45, of course, is a liar, a cheat, a fraud, and has an admin full of literal Nazis. I’m not surprised by anything he does. A small part of me feels bad for the people he said he’d protect but the other small part of me---the Baptist Christian part I can’t seem to purge even though I never believed---simply sips its tea and says “bless their hearts, the dears, my thoughts and prayers go out to them, the poor things.”
The “skinny budget” is out. It pretty much cuts everything that isn’t Defense or law enforcement (although apparently, NYPD loses its counterterrorism funding) related. That means infrastructure loses. Yep, they want a “$1 trillion infrastructure push.” And then they want to hobble the agencies responsible for managing it. I don’t think this push will ever happen and increasingly neither do others. Why? Because 45 is a lazy, bigoted, lying thot and so are most, if not all, of his close staffers. That’s why.
Like:
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Appalachian Regional Commission- this state-federal partnership aids a region of the nation that overwhelmingly voted for 45, including completing the Appalachian highway system. There are parts of this system, especially in West Virginia, that are incomplete and needed—a rare thing in a nation that’s got an overbuilt highway network. Gone in this budget. Similar programs that serve poverty-stricken and huge Trump supporting regions—the Delta Regional Authority, the Denali Commission in Alaska and the Northern Borders Regional Commission---eliminated, because fuck poor people I guess. I’m sure the President’s thoughts and prayers are with them though.
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TIGER, or Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, introduced in ARRA. It’s a popular little program that grants funds for roads and bike lanes and whatnot. Slashed by $499 million.
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Amtrak’s long distance trains- despite being “authorized to be appropriated” in FAST, funding for Amtrak’s long distance trains? Zeroed. Didn’t 45 say he wanted to “rebuild railways”? He, of course, lied. The goal, I suspect, is to sell off the Northeast Corridor. Its revenues are already siloed by law for just the NEC. Oh, and “rebuilding railways” means 100% a tax cut or credit for the railroads who own “our” railways and if one is hoping that we’ll get electrification---hahahaha lololololol. Sorry, too cynical there.
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Federal Transit’s “New Starts” program which provides funding to get new transit services off the ground, mostly eliminated. Americans who had the option on their ballots last November voted by a majority to build transit in dozens of cities around the nation. In jeopardy now. No new projects will be funded.
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Essential Air Service Program—this program subsidizes (well more than elsewhere) commercial airline service to small airports. These flights connect to larger airports. Gone. EAS has met the ire of Republicans in the past, most notably John McCain. If anything makes it through as a cut, it’ll be this one, I suspect. The admin’s justification is “alternate forms of transport exist”. But they cut Amtrak’s long-distance trains, and privately (and foreign)-owned Greyhound no longer serves many small towns so, guess y’all gotta drive then.
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US Trade and Development Agency—while not infrastructure, these people actually do what 45 said he wants to do—promote American business. Gone.
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Air Traffic Control—the budget doesn’t eliminate it but a goal for many years has been to turn US ATC into something like NavCanada and the budget reflects this wish. Consider this a push to privatization, since that’s basically what NavCanada is.
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Army Corps of Engineers- these people maintain, among other things, the inland flood defense and waterway network. Slashed by 16%.
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Bureau of Reclamation- this agency is the only reason the Desert Southwest is habitable as it maintains the network of dams and reservoirs there. It has climate programs hidden within it that will be slashed when they’re discovered, making it harder for the 31+ million who depend on it in 2 countries to, well, drink (and most of us, to, well, eat.)
But the wall got some of its money, including funding for lawyers to expedite eminent domain acquisitions mainly in Texas. The wall, you see, won’t be built on the actual border, which is the centerline of the Rio Grande. Also, our treaties say if the Rio Grande moves as it used to do often before Americans and Mexicans (mostly Americans) sucked it dry (in most years at its mouth), so does the border. Therefore, lots of property inland on the Texas side will have to be “taken” to build this. Expect a huge legal fight.
The “budget” I recognize is a wish-list and has to get through Congress, which has signaled it isn’t happy. Sequestration seems to render this dead-on-arrival. Obama’s budgets had some awesome things in them that never came to pass, and this is no different. Conservative wishlists are for killing the government, and I suspect a good portion of these cuts will make it through. Elections have consequences. 70,000 votes, and “her emails.” Increasingly I wonder if 62 million people voted in a man who fundamentally hates America, and whether they’re ok with that.