for a new strategy: It's clear that past approaches have not been particularly successful. George Bush made threats, Bill Clinton attempted negotiation, and Barack Obama attempted "strategic patience," which means they kind of ignored North Korea's threats. None stopped the North Korean nuclear program.  "We'd love to solve things diplomatically, but it's very difficult," Trump said in aforementioned interview with Reuters. Trump appears to have not known much about the conflict before he spoke with Chinese president Xi Jinping: "After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it's not so easy. I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power [over] North Korea... But it's not what you would think." Trump has taken the George W. Bush threats to a new level, even saying that a "major, major conflict" with North Korea is possible. He seems intent on war, and he may just get it.

Other Issues
Executive orders are one of the "easiest" actions a president can make, but even they can be screwed up. Two different executive orders related to a temporary ban on immigration for those from select Middle Eastern countries have been struck down by courts for being in effect if not in intent a ban on Muslims.... He's also had a federal court block a ban on funding for sanctuary cities... He's backed down on two budget demands: funding for the wall on the Mexican border and defunding Obamacare subsidies... He's also backed off on threats this week to back out of NAFTA after members of his Cabinet and the leaders of Canada and Mexico made personal calls to change his mind...

All in all, I find that Trump is either overconfident on what will be easy or underprepared for the gravity of his position. While I hope, for America's sake, that he figures things out sooner, I worry that the next 3+ years will be just more of the same, but with even more difficulty.

Summary Judgments

This is sickening. These sort of stories really make me mad. While I understand the idea of "no sympathy for criminals," there's a key distinction of "do not kill/mistreat them." Particularly if they've not been convicted yet.  •  •  •  That said, I feel the opposite about the loophole that could exonerate Aaron Hernandez — he was convicted, but died before his appeals ran out. By Massachusetts law, that means his conviction is probably going to be overturned. In America, we're innocent until proven guilty, but he was proven guilty. He was not proven innocent.  •  •  •  If you read no other links in this blog this week, please read this one about the War in Afghanistan. It's not going well, and I don't know what our endgame is there. I don't know that pulling out is the right option, but I don't think what we're doing now is doing anyone favors.  •  •  •  My good friend Emily Smith got profiled for her part in the Pittsburg (Kan.) high school students who took down their principal. I'm so proud of everyone involved in that situation.  •  •  •  For those of us, who are Chiefs fans, this was a great in-depth story on Pat Mahomes that was put together by a good Chiefs analyst. He did this before they picked Mahomes, so I was already on board.  •  •  •  One quick defense of Trump: The GDP growth this quarter is the worst in three years. But even if he were making drastic changes, there is a delay in things showing up in the economy. Judge him by the next GDP report, not this one.  •  •  •  I have a 4-mile run on Sunday. It's looking like rain or storms. My first 4-miler was in the snow. This one could be in the rain. I'm having real bad weather luck for these 4-milers.  •  •  •  I don't have a great story, but I have good news: potty training with Evie is going well. This is probably super mundane for anyone else, but it's the most important thing happening in the Nash household right now. She has only been having 0-1 accidents a day, so she's improving pretty quickly. Once she's taken care of, we'll work on Roland, who has a lot farther to go.