West Wing Reads How America Needs to Follow Up On the First Step Act

How America Needs to Follow Up On the First Step Act “Twenty-two years. That’s how long I spent behind bars before the First Step Act was signed into law — and, just like that, I had a second chance,” writes Matthew Charles, one of the first inmates to benefit from President Donald J. Trump’s criminal justice reform. After signing the First Step Act, “the president launched a Second Chance Initiative last month to reduce barriers to employment for formerly incarcerated people just like me. He and business leaders know that helping people get jobs is a win for us and a win for the economy.” The reality is that “bills like the First Step Act sat stalled in Congress for years, through control of both parties, before Trump stepped in,” Charles says. Click here to read more. “President Donald Trump on Monday signed a bill ensuring that a fund to compensate victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks never runs out of money,” Adam Edelman reports for NBC News. “Addressing the numerous 9/11 first responders in attendance for the signing moments later, Trump said, ‘Over the last two decades, you have endured hardship with amazing grace and incredible grit.’” “At the end of the day, the United States, Mexico and Canada have hammered out a new and improved trade agreement critical to the economic infrastructure of North America. In fact, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement – USMCA, as it’s known – is so important it’s almost unthinkable a Democrat majority in Congress could kill it for no reason other than it was negotiated by the Trump administration,” the Albuquerque Journal editorial board writes.   “When President Trump was elected, he promised to fight for American workers by putting into place strong, fair trade deals. He has worked hard to deliver on that promise,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) writes in the Argus Leader. USMCA, which will replace the outdated NAFTA, is one such deal. “Supporting farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, small businesses and other industries in every state across the country is not a partisan issue.”  “President Trump just issued new rules that got little attention from the mainstream media, but stand to bring fresh economic opportunity to America’s rural and disadvantaged communities. It’s another example of ways, big and small, that the president is going to bat for the forgotten heartland and taking the country back from the swampy beltway elitists,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) writes in The Daily Caller. “The rules bring much needed reforms to the fraud-stricken ‘EB-5’ investor visa program . . . Rural America will finally start to see the benefits of a nearly 30-year-old program.”