100 Days of President…FDR (and Trump)

President Trump finished his first 100 days in office, and everyone wants to give him a grade. Depending on who you ask, he has received grades from A- to F. One California Congresswoman wants to impeach him, which is pretty much a zero grade. The most accurate grade is “Incomplete.”

He did get a Supreme Court justice confirmed, got the oil flowing through Keystone, the stock market is up, and our friends around the world are pleased the U.S. is leading again, from the front. But Obamacare is still the law of the land and the wall on the southern border is on hold.

How do the first 100 days of Trump compare to the first 100 of FDR?

Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated as President March 4, 1933. This was a little over 3 years after the stock market crash that started the Great Depression. Democrats controlled Congress with 63% of the House and over 70% of the Senate. Even with that overwhelming majority, FDR, like Trump today, had battles with Congress. Programs or laws enacted included the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Glass-Stegall Act, National Recovery Administration (NRA), Federal Emergency Relief Act, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act.

Here are a few selected comments from Will Rogers’ syndicated daily newspaper columns during those 100 days.

“The whole country is with [Roosevelt]. Even if what he does is wrong they are with him.” March 5, 1933

“Say this Roosevelt is a fast worker. Even on Sunday… he closed all the banks [for 5 days] and called Congress into extra session.” March 6

“And Congress! I want to go on record as giving those rascals a world of credit. They have reformed and they look like they are sorry for what they have done for years.” March 17

“When he sends a message to Congress it ‘stays sent.’ Well, beer will be here Friday with the politician replacing the bootlegger.” Apr. 4

“I have always claimed that America didn’t want a drink as bad as they wanted the right to take a drink if they did happen to want one.” Apr. 7

“They say we are off the gold [standard].” April 20

“Say, this man Roosevelt not only makes Congress roll over and play dead, but by golly he made this tough guy Hitler promise to bring [warships] out of the water. Is there no end to this man’s cleverness? Course there is one thing about Europe. You can never believe ‘em the first time. They will agree to anything till it comes time to sign up.” May 17

“The phenomenal popularity of the Roosevelt administration now meets its severest test. They are starting to decide where all this money they have appropriated will come from.” May 22

“Things been just going along fine and it looked like we was going to have some real recovery with Mr. Roosevelt piloting. But I guess it’s about over. I see where Congress is starting taking themselves serious again.” June 5

“They talked about how fast Roosevelt got things done. Congress is going to make a snail out of him. They are going to undo in ten days what it took him ten weeks to do.” June 8

“Well there is bad news for the country this morning… Congress didn’t adjourn.” June 11

The Easter Giraffe, bunnies and plastic eggs

The “Easter Giraffe” gave birth with over a million people watching. The Easter Bunny was miffed, “On the same day, over a million bunnies were born and nobody was watching.”

Of course you can ask, how did a rabbit and a bunch of hen eggs replace the Risen Savior as our reason for Easter Sunday?

If you grew up in a country church, you may have had an Easter Egg Hunt after Sunday School. Everybody colored a dozen hard-boiled eggs, took ‘em to church and a couple of men would hide the eggs on church property or in a nearby field. Then the kids were turned loose to hunt eggs. Yes, hunt. Maybe 15 minutes later, all the eggs were found. The one with the most eggs got a small prize. Every Mom hoped her kids had found enough that she could make deviled eggs for dinner. Now, that may sound odd, Easter eggs converted to Deviled eggs, but they’re good eatin’, nothing sacrilegious.

But today, if you’re in town they scatter 10,000 plastic egg shells out on a manicured lawn, line up 1000 youngsters and blow a whistle. In less time than it takes to win the Kentucky Derby, the “eggs” have all been “found” and the so-called “hunt” is over. No matter how many you take home, Mom can’t devil ‘em.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“I bet any Sunday could be made as popular at church as Easter is if you made ‘em fashion shows, too.” DT #2718, Apr. 22, 1935

“I believe I discovered a way to aid preachers in getting people to church. Publish their pictures in the newspapers every Monday, instead of just on the day after Easter.” DT #836, Apr. 1, 1929

More jobs for electric power; fewer for farming

Jobs, jobs, jobs. Any announcement about a new business emphasizes the number of jobs created. Jobs are important. With 330,000,000 people we need to keep a whole bunch working. But is that the most important factor for the economy?

Look at the production of electricity. About 50,000 coal miners and 180,000 in the natural gas industry provide two-thirds of all our electricity. Of course not all coal and gas goes for electricity generation.

A lot of folks want to replace coal and gas with solar and wind. Do you remember when Hillary Clinton promised coal miners they would be retrained to work in the solar industry? Did you wonder if there would be enough job openings to hire all of them?

Here is a number that will relieve that concern, but is really scary: 250,000. That’s the number already working to produce solar energy. Wow, they must be producing a lot of electricity. Actually it’s less than 1 percent. To get half of our electricity from solar about 15,000,000 would be employed. For wind to produce the other half, about 1,000,000 workers would be required.

When it comes to jobs, no industry in this country has been more “anti-job creation” than farming. In 1900, about 30,000,000 worked on farms. Today, with 4 times as many people to feed, only about 6,000,000 are on our farms. Of course, our efficient farm production has created many millions of jobs in food processing and other agriculture businesses.

There is more to a growing economy than jobs.

The Trump Administration released numbers showing how wealthy a lot of their members are. It seems they’re all worth several million dollars, including Trump’s daughter Ivanka. We already knew that most of the Cabinet members are millionaires or billionaires. This report upset a lot of politicians, especially Democrats. Their view is that you’re not supposed to get rich until after you’ve left government, not before. They proudly point to Al Gore, the Clintons and President Obama.

The Republicans are so unorganized in Washington that Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer has offered to help. He says that the Republican nominee for the Supreme Court is unfit, and therefore he should get to pick the next Justice. And since the new Health Care bill did not get out of the House, he and Nancy Pelosi are offering to fix Obamacare for the Republicans. Democrats are awful generous that way. They’ll rewrite the bill, and all the Republicans have to do is write the check.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“About this Politics thing… The (Party) that’s out always looks the best.”

(These are authentic quotes, REVERSED)
“I’m not a member of any organized political party…. I’m a REPUBLICAN.”
“REPUBLICANS never agree on anything, that’s why they’re REPUBLICANS. If they agreed with each other, they’d be DEMOCRATS.”