Tag: Trade Policies

Oval Office Slap Fight

Closing Thought–12Aug20

The media has reported numerous times about the knock down arguments that are held in the Oval Office….well this time it is between trade slug Navarro and Treasury toad Mnuchin……

A “knock-down, dragout” brawl broke out in the Oval Office last week when two key presidential advisors fought in front of their boss, an insider tells the Washington Post. Trade adviser Peter Navarro and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reportedly locked horns over the fate of TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app that President Trump warned he might ban—or let Microsoft buy, if the US Treasury received a “substantial” fee. In the meeting, Mnuchin said he had talked to Microsoft officials and believed the sale was warranted on national security grounds. But Navarro demanded the ban, accusing Mnuchin of going easy on China. A “vicious” battle ensued between the two, recalling their foul-mouthed argument on a trip to Beijing in May 2018.

“I think Trump’s instincts are to be aggressive toward China,” says a former US official. “Navarro’s like the devil on his shoulder, saying, ‘Do it, do it.’ Mnuchin is more like a governor, trying to slow everything down—’What about Wall Street? What about Phase 2 [of the trade deal]?'” How it ended is unclear, but Trump signed an executive order Thursday that would basically shut down TikTok’s US operation in 45 days if it isn’t sold, per CNN. Navarro later said the Trump administration relies on “strong, often opposing views,” and added this: “It is critical for a strong America that ‘what happens in the Oval Office, should stay in the Oval Office’ so I have no comment on what is clearly a malicious leak riddled with hyperbole and misinformation.”

I imagine a couple of nerds slapping at each other when the argument breaks down into physical touching.

I would have loved to be that fly on the wall of the Oval Office……my imagination is running wild…..a fight, really?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Are We Winning The Trade War?

Trump came into office promising all sorts of stuff but mostly that he was an expert at trade policies and he would return the US to its rightful place as the world leader in trade.

I have written about this experts consequences of his trade wars…..

https://lobotero.com/2019/03/29/trade-war-consequences/

https://lobotero.com/2019/09/16/trumps-trade-war/

Let’s be honest his policies have been disastrous to this country….only a handful of extremely rich people have benefited from these failed policies….

Some have asked just why has these policies failed other than a total impotent approach to trade…….

Before Donald Trump took office, he promised he was going to stick it to China on trade. When he assumed power, he indeed did so — threatening and then levying tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports. China responded in kind, before agreeing to a largely symbolic trade agreement in January only to have it disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

The problem the Trump administration was ostensibly trying to solve was America’s enormous trade deficit, which Trump has portrayed as the U.S. being ripped off by foreign countries. This was also the motivation behind the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and a threatened trade war on Europe that is also now on hold.

Yet all these actions did not shrink the trade deficit. On the contrary, the deficit widened for the first few years of Trump’s presidency, shrank back to about what it was before he took office in late 2019, and now has widened once again. What gives?

https://theweek.com/articles/923813/why-trumps-trade-war-failed

My thought is if we are to trade with other nations that maybe a more inclusive talks and a mutual beneficial agreements would help everybody.

Instead we are “going it alone”…..and the results are noticeable to all….jobs loss…..factors closing……lack of confidence in the US.

Time that we stop acting like the sole nation on this planet and start working with others for common goals.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

NAFTA 2.0?

Back in the day globalization took off big time in the 1990s and the presidency of Clinton….when it was signed into law I said then that it was a bad idea for workers not just here but around the world.

I was a supporter of the Trump’s idea to trash the deal and come forth with a new more inclusive deal.

But after 3 and half years and lots of talk and tariff stuff we have a new “NAFTA”…..

President Trump has touted the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as the worst trade deal ever negotiated—and vowed to replace it. Today, it has been replaced by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and, unbeknownst to him, this agreement should hold that unsavory title. While the USMCA makes some modest improvements (largely by borrowing from the Trans Pacific Partnership, which Trump withdrew from), it also includes some protectionist elements and veiled industrial policy. Furthermore, while the administration has been rushing to implement the deal in order to score political points on the campaign trail, businesses are left to sort out the new rules and paperwork that they will have to start following as of today. USMCA was pitched as a way to reduce uncertainty among the three trading partners in the face of threats of withdrawal from NAFTA that Trump made regularly. But at the end of the day, much uncertainty still remains.

The first area where we are likely to see some challenge in implementation was exactly the issue that received an inordinate amount of attention during negotiations: autos. The rules that determine whether a product can cross duty free across the border—rules of origin—were tightened for the auto sector. In NAFTA, passenger vehicles were required to have 62.5% North American content, and in the USMCA that has been increased to 75%. This means that auto producers will need to source more components from the region, in addition to ensuring that 70% of the steel and aluminum used in production also comes from Canada, Mexico or the United States. On top of this—a first ever in a trade agreement—a new labor value content requirement was added that requires auto makers to have 40–45% of their auto content made by workers making at least $16 an hour. This is clearly aimed at moving production out of Mexico, which has been an important link in the North American auto supply chain. For automakers these rules will raise some challenges in implementation, not least because auto production is so fragmented, and that every producer up and down the supply chain must abide by the new content rules. Coordinating this is no easy feat. Canada has yet to pass the regulations that will bring the auto rules into force, and with today being a holiday in Canada, that process will undoubtedly be delayed. In the United States, guidance on the regulations has been shared, but the interim final rules on uniform regulations and labor value content were just published today.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/trump-signed-worst-trade-deal-ever-and-it-just-went-effect-164021

I do not see how this would benefit the workers or make their lives more enriched…..once again the words of Trump have proven to be total crap.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden On Trade

Looks like all the hard work the media and pundits have done is giving Biden the inside tract to the nomination….we can only hope that it is not so…..well he made it….Biden is the man with a plan…..at least that is his story.

But since Trump will probably run on his trade policies I thought maybe a look at those of Biden would be helpful…..

“In terms of the coming general election we don’t have to predict what [President Donald] Trump will be saying about Joe Biden, because he is already making those attacks. Trump—who won Michigan, who won Wisconsin, who won Pennsylvania—made one of his major campaign tenets his opposition to NAFTA and PNTR [Permanent Normal Trade Relations ] with China,” said Sanders.

“In 2016, he criticized those trade policies as being disastrous—and just yesterday, he made that claim,” Sanders continued. “The truth is, and we have to be honest about this, that NAFTA and PNTR cost this country well over 4 million good paying jobs. In Michigan alone, these disastrous trade agreements led to the loss of more than 150,000 good paying jobs. And not only job loss—when good paying jobs go, you are involved in a race to the bottom and employers can pay lower wages.”

“These trade agreements have been a disaster for the people of Michigan, the state of Vermont, and for the entire country. Joe Biden and I have very strong and different positions in terms of how we reacted to NAFTA and PNTR,” Sanders said.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/06/will-bidens-trade-policy-record-come-back-haunt-him-midwest

To be fair to Biden…..OnTheIssues.org asked some question to Biden…..if you are considering voting for Joe Biden then maybe get to know his policies before doing so…..https://www.ontheissues.org/International/Joe_Biden_Free_Trade.htm

Another look at Biden’s trade policies…..https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-former-vice-president-bidens-policy-trade

I would give you his website but they want my email and I refuse to give it….so if you can find another way into his policies I wish you luck.

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

 

Tariffs–Trump Weapon Of Choice

Most Americans know that Trump has decided that a good trade war is what this country and the world desperately…..

He expanded his “war” with tariffs…first on two South American countries…..

President Trump leaves for a NATO summit in London on Monday, but first he’s making headlines in regard to South America. In an early tweet, the president announced he is restoring tariffs on aluminum and steel shipped from Argentina and Brazil, reports the Wall Street Journal. Trump accused both countries of manipulating their currencies to hurt US farmers, and he paired his action with criticism of the Federal Reserve, notes Bloomberg, which sees the morning moves as significant. Trump says that by these and other nations deliberately devaluing their currencies, “this makes it very hard for our (manufacturers) & farmers to fairly export their goods,” he wrote. “Lower Rates & Loosen – Fed!”

This is the first time Trump has explicitly linked tariffs to currency moves, per Bloomberg, and “as such, it signifies a potential new phase in his trade wars in which foreign-exchange markets are the battleground.” The US initially exempted Brazil and Argentina from metal tariffs put into place in 2018, but that exemption is now being lifted. The New York Times notes that the two countries have benefited from the US trade war with China: Both have been shipping soybeans and other farm products to China, making up for the shortfall of US exports

France is next in the cross hairs….

The Trump administration is proposing tariffs on up to $2.4 billion worth of French imports—including Roquefort cheese, handbags, lipstick, and sparkling wine—in retaliation for France’s tax on American tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Facebook. The Office of the US Trade Representative charged Monday that France’s new digital services tax discriminates against US companies. The trade office will accept public comments on the tariffs, which could hit 100%, through Jan. 6. The French tax is designed to prevent tech companies from dodging taxes by putting headquarters in low-tax EU countries. It imposes a 3% annual levy on French revenues of digital companies with yearly global sales worth more than $830 million and French revenue exceeding $27.7 million.

The US also criticized the French tax for targeting companies’ revenue, not their profits, and for being retroactive, the AP reports. The decision to pursue tariffs “sends a clear signal that the United States will take action against digital tax regimes that discriminate or otherwise impose undue burdens on US companies,” US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said. He warned that the US is also looking into digital taxes introduced by Austria, Italy, and Turkey. The decision to target France got bipartisan endorsement from GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden. In a joint statement, they assailed the French digital tax as “unreasonable, protectionist and discriminatory.”

I have made my thoughts known on Trump’s sanctions and tariffs….(you can find them in IST archives under “tariffs”)….I believe there is a better way to deal with other countries than trying to punish them for perceived violations.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

We Have a Deal!

Closing Thought–16Dec19

Just in time for the beginning of the process to pick our next president it has been announced that Xi and Trump have reached a deal on ending our trade war…..

Do not let the peasants dance just yet….they have agreed on only one phase of the deal…..

China and the U.S. agreed on the text of a phase one trade deal that includes the removal of tariffs on Chinese goods in stages, Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen said, as President Donald Trump confirmed that some levies will be reduced and said the next round of talks will start immediately.

China will increase imports from the U.S. and other countries, Wang said at a briefing in Beijing Friday. Vice Chairman of the National Reform and Development Commission Ning Jizhe added that the specifics of agricultural purchases would be released later, as the text of the agreement is still under review.

The comments were China’s first response to a deal signed off by Trump on Thursday that would halt higher tariffs planned for Dec. 15 and represent the first phase in defusing the trade war that’s shaken the global economy.

https://outline.com/9fvXqt

Just in time to help the markets rise a bit and make the economy look better than it is……but the markets did bite this time from Trump….

Stocks are closing at more record highs as traders hope that the US and China can make enough progress on trade to avoid new tariffs kicking in over the weekend, the AP reports. Banks and technology companies led the gains. The S&P 500 rose 26 points, or 0.9%, to 3,168. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 220 points, or 0.8%, to 28,131. The Nasdaq rose 63 points, or 0.7%, to 8,717. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are at record highs. Traders dumped safe-play investments like utilities and real estate companies and moved money into riskier assets. Bond prices also fell, sending yields sharply higher.

I still question the timing of this “deal”….not that Trump is doing anything different from any other president looking for a boost for the next round of voting.

Personally, I feel that we need a more “progressive” trade policy….we are giving too much a way to other nations…..

It is clear that these trade and investment policies no longer even benefit the signatory countries, but rather line the pockets of global elites at the expense of ordinary people and the planet we share. Backlash to these policies has peaked and waned, peaking 20 years ago with the fight against the MAI and the Seattle WTO protests, and again reemerging in the past decade, against the FTAA and, again, against the TPP more recently.

As the right has increasingly taken up opposition to trade policies from a protectionist and often xenophobic angle, the need to distinguish a left, internationalist critique of corporate globalization has never been more urgent. The chauvinist policies of the Trump administration and its imitators need to be strongly condemned. But if the progressive movement is simply reacting to the neoliberal trade agenda and its right-wing disruptors, it is unlikely to achieve meaningful change.

So, progressive politicians and policymakers — from AMLO to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — must unify around a progressive vision of trade to guide an international system that places people and planet over profits. That is why a bold new vision for international economic cooperation and global development is so crucial.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/12/we-need-progressive-alternative-trade-and-nafta-20-isnt-it

Trade should be our focus to save our family farms….and our industries as a whole….not some idle campaign slogan.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Closing Thought–11Dec19

The Dems wanted to prove that they did not go to DC justn to impeach the president…..plus they needed to give their members some cover in the close elections in 2020….for these reasons they helped pass the new NAFTA that Trump promised….

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday announced agreement on a modified North American trade pact, handing President Trump a major Capitol Hill win on the same day that Democrats announced impeachment charges against him, per the AP. Crediting Democratic negotiators for winning stronger provisions on enforcing the agreement, Pelosi said the revamped United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is “much better” than the North American Free Trade Agreement and “infinitely better than what was initially proposed by the administration.” “This is the right thing to do for our trade situation, for our workers,” she said. In a tweet, Trump said the revamped trade pact—his top Capitol Hill priority along with funding for his long-sought border fence—”will be the best and most important trade deal ever made by the USA. Good for everybody – Farmers, Manufacturers, Energy, Unions.”

Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign relations secretary, said the three countries’ negotiating teams would meet Tuesday “to announce the advances achieved.” NAFTA eliminated most tariffs and other trade barriers involving the US, Mexico, and Canada. Critics, including Trump, labor unions, and many Democratic lawmakers, branded the pact a job killer for the US because it encouraged factories to move south of the border, capitalize on low-wage Mexican workers, and ship products back to the US duty-free. Weeks of back-and-forth, closely monitored by Democratic labor allies such as the AFL-CIO, brought the two sides together, though Trump had accused Pelosi of being too wrapped up in impeachment. More protectionist and labor-friendly, USMCA contains provisions designed to nudge manufacturing back to the US.

This is nothing but a political gimme to the president…..just a way to help Dems in the states that depend on trade for their economy.

This is just NAFTA 2.0, as it has been labelled)…..it is weak…..

The revised U.S.—Mexico—Canada Agreement (USMCA), announced today by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and endorsed by the AFL-CIO, represents a significant improvement on the draft agreement first released in 2017. Negotiators for labor and House Democrats strengthened the provisions on labor rights, environmental standards, and the enforcement of these rules, and also removed costly and egregious new protections for corporations, including giveaways by the Trump administration to pharmaceutical companies.

But the changes embodied in the USMCA still constitute Band-Aids on a fundamentally flawed agreement and process. Powerful multinational corporations have used and controlled the negotiation of trade and investment deals to facilitate offshoring and the deregulation of the U.S. and global economy, as noted by the Machinists Union, which has announced its opposition to the USMCA. The original North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) resulted in the loss of at least 680,000 U.S. jobs due to growing trade deficits with Mexico alone. It also caused downward pressure on the wages of nearly 100 million U.S. workers and the devastation of manufacturing communities across the United States, especially in the industrial Midwest and battleground states—with far-reaching social and electoral consequences.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/10/us-mexico-canada-agreement-weak-tea-best

Like I wrote…this is a weak piece of manure that does little but give Dems some cover for their upcoming elections back home.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Economic Realism–2019

We hear almost daily at a Trump rally just how good the economy is doing since he became president….I will admit that the markets, stock markets, are doing well and that is where it ends…..there is nothing good happening beyond those hollow promises.

Trump and the GOP keeps Tweeting about what great condition the economy is in….but I feel they need a refresher course….the economy means….”the wealth and resources of a country or region, especially in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services.”

Markets are soaring…the economy not so much.

I mean a 10% drop in manufacturing (I thought it would all come back under a Trump admin) and investment lagging…..all thanks to the economic policies of this president….

Decisions based on false or misleading information can lead to wrong and harmful solutions. The constant harping on Chinese trade having “cost” America millions of jobs is false, especially given what we now know: that 85 percent of American job losses have resulted from technology, not trade.

This complicated issue is detailed in a Yale University School of Management report. However, this is not the end of the story.

Millions of simple manufacturing jobs have been replaced with service and advanced manufacturing jobs, where America still leads. In fact, American manufacturing’s major problem right now is a shortage of a million skilled workers. We need better worker re-training programs and a campaign to change attitudes towards the social standing of skilled workers in place of our current hyper-focus on college degrees.

Trump’s Trade War Has Dire Consequences

Americans are starting to see just how disastrous Trump policies are for them….these policies may help his rich friends but do very little for mainstream America…..

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. voters said they are not better of financially since Donald Trump took office, a new poll of likely voters finds.

The October 2019 poll conducted by the Financial Times and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation found that 31 percent of potential U.S. voters reported being worse off financially since Trump took office in January 2017. An additional third of Americans surveyed, 33 percent, said there has been no change in their financial status under the Trump administration.

Just over one-third of those surveyed, 35 percent, said they were better off since Trump moved into the White House.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-presidency-helped-americans-financial-standing-poll-us-voters-1469625

The bottom line on the economy is…..not good.

While you weren’t looking — perhaps while you were watching impeachment hearings – the trade war with China went completely off the rails and lost its meaning.

To understand why, you have to know why the US started a trade war with China started in the first place. It started with a very specific investigation — an investigation into China’s theft of US intellectual property (IP) using Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

The investigation determined what many in the business community had been talking about for years, the fact that China abused its US partners, stole the IP of American companies, forced those companies to reveal their technology to Chinese counterparts and muscled US firms out of the Chinese economy in favor of state owned enterprises (SOEs).

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-trade-war-us-china-tariffs-lost-no-meaning-2019-11

Sadly those so-called “Free Markets” are killing the very sector it is suppose to help and advance…..

National industrial policy was once something you might read about in today’s equivalent of a friend’s Facebook post, as hard as that might sound to believe. It was in newspapers; it was on the radio. Taxi drivers had opinions about it. That all changed in the last 35 years, when the rise and fall of the stock market and a shallow conversation about unemployment rates took over. Industrial policy became an inside-baseball conversation, and to the extent that it was discussed, it was through the prism of whether it imperiled the golden gospel and great economic distraction of our time, “the free market.”

The decades of free-market propaganda we’ve been exposed to are basically an exercise in distracting the public from the meaningful choices that are now made behind closed doors. The two big political parties that outwardly represent symbolic issues like gun rights and school prayer spend the bulk of their time and political energy on complex industrial and regulatory questions.

America Will Keep Losing Its Middle Class as Long as ‘Free Markets’ Dominate the Economic Debate

Trade wars do nothing to help the Middle Class advance….and after so many years of a “free Market” mentality the proof is in the dwindling of the Middle Class.

The stock markets are not the economy in its entirety.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

VOTE!

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Sanctions And Tariffs

Sanctions have been used as economic warfare for centuries…and in reality hurts NO one but the average person and consumer…..then a new president and a new way of economic warfare….Tariffs.

This president has two tools in his economic bag of tricks…..yep you guessed it….sanctions and tariffs.

I have studied 18th century economist Henry George and he has lots to say on tariffs…..

American economist Henry George is best known for his 1879 treatise Progress and Poverty, for which Albert Einstein designated George a “beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic forum, and fervent love of justice” (George 1879, cover). Progress and Poverty became a huge success, and in 1886 George followed up with a far more obscure — but perhaps more significant — work on the nature of free trade as pertaining to the eradication of poverty: Protection or Free Trade: An Examination of the Tariff Question, With Especial Regard to the Interests of Labor (online at the Mises Institute).

The problem identified by Henry George, in Protection or Free Trade, is that of poverty, and more specifically, wages and unemployment. What follows from that is George’s systematic and all-embracing dissertation of the effects that protectionist and free-trade policies have on the wealth of a nation and its individuals. Naturally, he arrives at a conclusion that is decidedly in favor of free trade — as opposed to protective prescriptions — as a surefire solution to the ills of poverty.

https://mises.org/library/henry-george-and-tariff-question

Then there are sanctions…..and I have covered gthe problems with sanctions in previous post…..https://lobotero.com/2019/02/05/sanctions/

But if you prefer…..I have Henry Goerge’s thoughts on trade sanctions……

The American free trader Henry George (1839-1897) argued that trade sanctions against “our enemies” hurt domestic domestic consumers just like any other “protectionist” trade restriction:

Free trade consists simply in letting people buy and sell as they want to buy and sell. It is protection that requires force, for it consists in preventing people from doing what they want to do. Protective tariffs are as much applications of force as are blockading squadrons, and their object is the same—to prevent trade. The difference between the two is that blockading squadrons are a means whereby nations seek to prevent their enemies from trading; protective tariffs are a means whereby nations attempt to prevent their own people from trading. What protection teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.

https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/500

Sanctions and tariffs are a lazy person’s answers to any trade problems…..they are NOT solutions at all.

And now my cheese and wine will be much more expensive…….

The Trump administration plans to impose tariffs on $7.5 billion worth of European imports—from gouda cheese to single-malt whiskey to large aircraft—beginning Oct. 18 to retaliate against illegal European Union subsidies for aviation giant Airbus. The latest escalation in the administration’s tariffs will open a new chapter in the trade wars that are heightening fears of a global recession, the AP reports. The administration received a green light for its latest import taxes Wednesday from the World Trade Organization, which ruled that the US could impose the tariffs as retaliation for illegal aid that the 28-country EU gave to Airbus in its competition with its American rival Boeing.

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“I Read, I Wrote and now You Know”

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Trump’s Trade War

There are a wealth of effects of the trade war that dear leader has set his policies on…..like higher prices and Christmas on the way…..but the one number that Americans will pay attention to is the jobs numbers…..

A job count is depressing……….

President Trump says he is “winning big time, against China.” But his trade war is causing measurable damage to the U.S. economy, with the pain likely to worsen.

Forecasting firm Moody’s Analytics estimates that Trump’s trade war with China has already reduced U.S. employment by 300,000 jobs, compared with likely employment levels absent the trade war. That’s a combination of jobs eliminated by firms struggling with tariffs and other elements of the trade war, and jobs that would have been created but haven’t because of reduced economic activity.

The firm’s chief economist, Mark Zandi, told Yahoo Finance that the job toll from the trade war will hit about 450,000 by the end of the year, if there’s no change in policy. By the end of 2020, the trade war will have killed 900,000 jobs, on its current course. The hardest-hit sectors are manufacturing, warehousing, distribution and retail.

Other data back up the Moody’s Analytics numbers. Employers have created 1.3 million jobs so far this year, down from 1.9 million during the same period in 2018. The manufacturing sector has actually contracted, with many producers struggling with higher prices caused by Trump’s tariffs. Business investment is growing by the smallest amount since late 2016.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trumps-trade-war-has-killed-300000-jobs-194717808.html

Since this trade war will be a drag on Trump’s re-election hde had to come up with something to change the conversation……and he possibly has found his answer…..the problem is it will a deficit buster…..

President Donald Trump promised to unveil an “inspirational” middle class tax cut next year during a political retreat in Maryland late Thursday, just as the Treasury Department said the nation’s budget deficit topped the $1 trillion mark for only the second time on record. 

Trump told House Republicans in the state’s biggest city, Baltimore, that his “substantial” tax cut plans would be “very, very inspirational … for  middle-income folks, who work so hard,” and that details would be released early next year. Congress, however, would need to approve and pass any suggested tax reductions from the executive branch, setting up a potential election-defining fight with Democratic lawmakers heading into next year’s presidential elections.

The pledge will also add further pressure on the nation’s finances after the Treasury reported a $169 billion shortfall in revenues in August, taking the overall deficit for the 11 months ended in August, the government’s fiscal year, to $1.07 trillion. The last trillion-plus deficit was recorded in the three years that followed the 2008 global financial crisis. 

(thestreet.com)

Where are the deficit hawks?  The Fiscal Conservatives are a bunch of low life cowards.

This is just a promise like all his promise hollow and without merit.