So let’s talk about the hatch act. This is a law in the USA that very specifically states that public funds should NEVER be used to promote a political party. So basically all public funds (your and my taxes) should be for the people of the USA and not to promote one party over another. Good stuff.
Now the president and Vice President are exempt from this basically because they may make a partisan comment at some time while in the White House (paid for by public funds) or somewhere else where it’s inappropriate. However every member of their staff, all the senior White House executives and all federal employees are covered. They have their first amendment and can say what they like, but can’t do it using public funds which includes doing it on property or using equipment that is paid for by the public. This is a BIG DEAL!
As an aside note, during Obama’s administration he once wanted to make a political call from Air Force One which is paid for by public funds. His staff said no because of the hatch act and they ended up installing at great cost to the DNC convention fund a political line on Air Force one so the hatch act wouldn’t be violated.
So yeah, this current administration has repeatedly violated this law, and that’s bad. It means taxpayer dollars have funded various officials speaking at public funded locations and events, massive political events using public funds. Trump frequently has used public funded announcement events to attack political appoints, they flew mike Pompey to Jerusalem using public funds for flights and security to speak at the RNC, and lastly last nights travesty of politicizing the White House in favor of the Republican Party and holding a massive fireworks display on public property that focused on the trump campaign (and even lit up with “trump 2020” in the fireworks.
Now yes, the president speaking is immune to the hatch act, but every single employee and every dollar spent on that event was a violation.
You may think this is petty and tiny, but right now there are terrifying hurricanes hitting coasts, there is a horrible pandemic happening across the country, we have an unemployment crisis and a financial disaster. Every dollar spent on that event was paid for by taxpayers who trusted the government to use it to help the nation not a political party, and every dollar spent means the RNC saved more money so it could do attack ads later.
So yeah. This is bad. Real bad. And honestly if I’m paying taxes I really want it to go to roads or hurricane relief rather than “trump 2020” fireworks. I don’t know how you feel?