A want is not a need.  How many times did we hear that from our grandparents or parents when we were growing up?   Needs are basic but not necessarily inexpensive – clean air and water, adequate and healthy food, a safe place to live, jobs with a living wage, good schools, access to health care.  Add multimodal transportation, arts opportunities, a diversity of faiths, and a multigenerational population. All are building blocks for a welcoming community that cares. 

Too often these days, wants can overtake needs and overwhelm common sense and the budget. But if you’ve sailed through life without hearing NO, it’s not surprising that the list of wants can expand exponentially, especially if you’re using someone else’s money.  A $400 million jet from the Qatari royal family, renaming and closing the Kennedy Center, tearing down the East Wing to build an enormous White House ballroom, changing the color of the historic Reflecting Pool, planning for a 250-foot Arc de Trump that blocks the view of Arlington National Cemetery, hijacking Washington’s public golf courses, gilding the Oval Office and now the lion statues on the Memorial Bridge, replacing the White House Rose Garden with an umbrella-ed concrete patio, building an atrocious fighting cage on the White House grounds to celebrate his birthday, and a $1.776 billion slush fund to compensate the mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021 – Donald Trump’s list of wants grows almost daily.  

After 18 months in office, Donald Trump finally is hearing NO.  NO from the courts, NO from the Congress, and NO from the American people who are fed up with his insatiable appetite for more, larger, gaudier. On Friday, a federal district judge ordered the removal of Trump’s name from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts and also ordered its reopening.  Trump’s response? He washed his hands of the issue and said he would turn it back to Congress.  Never mind that he usurped Congress’ prerogative by firing the Center’s board of directors and replacing them with political cronies.  When he didn’t get his way with the court, he figuratively stomped his foot and left the mess for someone else to clean up. 

Congress comes back from recess this week to face the slush fund issue.  Many members of both parties got an earful from their constituents at home but will they remember that outrage when they return to the Hill? Based on comments from officeholders in both parties, the slush fund is doomed, but Trump, his family, and his cabinet cronies, especially Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, might try some other scheme to access that money.  It’s long been speculated that Trump either doesn’t listen to his advisors or his advisors only give him advice he wants to hear. Blanche is both an official advisor as Acting Attorney General and a personal advisor since he was Trump’s defense attorney in the Stormy Daniels hush money trial and federal classified documents criminal case. A legal ethics class could have a field day debating the implications of those two positions. 

As Mr. Trump focuses on his “wants” list, Americans are focused on their needs – an economy that works for them, job opportunities, lower gas and grocery prices, affordable health care.  The list is long, and personal to every citizen.  They should not just want to vote in November.  They need to vote.