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safety net
Make Americans Homeless Again: Trump's Intentional Housing Crisis
Trump is causing major damage, and his team at the Department of Housing and Urban Development knows it.
Nov 28, 2025
America’s urban landscapes are cursed with skyrocketing rents, evictions, and tent cities—thanks to President Donald Trump. His administration has launched what can only be described as a brutal, scorched-earth attack on federal housing programs. Trump's Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is slashing billions from successful programs and proven initiatives that keep people off the streets. Trump clearly prioritizes ideological crusades over human lives. This is not a better policy; it is cruelty and it is exacerbating a housing crisis that has left millions of America’s citizens on the brink. Trump’s war on the vulnerable is forcing 170,000 Americans back into homelessness, gutting local efforts in states like California and New York, while ignoring root causes like unaffordable housing and stagnant wages.
At the heart of this disaster is the Continuum of Care (CoC) program, which helps connect homeless people with permanent rental subsidies, shelters, and support services. Under Trump’s HUD, this crucial program is being gutted for fiscal year 2026. More than half of its funding, previously designed for permanent housing, is now being redirected to temporary shelters that come with punitive preconditions such as mandatory drug treatment or work requirements.
Support for permanent housing is now limited to just 30% of the budget, a significant drop from the previous 90% that allowed flexibility for real needs. Local nonprofits will now find it harder to secure grants as HUD is also now imposing competitive bidding on nearly all funds. This means that eligibility is being wielded as a political weapon: Agree with the Trump administration on various issues and receive funding. Disagree on the issues and lose funding. Accountability is not the issue here; it’s all about Trump’s culture-war agenda, punishing progressive districts while rewarding red-state sycophants.
Trump’s claim to be fixing America is, instead, a brutal bulldozing of the safety net that has helped tens of thousands of citizens and families.
Trump is causing major damage, and his team knows it. Internal HUD documents admit these cuts will displace tens of thousands of people across the nation and erase years of progress in reducing chronic homelessness. In California, the epicenter of the crisis, Attorney General Rob Bonta has sued the administration alongside 19 other states and two governors, arguing the changes are illegal. Los Angeles County alone stands to lose subsidies for 5,000 households, including families with children, and veterans. Even some Republicans, like Nebraska's Rep. Mike Flood, are scrambling for a one-year funding extension, a tacit admission that Trump's "reforms" are a recipe for chaos.
New York faces a similar apocalypse. Homelessness has surged amid post-pandemic evictions, leaving thousands of families in need of assistance. Trump's pivot to "shelters and rehabilitation centers" over long-term stability directly sabotages the city's "Housing First" model, which prioritizes rapid placement into homes before tackling addiction or mental health, proven to reduce recidivism and costs. Led by Attorney General Letitia James, the multistate lawsuit filed in Rhode Island's federal court calls this an unconstitutional power grab, as HUD rewrites congressional spending without approval. Over 1,000 organizations nationwide have begged Congress to intervene, while Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren demand answers on how these cuts will fuel tent encampments from Seattle to Boston.
HUD spokesperson Scott Turner has pathetically defended Trump, claiming that the Obama-Biden “Housing First” approach is a failed “homeless industrial complex” enabling addiction without accountability. But the data says otherwise. Housing First programs decreased homelessness by 88% and improved housing stability by 41%, compared to Treatment First programs. But Trump’s “solution” will achieve the opposite, forcing people into transitional housing with strings attached, ignoring that most homelessness stems not from untreated addiction but from poverty. By capping permanent aid and politicizing grants, Trump is inflating costs and dooming the cycle to repeat. Families will fracture even though Trump claims he will make exceptions for those with children, vets, or seniors.
Trump’s claim to be fixing America is, instead, a brutal bulldozing of the safety net that has helped tens of thousands of citizens and families. But as lawsuits mount and bipartisan pleas for extensions grow, perhaps Trump will be prevented from implementing his nefarious plan. By evicting the most vulnerable Americans to score political points, Trump is not draining the swamp; he is flooding the streets. Congress must act now to renew the grants and prevent Trump’s overreach that will affect tens of thousands of needs Americans. Let voters remember that in Trump’s America, there is nothing but evil and despair.
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'You Know It's a Terrible Bill': Murkowski Helps GOP Gut Safety Net After 'Bribe' Shields Her State
Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the deciding vote to pass Republicans' massive social safety net cuts through the Senate. She said she didn't like the bill, but voted for it anyway after getting Alaska exempted from some of its worst harms.
Jul 01, 2025
By the thinnest possible margin, the U.S. Senate voted Tuesday to pass a budget that includes the largest cuts to Medicaid and nutrition assistance in U.S. history while giving trillions of dollars of tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
The deciding vote was Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who admitted she didn't like the bill. However, she voted for it regardless after securing relief for her home state from some of its most draconian cuts.
But in an interview immediately afterward, she acknowledged that the rest of the country, where millions are on track to lose their healthcare coverage and food assistance, would not be so lucky.
"Do I like this bill? No," Murkowski told a reporter for MSNBC. "I try to take care of Alaska's interests. I know that in many parts of the country there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill. I don't like that."
The 887-page bill includes more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program over the next decade—cuts the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects will result in nearly 12 million people losing health coverage. The measure also takes an ax to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—imperiling food aid for millions.
In recent days, Murkowski—a self-described "Medicaid moderate"—expressed hesitation about signing onto a list of such devastating cuts, calling the vote "agonizing". To get her on board, her Republican colleagues were willing to give her state some shelter from the coming storm.
As David Dayen explained in The American Prospect, Murkowski was able to secure a waiver that exempts Alaska from the newly implemented cost-sharing requirement that will force states to spend more of their budgets on SNAP.
In The New Republic, Robert McCoy described it as a "bribe."
Initially, Republicans attempted to simply write in a carve-out for Alaska and Hawaii. But after this was shot down by the Senate parliamentarian, they tried again with a measure that exempted the 10 states with the highest error rates.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) called it "the most absurd example of the hypocrisy of the Republican bill."
"They have now proposed delaying SNAP cuts FOR TWO YEARS ONLY FOR STATES with the highest error rates just to bury their help for Alaska," she said.
Murkowski also got a tax break for Alaskan fishing villages inserted into the bill. She attempted to have Alaska exempted from some Medicaid cuts as well, but the parliamentarian killed the measure.
"Did I get everything that I wanted? Absolutely not," she told reporters outside the Senate chamber.
However, as Dayen wrote, "Murkowski decided that she could live with a bill that takes food and medicine from vulnerable people to fund tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy, as long as it didn't take quite as much food away from Alaskans."
Murkowski showed herself to be well aware of the harms the bill will cause. After voting to pass the bill, she said, "My hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we're not there yet."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) called Murkowski's bargain "selfish," "cruel," and "expensive."
"Voting for the bill because [of] a carve-out for your state is open acknowledgement that people will get kicked off healthcare and will have to go to much more expensive emergency rooms," Jayapal wrote. "Clear you know it's a terrible bill for everyone."
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Universalism, Not Abundance, Is the Only Real Defense Against Authoritarianism
Universalism is the only governing strategy strong enough to rebuild what Trumpism has corroded—not as a slogan, but as a material commitment.
Jun 07, 2025
She shows up just after 9:00 am, like she has most mornings since the letter arrived. The lobby is already full—mothers with strollers, older men gripping folders, a teenager in a hoodie with his eyes on the floor. She clutches the same folder she’s been carrying for weeks: pay stubs, proof of residency, a note from her landlord warning the rent will rise again. Her name will be called eventually. And when it is, a caseworker will skim her paperwork, ask a few quick questions, and decide whether she qualifies—for what, she’s not even sure anymore. Rent relief? Help with the electric bill? A food pantry referral? Maybe nothing.
This is what public help looks like in America: a maze, a line, a thousand little gates. Each with a lock that shifts depending on your zip code, your paperwork, or whether the system deems you deserving. Our safety net isn’t built to catch—it’s built to sort. And that structure—the means-tested, piecemeal logic of American social policy—hasn’t just failed to prevent collapse. It has laid the groundwork for authoritarianism.
President Donald Trump came to power on the promise to fight for the forgotten working class—for people like those in that lobby. Millions believed him. Not because they were fooled, but because the institutions that should have offered stability—unions, schools, housing, healthcare—were already gone. What remained were brittle bureaucracies that asked everything, offered little, and always arrived too late.
We cannot out-message collapse. We must out-govern it.
Trump didn’t fill that vacuum with solutions. He filled it with vengeance. Not policy that delivered—but posture that blamed. While Republicans translated grievance into governing power, Democrats lost their map.
After 2024, the party was hollowed out. Young men walked away. Working-class voters of every background followed. The party that once stood for labor and civil rights began to feel like the party of college towns and tax credits. People didn’t switch sides—they stopped believing anyone was on theirs.
In that vacuum, the Abundance Agenda gained traction. Promoted by liberal technocrats, it focuses on clearing bureaucratic thickets: zoning reform, streamlined permitting, housing acceleration. Build more. Build faster. Let growth lift all boats.
But abundance doesn’t ask who’s in the boat—and who keeps getting thrown overboard. It solves for scarcity without addressing exclusion. It tackles supply, not distribution. It removes friction but doesn’t restore trust. Growth is not solidarity. Innovation is not inclusion. And no one will rally behind a politics that treats them as consumers before recognizing them as neighbors or workers.
Now, in his second term, Trump no longer pretends. He is using the federal government not to build—but to punish. Agencies are purged. Civil rights protections erased. Grants come with loyalty tests. Through executive orders and loyalist appointments, he is dismantling the federal infrastructure of inclusion, plank by plank.
This isn’t small government. It’s selective government—enforcement without support, punishment without provision. It survives because public systems remain fractured and cruel. When your right to basic services depends on proving your worth, solidarity dies. People stop defending each other’s needs. They’re too busy proving their own.
The single mother in the lobby doesn’t call this authoritarianism. She doesn’t have to. She feels it in the form that changes overnight. In the disconnected phone numbers. In the line she waits in each morning—only to be told again: You don’t qualify.
Abundance won’t help her.
Zoning reform won’t keep her housed.
Solar panels won’t make her feel seen.
She doesn’t need a productivity agenda. She needs a government that shows up.
Because this is how democracy unravels—not in a cataclysm, but in the quiet, daily normalization of abandonment.
Trump must be stopped. But we won’t defeat authoritarianism with messaging. Not with moral clarity. Not with speeches. Democrats will not win by being right. They will win by delivering.
Universalism is the only governing strategy strong enough to rebuild what Trumpism has corroded—not as a slogan, but as a material commitment. We cannot out-message collapse. We must out-govern it.
Ask that woman in the lobby what failed, and she won’t name a policy theory. She’ll say: the office stopped calling. The money vanished. The form changed. Beneath that is something deeper: a belief that survival must be earned. That belonging must be begged for. And once that belief takes hold, it doesn’t just break programs. It breaks democracy.
Because when help is conditional, it becomes contestable. When people compete for scraps, they stop believing in the public. They stop believing in each other. When democracy fails, it’s not because people stop believing in freedom.
It’s because freedom stops being useful.
A ballot won’t quiet a hungry child. A speech won’t refill a prescription.
If democracy is to survive, it must show up in people’s lives.
And to show up, it must trust them first.
That woman is still waiting. Not for charity—for recognition. For someone to say: You matter. You belong. You should not have to beg to be seen. Universalism answers that hope. Not with pity, but with presence. Not with exceptions, but with guarantees. It does not ask what she did wrong. It simply says: You are part of this country. You are not alone.
Because if this republic is to endure, it won’t be because people begged for help.
It will be because we chose to build a government that finally refused to look away.
We chose to show up—not with hesitation, not with disclaimers, but with resolve.
Because in a nation this rich, no one should have to stand in line just to be seen.
No one should have to plead for the dignity that should already be theirs.
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Reagan Was Wrong: Government Can Be Great, Actually
Study after study shows that government assistance with food, healthcare, and housing makes tangible, positive impacts on people’s lives, from newborns to the elderly.
Jun 06, 2025
Ronald Reagan famously said that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.
That was a lie, and it was a deadly one.
Like so much of what came out of Reagan’s mouth, this clever quip provided a folksy façade for a brutal attack on the most vulnerable Americans. Before Reagan’s election in 1980, homeless shelters and evictions were rare. Then Reagan and a compliant Congress laid waste to our nation’s safety net, including cutting investment in affordable housing by nearly 80%.
As many of our clinic clients can attest, well-trained, dedicated experts who answer to the people instead of some wealthy donors are the gold standard for housing inspection and code enforcement.
The U.S. commitment to affordable housing has never fully recovered. Urban policy scholar Peter Dreier lays the blame where it belongs: “Every park bench in America—everywhere a homeless person sleeps—should have Ronald Reagan’s name on it.”
This vicious Reagan legacy is important to remember as President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans trot out the same anti-government talking points to support a legislative agenda that would gut healthcare and food programs.
The government-harms shtick is just as false today as in Reagan’s time. Study after study shows that government assistance with food, healthcare, and housing makes tangible, positive impacts on people’s lives, from newborns to the elderly. And government programs deliver these essential services more efficiently and inexpensively than private charity programs, not to mention at a scale that even the most ambitious billionaire philanthropy can only dream of.
Our law school clinic’s work representing people facing eviction and living in unsafe and unhealthy rental housing provides us with a very specific example of government working well.
In our community as in many others, a local government agency is tasked with ensuring the safety of housing, including rental housing. Here, the agency is called the Marion County Public Health Department. (Indianapolis is located within Marion County.)
From the Government, and Here to Help
Our clients can simply call the agency’s phone number for housing inspections and describe the situation in their rented home, a situation that far too often includes mold, infestation with bugs or rodents, no heat during the winter, gas leaks, and more. A trained inspector will then come out to the home within days and issue a formal report and notice to the landlord soon after. This article includes a sample of those reports. As you can see, it includes the threat of substantial fines.
The inspectors’ reports often spur landlords to fix the problems. When they don’t, the agency can and does file a lawsuit against the landlord. Tenants can also file a claim of their own asking for rent offset or other damages due to the unsafe, unhealthy conditions.
Low-income tenants face a power imbalance: Landlords are far more wealthy than tenants, have access to attorneys that tenants rarely do, and of course control continued access to the very roof over tenants’ heads. But when this government agency intervenes, it flips the script, putting pressure on landlords to bring the housing up to code.
The agency is not perfect, of course. Our clinic and other advocates have joined with City County councilors to advocate for the agency to reverse their policy of dropping inspections and enforcement after tenants move out. But one of the defining characteristics of government programs is a benefit that no nonprofit agency can ever match: They are accountable to the community. Ultimately, that accountability is exercised at the ballot box for the agency leaders or those who appoint them.
So the advocacy here has borne fruit and the agency now continues to do its important scrutiny even after tenants move out.
The current revival of anti-government sentiment has impacted this local public health agency, with the Republican-controlled state legislature cutting its funding by more than 70%. More of the playbook from the president who asked in 1982, “Wouldn’t it be better for the human spirit and for the soul of this nation to encourage people to accept more responsibility to care for one another, rather than leaving those tasks to paid bureaucrats?”
Nope. As many of our clinic clients can attest, well-trained, dedicated experts who answer to the people instead of some wealthy donors are the gold standard for housing inspection and code enforcement. Those inspectors are from the government, and they are here to help.
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I Returned Home From Prison With Nothing; Here’s What Helped Me Rebuild
Programs like the Returning Citizens Stimulus don’t just improve lives—they reduce unnecessary incarceration and save public funds.
Apr 23, 2025
In April of 2020, one of us was navigating reentry during a global pandemic, while the other was working to implement the largest-ever cash assistance program specifically for people returning from incarceration. With the publication of groundbreaking research, five years later, we know that cash assistance has a positive impact on public safety. It’s time to scale this proven strategy to California’s recidivism challenges.
Karina:
I grew up in Los Angeles, where 1 in 3 children grow up in poverty. Despite a loving mother, I was placed in the foster care system at an early age—a system known to be a pipeline to incarceration. During my third pregnancy I was incarcerated, and I spent the next three years trying to figure out how I would support my family when I got out. With no savings and limited resources, I had no idea how I would get back on my feet.
Without any support for essentials like food, rent, or even a cellphone, the challenge of rebuilding a life is insurmountable.
The pandemic forced employers to go remote. I didn’t have access to a computer or money to buy one, and I didn’t have a clue on how I would afford housing. My kids have pulmonary issues, and I couldn’t see or live with them without risking exposure.
While incarcerated, I learned about the Returning Citizens Stimulus (RCS), a first-of-its-kind initiative launched by the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO). RCS offered financial support to people returning from incarceration. I received $2,750 in installments over two months after my release.
RCS cash made all the difference because getting and keeping a job right out of prison was nearly impossible. I applied to a job at a warehouse known for hiring justice-impacted people. I was fired on my day off because of my time in prison. For people like me this experience is commonplace. Without any support for essentials like food, rent, or even a cellphone, the challenge of rebuilding a life is insurmountable.
RCS covered my immediate needs, such as new clothes, transportation, and I could pay off my restitution. It even allowed me to take my kids out for a meal for the first time in three years. Today, I’m a member of CEO’s policy and advocacy team, where I’ve been able to use my story to advocate for direct cash assistance.
Sam:
In April 2020, when many justice-impacted people, like Karina, were locked out of government support, CEO—being one of the largest reentry services providers in the nation—conceived of and implemented RCS. The program delivered $24 million in direct cash payments to over 10,000 people returning from incarceration.
Research nonprofit MDRC’s most recent independent evaluation of the RCS program in Los Angeles and Alameda counties found that RCS reduced parole violations by nearly 15% for up to a year after enrollment with noteworthy statistical significance—meaning we can be almost certain it was the cash assistance that drove the outcomes. Parole is a costly and punitive system that accounts for 27% of all admissions to state and federal prisons and costs the U.S. over $10 billion annually.
Programs like RCS prove that a small investment at a critical time can lead to transformational change—for individuals, for families, and for entire communities.
Programs like RCS don’t just improve lives—they reduce unnecessary incarceration and save public funds. A short-term financial intervention had long-term impacts on reducing both violent and technical parole violations. It’s simple: When people have the resources to succeed, they don’t cycle back into the system.
Prop 36 is primed to roll back California’s progress in reducing its incarcerated population. More people are likely to go to prison, and less money will be directed towards reentry. The need to invest in solutions proven to halt the revolving door of incarceration have never been more necessary. California has already implemented direct cash assistance before and has a whole host of organizations ready to put it in action once again.
The governor and lawmakers must renew funding for Helping Justice-Involved Reenter Employment (HIRE). This program, set to sunset this fiscal year, has already distributed more than $500,000 in needs-based payments to justice-impacted people across the state, pairing cash support with pathways to good jobs.
Programs like RCS prove that a small investment at a critical time can lead to transformational change—for individuals, for families, and for entire communities.
Karina:
RCS offered me agency to determine my own career path. I could provide for my family while also pursuing a fulfilling job. As someone who was able to build a life through RCS, it is my responsibility to push for programs, like HIRE, that will have a lasting and significant impact on the future of my city, my state, and people returning home.
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Social Security Advantage: Trump and Musk’s Evil Plan to Privatize Our Safety Net
The goal is to make interacting with Social Security such a difficult and painful process that retired Americans will get angry with the government and begin to listen to Republicans and Wall Street bankers who tell us they should run the system.
Mar 06, 2025
Tuesday night, U.S. President Donald Trump stood before the nation and, with the full backing of billionaires like Elon Musk, laid the groundwork for the biggest heist in American history—the rapid, systematic destruction of Social Security, disguised as “reform.”
We saw the formal announcement of it during Trump’s State of the Union address, and the DOGE announcement earlier in the week that 7,000 employees at Social Security are to be immediately laid off—with as many as half of all Social Security employees (an additional 30,000 people)—soon to be on the chopping block.
Republicans and their morbidly rich donors have hated Social Security ever since it was first created in 1935. They’ve called it everything from communism to socialism to a Ponzi scheme.
It took Bush almost three years to convince Congress to start the process of privatizing and ultimately destroying Medicare. Having learned from that process, odds are Trump will try to privatize Social Security within the year.
In fact, it has been the most successful anti-poverty program in the history of America, one now emulated by virtually every democracy in the world.
But the right-wing billionaires hate it for several reasons.
The first and most important reason is that it demonstrates that government can actually work for people and society: That then provides credibility for other government programs that billionaires hate even more, like regulating their pollution, breaking up their monopolies, making their social media platforms less toxic, and preventing them from ripping off average American consumers.
Thus, to get political support for gutting regulatory agencies that keep billionaires and their companies from robbing, deceiving, and poisoning us, they must first convince Americans that government is stupid, clumsy, and essentially evil.
Former President Ronald Reagan began that process when he claimed that government was not the solution to our problems but was, in fact, the cause of our problems. It was a lie then and is a lie now, but the billionaire-owned media loved it and it’s been repeated hundreds of millions of times.
Billionaires also know that for Social Security to survive and prosper, morbidly rich people will eventually have to pay the same percentage of their income into it as bus drivers, carpenters, and people who work at McDonald’s.
Right now, people earning over $176,100 pay absolutely nothing into Social Security once that amount has been covered. To make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years, and even give a small raise to everybody on it, the simple fix is for the rich to just start paying Social Security income on all of their income, rather than only the first $176,100.
The entire solvency and health of Social Security could be cured permanently, in other words, if we simply did away with the “billionaire loophole” in the Social Security tax.
But the idea of having to pay a tax on all their income so that middle class and low income people can retire comfortably fills America’s billionaires with dread and disgust. So much so that not one single Republican publicly supports the idea.
How dare Americans have the temerity, they argue, to demand morbidly rich people help support the existence of an American middle class or help keep orphans and severely disabled people from being thrown out on the streets!
Which is why Elon Musk and his teenage hackers are attacking the Social Security Administration and its employees with such gusto.
By firing thousands of employees, their evil plan is to make interacting with Social Security such a difficult and painful process—involving months to make an appointment and hours or even days just to get someone on the telephone—that retired Americans will get angry with the government and begin to listen to Republicans and Wall Street bankers who tell us they should run the system.
(This won’t be limited to Social Security, by the way; as you’re reading these words Trump and Musk are planning to slash 80,000 employees from the Veterans Administration, with a scheme to dump those who served in our military into our private, for-profit hospital and health insurance systems.)
The next step will be to roll out the Social Security version of Medicare Advantage, the privatized version of Medicare that former President George W. Bush created in 2003. That scam makes hundreds of billions of dollars in profits for giant insurance companies, who then kick some of that profit back to Republican politicians as campaign donations and luxury trips to international resorts.
Advantage programs are notorious for screwing people when they get sick, and for ripping off our government to the tune of billions every year. But every effort at reforming Medicare or stopping the Medicare Advantage providers from denying us care and stealing from our government has been successfully blocked by bought-off Republicans in Congress.
Once Republicans have damaged the staffing of the Social Security Administration so badly that people are screaming about the difficult time they’re having signing up, solving problems or errors, or even getting their checks, right-wing media will begin to promote—with help from GOP politicians and the billionaire Murdoch family’s Fox “News”—people opting out of Social Security and going with a private option that resembles private 401(k)s.
Rumor has it they’ll call it “Social Security Advantage” and, like Medicare Advantage, which is administered for massive profits by the insurance giants, it will be run by giant, trillion-dollar banks out of New York.
While big insurance companies have probably made something close to a trillion dollars in profits out of our tax dollars from Medicare Advantage since George W. Bush rolled out the program, Social Security Advantage could make that profit level look like chump change for the big banks.
And, as an added bonus, billionaires and right-wing media will get to point out how hard it is to deal with the now-crippled Social Security administration and argue that it’s time to relieve them, too, of the regulatory burdens of “big government”: Gut or even kill off the regulatory agencies and make their yachts and private jets even more tax deductible than they already are.
This is why Donald Trump repeated Elon Musk’s lies about 200 year-old people getting Social Security checks and the system being riddled with fraud and waste. In fact, Social Security is one of the most secure and fraud-free programs in American history.
But Tuesday night was just the opening salvo. It took Bush almost three years to convince Congress to start the process of privatizing and ultimately destroying Medicare.
Having learned from that process, odds are Trump will try to privatize Social Security within the year.
And he may well get away with it, unless we can wake up enough people to this coming scam and put enough political pressure—particularly on Republicans—to prevent it from happening.
Tag, you’re it.
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Trump’s Freeze Was a Brazen, Unlawful Attempt to Steal Our Tax Dollars
Whichever way this pans out, one thing is clear: This administration is trying every tactic—legal or otherwise—to fund its planned massive tax handout to its billionaire backers.
Jan 30, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump caused panic and chaos when his Office on Management and Budget ordered a sweeping freeze on federal funding for programs American families rely on.
The backlash was fast and fierce as programs ranging from Medicaid to Meals on Wheels to cancer research were impacted. By the end of the day, a federal judge had temporarily “frozen the freeze”—and the following day, the administration reluctantly revoked it.
But make no mistake: This was an attempt to force unconstitutional cuts to vital services that our taxes paid for. Programs that help Americans get food, housing, education, healthcare, and more have been plunged into uncertainty. And the administration’s efforts to use whatever means necessary to line their own pockets by picking ours are just beginning.
The White House will keep pushing the envelope to grab as much power as they can to fleece working people and enrich its billionaire backers.
In this case, the administration told agencies their funding would be frozen until they could prove they were “supporting activities consistent with the president’s policies and requirements”—and not “Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies,” whatever that means.
A sloppy, two-page memo from the Office on Management and Budget exempted Social Security and Medicare in a footnote, along with “assistance directly to individuals.” But much of that assistance goes through programs or nonprofits that reported disruptions after the memo came out.
All 50 state Medicaid offices, for example, immediately reported losing access to the federal Medicaid payment portal. Portals for Head Start, housing programs, after-school programs, some charter schools, and Special Olympics funding were also disrupted.
First Focus on Children estimated that over $300 billion in funding for children’s well-being was at stake. And a spokesperson for Meals on Wheels told HuffPost reporter Arthur Delaney that seniors were panicked “not knowing where their next meals will come from.”
All told, over 2,000 federal programs were put at risk. Alongside those for food, healthcare, education, and housing, experts worried domestic abuse shelters, suicide prevention services, disaster relief, small business funding, childcare, and much, much more could also be impacted.
These programs are lifelines for families—and cuts to them are enormously unpopular among voters. For instance, 81% of Americans oppose cuts to Medicaid, while around 70% or more oppose cuts to SNAP, Head Start, childcare, and housing assistance.
This was a brazen, unlawful attempt to steal our tax dollars. And it was an assault on our democracy as well as our families. The Constitution gives Congress alone the authority to pass laws and appropriate funds, not the president.
Whichever way this pans out, one thing is clear: This administration is trying every tactic—legal or otherwise—to fund its planned massive tax handout to its billionaire backers. And this won’t be the last attempt—even after the memo to agencies was pulled back, Trump’s press secretary tweeted, “This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze.”
Meanwhile, the administration is still trying to cancel funding for green jobs, infrastructure, and climate that our lawmakers already approved— which amounts to more theft of our tax dollars. And future budget proposals will pair tax cuts for corporations and billionaires with harsh service cuts for the rest of us.
The White House will keep pushing the envelope to grab as much power as they can to fleece working people and enrich its billionaire backers. Our families deserve better. And fast.
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American Voters Need to Care About Foreign Policy Again
Foreign policy is not truly foreign; it remains a domestic issue, not some abstract concept that does not affect the average American’s everyday life. Voters do not realize this, but they need to.
Jan 27, 2025
At the start of 2024, in an AP-NORC poll, only 4 out of 10 Americans mentioned a foreign policy topic when asked to list five important issues facing Americans. This represented an increase from years past but is still bleak since it means 6 in 10 Americans do not view foreign policy as a top concern.
Yet, as I write this, the United States is involved in multiple violent conflicts, many of which have no real end in sight, along with foreign interventions that drastically affects other countries’ well-being. While Israel’s now multi-front war has broken through to an extent over the past two years, and time will tell if this cease-fire is real, many of the other conflicts and interventions linger in the background, if, indeed, they are mentioned at all in day-to-day political chatter.
For instance, the United States is normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia despite open questions on that government’s knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and its hold on the oil industry, not to mention MBS’ brutal killing of a Washington Post journalist. In addition, Saudi Arabia’s relentless assaults on Yemen, backed with U.S. arms, began in 2015. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has gone on for almost three years while the United States supplies humanitarian aid and arms to Ukraine. Crippling sanctions on Cuba have decimated the country’s economy and caused it to struggle mightily after recent hurricanes. And that’s not even to begin to list the various ways the United States has increased its involvement in Africa via AFRICOM, arming countries and training paramilitary groups.
For many Americans, with their own positions so precarious due to our capitalistic approach to society, worrying about how to improve relations with China and Cuba is simply not a priority.
These events, all of which involve or are directly caused by the United States, can and in most cases will result in history-changing phenomena for better or worse. This is not to say that all of these situations require a complete reversal—humanitarian aid to Ukraine is a worthy cause in my opinion—but the scale of these endeavors should not be absent from the political sphere. So, why don’t more voters care?
Consider: In the 2024 vice president debate, the opening question was about foreign policy, but pitched in the most juvenile fashion possible, circling around the candidates’ eagerness to bomb Iran. Not an intellectually serious question but rather a little blood sport for the masses to enjoy. It led to no real discussion on the United States’ overall approach to foreign policy nor to the possible aftereffects of the country’s decisions. No discussion of Ukraine and NATO, no discussion of Cuba or even Yemen.
To an extent, this is understandable. Based on polling in general and exit polls in the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election, the average American does not seem to vote based on Ukraine or Yemen or Gaza (although recent polling shows that Gaza mattered a bit to those who didn’t vote in 2024). One of the downsides of having a weak safety net in the United States is that voters’ main issues will almost always be the economy and healthcare. If you lose your job, you receive a pitiable amount of unemployment and end up in dire straits with health insurance. For many Americans, with their own positions so precarious due to our capitalistic approach to society, worrying about how to improve relations with China and Cuba is simply not a priority.
But it should be. There’s a moral argument that the United States’ foreign policy is largely making lives worse for millions and that with the immense capital the United States has it can care for refugees fleeing desperate situations instead of vilifying such people.
While Americans may like that argument in the abstract, it does not appear to be a pressing concern for them nor one they see affecting their own lives in any real way. With the 2024 election’s remains smoldering behind us, it’s worth reviewing the speeches and discussions to see how often issues of migration and prevention of war came up. The verdict? Beyond glancing references to a cease-fire in the Middle East and supporting Ukraine, it’s hard to find much rhetoric that addresses American foreign policy.
Voters need to consider that the next economic impact on their wallets may well originate due to decisions made overseas as opposed to ones here in the homeland.
Immigration is entirely treated as a domestic issue and even then, largely in a law-and-order fashion. The economics of immigration, which are extremely positive, were mostly absent from the discussion. So, too, however, were the causes, and it is impossible to address immigration without noting that the United States itself is responsible for many of the migration issues. After spending much of the 1900s undermining government after government in South America, it is no surprise that many of those countries still struggle economically, resulting in migration. Ditto the unrest in the Middle East, which can easily be traced back to George W. Bush’s neocon policies. On a purely ethical level, it seems immoral to turn around and claim that the United States has no duty to help the people it has hurt. On a foreign policy level, it makes sense to examine how our continued interference in other countries’ elections, which is done both overtly and covertly, has caused such a destabilizing effect. Whether the U.S. has done it on behalf of the United Fruit Company or Halliburton, U.S. involvement in South America and the Middle East has helped only the very wealthy and hurt everyone else, both in those countries and in America itself.
The other foreign policy issue sometimes addressed is terrorism, although that, too, was not much mentioned this past election cycle outside of vague allusions to immigrants being terrorists in order to scare swing voters into voting for U.S. President Donald Trump. Yet in most cases, terrorism does not come from nowhere: Destabilized countries brew radicalization and radicalization brews terrorist attacks. An unstable Middle East is far likelier to lead to another terrorist attack than a stable Middle East. A foreign policy geared toward non-intervention could result in a severe decrease in terrorist acts around the world, including in the United States itself. In turn, this would allow for the United States’ economy to detangle itself from the web of the military industrial complex and perhaps spend some of the seemingly infinite cash on concerns closer to home, such as building a safety net that allows Americans to vote with a vision beyond whether their next paycheck will allow them to afford rent.
In short, foreign policy is not truly foreign; it remains a domestic issue, not some abstract concept that does not affect the average American’s everyday life. Voters do not realize this, but they need to.
Of course, much of this lies at the fault of politicians, many of whom could easily formulate a foreign policy narrative but choose not to. Voters are not blameless, they have their own agency and the ability to inform themselves, but politicians seem to see no pressing need to address any foreign policy issue that is not massive front-page news—and even then, not always as we saw this past election season. Why?
For one, it does allow them to make foreign policy decisions without much interest from the public, meaning they can make decisions that enrich their donors with zero pushback from your average voter. For another, involving foreign policy means political risk, something they are naturally averse to. Questioning the economic sense behind Cuban sanctions, for instance, invites pushback from neoconservatives. Politicians often take the cowardly route. Don’t rock the boat, receive your donations, smile, get reelected.
If that makes it all sound hopeless, well, that’s a fair interpretation. But, once again, America finds itself in a precarious position as Donald Trump takes the reins in the White House. His tariffs may well crash the economy, and such a circumstance would be a good occasion for the American public to be reminded that we do not exist separate from other countries and their own economies and cultures. This is a globalized world, and all chickens come home to roost in one way or another. Voters need to consider that the next economic impact on their wallets may well originate due to decisions made overseas as opposed to ones here in the homeland. I also hear there is a political party entirely out of power as of now: Perhaps they could involve this message and use it to their advantage?
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As the US Empire Falls, We Must Take Care of Each Other
Americans have a hard road ahead of us working to create a future that is more humane and just, for ourselves and future generations.
Jan 25, 2025
Days before taking office, President Donald Trump and his wife Melania launched their own cryptocurrency. His organization also plans to move forward with new real estate projects in Saudi Arabia. Eric Trump, the president’s son, oversees the company’s real estate interests and announced the expansion at a conference in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia in October. Eric also mentioned that his father will be the “most pro-crypto president in U.S. History.” A sitting president prioritizing personal capitalist expansion over the people along with the outgoing Democratic administration’s support of genocide in Palestine signals the country’s imperial decline.
For humanity to move toward genuine peace, the United States empire must end. All empires end, because they become untenable domestically and internationally. Anti-imperialist freedom fighters have noted this extensively. The British Empire receded because it couldn’t survive fighting in WWII and violently maintain colonies as liberation movements won independence. The French and Haitian revolutions ended France’s imperial rule as it overextended itself working to cling to its colonies in the Caribbean and Africa.
Even imperial proponents have noted that the U.S. imperial decline is visible on the horizon. The U.S. has seen an incredible amount of domestic social and political unrest, specifically in the last six years. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed fatal and obvious flaws within the U.S. for-profit healthcare system that is still killing and disabling scores of people daily. The pandemic—along with the continuing crisis of anti-Black police violence—saw the nation explode with uprisings.
his nation-state and its imperial hegemonic misdeeds are a hindrance to the quality of life for the vast majority of people within the country and the world.
Houselessness in the U.S. rose in the last year 18% with over 770,000 unhoused (certainly an undercount). Rising rents, climate disaster, wealth inequality, declining life expectancy, and corporate theft (inflation) are major markers of an unsustainable future for U.S. residents. Bipartisan U.S. policy seems to be greater investment into military and policing rather than a cohesive social safety net.
A further indicator of U.S. imperial decline is the considerable resistance to the idea of capitalism as a viable economic system. The U.S. remains the wealthiest nation in the history of the world with the largest military and surveillance apparatus by a large margin. Its ability to control the United Nations is unmatched. The social, economic, and political hegemonic domination appears impenetrable.The world economy still centers the dollar because of the aforementioned factors. The issue for the U.S. empire is that it markets itself, both home and abroad, as a bastion of freedom. That marketing of U.S. brand “freedom” is evaporating in the U.S. public psyche. It’s why you see desperate measures to control social media, like banning TikTok, ending DEI programs, or not teaching accurate U.S. History.
The decline of the U.S. empire scares most people for many reasons, but the idea needs more interrogation. This nation-state and its imperial hegemonic misdeeds are a hindrance to the quality of life for the vast majority of people within the country and the world. While the most marginalized suffer first and worst, the widening net of wealth inequality consumes more humans daily.
In the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, we saw communities fill in gaps where the state and capitalist-based healthcare failed us. People worked tirelessly to keep their families, friends, and neighbors safe. Strangers became community, and informal networks were built and helped folks survive. We see this continually with climate catastrophes hitting different parts of the country. That sort of collective consciousness is needed along with making sure that we don’t have a state and socioeconomic system geared toward harm. In the midst of imperial decline, Americans have a hard road ahead of us working to create a future that is more humane and just, for ourselves and future generations. We deserve better.
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Biden’s Legacy Is Written In Blood
When I think of Joe Biden, I will think of every child I’ve seen dismembered and every home I’ve seen destroyed while I scrolled through social media for the last 15 months.
Jan 22, 2025
Last week, aerial photos from Los Angeles with blocks of homes reduced to ash hit social media timelines, leading people to understandably draw comparisons to Gaza. Destruction of entire neighborhoods is always heartbreaking. Home, where most of us spend a great deal of our time, shapes who we are. The memories and love a home can hold are much larger than whatever the square footage may be. Behind all the devastation are all the people in power that make all of this tragedy and grief possible in the first place.
Joe Biden’s term as president ended on Monday, and the world doesn’t have to guess what his legacy will be. The crimes he is responsible for are written into history with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, each one coming from a neighborhood his administration helped turn to ash. The drone images from Gaza and Los Angeles share the same hues of grey and heartache, and originate from the same flavors of greed and contempt for human dignity. And now, all of a sudden, we have a cease-fire, with no thanks to Biden. When I think of Joe Biden, I will think of every child I’ve seen dismembered and every home I’ve seen destroyed while I scrolled through social media for the last 15 months. And I will remember that none of it needed to happen; he greenlighted and funded the genocide of the Palestinian people. He, and powerful people like him, let insurance companies back out of insuring homes and fueled the climate crisis for decades to come.
Another clear demonstration of his inaction occurred last week, when he suddenly removed Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, a demand we’ve been making to his administration for four years. The designation, along with the U.S. embargo, has caused levels of deprivation the country hasn’t seen since the Soviet collapse. People in Cuba were starving because of Joe Biden’s decision to keep them on the SSOT list, and he only removed them on his way out the door.
I hope our impact eventually defines the legacies of the warmongers like Biden and Trump, so that the world cannot forget who they are or what they did.
A small part of accountability for Biden and his partners in genocide like former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, former State Department spokesperson Matt Miller, and others will be remembering the people that were killed in Gaza with their weapons shipments or because of their lies. Like George W. Bush, the man responsible for the death of a million Iraqis and the country’s destruction, who took up painting in his old age to make people forget what he had done in their name—Biden has time to change what people may think of him. We owe it to the Palestinian people to not develop amnesia while bombs could still rain over their heads. Biden could have ended the genocide at any moment, and he chose not to. And because of that, tens of thousands of children are dead, the only reason being that they were born in the largest open air prison in the world.
It’s hard to speak of legacies when the dust from the bombs dropped on Iraq hasn’t even settled. Babies are still being born in Fallujah with life-threatening deformities and diseases. For over a year, Israel continued to drop U.S.-made bombs and, on multiple occasions, chemical weapons on the people of Gaza. From the environmental impact of the nonstop bombardment to the public health outcomes of living without proper shelter for so long, the extent of Biden’s crimes in Gaza won’t be understood entirely for decades.
It’s also hard to speak of legacies as a new president who has promised to stay the course of genocide takes office. In reality, the genocide of Palestinians will be several U.S. presidents’ legacies—even before Biden.
Evaluating Biden’s legacy on the domestic and international stages shouldn’t be done separately. In fact, the struggles faced by regular people all over the world and across the country make a whole lot more sense when you realize our issues are inseparable. As homelessness reached an all-time high in the United States, Biden and Congress sent billions of dollars in “aid” to Israel and Ukraine. As homeless encampments were swept in Los Angeles as the city burned, Biden notified Congress of another $8 billion in weapons to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military. People are anxious every day about whether or not they will be able to pay rent, afford groceries, or their children’s medicine. While the people suffer, there only seems to be one thing that the people in power (no matter who it is) care about—maintaining global hegemony no matter the human cost. Every year of his presidency, just like every other president, Biden signed a Pentagon budget that allocated more money to war than ever before and failed to improve the lives of the masses. Biden’s legacy as a whole is a disdain for Palestinian life, and to some lesser degree, American life.
I spend a lot of my time thinking about what people like myself, in the belly of the beast, ought to do to take responsibility for all the suffering our government, regardless of the president, has caused. I think of Che Guevara, who once said, “I envy you. You North Americans are very lucky. You are fighting the most important fight of all—you live in the belly of the beast.” As President Donald Trump returns to office to build his own legacy, and as Biden leaves behind four years and decades of consequences, I try very hard to remember that to be in this struggle is a privilege of mine. If I abhor the suffering forced on the Palestinians in Gaza, then I realize I live in the perfect place to do something about it. Trump and his new agenda are obstacles, but we’ve confronted plenty of obstacles under this system, which mobilizes all of its resources against the movement for peace.
When we finally win, I hope people remember our movement as one that took responsibility for our situation and found power when we thought we couldn’t. I hope our impact eventually defines the legacies of the warmongers like Biden and Trump, so that the world cannot forget who they are or what they did. Remember: It’s the people who can really define a president’s legacy. Let that propel you to take action and organize. Let that give you a glimmer of hope.
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