Building a Fire
When I was a “Tenderfoot” (rookie) Boy Scout, one of the first things we were taught was how to build a fire. It was Scouting of the 1960’s. Our Scoutmasters fought across Europe in World War II and they were tough. We camped through everything, including sub-zero temperatures and tornados. And while building a fire during a tornado wasn’t practicable, in the winter fire building was a necessary survival skill.
What most “Tenderfeet” wanted to do was lay some logs on top of some dry newspaper, and strike a match. What we found was that the paper would burn, the logs smoke a little, and the fire never caught. The older Scouts took some pleasure in watching us fail, and then showed us “the Boy Scout Way”. We were sent off into the woods to gather twigs and sticks of various sizes. They taught us to pick the wood from the trees, not off of the ground, where it was wet (or snow covered).
When we returned with our bundles, we carefully sorted the wood into sized piles. Then our elders would hand us a hand axe (Woo Hoo!!) to split the bigger logs into smaller chunks. And finally, when we had an assortment of sizes from tiny to logs, we were allowed to actually build a fire (lean-to, tepee, log cabin to name a few).
By the time we were done, we often were warm. The process of building a fire itself got us heated. So the first lesson was that work made you warm; standing around waiting was a good way to freeze. The second was that only the hottest fires could burn whole logs. To make a fire, you have to split logs into splinters. They burned faster and hotter, and led to a big “log burning” fire, they kept everyone warm.
Trump Steals Christmas
Over the Christmas holiday, the President of the United States refused to sign the combined “omnibus spending bill” and “Covid Relief bill” just passed by Congress. The giant legislation includes authorization for government spending for the next several months: domestic spending, government spending, and foreign aid. Without its passage the US Government loses the legal power to spend money, and therefore closes. That happens on Monday night.
We’ve gone through Government “shutdowns” before. It’s tough on millions of Federal employees, and also tough on various groups that depend on government spending for their livelihood. But even in this Trump Administration we spent almost a month with the government “shutdown”, and ultimately we were OK.
But the Covid Relief Bill is the law that would extend benefits that many Americans got back in April to help survive the pandemic economic crisis. It includes increased unemployment benefits and protection from eviction and foreclosures from not paying rent or mortgages. And it includes a stimulus check of $600 for many Americans.
In the Room
The President himself was never at the negotiating table. Instead, he sent his Secretary of Treasury, Mnuchin, to do the negotiating for him. And Mnuchin sided with the Republican Senators who didn’t want ANY stimulus check at all. But, in the tradition of legislative compromises, the Democrats gave up direct aid to state and local governments, and instead got the $600 stimulus. The original Democratic proposal contained both government aid and a $2000 stimulus. But the President’s man and the Republican Senators wouldn’t allow it, so the “Gang of Eleven” in the Senate put this compromise together.
The two bills, Omnibus and Covid, were combined because that created the necessary “pressure” to get the legislation through. Closing the Government is always a big deal and something to be avoided, and the early Covid relief legislation ends in the last week of December. It all worked together to get a deal done, before Christmas, and before more Americans had to suffer the economic consequences of shutting down and Covid.
Salty
The modern term for Donald Trump is “salty”. He’s mad: mad at the Republicans in Congress for not following his desire to overthrow the election, mad at Democrats for winning the election, and mad at the American people for making Donald Trump a loser. And Trump is also looking forward to a vague and scary future. Will he face civil and criminal charges, Federal and State? Will he be able to pay the hundred of millions of dollars in bank loans that are coming due?
Trump wants to be a “winner” again, a powerful man; not a “lame-duck” President left out of the process. So he is exercising his remaining Presidential powers. He’s pardoned his friends and supporters. He pandered to his political base by pardoning Americans convicted of war crimes against Iraqi civilians. And he pardoned his convicted campaign aides, and his son-in-law’s father.
The President has found a way to build a “hotter fire”. He’s taking the combined bill in front of him, and “split” it apart, just like us Tenderfeet learned how to split logs. Trump has determined that most of those getting help from Covid relief, the unemployed and those facing eviction, voted for Biden anyway. Why should he help them?
And he knows that many Americans getting the “stimulus” check are likely to be his supporters. He loved the fact that his signature was on the first stimulus check last May, and he wants that to be his late Christmas “present” to his supporters. But a $600 check ($2400 for a family of four) really isn’t dramatic. However, what about a $2000 check ($8000)? Well that’s a real present from the President that people will remember.
Splitting Wood
He’s not holding up the process just because he’s “salty”. Trump has made a political calculation. If somehow the “strange bedfellows” of Trump, Schumer and Pelosi actually get a $2000 stimulus, Trump wins. If that ultimately fails, then Trump was the one who wanted to “cut” government spending (the foreign aid) and still support “his people” (the stimulus). So what if folks end up literally living “on the street” during a pandemic in the wintertime: they probably voted for Biden anyway. Trump is a winner!!
Donald Trump is looking to his future. He wants “his base” to continue their support, with fanatical devotion to Trumpism, and checks pouring into “MAGA” funds. He wants to keep the “fire” hot, and the only way he can do it is to split America until small enough pieces that they continue to burn. For Donald Trump, as long as the fire is going, he wins.
