WEST WING MHI Daily

“Trump Takes Agenda of Change to the United Nations”

– Farnaz Fassihi and Eli Stokols, The Wall Street Journal

Farnaz Fassihi and Eli Stokols of the Wall Street Journal write about President Trump’s comments to the United Nations, focusing on the President’s belief in the “tremendous potential” the U.N. has to become more effective and influential. The article states President Trump wants the organization to “focus more on people and less on bureaucracy,” and is dedicated to a variety of institutional overhauls. A U.S.-drafted 10-point document titled “U.N. Reform Declaration” asks countries to “commit to reducing mandate duplication, redundancy, and overlap including among the main organs of the United Nations,” and encourages U.N. Secretary General Guterres to “pursue impactful and field-centric management reforms,” Fassihi and Stokols report.

The Daily Signal outlines several of the reforms that U.S. officials have said President Trump will be pushing at the U.N. General Assembly, saying he will “focus on ensuring that other countries take a more equitable burden to ensure international security, to demand greater accountability of U.N. officials, and to reduce the budget by eliminating duplication.”

Regarding tax reform, Chris Edwards writes in USA Today “if the GOP focuses on pro-growth tax changes, we shouldn’t worry about the short-term hit to the deficit,” as the corporate tax rate cuts in countries like Canada and Britain show that a more competitive tax code will benefit America in the long run. Edwards states that over time, with a corporate tax rate cut, companies would “build more U.S. factories, bring foreign profits back home, and evade taxes less.”

In Obamacare news, The Washington Free Beacon reports that “next year, average benchmark premiums for Obamacare plans are expected to rise 15 percent more than they did this year, according to projections from the Congressional Budget Office.”

On Graham-Cassidy and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, The Atlantic’s Russell Berman reports that the new GOP bill is gaining momentum as the White House has reengaged Republicans in an effort to guarantee a simple majority win before the September 30th deadline.

Andrew Kreighbaum of Inside Higher Ed reports on the appointment of Johnathan Holifield as executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This announcement comes amidst the President’s ongoing meetings with key leaders and students from historically black colleges as a part of the HBCU Week Conference, Kreighbaum writes.

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