PD Editorial: The risk of believing these things will make America great

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

- Voltaire

We trust that the underpinnings of our republic and the checks and balances that are built into our system, which have already been put to the test, will prevent the atrocities. But there's no question that this president and his administration are pushing absurdities on the American people and trying to pass them off as truth.

These include:

- Huge tax cuts combined with major spending increases will help rein in federal debt. Baloney. The budget deficit is projected to hit $1 trillion next year while the debt hit $21 trillion for the first time in early March. That was before the Republican-controlled House and Senate passed a $1.3 trillion spending bill to keep the government operating. Meanwhile, the tax cuts are expected to add more than $1 trillion to deficits over the next decade. Let's face it. We are not going in a positive direction in terms of spending.

- Rolling back automobile gas mileage and pollution standards and dialing back more than 60 other federal environmental regulations will be good for the nation in the long run. Given Donald Trump's choice of Scott Pruitt to run the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - a man known as a outspoken adversary of the agency he now oversees - it's clear the president is more interested in protecting the health of the fossil fuel industry than anyone else. This was never more evident than in the decision, rolled out on Monday, to reduce pollution standards on cars, thus ensuring an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and more gasoline consumption.

Current EPA regulations require new vehicles must get 36 miles per gallon in real-world driving by 2025. That's about 10 mpg over the existing standard. California, meanwhile, has a special waiver under the 1970 Clean Air Act giving it authority to enforce stronger air pollution standards. The EPA is expected to challenge the state's authority in court.

We guess we can next expect the administration to claim that carbon monoxide spewed from cars is actually good for individual health. But we believe the tobacco companies already tried that approach.

- America will be better off deporting the 11 million individuals here in the country illegally, including those who were brought here as children and are in school or are employed and are contributing members of society. This idea was pushed to the extremes over the weekend when Trump claimed that any deal for extending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is dead, and he then tried to blame Democrats for its demise. As it turns out, the public needs no reminding that it was Trump who undermined the Dreamers program in the fall and tossed it to Congress, without any guidance, to figure how the Obama-era policy could be saved. Polls show a majority of Americans want DACA preserved, and they blame Trump and the Republican Party for ending it.

But here's the biggest absurdity. With our economy growing, Americans can ill-afford to lose all of these workers that Trump wants to deport. America, and California in particular, is suffering from a labor shortage. America needs immigration reform that makes sense, not a deportation-at-all-cost policy that divides families and appeases prejudice more than common sense.

These are just the latest examples from an administration that seems to have gone off the rails and, as noted in a Washington Post story last weekend, is directed by a president who “is increasingly defiant and singularly directing his administration with the same rapid and brutal style he honed leading his real estate and branding empire.” The challenge going forward will be encouraging the public not to be swayed when he tries to pass these absurdities off as progress. The alternative is simply unthinkable.