Trump’s “Greedy, Soulless, Sadistic Bastard Budget”
Paul Ryan told National Review editor Rich Lowry that he’d been dreaming of cutting Medicaid, and several other “entitlement” plans, “since you and I were drinking out of a keg.”
So Paul Ryan has apparently been fantasizing about leaving poor children, elders and the disabled without food, shelter and healthcare since he was in college chugging beer with his Delta Tau Delta crew that never missed a meal — or a frat party — in their lives.
Noice.
Yes, I’m being sarcastic. Because I’ve been trying, ever since Trump’s ACA replacement and new budget were rolled out, to understand people like that. And I guess at this point I’m just laughing to keep from crying.
But you know, I actually do understand people like that. Some of them. Okay, a lot of them, who still cling to the image of Black welfare cheats rolling up to get their checks in Cadillacs. Or who truly believe that the majority of people who get government assistance are “illegals” and other “lazy” people of various darker colors — and a smattering of white “trash.”
They’ll never say this. They’ll talk about “fiscal responsibility” and such, while, for instance, giving rich folks huge tax breaks via the Trumpcare bill which, according to The Nation, will be a bonanza for “The richest 400 households in America, which will each receive an average annual tax cut of $7 million.”
I have seen the faces of the people who will be wounded — some mortally — by the cuts to come. As an educator, I chose to work in schools where “free and reduced” lunches were often the only real meals many students would have each day. Some schools even opened their cafeterias for breakfast during the summers to make sure those kids still had something to eat each day.
Black kids, brown kids and a whole lot of white kids depended on that food — far more white kids than most people think. In fact, when I was an assistant principal at one of Tucson’s largest magnet schools, the kids who stopped by to pick up leftovers on their way to the bus bay after school were almost always white kids with little brothers and sisters at home who were too young to go to school yet.
At the local food bank where I volunteered, most of the clients who lined up long before we opened our doors were disabled, elderly and/or white. I saw the same thing at a women’s shelter that opened its doors daily to allow homeless women to shower, get clean clothes, have breakfast and lunch, talk to case workers and use telephones to get in touch with the various social service agencies they were advised to contact.
One woman — white, middle-aged — was the proud mother of a recent Princeton graduate who had no idea his mother was sleeping on the streets. She cherished that boy. And could not bear the thought of him finding out what had happened to her.
Due to a series of serious health issues, she’d lost her job and then her apartment. Too proud to “sponge off of” (her words) friends and family, she turned to shelters and other programs which kept her fed and clothed, but she couldn’t afford to see her doctors or take her meds anymore.
Despite that, she showed up almost every day to shower, curl her hair, put together a “job search” outfit and get a bus pass to go meet with prospective employers — yes, she showed up. Those employers signed a form to prove it.
Not a college grad herself, her choices were limited. And her health limited them even further. But she never quit trying. Or smiling.
When I read about Trumpcare and the new budget, I see that smile. And the faces of those kids who came by to pick up those bags of food — the kids in the Food Bank waiting room, too. And the elders and disabled folks who wouldn’t look up from their canes and walkers sometimes, when I walked by.
They didn’t want to be there. And those little kids didn’t ask to be there. Life just sucks sometimes. And it’s about to suck a whole lot more for a lot of those people.
Robert Reich called Trump’s new budget an “orgy of unnecessary cruelty, ” because it:
“…comes down especially hard on the poor — imposing unprecedented cuts in low-income housing, job training, food assistance, legal services, help to distressed rural communities, nutrition for new mothers and their infants, funds to keep poor families warm, even “meals on wheels.”
These cuts come at a time when more American families are in poverty than ever before, including 1 in 5 children.”
In a Bible passage even atheists know very well, Jesus begs his disciples to remember “the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine,” and to care for them in His stead. I myself began to wonder if they really were “the least” of us. I met some strong brothers and sisters out there, like that woman I told you about. Bowed for a time, but not broken.
I think they may have met their match in this administration. But dammit, I won’t give up, either.
Will you?
