Is Trump Crazy?

My friends seem to think so, many of them (seriously) are genuinely worried that he is a threat either to our Constitution and/or safety.

Let me start by saying no man or woman really knows what’s in another’s heart or mind. Having said that, there are ways to examine the issue without a personal mental health analysis. I’ll start with the most important of these, an examination of a President’s policy positions.

I say this, because in the U.S., politicians are limited by their own agenda, and it’s support with the American people, Congress, and eventually the courts. Reagan was popular and got most of his agenda — but didn’t move the needle on abortion because at that time – 70% of the public was against him on the issue.

Even Trump will not have power beyond his mandate and the CONTINUING popularity of that mandate.

Are his nominations crazy? Pence, Tillerson, Pompeo, Flynn and Mattis are all highly experienced, intelligent, competent men — that have seen other men under great stress. If Trump is crazy, I believe this team will have the interests of the nation at heart in their decision making and this is more than I can say for the rubber stamp cabinet types Obama favored, for whom he also wrote –and orchestrated — the narrative. This group also sits in-between the President and the State + Defense apparatus, again adding confidence.

So far, a few Defense and strategic directions are appearing. Are any of these crazy? The first is a re-approachment with China. This has people nervous but I have studied this issue closely for years and I can say with confidence – a new approach is needed — or war is more certain than less. A change here is not crazy, to not change would be crazy.

The Chinese have militarized the South China Sea “islands” they built, in a direct violation of a commitment to the U.S. military not to do that, as a final step in a series of steps and/or provocations — over many years now — that are intended to make it possible for the communist Chinese to invade Taiwan – and also intimidate their remaining neighbors. They are communists after all, and this is what communists do.

All of these issues, Taiwan, cyber theft, ICBM’s in NK, MIRV’s in communist China, the South Sea islands, their decades long currency manipulations, their dumping of steel and other targeted export categories — all of these and more must be addressed by Trump — because they were not addressed by Clinton, Bush, or Obama.

If this is crazy and getting tough with them is crazy, go interview Obama. He’ll tell ya, the Chinese list of problems I named is short a few key items and that some tougher negotiations with them are necessary. So, not crazy on China.

ISIS and terrorism in general, including how it effects on immigration issues is where most of my friends think Trump is crazy and I have to say — on this complex topic involving many variables, on balance, Trump is correct on this — much more than the alternative political view.

The Liberal narrative is contradictory at heart, not Trump’s.

It’s almost impossible to argue Islamic nations, practicing Sharia law — have a sovereign right as a state — to infringe horribly on the civil and human rights of gays, women, lesbians, Christians, Jews, and many other minorities — BUT here in the U.S., those same rights are sovereign to the people, not the state.

This creates a gaping and deadly hypocrisy in the liberal narrative that is crazy itself, not Trump’s demand that the narrative be consistent. This also relates to China — what value system will the U.S. champion when the democratic nation of Taiwan is invaded by communist mainland China?

Will it be the free country of Taiwan with their own parliament, elections, military, and yes – although we refuse to recognize them — they are our ally. Or, will it be our giant trading partner, communist China, where, like the Islamic caliphate, the political and/or religious state has sovereign power, not the people?

I don’t think Trump’s crazy to answer that question the way I would — and transmit that message — so the decision never has to be made.

Betsy DeVos is a twofer for my friends, they think Trump is crazy AND she’s crazy. This question breaks into two parts; is the education system broken? and is the DeVos plan to repair it, crazy, or reasonable?

This piece will be even longer if I catalog the many failures of the American public education system, but the place where the numbers are the worse, undeniably bad, is in the inner cities — the exact nexus of the liberal educational experiment — whose policies have been followed — and funded — for 50 years now, with disastrous results.

The DeVos plan would allow parents to use private and charter schools because their affordability range would CHANGE with some tax voucher’s for these expenses. This plan ups parent involvement and lowers public money commitments in total. To say this is crazy is reprehensible, putting politics and teacher union patronage above children.

I sacrificed a gigantic amount of money to send my two kids to private schools because I had gone to public schools here, and learned almost nothing. My son went to Cornell and my daughter to Duquesne. None, none of my four brothers or sisters left public schools here in Montgomery County and went on to college, something I did not do either.

That’s one reason I spent years establishing and working for Maryland Prepaid College Trust here in Maryland, a program with $3 Billion invested and hundreds of thousands of kids benefitted.

Devos isn’t crazy.

If I’d had a tax voucher for private school expenses or some portion of them, my daughter would be graduating without debt instead of with some. This change is not an attack on the education system, that’s like saying I’m un-American for having sought out the best and most appropriate schools for my children. Trump isn’t crazy on this, or I am too.

The Trump tax plan is as yet, unseen. That’s because the House is hard at work trying to create a plan that lowers the corporate tax rates low enough – and simplifies the entire system enough – to satisfy Trump; WHILE, also, creating budget projections which show offsetting revenues from other budget categories like a Border Adjustment Tax, a non-existent category at the moment.

The absurdity here is just how upside down the world we live in really is. The NYT and the Democratic Party have been screaming for years about how totally insane our corporate tax system is (and they are right) and now that somebody wants to stop the insanity — they call him crazy.

This one is very simple, if Trump lowers the rate AND eliminates the loopholes, total tax receipts will soar. This will happen regardless of the BAT start up or not. Treasury receipts will only fall if Trump is talked into a lower top rate — but allows the ruinous continuation of any tax breaks, offsets, whatever – and the only way to do that is to tax revenue instead of profit.

If Trump proposes a corporate income tax repeal to be replaced with a corporate revenue tax – you’ll know he’s crazy like Einstein. I say this because the country could have sustained economic growth in the 4% to 5% gdp range under that scenario, and Trump is the only guy in 100 years that thinks far enough out of the box to consider a change like this.

But if he does a musty old standard rate cut into the high teens or low twenties instead, you’ll still see a big growth bounce. Not crazy at all, unless the entire wall street investment community is wrong — and this tax cut will hurt business cash flows, an unimaginable result. Either way, not crazy, just Keynesian to the Laffer side.

Europe has proven higher tax rates strangle growth in general and profitability, most of all. Profitability is the life blood of further growth. Trump may be crazy sounding in his delivery on this point, but his facts, theory, and historical precedents — all favor his plan. In this category, Trump is the cure for crazy.

On Energy I have deep experience. I applied for and was repeatedly refused a DOE grant for a solar project that was significantly more efficient than the pet projects, submitted by favored companies, that did receive funding.

In other words, Obama doubled down on solar with an insidiously corrupt and incestuous program, literally twisted into procurement knots, which produced piss poor results like Billions and Billions wasted, while strangling every other energy source they could strangle.

Trump has made it clear, he wants every cylinder firing. Dig coal, allow fraccking for oil and gas, build pipelines, invest in biomass and renewables, do it all, AND drive the price of energy down so we can make stuff here again, and afford our skyrocketing power consumption.

Trump is not only — not crazy here — he is dead on. Pipelines are the safest and most environmentally friendly way to move fuel. A robust economy diversified in all energy sectors, keeps the U.S. innovative — and a frontier economy — and cheap energy is good for manufacturing and consumers. What is crazy about a win-win-win?

The rap on Putin, Russia, and Trump, in the worst liberal narrative, is that these two are secret friends, and that Putin conspired to get his friend Trumpie elected — so they could further conspire together, presumably.

This story is impossible to refute, as most liberal narratives are, but lets ask the more important question; can Trump, governing from his Republican base in the electorate, and Congress, give Putin an inch of daylight?

I don’t think so, but whatever your answer, Trump, friend or foe to Putin before inauguration — you can bet after inauguration day — that answer will depend on Putin’s future actions, not his words, and that’s not crazy, it’s the only way to deal with crazy.