Union Leader - February 7, 2020, page A7.

TIME FOR THE KNOW-NOTHING PRESIDENT TO GO

In 2020, as New Hampslúre celebrates one hundred years as the nation's first presidential prirnary, the Republican and Independent voters of the Granite State have not only the opportunity but the obligation to send President Trump a message that he is failing both the Republican Party and the country, and that it is time to replace him as our nominee and standard-bearer.

As our nation's chief executive, the President of the United States has demonstrated that he is a myopic, corrupt, divisive, and ineffectual leader. At his next performance review, the Republican presidential primary, Donald Trump deserves to be fired. Voters in the New Hampshire Republican primary have the unique opportunity to deliver a message of no confidence to the President.

Any effective CEO must be able to deliver results, keep their word, and deliver on promises made. President Trump prornised to eliminate the federal deficit in 8 years. Instead he has increased the budget deficit every year he has been in office. Any CEO that consistently delivers loss making results would have been fired long ago. President Trump has signed legislation adding $4.7 trillion to national debt since taking office. President Trump promised tax cuts that wouldn't benefit the wealthy. However, his tax cuts did just that. Trump himself said as much to a room full of billionaires at Mar-a-Lago just hours after he signed his tax reform into law: "You all just got a lot richer''. These cuts for the rich, incidentally, had the effect of substantially decreasing government revenue and thus increasing the budget deficit and federal debt.

President Trump also promised a great healthcare plan that would insure everyone. He promised to repeal and replace Obamacare. He promised to allow individuals to deduct health insurance premiums from taxable income. He has not delivered on any of the healthcare reform plans he promised. The more forgiving of us may put these broken promises down to simply poor leadership, but what do we make of Trump's corruption and self-dealing? Corruption in any organization is cause for immediate termination of employment. Trump's use of his golf courses and resorts for U.S. Government business is a form of graft and self­-dealing that is unacceptable. A yet more dangerous form of corruption is the use of power of the Presidency for personal political gain as Trump did when he held up vital military aid for an ally in exchange for investigating his most feared political rival.

An effective chief executive should chart and then help the nation navigate the Republic's direction. President Trump has utterly failed to address, let alone set a direction for how the U.S. and the world should be tackling the existential threat of climate change. In 2018, 13 federal agencies in his own administration documented the threat as did the U.S Intelligence community's 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment. Worse than doing nothing, the Trump administration has rolled back regulations that will increase harmful emissions. This myopic worldview is standard Trwnp operating procedure: discounting future costs for short term gain.

America needs a President who can balance a budget. We can reduce the deficit by bringing most of our troops home from Afghanistan. As General Petraeus counsels , we should leave a lirnited presence to shore up our counter terrorism partners in the Afghan government as we can't trust the Taliban to keep Afghanistan from becoming a haven for terrorists if we completely pull out.

Negotiating a trade deal with China held great promise to set a new construct for trade deals in the 21st Century. Trump could have set a goal to protect American workers from Chinese companies that produce products that don't meet the environmental standards that U.S. manufacturers have to meet. This would both help prevent U.S. manufacturing jobs from being outsourced to the world's largest polluter and it would encourage companies in China and around the world to clean up their act.

Republicans need a President who will give real tax relief to hard working American families. I propose elirninating the income tax for individuals earning $50,000 or less and for families earning $100K or less. Tbis proposal is in line with the historical precedent that the income tax in 1913 was only levied on families earning over $4,000 per year ($101,000 in 2019 dollars). To pay for this, we should close the loopholes for anyone earning $1 million or more. This will both supercharge the economy and provide tax fairness.

Republicans need a President who will offer bold policy proposals to address our healthcare crisis. We need to incentivize healthy lifestyle choices to limit skyrocketing healthcare costs. We need to focus on prevention and cures, not just treatments. We need to return health care decision-making to physicians and patients, instead of being unduly influenced by big pharma and insurance companies.

Republicans and Independent voters in New Harnpshire have the opportunity to send President Trump a message that he is failing both the country and the Republican Party. He has broken his promises, engaged in corrupt self-dealing, and failed to provide effective leadership. The voters of New Harnpshire deserve better than this. It is time for voters to stand up and say, "Donald Trump, you're fired".

Matt Matern is an entrepreneur and attorney from Los Angeles, California, running for President as a Republican, championing traditional Republican values and a vision of America At Her Best. In the last three months, he has traveled all over N.H. meeting people at diners, malls, Rotary meetings, Republican Party meetings, their homes, and everywhere in between. He is impressed by the quality of the discussions regarding our government, and now understands why Alexis de Tocqueville wrote so admiringly about the remarkable democracy of New England stretching back to the 1600's. www.matern2020.com.