Trump taps Kushner to lead a SWAT team to fix government with business ideas

Washington Post ^ | March 27, 2017 | Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker

[Pinkbell]

President Trump plans to unveil a new White House office on Monday with sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and fulfill key campaign promises — such as reforming care for veterans and fighting opioid addiction — by harvesting ideas from the business world and, potentially, privatizing some government functions. The White House Office of American Innovation, to be led by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, will operate as its own nimble power center within the West Wing and will report directly to Trump.

Viewed internally as a SWAT team of strategic consultants, the office will be staffed by former business executives and is designed to infuse fresh thinking into Washington, float above the daily political grind and create a lasting legacy for a president still searching for signature achievements.

(Snip)

Kushner is positioning the new office as “an offensive team” — an aggressive, nonideological ideas factory capable of attracting top talent from both inside and outside of government, and serving as a conduit with the business, philanthropic and academic communities.

“We should have excellence in government,” Kushner said Sunday in an interview in his West Wing office. “The government should be run like a great American company. Our hope is that we can achieve successes and efficiencies for our customers, who are the citizens.”

The innovation office has a particular focus on technology and data, and it is working with such titans as Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff and Tesla founder and chief executive Elon Musk. The group has already hosted sessions with more than 100 such leaders and government officials.

[sargon]

There you go again.

This administration ultimately walked away from "Rinocare". The President could have dragged the process on, but he did just the opposite.

What the President did do was to supported a creative process wherein an inadequate bill was debated and changed, and which ultimately failed to be even voted on, due to no fault of his own.

The Presidents only mistake was in giving the Paul Ryan the benefit of the doubt—presuming that this GOPe titan would competently fulfill the responsibilities of his job as Speaker of the House regarding repealing & replacing Obamacare.

The original point I was responding to was your flippant implication regarding the President's desire to reduce government. The fact that such a goal might not be the focus of this "SWAT team"—or of the recent healthcare vote—does not in any way mean that he's not trying to reduce government in many tangible ways—probably moreso than any president in the last half century.

[sargon]

You implied that it could only be a benign force until...

[sargon]

I think Trump will be viewed historically, looking back years or decades from now, as the greatest president this country ever had. His changes and business-model innovations and institutions will outlive us all, and the country will be the better for it for the coming century at least.

I wholeheartedly agree.

[9YearLurker]

The last Democrat within a presidential administration to lead a task force on reinventing government, complete with input from business leaders, was Al Gore:

http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/whoweare/history2.html

[9YearLurker]

Calling Obamacare 2.0 repeal and replace, with implied more free-market solutions, doesn’t make it so.

In his first, and botched, attempt at legislation, Trump has ditched the actual conservatives in Congress and declared that he wants to form a governing coalition with the Democrats instead.

Not exactly what he promised on the campaign trail or what his base elected him for.

[sargon]

It is not what is "conceivable" but what is constitutional, conservative, prudent, likely.

There's no reason that whatever President Trump does couldn't be "constitutional, conservative, prudent", etc...

[Read Write Repeat]

So proud of you Jared!

[9YearLurker]

Actually, a president wanting to get a “repeal and replace with a more free market approach to healthcare” through Congress should start by sending such a proposal to congress and then selling it both there and to the American people.

Trump did none of that. Instead he teamed his RINOs and Democrats (Priebus/Pence and Kushner/Cohn) to sell hard Obamacare 2.0, and when the unpopular (17% public approval) bill failed, blame the conservatives for it, threaten to primary the conservatives, and announce that instead of working with them, he wants to form a coalition with the Democrats.

[ReaganGeneration2]

Step 1: Discover you can and must fire the bottom 50% of Federal workers
Step 2: Discover you’re not allowed to fire any Federal workers
Step 3: Recommend another blue-ribbon commission
Step 4: Goto Step 1

[nathanbedford]

President Trump got exactly what he wanted in Rino care. It is what he campaigned on and it contained what he promised during the campaign.

It is what he supported when it was crafted in the dark, it is what his team contributed to, it is what he wanted when he threatened to primary conservatives who opposed it.

It was his promises that ultimately doomed Rino care to a plan that would not reduce premiums, would bankrupt us through Medicare, and would in fact not extend coverage. It was a lousy plan but it was doomed because Trump, as well as the Rino Republicans, did not have the political courage either now or on the campaign trail to take away an entitlement.

The president did not "walk away" from Rino care he was sent into headlong retreat. He pulled the bill, or was it Paul Ryan's suggestion? Both are now trying to take credit.

Trump's only mistake was not in giving Paul Ryan the benefit of the doubt. His mistake was in demanding a "reform" that incorporated all of the socialist features of Obama care which doomed both plans in the first place.

His role in the Rino care fiasco was certainly not evidence on his part of an attempt to reduce government.

I did not deny that he might be trying to reduce government in other respects, but time will tell.

[9YearLurker]

Except he is handing such key initiatives over to liberal Democrats (Kushner, Cohn, Ivanka, the CEOs involved, etc.)

[Does so]

No, but the use of “Attrition” would help a lot.

[Does so]

Is Kushner the first “Czar” of this administration?

[nathanbedford]

Franklin Roosevelt had his Eleanor and his Harry Hopkins. I do not think there was a legitimate conservative in the whole of his kitchen cabinet. The parallel is discomforting.

Lyndon Johnson had is Abe Fortis who was essentially a crook.

The son and daughter must be very very ethical or they will inevitably become a perversion of our system of representative government. That is not to say that is inevitable, just that the danger is there.

It is not mitigated by their politics which are manifestly to the left of my politics and I suspect to the left of your politics.

[sargon]

Yawn.

You provided all the necessary context to your perspective on Donald Trump the moment you derided him as a con-man and a fraud during the campaign.

Now that he's ascended to the Presidency, against your wishes and against your prediction, of course, you continue with your negative framing of virtually anything and everything that he does.

It's entirely gratuitous, and detracts noticeably from your usual eloquence and erudition. But with respect to Donald Trump, it's predominately bashing from you, sprinkled with enough superficial positivity to mildly dilute your passionate dislike.

But it's just completely boilerplate anti-Trump disparagement.

You're still of the same opinion that you were during the campaign: the President is a fraud and a charlatan, nothing more.

If your sentiments had changed one iota from your historical record, there would have been some sign of that by now. There hasn't been, and thus your opinions remain deeply slanted against President Trump, who deserves much more credit and esteem than your transparently negative bias will permit...

[ReaganGeneration2]

Jared: Careful. What Nietzsche wrote will be true in multiple ways here:

“When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[9YearLurker]

They are both liberal, Manhattan Democrats who have brought more liberal, Manhattan Democrats into the administration.

And yes, they are already a perversion of our system of representative government.

What if Jon Huntsman had won in his race for the presidency, then handed his administration over to his liberal daughters?

[nathanbedford]

Either your meds or the therapy sessions are helping you because this time it took you a few posts before attacking me personally.

TO THE READER:

I have recently adopted a standard reply to Sargon when he starts up with his personal attack when he finds himself on the wrong side of an argument:

"Your reaction now will be the same as your reaction then, to vilify Nathan Bedford."

Which I just simply repeat over and over when Sargon departs from discussion of the issues into personal vilification which usually occurs sooner than it did on this thread.

In case the reader is interested in my views concerning Rino care I offered them in this REPLY

[sargon]

I'm not attacking you personally, I'm simply citing your historical record of Trump-hatred.

Apparently you don't like me pointing out that you've slandered Donald Trump as being a fraud and con-man, an opinion which you've shown no sign of revising.

It's comical that you would decry my "attacks" given the vile attacks that you yourself have perpetrated against my character, such as, for example, the beginning of your post.

I've never had any need for "meds or therapy sessions", and such malicious innuendo on your part is magnitudes more despicable than anything I've directed towards you recently.

Thus, you're a transparent hypocrite on that point.

I'll remind this community of your disparagement of the President as often as I like, and you can continue to characterize my observations in any way you like.

The fact remains that you've stated your belief that Donald Trump is a fraud, charlatan, and con-man, and I will view your "thoughtful analysis" regarding the President in light of your documented disparagement of the man...