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Can Trump's Perfume Cloak the Stink of GOP Corruption?

Jim Hightower on

Big news! The Trump4Sale shop next door to the Office of the President has just issued an exciting new product: "Trump Fragrance." Yes, it's officially certified President Donald Trump perfume, allowing you and your loved ones to reek of the essence of The Donald at only $249 for a 3-ounce bottle.

I wondered, with so much going on, why he is busy hawking perfume? But then I saw nearly every congressional Republican cravenly cave in to White House demands that they approve Trump's truly stinky budget plan. Ah-ha! They are the perfume's target market! Voting to slash food and health care funding for poor families, just so those dollars can be lavished on tax giveaways for millionaires and billionaires, is extremely unpopular. So, Trump was offering them an odoriferous spritz.

Some will need gallons of it. Not only did they vote to harm to millions of people, but they rushed back to their districts, loudly demanding that the humanitarian disaster they created be fixed by state and local officials.

Then, there is Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a rich Pennsylvania Republican. He owned corporate stock in a big Medicaid provider named Centene, but as a legislative insider, Rep. Bresnahan knew that Trump's bill would gut Medicaid and crash Centene's stock value. So, he dumped that stock just one week before the House approved the budget. And, yes, after protecting himself, Rob voted for the Medicaid gut job that caused the stock price to plummet.

This is Jim Hightower saying ... Even one of Bresnahan's Republican colleagues, Brian Fitzpatrick, was appalled: "We need American leaders who are accountable, transparent, and wholly committed to serving the public -- not their stock portfolio," he said, rightly adding that members of Congress "should be banned from trading individual stocks -- period."

GOP'S BUDGET BILL IS POLITICAL PORNOGRAPHY

In addition to protecting children from internet pornography -- shouldn't we protect them from seeing congress critters shamelessly sucking up to Trump and publicly prostituting themselves to billionaires?

Consider the raw obscenity of the GOP ramming its gross budget bill into law. Even many conservatives gagged at the depravity of forcibly taking food stamps and Medicaid from millions of everyday people, just so a few extremely rich elites can satisfy their insatiable lust for tax breaks.

 

The stench of greed in their law is so offensive that Republicans are now trying to perfume their minginess by branding all those who are being denied access to food and health care as moochers. Get off welfare and go find a job! These shameless lawmakers even insist they're helping the poor by "transitioning" them from Medicaid to employer-provided health care."

It's always instructive to hear $174,000-a-year, taxpayer-insured politicos scold hard-hit families for "taking" public aid. Apparently, it never dawns on these pecksniffs that dead-end jobs available to the poor don't come with any health care. Well, sniff GOP leaders, that's why we pushed through this "big, beautiful" tax cut for billionaires -- it's our anti-poverty program!

Huh? Yes, they explain, it's simple: (1) cut spending on poor people; so (2) we can lower the taxes that rich people and corporations pay; thus (3) giving them billions to invest in good jobs for the poor.

This is Jim Hightower saying ... I was born at night, but it wasn't last night. Notice that their Billionaire Boondoggle includes no requirement at all that recipients invest even one dollar in jobs. So, they won't. This bill is not just ugly, it's morally revolting.

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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Copyright 2025 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

 

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