EDITORIAL: The $91 billion question: Trump rages against a phantom dollar figure of aid to Puerto Rico

March 28-- Mar. 28--President Trump, spreading falsehoods, insists that a battered American island has already gotten far more than its fair share and refuses to okay any more federal recovery funds despite obvious, crying need.

Trump Tuesday told fellow Republicans that he'd oppose additional disaster aid for Puerto Rico, which is trying to get back on its feet after deadly gusts from Hurricane Maria knocked it down, taking nearly 3,000 lives and wrecking already tenuous infrastructure.

His rationale: Texas had been awarded just $29 billion after getting hit by storms, and South Carolina, just $1.5 billion. What, he wondered, justified Puerto Rico getting $91 billion?

But he plucked that figure out of thin air. Likely, Trump is confusing the estimates of damage wrought by Hurricane Maria with any actual congressional request. Or using the amount the island's governor wished for last summer as a stand-in for the amount Congress has actually disbursed.

The feds have appropriated almost $20 billion in Department of Housing and Urban Development relief funds, only $1.5 billion of which has so far begun to flow.

And that's that, Trump seems to say. "He doesn't want another single dollar going to the island," a senior administration official told the Washington Post this week, saying the quiet part out loud.

Yep: The president whose tax cut led to plummeting corporate tax receipts and ballooning deficits now wants to balance his budget on the backs of Americans in deepest need. This is exactly as ugly as it sounds.

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