Soon, The Fun Begins

 I remember not to long ago that Donald Trump, the candidate, told me that I should vote for him because he was the only person who could fix our failing infrastructure, and the only person who could defeat ISIS, and the  only person who could end the decay of our cities and Make America Great Again.

Now, the man who is President has shown us his secret plans. He has told our generals to get together and come up with a plan that will defeat ISIS - something which he clearly doubts they ever thought of doing on their own. Turns out he didn’t actually have a plan.

And, he has decided not to submit a budget to Congress that will fix our decaying cities, bring back jobs, stop unfair trade agreements and Make America Great Again. This is, apparently, something that Republicans in Congress never thought to do on their own. Maybe he could show them his plan first, kind of like a cheat sheet.

(I wonder if it would be more efficient to just draft all the Republicans in Congress and make them generals, so they could do both jobs at the same time. With the President’s approval, of course.)

But, that’s silly. Let me explain why.

When a politician, any politician, says they have a plan to do something, it’s one of those  big picture things. Hey, everybody, let’s put on a show in the old barn. And, presto, the barn is clean, the cast is ready, and people come in to watch the musical.

And someone handles the parking and someone else gets the permits and someone else takes the tickets and someone else rents the porta-potties and someone else gets the candy and soda for the refreshment stand while someone else sells the food and someone else helps usher people to their seats, and still another someone else is waiting to clean up and haul the garbage to the dump.....well,  you get the idea.

It’s kind of easy to plan great things, like bring back the coal industry regardless of the cost, or pollution, or lack of demand. Or build cars in America - Kias anyone - when you don’t actually build them, just assemble them from foreign-made components. My favorite idea comes from the energy independence people, who want to build everything - solar and wind and oil and natural gas and coal and hydropower - so we will be rolling in cheap electric power.

I just think of all those happy stockholders who put their money into power plants that are not needed because there is so much excess power, and all of those workers who will be hired to sit around just in case the plants have to be put on line.

No one needs to be told that the GOP’s grand plan for Obamacare - just repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act - didn’t quite go as advertised. We’re still waiting to hear just how we would take all that Mideast oil. And I expect all that infrastructure work will  be starting any day now.

Which is wrong, of course. None of that work can start until Congress comes up with a budget and the President signs it. And, he will, because he has promised to help the Republicans in Congress to do it. Its just the hard-eyed reporter in me. Waiting for the actual facts before I can make up my mind. But, I can speculate.

For example,  just think of the opportunities that all the members of the House of Representatives will have when they decide how to cut the cost of health care. I particularly like the idea of just giving block grants to the states, and letting the Republican governors tell their own voters that insurance costs are going up because Congress didn’t give them enough money to hold down premiums.

I know that the infrastructure work can’t begin until people sign contracts. And, contracts to rebuild roads and bridges won’t get signed until they are funded. And, there’s another problem.

Which bridges? Which roads? We really have to decide. And that means making hard choices. Say “yes” to Cleveland and “no” to St. Louis? Patch up a failing, inadequate bridge so that it will last for another five or ten years, or just replace the whole thing and add the extra two lanes you really need. Well, you can fix three or four bridges for the cost of one new one, but that just kicks the problem down the road and, eventually, costs a lot more money.

That’s the kind of debate we should be having right now. Has anyone heard it in the halls of Congress? 

Well, the budget should be coming out soon. Soon, the fun begins.