OMB Director Mick Mulvaney jovially and without embarrassment demurs on commenting on his boss' continued campaign of lies by saying, "I'm a numbers guy..." it hit me right then that he put his finger on the exact problem of this proposed Trump budget.
Mick Mulvaney sees all those entries not as Americans, worthy of respect and dignity, but of numbers to be moved around to further theoretical ideological arguments. The consequences of the ideology is removed from its impact by being simply numbers on the page.
Host Chuck Todd reminds Mulvaney of his comment back in 2013 in a stupid stunt to shame President Obama's budget priorities: "Remember, a budget is more than just a spending document. It is also a vision document."
So now that Mulvaney's the budget guy, what is the vision he and Trump are putting forward?
- Massive cuts in anti-poverty spending, such as WIC, Meals on Wheels (don't believe Mulvaney that it's only a 3.5% cut), home energy assistance and school lunch programs;
- Massive cuts in foreign aid;
- Massive cuts on science and medical research;
- Massive cuts in climate change and pollution elimination programs ;
- Cuts to, if not full elimination of, public broadcasting, leaving it to whims of corporate donors.
Hell of a vision, ain't it?
Mulvaney uses that really manipulative talking point of not wanting to ask the poor single mom in Detroit to pay for PBS, but I can't help but ask the logic of that reasoning.
Is it fair to ask a bus driver in Seattle to pay for the President's golf trips? By a recent estimation, he's spent 31% of his time as president playing golf at Mar-A-Lago (which as a much cleverer person on twitter wrote, must stand for "Make Americans Reimburse A Lying A**hole's Golf Outings").
Can we ask a schoolteacher in Cleveland to pay a share of the millions it costs in Secret Service protection so that Barron Trump can go to school in NYC?
Can we ask the factory worker in South Carolina to pay for Medicaid for Walmart workers because Walmart refuses to pay a living wage?
Can we ask a police officer in Atlanta to pay for Congressional junkets across the globe that are billed as "fact-finding" trips but are often just taxpayer-funded vacations? How about their platinum level health insurance?
Can we ask a waitress in San Diego to pay for investigations into mindless lies tweeted by the President based on the rantings of right wing websites?
Can we ask a construction worker in Minnesota to pay for rent for DOD and Secret service in a building the President owns?
Can we ask a trash collector in Dallas to pay for tax breaks for hedge fund managers in NY?
But we can ask all of those people to pay for a ridiculous 30 foot wall along the Mexican border that everyone with more than two brain cells to rub together agrees will be completely ineffective.
Mulvaney's vision is one of utter contempt for Americans.
