Ayuda, fear or favor?

It’s much easier to understand “ayuda” as a favor granted to individuals with the end in view of soliciting their support for the candidate administering the aid.

The flip side is the fear the candidate might lose in the next election and no ayuda, which comes in the form of cash, will be forthcoming to the captive beneficiaries.

In that context, the trade-off carries the implicit connotation that it’s a bribe where candidates buy their way back in to maintain their political power.

At the same time, its more explicit suggestion, “indecent proposal” if you will, is for the beneficiaries, having been bribed, to assume the responsibility of honoring their word to vote for the candidate from whom the bounty came.

This political symbiosis with the common folk and the ruling elite as symbionts have held sway since anyone can remember in a relationship where both derive benefits (a euphemism for a win-win formula) in preserving the status quo — easy peasy.

This explains the phenomenon of once getting elected into office, the same is something officials can pass on or bequeath to members of their family since the encompassing program of government (i.e., dole-outs) has already opened many doors.

In other words, in terms of ayuda, the government has cast the larger net to gather more adherents who would only be too willing to vote for the candidates who are quite adept in maneuvering these state subsidies for their selfish interest, albeit its source is the hard-earned money of taxpayers.

The queuing by recipients for the ayuda provides ample time for the candidates to personally hand over the largesse to make it evident the same was from their initiative.

A presidential term is over two election cycles. In the instant case, a midterm election is upcoming in May 2025 and the other one is at the end of the President’s term in 2028.

Long before either of these elections, the President needs to start building a self-serving legacy to protect him from criminal prosecution at the end of his term for any acts done while in office for which he could be charged.

In its final form after supposedly undergoing forensic review, the President signing the 2025 General Appropriations Act as a legislated enactment might be challenged for supposed infirmities noted by budget and legal experts.

The rather disturbing pattern of agency budgets being invariably decreased, increased, or “confined,” as in the case of that intended for universal health care logically resulted in a deficit in one, excess in another, and still another placed in limbo of “budget confinement.”

Any or all of these budget outcomes forebode a wicked brand of governance in so far as the objective of more fiscal space is concerned.

Unfortunately, the prevailing public sentiment on this year’s budget reflects taxpayers’ belief that “congressional insertions” in the budget are tantamount to political dole-outs by the “powers that be” to preserve an already malfeasant status quo.

The only choice left is to either shape up or ship out!