Trump is Hurting the U.S.

When Trump said he was going to make America great again, he was referring to his own bank account not yours. While he and his grifter family members are making millions at our expense, the 90 percent of us are circling the drain. What a lot of Trump’s supporters don’t understand, is that at the behest of the GOP, he is deliberately putting people in top positions to run our programs into the ground to bankrupt the country so we can no longer afford the programs President Franklin D. Roosevelt put into place that dragged us out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. The greed of Trump and the rich knows no bounds, and they are eating their seed corn by attacking unions and minimum wage. For those not familiar with this old saying, it simply means that every seed you sow has the potential to either be eaten right then or planted for next year's crop. As a farmer, you must ensure you have enough seed corn to replant your fields, but if you eat your seed corn, you’ve got nothing to plant and no future for crops or as a farmer. The rich depriving workers a living wage or the right to unionize is the same as a farmer eating his corn seed instead of planting it because without unions or an increase in the minimum wage, there will be no people left to buy their products. By eliminating unions, the rich are finding it harder to find skilled trades labor. Unions train workers to do their jobs right, which make builders rich, and the corporations, who provide the materials to build projects. If there is no money in the hands of the majority of Americans, who will buy the durable goods that corporations manufacturer, like washing machines, dryers, stoves and dish washers? A minimum wage of even $15 an hour will not support that kind of spending. A minimum wage of $15 an hour will just barely cover the cost of rent and nonorganic food, providing no emergencies arise. Minimum wage would be, had it kept up with inflation, $24 an hour for a worker to be able to stand alone with some type of assistance. Even with that kind of pay, the worker had better not get sick. Spending supports the capitalist system by around 75 percent, and as workers receive less in wages there is less need for houses, restaurants, entertainment, vehicles, and the durable goods listed before. When less money is spent, there are less jobs so we end up with people without employment because the majority of people can’t afford to buy what’s being sold. If we are going to stay with the capitalist system, we need a hybrid-type of income, which would be supplemented with a type of universal basic income (UBI) giving workers extra money to buy items they can’t afford to buy now or take a vacation. A UBI of between $1,000 to $2,000 a month would stimulate the economy and be the largest boon to our economic outlook since World War II and the GI Bill and President Roosevelt’s New Deal. How do we pay for the UBI, or Medicare for All (Political Economy Research Institute just released a study stating Medicare for All would save $5.1 trillion in a 10 year period or 25 percent of the National Debt) or free education or wage increases? It’s not by giving the top 10 or 5 or 1 percent a tax break they don’t need. Trump and the GOP’s tax cut burned the bottom 90 percent of Americans. It was the same con job on the American people that every Republican president has pulled on us and forcing us to do without while the rich fill their coffers. W Bush’s wars and incompetence left a mess for President Obama to clean up. It wasn’t hard for Obama, a corporatist, to bail out Wall Street instead of the 90 percent of us hurting without the resources to recover. We pay for these programs by taxing the rich, taxing corporations and forcing them to return their offshore money hoards back to the U.S., taxing churches, and taxing Wall Street and have it reimburse the taxpayers for the bailouts it has received because of its gambling with investors money to the brink of collapse. We could also start charging rent for the use of our Commons, and by starving the Military Industrial Complex, as President Eisenhower called it, bring our troops home and reduce the Pentagon’s budget to what is actually needed. It seems the bottom 90 percent always takes it in the shorts. Workers are making less now than in 2007 so the economic recovery Trump screeches about has not materialized for the working people, and that is why the GOP is eyeing robbing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the food stamp program to pay for their greed. We need to improve our educational system and ensure the students learn comprehension skills, among other important topics. The very people who are hurt most by GOP policies and at the bottom of the 90 percent and yet they keep voting against their own best interests. They vote on tagline and rhetoric instead of examining what these politicians actually do. Those who voted for Trump and still believe in him, are the ones being hurt by his greedy, heartless incompetence. This last year we seen plant closures and layoffs due to Trump’s tariff wars. In all his bluster, Trump lied to people when he told them he was a winner. Most of his voters didn’t look behind the curtain to see that the show The Apprentice was a scripted fantasy put on by Hollywood and Trump was told who he’d be firing each week. So, naturally these people would believe him when he told them “Companies are not going to leave the United States any more without consequences. Not going to happen.” Yet Carrier’s Indianapolis plant closed putting 200 workers out of a job. This number didn’t include the 338 jobs lost in July or the 215 lost to Monterrey, Mexico and its cheap labor. Employees there will make $3 an hour. You have to ask yourself why would a country allow its workers to be exploited by corporations? Trane will close its Lexington HVAC plant and leave 600 people unemployed. Next year doesn’t look any better either. Paul Wiseman with the Associated Press reported, "The Commerce Department said Thursday that the gap between the United States sells and what it buys from foreign countries hit $55.5 billion in October, the fifth straight increase and highest since October 2008. The politically sensitive deficit in the trade of goods with China rose 7.1% to a record $43.1 billion. The goods gap with the European Union widened 65.5% to a record $17.6 billion. Led by shipments of medicine and cars, overall imports rose 0.2% to a record $266.5 billion. Exports fell 0.1% to $211 billion." Two United Technologies Electronic Control facilities closed its U.S. plants in Indiana forcing a total of 630 workers out of a job so it could also move its plants to Monterrey. Verizon letting go 44,000 employees and transferring between 2,500-5,000 I.T. jobs to an India-based Infosys. Apparently, Americans are dispensable when it comes to the largest U.S. wireless carrier saving $10 billion by 2021 for its stockholders. Ford announced its cutting 70,000 white collar workers in a “redesign” of staff, and cutting about 12 percent globally or 24,000 of Ford’s 202,000 of its worldwide workers. Ford is blaming Trump’s tariff’s for the cuts, saying the tariffs have cost the company $1 billion. Despite its $6 billion from the Trump tax cut, Union Pacific is cutting 540 positions along with 200 contractors. Nice holiday gift for the fired workers." Economic forecasters say we are headed for a depression as the deficiet continues its path over the cliff and Trump has said he doesn't care because he won't be around to have to fix it. A West Virginia coal mine is closing and 400 workers are out of work. Trump’s deregulations and promises were no match for those moving toward renewable energy. More American companies are blaming Trump’s unnecessary tariffs for their companies losses, and in turn these losses are effecting the Stock Market. If the losses to the Market threaten our economy again, will Trump bail it out again. Harley Davidson moved its Kansas operations to Thailand due to the tariffs. Caterpillar also blames the tariffs for cutting into its profit margin and increasing costs. Caterpillar says it lost $40 million in the third quarter of the year and expects the total loss to be $100 million in 2018. Honeywell is also complaining about the tariffs and is expecting its losses to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. General Motors announced it was closing up to five factories in the U.S. and Canada, cutting more than 14,000 jobs during the next two years. The company said displaying workers will save the company $6 billion. GM blames Trump’s tariffs on imported steel that cost the company $1 billion. GM’s announcement elicited a threat from Trump that the company better replace the jobs. Or what? Whirlpool’s CEO initially supported Trump’s tariffs, and now the company is struggling. The cost of making its products rose by $350 million, thereby squeezing its profit margins. It too felt the Wall Street consequences when its stock tanked. Will we as a country be able to survive all this Trump and the complicit GOP’s winning? It’s obvious we can’t afford Trump or his disastrous policies.