Following The Spectrum editorial board’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton, I felt compelled to fill a page with her political accomplishments, something The Spectrum said would be easy to do.
As a United States Senator for New York, all three bills she introduced in an eight-year period became law by unanimous vote! These decisive and sweeping pieces of legislation involved naming a post office, historic site and highway after notable people from the State of New York. So when Clinton bemoans Trump’s exploitation of tax advantages not available to average Americans, remember that she didn’t introduce one piece of legislation to address the problem, even though it most certainly existed. Instead, she protected the Wall Street interests (including Citigroup and Goldman Sachs) that funded her 2000 senate campaign.
As Secretary of State, Clinton was an advocate for the “Russian Reset,” an Obama administration policy that attempted to improve relations with Russia following the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. It’s now obvious that the Russian Reset has enabled Vladimir Putin to exert Russia’s strength across the world, most notably in Syria and in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
It is now widely accepted that the invasion of Iraq was, to quote Donald Trump, “a big fat mistake.” We wasted $2 trillion, and more importantly, lost the lives of 4,497 American heroes, all for naught. The Obama administration, with Hillary Clinton at the helm, botched the American withdrawal from Iraq and created a vacuum that was quickly filled by the Islamic State. ISIS is now spread across 30 countries, and has successfully launched terrorist attacks across the world.
For millennials who supported Bernie Sanders, you ought to be aware that WikiLeaks has made it public that Hillary Clinton was working with the highest levels of the Democratic Party (particularly Debbie Wasserman-Schultz) to prevent Sanders from becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee.
Clinton’s support of free trade is also cause for concern. In “Hard Choices,” Clinton refers to the Trans-Pacific Partnership as the “gold standard of trade deals.” It’s worth noting, however, that once Bernie Sanders brought up the trade deal in the Democratic Primary, she changed her position.
The manufacture of so-called “durable goods” (things like automobiles, home appliances, & computers) was once dominated by American companies. Following NAFTA, companies were free to produce these goods in Mexico and Canada, and import them to the U.S. without tax. Good paying, middle-class jobs fled the once vibrant middle-class cities like Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Los Angeles. Current unemployment rates in these cities are 6.5 percent, 10.2 percent, 7.1 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively.
Jobs reports have made it clear that the jobs created under President Obama’s administration are predominantly in the service industry—not manufacturing.
Now look, Donald Trump may not be the most polished politician. Trump puts his foot in his mouth more often than Joe Biden. It’s time to make America great again by ending the disastrous trade deals we’re in, draining the swamp of corrupt Washington politicians and bringing manufacturing back.
Justin Borgen