Trump’s First 100 Days: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

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By Michaela Anderson, Reporter

If there is one thing that Donald Trump has done during the 90-plus days since his inauguration, it’s keep his word. All throughout the election, he promised change–that he will fix things that needed fixing and therefore “Making America Great Again” by doing so. There’s no doubt that change has happened, either.

Even this early into the presidency, you can see his desire to change things. Within his first three months, the businessman-turned-president signed in over two dozen executive orders that ranged from establishing the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis to slowly getting rid of the idea of Obamacare and potentially leaving millions of Americans uninsured in the years to come. Though, despite his great effort to help the people, change is not what’s always best.

Out of everything that Trump has accomplished since January 20th, the thing that has impressed me the most is the NASA Transition Authorization Act, which sets a $19.5 billion budget for the agency during the year of 2017. The bill–S.442–is the first NASA authorization bill to reach a U.S. president’s desk since the year 2010.

Trump signed the bill into law on March 21st during a televised ceremony in the Oval Office. Under the new law, NASA will continue its efforts to eventually send humans to Mars. The best thing about it though, is that it opens many different doors and potentially allows us to travel further than Mars in the near future.

Though, in my opinion, things that are ‘good’ pretty much end here.

One of the many things that I’ve found myself not agreeing with is Trump’s blatant disregard for the climate and the steps that President Obama made to help our planet. Many others can agree with this statement–if the March on Science is anything to go by.

In an executive order that was established on  March 28, Trump ordered the federal government to dismantle the core policies that have made the U.S. a global leader in curbing emissions. It shelves the Clean Power Plan that mandates electricity companies reduce their emissions. It dislodges consideration of climate throughout the federal government, where it has been a factor in every relevant decision in recent years.

Though, as Trump puts it, “My administration is putting an end to the war on coal…I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy to reverse government intrusions and to cancel job-killing regulations.”

President Trump is putting American jobs above climate change–and while that seems like a good idea to some people, in reality, it’s not. Climate change has been an ever-increasing problem for the past several decades and considering that we live here, on the planet Earth, it’s in our best interest to try to prevent things that could harm our planet and us in the long-run.

There have been many attempts made to help climate change: President Obama’s numerous actions just being one example. It just seems that Trump can’t face the thousands of facts that clearly state that climate change is a real problem.

But then again, Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t believe in climate change with his claim that “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

Though his view on climate change isn’t the only thing I have problems with.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010. It’s more commonly known as the Affordable Care Act or rather, it’s nickname, Obamacare. It’s main focus was on providing more Americans with access to affordable health insurance, improving the quality of health care and health insurance, regulating the health insurance industry, and reducing health care spending in the US. It helped ensure that Health Care Coverage was available to any legal U.S. resident who cannot otherwise obtain “quality” healthcare through their employer.

Since the beginning, though, Republicans have been wanting to repeal Obamacare.  Research on loss aversion then suggests that the repeal would create a political firestorm of epic proportions. Now, since Republicans have control of the presidency, the repeal of the ACA (Affordable Care Act) is quickly becoming a reality.

As someone who is directly affected by Obamacare, it’s easy to say that there are some flaws. However, if it wasn’t for Obamacare, people who’ve needed life-changing surgeries wouldn’t have been able to get them without the help of the ACA–so, clearly, there are some benefits to it.

According to the Huffington Post, Obamacare saved the life of a young girl named Zoe, who was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Before the age of 5, Zoe had three open-heart surgeries. Stacey Lihn, Zoe’s mother, had to come to terms with a scary realization.

“When we received Zoe’s diagnosis, I had coverage under my employer’s plan, but we had a life-time cap on our policy,” Lihn said,  “It’s very expensive. Obviously having three open heart surgeries before the age of 5, she was going to hit that lifetime cap at a very young age.”

Lihn went on, describing how when the Affordable Care Act was passed, it was such a relief to her and her family knowing that there wouldn’t be a cap on how much medical care her daughter could receive. Because of Obamacare, Zoe is a healthy 6-year-old.

Luckily, though, we don’t have to worry about the repeal of Obamacare just yet. Though, the end of the ACA era is quickly approaching us. Let’s just hope they can repeal and replace without causing a government shutdown.

While my list of things that Trump has done during his first 100 days (and my opinion on the matter) can go on, there is nothing I can do to change what happened. I just hope that between his weekly trips to the golf course and his incessant Twitter rampages, he can actually do something to better our country.

How long Trump has been president.

How long until Trump leaves office.