Last month, the U.S. House passed the “OBUBB Bill,” which either stands for “One Big Unbelievably Beautiful Budget” or “One Big Ugly B******* Budget,” depending on which side of the partisan divide you are on.
And our president was offered a 747-8 as a “gift, free of charge” by the Emir of Qatar. Trump hoped to use it as his Air Force One. Or more precisely as one of his Air Force Ones.
The callsign “Air Force One” refers to any airplane carrying the president and his entourage, but it typically refers to one of a matching pair of identical heavily customized 747-200s. These two planes date back to the Bush administration — the George H.W. Bush administration.
Those planes are serviceable and sturdy, but they’re old. Judging by pictures I have seen, the décor has never been updated, and there’s not even a speck of gold leaf to be seen anywhere. The Qatari plane, on the other hand, has an entirely gold-plated interior: It makes Trump’s rococo Oval Office look rustic. Be that as it may, the Qatari plane would have to be completely retrofitted with all sorts of security and communications features before Trump can fly around in it. And, the retrofitting of this plane will be delayed by the fact that two other 747-8’s are currently being renovated for presidential use. That project has been going on for several years and has a $3.2 billion budget.
Anyway, the Department of Defense has made a deal to accept Qatar’s gift. Trump couldn’t directly receive the plane, thanks to some minor technicalities, such as Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution. But a deal was made, artfully bypassing all those technicalities.
The process of making a deal to get the OBUBB Bill passed through Congress has proven to be somewhat less artful. The senators in the majority caucus, unlike their counterparts in the House, are less than 100% convinced of the wisdom of transferring trillions of dollars from ordinary hard-working Americans to our nation’s 900 billionaires, two of whom are from New Hampshire.
Our 900 billionaires are understandably feeling anxious. Aside from their concerns about the OBUBB Bill possibly failing, they don’t like the political and economic chaos of the past few months any more than us regular people do. Also, the standard (albeit implausible) rationale for stealing from the poor and giving to the rich is that the rich are job creators.
Even the billionaires themselves understand that this rationale is even more implausible than usual right now, thanks to the fact that ICE has been deporting (supposedly) 3,000 immigrant workers per day. Trump’s original plan was for ICE to deport 3,000 criminal aliens per day, but criminals are hard to find and even harder to catch, whereas immigrant workers are regular people who are minding their own business all day.
I have a suggestion to make our billionaires feel better. The Qatari plane is worth at least $90 million in its current condition. Trump should sell the plane, and possibly share the proceeds with his fellow billionaires. He can’t simply write a bunch of $100,000 checks, but I am sure he can find a way to do something nice for his 899 friends.
Since I am from New Hampshire, the home state of the late Salmon P. Chase, whose portrait appears on the $10,000 bill, I would suggest slipping each billionaire an envelope filled with ten $10,000 bills.
I am sure New Hampshire’s two billionaires would be most grateful.
One of them has been in the news lately: Alexander Karp, the co-CEO of the big-data company Palantir. Karp is doubtless worried that Palantir’s proposed One Big Unbelievably Beautiful Database project (which is part of the OBUBB) might fall through. This project would consolidate every person’s interactions with the U.S. government into a single database. I have my doubts about that project myself, but if it happens, it would mean an extra billion dollars or so for a guy from “above the notches.” (Karp lives in a small town in Northern Grafton County.)
A few of those dollars might trickle down to ordinary Granite Staters like myself.
Timothy Horrigan is a state representative from Durham.