By Sid Schwab
Some bullet points for Trumpists to ponder:
• Trump said he’d protect Medicare and Medicaid. His budget cuts them by $1.5 trillion. Depending on the study, it also adds $2 trillion to $10 trillion to our national debt, while cynically dodging CBO scoring. After outrage at Obama’s deficits, lowered by two-thirds from when he took office, your silence is clamorous.
• You’re alone in a room. Jeff Bezos enters. The net worth in the room now averages $45 billion. Sarah “Huckayou” Sanders says the average tax break for families is four thousand bucks. Get it?
• Likely no one reading this benefits from eliminating the estate tax. Everyone in Trump’s politburo does; some, including Trump, by over $1 billion.
• Trump takes credit for not (yet) bending downward the trajectory of the Obama economic recovery; brags about employment growth, also set in motion by Obama. Neither he nor Congress have done anything significant to stimulate this boom, but they’re insisting we need tax breaks for corporations and their wealthy donors to stimulate a boom, about the current splendor of which they’re bragging. Make sense?
• They expect you to agree cuts should be paid for by those hits to Medicare and Medicaid, and by taking money from people whose spending actually does stimulate growth. (Tax cuts, economic boom: Kansas, Wisconsin. California before and after Democrats took over. Minnesota. Look it up. It’ll be a learning experience.)
• That no bid-contract, which granted a pal of Trump’s swampy Interior secretary $300 million to find people to repair Puerto Rico’s electric grid, also precluded government audits or penalties. It specified hourly wages of over $300, daily lodging of even more, meal allowance of $80 a day. The governor, previously lauded by Trump, wised to the scam. Trump passed the buck faster than a Russell Wilson toss with 20 seconds to go.
• While Trump ignores those U.S. citizens’ growing health crisis, the Clinton Foundation just airlifted 76 tons of medicine and medical supplies to Puerto Rico.
• Because Democrats paid for investigations into Trump’s relations with Russia, he wants you to believe it’s collusion. You do. Research that was begun by “Never Trump” Republicans. Research whose findings, if true, are hugely important. Think of it this way: Suspecting your spouse is cheating, you hire a p.i. who finds lovers. You don’t use the evidence. Your spouse claims you colluded … with the lovers! Seriously, that’s what they’re saying, because they think you’re stupid. (Also: Opposition research is older than all of us.)
• To distract you from his malfeasance, counting on your gullibility, Trump and his enablers are lying about Hillary and uranium, too. He prefers lies, but you needn’t. Here’s the truth: No uranium left our country. The sale was approved, as required, by all nine members of CFIUS (Google it), independent of Hillary. Years before his donation, the guy who gifted gazillion dollars to the Clinton Foundation sold his stake in the involved Canadian uranium company. (OK, for something this important, we need URLs again): (MSNBC: tinyurl.com/real2uran) (Washington Post: tinyurl.com/ball-o-wax). Assuming you found your brush with reality refreshing, check this out: (The Boston Globe: tinyurl.com/next-shoe2drop)
• Trump refuses to enforce Russia sanctions imposed by Congress and signed by him. Why don’t you wonder why?
• Benefiting only Dow Chemical, which donated $1 million to his inauguration, Trump overturned a ban on a nerve-gas/pesticide known to cause severe brain damage in children. Your children. While, presumably from inside his impenetrable shipping container (not-kidding), away from his 18-person security squad, environment-killer Scott Pruitt fires expert scientists in favor of corporate shills. This doesn’t bother you?
• Trump’s long-delayed response to the opioid crisis includes, so far, $56,000 in funding. And various words.
• Law requires the science adviser to the USDA be “a distinguished scientist.” Trump nominated Sam Clovis. Look him up. Assistant secretary of energy: a Meineke muffler salesman. “The best people.”
• After 9/11, George Bush spoke of American unity. After this week’s attack in NYC, Trump tweeted division. And called our justice system (i.e., the Constitution) “a laughingstock.” Patriotically, though.
• Oh, there were indictments, too? Nothing to do with Trump, says Sarah “Daddy likes my lies” Sanders. Manafort? Never heard of him.
Donald Trump assumes he can manipulate you into overlooking his corporatist, self-enriching tax plan, his disregard for people like you, and let him lie his way out of the Mueller investigation. If you don’t, he might just wag the deadliest dog in inhuman history. Your call. Admittedly, a tough one.
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
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