Rapidly Rising Prices for Consumer Basics is a Small Price to Pay… NOT

 

Rapidly Rising Prices for Consumer Basics is a Small Price to Pay… NOT

Is sacrificing quality of life the new GOP austerity vision for middle America?

Donald Trump has already chastised Americans for giving their daughters too many dolls and hording too many pencils. Decrying the American “affordability crisis” as a Democratic Party “hoax” – which has to be right up there with the Dem “hoax” of climate change (surviving flooding and sweltering are just new American pastimes) – the GOP mantra has switched to convincing us that the exploding costs of living are short-term sacrifices for a better tomorrow. Americans, even diehard MAGA supporters, are skeptical. Simple historical awareness tells anybody with even the remotest sense of history that this skepticism is fully justified. Future cost cuts? Right?!

It should now be quite apparent that Trump’s true political beneficiaries are only the mega-rich. Deregulation does not benefit ordinary Americans who would prefer to live in a pollution-free environment, where less-than-honest profiteers are reined in, corrupt politicians are jailed, where housing and healthcare don’t require giving up most everything else, where children are not saddled with intolerable student debt in a job-impaired environment and where guardrail-free AI is no longer threatening future employment or sucking down a huge proportion of electrical power generation. But if those realities were challenged by a responsible government, those rich folks wouldn’t be raking in the billions that they are, and income polarization would vaporize.

That Trumpian “Big Beautiful Bill,” a Republican home run in a world of tax cuts for the rich, added trillions to our deficit (all Americans pay the interest carry on over $39 trillion in federal deficit) and has salivating Republicans wanting so much more. More tax cuts. Slashing federal spending, even as the DOGE experiment created massive job loss but virtually no reduction in federal spending, is still holy grail to the GOP. And more cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and even Social Security, beyond the almost $1 trillion already cut from those programs. But they also want $200 billion more for the Iran War, which they declared over?!

All across this nation, small hospitals are closing or contracting available services… medical facilities that Medicaid used to support. This hits rural communities the hardest, but these realities are roiling everywhere. Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services are focused on implementing those healthcare cuts necessitated by that Big Beautiful Bill. New restrictions on what federal healthcare programs will cover have sent healthcare providers and insurers scampering for the exits, leaving millions of Americans high and dry, even those seniors that were supposed to be covered in those elusive golden years. Vermont just might be the canary in the medical coal mine.

“The numbers coming out of Vermont are almost unbelievable at first glance. Roughly 92% of Medicare Advantage enrollees in the state were forced to leave their plans after insurers exited the market… That means tens of thousands of seniors suddenly had to find new coverage or switch to traditional Medicare. In some counties, there were no replacement Medicare Advantage plans available at all… Seemingly overnight, a staggering number of older adults were forced off their Medicare Advantage plans. This has left many people scrambling to find new coverage. And what’s terrifying is that this is setting the tone for a larger trend happening across the United States. If you rely on Medicare Advantage (or are considering it), this situation offers a critical warning.” SavingAdvice.com, March 23rd.

National numbers are closer to 10%, but for smaller states, where the insurance profit margins are not high enough, disaster looms. Medicare has reduced coverage and eliminated reimbursable programs to feed the above tax cut. With the collapse of Affordable Care Act premium subsidies, millions of Americans are no longer able to afford healthcare. The Peterson-KFF charts above show the relentless rise in medical costs, just as Congress chooses to cut benefits to fund unnecessary tax cuts for those at the top of the American economic food chain.

The reverse Robin Hood – stealing from the poor to feed the rich – is the new American Golden Rule, one that is particularly cruel to Gen Z. “Recent 2025 polling indicates:

• 42% of Americans under age 30 report they are ‘barely getting by.’
• One in three people are currently going into debt just to attend friends’ weddings or bachelorette parties.

“In response, a growing movement of personal finance experts is urging ‘radical transparency.’ Influencers are coaching Gen Z and Millennials to set firm boundaries, suggesting that being honest about budget constraints is the only way to preserve both their credit scores and their mental health… As the gap between income and social expectations widens, the choice for many Americans is becoming stark: stay home and stay lonely, or go out and go broke… New data from the CFP Board reveals that two-thirds of U.S. adults have declined social invitations—including weddings, holiday gatherings, and birthday dinners—over the past 24 months solely due to financial constraints. The trend highlights a growing ‘financial FOMO’ that is severing social ties across the country.

“The data suggests the economic burden is compounded by social stigma. According to the report, which surveyed over 1,100 Americans, 56% of those who decline invitations never disclose that money is the primary driver. This lack of transparency is leaving millions of Americans feeling ‘out of sync’ with their peers’ perceived spending habits.” Thomas Smith writing for BetterAmerica.com, March 21st. Yet, just about every priority and policy that Donald Trump has embraced, from tariffs and the War over Iran to the cuts to programs intended to benefit average and lower income Americans, as income inequality has widened in this country like never before… have slammed the cost of living and our quality of life. To serve the rich?!

I’m Peter Dekom, and beware of greedy Republicans muttering “creeping socialism” (hardly tracking the real definition of that term) as their excuse to pillage most of us.