Trump Budget: Slash Social Programs After $1.5 Trillion Gift to Wealthy

Trump message to seniors: just die. 

Once again demonstrating that He and the Republican Party want to bring back the Gilded Age when the wealthy lived in obscene extravagance which many Americans barely survived. After giving the very wealthy and large corporations $1.5 trillion in tax breaks - which has caused the federal deficit to balloon just as every sane commentator predicted - Trump and his enablers in the Republican Party seek to slash Medicare spending in Trump's just announced budget. Rest assured that Medicaid and other programs will be similarly targeted.  For those under 65, Medicare is NOT free.  Recipients pay quarterly premiums and, if they are smart, they purchase a supplement that entails monthly premiums as well.  And for those working past 65, you also continue to pay Medicare withholding tax (I now pay more in Medicare withholding that I did for many years in income tax) - which added to withholding over one's working career can total to a large number. Medicare is anything but an "entitlement."  The same holds true for Social Security.  Thus, Trump's proposal can be described as making working Americans - including the cretins who voted for Trump and the GOP - pay into the Medicare and Social Security systems and then reducing their benefits to give lavish tax cuts to the wealthy.  The Washington Post looks at Trump's budget and the gift it may constitute to Democrats.  Here are article excerpts:

A new proposal by President Trump to slash Medicare spending puts Republicans in a political bind ahead of the 2020 election as Democrats are pitching an expansion of the popular health-care program for all Americans.

Trump’s 10-year budget unveiled Monday calls for more than $845 billion in reductions for Medicare, aiming to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” in the federal program that gives insurance to older Americans. It’s part of a broader proposed belt-tightening effort after deficits soared during the president’s first two years in office in part due to massive tax cuts for the wealthy.

The move immediately tees up a potential messaging battle between Democratic proposals for Medicare-for-all — castigated by Republicans as a socialist boondoggle — and a kind of Medicare-for-less approach. focused on cutting back on spending, from the GOP.

Democrats, including some seeking to challenge Trump in 2020, seized on the proposed Medicare cuts Monday as an example of the GOP seeking to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly and the poor after giving broad tax breaks to the wealthy.

“Make no mistake about it: Trump’s budget is a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in America,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a Democratic presidential candidate, said in a Monday tweet that highlighted Medicare cuts.

In states with large senior populations, such as Florida, political attacks over Medicare cuts have proved so effective that both parties have used them. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) won his seat after running ads last year accusing Democrat Bill Nelson of voting to cut Medicare.

Trump probably needs to win Florida, Arizona, Pennsylvania and other states with large numbers of seniors to secure reelection in 2020. Older Americans consistently vote at higher rates than younger Americans.

Trump’s proposed Medicare savings are more than three times as large as those in his previous budget, and industry lobbying groups said the reductions would hurt hospitals and seniors. “The impact on care for seniors would be devastating,” Chip Kahn, president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals, said in a statement. “Hospitals are less and less able to cover the cost of care for Medicare patients, it is no time to gut Medicare.” Democratic strategists and officials argued Monday that Trump’s budget proposal exposed how little credibility Republicans have in debating health care, and showed signs of confidence that it would sharpen the contrast Democrats are seeking to make in the run-up to the 2020 election.

“It totally eviscerates any integrity to their already pretty flimsy attack,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said. “This assault on Medicare lays bare the real Republican agenda, which is to destroy the health-care safety net. They have no shred of intellectual underpinning or integrity to their attack on Democrats if they make this kind of proposal.”

In last year’s midterm elections, Democrats campaigned aggressively on health care, attacking Republicans over their failed effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The dynamic marked a shift from the two previous midterm elections, during which the GOP was the party mainly going on offense on health care, slamming Democrats over the creation of the ACA, also known as Obamacare. “This budget says a lot about the President’s priorities: cut $845 billion from Medicare, while spending billions on his vanity project, the wall,” Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) tweeted, referring to Trump’s request for border wall funding. “This would hurt our seniors and is yet another piece of evidence for why we need a new president.” “It’s a political fumble on the Republican part in the sense that this budget is going nowhere,” he said. “The argument prior to this was the Democrats’ plan versus the status quo. And now it’s the Democrats’ plan versus the Republican plan to cut Medicare.”

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said on Twitter: “One party wants to expand Medicare and Medicaid and the other wants to cut them. That’s the end of my tweet.”

The question will be whether the racism of Trump's base and that base's hatred of others outweigh their own economic/health care best interest.  If these folks continue to support Trump, they truly deserve to suffer every misfortune imaginable and should get no sympathy from others.