The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
December 24,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, yesterday President-elect Donald J. Trump released the following statement in response to the attached letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“A very nice letter from Vladimir Putin; his thoughts are so correct. I hope both sides are able to live up to these thoughts, and we do not have to travel an alternate path.”
December 23,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced the formation of the White House National Trade Council (NTC) and his selection of Dr. Peter Navarro to serve as Assistant to the President and Director of Trade and Industrial Policy.
The formation of the National Trade Council further demonstrates the President-elect’s determination to make American manufacturing great again and to provide every American the opportunity to work in a decent job at a decent wage. Navarro is a visionary economist and will develop trade policies that shrink our trade deficit, expand our growth, and help stop the exodus of jobs from our shores.
The mission of the National Trade Council will be to advise the President on innovative strategies in trade negotiations, coordinate with other agencies to assess U.S. manufacturing capabilities and the defense industrial base, and help match unemployed American workers with new opportunities in the skilled manufacturing sector. The National Trade Council will also lead the Buy America, Hire America program to ensure the President-elect’s promise is fulfilled in government procurement and projects ranging from infrastructure to national defense.
The National Trade Council will work collaboratively and synergistically with the National Security Council, the National Economic Council, and the Domestic Policy Council to fulfill the President’s vision of peace and prosperity through military and economic strength. For the first time, there will be a council within the White House that puts American manufacturing and American workers first, and that thinks strategically about the health of America’s defense industrial base and the role of trade and manufacturing in national security.
As a Harvard Ph.D. economist and UC-Irvine professor, Navarro has been instrumental in challenging the prevailing Washington orthodoxy on so-called free trade.
“I read one of Peter’s books on America’s trade problems years ago and was impressed by the clarity of his arguments and thoroughness of his research,” said President-elect Trump. “He has presciently documented the harms inflicted by globalism on American workers, and laid out a path forward to restore our middle class. He will fulfill an essential role in my administration as a trade advisor.”
During the campaign, Navarro, together with Commerce Secretary-designee Wilbur Ross, worked to develop and communicate the trade and economic agenda of the President-elect and a new vision to bring back America’s manufacturing wealth.
“Peter Navarro is the best person President-elect Donald Trump could have chosen to head his National Trade Council,” said Ross. “We were a great team during the campaign, and we will be a great team during the Administration.”
“I am deeply honored for the opportunity to serve the President-elect and this nation and to advise on policies to rebalance our trade, rebuild our industrial base, and restore America’s comprehensive national power by making America great again,” said Navarro.
“The resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed.
“As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations.
“This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis.” President Elect Donald Trump
Egypt scuttles UN vote on Israeli settlement after Trump warning
By JOEL GEHRKE (@JOELMENTUM) • 12/22/16 11:07 AM
Egyptian officials scrapped a plan to proceed with a United Nations Security Council vote condemning the construction of Israeli settlements, following pushback from Israeli officials and President-elect Trump.
“Egypt requested the vote’s delay to permit them to conduct an additional meeting of the Arab League’s foreign ministers to work on the resolution’s wording,” Haaretz reported, citing Western diplomats. But the vote might be postponed “indefinitely,” according to the report.
Over the course of six decades, Mr. Icahn has distinguished himself as one of America’s most successful businessmen and investors. Mr. Icahn was one of President-elect Trump’s earliest supporters, and his intimate knowledge of what businesses need to grow and thrive makes him a trusted voice in developing President-elect Trump’s America First economic agenda. Icahn will be a leader in helping American entrepreneurs shed job-killing regulations that stifle economic growth.
“Carl was with me from the beginning and with his being one of the world’s great businessmen, that was something I truly appreciated,” said President-elect Trump. “He is not only a brilliant negotiator, but also someone who is innately able to predict the future especially having to do with finances and economies. His help on the strangling regulations that our country is faced with will be invaluable.”
“I am proud to serve President-elect Trump as a special advisor on regulatory reform,” said Mr. Icahn. “Under President Obama, America’s business owners have been crippled by over $1 trillion in new regulations and over 750 billion hours dealing with paperwork. It’s time to break free of excessive regulation and let our entrepreneurs do what they do best: create jobs and support communities. President-elect Trump is serious about helping American families, and regulatory reform will be a critical component of making America work again.”
Mr. Icahn is a New York City native and grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens. After receiving a degree in philosophy from Princeton University in 1957, he attended medical school at New York University and then joined the Army. Carl began his career on Wall Street in 1961. In 1968, he formed Icahn & Co., and has gone on to become one of the most well-known and influential investors in America, holding substantial or controlling positions in numerous American companies over the years, including RJR Nabisco, Texaco, Philips Petroleum, Western Union, Gulf & Western, Viacom, Revlon, Time Warner, Motorola, Chesapeake Energy, Dell, Netflix, Apple, and eBay. His efforts have improved the competitiveness of American companies in a wide range of industries, including real estate, telecommunications, transportation, industrial services, oil refining and manufacturing.
Carl has been deeply involved in many charitable endeavors for years. In 2012, in recognition of Carl’s gift of $200 million, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine was renamed the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Institute of Genomics was renamed the Icahn Genomics Institute. The School of Medicine also established the Icahn Scholars Program to attract world-class physician-scientists. He also funded the Icahn Medical Institute Building at Mount Sinai Hospital and the Institute of Genomics, a genomics and multi-scale biology research program. Carl serves as a trustee on the boards of the School of Medicine and Mount Sinai Hospital.
In the realm of education, Carl established seven Icahn Charter Schools in The Bronx borough of New York City. The mission of the schools is based on the belief that all students deserve a rigorous academic program through which they will increase their capacity to learn. At Choate Rosemary Hall, a premiere boarding school located in Wallingford, Connecticut, where he previously served on the board of trustees, he endowed the Icahn Scholars Program, which has awarded a large number of scholarships to underprivileged students.
Carl has also made significant donations to the Randall’s Island Sports Foundation, where he previously served as a trustee, for the construction of Icahn Stadium, a track and field stadium located on Randall’s Island. In addition, he has served as a trustee on the board of Lincoln Center.
Carl Icahn will be advising the President in his individual capacity and will not be serving as a federal employee or a Special Government Employee and will not have any specific duties.
December 23,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced he intends to nominate former U.S. Army infantry officer and current Virtu Financial Founder and Executive Chairman Vincent “Vinnie” Viola as Secretary of the Army.
As Secretary of the Army, Viola will combine a deep background in national security affairs with an impressive track record of leading and managing high-performing teams within the military and the private sector. Viola is a West Point graduate and U.S. Army veteran. He was trained as an Airborne Ranger infantry officer and served in the 101st Airborne Division. Viola has long been engaged with national security issues even after his military service.
Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, Viola worked tirelessly to support the Army philanthropically in the areas of counterterrorism, cybersecurity and leadership development, including helping to found the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. He has also founded multiple high-value companies, including Virtu Financial, and chaired the New York Mercantile Exchange. Viola’s business experience makes him well positioned to help guide a Fortune 10-sized company, the U.S. Army, to accomplish its broad mission in the most innovative and efficient way possible.
“I am proud to have such an incredibly accomplished and selfless individual as Vincent Viola as our Secretary of the Army,” said President-elect Donald J. Trump. “Whether it is his distinguished military service or highly impressive track record in the world of business, Vinnie has proved throughout his life that he knows how to be a leader and deliver major results in the face of any challenge. He is a man of outstanding work ethic, integrity, and strategic vision, with an exceptional ability to motivate others. The American people, whether civilian or military, should have great confidence that Vinnie Viola has what it takes to keep America safe and oversee issues of concern to our troops in the Army.”
“It is an honor to be nominated to serve our country as President-elect Trump’s Secretary of the Army,” said Viola. “If confirmed, I will work tirelessly to provide our President with the land force he will need to accomplish any mission in support of his National Defense Strategy. A primary focus of my leadership will be ensuring that America’s soldiers have the ways and means to fight and win across the full spectrum of conflict. This great honor comes with great responsibility, and I will fight for the American people and their right to live free every day.”
Viola is living proof of the American dream. He was born and raised in an Italian immigrant family in Brooklyn, and his father worked a truck driver. Viola was inspired to join the military after witnessing his father’s service in the U.S. Army in World War II. Viola was the first member of his family to attend college, and after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1977, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army that same year. After graduating from the Infantry Officer Basic Course and Ranger School, Viola reported to duty with the 101st Airborne Division. Viola remained a member of the U.S. Army Reserve after the completion of his active duty service. In 1983, he received his J.D. from New York Law School.
In the 1980s, Viola worked as a trader on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and also founded the first of many business ventures, including Pioneer Futures and the Independent Bank Group. After a long and influential career, Viola was appointed Chairman of NYMEX in March 2001.
Viola’s leadership of NYMEX on and after 9/11 resulted in the board of Exchange recognizing his actions with a citation that included this statement: “His heroic leadership served as a beacon to thousands of Exchange members and staff, providing us with the fortitude to resume operations and preserve the efficiency of the American economy and global energy and metals markets in the face of this great tragedy.” In 2008, Viola founded Virtu Financial, a global leader in electronic market making, and took the company public in 2015.
Viola has also been deeply involved in a number of philanthropic causes. Viola has endowed the Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. Chair in Catholic Theology at Fordham University and is a major supporter of the Catholic Leadership Institute and its mission to provide world-class leadership formation to bishops, priests and deacons. He is also the owner of the NHL’s Florida Panthers.
Viola lives in New York City with his wife Teresa. They have three adult sons.
The CIA has accused Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election by hacking into Democratic and Republican computer networks and selectively releasing emails. But critics might point out the U.S. has done similar things.
The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries – it’s done so as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University.
That number doesn’t include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn’t like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor does it include general assistance with the electoral process, such as election monitoring.
Levin defines intervention as “a costly act which is designed to determine the election results [in favor of] one of the two sides.” These acts, carried out in secret two-thirds of the time, include funding the election campaigns of specific parties, disseminating misinformation or propaganda, training locals of only one side in various campaigning or get-out-the-vote techniques, helping one side design their campaign materials, making public pronouncements or threats in favor of or against a candidate, and providing or withdrawing foreign aid.
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-us-intervention-foreign-elections-20161213-story.html
BY JOE CONCHA – 12/19/16 01:46 PM EST
Democratic voters are almost three times as likely to have “blocked, unfriended, or stopped following someone on social media” after Donald Trump’s victory, according to a study released Monday.
The nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI ) found 24 percent of Democrats distanced themselves from people on social media because of a political postings. Nine percent of both Republicans and independents reported doing the same to those in social media circles.
Additionally, 28 percent of liberals surveyed said they removed someone from their social media circle because of the content that person posted, compared with 8 percent of conservatives.
For moderates, 11 percent said they blocked, unfriended or unfollowed someone due to what that person posted online.
https://thehill.com/homenews/311047-poll-dems-more-likely-to-unfriend-people-due-to-political-posts
Investigation claims Obama admin retaliated against scientists, politicized DoE
BY: Adam Kredo
December 20, 2016 3:00 pm
A new congressional investigation has determined that the Obama administration fired a top scientist and intimidated staff at the Department of Energy in order to further its climate change agenda, according to a new report that alleges the administration ordered top officials to obstruct Congress in order to forward this agenda.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas), chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, released a wide-ranging report on Tuesday that shows how senior Obama administration officials retaliated against a leading scientist and plotted ways to block a congressional inquiry surrounding key research into the impact of radiation.
A top DoE scientist who liaised with Congress on the matter was fired by the Obama administration for being too forthright with lawmakers, according to the report, which provides an in-depth look at the White House’s efforts to ensure senior staffers toe the administration’s line.
The report also provides evidence that the Obama administration worked to kill legislation in order to ensure that it could receive full funding for its own hotly contested climate change agenda.
The report additionally discovered efforts by the Obama administration to censor the information given to Congress, interfering with the body’s ability to perform critical oversight work.
Calls for members of the Electoral College to ‘vote your conscience’ have paid off – but not for Hillary Clinton supporters
A handful of ‘Hamilton electors,’ who are Democrats, chose to vote for moderate Republicans like John Kasich or Colin Powell
They had hoped that Republicans would follow suit peeling away the electors needed to elect Donald Trump president
By mid-afternoon Trump was close to receiving the 270 votes he would need to officially clinch the White House
Bill Clinton was a member of New York’s electoral college and was in Albany to cast a vote for his wife
Four ‘faithless’ electors cast votes in Washington state not for Clinton, while attempts were made in Maine, Colorado and Minnesota
By Nikki Schwab, U.s. Political Reporter For Dailymail.com and Associated Press
PUBLISHED: 13:12 EST, 19 December 2016 | UPDATED: 18:58 EST, 19 December 2016
By James Oliphant and Emily Stephenson | WASHINGTON
With more than 20 nominees now selected, Donald Trump’s cabinet appears much like the president-elect himself: mostly older, white males, many of them wealthy, who see themselves as risk-takers and deal-makers and prize action over deliberation.
Trump, who says Washington is “broken” and controlled by special interests, has largely eschewed technocrats with long government experience. Instead, he has built a team of bosses.
Trump’s roster of agency heads and advisers conspicuously lacks intellectuals, lawyers, and academics of the sort sought by some past presidents. In their place are titans of business and finance from the likes of Exxon Mobil and Goldman Sachs and no fewer than three retired generals in key positions.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-bosses-analysis-idUSKBN1452PX
U.S. to disclose estimate of number of Americans under surveillance
By Dustin Volz | WASHINGTON
The U.S. intelligence community will soon disclose an estimate of the number of Americans whose electronic communications have been caught in the crosshairs of online surveillance programs intended for foreigners, U.S. lawmakers said in a letter seen by Reuters on Friday.
The estimate, requested by members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, is expected to be made public as early as next month, the letter said.
Its disclosure would come as Congress is expected to begin debate in the coming months over whether to reauthorize or reform the so-called surveillance authority, known as Section 702, a provision that was added to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008.
“The timely production of this information is incredibly important to informed debate on Section 702 in the next Congress— and, without it, even those of us inclined to support reauthorization would have reason for concern,” said the letter signed by 11 lawmakers, all members of the House Judiciary Committee.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-surveillance-idUSKBN1452FX?il=0
by Tyler Durden
Dec 16, 2016 11:00 AM
Remember when The NYT reported that its ad hoc campaign to boost revenue by selling subscriptions in response to the vicious back and forth with Donald Trump, was said to be a smashing success? Perhaps it was subscriptions for the crossword puzzle because it appears the monetary success was not smashing enough, and according to a just released note from executives Arthur Sulzberger and Mark Thompson, the newspaper will vacate at least eight floors in its iconic building, allowing it to “generate significant rental income” because it is “frankly, too expensive to occupy this many floors when we don’t truly need them.”
Maybe the lesson here is that when the newspaper business model no longer works, one can just pivot into a REIT?
The remaining staff will be consolidated on the remaining, redesigned floors in a “more dynamic, modern and open workplace, one that is better suited to the moment.”
Furthermore, the NYT publisher and CEO will lose their corner offices, which they call a “vestige from a different era” and will “introduce more team rooms and common spaces.”
It is unclear if NYT would distribute pink slips as part of the cost-cutting effort, however as the letter adds, “in the end, these changes will impact every employee at 620 Eighth Ave. In the near term, we will have to move about 400 employees out of the building to nearby office space while the first phase of work is completed. We expect that group, which includes parts of marketing, technology, the newsroom, news services, corporate finance and print products and services pre-press operations, to move in the first quarter and return by the end of 2017. Your manager will notify you if your position is affected by this temporary move. We understand and appreciate the disruption this will inevitably cause and we will do everything in our power to mitigate it.”
The money quote:
“And even if Putin did favor one candidate, I’m skeptical that he would prefer Trump. After all, it was President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who were repeatedly outplayed and embarrassed by Putin on Ukraine, Syria and the Baltics. At the very least, Putin’s preference would seem debatable.”
President Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry were played so expertly by Putin that it was if he had programmed them to always do the wrong and stupid thing.
By REP. CHRIS STEWART • 12/15/16 12:04 AM
Did Russian intelligence officials attempt to interfere in our election? Almost certainly they did. Did they attempt to tip the scales in favor of Donald Trump. Very clearly, they did not.
Several outlets reported last weekend that the CIA recently told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russia interfered in the U.S. elections for the purpose of helping to elect Trump. To quote from one report: “‘It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,’ said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. ‘That’s the consensus view.'”
As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I can say unequivocally that such an assessment has not been briefed to me. To the contrary, the claims in the press conflict with recent statements to the public and our committee characterizing alleged Russian activities. For example, on Nov. 17, 2016, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the committee in an open hearing that the intelligence community lacked “good insight” into the connection, if any, between Russian hacking and WikiLeaks.
Last weekend’s reporting was based on an anonymous official who claimed to be familiar with the supposed CIA assessment. Whether this source was confused or deliberately misleading is less important than the fact that the current media uproar advances Vladimir Putin’s goal to sow chaos and distrust in our electoral system.
Katrina Trinko / @KatrinaTrinko / December 15, 2016
Facebook doesn’t think you know what’s “fake news” and what’s not.
In an announcement Thursday, the social media giant said it was going to crack down on fake news through a variety of ways, including letting users report what they deem to be fake news.
>>> The 4 Steps Facebook Is Taking to Crack Down on ‘Fake News’
But one item on Facebook’s list of methods to crack down was particularly concerning:
We’ve started a program to work with third-party fact-checking organizations that are signatories of Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Code of Principles. We’ll use the reports from our community, along with other signals, to send stories to these organizations. If the fact-checking organizations identify a story as fake, it will get flagged as disputed and there will be a link to the corresponding article explaining why.
When you look at the signatories on the Poynter list, you’ll find seven from the United States: ABC News, The Washington Post, Snopes, Associated Press, FactCheck.org, Climate Feedback, and Politifact.
Aha.
Talk about the devil being in the details. These are hardly unbiased fact-checkers—conservatives have raised alarms about several of them. Let’s go through some examples:
1). Snopes. You may have heard that the terrorist who murdered 49 people and injured dozens more at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, was a Democrat. That’s for a reason: Omar Mateen was registered as a Democrat. Yet Snopes took issue with that characterization, saying it was “undetermined” because Mateen’s “U.S. political affiliation (if any) at the time of the shooting is unknown.”
Snopes’ Kim LaCapria continued:
However, being a member of any particular political party involves expressing an ongoing allegiance to that party and its principles: one could be pegged as a Democrat (or a Republican, or a member of any other party) if he ran for office as a member of that party, exclusively campaigned or raised money for that party and its candidates, or consistently voted for that party’s candidates. But there’s no evidence that Mateen materially supported any particular political party, nor do we know how he voted (or whether he ever voted at all).
All we know is that 10 years ago he registered as a Democrat, and voter registration is an imperfect indicator that governs nothing more than which party’s primary a citizen is eligible to vote in …
What?
It’s hard to make sense of this, but it basically boils down to: No one can be labeled a member of any party unless they consistently have run for office, donated money, or voted for that party’s candidates (something that could never be proved, incidentally, since we have secret ballots).
Which is a ridiculous standard. Look, I’m someone who is registered Republican to vote in the primaries, and who has plenty of quibbles with the GOP, and yet I would agree if I were identified as a Republican by a news site, it would be true—because I am registered as a Republican.
2). Politifact. Back in June, Donald Trump said, “Crime is rising.” Politifact blasted this claim as “pants on fire.” Then the American Enterprise Institute’s Sean Kennedy looked into the facts, noted Politifact had looked at statistics ending in 2014, and wrote: “The FBI’s preliminary 2015 figures actually do show crime rising in most categories across the country between 2014 and 2015.” Politifact responded … that it stood by its rating.
3). The Washington Post. Here’s a fun one: in 2015, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said that “we, right now, have more words in the IRS code than there are in the Bible.” The Post looked at the claim and wrote, “The literally translated King James Version of the Bible contains just over 800,000 words. There are as many as 3.7 million individual words in the IRS tax code.” So Cruz deserves a true rating, right? Wrong—at least according to The Post, which went on to say: “This is a nonsense fact, something that is technically correct but ultimately meaningless.”
So perhaps in the new Facebook era, the Orlando terrorist being a Democrat, Trump discussing the rise in crime, and Cruz saying the IRS code has more words than the Bible would all be buried as “fake news” … despite being true.
Other U.S. organizations listed in the Poynter directory Facebook says it will rely on are Climate Feedback (which I’m not familiar with, but at a cursory glance does not appear to be challenging the liberal groupthink on climate change), and ABC News (home to George Stephanopoulos, who worked for the Clinton White House, and oh, didn’t disclose he had donated to the Clinton Foundation).
There is undoubtedly “fake news” online—and consumers should work to be responsible about sharing information, fact-checking themselves claims that seem spurious.
And Facebook, of course, is a private company that legally can do what it wants regarding its content.
But while Facebook legally can crack down on “fake news,” it’s unfortunate it has chosen to do so, particularly by relying on liberal organizations’ fact-checks as the arbiters.
It’s clear that the system Facebook has announced is much more likely to result in crackdowns on conservative outlets than liberal outlets—which is bad news for all of us conservatives on Facebook.
https://dailysignal.com/2016/12/15/facebooks-reliance-on-liberal-fact-checkers-means-your-news-is-about-to-be-censored/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=thf-fb
December 17,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced his nomination of U.S. Congressman Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina as Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Congressman Mulvaney brings a wealth of experience on economic, budgetary, and fiscal issues to his new role. Rep. Mulvaney has long been a strong voice in Congress for reining in out-of-control spending, fighting government waste and enacting tax policies that will allow working Americans to thrive. Rep. Mulvaney believes getting America’s fiscal house in order is a key component of President-elect Trump’s America First plan to create millions of jobs and grow the economy.
“We are going to do great things for the American people with Mick Mulvaney leading the Office of Management and Budget,” said President-elect Trump. “Right now we are nearly $20 trillion in debt, but Mick is a very high-energy leader with deep convictions for how to responsibly manage our nation’s finances and save our country from drowning in red ink. With Mick at the head of OMB, my administration is going to make smart choices about America’s budget, bring new accountability to our federal government, and renew the American taxpayer’s trust in how their money is spent.”
“It is a great honor to be appointed Director of the Office of Management and Budget,” said Congressman Mulvaney. “The Trump administration will restore budgetary and fiscal sanity back in Washington after eight years of an out-of-control, tax and spend financial agenda, and will work with Congress to create policies that will be friendly to American workers and businesses. Each day, families across our nation make disciplined choices about how to spend their hard earned money, and the federal government should exercise the same discretion that hardworking Americans do every day.”
A lifelong resident of the Carolinas, Rep. Mulvaney attended Georgetown University where he graduated as an Honor Scholar – the highest award given to students of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service – in International Economics, Commerce and Finance. After college, Rep. Mulvaney attended law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a full academic scholarship. He then completed his formal education at Harvard Business School’s OPM program in 2006.
Rep. Mulvaney has broad business experience across many fields. After practicing law, following graduating law school, the entrepreneurial spirit captured him and he started his own law firm. Later, he ran his family’s real estate business and then went on to start a small homebuilding company, and owned and operated his own restaurant.
Rep. Mulvaney has used his educational, professional, and business background to bring a focus on jobs, business and the economy to his work in Congress. He currently serves on the House Financial Services Committee as well as the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
In Congress, Rep. Mulvaney co-authored Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, which curbed and capped needless federal spending, and provided for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. Additionally, Rep. Mulvaney’s Congressional office has returned hundreds of thousands of dollars from its office budget to the U.S. Treasury over the past few years.
Rep. Mulvaney and his wife Pam were married in 1998, and are the proud parents of triplets.
