Welcome to the surplus population
New York Times columnist David French wrote last week: “The corrupt, incompetent and extremist men and women he’s appointing to many of the most critical posts in his cabinet are direct threats to the well-being of the country, but they’re also political threats to Trump and his populist allies.” What French means is that Donald Trump will be an even bigger failure this time than the last. This should come as no surprise. Trump knows very little (being generous) about how government works, and he chooses to surround himself with people who know even less. How’s that going to go for him? Who cares how it goes for him. The question is how’s it going to go for us. We will have a group of incompetent, vengeful, hateful people running our government. They are people who know little, if anything, about the lives of everyday people, nor do they care about the lives of everyday people.
The Intelligencer believes that all signs are that Republicans will use the poor to finance Trump’s agenda. Republicans have long resented helping those who can’t make it on their own. Many of these people work but don’t make enough to pay the rent, buy food, and buy health insurance. This could be rectified by raising the minimum wage, but Republicans don’t like that either. Most of the people making decisions about our lives have no idea what the everyday American must do to survive, and they frankly don’t care. That’s why they’re already talking about cutting Medicaid, SNAP, food stamps, and anything else that millions of Americans depend on for their families. Instead, they’re more concerned with extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts to the wealthy. How does this make sense? It doesn’t, and it should remind us that many people are very unimportant in the Republican scheme of things. Republicans look at the poor as non-existent and unnecessary.
These ill-advised tax cuts will add to the deficit about which Republicans constantly complain when Democrats are in power, but it doesn’t seem to matter if they’re doing it. According to the Center for Budget, Republicans want to cut $4.5 trillion over ten years in Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, SNAP, and the Affordable Care Act. Worse, they want to convert Supplemental Security Income to a block grant while ending guaranteed cash. This money funded 7.5 million low-income seniors and the disabled in 2022.
The Intelligencer mentioned a 2017 bill that, if passed, would have repealed the ACA, gutted Medicaid and would have taken 23 million people off healthcare. Fortunately, Senator John McCain, with the help of Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, were able to kill that bill. Mike Johnson, however, is pushing this bill again. Hopefully, there are enough Republicans with consciences who will stop it. Republicans remind me of Ebenezer Scrooge’s words that the ghosts kept using against him: “Well, if they [the poor] would rather die, then let them die and decrease the surplus population.” Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the surplus population.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years