Top 10 Priorities of 2018

Happy New Year!  Check out the top 10 Priorities that Congressional Republicans and the Trump Administration should make sure to accomplish this year:

 

Build the Wall: Unfortunately, Ann Coulter’s first 100 day plan for President Trump did not quite pan out.  Everyone knows why the Democrats don’t want a wall.  As Coulter pointed out, “To liberals, building a wall across the Mexican border is a violation of the Voting Rights Act.  Only a massive influx of criminals, welfare recipients, and perpetual protesters can save them.” As Coulter and Sean Hannity have said, a hypothetical failure to build the wall would become President Trump’s equivalent of President George H.W. Bush’s infamous failure to keep his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge that arguably cost him a second term.          

 

Continue to Purge the Deep State: Sean Hannity has identified the so-called “deep state” as one of five forces determined to ensure the failure of the Trump Presidency.  Purging the “deep state” will allow President Trump to keep his campaign promise to “Drain the swamp.”  The permanent unelected bureaucrats that make up the swamp, as well as many of our elected representatives, seem to have forgotten that they work for us, we don’t work for them.  President Trump and the Republicans got some very good news when Andrew McCabe, deputy director of the FBI, announced his intention to retire in early 2018.  McCabe has faced allegations of corruption, bias and partisanship as Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Clinton loyalist, donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to his wife’s state Senate campaign as McCabe investigated the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal.  Most of the responsibility for purging the permanent bureaucracy falls into the hands of agency heads, not the President.  The FBI and Department of Justice appear to have the most need for a purge, according to Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL).         

 

Add to the Senate Majority: Republicans have a unique opportunity to pick up some Senate seats next year.  While conventional wisdom says that the party of the President tends to lose seats during midterm elections, the Senate map this year overwhelmingly favors Republicans.  10 of the 26 Democratic Senators up for re-election this year will have to run in states won by President Trump in 2016; five of them will have to run in states that he won by double digits.  On the other hand, only one of the eight Republican Senate candidates running this year will have to run in a state won by Hillary Clinton in 2016. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a pivotal figure in the 1994 Republican Revolution, said that Republicans need to pick up 5-6 Senate seats to ensure that they keep their majority through the 2020 election; when the Senate map slightly favors Democrats, who will have to defend 11-12 seats while the Republicans must defend 21-22 seats.  The exact numbers will depend on which party emerges victorious in the Minnesota Special Election to fill the remainder of Al Franken’s term in the Senate, which expires in 2020.  Capturing more Senate seats will also allow the GOP to pass more robust conservative legislation, such as a long overdue Obamacare repeal.    

 

 

 

Maintain the House Majority: It seems unlikely at this point that Republicans will add to their House Majority.  The Democrats have a much better chance of taking back the House, where every seat is up for re-election this year.  23 Republicans will have to run in districts won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 while just 12 Democrats will have to run in districts won by President Trump in 2016.  Nothing should make Republicans want to gouge out their eyes more than the thought of Nancy Pelosi reassuming the Speakership.  Republicans have a lot of cash on hand but as the 2016 Presidential Election proved, money does not mean everything when it comes to winning elections.  Republicans should definitely not take their House Majority for granted.   

 

Prevent Hemorrhaging in State Elections: While the Republicans face a very favorable Senate map this year, they find themselves overwhelmingly overextended in gubernatorial races.  Many Republican governors face term limits, which will make it easier for the Democrats to pick up those seats.  Even in 2002, where George W. Bush and the Republicans defied the conventional political wisdom by picking up seats in both Houses of Congress, his party lost gubernatorial seats; making the same outcome almost inevitable in 2018. The RNC should work hard to keep these losses to a minimum.  President Trump should also not want ceding more than 1,000 state legislative seats to the Democrats as part of his legacy.

 

Ensure robust economic growth: If the economy continues to grow, President Trump and the Republicans should not have anything to worry about in 2018.  The media can whine about how awful President Trump is all they want but the American people will give him and the Republicans a vote of confidence in the midterms if they notice a bump in their paychecks; which the new tax reform bill promises that most Americans will receive.  They would have no reason to thank the Democrats; as not one of them voted in favor of the tax reform bill.  Passing the RAISE Act, which will reform our immigration system, will kill two birds with one stone by raising wages for low-skilled workers and replacing our politically correct immigration system with a merit-based one serving the needs of the American economy, not just special interest groups.

 

Interact with the voters as much as possible: This goes for both the Executive Branch and the legislative branch.  President Trump obviously sees his rallies as the best way to interact with the common man; he should make sure to schedule his rallies this year in states with vulnerable Democratic Senators up for re-election.  Republican lawmakers have plenty of opportunities to interact with the conservative base this year, including the March for Life, scheduled for January 19 and CPAC, scheduled for February 21-24.  Both of these events will take place inside the Swamp, with Washington, D.C. hosting the March for Life and the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland serving as the host site for CPAC.  Last year, Vice President Mike Pence became the highest-ranking official to ever attend the March for Life.  President Trump has the chance to become the first President to ever address the March for Life.  He should not squander that opportunity.  Perhaps Vice President Pence and some other members of the Trump inner circle should embark on a cross-country bus tour, travelling to all of the states with competitive Senate races, from Pennsylvania to Montana.

 

Pass an actual budget, not just a continuing resolution: This task may have to wait until 2019, if/when Republicans enjoy a larger Senate majority.  In April, Congress passed a “continuing resolution” that funded little of Republicans’ priorities while funding nearly all of the Democrats’ priorities.   In September, Congress passed another continuing resolution that funded the government through December 8.  When December 8 rolled around, Congress scrambled to put together a continuing resolution that funded the government for another two weeks.  With Christmas around the corner, Congress put together a bill funding the government through January 19 so they can repeat the process all over again.   Hopefully, sooner rather than later, Republicans will grow a spine and pass a budget that looks something like this.

 

Finish Confirming the Trump Cabinet: While we can all agree that government has gotten too big, we should also all agree that President Trump should have a much higher number of his nominees confirmed than he does right now. Even CNN had to admit that while President Trump has made fewer nominations than his two predecessors during their first years in office, the Senate has confirmed fewer of his nominees. While the Democrats can no longer filibuster executive nominations, they have successfully used procedural tactics to slow down the confirmation process of Trump’s nominees.  Hopefully, 2018 will see a much faster confirmation process for President Trump’s cabinet nominees, whose installation will serve as an important step in draining the swamp.                

 

Pass DACA into Law with no strings attached: Just kidding.  I would only include this item in a list of the top 10 Democratic priorities of 2018.  Passing blanket amnesty to nearly a million illegal immigrants without demanding an end to chain migration, construction of the border wall, passage of the RAISE Act, and an end to the diversity lottery in return would ensure the electoral suicide of the Republican Party.  Congressional Republicans ignore this warning at their own peril.

 

Hopefully, President Trump will highlight all of these priorities in his first official State of the Union Address, scheduled for Tuesday, January 30.