“It is what it is.” I hear you, Donald. It must be so exhausting to have to deal with all this difficult stuff day after day, especially the part about the spreading coronavirus that has taken the lives of 163,000 of your fellow citizens. You poor thing.
You have to watch as so many people get sick and so many die. It must be so painful, especially because you believe there is nothing you can do to slow down the damage.
It is what it is. Yes, there’s a contagion raging through the country and because the first case appeared outside our country, that somehow means you are powerless to do much to get it under control.
But, I know, it’s not your fault. I heard you say the other day on TV that “I don’t take responsibility at all” for any of this. Of course, why would you? You’re just one man and you take so much abuse day in and day out from the “fake news” and those “obstructionist” Democrats.
And just look at what those “do-nothing” Democrats are doing! On May 15, they passed a major relief bill in the House, the Heroes Act, with a price tag of $3 trillion! That’s insane! Didn’t we just spend over $2 trillion on a relief package back in March called the CARES Act? Yes, we did, but the virus has not magically disappeared, Donald, as you keep forecasting. On the contrary, it is spreading faster and deeper across the country.
But even though this bill was passed nearly two months ago, your administration and the Republican-controlled Senate refused to enter negotiations until 11 days before the Cares Act was set to expire on July 31. And it did expire, Donald, leaving millions of Americans hanging out to dry with no financial support going forward.
Your opening offer to Democrats cut out much of what is needed to fight this crisis, reducing their proposed spending by at least $2 trillion. I understand that you want to keep the national debt from growing by such an amount; it is a lot of money! Why it’s almost as much money as the $1.5 trillion you added to the debt with your unnecessary tax cut for the wealthy and corporations just two years ago. You never did get enough praise for doing that, Donald. You poor guy!
Of course, you and your Senate friends are blaming the Democrats for the failure to agree on a new relief package before the last one went poof. And after three weeks of trying, negotiations have come to a standstill. That’s when you stepped in, Donald, the self-proclaimed “King of The Art of the Deal.”
On Saturday, you gave up trying to deal and signed, with much fanfare, four likely illegal executive orders that you say will help the people in need. But they don’t and they won’t help anyone. All you’ve done is thrown the whole process into chaos and confusion. You’re getting pushback from both political parties, Donald! You just can’t get a break, can you?
But you finally did get your wish to undermine Social Security and Medicare, though you had promised never to touch them. You included a deferral of the payroll tax (which funds both) in those orders, saying you’d like to see it made permanent. This tax cut would be of no use to the more than 30 million unemployed, but it would eventually hurt the tens of millions of others who depend on those programs.
Donald, I know you’ve been very busy visiting washing machine factories and playing golf, so maybe you’ve missed the fine print in the bill those “crazy” Democrats are holding out for.
They want nearly a trillion dollars to go to state and local governments that are in dire financial straits due to budget shortfalls caused by the health crisis. They also want to continue the $600 unemployment payments that expired last month to the 30 million unemployed; provide money for schools (the ones you demand must open in the fall) to educate our children safely and effectively for everyone concerned; give out another round of $1,200 direct payments; fund programs for food and housing assistance and provide for more financial relief for small businesses.
The bill also includes money to help renters and mortgage holders, so they don’t face eviction or defaults, and funding for student loan assistance as well. There’s more, Donald, but you get the idea.
Just think, Donald, of that money flowing to the people that need it the most in a time of great hardship. They’ll be spending most of that money to put food on the table, pay their rent, buy clothes for their kids, fix the car, buy needed medications and many other essentials of life.
I’m sure you must know, Donald, (or you should) that about 70% of economic activity in this country is consumer spending. Not rich people’s spending, just that of regular folks. But if those people are unemployed by the tens of millions, that spending slows way down. And that eventually slows down every business that provides the products and services that they would buy, setting off a nasty downward spiral.
So, it’s easy to see, Donald, that putting some money into the pockets of those in need helps support the economy as a whole. And that’s just what happened with the first stimulus Congress passed and you signed. Though the economy did take a dive, it could have been much, much worse.
But that’s not all those “do-nothing” Dems want to do, they also want to spend $75 billion on coronavirus testing and contact tracing, something that no doubt will improve the “it” in your big shrug I mentioned above. You must admit that taking a leadership role at the beginning of this catastrophe, rather than turning it over to 50 different state governments and thousands of municipalities to handle individually, might have saved lives.
I know there’s no chance in hell that you will ever admit you’re at fault. After all, you’re just the president of the richest, most powerful country in the world — who would expect you to take responsibility for the failures of the government that you lead?
It is what it is, Donald, and you are what you are, and we’re stuck with you, at least for now. I hope and pray in a few short months that we the people will overwhelmingly vote you out of office. And then you’ll be liberated from the terrible abuse you’ve suffered. Doesn’t that sound great?
Karen Gardner, of Haydenville, can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.