Remember when other countries used to beat our Olympic basketball team consisting only of college players? America got smart and started using players from the NBA in 1992 and assembled the Dream Team for the Barcelona Olympics. The Dream Team easily won the gold medal.
Following his victory in the 2016 Presidential election, Donald Trump is selecting his Dream Team Cabinet. Most of the people he has nominated have a wealth of experience outside of the fields of government and politics.
Gov. Nikki Haley has been nominated to the position of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.). She will have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The position should prove to be challenging, as the Trump Administration will seek to reverse a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements along the Jordan River. Haley will also have to defend a likely move to cut off American funding for the U.N. climate change division.
Here are few of the other notable cabinet selections:
Sen. Jeff Sessions — Sessions was a U.S. Attorney during the Reagan Administration and later became the Attorney General for the state of Alabama. Currently serving in his fourth term in the U.S. Senate, Sessions is recognized as a fiscal and social conservative. He is noted for his strong position on stopping illegal immigration and enforcing existing immigration laws. He will be tasked with prosecuting scandals associated with the Clinton Foundation, the Veterans Administration and the Internal Revenue Service.
Rep. Tom Price — Secretary of Health and Human Services. Price, who represents a district in the Atlanta suburbs, is an orthopedic surgeon who once managed the orthopedics clinic at an Atlanta hospital clinic. He has written legislation to replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The guiding principles of the plan are allowing consumers to purchase medical insurance across state lines and choose the coverage they want, expanding the use of tax-free Health Savings Accounts to pay for routine medical care, creating state high-risk insurance pools, medical malpractice lawsuit reform, and block-granting Medicaid funds to the states to allow them to manage the low-income medical care program without federal interference.
Rex Tillerson — Secretary of State. Immediately after earning a civil engineering degree from the University of Texas in 1975, Tillerson went to work for Exxon as a project manager in the oil fields. He worked his way through the ranks to become Chief Executive Officer. He has negotiated contracts with dozens of foreign governments. He has extensive experience dealing with Russia and the Middle East. President-elect Trump calls Tillerson “a world class player.”
Wilbur Ross — Secretary of Commerce. Ross is known as a corporate turn-around specialist. He has revived failing companies in the fields of textile manufacturing and steel, which have suffered tremendously from foreign manipulation and unfavorable trade deals. Ross will be an articulate and forceful advocate for Trump’s plans to make American companies more competitive in the world economy and to renegotiate trade agreements with other countries.
Scott Pruitt – Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The two-term Oklahoma Attorney General has sued the Obama Administration EPA over regulations concerning water rights and power plant operations. Pruitt believes that EPA regulations which were not approved by Congress should be overturned. He questions whether human activity plays a role in climate change.
Betsey DeVos — Secretary of Education. DeVos is the former Michigan Republican Party chairwoman. She once chaired the Alliance for School Choice, which advocates for expanded charter schools in public education and voucher payments parents could use to send their children to private schools. She has been a vocal critic of teachers’ unions and the federal education bureaucracy. DeVos will be tasked with dismantling the Common Core federal mandates and transferring control of education policy from the federal governments to the states.
John Steinberger is the editor-in-chief of LowcountrySource.com. to contact him, email John@LowcountrySource.com.