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It's No Accident That Trump's Iran War Steals Money From Healthcare and Education
Trump is currently asking for a $1.5 trillion military budget—a 64% increase in military spending since last year—which provides the budgetary pressure needed to justify gutting necessary programs that have been on the books for decades.
Apr 16, 2026
Ronald Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, spoke candidly years ago about why Republicans like tax cuts so much. In his 1986 book, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed, he confided that tax cuts served the purpose of creating budget deficits that could then be used to justify spending cuts on government programs. Typically, administrations only cut spending for a program if it’s no longer necessary, and the resultant surplus may then be used as a tax cut to stimulate the economy. However, Stockman turned this on its head by using the tax cuts to create a budgetary crisis that would then require cuts in spending regardless of whether the programs were necessary or not.
In other words, Stockman used tax cuts to create a revenue problem that the Reagan administration could then mask as a spending problem. This is known as “starving the beast.” The administration starves the beast—important government services—of important tax revenues in order to slash government spending.
Stockman himself admitted the failure of this strategy since budget deficits during the Reagan administration did not bring down public spending in a meaningful way. This failure, however, didn’t stop the next generation of conservatives from making it a key part of their larger political project. In 2001 and 2003, for instance, George W. Bush pushed through massive tax cuts meant to impose a “fiscal straitjacket” on Congress. This then prompted Bush’s Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 to gut government programs.
Republican lawmakers attempted this again after they took control of the House of Representatives during the Obama administration in 2010. At the time, the US economy was struggling through the Great Recession, which congressional Republicans blamed on government profligacy and “out of control spending.” Not only did they hold the debt ceiling hostage to prevent future spending, but they urged more tax cuts to stimulate the economy. In general, starving the beast has become a more common, and outright underhanded, stratagem by which lawmakers have gone about cutting federal spending.
What happens when conservative lawmakers want to cut more government spending in healthcare or education? Will they manufacture a national security crisis to justify cuts in those social programs?
This strategy has also functioned as a form of class politics: Wealthy elites are often the main beneficiaries of the tax cuts financed by cuts in social services on which the average American is more likely to depend. For instance, Reagan’s 1981 Economic Recovery Tax Act slashed top marginal tax rates from 70% to 50%, a rate that only the top 2% of Americans paid (those rates dropped even further to 28% in 1986). This cut was largely paid for with reductions in Aid to Families with Dependent Children, food stamps, Medicaid funding, student loans, and other social services. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 served the same agenda. According to research by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the richest 20% received 65% of the benefits of those tax cuts, while the top 5% received 38%. Spending was then cut under the Deficit Reduction Act by targeting Medicaid, Medicare, the Migrant and Season Farmworkers Program, literacy programs, and others.
The American public is now far more aware of who has, and who has not, benefited from cuts in taxes and spending, and public opinion makes it harder for lawmakers to starve the beast. New polling shows that only 19% of Americans support the idea of cutting taxes on the wealthy, while 58% say the wealthy should be paying more (this number rises to 63% when asked about large businesses and corporations). At the same time, the majority of Americans want the government to maintain spending on the kinds of programs that are usually targeted, such as Medicaid and food stamps, medical and cancer research, federal childcare programs, or the arts in public schools. In other words, Republican lawmakers are going to have a harder time gutting these programs by further cutting top marginal tax rates.
That is why they are finding new ways to starve the beast. The latest strategy has been to leverage the heavy cost of national security issues.
Nowhere is this more evident than through the US and Israel’s joint war with Iran. The bombing of Iran has proven to be even more expensive than the initial stages of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the daily burn rate averaging around $1-2 billion a day. Shortly after launching the war in late February, President Donald Trump sought an additional $200 billion from Congress to fund it. The GOP is now using that price tag to plan massive cuts to important government programs.
In early April, for instance, Republicans proposed a reconciliation bill they claim would save $30 billion but would also drive up the out-of-pocket premium costs and increase the number of people without health insurance. Later that week, Trump candidly spoke of his intentions to slash government spending against the backdrop of a budgetary crisis caused by the war:
We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people, we’re fighting wars […] Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal [level]. We have to take care of one thing: military protection—we have to guard the country. But all these little things, all these little scams that have taken place, you have to let states take care of them.
Trump’s claim that the United States can’t afford these programs are patently false. Programs like Medicare and Medicaid are planned spending that are not responsible for budget deficits.
However, the president’s comments make sense when contextualized against his longer-term plans to rein in federal spending. Through the creation of DOGE, Trump attempted to usher in an era of “government efficiency,” which included sharp reductions in several programs including Medicare and Medicaid. Although technically still operational, DOGE is largely seen as a failure as it never achieved its goal of major spending cuts (in fact, government spending increased 6% in 2025).
The Iran war can complete the job that DOGE couldn’t. Trump is currently asking for a $1.5 trillion military budget—a 64% increase in military spending since last year—which provides the budgetary pressure needed to justify gutting necessary programs that have been on the books for decades. In doing so, Trump is essentially reviving the starve-the-beast strategy by fitting it into a large military project.
Although the strategy to starve the beast has changed, the class politics remains the same. Those affected will be those most reliant on programs designed to provide healthcare, education, and food. However, in this case the consequence are no longer restricted to the American taxpayer. The increase in military expenditures will be used to inflict harm upon vulnerable populations abroad. The strikes in Iran have already killed thousands of people and displaced over a million civilians.
The horrifying reality is that this carries the very real danger of becoming a common finance strategy. What happens when conservative lawmakers want to cut more government spending in healthcare or education? Will they manufacture a national security crisis to justify cuts in those social programs? Trump’s war in Iran establishes just such a dangerous precedent. For this reason, the American people must realize that their livelihood at home requires placing greater controls on what a president can do abroad.
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As Trump Pushes Privatization, Mexico's Sheinbaum Embraces Healthcare as a Human Right
Healthcare is neither a commodity nor the exclusive privilege of the wealthy—it is a human right. Far from “outrageous,” guaranteeing healthcare to all is about ensuring that everyone can live a rich and fulfilling life.
Apr 15, 2026
On April 6, the Trump administration announced it will increase payments to privately-run Medicare Advantage, or MA, plans by 2.48% in 2027—this will result in more than $13 billion in additional payments to companies like UnitedHealth, CVS Health, and Humana. Unsurprisingly, following this announcement, shares of those companies rose by more than 9%.
MA plans have been a significant source of growth and profit for insurance companies. As the Medicare Rights Center reports, this profitability is driven by enormous overpayments, including from fraudulent billing practices such as “upcoding.” This involves submitting billing codes that make patients appear sicker than they really are to secure higher government payments than are warranted. Despite this, the Trump administration is currently considering a policy that would automatically enroll seniors into MA plans as the “default enrollment option”—a proposal outlined in the Heritage Foundation’s extremist Project 2025.
The Center for American Progress estimates that making MA the default option would generate nearly $2 trillion in overpayments over 10 years, while significantly jeopardizing traditional Medicare’s financial stability. It would give for-profit corporations more control to restrict patient choices and deny doctor-recommended care.
Instead of more privatization that puts profits over people, we should embrace Medicare For All (M4A). Yet, President Donald Trump contends that paying for our current safety nets is already too much for the wealthiest nation on Earth. He remarks: “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.”
Sheinbaum’s embrace of universal healthcare—as well as her support of Cuba—shows us what is possible when the well-being of people is championed unconditionally.
For Trump, spending billions in an illegal war takes precedence over providing healthcare for Americans. His 2027 budget calls for a 10% reduction in all nondefense spending, including reducing funding to the Department of Health and Human Services by $15.8 billion. This, at the same time, that a measles outbreak sweeps the nation, uninsured rates continue to climb, and the prevalence of children with chronic conditions grows to unprecedented levels.
While Trump prioritizes death and destruction, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum offers a different vision. On April 7, she issued a presidential decree establishing the Universal Health Service (Servicio Universal de Salud), which will allow patients from across Mexico to seek free care at any public health institution. Universal access will be rolled out in phases starting with emergency care and continuity of care in early 2027. Radiotherapy, laboratory tests, imaging studies, and other specialized services will be added later that year. Finally, in 2028, universal prescription fulfillment and hospitalization will be consolidated. For Sheinbaum, “The goal is that when we leave the government [in 2030], any Mexican man or woman can go to any health institution for treatment for any ailment and be received.”
The transition to universal healthcare began on April 13 when Mexicans aged 85 and older were eligible to register for their new Universal Health Credential. As Deputy Health Minister Eduardo Clark notes, these new credentials are “the guarantee of the right to healthcare” for Mexican citizens and eligible foreign residents.
This is the fundamental difference. In Mexico, healthcare is recognized as a human right enshrined in their Constitution. In 2023, then-Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alicia Bárcena said before the United Nations General Assembly, “In Mexico, we believe that coverage must be universal, public and free, starting with the most marginalized areas and prioritizing, as always, the poorest.” She continued: “It is unacceptable to profit from illness. In Mexico, we know that public health is not for sale. It is a public and universal good, and we defend it."
By contrast, for Trump, healthcare is a privilege meant solely for those who deserve it. During his first presidential campaign, he remarked: “Where I come from, you have to prove your worth. You have some guy with no college degree working a minimum wage job; no ambition, no goals, nothing to show for it. Yet for some reason, the current [Obama] administration believes he—and millions of people like him, should have access to health insurance. It’s outrageous.” While Mexico starts with “the poorest,” Trump finds it “outrageous” to provide healthcare to minimum wage workers.
Trump’s position is immoral and vile. Healthcare is neither a commodity nor the exclusive privilege of the wealthy—it is a human right. Far from “outrageous,” guaranteeing healthcare to all is about ensuring that everyone can live a rich and fulfilling life.
For most (if not everyone), lacking healthcare will prevent them from living the kind of life they desire. Those suffering from untreated illness may struggle to spend time with their loved ones, pursue the opportunities they desire, and exercise their political rights. Since, at some point, everyone will eventually get sick, healthcare is a universal good that benefits each of us. Moreover, as the Covid-19 pandemic made clear, our individual health is not solely a personal issue. My health impacts the lives of others around me just as their health impacts mine. Healthcare is thus a collective and communal good.
Still, one might object that even if healthcare is not a commodity, the market is still the best mechanism to allocate scarce resources; Trump’s push toward privatization will be better than Sheinbaum’s universal care.
Such blind faith in the market is misguided. Despite spending far more than other countries with universal coverage, more than a quarter of Americans report skipping consultations, tests, treatments and follow-ups because of costs. Roughly 21% report skipping medication for the same reason. Studies consistently find that universal care provides more access, better quality, and lower costs than privatized healthcare.
Ironically, Trump once understood this. In his 2000 The America We Deserve, he writes, “We must have universal healthcare. Just imagine the improved quality of life for our society as a whole if the issue of access to healthcare were dealt with imaginatively. With more than 40 million Americans living day to day in the fear that an illness or injury will wipe out their savings or drag them into bankruptcy, how can we truly engage in the ‘pursuit of happiness’ as our Founders intended?”
Trump was right. What we need is not more privatization that exploits the sick and dying, but rather a politic that works to radically defend life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. What is needed is the imagination to rethink how we use (and misuse) our country’s wealth and resources. Sheinbaum’s embrace of universal healthcare—as well as her support of Cuba—shows us what is possible when the well-being of people is championed unconditionally.
A better future is possible—already, in the US, support for M4A continues to grow, and several 2026 midterm candidates have made it an explicit part of their platforms. Together, by embracing life and rejecting capitalism, we can make America great.
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DoorDash Grandma Delivering to Trump Doesn't Change That No Tax on Tips Is a 'Deceptive Ploy'
"The fact that a term like 'DoorDash grandma' exists should be a wake-up call," said the head of One Fair Wage. "It should never exist in the first place."
Apr 13, 2026
While "DoorDash Grandma" made the company's first food delivery to the White House on Monday to promote President Donald Trump's "no tax on tips" policy, the awkward encounter outside the Oval Office not only highlighted critiques of that provision of the GOP budget package but also sparked calls for a living wage and universal healthcare.
"A perfect image of the Trump era: A grandmother has to work at DoorDash in order to get by, while the president decorates his office in gold accent pieces," said Democratic strategist Max Burns, sharing a photo of the delivery on social media.
Saru Jayaraman, president of worker advocacy group One Fair Wage, told Common Dreams that "it's sad, and it's a sign of a failing society—not something to celebrate or turn into a photo op. We've normalized an economy where older people are pushed into gig work just to survive. The fact that a term like 'DoorDash grandma' exists should be a wake-up call. It should never exist in the first place."
"Corporations are paying poverty wages while policymakers offer Band-Aid solutions like 'no tax on tips' instead of paying a living wage," Jayaraman continued. "At the same time, cuts to Medicaid and food assistance are stripping away the safety net workers rely on to get by. This is all pushing people into greater dependence on tips and unstable income. Workers don't need gimmicks—they need living wages, corporate accountability, and real economic security."
Trump and then-Vice President Kamala Harris latched on to the no tax on tips policy during the 2024 campaign, despite warnings from economists and others that it is a "deceptive ploy," as the Economic Policy Institute's David Cooper and Nina Mast put it last year.
"It does nothing to address the low wages, income instability, wage theft, and abuse tipped workers already face," the pair reiterated in February. "Instead, it may undermine efforts to raise tipped minimum wages, push more workers into tipped jobs, increase workloads, and prompt customers to tip less if they believe tipped workers receive special tax treatment."
After related legislation passed the US Senate last year, Jayaraman said that "for all the bipartisan celebration, this bill is a distraction from the real fight... If Democrats want to offer a true alternative, they need to say it loud and clear: It's time to raise the minimum wage and end the subminimum wage once and for all."
A no tax on tips policy was ultimately included in Republicans' so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act—which, as a recent Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analysis details, featured tax breaks that primarily benefited wealthy individuals and corporations while cutting programs that serve working families, such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Specifically, last year's GOP budget package established a temporary federal income tax deduction for tips, capped at $25,000 per year, through 2028. In a February report, the libertarian Cato Institute estimated that "the roughly 3% of tax returns projected to claim the tips deduction in 2026 will receive an average tax cut of about $1,370," and "as a share of after-tax income, the tips deduction broadly benefits those in the middle of the income distribution."
"These provisions also add to the already large number of tax deductions and credits that shield vastly uneven amounts of income from taxation based on family size and childcare arrangements," the Cato report notes. "In addition to the income limits, the tips deduction is only available to occupations that 'customarily and regularly received tips' before 2025."
Sharon Simmons, who wore a red shirt that read "DoorDash Grandma" while delivering McDonald's bags at the White House on Monday, told Trump that she benefited from the policy. In a statement, the company identified her as an Arkansas-based grandmother of 10 who "started dashing in 2022 to earn income while keeping control of her schedule."
During the delivery, the president asked Simmons whether she voted for him—"uh, maybe," she said—and about banning transgender women from competing in sports in line with their gender identity, on which she said she did not have an opinion.
Labor reporter Michael Sainato pointed out that Simmons previously lived in Nevada and advocated for the no tax on tips policy to the US House Ways and Means Committee last year. He also questioned her comments to Trump about having saved over $11,000 on her most recent tax bill.
The dasher claims "$11,000 in savings by not having to claim." You still have to claim tipsYou can only deduct up to $25k in tips, so $11k in savings off of one year didn't happenThe tax savings are actually minimal taxpolicycenter.org/fiscal-facts...
[image or embed]
— Michael Sainato (@msainato.bsky.social) April 13, 2026 at 3:39 PM
While Trump staff and congressional Republicans shared footage of Simmons' delivery to Trump to promote the budget package provision in the lead-up to tax day, US Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) stressed on social media Monday that the president's "policy is severely limited and sunsets in 2028."
"We must make it permanent and increase the minimum wage to support our nontipped workers like childcare, fast food, and retail. We can do both by passing my LIFT Act," said Titus, whose Labor Income Fairness and Transparency Act is backed by One Fair Wage.
"Cutting taxes on tips might make for a good sound bite, but on its own, it's a hollow fix that ignores the real crisis: Wages so low that two-thirds of restaurant workers don't even earn enough to pay federal income taxes," Jayaraman said last year, when Titus introduced the bill. "In a time of skyrocketing costs, workers are drowning and need more than political gimmicks—they need a raise."
"Tips should be a bonus, not a substitute for a living wage," she argued. "By ending all subminimum wages and requiring that all workers be paid a full livable wage with tips on top, the LIFT Act addresses what working people need most: a fair wage, a level playing field, and the dignity that comes with being able to provide for their families."
Some observers on Monday also noted Simmons' appearance on Fox News, during which she acknowledged the financial burden of her husband's 2025 cancer diagnosis.
"Grandma shouldn't have to rely on DoorDash tips to make up for Republicans doubling the cost of healthcare," declared Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, sharing a clip of the interview on social media.
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of Campaign for New York Health, which advocates for universal, single-payer healthcare, emphasized that "'no tax on tips' does not make up for the fact that no one can afford healthcare."
Historian Timothy Snyder said, "So let’s have universal healthcare and help people live in dignity."
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