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Internationally renowned businessman Donald J. Trump sounds the alarm in “Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again,” asserting that the nation's current economic situation can only be resolved by a decisive course of action. Here's an excerpt.
GET TOUGH:
I’ve written this book because the country I love is a total economic disaster right now.
For starters, we are in debt $15 trillion and soaring. Let me help you wrap your mind around that number. If by some miracle the so-called leaders in Washington could find a way to save one billion dollars of your tax dollars every single day, it would still take thirty-eight years to pay off the debt. And that’s not even taking into account the interest.
We don’t have thirty-eight years to turn this thing around. The way I see it, we have four, maybe eight years tops.
Every day in business I see America getting ripped-off and abused. We have become a laughingstock, the world’s whipping boy, blamed for everything, credited for nothing, given no respect.
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To take one example, China is bilking us for hundreds of billions of dollars by manipulating and devaluing its currency. Despite all the happy talk in Washington, the Chinese leaders are not our friends. I’ve been criticized for calling them our enemy. But what else do you call the people who are destroying your children’s and grandchildren’s future? What name would you prefer me to use for the people who are hell bent on bankrupting our nation, stealing our jobs, who spy on us to steal our technology, who are undermining our currency, and who are ruining our way of life? To my mind, that’s an enemy. If we’re going to make America number one again, we’ve got to have a president who knows how to get tough with China.
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Then there’s the oil crisis. The idea of $85 a barrel for oil used to be unthinkable. Now OPEC yawns at that figure and jacks the price higher, laughing all the way to the bank. The result: you and your family are paying $3 a gallon, $4 a gallon, $5 a gallon, and soaring. Excuse me, but OPEC—these twelve guys sitting around a table—wouldn’t even be in existence if it weren’t for the United States saving and protecting those Middle Eastern countries! Where is our president in all this? Where’s the accountability? What is the point of executive leadership if our executive is weak and doesn’t lead? What excuse is there for a president whose answer to the oil crisis is not to get tough with OPEC, not to free our own domestic oil companies to do their job and drill, but to release our strategic reserve? That’s not leadership, that’s an abdication of leadership.
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If we keep on this path, if we reelect Barack Obama, the America we leave our kids and grandkids won’t look like the America we were blessed to grow up in. The American Dream will be in hock. The shining city on the hill will start to look like an inner-city wreck. It won’t be morning in America, as President Reagan put it. We’ll be mourning for America, an America that was lost on Obama’s watch. The dollar will fall as the world’s international currency. Our economy will collapse again (something I believe is a very real danger and risk: a double dip recession that could turn into a depression). And China will replace America as the world’s number one economic power.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. If we get tough and make the hard choices, we can make America a rich nation—and respected—once again. The right president can actually make America money by brokering big deals. We don’t always think of our presidents as jobs and business negotiators, but they are. Presidents are our dealmakers in chief. But the outcome of a deal is only as effective as the person brokering it. Constitutionally, a president is the commander in chief, appoints judges, and can veto or sign bills. What’s his job the rest of the time? Well, I can tell you one important job: he serves as America’s chief negotiator and dealmaker. He is supposed to broker deals that protect and benefit us with other nations. The president’s duty is to create an environment where free and fair markets can flourish, private sector jobs can be created, and our economy can boom. If they are strong negotiators and make the right deals, America wins. If they wimp out and make the wrong deals, you and your children pay the price.
I love America. And when you love something, you protect it passionately—fiercely, even. We are the greatest country the world has ever known. I make no apologies for this country, my pride in it, or my desire to see us become strong and rich again. After all, wealth funds our freedom. But for too long we’ve been pushed around, used by other countries, and ill-served by politicians in Washington who measure their success by how rapidly they can expand the federal debt, and your tax burden, with their favorite government programs. America can do better. I think we deserve the best. The decisions we face are too monumental, too consequential, to just let slide. I have answers for the problems that confront us. I know how to make America rich again. I’ve built businesses across the globe. I’ve dealt with foreign leaders. I’ve created tens of thousands of American jobs. My whole life has been about executing deals and making real money—massive money. That’s what I do for a living: make big things happen, and now I am worth more than $7 billion.
Restoring American wealth will require that we get tough. The next president must understand that America’s business is business. We need a president who knows how to get things done, who can keep America strong, safe, and free, and who can negotiate deals that benefit America, not the countries on the other side of the table. A president doesn’t “create” jobs, only businesses can do that. But he can help create an environment that allows the rest of us—entrepreneurs, small businessmen, big businessmen—to make America rich.
The damage that Democrats, weak Republicans, and this disaster of a president have inflicted on America has put us in a mess like we’ve never seen before in our lifetimes. To fix the problem we’ve got to be smart and get tough. There’s no time to waste.
Reprinted from "Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again" by Donald J. Trump © 2011 by Donald J. Trump. Used with permission of Regnery Publishing, Inc.
© 2012 MSNBC Interactive
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