After struggling mightily with whether or not to tune in, I was able to overcome my fears and convince myself to sit down in the privacy of my den and watch President Trump present his first address to the U.S. Congress. What fears? Well, maybe not quite the same fears that motivated early Christians to outlaw dancing as the “work of the Devil,” but in that general ballpark.
As it turned out, my trepidation was unfounded. Trump’s “Devil Dance” was both spectacularly tame and, simultaneously, spectacularly ambitious (but not in a good way). Even acknowledging that presidents are allowed to inspirationally bullshit us during their inaugural addresses and speeches to a joint Congress, Trump clearly abused that privilege. Basically, the man went off the deep end and promised us Utopia.
Unless I missed something, Trump not only pledged to cut taxes on everybody and everything—corporations, the rich, the superrich, the middle-class, the poor—he vowed to get rid of those pesky regulations that hamper businesses. Accordingly, the following morning’s stock market was up a couple hundred points.
And despite what has to be a staggering loss of tax revenue, President Trump also promised to launch a massive government-sponsored program to repair our infrastructure (our roads, bridges, dams, aqueducts, hydro-electric plants, nuclear reactors, airports, seaports, all of it).
He even went so far as to assure us that “all of the problems” that plague us can be solved. He actually said that. All of our problems. In short, he promised that everything wrong with this country can be fixed.
Presumably, this included drug addiction, inadequate health care, crime, spousal abuse, homelessness, malnutrition, substandard education, low-paying jobs, and the shabby treatment of veterans. He did fail to mention the rising cost of cable TV, but let’s assume he meant that as well.
Earlier in the week, to placate the saber-rattlers and flag-wavers, he had announced that he wanted to increase the military budget by some $34 billion. Of course, for all this money Trump is talking about spending–money we clearly don’t have—Congress (even a docile, Republican-dominated Congress) is going to have to approve it, and that may not be easy.
Let’s not forget that there is no shortage of “deficit hawks” in Congress—Republicans mainly, but Democrats also—who can’t bear to see the government continue to accrue debt. These are people who are already pissed off at the amount of money being wastefully spent on office supplies. As appropriate as it would be, does anyone honestly expect them to approve of a massive, New Deal-style infrastructure program?
The simple truth is that you can’t have both. You can’t have national health care and a massive infrastructure rebuild, and at the same time be increasing an already bloated defense budget. And you can’t do it by pretending that corporations and wealthy people shouldn’t have to pay their fair share of taxes. But putting all that aside, it was a stunningly “optimistic” speech, one for the ages. Alas, it meant absolutely nothing.