Trump’s ‘Penny Plan’ Could Slash Federal Spending over Decade

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Being penny-wise could pay off big over the next decade, according to budget experts looking at part of President-elect Donald Trump’s spending plan.

While campaigning in September, Trump told the New York Economic Club, “If we save just one penny of each federal dollar spent on nondefense, and non-entitlement programs, we can save almost $1 trillion over the next decade—again this is spending that does not touch defense, and that does not touch entitlements.”

Trump’s plan is narrower than similar plans previously proposed in Congress for an across-the-board 1 cent out of every $1 cut in each federal agency’s budget from the previous year, because it would exclude cuts from the military and entitlements.

But, since most federal agencies are projected to grow by 4 percent per year, this could lead to a reduction in spending by a quarter over a decade, or about $630 billion less in nondefense discretionary spending, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Trump projected “almost $1 trillion” in his economic speech in September.

For now, the Trump transition team did not have details as to how quickly the plan would be implemented. More details will come after Trump takes office, transition team spokesman Jason Miller said.

“The penny plan is something the president-elect spoke about on the campaign trail as part of a broader economic and spending plan,” Miller told The Daily Signal during a conference call with reporters. “We’ll explain of the mechanics of it after he is in office. But it is an innovative cost-cutting measure.”

What seems to be a small reduction, one penny out of every dollar or 1 percent, would accumulate over 10 years. For example, a federal agency with a $100 billion budget would decline to $99 billion the next year, then to $98.01 billion the year after that.

The Trump version of the penny plan would apply only to nondefense discretionary spending, which already faces spending caps.

Discretionary spending includes areas such as education, research, environmental and health programs, foreign aid, or any spending that Congress must set. That’s as opposed to entitlement or “mandatory” programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that occur without annual action by Congress.

“Trump’s version of the penny plan is actually more targeted and thoughtful because it isolates this to spending that is already being capped,” Marc Goldwein, senior vice president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told The Daily Signal.

Goldwein said a one-fourth reduction in nondiscretionary spending over a decade will accumulate, even if the “penny” branding seems small.

“This will seem modest in the first years, but it will accumulate significantly,” he said. “I’m not advocating against a 25 percent reduction, but it will mean there are some nondefense discretionary programs that they’ve got to deal with.”

Goldwein also said this won’t necessarily conflict with Trump’s ambitious plans for infrastructure, since most of that will be financed through highway funds.

If Trump’s economic policies are successful in spurring job growth, then government revenues could increase enough to pay for infrastructure spending, said Justin Bogie, a senior policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation.

However, unlike other “penny plan” proposals in Congress, the Trump plan shields defense and entitlement spending.

“Entitlements are the biggest driver of the debt,” Bogie told The Daily Signal. “ [Trump’s version of the plan] limits itself on how much it can save. But, it’s better than nothing.”

Politically, Bogie thinks the penny plan could be easy to sell.

“It’s very anecdotal to say that if every agency cuts just one penny from every $1, you’ll have substantial savings,” Bogie said.

The plan already has support in Congress. In July, House Budget Committee member Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., introduced a version of the “penny plan” that “would cut a single penny from every dollar the federal government spends.”

This would be across the board, and would cap federal spending as a percentage of the economy at 18 percent by 2022.

It is quite unlikely lawmakers would have the discipline to keep a “penny plan” in place for a decade, said Damian Brady, director of research at the National Taxpayer Union Foundation. Yet, if such a plan is in place for even a few years it would at least reduce spending as a percentage of the economy and maybe lead to a budget surplus, he said.

“If it’s enacted and actually adhered to, it would definitely lead to more savings,” Brady told The Daily Signal of the penny plan. “It’s nice on paper but history tells us Congress and the executive branch don’t hold the line on spending for long. If they do this for a couple of years, they will have extra money to play around with and begin spending again.” (For more from the author of “Trump’s ‘Penny Plan’ Could Slash Federal Spending over Decade” please click HERE)

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Trump’s Welcome Interest in Kazakhstan, and Why It Matters

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Among the long list of foreign leaders phoning President-elect Donald Trump in recent days was Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. According to some press reports, Trump described Kazakhstan’s progress since gaining its independence from the Soviet Union as “a miracle.”

If Trump was referring to the country’s economic progress since the mid-1990s, his description wasn’t far off. Yes, many Central Asian countries have faced daunting economic challenges, but in many ways Kazakhstan has been able to rise above the others.

During the early years of independence from Moscow, between 1991 (when Nazarbayev assumed the presidency) and 1995, the Kazakh economy contracted by 31 percent—a bleak situation, to say the least. However, since 2000, the economy has more than recovered, growing on average by 8 percent annually in the first decade of the new century.

When The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom started scoring Kazakhstan’s performance in 1998, the country ranked 136th in the world in terms of economic freedom. Today, it ranks 68th, actually placing it ahead of Western nations such as France and Italy. And Kazakhstan aims to do better.

In 2012, its government set a goal of becoming one of the world’s top 30 developed countries by 2050. So far it has made good progress.

Whether you describe Kazakhstan’s economic growth as a “miracle” (as did Trump) or simply “impressive” (as did the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), this nation of 17 million has made tremendous strides over the past two decades.

Which is why Trump can rightly ponder: What role can Kazakhstan play to help his administration on the world stage?

U.S. foreign policy over the past eight years has left the world more unstable and less predictable. America’s adversaries have been appeased and emboldened; allies have felt abandoned, and certain regions outright ignored.

One of the ignored regions is Central Asia. Though often overlooked, this region is important in regard to challenges such as nuclear proliferation, religious extremism, an increasingly provocative Russia and rising China, a destabilized Afghanistan, and an emboldened Iran. Kazakhstan sits smack dab in the middle of all of this and is emerging as a regional leader.

It is especially well-suited to help on the issue of nuclear nonproliferation.

One of the country’s greatest achievements since 1991 has been its strong commitment to the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.

It divested itself of all the nukes left behind by the Soviets, and Kazakhs are proud of this fact. As North Korea continues to test nuclear weapons and as the future of the Iran nuclear deal remains uncertain, Kazakhstan’s voice in the nonproliferation debate is crucial.

Or consider the rise of Islamist terrorism. As a secular, Muslim-majority country, Kazakhstan has been able to counter the rise of extremism, making it a natural partner for the U.S.

Another consideration for the U.S. is Kazakhstan’s potential for oil and gas exports to help Europe break its energy dependence on Russia. Freeing Europe from this dependence would directly affect Europe’s security and, potentially, the need for the U.S. to act on its treaty obligations under NATO.

Since the 1990s, Western energy giants, including Chevron and Exxon, have helped Kazakhstan develop some of the largest oil fields on the planet, including Tengiz, Kashagan (which finally came online earlier this year), and Karachaganak.

Human rights problems inevitably loom over U.S. policymaking throughout the region. The U.S. should have a frank, open, and constructive dialogue with its allies in the region when and where there are human rights issues—with the goal of long-term democratization.

However, human rights should be just one part of a multifaceted relationship that considers broader U.S. strategic interests and stability in the region. One issue should not automatically trump the others.

So far it seems that Trump understands this. Let’s hope we see this in practice.

If the U.S. is to have a strategy to deal with the many challenges it faces overseas, then building strong and pragmatic relations with Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, is a must. A new U.S. administration can re-energize our relationship, and the timing now is excellent.

Kazakhstan can be a useful partner in the United Nations when it begins its term as a nonpermanent member of the U.N. Security Council next month.

Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, once said: “The nation with the most allies generally wins; that’s what history teaches.”

The U.S. needs friends in Central Asia, and Kazakhstan has many shared interests—and a lot going for it. (For more from the author of “Trump’s Welcome Interest in Kazakhstan, and Why It Matters” please click HERE)

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Obama’s Effort to Force Women into Combat, Allow Transgender Troops Results in $135 Billion Cover-Up, Deaths

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Just as the newly-elected Trump administration is preparing to take office, America gets a surprise reveal from The Washington Post that President Obama’s Pentagon deliberately suppressed a 2015 report revealing $125 billion in wasteful spending could be saved over five years. Secretary of Defense (not for long, thank God!) Ashton Carter, his deputy Robert Work and other underlings squashed the report and its findings, placing secrecy restrictions on it and removing it from public view. They were busy with more important things like getting women into combat units and people with gender identity confusion to serve openly. Exposed just three days after the $619 billion National Defense Authorization Act of 2017 was passed, it reeks of a cover-up.

The Post reports:

Pentagon officials knew their back-office bureaucracy was overstaffed and overfunded. But nobody had ever gathered and analyzed such a comprehensive set of data before…Based on reams of personnel and cost data, their report revealed for the first time that the Pentagon was spending almost a quarter of its $580 billion budget on overhead and core business operations such as accounting, human resources, logistics and property management. The data showed that the Defense Department was paying a staggering number of people — 1,014,000 contractors, civilians and uniformed personnel — to fill back-office jobs far from the front lines.

Despite the recommendations to address the waste, namely through attrition and redirection of the funds to weapons repair and development and the troops themselves, officials used the scare tactic that revealing it would result in budget cuts. They used this excuse to hide it.

As I’ve previously reported, our military aircraft are at a mere 30 percent readiness, with the Marines even cannibalizing museum pieces to get some aircraft working. Our carrier fleet is in a similar state of disrepair and decline. The Heritage Foundation’s 2016 Index of U. S. Military Strength notes, with emphasis added:

Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), testified in his March 2015 posture statement, the Navy was “compelled to further reduce the capacity of weapons and aircraft, slow modernization, and delay upgrades to all but the most critical shore infrastructure” due to continued budget shortfalls of $11 billion.

The Obama administration has slashed military personnel — 20,000 Marines in 2012, 20,000 from the Army in 2015 and another 30,000 this year — as well as military pay and pensions. While drawing down, however, they’ve prioritized spending for more recruiters to go after women for combat jobs because they want to see an increase in female representation in the ranks. Also on their priority list are mobile “unconscious bias” training units to disabuse grunts of believing in the physiological differences between men and women that are reconfirmed every time they test against men’s standards. And then there’s the “Transgender 101” training, sex change operations and safe spaces now being provided at taxpayer expense.

Reduced flight training due to budget cuts imposed on the services has resulted in several fatal crashes, including one last January that killed 12 Marines. The waste revelation is more than just a disgrace. Marines have died directly due to a lack of funding for the training they need, but Obama’s Pentagon wouldn’t deign to divulge the waste, let alone slash office jobs held by civil servants. The stink of Washington elitism is repugnant. Far from the fray, detached from the consequences of their actions, they’re willing to put men and women in harm’s way without the things they need to succeed and to survive.

The government’s first and most basic responsibility is to protect citizens against enemies foreign and domestic. Yet the hard-earned dollars of those same citizens are being squandered in the worst way. More importantly, the lives of those actually defending the country are not only being put in greater peril but are being squandered just to fund more overpriced contractors and civilian desk jockies. Ashton Carter couldn’t care less.

Luckily for us, far better leadership is soon to take over in the form of retired Marine General James Mattis, a man who cares deeply for America’s defenders. His oversight of the Pentagon can’t come soon enough. (For more from the author of “Obama’s Effort to Force Women into Combat, Allow Transgender Troops Results in $135 Billion Cover-Up, Deaths” please click HERE)

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New German Secretary of State Is pro Sharia Law

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The daughter of Palestinian immigrants is to be the Berlin senate’s secretary of state for coordinating federal and state affairs, but attention has focused on her recent remarks in support of Sharia law.
Berlin state senate member, former deputy speaker for foreign affairs and Muslim rising star of German politics Sawsan Chebli is to get a new cabinet post. The appointment by the Red-Red-Green coalition government has caused concern after a recent interview in which she expressed her view that Sharia law was perfectly compatable with secular German society.

Speaking back in August alongside Berlin Social Democrat party Mayor Michael Muller, she not only defended Sharia law against suspicion by many Germans who she accused of not understanding what it meant, but she also went on the attack too. Criticising members of anti-mass migration party Alternative for German (AfD), she said their views towards foreigners made them fundementally un-German.

Speaking to the Franzfurter Allgeimeine Zeitung, she said: “My father is a pious Muslim, hardly speaks German, can neither read nor write, but he is more integrated than many functionaries of the AfD who question our constitution”.

Germany’s newspaper of record and the nation’s most widely-read broadsheet Welt reported Sunday that while the politician attempted to portray the image of the perfect “successful migrant” who despite being born to illiterate, stateless parents was able to succeed in education and enter politics, there are “cracks” displayed by her support of Sharia. (Read more from “New German Secretary of State Is pro Sharia Law” HERE)

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Team Clinton Can’t Stop Whining, and It’s Getting Embarrassing

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When Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, you didn’t see Republicans whining. Quite the contrary: They got to work and launched the Tea Party wave. Unsurprisingly, after spending the year insulated in their Brooklyn safe space, the Clinton team has perfected the art of whining since voters rebuked them in early November. They are blaming everyone and everything but themselves and their horrible candidate for their loss. It’s really starting to get embarrassing.

While it is hard to select just one whine as the whiniest, there seems to be a winner.

Drumroll, please …

And the award for whiniest Clinton team whine goes to … Jennifer Palmieri, communications director for Clinton’s campaign. You know the person most responsible — after Clinton herself — for the tone-deafness of the campaign.

Palmieri got into a verbal altercation with Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway last week at Harvard University. The disdain was palpable.

Palmieri started the fireworks by stating that she was “more proud of Hillary Clinton’s alt-‘Right’ speech than any other moment of the campaign.” This statement elicited an audible, “Wow” from Conway. It got more heated from there when Conway asked Palmieri to explain, “How exactly did we win?” after Palmieri said she would “rather lose” than “win the way you did.”

Conway got the better of the altercation.

Now Palmieri is taking another shot at Conway this time in a Washington Post op-ed. She pats herself on the back, with both hands, for “standing up” to Conway. Then goes off on a diatribe about how Clinton really won, and basically the Trump administration has no mandate.

But it’s also important for the winners of this campaign to think long and hard about the voters who rejected them. I haven’t seen much evidence of such introspection from the Trump side. That’s concerning.

She then says that Trump’s words hurt people. It is basically a rehash of their entire campaign. That Trump’s a mean bully who won’t be the president, even if he got elected. Because as Palmieri likes “to note, Clinton received more votes for president than any white man in U.S. history.”

You can just feel the condescension with those words. Of course, they are meaningless because Trump actually won where it mattered. As far as a mandate goes, Trump has a pretty strong one. Conway explained to Chuck Todd after the encounter about the mandate:

People open up their mailboxes and fire up their computers and see these premium increases. But, you know, the idea that he doesn’t have a mandate, when on President Obama’s watch they now lost the White House, 60 seats in the House, over a dozen Senate seats, over a dozen governorships, and over 1,000 state legislative seats, this Democratic party is having an identity crisis in a circular firing squad, and what I heard at Harvard is the same thing I hear all the time, “It’s Jim Comey’s fault, it’s Bernie Sanders’ fault.”

There is most definitely a Republican-governing mandate. When folks like Palmieri claim there is none, they are trying to delegitimize a Trump presidency like they did to George W. Bush. Trump and his team seem willing to fight back hard against that.

Almost daily you hear another Democrat, or media analyst, talking about how Trump’s picks for his administration are going to destroy the country — or most laughably the environment. Take for example Dan Pfeiffer, a former member of the Obama administration.

That’s right. Up until the end, global warming is a bigger threat than terrorism.

These folks wonder why Trump can’t be gracious and consensus building like — make sure you have no fluids in your mouth for this — Barack Obama. (If you did a spit take, I warned you.) That’s right. They still can’t see that to many everyday Americans, Obama was worse and more divisive than their wildest fantasies about Donald Trump.

So maybe they should just take what Obama said after the 2008 election to heart. I’ve slightly edited it for them, “Elections have consequences and …” Donald Trump “… won.” (For more from the author of “Team Clinton Can’t Stop Whining, and It’s Getting Embarrassing” please click HERE)

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Bombing at Egypt’s Main Coptic Christian Cathedral Kills 25

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A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt’s main Coptic Christian cathedral killed 25 people and wounded another 49 during Sunday Mass, in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory.

The attack came two days after a bomb elsewhere in Cairo killed six policemen, an assault claimed by a shadowy group that authorities say is linked to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and which claimed responsibility for a pair of assassination attempts earlier this year in Cairo that targeted Egypt’s former mufti, or chief Muslim theologian, and an aide to the country’s top prosecutor.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday’s attack. However, Islamic militants have targeted Christians in the past, including a New Year’s Day bombing at a church in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria in 2011 that killed at least 21 people. More recently, the local affiliate of the Islamic State group targeted Christians in the Sinai Peninsula, where the extremist group is waging attacks against security forces. Christians endured a wave of attacks against their property and churches in provinces south of Cairo in the weeks and months that followed the July 2013 ouster by the military of an Islamist president. (Read more from “Bombing at Egypt’s Main Coptic Christian Cathedral Kills 25” HERE)

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Heisman Winner Lamar Jackson: ‘First and Foremost…I Want to Thank My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ’

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University of Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson was awarded the Heisman Trophy a few days ago at a ceremony in New York City.

Jackson wore a crucifix around his neck during the day, while doing interviews, and then during the ceremony itself.

(Read more from “Heisman Winner Lamar Jackson: ‘First and Foremost…I Want to Thank My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ'” HERE)

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Perry Said to Be Trump’s Top Candidate for Energy Secretary

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Donald Trump has narrowed his search for energy secretary to four people, with former Texas Governor Rick Perry the leading candidate.

People familiar with the president-elect’s selection process said two Democratic senators from energy-producing states — Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — are also in the mix, along with Ray Washburne, a Dallas investor and former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

If Trump picks any of the four he’ll break with recent tradition of putting scientists at the top of the Energy Department. Among other things, the agency is responsible for policies on the safe handling of nuclear material and on emerging energy technologies.

Trump met with Perry and Washburne while attending the Army-Navy football game in Baltimore on Saturday. It was at least the second time he’d spoken to the men for potential roles in the new administration. Trump interviewed Heitkamp at Trump Tower in New York on Dec. 2, and is scheduled to meet with Manchin on Monday. (Read more from “Perry Said to Be Trump’s Top Candidate for Energy Secretary” HERE)

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Donald Trump Is Appointing (Gasp!) Conservatives to Serve in His Administration

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The perplexity, outrage, and shock of the left over the election of Donald Trump has been hilarious for those of us watching the liberal commentariat and its (sometimes unwitting) journalistic allies.

In recent days, the geyser of leftist anger has been given new life by the President-elect’s appointment of conservatives to prominent positions in his nascent administration. One headline after another seems to herald amazement that a man who promised conservative governance would appoint conservatives to leadership posts as he assembles his Cabinet. Incredible, right?

Mainstream Media Horrified at Trump’s Appointment of a Pro-Life Health Secretary

Tom Price is a physician who has served in Congress for more than a decade. A solid advocate for the unborn and opponent of the predatory abortion industry, Price is esteemed by his colleagues for his good judgment and sharp mind. Currently serving as chairman of the House Budget Committee, his “Empowering Patients First Act” is a comprehensive alternative to the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).

Yet Price’s appointment to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services has been greeted with crass vitriol by liberals accustomed to using HHS as their political tool of choice to advance abortion on demand, whether surgical or contraceptive, in every facet of the American health care system. Here are some samples of Rep. Price’s reception by the Left:

“With Extremist Tom Price at Helm, the ‘War on Women Has Reached HHS’” – Reddit.com

“Tom Price, A Radical Choice for Health Secretary” – New York Times editorial board

“Women’s Health Care Threatened by Trump HHS Choice, Tom Price” – Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC

“Trump Pledged to Protect Medicare. His Choice for Health Secretary Has Other Ideas” – Los Angeles Times

Donald Trump promised to be a strongly pro-life President. He has appointed a man to lead the Department of Health and Human Services who is strongly pro-life; in fact, Price, has a 100 percent lifetime legislative score from the National Right to Life organization.

Donald Trump wants to block-grant Medicare to the states. “The state governments know their people best and can manage the administration of Medicaid far better without federal overhead,” explains his campaign website. “States will have the incentives to seek out and eliminate fraud, waste and abuse to preserve our precious resources.”

This idea is fiscally sound and commensurate with the principles of federalism. And it is neither new or radical. Tom Price has long supported block-granting Medicare. Yet now he is “outside the mainstream” (says Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer) and a “radical.”

Getting Personal

The attacks against some of Mr. Trump’s appointments are also personal. Senate Judiciary chairman and 20-year Senate veteran Jeff Sessions has been tapped by the President-elect to head the Justice Department. Sessions, a man who for decades has served the people of his home state without a whisper of personal scandal or political defamation, is now being accused of hidden racism because of off-hand comments he made 35 years ago.

I do not defend any racial bigotry on the part of Senator Sessions or anyone else, for that matter. However, to say that the “Specter of Race Shadows Jeff Sessions” (New York Times headline) is ludicrous. His record speaks to his belief that “all men are created equal.” “The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People … has, without question, done more probably than any other organization to promote racial progress in the South,” he said in his 1986 Senate hearing concerning President Reagan’s nomination of him to be a federal judge and, during the same hearing, strongly condemned the Ku Klux Klan.

Should a remarkably well-qualified, dignified, and decent man be denied a post in which his leadership and probity could do so much good because of remarks he made in 1981? And could it not be that the real concern of determined liberals is not those long-ago comments but the fact that Sessions is a principled conservative who will bring strength, resolve, and courage to the task of de-politicizing a Justice Department that for eight years has been a forum of the extreme progressive agenda?

Here’s what Senator Quinton Ross, the African-American leader of the Democratic minority in the Alabama State Senate, said about Sen. Sessions after the latter was nominated to be Attorney General of the United States: “We’ve spoken about everything from Civil Rights to race relations and we agree that as Christian men our hearts and minds are focused on doing right by all people. We both acknowledge that there are no perfect men, but we continue to work daily to do the right thing for all people.”

Trump Was Elected by the People to Appoint Conservatives

Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. He has a constitutional duty to appoint people who will help him enact the agenda he was elected to implement. The Left should not be endlessly breathless over the conservatism of his appointees, nor so vicious in their hatred that they would destroy honorable people at whatever the cost.

They will continue their campaigns of disparagement and personal destruction, of course. But one thing is sure: If the media continue to parrot the excessive attacks of the left and if enraged liberal commentators continue to spew bile at the prospect of conservatives in charge of the executive branch, they will lose even more of the credibility they saw dissipate on the night of November 8, when their smug predictions and confident projections came to naught.

Even they should not be so out-of-touch as to recognize that. (For more from the author of “Donald Trump Is Appointing (Gasp!) Conservatives to Serve in His Administration” please click HERE)

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State of Georgia Finds Evidence That Feds Tried to Hack Official Election Computers

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The state of Georgia on Thursday accused the U.S. Homeland Security Department of apparently trying to hack its election systems.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Georgia Secretary of State Brian P. Kemp said a computer traced back to the federal agency in Washington tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the state office’s firewall one week after the presidential election. The letter speculated that what it described as “a large unblocked scan event” might have been a security test.

It sought details, including whether the agency did in fact conduct the unauthorized scan, who authorized it and whether other states might have been similarly probed. Kemp cited the federal law against knowingly accessing a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access, which is a felony. (Read more from “State of Georgia Finds Evidence That Feds Tried to Hack Official Election Computers” HERE)

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