“Smile: It’s Autumn!”
By John R. Nay
Regular readers of my ravings probably noticed last week that something happened at the bottom of three columns of my article. I know that at least a few people noticed it. These things happen occasionally. If you still have last week’s JE – and why wouldn’t you? – there’s an easy fix. Just open to my article, and at the bottom of Column 3 mentally add the missing words “the Washington, D.C. area.” At the bottom of Column 4 add the words “it should be. 9/11 gave” and at the bottom of Column 5 add the words “season has begun – Notre.” Now the truncated sentences should make sense.
Separately, at a recent political fundraiser last week President Trump urged his supporters to get involved in the midterm election races. “Pretend I’m on the ballot!” Trump declared. I’m not sure asking Americans to pretend he’s on the ballot, is a great idea for a President whose current approval rating is 35%, but that’s what he said. Before I go further, I feel compelled to note that opinions expressed in my columns are my personal opinions, so please note that this is not an editorial representing the views of this newspaper. If you disagree with my opinions, please don’t take that out on the editor or publisher of this paper. Instead, a rational Letter to the Editor is always welcome and quite likely to get published. Or perhaps you could offer to write a weekly column, demanding the same pay that Tom Kimmel, Brian Strayer, and I get.
From our country’s earliest history, our Presidents have lived with a free press. I hope we’re all committed to that. Some Presidents made significant mistakes and were thin-skinned about criticism (John Adams and Richard Nixon, for example), and some made significant mistakes, but apparently didn’t let the criticism bother them much (FDR, Eisenhower, and Reagan, perhaps). The bottom line is that every President has made some major mistakes. Suggestions that comedians should be muffled or that Presidents shouldn’t be criticized, however, sound like something out of the Soviet era. It’s vitally important that we retain a sense of history.
But back to the state of our nation. What did you think last week when President Trump promised “So if the Republicans win [in this fall’s midterms], you win with us and you get $5,000. It will be called the Trump Dividend”? The next, I actually heard someone – a true believer – ask a third person “What will you do with your $5,000?”
Given that I’ve repeatedly written about the need to reduce our national debt and annual deficits (didn’t that used to be a goal for conservatives?) you can guess what I thought of it. Such a move would add $1.2-1.3 Trillion to our national debt (estimating there are over 250million adult Americans). Our national debt crossed $40 Trillion last month. Didn’t Candidate Trump promise he would balance the budget? During Trump’s first term we added nearly $8 Trillion to our national debt. During President Biden’s term, we added another $8 Trillion. COVID played a part in those gigantic deficits, of course, but when the “chickens came home to roost” in the form of 8% inflation in 2022, what did we think then?
Also, there are no profits from which a “dividend” can be paid. Separately, it strikes me as rather low class to say that if you vote for my party, then we’ll give you $5,000. It’s not quite bribery – he didn’t say that he’d pay individuals for their votes – but it seems similar. What would you think if local candidates for Township Supervisor, County Commissioner, etc., offered us cash if they were elected? Apparently Trump didn’t coordinate his idea with other Republicans, as they seemed surprised. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Congress would have to consider such an idea. Florida governor Ron DeSantis (who would like to be President) expressed skepticism. Vice President Vance, who almost certainly hopes for Trump’s endorsement for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, carefully spoke about the benefits he believes the Trump Administration has brought to Americans without making a specific commitment. At least one Arizona Republican Congressman has said Trump’s idea “would actually do more damage to working people than it would ever help them.” Any Republican who hopes to win the Presidency in 2028 must be of two minds, recognizing that openly differing with Trump is an unlikely path to victory, while also realizing that such a move might cause the same sort of monetary inflation in the next Presidential term, that hit Biden two years into his Presidency.
Enough on national politics. I have multiple friends who lean Republican, some of whom still believe that Republicans are the more fiscally responsible of the two political parties, despite evidence to the contrary. I’ll disagree with Trump opponents, however, who claim that Trump broke the law by putting his image on the recently released $1 commemorative coin minted in honor of the 250th anniversary of American independence. President Coolidge was the incumbent President in 1926 when a half dollar commemorative coin was released in honor of our nation’s sesquicentennial. I own one of those coins (it’s not particularly valuable). That coin featured George Washington’s profile in front of Coolidge’s. So while we could discuss the comparative political wisdom or good taste of issuing this year’s coins, they aren’t without precedent.
Last, perhaps much also could be said about the threats posed by China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), but I’ll just mention that back on July 29, after I wrote about wanting to read “The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World,” describing conversations between the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu, the book was given to me as a present. I am part way through it. One commenter has written that “no matter what question the interviewer asked, most often the answer was “compassion.” For now, let’s also enjoy the beautiful autumn weather we can expect over the next few weeks.
