Stealing from the Poor

Republican Congress Unfortunate Decision Number Two is "stealing from the poor." The net effect of Trump's disastrous policies is to make people poorer. And Republican Congress are complicit.

A.K.A. Republican Congress Unfortunate Decision Number Two

If you’ll recall the campaign promises of one Donald Jaqueline Trump (not sure what his middle name is so picked one), one of his oft-repeated phrases was about how rich “you’re going to be.” He dangled wealth in front of the poor people who fell into his orbit like a steak in front of a starving man, and sold them lies that in their desperation, many believed. We’ve rehashed many of his lies on our podcast Right and Freedom, and they take on many flavors: immigrants are stealing your jobs, immigrants are depressing wages, DEI is stealing your jobs, etc. He sold them everything but self-agency and self-reflection, and many bought it. There are a plethora of reasons why someone might buy in, from desperation to bias confirmation, and that’s something we discuss in depth on our podcast.

Examining closely all of the above, and other talking points, then you see how he connects this in someone’s mind. First, it’s not you, it’s them (make up your category). He’s suggesting, and by now his entire Republican apparatus is parroting, that if only they deport enough bad immigrants, the good people will start to see their wealth grow. If only they fire enough black and brown people, all you good white people will see your wealth grow. Of course, this is all asinine. People who study and pay attention to economics (ahem, like us at Right and Freedom, and likely you if you’re reading this), understand that a capitalist economy boils down to a complicated Ponzi scheme, and you need a positive population growth to make it work. The population growth in this nation of immigrants has been sustained by immigration since our founding.

What does it accomplish to send people to concentration camps?

Reduced population equals reduced GDP, which of course, we’re starting to see, reviving a decades-old dead term called stagflation.

What is stagflation? Well, it’s when you get poorer by doing nothing at all. Prices continue to rise, while wages remain stagnant or decline. For many of us, we’ve been living in a stagflation world for a while now. The minimum wage has barely budged for decades, and as it happens, the price of a hamburger has breached twenty dollars in some places, even though minimum wages have barely moved. But now, the entire United States gets to experience stagflation together. The last time this happened, we ended up to rationing gas.

So, let’s do the math. A year ago, I had twenty dollars today, and that would buy a hamburger and a drink. If today, that same twenty dollars buys only the hamburger, and the drink is separate, I just lost however much that drink costed (let’s say one dollar). Gone. Just like that. And the kicker? It didn’t have to be like this.

Actual economists, right and left, agree that it’s the tariffs, stupid. The tariffs, and the torpedoing of relationships with countries we used to enjoy exceptional trade benefits with. That and the laying off of millions of federal workers, adding to growing list of Trump-induced poor. Add to that spending billions to bail out other countries, and handing billions over to wealth-hoarding billionaires, and it’s clear what’s happening here.

It’s a reverse robin-hood situation: stealing from the poor to give to the rich.

And you know who has the power to stop him? Who’s always had the power? Congress. And this is why stealing from the poor is Republic Congress unfortunate decision number two: Congress holds the purse strings. Rather, they’re supposed to, and specifically the House of Representatives, because that branch of government is closest to the people, and should more accurately represent the sentiments of the people. The Republican Congress only represent the sentiments of a single person: Donald Jackalope Trump. They don’t care if their constituents starve to death in the streets, because get this next bit: they weren’t done stealing with tariffs, tax cuts for the rich, and lay-offs. These overachievers decided that there was more money to be had if they could also steal the food from the mouths of the hungry.

Yep. You guessed it. They went after food stamps and succeeded in reducing SNAP benefits by half, blaming a government shutdown. They reduced medicaid and medicare payouts and support. Every dollar from these programs were dollars that supported the poor people in this country, now gone. So they’re producing more poor by stealing jobs, then reducing those and existing poor to below poverty conditions by stealing support programs.

Perhaps calling them a do-nothing Congress is a bit of a mistake. They are a complicit Congress, and they’re not done yet stealing from the poor. They’re in the middle of attempting to steal health care subsidies from the poor too. And mark my words, if the Democrats cave on the government shutdown, there’s zero chance the Republicans are going to give that money back.

I shudder to think what Republicans will steal from the poor tomorrow…