Some of President Trump’s wealthy Republicans seem to threaten all-out war against middle- and lower-income Americans.
Billionaire geniuses, e.g., Musk and Ramaswamy, float vague profundities about eradicating entire federal agencies on the pretext of efficiency and national debt reduction.
They hint ambiguously about eliminating every hard-earned health, education, labor, retirement and civil rights protection in the U.S., especially Social Security and Medicare.
They then fraudulently blame lower-income Americans for the nation’s alarming indebtedness and other economic problems.
These are just ham-fisted threats to divert federal funds to even more tax cuts for the unworthy, suggesting more a work of ignorance than of genius.
The truth is, federal social spending and Social Security contributed almost nothing to the 400 percent increase in the U.S. national debt between 2000-2020.
Eighty percent of the U.S. national debt increase, as a percent of GDP, during that period was caused by Republican policies. Those included unwarranted Republican tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, a Republican financial misconduct-induced recession and unnecessary Republican wars.
Exorbitant U.S. debt increases were not caused by U.S. spending for social services or Social Security.
The remedy to the nation’s social and outsized debt problem is higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, cessation of unnecessary wars and prohibiting high-risk financial practices that often cause recessions.
The American people may be forced to the streets to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances, especially concerning Social Security and Medicare.
Malcolm McPhee
Sequim