
Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf] - arzt
https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/_landings/contract/O-TRU-102316-Contractv02.pdf
======
knowaveragejoe
Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the
revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying.

Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing
regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any
rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it.

The scariest things for me are the backing out of climate change accords and
the opening up of additional shale/gas/etc resources. We really don't need to
be heading in that direction, energy-wise.

~~~
noobermin
There's a lot of room to wonder about his trustworthiness given his record as
a businessman, but even in this document, he doesn't address campaign finance
reform. Congressional term-limits just consolidate power in the moneyed elites
--the problems _is not just_ the politicians, it's who corrupted them. If
anything, this is a document to passify those moneyed interests who, unlike
say Sheldon Adelson, worry about a Trump presidency.

Everything I've seen so far suggests Trump isn't what blue-collar voters
ordered for.

~~~
randiantech
Funny, that "if one created, two removed" was a law imposed by a Principal
Software Architect to me and my team regarding apps and apis as part of a
rationalization program. "If you create this new API, make sure to remove at
least two". I have to say, after two years there, that helped a lot to reduce
redundancy and complexity. But well, apps and api are not the same of public
policies... who knows.

~~~
maxxxxx
At some point you have to stop cutting. You can't go thus forever.

~~~
Beltiras
The US code is 22 million words. [1] is a good visualization of it. I'd wager
there are tons of redundancies that could be refactored. That being said, I'd
also wager that careful refactoring is not on DJT's mind. More slash-and-burn
the parts he doesn't like.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/harlanyu/status/165184504527462400/photo...](https://twitter.com/harlanyu/status/165184504527462400/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

~~~
dragonwriter
The US Code is law, not regulation, and so is completely irrelevant here. What
you want to cite is the Code of Federal Regulations, which is much larger than
the U.S. Code.

Of course you provide no reason at all except an unsupported assumption to
believe that the size of the completely wrong thing that you cite is an
indicator of unnecessary complexity, and the fact that you cite the completely
wrong thing is a pretty good sign that you have zero knowledge of the domain
from which to form a judgement.

~~~
Beltiras
I spoke in generalities. You are absolutely correct. I have no claim to being
an expert or even a layman. What I do know is that once a description of any
thing exceeds a certain threshold, there are bound to be redundancies. Think
of it in terms of codebases for large softwares. The Linux kernel is
approaching 20 MLoCs. I'd wager heavily on there being a different
architecture delivering the same functionality with less code to describe it.
Proving it would be a tremendously hard task, far outweighing any gain from
such a bet.

------
b_emery
I'll bet he doesn't know that the pubic sector shrank more under Obama than
the previous presidents:

"The public sector grew during Mr. Carter's term (up 1,304,000), during Mr.
Reagan's terms (up 1,414,000), during Mr. G.H.W. Bush's term (up 1,127,000),
during Mr. Clinton's terms (up 1,934,000), and during Mr. G.W. Bush's terms
(up 1,744,000 jobs).

However the public sector has declined significantly since Mr. Obama took
office (down 668,000 jobs). These job losses have mostly been at the state and
local level, but more recently at the Federal level. This has been a
significant drag on overall employment." [1]

I'll be surprised if he gets half these things done in the next 4 yrs, though
most are so vague it's not clear what 'done' would mean.

[1] [http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2014/10/public-and-
private...](http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2014/10/public-and-private-
sector-payroll-jobs.html)

~~~
chrismeller
Most of them being at the state and local level sounds more like the recession
(and corresponding decrease in tax revenues the following years) catching up
with state and local governments that actually have to stick to a budget.

I'm not sure what the breakdown of "more recently at the Federal level" is,
but it doesn't sound very pro-Obama in terms of your argument, particularly
since Trump is talking about the Federal government.

~~~
akiselev
Between a quarter to half of California's state budget comes from the federal
government [1] and I'm guessing the same is true for most states. With that
much money coming from the federal government, it's a muddy distinction.

One of the primary argument against the federal government is the disconnect
from local needs but most of the money is tied to federal mandates anyway (for
example, the feds threatened road infrastructure funding to get the last few
states to pass the 21 year alcohol age limit and DOE funding is tied to CORE).
As a result the state/federal distinction isn't very precise.

[1]
[https://ballotpedia.org/California_state_budget_and_finances](https://ballotpedia.org/California_state_budget_and_finances)

~~~
jchendy
> I'm guessing the same is true for most states.

California is actually one of the lowest (42nd). The irony is that states
where people vote for small government and lower taxes tend to receive a
larger share per capita of federal money.

[https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_aid_to_state_budgets](https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_aid_to_state_budgets)

------
tw04
So he's going to lower taxes on the wealthy, drop taxes on businesses,
increase spending on military, destroy our national parks to extract oil, and
lay off federal employees.

This is going to help the middle class and the uneducated who are struggling
through... magic. None of the lobbying stuff will ever see the light of day.
The term limits won't happen. He's going to repeal the "illegal" Obama
executive orders but leave the Bush ones in place because... they're illegal
but he likes them?

The immigration thing will happen and result in massive backlash if I had to
guess. None of the reforms will ever happen because he doesn't have the power
to enact any of it, and the Republicans are NEVER going to agree to that when
they're currently in power. His justice choice will never in a million years
overturn Citizens United which is literally the only affect he could have on
political corruption.

~~~
RealGeek
> A middle-class family will get a 35% tax cut.

I did some back-of-the-envelope calculation to figure how our taxes could
change for various income levels for married joint filers. This does not
factor in any deductions.

Nobody is getting a 35% tax cut. Tax rate for middle-class families will go
down by around 1% only, and taxes will go up for low-income families by 2%.
Single tax filers will also see an increase in taxes.

The biggest tax cuts will actually go the highest income earners, tax rate
will go down by 6.42% for someone who makes $10 million. Maybe that is what
Trump calls the middle-class?

Trump's proposed tax brackets vs current brackets

$18,000 Current: $1,800 (10%) Trump: $2,160 (12%) Change: + $360 (2%)

$36,000 Current: $4,472 (12.42%) Trump: $4,320 (12%) Change: - $152 (0.42%)

$75,000 Current: $10,322 (13.76%) Trump: $9,000 (12%) Change: - $1,322 (1.76%)

$120,000 Current: $21,542 (17.95%) Trump: $20,250 (16.87%) Change: - $1,292
(1.08%)

$250,000 Current: $57,913 (23.16%) Trump: $45,750 (18.3%) Change: - $12,163
(4.86%)

$500,000 Current: $143,665 (28.73%) Trump: $11,1750 (22.35%) Change: - $31,915
(6.38%)

$1 million Current: $341,666 (34.16%) Trump: $293,250 (29.32%) Change: -
$48,416 (4.84%)

$10 million Current: $3,905,666 (39.05%) Trump: $3,263,250 (32.63%) Change: -
$642,416 (6.42%)

~~~
aliston
Virtually nobody making 10 million a year pays a 39% tax rate. They likely
take most of their comp as stock and pay the long term capital gains rate. If
they're in finance/VC, they are taking full advantage of carried interest.
They have financial planners who structure their portfolio to favor low-tax
investments. They form S-Corps and trust funds to defer tax liability, get
paid in distributions, write off all sorts of business expenses, use real
estate to offset gains with depreciation, carry forward every conceivable
loss, tax loss harvest etc. etc. etc. This is how Warren Buffett, Mitt Romney
and Trump end up paying < 20% effective rates.

The people hit hardest by "tax the wealthy" politicians are folks making large
salaries (engineers, doctors, lawyers...). The mega-wealthy like Mark
Zuckerberg make $1 a year in salary. If you really want to go after the
wealthy, you need to tax wealth, not ordinary income and go after the
complexity of the tax code.

~~~
bduerst
Taxing wealth is a _terrible_ idea, because it means _every_ asset has to
generate income each year to offset taxes.

~~~
eppp
Why is that bad? Asking purely out of ignorance.

~~~
bduerst
Just off the top of my head:

\- It causes wealth to consume it's own base, depreciating all assets faster
even in lieu of inflation

\- It disproportionately punishes seniors, who are asset rich and income poor.

\- It encourages the wealthy to move and hide assets offshore just like they
do with income.

\- Double taxation: Wealth is already taxed when it is created

\- Punishes asset rich, low income businesses like grocery stores, farms, etc.

------
jdc0589
> FIFTH, I will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion
> dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale,
> oil, natural gas and clean coal

This is what I have the _biggest_ problem with. The ONLY WAY we are going to
continue making progress towards widespread clean renewable energy is if it is
financially beneficial for corporations to continue investing in R&D. Sure,
there are some outliers that will stick with it on principal, but the majority
will go where the money is. Cheaper fossil fuels == less investment in
renewable energy. Period. This is bad timing given the critical point we are
at (so far as we know) regarding climate change.

This is pure short-sightedness motivated by the desire to deliver on his
promise of creating jobs.

~~~
stcredzero
The fact that the term "clean coal" can be bandied about with a straight face
says something about the state of science education of the general public.
(Pretty much the same knowledge needed to instantly realize that various
wind/solar operated water-from-air devices and Solar Freakin Roadways aren't
viable from back of the envelope calcs.)

~~~
leephillips
“Sunlight is abundant beyond the energy needs of the entire human race”. (Los
Alamos National Laboratory
[[http://www.lanl.gov/discover/publications/1663/2015-may/pero...](http://www.lanl.gov/discover/publications/1663/2015-may/perovskite-
power.php)].) This is their back of the envelope calculation.

~~~
supergarfield
I don't think this is a reflection on the amount of usable sunlight on that
hits the surface of the earth. It sounds more like a vague, general statement
and isn't backed by calculations in the article.

The late Professor McKay (whose book on information theory and ML is neat by
the way) published a great book full of climate back of the envelope
calculations, _Whithout the Hot Air_ , which is available online[1]. He
clearly disagrees with this statement, as seen in the recap figure on page
103[2].

[1]
[http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html](http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html)

[2]
[http://www.withouthotair.com/c18/page_103.shtml](http://www.withouthotair.com/c18/page_103.shtml)

~~~
toomuchtodo
[http://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf](http://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf)

"This theoretical potential represents more energy striking the earth’s
surface in one and a half hours (480 EJ) than worldwide energy consumption in
the year 2001 from all sources combined (430 EJ)."

Not back of envelope. Energy calculations worked through.

~~~
patrickg_zill
Isn't 70% or more of the Earth's surface covered in water and thus, quite
difficult to build a terrestrial structure upon?

Asking for a friend.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Total land area needed to power the world on solar alone:
[http://i.imgur.com/Jg31dfw.png](http://i.imgur.com/Jg31dfw.png)

Source: [http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-solar-panels-to-
pow...](http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-solar-panels-to-power-the-
earth-2015-12)

EDIT: Solar is a better investment than the S&P500. If US corporations were
looking for some place to invest those trillions of dollars they won't
repatriate [1], seems like renewables would be a perfect fit.

"Eight of the biggest U.S. technology companies added a combined $69 billion
to their stockpiled offshore profits over the past year, even as some
corporations in other industries felt pressure to bring cash back home.

Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc., Google Inc. and five other tech firms now account
for more than a fifth of the $2.10 trillion in profits that U.S. companies are
holding overseas, according to a Bloomberg News review of the securities
filings of 304 corporations. The total amount held outside the U.S. by the
companies was up 8 percent from the previous year, though 58 companies
reported smaller stockpiles."

[1] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/u-s-
compan...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/u-s-companies-
are-stashing-2-1-trillion-overseas-to-avoid-taxes)

------
dougmany
I am surprised nobody mentioned

> cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities

>Some of the 31 American cities are Los Angeles (the first since 1979);
Washington, D.C.; New York City (see also Illegal immigration in New York
City); Jersey City; Berkeley, California; Coachella, California; Philadelphia;
San Francisco; Santa Ana; San Jose; Oakland; Salt Lake City; Dallas; Houston;
Detroit; Chicago; Salinas, California; Minneapolis; Miami; Denver; Baltimore;
Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven; Somerville; Cambridge; and Portland,
Maine.

~~~
sean_patel
Despite being an independent left leaning liberal, I welcome this proposal, if
they can actually implement it.

I see wide-spread exploitation of the "Sanctuary City" Law in San Francisco,
especially in the Restaurants, Construction site and Janitorial jobs.

The Sanctuary Law, for those that don't know, forbids the Feds from asking
employers about the immigration status of the employees / workers. This has
caused 100s and 1000s of (mostly mexican and hispanic) undocumented immigrants
to arrive and live in Sanctuary Cities (like San Francisco, LA, etc) and
strain the local public services, while simultaneously being exploited by
their employers.

Most get paid less than minimum wage (some even as low as 8$ / hour instead of
the $13.75 min wage in SF), women get abused, sexually harassed etc (in
restaurant jobs).

~~~
michaelchisari
And you find that cutting federal funding entirely is a reasonable,
proportional response?

~~~
pmorici
That is how the federal government pressures states to do _everything_

------
jobu
Whatever you think about Trump or the policies in that document, it's clearer
and more concise than anything I've seen from an elected official.

~~~
cyberferret
And what are the repercussions if he does NOT achieve all these within the
first 100 days? Will he step down? Come up with yet another plan? Contracts
usually stipulate this as well.

[Edit: And the downvote brigade strikes - for merely asking a genuine
question. I guess this is an indication of the sort of thing that we can
expect 'top down' from now on... Stay silent, never question, just obey the
mandates... sigh]

[Edit2: And now plenty of upvotes in support after my last edit, as well as
useful replies - thank you for restoring my faith in democracy and the fact
the people are willing to discuss and deliberate policies in a fair and
rational manner.]

~~~
sushid
100 day plans are nothing new. [0] It's a way of saying that the new
administration will hit the ground running.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_hundred_days](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_hundred_days)

~~~
cyberferret
Cool - they do similar things in this country too. Strangely I've never heard
it worded as a 'contract' though. 'Plan' and 'Contract' have entirely
different connotations.

~~~
mikeash
Our politicians like to use stupid language that projects confidence beyond
what any reasonable person would possess. For example, presidential candidates
are constantly referred to as "the next president of the United States," as if
the outcome of the election were somehow predetermined.

------
cesarbs
A lot of what's in there seems pretty reasonable, but:

1) The whole border wall thing is just ridiculous. I thought he had given up
on that. Why would Mexico have to pay for that? If the US wants to build a
wall, fine, build it and pay for it. It doesn't make sense to demand that
Mexico pay for it. It's like building a wall on your property and demanding
your neighbors pay for it.

2) The FDA thing is scary. Regulations and processes are there for a reason.
I'll be very wary if this goes through and I ever have to take any medication
that's not established in the market.

~~~
ben174
You can find more detail on how he plans to make Mexico pay for the wall here:

[https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf](https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf)

Specifically, he will threaten to disallow wire transfer of money from US to
Mexico by non-citizens. Since that is a revenue source they greatly depend on,
he suggests they'd rather fund the building of the wall. If they agree to fund
the wall, then the ban on transfers will go away.

~~~
mywittyname
So Mexicans start using bitcoin, amazon gift cards, or something like that. Or
we end up with "underground banks" that can effectively transfer money across
the border without actually doing so, i.e., you buy a digital good at a
physical location in the US, transfer it to a relative in Mexico, who then
sells it back to the company at a slight discount for cash (which, as a side-
effect, would be a great way to launder drug money).

Or I guess, you bounce money through Belize or something.

Either way, it doesn't sound very effective.

~~~
awesomerobot
Basically it's like saying you want to ban illegal drugs from entering the
country.

~~~
joesb
Except drugs are physical while money doesn't have to be.

~~~
awesomerobot
Which only makes banning transfers additionally backwards

------
thetrb
There's a lot of really scary stuff in there:

\- Cancel payments to U.N. climate change projects

\- Remove two existing regulations for every new regulation

\- Drastic tax cuts

\- Massive immigration changes

~~~
dragthor
\- Cancel UN climate payments, use money instead on America water and
environmental issues. Sounds good to me. Let China and India clean up their
own mess, while we clean up our messes.

\- Yes. Too many regulations by unelected bureaucrats. Sounds good to me. I'd
rather have one clear and meaningful regulation than two "up for random
interpretation."

\- Yes. Tax cuts for all working people. Let people decide what to do with
their own money (spend, save, donate, etc.). The bigger the government, the
smaller the individual.

\- Massive immigration changes? Not really. The pamphlet seems to enforce
existing laws regarding criminal illegals.

~~~
GVIrish
> Tax cuts for all working people. Let people decide what to do with their own
> money (spend, save, donate, etc.). The bigger the government, the smaller
> the individual.

Tax cuts are all well and good in a vacuum, but how are we realistically going
to pay down the national debt when we enact a massive tax cut on top of a tax
rate that is already at historically low levels?

Some people say we can cut all of this government bureaucracy to make up for
tax cuts but we'd have to take a figurative axe to all of our federal agencies
to get to a point where we can afford a massive tax cut and pay down the
national debt.

Otherwise we'd have to enact big cuts to Medicare/Medicaid, defense, and
Social Security as well, which people seem loathe to stomach.

~~~
MichaelBurge
Medicare and Social Security are funded through their own dedicated payroll
tax, not the general income tax. Roosevelt intentionally did it this way to
make it impossible to repeal.

My working assumption is that the military is mismanaged, and spends trillions
of dollars on wasteful projects. I think you can get a pretty big tax cut by
just managing the military better.

~~~
josho
> I think you can get a pretty big tax cut by just managing the military
> better.

I find it interesting that in the US people are comfortable discussing
improving military efficiency, yet its taboo to discuss reducing the size of
the military.

With a concerted effort it would be a major accomplishment to improve military
efficiency by 5-10%. Or you could cut the military budget by 40% and still
outspend every other nation's military. Yet, I don't recall ever hearing a
candidate suggest reducing the military's budget. Hell even after the cold war
didn't spending go up after a brief decline?

~~~
cobookman
The US is a superpower because of our military might. A lot of the
technological achievements were due to military research. If we reduce our
military size to be `reasonable` we loose our status as a super power.

~~~
sangnoir
> The US is a superpower because of our military might.

IMO, the causality is Economic might --> military might + "soft power" \-->
superpower (look at how China's trajectory). Prioritising military over
economy in peace times seems short-sighted

------
xenadu02
Just so everyone is aware: selling insurance across state lines is code for
"gut all insurance regulations". Why did most credit card banks relocate their
paper headquarters to SD? Because SD had no usury laws and federal law said
laws of your headquarters was all that mattered. It gutted all state
regulation of credit cards in one fell swoop.

This is the same approach DJT and the Republicans want to take for health
care. Think about that race to the bottom for a minute. Denied and dropped for
making a single claim? Good luck, totally legal in [insert small state here].

Without the individual mandate insurance marketplaces don't work so I assume
repealing Obamacare will immediately lead to millions of people being thrown
off health insurance.

Truly a great victory for America.

~~~
pmorici
Is the current system working? My insurance rate has gone from $66 per month
for a HDHP to $277 per month 3 years later under the healthcare law for the
essentially the same HDHP plan. At that rate of increase I wouldn't be able to
afford it at all any more in a few short years so what does it matter?

~~~
hibikir
It isn't, but that doesn't mean that any random change will fix it. Your
argument is then as follows:

1-We must do something 2-{This} is something 3-Therefore, me must do {This}

You won't find many of us arguing against the first assertion, but I don't
think real numbers say that it's insurance regulation that made the prices go
up: It's the fact that the risk pools are full of very sick people. While
deregulation would separate the sick from the non sick, it would make sure the
sick would not be able to afford insurance at all.

The ACA is working great for people that make so little they get subsidies.
It's also not a problem for those of use that work at places that compensate
us with well over a thousand a month worth insurance. It's the people in the
middle that are in trouble: They either access the ACA unsubsidized, or work
for employers that hire a lot of low paid labor, leading to godawful health
insurance. I worked at places where the insurance we got was so flimsy, the
ACA made it illegal: Huge deductibles, coinsurance along with lifetime
maximums that made sure that if you got something bad, insurance would cut you
off.

Health insurance in this country has been in an awful trend since at least the
Clinton years. the ACA only helped some. We don't need a repeal, but something
that subsidizes you too. Health savings accounts and insurance across state
lines ain't going to help, but it's going to give us sicker people that just
have access to the emergency room and go bankrupt, like in the last of the
Bush years.

~~~
BrandonM
_> The ACA is working great for people that make so little they get
subsidies._

Not everyone. In NC alone, there are 377,000 people who make _too little_ to
qualify for ACA subsidies yet are not covered by Medicaid. That's a lot of
people, and that's just one state. There are 19 other states that also don't
have expanded Medicaid.

[http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/facts-and-features/state-by-
st...](http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/facts-and-features/state-by-state/how-
aca-is-working-for-north-carolina/index.html)

Even with subsidized ACA, the Bronze plans are pretty shit. Average family
deductibles in 2017 will be $12,393, with the average monthly premium for a
40-year-old costing $350. Other than 1 checkup per year and female care, these
families get to pay $1,000+ per month in premiums (assuming 2 adults and 2
kids) and another $12,000+ on top of that before their plan does much of
anything for them.

[http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/26/obamacare-deductibles-are-
on-...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/26/obamacare-deductibles-are-on-the-rise-
for-2017-along-with-monthly-premiums.html)

Even with a subsidy I don't think it makes sense for a lower middle class
family to pay $5,000-10,000 for 3-5 checkups, and $20,000+ if they actually
need to use that coverage. Yet they'll be hit with a tax penalty if they don't
do that.

How is this good?

~~~
intopieces
North Carolia refused Medicaid expansion, which was the other half of the ACA
bargain.

[http://m.indyweek.com/indyweek/pat-mccrorys-refusal-to-
expan...](http://m.indyweek.com/indyweek/pat-mccrorys-refusal-to-expand-
medicaid-is-a-moral-failure/Content?oid=4627343)

The tax penalty is rather modest, and there are alternatives to health
insurance such as religious health co-ops that control costs.

------
mlmartin
"All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered “extreme
vetting.” "

I visit the US every year to see friends. Some of whom are Arab-American. I'm
seriously worried that I'm going to find myself on the receiving end of
'extreme vetting'.

~~~
clifanatic
Free colonoscopy though.

~~~
btym
I'm sad to see this downvoted, a bit of inappropriate humor is comforting
right now. Thanks for the chuckle.

------
theptip
> FIRST, propose a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all
> members of Congress.

I've debated this approach with friends in the past. From a game-theory
perspective, does this promote or hinder political corruption?

I'm inclined to believe that term limits would actually encourage corruption.

1) If senators have to find a job after 8 years, surely that encourages the
revolving door between industry and government, as they need to find another
job .

2) If excellent and popular politicians have to be replaced before they fall
from popularity, and it still costs a lot of money to get elected, then
candidates will become more beholden to special interests (as they can't
campaign on their track record or political capital). This would also dilute
the overall quality of legislators.

3) If the average candidate has little or no political record, then how can we
root out those who are beholden to special interests? At least currently we
can look at who they have taken money from over the years in the public
records that are available. If every candidate is a blank slate, who hasn't
been subjected to oversight, it will be much easier for a candidate to be
secretly bought without the public having a chance to spot it.

The real problem is not that there exists career politicians, it's that they
experience extreme conflicts of interest due to being permitted to engage in
insider trading [1], that they are not restricted from taking jobs in the
industries they regulated while in government [2], and that there is a massive
flow of money into politician's campaigns from special interests [3].

A more credible solution to these problems is advanced by Represent.us:
[http://anticorruptionact.org/whats-in-the-
act/](http://anticorruptionact.org/whats-in-the-act/)

[1]: [https://theintercept.com/2015/05/07/congress-argues-cant-
inv...](https://theintercept.com/2015/05/07/congress-argues-cant-investigated-
insider-trading/) [2]:
[https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/](https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/)
[3]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC)

~~~
mahyarm
You also get people like Feinstein[1] because of the lack of term limits.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianne_Feinstein#Mass_surveill...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianne_Feinstein#Mass_surveillance_and_encryption)

~~~
grzm
If you're arguing for term limits, you can make your case stronger by pointing
out senators and representatives from both parties.

~~~
mahyarm
I'm a non american who is talking on the internet who has no power over this
stuff. Feinstien came to mind because she in long term and I saw her stance in
the Snowden issue. There are probably plenty of senators and congresscritters
you can point out in the same way.

------
tehabe
I'm confused about this regulation thing. Many people hate regulations because
they think of it as limiting for businesses. But I think, you couldn't work as
a business if there were no regulations.

An example, Nevada voted to open its electricity market this week. Everybody
should be able to choose the provider they want.

But to do this, there need to be regulations in place. Independent companies
need to know how they can use the grid, the company who owns the grid needs to
know what it can charge for the usage of the grid.

If you let such a market without any regulation, there won't be a market,
because the grid owner won't let anyone use its grid.

So removing regulations is not always a good thing. Most of the time
regulations were put there for a reason.

~~~
pitaj
> If you let such a market without any regulation, there won't be a market,
> because the grid owner won't let anyone use its grid.

What?

~~~
tehabe
anyone meaning mostly competitors. If you want to distribute electricity, you
need a way to reach your customers. Since it is unrealistic to build your own
grid.

And if there are no regulations about it, the grid owner doesn't have to give
you access to its grid. So you can't supply your electricity. So the customers
can't exercise their right to choose.

------
anondon
His stand on climate change scares me.

What can the public do to prevent him from opening energy reserves and backing
out of climate change agreements?

Are there efforts going on to prevent this?

Building a wall along the Mexican border...I don't see the thinking behind the
decision.

~~~
esotericsean
The climate change one scares me the most as well. We should be focused on
renewable energy more than anything right now. It's a much bigger threat than
terrorism.

And building a wall and kicking out immigrants is so backwards. We need to be
more united as humans and work together, not put up more barriers.

~~~
laichzeit0
What's wrong with making people come through a door in a wall? You realize
some people have homes with walls around them and they actually prefer
visitors to ring the doorbell and wait for you to let them in. It's the exact
same principle. If you lose sight of this very simple concept then you need to
go back and see where you overcomplicated it. You don't see people like
Richard Feynman going "oh this quantum mechanics, it's just too complicated,
you can never explain in simply. Forget it." That's being intellectually lazy.
The concept of borders, walls, immigration, visas must be simple to explain.
There's a wall, there's a door. You want to come in, you go through the door.
Done. If you think this is backward, then just remove the locks on the doors
to your house while you're at it.

He's specifically talking about ILLEGAL immigrants. People that did not come
in through the door. If you fail to prefix the word immigrant with illegal in
any immigration discussion you're deliberately distorting Trumpian policies.

~~~
RealGeek
How will a wall stop illegal immigration? Couldn't traffickers just use
ladders to climb the wall?

~~~
laichzeit0
I'm guessing he's going to make it difficult and monitor it. Maybe they'll
start blowing it up in places. But hey Mexico is gonna pay for it, so they'll
be forced to pay for the fixes too (a guess). Maybe after a while Mexico
starts realizing that this wall is fucking expensive if they're not stopping
people from getting over it. So maybe they'll start patrolling it themselves
and trying to keep people from illegally scaling it. Right now it costs them
nothing, so they have no incentive to do anything about it.

Who knows.

------
inostia
How did I not see this before the election (even if it came out 102316 as
evidenced in the file name)? Why did NYT/Guardian/all of the news sites that I
regularly visit not report this?

This is a clear policy proposal, contrary to everything I had read that said
he had no clear plan.

~~~
mrschwabe
Bookmark some more news sites so you get a wider spectrum. Smaller independent
operations (ex: Breitbart, Drudge Report) are less vulnerable to being co-
opted or politically motivated.

Also, r/The_Donald is has been an excellent aggregate for all things related
to the campaign.

Also, see Wikileaks to get an idea of how bad the bias/corruption has been in
the media (ex: CNN giving HRC questions in advance of debates [0], CNN asking
HRC campaign for input regarding questions for Donald in exclusive interview
[1]); this should help you understand the scope of the situation and why you
haven't been getting good reporting from mainstream news.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/786225211481792514](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/786225211481792514)

[1] [https://wikileaks.org/dnc-
emails/emailid/25846](https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/25846)

~~~
elemenopy
You cite Breitbart as an example of a website that is "less vulnerable to
being co-opted or politically motivated."

How is that even remotely accurate, considering the Chairman of Breitbart,
Steve Bannon, is Trump's campaign chairman?

~~~
mrschwabe
Fair point, thank-you. That taken into consideration, would you say there is
no harm in at least adding Breitbart to the basket of news media sources?
Which could also include CNN, who's anchors also could all very well have been
candidates for chairman of Clinton's campaign.

------
pavlov
For corporations, there's an odd mix of sticks and carrots. For example these
two promises:

"... trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be
brought back at a 10% rate."

"Establishes tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers
..."

So a company can more easily bring back offshore billions to the US, but at
the same time, new tariffs are put in place that make it harder to lay off
people, thus effectively discouraging the company from spending that money on
creating jobs in the country?

Seems like the net effect of these seemingly bold new rules could be
practically zero.

It's odd that Trump is a businessman, yet his list of solutions includes all
kinds of tariffs and trade restrictions to rein in business. There's a reason
Western countries don't use tariffs much anymore: they're counterproductive if
you want to stimulate growth. But I guess that old economics lesson is about
to be put to another test.

~~~
japhyr
> It's odd that Trump is a businessman, yet his list of solutions includes all
> kinds of tariffs and trade restrictions to rein in business. There's a
> reason Western countries don't use tariffs much anymore: they're
> counterproductive if you want to stimulate growth. But I guess that old
> economics lesson is about to be put to another test.

It's pretty clear he was never a good businessman. He was good at finding
loopholes and exploiting people and policies. Now I imagine we'll start to see
that kind of shoddy policy making at a national level. And "shoddy" is giving
him a large benefit of the doubt. It feels like an intentional attempt to
maximize short-term benefits with complete disregard for long-term
consequences.

~~~
usaphp
> "It's pretty clear he was never a good businessman."

Don't you find it silly to call a person with a net worth of $4 billion "not a
good businessman" keeping in mind that he made this money doing business

~~~
Frondo
Had he taken the money he was lent or given at the start of his business
career, and invested it into an index fund instead of doing his attempts at
business, he would now have a net worth of $12 billion instead of $4 billion.

He did far, far worse as a businessman than he would have had he done nothing.

Based on that alone, I can call him not a good businessman.

~~~
bhritchie
> Had he taken the money he was lent or given at the start of his business
> career, and invested it into an index fund instead of doing his attempts at
> business, he would now have a net worth of $12 billion instead of $4
> billion.

Matt Levine wrote a great article on this idea:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-09-03/should-
do...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-09-03/should-donald-trump-
have-indexed-)

Maybe the best line: "For one thing, if he put all his money in index funds
and reinvested all the dividends for 41 years, he'd be dead, because you can't
buy food with reinvested dividends."

~~~
heartbreak
Crazy that I'm not dead yet. Somehow the rest of us manage to eat without
spending dividends earned from money given to us by our parents.

------
ninjakeyboard
Leave nafta? There doesn't seem to be a very thorough analysis on the effect
of this.... You can't just make changes to economic policy and hope for the
best - there are far and wide impacts to making changes like this.

~~~
zardo
>You can't just make changes to economic policy and hope for the best

Obviously you can, you mean shouldn't. I'm sure wisdom will prevail.

------
jernfrost
I hate Trump, but some of this isn't actually that bad sounding. I have some
doubts though if such a divisive and hated guy can manage to get stuff through
though. He has not made himself into a person people want to cooperate with.

For some things though, he makes the problem sound way simpler than it is.
E.g. removing existing regulations when introducing an new one and reducing
government employees.

We got a right wing government in Norway thinking much along these lines
promising removal of red tape, fewer public sector employees etc.

They failed. Reality is just a lot more complicated. Instead they have
resorted to stupid tricks to make it look as if they are reducing public
sector employees. They more some employees to other organizations which are
not technically part of government. They they can make the statistics look
pretty. But they are still paying for the services of these people.

The problem with e.g. reducing public sector employees is that every new
government has big ambitions they want to happen YESTERDAY. That can only
happen by public sector employees making it happen. The more ambitious your
changes, the more new bureaucrats you frequently need to hire to get this
done.

New ambitions typically also means a lot more rules and regulations have to be
added.

I know this problem well from Software development. We want to reduce the
number of useless lines of code. Except from users and managers there is a
tremendous pressure and incentive for new functionality to be added. That
means more lines of code not less.

Laws and regulations will be the same. People want the new stuff. They don't
want to hear that you spent all this time removing stuff which doesn't really
give anybody anything new, except a nice refactored law book.

Likely you are going to need to hire lots of people to actually start cutting
down on regulation. Identifying what can be removed and figuring out how the
rephrase things requires actual work, which somebody has to do. And if they
are doing that they are not implementing the new policies of the
administration.

~~~
_betty_
I thing the idea behind the removing existing regulations rule works better
for software than it does for laws.

It basically boils down to Leave things tidier than when you arrived.

No massive refactor projects, just fix up little things when you're in the
area. Sure you never end up with a particularly nice codebase but it's not
getting worse and it's not costing the business massive amounts to make
something prettier for little benefit.

Also works well with backlogs, especially for client projects, you want a new
feature? what are you willing to drop off the backlog to get it?

It's generally well known that most products contain a crap tonne of unused
features and removing them reduces technical debt (eg potential bugs,
overweight/slow apps).

I don't see it as a hard rule to sell in software.

------
kylecordes
It is fascinating to read all these comments (594 as I write this) analyzing
this is a policy document. This is a marketing document. What will the actual
policies be? Who knows. Perhaps some of them will be somewhat like some of the
words in this document. Perhaps others will not. We are headed very far into
uncharted territory, and all these pundits writing so many words confident
about exactly what will happen, seems obviously silly given what has happened
recently.

~~~
grzm
I agree there's an element of silliness :) Another way to think about it is
we're trying to determine what might happen given what we know and
understanding what we consider acceptable as part of the process. And
hopefully figuring out how to discuss these issues with each other without
increasing our polarization, and finding some common ground.

Okay, okay. I can hope, can't I?

------
theptip
> FOURTH, a five-year ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming
> lobbyists after they leave government service.

> FIFTH, a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a
> foreign government.

> SIXTH, a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American
> elections.

Can't see a reason to complain about any of these (though I've posted
objections in other threads about other measures, mainly here [1]). Can anyone
spot issues on these measures?

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12916509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12916509)

~~~
oceanswave
Any time you enact a ban on potential employment of a person, your run into a
bunch of hairy issues. Not to mention the required governmental oversight to
ensure this is enforced

~~~
math0ne
Yeah I just can't imagine how this could be enforced.

------
finid
_Fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full
understanding that the country of Mexico will be reimbursing the United States
for the full cost of such wall; establishes a two-year mandatory minimum
federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous
deportation, and a five-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for
illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions_

How Mexico will be forced to pay for a wall built by the US will make for a
good TV show.

Private prisons are about to make a killing with the 2- and 5-year mandatory
prison terms.

~~~
elchief
Ban Western Union "send money back to family in Mexico" payments until Mexico
agrees to pay for the wall:
[https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf](https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Pay_for_the_Wall.pdf)

~~~
giarc
I don't usually read campaign documents like this... is this normal? Is it
normal to simplify things so much so to say Day 1 do X, Day 2 do Y, Day 3
resolved.

~~~
elchief
Is a little more structured and upfront than others I've seen

~~~
giarc
In one sense I would suspect typical high level political speak. On the other
hand, if you are going to go into detail, do you make it seem as easy as 3
days of action?

So weird - thanks for linking that by the way.

------
meritt
Today, Trump appointed Myron Ebell (a massive climate change denier) to head
up the EPA.

We're so utterly and completely fucked.

~~~
sean_patel
Florida is 1 of the 1st States to be severely affected by rising sea water
levels from Climate change, and they just voted this guy into Office. Wow!

------
adt2bt
Does anyone have an idea about the expected global response to the Secretary
of the Treasury labeling China a currency manipulator?

~~~
ianai
If it works out to impeding trade with China in anyway it just acts to slow
our economy. We are not going to become more competitive with 1+ billion
people who are willing to work without any labor protections by saying we
won't do business with them. We're just sanctioning ourselves from essentially
the world's manufacturing depot.

~~~
loceng
It could result in jobs for locals - however then investment needs to be made
to support the manufacturing, educating skilled workers, etc.

~~~
ianai
In the sense that we would be doing to ourselves what we did to Cuba.

~~~
loceng
Suppose you're right, however the U.S. is in a much different situation than
Cuba resource wise - education, networks, investment capital, etc.

------
cybertronic
This is so Berlusconi
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_the_Italians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_the_Italians)

~~~
jplahn
Or so Newt?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America)

~~~
ep103
Well, considering Newt is one of Trump's key advisers....

~~~
a2m
nope. that's not a point.

------
themihai
This can't be good for Tesla and a lot of other green companies. My hope is
that despite this "contract" he won't do much... I believe the price of the
energy is not longer only about the production and distribution but also its
long term effects(i.e health, sustainability, climate change).

~~~
throwaway13337
So far, oil prices are on the rise with the news of Trump winning.

It's not surprising as he heavily critiqued the deal with Iran - a deal which
opened up trade of a lot of oil from the country.

------
nickpsecurity
This is actually pretty good and what I was expecting of him once he got to
stop the smear campaigns that are U.S. elections. Now, let me cross-reference
a few that might be good against what he's said or done in the past where I
think he might try to make them happen with a possibility they will.

1\. Renegotiate NAFTA and TPP. I opposed both as they were mainly just for the
richest to get richer moving jobs & playing games behind peoples' backs. He
might clean them up a bit or make them favor U.S. more.

2\. Foreign trading abuses. He griped about that on the Oprah show especially
pointing out how the Japanese make it nearly impossible for him to do business
in their country. He said many of the countries supposedly have trade
agreements to make it easy but they trip us up with little obstacles. He'll
probably stand by that.

3\. Shift from UN to American infrastructure. I have doubts climate change
strategies will work at all given how they're partial with lots of
noncompliance. Meanwhile, those infrastructure aren't getting much support.
Lesser of two evils.

4\. Cancel unconstitutional EO's of Obama. I'm for doing that for all
Presidents. He should start at Bush by vetoing Patriot Act, mass surveillance,
etc. We know he said Obama for a reason, though. (sighs)

5\. My family and many local businesses were affected heavily by illegal
immigrants where lots of people lost jobs. We've also been hit with the fine
letter of the law repeatedly. I'm for tight immigration policies & fair
enforcement of law. Opposite of this coin is he should start arresting or
fining any business owners that knowingly hired illegal immigrants just to be
fair. There are two sides to that problem.

6\. Tax Simplification. Often good.

7\. Discourage offshoring. Should've been doing that along with maintaining a
strong industrial base domestically. A huge chunk of our economy is financial
engineering. Need more _real_ stuff.

8\. Child and elderly care. Sounds good.

9\. Help veterans part of the National Security Act. They've been getting
dogged by the system pretty bad that I've seen.

~~~
novia
Yeah, you get child and elder care _if_ you make enough money to owe enough
taxes to cover those bills. Poor? Working minimum wage? Sorry, I guess your
kid gets to stay at home with gramma to kill two birds with one stone.

~~~
davidw
I'm kind of realizing that my wife and I are in a decent financial position
and have good jobs and that things like

* Killing Obamacare and leaving millions without health insurance (but lowering premiums!)

* Lowering taxes on high earners

* Child care credits for high earners and not for the poor

Would all benefit us. The angry cynical part of my brain kind of urges me
towards a "you know what, all those white-no-education-economic-malaise people
who voted for him are going to get just what they deserve.".

But there's also all the fascist stuff about deportations and walls and I
don't want to live in a me me me society anyway, so I'll do what I can to
fight this garbage.

Among other things, I just signed up for the ACLU:
[https://action.aclu.org/secure/renew-your-aclu-
membership](https://action.aclu.org/secure/renew-your-aclu-membership)

~~~
aminok
Counteracting a me me me society with authoritarian mandates forcing people to
give to the poor cannot be morally justified in my opinion.

The just use of the law is to punish those who violate the rights of others,
not those who don't meet our personal moral standards on acting
altruistically. The latter is treading on theocratic ideology.

------
ComteDeLaFere
Does anyone know if this -

 _Enacts new ethics reforms to drain the swamp and reduce the corrupting
influence of special interests on our politics._

...means overturning Citizens United? Because if it doesn't, then this is just
propaganda.

------
chenster
WTF, America? How could anyone trust an alleged narcissist, extremist, sexist,
racist, self-righteous and nationalist who paid nothing in income tax for the
last 20 years to do what he says?

~~~
grzm
A significant percentage of voters in the US came to that conclusion, given
the choices they had. I think it's likely pretty easy to find one of them to
ask, if you're willing to listen.

~~~
davesque
Not the majority, though.

~~~
grzm
No candidate received a majority. Clinton (last I checked) is on pace to win a
plurality of the popular vote — and that by a pretty slim margin. But that's
beside the point. None of this justifies dismissing or insulting or
generalizing the opinions of nearly half of the voting population. It's just
not constructive. Like it or not, you live in a society with other people. We
need to be able to live and work _with_ each other.

~~~
chenster
> you live in a society with other people. We need to be able to live and work
> with each other.

I agree. But it appalls me to think why any rational person would support an
openly racist and sexist to lead a nation who doesn't pay tax? Even illegal
immigrates pay taxes - [http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-01/study-
undocum...](http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-01/study-undocumented-
immigrants-pay-billions-in-taxes). I find it ironic.

~~~
grzm
How are you going to live and work with them if you don't think they're
rational? I don't want to put words in your mouth but I'm afraid that's how
some might interpret what you've said. Am I being unfair?

~~~
chenster
It's a reasonably fair argument I believe. Yes, I can still live with them
fine, but that's beside the point, isn't it? It's a fair question and deserve
a fair answer. People must've gone through some sort of thinking, pros and
cons before cast their vote unless they already made up their mind and turning
a blind eye on troulbed personal traits. Are you not agree? Do you offer any
explanation or answer that would enlighten us?

~~~
grzm
First off, thanks for continuing this discussion in a thoughtful way.

The very short answer is that I'm not going to presume how others voted how
they did, on either side, at least without asking them. I know that I don't
subscribe to all of the views of the candidate I voted for, so I'll grant
others the benefit of the doubt they didn't either. There are a lot of
different issues, and people hold different positions of those issues, and
prioritize the issues differently as well. There are some single-issue voters
out there. I'm not. I'm not going to assume you are, either. I may not agree
with the positions that someone else holds, or their prioritization of them.

I know I'm not perfect or have all of the answers. I also know that I've
changed my positions on issues over the course of my life. I have hope that we
can figure out what issues we have in common and work on those together. I
also hope that by talking with one another we can come to agreements and be
willing to change our minds.

At this point, the election is over. We have choices on how we move forward.
My hope is that we can move forward together, and given how split the country
is and how unhappy people were even with the candidates they supported, I
think this is possible. I hope you do, too!

Thanks again for reading through this and sticking with it.

~~~
chenster
> The very short answer is that I'm not going to presume how others voted how
> they did, on either side, at least without asking them. I know that I don't
> subscribe to all of the views of the candidate I voted for, so I'll grant
> others the benefit of the doubt they didn't either. There are a lot of
> different issues, and people hold different positions of those issues, and
> prioritize the issues differently as well. There are some single-issue
> voters out there. I'm not. I'm not going to assume you are, either. I may
> not agree with the positions that someone else holds, or their
> prioritization of them.

Thanks you. You response is somewhat similar to what a politician would say,
equivocal and indirect. Basically, you avoided my question and did not say
anything meaningful unfortunately.

> I know I'm not perfect or have all of the answers. I also know that I've
> changed my positions on issues over the course of my life. I have hope that
> we can figure out what issues we have in common and work on those together.
> I also hope that by talking with one another we can come to agreements and
> be willing to change our minds.

That's why I'm asking the question and hope you would have the answer. But
sadly like many others, you are not forthcoming to share but instead wanted us
to talk to others for answers. Why is it so hard to share? Why can we get a
straight answer to a simple question?

> At this point, the election is over. We have choices on how we move forward.
> My hope is that we can move forward together, and given how split the
> country is and how unhappy people were even with the candidates they
> supported, I think this is possible. I hope you do, too!

Again, not exactly the answers I was hoping for. But thank you for the
positive attitude. We all need it.

------
readhn
Who put this list together and how? a night of heavy "thinking"? Who did they
consult on how realistic and achievable these goals are? Does budget allow for
any of this?

Is this all made up BS plan that could never be achieved?

------
woodruffw
This reads like Buzz Windrip's list from _It Can 't Happen Here_.

It can happen here.

~~~
dv35z
Totally agree with you. Just read that book a few months ago. Scary
similarities, and prescient (let's hope not too much).

------
finid
_propose a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of
Congress._

Not a bad idea.

 _begin removing the more than two million criminal illegal immigrants from
the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back._

Only the _criminal_ ones. OK

~~~
waterphone
Bad idea that sounds like a good idea until you discover that it actually
leads to greater special interest influence because nobody in Congress knows
how to do anything so lobbyists just do it for them.
[http://prospect.org/article/populist-road-hell-term-
limits-c...](http://prospect.org/article/populist-road-hell-term-limits-
california)

~~~
finid
A reasonable term limit has to be in place. A person who has been in the
Senate since 1986, like John McCain, should have been out of there if term
limits were in place.

Thirty years is a long time to be elected, re-elected and re-elected and ...

~~~
zaphods-towel
I don't see what the problem is with that? The term limits on the president
are in place because he has such an inordinate amount of power. I am concerned
about a president trying to seize non-democratic power. Not so for a Senator.
Can you explain more about why you think reps need term limits?

~~~
Mathnerd314
[http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/charlie-daniels/charlie-
da...](http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/charlie-daniels/charlie-daniels-our-
system-was-not-designed-career-politicians)

Basically, without term limits, politics turns into a game of power plays and
re-election campaigns, instead of actually representing the constituents.

~~~
zaphods-towel
Interesting. I definitely hear that, and I find that argument somewhat
convincing. On the other hand, I worry a wholeee lot about term limits
encouraging a revolving door between public and private work. I guess the
ideal solution would be an appropriately-sized term limit: not too short and
not too long? Or perhaps shorter term limits & some other way of protecting
against revolving door behavior. Thanks for sharing the article!

------
skywhopper
"THIRD, cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities."

Is this explained anywhere?

~~~
owyn
A sanctuary city is one that obstructs (directly or indirectly) the
enforcement of federal immigration laws.

[http://www.apsanlaw.com/law-246.List-of-Sanctuary-
cities.htm...](http://www.apsanlaw.com/law-246.List-of-Sanctuary-cities.html)

Since this list is most of your bigger more liberal cities (LA, SF, NYC), I do
wonder what it means to cut off all federal funding to those cities.

~~~
ocschwar
I live by one of those cities, and there are indeed a lot of visa overstayers
living there.

The prospect of those people being too scared to call 911 if they witness a
crime is something I am decidedly NOT looking forward to.

~~~
jquery
Hopefully we can crack down on employers so that these visa over-stayers don't
stay long enough for that to happen.

~~~
ocschwar
Crack down on employers? Yeah, like that's going to happen.

------
danieltillett
I can’t believe that he is really going to go through with:

 _THIRD, I will direct the Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency
manipulator._

Has nobody told him what this is going to do to the economy? The rest of his
proposals he will have to get past congress and the courts, but this is one he
can do all on his own.

------
jonstewart
There's nothing to discuss here. A reaction along the lines of "Well, that
doesn't sound so bad, but maybe he ought to think about..." means you're now
playing by his rules. This is just Reagan++.

------
scosman
He's calling executive actions unconstitutional. Let's hope he sticks to that.

~~~
Smaug123
No, it's describing the actions he's going to repeal. "Repeal those actions
which were unconstitutional", not "repeal the actions, which are
unconstitutional".

~~~
scosman
I don't see the quote you mention in the linked article. However, the wording
is ambiguous.

~~~
Smaug123
I was paraphrasing, not quoting. I don't think the wording is ambiguous, but
it's deliberately easy to misread on skimming the document.

------
mark242
If the Secretary of the Treasury designates China as a currency manipulator,
your new iPhone will wind up costing you $2000. What madness.

~~~
pvelagal
Actually, i would like to know what this "currency manipulator " labeling
really means ? Will goods from china be taxed more ? if so, how much more ?

~~~
latch
45% is the number he's talked about in the past.

------
forgingahead
So, this is NOT new, it's been around for a while (see the footer of the
document). Important to recognize that this may not be his actual first 100
day plan now he has actually won.

The bigger problem is that since the Democrats and media took the "Literally
Hitler" approach, no policies got discussed even though they were available in
plain sight. Now whether you like them or not, he's won, and people had no
opportunity to understand the policy differences between the candidates.

------
carlob
Wow did he just take a page directly from Berlusconi's book? Berlusconi did
the exact same 100 days contract about ten years ago!

~~~
mr_tristan
The first 100 days is actually a tradition for new US Presidents to create a
plan (and a litmus test), which started with FDR in 1933.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_100_days_of_Franklin_D._...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_100_days_of_Franklin_D._Roosevelt%27s_presidency)

------
beachstartup
this is laid out like an actual memorandum of understanding as used in
business.

many contracts start out this way then turn into actual contracts full of
legalese. in government context that would be legislation.

this isn't a bad start at all if a reasonable amount of it actually happens.

~~~
waterphone
It's a horrible start and a huge step backwards. A blanket ban on hiring new
government workers or replacing existing ones is the stupidest idea ever for
cutting the government workforce. Among other things, we as Americans have a
wonderful collective resource in the form of public land, which is already
poorly funded and hard to maintain because of the low workforce. Preventing
the hiring of any more people to work and maintain trails, campgrounds and
other resources is going to lead to them falling into further disrepair,
getting shut down and abandoned. Even the volunteers who spend considerable
time and money of their own to do much of the supplemental work currently
won't be enough.

------
xenadu02
Oh almost forgot: get ready for the end to net neutrality.

Comcast/ATT/Verizon: nice startup you got there... would be a shame if
anything happened to your traffic.

------
igravious
SIXTH, a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American
elections.

Pardon my naivety but who does this target?

~~~
meric
Saudi Arabia.

[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-13/saudi-arabia-has-
fu...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-13/saudi-arabia-has-
funded-20-hillarys-presidential-campaign-saudi-crown-prince-claims)

------
geofft
I'm worried about 18F/USDS/etc. because of the freeze on federal hiring.
Partly I have friends there, but mostly, those organizations need to exist if
government is going to be effective. They're getting things done, and they're
also taking business away from government contractors who don't get things
done (i.e., saving significant taxpayer money).

~~~
snowwrestler
USDS, in its current form, is probably toast. It was a special initiative of
Obama and is housed directly within his executive office. To my knowledge it
exists solely at the President's discretion. Trump is not a digital guy, and
not likely to want to hold over Obama folks (and vice versa).

18F is housed within GSA and so is somewhat isolated from political
interference. That said, private contractors don't like it and will seek to
label it as a wasteful project (already started--there was an attack article
on HN last week).

The U.S. federal government under Obama had started to take some small steps
toward modern digital competency. My expectation for a Trump administration is
a complete reversal of that. Who's going to champion technology? Trump?? Mike
Pence? Giuliani? And how many young talented developers are going to want to
take a pay cut to eat bureaucratic shit in DC for Donald Trump? The allure for
USDS was Obama himself.

~~~
ohyoutravel
I disagree on USDS. My understanding is that the money to fund USDS is already
appropriated through the end of 2017, and there is bipartisan support to
extend that money. A bill was introduced to do just that, actually (though
nothing has been done with it since it was referred to committee). Lots of
people like USDS on both sides of the aisle because it actually does make
things more efficient.

Not saying it will survive an entire Trump presidency, but I think it's not on
the chopping block immediately. I do worry that they won't be able to expand
as planned though to have mini-USDS people in each Agency because of the
hiring freeze.

~~~
coleca
Mikey Dickerson, the head of USDS, spoke at Velocity Conf in NYC this Sept and
he was hinting that the organization was done for after this administration
comes to a close. It will be a shame if this is true, as his group is a
shining example of great work being done for the people and something to be
proud of and continued.

Here is his presentation: [https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/two-years-of-the-us-
digital-se...](https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/two-years-of-the-us-digital-
service?cmp=yt-webops-books-videos-product-
na_velocity_keynote___two_years_in_the_us_digital_service)

------
dr_
"... The business rate will be lowered from 35% to 15%, and the trillions of
dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10%
rate."

15% seems like a lofty goal, even 25% would be drastic. Unless a corporation
can be confident that there will be significant growth in the economy, they
are likely to hoard the savings than reinvest them.

------
hacker_9
_" limit, freeze, eliminate, ban, withdraw, label, end, remove, suspend and
cancel"_

Just some of the words that stuck out to me.

~~~
deadringerr
He had an entire TV show about firing people. He appears to prefer to destroy
rather than create.

~~~
Nadya
Absolutely terrible example.

The TV show created many jobs (producers, editors, filmers, the 'assistant'
(spokesperson...) position being fought for) and those who were "fired" (never
really hired to begin with, were they?) failed to meet the job requirement.
Which was to be the best business-person. A meritocracy, as things should be,
rather than being based on race/gender/filling some sort of diversity quota.

In reality they became spokespeople when they won. But that wasn't what the
show was _about_ or portrayed. Trump was portrayed as the "hard/rough" sort of
boss and the "You're fired." was just the slogan/catchphrase which worked
wonderfully as a TV catchphrase/slogan. It was short, memorable, and people
knew where it was from.

There was a whole lot more creation than destruction....

~~~
cabinguy
He didn't create or own the show. He was an employee.

~~~
Nadya
The argument put forward still doesn't work, especially with that being the
case, but thank you for the knowledge.

------
andromeduck
Seems pretty reasonable. I remain optimistic.

------
_audakel

       cancel every unconstitutional executive action,

memorandum and order issued by President Obama.

I think we need some claification on what is "constitutional"

~~~
btym
I will be replacing "unconstitutional" in my head with "against Donald Trump's
business interests" for the next few years.

------
Blackthorn
Lest anyone forgets, term limits will never happen. Mitch McConnell is 100%
against it and, guess what, it has to get through him to happen.

------
e0m
Given that the Republicans have a majority in BOTH the House and the Senate,
it's likely a majority of these initiatives will go through!

~~~
pdonis
The Republicans have a majority in the Senate, but just barely; it certainly
isn't even close to being filibuster proof. And given how polarized the
parties are now, I would expect the Senate Democrats to simply stonewall
anything they don't like.

------
Damie1399
Let's pay Damien Gregory for the Real Lockdown phone gas you president speech
and Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Lockdown and Trump towers contact him
for your shit back needs to be Paid for everything 509-945-4338

------
skizm
Screw it. Let's go all in with "clean coal". Fund NASA with the additional tax
revenue from all the new oil money going around. Let's get off the planet
before it matters.

~~~
Synaesthesia
Let's face it we're mostly stuck here. Only a small handful of people can
leave the planet.

------
datashovel
"Six measures to clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in
Washington, DC"

Ok, I'm on board with all of those... Then, besides a few other points, it
just gets worse and worse the further into it you go.

If he accomplishes all 6, or even half, that's great. I just hope he won't
have enough time to ruin everything else. At least now (especially after
Dubya) we know we need outsiders vigilantly watching every move (and non-move)
he makes.

------
johndoe90
>FIRST , cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order
issued by President Obama.

Does this mean the LGBT rights to marry will be taken back?

~~~
nommm-nommm
LGBTs didn't gain the rights to marry by executive order issued by Obama. They
gained those rights largely by judicial review.

------
SolarUpNote
Replace health insurance with health savings accounts?

~~~
riskable
What's funny about this is that health savings accounts are really just a
discount program _based on your tax bracket_. The higher your tax bracket the
bigger the discount. So in other words, the richer you are the more you'll
save with a health savings account.

So if Trump pulls off his "huge tax cuts" he'll be undermining his plan for
health savings accounts. Classic Trump cognitive dissonance.

~~~
webXL
So what if someone in the 33% bracket can potentially save up to 8% more than
someone in the 25% bracket, they're paying much higher on AGI! And when the
rates are reduced so there's a lower incentive to use the accounts, it still
can be saved/invested and grow tax-free and gains can even be spent tax free
if used on qualified medical expenses. That's the bigger incentive IMO.

------
jotadambalakiri
So you can sign a copy of the contract that only you will have? I don't think
that's the way contracts are made.

~~~
NolF
He was voted for president democratically, that's the populous signing their
part of the contract.

------
teamhappy
Did he upload this today?

~~~
magicpat2010
Based on the filename, it looks like it was uploaded on October 23, 2016.

~~~
mxfh
Here is the _pdfinfo_ metadata of the file with MD5
69cbf547083badc96cd3d86ef233e124

    
    
        Title:          O-TRU-102316-Contractv06.indd
        Creator:        Adobe InDesign CC 2015 (Macintosh)
        Producer:       Adobe PDF Library 15.0
        CreationDate:   Tue Oct 25 15:34:22 2016
        ModDate:        Tue Oct 25 15:34:23 2016
        Tagged:         no
        Form:           none
        Pages:          2
        Encrypted:      no
        Page size:      612 x 792 pts (letter) (rotated 0 degrees)
        File size:      549294 bytes
        Optimized:      no
        PDF version:    1.3

------
crb002
"Restoring National Security Act" The Federalization of law enforcement has
the potential for fascism. Also lowering the repatriation of corporate abroad
profit makes it more tax efficient to move jobs overseas. A 10% repatriation
below the 15% cap gains rate is a massive tax loophole.

------
hal9000xp
I was born in Uzbekistan, having Russian citizenship and living in the
Netherlands.

I wonder if they allow me to enter US.

I _hope_ Trump won't go _that far_ (i.e. banning from entering US because I
was born in Uzbekistan).

------
rahilsondhi
Are any TN visa holders worried about Trump wanting to withdraw from NAFTA?

~~~
Clobbersmith
Yes with a but.

I'm not convinced Trump fully understands what NAFTA entails. He talks a lot
about the importing of goods manufactured in Mexico and the export of American
jobs to Mexico, but to my knowledge he hasn't talked about any other aspect of
it. Surely the tech sector would freak out and raise a stink if all their TN
employees had to leave overnight.

The CBC has a high level article covering the ambiguities around getting out
of NAFTA. [http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/donald-trump-nafta-
trade-1.3657...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/donald-trump-nafta-
trade-1.3657673)

------
theptip
The Guardian just published a line-by-line analysis of this document:

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/13/trump-
policy...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/13/trump-policy-
pledges-gettysburg-speech)

------
rsp1984
Apart from the content, why is it even called a "contract"? There's no terms
and obligations for the "American voter" in there.

~~~
pyre
He's trying to play off of his "I'm a business man" persona. By calling it a
"contract" people are more likely to believe that he will honour it. Time will
tell if that actually happens or not.

------
d0lph
Cached version, since the site seems unresponsive.

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fassets.donaldjtrump.com%2F_landings%2Fcontract%2FO-
TRU-102316-Contractv02.pdf&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fassets.donaldjtrump.com%2F_landings%2Fcontract%2FO-
TRU-102316-Contractv02.pdf)

------
teemwerk
no carried interest talk, which is alright by me, that actually makes sense in
giving an incentive for risk. would be interested to see if the 10% hit on
monetary repatriation works, that could have some serious effects if that much
multinational money gets sucked out of europe and abroad.

~~~
giarc
But is that money really doing anything over seas? Is it actually being put to
work or just sitting in accounts?

------
d-sc
Question: What are the analytics that this website contains to track the
potential support/non support of viewers of the document?

------
nameisu
if these are really his views then I would be happy if he can achieve 50% of
this. I understand why big people fought against him now.

------
hatsunearu
He's handing America's world dominance handedly to China. Start learning
Chinese folks, America is done.

~~~
meric
How does American world dominance help the people who voted for Trump?

~~~
warlox
Free trade lowers prices for everyone. The poors won't be able to buy food if
Trump follows through with protectionism.

------
dragthor
Thanks! I was looking for this today.

------
Waterluvian
Federal prison is probably not as terrible as some of the conditions Mexicans
flee from.

~~~
laichzeit0
I can guarantee you prison is not going to be the same after Trump "reforms"
the system :) They're not going to be using tax money to feed themselves.

------
projektfu
Two words: industrial policy. Without it any likelihood of creating
substantially more jobs than the the current trend goes out the window. The
problem? Industrial policy is hard and requires some attention span. You can't
just tweet it out.

------
PSeitz
This document is from before the election, it's invalid now.

------
JulianMorrison
"SIXTH, a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American
elections." \-- sounds rather Russian, don't they have a law now forcing
Amnesty International and others to register as "foreign agents"?

~~~
Aoyagi
Yes, but I don't see any parallels there.

------
beatpanda
I think it's weird how very few people on HN seem to be worried about his
promise to initiate pogroms against minorities in the first 100 days, like it
doesn't even warrant a mention for most of you

------
internaut
> FIRST propose a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all
> members of Congress.

If he does this alone, then he's made a huge impact.

I'm really concerned he might be assassinated.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I honestly don't believe there's any chance of that passing. However, if
Donald Trump actually can make that happen, I will forgive everything I hold
against him, because it would clear out most of our government rot within the
next two elections.

~~~
dugmartin
I doubt it would make much of a difference - money is like water in politics,
it will find its way in. Instead of the money coming in as donations for
future elections it will be about promises of huge salary for the job after
you hit your term limit, unless of course you only want those who don't need
to work hold our elective offices.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Ah, but the fourth item on his list is to forbid outgoing Congresscritters
from those jobs for half a decade. At the least, he (or someone working for
him) seems to have considered that.

~~~
Retra
How do you enforce that?

------
plandis
Great so insurers can go back to dropping/denying people.

Why does Trump want US citizens to die because they cannot get health care?

------
chenster
In other words, it's all other people / country's fault.

------
_audakel
wow. alot of these would be amazing if he got them to go through. maybe the
"world is ending" rehtoric of 2008 when pres. obama was elected is similar to
the current talk?

------
fredgrott
hmm .. the thought I had when reading it was..

The Impossible Dream...

Why? Remember Trump ran as a Populist..but both political parties are somewhat
Corporate Shrills...

Not saying it cannot happen..but probably not in his two terms..

------
tn13
Seems reasonable.

------
bronz
why would mexico pay for the wall? 9 out of 10 times when someone asks this
question they are not aware of the fact that we had a $58 billion trade
deficit with mexico in 2015. trumps proposal is to use this and all the other
leverage we have over mexico to get them to pay for the wall. at first glance
it seems that it would be very much in mexicos best financial interest to
cooperate, actually. most liberals think he just says that mexico will build
the wall and that he does not offer any kind of plan or explanation. this is
because they never actually confirm their presumptions. im not saying that his
plan is great or will even work. but it is a plan and although it is
unconventional, it is also plausible.

the most concerning aspect of trumps policies is that regarding climate. but
thankfully renewable energy is now well on its way. its not a fragile infant
anymore -- it will survive trump if not explode into popularity under trump
despite his stance on the environment.

the trump movement was a grass roots movement. People voted for him because he
said that he will stop companies from outsourcing their work with simple tax
implementations. they lifted him from obscurity and into the presidency. take
a look at the other times he ran and you can see what his campaign would have
been like without the grass roots element: nothing. trump would not be
president if people in the mid-west had good employment and a sense of
financial security.

and as for the sexual assault thing, i would rather have trump be elected than
see bill clinton back in the white house because bill clinton is literally a
rapist. i know it may come as a huge shock for liberals -- being a liberal it
was a huge shock to me -- but its true. i know this is not the most reputable
source but before you disagree with me i would like you to watch this video of
a woman recounting the event.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHh73fkDUIs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHh73fkDUIs)

and another

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug7diBO3XYY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug7diBO3XYY)

i very much doubt that someone who could easily make a nice living in
hollywood as one of the best actors in the world would instead decide to
publicly accuse one of the most powerful men in the world of one of the worst
crimes possible.

heres an article from npr (one of the most liberal new organizations on the
planet) addressing the issue and offering absolutely no evidence to contradict
it.

[http://www.npr.org/2016/10/09/497291071/a-brief-history-
of-j...](http://www.npr.org/2016/10/09/497291071/a-brief-history-of-juanita-
broaddrick-the-woman-accusing-bill-clinton-of-rape)

if anyone can point to evidence that proves her wrong then please let me know.
im impartial.

------
sremani
Why is this flagged ? The Outsourcing act itself has repercussions to tech
industry. This is not political opinion, its a policy pamphlet. Its fine, you
hate the man with all your guts out, but it would be a sign of maturity, to
argue for or against them, sharing your insights, rather than flagging the
message and flogging the messenger.

------
josephpmay
Why does this post show up as flagged, but there's no vouch button which I
normally see for flagged posts? I voted for Hillary, but this post shouldn't
be flagged.

~~~
sctb
The vouch button appears when a story is flagged to the extent that it's
killed, but [flagged] can appear before then. Since vouches saved this one and
it's on the front page, we've removed the [flagged] label. Edit: and now the
upvotes have countered the flags.

------
mrschwabe
Trump should append this contract with "End Internet shills" because it seems
there are a lot of them on this thread. Good golly, I thought finally CTR
would close up shop after last night.

For the first time in generations the USA finally has a president who isn't a
puppet. And this contract allows us to keep said President accountable from
day one. Nerds rejoice! Fear not the knee-jerk comments from un/mis-informed
trendies and especially ignore the talking-point bots still hating on Trump
via whatever is left in the Soros/CF payroll account. After years of trying
they ultimately failed and clearly cannot impact the will of the people at the
end of the day. MAGA.

~~~
allemagne
Grow up and realize that not everyone who disagrees with you is a "shill."
This goes for you and for every Trump supporter who made the internet an
intellectual wasteland during this election.

Trump won the election but lost the popular vote. Half the country finds him
personally repulsive. His presidency will be more contentious than any other
in memory. Like any other politician, he will not deliver on his promises and
he will not fix complex problems just by being willing to "get things done."

There will never ever be any shortage of people genuinely willing to criticize
Trump for free.

~~~
mrschwabe
You say to grow up but in the following sentence you lob a totally unnecessary
insult, shifting blame as if there is none to fall on those who supported the
Clinton campaign.

You say Trump won the election but lost the popular vote; ok I'll give you
that (ignoring for a moment the culture of criminality of the Clinton campaign
and the possibility for election fraud ) but the margin of that popular vote
is only by a 0.2 to 0.7% lead [0]. Hardly more than 50% if even.

Regardless, if I'm not mistaken, the popular vote doesn't determine who
becomes President so this argument is flawed because if popular vote did
determine who became President then the Trump campaign could very well have
optimized their campaign to win said popular vote; requiring a different
strategy but one that could very well have been successful just as they were
at winning the battleground states as they did, and as so few predicted.

You say that half the country finds him personally repulsive. Why is that? I
just laid out some facts about the media collusion and attempts to smear and
disrupt his character and campaign. Why is your angst not directed at the
sell-out mainstream media for helping to coordinate the propaganda which is
now so deeply rooted in people's opinions towards the now President to be?

Finally, maybe it would be better to give the new President a chance to
implement his promises before judging him on that regard. Maybe he is not like
any other politician, after all he's the only President to ever take office
who has no prior position in politics or military.

[0]
[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2016/presidential-...](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2016/presidential-
election-headquarters)

~~~
zimpenfish
> but the margin of that popular vote is only by a 0.2 to 0.7% lead

Although the count hasn't yet finished - California could tip that a few %
points upwards.

