One of former President Obama’s favorite sayings when trying to cajole political opponents to support his latest Marxist proposal was that they needed to have “skin in the game” — incurring some risk, monetary or otherwise, by being involved in reaching a goal or objective.

Obama never really invested personally in his proposals, mind you. His wife single-handedly destroyed public school lunch programs while the first couple sent their daughters to a private school that served fresh, five-course lunches daily, for example. He also never had to endure the disaster of “health care reform” he and fellow Democrats foisted on the rest of the country.

Obama, then, never really had “skin in the game” when it came to enacting his policies.

His successor, President Donald J. Trump, however, has a lot of skin in his game. Like an entire year’s salary (so far).

One of Trump’s pledges before he even took office was that he would not take a salary, but after finding out that by law he had to take it, he decided to pick a worthy government cause or effort in which to donate his $100,000 quarterly pay (presidents make $400,000/year).

This quarter, the president has decided to donate his salary to the Transportation Department as he pushes his $1.5 trillion infrastructure rebuilding plan.

Skin. Game.

“To cure decades of neglect, we are committed to quickly building a safe, reliable and modern infrastructure to meet the needs of the American people and to fuel economic growth. And to help make this possible, we have a very special announcement today,” White House press spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Thursday.

“In keeping with his campaign pledge, the president donates his salary on a quarterly basis to further work being done on important projects. Most recently, the President donated his third-quarter salary to help the Department of Health and Human Services combat the opioid epidemic,” she noted further, as reported by The Western Journal.

His previous two donations when to the Department of Education to support a science summer camp and to the Department of the Interior to help pay for restoration projects at the Antietam National Battlefield.

“Today, the president is proud to donate his fourth-quarter salary — 2017 salary to the Department of Transportation to support their programs to rebuild and modernize our crumbling infrastructure,” said Sanders. (Related: ‘Cyber 9/11’ coming without major security upgrades to critical infrastructure: Report.)

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was on hand for the announcement, accepting the donation in the White House Briefing Room.

“Infrastructure is the backbone of our economy, and it’s key to keeping our country competitive,” Chao said. “The president’s proposal will create new jobs, strengthen our economy, and improve the quality of life for everyone.”

On Wednesday, Trump said his plan was the “biggest and boldest infrastructure initiative in at least the last half-century.”

“This framework will lead to a $1.5 trillion investment in American infrastructure; a faster-permitting process that takes two years, instead of ten years, and maybe less. We’re looking to get it down to one year, if possible. Because when the money goes out, we want them to be able to spend the money not wait around for many, many years while they get their permit,” the president said, noting the outrageously lengthy time it takes to get projects approved through federal and state bureaucracies.

He also stressed that he wants “more power for state and local governments to choose projects.”

“We want them to choose the projects they want — the most important projects — because they know best the needs of their people. So we want the states to be very much involved in the choice of where this money goes,” he added.

A president with skin in the game. What a new concept.

J.D. Heyes is also editor-in-chief of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

WesternJournal.com

CNSNews.com

TheNationalSentinel.com