Trump Clearly Prefers Billionaires to His Base
Will the MAGA base ever figure out they've been played?
Farm country provided Trump with some of his most fervent support. Farmers are now being tossed aside by Trump policies, none of which he seems interested in dialing back.
A trade war would be disastrous. Farm products are a major U.S. export. Last year, the U.S. exported more than $30 billion in farm products to Mexico, $29 billion to Canada and $25 billion to China.
When a country slaps big tariffs on products from another country, that country can be expected to hit back with its own punishing tariffs. Trump's insults also add focus to the revenge: Offended nations are targeting products coming from Trump country.
American farmers rightly worry that a trade war would incentivize other countries to find more reliable suppliers of corn, wheat and whatever else they grow. As a soybean grower in Iowa told the Financial Times, "Farmers understand that trading relationships go up on a stairway, where you work hard to build them up, but go down on an elevator -- very, very fast."
Trump's mania for tariffs was no secret during the campaign, nor were his deportation plans that are going to ravage rural workforces. What were U.S. farmers thinking when they voted for Trump? That he really loved them?
Trump is working on a plan to take away added funding from the Internal Revenue Service and use it for securing the southern border -- as if the U.S. can't afford two important government functions at the same time. If anything, weakening the IRS's ability to collect taxes owed would deprive government of the money that could be used to defend the border.
Eroding the IRS's ability to enforce the tax laws is a gift to rich tax cheats. They have all sorts of tricks to hide income. The working stiffs do not. Their taxes get taken right out of their paychecks.
Medicaid buys health care for Americans who typically make less than $50,000. These low earners gave most of their votes to Trump. Republicans are now circling Medicaid as a fat target for spending cuts.
Their Project 2025 blueprint clearly states, "The dramatic increase in Medicaid expenditures is due in large part to the ACA (Obamacare), which mandates that states must expand their Medicaid eligibility standards."
During the campaign, Trump insisted he was "not running to terminate" the Affordable Care Act. But that wouldn't preclude stripping it of so many benefits and slashing so many beneficiaries that a walking corpse would be all that's left. And Trump will call it Obamacare.
Trump has named the mastermind behind Project 2025, Russell Vought, his budget director. In addition to Medicaid, Vought has it in for Head Start, veterans benefits and medical research.
Republicans vow not to touch a hair on Medicare, which covers the elderly, but that too is not entirely off the table. "In essence, our deficit problem is a Medicare and Medicaid problem," Project 2025 laments. It calls these programs "runaway entitlements."
The Department of Health and Human Services is home to both Medicare and Medicaid. How do you all feel about the crackpot Bobby Kennedy Jr. being put in charge?
Don't expect Republicans in Washington to publicly oppose Trump, even at the expense of their voters' health care. But some are quietly worried.
"If you cut Medicaid, you're, like, pissing off the people who put you in office -- who Trump resonates with, right?" one House Republican (who did not share his name) told The Wall Street Journal.
But It's pretty naive to think that Trump cares about the people who put him in office. All he wanted was their votes. He got them.
Now scoot.
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Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.
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