It seems the current government shutdown may never end. Trump's trade policies have caused our largest buyers of soybeans to start buying elsewhere, which we may never truly get back. Though Trump is supposedly not going golfing while the government is shut down, that doesn't mean he is actually working. More and more his actual time at work is about 3 hours a day, with the rest of it being "executive time" where the president essentially screws around on Twitter or watches television.
Increasingly, as the shutdown goes on and actual people who work are doing so without pay or being forced to stay away - also without pay, Many Americans need to start considering the cost of this Presidency on us. I am not just talking about the actual dollar cost, though that is a worrying expense, but how about our reputation and influence around the world. So far, Trump's presidency has cost America billions if not more, and will soon crash the economy.
How do I know? Well, there are reliable sources who point out that a shutdown costs the country about 6.5 billion dollars a week, slows down job growth, and causes worry among investors the longer it continues. During the last long shutdown the country had 120,000 fewer jobs created per month. Those are hard working Americans going without work or money, and a government that isn't collecting taxes and paying its accumulating debts. Since the last great tax cut that actual Americans aren't really getting anything out of, but for whom millionaires and corporations raked in trillions, the government is losing considerable revenue. It is estimated that our debt has climbed 2 trillion since then up to about 22 trillion. A government can't hope to pay off its debts if it isn't making any money.
Then of course we have to consider the amount of time Trump is, or rather isn't, working. He claims to only sleep about 4 hours a night, but he isn't working during that time. Instead he is calling people on an unsecured mobile phone - something that the right-wing was up in arms about with Hillary Clinton because of the threat of being hacked. Then we have all the "executive time" during the day. Look, none of us would be able to keep our jobs if we spent the vast majority of our time not working. I know conservatives were really upset that the last president supposedly spent so much time golfing, but Trump has spent more than 20% of his time golfing and away from Washington NOT WORKING! In fact, while he is out golfing on his own resorts, this billionaire is still charging the government for security, golf carts, and all the other expenses. He doesn't need a salary of 400 thousand a year because he has raked in millions with this little scam all by itself since he is forcing the government to pay the bills at his own properties.
I have talked numerous times before about how our president is going about and destroying our alliances, while sucking up to dictators around the world. Mr. Trump is friendly with Putin, Kim Jung Un, Erdogan, Muhamed Bin Salman, and has recently started having the government praise Jair Bolsonaro the new right-wing extremist in Brazil who has already started cracking down on democracy. At the same time he has aggrieved our allies by backing out of agreements he didn't like, imposing tariffs despite trade agreements, and said they were all taking advantage of us. Apparently, he just doesn't understand what it means to be an ally when you are the strongest member of the group. But then again, he probably just doesn't like that these alliances don't bow down and scrape across the floor for him when he enters the room.
So now we are in the third longest government shutdown ever with no relief in sight. I would speculate that this is just another ploy by the right-wing to say how our government just doesn't work and give reason to overthrow it, but that might be taking it a bit far. After all, conspiracy theories are a passion of the right-wing. Still, one has to wonder why the president is creating this stupid PR stunt while the people get screwed? The longer the government stays shut because the president wants to act like a child throwing a temper tantrum and not doing what little job he actually does, the worse it will be for real Americans when this is all said and done. After all, when the economy collapses the people with the least amount of money always suffer the most. Maybe then you will wonder like I do, what is the real cost of the Donald Trump presidency?