Trump Budget Punches Poor, Sick, Children & Trump Supporters In The Throat

President Donald J. Trump

While President Donald Trump was traveling abroad his 2018 Federal budget was released. Straight from the White House website it is titled:

"President Trump's Taxpayer First Budget

President Trump's first proposed budget shows respect for the people who pay the bills. The administration's proposal reverses the damaging trends from previous administrations by putting our nation's budget back into balance and reducing our debt through fiscally conservative principles, all the while delivering on President Trump's campaign promise not to cut Social Security retirement or Medicare. The budget's combination of regulatory, tax, and welfare reforms will provide opportunities for economic growth and creation." source : https://www.whitehouse.gov/taxpayers-first

The above is not a joke, it is directly from the White House website. A simple translation of that title and subtext is that rich people are paying the bills and deserve the spoils. Some budget bullet points:

• $3.6 trillion in cuts over 10 years
• Repeal and replace Obamacare - $250 Billion saving (Medicaid cut)
• Reform Medicaid by giving States the choice between a per capita cap and a block grant - save $610 billion over 10 years (Medicaid cut)
• The Budget proposes a series of reforms to SNAP (food stamps)  that  close  eligibility  loopholes,  target benefits  to  the  neediest  households,  and  require able-bodied adults to work. Increase state benefit match to 23% by 2023.
• The Budget proposes a series of reforms to SNAP (food stamps)  that  close  eligibility  loopholes,  target benefits  to  the  neediest  households,  and  require able-bodied adults to work. Increase state benefit match to 23% by 2023. (translation - Kick people off food stamps)
•  Reform Disability Programs. The Budget proposes to reform disability insurance programs to promote greater LFP(Labor Force Participation). (translation - Kick people off Social Security Disability Insurance) 
• Reform Federal Employees Retirement Benefits - increasing employee payments to the defined benefit Federal Employee Retirement System pension and reducing  or eliminating cost-of-living adjustments for existing and  future retirees
• Extend the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) - extended through 2019 with higher state matching in future.
• Reform Student Loan Programs - Budget eliminates the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, establishes reforms to  guarantee that all borrowers in IDR pay an equitable share of their income, and eliminates subsidized loans

These are the losers in Trump's 2018 budget, the poor(including children), sick and elderly through Medicaid and social program cuts. Rural areas where a lot of Trump voters that depend on Medicaid and Obamacare live, lose big league.

Who wins in Trump's 2018 budget. Defense spending increase of $52 billion to $639 billion. Immigration and Border security get $71.8 billion. The wealthy get an elimination of the estate tax penalty and a reduction of the business tax rate.  

Source: Trump Budget

   

Mick Mulvaney, White House Director of management and Budget wrote said in an article published in the Miami Herald, that many social program users were stealing from taxpayers footing the bills because they didn't intent to pay it back. Mulvaney's attitude is a throwback to the era of the welfare queen talk of years gone by, except the reality is that the person being hurt is an elderly White woman in rural America instead of the stereotypical Black woman of urban legends.

Trump - Nixon on Steroids - Amazon.com 

Mugged American Style – Bank of America Debit Card Fees

Mugged American Style - link

The latest outrage to be thrust upon an economically beaten down American populace was the announcement that the nation’s largest bank, Bank of America, will begin charging customers $5 per month to use debit cards to make purchases. Excuse me, if you let me hold your money, I will charge you when you spend it. Do we have a deal?

Now some of the same institutions involved in taking down the economy are now involved in a near literal shakedown of the very citizens that bailed them out with taxpayer funds. The economic collapse that burst forth during the last few months of 2008 has been long lasting and deep. Millions of Americans were flushed out of the workforce and over 14 million still find themselves unemployed and seemingly unemployable. In many ways this was a double crime with hardworking citizens in the United States being initially mugged by those manipulating our financial system and then taken hostage by politicians corrupting our political process. As this socioeconomic terrorism was taking place, the wealth of those caught in the crossfire was melting away as they strove to survive by burning through personal savings, retirement funds and other assets of value. While millions were free falling from their former positions on the economic ladder, the wealthy were becoming wealthier. The future of the United States will be decided by a struggle between new age robber barons aided by their political enablers versus sane, rational Americans seeking to return this nation to its full former glory. A fee to use your money is one more insult on top of injury.

What are besieged consumers to do? A system has been set up that runs on electronic transactions from using debit cards, online bill payment and electronic funds transfer. Sure banks have invested in worldwide automated teller systems but that saved manpower costs and allowed them to operate with fewer physical branch offices. ATMs don’t take weekly salaries, health insurance or vacations. This is strictly about taking money out of the hide of customers since new regulations limit how much banks could charge merchants to process transactions so it went to its own account holders. This $5 fee does not hit everyone. Account holders with larger average balances can avoid the fee so it really only hits those that can least afford it, is this the new American way.

D T Pollard.com - Books by D T Pollard

Blackout – Black Unemployment Rate Rises As Overall Rate Falls

 Empty - Ghosts of The Middle Class

Sometimes statistics speak louder than shouts from rooftops. Cheers went up as the March 2011 jobless rate fell from 8.9% to 8.8%. Hold the celebrations unemployment rate for black increased from 15.3% to 15.5%, almost twice the 7.9% of whites.

What is going on in the face of celebrations surrounding the number of jobs being created and an unemployment rate that has dropped to 8.8% from 8.9% the month before, blacks seemed to be left off the party invitation list. Hispanics have little cause to be raising their glasses for a toast as well. The unemployment rate for Hispanics fell from 11.3% to 11.1%, but it is the unemployment rate among blacks that is totally disconnected and going against the tide.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics report lists the rates for blacks, whites, Hispanics and all other groups in the United States. Even inside the black community the pain is unevenly spread. Black women had a drop in their unemployment rate from 13% to 12.5% while black men went from 16.2% to 16.8%.  Let’s not gloss over the gap between black men and black women with a 4.3% more of an unemployment percentage among black men.

Let’s get away from percentages and get into how many people this represents. The tables state that 7,923,000 black women are employed compared to 6,758,000 black men. That means that 1,165,000 more black women have jobs than black men. On the flip side the number of unemployed black women is listed at 1,127,000 versus 1,361,000 black men. There is a quirk in the numbers that show fewer black women have jobs than before. The number of black women that were employed in February was 7,993,000 compared to 7,923,000 which are 70,000 fewer jobs and the jobless rate went down for black women. You may ask how fewer working black women mean a decreased in the unemployment rate, it is because so many gave up looking for work and were not counted in the numbers.

The participation rate for black women went from 63.1% to 62.1% and that caused the rate to decrease even though 70,000 fewer black women had jobs. Black men actually had an increase in the number holding jobs from 6,745,000 to 6,758,000 which is 13,000 more jobs and the jobless rate among black men went up because the participation rate went up from 68.2% to 68.7%. Simply speaking, more black men looked for jobs and the jobless rate went up due to math.

So, what is going on? Blacks don’t seem to be included in this slow recovery and what does it mean for the long term future of the black community. The unemployment rates reported are always lower than reality. What is the rate if part-time and underemployment are factored in. Where are the crisis level emergency outcries, because as we speak, decades of economic gains in the black community are being destroyed?