Trump's not paying us back what he stole

President Donald Trump is often compared to a "wrecking ball," smashing through American democratic institutions, eager to knock it all down. I think that construction analogy gets it wrong.

Trump is actually a slow-moving bulldozer, pushing past acceptable limits one inch at a time. He may stall from time to time. But he never goes in reverse.

Trump's corrupt scheme to steal your tax dollars to air television commercials designed to hold off the Democratic Party in the Nov. 3 midterms offers a prime example of this. It is absolutely unlawful to do this sort of thing.

And Republicans know it.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Oct. 5 asked 4,506 people if it was appropriate to use "taxpayer funds to pay for election-related television ads featuring the president or members of his cabinet. 86% said it was inappropriate, and that included eight out of 10 Republicans in the survey.

That came after some Republicans in the Senate, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, said publicly that taxpayer dollars should not fund Trump's ads.

So Trump backed down. Sort of.

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On the same day the Reuters/Ipsos Poll was released, Trump said he would use the millions of dollars in his political action committee's bank accounts to pay for the ads.

But what about the more than $10 million in public funds from the Department of Homeland Security already spent to air those ads, as part of a $20 million contract? Would Trump reimburse Americans for the money he stole for us?

There will be no refunds, the White House told USA TODAY on Oct. 7.

See the play here? Trump didn't get everything he wanted. But he got more than half of his ads funded by American taxpayers. And he moved the line forward on what he could get away with.

Here's what else we're writing about:

• Trump's ad campaign is pure propaganda. You're paying for it
• In California, Democrats must do more than blame Trump
• Trump isn't helping Republicans one bit. It's all about him
• Christa Pike's botched execution is a moral stain on America
• Pete Buttigieg's sexuality isn't his biggest hurdle