From Both Sides Now – Trump’s 2nd 100 Days
By cybrscrybe | Published | No Comments
From Captain Bob’s Point of View:
By most objective standards Donald Trump’s first 100 days in 2025 has been transformative. Without question he has sealed the southern border against the hordes of immigrants flooding into the United States from all over the world. This has also strangled fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking into our country, President Biden insisted for four years he could do nothing to stop the unrelenting flow of millions of people illegally entering our country without action by Congress. Trump meanwhile used simple executive orders to stop the flow of illegal immigration however these orders could easily be overturned by a new president so they must be codified by congress into law to keep the border closed.
Likewise, DOGE has uncovered tremendous areas of waste within the federal government. Fifty-nine million dollars in payments to New York City hotels to house and feed illegal immigrants, millions more misspent by the Pentagon on many items that could have been obtained at a fraction of the amount spent to procure them. USAID was found to be rife with corrupt misspending and channeling of U.S. taxpayer money into exotic projects overseas that have nothing to do with U.S. safety or security. Elon Musk, however used a very “ham fisted” way of announcing DOGE findings of his X platform and moving like a butcher to slash the jobs of government workers. Most Americans agreed with the idea of cutting waste from the Federal Government, but many disagreed with “chain saw” method of cutting so may programs. The money for these programs, no matter how poorly spent, had been approved by Congress at some point in the past. Revelation of the waste and corruption by DOGE has the effect of now forcing Congress to either agree with DOGE and try to claw back money misspent or vote to approve the continued spending money in a reckless and wasteful manner going forward.
From Cybrscrybe’s Point of View:
Agreed… Trump’s first 100 days have definitely been transformative, but in a different way than my colleague views it. The southern border has not been as drastic a problem as the present administration has stated. For details on the actions taken by both presidents can be viewed on this chart done by the Peterson Institute of International Economics. So both administrations have taken strong measures, sometimes counteracting each other. For example, Trump created an extended method of measuring entries in 2018, which Biden replaced using new software to complete the same things in 2023, but Trump’s DOGE made the software incapable of working. You would have thought that the techie experts on the DOGE team would have loved the use of the software, and made it even more efficient. In addition, like in his first four years, Trump’s policy of separation of families at the border crisis had some very cruel aspects to it. This time as well, people are being deported without the due process they are entitled to resulting in deportations out of the country, sometimes illegally. This has resulted in cases heading to the Supreme Court who stated that at least one of those has to be returned. The Trump administration is refusing to follow the rule of the Supreme Court which could lead to a constitutional crisis.
However, this viewpoint agrees that immigration can only truly be managed by Congress doing their jobs of codifying a policy that deals with all the issues facing every administration. This would and SHOULD take a bipartisan effort that seems to be missing in our current Congress.
The topic of changes made by DOGE are also transformative as stated above. However, more details here may help the future reader’s understanding of the impact it had. The department was created “illegally” due to the fact that new federal departments and their funding need to be created by Congress who holds the federal purse strings. DOGE has made cuts across the federal government that were created by Congress and therefore, all protocols and cuts should have been approved by Congress as well as following protocols set by Congress. DOGE is a team made up of 19 – 24 year old techies and a billionaire who lack the experience needed in each of these fields. Many of the cuts made did not follow the protocols for federal workers. In other words, thousands of workers were let go, not because they caused fraud and waste, but had good reports, and were just listed as “Probationary” due to either being new hires or having changed jobs in the last year, so still on the probationary year of their evaluation process. In addition, they were not given the proper notice for being relieved of their jobs, and were let go on the spot or locked out of the buildings. The DOGE reports constantly made mistakes and had to rehire those they had fired. This was detrimental to the country in quite a few fields. For example, employees who are the nuclear watchdogs were let go and had to be rehired. Also, FAA employees who keep track of planes and their flights were let go. Park rangers have been let go, so toilets during the busy summer season at the parks will not be cleaned. IRS agents were let go in the midst of tax season. Social Security, which has always had an overload on employees underpaid and overworked, now have to work with less help and longer wait times for constituents. The Education Department has been disbanded which impacts special needs kids in schools, higher education grants and research (including cancer research grants), and student loans. It does not really return money to schools, as local districts have always had the control of what is taught in schools as well as depended mostly on local funding. But in conclusion about DOGE, the “department”, has not efficiently reported or shown where the money they supposedly “saved” really is. They’ve constantly changed and lowered their figures, and not reported where the savings will go.
On the topic of inflation, which Trump promised to fix on day one, his use of tariffs to manipulate other countries has backfired on him, losing us many of our friends across the globe, including our best neighbor to the North. As a result, other countries are now looking to make trades with countries that they hadn’t formerly dealt with, thus making treaties and deals without us. The haphazard way the tariffs have been announced has caused not only our stock market volatility, but also global ones. Unfortunately, it reminds economists of the tariff wars in the 1920’s that led to the Great Depression of the ‘30’s . Is history going to repeat itself?
Along with the tariff policy, Trump’s dictator like rhetoric of wanting to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico, wanting to own Greenland, and making Canada the 51st state, has further alienated our allies. His making fun of Zelensky in the Oval Office for “not having the cards” as well as not wearing a suit, when Zelensky was wearing the fatigues to support his soldiers didn’t help our allies views of us as well. The allies that depended on our support during WWII, now doubt if we will be there for a WWIII, particularly since up until now, Trump has asked Zelensky to make all the concessions and asked nothing of Putin to reach a cease fire in the war that Putin started.
So in conclusion, some of the above policies are reflected in the massive numbers of people protesting across the country on MANY different issues and in every state capital. It is also reflected in the town halls held by Republican representatives, who have been accosted by their constituents, including republicans (and no protestors have NOT been paid as some people claim). The good news is that it shows that the America public is alive and well, and the belief in the First Amendment and the right to protest peacefully is still strong. Trump (during BOTH terms) has definitely erased the apathy towards government that existed for a couple of decades.
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