Godawful Toddler

The events of the past week have been horrific. The tragic crash of the Ethiopian Airways flight, killing all aboard, and the massacre of 50 innocent Muslims by a white supremacist in New Zealand are two of the big ones that come to mind. But what would a week of disasters be without our very own Donald Trump.

I'm speaking, of course, of his proposed fiscal year 2020 budget. Unless you're wealthy, white and male, fuggedaboutit, you're shtupped. Not only is the budget horrible fiscal policy, it also reveals in no uncertain terms the utter moral depravity of Donald Trump and his GOP enablers. Why slash the social safety net when you can light it on fire and toss it in that burning dumpster that is the Trump administration? Why bother trying to overturn "Obamacare" when you can practically zero out Medicaid instead? Pollution? Global warming? Who cares? Let's begin to zero out the Environment Protection Agency's funding and capacity to do anything about it.

You say you're concerned about the federal deficit? Thbbpthbpt! That's so last administration...

Right, go figure. The great chicken hawk himself - Ouch! Those pesky bone spurs! - is leading the party that once claimed to be the true fiscal hawks over the cliff and into the Red (Ink) Sea. While they are at it, the GOP 2017 tax cut for the über wealthy will reduce the federal government's revenue collections significantly while also failing to make good on their promise to eliminate any of the loopholes in the corporate tax system. To paraphrase the Donald, "Lies made. Lies denied."

I realize, of course, that this budget has no chance of being accepted as is. I just hope and pray that the Democrats don't try to channel their inner ca. 1980s Republicans in beating the breasts as a sign of sanctimonious fidelity to fiscal discipline. You want to reduce the federal deficit? Try reducing military spending, which was one of the few areas to receive a plus up from the White House, on top of it already being bloated, excessive and bursting with bogus corporate welfare for armchair imperialists. What about eliminating the intelligence agencies? They're never right about anything anyway (end of the Cold War?), and on the rare occasion when they are, nobody in power bothers to listen to them (9/11).

On the revenue side, how about a tax on financial transactions? What about ending corporate welfare as we know it? Carbon tax anyone? You know, because we have about a dozen years and counting before the planet begins its irreversible descent into spontaneously combustion?

At some point, probably not in my lifetime, the American public will wake up to the huge swindle that is the whole federal budget. It consistently transfers wealth upwards to those who need it least, either through tax cuts or an expansion of loopholes, as well as through discretionary spending that favors corporate interests with little to no net social benefit for the vast majority of Americans. This skewed fiscal policy is a direct result of asymmetric access and influence by the small army lobbyists serving the various interests of the wealth elite, a situation that will remain in place well into the foreseeable future, thanks to the GOP bought and paid for Roberts' Supreme Court - "Corporations are people, too, my friend!"

But that is a topic of another rant 'n' rave. Meanwhile, we are left with this hot, stinky mess left by our very own Godawful Toddler, which will likely need more than just a few butt wipes to clean up.