Remember how Trump sold the Republicans' $1.5 trillion-deficit-creating tax cut plan as a boon for the middle class that was going to create jobs and raise wages? That was in September, when he told congressional lawmakers at the White House that "The rich will not be gaining at all with this plan." See Washington Examiner (Sept. 13, 2017).
Let me repeat that: Trump said "The rich will not be gaining at all with this plan." (emphasis added)
No tax lawyer or professor believed that statement. Nobody that knew anything about the early drafts of the bill believed that statement. But quite a few Trump supporters have believed that statement.
It wasn't true. It was a bald-faced lie, and Trump knew it was a bald-faced lie. He has no trouble making such lies and does it multiple times a day. But this one was both manipulative and deceptive. Manipulative, because it helped to prevent any outcry from his core supporters that might have caused a Senate vote loss. Deceptive, because it was intended to mislead, as so much of what this man does in the office of the President.
Trump made absolutely clear what he really is proud of at his holiday golfing retreat at Mar-a-Lago, where memberships now cost $200,000 (were $100,000 before they counted as access to the Presidency) and members are part of the oligarchic ultra rich set that Trump so adores. Here's what he told them just before Christmas: "you all just got a lot richer" from the passage of the Republican tax cut legislation. See Bobic, Trump Told Friends 'You All Just Got a Lot Richer" From Tax Bill: Report, HuffPost (Dec. 24, 2017).
So September, Trump is claiming that the rich won't gain a thing from the tax cut but come December, Trump is boasting about how much richer the rich got from the tax cut.
Next up? The Republicans who didn't care if they created a $1.5 trillion deficit with their tax cuts for the rich now whine about the dreadful deficit (that they created) and the oh so shocking necessity, now, of cutting back on
- Social Security (they want to privatize it so the rich can get rich off of passing risk onto the vulnerable elderly but this is less likely since they can't do it by reconciliation with just GOP votes) and
- Medicare (they want to decimate it- and can do that with reconciliation-GOP apparently doesn't want us to have the kind of universal and cheaper health care that the rest of the developed world enjoys because there's no money in that for them) and
- Medicaid (GOP can't make money off it and they don't care about the poor kids and families and old people that depend on that anyway).
See, e.g., Jeff Stein, Ryan says Republicans to target welfare, Medicare, Medicaid spending in 2018, Washington Post (Dec. 6, 2017) ("Republicans will aim next year to reduce spending on both federal health care and anti-poverty programs, citing the need to reduce America's deficit"); Republicans are headed for a collision in 2018, Business INsider (defunding Social Security or funding infrastructure).
And of course Trump is all in favor of cutting spending on ordinary Americans and the poor. As the article in WaPo notes, "Trump recently called on Congress to move to cut welfare spending after the tax bill." (emphasis added) Ryan says Republicans to target welfare, Medicare, Medicaid spending in 2018
That, my friends, is the kind of character we have in the White House--a man who doesn't give a damn about the ordinary people that put him in office, except when it comes to stirring up their hatred of "liberals" so that they will keep voting for him under his claimed (but false) "conservative" mantle, a man who cavorts with the ultra-elite and caters to their every need and doesn't give a damn whether they pollute our air, water, or land or destroy our public lands and oceans and wilderness areas and sacred places; a man who is as two-faced as they come--claiming no benefit from his tax cut bill and then boasting about how much richer the rich get from the bill.
And it is also the kind of so-called "leader" we have in Congress-. There's multi-millionaire Paul Ryan--p who wants to cut Medicare because it "has been my big thing for many, many years." His Ayn Rand callousness is coming to the fore. And there's (for now) multi-millionaire Orrin Hatch, who attacked programs for the poor as "wasting America's money." Id. Hatch may well be replaced by multi-millionaire Mitt Romney, who thinks anybody that isn't in the upper class economically is just a wasteful "taker" while it is the rich people that really count. (I've got news for Romney--without those hard workers at the bottom of the income scale, this country would NOT be great.) Romney's not really much different from Trump, just less crass about it when in public.
These rich Republicans are part of the new oligarchy pent on class warfare against the poor and middle class that they disdain while waving the flag and pretending they love their low-income voters. Nah, they just love the votes. They don't give a damn about anyone but themselves, and they are set on a course to destroy all the common decency that this country has established over the years, the core of moral fiber that is really what makes America great.
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