So, we let the GOP have a tax bill that gave the very rich at the top billions and us at the bottom very little. The tax gives away to the rich was a win-win for the GOP to pay back their large donors, and now they can say there is no money for safety net programs or returning the money to Social Security that Congress and presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush “borrowed” or used as a piggy bank to fund their bad policies: Johnson and Bush the war, Reagan tax breaks for the wealthy who didn’t need it. They raided the program we paid for, and Medicare/Medicaid.
Congress needs to pay the people back and with interest and then keep their hands off our money.
The GOP likes to call Social Security and Medicare entitlement spending, but if you check your pay stub you’ll see the deductions for these programs and that we pay taxes on the Social Security as we receive it. The GOP also lie and say that these programs are the root of the worsening federal fiscal problems while ignoring the huge tax break it gave the richest 1 or 2 percent of the population.
Giving the wealthiest in our country a tax break gives the GOP a two-fold plan, which is to give as much money to the rich while bankrupting our country, and thereby destroying the programs President Franklin D. Roosevelt established to protect the non-wealthy in this country.
We know the GOP’s plan and if we, the 99 percent and unions, let them get away with this plan without a ‘do or die’ fight in the streets and the Hill, we will get just what the GOP wants. They say the 99 percent should not expect as much and we should adjust our lives and learn to live off the scraps of the very rich. They think we don’t need healthcare or Social Security because we can no longer work we should just die and that way they can keep the dead’s pay checks, pensions and save on healthcare costs, but then who will pay for the living 99 percent left behind?
Yes, they are coming for us. Workers need to have one another’s backs because no one else will. Neither the broader labor movement nor the Democratic party are prepared to meet the urgency of this moment. So it’s going to fall upon the rest of us to mount a real resistance against Trump’s authoritarian takeover. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty. I don’t care if you have a good, well-paying union job and you are in the middle class now—if you see a worker being dragged out of his workplace regardless of how skilled the job and potentially taken to another country, you should be ready to be there for that worker. When I.C.E. shows up, gather around and shame them into leaving. It has worked in other places. America is sleep walking into authoritarianism, and if there’s anyone out there who is a member of a labor union that is safe—at this point— and doesn’t think this applies to them. Understand that they just haven’t gotten to you yet. They’re coming for all of us. There are ...
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