Says leader like Ronald Reagan needed

Vox Pop

President Trump’s recent Executive Order is typical ‘Trump’; lots of fanfare and mostly hot air. We need Ronald Reagan to ask, “Where’s the beef?” Trump claims to provide pay roll tax relief, but it would only postpone payment of the tax until January, if he could legally postpone it, and he cannot.

He claims it provides a $400 supplement to unemployment benefits, but even if he could legally order the payments, which he cannot do, the relief would only be $300. The order asks the states to kick in the other $100. Trump claims his order will provide a moratorium from evictions for people unable to pay their rent or mortgage, but the order does not mention a moratorium.

His Order does not mention help for small businesses, or local governments, or help for low and moderate income families, and for good reason. The president cannot allocate funds by executive order. Congress controls the nation’s purse strings. Trump is unable to express empathy for people facing hardship or to deal in hard facts. That is why he never talks about the 30 million people drawing unemployment, or the 50 million people that have lost their jobs in the last 20 weeks, or the 167,000 people that have died, in large part due to his failed leadership.

When a reporter challenged the veracity of one of his claims he simply turned and walked away, but that is what we have come to expect; numbers with no basis, statements he cannot support, and a persistent failure to recognize there are three branches of government.

With a seemingly innate inability to work with others for a common good and the country in chaos, Trump’s latest Executive Order can best be described as a loudly touted, but very feeble attempt, to bolster the image of a failed leader. — Peter Hellios, Granton