Friday, March 17, 2017

Showing Their Hand

Trump’s budget proposals are just that: proposals.  They’re not law, they’re not actually in place, and if history is any guide, the chances of what OMB director Mike Mulvaney and his minions came up with have as much chance of becoming reality as do I of flying to the moon on gossamer wings.

But it does tell us a lot about the mindset of Trump and what they really think of America.  For one thing, they have a really strange concept of “compassion.”

Via Mother Jones:

At a press briefing on Thursday afternoon, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney did little to alleviate the impression that the most vulnerable would suffer under these budget cuts. “You described this as a ‘hard power budget.’ Is it also a hard-hearted budget?” asked CNN’s Jim Acosta. “No, I don’t think so,” Mulvaney responded. “I think it’s probably one of the most compassionate things we can do.”

Yet compassion was in short supply as Mulvaney tried to explain the administration’s budget priorities. Here are four of his most heartless statements:

Meals on Wheels doesn’t work. A reporter asked Mulvaney about proposed cuts to the Community Development Block Grant Program, which would lead to cuts on Meals on Wheels in some states. He responded that the program, which feeds elderly people, and ones like it are “just not showing results” and “don’t work.”

Afterschool programs for hungry kids don’t work. Mulvaney said that afterschool programs that feed low-income kids don’t help them do better in school. “There is no demonstrable evidence they are actually doing that,” he claimed.

Fighting climate change is a rip-off. “We’re not spending money on that anymore,” Mulvaney said. “We consider that to be a waste of your money.”

Starvation and famine? Yawn. Another reporter asked Mulvaney about the administration’s plans to reduce spending on the United Nations and foreign aid, despite famine and starvation facing 20 million people—a “humanitarian crisis,” according to the UN. “Are you worried that some of the most vulnerable people on earth will suffer?” the reporter asked. “We’re absolutely reducing funding to the UN and to the various foreign aid programs,” Mulvaney said. “That should come as a surprise to no one who watched the campaign.”

I never doubted that these were the kind of people we are dealing with.

I honestly don’t know what kind of “results” he expected with a program like Meals on Wheels.  The elderly and disabled aren’t starving, but since they’re being fed by a government program, they’re “takers”?  Better that they die and decrease the surplus population?

Meanwhile, we’re paying how much to fly Trump back and forth to Palm Beach every weekend while the city of New York pays how much to protect his wife and son?

Historical footnote: This month marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the Russian revolution.  It began when the people rose up to demand the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II who lived a life of incomparable luxury in Moscow and St. Petersburg with his foreign-born wife and children while the poor were starving.  (Digby compares Trump to Saddam Hussein.  Okay, whatever works; they were both authoritarian nationalists who came to a bad end.)

2 barks and woofs on “Showing Their Hand

  1. This isn’t a budget. There is no mention of revenue sources or distribution thereof. No income and outlay, what goes out and what comes in and from where. This is a campaign promotional piece which is the only thing that interests Trump. “Stroke me nice and easy and tell me I’m wonderful” for being so STRONG.

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