We knew it would happen.
The only question was whether it would happen sooner or later. It happened sooner, at lunch on the very first day of our transatlantic cruise. We dined with a couple from Norway that we were conveniently paired with. A very lovely lunch as we enjoyed selected wines and talked about our various experiences traveling and in our individual careers. He works in the insurances industry serving sea fairing vessels. She is a banker. They're quite sophisticated, speak perfect English and have been to America many times.
As dessert arrived (warm apple pie with ice cream and chocolate concoctions) they asked about President Trump, expressing their concern over the proposed dismantling of the Department of Education. They seemed worried that he would halt all education funding in the US. We suspect they might have been thinking: Isn't that what a dictator does -- he ends education, supplants it with propaganda and enforces ignorance and allegiance, right?
We explained it all this way: 1) Education funding from the US federal government is not being halted, it's s simply being shifted to the states to give them greater freedom and more discretion with fewer mandates and far less regulation, and 2) America is broke and part of the problem is a bloated bureaucracy. We've got to downsize the federal government, trim the huge workforce, shrink the budget and begin to see money flowing into America and less flowing out.
Since they both have backgrounds in business, they seemed to understand. America can't continue to be generous Papa BigBucks. America has to take care of its own and begin doing it where it does it best, at the local level in every town and city and village and borough.
We also told them this: President Trump is a negotiator whose end game is always The Deal. He comes in elbows up with outsized, ambitious requests and no small amount of drama. But that's just act one; it's a bargaining technique. What he demands and what he settles for are two different things.
A pleasant afternoon with mutual respect, enlightenment and some new insight, we hope.
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