A Liberal Dose
“You’re All About to
Lose a Lot of Valuable Services”
Troy D. Smith
Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” has been passed and
signed into law. Surveys show it to be an extremely unpopular bill -except, I
guess, among the roughly 800 billionaires in America, of whom 33 make a billion
or more a year- because of the massive tax breaks in it for them. Those are the
folks Donald Trump works for, and respects… not the working class and middle
class in America, including his own followers. The “bottom” sixty percent of Americans
will wind up paying roughly the same amount, or -the lower you get in that
group -significantly more. Meanwhile, the deficit -which Republicans claim must
be brought down every time a Democrat is in the White House -will go up by over
three trillion dollars. (By the way, over the last half-century, the deficit
has always gone UP under Republican presidents, and DOWN under Democrats. Look
it up.)
However, the Trump administration has brought down some
expenses. Through all the mass firings of government workers Elon’s
college-aged DOGE wonder boys have made, for starters. And we’ve seen the
effects. In addition to killing Meals on Wheels, Americorps, and Head Start, we
have seen the gutting of PUBLIC parks (which Trump now wants to charge
admission to enter), the Federal Aviation Administration, leading to skeleton
crews of air traffic controllers and to a huge upsurge in delays and crashes,
and medical research (by the way, Trump has ordered a halt on all research into
sickle cell anemia, a disease that is closely associated with the African
American community, because of “DEI”).
Oh… and the cuts have severely hamstrung NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration), which oversees the National Weather Service. When they started
doing that, right after the inauguration, I warned in this column that there
were about to be a lot more weather-related fatalities once the government’s
ability to track storms and floods has been hampered, as well as their ability
to issue timely warnings and coordinate responses. Trump supporters have been
crying out loudly that those cuts had nothing to do with the results of the
terrible Texas flood that killed over a hundred people last week. But here are
some facts about the region that flooded: the National Weather Services in San
Angelo was missing a senior hydrologist, a staff forecaster, and a
meteorologist. The San Antonio office was also missing a meteorologist, with a
warning coordination specialty (theirs took Elon’s early retirement offer) as
well as a science offer. All told, twice as many unfilled positions as they
normally have. Did that cause the flood? No. But it sure as heck didn’t help in
efforts to mitigate the damage and save lives.
Remember how, on the campaign trail, Trump promised up and
down that he would never touch Medicaid? Well, his new Big Beautiful Bill,
which I guess they’ll now rename the Large Lovely Law, cuts ONE TRILLION
DOLLARS from Medicaid, which will result in eleven million people losing their
health insurance (and a lot of them dying). Well, after all, as Republican Joni Ernst said, “We are all going to die”.
And as Mitch McConnell said, “They’ll get over it.” “To heck with those lazy
poor people,” you might say. Except… eleven million people unable to go to the
hospital will have dire consequences for hospitals, especially rural ones, who
get a large percentage of their money from Medicaid. Already, the only
hospitals in Sparta and Smithville are on the list of about a dozen statewide
that are expected to have to close down as a result of this law. Fact is, in
the past few years several rural hospitals have closed, including a couple in
our region… because our state’s Republican politicians refused to accept the federal
government’s offer to expand Medicaid, because they think Medicaid is
“socialist”. (Side note: remember that viral clip of the elderly Republican
lady in 2008 saying “That socialist Obama… better keeps his hands off my
Medicaid!”)
Well, you may say, “I always go to the Cookeville hospital
anyway.” Guess what -everyone in Sparta and Smithville will be going to
Cookeville now, which will overwhelm them… can you imagine the wait times? Or
you might say “I’m not on Medicaid, I’m on Tenncare (or my mom is, or my nana).”
Guess what. TENNCARE IS MEDICAID.
But I guess it’s okay, because under this new law
billionaires can count the entire cost of their private jets off on their taxes
now. And Trump can hire 10,000 more ICE agents (they probably get their masks
in bulk), and maybe toss in a few alligators to eat immigrants.
Remember when Project 2025 leaked and Trump claimed he had
never even heard of it, and had no intention of doing the things in it? And
every time I brought it up, people accused me of spreading fake news, because
Trump said he wasn’t going to do it? And how I kept saying “Trump lies
constantly”? Everything that has been done the last six months is from the
Project 2025 playbook.
Donald Trump is not a salesman, he is a con artist, and
always has been. He has no respect, compassion, or even interest in the middle
and working class, whom he views only as rubes to be cheated. He led you on, he
lied to you, he conned you, into voting him into office… and now he has no use
for you, and he is going to fleece you like a three-legged sheep. And I haven’t
even mentioned (this week!) the havoc he is wreaking on the economy.
By the way, the very WORST parts of the new law are designed
not to go into effect until after the midterm elections, so voters won’t notice
they’ve been conned. Look into it.
No one should be embarrassed over being conned by a master.
But you should not fall for the same tricks over and over again. Get out there
in the midterm elections and make your vote count.
--Troy D.
Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at
Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee
Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.
You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE
A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE
Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com
The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE
