When this mouth roars, what spills out is pure evil

Mick Mulvaney is quickly becoming one of my least favorite Americans.

He’s first in line to replace Howard Cosell or Morton Downey Jr. or anybody else who has ever been nicknamed “The Mouth That Roared.”

Unlike his boss Donald Trump, who opens his mouth and the alphabet falls out in no particular order, Mulvaney is very clear when he speaks. He’s the White House Budget Director, and what he’s said so far has been heartless, condescending, completely free of human compassion and stereotyping on steroids.

I looked up “evil” in the dictionary and I found his photo there.

I normally give credit to people who are straight shooters, even if I disagree with them, but not when they’re shooting their venom, vindictiveness and vitriol directly at me and other people like me. Take, for example, Mulvaney’s comment on Meet the Press:  

Budget Director Mick Mulvaney

“The president knows who his voters are. His voters are folks who pay taxes as well. And I think for the first time in a long time, you have an administration that is looking at the compassion of both sides of the equation.

“Could I, as a budget director, look at the coal miner in West Virginia and say, 'I want you to please give some of your money to the federal government so that I can give it to the National Endowment for the Arts?’

“I just think we finally got to the point in the administration where we couldn't do that.”

Wow. Where to begin?

First off, I know a lot of people who were coal miners and also went to college with me. Many of them got teaching degrees or some other degree but went into the mines because the pay was better. I would never assume that none of these guys or their families would support the arts just because they once mined coal. That simply isn’t true.

I can’t think of anything more condescending unless you suggested that coal miners should oppose funding for public education because they can’t read and write. Who knows? Maybe Mulvaney will say that next.

And what about other programs getting the Trump/Mulvaney budget axe?  

Let’s say the same coal miner who theoretically doesn’t support the arts has a 90-year-old wheelchair-bound mother who just had her third stroke and now receives Meals on Wheels. What would you say now, Mick?

Or what if the coal miner was laid off and struggling and it helped that his child could get an after-school meal, even though Mulvaney doesn’t think it helps her do better in class? What do you say when you take that away?

“Thank you for paying taxes so we can give it to defense contractors or wealthy businessmen.”

I’m sure those coal miners Mick is so “concerned” about don’t want to lose their health insurance or their black lung benefits, but they would under the health care bill he’s endorsing, and retired miners would like to keep the pensions and benefits they were promised before the coal companies they worked for ducked out of their obligations by declaring bankruptcy, but that appears to have gone away too.

The question you should be asking yourself, Mr. Mulvaney, is “How could I look a coal miner in the eye and say, ‘I know you voted for Trump because he gave you hope, but he was really just trying to get your vote. He doesn’t really care about you at all.’”

Trump knows who his voters are, alright. They’re the ones who are getting screwed the worst.

*   *   *   *   *

Merriam-Webster definition of “evil”

1:  morally reprehensible; sinful, wicked; arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct

2:  inferior; causing discomfort or repulsion; disagreeable

3:  causing harm; pernicious; marked by misfortune; unlucky