Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Trump's Latest Con: His Infrastructure Proposal To Screw The States And Taxpayers

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Trump, aka Dotard, has proposed his latest con for the world and nation to see: a sly trick at "leverage" to put in a drop of federal bucks (mostly dangled as "competitive" grants) and then get states to put in the remaining $1.5 trillion or so.    We know when certain stock investors use leverage they use maybe every buck of their own to purchase shares, compared to $4- 5 borrowed from others. They then have to hope they make it back to pay off those they borrowed from and there isn't a sudden margin call.

This is basically the game con man Donnie is playing now, but of course he'd prefer the American people just nod heads in assent like bobble-headed zombies and get taken. What's he proposing? From the WSJ yesterday (p. A4):

"Trump will propose spending $200 billion over ten years - most in the form of new, competitive grants-  designed to encourage states and cities to raise their own money for improving rails, airports, highways and water systems."

Is he mad, or just a born and bred deranged asshole?  There is no way the states will be lured into doing that without much more in gov't matching funds (only $1 is allocated for every  $4 from states up to a total of $100 b)  and the remaining $100 b in federal money fought over via "competitive grants".  That leaves a $1.5 trillion difference that states need to make up.  The brutal fact? They simply don't have the money!   As the second WSJ  piece ('Initiative Relies On States To Do Heavy Lifting') on the same page observes:

"The biggest practical problem the new plan likely faces is limits on resources available from states.  Data analyzed by the Pew Charitable Trusts show that state tax revenues have recovered slowly and unevenly  since plunging during the recession in 2008 and more than a third have yet to return to the level of inflation -adjusted tax revenues they enjoyed before the recession."

In the case of Colorado, there is no way in hell it will be able to contribute a thin dime given the current parlous condition of the state pension fund (PERA)  As we learned in The Sunday Denver Post (p. 1A):

"PERA is barreling toward its second funding crisis in a decade...Any attempts to water down a proposed reform package could leave the retirement system that 1 in 10 Coloradans depend on as a replacement for Social Security in grave financial peril. "

The reason is that PERA "has only 58.1 percent of the money it owes in future retirement checks."

The PERA funding gap is currently $32.2 billion by one measure and $50.8 billion by another.. Does anyone with more than air between the ears seriously believe our state can contribute anything to Trump's latest scam?

Meanwhile, the Con Man- in-  chief has proposed his outlandish budget. According to The NY Times :

"Trump on Monday sent Congress a $4.4 trillion budget with steep cuts in domestic programs and entitlements, including Medicare, and large increases for the military, envisioning deficits totaling at least $7.1 trillion over the next decade."

Recall this is the same slime ball who  during his campaign  - promised he'd never lay a finger on Medicare or Social Security   At least, by all reasonable reckoning, this atrocity ought to be dead in the water, especially given the absurd hike in military spending is not warranted and the deficits are already approaching intolerable levels.

Never mind, Trump -  who once bragged he was the "king of debt" -  always has a trick con up his sleeve. After all,  Dotard embraced the "king of debt"   monicker  after his repeated bankruptcies (for his casinos) then having states pay up at their taxpayers' expense.

David Cay Johnston on Chris Hayes'  May 6, 2016  All In,  reminded one and all that back in 1990, the deadbeat  con man  couldn't pay his damned bills- even though he claimed to be a billionaire. But he got bailed out because the state of New Jersey Casino Control Division took his side against his bankers - to whom he owed tons of money. In Johnston's words:

"It was government intervention in the market that saved him."

his latest con:  a cockeyed  infrastructure rebuilding scheme for which he wants the already debt -ravaged states to pick up the tab, e.g.  for repairing bridges, water systems, highways etc. This is because he is fundamentally a chiseler and  snake oil salesman always seeking "deals" by which to get the better of those deemed "losers".

Why be surprised? Trump is a no count, classless chiseler and degenerate, serial sex offender at heart who has no business being dog catcher far less president of the United States.  The only reason this reprobate is in office is because the electors didn't do their damned jobs. They were supposed to have exercised final oversight  - as per Madison's and Hamilton' s warnings,  not acted as bloody rubber stamps.

The only ones who cheer him on are his simpleton - but authoritarian loving  voters and supporters who then have the absolute  nerve to turn around and call the rest of us "anti American" when we'd hoped to protect the nation from this treasonous Russian -backed stooge. In fact, THEY are the ones who are unpatriotic by refusing to see this scum bag for what he is.

Because of these yahoos, this administration has become the most vile and loathsome in American history - not only populated by traitors who conspired with a foreign power (even as recently as two weeks ago secretly meeting with GRU agents - the same ones who hacked the election) and now also featuring serial wife beaters like the degenerate Rob Porter. Porter's former wife Colby Holderness actually had to take photographs of her black eye to prove what the beast did - and even then he denied it. But the true fact here is that Porter's criminal actions were already known by the FBI before Trump even hired him which is why he was never granted a full security clearance. Meanwhile, another reptile - John Kelly - has lied his ass off trying to defend dragging his feet in the Porter matter.  This prompted The Boston Globe yesterday to write:

"John Kelly is the perfect Donald Trump staffer - he is a bad person who is bad at his job."

Another Globe writer (Kevin Cullen) wrote:

"since he went to work for Donald Trump. Kelly has squandered so much of his integrity and so much of his identity that - frankly - I don't recognize him anymore..."

But maybe Kelly didn't have that much integrity to begin with,  which is why he was drawn to serve in the Trump White House.  Thus reeking with his own personal stench - like Rob Porter and the other wife beater Sorenson - drawn to the stench of the Trump White House. Offal attracts offal, and vermin, vermin - after all.

Meanwhile Trump expressed more sympathy for Porter than the pummeled female victims.  But this is not surprising given Trump has committed at least twelve assaults - and the female victims have noted these ranged from genital to breast grabbing.  And this is the excrement that was put into office by a failure of the Electoral College to provide oversight.

Image result for alexander hamilton
Alexander Hamilton - wanted NO Trump-like populist in office 

Alexander Hamilton was blunt and to the point and his words that bear directly on Trump's qualification for the highest office (Federalist #68):

The process of election (by state electors) affords a moral certainty that the office of President shall never fall to the lot of any man who is not to an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications...

Was the maggot now proposing this infrastructure scam qualified "to an eminent degree" for any high office? Well, yes, if you include cesspool inspector or vermin management.  After all, who better to inspect fecal waste in cesspools  than a walking turd, and who better to manage vermin than another vermin: of the 2 -legged kind with orange hair?

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Darrin Rychlak said...

I can't help but conclude that Rubber Stamp Trump is doing the bidding of his Monetary Fascist (using the power of state to enrich private interests) Owners which is whipping Labor into shape by undercutting the social safety net, weakening or silencing federal regulatory oversight, and sewing the seeds of atomization of the People via bigotry, sexism, and poisonous propaganda. That kills the only power that the Hoi Polloi have: Solidarity.

Wage slavery is dependent on fear--Fear of losing one's job and health insurance, fear of racial minorities, fear of political opponents. Throw in the cowardly vapidity attendant to the prime American value of acquisitive success and we are facing a damn near impregnable wall of opposition. Solidarity cannot exist where fear of this sort is prevalent.

We have a conman in the White House whose actions show him to be a Russian agent. Otherwise Trump is really telling the truth about the Mueller 'witch hunt.' Maybe Trump is just an innocent victim of the FBI, NSA, CIA, British Intel, Dutch Intel, Canadian Intel, French Intel, New Zealand Intel, and Australian Intel agencies...all operating under a secret and not so secret conspiracy to frame him for conspiring with Russia. My god, I've uncovered a worldwide conspiracy to undermine Donald Trump! naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.



That summary of the above declassified intelligence is horrifying. It shows a hostile attack on our democracy by Russia. Tillerson said that the threat is still there and nothing can be done to stop Russian interference in the 2018 elections. http://www.businessinsider.com/tillerson-russia-meddling-in-us-2018-elections-us-not-more-prepared-2018-2

What steps has Trump taken to address this? Donald Trump is a disloyal American. I'm not sitting on my hands about this either. I'm writing those psychos Ron Johnson and Paul Ryan all the time to call them on their bullshit and demanding their resignations. Also, I've been going to constitutional professor of law and professional whore Jonathan Turley's web site and calling him pretty much a song and dance traitor to America for his appearances on FOX to take potshots at the Mueller investigation, the FBI/DOJ, and the democrats while defending Trump. There are some resistance chapters here in Milwaukee I'm looking at joining and Milwaukee has a new resistance radio station on 1510 am. Good stuff.

Keep fighting the good fight!


Copernicus said...

I believe you pretty well nailed everything odious about the illegitimate pretender in the White House.