Budget Goodness

My upcoming newspaper column:

Reading their budget and health care solutions has changed my mind about Donald Trump and the people in charge of him. Finally, we have a presidency with the right priorities. 

Climate change research has been a huge waste of money. Trump’s people noticed exactly what I did: the more we spend on research, the worse the climate changes. You could draw a graph. And those Earth-watching satellites haven’t cooled us one single degree. 

Environmental protection? The environment is supposed to protect US, not the other way around. If God wanted cleanliness next to Himliness, He wouldn’t have invented dinosaurs and turned them into coal. It’s right there in the Bible. 

And since Donald Trump is going to revive coal, why shouldn’t he eliminate the Appalachian Regional Commission? Once coal sludge is streaming again, those people won’t need help, because they’ll have all the jobs they ever could want. That’s also why it makes sense to cut the Chemical Safety Board, which just gets in the way. 

Some losers are unhappy that the cuts are to pay for more aircraft carriers and the border wall. Not me. If there’d been a carrier parked outside Orlando, that bombing never would have happened. And with a wall, there’ll be no more Timothy McVeighs. Also, having the nukes to exterminate humanity sounds great on paper, but can we really ever have enough? No way North Korea will toss one of theirs over here when they know they’ll die five extra times. If SecRex wants war with them, I want to be ready, which makes us a lot safer than educating a bunch of children. 

Mass transit? You can fit seven people in a minivan. That center for virus threats? Who can even see those things? Planned Parenthood? Cancer screening belongs in emergency rooms, where they’re free. 

I totally agree coal miners and single moms shouldn’t have to pay for public broadcasting. Trump’s Mar-a-lago trips and Melania’s NYC bivouac are different, though. Big Bird is fake and Ken Burns is a liberal. 

Other liberals are whining about cuts that might affect Meals on Wheels. Sorry: Trump’s America is about dignity. Old people should earn their meals. It’s a kindness, because self-reliance makes food taste better. They say a half-million veterans depend on the program, too, but what were they fighting for if not to help society instead of take from it? I won’t miss the Low Income Energy Assistance Program, either. If poor people can’t huddle together when it’s cold, who can? Same with hungry kids when school meals are cut: maybe they’ll get hungry to learn. Creationism. 

As an eighth-grader I was warned about hazing in high school. I remember walking past some upperclassmen, who wondered if I was a freshman. “I don’t know, but he looks too big to mess with,” was the conclusion. (Back then I was six-foot-four.) That’s when I learned about “hard power” like Trump’s budget guy mentioned. We’ve been walking around the planet like a bunch of five-foot do-gooders, offering food and medicine and agricultural assistance to poor countries. Time to drive through with a few of those Abrams tanks the Pentagon said they didn’t need. Now they will. Diesel fumes and tread tracks: that’s where respect comes from, and it doesn’t require a bunch of State Department lifers to earn it. So good riddance to them. 

Good riddance, too, to legal services for the poor. The last thing we need is more lawsuits clogging up our courts. Which are being cut. 

Here’s another smart thing Trump did. My brain got totally filled in medical school and surgery training. People have no idea how hard it is to assimilate all the new stuff coming from research centers. That nightmare is about to end. We doctors will be able to stick with what we already know, which often works. And if money for cancer investigators is so great, why do people still catch it? Same with any research. If you need to know something, google it. 

People say Trump’s budget and healthcare plans won’t pass, and his Muslim bans were a mess. Well, he warned we’d get tired of winning. To prevent that, he produced a string of losses. That’s what real caring looks like.

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