Trump Exposes How the “Swamp” Works
Remember how Trump justified signing the omnibus spending bill last week by claiming that the seven hundred billion dollars allocated for the military was desperately needed? For conservatives or others of a “right-leaning” nature, claiming military need is just the easiest catch-all excuse for confiscatory taxation, used the same way the Democrats cite “desperately-needed” social programs.
Happily, Trump is so dumb that he has once again exposed Washington’s hypocrisy in his usual bold, amazing colors. From the Washington Post:
Trump, who told advisers he was spurned in a large spending bill last week when lawmakers only appropriated $1.6 billion for the border wall, has begun suggesting the Pentagon could fund the sprawling construction, citing a “national security” risk.
This speculation has been in the air for days, with the idea cheered on by Trump’s ex-conservative supporters in the former conservative media.
The message is bold and amazing: The military doesn’t really need that money so desperately after all. That was just the rhetoric used to make increasing the national debt look semi-respectable to Republican voters. In fact, you could divert a substantial amount of the spending bill’s military allocation to pay for non-military things, and no one would be the wiser.
In other words, if you don’t get the money you want for your pet project in a spending bill, just take it from somewhere else, using legalese to create a mock justification for such shell games.
Thanks to Donald Trump being more focused on the adulation of his fan base (i.e., “ratings”) than on even a thin veil of responsible government, two truths have been revealed, yet again:
- The Washington establishment never really “need” the money they take — they just want it.
- Whatever reason for stealing your money they declare and vote on for public purposes, in the end they are just going to take that money and do whatever they bloody well want with it anyway.
Do you recall the embarrassed giggles and silence in the room when Trump told the bipartisan leaders during his photo-op meeting on DACA that they should just get together and trade favors, like they used to do back in the good old days? It never crossed his mind that these back-scratching favors would be paid for with other people’s money, illegitimately confiscated. The embarrassment of the others present was not caused by the horror of a president suggesting something so terrible, but rather by the fact that this is exactly what they all do all the time, but you’re not supposed to say it publicly.
The one and only real long-term benefit of a Trump presidency: He’s too dumb to keep a secret, like a child who tells his mother to get him a snack from the refrigerator ten minutes after his siblings warn him they are hiding Mom’s birthday cake in there, so he mustn’t let her open the fridge. (That was me, age nine. It’s Donald Trump, age seventy-one.)
