"But, aside from the tax cuts, the biggest danger facing the country because of Trump's supposed "accomplishments" is his assault on good-government regulation that protects not only our environment, but our financial system and American consumers." (Photo:James Rea/flickr/cc)
If This Is Making America Great, We're In Trouble
The destruction of Donald Trump.
The end of 2017 was marked by a nearly comedic chorus of punditry extolling what a great year it was, after all, for Donald Trump.
The passage of a tax bill that is certain to exacerbate the already-dangerous divide between the rich and the poor in America was hailed as a major legislative "accomplishment" to go along with Trump's own boasts about what a marvelous year 2017 has been for him.
"We have more legislative victories than any other president," the liar-in-chief claimed, the most since Harry Truman back in 1949. When it was pointed out that the claim wasn't even close to being true (he's actually signed the fewest bills into law of any first-year president since Dwight Eisenhower), he simply repeated it dozens of times over the holidays and, of course, his base ate it up -- proving once again that if you repeat a lie enough times many people will believe it to be true.
The chortling over passage of the tax cuts (which Trump insisted was the largest ever in U.S. history; another lie, it's the eighth largest) prompted Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to muse how strange it is to "brag" about a new law that cuts corporate taxes by about 40 percent and leaves 13 million more Americans without health insurance.
But I suppose if your real agenda is further comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted, you can call eliminating the insurance mandate an "accomplishment."
Let's take a look at some of those other Trump "accomplishments" from 2017.
While the tax bill lowers the top income-tax bracket and allows real estate and other business interests to deduct 20 percent off the top of their income for starters, middle-class taxpayers, who will wind up paying fewer taxes initially, will see that benefit disappear by 2025 when the new rates are phased out. But the biggest cost to the economy is yet another $1.5 trillion added to the national debt during a time when the economy is doing quite well and the country ought to be able to afford to pay down some debt.
Republicans have always maintained that Democrats spend and add to the national debt. But the truth is that when the GOP enacted big tax cuts when Ronald Reagan was president, the national debt tripled, forcing his successor, fellow Republican George H.W. Bush, to enact a tax hike. When Democrat Bill Clinton added a surcharge to the top bracket, the budget actually showed a surplus in his second four-year term.
That prompted George W. Bush, instead of paying down the debt or perhaps shoring up the Social Security Trust Fund that's continually been robbed by the federal Treasury, to along with his Republicans enact yet another tax cut. That, in turn, plunged the country into an enormous budget hole, again adding to the national debt, which got even worse when new president Barack Obama was forced to enact emergency spending during the Great Recession he inherited from Bush.
Now, after the economy was brought back in Obama's final six years, Trump's "accomplishment" is to go back to the "good, old days."
But, aside from the tax cuts, the biggest danger facing the country because of Trump's supposed "accomplishments" is his assault on good-government regulation that protects not only our environment, but our financial system and American consumers.
Many of those attacks on sensible rules -- whether it's been to abandon air quality standards or overturn sensible water safeguards -- are going to have long-lasting negative impacts on the nation's health and the well-being of our children. But, under Trump and his enablers in Congress, it's an "accomplishment" to put profits ahead of common-sense rules.
Abandoning the climate change initiatives, repealing internet neutrality, neutering the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, killing an Obama-era provision that prevents the mentally ill from obtaining firearms, scaling back national monuments that were enacted to protect unique American lands from private development, rolling back health laws that mandate employers include birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, telling the "Dreamers" who are in America through no fault of their own that they are not welcome, plus dozens of other similar "accomplishments" are, instead, true outrages.
If this is making America great again, we're indeed in big trouble.
Urgent. It's never been this bad.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission from the outset was simple. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It’s never been this bad out there. And it’s never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed and doing some of its best and most important work, the threats we face are intensifying. Right now, with just four days to go in our Spring Campaign, we are not even halfway to our goal. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Can you make a gift right now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? There is no backup plan or rainy day fund. There is only you. —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
The end of 2017 was marked by a nearly comedic chorus of punditry extolling what a great year it was, after all, for Donald Trump.
The passage of a tax bill that is certain to exacerbate the already-dangerous divide between the rich and the poor in America was hailed as a major legislative "accomplishment" to go along with Trump's own boasts about what a marvelous year 2017 has been for him.
"We have more legislative victories than any other president," the liar-in-chief claimed, the most since Harry Truman back in 1949. When it was pointed out that the claim wasn't even close to being true (he's actually signed the fewest bills into law of any first-year president since Dwight Eisenhower), he simply repeated it dozens of times over the holidays and, of course, his base ate it up -- proving once again that if you repeat a lie enough times many people will believe it to be true.
The chortling over passage of the tax cuts (which Trump insisted was the largest ever in U.S. history; another lie, it's the eighth largest) prompted Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to muse how strange it is to "brag" about a new law that cuts corporate taxes by about 40 percent and leaves 13 million more Americans without health insurance.
But I suppose if your real agenda is further comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted, you can call eliminating the insurance mandate an "accomplishment."
Let's take a look at some of those other Trump "accomplishments" from 2017.
While the tax bill lowers the top income-tax bracket and allows real estate and other business interests to deduct 20 percent off the top of their income for starters, middle-class taxpayers, who will wind up paying fewer taxes initially, will see that benefit disappear by 2025 when the new rates are phased out. But the biggest cost to the economy is yet another $1.5 trillion added to the national debt during a time when the economy is doing quite well and the country ought to be able to afford to pay down some debt.
Republicans have always maintained that Democrats spend and add to the national debt. But the truth is that when the GOP enacted big tax cuts when Ronald Reagan was president, the national debt tripled, forcing his successor, fellow Republican George H.W. Bush, to enact a tax hike. When Democrat Bill Clinton added a surcharge to the top bracket, the budget actually showed a surplus in his second four-year term.
That prompted George W. Bush, instead of paying down the debt or perhaps shoring up the Social Security Trust Fund that's continually been robbed by the federal Treasury, to along with his Republicans enact yet another tax cut. That, in turn, plunged the country into an enormous budget hole, again adding to the national debt, which got even worse when new president Barack Obama was forced to enact emergency spending during the Great Recession he inherited from Bush.
Now, after the economy was brought back in Obama's final six years, Trump's "accomplishment" is to go back to the "good, old days."
But, aside from the tax cuts, the biggest danger facing the country because of Trump's supposed "accomplishments" is his assault on good-government regulation that protects not only our environment, but our financial system and American consumers.
Many of those attacks on sensible rules -- whether it's been to abandon air quality standards or overturn sensible water safeguards -- are going to have long-lasting negative impacts on the nation's health and the well-being of our children. But, under Trump and his enablers in Congress, it's an "accomplishment" to put profits ahead of common-sense rules.
Abandoning the climate change initiatives, repealing internet neutrality, neutering the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, killing an Obama-era provision that prevents the mentally ill from obtaining firearms, scaling back national monuments that were enacted to protect unique American lands from private development, rolling back health laws that mandate employers include birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, telling the "Dreamers" who are in America through no fault of their own that they are not welcome, plus dozens of other similar "accomplishments" are, instead, true outrages.
If this is making America great again, we're indeed in big trouble.
The end of 2017 was marked by a nearly comedic chorus of punditry extolling what a great year it was, after all, for Donald Trump.
The passage of a tax bill that is certain to exacerbate the already-dangerous divide between the rich and the poor in America was hailed as a major legislative "accomplishment" to go along with Trump's own boasts about what a marvelous year 2017 has been for him.
"We have more legislative victories than any other president," the liar-in-chief claimed, the most since Harry Truman back in 1949. When it was pointed out that the claim wasn't even close to being true (he's actually signed the fewest bills into law of any first-year president since Dwight Eisenhower), he simply repeated it dozens of times over the holidays and, of course, his base ate it up -- proving once again that if you repeat a lie enough times many people will believe it to be true.
The chortling over passage of the tax cuts (which Trump insisted was the largest ever in U.S. history; another lie, it's the eighth largest) prompted Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to muse how strange it is to "brag" about a new law that cuts corporate taxes by about 40 percent and leaves 13 million more Americans without health insurance.
But I suppose if your real agenda is further comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted, you can call eliminating the insurance mandate an "accomplishment."
Let's take a look at some of those other Trump "accomplishments" from 2017.
While the tax bill lowers the top income-tax bracket and allows real estate and other business interests to deduct 20 percent off the top of their income for starters, middle-class taxpayers, who will wind up paying fewer taxes initially, will see that benefit disappear by 2025 when the new rates are phased out. But the biggest cost to the economy is yet another $1.5 trillion added to the national debt during a time when the economy is doing quite well and the country ought to be able to afford to pay down some debt.
Republicans have always maintained that Democrats spend and add to the national debt. But the truth is that when the GOP enacted big tax cuts when Ronald Reagan was president, the national debt tripled, forcing his successor, fellow Republican George H.W. Bush, to enact a tax hike. When Democrat Bill Clinton added a surcharge to the top bracket, the budget actually showed a surplus in his second four-year term.
That prompted George W. Bush, instead of paying down the debt or perhaps shoring up the Social Security Trust Fund that's continually been robbed by the federal Treasury, to along with his Republicans enact yet another tax cut. That, in turn, plunged the country into an enormous budget hole, again adding to the national debt, which got even worse when new president Barack Obama was forced to enact emergency spending during the Great Recession he inherited from Bush.
Now, after the economy was brought back in Obama's final six years, Trump's "accomplishment" is to go back to the "good, old days."
But, aside from the tax cuts, the biggest danger facing the country because of Trump's supposed "accomplishments" is his assault on good-government regulation that protects not only our environment, but our financial system and American consumers.
Many of those attacks on sensible rules -- whether it's been to abandon air quality standards or overturn sensible water safeguards -- are going to have long-lasting negative impacts on the nation's health and the well-being of our children. But, under Trump and his enablers in Congress, it's an "accomplishment" to put profits ahead of common-sense rules.
Abandoning the climate change initiatives, repealing internet neutrality, neutering the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, killing an Obama-era provision that prevents the mentally ill from obtaining firearms, scaling back national monuments that were enacted to protect unique American lands from private development, rolling back health laws that mandate employers include birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, telling the "Dreamers" who are in America through no fault of their own that they are not welcome, plus dozens of other similar "accomplishments" are, instead, true outrages.
If this is making America great again, we're indeed in big trouble.