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Department of Graft: Trump campaigns on your dollar

The other day, our shady president, Donald Trump, mailed out a self-congratulatory campaign letter on your dollar and mine. He send this thing, telling us all how marvelous he is to have wangled a $1,200 survival payment to each and every one of us, in an envelope of Internal Revenue Service stationery. When you get this piece of mail, of course you think Gulp! What NOW? and immediately tear it open, hoping for the best or at least for nothing expensive, but fearing the worst.

Inside this attention-grabbing envelope is a letter on White House stationery, reminding us that, oh lucky men and women, we recently received a $1,200 handout to make us feel better for our job losses and investment crashes occasioned by the (clumsily handled…) covid epidemic:

I am pleased to notify you that as provided by the CARES Act, you are receiving an Economic Impact Payment of $1,200 by check/debit card.

This miracle, we are told, results from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), “which I proudly signed into law.”

Yup yup yup. You can thank his Autocratic Grace for this moment of largesse. Since we all know — or should know, if we ever check our mailboxes — that we received the magnanimous handout, this message tells us nothing, other than that His Highness went along with something the Congress cooked up. He takes credit for “proudly” signing off on this legislation.

This letter is nothing more nor less than a campaign message: Look, look what Magnificent I did! Be grateful. Be VERY grateful!

But it came to you courtesy of the Internal Revenue Service.

It bears the frank of IRS postage, first-class mail. How many million first-class stamps were paid for and sent out through the US Postal Service — the Post Office this dolt and his bat-brained allies wish to abolish? And how many copies of this thing were printed out on IRS stationery?

If you run a business, as I do, you know how much stationery costs. You know how much postage costs. And you should have some understanding of why official stationery should be used for official purposes — not for self-aggrandizement. If Trump had paid for this on his own dime and tried to pass it off as a piece of business correspondence, an IRS auditor would bite him on the arse.

So why is this clown allowed to get away with poaching our tax dollars to mail out what amounts to a campaign message?

Did you receive one of these self-serving letters? Let me urge you, if you have any sense of decency and even a scintilla of outrage left in your exhausted soul, to send it to your elected representatives, point out that it IS a self-congratulatory piece of propaganda sent in advance of this fall’s re-election campaign, and demand to know why a clearly illegal act is allowed to go unremarked upon.

Like this:

June 17, 2020

Sen. Martha McSally
404 Russel Senate Office building
Washington, D.C, 20002

Dear Sen. McSally:

Please direct your attention to the enclosed piece of correspondence that recently came to me from our esteemed President, Mr. Donald Trump.

As you can see by reading it, the thing is a piece of self-congratulatory campaign propaganda, produced and mailed to us on the taxpayer dime.

Note that it was sent in a window envelope of the type that the much-ballyhooed $1200 checks were mailed in, with a return address of the Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Austin, TX 73301-003. It looks like a piece of official correspondence from the IRS, one you fail to open at your peril.

But that is not what it is. It is instead a self-aggrandizing message telling us that the $1200 handout was something His Smugness “proudly” sent out to us.

Kindly tell me what excuse you and your party have for supporting a man who uses official government stationery and postage, paid for by the taxpayers, to deliver a campaign message? If a Democrat pulled this stunt, you and all your fellow Republicans would be up on your soapboxes yelling, screaming, pounding pans, and posting Tweets. Why are you not doing the same with this bit of graft?

Thank you.

Do it now.