Assessing President Rodham Clinton's first 100 days

Having closed out the first one hundred days of the new administration, an assessment of the new president's accomplishments is in order. By any objective historical measure, the achievements of President Hillary Rodham Clinton have been extraordinary. Let's start with the Budget and Defense One-Two Punch. The Omnibus Budget Act of 2017, passed by Congress and signed by the president in record time, calls for beefy increases in the budgets of the administration's surrogate agencies: a 31% increase for the EPA, a 6% increase for the Department of Energy, and a 12% increase for the Department of the Interior, to name just a few. All of these increases have been offset dollar-for-dollar either by reductions in spending for the Pentagon and Department of Defense or by increases in taxes on the rich. "The era of the American military being used to intimidate and assault the freedom-loving people of the world is over," Clinton is alleged to have proclaimed.

Some critics of Clinton's budget have suggested that she is merely trading the externally facing military for the domestic-facing para-military, noting that many of the increases to the agencies are earmarked for "energetic and proactive enforcement" of regulations and that procurement requests for weapons and ammunition for the EPA's various SWAT teams have already increased since passage of the budget. The First Amendment has undergone a refreshing rebranding under the Clinton administration. "Hate groups, hateful individuals and hate speech will no longer be permitted to hide behind the Bill of Rights, like terrorists using civilian children as human shields" (also alleged but not disputed). Accordingly, all universities that accept federal funding, or that accept students who have taken federal student loans or grants, have been advised to follow the leadership of the University of California, Berkeley in setting standards for who may be allowed to speak on campus. Dozens of "Tea Party" groups have lost their tax-exempt status. "Lois Lerner was too lenient," one staffer remarked off the record. "We are cracking down for real this time." Gun violence should be seeing a substantial reduction under the Clinton administration now that the national gun registry database is actively integrating records from state-level sales and other sources, and with mandatory universal enrollment required of all firearm owners before year's end. At least one source close to the administration has said candidly off the record that "the die is cast. Before the end of the first HRC term, we'll have [confiscated] all of their guns." When asked what about those gun owners who would not be willing to give up their guns regardless of cost to themselves, the same staffer shrugged. "Then they will pay that cost." "Syrian" "refugees" and sanctuary cities are thriving in America. Due to the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia and the precipitous retirement in February of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clinton has been given her golden opportunity to railroad through her picks for the Supreme Court. As a result, Elizabeth Warren is on track to become the first Native American female justice, with Loretta Lynch not far behind (with the competing double-credential of first black woman – which will triumph?). Those irritating challenges to the constitutionality of the administration's agenda from freedom of speech to gun control will all be DOA. And of course, Obamacare is on the point of being repealed and replaced...with a single-payer system run exclusively by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in close consultation with the Veterans Administration and the Bureau of Indian Affairs: "America (finally) Cares." (End of nightmare fantasy. We now return you to your regularly scheduled life.) Regardless of any failing of the Trump administration, "bullet" is far too feeble a word to describe what we as a nation have dodged. Howard Hyde is editor of www.CitizenEcon.com, fellow of the American Freedom Alliance, and author of the books Pull the Plug on Obamacare (2013) and Escape From Berkeley: An EX liberal progressive socialist embraces America (and doesn't apologize) (2016).