In a move that is already making liberals heads explode, the Treasury Department has added Donald Trump’s name to the 70 million stimulus checks that will be sent to Americans starting this week.
That’s 70 million grateful voters if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
It’s never been done before, but then we’ve never lived through a pandemic like this nor an economic downturn this severe since the 1930s. Would FDR have put his name on stimulus checks if the government had thought of sending them out? He had his name on everything else, so why not?
The Washington Post desperately tried to rain on Trump’s parade by sniffing that the checks would be delayed several days to set up the machinery to add the president’s signature.
The White House and the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment, however the Post said Treasury officials disputed that the cheques would be delayed.
The Post said the “unprecedented decision” to include Trump’s name was announced to the IRS information technology team on Tuesday.
“The team, working from home, is now racing to implement a programming change that two senior officials said will likely lead to a delay in issuing the first batch of paper checks,” it said.
The Treasury Department denied a delay, saying, “Economic Impact Payment checks are scheduled to go out on time and exactly as planned.”
It would depend on when the decision to add Trump’s name was made. Here, it appears that the decision was made in plenty of time and any delays — the Treasury Department has been saying for two weeks that the checks would begin to arrive in recipients’ bank accounts in mid-April — would be for some other technical reason.
Trump’s full name will appear on the memo line, the Post reported. About 70 million Americans are expected to receive the check with Trump’s name.
The move to place Trump’s name on the checks came after the president privately suggested doing so to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the newspaper reported.
A president is not authorized to be a signer for legal disbursements by the U.S. Treasury, but administration officials said that Trump’s name would instead be featured below a line that reads, “Economic Impact Payment.”
Trump isn’t supposed to use an official government document to campaign for reelection, but good luck proving it. You have to know that some brain-dead Democrat somewhere is going to sue — a move that will be equally political. Of course, using the courts for political purposes is also a no-no, but with no one keeping score, it hardly matters.
The $2 trillion bailout is the largest political slush fund in history. And while it was totally necessary and will no doubt help a lot of people, disbursing that money in an election year can’t help but be a political exercise.
As long as you keep that in mind, you can sit back, relax, pop some popcorn, and watch the show unfold.
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