‘Either, or’ on President
Richard Fulton
Ping, ping, ping. Do you hear it? It’s the United States Congress kicking the can of budget approval down the road yet again.
Hurrying to get out of town (they’ve been there two weeks after all) Congress ignored the need for a permanent budget for the 2017 fiscal year beginning October 1, and passed what is called a Continuing Resolution (CR) instead.
This allows the government to continue spending money at the 2016 budget levels until a permanent budget for 2017 fiscal year can be passed. This is government at its worse. No, not passing the CR at all would be worse.
The sticking points for even this weak action was additional money for attacking the Zika virus, money for the Louisiana flood victims, and finally money to help solve the poison water system of Flint Michigan.
This last was the last point that kept the poor politicians from their re-election campaigns because Republicans didn’t want to spend that money, at least not now.
President Obama asked for the Zika funds a year ago but Republican controlled Congress refused to act. Public opinion finally forced the $1 billion fund. Louisiana got $500 million and Flint got what is to be a down payment of $170 million.
But the federal budget approval was just postponed until early December, conveniently after the election so that the end result special interest funding does not upset people who have to vote for the members of Congress.
It’s hard to add much to the multitude of commentary about the “great debate” this week. Trump was Trump and Clinton was Clinton.
That means that Trump showed his narrow depth of understanding of some key issues facing a president and Clinton showed her experience and depth of knowledge. I know you find this as lopsided in its evaluation, but how much of Trump’s top of the head views can we take without wondering what would happen if he won this election?
If he is negotiating with the Russians or with the Iranians would he interrupt them, keep saying no, that’s not true, and then sulk?
If he is dealing with the women who are heads of state of more and more nations will he see them as too weak to lead, as targets for anti-feminist outbursts?
If political opponents seem to be winning an argument will he blame the news media, try to bully them (these people don’t bully easily), act like a 10-year-old who broke his dad’s fishing rod by blaming others, saying the rod was defective, or say his dad did it?
Will Trump, as president, be able to converse without bending the truth (I’m being nice here) or deny he has said what is on record for having been said? This is an age of media that records, you know. Audio and visuals of his support for the Iraq invasion don’t lie.
What will he do with nuclear weapons at his disposal? He didn’t know what American policy has been since the cold war on the subject. He didn’t know what the three options are that we have for nuclear deterrent/retaliation.
This makes him a very dangerous president.
Look at the lists of the several “fact checkers” available. One source said that Trump has misrepresented the truth 70 percent of the checked elements in recent weeks while Clinton only 30 percent.
It is depressing that he does not know some basics about the organization of American government. For example, he keeps attacking President Obama on the actions of the EPA and the Federal Reserve. Both are, by law and under law, Independent Agencies.
The president has no powers to tell them what to do or to counteract their actions. A president should know that.
An unprecedented number of important Republican Senators and other leaders, many of them ultra-conservative Republicans, have endorsed or said they would vote for Hillary Clinton. We must ask ourselves why.
Every living past president, Democrats and Republicans, of the United States has said or indicated they will not vote for Donald Trump. Who knows better than these the qualities needed from a president?
Who won or lost a debate is not the point. The point is … what are the qualities of the two candidates? It’s either-or, you know, not an academic exercise on qualities of the best possible candidate.
