Ken, I’ve found the people on Medium to be surprisingly tolerant of diverse opinion and I have no problem with open discussion here, unless of course it get’s too personal. LOL

I’ve found that both sides have blind spots when it comes to issues of federal policy which places unequal burdens upon citizens. For example Common Core standards apply to all schools, and the costs of implementation are similar across the country (generally equal impact) while immigration policies primarily impact districts in border states, and they pay most of the unintended costs of those policies.

Obama’s war against coal is another policy with disparate impact. Understand this is separate from the feds picking business winners and losers. The issue here is that killing coal while “good for the country”, is doing serious economic and social damage to targeted communities, many in Kentucky and West Virginia.

One of the most striking aspects of the federally engineered shift from coal/oil/gas to battery/solar/wind is that one industry and the citizens who work in it are receiving billions in grants/loans/loan guarantees/tax subsidies and environmental regulatory variances while there is a deliberate to regulate the others out of existence. Almost none of that new money is flowing to the citizens being negatively impacted and in fact, some of the tax burden placed on extractive industries is being redistributed to companies favored by the government. Entire communities are being destroyed in some areas, while federal dollars are being gifted in other communities, much of it in high tech meccas whose citizens have little need for federal largess. The big question obviously, is whether it’s the function of a federal referee to choose economic winners or losers. Next, if it is a function of federal governance, should the executive branch have that authority absent legislative oversight. Were a Trump to take executive action similar to how Obama has governed, those on the left would lose control of their bowels. Besides the executive, we’ve also seen the legislature, with the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency with broad authority over the entire consumer finance industry, create an entity that creates financial regulations and issues fines with absolutely no legislative oversight, even over their budget. Don’t even get me started on the new EPA policies that now ignore the economic costs of their regulations.

Let me share (another) one of the dirty little secrets of Obamacare. I learned about this one from my adult son who’s directly impacted. The way the bill was drafted, the HHS secretary has extraordinary power to dictate what the law is and how it will be implemented. The policy of Obamacare subsidies was drafted in such a way that if your employer subsidized your personal coverage at a level high enough that your cost is less than 8.5% of your income, then you cannot get any subsidy to help pay for family coverage your employer doesn’t subsidize. But at the same time, if you don’t buy a family policy, you have to pay the penalty. How does that work out for blue collar workers with families? They get screwed. They can’t get major medical that covers serious health issues and pay for Dr visits out of pocket, they have to choose between no family insurance, or a full freight policy. That’s not so bad, right?? Do the math. For my son, the federal exchange silver plan cost over $700 per month, with a $5,000 deductible. So for a guy making around $60K a year with a family, his out of pocket medical costs are $13,400 a year before his insurance pays a dime. If he doesn’t buy it, he pays a tax penalty. Meanwhile, his buddy (with an identical income)working for a competing company that doesn’t offer (employee only) health insurance gets a great insurance subsidy for his entire family. So much for employers doing the right thing. No wonder Obamacare is in a death spiral.

The level of partisanship in federal funding over the past several years has been shocking.

My original comments were about WHY anyone would back or vote for Trump, and pointing out the reality that those people have legitimate issues with how “progressive” policies are harming them. The attitude by most of the left going back to the 2008 campaign has been that those who don’t agree with them are racist uneducated boobs. There are reams of articles over the past decade documenting the reality that the democratic party has abandoned working class White voters, yet the same party now calls the people they wrote off, as Obama said, “bitter clingers” clinging to their guns or a God who doesn’t exist, or as Hillary called them, a “basket of deplorables”, and those are among the nicer things said.

Recognize these candidates for the highest office in the land are dissing about 75 million people they want a job representing. Romney wasn’t much better with his 47% line, but Romney’s point was that we are only 3% of the population away from the point at which those who pay virtually no taxes outnumber those who do, meaning a non taxpaying majority enthusiastically willing to vote for higher taxes and more redistribution, on somebody else. (it’s true, look it up.)

I can’t stand Trump. He’s a loose cannon. That said, I’m under no illusion that millions of people have very legitimate reasons for supporting him.