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So far, so good. Trump is surprising many people.
Trump administration set to unveil $1 trillion infrastructure proposal in 2018
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/26/trump-administration-set-to-unveil-1-trillion-infrastructure-proposal-in-2018.html
The Trump administration is expected to unveil an infrastructure package in the new year, after putting the issue on the sidelines amid other GOP priorities in 2017.
The White House is working to release a roughly 70-page infrastructure proposal sometime in January for members of Congress to use as a cornerstone for drafting the legislation in 2018.
That ought to help jobs, but wonder about deficits.
Donald Trump: "America is going to build again — under budget, and ahead of schedule"
i will check, good morning
Mick do you have a short list, like 3 or 4? Could you post it here please, thanks
i have been studying some.
got some here
http://investorshub.advfn.com/****-SNAP-CHAT-MESSENGERS-****-31446/
Not really, if you see one (with that story) please post mick.
And thanks for stopping by....
know any low pps share company's making smart bullets ?????
SCIFI Weapons That Actually EXIST!
Could get better under Trump? The only mentioned company with a US stock is Boeing.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=BA&p=D&yr=5&mn=0&dy=0&id=p52959890316
yes this stuff/ sci-fi weapons.
know anythin'ins on smart bullets ?????
thank you for having 'Trump Stump 2016'
The Left Melts Down After New England Patriot Super Bowl Victory
Posted by "Justified" at another iHb site.
LOL, white Trump supporter wins Super Bowl from behind, just like Trump won
http://ibankcoin.com/flyblog/2017/02/06/the-left-melts-down-after-new-england-patriot-super-bowl-victory/
These 85 stocks are now on a ‘buy’ list as Donald Trump takes office
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-85-stocks-are-now-on-a-buy-list-as-donald-trump-takes-office-2017-01-24?link=sfmw_fb
Senate Democrats to Propose $1 Trillion Infrastructure Plan
I wonder how much pork is hiding in this
Senate Democrats on Tuesday will propose spending $1 trillion on transportation and other infrastructure projects over 10 years in an attempt to engage President Donald Trump on an issue where they hope to find common ground.
Details of the plan provided to The Associated Press include $200 billion for a "vital infrastructure fund." An example of the types of projects that could be eligible for financing from the fund is the Gateway Program to repair and replace rail lines and tunnels between New York and New Jersey, some of which are over 100 years old and were damaged in Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The project, which would double the number of trains per hour using the tunnels and help enable high-speed Amtrak service, is estimated to cost about $20 billion.
Republican leaders, who have said previously that they're waiting for Trump to offer his own proposal, are unlikely to embrace the Democratic plan. It's not clear where Democrats would get the money for their proposal.
Infrastructure was raised at a meeting Monday between Trump and lawmakers from both parties. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he doesn't want another infrastructure plan that is effectively an economic stimulus program like the one Congress passed in 2009 at former President Barack Obama's behest.
"They thought that was an area maybe to find common ground, and then Sen. McConnell made the important point it needs to be paid for because we've got $20 trillion in debt," Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican leader.
Trump bemoaned the state of America's roads, bridges, airports and railways during the presidential campaign and promised to generate $1 trillion in infrastructure investment, putting people to work in the process. But Trump has offered few specifics. Administration officials have indicated they expect Trump to offer details this spring.
"Senate Democrats are walking the walk on repairing and rebuilding our nation's crumbling infrastructure," Senate Minority leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said. "We ask President Trump to support this common sense, comprehensive approach."
Democrats estimate their plan would create 15 million jobs. Besides transportation, the plan includes money for expanding broadband access in rural areas, water treatment and sewer construction, veterans' hospitals and schools.
A proposal by two of Trump's financial advisers circulated just after the election calls for using $137 billion in tax credits to generate $1 trillion in private investment in infrastructure projects over 10 years. But investors are typically interested only in projects that have a revenue stream like tolls to produce a profit. Elaine Chao, Trump's nominee for transportation secretary, told senators last week that she wants to "unleash the potential" of private investors to boost transportation.
Charging tolls for roads and bridges is often unpopular. A recent Washington Post poll found that 66 percent of the public opposes granting tax credits to investors who put their money into transportation projects in exchange for the right to charge tolls.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and transportation industry lobbying groups want a hike in direct federal spending instead of tax credits. What is needed most, they say, is money to address the growing backlog of maintenance and repair projects, most of which are unsuitable for tolling.
———
This version corrects the amount for the infrastructure fund to $200 billion.
BIS - Ultra Short NASDAQ Biotechnology
These are not for me, but Trump going after big pharma and their poisonous vaccines might send this up big time?
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=BIS&p=D&yr=5&mn=0&dy=0&id=p54058754914
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/01/24/new-vaccine-safety-review-panel.aspx?utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20170124Z1&et_cid=DM131814&et_rid=1856343049
Thinking Trump may back this up budget wise... maybe see micros/small caps/etc. working on projects related to space protection.
US military prepares for the next frontier: Space war
Jim Sciutto-Profile-Image
By Jim Sciutto, Chief National Security Correspondent
Updated 11:49 PM ET, Mon November 28, 2016
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/28/politics/space-war-us-military-preparations/index.html
Washington (CNN)Since man first explored space, it has been a largely peaceful environment. But now US adversaries are deploying weapons beyond Earth's atmosphere, leading the US military to prepare for the frightening prospect of war in space.
"As humans go out there, there has always been conflict. Conflict in the Wild West as we move in the West ... conflict twice in Europe for its horrible world wars," Gen. John Hyten, head of US Strategic Command, told CNN. "So, every time humans actually physically move into that, there's conflict, and in that case, we'll have to be prepared for that."
Today, the US depends on space more than any other nation.
In a nightmare scenario, as adversaries launch a massive cyber attack on key infrastructure and disable and destroy our satellites in space, televisions would go blank, mobile networks silent, and the Internet would slow and then stop.
What a space war might look like on the ground
What a space war might look like on the ground 01:39
Dependent on time stamps from GPS satellites, everything from stock markets to bank transactions to traffic lights and railroad switches would freeze. Airline pilots would lose contact with the ground, unsure of their position and without weather data to steer around storms.
World leaders couldn't communicate across continents. In the US military, pilots would lose contact with armed drones over the Middle East. Smart bombs would become dumb. Missiles would sit immobile in their silos. The US could lose early warning of nuclear attacks for parts of the Earth.
"There's incentive to take that away from us," said Peter Singer, who advises the Defense Department on space threats and authored "Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War," which runs through a scenario of space war. "And that means if there was conflict on Planet Earth, it would almost inherently start with some kind of conflict in space."
What is a CubeSat?
What is a CubeSat? 01:19
America's chief adversaries in space are familiar ones: Russia and China are extending above the atmosphere the competition and conflict already boiling down here on Earth -- from Syria to Ukraine to the South China Sea to cyberspace.
China and Russia are taking aim at America in space with a dizzying array of weapons seemingly borrowed from science fiction. Russia has deployed what could be multiple kamikaze satellites such as "Kosmos 2499" -- designed to sidle up to American satellites and then, if ordered, disable or destroy them. China has launched the "Shiyan" -- equipped with a grappling arm that could snatch US satellites right out of orbit.
"We would absolutely be shocked if the US military were not on a war footing now based on what we see," said Paul Graziani, CEO of the civilian satellite tracker AGI.
These are not experimental weapons of the future, but weapons of today, already operating from Near Earth Orbit, just 100 miles up and home of the International Space Station, to Medium Earth Orbit at 12,500 miles, where the GPS satellites fly, all the way up to 22,000 miles in Geostationary Orbit, home of the nation's most sensitive military communications and nuclear early-warning satellites.
Hyten warned that adversaries will soon be able to threaten US satellites in every orbital regime.
"We have very good surveillance and intelligence capabilities, so we can see the threats that are being built," said Hyten. "So we're developing capabilities to defend ourselves. It's really that simple."
1970s spy satellite 'better than Google Earth'
Hexagon spy satellite was 'better than Google Earth'
The US Air Force Space Command was created in 1982 when Earth's orbit was less contested, and today has some 38,000 employees, an annual budget of nearly $8.9 billion, and 134 locations around the globe. The broader Pentagon space budget is $22 billion.
Among the units are the 50th Space Wing, a team of more than 8,000 people charged with monitoring US and foreign military satellites. For now, these space warriors are little more than spectators, watching and observing this new space battlefield with no ability to fire back.
In 2015, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work expressed his grave concern that the military was not "ready to do space operations in a conflict that extends into space."
He was proven right when, months later, US space forces were overwhelmed in a mock attack on US military satellites.
So many took notice when, in April this year, Work vowed that the US would "strike back" if attacked in space -- strike back, he added, and "knock them out."
"From the very beginning, if someone starts going after our space constellation, we're going to go after the capabilities that would prevent them from doing that," Work told CNN. "Let me just say that -- having the capability to shoot the torpedo would be a good thing to have in our quiver."
Work suggested a space equivalent of the depth charges US Navy warships dropped into the sea during World War II, setting off enormous explosions to fight off attack submarines.
"These satellites were built 15 years ago and launched during an era when space was a benign environment. There was no threat," said Lt. Gen. David Buck, Commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Space. "Can you imagine building a refueler aircraft, or a jet for that matter, with no inherent defensive capabilities? So our satellites are at risk, and our ground infrastructure is at risk. And we're working hard to make sure that we can protect and defend them."
US Navy launches new warship
US Navy launches new warship 01:18
So far, such weapons remain in the conceptual category. But the US is quietly developing advanced capabilities that could, some day, have defensive or offensive missions in space.
These include the US Navy's Laser Weapons System, or LAWs, the US military's first operational laser weapon now deployed in the Persian Gulf on board the USS Ponce. The X-37b, a pilotless space drone resembling the space shuttle without windows or a cockpit, has already flown multiple missions to space and has space watchers and US adversaries wondering if it could be used as a weapon.
Still, as Russia and China make rapid advances, some of the most senior military commanders are sounding the alarm that this is a war -- the next world war and the first to extend beyond the confines of Earth -- that America could lose.
"We'd be silly to say it's not a possibility," said Singer. "What any defense (planner) will tell you is, don't look for the ideal outcome, plan for the worst day so that you can survive."
Winning a space war means rethinking how the US wages war, and that rethinking is one our current military leaders and politicians are only just beginning to undertake.
So is the US moving quickly enough to respond to the new threats in space?
"I would say the answer was no," said Gen. William Shelton, former head of Space Command. "Could we provide active defense of our own satellites? The answer's no."
The stakes couldn't be higher. How the US responds to this new threat could determine who wins the defining conflict of the 21st century.
CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to more accurately reflect the size, age and budget of the Pentagon's space efforts.
Ex-CBO director surveys road ahead for Trump's trillion-dollar infrastructure plan
Jedd Rosche Profile
By Jedd Rosche, CNN
Updated 6:29 AM ET, Tue November 29, 2016
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/politics/douglas-holtz-eakin-party-people-podcast/index.html
(CNN)Of President-elect Donald Trump's many campaign promises, the one with the trillion-dollar price tag might end up being an easier one to sell.
So thinks former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin who told CNN's "Party People" podcast hosts Kevin Madden and Mary Katherine Ham in a recent conversation that the real estate mogul might find congressional leaders and even some Democrats open to his proposal, which he wants to use to fix the nation's roads, bridges, airports and other aspects of the country's "rotting" infrastructure.
"Trump's a dealmaker," said Holtz-Eakin, who now runs the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank. "I would not describe Barack Obama as an instinctive dealmaker."
Holtz-Eakin said that both House Speaker Paul Ryan and incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer like "to get things done," saying the "odd man out" in congressional negotiations could be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whom he described as "not super enthusiastic about a big agenda."
Holtz-Eakin envisioned a scenario, in which, Trump's campaign promise of stricter immigration policy meets resistance on Capitol Hill and his infrastructure plan is offered as a palatable compromise to Democrats.
"That would set them up pretty well," he said. "I can see him doing that."
RELATED: Trump's trillion-dollar infrastructure plan faces congressional scrutiny
Trump has repeatedly promised on the campaign trail massive investment in infrastructure spending, though his plans have -- like many of his proposals -- lacked specifics. In August, Trump told Fox Business Network that he would "at least double" Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's plan to spend $275 billion on infrastructure over five years.
When Trump was asked about the trillion-dollar figure during his post election meeting with the New York Times, the President-elect responded with, "Let's see if I get it done," before reminding his audience that many in the media and his own party had underestimated him only to watch him surprise them.
Holtz-Eakin said that as Trump's plan is currently proposed the majority of the trillion-dollar figure is "leveraged with a whole bunch of outside private money," meaning the government would be on the hook for a number closer to $180 billion.
"They're not asking ... a House of Representatives to pass a trillion-dollar bill," he said. "They're asking them to pass something that's basically a fifth or less of that, and if they stick to that architecture, that's a lot less objectionable to people."
To hear Holtz-Eakin's thoughts on Trump's tax reform plan, how Trump might actually keep his promise to "drain the swamp" of Washington, and what indicators this economist is looking for this holiday season, listen to CNN's "Party People" podcast.
SCIFI Weapons That Actually EXIST!
Could get better under Trump? The only mentioned company with a US stock is Boeing.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=BA&p=D&yr=5&mn=0&dy=0&id=p52959890316
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REi8y34Y8Bc
Ten Incredible Cities Which Have Changed Beyond Recognition
Whats nest?
http://themindcircle.com/incredible-changed-cities/?utm_content=bufferd0461&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
i have defcom stuff/
re;
yeah Obuma, what a joke, and now we are at 20T, ludicrous
I could go on and on, but that man is behind us now.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
yeah Obuma, what a joke, and now we are at 20T, ludicrous
I could go on and on, but that man is behind us now.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
i would say to make like china upgrades infrastructure, even russia better than our infrastructure.
$500 billion
what did obama do wit infrastructure money ?????
alomst 12 trillion debt and no lookie good here u.s.a. infrastructure
thank you, you are ah very informative writer/
re;
Thanks Mick, Happy Thanksgiving, let's see how the Great Restoration
of America concludes --
my gut tells me this will be good over the
long haul and of course well needed too. They say it is over 1T
currently to fix all infrastructure now anyway, ugh
Thanks Mick, Happy Thanksgiving, let's see how the Great Restoration of America concludes -- my gut tells me this will be good over the long haul and of course well needed too. They say it is over 1T currently to fix all infrastructure now anyway, ugh
i agree, nice that rump is ah winner
re;
I just had a liberal radio station on and a guest liked the stock market for two reasons.
1. Trump wants to spend a lot in infrastructure
2. Trump wants tax cuts.
The guest added that it would be good a first, but debt or inflation might hurt later.
Good idea for a board xero
you are ah geat american as all on ihub,
I just had a liberal radio station on and a guest liked the stock market for two reasons.
1. Trump wants to spend a lot in infrastructure
2. Trump wants tax cuts.
The guest added that it would be good a first, but debt or inflation might hurt later.
Good idea for a board xero
Yeah bud. I hear ya. Was kidding around about X this morning on the EC board but did get a heads up on that last week. Woulda coulda shoulda.....
Taking the contrarian view here with the metals short term (couple months) looking at the fed raising rates next month. Beyond that is way beyond my pay grade. Try to keep it simple. I'm playing options not the underlying.....
Then there's the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about and that's obama. Don't think there's a chance he just walks away w/out some sort of shenanigans.....
Almost forgot the actions by the Indian Gov't banning certain notes has gold really appreciating. Think that will help as well at some point over here.
Justified, just thinking outside of the box here. Most likely industrial metals have a better chance than gold/silver*. Dow just hit over 19k and probably going even higher in the long run. Inversely proportional my friend.
* silver is considered industrial sometimes when it behooves the boyz
Looking at GLD and SLV calls. Very small positions. No positions yet. The metals have been pummeled. They're heavily manipulated but will bounce at some point.
Best to hold it but playing small for the paper rebound....
If anyone has suggestions on stock picks, now's the time.
I'm thinking maybe the following areas:
construction companies
military DOD 'type' contracting agencies
steel & coal companies
oil & fracking companies
possible mining companies (zinc, aluminum, copper etc.)
ETFs? -- https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=consumer+goods+ETF
thanks -xero
Trump has a plan for government workers. They’re not going to like it.
By Lisa Rein November 21 at 6:00 AM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/21/trump-republicans-plan-to-target-government-workers-benefits-and-job-security/
Inside Trump's plan to shake up the federal workforce Play Video3:12
The Washington Post's Lisa Rein explains President-elect Trump's plan to reform the federal workforce. (The Washington Post)
President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress are drawing up plans to take on the government bureaucracy they have long railed against, by eroding job protections and grinding down benefits that federal workers have received for a generation.
Hiring freezes, an end to automatic raises, a green light to fire poor performers, a ban on union business on the government’s dime and less generous pensions — these are the contours of the blueprint emerging under Republican control of Washington in January.
These changes were once unthinkable to federal employees, their unions and their supporters in Congress. But Trump’s election as an outsider promising to shake up a system he told voters is awash in “waste, fraud and abuse” has conservatives optimistic that they could do now what Republicans have been unable to do in the 133 years since the modern civil service was created.
[Trump and the federal workforce: Five key issues]
“You have the country moving to the right and being much more anti-Washington than it was,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), a leading Trump adviser who serves on the president-elect’s transition team.
“We’re going to have to get the country to understand how big the problem is, the human costs of it and why it’s absolutely essential to reform,” said Gingrich, who urged Trump to shrink big government and overhaul the “job-for-life” guarantee of federal work.
Gingrich predicted that Stephen K. Bannon, a former Breitbart News chief who helped steer Trump’s campaign and is now one of his most influential advisers, would lead the effort. “It’s a big, big project,” he said.
The project aligns with Bannon’s long-stated warnings about the corrupting influence of government and a capital city rampant with “crony capitalism.”
Breitbart headlines also provide a possible insight into his views, with federal employees described as overpaid, too numerous and a “privileged class.”
“Number of Government Employees Now Surpasses Manufacturing Jobs by 9,977,000,” the website proclaimed in November. There are 2.1 million federal civilian employees.
[The faulty logic behind Trump’s plan to freeze federal hiring]
Top Republicans on Capitol Hill say their first priority will be making it easier to fire employees regarded as incompetent or who break the rules.
“It’s nearly impossible to fire somebody,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “When the overwhelming majority do a good job and the one bad apple is there viewing pornography, I want people to be held accountable.”
[Trump plans to fire feds faster]
Chaffetz said he plans to push through wholesale changes to the generous retirement benefits that federal workers receive, by shifting to a market-driven, 401(k)-style plan for new employees.
He said the model would be his home state, which six years ago replaced the defined benefit pensions that have disappeared at most private companies with a defined contribution plan for new state and municipal workers.
“We have a Republican president who will help us drive this to the finish line,” Chaffetz said.
The promises go hand in hand with Trump’s promise to shrink the size and reach of government, from eliminating some agencies outright to lifting regulations and running the bureaucracy with fewer people.
Gingrich said the Trump administration probably would look for guidance from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), who stripped public employee unions of most of their collective-bargaining rights and forced workers to pay more into their pensions and for health care in what became a bitter political fight.
The White House also can look for lessons from policies advocated by Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
As Indiana governor, Pence battled public employee unions and approved pay increases for state workers who receive good performance reviews, a strategy tried at the Defense Department under President George W. Bush but which was poorly managed and eventually abolished. The pay-for-performance idea is nonetheless a rebuke to the government’s system of raises based on longevity.
“We’re going to be playing defense for at least a couple of years,” acknowledged William R. Dougan, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, the third-largest federal union.
“The most immediate worry is: How are we going to shrink government?” Dougan said. “Are we going to lay people off? Eliminate whole agencies or do it through attrition?”
Trump has promised that in his first 100 days in office he will freeze hiring by not replacing employees who leave. The military and employees in public health and safety roles would be exempt, according to the president-elect’s Contract with the American Voter.
He has pledged to eliminate two regulations for every new one passed and shut down the Education Department and parts of the Environmental Protection Agency.
But he also wants a military with more ships, planes and troops. He has said he wants to triple the number of immigration enforcement agents and beef up the Border Patrol by thousands.
So a selective hiring freeze may be more realistic, Trump advisers say, where agencies that Republicans dislike shrink and ones they like grow.
Trump can freeze hiring without Congress’s approval, with an executive order or less formal instructions to federal agencies.
[House tries to give Veterans Affairs more power to discipline employees]
Democrats and federal employee unions are preparing to fight the image of government workers as a privileged class and the bureaucracy as a bloated mess.
Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D), whose Northern Virginia district includes thousands of federal workers, said: “What study are they citing saying there are too many federal employees? Are you going to make a bunch of exceptions, in which case your plan looks like Swiss cheese?”
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the oversight committee, said in an email that he would “fight any effort to roll back civil service protections” — and worried that whistle blowers could lose their legal right to be immune from retaliation.
Others raise the specter that Republican proposals could allow political favoritism to creep into a system Congress created in 1883 to remove federal jobs from patronage ranks.
“Of course we want accountability,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who will enter the Senate in January, “but we also want to protect against political favoritism. It’s important that we not allow the civil service to be politicized.”
Congressional Republicans have clamored for years for a smaller bureaucracy and a workforce that resembles the private sector. The calls quickened after a string of scandals, particularly at the Department of Veterans Affairs, where managers instructed employees to falsify patient wait times to cover up delays for medical appointments.
But much of this GOP-written legislation was opposed by the Obama administration and blocked by Senate Democrats.
Now, with a Trump White House eliminating a veto threat, conservatives see their vision within reach.
And Democrats acknowledge that senators who are nervously looking to reelection bids in 2018 and represent red states friendly to Trump may not fall on their swords to defend federal employees, whose presence is more diffuse outside the Washington area.
Many inside and outside government agree that change to the way federal workers are hired, promoted and disciplined is long overdue. Employees under investigation for breaking the rules can sit at home for years — collecting paychecks and benefits — while their cases drag on. Performance rankings are widely panned as a joke, because the vast majority of workers are rated as exceeding expectations or doing outstanding work.
Federal workers are seldom fired for poor performance — and it can take years for managers to make a successful case for dismissal for misconduct. About 0.5 percent of the civil service gets fired every year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
[Federal employees behind in pay by 34 percent, salary council says]
“The civil service system fails at almost everything it was designed to do,” said Paul Light, a civil service expert at New York University. “It’s very slow at hiring, negligent in disciplining, permissive in promoting.”
“There’s a private awareness among Democrats and Republicans alike that we need to do something about this,” he said.
Trump says he wants to freeze hiring to clean up corruption in government — but not necessarily to save money, a connection roundly dismissed by critics.
“Look at what’s happening with every agency — waste, fraud and abuse,” he said on the campaign trail. “We will cut so much, your head will spin.”
Other presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, have frozen hiring to shrink government — but rarely succeeded for long periods. Reagan imposed a freeze the day he came into office in 1981 that was retroactive to Election Day, forcing managers to renege on job offers to hundreds of people. But the government soon ballooned with active-duty military and civilians as he began a massive defense buildup.
The civilian workforce is the smallest it has been since Reagan left office, after plummeting under Clinton and expanding under Bush and President Obama.
Yet Republicans say a leaner government goes hand in hand with a more accountable one in which managers and rank-and-file employees who’ve failed should not get to keep their jobs.
These changes have taken root, with a bipartisan law in 2014 to limit the appeal rights of senior executives at Veterans Affairs who face discipline for wrongdoing.
Since then, similar restrictions for employees across government have stalled in Congress, in part because the Obama administration made little use of its new authority — and this year stopped using it altogether in the face of a court challenge alleging that it violated employees’ right to due process.
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Other changes could result in longer probation for new employees, with the goal of making it easier for managers to let poor performers go since they would have little job protections. This has started at the Defense Department, where the current standard has doubled to two years.
These changes are vigorously opposed by unions, which could be severely weakened under GOP plans to eventually wipe out what’s known as “official time,” union work done by employees who continue to receive full salary and benefits.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in an email that he will reach out to federal employee unions as his panel works to enact “long-overdue reforms to our civil service.”
Said Johnson: “If we start with areas of agreement, I am confident that we can make continuous improvements to the functionality of the federal workforce.”
Pence backs trillion-dollar infrastructure bill, says America 'elected a CEO'
Published November 22, 2016
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/22/pence-backs-trillion-dollar-infrastructure-bill-says-america-elected-ceo.html
Vice President-elect Mike Pence Monday outlined the agenda for President-elect Donald Trump's first 100 days in office and explained how Congress could pay for a $1 trillion infrastructure plan.
"There’s a lot of ways to get to that trillion dollars," Pence told Fox News' Sean Hannity on "Hannity." "Utilizing public and private partnerships, utilizing bonding authority and enlisting private capital, there’s ways that you can do this that are gonna be fiscally responsible, but also give us the resources that we need to rebuild America."
HERE'S PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP'S PLAN FOR HIS FIRST 100 DAYS IN OFFICE
The Indiana governor said that Trump had already laid out the priorities for his first term in meetings with congressional leaders last week.
"He’s already said ‘I want to repeal ObamaCare right out of the gate and I want us to go straight to work on replacing it with free market reforms,’" Pence said. "We’re going to end illegal immigration ... We’re going to reform taxes to jumpstart this economy ... You’re going to see this president-elect nominate a strict constructionist to the Supreme Court ... It’s going to be a very exciting time."
Pence also declined to say whether there would be a place in the Trump administration for 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, but did say that the onetime antagonists had a "very cordial and a very substantive discussion" over the weekend in New Jersey.
"What I saw ... was two men who are completely focused on the country," Pence said. "[They were] completely focused on what’s in the best interest of the United States and America standing tall in the world and reviving our economy at home. And I was frankly very impressed with the discussion."
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