Sean McGarvey and Terry O'Sullivan met with President Trump at the White House today. They head unions which represent sheet metal workers and laborers. They were delighted with Mr. Trump, who wants to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure projects which their workers can build with "American steel." They don't care much if that trillion dollars comes from taxpayers or private companies who will then own the roads and bridges and airports. All they care about is their members will get jobs and wages for the next few years.
They were also moved by Mr. Trump who asked them to round up a working sheet metal worker, a plumber and a pipe fitter after they got off shift and to bring them to the White House so he could meet them and tell them how much he loves them.
The labor union leaders were delighted to hear Mr. Trump nixed the Pacific trade deal and will soon kill NAFTA. Trade deals make corporations money, increase stock prices, lower prices for goods here in the USA, improve the overall economy, but trade deals send jobs (of some sort, likely manufacturing) overseas, the union leaders believe.
Now, exactly how a car plant in Mexico or a cell phone factory in China costs the sheet metal worker in Washington, DC his job, or costs the pipe fitter in Wilkes Barre his job, is not yet clear, but the unions have clearly drunk the Kool Aide.
If Mr. Trump can get his Republican Congress to spend a trillion dollars on a stimulus package like this, he will certainly have accomplished something Barack Obama could never do. He will likely also insure his own re election.
It may not matter he throws 30 million people to the wolves without health insurance if he can put 5 million people to work on roads, bridges and railroads and airport construction.
I'm not actually sure the numbers add up that way. But, I supposed, it's conceivable, if all those construction workers get jobs, they may get health insurance with those jobs and so the loss of Obamacare may matter less to them.
It took Nixon to go to China. Maybe it takes Trump to get the government spending money again.
Of course, while he's promising to protect Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, his appointed officials are busy killing those programs, but we are building things again, so who cares?
Of course, Mussolini made the trains run on time, Mayor Daley plowed the snow off the Chicago streets and Hitler built the Autobahn and the Volkswagen, so sometimes these guys show a flare for knowing what matters to the masses.
As long as people are happy by 2018, President Trump will be well on his way.
They were also moved by Mr. Trump who asked them to round up a working sheet metal worker, a plumber and a pipe fitter after they got off shift and to bring them to the White House so he could meet them and tell them how much he loves them.
The labor union leaders were delighted to hear Mr. Trump nixed the Pacific trade deal and will soon kill NAFTA. Trade deals make corporations money, increase stock prices, lower prices for goods here in the USA, improve the overall economy, but trade deals send jobs (of some sort, likely manufacturing) overseas, the union leaders believe.
Now, exactly how a car plant in Mexico or a cell phone factory in China costs the sheet metal worker in Washington, DC his job, or costs the pipe fitter in Wilkes Barre his job, is not yet clear, but the unions have clearly drunk the Kool Aide.
If Mr. Trump can get his Republican Congress to spend a trillion dollars on a stimulus package like this, he will certainly have accomplished something Barack Obama could never do. He will likely also insure his own re election.
It may not matter he throws 30 million people to the wolves without health insurance if he can put 5 million people to work on roads, bridges and railroads and airport construction.
I'm not actually sure the numbers add up that way. But, I supposed, it's conceivable, if all those construction workers get jobs, they may get health insurance with those jobs and so the loss of Obamacare may matter less to them.
It took Nixon to go to China. Maybe it takes Trump to get the government spending money again.
Of course, while he's promising to protect Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, his appointed officials are busy killing those programs, but we are building things again, so who cares?
Of course, Mussolini made the trains run on time, Mayor Daley plowed the snow off the Chicago streets and Hitler built the Autobahn and the Volkswagen, so sometimes these guys show a flare for knowing what matters to the masses.
As long as people are happy by 2018, President Trump will be well on his way.
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