Two words: fraud and cruel

In the nasty guy’s State of the Union speech (which I didn’t listen to) he said he would protect Medicare and Social Security. How quickly he forgot (unless he was lying). He has released his budget. The two words that fit are fraud and cruel. Fraud because it is so completely contrary to what he promised and because of the unrealistic assumptions it makes to justify its numbers. Cruel because of the deep cuts it calls for in the social safety net – SNAP (formerly known as food stamps), Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. It also calls for cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (as a pandemic looms) and the Environmental Protection Agency. The nasty guy and the GOP didn’t run up those massive deficits for nothing.

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reminds us about the “third rail” in American politics. This refers to the third rail in subway systems in New York and elsewhere that power the trains. Touch it and die. Social Security and Medicare are considered third rail topics.

But in the cult of personality surrounding the nasty guy there is no third rail. He can seriously damage their financial security and they’ll thank him.

This budget shows the nasty guy and the GOP aren’t interested in equality. They want to show how wonderful and superior their lives are by oppressing everyone else. Here are a few quotes of the day that say freedom and equality are intertwined and rebuke supremacy.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
~~Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (1994)

When one thinks of all the people who support or have supported Fascism, one stands amazed at their diversity. What a crew! … But the clue is really very simple. They are all people with something to lose, or people who long for a hierarchical society and dread the prospect of a world of free and equal human beings. Behind all the ballyhoo that is talked about ‘godless’ Russia and the ‘materialism’ of the working class lies the simple intention of those with money or privileges to cling to them. Ditto, though it contains a partial truth, with all the talk about the worthlessness of social reconstruction not accompanied by a ‘change of heart’. The pious ones, from the Pope to the yogis of California, are great on the ‘change of heart’, much more reassuring from their point of view than a change in the economic system.
~~George Orwell, England Your England and Other Essays (1953)

Equality is the heart and essence of democracy, freedom, and justice, equality of opportunity in industry, in labor unions, schools and colleges, government, politics, and before the law. There must be no dual standards of justice, no dual rights, privileges, duties, or responsibilities of citizenship. No dual forms of freedom.
~~A. Philip Randolph, Autobiography of a People: Three Centuries of African American History Told by Those Who Lived It. (2000)