Taxpayer-Financed Slush Fund

The tax filing deadline has been extended to April 17, this Tuesday. If you’re a rational and sensible person, this means nothing to you as you have already filed. If you’re like me, you’ll be doing your taxes on Tuesday.

Patriots pay their taxes. A Republican’s idea of a patriot is a billionaire who finds ways around the system to pay as little as possible. Other Republican patriots are those who use taxpayer money as their own personal slush fund. Not only is the Trump cabinet full of these people, but Trump himself doesn’t mind spending our money on his personal frivolity.

EPA chief Scott Pruitt loves to use our money to fly first class, on military flights, and heightened personal security. The man has a higher security detail than any previous EPA chief before him, and he has traveled to locations he didn’t really need to, such as his home in Tulsa and Morocco to shill for American oil companies. He also attempted to give huge pay raises to a couple of buddies in his department over the objections of the White House.

HUD chief Ben Carson spent $30,000 on a dining room set for his office. His excuse was that the old set was dangerous as it was liable to fall apart if you sat on it and there were rusty nails sticking out. Who knew that entering the office of the HUD Secretary would require a tetanus shot?

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin spent over $1 million on eight flights. One of those was for a trip he took his snooty wife on to see the solar eclipse in Kentucky. You remember her. She’s the one who got into a tiff with a constituent who criticized her for boasting about her expensive name-brand clothing. You probably saw the pic of her holding a sheet of money with Stevie where she’s clad in all black. You’d be forgiven for mistaking them for Bond villains if they had any charm.

When Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke isn’t plotting to turn government monuments into oil fields, he enjoys taking charter flights, financed by you, to the Virgin Islands, Las Vegas and his home in Montana. One of those flights from Vegas to his home cost nearly $13,000. By the way, the Interior Department spent $139,000 to upgrade three sets of double-doors in his office.

David Shulkin was fired as head of the Veterans Administration for his scandals which seem far less than the ones being committed by Pruitt. Shulkin took his wife on a taxpayer-financed trip to Europe where they toured castles and attended Wimbledon.

Then we have the president himself. Trump plays a lot of golf despite telling us he wouldn’t have time for golf. It appears he doesn’t have time for much of anything else except for tweeting. Trump spends most weekends at one of his many resorts and while there, we foot the bill. The press and Freedom of Information groups are having a difficult time finding out how much Trump makes off us during his trips. But, we do know that one night at Mar-a-Lago can cost over $500 which has been spent on government employees.

Of course, we have to pay to protect the president, but we pay this president to protect the president. Donald Trump charges the Secret Service rent at his facilities and even charges them for golf cart rentals. It’s no wonder he leaves the White House so much. He can’t charge anyone rent for staying there.

Trump is about to spend the entire week at Mar-a-Lago which will turn a pretty penny for him. He is literally making money off being president. For the second time, he’ll be hosting the Prime Minister of Japan at the resort, so he’s also making money off our allies’ taxpayers.

So, make sure you don’t just file your taxes on time, but that you get your check in the mail too. I mean, it’s not like Donald Trump’s going to pay for his golf outings.

Creative notes: This cartoon is dated for April 19, which is two days after the tax deadline. People will probably still be feeling the pain at that time. But, I tell my clients the cartoons are not embargoed by the file date, which means they can run them at any time.

Here’s the video.

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