Just A Suggestion

Editor, Times-Union:
Many questions arise when we the taxpayers ask how our federal income tax money is spent. The most obvious answers relate to the war in Iran (which we the people never sanctioned), the questionable and often cruel detaining, abduction, and/or incarceration of men, women and children whom the federal government’s Department of Homeland Security deem not worthy of remaining free in the U.S., and the growing number of Donald Trump’s vanity projects in and around our nation’s capital.
Concern and anger is growing as we the people recognize that our tax dollars are not being used to assist the thousands of victims of floods, tornadoes, wildfires, and other disasters. The money is not being spent on and is even being cut from health care research and insurance, from food assistance programs, from retirement programs, from our national parks’ funds, from infrastructure plans, from public schools, universities, and a multitude of educational programs.
Donald Trump has made his beliefs clear that each of the 50 United States should handle their problems themselves ... from handling the covid epidemic during his first term ... to assisting their people who are suffering from current natural disasters ... to figuring out how to feed their hungry, house their homeless, heal their sick, and educate their children. He has made it clear that the federal government (meaning he) should not have to tend to the pesky needs of the people, and that he alone will decide how our federal tax money should be spent.
Well, then, how about all of us who pay federal income taxes decide that Trump’s plans (or lack of plans), his goals, and his decisions do not work for us any more? How about we all decide to stop sending those taxes to Washington and instead send that money directly to our individual home states? How about letting Donald Trump and his billionaire buddies just keep D.C. for themselves, make it as golden and gaudy as they please, put his name and picture on every building and street sign and park and golf course and maybe rename it “Trumpville”? After all, Washington, D.C., is not a state anyway, and we the people do not need it for anything — especially since it has done anything but steal our money lately.
If Trump wants the states to take care of themselves, by themselves, then maybe we who live in the states should keep our money where our needs can be met more readily, more compassionately, and more expertly … in our own respective states. Maybe it is time for our states to band together once again — for the sake of our democratic republic — to prove just what “united” really means, by not only finally helping ourselves but by helping each other.
Donald Trump can just stay in his golden D.C., play all the golf he wishes — but pays for out of his own pocket. We can take care of ourselves. We have learned to do so whenever Donald Trump pretends to be a leader.
Jeanne Tuka Schutz
Winona Lake