Democrats, give us something to work with!
By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
This has likely been the lowest week in the Democrats’ performance since Jimmy Carter told us to put on our sweaters if we were cold.
This party has sunk to not acting like teenagers but acting like fifth- or sixth-graders. Their juvenile behavior before, after and during President Trump’s recent speech was just plain sad. It would be an improvement to say they act like teenagers.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is the only Democrat who acts like he has a lick of sense.
“A sad cavalcade of self owns and unhinged petulance. It only makes Trump look more presidential and restrained. We’re becoming the metaphorical car alarms that nobody pays attention to – and it may not be the winning message,” the senator said in a post on X.
This was a quote from the New York Post on March 6. It was available from a number of sources. There was an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal on Feb. 28, titled “John Fetterman on Being the Loneliest Democrat in Washington.” It is available online at https://www.wsj.com/opinion/john-fetterman-is-the-loneliest-democrat-in….
Criticizing Donald Trump just because he is Donald Trump is going nowhere.
Rasmussen is out with a report from March 7 that says 66 percent of likely U.S. voters agree with the statement, “It’s time to drain the swamp in Washington, DC.”
The survey was conducted Feb. 27-March 3.
Trump being Trump is doing some things too fast, perhaps, and some things that will need to be corrected. He is already going back and forth on tariffs, a result of shooting from the hip.
There is no doubt that in many cases tariffs have been one-sided; that is, not favoring the United States. Take, for instance, the Canadian dairy market. It is widely reported in the United State that the Canadian tariff on imported dairy products is 270 percent. This is apparently true only after a certain annual quota is reached. Reuters had the most balanced article I could find on this; all the others seem to be of Canadian origin and attempted to brush this off as no big deal.
The tariff for importing an American car to Germany is 10 percent plus a 19-percent VAT tax on the car and the 10-percent tariff. Hence, a $40,000 US car would cost $52,360 in Germany.
Going the other way our tariff is only 2.5 percent on German cars coming into the U.S., with state sales tax (let’s say 6 percent) on top of that. So, a $40,000 German car being brought here would have a price of $43,460, obviously a competitive advantage over equivalent locally produced automobiles.
If the Democrats want to be serious, and I hope they do, they are going to have to get out the calculators and show us the math behind their ideas.
If nothing else, the Trump Administration is showing us that these are real U.S. tax dollars we are talking about, and that real Americans are concerned with the spendthrift ways that have existed for a very long time. Appealing to emotions is fine, but all things get serious at dollars.
Hopefully, the Democrats can get serious by 2026 and present some qualified candidates to give the Republicans a decent competitor. I don’t want a one-party country, but that is where we are headed at the moment.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He can be reached at jthompson@taii.com.