When Our President Gets Generous, Hold On to Your Wallet

I am amused and appalled by Donald Trump's donation of his first quarter's presidential salary to the National Park Service. That comes to $78,333, a pittance given his administration's proposed $1.5 billion cut in the Park Service's funding for the coming fiscal year. It's even a pittance compared to  $229 million, which is how much Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says the Service is behind "in deferred maintenance on our battlefields alone." Trump designated his "gift" for historic battlefield maintenance.

If he'd given the NPS the value of the perks and benefits he's received in flitting back and forth to Florida and in maintaining and protecting luxury homes for his far-flung family this might be a different story. Perhaps it would provide enough money to remove all references to "climate change" from all Park Service signs and publications, no doubt a costly project. But perhaps ExxonMobile is underwriting it already.

Of course, Trump's minions made a big deal of it. Smilin' Sean Spicer presided over the giving of the check to Secretary Zinke, who was accompanied by Harpers Ferry National Historical Park Superintendent Tyrone Brandyburg, who just happens to appear to be black! A perfect photo op if the world ever saw one.

President Trump's gift is amusing, but in an appalling sort of way. The president who is hellbent on turning our Park Service, and many other beneficial government agencies, into charity cases, donates money that means nothing to him to the maintenance of historic battlefields.  Battlefields . . . lest anyone doubt his love for military spending.

He turns the National Park Service into a plaything for him to be "generous" to, or not, upon his whim. Take away $1.5 billion here, put in $78 thousand there. Enough $78 thousands gifts and you might get to $1.5 billion some day, or even to $229 million.

What a joke. When will everyone see the sham and shame this guy represents?