Saturday, August 24, 2024

Two Resumes

  

                  


This week at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), the Democrats nominated Vice President Kamela Harris to be their standard bearer in the November election. She will face off against the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump. Now would be a good time to compare the two candidates. 

Theoretically, we are their potential employer, and let’s imagine that we are looking at their resumes and considering their qualifications for the job. Of course, like any good employer, we should not consider their age, gender, race, creed, or color. Let’s concentrate on their recent work experience.

First, we find that Donald Trump has actually served four years as President of the USA. He has four years of on-the-job experience. We see that his administration had some major successes in foreign affairs. He met with many foreign leaders, both friend and foe, and the World was at relative peace, especially after ISIS was defeated in Iraq.  Toward the end of his term, his administration brokered the Abraham Accords, an historic first step in normalizing relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors. There was no war in Ukraine.

Domestically, his most important achievement was tax reform that made the tax system not only fairer and simpler, but also more growth oriented. It is important to understand that the Trump reform was not really a cut in taxes but a cut in tax rates both personal and corporate. In 2016, before tax reform, the Federal government collected $3.27 trillion in taxes. By 2019, before the pandemic hit, total tax revenues rose to $3.46 trillion. Moreover, during the Trump administration employment and real wages reached all-time highs.

But more than anything else, he was always up front, a leader in both foreign and domestic affairs. We remember his many press conferences where, unscripted and without a teleprompter, he took on all questions from largely hostile media.  Even during the Covid crisis, he was on stage practically every day during that national emergency. Whatever you think of vaccines, there is no doubt that he acted with firmness and alacrity in their development. 

In summary, his resume shows four years or relative peace and prosperity despite a pandemic, and despite incredible and unprecedented opposition from his political opponents.

 

Now, let’s look at the resume of Vice-President Harris. There is a lengthy goal statement, but one wonders why she has not achieved any of these goals in the past three and a half years of the Biden/Harris administration. She plans to do many things on Day 1 of her administration, but since she is in office right now, why hasn’t she done them already? 

I would ask any reader to help me list three significant things that she has achieved as Vice-President. I can offer a couple of hints. She obviously participated in the coup that put an end to President Biden’s re-election campaign. After years of lying about how sharp and capable he was, she helped to throw him under the bus. If she is truly running the show now, she added insult to injury by putting Biden on the DNC stage at 11:30 on Monday night.  

She also appointed Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate. His only qualification seems to be that he will not outshine her. Otherwise, her resume is blank for the past three and a half years. What has she been doing during that time? She was supposed to be Border Czar, but her handlers have deleted that item.

Finally, her resume shows no evidence of any real leadership. Did she play an important role in the inner circles of the Biden administration? Or is her call for a new era of hope and joy, a critique of that administration? Who knows? She is being hidden from view in the same manner as Biden four years ago, she gives no interviews or press conferences. Her speeches are all ghost written and delivered via teleprompter. It is true that she does a good job of reading from a teleprompter.

I watched her acceptance speech to see if she added more information on her role in the Biden administration. She briefly mentioned three things. First, she warned President Zelensky of Ukraine that the Russians were about to invade.  Three years later, the war goes on. Second, after three years of an open border policy she worked this year to create a border bill but that was somehow derailed by former President Trump. Finally, she is currently working with President Biden to end the Gaza war, but so far with no success. That was all she could say about her record as Vice President. She spent much more time talking about her mother.

 

Who would you hire?

 

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