Trump As The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
Trump As The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
So the Congress struggled for months after the House passed a $3.3 trillion followup Covid relief bill, which Senate Majority Leader McConnell blocked and kept blocking. House Speaker Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin kept negotiating and coming up with this or that proposal, only to mostly have McConnell shoot it down, or sometimes Pres. Trump himself doing so. Finally after the election, and with the threat of losing control of the Senate, McConnell suddenly decided a deal needed to be made, so sure enough, with Mnuchin supposedly representing Trump, a deal got cut. It must be recognized that the push for having another round of direct payments was pushed by Trump, who threw out several numbers, and McConnell got it that this was popular. So he went along with Mnuchin’s suggested $600 per person, half of what was sent out in the CARES round last spring.
The whole thing has also been linked to the Omnibus general budget spending package, which needs to get passed or the government will get shut down, with ongoing week by week Continuing Resolutions holding that off, the current one expiring on Monday. It contains mostly things approved in the budget sent officially from Trump’s OMB to Congress, although it is pretty clear he does not know what is in there.
So when the Congress managed to cut all sorts if possible things like aid to states and local governments as well as limiting liability of corporations for having conditions leading to workers getting Covid-19, but had about $300 billion for small businesses somewhat less for the $600 payments for those making under $75,000, not to mention a good deal less for continuing unemployment benefits set to expire the day after Christmas, and some other such things. Whew! It looked like this difficult, if highly imperfect, deal was cut just in time to keep lots of people from being dumped from benefits right after Christmas and also send out $600 to lots of people right after Christmas. Hooray!
But then last night Trump put out a video announcing his unhappiness with all this. On the one hand he called for something arguably desirable, a $2000 payment rather than $600, which has drawn forth Dem support at least from the House. But then he also went on a rant against items in the Omnibus spending bill not part of the relief bill, notably about $5 billion in foreign aid and also some even smaller expenditures on such items as the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and the Smithsonian, somehow suggesting incoherently that these monies were a wasteful part of the relief bill. While it remains unclear what he is going to do in the end, for the moment he is not signing it, which means unemployment benefits might start ending right after Christmas, not to mention people not only not getting the supposed desired $2000 but even $600, and not to mention that hard pressed small businesses will not be able to apply for any of that $300 billion supposedly available for PPP loans.
So, indeed, President Trump is the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
Barkley Rosser
PS: And of course Trump is also pardoning all kinds of criminals closely associated with him and has also vetoed the National Defense bill, first time that has happened in 60 years, something that maybe should happen, although his reasons are to prevent renaming military facilities away from Confederare officers and also to remove Section 230 that prevents him from suing social media companies that censor things he posts. Quite a roll this grinch is on.
Whether Fat Donnie is the Republican Party’s new boyfriend or just their revenge sex fling, it is certain that Fat Donnie is jealous enough to say to the US government that if he cannot have them then no one can. Trump wants the government shutdown. He may even think that it will delay or prevent Biden’s inauguration. Greed and stupidity do not seem sufficient to explain Trump’s behavior. He must be nuts as well.
OTHO, if Fat Donnie is only greedy, stupid, and shrewd then he is polishing his benevolent dictator image while preparing the field for his soft landing after 1/21/21.
“…1/21/21.”
[Day late and a dollar short.]
As of about 8:30 PM on Dec. 27, the Grinch decided to give Christmas back and signed the bills to provide Covid relief and keep the government open, although after delaying long enough for unemployment benefits to officially expire for about 14 million people who will lose a week’s worth of such benefits as a result, and with Trump whining and making a series of demands that will be ignored by Congress, including to “investigate presidential election fraud.” Nah, ain’t gonna happen.
One possibility is that the Grinch was told that all the people in Whoville Georgia would vote for Democratic Senators on 1/5/21. Plus the Grinch’s lawyers probably explained to him that shutting down the government would not prevent Biden taking over on 1/20/21 and Trump being dragged out in shackles by the Secret Service.
“…Well, in Whoville they say – that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day. And then –” the entire analogy broke down. Trump did not sign out of the kindness of his heart, but some form of desperation is not entirely out of the question.
Look at this chart and remember that 75 million Americans wanted more of this. What a stupid fen country we are.
One per thousand Americans have now died from covid-19.
How does that compare with 12 other select countries with >20 million population?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqNDn-oU0AA03Qa?format=jpg&name=small
The ten countries with populations above one million that have the highest Covid-19 death rates are in order from high to low are Belgium, Peru, Italy, Spain, Macedonia, Bosnia, Slovenia, U.K., U.S., and Argentina.
https://www.axios.com/highest-covid-19-death-rates-world-belgium-fd3de974-070f-4f74-88e4-b97bbc69eb2f.html
EMike,
Agreed on the stupid part, but I might add that it is the long-lasting marriage of stupidity with arrogance throughout our time that gave us the hybrid man-child that yet occupies the highest rank in US government. Stupidity tempered by humility is one thing, but stupidity inflamed by arrogance is quite another.