Every day there is a new infantile act by president Trump for which the media’s hyperventilation goes into high gear. Their inability to understand that the president is playing them like a fiddle is not only depressing but dangerous. And you all, the average American citizens, are about to pay dearly for it lest you all wake up irrespective of the media’s dereliction.
The threat that Trump represents to America must not be taken lightly. There are serious stories Americans need to know about that take a backseat to an infantile tweet.
The most immediate story is the Trump/Republican tax cut scam. Many journalists like Ali Velshi, the DailyKos site, have been begging to get the attention of more Americans. If the tax cut scam is signed, a full reversal will be next to impossible, and the budgetary shortfalls it creates will be resolved through Republican’s favorite tool, austerity via severe cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
New York Times’ Paul Krugman wrote a striking piece titled “The Biggest Tax Scam in History” that everyone must read. He points out why the Republican scammers are rushing through the bill, they do not want the economic analysis to cauterize in people’s minds.
What will be the impact of the bill?
The core of the bill is a huge redistribution of income from lower- and middle-income families to corporations and business owners. Corporate tax rates go down sharply, while ordinary families are nickel-and-dimed by a series of tax changes, no one of which is that big a deal in itself, but which add up to significant tax increases on almost two-thirds of middle-class taxpayers.
Meanwhile, the bill would partially repeal Obamacare, in a way that would sharply reduce aid to lower-income families and raise the cost of insurance for many in the middle class.
And how does the scam work?
While the underlying structure of the bill involves raising taxes on the middle class, the bill also includes a number of temporary tax breaks that would, at first, offset these tax increases. As a result, in the first few years most middle-class families would see modest tax cuts.
But the operative word here is “temporary.” All of these tax breaks either dwindle over time or are scheduled to expire at some point; by 2027 the bill is, as I said, a tax increase on the middle class used to pay for tax cuts that mainly benefit the wealthy.
Will Republicans succeed with this scam?
So will they manage to pull off this giant con job? The reason they’re rushing this to the Senate floor without a single hearing, without a full assessment from Congress’s own official scorekeepers, is their hope that they can pass the thing before people figure out what they’re up to.
And the question is whether there are enough Republican senators with principles, who believe that policies should not be sold with lies, to stop this bum’s rush.
And there is more.
Republicans have changed the rules where deference was given to the individual states’ Senators to green light appointees. Trump is now packing the court with Right Wing Conservatives, some without the necessary judiciary acumen.
There are many other stories that need attention we try to keep in the forefront. The media has fallen completely into the Trump trap used to deconstruct the nation as he uses smoke and mirrors to distract.
