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Payback
Dedicated to the Fools, Racists, and Ignorant
People who vote for the GOP and trump or don't vote because they claim it is not important
jan 17, 2020
400 years and they have learned nothing
8 disturbing trends that reveal the South’s battered psyche
From Salon: Across red-state America, especially in the Deep South, the latest statistics show that the cycle of poverty, in its many manifestations, is unchanged and holding firm. Why is this? It’s easy to say this is how Republicans like to run states—cutting budgets, not raising the minimum wage, opposing labor unions. They let the poor and working class stew in their hardscrabble juices. Meanwhile, they distract voters by accusing liberals of waging war on the few sources of personal power in Southerners’ difficult lives: their religious beliefs and owning guns. But go back several decades when segregationist Democrats ruled; for the most part, they weren’t very different from today’s Republicans.
So what is it that perpetuates decades of poverty in the Deep South? What follows are eight bundles of statistics tracking this latest cycle of poverty. Could it be that people who historically have been treated badly, who have little money in their pockets but look to the sky and pray, expect less from others—including the public and private sector? Does that explain why red-staters cling to God, gun ownership and a “leave-me-alone” ferocity?
They expect politicians to defend their values and their pride and little more?
What’s going on here isn’t entirely political, even if it is used by red-state Republicans in their personal drive for power and influence. Look at what the following statistics reveal about red-staters trapped in deep cycles of poverty. What is the thread that connects lousy governance, bad health, evangelical religion and firearms fervor?
1. Southern states have the most poor people.
2. Deep South states have no minimum wage.
3. Deep South has lowest economic mobility.
4. South has lowest per capita spending by state government.
5. Forget about decent preventative healthcare.
6. One result: people self-medicate in response.
7. Forget the lottery, just pray to Jesus.
8. And hold onto that gun!
So what is it that perpetuates decades of poverty in the Deep South? What follows are eight bundles of statistics tracking this latest cycle of poverty. Could it be that people who historically have been treated badly, who have little money in their pockets but look to the sky and pray, expect less from others—including the public and private sector? Does that explain why red-staters cling to God, gun ownership and a “leave-me-alone” ferocity?
They expect politicians to defend their values and their pride and little more?
What’s going on here isn’t entirely political, even if it is used by red-state Republicans in their personal drive for power and influence. Look at what the following statistics reveal about red-staters trapped in deep cycles of poverty. What is the thread that connects lousy governance, bad health, evangelical religion and firearms fervor?
1. Southern states have the most poor people.
2. Deep South states have no minimum wage.
3. Deep South has lowest economic mobility.
4. South has lowest per capita spending by state government.
5. Forget about decent preventative healthcare.
6. One result: people self-medicate in response.
7. Forget the lottery, just pray to Jesus.
8. And hold onto that gun!
payback headlines - how you are screwed!!
*Wisconsin lost 10% of its dairy farmers in 2019, marking its biggest decline ever as Trump's trade wars raged(ARTICLE BELOW)
*US budget deficit running 11.8% higher this year
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*‘We can barely eat’: West Virginia offers a chilling preview of Trump’s food stamp restrictions(ARTICLE BELOW)
*MORE DRUGMAKERS HIKE U.S. PRICES AS NEW YEAR BEGINS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*TRUMP RUNS THE COUNTRY JUST LIKE HE RAN HIS BANKRUPTED BUSINESSES: THE NATIONAL DEBT IS SKYROCKETING WHILE ECONOMIC GROWTH IS LAGGING(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump-supporting farmers forced to apply for food stamps as his trade war hammers their incomes(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The Trump administration has just declared war on Social Security
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*'I won’t be able to have healthy food': millions of Americans to lose lifeline as Trump cuts food stamps(ARTICLE BELOW)
*PAUL KRUGMAN EXPLAINS THE DEPRESSING TRUTH ABOUT LIFE AND DEATH IN RED STATES
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The Senate’s most famous anti-science member is OK with flooding his neighbors — if it keeps his lake view(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Yet another independent study just found Americans have been stuck paying Trump's tariffs(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Deep red town's only grocery closed, city hall opened its own store. Just don't call it 'socialism'(ARTICLE BELOW)
*STUDY: STATES THAT EXPANDED MEDICAID SAVED 19,000 LIVES, STATES THAT DIDN'T LOST 15,000
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*‘I’m very upset’: Furious Texas rancher says Trump is ‘secretly’ trying to steal land to build ‘the wall’(ARTICLE BELOW)
*DAVID CAY JOHNSTON EXPLAINS HOW TRUMP’S TRADE TARIFFS ARE REALLY A TAX ON HIS BASE
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The four Midwestern states that sealed Trump’s 2016 win projected to face economic downturn in 2020(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The U.S. deficit hit $984 billion in 2019, soaring during Trump era
(ARTICLE BELOW)
PAYBACK FUNNIES(at the end)
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GREEN PARTY FucK YOU! - THIS IS WHAT TRUMP HAS WROUGHT...SAME AS HILLARY
Cattledog - demo. underground
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29 rules have been overturned
Flood building standards Proposed ban on a potentially harmful pesticide Freeze on new coal leases on public lands Methane reporting requirement Anti-dumping rule for coal companies Decision on Keystone XL pipeline Decision on Dakota Access pipeline Third-party settlement funds Offshore drilling ban in the Atlantic and Arctic Ban on seismic air gun testing in the Atlantic Northern Bering Sea climate resilience plan Royalty regulations for oil, gas and coal Inclusion of greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews Permit-issuing process for new infrastructure projects Green Climate Fund contributions Mining restrictions in Bristol Bay, Alaska Endangered species listings Hunting ban on wolves and grizzly bears in Alaska Protections for whales and sea turtles Reusable water bottles rule for national parks National parks climate order Environmental mitigation for federal projects Calculation for “social cost” of carbon Planning rule for public lands Copper filter cake listing as hazardous waste Mine cleanup rule Sewage treatment pollution regulations Ban on use of lead ammunition on federal lands Restrictions on fishing |
24 rollbacks are in progress
Clean Power Plan Paris climate agreement Wetland and tributary protections Car and truck fuel-efficiency standards Status of 10 national monuments Status of 12 marine areas Limits on toxic discharge from power plants Coal ash discharge regulations Emissions standards for new, modified and reconstructed power plants Emissions rules for power plant start-up and shutdown Sage grouse habitat protections Fracking regulations on public lands Regulations on oil and gas drilling in some national parks Oil rig safety regulations Regulations for offshore oil and gas exploration by floating vessels Drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge Hunting method regulations in Alaska Requirement for tracking emissions on federal highways Emissions standards for trailers and glider kits Limits on methane emissions on public lands Permitting process for air-polluting plants Offshore oil and gas leasing Use of birds in subsistence handicrafts Coal dust rule |
7 rollbacks are in limbo
Methane emission limits at new oil and gas wells
Limits on landfill emissions
Mercury emission limits for power plants
Hazardous chemical facility regulations
Groundwater protections for uranium mines
Efficiency standards for federal buildings
Rule helping consumers buy fuel-efficient tires
Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/climate/trump-environment-rules-reversed.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Methane emission limits at new oil and gas wells
Limits on landfill emissions
Mercury emission limits for power plants
Hazardous chemical facility regulations
Groundwater protections for uranium mines
Efficiency standards for federal buildings
Rule helping consumers buy fuel-efficient tires
Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/climate/trump-environment-rules-reversed.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
america's reward for voting for republicans!!!
Welcome to RepublicanDebt.org
This site tracks the current Republican Debt.
The Republican Debt is how much of the national debt of the United States
is attributable to
the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush,
George W. Bush, Donald J. Trump,
and
the Republican fiscal policy of Borrow-And-Spend.
As of Wednesday, January 01, 2020 at 8:39:24AM PT,
The Current Republican Debt is:
$14,445,346,980,664.00
which means that in a total of 23 years,
these four presidents have led to the creation of
93.92%
of the entire national debt
in only 9.4262% of the 244 years of the existence of the United States of America.
http://republicandebt.org/
Wisconsin lost 10% of its dairy farmers in 2019, marking its biggest decline ever as Trump's trade wars raged
Joseph Zeballos-Roig - business insider
Jan. 14, 2020, 08:18 AM
Wisconsin shed 10% of its dairy farmers last year, data from the state's Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection shows.
It marked the biggest one-year drop on record, and underscored the negative impact of Trump's trade war on a swing state critical to his re-election bid.
In 2019, Wisconsin lost 819 dairy farms, the department said, leaving 7,292 dairy farms in place. The state leads the nation in the number of farm bankruptcies, according to the American Farm Bureau.
After Trump launched his trade war against China and other friendly nations in 2018, China responded by slapping hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tariffs on American products.
Last year, China slashed its purchases of American dairy products by 50%. Combined with falling milk prices, the trade war has thrown many farmers out of business. The economic environment has worsened considerably for small dairy farms in particular.
The state's coveted 11 electoral votes went to Trump by 23,000 votes in 2016 - or less than one percentage point - a razor-thin margin that promises to make it another key battleground in the 2020 election. Additional volatility could weaken his support among farmers, though their backing remains strong.
Farmers have suffered significant business losses because of the trade war, resulting in a $28 billion bailout package that's double the amount the government forked over to Detroit automakers at the height of the recession a decade ago.
Still, a greater share of that aid may be going to richer farmers. The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization, said in a study released in November that wealthier farmers have drawn larger cash payments compared to poorer ones.
Americans have also borne the brunt of Trump's tariffs. A paper released this week from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that consumers paid for "approximately 100 percent" of the tariffs in the form of increased prices.
However, both China and the United States are set to sign a "phase one" agreement that would de-escalate the trade war on Wednesday.
RELATED: 'We forgive him' Where Christian evangelicals worship Trump more than Jesus
Large numbers of voters across rural Wisconsin flipped from supporting Obama to Trump – now dividing lines over the president are even deeper
RELATED: *STUPIDITY EXPLAINED: SWING VOTERS ON TRUMP 'HE DRIVES ME CRAZY BUT HE'LL GET MY VOTE'
THE LATEST FROM COUNTIES WHERE VOTERS SWUNG FROM OBAMA TO TRUMP: CHRIS MCGREAL FINDS IOWA VOTERS PINING FOR CALM BUT CREDITING TRUMP ON THE ECONOMY
'HE DRIVES ME CRAZY BUT HE'LL GET MY VOTE'
- Wisconsin shed 10% of its dairy farmers last year, according to data from the state's Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection.
- It marked the biggest drop in a single year, and underscored the negative impact of Trump's trade war in a state critical to his re-election bid.
- Last year, China slashed its purchases of American dairy products by 50%, helping to throw scores of farmers out of business.
- The business environment has particularly worsened for small farmers.
Wisconsin shed 10% of its dairy farmers last year, data from the state's Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection shows.
It marked the biggest one-year drop on record, and underscored the negative impact of Trump's trade war on a swing state critical to his re-election bid.
In 2019, Wisconsin lost 819 dairy farms, the department said, leaving 7,292 dairy farms in place. The state leads the nation in the number of farm bankruptcies, according to the American Farm Bureau.
After Trump launched his trade war against China and other friendly nations in 2018, China responded by slapping hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tariffs on American products.
Last year, China slashed its purchases of American dairy products by 50%. Combined with falling milk prices, the trade war has thrown many farmers out of business. The economic environment has worsened considerably for small dairy farms in particular.
The state's coveted 11 electoral votes went to Trump by 23,000 votes in 2016 - or less than one percentage point - a razor-thin margin that promises to make it another key battleground in the 2020 election. Additional volatility could weaken his support among farmers, though their backing remains strong.
Farmers have suffered significant business losses because of the trade war, resulting in a $28 billion bailout package that's double the amount the government forked over to Detroit automakers at the height of the recession a decade ago.
Still, a greater share of that aid may be going to richer farmers. The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization, said in a study released in November that wealthier farmers have drawn larger cash payments compared to poorer ones.
Americans have also borne the brunt of Trump's tariffs. A paper released this week from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that consumers paid for "approximately 100 percent" of the tariffs in the form of increased prices.
However, both China and the United States are set to sign a "phase one" agreement that would de-escalate the trade war on Wednesday.
RELATED: 'We forgive him' Where Christian evangelicals worship Trump more than Jesus
Large numbers of voters across rural Wisconsin flipped from supporting Obama to Trump – now dividing lines over the president are even deeper
RELATED: *STUPIDITY EXPLAINED: SWING VOTERS ON TRUMP 'HE DRIVES ME CRAZY BUT HE'LL GET MY VOTE'
THE LATEST FROM COUNTIES WHERE VOTERS SWUNG FROM OBAMA TO TRUMP: CHRIS MCGREAL FINDS IOWA VOTERS PINING FOR CALM BUT CREDITING TRUMP ON THE ECONOMY
'HE DRIVES ME CRAZY BUT HE'LL GET MY VOTE'
US budget deficit running 11.8% higher this year
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER - ap
1/13/20
The U.S. budget deficit through the first three months of this budget year is up 11.8% from the same period a year ago, putting the country on track to record its first $1 trillion deficit in eight years.
In its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Monday that the deficit from October through December totaled $356.6 billion, up from $318.9 billion for the same period last year.
Both government spending and revenues set records for the first three months of this budget year but spending rose at a faster clip than tax collections, pushing the deficit total up.
The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the deficit for the current 2020 budget year will hit $1 trillion and will remain over $1 trillion for the next decade. The country has not experienced $1 trillion annual deficits since the period from 2009 through 2012 following the 2008 financial crisis.
The actual deficit for the 2019 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, was $984.4 billion, up 26% from the 2018 imbalance, reflecting the impact of the $1.5 trillion tax cut President Donald Trump pushed through Congress in 2017 and increased spending for military and domestic programs that Trump accepted as part of a budget deal with Democrats.
The projections of trillion-dollar deficits are in contrast to Trump’s campaign promise in 2016 that even with his proposed tax cuts, he would be able to eliminate future deficits with cuts in spending and growth in revenues that would result from a stronger economy.
For the first three months of the 2020 budget year, revenues have totaled $806.5 billion, up 4.8% from the same three months a year ago, while government spending has totaled $948.9 billion, an increase of 6.3% from a year ago.
Both the spending amounts and revenue amounts are records for the first three months of a budget year. The deficit in December totaled $13.3 billion, slightly lower than the $13.5 billion deficit in December 2018.
In its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Monday that the deficit from October through December totaled $356.6 billion, up from $318.9 billion for the same period last year.
Both government spending and revenues set records for the first three months of this budget year but spending rose at a faster clip than tax collections, pushing the deficit total up.
The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the deficit for the current 2020 budget year will hit $1 trillion and will remain over $1 trillion for the next decade. The country has not experienced $1 trillion annual deficits since the period from 2009 through 2012 following the 2008 financial crisis.
The actual deficit for the 2019 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, was $984.4 billion, up 26% from the 2018 imbalance, reflecting the impact of the $1.5 trillion tax cut President Donald Trump pushed through Congress in 2017 and increased spending for military and domestic programs that Trump accepted as part of a budget deal with Democrats.
The projections of trillion-dollar deficits are in contrast to Trump’s campaign promise in 2016 that even with his proposed tax cuts, he would be able to eliminate future deficits with cuts in spending and growth in revenues that would result from a stronger economy.
For the first three months of the 2020 budget year, revenues have totaled $806.5 billion, up 4.8% from the same three months a year ago, while government spending has totaled $948.9 billion, an increase of 6.3% from a year ago.
Both the spending amounts and revenue amounts are records for the first three months of a budget year. The deficit in December totaled $13.3 billion, slightly lower than the $13.5 billion deficit in December 2018.
benefits of voting republican!!!
‘We can barely eat’: West Virginia offers a chilling preview of Trump’s food stamp restrictions
January 13, 2020
By Brad Reed - raw story
The Trump administration late last year finalized plans to enforce stricter work requirements for food stamp recipients in a move that’s estimated will kick 750,000 low-income Americans off the program.
The state of West Virginia has had similarly strict requirements on food stamps for the past few years, and the New York Times reports that this policy has increased food insecurity without having a significant impact on employment.
“We can barely eat,” West Virginia resident Chastity Peyton tells the Times.
Peyton and her husband both work — but their jobs don’t offer steady enough hours for them to consistently qualify for food stamps.
All of this has put an added strain on local food banks that have seen a significant increase in clients since the policy change.
“A few years ago, at the first of the month we would be slow and toward the end of the months we would be busy,” Diana Van Horn, who runs a food pantry at the Trinity Episcopal Church in the West Virginia town of Milton, tells the Times. “Now we are busy all the time.”
And Cynthia Kirkhart, who runs the region’s major food bank, tells the Times that people started showing up at the warehouse asking for food after the stricter work requirements were put in place.
West Virginia resident Jerome Comer says that many people in the state simply cannot find jobs because they can’t afford a car.
“You say, ‘Well, they’re able-bodied Americans.’ Yeah, but they live 40 miles out in the holler,” he tells the Times. “They can’t walk to McDonalds.”
Read the whole report here.
The state of West Virginia has had similarly strict requirements on food stamps for the past few years, and the New York Times reports that this policy has increased food insecurity without having a significant impact on employment.
“We can barely eat,” West Virginia resident Chastity Peyton tells the Times.
Peyton and her husband both work — but their jobs don’t offer steady enough hours for them to consistently qualify for food stamps.
All of this has put an added strain on local food banks that have seen a significant increase in clients since the policy change.
“A few years ago, at the first of the month we would be slow and toward the end of the months we would be busy,” Diana Van Horn, who runs a food pantry at the Trinity Episcopal Church in the West Virginia town of Milton, tells the Times. “Now we are busy all the time.”
And Cynthia Kirkhart, who runs the region’s major food bank, tells the Times that people started showing up at the warehouse asking for food after the stricter work requirements were put in place.
West Virginia resident Jerome Comer says that many people in the state simply cannot find jobs because they can’t afford a car.
“You say, ‘Well, they’re able-bodied Americans.’ Yeah, but they live 40 miles out in the holler,” he tells the Times. “They can’t walk to McDonalds.”
Read the whole report here.
hey trumpsters, you are fucked again!!!
More drugmakers hike U.S. prices as new year begins
Michael Erman - reuters
1/1/20
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Drugmakers including Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, Gilead Sciences Inc, and Biogen Inc hiked U.S. list prices on more than 50 drugs on Wednesday, bringing total New Year’s Day drug price increases to more than 250, according to data analyzed by healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that drugmakers including Pfizer Inc, GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Sanofi SA were planning to increase prices on more than 200 drugs in the United States on Jan. 1.
Nearly all of the price increases are below 10% and the median price increase is around 5%, according to 3 Axis.
More early year price increases could still be announced.
Soaring U.S. prescription drug prices are expected to again be a central issue in the presidential election. President Donald Trump, who made bringing them down a core pledge of his 2016 campaign, is running for re-election in 2020.
Many branded drugmakers have pledged to keep their U.S. list price increases below 10% a year, under pressure from politicians and patients.
The United States, which leaves drug pricing to market competition, has higher prices than in other countries where governments directly or indirectly control the costs, making it the world’s most lucrative market for manufacturers.
Drugmakers often negotiate rebates on their list prices in exchange for favorable treatment from healthcare payers. As a result, health insurers and patients rarely pay the full list price of a drug.
Bristol-Myers said in a statement it will not raise list prices on its drugs by more than 6% this year.
The drugmaker raised the price on 10 drugs on Wednesday, including 1.5% price hikes on cancer immunotherapies Opdivo and Yervoy and a 6% increase on its blood thinner Eliquis, all of which bring in billions of dollars in revenue annually.
It also raised the price on Celgene’s flagship multiple myeloma drug, Revlimid, 6%. Bristol acquired rival Celgene in a $74 billion deal last year.
Gilead raised prices on more than 15 drugs including HIV treatments Biktarvy and Truvada less than 5%, according to 3 Axis.
Biogen price increases included a 6% price hike on multiple sclerosis treatment Tecfidera, according to 3 Axis.
Gilead and Biogen could not be immediately reached for comment.
3 Axis advises pharmacy industry groups on identifying inefficiencies in the U.S. drug supply chain and has provided consulting work to hedge fund billionaire John Arnold, a prominent critic of high drug prices.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that drugmakers including Pfizer Inc, GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Sanofi SA were planning to increase prices on more than 200 drugs in the United States on Jan. 1.
Nearly all of the price increases are below 10% and the median price increase is around 5%, according to 3 Axis.
More early year price increases could still be announced.
Soaring U.S. prescription drug prices are expected to again be a central issue in the presidential election. President Donald Trump, who made bringing them down a core pledge of his 2016 campaign, is running for re-election in 2020.
Many branded drugmakers have pledged to keep their U.S. list price increases below 10% a year, under pressure from politicians and patients.
The United States, which leaves drug pricing to market competition, has higher prices than in other countries where governments directly or indirectly control the costs, making it the world’s most lucrative market for manufacturers.
Drugmakers often negotiate rebates on their list prices in exchange for favorable treatment from healthcare payers. As a result, health insurers and patients rarely pay the full list price of a drug.
Bristol-Myers said in a statement it will not raise list prices on its drugs by more than 6% this year.
The drugmaker raised the price on 10 drugs on Wednesday, including 1.5% price hikes on cancer immunotherapies Opdivo and Yervoy and a 6% increase on its blood thinner Eliquis, all of which bring in billions of dollars in revenue annually.
It also raised the price on Celgene’s flagship multiple myeloma drug, Revlimid, 6%. Bristol acquired rival Celgene in a $74 billion deal last year.
Gilead raised prices on more than 15 drugs including HIV treatments Biktarvy and Truvada less than 5%, according to 3 Axis.
Biogen price increases included a 6% price hike on multiple sclerosis treatment Tecfidera, according to 3 Axis.
Gilead and Biogen could not be immediately reached for comment.
3 Axis advises pharmacy industry groups on identifying inefficiencies in the U.S. drug supply chain and has provided consulting work to hedge fund billionaire John Arnold, a prominent critic of high drug prices.
payback for suckers!!!
Trump runs the country just like he ran his bankrupted businesses: The national debt is skyrocketing while economic growth is lagging
December 29, 2019
By Steven Piersanti, DC Report @ Raw Story- Commentary
“How do you impeach a president who has created the greatest Economy in the history of our Country?” Donald Trump tweeted in September. Trump has repeatedly claimed big economic benefits from his presidency. And this claim undergirds a lot of Trump’s popular support.
But the truth is that Trump is a failure economically, both in his business career and in his actions as president. It is time to connect the dots of Trump’s economic failures—in a way that everyone understands.
A powerful way to communicate Trump’s true economic legacy is to brand him as “Bankrupter-in-Chief Trump.” This is the real bottom line of Trump’s business career, and it is what he is actually doing to the country and to individual Americans. To drive home this message, “Bankrupter-in-Chief Trump” should be repeated after each new Trump claim, policy, action and report that illustrates this message—until most Americans understand this as Trump’s true legacy.
Trump campaigned on the promise of eliminating the federal debt within eight years, but what his economic policies have actually been doing is bankrupting the country. The U.S. government’s budget deficit ballooned to almost $1 trillion in 2019, which is nearly a 50 percent increase during Trump’s time in office.
Debt to Top $4.1 Trillion
Trump’s overall contribution to the national debt, for the bills he has signed into law, is projected to top $4.1 trillion, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The largest portion of this increase is coming from Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, which are projected to boost the nation’s debt by $1.8 trillion, according to this group’s analysis.
Trump promised this his economic policies would lead to growth in the economy of between 3 and 4 percent per year, but the reality is that the economy has been growing at barely 2 percent over the past year. And the average economic growth since Trump took office has been a little more than 2.25 percent per year. The promised benefits from the massive tax cut have not materialized, and in fact the United States has now had two consecutive quarters of negative investment growth.
Not only are Trump’s tax cuts not boosting business investment as promised, but they are also bankrupting the country’s economic future. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that deficits will remain massive each year going forward until the total federal government debt reaches nearly 100 percent of the country’s GDP (gross domestic product): “Under current law, the federal government is projected to borrow an additional $13.6 trillion from the end of 2018 through 2029, boosting debt held by the public to $29.3 trillion.”
Squandered Stimulus
The country’s ability to weather economic downturns has also been compromised because the tools of economic stimulus needed to pull the country out of a recession have already been squandered at a time when they were not needed. The country’s economic resources are being wasted with minimal benefit, while its future economic health is endangered.
Another of Trump’s great promises was that he would eliminate the U.S. trade deficit. Here again, Trump’s performance has been disastrous. Far from declining, the U.S. trade deficit is now running some 40 percent above the level it was running when Trump first assumed office.
Bankrupting Individual Americans
Trump administration policies are leading to bankruptcy for large numbers of Americans. Farmers have been hit especially hard. Farm bankruptcies grew to the highest level since 2011, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“Farm debt in 2019 is projected to be a record-high $416 billion,” the Farm Bureau reported in October, while farm income is 29 percent lower than in the record year of 2013.
And this is happening despite the Trump administration directing nearly $30 billion to farmers in bailout programs, which, along with other disaster aid and insurance indemnities, now accounts for nearly 40 percent of farmers’ income. And a lot of that aid has yet to actually reach farmers.
Trump promised that his tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations would lead to more jobs and higher wages for all Americans. But here again, Trump has not delivered on his promises.
Tax Cuts an ‘Enormous Flop’
“From a purely economic standpoint, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 has been an enormous flop,” writes Michael Linden, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative. Average U.S. job creation per month has actually declined in the nearly two years since the law passed. And wage growth has been only a small fraction of what the White House promised.
During his campaign and in his inaugural address, Trump promised to protect the “forgotten man and woman.” He has actually been doing just the opposite by systematically dismantling many protections for individual consumers, protections for individual investors, protections for people preparing for retirement and protections for other Americans.
“The Trump administration is probably the most anti-investor and consumer protection administration in decades, if not ever,” said Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of Better Markets, an investor and consumer watchdog group.
Not only have protections for individual Americans been stripped from regulations and policies, but enforcement of remaining laws and regulations has also plummeted. The result, concludes Public Citizen, is that while Trump “once asserted that he was ‘not going to let Wall Street get away with murder,’ he now is allowing industry after industry to get away with just about anything.” This, too, will cause bankruptcies for large numbers of individual Americans.
Trump also wants to take away access to health insurance for millions by undoing the Affordable Care Act. This would be especially damaging to those with pre-existing conditions, many of whom could not buy health insurance before that law took effect. And if Trump succeeds in undermining the Affordable Care Act, this would cause financial ruin to many more people, given that medical issues and costs are the number one reason Americans file for bankruptcy.
A Career of Business Bankruptcies
Trump cultivates a mythology that he has been tremendously successful in business. The reality is that public records show that six times Trump filed Chapter 11 bankruptcies for his companies. Yes, not once, not twice, but six times! And even in cases where Trump was able to avoid bankruptcy, there were many business failures. For example, “Trump defaulted on the debt of his airline, Trump Shuttle, turning it over to U.S. Airways.”
The full extent of Trump’s failures in business has been largely hidden by this refusal to release his tax returns. But The New York Times was able to obtain tax information from 1985 to 1994 and these records revealed $1.17 billion in business losses in these 10 years alone.
“In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer,” The Times concluded, comparing his losses to publicly available IRS information. These revelations led to newspaper and magazine headlines like this one: “As a Businessman, Trump Was the Biggest Loser of All.”
How was Trump able to stay in business despite many bankruptcies and losing so much money? The answer is that Trump was able to structure his deals so that he was losing other people’s money—that of banks, bond investors, governments and others—more than his own money.
Passing Losses to Others
In other words, Trump was passing financial losses to those who supported him. Not surprisingly, this led many banks and other financial institutions to stop providing financing to Trump.
The principal exception has been Deutsche Bank of Germany: “Over the past two decades, it was the only mainstream financial institution consistently willing to do business with Mr. Trump, who had a history of defaulting on loans. The bank lent him a total of more than $2 billion, about $350 million of which was outstanding when he was sworn in as president.”
This is the same bank that was fined $630 million in 2017 by American and British banking regulators in connection with “around $10 billion in suspicious trades being laundered out of Russia.”
It’s not just banks that have failed to receive payments due from Trump. Hundreds of small businesses, individual contractors, laborers and other ordinary Americans have alleged that Trump has not paid them.
Numerous reports have documented these claims, such as this USA Today story: “Hundreds allege Donald Trump doesn’t pay his bills.” And this Wall Street Journal article, “Donald Trump’s Business Plan Left a Trail of Unpaid Bills.”
Then there is Trump University, which Trump shut down after he settled two class-action lawsuits and a civil lawsuit accusing him of cheating thousands of Americans out of millions of dollars through what many called a “sham.” Unfortunately, some of the 7,000 potential beneficiaries of the $25 million lawsuit settlement passed away before receiving any refund, such as Boyce Chair of Springfield, N.J., who lost $34,995 on so-called mentorship program tuition.
The bottom line is that just as Trump bankrupted business-after-business and built his fortune by passing debt and losses from his failing enterprises on to others, so too is Trump today bankrupting the country and passing the debt and losses from his failing economic policies on to ordinary Americans and to future generations.
But the truth is that Trump is a failure economically, both in his business career and in his actions as president. It is time to connect the dots of Trump’s economic failures—in a way that everyone understands.
A powerful way to communicate Trump’s true economic legacy is to brand him as “Bankrupter-in-Chief Trump.” This is the real bottom line of Trump’s business career, and it is what he is actually doing to the country and to individual Americans. To drive home this message, “Bankrupter-in-Chief Trump” should be repeated after each new Trump claim, policy, action and report that illustrates this message—until most Americans understand this as Trump’s true legacy.
Trump campaigned on the promise of eliminating the federal debt within eight years, but what his economic policies have actually been doing is bankrupting the country. The U.S. government’s budget deficit ballooned to almost $1 trillion in 2019, which is nearly a 50 percent increase during Trump’s time in office.
Debt to Top $4.1 Trillion
Trump’s overall contribution to the national debt, for the bills he has signed into law, is projected to top $4.1 trillion, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The largest portion of this increase is coming from Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, which are projected to boost the nation’s debt by $1.8 trillion, according to this group’s analysis.
Trump promised this his economic policies would lead to growth in the economy of between 3 and 4 percent per year, but the reality is that the economy has been growing at barely 2 percent over the past year. And the average economic growth since Trump took office has been a little more than 2.25 percent per year. The promised benefits from the massive tax cut have not materialized, and in fact the United States has now had two consecutive quarters of negative investment growth.
Not only are Trump’s tax cuts not boosting business investment as promised, but they are also bankrupting the country’s economic future. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that deficits will remain massive each year going forward until the total federal government debt reaches nearly 100 percent of the country’s GDP (gross domestic product): “Under current law, the federal government is projected to borrow an additional $13.6 trillion from the end of 2018 through 2029, boosting debt held by the public to $29.3 trillion.”
Squandered Stimulus
The country’s ability to weather economic downturns has also been compromised because the tools of economic stimulus needed to pull the country out of a recession have already been squandered at a time when they were not needed. The country’s economic resources are being wasted with minimal benefit, while its future economic health is endangered.
Another of Trump’s great promises was that he would eliminate the U.S. trade deficit. Here again, Trump’s performance has been disastrous. Far from declining, the U.S. trade deficit is now running some 40 percent above the level it was running when Trump first assumed office.
Bankrupting Individual Americans
Trump administration policies are leading to bankruptcy for large numbers of Americans. Farmers have been hit especially hard. Farm bankruptcies grew to the highest level since 2011, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“Farm debt in 2019 is projected to be a record-high $416 billion,” the Farm Bureau reported in October, while farm income is 29 percent lower than in the record year of 2013.
And this is happening despite the Trump administration directing nearly $30 billion to farmers in bailout programs, which, along with other disaster aid and insurance indemnities, now accounts for nearly 40 percent of farmers’ income. And a lot of that aid has yet to actually reach farmers.
Trump promised that his tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations would lead to more jobs and higher wages for all Americans. But here again, Trump has not delivered on his promises.
Tax Cuts an ‘Enormous Flop’
“From a purely economic standpoint, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 has been an enormous flop,” writes Michael Linden, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative. Average U.S. job creation per month has actually declined in the nearly two years since the law passed. And wage growth has been only a small fraction of what the White House promised.
During his campaign and in his inaugural address, Trump promised to protect the “forgotten man and woman.” He has actually been doing just the opposite by systematically dismantling many protections for individual consumers, protections for individual investors, protections for people preparing for retirement and protections for other Americans.
“The Trump administration is probably the most anti-investor and consumer protection administration in decades, if not ever,” said Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of Better Markets, an investor and consumer watchdog group.
Not only have protections for individual Americans been stripped from regulations and policies, but enforcement of remaining laws and regulations has also plummeted. The result, concludes Public Citizen, is that while Trump “once asserted that he was ‘not going to let Wall Street get away with murder,’ he now is allowing industry after industry to get away with just about anything.” This, too, will cause bankruptcies for large numbers of individual Americans.
Trump also wants to take away access to health insurance for millions by undoing the Affordable Care Act. This would be especially damaging to those with pre-existing conditions, many of whom could not buy health insurance before that law took effect. And if Trump succeeds in undermining the Affordable Care Act, this would cause financial ruin to many more people, given that medical issues and costs are the number one reason Americans file for bankruptcy.
A Career of Business Bankruptcies
Trump cultivates a mythology that he has been tremendously successful in business. The reality is that public records show that six times Trump filed Chapter 11 bankruptcies for his companies. Yes, not once, not twice, but six times! And even in cases where Trump was able to avoid bankruptcy, there were many business failures. For example, “Trump defaulted on the debt of his airline, Trump Shuttle, turning it over to U.S. Airways.”
The full extent of Trump’s failures in business has been largely hidden by this refusal to release his tax returns. But The New York Times was able to obtain tax information from 1985 to 1994 and these records revealed $1.17 billion in business losses in these 10 years alone.
“In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer,” The Times concluded, comparing his losses to publicly available IRS information. These revelations led to newspaper and magazine headlines like this one: “As a Businessman, Trump Was the Biggest Loser of All.”
How was Trump able to stay in business despite many bankruptcies and losing so much money? The answer is that Trump was able to structure his deals so that he was losing other people’s money—that of banks, bond investors, governments and others—more than his own money.
Passing Losses to Others
In other words, Trump was passing financial losses to those who supported him. Not surprisingly, this led many banks and other financial institutions to stop providing financing to Trump.
The principal exception has been Deutsche Bank of Germany: “Over the past two decades, it was the only mainstream financial institution consistently willing to do business with Mr. Trump, who had a history of defaulting on loans. The bank lent him a total of more than $2 billion, about $350 million of which was outstanding when he was sworn in as president.”
This is the same bank that was fined $630 million in 2017 by American and British banking regulators in connection with “around $10 billion in suspicious trades being laundered out of Russia.”
It’s not just banks that have failed to receive payments due from Trump. Hundreds of small businesses, individual contractors, laborers and other ordinary Americans have alleged that Trump has not paid them.
Numerous reports have documented these claims, such as this USA Today story: “Hundreds allege Donald Trump doesn’t pay his bills.” And this Wall Street Journal article, “Donald Trump’s Business Plan Left a Trail of Unpaid Bills.”
Then there is Trump University, which Trump shut down after he settled two class-action lawsuits and a civil lawsuit accusing him of cheating thousands of Americans out of millions of dollars through what many called a “sham.” Unfortunately, some of the 7,000 potential beneficiaries of the $25 million lawsuit settlement passed away before receiving any refund, such as Boyce Chair of Springfield, N.J., who lost $34,995 on so-called mentorship program tuition.
The bottom line is that just as Trump bankrupted business-after-business and built his fortune by passing debt and losses from his failing enterprises on to others, so too is Trump today bankrupting the country and passing the debt and losses from his failing economic policies on to ordinary Americans and to future generations.
Trump-supporting farmers forced to apply for food stamps as his trade war hammers their incomes
December 26, 2019
By Brad Reed - raw story
A new Washington Post story about the difficulties American farmers are facing under President Donald Trump’s trade war reveals that some farmers have had to significantly reduce their food consumption to make up for plummeting incomes.
The story describes the struggles faced by Andy and Anne Lee, two dairy farmers who live in upstate New York who received a federal bailout check of $4,100 this year but who nevertheless recently applied for food stamps because they were still having trouble putting food on their table.
However, Lee so far has been unable to get her family’s SNAP benefits approved despite the fact that her net farm income was -$12,979 last year. After getting turned down in her initial request for food stamps, Lee went to her local food pantry to pick up necessary groceries.
According to the Post, the Lees are not alone in finding difficulty in getting financial assistance buying food during a tough times for farmers.
“An estimated 197,000 farmers, farmworkers, fishermen and forestry workers use SNAP, according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, but farmers say they sometimes find it difficult to qualify because of complicated rules governing self-employment income,” the Post explains. “And the Trump administration has long-term plans to tighten SNAP eligibility for many.”
The Lees said they voted for Trump in 2016 because they believed he was right to call out America’s trade imbalances. They still believe he has their best interests at heart, even though they acknowledge his trade war has harmed them.
“I know a lot of people don’t like it but, you know, this was going to have to happen in order to make U.S. products become more competitive,” Andy explained to the Post. “It’s going to hurt for a while.”
Read the whole story here.
The story describes the struggles faced by Andy and Anne Lee, two dairy farmers who live in upstate New York who received a federal bailout check of $4,100 this year but who nevertheless recently applied for food stamps because they were still having trouble putting food on their table.
However, Lee so far has been unable to get her family’s SNAP benefits approved despite the fact that her net farm income was -$12,979 last year. After getting turned down in her initial request for food stamps, Lee went to her local food pantry to pick up necessary groceries.
According to the Post, the Lees are not alone in finding difficulty in getting financial assistance buying food during a tough times for farmers.
“An estimated 197,000 farmers, farmworkers, fishermen and forestry workers use SNAP, according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, but farmers say they sometimes find it difficult to qualify because of complicated rules governing self-employment income,” the Post explains. “And the Trump administration has long-term plans to tighten SNAP eligibility for many.”
The Lees said they voted for Trump in 2016 because they believed he was right to call out America’s trade imbalances. They still believe he has their best interests at heart, even though they acknowledge his trade war has harmed them.
“I know a lot of people don’t like it but, you know, this was going to have to happen in order to make U.S. products become more competitive,” Andy explained to the Post. “It’s going to hurt for a while.”
Read the whole story here.
Mawkish, at least when Republicans are in charge
The Trump administration has just declared war on Social Security
December 22, 2019
By Independent Media Institute- Commentary - raw story
American workers contribute to Social Security with every paycheck. When they do, they are earning comprehensive insurance protections. Social Security insures against the loss of wages due to old age, disability, or (for the surviving family of a worker) death. While Social Security is best known as a retirement program, disability and survivor’s benefits are equally essential.
An attack on any part of Social Security is an attack on the entire system and all current and future beneficiaries. The latest proposal from Donald Trump’s administration, which is designed to rip benefits away from hundreds of thousands of Americans with disabilities, amounts to a declaration of war on Social Security.
The Trump administration proposal would require millions of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries to re-prove their eligibility for benefits as often as every six months — far more frequently than is currently the case. There is no justification for this policy. The United States already has some of the strictest eligibility criteria for disability benefits in the world. More than half of all claims are denied.
We should be making it easier for workers to claim the Social Security benefits they’ve earned with every paycheck, not harder. And ripping benefits away from current beneficiaries, who rely on them to survive, is even worse.
We know what the effects of the Trump proposal would be, because Ronald Reagan implemented a very similar benefit cut back in the 1980s. Reagan’s policy ripped away the benefits of 200,000 Americans with disabilities. The New York Times reported that “people with obvious physical and mental disabilities” lost their benefits “without having been interviewed.”
Ultimately, Reagan was forced to reverse his attack on Social Security after massive public outcry, and bipartisan condemnation from Congress — but not before 21,176 people died, including several who died by suicide, “because their benefits were cut off.”
Donald Trump himself might not be a diligent student of history, but his advisers — men like Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s chief of staff and a longtime enemy of Social Security — know exactly what they are doing. They want to resurrect Reagan’s Social Security cut knowing full well that it killed people.
This could impact any of us, even those of us who are currently healthy. Imagine that you are hit by a car tomorrow, and suffer life-altering injuries that prevent you from working. You’re faced with crushing medical bills, and you’ve lost your income. In such situations, SSDI benefits are a crucial lifeline. Donald Trump wants to rip that lifeline away.
Trump and Mulvaney are targeting people with disabilities first, because they perceive them as politically vulnerable. But if they are allowed to get away with this attack, it will be only the beginning. They want to destroy every part of Social Security, including retirement benefits, and turn it over to their criminal friends on Wall Street.[...]
An attack on any part of Social Security is an attack on the entire system and all current and future beneficiaries. The latest proposal from Donald Trump’s administration, which is designed to rip benefits away from hundreds of thousands of Americans with disabilities, amounts to a declaration of war on Social Security.
The Trump administration proposal would require millions of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries to re-prove their eligibility for benefits as often as every six months — far more frequently than is currently the case. There is no justification for this policy. The United States already has some of the strictest eligibility criteria for disability benefits in the world. More than half of all claims are denied.
We should be making it easier for workers to claim the Social Security benefits they’ve earned with every paycheck, not harder. And ripping benefits away from current beneficiaries, who rely on them to survive, is even worse.
We know what the effects of the Trump proposal would be, because Ronald Reagan implemented a very similar benefit cut back in the 1980s. Reagan’s policy ripped away the benefits of 200,000 Americans with disabilities. The New York Times reported that “people with obvious physical and mental disabilities” lost their benefits “without having been interviewed.”
Ultimately, Reagan was forced to reverse his attack on Social Security after massive public outcry, and bipartisan condemnation from Congress — but not before 21,176 people died, including several who died by suicide, “because their benefits were cut off.”
Donald Trump himself might not be a diligent student of history, but his advisers — men like Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s chief of staff and a longtime enemy of Social Security — know exactly what they are doing. They want to resurrect Reagan’s Social Security cut knowing full well that it killed people.
This could impact any of us, even those of us who are currently healthy. Imagine that you are hit by a car tomorrow, and suffer life-altering injuries that prevent you from working. You’re faced with crushing medical bills, and you’ve lost your income. In such situations, SSDI benefits are a crucial lifeline. Donald Trump wants to rip that lifeline away.
Trump and Mulvaney are targeting people with disabilities first, because they perceive them as politically vulnerable. But if they are allowed to get away with this attack, it will be only the beginning. They want to destroy every part of Social Security, including retirement benefits, and turn it over to their criminal friends on Wall Street.[...]
while your family starves, reflect on how you did or did not vote!!!
'I won’t be able to have healthy food': millions of Americans to lose lifeline as Trump cuts food stamps
Michael Sainato
the guardian
Thu 12 Dec 2019 04.15 EST
The Trump administration is rolling out new rules that will reduce Snap benefits, and make millions of Americans ineligible to receive them.
When James Fauntleroy lost his sales job in the summer he quickly found his social security disability benefits did not provide enough to live on. So he turned to a vital lifeline relied upon by many Americans on hard times – food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap).
Fauntleroy, 35, initially received an approval letter, which noted he would receive $197 a month starting immediately. That was enough to help him put food on his table.
But then the bad news came.
“In the beginning of September, I received another letter from the Florida department of children and families stating that my approved amount would change from $197 to $16,” said Fauntleroy, who lives in Orlando, Florida.
Fauntleroy is one of about 40 million low-income Americans who receive at least some Snap benefits every year, a program for which the Trump administration is currently rolling out new rules that will reduce these benefits even further, and make millions of Americans ineligible to receive them. Some people, especially those with disabilities, were already finding it hard to get by on current benefits or falling through the cracks of the system. Now they fear the strict new requirements will make their situations even worse.
For Fauntleroy – who suffers from a kidney disorder – the food stamp cuts are a disaster. “I currently have a gofundme set up to help with living expenses until I can get another part-time job. In the meantime, food is expensive and I also have to choose certain foods as a kidney dialysis patient. So it’s very difficult and weighs on me mentally and emotionally,” he said.
He currently relies on a paratransit service to travel to a kidney dialysis center three times a week, and still has to cover $65 monthly co-pays and the $135 a month medicare deductible taken from his disability benefits. He’s currently searching for another part-time job, because his disability benefits will be suspended entirely if he makes anything over the income limits of about $1,200 a month.
But the Trump administration is determined to target food stamps for cuts.
On 5 December, the United States Department of Agriculture announced the finalization of a new rule that will limit state waivers of federal work requirements for “able-bodied” individuals between the ages of 18 through 49 without dependants.
Currently without a waiver, these individuals cannot receive Snap benefits longer than three months in a three-year period. States have been able to grant waivers to these requirements in regions with high unemployment or insufficient available jobs. The rule is estimated to revoke Snap benefits from 668,000 individuals in the US.
The term “able-bodied” is vague, subject to interpretation of who fits into the requirements as determined by state agencies.
The rule is one of three being pushed by the Trump administration, which is also looking to enact capped income levels for Snap benefits eligibility to twice the poverty level, about $50,000 a year for a family of four. The rule would also prevent households with more than $2,250 in assets, or $3,500 for a household with a disabled adult, from receiving food assistance benefits. Nearly 3 million Americans are expected to lose Snap benefits as a result of this rule.
A third rule would cut $4.5bn from the Snap program over five years, affecting one in five families receiving benefits.
The rules have faced scrutiny for revoking or reducing benefits for millions of Americans struggling with poverty, including eliminating access to free or reduced school lunch meals to 500,000 children.
But many disabled or sick Americans already struggle with obtaining Snap benefits or maintaining them under current requirements. Their situation, already tough, is now going to get worse.
They are people like Virgil Garwood, 37, of Woodville, Ohio, who was only receiving $50 a month in Snap benefits while fighting thyroid cancer. He receives social security disability insurance and is unable to work due to seizures, bone degradation, and the frequent surgeries his treatment requires.
But under the Trump administration, his benefits were reduced to just $15 a month, though his financial situation had not changed at all.
“My state requires Snap recipients to attend a class for proper nutrition, another class for budgeting, and a class that explained the program and how to apply for jobs. The entire time you were a recipient you were expected to be looking for employment and be able to provide proof,” said Garwood. “I let the program lapse because driving out to the classes to maintain benefits would cost way more than the $15 it’s bringing in.”
Jennifer Pracht of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has relied on Snap benefits to provider for herself and her 14-year-old daughter since she became disabled and unable to work due to spinal issues in 2012.
“For some reason this year, my amount was cut by $105 a month. Nothing has changed on my end for them to cut the amount. But, they did,” said Pracht. She’s concerned more unannounced cuts to her benefits are coming.
“I have no idea how I’m going to put food on the table for a whole month, let alone have that food be healthy. I won’t be able to have healthy food in this house because it’s so much more expensive.”
Several individuals who spoke to the Guardian about their experience with Snap benefits requested to remain anonymous or only go by their first name.
Lisa, 47, in Michigan began receiving Snap benefits in April 2018 while waiting on her social security disability insurance filing to be approved. In October 2018, she lost her Snap benefits due to work requirements.
“Food insecurity was a constant. I kept a running tally in my head of what food was in the kitchen and how many meals I had left, compared to how long before I might get money again.” said Lisa. “This isn’t a huge amount of money. This isn’t about people going out and living high on the hog on the taxpayer’s dime. This is about people scraping to get by, and that little bit of money a month is a godsend.”
A 40-year-old woman in South Berwick, Maine, currently receives $130 a month in Snap benefits and social security disability insurance as she suffers from Ehler’s Danlos syndrome, a vascular genetic condition, and several other disabilities.
Much of her disability payment goes toward rent, as she only recently moved into stable housing after struggling with homelessness for several years. She has no reliable transportation to a grocery store, and has dietary restrictions associated with her disability.
“I always have to set aside a food and transportation budget from my social security disability, which is $760 a month,” she said. “I don’t think $130 a month is enough for anyone to survive on and I get the maximum benefit, especially when they have multiple disabilities and can’t find work.”
When James Fauntleroy lost his sales job in the summer he quickly found his social security disability benefits did not provide enough to live on. So he turned to a vital lifeline relied upon by many Americans on hard times – food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap).
Fauntleroy, 35, initially received an approval letter, which noted he would receive $197 a month starting immediately. That was enough to help him put food on his table.
But then the bad news came.
“In the beginning of September, I received another letter from the Florida department of children and families stating that my approved amount would change from $197 to $16,” said Fauntleroy, who lives in Orlando, Florida.
Fauntleroy is one of about 40 million low-income Americans who receive at least some Snap benefits every year, a program for which the Trump administration is currently rolling out new rules that will reduce these benefits even further, and make millions of Americans ineligible to receive them. Some people, especially those with disabilities, were already finding it hard to get by on current benefits or falling through the cracks of the system. Now they fear the strict new requirements will make their situations even worse.
For Fauntleroy – who suffers from a kidney disorder – the food stamp cuts are a disaster. “I currently have a gofundme set up to help with living expenses until I can get another part-time job. In the meantime, food is expensive and I also have to choose certain foods as a kidney dialysis patient. So it’s very difficult and weighs on me mentally and emotionally,” he said.
He currently relies on a paratransit service to travel to a kidney dialysis center three times a week, and still has to cover $65 monthly co-pays and the $135 a month medicare deductible taken from his disability benefits. He’s currently searching for another part-time job, because his disability benefits will be suspended entirely if he makes anything over the income limits of about $1,200 a month.
But the Trump administration is determined to target food stamps for cuts.
On 5 December, the United States Department of Agriculture announced the finalization of a new rule that will limit state waivers of federal work requirements for “able-bodied” individuals between the ages of 18 through 49 without dependants.
Currently without a waiver, these individuals cannot receive Snap benefits longer than three months in a three-year period. States have been able to grant waivers to these requirements in regions with high unemployment or insufficient available jobs. The rule is estimated to revoke Snap benefits from 668,000 individuals in the US.
The term “able-bodied” is vague, subject to interpretation of who fits into the requirements as determined by state agencies.
The rule is one of three being pushed by the Trump administration, which is also looking to enact capped income levels for Snap benefits eligibility to twice the poverty level, about $50,000 a year for a family of four. The rule would also prevent households with more than $2,250 in assets, or $3,500 for a household with a disabled adult, from receiving food assistance benefits. Nearly 3 million Americans are expected to lose Snap benefits as a result of this rule.
A third rule would cut $4.5bn from the Snap program over five years, affecting one in five families receiving benefits.
The rules have faced scrutiny for revoking or reducing benefits for millions of Americans struggling with poverty, including eliminating access to free or reduced school lunch meals to 500,000 children.
But many disabled or sick Americans already struggle with obtaining Snap benefits or maintaining them under current requirements. Their situation, already tough, is now going to get worse.
They are people like Virgil Garwood, 37, of Woodville, Ohio, who was only receiving $50 a month in Snap benefits while fighting thyroid cancer. He receives social security disability insurance and is unable to work due to seizures, bone degradation, and the frequent surgeries his treatment requires.
But under the Trump administration, his benefits were reduced to just $15 a month, though his financial situation had not changed at all.
“My state requires Snap recipients to attend a class for proper nutrition, another class for budgeting, and a class that explained the program and how to apply for jobs. The entire time you were a recipient you were expected to be looking for employment and be able to provide proof,” said Garwood. “I let the program lapse because driving out to the classes to maintain benefits would cost way more than the $15 it’s bringing in.”
Jennifer Pracht of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has relied on Snap benefits to provider for herself and her 14-year-old daughter since she became disabled and unable to work due to spinal issues in 2012.
“For some reason this year, my amount was cut by $105 a month. Nothing has changed on my end for them to cut the amount. But, they did,” said Pracht. She’s concerned more unannounced cuts to her benefits are coming.
“I have no idea how I’m going to put food on the table for a whole month, let alone have that food be healthy. I won’t be able to have healthy food in this house because it’s so much more expensive.”
Several individuals who spoke to the Guardian about their experience with Snap benefits requested to remain anonymous or only go by their first name.
Lisa, 47, in Michigan began receiving Snap benefits in April 2018 while waiting on her social security disability insurance filing to be approved. In October 2018, she lost her Snap benefits due to work requirements.
“Food insecurity was a constant. I kept a running tally in my head of what food was in the kitchen and how many meals I had left, compared to how long before I might get money again.” said Lisa. “This isn’t a huge amount of money. This isn’t about people going out and living high on the hog on the taxpayer’s dime. This is about people scraping to get by, and that little bit of money a month is a godsend.”
A 40-year-old woman in South Berwick, Maine, currently receives $130 a month in Snap benefits and social security disability insurance as she suffers from Ehler’s Danlos syndrome, a vascular genetic condition, and several other disabilities.
Much of her disability payment goes toward rent, as she only recently moved into stable housing after struggling with homelessness for several years. She has no reliable transportation to a grocery store, and has dietary restrictions associated with her disability.
“I always have to set aside a food and transportation budget from my social security disability, which is $760 a month,” she said. “I don’t think $130 a month is enough for anyone to survive on and I get the maximum benefit, especially when they have multiple disabilities and can’t find work.”
the ultimate payback: vote & live in red states and die quick!!!
Paul Krugman explains the depressing truth about life and death in red states
December 3, 2019
By Alex Henderson, AlterNet- Commentary
Over the years, Paul Krugman has come across his share of Republicans who claim that thanks to right-wing economic policies, the United States is #1 in life expectancy — and the liberal economist and New York Times columnist typically responds that in fact, the U.S. lags behind a long list of developed countries where life expectancy is concerned. Krugman, in his December 2 column for the Times, compares life expectancy rates within the U.S. — demonstrating that the redder the state, the more likely one is to die young.
“Back in the Bush years,” Krugman explains, “I used to encounter people who insisted that the United States had the world’s longest life expectancy. They hadn’t looked at the data, they just assumed that America was No. 1 on everything. Even then, it wasn’t true: U.S. life expectancy has been below that of other advanced countries for a long time.”
Krugman goes on to say, “What I haven’t seen emphasized is the divergence in life expectancy within the United States and its close correlation with political orientation.” And Krugman, drawing on data presented in a 2018 article for the Journal for the American Medical Association, notes that residents of GOP-controlled states are more likely to die younger.
“I looked at states that voted for Donald Trump versus states that voted for Clinton in 2016, and calculated average life expectancy weighted by their 2016 population,” Krugman notes. “In 1990, today’s red and blue states had almost the same life expectancy. Since then, however, life expectancy in Clinton states has risen more or less in line with other advanced countries, compared with almost no gain in Trump country. At this point, blue-state residents can expect to live more than four years longer than their red-state counterparts.”
Krugman attributes this red state/blue state disparity on life expectancy to a variety of factors, including access to health care, obesity rates and education.
“Public policy certainly plays some role, especially in recent years, as blue states expanded Medicaid and drastically reduced the number of uninsured, while most red states didn’t,” Krugman observes. “The growing gap in educational levels has also surely played a role: better-educated people tend to be healthier than the less educated.”
Krugman also notes, “The prevalence of obesity has soared all across America since 1990, but obesity rates are significantly higher in red states.”
Krugman ends his column by noting that Attorney General William Barr has blamed “militant secularists” for suicide rates and substance abuse problems in the U.S., explaining why Barr’s claim is misleading.
“European nations, which are far more secularist than we are, haven’t seen a comparable rise in deaths of despair and an American-style decline in life expectancy,” Krugman stresses. “And even within America, these evils are concentrated in states that voted for Trump and have largely bypassed the more secular blue states. So, something bad is definitely happening to American society. But the conservative diagnosis of that problem is wrong — dead wrong.”
“Back in the Bush years,” Krugman explains, “I used to encounter people who insisted that the United States had the world’s longest life expectancy. They hadn’t looked at the data, they just assumed that America was No. 1 on everything. Even then, it wasn’t true: U.S. life expectancy has been below that of other advanced countries for a long time.”
Krugman goes on to say, “What I haven’t seen emphasized is the divergence in life expectancy within the United States and its close correlation with political orientation.” And Krugman, drawing on data presented in a 2018 article for the Journal for the American Medical Association, notes that residents of GOP-controlled states are more likely to die younger.
“I looked at states that voted for Donald Trump versus states that voted for Clinton in 2016, and calculated average life expectancy weighted by their 2016 population,” Krugman notes. “In 1990, today’s red and blue states had almost the same life expectancy. Since then, however, life expectancy in Clinton states has risen more or less in line with other advanced countries, compared with almost no gain in Trump country. At this point, blue-state residents can expect to live more than four years longer than their red-state counterparts.”
Krugman attributes this red state/blue state disparity on life expectancy to a variety of factors, including access to health care, obesity rates and education.
“Public policy certainly plays some role, especially in recent years, as blue states expanded Medicaid and drastically reduced the number of uninsured, while most red states didn’t,” Krugman observes. “The growing gap in educational levels has also surely played a role: better-educated people tend to be healthier than the less educated.”
Krugman also notes, “The prevalence of obesity has soared all across America since 1990, but obesity rates are significantly higher in red states.”
Krugman ends his column by noting that Attorney General William Barr has blamed “militant secularists” for suicide rates and substance abuse problems in the U.S., explaining why Barr’s claim is misleading.
“European nations, which are far more secularist than we are, haven’t seen a comparable rise in deaths of despair and an American-style decline in life expectancy,” Krugman stresses. “And even within America, these evils are concentrated in states that voted for Trump and have largely bypassed the more secular blue states. So, something bad is definitely happening to American society. But the conservative diagnosis of that problem is wrong — dead wrong.”
voters keep voting republican and drowning!!!
The Senate’s most famous anti-science member is OK with flooding his neighbors — if it keeps his lake view
November 27, 2019
By Sarah Okeson, DCReport @ RawStory
Sen Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), the powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, tucked an amendment into the $750 billion defense spending bill that would benefit fellow wealthy homeowners at Grand Lake in northeast Oklahoma by keeping lake levels high but is expected to worsen flooding in nearby Miami, Okla.
The amendment, which starts on page 1,183 of the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act, would limit the ability of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to say how high the lake should be. The Grand River Dam Authority, which has board members who also own lake houses, is licensed by the commission to operate the dam.
“He’s helping his buddies to make sure the lake is full during summer so those very big boats do well,” said Rebecca Jim of Local Environmental Action Demanded which put up a billboard in Miami criticizing Inhofe.
Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees was created in 1940, when the federal government’s New Deal-era Public Works Administration built the Pensacola Dam on the Grand River. The 66-mile-long lake is so beloved by the wealthy and powerful of Oklahoma that one of its subdivisions is called Governors Retreat. Inhofe, a climate-change denier and vocal anti-environmentalist with an estimated net worth is $4.5 million, built a vacation house at Grand Lake in 1962. Former Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin and her husband bought a second home on Grand Lake in 2011. Dam authority board members Pete Churchwell, Jim Richie and Tom Kimball also have lake houses.
“For the better part of my career in the United States Senate I have been working to maintain higher lake levels on Grand,” Inhofe wrote the commission in 2016.
Law professor Richard Painter said the annual defense bill has been used before to try to get environmentally questionable projects through Congress. In 2018, the Senate defense bill included an amendment that would nullify lawsuits over a land exchange for PolyMet Mining Co. to build a copper-nickel mine in Minnesota. That provision was removed before the bill went to the president.
“That’s something that should not be dealt with in a defense appropriations bill,” said Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration.
The federal financial conflict of interest law exempts members of Congress, the president and the vice president. Miami officials learned about Inhofe’s amendment just before the July 4 holiday from the press.
“It’s just as unfair as it can be,” said Miami City Manager Dean Kruithof.
Since the early 1990s, Miami has flooded more than two dozen times, most recently in May. A 2015 study Miami paid for found that the dam worsened flooding.
“The economic and social fabric of the community is slowly being destroyed,” said Miami Mayor Rudy Schultz.
Natasha McKibben spent her oldest son’s eighth birthday packing up their house near Miami, shortly before it flooded in 2007, causing $30 million to $40 million in damage to Miami and the surrounding area. Some of her neighbors’ houses are still vacant.
“We had a FEMA trailer for probably two months before we could get back in the house,” McKibben said.
Miami officials had hoped to address flooding problems with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The license for the dam runs through March 2022. The dam authority now wants to extend the license until Dec. 31, 2026.
The amendment, which starts on page 1,183 of the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act, would limit the ability of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to say how high the lake should be. The Grand River Dam Authority, which has board members who also own lake houses, is licensed by the commission to operate the dam.
“He’s helping his buddies to make sure the lake is full during summer so those very big boats do well,” said Rebecca Jim of Local Environmental Action Demanded which put up a billboard in Miami criticizing Inhofe.
Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees was created in 1940, when the federal government’s New Deal-era Public Works Administration built the Pensacola Dam on the Grand River. The 66-mile-long lake is so beloved by the wealthy and powerful of Oklahoma that one of its subdivisions is called Governors Retreat. Inhofe, a climate-change denier and vocal anti-environmentalist with an estimated net worth is $4.5 million, built a vacation house at Grand Lake in 1962. Former Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin and her husband bought a second home on Grand Lake in 2011. Dam authority board members Pete Churchwell, Jim Richie and Tom Kimball also have lake houses.
“For the better part of my career in the United States Senate I have been working to maintain higher lake levels on Grand,” Inhofe wrote the commission in 2016.
Law professor Richard Painter said the annual defense bill has been used before to try to get environmentally questionable projects through Congress. In 2018, the Senate defense bill included an amendment that would nullify lawsuits over a land exchange for PolyMet Mining Co. to build a copper-nickel mine in Minnesota. That provision was removed before the bill went to the president.
“That’s something that should not be dealt with in a defense appropriations bill,” said Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration.
The federal financial conflict of interest law exempts members of Congress, the president and the vice president. Miami officials learned about Inhofe’s amendment just before the July 4 holiday from the press.
“It’s just as unfair as it can be,” said Miami City Manager Dean Kruithof.
Since the early 1990s, Miami has flooded more than two dozen times, most recently in May. A 2015 study Miami paid for found that the dam worsened flooding.
“The economic and social fabric of the community is slowly being destroyed,” said Miami Mayor Rudy Schultz.
Natasha McKibben spent her oldest son’s eighth birthday packing up their house near Miami, shortly before it flooded in 2007, causing $30 million to $40 million in damage to Miami and the surrounding area. Some of her neighbors’ houses are still vacant.
“We had a FEMA trailer for probably two months before we could get back in the house,” McKibben said.
Miami officials had hoped to address flooding problems with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The license for the dam runs through March 2022. The dam authority now wants to extend the license until Dec. 31, 2026.
Yet another independent study just found Americans have been stuck paying Trump's tariffs
Gina Heeb - business insider
Nov. 25, 2019, 03:05 PM
The costs of punitive tariffs rolled out against China over the past year have largely fallen on US businesses and consumers, the New York Federal Reserve said Monday.
The central bank found in a new study that Chinese businesses have not significantly lowered prices on exports to the US in response to the trade dispute that began in early 2018. That signaled that Americans have instead had to absorb additional import taxes levied by the Trump administration, estimated at around $40 billion annually.
"The continued stability of import prices for goods from China means US firms and consumers have to pay the tariff tax," Fed economists Matthew Higgins, Thomas Klitgaard, and Michael Nattinger wrote in the study.
The findings added to a long string of research that has contradicted a repeated claim by President Donald Trump: that foreign exporters have paid the import taxes of up to 25% on thousands of products.
The White House has continued to assert that claim even after the same conclusion was reached in several other major independent studies, including from Princeton, Yale and the University of Chicago.
"China is paying us tremendous — and they're paying for it," Trump said at a Cabinet meeting last week. "Those tariffs are not paid by us. Those tariffs are paid because they're devaluing their currency and pouring cash into their economy."
But the New York Fed said its findings suggested Chinese firms have not used exchange rates to maintain competitiveness through lower prices.
"Instead, they've accepted the loss in competitiveness in the US market and have used the weaker currency to pad profits on each unit of sales," Higgins, Klitgaard, and Nattinger wrote.
- The costs of punitive tariffs that rolled out against China over the past year have largely fallen on US businesses and consumers, the New York Fed said Monday.
- The findings added to a long string of independent research with the same results.
- That contradicts a repeated claim by President Donald Trump that China pays tariffs.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
The costs of punitive tariffs rolled out against China over the past year have largely fallen on US businesses and consumers, the New York Federal Reserve said Monday.
The central bank found in a new study that Chinese businesses have not significantly lowered prices on exports to the US in response to the trade dispute that began in early 2018. That signaled that Americans have instead had to absorb additional import taxes levied by the Trump administration, estimated at around $40 billion annually.
"The continued stability of import prices for goods from China means US firms and consumers have to pay the tariff tax," Fed economists Matthew Higgins, Thomas Klitgaard, and Michael Nattinger wrote in the study.
The findings added to a long string of research that has contradicted a repeated claim by President Donald Trump: that foreign exporters have paid the import taxes of up to 25% on thousands of products.
The White House has continued to assert that claim even after the same conclusion was reached in several other major independent studies, including from Princeton, Yale and the University of Chicago.
"China is paying us tremendous — and they're paying for it," Trump said at a Cabinet meeting last week. "Those tariffs are not paid by us. Those tariffs are paid because they're devaluing their currency and pouring cash into their economy."
But the New York Fed said its findings suggested Chinese firms have not used exchange rates to maintain competitiveness through lower prices.
"Instead, they've accepted the loss in competitiveness in the US market and have used the weaker currency to pad profits on each unit of sales," Higgins, Klitgaard, and Nattinger wrote.
DEEP RED TOWN'S ONLY GROCERY CLOSED, CITY HALL OPENED ITS OWN STORE. JUST DON'T CALL IT 'SOCIALISM'
IronLionZion - demo underground
11/22/19
BALDWIN, Fla. — When Sean Lynch ran for mayor, he never anticipated that the job would involve hiring a butcher and tracking the sale of collard greens.
But in 2018, two years into his first term, the only grocery store in town shut down. People in Baldwin, Fla., a rural outpost in northeast Florida, were left with few options. They could leave town, driving 10 miles through road construction to nearby Macclenny or battling 20 miles of freeway traffic through Jacksonville’s suburban sprawl. Alternatively, they could cobble together a meal out of canned goods from the local Dollar General, or head to a nearby truck stop for greasy, deep-fried fast food.
For many of Baldwin’s roughly 1,600 residents, though, traveling for food wasn’t really a choice. The town’s median household income of $44,271 is well below the state average, and it’s not uncommon for families to juggle their schedules around sharing one car. Senior citizens also make up a significant percentage of the population, and many no longer drive.
So Lynch came to his colleagues with a proposal: What if the town opened its own grocery store?
Abandoned by mainstream supermarkets whose business models don’t have room for low profit margins, both urban and rural communities nationwide have turned to resident-owned co-ops or nonprofits to fill the gap. But Baldwin is trying something different. At the Baldwin Market, which opened its doors on Sept. 20, all of the employees are on the municipal payroll, from the butcher to the cashiers. Workers from the town’s maintenance department take breaks from cutting grass to help unload deliveries, and residents flag down the mayor when they want to request a specific type of milk.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/11/22/baldwin-florida-food-desert-city-owned-grocery-store/
But in 2018, two years into his first term, the only grocery store in town shut down. People in Baldwin, Fla., a rural outpost in northeast Florida, were left with few options. They could leave town, driving 10 miles through road construction to nearby Macclenny or battling 20 miles of freeway traffic through Jacksonville’s suburban sprawl. Alternatively, they could cobble together a meal out of canned goods from the local Dollar General, or head to a nearby truck stop for greasy, deep-fried fast food.
For many of Baldwin’s roughly 1,600 residents, though, traveling for food wasn’t really a choice. The town’s median household income of $44,271 is well below the state average, and it’s not uncommon for families to juggle their schedules around sharing one car. Senior citizens also make up a significant percentage of the population, and many no longer drive.
So Lynch came to his colleagues with a proposal: What if the town opened its own grocery store?
Abandoned by mainstream supermarkets whose business models don’t have room for low profit margins, both urban and rural communities nationwide have turned to resident-owned co-ops or nonprofits to fill the gap. But Baldwin is trying something different. At the Baldwin Market, which opened its doors on Sept. 20, all of the employees are on the municipal payroll, from the butcher to the cashiers. Workers from the town’s maintenance department take breaks from cutting grass to help unload deliveries, and residents flag down the mayor when they want to request a specific type of milk.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/11/22/baldwin-florida-food-desert-city-owned-grocery-store/
Study: States that expanded Medicaid saved 19,000 lives, states that didn't lost 15,000
Joan McCarter for Daily Kos
Saturday November 16, 2019 · 8:00 AM PST
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports on a new study of all the states in the nation, demonstrating that those that took Medicaid expansion "saved the lives of at least 19,200 adults aged 55 to 64 over the four-year period from 2014 to 2017." The flip side is that 15,600 older adults died prematurely in the states that didn't accept the expansion in those years.
Following on other studies which have found that more low-income adults in Medicaid expansion states have used medication to control chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes, researchers at the University of Michigan, National Institutes of Health, Census Bureau, and University of California Los Angeles have found clear evidence of a drop in mortality from these kinds of chronic conditions. The researchers focused on the group of pre-Medicare older Americans who have higher mortality rates and have a greater risk of premature death from treatable conditions. Using this group, they constructed a "novel dataset that links the American Community Survey—the largest federal survey with information on income, age, and other determinants of Medicaid eligibility—with administrative death records. The large sample lets them detect small changes in mortality that aren’t evident in other data." It also reaches a threshold that makes it statistically significant.
Their findings are significant: "In 2014 the annual mortality rate for low-income older adults in expansion states fell by about 9 deaths per 10,000 people, compared to similar adults in non-expansion states, with the impact growing each year to about 21 deaths per 10,000 people in year 4." That's how they determine the total numbers of avoided deaths and premature deaths in expansion and non-expansion states. They compared these numbers to National Highway Traffic Safety Commission data, and figured out that if all of the states had expanded Medicaid, as many lives would have been saved by coverage as by seatbelts.
That's 2,920 premature deaths in Texas that could have been prevented; 2,776 in Florida; 1,400 in North Carolina; and 1,336 in Georgia. What the study doesn't get into is how saving tens of thousands of lives by managing chronic conditions saved families and the states money that would have gone to critical or end-of-life care; how many people were able to remain active and in the work force; and how quality of life was affected for individuals and their families.
None of this matters to the Republican lawmakers who decided they had to refuse the expansion because Obama (or, for that matter, Chief Justice John Roberts, who engineered the whole debacle of states being able to turn it down under the law). Remember all of these numbers as the debate over Medicare for All heats up when we have a Democratic president again. And never forget that Republicans really don't give a damn if you live or die.
Following on other studies which have found that more low-income adults in Medicaid expansion states have used medication to control chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes, researchers at the University of Michigan, National Institutes of Health, Census Bureau, and University of California Los Angeles have found clear evidence of a drop in mortality from these kinds of chronic conditions. The researchers focused on the group of pre-Medicare older Americans who have higher mortality rates and have a greater risk of premature death from treatable conditions. Using this group, they constructed a "novel dataset that links the American Community Survey—the largest federal survey with information on income, age, and other determinants of Medicaid eligibility—with administrative death records. The large sample lets them detect small changes in mortality that aren’t evident in other data." It also reaches a threshold that makes it statistically significant.
Their findings are significant: "In 2014 the annual mortality rate for low-income older adults in expansion states fell by about 9 deaths per 10,000 people, compared to similar adults in non-expansion states, with the impact growing each year to about 21 deaths per 10,000 people in year 4." That's how they determine the total numbers of avoided deaths and premature deaths in expansion and non-expansion states. They compared these numbers to National Highway Traffic Safety Commission data, and figured out that if all of the states had expanded Medicaid, as many lives would have been saved by coverage as by seatbelts.
That's 2,920 premature deaths in Texas that could have been prevented; 2,776 in Florida; 1,400 in North Carolina; and 1,336 in Georgia. What the study doesn't get into is how saving tens of thousands of lives by managing chronic conditions saved families and the states money that would have gone to critical or end-of-life care; how many people were able to remain active and in the work force; and how quality of life was affected for individuals and their families.
None of this matters to the Republican lawmakers who decided they had to refuse the expansion because Obama (or, for that matter, Chief Justice John Roberts, who engineered the whole debacle of states being able to turn it down under the law). Remember all of these numbers as the debate over Medicare for All heats up when we have a Democratic president again. And never forget that Republicans really don't give a damn if you live or die.
‘I’m very upset’: Furious Texas rancher says Trump is ‘secretly’ trying to steal land to build ‘the wall’
November 17, 2019
By Sarah K. Burris - raw story
Ranchers in Laredo, Texas, are furious as they’re learning President Donald Trump is stealing their land away to build the “wall,” he says, has already been built.
During a campaign stop in Louisiana Thursday, Trump said that his wall is “going up faster than anyone thought possible.” But when probed about it, Trump’s own top border official confirmed none of the wall has been built, in fact, all that has been built replaced existing structures.
Only four miles of the area where the Trump “wall” is going is owned by the federal government already. So, the White House is now calling land-owners on the Texas border to beg them to cooperate with their landgrab.
Surveyors are being sent in to outline how much will be taken from Texans through eminent domain.
David Acevedo is a Texas rancher on the border that has owned the land for three generations of his family after his grandfather migrated to the U.S. after Pancho Villa’s revolution, over 100 years ago. His grandfather then purchased the land and began his own ranch there.
“We got a phone call to attend a meeting in their south station heading out to our property,” Acevedo said. “And I felt it was a little — 20 owners probably showed up to this meeting that they invited. I had communicated with other neighbors of mine to go out to the meeting because there was going to be a meeting discussing the border wall. And it was my surprise that whoever was on that list was allowed into the meeting, and no media was allowed in. And none of the neighbors were allowed in, only the people that they called which was about a group of 20.”
“When they gave us the survey and site assessments, they provided a little site-plan for the property, and they showed pretty much what area was going to be affected,” he continued. “In our case, it was probably about 20 percent of our property of the 180 acres. It all depends they were saying that it was all going to be referencing the river and how would it affect the floodplain in the area to depend on how much property was going to be affected.”
Acevedo said he was “very upset” and specifically bothered by all of the secrecy surrounding it.
“I wish people could come out and take a look at our place,” he said. “You know, it is a beautiful place. The scenery is great. Recreation is great. There is plenty of wildlife, you know we’ve been farming and growing hay for cattle production for many, many years now and I don’t see how they can say hey, we want to go over there and build a wall there.”
During a campaign stop in Louisiana Thursday, Trump said that his wall is “going up faster than anyone thought possible.” But when probed about it, Trump’s own top border official confirmed none of the wall has been built, in fact, all that has been built replaced existing structures.
Only four miles of the area where the Trump “wall” is going is owned by the federal government already. So, the White House is now calling land-owners on the Texas border to beg them to cooperate with their landgrab.
Surveyors are being sent in to outline how much will be taken from Texans through eminent domain.
David Acevedo is a Texas rancher on the border that has owned the land for three generations of his family after his grandfather migrated to the U.S. after Pancho Villa’s revolution, over 100 years ago. His grandfather then purchased the land and began his own ranch there.
“We got a phone call to attend a meeting in their south station heading out to our property,” Acevedo said. “And I felt it was a little — 20 owners probably showed up to this meeting that they invited. I had communicated with other neighbors of mine to go out to the meeting because there was going to be a meeting discussing the border wall. And it was my surprise that whoever was on that list was allowed into the meeting, and no media was allowed in. And none of the neighbors were allowed in, only the people that they called which was about a group of 20.”
“When they gave us the survey and site assessments, they provided a little site-plan for the property, and they showed pretty much what area was going to be affected,” he continued. “In our case, it was probably about 20 percent of our property of the 180 acres. It all depends they were saying that it was all going to be referencing the river and how would it affect the floodplain in the area to depend on how much property was going to be affected.”
Acevedo said he was “very upset” and specifically bothered by all of the secrecy surrounding it.
“I wish people could come out and take a look at our place,” he said. “You know, it is a beautiful place. The scenery is great. Recreation is great. There is plenty of wildlife, you know we’ve been farming and growing hay for cattle production for many, many years now and I don’t see how they can say hey, we want to go over there and build a wall there.”
David Cay Johnston explains how Trump’s trade tariffs are really a tax on his base
November 11, 2019
By David Cay Johnston, DC Report @ Raw Story- Commentary
Candidate Donald Trump railed against America’s chronic trade deficits, vowing to eliminate them if he became president.
So, how’s Trump doing? Awful. Trade deficits are growing on his watch.
The overall trade deficit in September was 21% larger than during his first full month in office.
In 2016, under President Barak Obama, America imported $502.9 billion more in goods and services than it sold in exports.
In 2018, under Trump, that ballooned to $627.7 billion, an increase of $124.7 billion, and the deficit is on pace to run even deeper in 2019. For the nine months ending in September, the overall trade deficit was $481.3 billion, up $24.8 billion for the same period of 2018.
Trump’s tariffs are a tax on Americans, paid by companies who import goods and then either passed on to consumers or absorbed as reduced profits.
Trump always rails about the trade in goods, ignoring services such as accounting, banking, and insurance.
Our deficit in goods traded with China grew through last year. Indeed, the 2018 deficit of $419.5 billion was the largest on record, up a whopping 21% over the $346.8 billion of Obama’s last calendar year as president. So far, 2019 looks like it will come in around $360 billion.
The deficit with China is smaller not because Trump’s policies haven’t so much altered the balance of trade as shrunk the volume of trade. That, in turn, means fewer jobs for Americans, close to 11 million of whom, the Commerce Department estimates, owe their jobs to trade with China.
Mexico, Too
And what of Mexico, another Trump trade bugaboo? In 2016, Obama’s last year, our trade deficit in goods was $63.3 billion. That rose to $80.7 billion in 2018. That’s a 27% increase under Trump.
In just the first nine months of this year, our Mexico goods deficit was $76.1 billion, meaning this year will easily set a new record deficit.
Trump’s disregard for trade in services is a most curious omission for a man who boasts, falsely, that he has an economics degree from Penn’s famous Wharton School of Finance. His degree, for which he mostly did independent studies while working for his father, is from a one-professor real estate department at Penn that was under Wharton, which is a graduate school.
Equally troubling is Trump’s mistaken belief that China and Mexico pay the tariffs he has placed on their goods.
Trump’s tariffs are not paid by China. Tariffs are a tax on Americans, paid by companies who import goods and then either passed on to consumers or absorbed as reduced profits. The Treasury Department, by the way, calls them “customs duties.”
Americans Pay the Price
Trump’s tariffs cost Americans $71 billion in the first nine months of the calendar year.
So far, Trump has spent $28 billion of your tax money in bailout money for soybean and other Midwest farmers whose major market he decimated with his anti-China trade policies. The damage may last years or decades because China switched to other countries for soybeans, promising to buy up to $50 billion a year from Brazil.
Think of that as a Trump “Put Brazilian Farmers First” policy.
During a Sept. 4 news conference on Hurricane Dorian, the one that he falsely said would hit Alabama, Trump veered off into China trade with assertions that were just as false:
“We have a lot of—we’ve taken in tens of billions of dollars in tariffs from China. Prices have not gone up, or they’ve gone up very little. China has paid for most of that, and I say paid for all of it. China has now had the worst year that they’ve had in 57 years. This is the worst year they’ve had in 57 years. And they want to make a deal; we’ll see what happens.”
That was such nonsense that anyone who knows their Chinese history laughed. In 1962 China was a poor farm country with minimal industry. It was still under Mao, whose policies resulted in mass starvation that some historians estimate at 45 million people dying.
What is fact is that the spectacular growth of the Chinese economy has slowed to its lowest level in the last three decades.
Tariffs Wipe Out Income Tax Cuts
The Trump tariffs pretty much wipe out the modest income tax savings that went to the bottom 90% of Americans under the Trump/Radical Republican tax cut law enacted in December 2017. Most of its savings went to corporations and the top 1%.
So, while Trump has tricked millions of Americans into believing he cut their tax burdens, he has actually raised their total burden with his tariffs.
Trump’s tariffs are also slowing economic growth and in time will mean 512,000 fewer jobs than if the tariffs had never been imposed, Tax Foundation has noted.
Analysis by Trade Partnership, a consulting firm, asserted that the “biggest winners from tariffs on Chinese cell phones are other foreign producers. Manufacturers in Korea and Vietnam would see annual export revenues grow by about $1.8 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively. American consumers, on the other hand, would pay over $8.1 billion more for cell phones.”
Prices of laptops, video games and toy drones are also expected to rise significantly, costing American consumers billions more for those who do buy. The study predicted a 35% drop in laptop purchases.
Because there is virtually no laptop manufacturing in the United States, “American consumers would pay $785 in new out of pocket expenses for each $1 in new revenue for American manufacturers,” Trade Partnership estimated.
Remember that as an example of Trump’s ignorance of trade benefits.
So, how’s Trump doing? Awful. Trade deficits are growing on his watch.
The overall trade deficit in September was 21% larger than during his first full month in office.
In 2016, under President Barak Obama, America imported $502.9 billion more in goods and services than it sold in exports.
In 2018, under Trump, that ballooned to $627.7 billion, an increase of $124.7 billion, and the deficit is on pace to run even deeper in 2019. For the nine months ending in September, the overall trade deficit was $481.3 billion, up $24.8 billion for the same period of 2018.
Trump’s tariffs are a tax on Americans, paid by companies who import goods and then either passed on to consumers or absorbed as reduced profits.
Trump always rails about the trade in goods, ignoring services such as accounting, banking, and insurance.
Our deficit in goods traded with China grew through last year. Indeed, the 2018 deficit of $419.5 billion was the largest on record, up a whopping 21% over the $346.8 billion of Obama’s last calendar year as president. So far, 2019 looks like it will come in around $360 billion.
The deficit with China is smaller not because Trump’s policies haven’t so much altered the balance of trade as shrunk the volume of trade. That, in turn, means fewer jobs for Americans, close to 11 million of whom, the Commerce Department estimates, owe their jobs to trade with China.
Mexico, Too
And what of Mexico, another Trump trade bugaboo? In 2016, Obama’s last year, our trade deficit in goods was $63.3 billion. That rose to $80.7 billion in 2018. That’s a 27% increase under Trump.
In just the first nine months of this year, our Mexico goods deficit was $76.1 billion, meaning this year will easily set a new record deficit.
Trump’s disregard for trade in services is a most curious omission for a man who boasts, falsely, that he has an economics degree from Penn’s famous Wharton School of Finance. His degree, for which he mostly did independent studies while working for his father, is from a one-professor real estate department at Penn that was under Wharton, which is a graduate school.
Equally troubling is Trump’s mistaken belief that China and Mexico pay the tariffs he has placed on their goods.
Trump’s tariffs are not paid by China. Tariffs are a tax on Americans, paid by companies who import goods and then either passed on to consumers or absorbed as reduced profits. The Treasury Department, by the way, calls them “customs duties.”
Americans Pay the Price
Trump’s tariffs cost Americans $71 billion in the first nine months of the calendar year.
So far, Trump has spent $28 billion of your tax money in bailout money for soybean and other Midwest farmers whose major market he decimated with his anti-China trade policies. The damage may last years or decades because China switched to other countries for soybeans, promising to buy up to $50 billion a year from Brazil.
Think of that as a Trump “Put Brazilian Farmers First” policy.
During a Sept. 4 news conference on Hurricane Dorian, the one that he falsely said would hit Alabama, Trump veered off into China trade with assertions that were just as false:
“We have a lot of—we’ve taken in tens of billions of dollars in tariffs from China. Prices have not gone up, or they’ve gone up very little. China has paid for most of that, and I say paid for all of it. China has now had the worst year that they’ve had in 57 years. This is the worst year they’ve had in 57 years. And they want to make a deal; we’ll see what happens.”
That was such nonsense that anyone who knows their Chinese history laughed. In 1962 China was a poor farm country with minimal industry. It was still under Mao, whose policies resulted in mass starvation that some historians estimate at 45 million people dying.
What is fact is that the spectacular growth of the Chinese economy has slowed to its lowest level in the last three decades.
Tariffs Wipe Out Income Tax Cuts
The Trump tariffs pretty much wipe out the modest income tax savings that went to the bottom 90% of Americans under the Trump/Radical Republican tax cut law enacted in December 2017. Most of its savings went to corporations and the top 1%.
So, while Trump has tricked millions of Americans into believing he cut their tax burdens, he has actually raised their total burden with his tariffs.
Trump’s tariffs are also slowing economic growth and in time will mean 512,000 fewer jobs than if the tariffs had never been imposed, Tax Foundation has noted.
Analysis by Trade Partnership, a consulting firm, asserted that the “biggest winners from tariffs on Chinese cell phones are other foreign producers. Manufacturers in Korea and Vietnam would see annual export revenues grow by about $1.8 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively. American consumers, on the other hand, would pay over $8.1 billion more for cell phones.”
Prices of laptops, video games and toy drones are also expected to rise significantly, costing American consumers billions more for those who do buy. The study predicted a 35% drop in laptop purchases.
Because there is virtually no laptop manufacturing in the United States, “American consumers would pay $785 in new out of pocket expenses for each $1 in new revenue for American manufacturers,” Trade Partnership estimated.
Remember that as an example of Trump’s ignorance of trade benefits.
Trump "Accomplishments"
The four Midwestern states that sealed Trump’s 2016 win projected to face economic downturn in 2020
November 5, 2019
By Brad Reed - raw story
President Donald Trump owes his big 2016 victory to his wins in the Midwestern states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
However, Bloomberg reports that new data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia show that those four key states are expected to experience economic contractions next year, even as the American economy as a whole will keep growing.
So while the economy may not harm the president on a national level, it may harm his prospects of keeping the states he needs to win the electoral college again.
“The information that people are going to get about the state of the economy is going to be different in different states,” Christopher Wlezien, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, tells Bloomberg. “They don’t rely on just what’s happening to them. They care about what’s happening around them.”
The data don’t show these states will enter a technical recession, which would require two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, although just one quarter of contraction could be enough to harm the president’s claim that Americans are living through the “best economy ever.”
Bloomberg also shows that the president’s trade war with China is a “likely” major reason for these states’ slowdowns, as they are major agricultural states that have had difficulty in seeing their exports to China slashed.
However, Bloomberg reports that new data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia show that those four key states are expected to experience economic contractions next year, even as the American economy as a whole will keep growing.
So while the economy may not harm the president on a national level, it may harm his prospects of keeping the states he needs to win the electoral college again.
“The information that people are going to get about the state of the economy is going to be different in different states,” Christopher Wlezien, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, tells Bloomberg. “They don’t rely on just what’s happening to them. They care about what’s happening around them.”
The data don’t show these states will enter a technical recession, which would require two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, although just one quarter of contraction could be enough to harm the president’s claim that Americans are living through the “best economy ever.”
Bloomberg also shows that the president’s trade war with China is a “likely” major reason for these states’ slowdowns, as they are major agricultural states that have had difficulty in seeing their exports to China slashed.
payback funnies
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what you see is what you get!!!
your share, idiot!!!!
