President Donald Trump is so vain and so desperate to take credit for the stimulus package that he literally delayed payments from going out by forcing the Treasury Department to print his name on the checks.
Seriously.
The stimulus passed last month by the House and Senate largely had nothing to do with Trump except that he signed the bill into law.
Originally, Trump had wanted his signature on the checks. But he apparently settled for just his name in print. And, of course, that means a delay of stimulus funds that Americans desperately need.
According to the Washington Post:
The unprecedented decision, finalized late Monday, means that when recipients open the $1,200 paper checks the IRS is scheduled to begin sending to 70 million Americans in coming days, ‘President Donald J. Trump’ will appear on the left side of the payment.
The decision to have the paper checks bear Trump’s name, in the works for weeks, according to a Treasury official, was announced early Tuesday to the IRS’s information technology team. The team, working from home, is now racing to implement a programming change that two senior officials said will probably lead to a delay in issuing the first batch of paper checks. They are scheduled to be sent Thursday to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service for printing and issuing.
It’s not only an unprecedented decision, but it’s also unprecedented vanity that turns the Treasury into a purely partisan department. Stimulus checks are generally signed by a Treasury official to avoid the appearance of partisanship. But Trump has clearly abandoned that in favor of an obvious attempt to turn these checks into propaganda that he hopes will cause people to vote for him in November. He’s basically trying to bribe Americans by giving them their own money.
This act of narcissism is going to hurt people all so Trump can stroke his ego. And it should backfire spectacularly on Election Day in November.
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