Part 1 of Trump's speech to Congress: Today's news for March 1st

For today's news, I am diverting from my normal format to discuss President Trump's speech to Congress last night, point-by-point:

1. Trump starts the speech with a lot of pretty speech, but not much meat. He genuflects at the altar of civil rights, America's 250th birthday, the dying middle class, and America's inner cities.

2. Then he complains about how much we have spent overseas, while ignoring America's needs:

For too long, we have watched our middle-class shrink as we have exported our jobs and wealth to foreign countries... 

And we’ve spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while our infrastructure at home has so badly crumbled...America must put its own citizens first. Because only then, can we truly make America great again.

3. Then his speech becomes oddly uneven:

Dying industries will come roaring back to life, heroic veterans will get the care they so desperately need. Our military will be given the resources its brave warriors so richly deserve. Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways, gleaming across our very very beautiful land. Our terrible drug epidemic will slow down and ultimately stop, and our neglected inner cities will see a rebirth of hope, safety, and opportunity. Above all else, we will keep our promises to the American people. 

Trump forgets that "dying industries" die for a reason, usually obsolescence. Spending on infrastructure won't bring them back.

But that has little to do with the military. Taking care of veterans is right and appropriate, but doesn't belong in this part of the monologue. And giving the military more resources (read: money) also has nothing to do with infrastructure. If anything, most of our money spent overseas has been on the military's failed ventures in Muslim nations. (I call them "failed ventures" because every dead terrorist seems to create a new one in this largest version of "whack-a-mole" ever played.)

And then he mentions the drug epidemic. Does he even listen to himself? While this would be good news if he plans to treat the drug epidemic as a true epidemic, and not some vast criminal activity, that possibility seems unlikely. Bringing this up in the middle of discussing infrastructure also seems inappropriate.

4. Trump discusses the manufacturers who are expanding or bringing back operations to the United States since he was elected. These are nice, but will they last? Or will the jobs being created get replaced with robots? 

5. Then Trump goes off on a tangent about the money we are saving on the F-35 jets. That is nice. But it is also like your wife bragging on how much money she is saving on a head of lettuce while she is buying fur coats every week.

6. Next, Trump drops this news:

We have begun to drain the swamp of government corruption by imposing a five-year ban on lobbying by executive branch officials, and a lifetime ban —
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you. — and a lifetime ban on becoming lobbyists for a foreign government.

Anti-lobbying sounds great on the surface, but the effectiveness of lobbying has more to do with the stupidity of legislators.

7. Now we get to something potentially good:

We have undertaken a historic effort to massively reduce job crushing regulations, creating a deregulation task force inside of every government agency. 

And we are imposing a new rule which mandates that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated.

This will need to be done for a long time, but it is only a step in the right direction if the bureaucrats don't find workarounds. Want to bet they incorporate the old regulations into sub-sections of the new ones? Bureaucracy, like life, always finds a way.

8. When Trump talks about saving the coal industry, this is one of those things we need to let go. Of all the energy sources, coal is the dirtiest. If you want to save the coal industry, innovation will be needed, not just eliminating regulations. find a way to burn coal cleanly, and you can save the coal industry. Unfortunately, government isn't good at innovation.

9. Trump makes some claims about his opening of construction on the Keystone and Dakota pipelines. But CNN points out, appropriately, the flaw in his claims about the jobs created:

By some estimates, construction of the two pipelines will create just north of 10,000 construction jobs and tens of thousands of indirect jobs. However, these are primarily temporary jobs. The number of permanent jobs created directly by the pipelines would be far lower.

For all the tens of thousands of temporary construction jobs the pipelines create, there will only be about 90 permanent jobs after they open.

That said, the pipelines should still be built. Just don't expect beaucoup job numbers in the long run.

10. Trump wants the pipelines built with American steel. Nice touch.

11. But then Trump makes a small step in the right direction:

To protect our citizens, I have directed the Department of Justice to form a task force on reducing violent crime. I have further ordered the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice, along with the Department of State and the Director of National Intelligence, to coordinate an aggressive strategy to dismantle the criminal cartels that have spread all across our nation.  

We will stop the drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth, and we will expand treatment for those who have become so badly addicted. 

It is good to see that he is taking the appropriate view of drug abusers. But is he willing to take drug abuse off the books as a crime? That remains up in the air.

12. Trump discusses the immigration laws. He is right about enforcing them. Why have laws if they won't be enforced? Frankly, many of our recent presidents were downright negligent in their duties to enforce the laws of the United States, specifically as it relates to immigration. As former Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker once said (and I am paraphrasing here), if you don't like the laws, change them, but don't ask me not to enforce them.

Later, in his speech, Trump suggests this:

I believe that real and positive immigration reform is possible, as long as we focus on the following goals: To improve jobs and wages for Americans, to strengthen our nation's security, and to restore respect for our laws. If we are guided by the well-being of American citizens, then I believe Republicans and Democrats can work together to achieve an outcome that has eluded our country for decades.

It sounds nice, but it is a little light on specifics.

13. Trump promises to destroy ISIS. Unfortunately, using military action which causes civilians deaths only gives them recruitment fodder.

14. Trump does make this great point:

More than one in five people in their prime working years are not working. We have the worst financial recovery and 65 years. In the last eight years, the past administration has put on more new debt than nearly all of the other presidents combined.

How does our government add so much debt, and yet no jobs? The answer is painfully obvious: That money is getting hoovered up by too-big-to-fail banks, the uber-wealthy, and special interests. Even if you don't agree with my analysis, there is one obvious fact you cannot deny: The money is not reaching the economy.