Trump Budgets More Money to Kill Kids in Yemen Than Educate Kids in USA by Steven Singer

Originally posted at: https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/17/trump-budgets-more-money-to-kill-kids-in-yemen-than-educate-kids-in-usa/

Donald Trump apparently would rather kill children in other countries than educate them in ours.

When you make a budget, you betray your priorities.

As Paul Begala said, “The budget is a profoundly moral document. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be.”

So where exactly are Donald Trump’s priorities?

While boosting the military by $54 billion in his 2018 budget, he slashes spending at the U.S. Department of Education by $9.2 billion – the largest cut in the department’s history.

This sad excuse for a man actually proposes that guns and tanks are more important than school children. Perhaps his motto should be “Save the guns! Fuck the children!”

No wonder he obsesses about the size of his hands and literally brags about the size of his genitals on the campaign trial. Can you imagine the infinitesimal pecker you would have to possess to need to brandish phallic pistols instead of taking care of the children in your fucking care!?

What a disgrace!

And moreover, he doesn’t even know how to effectively use the armed forces at his disposal.

Against advice from the military, this pustule with a fake weave authorized a disastrous raid in Yemen in early February that left a US Navy SEAL and 14 civilians dead including an 8-year-old American girl, Nawar al-Awlaki.

At least we know where all this military money will be going. It’s cash for his toy chest so Trump can play army with our sons and daughters. Sure, there will be no more public schools, but if your kids survive to adulthood, they can be Trump’s toys soldiers!

Moreover, look at where this overgrown Cheeto is making the cuts. In order to pay for a $1.4 billion increase in charter and voucher schools, the majority of these cuts come at the expense of the nation’s public schools – institutions serving 90% of our students.

He proposes downsizing the entire department by 13.5% reducing or eliminating grants for teacher training, after-school programs and aid to ­low-income and first-generation college students.

So we’re throwing out proven programs that help kids learn for fly-by-night scams that have ignited scandals across the country. Charter and voucher schools can pick and choose their students. Public schools can’t. And we’re siding with the freakin’ choice schools!?

Traditional public schools have elected school boards. They have open meetings. You actually get a say in how your kid is educated and how your tax money is spent. But the choice schools do all this behind closed doors with appointed boards accountable only to the moneymen. And we’re siding with the option that gives us LESS choice – in the name of “Choice”!

I guess this shouldn’t be a surprise. We’re talking about the founder of Trump University – a fake business school that forced this professional liar to settle out of court for millions. Of course he sides with charter and voucher schools! They’re the kind of institutions he knows – scams!

The priority isn’t school children. It’s wealthy investors that can cash in with our tax dollars burdened by little-to-no oversight.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Trump wants to block funding to feed impoverished children! He actually wants to cut the already struggling Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, by $200 million.

The program serves more than 7.8 million people about three-quarters of which are children and infants.

So this human-sized hemorrhoid has money for guns and businessmen but pinches pennies on infant’s baby formula. Make no mistake – children will die because of this. And those who do survive will grow up malnourished. Their brains will not be as fully developed as middle class and wealthy kids. They will not do as well in school, they’ll struggle to even graduate and boost the numbers of our special education population.

And when called on it, Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s budget office director, told the press that feeding hungry children doesn’t work!

He actually said this:

“Let’s talk about after-school programs generally: they’re supposed to help kids who don’t get fed at home get fed so they do better in school. Guess what? There’s no demonstrable evidence that they’re actually doing that. There’s no demonstrable evidence they’re actually helping results, helping kids do better in school.”

Not only is this untrue based on multiple studies, it’s morally bankrupt.

The Trump administration is actually suggesting we shouldn’t help feed hungry kids because they don’t score high enough on their standardized tests!

Do you base your humanity solely on graduation rates? Should I not help a needy person if it doesn’t somehow boost the GDP?

Fuck you, Mulvaney, and fuck you, Trump!

I’m sorry. I know I’ve dropped more F- bombs in this piece than Trump’s grabbed unsolicited pussies. But what other response is appropriate than seething, inchoate rage!?

That our country has sunk to this level of selfishness and shortsightedness! The hypocrisy and greed!

I’m a public school teacher. I don’t use these words during the school day. But I will get a front row seat to how this budget will affect children.

I’ll be there when the rubber hits the road. And I’ll do what I can to help. I’ll stay extra hours to tutor. I’ll bring in food so my kids can eat. I’ll listen to their problems and offer solutions.

I’ll keep doing all the things I’m doing now. But I’m only one person. Our public school teachers are only one group. We can’t save every child in America ourselves!

And the parents can’t do it, either. Neither can our school board members, volunteers and concerned citizens.

We need a strong, moral government to step in and help.

I know that’s not a popular sentiment. Government has become bad by definition because of a generation of politicians who don’t believe in it running for office to prove themselves right.

But we all pay taxes. (Well, the middle class and poor do.) And we deserve a return on that investment.

America deserves better than this Trump budget. Our children deserve a better future than this.

Because if Trump gets his way, there may be no future at all.