United States Department of the Treasury
The Department of the Treasury is an executive department and the treasury of the United States federal government. Established by an Act of Congress in 1789 to manage government revenue, the Treasury prints all paper currency and mints all coins in circulation through the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the United States Mint, respectively. S. government debt instruments. The Department is administered by the Secretary of the Treasury, a member of the Cabinet. Senior advisor to the Secretary is the Treasurer of the United States. Signatures of both officials appear on all Federal Reserve notes; the first Secretary of the Treasury was Alexander Hamilton, sworn into office on September 11, 1789. Hamilton was appointed by President George Washington on the recommendation of Robert Morris, Washington's first choice for the position, who had declined the appointment. Hamilton established—almost singlehandedly—the nation's early financial system and for several years was a major presence in Washington's administration.
His portrait appears on the obverse of the ten-dollar bill, while the Treasury Department building is depicted on the reverse. The current Secretary of the Treasury is Steven Mnuchin, confirmed by the United States Senate on February 13, 2017. Jovita Carranza, appointed on April 28, 2017, is the incumbent treasurer; the history of the Department of the Treasury began in the turmoil of the American Revolution, when the Continental Congress at Philadelphia deliberated the crucial issue of financing a war of independence against Great Britain. The Congress had no power to levy and collect taxes, nor was there a tangible basis for securing funds from foreign investors or governments; the delegates resolved to issue paper money in the form of bills of credit, promising redemption in coin on faith in the revolutionary cause. On June 22, 1775—only a few days after the Battle of Bunker Hill—Congress issued $2 million in bills. On July 29, 1775, the Second Continental Congress assigned the responsibility for the administration of the revolutionary government's finances to joint Continental treasurers George Clymer and Michael Hillegas.
The Congress stipulated. To ensure proper and efficient handling of the growing national debt in the face of weak economic and political ties between the colonies, the Congress, on February 17, 1776, designated a committee of five to superintend the Treasury, settle accounts, report periodically to the Congress. On April 1, a Treasury Office of Accounts, consisting of an Auditor General and clerks, was established to facilitate the settlement of claims and to keep the public accounts for the government of the United Colonies. With the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the newborn republic as a sovereign nation was able to secure loans from abroad. Despite the infusion of foreign and domestic loans, the united colonies were unable to establish a well-organized agency for financial administration. Michael Hillegas was first called Treasurer of the United States on May 14, 1777; the Treasury Office was reorganized three times between 1778 and 1781. The $241.5 million in paper Continental bills devalued rapidly.
By May 1781, the dollar collapsed at a rate of from 500 to 1000 to 1 against hard currency. Protests against the worthless money swept the colonies, giving rise to the expression "not worth a Continental". Robert Morris was designated Superintendent of Finance in 1781 and restored stability to the nation's finances. Morris, a wealthy colonial merchant, was nicknamed "the Financier" because of his reputation for procuring funds or goods on a moment's notice, his staff included a comptroller, a treasurer, a register, auditors, who managed the country's finances through 1784, when Morris resigned because of ill health. The treasury board, consisting of three commissioners, continued to oversee the finances of the confederation of former colonies until September 1789; the First Congress of the United States was called to convene in New York on March 4, 1789, marking the beginning of government under the Constitution. On September 2, 1789, Congress created a permanent institution for the management of government finances:Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there shall be a Department of Treasury, in which shall be the following officers, namely: a Secretary of the Treasury, to be deemed head of the department.
Alexander Hamilton took the oath of office as the first Secretary of the Treasury on September 11, 1789. Hamilton had served as George Washington's aide-de-camp during the Revolution and was of great importance in the ratification of the Constitution; because of his financial and managerial acumen, Hamilton was a logical choice for solving the problem of the new nation's heavy war debt. Hamilton's first official act was to submit a report to Congress in which he laid the foundation for the nation's financial health. To the surprise of many legislators, he insisted upon federal assumption and dollar-for-dollar repayment of the country's $75 million debt in order to revitalize the public credit: "he debt of the United States was the price of liberty; the faith of America has been pledged for it, with solemnities that give peculiar force to the obligation." Hami
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, which along with the United States House of Representatives—the lower chamber—comprises the legislature of the United States. The Senate chamber is located in the north wing of the Capitol, in Washington, D. C; the composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the United States Constitution. The Senate is composed of senators; each state, regardless of its population size, is represented by two senators who serve staggered terms of six years. There being at present 50 states in the Union, there are presently 100 senators. From 1789 until 1913, senators were appointed by legislatures of the states; as the upper chamber of Congress, the Senate has several powers of advice and consent which are unique to it. These include the approval of treaties, the confirmation of Cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices, federal judges, flag officers, regulatory officials, other federal executive officials and other federal uniformed officers.
In addition to these, in cases wherein no candidate receives a majority of electors for Vice President, the duty falls to the Senate to elect one of the top two recipients of electors for that office. Furthermore, the Senate has the responsibility of conducting the trials of those impeached by the House; the Senate is considered both a more deliberative and more prestigious body than the House of Representatives due to its longer terms, smaller size, statewide constituencies, which led to a more collegial and less partisan atmosphere. The presiding officer of the Senate is the Vice President of the United States, President of the Senate. In the Vice President's absence, the President Pro Tempore, customarily the senior member of the party holding a majority of seats, presides over the Senate. In the early 20th century, the practice of majority and minority parties electing their floor leaders began, although they are not constitutional officers; the drafters of the Constitution created a bicameral Congress as a compromise between those who felt that each state, since it was sovereign, should be represented, those who felt the legislature must directly represent the people, as the House of Commons did in Great Britain.
This idea of having one chamber represent people while the other gives equal representation to states regardless of population, was known as the Connecticut Compromise. There was a desire to have two Houses that could act as an internal check on each other. One was intended to be a "People's House" directly elected by the people, with short terms obliging the representatives to remain close to their constituents; the other was intended to represent the states to such extent as they retained their sovereignty except for the powers expressly delegated to the national government. The Senate was thus not designed to serve the people of the United States equally; the Constitution provides that the approval of both chambers is necessary for the passage of legislation. First convened in 1789, the Senate of the United States was formed on the example of the ancient Roman Senate; the name is derived from Latin for council of elders. James Madison made the following comment about the Senate: In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure.
An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, to balance and check the other, they ought to be so constituted. The Senate, ought to be this body. Article Five of the Constitution stipulates that no constitutional amendment may be created to deprive a state of its equal suffrage in the Senate without that state's consent; the District of Columbia and all other territories are not entitled to representation allowed to vote in either House of the Congress. The District of Columbia elects two "shadow U. S. Senators", but they are officials of the D. C. City Government and not members of the U. S. Senate; the United States has had 50 states since 1959, thus the Senate has had 100 senators since 1959. The disparity between the most and least populous states has grown since the Connecticut Compromise, which granted each state two members of the Senate and at least one member of the House of Representatives, for a total minimum of three presidential electors, regardless of population.
In 1787, Virginia had ten times the population of Rhode Island, whereas today California has 70 times the population of Wyoming, based on the 1790 and 2000 censuses. This means some citizens are two orders of magnitude better represented in the Senate than those in other states. Seats in the House of Representatives are proportionate to the population of each state, reducing the disparity of representation. Before the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, senators were elected by the individual state legislatures. Problems with repeated vacant seats due to the inability of a legislature to elect senators, intrastate political struggles, bribery and intimidation had led to a growing movement to amend the Constitution to allow for the direct election of senators; the party composition of the Senate during the 116th Congress: Art
Marco Rubio
Marco Antonio Rubio is an American attorney and politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Florida. A Republican, Rubio served as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. Rubio unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2016, winning presidential primaries in the State of Minnesota, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Rubio is a Cuban American from Florida. After serving as a city commissioner for West Miami in the 1990s, he was elected to represent the 111th district in the Florida House of Representatives in 2000. Subsequently, he was elected Speaker of the Florida House, was Speaker for two years beginning in November 2006. Upon leaving the Florida legislature in 2008 due to term limits, Rubio taught at Florida International University. Rubio ran for the United States Senate in 2010. In April 2015, Rubio announced that he would forego seeking re-election to the Senate to run for president, he suspended his campaign for president on March 15, 2016, after losing the Florida Republican primary to the eventual winner of the presidential election, Donald Trump.
On June 22, 2016, Rubio reversed his decision not to seek re-election to the Senate. Marco Antonio Rubio was born in Miami, the second son and third child of Mario Rubio Reina and Oriales Rubio, his parents were Cubans who immigrated to the United States in 1956, prior to the rise of Fidel Castro in January 1959. His mother made at least four return trips to Cuba after Castro's takeover, including a month-long trip in 1961. Neither of Rubio's parents was a U. S. citizen at the time of Rubio's birth, but his parents applied for U. S. citizenship and were naturalized in 1975. Some relatives of Rubio's were admitted to the U. S. as refugees. Rubio's maternal grandfather, Pedro Victor Garcia, immigrated to the U. S. in 1956, but returned to Cuba to find work in 1959. When he fled communist Cuba and returned to the U. S. in 1962 without a visa, he was detained as an undocumented immigrant and an immigration judge ordered him to be deported. Immigration officials had a change of heart that day, the deportation order was not enforced, Garcia was given a legal status of "parolee" that allowed him to stay in the U.
S. Garcia re-applied for permanent resident status in 1966 following passage of the Cuban Adjustment Act, at which point his residency was approved. Rubio enjoyed a close relationship with his grandfather during his childhood. Rubio has three siblings: older brother Mario, older sister Barbara, younger sister Veronica. Growing up, his family was Roman Catholic, though from age 8 to age 11 he and his family attended The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while living in Las Vegas. During those years in Nevada, his father worked as a bartender at Sam's Town Hotel and his mother as a housekeeper at the Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino, he received his first communion as a Catholic in 1984 before moving back to Miami with his family a year later. He was confirmed and married in the Catholic Church. Rubio attended South Miami Senior High School, graduating in 1989, he attended Tarkio College in Missouri for one year on a football scholarship before enrolling at Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Florida.
He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Florida in 1993 and his J. D. degree cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law in 1996. Rubio has said, he paid off those loans in 2012. While studying law, Rubio interned for U. S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, he worked on Republican Senator Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. In April 1998, two years after finishing law school, Rubio was elected to a seat as City Commissioner for West Miami, he became a member of the Florida House of Representatives in early 2000. In late 1999, a special election was called to fill the seat for the 111th House District in the Florida House of Representatives, representing Miami; the seat had been held by Representative Carlos Valdes, who had run for and won an open Florida State Senate seat. It was considered a safe Republican seat, so Rubio's main challenge was to win the GOP nomination, he campaigned as early childhood education. Rubio placed second in the Republican primary on December 14, 1999, but won the run-off election for the Republican nomination, defeating Angel Zayon by just 64 votes.
He defeated Democrat Anastasia Garcia with 72% of the vote in a January 25, 2000 special election. In November 2000, Rubio won. In 2002, he won re-election to a second full term unopposed. In 2004, he won re-election to a third full term with 66% of the vote. In 2006, he won re-election to a fourth full term unopposed. Rubio spent nine years in the Florida House of Representatives. Since the Florida legislative session lasted only 60 days, he was able to spend about half of each year in Miami, where he worked first at a law firm that specialized in land use and zoning, starting in 2004, took a position with Broad and Cassel, a Miami law and lobbying firm, though state law precluded him from engaging in lobbying or introducing legislation on behalf of the firm's clients. At the time Rubio took his seat in the legislature in Tallahassee in January 2000, voters in Florida had approved a constitutional amendment on term limits; this created openings for new legislative leaders due to many senior incumbents having to retire.
According to an ar
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from California. She took office on November 4, 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, Feinstein was Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988. Born in San Francisco, Feinstein graduated from Stanford University in 1955 with a Bachelor of Arts in History. In the 1960s, she worked in city government, she was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969, she served as the board's first female president in 1978, during which time the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk drew national attention. Feinstein succeeded Moscone as Mayor of San Francisco and became the first woman to assume the position. During her tenure, she led the renovation of the city's cable car system, oversaw the 1984 Democratic National Convention. After losing a race for governor in 1990, Feinstein won a 1992 special election to the U. S. Senate. Feinstein was first elected on the same ballot as her peer Barbara Boxer, the two women became California's first female U.
S. Senators. Feinstein has been re-elected five times since and in the 2012 election, she received 7.75 million votes--the most popular votes in any U. S. Senate election in history. Feinstein was the author of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban which expired in 2004. In 2013, she introduced a new assault weapons bill. Feinstein is the first and only woman to have chaired the Senate Rules Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence. To date, she is the only woman to have presided over a U. S. presidential inauguration. At the age of 85, Feinstein is the oldest sitting U. S. Senator. Upon the retirement of Barbara Mikulski in January 2017, Feinstein became the longest-tenured female U. S. Senator serving in the Senate. Having won reelection in 2018 to a six-year term expiring in January 2025, Feinstein will become the longest serving woman Senator in history should she serve her full term. Feinstein was born Dianne Emiel Goldman in San Francisco, to Betty, a former model, Leon Goldman, a surgeon.
Feinstein's paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Poland. Her maternal grandparents, the Rosenburg family, were from Russia. While they were of German-Jewish ancestry, they practiced the Russian Orthodox faith, as was required for Jews residing in Saint Petersburg. Feinstein graduated from Convent of the Sacred Heart High School, San Francisco in 1951 and from Stanford University in 1955 with a Bachelor of Arts in History. Prior to elected service, Feinstein was appointed by then-California Governor Pat Brown to serve as a member of the California Women's Parole Board. Feinstein served as a fellow at the Coro Foundation in San Francisco. In 1969, Feinstein was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, she remained on the Board for nine years. During her tenure on the Board of Supervisors, she unsuccessfully ran for mayor of San Francisco twice, in 1971 against mayor Joseph Alioto, in 1975, when she lost the contest for a runoff slot by one percentage point, to supervisor John Barbagelata.
Because of her position, Feinstein became a target of the New World Liberation Front, an anti-capitalist and terrorist group which carried out bombings in California in the 1970s. The NWLF placed a bomb on the windowsill of the Feinstein home, they shot out the windows of a beach house she owned. She was elected president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978 with initial opposition from Quentin Kopp. On November 27, 1978, Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated by a rival politician, Dan White, who had resigned from the Board of Supervisors two weeks earlier. Feinstein was in City Hall at the time of the shootings and discovered Milk's body after hearing the shots; that day Feinstein announced the assassinations had occurred. As President of the Board of Supervisors upon the death of Moscone, Feinstein succeeded to the mayoralty on December 4, 1978. Feinstein served out the remainder of Moscone's term and was elected in her own right in 1979, she served a full second term.
One of Feinstein's first challenges as mayor was the state of the San Francisco cable car system, shut down for emergency repairs in 1979. Feinstein helped win federal funding for the bulk of the work; the system closed for rebuilding in 1982 and the work was completed just in time for the 1984 Democratic National Convention. Feinstein oversaw planning policies to increase the number of high-rise buildings in San Francisco. Feinstein was seen as a moderate Democrat in one of the country's most liberal cities; as a supervisor, she was considered part of the centrist bloc that included Dan White and was opposed to Moscone. As mayor, Feinstein angered the city's large gay community by refusing to march in a gay rights parade and by vetoing domestic partner legislation in 1982. In the 1980 presidential election, while a majority of Bay Area Democrats continued to support Senator Ted Kennedy's primary challenge to President Jimmy Carter after it was clear Kennedy could not win, Feinstein was a strong supporter of the Carter–Mondale ticket.
She was given a high-profile speaking role on the opening night of the August Democratic National Convention, urging delegates to reject the Kennedy delegates' proposal to "open" the convention, thereby allowing delegates to ignore their states' popular vote, a proposal, soundly defeated. In the run-up to the 1984 Democratic National Convention, there was considerable media and public specu
Mark Warner
Mark Robert Warner is an American businessman and politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Virginia, a seat he was first elected to in 2008. He is a member of the Democratic Party and a Vice Chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus and the Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Prior to his congressional career, Warner was the 69th Governor of Virginia holding the office from 2002 to 2006, is the honorary chairman of the Forward Together PAC. Warner delivered the keynote address at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Apart from politics, Warner is known for his involvement in telecommunications-related venture capital during the 1980s. In 2006, he was expected to pursue the Democratic nomination in the 2008 U. S. presidential election. Warner was considered to be a potential vice presidential candidate, until he took himself out of consideration after winning the Democratic nomination for the U. S. Senate. Running against his gubernatorial predecessor, Jim Gilmore, Warner won his first election to the Senate in 2008 with 65% of the vote.
Warner won reelection in 2014. Warner was born in Indianapolis, the son of Marjorie and Robert F. Warner, he has Lisa. He grew up in Illinois, in Vernon, where he graduated from Rockville High School, a public secondary school, he has credited his interest in politics to his eighth grade social studies teacher, Jim Tyler, who "inspired him to work for social and political change during the tumultuous year of 1968." He was class president for three years at Rockville High School and hosted a weekly pick-up basketball game at his house, "a tradition that continues today."Warner graduated from George Washington University, earning his B. A. in 1977 with a 4.0 GPA and a minor in political science. He was valedictorian of the first in his family to graduate from college. At GWU he worked on Capitol Hill to pay for his tuition, riding his bike early mornings to the office of U. S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff; when his parents visited him at college, he obtained two tickets for them to tour the White House.
Warner has never practiced law. In the early 1980s, he served as a staffer to U. S. Senator Christopher Dodd, he used his knowledge of federal telecommunication law and policies as a broker of mobile phone franchise licenses, making a significant fortune. As founder and managing director of Columbia Capital, a venture capital firm, he helped found or was an early investor in a number of technology companies, including Nextel, he co-founded Capital Cellular Corporation, built up an estimated net worth of more than $200 million. As of 2012, he was the wealthiest U. S. Senator. Warner involved himself in public efforts related to health care, telecommunications, information technology and education, he managed Douglas Wilder's successful 1989 gubernatorial campaign and served as chairman of the state Democratic Party from 1993-95. Warner served, in the early 1990s, on the Virginia Commonwealth Transportation Board and sat in on monthly committee meetings of the Rail and Public Transportation Division.
He unsuccessfully ran for the U. S. Senate in 1996 against incumbent Republican John Warner in a "Warner versus Warner" election. Mark Warner performed in the state's rural areas, making the contest much closer than many pundits expected, he lost to 52 % -47 %, losing most parts of the state including the north. In 2001 Warner campaigned for governor as a moderate Democrat after years of building up a power base in rural Virginia Southwest Virginia, his opponents were Republican Mark Earley, the state's attorney general, the Libertarian candidate William B. Redpath. Warner won with 52.16 percent of the votes, 96,943 votes ahead of the next opponent. Warner had a significant funding advantage. Warner benefited from dissension in Republican ranks after a heated battle for the nomination between Earley, backed by religious conservatives, then-lieutenant governor John H. Hager, some of whose supporters openly backed Warner. In the same election, Republican Jerry Kilgore was elected attorney general, Democrat Tim Kaine was elected lieutenant governor.
In his campaign for governor in 2001, Warner said. After he was elected in 2002, Warner drew upon a $900 million "rainy day fund" left by his predecessor, James S. Gilmore, III. Warner campaigned in favor of two regional sales tax increases to fund transportation. Virginians rejected both regional referendums to raise the sales tax. In 2004, Warner worked with Democratic and moderate Republican legislators and the business community to reform the tax code, lowering food and some income taxes while increasing the sales and cigarette taxes, his tax package effected a net tax increase of $1.5 billion annually. Warner credited the additional revenues with saving the state's AAA bond rating, held at the time by only five other states, allowing the single largest investment in K-12 education in Virginia history. Warner entered into an agreement with Democrats and moderate Republicans in the Virginia Senate to cap state car tax reimb
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump is the 45th and current president of the United States. Before entering politics, he was a television personality. Trump was born and raised in the New York City borough of Queens and received an economics degree from the Wharton School, he was appointed president of his family's real estate business in 1971, renamed it The Trump Organization, expanded it from Queens and Brooklyn into Manhattan. The company built or renovated skyscrapers, hotels and golf courses. Trump started various side ventures, including licensing his name for real estate and consumer products, he managed the company until his 2017 inauguration. He co-authored several books, including The Art of the Deal, he owned the Miss Universe and Miss USA beauty pageants from 1996 to 2015, he produced and hosted The Apprentice, a reality television show, from 2003 to 2015. Forbes estimates his net worth to be $3.1 billion. Trump entered the 2016 presidential race as a Republican and defeated sixteen opponents in the primaries.
His campaign received extensive free media coverage. Commentators described his political positions as populist and nationalist. Trump has made many misleading statements during his campaign and presidency; the statements have been documented by fact-checkers, the media have described the phenomenon as unprecedented in American politics. Trump was elected president in a surprise victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, he became the oldest and wealthiest person to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or government service, the fifth to have won the election despite having lost the popular vote. His election and policies have sparked numerous protests. Many of his comments and actions have been perceived as racially charged or racist. During his presidency, Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, citing security concerns, he enacted a tax cut package for individuals and businesses, which rescinded the individual health insurance mandate and allowed oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge.
He repealed the Dodd-Frank Act that had imposed stricter constraints on banks in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. He has pursued his America First agenda in foreign policy, withdrawing the U. S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations, the Paris Agreement on climate change, the Iran nuclear deal. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, imposed import tariffs on various goods, triggering a trade war with China, negotiated with North Korea seeking denuclearization, he nominated two justices to the Supreme Court: Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The Justice Department investigated links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government regarding its election interference; when Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey, in charge of the investigation, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to proceed with the probe. The Special Counsel investigation led to guilty pleas by five Trump associates to criminal charges including lying to investigators, campaign finance violations, tax fraud.
Trump denied accusations of collusion and obstruction of justice, calling the investigation a politically motivated "witch hunt". Attorney General William Barr wrote that the special counsel's final report did not find that Trump or his campaign had "conspired or coordinated" with Russia during the 2016 election, but did not reach a conclusion regarding obstruction of justice, neither implicating him regarding obstruction of justice nor exonerating him. Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, at the Jamaica Hospital in the borough of Queens, New York City, his parents were Frederick Christ Trump, a real estate developer, Mary Anne MacLeod. Trump grew up in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens, attended the Kew-Forest School from kindergarten through seventh grade. At age 13, he was enrolled in the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school, after his parents discovered that he had made frequent trips into Manhattan without their permission. In 1964, Trump enrolled at Fordham University.
After two years, he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. While at Wharton, he worked at Elizabeth Trump & Son, he graduated in May 1968 with a B. S. in economics. When Trump was in college from 1964 to 1968, he obtained four student draft deferments. In 1966, he was deemed fit for military service based upon a medical examination and in July 1968, a local draft board classified him as eligible to serve. In October 1968, he was given a medical deferment that he attributed to spurs in the heels of both feet, which resulted in a 1-Y classification: "Unqualified for duty except in the case of a national emergency." In the December 1969 draft lottery, Trump's birthday, June 14, received a high number that would have given him a low probability to be called to military service without the 1-Y. In 1972, he was reclassified as 4-F. In 1973 and 1976, The New York Times reported that Trump had graduated first in his class at Wharton. However, a 1984 Times profile of Trump noted.
In 1988, New York magazine reported Trump conceding, "Okay, maybe not'first,' as myth has it, but he had'the highest grades possible.'" Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney, testified to the House Oversight Committee in February 2019 that Trump "directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores." Days after Trump stated in 2011, "I heard [Barack O
115th United States Congress
The One Hundred Fifteenth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D. C. from January 3, 2017, to January 3, 2019, during the final weeks of Barack Obama's presidency and the first two years of Donald Trump's presidency. Several political scientists described the legislative accomplishments of this Congress as modest, considering that both Congress and the Presidency were under unified Republican Party control. According to a contemporary study, "House and Senate GOP majorities struggled to legislate: GOP fissures and an undisciplined, unpopular president undermined the Republican agenda. Most notably, clashes within and between the two parties strained old ways of doing business." January 5, 2017: House of Representatives condemned United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334. January 6, 2017: Joint session counted and certified the electoral votes of the 2016 presidential election.
January 11–12, 2017: Senate, in an all-night session, took first steps to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The final vote was 51 to 48 to approve a budget resolution to allow "broad swaths of the Affordable Care Act to be repealed through a process known as budget reconciliation." January 20, 2017: Inauguration of President Donald Trump. February 7, 2017: Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education; this was the first time in United States history that a cabinet confirmation was tied in the Senate and required a tie-breaking vote. February 28, 2017: President's speech to a Joint Session. April 6, 2017: Senate invoked the "nuclear option" to weaken Supreme Court filibusters. Nominee Neil Gorsuch was confirmed the next day. June 14, 2017: Majority Whip Steve Scalise and several staffers were shot during the 2017 Congressional baseball shooting, they were practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game. September 1, 2017: The Parliamentarian of the United States Senate decreed that the Senate had until the end of the month to pass ACA repeal via the reconciliation process, or the option would no longer be viable.
October 24 – December 14, 2017: 2017 United States political sexual scandals from the "Me too" movement: Allegations that Congressman Ruben Kihuen sexually harassed a campaign staffer led some in congressional leadership to call for his resignation. Kihuen announced he would not seek another term in office. Senator Al Franken announced he would resign "in the coming weeks" after photographs were made public suggesting that he sexually assaulted a Los Angeles-based radio personality during a USO tour in Iraq in 2006, he was accused by multiple female constituents of groping at various Minnesota fair appearances that he attended. Three members of Congress either announced their impeding resignations. Allegations that President Donald Trump raped and sexually harassed at least nineteen women, one girl, Miss Teen USA contestants resulted in calls by members of Congress for him to resign. Allegations that Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore raped and sexually harassed at least eight women and one girl contributed to his defeat by Democrat Doug Jones in a special Senate election to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Allegations that Representative Blake Farenthold sexually harassed a former staffer resulted in the commencement of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee and his announcement he would not seek re-election in 2018. He subsequently resigned on April 6, 2018. January 20–22, 2018: United States federal government shutdown of January 2018 January 30, 2018: 2018 State of the Union Address February 9, 2018: United States federal government funding gap October 6, 2018: Senate confirms Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U. S. Supreme Court. November 28, 2018: Senate discharges from committee and calendars S. J. Res. 54, bill that ends US intervention in the Yemeni Civil War. December 22, 2018 – January 25, 2019: 2018–19 United States federal government shutdown May 5, 2017: Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017, H. R. 244, Pub. L. 115–31 August 2, 2017: Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, H. R. 3364, Pub. L. 115–44 December 12, 2017: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, H.
R. 2810, Pub. L. 115–91 December 22, 2017: Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, H. R. 1, Pub. L. 115–97 February 9, 2018: Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, H. R. 1892, Pub. L. 115–123 March 23, 2018: Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, H. R. 1625, Pub. L. 115–141 April 11, 2018: Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, H. R. 1865, Pub. L. 115–164 May 24, 2018: Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act, S. 2155, Pub. L. 115–174 May 30, 2018: Trickett Wendler, Frank Mongiello, Jordan McLinn, Matthew Bellina Right to Try Act of 2017, S. 204, Pub. L. 115–176 August 13, 2018: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, H. R. 5515, Pub. L. 115–232 October 5, 2018: FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, H. R. 302, Pub. L. 115–254 October 11, 2018: Music Modernization Act, H. R. 1551, Pub. L. 115–264 October 23, 2018: America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018, S. 3021, Pub. L. 115–270 October 24, 2018: SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, H. R. 6, Pub. L. 115–271 December 20, 2018: Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, H.
R. 2, Pub. L. 115–334 December 21, 2018: FIRST STEP Act, S. 756, Pub. L. 115–391 May 4, 2017: American Health Care Act, passed House May 4, 2017 June 8, 2017: Financial CHOICE Act, passed House June 8, 2017 Resignations and new members are discussed in the "Changes in membership" section, below. Section contents: Senate: Majority, Minority • House: Majority, Minority President: Joe Biden
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