Trumponomics - Valueless
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“A budget should reflect the values and priorities of our nation and its people.”
~Mary Landrieu
I drove back and forth to Maryland this last week, so I spent a lot time in the car catching up on podcasts. I was listening to economist, Justin Wolfers talk with Charlie Sykes (included below). One thing that he said, that really caught my attention was this: a budget is simply a statement of your values. I thought about that for a while.
My folks believed in a few important things: faith, family, friends, learning, education, and meaningful experiences. When I think about my childhood, their daily budget was so geared that way. They chose to live in a small house next to the train tracks, just so my brother and I could walk to good schools and my dad could walk to the train station… they only had one car. We had very few toys in our house, but we had access to books. My mother NEVER bought us candy or junk food. She just prepared healthy meals. We were expected to give part of our small allowance to the offering at church. We drove every summer (before the Interstate was built in a car with no seatbelts or air conditioning!), so that we might visit our grandmother in Montana and go hiking in the mountains. It’s all so clear: my folk’s budget was a statement of their values.
We’ve all read in multiple sources what Trump and the GOP values with this budget:
Elimination of health care from 17M Americans by way of $1 trillion cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act;
Putting nearly 5 million Americans, or 1 in 8 SNAP participants, at risk of losing access to vital food assistance (270,000 veterans, foster youth, and unhoused people);
Forcing 1 in 4 nursing homes to close their doors and put over 300 rural hospitals at risk of shutting down;
Jeopardizing 2 million clean energy jobs and 1.75 million construction jobs, with unions warning that this will likely be “the biggest job-killing bill in the history of the country”;
Defunding Planned Parenthood by blocking Medicaid reimbursements—affecting over 1 million patients.
Eliminating the SAVE student loan plan, potentially costing borrowers $3,000 more per year.
Providing a $51 billion tax credit incentivizing private school vouchers—draining public school funding, especially in rural communities.
Oh, to add insult to injury, this GOP budget ADDS an astonishing $4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
And it is: “It is the largest wealth transfer in American history… They’re literally taking from the poor — people who don’t have enough money — and shoveling straight into the pockets of people who already have more than enough. This bill is about making the richest people to ever walk the earth even richer.” ~ Senator Brian Schatz
But personally, the part of the budget that I find most disturbing is Trump’s ICE budget.
The bill earmarks some $170 billion for immigration — and border enforcement —related funding provisions. The bill includes:
$45 billion for building new immigration detention centers, including family detention facilities. This represents a 265% annual budget increase to ICE’s current detention budget. It is a 62% larger budget than the entire federal prison system and could result in daily detention of at least 116,000 non-citizens.
$29.9 billion toward ICE’s enforcement and deportation operations, increasing ICE’s annual budget three-fold.
Caps the number of immigration judges to 800 despite record backlogs in the immigration court system.
$46.6 billion into border wall construction—more than three times what the Trump administration spent on the wall in its first term, despite the failure of the wall to improve or contribute in any meaningful way to border management strategy
A new $10 billion fund to reimburse DHS for costs related to “safeguard[ing] the borders of the United States to protect against the illegal entry of persons or contraband.” This funding is nearly 50% of CBP’s FY 2024 budget. However, unlike a normal budget, this funding would provide very few guardrails and little guidance to DHS on how the funds must be used. As a result, this would become a slush fund for CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) to largely use however it determined.
Just think about that… ICE is going to become, Trump’s personal law enforcement agency. He won’t need the FBI or the US military to do his dirty work — he’ll have his own masked police force that will be larger than the FBI. And unlike the FBI head, whose appointment is approved by the Senate, the head of ICE is appointed by the head of HSD.
According to the ICE website, to become an Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officer at ICE, you must be a U.S. citizen, possess a valid driver's license, and be eligible to carry a firearm and under the age of 40. No prior law enforcement experience is required. In other words, no professionalism with this group; presumably, they are going to ramp up with people who will be unskilled, untrained and unmentored.
Additionally, the GOP has allocated funds to build — call them what they are — concentration camps for people he deems undesirable. Today it’s immigrants… tomorrow … who knows?
One can only wonder on whom, what and how this funding will be spent. It’s horrifying.
During the final hours of my drive back to Asheville, I stopped listening to podcasts and began listening to Erik Larson’s superb book, In the Garden of Beasts. Everything felt eerily familiar — like the United States is currently reliving 1933 Germany. The big difference of course is that much of what the Nazis did was somewhat transparent to outsiders. Our #FOTUS is not only setting up barbed wire detention centers, he’s bragging about them on social media and selling merchandise to make yet another buck. MAGA Profits From Alligator Alcatraz With Baby Merch…
Always the grifter.
Just as Trump unearthed the beautiful White House Rose Garden and replaced it with stone, he’s doing the same to our country. And the whole world is watching….
I don’t know about you, but this budget does not reflect my values.
Thought for the day in honor of his birthday…
“If nothing saves us from death, at least love should save us from life.”
~ Pablo Neruda
Must Read Articles
Budget Bill Massively Increases Funding for Immigration Detention
President Trump’s budget bill will codify much of his immigration agenda, drastically changing the landscape of enforcement and detention. Significantly, the bill funds a giant immigration detention apparatus that would likely be difficult to dismantle under future presidents. This new money comes as the administration is thwarting attempts at congressional oversight of detention conditions — and alongside new levels of cruelty directed at undocumented immigrants.
The legislation makes U.S Immigration and Customs and Enforcement the largest federal law enforcement agency, giving it $45 billion for building new detention centers in addition to $14 billion for deportation operations. It also includes $3.5 billion for reimbursements to state and local governments for costs related to immigration-related enforcement and detention.
Quote of the day…
(a letter written by a friend’s brother…)
To: Hispanic Community:
If you are Hispanic you probably do not know me. I am an old man, eighty. I am a natural born US citizen who has lived in NC my entire life. I practiced law for 25 years and retired as a Superior Court Judge after 25 years on the bench. I am a writer of three books and lots of free-lance newspaper and magazine articles. I am a professed Christian.
I am writing to you because I have been unable to get a good night’s sleep for many nights lately. The reason is that from TV reports and newspaper and magazine articles I am saddened by the way my country is treating you. I am disappointed by the silence of the Christian community, especially the clergy, on your behalf. I am saddened that my country, which calls itself a Christian nation, has engaged in cruelty toward many of you.
I want you to know that I do not think you are murderers and rapists and violent criminals. I want you to know that when I see someone who appears Hispanic, I see a fellow Child of God --a person entitled to be treated with dignity and respect. I see someone seeking a better life for themselves and their children. I see an essential worker often doing the work we natural born citizens don’t want to do.
I cannot imagine what it would be like to go to bed at night afraid of a knock on the door. To go to work afraid a van will pull up and take you or a loved one away. To even go to church for fear masked men will detain you and remove you from your home and family. It has to be horrible.
What is also horrible is that elected officials of my country could have provided a way for you to be here and help move our country forward but have not. You are needed! Again, I believe it horrible that the Christian community has not spoken out forcefully on your behalf.
I do not expect this letter to help you or make you feel better. Yet, I want you to know that not only me, but many, many, many natural born citizens hurt because we know you hurt.
God’s Peace!
Gary E. Trawick
What I’m reading….
ICE Budget Now Bigger Than Most of the World's Militaries
The Senate has passed a bill making Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the United States' largest interior law enforcement agency, with funding for Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agenda higher than most of the world's militaries, including Israel's.
Trump Supporter With Green Card, Who Was in US Since Age 3, Denied Reentry
Landry, who is 46, has lived in New Hampshire for more than 40 years. He annually visits Canada and says he has never had a problem going back and forth, until Sunday.
"I'm a legal resident, green-card holder, I have been since 1981."
Landry, who is currently in New Brunswick, Canada, works in manufacturing and has five children, several of whom he was traveling back to the U.S. with on July 6 when he was stopped by immigration officials in Houlton, Maine.
ICE handcuffs 71-year-old grandmother, a U.S. citizen, at San Diego immigration court
The latest video to send shock waves from San Diego immigration court through the immigrant community is actually not of an immigrant, but, rather of a 71-year-old U.S. citizen, Barbara Stone.
Stone was handcuffed and held by federal agents for eight hours on Tuesday, according to her family.
How the GOP spending bill will fund immigration enforcement
The Big, Beautiful Bill, passed by Congress, dramatically increases funding for immigration enforcement in accordance with President Trump's policy priorities. The funding will allow the Trump administration to approximately double immigrant detention capacity, significantly bolster immigration enforcement personnel and potentially exacerbate backlogs in the court system.
Protesters and federal agents clash during raid at Southern California farm
Glass House Farms said on social media that it was visited Thursday by officials for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and “fully complied with agent search warrants.”
US border czar says he doesn’t know fate of eight men deported to South Sudan
Tom Homan, the US border czar, has said he does not know what happened to the eight men deported to South Sudan after the Trump administration resumed sending migrants to countries that are not their place of origin, known as third countries.
We’re already witnessing swarms of masked agents grabbing people off the street. Within weeks, it’ll get a lot worse. The grandma who has been here for 30 years paying taxes; the Dreamer college student who has been thoroughly American since he was a toddler; the small business owner who gets a traffic ticket — 3,000 of them a day will be ripped from their families, sent to a prison and shipped to a country where they don’t know anyone.
He's building a police force larger than most armies — and domestic gulags to boot.
The agency is holding nearly 60,000 people in custody, the highest number ever, but it has been funded for only 41,000 detention beds, so processing centers are packed with people sleeping on floors in short-term holding cells with nowhere to shower.
California surgical center staff demand to see warrant as ICE agents detain landscaper
Federal immigration agents seeking to detain a Honduran landscaper chased him into a Southern California surgical center and quickly found themselves in a tense standoff as clinic staff demanded to see identification and a warrant. Ontario Advanced Surgery Center staff are heard telling an armed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent wearing a mask and bulletproof vest to let go of the man, who is crying and gasping for breath.
Americans warm to immigration as Trump ramps up deportations
A record-high share of U.S. adults said immigration benefits the country, despite the Trump administration's continued focus on strict enforcement policies.
A significant majority — 79% — of respondents said immigration is a "good thing" for the U.S. today.
The share who said it's a "bad thing" dropped from 32% last year to 17% this year.
The Man Who Thinks Medicaid Cuts Won’t Cut Medicaid
Trump did, however, sign executive orders designed to undercut Obamacare. One of those orders allowed states to implement requirements for Medicaid. Arkansas took Trump up on the offer. The new requirements proved very hard for users to navigate, and caused significant coverage losses without any evidence of having increased employment. This real-world experiment informs the CBO’s model of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Trump’s Response To Texas Floods Is A Preview Of What’s To Come
But in Texas, FEMA’s search and rescue teams were not deployed until Monday, more than three days after the flooding started… Plus, Sec. Kristi Noem, whose Department of Homeland Security oversees FEMA, reportedly recently started requiring any expenditure over $100,000 to be approved first by her, so when Texas needed immediate help, FEMA officials were bogged down by paperwork. The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
Some Democrats are already saying Noem’s actions cost lives.
“Kids in Texas died as a direct result of Kristi Noem’s negligence,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said. “She should be removed from office before her incompetence gets Oregonians killed in a wildfire.”
State Department lays off over 1,300 employees under Trump administration plan
“We talk about people in uniform serving. But foreign service officers take an oath of office, just like military officers,” said Anne Bodine, who retired from the State Department in 2011 after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan… the cuts have been roundly criticized by current and former diplomats who say they will weaken U.S. influence and the ability to counter existing and emerging threats abroad.
Undaunted in calling out the worst Supreme Court in modern times
Consider the harms to democracy, too, if it turns out that the plaintiffs and the lower courts are right that the President is unilaterally changing the structure of the Federal Government. What one person (or President) might call bureaucratic bloat is a farmer’s prospect for a healthy crop, a coal miner’s chance to breathe free from black lung, or a preschooler’s opportunity to learn in a safe environment. The details of the programs that this executive action targets are the product of policy choices that Congress has made—a representative democracy at work. While the President no doubt has the authority to manage the Executive Branch, our system does not allow the President to rewrite laws on his own under the guise of that authority.
What I’m reading….
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity.
What I’m listening to…
What I’m watching…
What I read every day…
