Off topic. How I believe most people feel about Trump now, hope is diminishing

Not at all. I still have hope that President Trump with help lower small business taxes from 35% to 15%. I currently pay 15% bracket (MFJ), as a beneficiary of previous tax cuts, and it's only fair that we cut taxes for people who are still paying higher rates.

As for health care, perhaps the answer does not lie in government. Now getting rid of mandates for things not everyone needs or wants (maternity, etc.) would help. Like sharkhunter, 2 years ago I moved to a HDHP with HSA. That and asking for the "cash price" has been helpful. The main cost driver, though, was declining or putting things off, I am sad to say.

We're tried to "lower healthcare costs" over the last, what 27-27 years? PPO ... HMO ... None of it works because patients do not fundamentally want anyone in the system, except for physicians, to have a say. So any driver to reduce costs or prices needs to be at the patient-->physicians interface. It cannot be a bean counter. It cannot be the insurance co. But the patients need more ownership of that they will or will not purchase and what they will or will not accept.

As for strip cubs, I've stay home today, and every night since last Sept. Cash liquidity is poor so I'm collecting stamps. good thing, too, because I also hate country music. :)

Don't lose faith in 'Teh Donald."

@dom - Real curious here...what do you mean by "mandates for things not everyone needs or wants (maternity, etc...)." That struck a bit of a nerve with me, so before I misconstrue anything and look like a complete jackass by responding to hastily, I'd like to be educated on what you meant there.

not gonna bother reading that, he has been president for 5 months nothing is slipping away

@ime close your eyes? Good strategy. Might want to cover your ears too while you're at it.

The markets might have given him a vote of confidence on Friday. I'll look at it some more this afternoon and report back. I actually like alot of his agenda: build walls, build nukes, build up the military, cut taxes: deficit be damned! Growth will cover it and more.

My hope is that everyone understands the entire picture of what is taking place --good and bad and understands a lot of what we are seeing has to do with a broken political and media system as well as a guy who is not a politician sitting in the middle of a viper invested slime pit.

Trump was not my first choice nor my second but he beat the one person I wanted in office the very least----and he'd after to sink three times as low in my opinion before I thought he came close to the Hildabeast in being bad for this nation.

I feel that most of America feels the exact same way about Trump as they did before the election. The only thing that's changed is their use of confirmation bias to report on him and his administration after he has become president.

If you ignore the media and the pundits, then you've done better than the majority.

The Trump presidency is a train wreck and will continue to be so. I get a chuckle out of his supporters that actually think the dude has some type of ideology he believes in instead of him just being a carny that ran from president for the attention.

I agree with the OP that our political system is completely broken. It is a testament to how great our nation is that we come this far with a broken ill-functioning government that can get nothing done. This dysfunction puts all our freedoms at risk.

As for Healthcare, a good portion of Americans get HC thru their employers. Employers do not want to cover their employees and no longer have much incentive to do so. The employers are and insurance companies are doing what is best for them not what's best for the working folks. This is where Trump came from but he is just supporting the corps and insurance companies. The people that supported him are SOL.

@estafador yeah close my eyes it has been 5 months and there has been an unprecedented amount of opposition every time he tries to do something. So a piece like this condemning him is just more of the same. Open your eyes you dumb twat. I am not a Trump fan but as a country we don't do shit because everyone just picks a side and then don't listen to each other.

^well said.

^^^How is calling someone a "dumb twat" well said ? That in a nutshell is what is really causing the the dysfunction in our political system.

@ime - unprecedented opposition?!?! His party has a majority in both the house and the senate and he was able to handpick a supreme court justice. Just what in the world is your definition of "unprecedented opposition" because from my vantage point, if he is indeed halfway comptent and has ideas/plans that are actually good and realistic, his actual resistance is close to nil and only is self created as excuses.

"Noise" from the outside and media is not unprecented opposition, its simply being the president, especially when you're not doing a terribly great job and aren't very popular. Obama absolutely had to deal with that, George W certainly did as well. Don't make excuses where there aren't any.

I for one think if he kept his family out of the office instead of putting them in every position he can he'd get a little less criticism. I heard he's putting Baron in the position of FBI director next week.

Lol! Isn't Barron 10 y/o? (And I honestly can't remember a guy who had a kid when he was in his 60s. Can the rest of you?)

I guess that's one way to make sure he has control over the FBI, though.

I hope the President and congress succeed in passing good tax cuts that save us money and boost the economy. I hope Trump and congress succeed in making health care a lot less expensive. I still have hope but that hope is diminishing with each blunder, each big goof up. The republicans have control of congress and the White House. There is opposition but that is expected. If they fail now, they will lose power and their one shot. Congressional elections will be coming up next year, then 2020 will be here and things will likely be worse due to central banks tightening things because I do believe they are in with the established elites wanting control over most people.
I read Trump's budget was going to spend more money on Medicaid then in the entire history of the US. What got reported? Trump's budget was going to be a massive budget cut to Medicaid. What's true? Both. Entitlement programs are growing so fast that our government can't afford to pay for everything. Where does the money come from? Taxpayers and taxes. With entitlement spending this nation will owe something like 100 trillion dollars and that is over a million dollars per family of 4 or higher. There is no way we can afford to pay that. I hope Trump and congress don't blow their chance at changing course.

On the other hand I was ok with Hillary's plan to fix social security a bit by dropping the cap on wage income subject to the tax.

Trump being Trump, I doubt he will ignore the investigations but if I were his advisor, I would try to make it all sound irrelevant and a waste of time for anyone to focus on any criminal wrong doing by just saying he has pardon power and he will use it, now let's work on reducing American's health care premiums, costs, and tax cuts.
I would advise him to no longer comment on any investigations or talk about comey. If asked he can say no comment, he's listening to a new advisor. His focus is on helping the American public, not helping liberal democrats trying to oppose tax cuts.

"How is calling someone a "dumb twat" well said ?"

My comment was in response to lone wolf. My bad.

Actually, Barron's 11 now, so he should be ready to lead the FBI. LOL!

@Dougster I think Larry King had a kid in his 70s and I seem to remember one of the Rolling Stones Fathering a child in his late 60s as well, does seem selfish though to me, but Trump is a greedy, selfish, fat son of a bitch, wouldn't surprise me if that kid was artificially conceived, or maybe even by a stand in, possibly one of his older sons.

Half the Republicans in Congress want to see Trump fail rather than upset the sweet thing they've got going in DC. While Republicans nominally control both the House and Senate, it doesn't help Trump. About 75% of congress oppose him.

Trump is a disaster, but it's only been a few months, give him a little more time to implode.

He'll do to the country what he did to his businesses. Bankrupt it and make people think he is a success, all the while hoping for a Russian bailout. No one but Donald is going to get what they want. Tax breaks, more jobs, and a more secure nation. Nope, he is out for ego and ego alone.

txtnddt neds spel fxr ifen he b tryn z pint dat he b desoar whinner ! Dommy Dommy hahahahahaha !

Sooner Trump is out, and the sooner his party looses control of Congress, the better. I don't support Trump, the Republicans, or Bloomberg's.

SJG

Stones - Tumbling Dice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U8JlcB_…

I only go to strip clubs that play both kinds of music - country AND western

@OP wrote: "....and a better, less expensive health care system. "
---------------------------------------
Health care is the single most important topic, to me. I thing the Republicans are really going to go through with the house plan to gut Medicaid expansion and real Obamacare. If if they don't directly real Obamacare, they can simply create enough confusion and uncertainty about Obamacare subsides to make it collapse on its own. Obamacare is already in very perilous condition.

The CBO scored the GOP health care plan as causing 23M people to lose their insurance. It's a transfer of wealth to the top 2%, and it will cause massive grief.

I used to dislike GW.Bush, but my feeling about Trump is more of a seething hatred. I seriously hope the guy drops dead of a heart attack and rots in eternal hell.

think*

repeal*

It took Obama, Pelosi and Reid 23 months to line up all the democrats behind the pork laden political disaster that became known as Obamacare. Other than the ACA, the only "accomplishments" of Obama were acts taken without support from the Legislative or the majority of American citizens. Trump has been on the job for less than 5 months and he has already "undone" over half of Obama's executive actions and agency rules. Clearly Trump cannot reverse the multi-billion dollar give away to Iran, but he has pulled out of the Paris fraud. Whether Trump is able or willing to keep other campaign promises will likely be a subject of argument up until the moment he keeps his promise - or fails.

For me, I chose Trump as a far better alternative to Clinton even though I did not agree with many of his pre-campaign positions and I doubted he intended to keep many promises. So I am already very impressed with President Donald J. Trump. He has, in just 5 months, kept more campaign promises than the preceding three presidents combined.

Perhaps keeping his word is why D.C. is fighting him so hard.

You know something, @Dallas, as long you we all have enough disposable income to piss away on strippers, life is fine, and the rest of those poor fuckers can just go and suck death.

Random, I agree on the disposable income (which may be why I am watching carefully for the tax changes - I depend on cap gains for a lot of that stripper money), but I don't really wish ill upon the mentally deficient who supported the witch or demand impeachment of the President because he isn't she! Though I do enjoy seeing their discomfort every time he confounds their desires.

Gimmee a break. Trump has to fight the dems, the media, the rinos, and the deep state. Considering all that he is WINNING. Trump 2020 Keeping America Great!

@Dallas wrote: "but I don't really wish ill upon the mentally deficient who supported the witch or demand impeachment of the President because he isn't she! "
---------------------
Of course what you're missing is that something like 10M Trump supporters voted to lose their health insurance. This GOP healthcare bill is incredibly unpopular. If it does pass, it will cause such massive voter backlash that we're probably get single-payer healthcare when the Democrats do regain the Senate.

..and that's what I predict is gonna happen.

we'll not we're.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/tru…

Congress will pass some sort of tax cuts which Trump will sign.

Trump never had a plan for Health Care. His campaign promises amounted to magic wishes. A big part of the problem is simply we are living longer, but need more health care to keep us alive. We have treatments for diseases that were once deadly but now are expensive.

Obviously it would be great if we could get our health care costs relative to GDP in line with the rest of the developed world. But I don't think most Republicans want to go the only route that might actually work for that.

I should have said the president to sign the eventual tax cuts may be Pence. 50-50 chance this Russia thing takes Trump down. It's potentially yuger that Watergate. He has the biggest scandals. The best scandals.

By my reading of the Constitution, so long as they have 2/3rds, they can install anyone they want as President. It does not need to be Pence or anyone else in the live of succession.

SJG

Get 2/3 of Congress to agree on anything.

The most likely scenario is the Nixon route. Trump resigns, Pence takes over and pardons him.

^^^^ Above is possible. But remember, before they started putting Dan Quayle on Mickey Mouse watches:

https://www.worthpoint.com/files/94/c643…

They first had to come up with a way to get him to resign, before they could bear down on Nixon. Tax evasion, resignation in lieu of prosecution.

SJG

@JamesSD Mike Pence has just announced that he has now hired his own attorney to represent him with the special prosecutor. Talk about running away from Trump.

^^^^^ Thank you for that info 25. Extremely interesting.

SJG

Mike Pence lawyers up:

http://theweek.com/speedreads/706283/mik…

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/F…

http://www.kspr.com/content/news/4287371…

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/l…

SJG