<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/whoopi-goldberg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Whoopi Goldberg</a> snapped at former President Donald Trump on Tuesday, claiming that if he touched entitlements, “we could put you in jail.”
Goldberg, who was responding to Trump’s recent remarks regarding how badly “mismanaged” entitlements have been in the past, made the comments on ABC’s midday talk show “The View.”
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Whoopi tells Trump: &quot;We could put you in jail&quot; if you touch entitlements. <a href="https://t.co/saYFz3r2Do">pic.twitter.com/saYFz3r2Do</a>
&mdash; Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) <a href="https://twitter.com/NickFondacaro/status/1767569624332198038?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 12, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Goldberg began the segment with a clip of Trump giving a phone interview on CNBC&#8217;s &#8220;Squawk Box,&#8221; where he lamented the poor management of entitlement programs in years past.
&#8220;The bad management, the tremendous bad management of entitlements, there&#8217;s tremendous amounts of things, number of things you can do,&#8221; Trump said, apparently suggesting entitlement reform in some fashion.
&#8220;Yeah, we could put you in jail — for all of your entitlements,&#8221; Goldberg said as the clip ended. &#8220;You know, Social Security is not an entitlement, we paid for that. We paid for that. Every time you get a check, you paid into the &#8230; you know, this is your money!&#8221;
Goldberg did not mention a whole host of other entitlements – including a litany of <a href="https://federalsafetynet.com/welfare-programs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">federal welfare programs</a> — most of which provide funds, resources, or services to people who did not pay into the system in the way they would for Social Security.
According to Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, Trump had been &#8220;talking about cutting waste, not entitlements,&#8221; <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/11/politics/trump-entitlements-social-security-medicare/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNN reported</a>.
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<p class="paragraph inline-placeholder" data-uri="cms.cnn.com/_components/paragraph/instances/cltn9bvwh00083b6gg58qdtmn@published" data-editable="text" data-component-name="paragraph" data-article-gutter="true" data-analytics-observe="off">&#8220;President Trump delivered on his promise to protect Social Security and Medicare in his first term, and President Trump will continue to strongly protect Social Security and Medicare in his second term. The only candidate who poses a threat to Social Security and Medicare is Joe Biden,&#8221; Leavitt said.
<p class="paragraph inline-placeholder" data-uri="cms.cnn.com/_components/paragraph/instances/cltn9bvwh00093b6gp5m6yk6k@published" data-editable="text" data-component-name="paragraph" data-article-gutter="true" data-analytics-observe="off">&#8220;By unleashing American energy, slashing job-killing regulations, and adopting pro-growth America First tax and trade policies, President Trump will quickly rebuild the greatest economy in history and put Social Security and Medicare on a stronger footing for generations to come.&#8221;

WHOOPI GOLDBERG

Whoopi Snaps At Trump, Says If He Touches Entitlements, ‘We Could Put You In Jail’

Donald Trump

Entitlement Reform

Media

The View

U.S.

Whoopi Goldberg

If Joe Biden&#8217;s policies were wildly popular, everybody would overlook the fact that the man walks into walls.
But his policies are terrible.
On Tuesday, it was reported that the index of consumer prices rose 3.2% in February from one year earlier. We try to keep the rate at 2%. But we are still clocking in at well above 3% — which is 50% higher than what we want. Core price inflation is sitting at 3.8%; again, we aim for 2%.
That means all of the interest rates are going to remain high for the foreseeable future. The Federal Reserve tries to combat inflation by increasing interest rates — the overnight rate at which the Federal Reserve lends to banks and the banks lend to one another — and that is then passed on to the consumer.
The basic idea is that when you tighten up the credit, fewer people are borrowing; less money flowing around the economy means the prices tend to decrease. That&#8217;s the reason to increase interest rates.
The Federal Reserve wanted to decrease the interest rates in advance of the election to get that money flowing again, to heat up the economy, to make sure that hiring stays at really high levels leading up to Biden&#8217;s reelection effort in November.
But inflation is not cooperating, so interest rates are likely to stay high — which is why a few years ago you could get a mortgage for 3% and now a mortgage is costing you roughly 7%.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1923-spending-like-there-s-no-tomorrow-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
The stickiness in the real estate market is created not by demand for single family housing, but by the lack of actual supply. No one can sell their high-priced house right now because if they did, the interest rate for their current mortgage, which they took out five years ago at 3%, would increase to 7% for the new mortgage for the new house.
So nobody&#8217;s actually selling right now.
The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jones-03-11-2024/card/white-house-forecasts-somewhat-higher-interest-rates-6wcHJKhbxfffDfPSpAKs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> on Monday:
<blockquote>President Biden signaled optimism during a campaign event last week that the Federal Reserve was going to cut interest rates soon. The economic forecasts in his <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/biden-budget-kicks-off-election-year-fight-over-medicare-social-security-42c7318f" target="_blank" rel="noopener">budget released Monday</a> offer a different message: curb your enthusiasm. …
Economic forecasts released Monday as part of the White House’s 2025 budget proposal assume that three-month Treasury bill rates will average 5.1% this year, the same as in 2023, before declining to 4% next year and 3.3% in 2026.
The White House sees the average 10-year Treasury note yield rising to 4.4% this year from 4.1% last year and then declining gradually to 3.7% by the end of this decade. 
The White House last year projected a somewhat lower path for interest rates in part because it assumed a meaningful slowdown in growth for 2023 that didn’t materialize. </blockquote>
If you sell a bond and interest rates are high — 7% or 8%, or in this case 5% — that means that the U.S. government is going to have to pay that off down the road.
This means when you take on new debt, it is more expensive — and that&#8217;s a big problem because we are blowing out spending like nobody&#8217;s business.
Joe Biden has a plan. His political plan is twofold. One: Promise to spend more money than anybody has in human history. Two: Soak the rich. That&#8217;s going to be his two-pronged economic plan, which is nothing new; we&#8217;ve seen that from every Democrat since Bill Clinton. The idea was to promise the world to voters, promise to spend money that does not exist, and do so by borrowing and taxing.
But the taxes never actually materialized because tax revenue is not capable of sustaining the kind of spending we are doing now, unless you decide to really tax the middle class. What Democrats want is the Norwegian standard of living without the kind of oil wealth provided by the Norwegian oil industry and without taxing the middle class in the way that Norway does.
The dirty secret of living in Scandinavia is that they tax everybody who makes about $60,000 a year at the same rate they tax those who make $500,000 a year. But America has an incredibly progressive tax system. People at the top of the income spectrum pay nearly all the taxes in the United States. That is not true in the social democracies of European countries, which start taxing people at exorbitant rates when they hit the lower-middle class.
But that&#8217;s something Democrats don&#8217;t want to do because they understand that if they do so, it would be politically unpopular with many of the people who are going to vote for them.
So, instead, they decide to promise extraordinary levels of spending and try to force Republicans into the corner — because Republicans are going to say we can&#8217;t spend that much.
This is why Biden has now released his fiscal 2025 budget, which has no chance of passage. It’s a list of priorities for Biden. And what exactly are Biden&#8217;s priorities?
Taxing people a lot of money, cutting military spending in the face of the most chaotic world situation of the modern era, and maintaining the spending trajectory of Social Security and Medicare.
And somehow, he says this is going to lower the deficit.
How is it going to do that? He’s assuming he can radically increase taxes without affecting the economy, which of course, is not the way any of this works. Radically increasing taxes causes people to spend less money. That&#8217;s the way it tends to work. You can tax something to death. But you cannot tax something into prosperity.
He&#8217;s proposing a $7.3 trillion budget. This is patently insane on its face. First, even during the pandemic in 2021, we did not spend that much money. The United States government spent about $6.8 trillion. The same was true in 2020. That was during a full-scale pandemic when people were told to stay home and the federal government paid everyone&#8217;s bills for a year.
These levels of government spending are not justified. We&#8217;re not even in the middle of a pandemic.
Biden’s budget would raise taxes on wealthy people and large corporations. When you tax a corporation, that cost is passed on to the people who work for the corporation; they have less money to pay their employees.
But Biden says this will somehow trim the deficit and lower the cost of prescription drugs, childcare, and housing. When he says he will lower the costs of goods and services like this, what he really means is that the federal government is going to start subsidizing.
And there has yet to be a product developed by human beings subsidized by the federal government in which the cost does not go up.
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Biden is already stagnating the economy. The real threat to the American economy in the long-term is not inflation. Inflation will come back down under control. The real danger is the stagnating economy for the foreseeable future.
In an article titled “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-budget-fy-2025-defense-spending-taxes-25f09b63" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Biden Offers a Budget Fantasy</a>,” the Wall Street Journal reports, “Mr. Biden’s deficits mean that debt as a share of the economy also keeps rising. He foresees debt held by the public rising to 102.2% in 2025, though it was only 79% as recently as 2019.”
That means more money will be spent in terms of servicing our national debt than we spent on our military budget every year in the very near future.
“Public debt in his budget keeps growing and growing — to 106% of GDP in 2030. Interest on that debt will surpass defense spending this year when it hits $890 billion, and it keeps climbing to $1.57 trillion over the next decade,” the Wall Street Journal added.
None of this makes any fiscal sense. When he says he&#8217;s going to tax the rich to get out of this, the simple fact of the matter is that there is no way to tax the rich enough to pay for the kinds of things Biden wants to pay for. He doesn&#8217;t really want to pay for them because he knows this is not going to pass.
So why does Biden propose nonsensical things that will go nowhere?
Because he&#8217;s trying to pick fights with Republicans. That&#8217;s really what this is all about.

President Biden Speaks On Lowering Costs

Biden’s Economy Makes No Sense. It’s Simply An Excuse To Attack Republicans

2024 Election

Ben Shapiro

Budget

Federal Government

Interest Rates

Joe Biden

National Debt

Opinion

Readers Pass

Conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives have proposed an alternative budget proposal for fiscal year 2023 that would balance the federal budget within seven years.
The proposed <a href="https://banks.house.gov/uploadedfiles/fy23_budget_final_copy.pdf">budget</a>, dubbed the &#8220;<a href="https://rsc-banks.house.gov/news/press-releases/rsc-releases-fy2023-budget-blueprint-save-america">Blueprint to Save America</a>,&#8221; was written by the Budget and Spending Task Force, an arm of the conservative Republican Study Committee. The proposal would balance the federal budget by cutting spending and regulatory bloat, cut spending by $16.6 trillion over 10 years, and cut taxes by $3.9 trillion over that same period.
“Since taking office, President Biden and his liberal allies in Congress have brought our county closer than ever to a full-scale debt crisis,&#8221; members of the RSC said in a letter prefacing the proposal. &#8220;The so-called American Rescue Plan amounted to little more than a $2 trillion pay-off to liberal special interests, fueling inflation and crushing working-class Americans. Even though our national debt now stands at $30.4 trillion, the radical liberals running the White House and in Congress continue to push their far-left Build Back Broke agenda, which would spend another $5 trillion. As is always the case, working-class Americans will foot the bill.&#8221;
&#8220;Even before passage of the American Rescue Plan, balancing the federal budget was set to be a herculean task,&#8221; the Committee continued, slamming the Biden Administration for passing &#8220;the most expensive budget request in history.&#8221; The Committee said that the budget proposal, which would keep the federal budget deficits at levels above $1 trillion for years, &#8220;shows that Democrats have no plan to prevent the world’s largest economy from collapsing under the weight of its unsustainable and accelerating debt.&#8221;
“Fortunately for America, producing an alternative budget is the Republican Study Committee’s signature issue,&#8221; the RSC continued, noting that the Budget and Spending Task Force produces an annual proposal to provide a roadmap toward fiscal security while lowering taxes. The RSC also slammed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and the Democratic-controlled House for favoring far-Left interests, ignoring the debt crisis, and refusing to pass a budget.
The 122-page budget proposal covers a broad variety of conservative priorities. Here is a list of just some of the policy objectives it includes:
<ul>
<li>drastically reform American regulatory structures, increasing transparency.</li>
<li>reinstate and build on former President Trump&#8217;s Executive Order requiring two regulations to be cut for every new regulation enacted.</li>
<li>allowing for Congressional review of regulations.</li>
<li>unleash American energy production by forcing the Executive Branch to conduct oil and gas lease sales and expedite the permitting process.</li>
<li>remove regulatory barriers to nuclear power.</li>
<li>authorize the Keystone XL pipeline and all necessary infrastructure.</li>
<li>opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Gulf of Mexico to new drilling.</li>
<li>reform occupational licensing.</li>
<li>overhaul the tax code.</li>
<li>reform entitlement programs to favor families and establishing work requirements with the goal of moving people off government assistance.</li>
<li>combating fraud in social safety net programs.</li>
<li>declare that life begins at conception.</li>
<li>ban abortions after a heartbeat is detected.</li>
<li>creating a federal Parents&#8217; Bill of Rights.</li>
<li>discouraging Critical Race Theory being taught in schools and prohibiting CRT to be taught in federal agencies, schools receiving federal funds, and the military.</li>
<li>protecting women&#8217;s rights in girls&#8217; and women&#8217;s sports.</li>
<li>finish the border wall.</li>
<li>reducing health care regulations.</li>
<li>reforming Medicare and Social Security.</li>
</ul>
The Biden administration&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-says-fiscal-responsibility-is-one-of-the-values-of-his-enormous-5-8-trillion-budget-proposal">$5.8 trillion budget proposal</a>, released in March, has been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/arsonist-taking-credit-for-containing-a-fire-gop-senators-blast-biden-admin-for-claiming-5-8-trillion-budget-is-fiscally-responsible">slammed</a> by Republicans since it was unveiled. In unveiling his proposal, Biden touted the claim that budget deficits would be reduced by $1.3 trillion, a claim he has repeated since, despite the fact that much of that deficit reduction is due to COVID-related funds being disbursed.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget also notes that while deficits will be cut in the short-term, deficits will only increase in the long-term.

Screen Shot 2022-06-03 at 2.25.28 PM

House Republicans’ ‘Blueprint To Save America’ Would Balance Budget In 7 Years, Cut $3.9 Trillion In Taxes

House Republicans' 'Blueprint To Save America' Would Balance Budget In 7 Years, Cut $3.9 Trillion In Taxes

House Republicans

spending

Taxes

&#8220;There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword and the other is by debt.&#8221;
&#8211; John Adams

Paul Ryan, for all his flaws as an immigration dove and record of taking tough votes such as the grotesquely cronyist <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2012/08/ryans-voting-record-big-spending-conservatism-079688">TARP bailout</a>, was nonetheless almost single-handedly responsible for making entitlement reform a part of Republican Party economic orthodoxy. Ryan&#8217;s &#8220;<a href="https://paulryan.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=201669">Roadmap for America&#8217;s Future</a>,&#8221; first introduced in 2008 and <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/41860">later</a> more fully flushed out, detailed the Wisconsin congressman&#8217;s policy vision for a future that included structural reforms &#8212; including means-testing, introduction of competitive market forces, and optionality for privatization measures &#8212; to America&#8217;s bankrupting entitlement programs of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. In the era of Barack Obama&#8217;s trillion-dollar deficits and quasi-nationalization of the health insurance industry, Ryan&#8217;s arguments quickly moved from the wonky fringe to the mainstream of GOP policy advocacy. The culmination of Ryan&#8217;s popularity within the party was his being tapped as Mitt Romney&#8217;s running mate in the 2012 presidential election.
The nomination and subsequent election of Donald Trump severely shifted the mood, within the GOP, as to the desire for and urgency of entitlement reform measures. Trump, famously, campaigned on populist pleas to &#8220;protect&#8221; Medicare and Social Security against those who would seek to structurally reform the programs so as to make them fiscally sustainable. Seen through this prism, Trump&#8217;s shifting the GOP away from entitlement reform may be viewed as part of the broader <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42234/hammer-path-forward-conservative-movement-josh-hammer">tension</a> within conservative ranks between traditional libertarian/neoliberal laissez-faire and ascendant Tucker Carlson economic populism.
The GOP can, and should, air out policy debates that may sometimes offend the delicate sensibilities of The Wall Street Journal editorial board and other bastions of 1980s-style Reaganism. A debate over low-skilled legal immigration &#8212; or legal immigration levels, more generally &#8212; cannot be an untouchable third rail. And more generally, it is entirely appropriate for Republicans to debate among themselves whether it makes more sense for a macroeconomy to more highly value gross domestic product and economic growth or to more highly value, à la <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Once-Future-Worker-Renewal-America-ebook/dp/B079617VFZ">Oren Cass</a>, the inherent dignity of labor.
It is quite likely that Trump&#8217;s reflexive opposition to entitlement reform measures amounts to a symptom &#8212; and not a cause &#8212; of the pulse of the Republican voting base. Giving away Free Stuff&#8482;&#65039; has always had strong bipartisan appeal. Sober, hard-headed straight talk about the absolute necessity to cut bankrupting spending programs? Not so much.
But Republicans need to rise to the occasion. There are two simple reasons. First, the impending <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-debt-crisis-is-coming-soon-11553122139">debt crisis</a> is very, very real absent structural entitlement reform. Second, the Republican Party &#8212; warts and all &#8212; remains the only political vessel that stands any (modicum) chance of advocating an intellectually serious approach to national fiscal solvency.
A Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-debt-crisis-is-coming-soon-11553122139">op-ed</a> last week by Harvard professor and longtime conservative economist Martin Feldstein succinctly lays out the problem:
<blockquote>
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the deficit this year will be $900 billion, more than 4% of gross domestic product. It will surpass $1 trillion in 2022. The federal debt is now 78% of GDP. By 2028, it is projected to be nearly 100% of GDP and still rising. All this will have very serious economic consequences, and the CBO understates the problem. It has to base its projections on current law&#8212;in this case, the levels of spending and the future tax rules and rates that appear in law today. 
Those levels don&#8217;t match realistic predictions. Current law projects that defense spending will decline as a share of GDP, from a very low 3.1% now to about 2.5% over the next 10 years. None of the military and civilian defense experts with whom I&#8217;ve spoken believe that will happen, given America&#8217;s global responsibilities and the need to modernize U.S. military equipment. It is likelier that defense spending will stay around 3% of GDP or even increase in the coming decade. And if the outlook for defense spending is increased, the Democratic House majority will insist that the nondefense discretionary spending should rise to match its trajectory. &#8230;
What does that mean for the long-run ratio of the federal debt to GDP? Federal debt will probably surpass 100% much sooner than 2028. If discretionary spending increases, debt growth will jump to 100% even quicker. When America&#8217;s creditors at home and abroad realize this, they will push up the interest rate the U.S. government pays on its debt. That will mean still more growth in debt. &#8230;
To avoid economic distress, the government either has to impose higher taxes or reduce future spending. Since raising taxes weakens incentives and further slows economic growth&#8212;worsening the debt-to-GDP ratio&#8212;the better approach is to slow government spending growth. &#8230; 
Thus the only option is to throw the brakes on entitlements. In particular, the government needs to hold back the growth of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Federal spending on the two major health programs is projected to rise from its current 5.5% of GDP to more than 7.2% by 2029. And it will only keep increasing after that.
</blockquote>
Or consider the prolific Brian Riedl, <a href="https://economics21.org/html/yes-entitlements-are-driving-long-term-debt-3025.html">writing</a> last April at Manhattan Institute&#8217;s &#8220;Economics 21&#8221; blog. Riedl lays out the staggering numbers pertaining to our bankrupting entitlement programs&#8217; impending fiscal shortfalls.
<blockquote>
CBO&#8217;s Long-Term Budget Outlook shows that between 2017 and 2047, Social Security and Medicare will run a cash deficit of $82 trillion. Specifically, Medicare will run a $40 trillion cash deficit, Social Security will run a $19 trillion cash deficit, and the interest costs of those deficits will add $23 trillion more. The rest of the budget had been projected to run a $4 trillion surplus over this period, although making the latest tax cuts permanent would likely change this to a roughly $5 trillion deficit.
As a percentage of GDP, CBO projects that Social Security and Medicare will continue to collect approximately 6 percent of GDP in dedicated revenues yet see spending rise from 8.1 percent today to 12.5 percent of GDP by 2047 &#8211; or 16.4 percent when including the interest cost of these deficits. The rest of the budget will remain approximately balanced at around 12 percent of GDP (or run a 1 percent deficit if the tax cuts are extended).
Generally, federal program spending outside Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is projected to continue declining as a share of the economy. Tax revenues &#8211; even with the tax cuts made permanent &#8211; are expected to soar past the 17.4 percent of GDP average of the past few decades and then continue rising due to inflationary increases in taxes and taxed retirement distributions.
In other words, CBO projects above-average tax revenues and falling spending for other programs. But the rise in Social Security, Medicare, and resulting interest costs from 8.1 percent to 16.4 percent of GDP between 2017 and 2047 determines nearly the entire rise in budget deficits.
</blockquote>
Perhaps, as investor Todd Stein <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/the-federal-government-should-default-on-its-debt">argues</a> at Fox Business, the current situation with our debt is already so hopeless that policymakers ought to consider a &#8220;soft default&#8221; &#8212; what Stein describes as a &#8220;one-time devaluation of the dollar which enables the government to pay back its debts in full, albeit at a lower intrinsic value.&#8221; Suffice it to say this is not a particularly pleasant thought experiment. Credit markets in economically lesser countries, such as Argentina, have often historically rebounded from sundry sovereign defaults. But how that situation would unfold in the context of the United States, the wealthiest nation in the world whose dollar serves as the world&#8217;s reserve currency, is at best an unsure proposition.
Perhaps a &#8220;soft default&#8221; will one day become necessary. Indeed, perhaps that day is sooner rather than later. 
But we are not quite there yet.
The better solution, in the immediate term, is for the Republican Party to make an actual public commitment to structural reform of our bankrupting entitlement programs. The GOP is the only major political party in America right now that has any chance of staving off a Greece/Italy-style debt crisis, wherein debt and interest rates begin to simultaneously rise in unsustainable seesaw fashion. It is only the GOP that has any fidelity &#8212; no matter how vestigial it may seem, at times &#8212; to free-market economics and the notion that private investment, which necessarily depends on not being <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdingouteffect.asp">crowded out</a> by debt-inducing government largesse, is the best economic engine for mass societal prosperity.
It is only the Republican Party that is capable of discussing our bankrupting entitlement program crisis like mature adults. Republicans should rise to the occasion. The future solvency of the republic depends on it.

HAMMER: Republicans Need To Be Adults And Talk About Entitlement Reform Again

Conservatism

Medicaid

Medicare

Republican Party

Social Security

Howard Schultz, the controversial outgoing Executive Chairman of Starbucks Coffee Company &#8212; and now a prospective 2020 candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination &#8212; ripped the Democrats Tuesday morning <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/05/howard-schultz-rips-democrats-for-veering-too-far-left.html?__source=sharebar|facebook&amp;par=sharebar">in an interview on CNBC</a>, suggesting the Democratic party needs a leader who won&#8217;t let it veer too far to the left.
Schultz also criticized Democrats for overspending, for promising to enact a single-payer healthcare system, and promising to provide jobs to the unemployed.
Schultz&#8217;s harsh words for Democrats might come as a shock: as CEO of Starbucks, Schultz reserved his criticism largely for conservatives. <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/03/11/are-starbucks-political-statements-backfiring.aspx">Schultz was vocally opposed</a> to Donald Trump&#8217;s so-called &#8220;Muslim&#8221; travel ban, was behind company-wide efforts to encourage &#8220;conversations&#8221; about race and gender, declared his cafes national &#8220;gun free zones,&#8221; eliminated Christmas-themed decorations from the company&#8217;s holiday cups and merchandise, and pledged to hire 10,000 refugees as a way of protesting the Trump Administration&#8217;s immigration policies.
Those policies ended up costing Starbucks with consumers and with the company&#8217;s own shareholders, something Schultz seemed fine with, so long as he was allowed to promote his leftist agenda through his coffee shops.
Now, charged with potentially handling more practical problems, it seems Schultz is trying to rebrand himself as a political and economic moderate, with a domestic policy agenda more similar to Hillary Clinton&#8217;s than Bernie Sanders&#8217;.
&#8220;It concerns me that so many voices within the Democratic Party are going so far to the left,&#8221; Schultz told CNBC&#8217;s &#8220;Squawk Box.&#8221; &#8220;I say to myself, &#8216;How are we going to pay for these things,&#8217; in terms of things like single payer [and] people espousing the fact that the government is going to give everyone a job. I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s realistic.&#8221;
&#8220;I think we got to get away from these falsehoods and start talking about the truth and not false promises,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I think the greatest threat domestically to the country is this $21 trillion debt hanging over the cloud of America and future generations. The only way we&#8217;re going to get out of that is we&#8217;ve got to grow the economy, in my view, 4 percent or greater. And then we have to go after entitlements.&#8221;
It&#8217;s nearly sacrosanct for a Democrat to suggest curbing entitlement spending, but Schultz is a businessman. It is hard to imagine, however, him succeeding in a crowded 2020 field with such . . . Republican . . . ideas.

Outgoing Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz Rips Democrats For Moving ‘Too Far Left’

Democratic National Committee

Democratic Party

Starbucks

Hosted by Dennis Prager himself, PragerU&#8217;s new short &#8220;<a href="https://www.prageru.com/videos/key-unhappiness">The Key To Unhappiness</a>&#8221; tackles the issue of gratitude. Prager argues that stirring ingratitude causes people to feel that they are victims who are entitled to things they did not earn. 
&#8220;How many times have you heard someone say they want to make a better world? It is a noble sentiment, but very hard to achieve, right?&#8221; Prager asks. 
&#8220;Well, actually, it&#8217;s quite easy,&#8221; he continues. &#8220;All we have to do is increase just one human trait. This trait is so powerful that it alone can make people happier without working on their happiness, and make them better &#8212; and by &#8216;better,&#8217; I mean more generous, more honest, more kind, more everything good &#8212; without a single lesson in morality.&#8221;
The &#8220;magical thing&#8221; that can transform individuals and society, he says, is simply &#8220;gratitude.&#8221;
Prager maintains that it is impossible to be happy if you are not grateful. &#8220;Almost everything good flows from gratitude, and almost everything bad flows from ingratitude,&#8221; he says. 
&#8220;Let&#8217;s begin with ingratitude,&#8221; he continues. &#8220;Here&#8217;s a rule of life: ingratitude guarantees unhappiness. It is as simple as that. There isn&#8217;t an ungrateful happy person on Earth. And there isn&#8217;t an ungrateful good person on Earth.&#8221;
Being ungrateful, he contends, inevitably leads to victimhood. Perceiving yourself as a victim or a member of victim group is one of the biggest reasons people hurt other people. 
Prager also discusses how ingratitude is always accompanied by anger. People who are ungrateful always lash out at others. 
Check out the video below:
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PragerU: The Key To Unhappiness

Dennis Prager

Prager University

Vice President Mike Pence visited the American Enterprise Institute&#8217;s headquarters on Tuesday, where he discussed President Donald Trump&#8217;s efforts at tax reform. During his remarks, Pence remarked, &#8220;And I&#8217;m here today to assure you that President Trump and I share your commitment &#8230; we share your commitment to those high American ideals, and we share your commitment to a boundless American future.&#8221;
Pence continued, &#8220;For far too long, the American people were enduring an ever-growing federal government that seemed intent on directing virtually every facet of American life, while too often failing to fulfill its most essential obligations to the American people.&#8221;
Pence also talked about how Americans were &#8220;suffocated&#8221; by the excessive regulations brought on by the last eight years of stagnated wages and a stalled economy. 
He continued, &#8220;In the midst of all of that disappointment, the American people struggled &#8230; they struggled to understand why America seemed unable to get its footing after the Great Recession in 2008 and before.&#8221;
Pence declared, &#8220;And to revive America&#8217;s economy, our administration has been rolling back regulations that stifle American businesses and have eroded opportunities for working families for far too long.&#8221;
He added, &#8220;The record is clear: This President will never punish the enterprise and prosperity of our people. He will only promote it. And already, the American economy is responding to our actions and our agenda.&#8221;
You can watch the remarks below:
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President Donald Trump has been sending Vice President Mike Pence on the campaign trail to tout the White House Administration&#8217;s efforts at tax reform. Earlier this <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/22116/mike-pence-talks-tax-reform-while-campaigning-jacob-airey">month</a>, Pence was in California campaigning for Republican candidates and praising Trump&#8217;s position on taxes.

WATCH: Pence To AEI, ‘We Share Your Commitment To A Boundless American Future’

Mike Pence

Trump Administration

White House

Monday, the Trump administration revealed parts of its 2017 budget proposal. According to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trump-to-propose-10-percent-spike-in-defense-spending-massive-cuts-to-other-agencies/2017/02/27/867f9690-fcf2-11e6-99b4-9e613afeb09f_story.html?utm_term=.77e5dfb1b157">The Washington Post</a>, &#8220;the defense budget will increase by 10 percent. Trump will also request $30 billion in supplementary military spending for the fiscal year 2017&#8230;&#8221;
The Post adds that according to an official, the administration wants to boost &#8220;defense-related spending&#8221; by &#8220;$54 billion while cutting other federal agencies by the same amount.&#8221;
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Budget and Management, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/27/trump-budget-shouldnt-surprise-anyone-omb-director/">said</a> the administration is making good on President Trump&#8217;s campaign promises:
<blockquote>
&#8220;We are taking his words and turning them into policies and dollars&#8230;It reduces money to other nations, eliminates duplicative programs, and eliminates programs that just don&#8217;t work.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Trump won&#8217;t be making any cuts to entitlement programs, which make up the bulk of government spending. Sunday, during an <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/02/26/trump-social-security-medicare/">interview</a> with Fox News, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said of entitlements: &#8220;We are not touching those now. So don&#8217;t expect to see that as part of this budget, OK?&#8221;
Throughout the presidential campaign, Trump promised to stay away from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
In March 2013, Trump <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Donald_Trump_Social_Security.htm">told</a> the crowd at CPAC: &#8220;As Republicans, if you think you are going to change very substantially for the worse Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in any substantial way, and at the same time you think you are going to win elections, it just really is not going to happen.&#8221;
In February, 2016, he slammed Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI), who has pushed desperately for entitlement reform, <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d6ba7cc6cf0b42e5b095003035b48f93/deficit-complicates-marriage-between-trump-gop-lawmakers">saying</a>: &#8220;&#8230;he represented cutting entitlements, etc, etc. The only one that&#8217;s not going to cut is me.&#8221;
In March 2016, Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/us/politics/social-security-safety-net-trump.html">said</a>: &#8220;I will do everything within my power not to touch Social Security, to leave it the way it is&#8230;I want to leave Social Security as is, I want to make our country rich again so we can afford it.&#8221;
Trump also <a href="http://www.redstate.com/diary/ulyssesarn/2016/03/29/trump-lies-paul-ryan-entitlement-reform-il-interview/">said</a> the following in March 2016: &#8220;You know, Paul wants to knock out Social Security, knock it down&#8211;way down. He wants to knock Medicare way down. And, frankly&#8211;well, two things. Number one, you&#8217;re going to lose the election if you&#8217;re going to do that&#8230;We have to do what is right, but you will lose the election if you do that. 
But more importantly, in a sense, I want to keep it. These people have been making their payments for their whole lives. I want to keep Social Security intact. Now, I want to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. I want to do a lot of things to it that are going to make it much better, actually. But I&#8217;m not going to cut it, and I&#8217;m not going to raise ages, and I&#8217;m not going to do all of the things that they want to do. But they want to really cut it, and they want to cut it.&#8221;
Just prior to the election, Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/us/politics/social-security-safety-net-trump.html">said</a>: &#8220;I am going to protect and save your Social Security and your Medicare&#8230;&#8221;
One has to go pretty far back to find a time when Donald Trump dared to speak about changes to Social Security, or entitlement programs. In his book, <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Donald_Trump_Social_Security.htm">The America We Deserve</a>, published in 2000, he wrote of &#8220;personal Social Security accounts.&#8221;
In short, although Donald Trump is a post-ideological president, and moreover, a man whose policy prescriptions have shifted multiple times over the course of the last two years, no one can credibly claim they are surprised by his refusal to touch entitlements.

UH-OH: Trump Stands Against Changes to Medicare, Social Security

Liberalism

House speaker Paul Ryan has not wavered in his belief that balancing the federal budget will require reducing entitlements, putting him at odds with president-elect Donald Trump, who as far back as 2008 ripped Ryan&#8217;s Medicare proposal, calling it &#8220;political suicide.&#8221;
As<a href="v"> Politico</a> reports, House Republicans are determined to balance the budget in the next 10 years, but in order for then to pass their 2018 budget this spring, entitlements like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security would have to be reformed.
Just after the November election, Ryan <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/11/is-paul-ryan-already-eyeing-medicare-cuts/?utm_term=.8ba3e2157fce">warned</a>:
<blockquote>
When Obamacare became Obamacare, Obamacare rewrote Medicare, rewrote Medicaid, so if you&#8217;re going to repeal and replace Obamacare, you have to address those issues as well. What people don&#8217;t realize is that Medicare is going broke, that Medicare is going to have price controls. Because of Obamacare, Medicaid is in fiscal straits. So you have to deal with those issues if you&#8217;re going to repeal and replace Obamacare. Medicare has got some serious problems because of Obamacare. Those things are part of our plan to replace Obamacare.
</blockquote>
House Budget Committee member Tom Cole explained, &#8220;There is no way to balance the budget without entitlement reform. It&#8217;s just simply mathematically impossible, and I think the most important thing for us is not to lose sight of that under pressure. We should write a budget that includes genuine entitlement reform.&#8221;
Rep. Chris Collins, an ally of Trump&#8217;s, warned, &#8220;We have a Republican administration with their own opinion, and we don&#8217;t want to get crosswise with them, and Donald Trump is still the head of the Republican party. But we still have our Freedom Caucus,&#8221; adding, &#8220;Who in the world would want to be speaker?&#8221;
Rep. Todd Rokita (R-Ind.), vice chairman of the Budget Committee, said hopefully, &#8220;Because he&#8217;s a businessman, and he knows how to read a balance sheet, he&#8217;s going to be able to see what the problem is, long term, regarding our debt. So I&#8217;m going to rely on that acumen to be able to have a truthful conversation about it.&#8221; He added that reducing the debt would &#8220;have to include entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.&#8221;
Trump&#8217;s incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus, has stated that Trump doesn&#8217;t want to &#8220;meddle&#8221; with entitlement reforms. He <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/reince-priebus-donald-trump-doesnt-want-to-meddle-with-medicare-social-security/">noted</a>, &#8220;He made a promise during the campaign that that was something he didn&#8217;t want to do. But what he wants to do is grow the economy, help shore up Medicare and Social Security for future generations,&#8221;
Ryan is not budging. On Thursday, he asserted, &#8220;More than half of the money going to Medicare right now is the money we borrow; Medicare goes bankrupt in the next decade. But if we want this program to succeed, we have to save it from the insolvency, the bankruptcy that&#8217;s coming.&#8221;

Trump Vs. Ryan On Entitlement Reform: Who Will Blink?

Paul Ryan

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