Low & Middle Income Americans – Your Country Needs You to Sacrifice!

Low & Middle Income Americans, Arise – Your Country Needs You to Sacrifice!

So That Our New Mega-Rich Aristocracy with Have More Money to Spend on ???

“We will end inflation and make America affordable again, and we’re going to get the prices down, we have to get them down… It’s too much. Groceries, cars, everything. We’re going to get the prices down.” 

Trump at a September Rally 

“We will cut your taxes and inflation, slash your prices, raise your wages and bring thousands of factories back to America.” 

Trump at another rally later that month.

“It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up… You know, it’s very hard.” 

Trump, in a Time Magazine interview. shortly after the election, conceding it would be impossible for him to single-handedly lower the costs of consumer goods.

We live in very different times. Urban fires where forests were irrelevant succumbed to massive walls of flames, mirroring the violent winds of hurricanes that swept walls of water into the destruction that decimated the South recently, were immediately blamed on Democratic leadership, leaning into the inane “uncleared forest floors” theory that was wholly inapplicable. The MAGA GOP leapt upon conspiracy theories as the basis to withhold FEMA money from California because of their stubbornness in their maintaining “woke” beliefs and practices, contrary to MAGA doctrines.

Even our mass and social media seem to be know-towing to our billionaire masters, fomenting “toxic masculinity” and purging fact-checking from the media-masters. These are necessary steps in any effort to unseat truth, a vigorous press, as conspiracy theories are necessary to transition away from representative democracy to a “watch your step and your mouth” illiberalized centralized government.

Yet with hard numbers showing stubborn and growing poverty, vast swaths of citizens without healthcare – vastly worse in red states than blue – MAGA was focusing on “incentivizing the job creators” again – the most disproven economic policy of the modern era – by cutting taxes for the big corporations and slicing waste (read: the pejorative term “entitlements”) from the federal budget. The lie: these massive programs of “growth through tax cuts” have never materialized; they just sound so good! No matter what Trump cuts from his “bad” list, the tax cuts alone would send the national deficit through the stratosphere. But we have “experts” (in the private government advisory board, the Department of Government Efficiency – DOGE) ready to slice and dice those federal expenditures, leaving the deficit exploding tax cuts in place.

Fear not hens and chickens, for the hatchery is well guarded by reputable and responsible wolves. Only wolves, with heartless efficiency driven by unbridled self-interest, can define the “wasteful” elements of that henhouse and set out a plan to implement its callous targets. I understand that many believe that these DOGE snarling wolves will act and recommend simply to eliminate wasteful government spends and cull the bureaucratic federal herd of those disloyal to the chief wolf in charge, but take a good look at the scenario, the economic necessities that are in the crosshairs of an oligarchical purge voters have initiated.

Why just “recommend”? It’s game-playing at its political best. By keeping these strategic planning wolves off any federal payroll – after all they can only “recommend” to the elected chief wolf in charge of what and who needs to be eliminated from the federal budget – they are not bound by any federal disclosure obligations or conflict of interest requirements (which often have criminal components). Even when the leading out-sourced recommending DOGE main wolf, the richest such wolf in the world, is feasting under massive federal contracts based on his global communications networks (most satellite enabled) or regulated by federal energy and trade administrators that can make or break (brake?) the automotive EV sector that made him so damned wealthy.

Indeed, as information about the specifics leads out, the rich can party as if there were no tomorrow, and the rest of us might as well dress up as servants catering to their rich masters and bring them the goodies they have given themselves on silver trays. Writing for the January 15th Los Angeles Times, columnist Michael Hiltzik, reveals some of the leaked Trump administration targets of that “waste”: “Now we’re beginning to see some meat on the bare bones of GOP policies, thanks to a ‘menu’ of fiscal policy reforms recently leaked to Politico.

“The one-page document, which Politico reports was produced by the House Budget Committee chaired by Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), lists dozens of cutbacks adding up to supposed savings of as much as $5.7 trillion over 10 years… The main targets, moreover, are programs that the GOP has advocated paring back or eliminating for years, such as Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and food stamps. Cuts in some programs are described in the ‘menu’ under misleading headings.

“Proposals that would cut Medicaid benefits or eligibility for thousands of Americans are titled ‘Making Medicaid Work for the Most Vulnerable.’ A sheaf of proposals to raise costs for Obamacare enrollees comes under the anodyne heading, ‘Reimagining the Affordable Care Act.’

“Arrington hasn’t commented publicly on the leaked document. His committee hasn’t responded to my request for comment. But he has made his name as a budget hawk: ‘We ought to be able to unleash growth through tax cuts,’ he told the Wall Street Journal after the November election, ‘and we ought to be able to bend the spending curve.’ [Dekom Insert: Not again!]

“How many of these proposals can actually be enacted by the current Congress is unclear, since the GOP majority is narrow in the Senate and razor-thin in the House. Some proposals could hit hard in states and districts represented by Republicans. But the theme of the proposals is unmistakable — safety net programs and several Biden initiatives are on the chopping block.” As Hiltzik travels though the proposed “entitlement” cuts, it is clear that virtually no one from the middle on down the economic ladder will benefit, but monied class make out like bandits. With less oversight in favor of ordinary Americans, actual watchdog programs eliminated, educational, environmental and financial checks on the mega-rich will fade into oblivion. Money trumps democracy!

I’m Peter Dekom, and in the end, these proposals seem to reflect a pattern on how to transition a representative democracy into the handmaid’s tale where most of us are simply there simply there in order to benefit our oligarchical masters.