By: Keith Kappes
Columnist
Carter County Times
No. 47 surely is closer to a panic attack about the midterm elections than we realized because he offered last week to reward American voters with $5,000 checks if the Republicans keep control of the House and Senate.
First, buying votes is a serious criminal offense in all 50 states but the rule of law clearly doesn’t carry much weight in this White House. But we must give the 80-year-old ringmaster credit for coming up with more wild and crazy schemes to distract voters from gasoline prices north of four dollars a gallon and climbing.
And I can’t imagine where all of the 18-wheelers will be parked with diesel fuel zooming past six dollars a gallon and the shelves start clearing in grocery stores and pharmacies.
But if the goods we need for living aren’t available in sufficient quantities, that will simplify decision-making for old folks and poor folks. They won’t have to continue making those hard choices between food and medicine or between living on the street or finding a cheaper place to live, such as an abandoned bus.
However, some of the MAGA faithful can take comfort in seeing his grinning face on our coins and currency or on the giant banners hanging on government buildings in Washington or on Mount Rushmore or on those national park passes for senior citizens.
Hold the phone!!! Many, if not most, of the national parks probably won’t be available because several of their staff members have lost their jobs in the downsizing of the federal payroll.
By the way, estimates of the real cost of those $5,000 checks for 270 million adults range from one trillion dollars to almost two trillion. That’s more than we spend each year for national defense. And it comes at a time when our national debt hit the 40-trillion mark.
Personally, my favorite item on his wish list these days is to have his birthday declared a federal holiday. Hidden behind the pure BS and media misdirection today are questions that No. 47 surely doesn’t want to answer.
If I were in the White House press corps today, I would want to ask him how that pretty woman on his staff earned her $45,000 bonus.
Contact Keith at keithkappes@gmail.com.
