The problem is that neither Trump nor anyone else can "do what's right for the country" if the mass of the voting public disagrees with it strongly enough. Congress simply won't go along with it. Even here, among self-professed conservatives, there was a lot of opposition to Ryan's plan on entitlements.
One has to start somewhere. If the amount of food stamps paid out decreases by 50% in a given year, then I at least expect to save that. Trump's Agriculture Department should have money left over in their budget at the end of the fiscal year. But they don't. They took money earmarked for food stamps and spent that money on something else. For all practical purposes, they could have spent that money building the wall instead. Or even better, they could have used that money to retire bonds instead of renewing them. If the President is not willing to do even that minimal act, then he is part of the problem.
Or how about paying AFDC, WIC, S-CHIP, etc. to the illegal parents of anchor babies? The President has the authority to halt this, prosecute their parents, and have their anchor baby kids sent to relatives outside the US. More 'entitlement' [sic] savings. But if a President is not willing to do this, then he is part of the problem. I am sick and tired of hearing excuses. I want a bad-ass President who is not afraid of shutting down the government until we get sensible action from Congress. And any President afraid to do this for fear of not getting re-elected is part of the problem.
That's why entitlement programs are so insidious -- they don't require yearly appropriations to fund them.
They most certainly do require yearly appropriation. And even more important, they require a yearly signature from the President.
So it's not the Trump himself spends the money for them - it's that the money is spent automatically unless Congress votes to stop it.
Might want to check your Constitution on that. The Executive Branch controls the Treasury - not the Legislative Branch. 'Entitlement' [sic] checks are paid out from the US Treasury - not from Congress. And there is nothing forcing the Executive Branch to spend money. The exercise of the law is totally at the discretion of the Executive Branch. So keep that in mind the next time you pass a cop doing 5 mph over the speed limit. It is completely at his discretion whether to write you a ticket.
Again, we have to start somewhere. And we have to start now. Otherwise, we as a nation end up on the dust heap of history.
