Introduction to U.S. National Politics

 

Foreign Policy

Domestic Policy

· the United States Reciprocal Trade, which is in response to countries setting their own price on American goods and will establish the US in putting their own price on foreign goods. ·      Has decided to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan. ·      Has announced a second summit with Kim Jong Un.

·      Build the Wall, Trump promotes his vision for Congress to pass a bill that gives him funding for the wall over dangerous border activity in the south. ·      First Step Act, he is willing to sign this bill since it gives criminals to come back to society as productive, law-abiding citizens. ·      Paid family leave ·      Eliminating Gang-affiliated activities. (MS-13) ·      Appeals to Congress to begin an infrastructure plan. ·      Against Anti-Semitism

Power Dynamics

The Democratic Party currently holds the majority of the House seats. During the State of the Union address, Trump talked a lot about unity and working together with Democrats as he stated “we can bridge old divisions and forge new solutions, if we work together,” but many Democrats of the democratic party, like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have said he did not offer any plan, any vision, for our future. Trump said, “we must reject the politics of revenge, resistance, and retribution and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise, and the common good,” but what he doesn’t state is in what kinds of issues he would like Democratic opinion/cooperation. Much of what he was saying did not reflect on his actions. Many have even said, for example, Nancy Pelosi, about how Trump speaks words but have no meaning or value behind them. Trump’s way of asserting his power is through emphasizing how much he wants to continue making America great and how he needs funding on his wall because of how dangerous the southern border has become but in reality, those are not true. Attorney General of California Xavier Beccera delivered a response to Trump’s state of the union in Spanish focusing on emphasizing the difficult journey immigrants take in order to give their family a better chance at life. Beccera focused on Trump’s inability to understand that Democrats also want immigration reform but do not agree with how he is emphasizing building a wall as the only solution. He also brings up an interesting pattern that Trump continuously uses, which is walls. Walls against healthcare, separation of families, voting rights and medical services. Trump is putting up walls on our rights and the Latinx Community has started to notice, we intend to fight against this prejudice by going to the voting polls to be able to put more of us in Congress. The statement that I agree with Beccera is “whether it’s with marches on the streets or marches to the polling booths, with fights in the court or through Congress, we will do what’s needed to ensure a strong and vibrant national Union”. He brings up a wonderful point about unity that Trump refuses to understand.

My State Legislature

My state legislature has some differences in approaching immigration, education, and welfare. Iris Martinez is an advocate for Latinos and beginning initiatives concerning the welfare of senior citizens and of those who are disabled. She also is a huge advocate in expanding health care access; she has created a program in Chicago where children are able to get health check-ups, screenings, dental check-ups and immunizations at an affordable price. This is something that Trump does not agree in, he wants to take away Obamacare/any affordable health care services but has not gotten enough support to do so. He believes it is a waste of money for the government to spend funding on it but in reality, it has currently saved many lives which Trump tends to turn a blind eye.

 

Report

Foreign Policy:                                              Domestic Policy:

• Increased Border Security                  Late term Abortions
• USMCA Replacing NAFTA                  Illegal Immigrant Violence
• Nuclear Treaty with Russia.              Drug Regulations (Opioid)
• less presence in Afghanistan.           Tax Cuts
•                                                                        Funding Cancer Research

 

On February of 2019, President Trump starts off The State of the union by asking for unity from both the Democratic and Republican Party, stating “Victory isn’t winning for your party. Victory is winning for your country” . He further reinforces the statement by stating America’s accomplishments over the 20th century. While using our past accomplishments does come off as consistent to his slogan of making America great again and further expressing American Patriotism, I find the introduction to his address very hypocritical because of his past actions/speeches being very partisan. He then jumps to accomplishments that his administration has done over the course of his term. It’s clear that the president thinks that his administration is the best of the best. He reinforces that opinion by saying accomplishments such as “My administration has cut more regulations in a short amount of time than any other administration during its entire tenure” and uses other stats such as unemployment being low. The major issues that he addresses, and seems to be the most concerned about, were about security of the southern border and crimes committed by “illegal immigrants”, late term abortions, our relationships with other countries such as Russia, Israel and China, and drug problems that is happening in the country. While he talks about other issues such as funding cancer research and criminal reform, his previous comments and actions before and during office shows that these are issues that he is the most concerned with.

 

President Trump definitely sees the executive branch as a powerful position and intends to use it to its fullest legal power and/or abuse it as much as he can.

 

 

LEGISLATION	POLICY REGION
Criminal Justice Reform – (First Step Act signed) Reformed sentencing laws.   Border Wall as a counter for illegal immigration   Increased troops deployed to southern border   Tariffs on Chinese Goods and new trade deal   USMCA (US, Mexico, Canada Agreement)   Infrastructure Bill   Price transparency for American patients	Domestic Policy     Foreign Policy   Foreign Policy   Foreign Policy   Foreign Policy   Domestic Policy   Domestic Policy

SWA#3
Atul Sonthalia

 

 

 

At multiple times during the speech, Trump mentioned that it was not legislation of either side but of America as a whole. Most of the policies he signed were conservative policies. This shows that the democratic side did not get many of their policies across even though the house was democratic, since the majority of the senate was republican. Trump does not mention specifically working with the house majority of democrats, he refers to the house and senate as his administration.

In his speech Trump tended to take a lot of credit for policies on himself. He mentions multiple times that most of the “good things” that came in the past two years were his doing. After running a fact check on the speech it was found that he lied about almost all statistics, and the US is not actually growing as fast as he portrayed it to be growing. (It grew almost 2 times faster with the Obama administration). This lead me to consider the speech with some degree of scepticism thereby making it hard to understand his views of exerting his presidency.

The democratic speaker Stacey Adams brings out an issue that was not discussed by the president. Education. She believes that the costs of attaining higher education is still extremely high and is getting higher, she also believes that schools need to be safer and says that the white house responds timidly even when they see first graders practice active shooter drills. Furthermore, she wants gun control laws to be more strict- another issue not discussed by the president. In his speech the president talked about how the middle class is more prosperous than ever under his administration. Adams does not agree to this, she says that people are “striving for a middle class where a salary truly equals economic security”. She also says that under the current administration, far too many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck lives and they do not even have labour unions to protect individual workers. She does not agree with the building of the wall, she believes that America is made stronger because of its immigrants and not because of walls. For healthcare, Abrams wants the government to listen to the majority in 14 states and expand Medicaid.

One of the things addressed in the state of the union was the problem regarding education – mentioned by the democratic response. This aligns directly with the issues regarding education in North Carolina. In North Carolina schools have been accused of being biased against students of colour, and also have issues with their state grading systems for their middle schools. An investment to improve education could help fix the problem. The National Parks in North Carolina are too small for the growing population and there need to be better means to deal with national disasters like hurricane Florence. An overall problem that this can be seen under is climate change. The trump administration did not talk about climate change in the state of the union, but Adams said something should be done to curb the negative effects on her rebuttal speech.

 

(References- Used the resources provided under State of the Union on moodle)

 

Dylan Lewis

US National Politics

State of the Union Address

 

Foreign Policy	Domestic Policy
-to create an immigration system that is safe, lawful, modern and secure -to pursue a foreign policy that puts America’s interests first	-to defend American jobs and demand fair trade for American workers -to rebuild and revitalize our Nation’s infrastructure -to reduce the price of healthcare and prescription drugs

 

President Trump and the House Democratic majority have a lot of disagreements. But, President Trump has asked the House to come together to agree with some of his viewpoints to better the nation as a whole. This is shown many times in the State of the Union Address, such as when he asked the House to address issues “that have been neglected by both parties over many decades”, and to choose between greatness or gridlock, results or resistance, vision or vengeance, incredible progress or pointless destruction. He also talked about how both parties need to be able to come together to help rebuild America’s damaged infrastructure, such as the repairing and upgrading of U.S. roads, bridges, tunnels, and need to resolve the differences about how to come to such a conclusion. He is also trying to revise trade deals and enforce better protections for U.S. workers (State of the Union 2019.)

In the State of the union Address, President Trump had language that revealed his thoughts/views on the executive branch and approach and what he believes is best to do as the President. Firstly, he talks about how he got rid of Obamacare, as he says it was unpopular. Although there were members of the House Democratic majority that agreed with Obamacare, as it slowed the rise of healthcare, covered the essential health benefits, and helped children up to the age of 26 have healthcare, President Trump still eliminated it because he believed that it was not necessary for healthcare across the nation. The only mentions that are obvious in the State of the Union Address are when he states at the end of his speech “This is our future — our fate — and our choice to make. I am asking you to choose greatness. No matter the trials we face, no matter the challenges to come, we must go forward together. We must keep America first in our hearts. We must keep freedom alive in our souls. And we must always keep faith in America’s destiny — that one Nation, under God, must be the hope and the promise and the light and the glory among all the nations of the world! (State of the Union 2019.)

Stacey Abrams, Democratic nominee for the governor of Georgia, has a rebuttal to President Trump’s State of the Union Address. In this, she challenges him by stating that citizens in not only Georgia but in the entire nation are striving for a middle class where a salary really equals economic security, not repeatedly having their hopes crushed by Republican leadership that either “doesn’t understand real life” or “ignores it.” She states that “ Under the current administration, far too many hard-working Americans are falling behind, living paycheck to paycheck, most without labor unions to protect them from even worse harm.” Also, she talks about how timidly the White House responded when it comes to gun control with all the school shootings around the country. She says that our leaders should be willing to tackle gun safety measures. Then, she states that “the Republican tax bill rigged the system against working people, and rather than bringing back jobs, plants are closing, layoffs are looming and wages struggle to keep pace with the actual cost of living. Lastly, she talks about border control. She believes that a bipartisan government could craft a better and more modern immigration plan, but the administration under President Trump “cages children and tear them from their families.” An important thing that she said that sums up her belief is “Compassionate treatment at the border is not the same as open borders. President Reagan understood this. President Obama understood this. Americans understand this. And Democrats stand ready to effectively secure our ports and borders. But we must all embrace that from agriculture to healthcare to entrepreneurship, America is made stronger by the presence of immigrants – not walls” (Law, Tara.)

In the State of the Union Address and in my short writing assignment about the state of Colorado, the issues that they are facing have some similarities and some differences. In the short writing assignment, I talked about the issues that Governor Jared Polis is trying to tackle, such as studying, identifying and implementing policies that will lower health care costs while ensuring that all Coloradans have access to affordable and quality care. This has similarities to the State of the Union address because in President Trump’s speech, he talks about wanting to lower the costs of healthcare and prescription drugs, and to protect patients with pre-existing conditions.

 

Works Cited

 

Law, Tara. “Stacey Abrams’ State of the Union Response: Full Transcript.” Time, Time, 6 Feb. 2019, time.com/5521939/state-of-the-union-democratic-response-transcript/.

“State of the Union 2019: Read the Full Transcript.” CNN, Cable News Network, 6 Feb. 2019, www.cnn.com/2019/02/05/politics/donald-trump-state-of-the-union-2019-transcript/index.html.

Pramuk, Jacob. “Trump Calls for Bipartisanship in Congress – as Long as He Gets What He Wants.” CNBC, CNBC, 6 Feb. 2019, www.cnbc.com/2019/02/05/trump-urges-cooperation-on-immigration-in-state-of-the-union-address.html.