Headed toward constitutional crisis

Each day dawns with worrisome stories about the president’s performance, none of which were included in the Letter “Lesson To Democrats” story on Feb 20. Many wanted to get the country on a new track and Trump promised to think outside the box. I fear his box has careened of the tracks.

Let’s examine two recent events in Washington:

Our country is in critical negotiations to settle the bloody Ukrainian war. Troop losses per conservative congressional estimates find 300,000 Russian and 70,000 Ukrainian deaths. Our Congress fully supported resisting this incursion to prevent Putin’s vision of global dominance. Negotiations began with the U.S. preventing Zelenskyy a seat at the table. Within hours, Trump stated that Zelenskyy started the war. How delighted Putin must be.

The dismantling of many congressionally created government agencies to rein in spending in one fell swoop is too much. The president installed a billionaire citizen named Musk to head a team to examine government spending. It was staffed by a handful of e-tech specialists who were very young and inexperienced. The team cut funding to most of 27 agencies, and 92,000 employees were fired. Even the FAA, Department of Health, nuclear safety and global food programs were affected. Staff were fired at all of these agencies and even work in critical bird flu research curtailed. Within a week, the team realized their blunders and tried to call back workers.

Yes, we need deficit reduction, but not on the back of an agency like USAID. It has fed 4 billion people since inception. People like those in war-ravaged countries and places like Sudan dealing with constant crop failures should be helped.

To garner support, Trump and Musk have concocted bizarre stories of money savings to justify their erratic performance. This feels like a constitutional crisis to me.

Roger Parlett

Huntley