Throwing Money At the military, Starving the Elderly

DONALD TRUMP'S BUDGET, ghostwritten by conservative economists who believe that a neo-liberal, unfettered free market always produces the best results, even when those results include an economy in which forty million people live in poverty and one percent of the population possesses one fourth of the national wealth, is nearly five trillion dollars. The budget will be accepted by the republican majority Senate, and rejected by the Democratic majority House, and once again, as in many years previous, the United States will have no budget. You will recall that Donald Trump ran for president by campaigning for the elimination not only of annual budget deficits, but for the elimination of the national debt entirely, which now excess twwnty one trillion dollars. No budget at all is better, far better, than a Donald Trump right wing pro corporate anti-poor people extremist budget. Here's why. Under Trump's proposed budget, the government spending deficit would be the highest ever, far higher than under any previous president. This sad state of affairs is exacerbated by the massive tax cuts for the corporate wealthy Trump and the Republican congress enacted two years ago. This budget proposes massive spending increases on the military, perhaps to partially compensate for the fact that Trump's declaration of emergency would take money from the paychecks of military members to use in building his wall. The Medicare program is slated to take a nearly one trillion dollar hit; the nation's elderly can count on severe reductions in Medicare benefits if the budget becomes law, which, to our good fortunate, it never will. Domestic spending in general, social spending in particular, is due to take a three trillion dollar hit, meaning that job training programs, food assistance programs, student loan programs, money for public education, housing assistance programs - essentially, all programs which do real good for real people, would be sharply reduced, even as the number of the nation's poor and elderly continues to increase rapidly. The salient fact is that this insane budget will never see the light of day. The incredible aspect of it is that any president would ever even bother to propose such a monstrosity, and even more insane is that such a monstrosity would ever gain any support in congress, let alone by a sizable percentage of its members. Craziest of all is that there are millions, tens of millions of lower middle class, working class,and poor people who will continue their support of Trump, including some of whom will actually take a look at this budget, without the slightest hint of complaint. This budget, everything in it, and everything that Trump proposes and does, is directly harmful to America's non wealthy, and directly, conspicuously beneficial to the billionaire corporate community. Massive increases in military spending benefit only the military contractors, people like the Koch brothers, the sort of people who are the biggest financial supporters of conservative Republican politicians. This is no coincidence. Millions of people on food stamps and Medicaid avidly support Donald Trump. What are they thinking? Do they like his tough, bullying talk? Do they find red ball caps which say "Make America Great Again' so appealing that they have no concern that Trump is trying to dismantle the very programs which keep them alive, housed, clothed, and with food on the table? Overwhelmingly the sixty one million people who voted for Trump are not wealthy, and continue to support him, even as he opposes pay rises for working class people, opposes an increase in the minimum wage. It is as if these people have decided that to engage in sensible thought, and that to look out for their own interests isn't worth the trouble, or as if these people have a self destructive economic death wish. Every one of Trump's closest advisers and cabinet members is a multimillionaire or billionaire, and every one of their proposals benefits the billionaire class, and harms everyone else. This is obvious, provable, demonstrable, easily. And yet, Trump's support among angry white men with low incomes remains intact. These people watch reality TV, play video games for endless hours, do nothing else other than go to work at their low wage jobs, without making any effort to study the facts and issues and express hatred for Democrats even as the democrats fight for wage increases for workers, healthcare for all, and more money for education and job training programs for the working poor who want to gain better employment. P.T. Barnum, the master of con artistry who best exemplifies the American spirit in so very many relevant ways - the American lust for mindless entertainment, the American capacity for denial of reality, the American fiction of upward mobility by hard work alone and by letting everyone, including billionaires, avoid any responsibility for contributing to the welfare of others, and calling such irresponsibility fair - P.T. Barnum said it best: nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the american people.