As a moral document, the Trump budget is a thinly disguised program to rob the poor to enrich the wealthy elites. As an economic strategy it is a failed program which led under Reagan to tripling the debt and beginning the decline of the working class and under Bush II to the Great Recession. As political project, it is a magic potion by which that which has always failed will not succeed. And only a master snake oil salesman can sell a budget, which we can rightfully call neo-liberalism on steroids (tax cuts for the rich, austerity for the poor privatization, deregulation of banks and industry, and enrichment of the weapons industry as we escalate wars (which accompanies neoliberalism, either against one's own people (Chile, Russia) or other nations, which then can be looted (Iraq, Libya, Ukraine).
Thus neoliberalism is closely linked with neo-con war mongering, both to justify massive borrowing, as a form of Keynsian military stimulus, and to rally the troops around an unpopular leadership.
Together, they form what can rightly be called corporate fascism, which links the corporate takeover of government with lucrative war contracts built on a project of perpetual war as a business model.
Trump's buget includes all of the above: cuts to services for the poor, huge tax cuts for corporations and millionaires, deregulation of Wall St and business, privatiation involving selling off public assets (Trump will sell off half of the US emergency gas supplies), and starting or continuing perpetual wars to feed the military/intelligence/energy complex, and massive propaganda to drown out the suffering that neolibralism and neo-con policies always bring.
In the end, these twin sides of the same coin are the moral document we call corporate fascism. The motive is to transfer public funds to private pockets, and the prognosis is disaster for the common man that Trump pandered to to gain power.
The rich, by design, will get richer; the poor will, by design, bet poorer, and the economy will shrink, even as the stock market creates a new bubble based on stock buybacks and the illusion that what has always failed will this time work.
Thus, we may conclude that the Trump budget is just a repeat of the Bush II budget and will, almost certainly, lead to the same results, greater economic despair for the working class, greater riches for the wealthy, and more endless wars to feed the monster that is devouring us all and for whom the Trump budget was designed to feed.
Class warfare (ie deliberate programs to transfer wealth upward, to squeeze every last drop out of labor and accumulate it as capital in the hands of ever fewer people in the uberclass) is the ultimate tool by which the rich suck the life of out of the poor in what can only be called social cannibalism.
What can we do about it? This week's experience in the UK provides an answer: conservative PM May proposed that seniors pay more for their healthcare . The left shot back calling this a dementia tax and suggesting it would force seniors to sell there homes to make the new payments. In one week, six polls showed the Conservative lead over Labor decline from 9% to 2%, and PM May came forth to backpedal stating that there would be "limits" on what poor seniors would pay.......a result of clever framing, polling, and pubic pressure.
Cutting out Medicaid for ten million, lowering SNAP payments (currently $4.20 a day for food) for millions..............is this not a war on the poor? Can we call it a poverty tax? And can we let the Republicans know that if they pass this tax on the poor to pay for tax cuts for the rich, they will lose in 2018 and 2020?
Or should we just absorb the pain and let the program fail.....but if Republicans will not learn from history (I suspect they now what will happen and are prepared to enrich themselves from the coming collapse, as the banks did in 2008), it is folly to let this budget stand, for another failure will just be used to bail out the rich and stick it to the poor.
I propose massive public pressure, which the May incident shows can happen through polling results: show the Republican show this budget will lead to them losing in 2018 and see how fast they backpedal on cuts to the poor and huge tax cuts to the rich. Even more than asserting neoliberal doctrine, they want to stay in power.............it's up to us to resist this budget and let them know that if the budget is voted up, we will vote the down.
WE have the power if only we will use it. Let those prepared to support this imoral and disastrous budget know that if they pass it, they are committing political suicide.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
1
