Prairie State Wire

“As Governor, I will make Illinois a firewall against Donald Trump’s bigoted and hateful agenda.” – J.B. Pritzker.

Well. Where to begin?

While I am mildly amused at Governor Pritzker’s plan to build a big beautiful wall to keep President Trump out of Illinois, my amusement is dwarfed by my disgust and loathing of his parroted talking points from the House of Alinsky, i.e. the Democratic Party.

So, dear reader, let me fish out from Governor Pritzker’s spit bucket the bilious rhetoric he regurgitated after first voraciously consuming it from the leftist echo chamber.

The following are quotes from Governor Pritzker’s website.  I could write a book on the farcical and hypocritical nature of each statement; however, instead, I will respond with the facts on what President Trump has actually achieved in the past two years:

    •    “Donald Trump’s legislative agenda threatens to wreak havoc on the lives of Illinois families.”

Let’s assume the Governor is referring to wreaking economic havoc.

“Havoc” can more appropriately describe Obamanomics, which featured an impotent $830 billion stimulus, the disaster called Obamacare, tax hikes on the rich, company bailouts, and a record setting number of regulations. According to the Joint Economic Committee ‘s 2015 analysis of the last eight recessions, the Obama recovery was the worst.

Following the Trump tax cuts and slashing regulations (60 removed for every 1 created), the following occurred:

    •    The most intense activity seen in U.S. manufacturing since May 2004 (The Institute for Supply Management).

    •    The 3.6% unemployment rate for women reached its lowest level since the Eisenhower Administration in 1953.

    •    Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both have reached and maintained historic highs.

    •    The Index of Small Business Optimism, as measured by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, was measured at 108 during the Reagan Administration, 94.4 during the Obama Administration and at 108.8, the highest level ever, in the two years of the Trump the Administration.

    •    Across the board, median household income rose from $60,309 in 2016 to a record $61,372 (U.S. Census Bureau).

    •    After the Barack Obama’s June 1, 2016 proclamation, uttered with his usual narcissistic self-assurance, “Because some of those jobs in the past are just not going to come back…” President Trump’s economic policies proved Mr. Obama to be spectacularly incorrect: between July 2017 and July 2018, 650,000 new manufacturing jobs were created (Washington Post). This hasn’t occurred since Ronald Reagan was re-elected in 1984.

Had Illinois families, indeed, the nation, the economic blessings of President Trump’s economic policies during the 2009-16 Obama diktat then Hillary Clinton would have been president.

    •     “Trump is actively working to dismantle healthcare in the United States, potentially stripping millions of families of their coverage and targeting those who need it most.”

If greater freedom, choice and opportunity to purchase health insurance at a lower cost is “dismantling”, and that this targets those most in need, then Governor Pritzker is correct.

Despite every Democratic Party obstacle and with middling to no assistance from the Republican Party’s penchant for craven ineptitude, the Trump Administration has achieved the following in actually improving healthcare coverage for Illinois families:

    •    The elimination the individual mandate penalty. This infuriated the architects (Mr. Obama and his Democratic Party lackeys) of the Affordable Care Act because this effectively revealed what they already knew: Obamacare doesn’t approach financial viability without young, healthy Americans paying ungodly amounts for services they don’t need.

    •    On May 30, 2018, President Trump signed the Right to Try Act. This allows terminally ill patients who have failed approved treatments to choose to be administered experimental drugs. Many of these drugs have been used in Europe for years but are bogged down in the arduous FDA approval process (a process which the Trump Administration has at least modestly shortened). 228 Republicans voted “Yes” for this improvement and only 22 Democrats gave their assent.

    •    In the summer of 2018, the Trump administration extended the duration of short-term, limited health plans from three months to one year. Renewals are allowed for up to three years.  With this plan, the average lowest premium for short-term coverage is $1,300, compared to $4,200 for Obamacare. For the mathematically challenged, like the entire Democratic Party (but I repeat myself) that is a savings of $2,900 for “those who need it most”.

    •    Beginning in August 2018, hospitals are now required to publish prices of their procedures. This seemingly simple regulation is the first step towards introducing the invisible hand of the free market into health care because, as with all other goods and services, when consumers know what something costs it forces competition to drive down prices.

    •    There has been and will continue to be expansion of the ability of employers to establish Health Savings Accounts.

    •    “Trump’s attack on …, immigrant families, and people of color are tearing communities apart, and undermining the principles that make this country strong.”  

Governor Pritzker directs his ire towards President Trump instead of towards the entity most responsible for the immigration problem: his own party.  After all, the Democrats controlled the Congress during the first two years of the Obama regime and they did nothing about reforming our immigration laws.  As President Obama stated in a March 28, 2011 speech at the District of Columbia’s Bell Multicultural High School "With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive orders, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed…Congress passes the law. The executive branch’s job is to enforce and implement those laws.”

 

President Trump’s “attack” on people of color has resulted in:

    •    African-American unemployment is at 5.9%, the lowest in recorded history.

    •    Since President Trump was elected, the Labor Department reports that 1.2 million additional African-Americans have found work.

    •    The percentage of blacks below the poverty line fell to its lowest level in history.

    •    The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, legislation which President Trump championed and the GOP passed, despite 100% disapproval of Congressional Democrats, created “Opportunity Zones” which are tax incentives for business in financially oppressed communities.

    •    President Trump has made Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s burial site a national historic park.

    •    President Trump supported the passage of the Second Chance Act for non-violent offenders, many of whom are African-Americans.

    •    President Trump supports passage of the FIRST Step Act, legislation which eliminates provisions requiring offenders to serve consecutive sentences for crimes committed using firearms; shortens mandatory minimum sentences and reduces the number of non-violent drug offenders receiving mandatory minimum sentences.

The president’s successes will never change the feeble minds of the Never-Trumpers or the crazed socialists who have commandeered the Democratic Party but they will resonate with the Illinois families who were looking for something which neither Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton could never deliver: Real Hope and Real Change.

– Jeffrey Leef, M.D. is a two-time candidate for US Congress and concerned citizen.