Jeremy A Sims

II. Trump’s Policies Are Terrible: Part 3

We’ve previously discussed how Trump’s policy positions are deeply flawed. All Americans should be disgusted by Trump’s support for eminent domain abuses and the murder of the families of terrorists. For conservatives, Trump’s advocacy of the nationalization of healthcare and banking should make the man anathema. Still, there’s another group that should have an even lower impression of Trump, libertarians.

Bizarrely, Trump has attracted a smattering of libertarian support, but no group should be more opposed to The Donald. Here are a few of Trump’s policies that should send libertarians running for the hills.

Support for Ethanol

The fact that Trump backs ethanol subsidies, “100 percent,” undermines any claims Trump has ever made about being a smart businessman who will reform broken Washington programs that waste tax-payer money. 

Ethanol subsides are nothing more than corporate welfare. The federal governments promotes this awful product by giving several subsidies to farmers and mandating ethanol’s use by federal agencies, yet ethanol provides less energy per gallon, costs more, requires more energy to create and produces more greenhouse gases than gasoline. As an added bonus, it also increases the cost of food and destroys car engines.

If Trump is unwilling to pull the plug on this useless program, he’s won't pull the plug on anything. 

 “I’m the Most Militaristic Person.” 

They say that if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, so when Trump proudly proclaims to be, “the most militaristic person on the stage,” that should make anyone who doesn’t want the United States using military force to solve every problem think twice. The word, “militaristic” means the pursual of an aggressive military policy. Shouldn’t we be using the military for defensive purposes?

Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security

Trump has the perfect solution for problems with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security funding crisis; do nothing and hope for the best.

“As Republicans, if you think you're going to change very substantially for the worse Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in any substantial way, and at the same time, you think you're going to win elections, it just really is not going to happen…The way we solve our problems is to build a great economy.” 

To be fair, Trump is correct that these entitlement programs are the third rail of politics, but the fact remains that we now have over $101 trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities (money the government has promised to pay for programs that we have no way of affording) largely driven by these three programs, and vague promises to grow the economy is nothing more than wishful thinking.

The Patriot Act

The Patriot Act violated the Constitution by empowering the United States government to spy on U.S. citizens and collect their digital data without a warrant, but Trump doesn’t care. When asked about restoring the Patriot Act, Trump responded, “I think that would be fine. As far as I’m concerned, that would be fine.”

Execute Snowden

Trump suggested that Edward Snowden is a traitor and should be executed.

“I think Snowden is a terrible threat, I think he’s a terrible traitor and you know what we used to do in the good old days when we were a strong country, you know what we used to do to traitors right?”  Trump allowed the interviewer to finish his thought by saying, “You killed them.”

I understand that many conservatives see Snowden as a traitor, but if he had not exposed government secrets, the public would never have known the government was abusing their constitutional rights and lying to them.

Taking Oil from Iraq

Throughout the George W. Bush administration, Republicans were constantly on the defense as they argued that the War in Iraq had nothing to do with oil. Now, Trump argues the war should have been about oil. 

Trump pretends that his plan to seize Iraq’s oil is designed to undermine ISIS, but that’s a lie. He was advocating this policy back in 2011 when nobody knew nor cared about the burgeoning terrorist group. His position has nothing to do with security and everything to do with profit. “In the old days, you know when you had a war, to the victor belong the spoils. You go in. You win the war and you take it…you’re not stealing anything…we’re taking back $1.5 trillion to reimburse ourselves.” 

This strikes a chord with some people, but it shouldn’t. What Trump is advocating here is essentially imperialism, and though that might sound nice to those who want to see the U.S. prosper by any means necessary, let’s not forget that empires are notoriously expensive to run. Considering that we cannot simply yank all of the oil out of the ground and bring it home overnight, taking Iraqi oil would require the United States to secure the oil wells and all transportation routes for that oil with U.S. military force for as long as the wells remains tapped, so this supposedly cost saving idea would inevitably result in a perpetual war in Iraq. Still, maybe this idea would deserve some consideration IF we had not already promised Iraq that it could keep its oil. To break our word and seize those resources now twelve years after we returned sovereignty to the Iraqi people would simply be unjust.

Conclusion: Style over Substance

Nobody can deny that Trump has some reality show charisma that makes him entertaining to watch, but when it comes to the issues, Trump’s policies are a disaster. Few if any of you will agree completely with me on every issue, but out of the many topics we’ve discussed, surely you must find some of these stances highly problematic. One of Trump’s official positions is to literally murder innocent people! How can anyone look at Trump’s specific policy plans and think this is the man that should lead the free world?

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