Friday, March 17, 2017

Esquire goes hard on the Trump 'budget'


There has been tons of commentary on the Trump budget snafu (and I use that term with its acronymic meaning) this week.   Some of it has been funny, some serious, pretty much all of it from the middle to the left uniformly appalled.  (Right wing?  Well, they're still loving the soma that they're getting from the Doofus in Chief).

The strongest commentary that I found to read was from Esquire.  I expect that there has been stronger, with more profanity, but this one appealed to my own particular appalled self.

And the saddest fact is ... it makes sense.


This Is the Ending Conservatives Always Wanted
You can draw a straight line from Reaganomics to Trump's budget

Two excerpts, but the whole thing is excellent and spot-on.

"This proposed budget isn't extreme. Reagan's proposed budget in 1981 was extreme. This budget is short-sighted, cruel to the point of being sadistic, stupid to the point of pure philistinism, and shot through with the absolute and fundamentalist religious conviction that the only true functions of government are the ones that involve guns, and that the only true purpose of government is to serve the rich."

"Who the hell eliminates research funding for the climate crisis in an age of mega- storms, and wildfires, and steadily vanishing coastlines? Who pulls the country out of the Paris Agreement? Who takes the United States of Goddamn America out of the fight against the biggest existential crisis the planet has faced since the asteroid landed near the Yucatan? Gee, why don't we take a wild guess and say it's the political party—and the political movement that is its only life force—that for decades has taken billions from the extraction industries, placed a climate denier at the head of the EPA—where he isn't going to have much to do, anyway—and appointed an oilman to be Secretary of State. Which reminds me… "
Fortunately, this budget will not persist in its present form.  Congress will make changes. Unfortunately, as the article notes, this is the destination that the Republican Party has been trying to reach since the 1980s.  And since that's where they want to go, I'm afraid that they're going to get way too close.


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