Tag: Steve Mnuchin

Trump rode golf cart while G7 leaders walked through Sicily

Note:  Remember Mr. Trump’s railing on and on about how Mrs. Clinton didn’t have the stamina to be president? Well, folks, on his first international trip, Mr. Trump couldn’t walk 1/4 mile. 

The following article (with embedded video) by Julia Manchester was posted on The Hill website May 27, 2017:

President Trump chose to ride in a golf cart while his foreign counterparts took a walk through Taormina, Sicily, on Saturday during the Group of Seven summit.

The Times of London reported the six other world leaders — from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — walked 700 yards to take a group photo at a piazza in a hilltop town. The U.S. leader decided to wait until he could get a golf cart.

Trump was late for the photo, but joined the other world leaders during the walk down from the piazza.

Trump’s brief separation from the foreign leaders ahead of the photo op comes shortly after he refused to take part in a pledge supporting the Paris climate deal. The U.S. was the only country represented at the summit that did not sign the deal on Saturday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said there was a “very intense meeting” where all six other nations “made it clear that we want the U.S. to stick to its commitments.”

However, White House officials said Friday the president’s views on climate change were “evolving.”

Trump said in a tweet Saturday he would make a final decision on the climate deal later this week.

View the post here.

 

 

Trump’s Problematic Math: Budget Plan Adds Growth, but Doesn’t Subtract Cost

The following article by Binyamin Applebaum was posted on the New York Times website May 23, 2017:

Eric Ueland, right, a Senate Budget Committee staff member, distributing the 2018 federal budget proposal on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s budget proposal, unveiled on Tuesday, purported to show the benefits of cutting taxes on businesses and consumers: By the end of the decade, faster growth could balance the federal budget.

The numbers looked great because the White House left out something essential: the cost.

When the government cuts taxes, it collects less money. That is the purpose of a tax cut. But Mr. Trump’s budget does not include any hint of a decrease in federal revenue. To the contrary, it projects that federal tax revenue will increase every year for the next decade. Continue reading “Trump’s Problematic Math: Budget Plan Adds Growth, but Doesn’t Subtract Cost”

Trickle-down Economics Revisited

The following article by Faculty Researcher Christopher Jencks was posted on the Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government’s website back in the autumn of 2009.  Where we’re hearing the Trump/Goldman-Sachs guys again talking about “tax cuts that pay for themselves,” we thought it would be good to remind people about what happens when this is done by Republican administrations over the decades:

Trickle-down economics — the idea that tax cuts and other financial incentives for companies and individuals in the upper tiers of society fuel growth that indirectly benefits everyone — has been a cornerstone of Republican domestic policy since the Reagan era. This general notion is quite pervasive, however, and didn’t start in the 1980s. The writer and comedian Will Rogers noted that the Hoover Administration was handing out money to the rich in hopes that it would eventually “trickle down to the needy.” The proverb, “a rising tide lifts all boats,” which John F. Kennedy used in a 1963 speech, is sometimes invoked to get across a similar idea — namely, that economic growth will help everyone, regardless of whether he has a 100-foot yacht or a dinghy. Continue reading “Trickle-down Economics Revisited”

Twitter Facebook Comment Email Republish Donate 5 Trump Cabinet Members Who’ve Made False Statements to Congress

The following article by Eric Umansky and Marcelo Rochabrum was psoted on the ProPublica website March 2, 2017:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions isn’t alone.

Betsy DeVos, secretary of education, Jeff Sessions, attorney general and Steve Mnuchin, treasury secretary, listen as President Donald Trump speaks during a joint session of Congress Feb. 28, 2017 (Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via Bloomberg)

As most of the world knows by now, Attorney General Jeff Sessions did not tell the truth when he was asked during his confirmation hearings about contacts with Russian officials.

But Sessions isn’t the only one. At least four other cabinet members made statements during their nomination hearings that are contradicted by actual facts: EPA Chief Scott Pruitt, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price.

The statements were all made under oath, except those of DeVos. It is a crime to “knowingly” lie in testimony to Congress, but it’s rarely prosecuted. Continue reading “Twitter Facebook Comment Email Republish Donate 5 Trump Cabinet Members Who’ve Made False Statements to Congress”