by John Lawrence
The teflon sobriquet was first applied to Ronald Reagan. Recall how he did a whole lot of illegal stuff, but was never impeached. The Iran-Contra affair involved selling arms to Iran and then using the money to fund the contras in Nicaragua. This was strictly forbidden by Congress under the Boland Amendment which had prohibited further funding of the Contras. But Reagan was a popular President so he got away with it without being impeached. President Nixon was not so lucky with his illegal undertakings. The Watergate scandal involved a break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, DC in 1972. The Nixon administration attempted to cover up its involvement. Nixon would have been impeached and removed from office so he resigned instead, the only President to do so. Evidently, Nixon didn't have the required amount of teflon protecting him.
Trump famously said he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters. Yeah, especially if that someone was poor and black. I doubt if he could shoot a rich white guy and get away with it. Trump can shoot his mouth off without any consequences though. He can say whatever he wants whenever he wants and get away with it. I predict there won't be any consequences to the supposed "collusion" between his campaign and the Russians nor will there be any consequences to his firing of my homey, Jim Comey, the former FBI director. After all Republicans control both Houses of Congress. They don't want to get rid of Trump ... yet.
Trump is the Republicans' "useful idiot." He is totally on board with the Republican agenda of tax cuts for the rich and taking away benefits for the poor and middle class. The Washington Post reported on May 21 that there will be cuts to Medicaid in the Trump budget as well as cuts to all the other anti-poverty programs.
President Trump’s first major budget proposal on Tuesday will include massive cuts to Medicaid and call for changes to anti-poverty programs that would give states new power to limit a range of benefits, people familiar with the planning said, despite growing unease in Congress about cutting the safety net.
For Medicaid, the state-federal program that provides health care to low-income Americans, Trump’s budget plan would follow through on a bill passed by House Republicans to cut more than $800 billion over 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this could cut off Medicaid benefits for about 10 million people over the next decade.
The White House also will call for giving states more flexibility to impose work requirements for people in different kinds of anti-poverty programs, people familiar with the budget plan said, potentially leading to a flood of changes in states led by conservative governors. Many anti-poverty programs have elements that are run by both the states and federal government, and a federal order allowing states to stiffen work requirements “for able-bodied Americans” could have a broad impact in terms of limiting who can access anti-poverty payments — and for how long.
In a 60 Minutes program on the incarcerated in Cook County, the Sheriff, Tom Dart, said that half the inmates shouldn't even be there. They were not even convicted of non-violent crimes. Many were picked up for low level drug offenses and are awaiting trial because they can't make bail. If they were violent criminals associated with gangs, their homeys would have posted bail and gotten them back on the streets where they're needed to commit more violent crimes, but most of these guys have no such financial support network so they sit in jail because they can't post bail.
The warden, 39-year-old Dr. Nneka Jones Tapia, also is helping them get out and advising them on getting a job. Lose the tatoos, she said, if you want to be employable. The point is that they are essentially unemployable even if they do lose the tatoos. Where are the jobs for low skilled folks, generally African-American, like these? All the financial gains since 2008 have gone to the upper 1%. The economy is basically a financialized economy. Low level jobs are being eliminated by the carload on a daily basis. In Trumpistan, that process will only accelerate.
Trump's budget would greatly reduce the SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, that benefits the poor. They may be homeless, but at least they are able to eat, at least up till now. That'll be gone in Trumpistan. An average of 44 million people received SNAP benefits in 2016, down from a peak of 47 million in 2013. Just 28 million people received the benefits in 2008.
In the same report linked above, the Washington Post stated:
Many critics have said work requirements can include blanket ultimatums that don’t take into account someone’s age, physical or cognitive ability, or limitations put in place by the local economy. Benefits from these programs are often low, and hardly replace the income someone would earn from a job. And critics of stricter work requirements also believe it could pave the way for states to pursue even stricter restrictions, such as drug tests, that courts have often rejected.
After The Washington Post reported some of the cuts Sunday evening, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Trump was pulling “the rug out from so many who need help.”
“This budget continues to reveal President Trump’s true colors: His populist campaign rhetoric was just a Trojan horse to execute long-held, hard-right policies that benefit the ultra wealthy at the expense of the middle class,” he said.
The proposed changes to Medicaid and SNAP will be just some of several anti-poverty programs that the White House will look to change. In March, the White House signaled that it wanted to eliminate money for a range of other programs that are funded each year by Congress. This included federal funding for Habitat for Humanity, subsidized school lunches and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates the federal response to homelessness across 19 federal agencies.
Leaked budget documents, obtained by the think tank Third Way, suggested other ways the White House plans to change anti-poverty funding. These documents show a change in the funding for Social Security’s Supplemental Security Income program, which provide cash benefits for the poor and disabled. It’s unclear, though, what those changes might look like. A White House official said the Third Way document was out-of-date and would not comment on specifics in their files.Trump offered a streamlined version of the budget plan in March, but it dealt only with the 30 percent of government spending that is appropriated each year. In that budget, he sought a big increase in military and border spending combined with major cuts to housing, environmental protection, foreign aid, research and development. ...
Medicaid, SNAP and the SSI program are now classified as “mandatory” spending because they are funded each year without congressional approval.
But they won't be "mandatory" much longer. Wait till Republican Governors get their hands on them.
So poor people and that includes huge numbers of minorities, who are already overrepresented in the prison system, will be left to their own devices without any help from the government. Trump's tax cuts would particularly benefit the wealthiest Americans, as he will be cutting the estate tax, capital gains and business tax rates. “The indications are strong this budget will feature Robin-Hood-in-reverse policies in an unprecedented scale,” said Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
But rest assured, Trump voters, the hardships will come down mostly on African-Americans, and you will get an increased military budget along with more border security.
