I have written two letters during the past several months. They expressed my gratitude towards President Trump. I thought them to be relatively anodyne. I am now receiving threats. Let it be known that I will write what I want, when I want. Too bad if it does not suit your ideology.
I am writing this letter in response to Dr. Hal Sobel’s missive in the April 5 issue. Sobel begins by mocking the 48 reasons for my gratitude to have Trump as my president.
A list of unsubstantiated invectives is then offered, finishing with the fact that Trump is mentally unstable. I wonder what kind of license Sobel has? Is he a psychiatrist qualified to make such a diagnosis? Trump made a fortune that began with building in Manhattan. He had to deal with corrupt politicians, Mafia-infested construction unions, and phony environmental extortionist fronts to get any project accomplished. This is not the resume of a mentally unstable man. Just ask Jeff Bezos what it takes to navigate the political terrain in New York City.
Sobel then cites the Bush family and John McCain as sources for his character assassination. What makes them the ultimate authorities on character? They are RINOs. Victor Davis Hanson, Dinesh D’Souza, and Josh Bernstein have a little more intellectual heft than the above. They think Trump’s personality attributes are just what is needed in a president at the present time.
Trump did not hijack the Republican Party. He crushed 15 very-well-qualified candidates in the primaries and ran the table on the “blue wall.” He won because of the promises he made. A recent liberal columnist said that when it comes to keeping campaign promises, Trump is the most honest president in our history. I concur.
Sobel attempts to “refute” some of my reasons. While I cited 48 reasons, Sobel attempts to refute three. He cites Trump not taking his salary, the predations of pay day lenders regulated by the Consume Financial Protection Bureau, and the rollout of the Dodd Frank bill. Since there is no 5G in New York, I will attempt this calculation on my old 4G iPhone. Let’s see. 48-3=45. Hey! 45 unrefuted reasons. I think that leaves room for plenty of gratitude. 45-3.
I must also say that of the 48, Sobel has picked three of the most inconsequential ones. Not very impressive. But since I did mention them, I should answer the charges. Trump did not take his presidential salary. For that I have gratitude. Period. Therefore, not refuted. More on this at the end. 46-2.
Pay day lenders are a necessary service in poor communities. The Wall Street Journal explicitly supports them. Are some of them rapacious? Sure. But many do the best they can. They have to make a profit in a very competitive industry. If people have poor credit, then they should expect to pay higher rates of interest. That is the way you can compensate for the defaults. If Sobel knows how to lend to the poor at lower interest rates, he should open up one himself. He would make a fortune as everyone would flock to his establishment. Throw the pay day lenders out of business and they will be replaced by underworld loan sharks. Is that an improvement? 47-1.
The jury is not out on the rollback of the Dodd Frank Bill. That is why dozens of Democrats voted for the rollback. It was a horrible bill that hurt small and medium-sized banks that had nothing to do with the financial crisis. The regulations had cut off the flow of credit to many Americans who depended on smaller banks for business and personal loans. Our economic growth is mostly owed to small, vibrant, businesses. Dodd Frank is one reason we had eight years of Obama with not even one year of 3 percent growth — something that never happened in our history. 48-0.
The rest of Sobel’s letter makes reference to Trump’s taxes, Trump’s hotels, the emoluments clause, big money donors, destruction of the environment, abandonment of Puerto Rico, child separated families, profanity and partisanship. Absolutely none of this was mentioned in my letters. I would have to speak to these another time. As with the three previous “refutations,” most hold no water.
For example, let’s talk about the $20 million in hotel revenues. Trump pledged to send all profits earned from foreign dignitaries lodged at this hotel to the U.S. Treasury. He kept that promise and sent a check for $191,000 to the U.S Treasury for the year 2018. Wait a second! I did not even think of that one. Trump pledged all government-linked profits from his hotel. That deserves my gratitude. Thanks for reminding me, Sobel. In your honor, I will call that the Sobel 49th.
Another example is in regards to his $54 million in donations from wealthy donors. That was nothing compared to Hillary Clinton who spent about $1 billion on her campaign.
As an aside, I would like to add that if corruption is of concern to any of my North Hempstead neighbors, they might want to check out youtube.com. In the search box, type in “Sundays with Charles.” Charles Ortel has a show every Sunday running about two hours in length. He has done over 100 shows to date. The subject is the prodigious evil and illegalities of The Clinton Foundation, The Clinton Global Initiative, and the Clinton Health Care Initiative. You have over 200 hours of thoroughly documented, forensic accounting by someone who spent a lifetime in the financial world. We are talking about a possible $1 or $2 billion-dollar scam over a couple of decades. So please spare me the worries about Trump emoluments. If they are anything, then they are rounding errors.
Dr. Wayne Roth
Roslyn Heights
