Trump's Betrayal of His Voters Is Now Complete By Joe Conason

[justaprogressive]

Signals that Donald Trump is losing his grip flash across our screens nearly every hour, but what arrived just the other day was new, different and historically significant. The moment occurred at a White House luncheon that was supposed to be private, and Trump's aides quickly attempted to hide the incriminating video of his remarks.

They were too late.

The president sounded at first as if he were merely discussing a disfavored federal program with White House budget director Russell Vought. "I said to Russell, 'Don't send any money for day care because the United States can't take care of day care.' That has to be up to a state. We can't take care of day care. We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people."

Those particular facts would in no way prevent the United States government from providing or helping to provide day care services for our children, at it has done for decades through Head Start and other programs. But Trump said he now wants to direct that program's small cost to a purpose he deems more urgent.

"We're fighting wars," he continued. Or at least a war (which isn't going well). "We can't take care of day care. You got to let a state take care of day care, and they should pay for it too."

Not only is war a more compelling purpose for government spending than day care but — as Trump explained in a stunning departure from a century of public policy — defense is in fact the only legitimate purpose of government.

"It's not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country." He went on to express his disdain, never before stated so bluntly, for the popular and vital programs that he brushed aside as "all these little things, all these little scams that have taken place. ... You have to let states take care of them."

https://www.creators.com/read/joe-conason/04/26/trumps-betrayal-of-his-voters-is-now-complete

[Walleye]

1. He's so stupid. The money all comes out of the same pockets.

[dalton99a]

2. Democrats should use it in their ads

"It's not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country." He went on to express his disdain, never before stated so bluntly, for the popular and vital programs that he brushed aside as "all these little things, all these little scams that have taken place. ... You have to let states take care of them."

Never mind that states could not begin to raise the tax revenue required to finance Medicare, a federal budget item well north of $1 trillion annually and steadily rising as our population ages, let alone Medicaid too. Did Trump mean to suggest that the states should cover the monthly Social Security checks, the program that he and his billionaire henchman Elon Musk so brazenly undermined last year?

They already trashed and starved America's foreign aid infrastructure — causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people who depended on U.S. food and medicine for survival — so maybe now he is keen to inflict such bloody mayhem on poor and elderly Americans.

We know that Trump is determined to squander more of our treasure — much, much more - on forever wars and other military boondoggles. Every day, he lights a match to at least a billion dollars over Iran, and he has proposed to raise the budget of his "Department of War" to $1.5 trillion, the highest level ever. That doesn't include the expected supplemental funding request of $200 billion for Iran, an "excursion" that is supposed to end in two or three weeks.

Why the United States needs to increase defense spending so abruptly by 40% is unclear. Perhaps it is because the president, obsessed with stamping his name everywhere, wants a fleet of new "Trump-class battleships." Perhaps it is because his tech donors want big wads of taxpayer cash for artificial intelligence weaponry, with all the obvious dangers of uncontrollable killing. Or perhaps it is because his two older sons, grifters extraordinaire like Dad, have invested in weapons manufacturing.