BloggeRhythms

Feelings toward Trump, political or otherwise notwithstanding, those who want to see the nation’s economy rebuilt will have to give him credit for steps taken this week. As a start he’s tapped conservative economic pundits Stephen Moore and Larry Kudlow to assist in remaking his tax plan.

Stephen Moore, formerly wrote on the economy and public policy for The Wall Street Journal. He’s also the Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Project for Economic Growth, at The Heritage Foundation.  A member of The Journal’s editorial board, he returned to Heritage in January 2014, 25 years after his tenure as the leading conservative think tank’s Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Budgetary Affairs from 1984 to 1987.

Larry Kudlow was a longtime Reagan advisor, a CNBC Senior Contributor and the radio host of the nationally-syndicated "The Larry Kudlow Show."  

Both Moore and Kudlow, along with Steve Forbes, are founding members of The Committee to Unleash Prosperity, begun by economist Dr. Arthur B. Laffer. Dr. Laffer himself was a member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board for both of his two terms (1981-1989).  A member of the Executive Committee of the Reagan/Bush Finance Committee in 1984 and a founding member of the Reagan Executive Advisory Committee for the presidential race of 1980.  He also advised Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on fiscal policy in the U.K. during the 1980s.

The CommitteeToUnleashProsperity.com’s website contains a daily aggregator, The Supply Side, that gathers top economic news articles. The resources serve as a "one stop shop" for supply-side economics commentary, analysis of the 2016 Presidential candidates' economic platforms, along with articles and Tweets from the Committee's founders, as well as contributions from other experts. 

Kudlow said, "We founded the Committee to remind the public just how much is at stake in the upcoming election: a choice between economic growth and jobs that benefits all in society, and the stagnation that leads to social conflict and class warfare. We need the candidates to recapture Reagan's vision of a growing, hopeful nation that is exceptional in the world. Our news portal will highlight this."

Forbes publisher, Steve Forbes commented: "There is a real hunger in America for optimism, a fact-based, realist optimism that builds on a foundation of practical experience. Among the Committee's members, we have decades of accumulated experience at implementing the policies that lead to sustained economic growth."

The Committee to Unleash Prosperity is working to change this. Our focus is simple:

• We want to turn America around and restore American exceptionalism.
• We want to provide new hope, growth, and opportunity for everyone.
• We believe this is the great challenge of our time.

Therefore in pursuit of rapid growth, we support the following principles:

1. A broad-based, low rate, flat tax
2. Limited government spending
3. Less regulation
4. Sound money
5. Free trade
6. Rule of constitutional law

Giving the economists involved even more credence, according to Wikipedia, on May 12 Craig Harrington and Alex Morash of Media Matters for America lambasted The Committee to Unleash Prosperity as a "budget-busting giveaway to high-income earners and corporations." Also warning that: “Media should be aware that both Moore and Kudlow have long histories of playing fast and loose with the facts while making outlandish and incorrect claims about the economy.”

As far as the description of Media Matters for America (MMfA) itself is concerned, also according to Wikipedia: MMfA “is a politically progressive media watchdog in the United States. The organization has a stated mission of "comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media" The tax-exempt, nonprofit organization, was founded in 2004 by journalist and political activist David Brock as a counterweight to the conservative Media Research Center. It is known for its aggressive criticism of conservative journalists and media outlets, including its "War on Fox News.”

Thus, considering the backgrounds of his advisors, along with the pointed antipathy and vitriol of a major leftist “watchdog” there seems to be little doubt that, in regard to the U.S. economy, Trump has set off on the precisely right track (no pun intended.)

On another issue, a glaring illustration of the grave errors made by the administration in siding with Iran in the Middle-East became apparent in two articles that follow. One about current Iran, the other concerning today’s Israel. 

Back on January 20th, Jennifer Rubin wrote @washingtonpost.com: “The results of the [nuclear] deal speak for themselves. Whatever “moderates” exist got wiped out by the most hard-line elements in Iran in recent political jousting. The Wall Street Journal reports, “Days after Iran secured relief from economic sanctions under a contentious nuclear deal, the country’s powerful hard-liners are moving to sideline more moderate leaders who stand to gain from a historic opening with the West. Almost two-thirds of the 12,000 candidates who applied to run in next month’s parliamentary elections were either disqualified by Iran’s Guardian Council or withdrew.” If we intended to help whatever less hard-line elements there are, we appeared to cause the opposite result.

“In addition to putting its forces on the ground in Syria, Iran is finding new ways to foment terrorism. “A new Iranian-backed terror group is making inroads in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, where it operates underground with the potential capacity to deliver devastating attacks to Israel, according to regional experts who have been investigating the organization’s rise,” the Free Beacon reports. “The group, which goes by the name Harakat al-Sabireen, was established around May 2014 but has begun in recent months to boost its public profile on social media and brag about its plots to wage jihad against Israel.” After signing the deal, Iran last year also began increasing its support for Hamas and Hezbollah. 

“Likewise, in the wake of the deal, we saw two illegal ballistic missile tests and Iran’s vow to conduct even more. BBC reports, “Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan told the Fars news agency that the new US sanctions would have no effect. He said: ‘We will prove it in practice by unveiling new missile achievements.'” 

And then, on the other side of the coin, Ellen Nakashima and William Booth also @washingtonpost.com, write today about how Israel is building necessary defenses against Iran, but using that development for peaceful and economically beneficial advancement, as follows: 

“But in global private investment into cybersecurity firms, [Israel] is second only to the United States, with half a billion dollars flowing to the sector annually. Israel has not only vowed to repel the thousands of daily hack attacks against everything from the electric grid to ATMs, but has promised to build its commercial cyber-sector into an economic powerhouse.

“[T]he Jewish state is also at the cutting edge of cyber-offense, developing stealthy computer weapons to penetrate its enemies’ networks. The United States and Israel, working together, launched the world’s most destructive cyberweapon known to date, Stuxnet, which was let loose on Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility to devastating effect.”

Much of the development is being done in “a new advanced technology park that already houses cyber firm incubators and global companies such as PayPal, Lockheed Martin and Deutsche Telekom.” 

Which means that while Iran is building and testing bombs for aggressive purposes in the region, and ideologically going backward, Israel is continuing to develop itself into one of the most advanced society’s in the free world while partnering with “global” giants to better itself and its friends wherever possible. 

And then, a Facebook friend posted this one:

Bringing us to today's update on Bill Clinton’s wife

According to FoxNews.com: “Pressure is mounting on Bernie Sanders to end his campaign for president, with Democratic Party leaders raising alarms that his continued presence in the race is undermining efforts to beat presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump this fall.”

Particular pressure is coming from New York Representative Steve Israel and California Senator Diane Feinstein.

However, some information found in an article by John Nichols @thenation.com, illustrates why it’s probable Sanders will stay in contention for as long as possible. 

Mr. Nichols writes: “As veteran political analyst Rhodes Cook noted in a survey prepared for The Atlantic, by mid-April, Sanders had exceeded the overall vote totals and percentages of Howard Dean in 2004, Jesse Jackson in 1988, Gary Hart in 1984, and Ted Kennedy in 1980, among others. (While Barack Obama’s 2008 challenge to Clinton began as something of an insurgency, he eventually ran with the solid support of key party leaders like Kennedy.) By the time the District of Columbia votes on June 14, Sanders will have more pledged delegates than any challenger seeking to influence a national convention and its nominee since the party began to democratize its nominating process following the disastrous, boss-dominated convention of 1968.”

While the numbers certainly indicate that Sanders has a chance to overtake Bill’s wife, if he can keep voter interest up, reader fynavycvn77, posted another, perhaps more likely rationale: “All Senator Sanders needs is an indictment and he is in. He knows this”

Which brings us to the ongoing question once more: Joe Biden, Mayor Bloomberg, Jerry Brown, and Starbuck’s chairman and CEO, Howard Schultz, are you guys reading this?

That’s it for today folks.    

Adios