White House finds someone who doesn’t think its budget is a joke. Oh, wait, actually...
Beset on all sides by criticism of its budget proposal, the White House reached out for support Friday from an unlikely source, an opinion piece in the Washington Post.
The administration itself couldn’t have written a more glowing endorsement than the Thursday column by Alexandra Petri, entitled “Trump’s budget makes perfect sense and will fix America, and I will tell you why,” which begins by denouncing critics of the budget priorities as “wimps” and proceeds to the suggestion that teachers be replaced by F-35s wearing “Make America Great Again” hats.
Hence the link in the White House’s “1600 Daily” newsletter, which gives the administration’s take on the day’s news and is sent to anyone who signs up on the wh.gov website.
Supporters were presumably thrilled to read that:
This budget will make America a lean, mean fighting machine with bulging, rippling muscles and not an ounce of fat. America has been weak and soft for too long. BUT HOW WILL I SURVIVE ON THIS BUDGET? you may be wondering. I AM A HUMAN CHILD, NOT A COSTLY FIGHTER JET. You may not survive, but that is because you are SOFT and WEAK, something this budget is designed to eliminate.
Press secretary Sean Spicer couldn’t have put it better than Petri did, writing:
Affordable housing is a luxury and we are going to get rid of it. Donald Trump does not live in affordable housing and neither should you.
And there was much food for thought in this passage, setting forth the administration’s approach to public education:
[Students] will also have new school choice options including the choice not to afford any school at all, because at school you are taught things like grammar and pronouns and spelling and history, and these are all potentially inimical to the future we are trying to build. We will also be cutting Meals on Wheels programs to feed children, because they are not improving performance as we would like. Feed children just to feed them? What are we, SOFT? No. No we are not.
Given Trump’s voluble disdain for the “fake news” media, which he claims to ignore, it is not totally surprising that no one in the press office recognized that Petri is a humor columnist.
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