Trump says “Let ME eat” cake on my new plane as I gut Medicare, Medicaid and Food Stamps

The House bill perfectly sums up the GOP

Donald Trump is not the “Let them eat cake” President. Trump is the “Let ME eat cake on my new luxury jet that will cost US taxpayers more than $1 billion dollars while I slash Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps” president! And yes, the House GOP budget bill that passed early this morning guts Medicare that helps our seniors by more than $500 billion--as I will detail below.

It's actually perfect timing that Trump’s new Qatari provided luxury aircraft was formally “accepted” Wednesday by his regime at the very same time House Republicans were gutting programs that help millions of Americans from infants to our seniors. Both the plane and budget cuts are about helping the wealthy enjoy more of the trappings of an opulent lifestyle while the rest of us have to pay for it.

In the case of Trump demanding a new Air Force One, it was neither for safety reasons nor functionality. It was simply like so many wealth people, he wanted something more “impressive” to show off to his friends. In fact, Trump said that last week, telling Fox News that other countries “have these brand-new Boeing 747s.” But he bemoaned that the current Air Force One is “much smaller, it’s much less impressive.”

Trump will now spend more than $1 billion of our tax dollars so he can ride around in a “more impressive” plane. And after Trump leaves office, the plane we will have paid to retrofit will not stay with the government. Instead, he gets to keep it. Yep, the plane will go to his presidential library for him to use anyway he pleases.

As that corruption was playing it, there was the House GOP gutting programs so that Trump and the GOP’s wealthy donors can have even more wealth—at the expense of the rest of us. For starters, the GOP just voted this morning for the largest cut of Medicaid in the program’s 60 year history. To be clear, Medicaid is a lifeline for more than 70 million Americans. Forty percent of all children in the country receive comprehensive health coverage from Medicaid—and it’s a major source of coverage for children with special health care needs. Medicaid is also the primary payer for over 60 percent of nursing home residents—meaning it’s a lifeline for older Americans.

But that will end for millions of Americans under the House GOP plan approved Thursday morning. As the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found, “roughly 15 million people by 2034 would lose health coverage and become uninsured because of the Medicaid cuts.” This includes those who will lose ACA subsidies slashed by the GOP. The real-world impact is millions of Americans will lose lifesaving benefits that ranges from pre-natal care to seniors being able to live in nursing homes. In addition, it’s expected hospitals in rural areas will close because of lack of Medicaid funding. And all of it give the GOP’s wealthy donors a tax cut.

Then there are food stamps—known as The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. This program provides food assistance to more than 40 million individuals including children, seniors and adults with disabilities.

Well the House GOP just voted for the “biggest cut in the program’s history,” slashing 30 percent of the program’s funding and shifting more costs to the states. They also voted to require single parents with a child as young as eight to work or lose benefits. The real world impact is that 11 million Americans could lose benefits—including 4 million children.

There is also the collateral impact upon grocery stores that rely on food stamp recipients going out of business. As CNN reported, food stamp funding powers many local economies by “supporting about 388,000 jobs, more than $20 billion in wages, and results in more than $4.5 billion in state and federal tax revenue.” But the GOP doesn’t care about small business owners--they only care about their wealthy donors.

This brings us to Medicare. You might be asking: Why haven’t we heard about the Medicare cuts before? The reason is because Trump and the GOP hid them in the bill. On Wednesday, we learned for the first time from the non-partisan CBO that the House GOP bill—that now passed—would result in nearly $500 billion in cuts to Medicare beginning in 2026. This is caused by the federal law that triggers “sequestration,” or compulsory budgetary reductions when legislation substantially adds to the federal deficit.

Well, the House GOP bill per CBO will add $3.8 trillion over the decade to the deficit. Consequently, this triggers mandatory cuts to Medicare. The result would be less funding for the 66 million who rely on Medicare—which includes 58 million over 65 years of age and younger people with disabilities.

If these cuts happen, the real-world impact would be traumatic for all who are enrolled in the program. Examples include doctors refusing to take Medicare patients because the payments would be too low. In addition--as The Washington Post reported—"Many hospitals, especially in rural areas, rely on Medicare for more than half of their funding,” meaning closures.

Again, all of that pain is so the GOP’s rich oligarchs can have more money to buy another summer home or private jet. That is no exaggeration. Overall the CBO found that the Trump/GOP bill will result in “Americans who make the least amount of money will lose household resources while Americans who make the most will gain resources.”

As to the tax cuts themselves, CBO found that more than a full two thirds of the total tax reduction will go to the top 20% of income earners.

More nauseating as CBS reports, the GOP bill results in people a tax cut for those earning more than $1 million would decline 8.6%. Why do millionaires and billionaires need any tax cut? They are already very wealthy! In fact, they should be paying more in taxes to reduce our federal deficit!

As Rep. Ilhan Omar summed up so well this morning after passage of the Trump budget: "The GOP budget bill is a win for billionaires at the expense of working people,” adding, “It is the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in U.S. history and includes the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP we have ever seen.”

Trump/GOP’s “mega-bill” should rightfully be called the Mega-Millionaires bill because that is who it helps. And it does so at the expense of millions of Americans who rely on Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA and food stamps. It’s immoral, it’s cruel and it perfectly sums up today’s GOP.

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