According to various media reports, in addition to eying cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the Musk-Ramaswamy proposals to make the government more “efficient,” are focused especially on dramatic cuts to the following: VA Healthcare – $516 billion (100% reduction); the National Institutes of Health – $47 billion (eliminate NIH); Pell Grants – $22 billion (80% reduction); Head Start – $12 billion (100% reduction); the FBI -$11 billion (out of $11.3 billion budget); Federal Prisons -$8 billion (100% reduction) and the SEC – $2 billion (out of $2.1 billion current budget). In other words, the cuts will effectively eliminate the following agencies and programs: VA healthcare, NIH, Head Start, FBI, Federal Prisons, and the SEC.
While it is unlikely that most of these reductions will take place–the “geniuses” who’ve trained their sights on them clearly don’t understand legal or political reality–it is instructive to look at just who would suffer if they were successful: working and middle class people, many of whom comprise the majority of Trump’s base.
It’s equally instructive to note that the “savings” generated by these cuts are intended to make up for diminished revenues anticipated from Trump’s intended tax cuts for the very rich.
What has become very clear as Trump has assembled his “team” is that plutocrats have purchased America’s government.
Heather Cox Richardson recently cited an NBC News report that Elon Musk alone had spent at least $250 million–a quarter of a billion dollars— to get Trump elected. And Axios has noted that Trump’s administration will be dominated by billionaires.
President-elect Trump has assembled an administration of unprecedented, mind-boggling wealth — smashing his own first-term record by billions of dollars.
That’s even without counting the ballooning fortunes of his prized outside adviser and the world’s richest man: Elon Musk.
Why it matters: It’s not hyperbole to call this a government of billionaires. Whether it acts as a government for billionaires — as Democrats argue is inevitable — could test and potentially tarnish Trump’s populist legacy.
The big picture: Besides Trump, Musk and his fellow Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Vivek Ramaswamy, at least 11 billionaires will be serving key roles in the administration.
Please note that this is without counting Trump, Musk or Ramaswamy. The Axios article has a comprehensive list of the appointees and the net worth of each of them.
The dominance of the super-wealthy and their eagerness to ignore the needs and/or well-being of the rest of us may shed some light on why Congressional Republicans are engaged in an effort to teach a skewed form of civics.
Republican Congressmen have introduced a bill to support the teaching of civics in the nation’s high schools. This would ordinarily be great news, if the measure contemplated the teaching of actual Civics–a curriculum like “We the People,” for example. This proposal, however–H.R.5349, the “Crucial Communism Teaching Act”– has been described as “a government mandated curriculum requiring all schools to teach the evils of Communism.” When Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern asked why the bill made no mention of the dangers of Fascism, Republicans refused to answer what certainly seems to be a pertinent question: Why are we teaching kids Communism is bad but failing to teach them about the historic failures (not to mention the deaths) caused by Fascism?
When Rep. McGovern offered an amendment to the Bill to add Fascism to the civics bill, every Republicans voted against that amendment.
Although the most striking aspect of fascist systems is a fervent nationalism–it is characterized by a union between business and the state– in most fascist systems, the uber-rich control the government. Fascist regimes tend to be focused upon a (glorious) past, and to uphold traditional class structures and gender roles that are believed necessary to maintain the social order–a social order that facilitated the acquisition of wealth by those same uber-rich.
The three elements commonly identified with Fascism are 1) a national identity fused with racial/ethnic identity and concepts of racial superiority; 2) rejection of civil liberties and democracy in favor of authoritarian government; and 3) aggressive militarism. Fascists seek to unify the nation through the elevation of the state over the individual, and the mass mobilization of the national community through discipline, indoctrination, and physical training. (Think Nazi Germany.)
When people are being trained to focus on the glory of the state (America First), they are more easily distracted from other concerns–like the takeover of their governments by billionaires intent upon protecting their conflicts of interest and special prerogatives at the expense of the masses they disdain.
Wouldn’t want to teach the kids about that…..they might notice some disquieting similarities….
Looks like the U.S. is headed to becoming the wealthiest Third World Country on earth; are all of the cuts named in the blog where money is coming from to pay for the deportation transportation costs? Or will that come from shutting down all public education?
“What has become very clear as Trump has assembled his “team” is that plutocrats have purchased America’s government.”
My big question is why bother waiting until the worst happens if we know it’s going to happen. I would much prefer to go to war now rather than living out the end of my life watching it fall apart and suffering while it does.
This is a very thoughtful-and thought provoking-post.
Patience, Helen. There will be a war. But this time we’ll be on the fascist side. The monsters about to govern our nation will quickly – because they’ve been wanting this for almost 100 years and fear that the public will wake up and hang them from lamp posts – install and enable their anti-democratic, Nazi 2.0 agenda.
The Constitution? Pfft. If things get sticky, Trump will just decree that the Constitution is suspended. Hitler 2.0. The DOGE reminds me of a statement made by one of the owners of an NFL franchise about his fellow owners: “They prove you don’t have to be smart to be rich”.
I predict that the deportation fiasco will quickly spiral out of control and lead to a massive humanity disaster. All this DOGA stuff will not just enrage the veterans (They already are.), it will create an active/retired brotherhood that may end up overthrowing this den of thieves and idiots.
We’ll see.
The future will be gradually revealed to us initially in words but in due time by reality.
drive a truck and see the regs and the have toos just to make a living. im wondering what else we will be required to uphold to keep our license and job. if the infrastructure issue isnt made to smooth the transistion of goods, then wall street will use it as more profits due delays. get the picture. cost. another way to suck your pockets dry. looking at everyday issues and ignoring the fact getting around to whatever for whatever costs far more now. every aspect of todays fulfillment movement has become a profit for the likes of the above greedstains. facist, ive known that word since being very young,and living with people who lived in it,or volunteered to fight it. seems the word facist doesnt exist here in NoDak since these pinheads see it as everyday demaNDs.. heres a tidbit to make your day. that public road you drive on, seems there will be a tax/fee now. just imagine,every new car since 2000 model year has a tracker on the roof. now ya can be taxed like us truckers for every mile. while we pay thru fuel purchaces, and taxed by the mile in other ways. afterall, we seen how Indianan sold off its toll road for trinkets,to a foreign buisness and raised its price to keep trucks off it. but the local communities around the toll road took notice. trucks get stopped and fined for anything. facism at its best. if the billionaire class has become the new goverment,then the ones who voted for em ,can swin in its sewage too..but thats to come,when they privitise the water works. and a card swipe is planted next to the water fountian. one idea, make sure cash is aways in your pocket. if not, the greedstains will make sure they control/know everything.
Most of the independent journalists I bother to follow have been calling our government Neofascist for decades, regardless of which political party controls Washington. Trump is just more authoritarian than the DP leadership because “democracy” is too slow. They all envy the dictators worldwide because they run the show for their respective countries. Russia’s Putin is their favorite since he has arranged himself as a dictator in an oligarchy. This is Trump’s goal, and he’ll amend the Constitution to get it done, just like Putin did.
As for the evils of communism, Washington has serious issues with China and Xi Jinping. Xi is probably the closest thing to Plato’s “Philosopher King,” which he believed was the ultimate concept of ruling over a country. Marco Rubio has been leading the committee to politicize China and all its influence in the US. TikTok is getting screwed by the federal courts and will most likely get screwed by SCOTUS if they take up the case. College campuses were told to get rid of their Chinese programs or lose federal funding. This has been going on for a while.
Why are Republicans and Democrats so scared of socialism and communism? For the same reason, they want to eliminate the teachings of Marx on campuses.
Vern probably knows more about Marxism than I do. Still, one of Marx’s theories about an imploding or decaying capitalism (where we have been for a while) is that there are two forms of replacement: fascism or socialism. The oligarchy has NO INTEREST in seeing the US turn socialist. Remember the vow Trump made all the politicians in Washington make about being anti-socialist? They all took the vow, but Bernie and the Squad.
Yes, the oligarchy has taken advantage of their wealth for a very long time. They’ve been abusing it for decades. Thus, gross inequality has exploded in the last 40 years. The solution for the American people is democratic socialism or fascism. Can you guess which one the oligarchs want? 😉
Lastly, I believe it was the AP who got comments yesterday from folks close to the investigation of the CEO assassination that Luigi had a personal manifesto and was educated by Ivy League schools. He tried to talk to the press upon his arrest, but the cops wouldn’t let him. He claimed to work alone. We shall see how the media handles this case…
Vernon, I have always taken control of the situations and had a plan and back up plan and a plan in case I fuck it all up somehow. I have never felt this lost. There’s quite a bit of good advice and information on Prof Kennedy’s blog. None of it is helping me plan for the future my family may face. Lots of people are sounding off and ranting in SM but no one is actually telling us how to prepare for daily life.
I am not good at being reactive and caught unprepared, being proactive is a philosophical principle I live by.
I have logged back in to my old FB page just so I can vent at the idiots that got us here, without it the stress is too much.
Thank you, Sheila—I appreciate how you put this in context for us.
Your predictions/ assessments are just about as accurate as Kamala winning.
Even Jill Biden had a pleasant interaction with Trump in Paris @ ND opening. I think she voted for him 😉. Did you forget woman can vote like they want and not like their husbands say ??? 🤣🤣🤣
She hates K – did you see the ice cold shoulder she gave her at the Kennedy Center?
Turn off the ranting, ever irrelevant, and diminishing MSDNC….. Chill out – America is on its way back to glory 🇺🇸
becky. Yeah. On the road to glory. That’s what Hitler sold the good Germans, too. Think about what that got them!
Does anyone here know the extent, if any, to which Hillsdale College faculty may have contributed to the “communism” bill that Sheila mentioned? Sounds like something that’s right up their alley.
What happens when you demolish organizations that enforce law and track shenanigans? You have the inmates running the asylum. The anti Teddy Roosevelts.
This is the ultimate in Me’ism and the Me’ist revolution. With the Nazis in Germany, it was self-glorification and power. They really didn’t care about compassion and empathy for their fellow man, they wanted to keep enmity in the population. The discord that permeated society at that time in Germany, allowed the politicians or leaders if you will, to basically have carte blanche to what They wanted. They hoped they could rule the world. Narcissism on steroids!
All that has to have and is a national emergency is declared. And, it’ll be scary, but all of this other stuff would go away. You would have to wonder what the military would do? But judging by the VA being defunded, I think the military would back up a martial law plan. Dismantle the supreme Court, dismantle Congress, suspend habeas corpus, clean house, and then start over. South Korea tried it for a few hours, lol, but when things got hot president Yoon capitulated.
Is fighting evil easy? Absolutely not, but then what is the alternative? Evil is ruthless, so how do you battle that? In this country it’s been granted a pass for way too long. And it’s become accepted in society. The freedom to murder, the freedom to abuse, the freedom to hate, That’s not democracy, that’s Idiocracy.
Hate should never be tolerated, neither should bigotry or misogyny, but when a majority of the population is stupified, these things are used and manipulated to lead the stupified by their nose rings.
It isn’t going to be pleasant, and, everyone will be standing in line with their hands out for the scraps scraped off the table. Because even though you can see it coming, no one has the stones to do anything about it.
The German population cried and complained that they had nothing to do with what happened there. And when the American soldiers went into Auschwitz, they were horrified. They went into town and brought back the population to bury all those that were piled up for the furnaces, and the German guards that were still there that had been executed by the American soldiers. That’s what happens when you turn a blind eye!
Becky, you are living in a fantasy world. Or, are you really Tucker Carlson, living in his fantasy world?
Trump is in office for two purposes only: To avoid jail, and to scam as much money as possible.
Thank you. One of your best.
Becky, I was brought up to believe that one should always be pleasant, even to our enemies, in social settings. I’m guessing Jill Biden was taught the same.
If I had been used like she was to promote his cologne, my lawyer would be busy preparing to sue Orange Jesus for unauthorized use of my image in his commercial enterprise.
Somebody needs to turn off Fox News and join reality.
And no, I do not watch MSNBC, CNN, or any other cable news programs.
Would be interesting to see if Jill Biden does anything,
Won’t be surprised if she does nothing, how much negative can a family handle?
Sixty years ago my wife and I had a honeymoon similar to what MAGA is having today in that we had independence to celebrate, and no responsibilities to fret about but we also knew that real world experiences would be coming soon that we felt unprepared for and boy were we right about that.
Trump hopes a cabinet will isolate him from responsibility for everything that goes wrong by the simple act from “The Apprentice” which is blame from the boss followed by “you’re fired”.
He will fire many because unlike what is smart in business he proposed people only to hear yes, sir, from candidates instead of based on their real world experience applicable to the area of expertise every Cabinet Secretary is specifically responsible for.
Now faced with the reality of a world changing profoundly every day no matter what we wish for, and inexperienced executives in charge, failures will be coming at a machine gun rate.
Campaign promises are honeymoon promises and have not only a half-life in a rapidly changing world but are forged by the growing reality that is profoundly different when the time comes to implement solutions.
Trump himself is primarily experienced in selling himself (politics) instead of as broadly as human knowledge goes and is going. Not having independent expertise in every Cabinet responsibility that can consider from all perspectives plus speak openly and honestly is a fatal flaw.
The proposed cuts/elimination of major institutions such as the VA, NIH, etc. is utter meshugina, meaning in impolite circles “bat-shit crazy.” Every one of the large institutions Musk despises provides enormous service to the nation and employs directly and indirectly millions of people. Elimination of even a few of the major federal institutions would put hundreds of thousands of educated, skilled people out of work, with resulting losses to the nation and to individuals in the millions. Take the NIH alone: it supports the great majority of high quality bioscience research in the US, through competitively awarded research and career development grants, and employs hundreds of fine scientists at the NIH Center in Maryland and elsewhere. The grant money supports medical schools, research institutes, PhD and MD scientists, laboratory staff, trainees, and workers at the many companies supplying materials and services for research. Should the proposed devastation take place, the US leadership in biomedical research would be in tatters within a year, and the future for innovations in human health dark indeed.
I think it’s important to recognize that, when faced with the consequences, Congress is not likely to cut the major federal agencies so direly as to put their voters into angry poverty and revolt. All the draconian proposals may be a game of Russian Bear: threaten the most dire acts to prepare people to be relieved when the actual damage is smaller than feared.
One thing is for sure: a vote for the GOP this year was a vote for destruction, chaos, oppression, and violence. To MAGA voters I often comment, “Be careful what you wish for; you may get it.”
And Murdoch is trying desperately to continue “his legacy,” keeping Fox and his other ‘journalism enterprises” tilted far to the right; so far, he and Lachlan are not prevailing…. Anyway, I digress. So, thanks Sheila. I’m with you. The way I see it, the billionaires who will run interference for their interests which rarely coincide with those who rely, say, on Medicaid, or need Pell grants to attend college in an effort to advance, will add thier weight to the voice of plutocrats and corporate elites, etc…and this crowd, swelling at least until crypto collapses—couldn’t resist—will dominate, for the time being anyway. I wonder, are those folks paying attention, those, that is, that repeatedly said in one manner or another, “Trump gets us; he understands” and so we will vote for him
I’m inclined to agree with one of our colleagues here when he says, “What has become very clear as Trump has assembled his “team” is that plutocrats have purchased America’s government.” Again, have those who were hoping for something else taking notice? I guess it depends upon where they get their “news.”