President Donald Trump is clearly the President of Death, willing to sacrifice lives for economic greed!
By demonstrating no empathy or compassion for the 78,000 victims so far of the CoronaVirus Pandemic, he will be condemned in history!
By not appreciating and saluting the medical personnel who are sacrificing their safety, and in numerous cases have died doing their job, he will be condemned in history!
By encouraging people not to wear face masks and take other precautions, he has made the life of many state governors more difficult, as they face crazy, anti quarantining demonstrators who have no concern for human life, except for their own lives, and for this he will be condemned in history!
By acting as if the virus would not affect his own supporters, as well as his critics, and even the White House staff, including those who work around him, including Secret Service agents, he will be condemned in history!
The fact that the virus has become a problem in the White House may be a sign of Karma coming for Donald Trump and his family, and for Vice President Mike Pence and his family, as their refusal to take precautions and wear face masks to set an example for their followers’ health and safety, makes them complicit in what might happen, and for this Donald Trump will be condemned in history!
Donald Trump has no concern for people in nursing homes, in prisons, in public housing, in meat packing plants, or agricultural labor, as to him, they are all lowlifes, and he has no concern for human life, just his own aggrandizement!
At a moment of great crisis, one of the worst moments in American history, Donald Trump has proven he is a total failure, and he just might become one of the victims of his own mismanagement!
If that were to transpire, we would have a nation in which a large percentage, certainly a majority, would not mourn his passing!
Republicans Want to Sacrifice Your Social Security But Not Their Tax Cuts
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/05/10/republicans-want-to-sacrifice-your-social-security-but-not-their-tax-cuts/
You knew it was coming:
[Senior Trump administration officials are growing increasingly wary of the massive federal spending to combat the economic downturn and are considering ways to limit the impact of future stimulus efforts on the national debt, according to six administration officials and four external advisers familiar with the matter.
While no one in the administration is advocating immediate cuts, the unease among senior Trump advisers about federal spending comes as the White House halts talks with Congress on additional emergency measures to rescue a U.S. economy facing its worst crisis in generations.
Some White House officials have gone as far as exploring policies such as automatic spending cuts as the economy improves, or prepaying Social Security benefits to workers before they become eligible, although these measures are unlikely to advance given the political stakes, said these officials and advisers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of internal deliberations.]
To begin with, two key points: 1) due to pedal-to-the-metal fiscal stimulus policy, interest rates are incredibly low so debt is very cheap, and 2) a Great Depression from inadequate stimulus during a pandemic will have far larger long-term impacts on both the debt and the deficit than up-front stimulus to maintain GDP and consumer demand.
And that’s without even delving into conversations about the macroeconomics of deficits, Modern Monetary Theory and similar questions about just how much deficits matter in the grand scheme of things. Doomsayers have been predicting hyperinflation just around the corner any day now for decades, with laughable success rates. If policymakers took the real threat of climate change as seriously as they take the phantom threat of deficit-fueled inflation, America would already be a green energy paradise–and with a jobs program ironically powerful enough to shrink our debt obligations.
But let’s be very clear: Republicans don’t actually care about the whit about the deficit and never have. Every time Republicans hold power they cut taxes for the rich, while falsely claiming that the cuts will pay for themselves. They never do, of course. The Trump and Paul Ryan massive giveaway to the rich was no exception, pushing the deficit up by at least $100 billion to over $1 trillion. Because of those tax cuts, government revenues actually declined during ostensibly boom times when they should otherwise have risen. Similarly, the Bush tax cuts were responsible for a nearly $2 trillion reduction in revenues during the 2000s. And, of course, the initial explosion of debt and deficits occurred during Ronald Reagan’s administration of guns, butter and tax cuts for the rich.
It is, rather, Democrats who perversely and consistently bear the brunt of reducing deficits. Barack Obama reduced the deficit by three quarters during his administration. Bill Clinton left office running budget surpluses that were swept away by the Bush tax cuts. Again, from a progressive and modern monetary perspective these deficit reductions are not even desirable. But framed purely from traditionalist deficit hawk standpoints, Democrats balance budgets while Republicans spend like drunken sailors. The end result is a broken politics in which only Republican presidents are allowed to spend money, winning popularity and granting largesse to their cronies then Democrats are forced to implement unpopular austerity and tighten the belt.
Now, during a pandemic, Republicans are laying in a plan to steal your social security to pay for your decimated wages and benefits, while keeping landlords, banks and big corporations fully capitalized. There is no plan, however, to roll back any of the Trump, Bush or Reagan tax cuts for the obscenely wealthy.
Under no circumstance should we be concerned about the deficit during a once-in-a-century crisis of unprecedented unemployment and danger to public health. It shouldn’t even be part of the conversation.
But if it must be, you’ll know a Republican is actually serious about doing something about the deficit when they start talking about rolling back their tax cuts for the 1%. Until then, every time they mention the deficit or the debt it’s merely a pretense to grab more cash out of your wallet to fund their third yachts and fourth mansions.
Re: wearing face masks
I’ve seen people of color in our neck of the woods wearing face masks.
White people wearing them is mixed.