Trump faces many serious problems, and tremendous obstacles

December 10,2024

As January 20, 2025 — the day of inauguration — approaches there is much talk about what things Donald Trump will do as the new President.

Among the serious problems facing the country and the Trump administration are: the federal government’s size and exorbitant operation; straightening out the military; and the National Debt.

The federal government has become a place where unelected bureaucrats make decisions with the force of law and impose penalties and fines without congressional approval.

Back in June the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision that addressed this problem. Kentucky Republican Representative James Comer, Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, issued this statement about this decision.

“Today’s Supreme Court decision stops the unelected, unaccountable federal bureaucracy’s aggressive regulatory overreach. This is a win for the American people, small businesses, and our Constitutional Republic. For far too long, the administrative state has been able to wield unchecked power and act as legislators by issuing major regulations that have driven up costs for Americans, stifled innovation, and micromanaged nearly every aspect of Americans’ lives. This decision rightfully hands the power back to Americans’ elected representatives in Congress to write our nation’s laws and to the courts to interpret them.”

This is a good development, but more can and must be done. 

There is a crisis within our military. Some in its leadership have become terribly confused in terms of understanding the requirements for and critical job of the military. Foolish and non-productive ideas like DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) have replaced merit in determining job assignments, recruitment processes and promotions. 

Last year the Army, Navy, and Air Force failed to reach their recruiting goals by 41,000 recruits. That means that in 2023 we had the smallest active-duty force since 1940. 

Some other factors in this recruitment failure are: a smaller eligible population, Gen Z has a low trust in institutions, and follows traditional life and career paths much less than previous generations. Another factor is that the military, due to recent changes in operations and philosophy, does not have the strong appeal it once had.

The military’s role is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, and maintain, by timely and effective military action, the security of the United States, its possessions and areas vital to its interest.

We need to increase funding for defense to strengthen and grow our military forces.

The National Debt has grown beyond all reason and is dangerously high. This problem has been going on for many years and has increased recently, as the following data shows: 1974 - $475 billion; 1995 - $4.9 trillion; 2005 - $7.9 trillion; 2015 - $18.2 trillion; 2020 - $26.9 trillion; 2024 - $36.2 trillion.

The current total works out to $107,169 for every person in the country.

Decades ago our largest budget deficits were brought on by national emergencies like the Great Depression and World War II. More recently, the government has simply spent more money than taxation provides, and on inappropriate things. This causes huge deficits, and huge interest payments on our debt.

In 2023, the federal government spent $658 billion on interest costs. That was 2.4 percent of the GDP (gross domestic product). 

While the June Supreme Court decision was a step in the right direction, the federal government still needs much corrective work. There are several departments, agencies, offices, etc. that are not necessary or useful.

Government employees are often not living up to their duties. Many of them work remotely, not at their duty station, a situation that evolved during the COVID pandemic, and which has not been remedied. 

A report found that only 6 percent of federal workers report in-person on a full-time basis. And, almost one-third of federal workers are remote full-time, which is a big difference from before the pandemic when only 3 percent worked remotely. This negatively affects the efficient and proper functioning of many areas of government.

There are at least three federal departments that need to be eliminated: The Departments of Commerce, Education, and Energy. These are among the most frequently mentioned for elimination, with the Department of Education leading the list. 

Having only been around since President Jimmy Carter signed it into law in 1979, the Education Department unnecessarily interferes with the efforts of the individual states to serve their citizens’ needs, a federal department which states did without for two hundred years.

And, as these items are addressed, other critical problems exist. We must repair the open borders of the Biden administration and get control of the illegal aliens now in the country, restore our position of energy independence, and fix the horrible Biden inflation that has made life so difficult for so many.

The Trump administration has a wonderful opportunity to begin to restore the federal government to a reasonable size and reach, to get government spending under control and make some headway toward reducing the National Debt.

That is a substantial challenge under the best of circumstances. And with the Democrat/liberal mindset that is so subversive to the American ideals our Founders established, it will be much more difficult. 

America’s strengths are being weakened from the inside and dying

December 3, 2024

A major problem in America today is the abandonment of its traditions. The two-parent family is no longer the dominant feature it once was. The idea of citizenship, love of country, is less obvious these days. So many things have changed, as the culture of America devolves.

And one of the greatest of those is the honor and integrity that once accompanied some of our professions.

People in education too often no longer embrace and abide by traditional concepts and values. They often change what is done in classrooms without notifying parents, or going through official processes. Too often, schools teach what to think, rather than how to think, pushing certain concepts while hiding others.

News journalism once was a clear-cut process of reporting to the public what actually happened in news-worthy events. It didn’t hide relevant information. When reporting on a political topic, it did not take sides. And opinions were not expressed in news stories. The ideals of free speech and objectivity were respected and obeyed.

Yes, there is a place for opinions in journalism, but opinions must be clearly labeled, and not sneaked into news reporting to advance a particular point of view.

That sensible, honorable rule no longer exists for far too many people claiming to be journalists. News is largely no longer the process of keeping the people informed. Far too often news organizations are not providers of needed information, but sources of inducement to a particular way of thinking.

During the COVID frenzy lots of things were labeled as misinformation or false information, and were hidden from the public. However, many things that were labeled and withheld proved to be true and beneficial, and things presented as truth were found to be false.

Among topics where the opinions were hidden from the public were problems with the mRNA vaccine, the source of the COVID virus, and the issue of facemask use and uselessness.

The greatest and most harmful journalistic failures were in the realm of politics. Among those items, in addition to COVID censorship, were opposition to the Hunter Biden laptop story, the Steele dossier fiasco, and the Russian disinformation mess known as Russia Gate.

Social media sites also frequently banned certain pieces of information, claiming they were false. Sometimes this action, even though improper in a nation supporting free speech, was due to honest beliefs that the information was truly harmful. Other times — likely in the majority of cases — it was a politically motivated action, designed to prevent the spread of information contrary to the preferred narrative.

Neither of those are justification for the denial and restriction of the free expression of ideas guaranteed to us by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Even unpopular speech is defended by the free speech guarantee.

Workers at newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations and networks were also guilty of banning certain ideas.

Individuals yielding to political philosophy was often the problem. But there is a much deeper problem. Whereas some so-called journalists allowed political ideals into their work, because they hoped to convince the public more than they wanted to hold to their career integrity, others did the same thing for a different reason: they were trained that way, and believed they were acting appropriately.

There is a broad movement in academia away from the notion of objectivity. Jonathan Turley, a law professor at the George Washington University Law School and legal authority, addressed this in his new book, The Indispensable Right, dealing with the right to free speech guaranteed to us by the U.S. Constitution.

Turley wrote, “In journalism schools, professors now denounce objectivity’s place as the ‘supreme deity’ of American journalism.” One professor, Stanford’s Ted Glasser “has called for an end of objectivity in journalism as too constraining for reporters in seeking ‘social justice,’” he wrote.

This infection has spread from the classroom into the newsroom, as graduates enter the workforce, and join in with those who prefer political success to professional honor and personal integrity.

Speaking of this new view of journalism Turley wrote: “Reporters must serve as active interpreters in framing the news to convey what they view as the truth, including the suppression of opposing views on issues like climate change, the pandemic, or gender identity.” 

“In 2023, former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr. and former CBS News president Andrew Heyward released the results of their interviews with over seventy-five media leaders and concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and harmful,” Turley wrote, adding that “Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor in chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, said it plainly: ‘Objectivity has got to go.’” 

In his book, Turley follows up the discussion of the infection of journalistic principles with a similar infection of the field of law and interpretation of the Constitution and legal concepts.

In this context, the ideas and circumstances that brought about legal principles based upon the forces at work at the time they were implemented can now be ignored because “things have changed.” Laws and Constitutional principles can be changed at the whim of individuals rather than through established and necessary processes.

This line of thinking will not protect the freedoms Americans treasure and depend upon.