The County Executor for Nassau County is now running against Representative Stefanik and appears to have a significant cadre of people, at least from his local area, supporting him. This is problematic for Ms. Stefanik on a number of levels, but most importantly because he comes from a large population center and she from a very small one. He also has a record as an elected governing official as opposed to a legislative official, which he will be able to run on and although he may not be much more popular in Democratic areas, he has, in fact, in Nassau County, beat the odds because the registration in Nassau County is slightly more Democratic than Republican
Prices keep rising but some MAGA supporters say that’s ok, they don’t blame him, so they must think Joe Biden is still in charge of the economy. DOGE has been silent for months now. Likely it means that Mr. Trump has nothing to brag about. In other words, DOGE didn’t actually save much. The deficit for the year ending September 30, 2025, decreased $41 billion dollars. Not much in savings given all of the hoopla surrounding DOGE. The projection for 2026, which is fully Mr. Trump’s issue, is an increase in the deficit by $400 billion, even with all of that tariff money we’re getting.
The recent Supreme Court argument regarding the removal of an FTC Commissioner demonstrated the complete lack of ethics of Judge Alito, as he sarcastically criticized the statements of Justice Sotomayor as to the impact of a discussion in favor of the President. He is such a sycophant that he is unable to view anything that is remotely like a neutral interpretation of the law.
Recent reports indicate that China’s economy is booming and, in fact, for the first time, has a trillion-dollar trade surplus, and that is after a decrease in US/China trade of at least 20%. It is clear that China has again outsmarted Mr. Trump and placed themselves in a position to take advantage of the situation which reflects that they were prepared for this kind of activity from Mr. Trump, including his tariff antics, and have found a way to better position themselves in their manufacturing sector, which is, in fact, booming. Mr. Trump promised tariffs would increase. However, US manufacturing is decreasing and China’s is increasing. Good job President Trump.
The President is now proposing a billion-dollar farm relief bill to offset the tariffs he imposed. That farmers need assistance but so do many other businesses that he is ignoring. We can only conclude the focus on farmers is because the majority of them voted for him, so it has nothing to do with doing the right thing, it just has to do with the political thing.
The healthcare situation continues to deteriorate as Republicans do not appear prepared to take any action relative to the Obamacare subsidies which will mean for many the loss of health insurance and for others tremendous increase in costs, and in many instances the end result will be the loss of providers in rural communities. Again, we need to say thanks to Mr. Trump for helping out our rural communities.
Mr. Trump has recently pardoned a number of major drug traffickers, including several high government officials, as well as run of the mill cartel leaders. We, of course, observed these pardons along with those given to those who attacked the US Capitol on January 6th, those who have committed incredible levels of fraud against middle-class Americans, and stolen literally millions of dollars. These pardons seem to have no legal, nor rational basis, and one can only conclude that Mr. Trump is receiving something for them whether that is merely to satisfy his MAGA supporters, which seems strange when it comes to drug cartels and people importing drugs which I believe MAGA supporters fully desire to curb. The level of inconsistency is somewhat hard to fathom as MAGA folks want the swamp cleaned out, yet Mr. Trump keeps dropping people back into the swamp. Another one of those confusing Trumpisms.
Bill Owens is a former member of Congress representing the New York 21st, a partner in Stafford, Owens, Piller, Murnane, Kelleher and Trombley in Plattsburgh, NY and a Strategic Advisor at Dentons to Washington, DC.
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