78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Today, 800,000 of those Americans will not get paid. Federal workers callously used by the president as political bargaining chips to save face and further a lie.
As the needless government shutdown marks its 21st sunrise the financial carnage caused by this president is not limited to the 800,000 “non-essential” government workers who will not get paid today. Tens of thousands of independent contractors who provide services for the federal government are also sitting idle. An untold number of small businesses whose incomes are largely dependent on the patronage of those government workers and contractors are taking a financial beating. Millions upon millions of commercial entities will not be paid for their goods or services because federal workers and contractors don’t have the money to pay them.
All for the charade of building a ineffective wall to quell a crisis that doesn’t exist.
We should not forget that for the past two years this Republican president and his Republican sycophants have controlled the White House and both chambers of congress. Yet in spite of holding this monopoly of power the Republican party and its great deal making leader were unable to enact legislation to make good on the president’s cornerstone campaign promise. “Build the wall.”
In fact, just three weeks ago the Republican led congress, with the approval of their deal making leader, voted to re-open the government and table discussions of the wall to a later date. However when the right wing media questioned the president’s manhood for caving on his signature campaign promise; the cowardly president withdrew his support and pulled the rug out from under his Republican colleagues. Apparently listening to Ann Coulter say: “Trump will just have been a joke presidency who scammed the American people…” was more than Trump’s ego could bear.
Democrats aren’t budging. Speaker Nancy Pelosi says “No money for the wall.” Being told “No” for the first time in his adult life is unsettling for this president. And so, as he has in the past, the president throws a temper tantrum. If Democrats will not give him his wall he will call a “National Emergency”. Effectively commandeering the Article One powers of congress on the premise of a national security crisis. He will divert funds from other departments and command his military to build his wall.
And where will those funds come from? The president says he will divert funds earmarked for disaster relief in California, Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico to build his wall. He will take money from Americans struggling to rebuild their lives after a catastrophic loss and use that money to fulfill a bogus campaign promise.
The president tells us that this government shutdown over a border wall is necessary for our national security. One must ask…how is our country safer when air traffic controllers and federal employees who work for Homeland Security, FBI, TSA, FDA and IRS are either furloughed or working without pay?
This is the type of behavior we have seen in the past from third world despots and dictators. This is what autocracy looks like.And complicit in this attack on our democratic institutions are Mitch McConnell and the sycophants in the Republican Party who sit idly by and watch it happen.
78% of Americans are living pay check to paycheck. 800,000 of those Americans will not get paid today.
Comments on this entry are closed.